Commons:Village pump/Archive/2006/01

Village Pump archives

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We need a BadJPEG template

Looking at some random images, I noticed some JPEGs that should be replaced with PNGs or SVGs to remove artifacts/decrease filesize/etc. A great example is Image:V11p585001_Sulzberger.jpg, which is a really ugly hard-to-read JPEG but would make a great SVG. At the English Wikipedia we have the relatively new en:Template:BadJPEG for this purpose. I like to regularly review en:Category:Images_with_inappropriate_JPEG_compression and find images I can fix in Photoshop/Illustrator (usually looking for easy ones first). I propose we add a similar or the same template here and use it to mark images that need to be converted. Deco 00:38, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

There's already Template:Ifc, but feel free to make a more specific template (that puts images in a subcategory of Category:Images for cleanup). User:dbenbenn 01:11, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I have created Template:BadJPEG and Category:Images_with_inappropriate_JPEG_compression, as a subcategory of Category:Images for cleanup. Deco 02:44, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I also added several new subcategories to IfC. I think it makes a big difference in organization. Have a look. Deco 06:29, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Protection request

Hello. Image:Tropical Storm Zeta 2005.jpg is now on the main page on the English Wikipedia. Requesting that the image be locked. Thanks. --24.29.141.167 12:09, 1 January 2006 (UTC) (en:User_Jeffrey O. Gustafson)

Protection no longer required; it's been protected locally at w:Image:Tropical Storm Zeta 2005.jpg. User:dbenbenn 20:03, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Weird GIFs

Image:Birthday.gif is a harmless enough GIF. But when I view it on a category page, namely Category:Cakes, this monstrous thing comes across the right side of the image. Now what the hell is that? Is it my (browser's) problem or the image's? And why do I only see the problem on one page, not both? I'm using Firefox 1.5. pfctdayelise 15:12, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

This is a known problem with animated gifs, which is caused by a bug in image magick: animated gifs break when you try to scale them. You will see similar problems with many animations in Category:Animation -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 15:38, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Upload Bug report

I attempted to upload an image to Wiki Commons. The attempt failed with error message: Fatal error: Unknown function: cefined() in /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5/extensions/BoardVote/BoardVote.php on line 6

I am running Mozilla Firefox 1.5 under Mac OS 10.3. Is the software sufferring from a Hogmanay hangover '-) Rdmoore6 20:26, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

That was a temporary error, having to do with some software upgrades today. Apparently someone committed some changes without actually testing them. Categories were down for a while, too. Anyway, everything seems to be fine now. User:dbenbenn 00:03, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I succesfully uploaded the image on Tuesday. Thanks for your help.Rdmoore6 21:38, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

New License Tag Created for Own Work

Although I should've consulted others about this, I believe the new license tag will be well-received nevertheless. I've made a tag, Template:self2-wm, which allows the licensing of a work under two licenses as the first two arguments, and grants the Wikimedia Foundation rights to relicense such works. Whether it's text, media, or all can be specified in the third argument. An example usage can be seen on my userpage. If the administrators like it, I recommend it to be added to the license selector as the preferred choice. --UED77 22:33, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Why not just use {{self2|FOO|BAR}}{{WikimediaAllLicensing}}? I don't see why you need a special template to accomplish that. (Furthermore, it would seem that Template:WikimediaAllLicensing is intended to go on user pages, not image pages, as it refers to "my text and media contributions, including any images", not "this specific image".) User:dbenbenn 00:01, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I altered the template's language, removing the third argument altogether, so that it only refers to a specific file. While I would use {{WikimediaAllLicensing}} for all of my work, some might reserve partial copyright for some images while using a copyleft for others. Furthermore, very few people are aware that license templates such as {{WikimediaAllLicensing}} exist at all, and designing (and offering) one with the said terms would facilitate the transition of media to a better license in the future. --UED77 01:22, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Alright, that makes sense. I think the template should be renamed to something like Template:Wikimedia relicensing, and the "I, the creator of this work" and parameters should be taken out. Then you could use the new template with only one license (like the GFDL), or with 3 or more. User:dbenbenn 02:05, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

You mean making it a standalone license? Sure. Would {{mwrl}} be suitable, instead of a longer one? --UED77 02:30, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

"Making it a standalone license": yeah, that's exactly what I meant, and is a lot clearer than what I wrote. :) User:dbenbenn 20:09, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay. A new license tag, {{mwrl}} is now available! --UED77 05:04, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Move to Commons.

Is there a list of images in Wikipedia and other projects to be uploaded to Commons? I'm interested in contributing to that. -- WB 00:22, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

See w:Category:GFDL images, for starters. User:dbenbenn 00:28, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't Commons have a project page describing the particulars of how to go about this transfer process with notes about which licenses allowed on other projects are not allowed here, etc? It might be a good idea to have a category for images transferred from each project at least. Deco 01:49, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I think pages like that are more appropriate in the original projects. For en:w:, see w:Wikipedia:Commons and w:Wikipedia:Moving images to the Commons. pfctdayelise 11:58, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Foreign language image redirects

I was thinking - if our images are intended to be used on projects in many languages, and typically the goal is for all article and interface text in a project to be in the project's language, would it not make sense to encourage image users to create image redirects for their respective languages? Some names are language-neutral, but many others aren't. For example, Image:Den tyske ordens skjold.jpg could use an English redirect like Image:Teutonic shield.jpg. I assume this is okay, but is it something we should more actively encourage in some way? Deco 01:46, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, MediaWiki doesn't really support image redirects. You can't display an image using the redirect title, for example. User:dbenbenn 02:01, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I'm sorry. I just assumed that would work. I'll put in a feature request I guess. Deco 02:57, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Surprisingly, it doesn't seem to be in bugzilla yet ... Anyway, see Commons:Village pump archive-17#Redirects within the image namespace for a discussion from October. User:dbenbenn 20:07, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I have added bug 4470. I tried to avoid implying that image redirects were the only answer, and just described specific functional requirements. Let's see how it goes. Deco 21:51, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Withdrawal of one's own images.

Should the users in Wikimedia Commons have a right to delete one's own images? Although they are released with a certain copyrights and may be copied all over the world, I still think the user maintains the right to deleting them. As I was saying in the Deletion requests, if the images were released through their own websites or photo services like Flickr, you can delete them at your will at any time. Why not Commons? I realize some images maybe valuable to keep, but they are still your own. As for the replacements, 4 of the 5 used images have good, if not better, replacements. -- WB 00:42, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. On the English Wikipedia at Images and Media for Deletion we once discussed this. Consider this scenario: User:CoolImageMaker uploads about 30 different useful images. Then he gets in an edit war over Green pepper and decides that he hates Wikipedia and all Wikimedia projects. Should he be able to delete and hold secret all his images out of spite, when he's already permanently, legally released them to the world under the GFDL? This might seem silly, but things like this have happened in the past on en. A person requesting to delete their own image is usually given some leeway, but we certainly shouldn't give them a free pass. Deco 00:57, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Deco. We should keep a free image here if and only if it's useful to Wikimedia; the fact that the uploader now hates Wikimedia doesn't have much to do with that. User:dbenbenn 01:16, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't hate Wikimedia Commons. I continue to upload in various projects and contribute in Wikipedia. Is it not possible for you to delete those 8 images just this time? Please. Thank you. -- WB 02:31, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

We usually delete images that have good replacements. Nobody's stopping you from going around replacing references to the old image with the new one and then requesting deletion with a redundant template. I'd be surprised if you don't get it if the image is truly obsolete. Deco 02:43, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, if you actually look around in Wikipedia, that subway image is the only that's used in articles currently. I named various replacements in the deletion request page. I have yet to check other language Wikipedias, but the last time I checked with the automated website (I forget, but it tells you in which Wikipedia the images are used), it wasn't used anywhere. I don't know what else to say. -- WB 02:46, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I put the redundant tags around the encyclopedic images, but it's hard to find replacements for the images like the blue sky because it's not used anywhere and there is none like it. But I hope there can be something done about those three. -- WB 03:21, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I kinda think that you can not take back your image contribs any more than your text contribs. I mean, we could easily have a page on say photobucket, where we upload each of the contentious images before they're deleted. They're still under GFDL and/or other licenses. Then, the images are deleted on commons. Then we simply copy the images back from this other page - where they're still legitimately under GFDL.

But that would be extremely petty, and in this case I don't see why we should not respect the uploader's wishes - there are replacements and all we would really gain is to hurt/annoy a community member because we insist on following some rules (to be put in place to cover situations that rarely come up on en, and even more rarely on commons). pfctdayelise 02:53, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

• By the way, found it. It was the Wikipedia Check-usage. -- WB 02:55, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

If you get them deleted, I will download them to my computer and upload them again. The fact that you have been busy replacing your images on various wikipedias does not mean the images are redundant. / Fred Chess 03:47, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

If you are planning on doing that, nevermind. Don't delete those images. But I wish I knew why you guys are doing this... -- WB 06:58, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

To sum this up:

• can a license once given be revoked? no.
• does the uploader/creator have a right to have his/her contributions deleted from commons? no. (well, unless they have to be deleted because they where a copyvio or under a "bad" license anyway)
• can the uploader/creator request to have his/her contriobutions removed? sure.
• should we follow that request? sometimes. If there are good replacements, I don't see a reason not to. The uploader should however be aware that the image is already being distributed in dumps, on DVDs, and possibly in print. It's also legitimate (but maybe not very nice) if other users re-upload the images.

@Fred: I don't understand why you are so aggressive about this. I understand that a request to have contributions to the commons deleted is kind of asking back a present... but I don't see a reason to start a big fight about it.

@WB: Maybe it would help if you could tell us why you want those pictures deleted, here or in private.

HAND -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 12:05, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Email coming your way. -- WB 19:38, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I moved this to get some attention. Anyway, as I wrote in the Deletion Requests, I never actually got a permission from my parents, who took 7 of the 8 images I requested to be deleted. If they, in fact, disapprove of the licensing method I took, shouldn't they be liable to deletion? The only image I took, myself, is the Pentium I picture, the bad quality one. -- WB 02:20, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

If you are not the copyright holder, you were not entitled to place them under any license. Therefore they are still fully copyrighted, and as such must be deleted due to their license, unless you can get permission from your parents to release them under a free license. Admittedly, using this as a loophole to get your images deleted may be in bad taste, especially if you don't make a good faith effort to get permission, but it is valid. Deco 03:04, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

If that was the case, I could have said every single image I contributed was my parents'... Sadly only 7 of them are. -- WB 03:39, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Keep in mind that if someone else contacts your parents and receives permission, they can reupload the images. Of course, if they can figure out who your parents are from your handle, I'd be worried. :-) Deco 03:49, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I hope that doesn't happen. Anyway, with the exception of the Pentium I image, the out of focus image, the other 7 images are taken by my parents. My dad wishes to license them with Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5, but that's not fit for Commons... So yeah, unless you can find him, that's how it's been decided. Now what do I do? -- WB 05:40, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Change the license on the page in accordance with the copyright owner's wishes, explaining in the edit summary/page why you did this, and then list it for deletion using the {{Deletion request}} and add it to Commons:Deletion requests with the reason "Noncommercial license". There probably isn't a tag for this license, but just write it out in text with a link to CC. Deco 06:07, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

On one hand we respect authors' rights, on the other we negate Wikipedia deserters's rights but what is the legal basis? For example German copyright law allows a withdrawal and this must not be excluded in advance (§ 42 UrhG). -- Simplicius 11:18, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, as long as Mediawiki's servers are located in Florida, I think we can make a good case that, in the interest of furthering the purpose of Commons and Mediawiki projects, following the stricter law of the US is the best way to go and would hopefully be difficult to contest in court. International intellectual property transactions are a somewhat untested issue though. Deco 02:49, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Sure. Anyway, we can not act on instinct only. It must have a legal basis. -- Simplicius 18:46, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Revoking a license is in Germany only possible under very special circumstances: ... wenn das Werk seiner Überzeugung nicht mehr entspricht und ihm deshalb die Verwertung des Werkes nicht mehr zugemutet werden kann. (...if the work no longer represents his conviction and thus he can't be expected to tollerate the further use - note that the central term here is "zumuten", for which I can't find a good translation). It would be interresting to know where and when this clause has been tested in court... it seems rather hard to apply. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 19:31, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

afterthought: this claus is actually about repealing a statement - it also implies that the work can then no longer be licensed to anybody else. It's not applicable to cases where the author simply changes his mind about a deal. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 19:38, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Uploading own files; writing to others

I would like to upload some of my pictures. Done that I would like to know how i find them using the wiki search... or is it only in "My contributions" they are visible ? How can i write to others - or back to people who write to me ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kaasmail (talk • contribs) 21:27, January 2, 2006 (UTC)

When you upload images, you should put as much descriptive and copyright information about them as you can. Also please place them in categories and/or on gallery pages. For example, I see you uploaded Image:(2691) Tel Aviv.jpg. You could put this on the page Tel Aviv-Yaffo, and using CommonSense, I would put it in these categories: Category:Tel Aviv-Yaffo, Category:Beaches.

You can also add the image to any articles in any-language Wikipedias, but if they already have a few pictures (as I imagine Tel Aviv would), it might not be appropriate.

To write to others, go to their User page (by clicking on their name when it is linked in their signature), then click on the "Talk" tab at the top next to the "User" tab. Then, on the Talk page, click the "+" next to the edit tab, to add a new section and type your message. When they next log on, they'll get a notice saying they have new messages. pfctdayelise 12:06, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Renaming an image?

I uploaded http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Shingle-oak-leaves-acorns.jpg believing the pic to be leaves from a shingle oak (Quercus Ambricaria). I've been informed that the correct species is southern live oak (Quercus Virginiana) so the file should be renamed. Is there a way to do it?

Unfortunately there is no real way to rename images. Reupload it under the correct name, then mark the incorrect one with {{deletebecause|Incorrect name, see (correct file)}}

Of course, put the correct file name in there, so the admin who deletes it can check it's ok... pfctdayelise 09:58, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Also apply {{Redundant}} to the old image. Deco 11:10, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I duplicated the {{coor d}}, {{coor dm}}, and {{coor dms}} templates from Wikipedia. They are now used in almost all of my photos. I hope others will begin using them as well. I propose the creation of a category, something along the lines of [[Category:Geographically pinpointed media]] to be added to the {{coor}} family of templates. Please share your thoughts on this. --UED77 05:04, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

That's cool. How do you determine the precise location at which you take your pictures though, by carrying a GPS locator with you? Looking it up on a map somewhere later? Other related things that might be worth noting are the direction the camera is facing (compass direction plus pitch up/down) and maybe height of camera above the ground. Deco 11:33, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I am noting the facing (unfortunately not the pitch) and the height, where possible, as well. See Image:Bixby_Bridge.jpg for an example. I check the location on satellite maps (eg. Google Earth), as the resolution in most cases is so incredible, I can clearly identify the position I took the photo from. --UED77 18:45, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

My media contributions

Thanks to Magnus Manske this new function is now enabled (Example). --Avatar 12:28, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Nice feature but not fully working. It uses only the recent version of an image to show the originator, this means if soemone reverted an image to an older version or did overwrite it with a new version this last edit is used to for the "originator.

To see the gallery click on User files (just below User contributions) to see the gallery if you are on someone's user page. Nice feature though, at least a start to work with. Thanks for the addition. --Denniss 13:29, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Sadly, this has been disable again, because the implementation is not verry efficient and caused the servers to crawl. I hope we get this back soon. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 17:54, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Interesting, this feature would make it rather easier to spot logo/copyvios since it creates an automatic gallery. -- WB 04:20, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Renaming of the file

Can admins rename the file? Can I put a tag requesting renaming? --Dijxtra 15:50, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

See the answers given in the #Renaming an image? section, 2 sections up this page. Thryduulf 16:55, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Template:PD-because

I just created this template as the new "catch all" tag to replace plain old {{PD}}, which is now deprecated (see discussion some way obove on this page). Note that if no reason is given, the page is automatically put into Category:Incomplete license.

Please have a look... oh, and using a specific tag is always preferrable, of course, if there is one. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 17:52, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I've been going through my uploads, replacing {{PD}} wherever it occurs. So far, I've replaced it with either {{PD-because|the author said so}} (e.g. Image:Boats on Tonlé Sap river.jpg), or {{PD-because|as explained above}} (e.g. Image:Turkmen man with camel.jpg). I don't know if I support the change to Template:PD. A lot of images with {{PD}} do have complete explanations; furthermore, plenty of images with templates like {{PD-old}} or {{PD-art}} don't have any source given. Ultimately, it requires human judgement to determine whether a valid reason is given. I also don't like the fact that my uploads that use PD-reason now have Image:Achtung.png. User:dbenbenn 18:29, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I like the concept, but "the author said so" is somewhat difficult to verify. It would be better to quote and/or link directly to the statement releasing rights. Deco 18:37, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, of course I do that. In the example I gave, Image:Boats on Tonlé Sap river.jpg, I have a link to [1], which explicitly says the image is public domain. User:dbenbenn 20:56, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

If "the author" is a wiki user, please use {{PD-user}} or {{PD-user-w}} -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 19:11, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Images that I've uploaded where PD-user applies already have that tag, of course. User:dbenbenn 20:56, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Maybe we should also have {{PD-by|something}}, so you can specify the source... -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 23:43, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, this was what I meant. It should really be a template argument rather than just buried in the image description. Deco 00:01, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, the PD tag has been "un-deprecated" by a bold user, so please re-join the discussion above, at #Deprecate the PD tag!. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 02:50, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

question about medical document

I want to add a EEG (electroencephalography) of a patient I have seen, to my article "syndrome de west" in french. Obviously, there isn't his name on the picture.

Do you think it's possible in free license ??

Matt

Hi Matt. I removed your e-mail to protect you from spam. Medical documents are a touchy area, because often medical privacy laws limit what you can do without a patient's consent, and additionally because if you work in a hospital, your hospital may retain copyright to the EEGs, particularly if you used their equipment. To be safe, I would get both the patient's consent and ask your employer about it (unless you run your own practice). I am not a lawyer, however. Deco 20:37, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Category page not updating

I've added categories to the {{coor}} family of templates (see above at coordinates), but the affected files don't want to show up on the category listing automatically. I've edited (without changes) the images in question, and then they showed up. What am I doing wrong? Is there an inherent delay until a category listing updates itself? --UED77 21:41, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

This is a Mediawiki software defect. Articles are only added or removed from categories when they are edited. If you edit a template transcluded into an article, the raw article text is unmodified and so is not checked until it is edited. This can be rather painful when the template has zillions of uses. Deco 22:00, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

That is unfortunate. Thanks for clarifying it. --UED77 22:07, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

a null edit can be useful. i think you can make it quikc by moddding your js thing. - 54^MHz 07:09, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Creative Commons Atribuition+ShareAlike (CC-BY-SA) and GFDL.

Suppose I make some photos and send them to the Commons with a GFDL (GNU Free Documentation License) + CC-BY-SA (Creative Commons Atribuition + ShareAlike) licenses.

Accordingly to any of those licenses, the photograph can be used freely in works that share the same license.

However someone wants to buy me (I'm the author) a non-exclusive license of those photos to use in a work under a restricted license. (Full Copyright).

Accordingly to CC-BY-SA I can license the photo under a non-exclusive manner to be used under Full copyright terms. (See here "Any of these conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder.")

Of course I can't license a file that has been changed by any other person, or under CC-BY-SA terms or I'll be violating the other user terms. I'll have to licence a file created and changed only by me.

My question is: What happens with a GFDL photo ? Is it the same as a CC-BY-SA ? What about with a dual license image GFDL + CC-BY-SA ?

--OsvaldoGago 22:38, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

For the dual license case the image is licensed under the provisions of either license so because the the cc-by-sa license allows you to do that it is fine. In any case I presume that if you are the copyright owner you can license copies of the image under as many different licenses as you choose to. For example most of my train photographs are licensed as cc-by-sa 1.0, 2.0 and 2.5 here, but as full copyright at www.railfaneurope.net - as per the terms of that site. Thryduulf 23:01, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd say that if they want to use an image edited by multiple people, they should really get permission from all of them. That would suffice. If you can't, you could either go back to an old version prior to the contributions of those who decline to give permission, or just use it in the hopes that their contributions would be ruled "insubstantial" in any subsequent court case. I am not a lawyer. Deco 00:04, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Archive deletion request

shouldn't someone archive those old requests in teh deletion requests? it's taking really long to load - 54^MHz 07:03, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

• I archived most finished requests to the archives. Must be faster now. -- WB 07:51, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Somewhat. Thanks. -- 54^MHz 07:55, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

PD ?

Could someone confirm me if images from this web site http://www.oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/welcome.html could be considered of pubblic domain ?

Thank you --Esculapio 10:49, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I think so, as long as they don't have a specific copyright claim. This says: As a federal government site, all federal editorial policies apply, such as those on privacy, copyright, commercial promotion, etc.

Information presented on this World Wide Web site is considered public information and may be distributed freely. If you elect to use materials from this Web offering, please cite NOAA as the source, and include the appropriate URL of the page(s) from which the materials were taken. Note: Selected copyrighted images have been contributed to the site. These copyrights are mentioned in image captions. If you would like to reproduce these images, you must contact the contributing source for approval. Sounds good to me. And after browsing the site, wow, great find! pfctdayelise 13:18, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, many images in Category:PD US NOAA are from there (also many on en: that should move here). Stan Shebs 15:30, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

m:Help:Patrolled edit

I guess at commons it is set up so that only admins can mark edits as patrolled? pfctdayelise 13:42, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

As far as I can telll, it is not set up at all here. I'm an admin and none of the recent changes appear unpatrolled, nor have I ever seen any marked as unpatrolled. Either this means we have excellent RC patrollers or it isn't enabled here. Thryduulf 14:26, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know, it's disabled on all of wikimedia. I'm an admin on en.Wikipedia, and it's definitely not enabled at all there. --Phroziac _. o º ^{O (mmmmm chocolate!)} 17:52, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

It's disabled except for the Dutch Wikipedia, the Low German Wikipedia and Wiktionary, and the Finnish Wikipedia. Basically, communities which decide they want the feature can get it. I'm not a big fan of the current implementation and would be opposed to enabling it here, as it mostly clutters up RC.--Eloquence 19:48, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Overwriting images

I want to upload a higher resolution version of a photo that I took. On wikipedia I get a 'Upload a new version of this file' link in the file history section of images, but I don't see that here. Is it not possible to overwrite images on the commons? Thanks, JeremyA 05:23, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Just upload an image with exactly the same name. Deco 05:28, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, but I tried that already--I just get the message 'A file with this name exists already; please go back and upload this file under a new name' with no option to overwrite. JeremyA 05:41, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

That's weird. Either it's protected or it's some kind of bug. Deco 09:54, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

AFAIK you need to be registered for some weeks (or was it just one) to overwrite a files with a new one. Security mechanism to fight Spam, vandals and other bad guys/gals. --Denniss 11:18, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

ISTR one of the devs saying it was 4 days. It might be that the newest 1% of accounts are restricted and the 4 days a guess of how long it takes to not be in the newest 1% .At commons the last 50 new users registered over a period of 12 hours 47 minutes, at en.wp the period was 1 hour 1 minute, so if it is based on a percentage it might take longer than 4 days if that estimate was for en. You registered your account on 3 January [2] so try again tomorrow when you'll have been registered 4 days. Thryduulf 12:57, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, that was correct--today I was able to upload the new version. JeremyA 17:20, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Lost Password/Changed Email

I am user Togo on WP de:, en: and es:. I didn't remember my password and not thinking that I may not have updated my asociated email I just hit that 'send password' button, I guess now I have a new password and I can't even get to it... is there anything that can be done by an admin or somebody ? like setting the password or the asociated email to the same as the User:Togo of WP en: ? thanks! Togo....

I'm not exactly sure what your situation is, but hopefully one of the following helps you.

• If you remember your old password you can still use it. (If you click the new password button then you can still log in with your old password. Effectively your account has two passwords - this is to prevent disruption by other users constantly resetting your password.)
• If you can't remember your old password and cannot get access to the email address associated with your account the new password was sent to then there is nothing an administrator can do. A developer might be able to help you if you can prove to them you are user:Togo (e.g. if you log in and make an edit as user:Togo on whichever other projects you are registered on from your current IP addresss, and can tell them what email address user:togo here at commons is associated with). You're best bet at getting the attention of a developer is probably on one of the mailing lists. Thryduulf 13:10, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Image with visible copyright information & advertorial

User:Discomike has uploaded a bunch of images with visible copyright and advertorial information on them, such as Image:Acton Depot March 2002 2.JPG and these. They're great photos, but what do we make of the spam on the bottom right of each of them. (Clearly, I think it sucks & they should be deleted, or cropped). --Tagishsimon

This is not spam, this is a copyright message. There's no problem with this. If you feel these images should be cropped then do it otherwise ignore it. --Denniss 11:22, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

w:Wikipedia:Image use policy Rule of Thumb point 8 says "Don't put photo credits in articles or on the images themselves; put them on the description page." On that basis, as they currently stand, they look like speedies to me. --Tagishsimon

I strongly object to speedy deleting those pictures. That is not the way we should deal with users who act in good faith.--Eloquence 13:49, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

that's a request, not a requirement. As long as the images under a free license, they are OK. If they are under a free license, it's also legal to crop/edit them to remove the copyright message - but you would probably get into a fight with the uploader. It would be better to kindly ask to remove the copyright notice from the image, and explain that the license requires author credits anyway. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 14:48, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

My view is that as currently composed, they are little more than adverts for the uploaders website. So that would be a second policy under which they could be deleted. Sorry, after spending hundreds of hours dealing in wikipedia images, I'm really unhappy about these. I've never seen before any images on wikipedia which match these in terms of the prominance given to the link to the uploaders website. Clearly I'm having issues in assuming good faith. that's a request, not a requirement ... rule 8 on a page which clearly says it is policy is a request? Uh-huh. --Tagishsimon

1. it can be policy to request that, no contradiction there. Policies don't neccessarily define requierements (they often do, but not always).
2. that's wikipedia policy, not commons. Commons:Criteria for inclusion doesn't say anything like that (but maybe it should).
3. I don't like copyright notices in images either. The license requirements are sufficient. If the (c) was inverted on the image, it would be a little nicer, but not much.
4. I don't think this merrits a speedy deletion - I would want to hear the creator's comments first.

regards, -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 18:48, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

We generally prefer not to have inline copyright notices, but it's not very nice to call them "spam". The best thing to do is to ask the uploader kindly whether they would be willing to consider removing the notice.--Eloquence 11:39, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Totally, totally, against speedy deletion (or any deletion). They're useful, informative images. If you have a problem with it, crop them! That's what the license allows for. You can see the second image in w:Routemaster is one of these -- you can't even read his name! They're not affecting Wikipedia. pfctdayelise 04:15, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Karsh photos once more again

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Copyrights#Karsh_photos
• http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Yousuf_Karsh
  

I think there are good reasons to think that these pictures are NOT PD in the US. --Historiograf 19:59, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

New recommendation for preferred license tag

With all these licenses floating around, and none being perfect, it is truly a burden for many users to decide how to license their work. To alleviate this problem, I created the template {{mwrl}}, which allows the Wikimedia Foundation to relicense a particular file under a GFDL-like copyleft license. I feel that to make licensing simpler, {{self3|gfdl|cc-by-sa-2.5,2.0,1.0|mwrl}} should be promoted in the License selector and in other places. The reason for using self3 is that the License selector doesn't allow multiple licenses otherwise — or so I believe. Please share your opinion on this proposal. —UED77 04:35, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Copyright infringement in derivative work?

Hi. I'd like to know if this kind of derivative work (Image:Logo SGS.jpg) can be considered a copyright violation, since that the logotype on that picture is copyrighted. I'm not referring to the original work, just to the cropped image.--Gaf.arq 03:28, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's probably copyright and/or trademark infringement -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 03:46, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Should the image be put to speedy deletion? Or should it be voted? I'm sorry for the questions, I'm not aware of all of the Commons procedures in cases like this. Thanks, --Gaf.arq 03:55, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Obvious copyright-infringments can be speedied (See Commons:Deletion guidelines) This may not be "obvious" per se, but try tagging it with {{db|copyvio}} and see if it gets deleted. / Fred Chess 04:39, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

---

Hi again. Thanks for the answers. I have another question on the same subject: there's an ongoing issue at pt.wiki about the license status of small versions of copyrighted logotypes, like this (Image:Sp-palmeiras.gif). This is a 20x20px version of the actual logotype of a famous soccer team in Brazil. I personnaly think that is indeed copyright infrigiment, even that the file is just "some amount of pixels, ineligible for copyright" (as some editors at pt.wiki are claiming about). Is there an official policy on this? Doesn't it have precedents? Can it be considered copyright infrigement?--Gaf.arq 01:21, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Just being a smaller version of copyrighted work does not remove any copyright. Therefore it's still a copyvio. --Denniss 01:43, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Wrong. A square 20 by 20 can't be copyright-infringments. The logo is unrecognizable, this cannot be considered derived workmanship. It is drawn pixel by pixel. FML ^hi 14:39, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Category:People of Danmark

Am I blind or is there a typo in the category title? I assume Denmark is correct because most others use exact this name or is this something special ?--Denniss 02:46, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I believe "Danmark" is Dutch for "Denmark". Deco 02:50, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I believe it's even more significant that "Danmark" is Danish for "Denmark". —UED77 03:28, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Er, Danish. That's what I meant. Deco 04:04, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Then all danish-related cats should use either Danmark or Denmark but not a mix of both. --Denniss 23:58, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

It should be Denmark - have a look at Category:People by country. There's no Category:People of 中国. pfctdayelise 04:20, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

true, if it was needed, the whole category name should be in Danish. - 54^MHz 01:48, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Assume PD for Images older than 100 years

I have put the following proposal up Commons_talk:Licensing#Assume PD for Images older than 100 years:

The German Wikipedia has adoped a policy by which images, that where created more than 100 years ago, are assumed to be PD, if ther's no indication of the creator not being dead for 70 years (see Wikipedia:Bildrechte#Geschützte_Fotos). User:Historiograf proposed to do the same on the commons, and I belive that would be reasonable - as of yet, we don't have a clear policy how old an image has to be until it can be assumed to be PD. The Idea has gotten some support on Commons:Forum#Ein_paar_Jahre_mehr_in_de. For legal questions about this, please ask User:Historiograf.

If you'd like to comment, please do that there -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 23:32, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I have adjusted the proposal. Please have a look. --Historiograf 22:03, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I have clarified the proposal - I belive much confusion arose because i chose a bad title for the discussion. Sorry -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 19:08, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Template:CC

Is this template of any use? We have lots of specific Creative Commons licenses so why do we need this one ? --Denniss 02:14, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

It is for files under a CC license we don't have a specific template for, e.g. {{Cc-by-2.0-br}} (Attribution-only 2.0 Brazil). Thryduulf 02:32, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Then there should be instruction on the disussion page how to use this tag. I checked the two images using it, both had a specific tag available, one of them used CC without license specified (only in image description). --Denniss 03:26, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

All tags should have instruction on how to use them, either on the talk page and/or in <noinclude> tags. If you find any that don't, then add it yourself unless you can't figure out how to get it to work. Thryduulf 12:39, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Your wish is my command. Done :) —UED77 18:16, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I think we should have specific templates for every free Creative Commons license. There can't be that many varieties. User:dbenbenn 20:25, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I absolutely agree. In fact, I will create many in the coming hours, once I get some schoolwork done first :) —UED77 21:26, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Feel free to make them. There are probably more than you think - 2 different licenses (by, by-sa) with 3 different international versions (1.0, 2.0, 2.5) + 25 different versions of by-2.0 for specific juristictions + 25 different versions of by-sa-2.0 for specific jurisditcions: $2\times 3+25\times 2=56$. Plus there are also 2.1 versions, but I've been unable to find a list of all of these so I don't know how many there are, but probably up-to 25, which would make a grand total of 81, excluding dual licensing (e.g. cc-by-sa-2.5,2.0,1.0). We currently have 41 templates in this set. See Special:Allpages&from=cc&namespace=10 Thryduulf 21:46, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Don't leave plain-old cc-sa out :) Yes, it's a big task, but I love order and neatness. Soon, there will be a page listing them all. —UED77 21:53, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Gah! Pleas don't create a new template for every possible combination! why not just use a template that takes parameters? People that need fancy versions should be able to figure out how to use it. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 23:19, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I can live with that. But in that case, shouldn't something like the current contents of the Sandbox be more appropriate than the present {{cc}}? In addition to that, each CC licensing template should include RDF info on licensing. To do that, it would require either a complicated template (not impossible, but lot of work), or separate licenses. By the way, what's so bad about creating a template for every single instance of a CC license? :) —UED77 00:28, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Feel free to change Template:CC. I've gone through Category:Creative Commons licenses, and orphaned the template. Most of the images that used it were merely {{Cc-by-sa-2.0}}. I ended up creating 3 new CC license tags, {{Cc-by-2.0-nl}}, {{Cc-by-2.0-br}}, and {{Cc-by-2.1-es}}. I also found a few images that were noncommercial, which I deleted.

In reply to Duesentrieb's comment: why not have a template for every free Creative Commons license? It's not like that would cause problems, and it would mean people wouldn't get confused by not finding the appropriate license template already made. User:dbenbenn 03:07, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

It's a general rule from years of programming: don't copy if you can avoid it, use parameters. Copys are hard to maintain (change layout, category names, etc), and cause confusion because they are bound to have simmilar names. It also clutters the namespace and all the pages listing copyright tags.

So, if you must create a template for every possibility, please make it fall back on a generic template, just filling in the parameters. That makes it at least a little better. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 11:48, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I think what you're describing is a meta template for Creative Commons license templates. I totally agree that would be much nicer; having to copy changes to 100 different templates is lame. But there's currently a jihad going on at the English Wikipedia to eliminate all meta-templates, apparently at the behest of Tim Starling. Supposedly meta-templates cause server problems. User:dbenbenn 19:26, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I will likely make some changes to {{CC}} in the coming days. In the meantime, Enter the Matrix at Commons:Creative Commons copyright tags —UED77 05:51, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Active projects

Is there an active project I can participate in like Wikipedia's Punctuation Project here? -- Folder88 07:46, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

There is Commons:WikiProject Tree of Life and Commons:WikiProject Flags. If you are interested in more "cleanup"/technical type activities, feel free to fix anything in Category:Images for cleanup. AFAICT the biggest problem is uncategorised/untagged/unused images. Commons:Tools has a list of excellent tools you can use to help solve these problems (it's as easy as clicking a "random" button then inserting the correct information, if you can. if not, hit random again). pfctdayelise 13:13, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

side note regarding the tools: because the way article text is stored in the database a few days ago, most of the tools have come considerably slower. I hope this will be resolved soon. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 16:00, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Forced tagging

It's good that a license tag is forced nowadays, the problem is tags that aren't in the list. I uploaded a couple of images with the Template:PD-Sweden tag a couple of days ago, but since that wasn't in the list I had to mark a "bogus" tag for the upload, and then retag it. Why isn't there an option "other tag", or why aren't simply all license tags in the list? /Grillo 22:07, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

If you don't want to use one of the tags in the license selector, simply leave it at "none selected". The license selector doesn't "force" you to choose a tag. User:dbenbenn 22:17, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but that option simply isn't there. I see [3]. Is something wrong? /Grillo 22:27, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Weird. In your screen isn't but it is in mine. Try with Firefox instead of Opera. --OsvaldoGago 22:38, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

It works in Firefox, but not in IE... This should REALLY be fixed. Soon. Also, I gave up Firefox for Opera for a reason :) /Grillo 22:49, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

The <option value=''> decent browsers are getting appears to be served as <option value="> to Internet Explorer (and apparently Opera, which I'm assuming is still identifying itself as IE). ¦ Reisio 06:51, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I use the "identify as Opera" option when I use Opera, and have no intention in fixing that. Since most users still use IE, this should be fixed to work in IE as well. I tried changing Opera's identification to Mozilla, but it still doesn't work. /Grillo 08:51, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Well it seems to me one of the following is happening:

• Opera is identifying itself as IE, Commons' WikiMedia does browser detection before it serves things, and somewhere something got altered for IE.
• Commons' WikiMedia does browser detection before it serves things, and somewhere something got altered for IE and Opera.
• The view source from IE I'm basing the <option value="> thing on is wrong and the problem is elsewhere (seems unlikely, as a single opening quotation mark without the closing mark explains this error)
• IE and Opera (for whatever reason) like to render <option value=''> as <option value="> ...and IE likes to alter source code before displaying it for view source.

Anyways, I'm sure contacting an administrator or filing a bug report or something will get it resovled. ¦ Reisio 19:24, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

When checking the code for the upload page it shows

<option value=>None selected</option>
<option value="Unknown" title="{{Unknown}}">I don't know what the license is</option>

So yes, that seems to be the problem. It's still weird because I have chosen Opera to identify as Opera and not IE. In any case I'm filing a bug report (if I can figure out how), since most users still use IE anyway. /Grillo 12:52, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

To file a bug report go to bugzilla:, search for existing bugs. If none are the same/similar to what you want to report, then enter a new bug - you need to create a login to do this. Its fairly easy. Thryduulf 13:59, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

It has already been reported - see bugzilla:4576. Thryduulf 14:07, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I think I was using Firefox 1.0.x, so the source it displays might not be completely accurate. The problem is most likely correct, though, anyways. :p ¦ Reisio 14:33, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

It was I who reported it. /Grillo 16:07, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

The bug has now been fixed. /Grillo 22:28, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Photos taken while trespassing, etc

I have a couple of questions about to what extent laws/rules are able to restrict one's ability to take photos. This is kind of related to the debate about whether museums and proprietary laws I think.

For example, I have some photos of an abandoned brickworks site that I took while trespassing on a construction (or destruction) site. Because I was breaking the law when I took the photos, would that have any bearing at all on whether or not I can, for example, hold copyright/release them as I see fit? Only in a legal sense, I'm asking (I obviously have no moral problem with it :)).

Secondly, the Australian Open (tennis) is on in Australia soon. I'm planning to go and of course I want to be able to take photos for commons and maybe so wikinews can use them too. On their Ticket conditions of sale and entry they say:

10. Images of the AO taken with a camera, mobile phone or other wireless device, cannot be used for any purpose other than for private and domestic purposes, that is you cannot sell, license, publish or otherwise commercially exploit photographs. [...]

11. Making or distribution of broadcasts, commentary, news reports or statistics by any means in any format or media [...] is forbidden.

Does anyone have any advice? Thanks, pfctdayelise 00:15, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

These restrictions seem dubious at best to me. One could draw an analogy with photographs of sculptures, for which the photographer has rights. If you take pictures of the big screen or take frames from a TV broadcast that's clear violation, but you're introducing creative interpretation with the angle, zoom, etc. that you choose for your own images. They're just trying to legally intimidate people into not creating competing works.

As for trespassing, the only point I would consider is that the material is clearly incriminating to you. If someone calls the police about your visit they'd have no trouble collecting evidence (they probably would just seize your camera anyway, but this requires a warrant). If you don't mind this, there's as far as I know no legal connection between the copyright status of the photos and the means by which they were taken - you could kill somebody in order to photograph their liver and the photos themselves are still perfectly legal.

Take this all with a grain of salt though - I am not a lawyer and often safe is better than sorry. Deco 02:53, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Excellent, thankyou. I agree as it happens - just intimdatory legalese. Even if I breach these guidelines, it would only mean they could refuse me entry, not somehow reposess any images, right?

I don't think the trespassing is a major problem, but I was just thinking you could have bigger/more important crimes where it might be a problem. Seizing my digital camera wouldn't do them much good, for photos taken a year ago. :) pfctdayelise 04:56, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

This is probably not different than taking photos in a museum where photographing is not allowed. The worst that could happen is that you were thrown out of the museum. If Australian Open allow taking photos for one's own personal use, they probably won't refuse you entry or kick you out. Thuresson 23:58, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Stamps problem

Hello, is some body can look at this user post (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/THA-Zp). There are new stamps (2005) like Image:Collection-jeunesse-héros-des-jeux-vidéo.jpg using public domain licence, but this image cant be in public domain. Is someone can look at this and delete it if it need ? Thanks a lot. ~ bayo or talk 03:03, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Ah! PDF logo!

I just noticed that all the PDF files have Adobe Reader's logo on it. Shouldn't it be replaced by something else? By the way, something like should be moved to Wikisource I think... -- WB 04:25, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

PDF is a proprietary format - there's not much point in using another logo for it...and obviously it's within fair use to use it as Commons does. ¦ Reisio 06:14, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Text content under the terms of free licenses other than the GNU FDL

Wikimedia Commons' wellcome begins with "The Wikimedia Commons is a project that provides a central repository for free images, music, sound & video clips and, possibly, texts and spoken texts, used in pages of any Wikimedia project". We also find CC-by and CC-by-sa licensed content into the Commons. So it seems possible to upload text content under the terms of free licenses other that the GNU FDL. Under my point of view Commons may be the site to place CC-by and CC-by-sa licensed articles. So as we cannot publish an article in the Wikipedia under another license than the GFDL, Commons may be the site to place those articles we wish to license under the terms of free licenses other than the GNU FDL, even if they are incompatible with the GNU FDL as the CC-by and CC-by-sa are (see [Free Software Foundation: Various Licenses and Comments about Them]).--Learner 08:33, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

See the footer, "Text is available under GNU Free Documentation License." /Grillo 08:54, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

can anybody check if this is ready for picture of the day?

Hi, this is one of my first uploads. How do I manage to get this on the featured pictures candidates or picture of the day pages?

Image:Fishermen - Tamandaré - Brasil.jpg — Preceding unsigned comment added by cyc (talk • contribs) 01:33, January 12, 2006 (UTC)

Anyone can make any image they like a COM:POTD. Just go put it in for yourself! (And then wait a month or so for it to roll around.) Anyone can also nominate a COM:FPC, but it's a good idea to look at COM:FP to see what kind of standard there is. One thing I will tell you for free is that you should try and straighten it first - notice how the horizon is not perfectly horizontal?

Thanx for the advice. Concerning the horizon, I think it is horizontal. Notice that the trees on the other side are on an island running more or less orthogonal to the camera plane. Indeed the real horizon is not visible in this image. —Cyc 15:10, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Also, you should add your images to gallery pages and/or categories. Explore Category:Brazil with some of the Commons:Tools. pfctdayelise 14:55, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi, how do I add a new subcategory "fisher" to the category http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:People_by_occupation? —Cyc 14:42, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

There is already the category Category:Fishermen available. Thuresson 15:07, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Massive upload, bot flag needed?

Is it needed to get bot flag for doing a massive upload? Thanks. --Porao 19:08, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Weird errors behind commons logo

When I view Category:Spoken Wikipedia - English, a coloured error box shows up in the top left hand corner of the page, behind the commons logo and the 'category' 'discussion' 'edit' 'history' 'watch' tabs.

Warning: Missing argument 1 for getcontent() in /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5/includes/Article.php on line 86
Call Stack
#	Function	Location
1	{main}()	/usr/local/apache/common-local/live-1.5/index.php:0
2	require()	/usr/local/apache/common-local/live-1.5/index.php:3
3	categorypage->view()	/usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5/index.php:197
4	article::view()	/usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5/includes/CategoryPage.php:29
5	categorypage->getcontent()	/usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5/includes/Article.php:815

Also when I view Category:Spoken Wikipedia - Chinese, I get a message in the same place, but it says

Warning: Missing argument 1 for getcontent() in /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5/includes/Article.php on line 86

Actually, when I view Category:Category redirects, I get that same one line. I suspect it is a problem with the cateogory redirect system?

(I'm using Firefox 1.5 on a unix shell...) pfctdayelise 00:52, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't see anything. Would you check again now? Do please do a hard refresh, too (CTRL+SHIFT+R). ¦ Reisio 02:28, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I, too, have seen them a few hours ago on Firefox 1.5 WinXP, and on Wikipedia as well. But only for two page loads. The errors were gone after a refresh, so I didn't worry about it much. UED77 02:59, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

They're gone now! But so are the little grey lines that indicate that the page went through a RDR - "(Redirected from X)". When I saw them it said "(Redirected from )" which is understandably strange. OK, I have no idea what that was. pfctdayelise 04:11, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

The software is often upgraded, fiddled with, and sometimes just malfunctions. ¦ Reisio 05:27, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Clarifications on French copyright law

I have expanded Commons:Licensing#France with respect to the duration of copyright. Specifically, I explain the copyright extensions that France granted to compensate WW1 and WW2, and why these extensions are not invalidated by the EU copyright directive.

One consequence is that one should not assume that content published in France by authors dead more than 70 years ago is in the public domain. David.Monniaux 14:54, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Tree of life

Heya, I created a way to make galleries of families, genera, etc. without having to maintain every single one of these galleries. Have a look at Vulpini, it shows all fox-pictures we currently have. If someone will add a picture at, let's say, Vulpes vulpes, it will automatically appear at Vulpini and Vulpes. I simply treated the indivdual animal galleries as templates for the new galleries. Theoretically, this could be continued until we have Animalia, but that would be a huge gallery of course. I also used template-parameters and <noinclude>-tags to tackle certain problems I encountered during the creation of those galleries. I'm not sure if I (ab)use the template system too much here, see Avoid using meta-templates on en.wiki. But on the other hand, meta-templates are used quite often here at the commons anyways. The other problem is that the galleries (like Vulpes vulpes) look kind of complicated now, with all the tags and parameters in them. But besides these points, I pretty much like how my work turned out. Any comments? --Conti|✉ 15:36, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but bleah. There's not much value in thousand-picture galleries, nor in cluttered gallery pages. What is the unmet goal you're trying to accomplish? Stan Shebs 16:10, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Trying to make things easier to navigate. If you want to look up pictures of foxes, you have to browse through quite some pages and categories, this would make things easier. And I was not going to create a thousand-picture gallery, I just pointed out that it would be possible. Having a gallery for every genus sounds not too bad to me. --Conti|✉ 16:29, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Recommendations about copyvios

I have written some bit on copyright violations. See Commons:Copyright violations. Comments welcome. David.Monniaux 17:57, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

File size limit?

Hi - I tried to upload a spoken version of an article, ~30M (ogg file) several times but it was unsuccessful each time (also tried on a university comp w/ a super-fast connection). Is there a file size limit for uploads? I previously uploaded the "attack on Pearl Harbor" spoken version (it was 2 parts), larger part was ~20M so or, w/ no problems. Thanks Athf1234 23:39, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

There is a file size limit, but you should get an error message to that effect. (I don't know what the size limit is currently.) Try it again? User:dbenbenn 19:07, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Flash movie upload?

Hello, I am aware that flash movie files are not allowed to be uploaded to commons, but they may be great visual aids to convey information when properly done. Wikimedia is relying on open source and there may be accessibility problems by some people, about flash movies. I wonder whether it is possible to upload swf files. I spend my time mostly for Turkish viki is it possible to upload swf files only to Turkish viki. I asked some senior people there, and they said they could not do it. If it is problematic with swf files, then I will understand. There is some information on this page m:Flash. Thanks. Baristoprak 08:22, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Commons (and other WikiMedia projects) are commited to open content - this also means that content must be in a format that is open, documented, unencumered by patents and license fees, and can be used with free, open source software. None of these conditions apply to Flash/Shockwave. I don't think we will have Flash uploads.

An alternative, open format for interactive drawings / animations would be SVG+JavaScript. However, for security and usability reasons, files containing JavaScript are rejected, and we can have only static SVG.

It would be nice if we had a good format for interactive graphics - sadly, I don't know of any good choice for this kind of thing. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 11:48, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

W3C SMIL --Wikimol 22:11, 15 January 2006 (UTC)== New picture with same name as old ==

I've uploaded an updated version of a picture, with the same name. Is the old picture automatically deleted (it's rather large), or do you have to do some special request? Tskoge 12:21, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Just like with articles, old versions of images are kept for reference - you can see it by clicking on the date in the upload history on the image description page. Admins can delete old versions, but that should not be done without a very good reason - as long as the file is not several dozent MB big, I don't see a reason to delete the old version. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 13:40, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

By clocking on the old date I get the new picture with the old file information. But by clicking revert I can suddenly get the old picture back and mess everything up. How do I get the old picture removed? Tskoge 14:21, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Uh, that sounds strange. Please don't confuse page history with upload history - the latter is located at the bottom of the description page. Anyway... what image are you talking about? a link would be useful, so we can check... -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 19:32, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

SVG i18n

Does wikimedia commons support the w:i18n properties of SVG? Suppose I upload this file:

<svg width="350" height="300">
<title>I18n test</title>
<switch>
	<text systemLanguage="en" x="40" y="50" fill="black" font-size="12" font-family="Verdana">Hello world!</text>
	<text systemLanguage="nl" x="40" y="50" fill="black" font-size="12" font-family="Verdana">Hallo wereld!</text>
	<text systemLanguage="fr" x="40" y="50" fill="black" font-size="12" font-family="Verdana">Salut, le monde!</text>
</switch>
</svg>

Will the appropriate languages show when I call this image from the localised wikipedias? It would be a very powerful feature. (I seem unable to upload the testfile myself - gives warnings)--Joris Gillis 15:19, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

This is definitely great idea. Just comments:

1. systemLanguage should be default Wiki language, not user interface language, so image text language will always be same as article text language.
2. There is should be possibility to set default language for displaying image with some text when translation is not available.

EugeneZelenko 16:38, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

This is currently not possible, and would proably be quite hard to implement. This is actually related to the "SVG with parameters" thread further up on this page. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 19:34, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

There is a subtle difference with the previous debate. The 'switch' and 'systemLanguage' are no parameters or extensions of any kind, they are already [part of the standard]. I can't imagine why that would be hard to implement. One only has to pass the the appropriate language to th SVG-rasterizer.--Joris Gillis 10:11, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I know that. But the problem with respect to mediawiki is the same: SVG is rendered to PNG thumbnails, and those thumbnails are stored permanently, one for every size that was requested. Parametrized versions (per extension parameters, or per language) would require a different scheme of naming and storing thumbnails - that's not easily done. Also, the SVG renderer we are using, rsvg, does not seem to support specifying a language to use.

I agree that this would be a nice feature, in a way. But I'd like to have a wiki-way to add new translations... the "parametrized SVG" suggestion above would allow that, and would also work with rsvg. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 10:59, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay, now I understand your point. I guess I'll see what the future brings... If only I knew some PHP,then I could help develop the mediawiki software.--Joris Gillis 14:09, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Category that redirects to the gallery

Hi! I found that Category:Ailuropoda melanoleuca has a redirection to his own article. This is an error because people only can see images on that category if they are included at the gallery manually. But I don't know how to break the redirection. Can anyone do it? Thanks, --Colegota 17:44, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Done. User:dbenbenn 19:03, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Solved sync video/audio problems in theora files

Hi! I started a thread some days ago about Convert video files to Theora format under Linux. I've finally did it.

Fisrt I convert the "not-much-standard" avi file form digital camera to mpeg using tovid

$ tovid -dvd-vcd -pal -full -in original.avi -out target

That generates a target.mpg file that can be passed to ffmpeg2theora

$ ffmpeg2theora target.mpg

The resulting file is named target.mpg.ogg (I'm renaming it to target-mpg.ogg to avoid file type problems).

I've uploaded two files Image:Chengdu-oso-panda-comiendo-v01-mpg.ogg and Image:Opera-sichuan-mascaras-marionetas-v01-mpg.ogg, if you like to download and test it.

Regards, --Colegota 20:17, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Free file formats.

Maybe this is not the place to ask this, but why aren't certain free file formats (like ogg vorbis, ogg theora, svg and OpenDocument) popular among non free software programs ? Why is still so hard to find a portable music player that plays ogg (but all play mp3), a vídeo editor program that codes in theora (AVI, Mpeg and DivX are popular), and last but not least why doesn't MS Ofice reads and writes in OpenDocument (I have a clue for the last question) ? If they are free file formats, developers don't need to pay to use them on their programs, right ? Why do they insist on having export and import features for non free file formats (and pay for it), and leave free file formats out? --OsvaldoGago 20:58, 14 January 2006 (UTC) (Note: Maybe this is a dumb question but I had to do it.)

Basically, because big companies push their own standards, thus they are popular, and if you write a player, you must support them. This means they get more popular...

All the more widespread software players support vorbis - but for some you need to install a plugin/codec. MS Office is going to support OpenDocument in the Future, AFAIK. Theora is relatively young, and still problematic. SVG is relatively well supported, except by companies that don't *want* to (like MacroMedia), because they want to push their own format. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 21:28, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Resolving different languages

And, sorry, I'm just not finding the answers--what's the strategy for handling things (most things, I guess) that have different names in different languages? For example, there's currently a Dalmatiner but in English it's Dalmatian. Would we put each photo of a Dalmatian dog into, for example, Category:Dalmatian and Category:Dalmatiner and then the former would be in Category:Dogs and the latter in Category:Hunden? Or what--? Help meeeee understand what to do-- the dogs area is a total total mess! Elf 23:33, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Categories should be in english (except for species, where scientific, latin names are used). Article titles should be in the "local" language for cities/coiuntries, and english otherwise, and should have redirects pointing to them for other languages.

Internationalization is q real problem. I hope we get a nice solition for templates soon - that would be a start. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 00:38, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Lack of "Help" button

One reason why people avoid the Commons the lack of documentation. It would be nice to have a "Help" button in the sidebar, so that users wondering on any page could jump to good documentation. "Community portal" is less catchy than "Help", and connotes that it's geared toward advanced users, while "Village Pump" is way too abstract for first time users. A good Help needs to be written, and then linked from the sidebar. Thoughts? —UED77 01:45, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Sometime between my previous post and this one, the links for "Help" and "Donations" were added. Splendid! :) —UED77 07:31, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually, that link was always there - see [4] -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 11:05, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Is there a help button? I hand't notice either, LoL. / Fred Chess 11:26, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Which licenses for advertisments from the 1930s-1960s?

Which license do I choose when I wish to up load an adevrtisment from a magazine for a defunct automobile company? Stude62 02:19, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

{{Copyvio}}. User:dbenbenn 10:07, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't material from that era have been required to have the copyright nenewed to keep it from becoming PD? That certainly wouldn't have happened in the case of a defunct company. --Tysto 19:47, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

In theory yes, but if a defunct company's assets have been acquired, it's possible that the acquiring company renewed copyright. The would-be uploader would have to come up with plenty of documentation that the copyright was allowed to lapse. (It would be a great service if somebody were to develop a procedure for determining this efficiently.) Stan Shebs 20:52, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

For American works of art, see US copyright office. David.Monniaux 08:44, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Favicon and Safari

For some reason the commons Favicon no longer works in Safari. There is no problem with any of the other sites favicons though. ~ Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 01:07, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Same problem for w:Opera (browser) 8.51--Joris Gillis 09:38, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Metadata?

How's the metadata added to the picture pages? Is this typed and formatted manually, or is there a standard way to automatically extract it from the digital pics? (exif data) And now that we're here: is there a way to search through all these discussions to find previous answers? JH-man 12:36, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

To the first one: it is embedded in the image, somehow, so it loads up automatically. you don't have to do anything. If you edit your image, it might not have it embedded in. (Another good reason to always upload your original image first.) To the second one: not really. Sorry. pfctdayelise 13:12, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Special:Statistics

Why does it say "300{{{1}}}000 media files"? Thanks. enochlau (talk) 12:55, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't know, but I see the same thing. I suggest asking on either wikitech-l or Bugzilla:. Thryduulf 13:09, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

A known bug: http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4370 enochlau (talk) 13:39, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Guide for license compliance

I created User:Pfctdayelise/Commons:License compliance, which I hope can be moved into the Commons namespace when all the blanks have been filled in. Basically I think we need a page which gives a simple set of instructions so that well-meaning people can actually comply with our fantastic "free" images.

WP has a page (or probably 10) explaining about how to be a mirror of it, and comply with the GFDL. We should explain to non-wikimedians how they can comply with our licenses. Should they link to the [[commons:]]? Should they quote all the source info on the image info page? How should print use differ to web use? How do we decide ifsomeone is using an image from here in compliance with the license/s?

I think we especially need to decide what we deem license compliance in relation to the GFDL and print use. Do we really insist that the license itself be printed out alongside every use of the image, or is a reference to the WP w:GFDL enough?

I know, on one hand, the GFDL is the GFDL and we cannot change what it means, but there is no self-respecting publisher that would ever use a GFDL image if they had to follow that license to the letter.

I am not too sure about the specifics, so I invite a community response. Please edit the page and take part in discussion on the talk page.

pfctdayelise 16:05, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Warning about {{Publication officielle}}

Somebody wrote a template {{Publication officielle}} claiming that official publications of the French government were in the public domain.

This is true only for a very narrow class of publications (laws and regulations, and similar texts). In general, products of the government are copyrighted.

What complicates the matter is that the government often uses contractors for photographic works. That is, they hire a professional photographer who takes photographs, and then licenses an usage right to the government. (By the way, the US government does the same, which is the reason why we should be careful with PD-USGov). The government cannot relicense them to us, because it does not own the copyright on them.

In addition, for many government publications (such as on public sites), the government will not enforce its copyright on photographs unless you do something stupid with them, or you use them commercially.

So please, Please, PLEASE. Do not put products of the French government on the commons without really knowing what you're doing. Thanks. David.Monniaux 17:02, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Category or article with gallery?

I've tried to find guidelines but searches & going thru help, faqs, getting started, etc. don't help. What exactly should the strategy be for grouping images? For example, if you look at Category:Terriers, half of the subgroups are themselves categories to which images belong, and half of them are articles into which images are manually inserted into galleries. It seems to me that the former would be easier in the long run, but I'd like to know whether there's a recommended strategy here. Elf 23:09, 14 January 2006 (UTC) (normally from En WP)

There's not. The great category/article vote was pretty evenly split, and since then things have been pretty random. On the average, you'll tend to find articles used for grouping images by type (photos vs drawings, different neighborhoods of a city), and categories used more as bags of unsorted images. Some subareas tend to have standards, for instance species are almost always articles and families are almost always categories. Stan Shebs 20:56, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

IMHO the best thing to do is to have an image in both an article and a category. That way people searching/browsing through either can find it. Putting the gallery page in the category is also a big help with this. When I'm uploading files I put them in categories but not galleries, but this is mainly because this is less timeconsuming when I'm uploading lots of images. When, eventually, I've uploaded all my photos (the number will be in the thousands), then I'll be adding them to galleries. Thryduulf 02:02, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Project Tree Of Life

I have just started a slightly ambitious project, that is, to document all living species in video, photos, drawings and sound. See Commons:WikiProject Tree of Life.

I have also suggested a number of dependant projects, and created two of them, one for plants at Commons:WikiProject Plants and one for insects at Commons:WikiProject Insects.

I would welcome your comments and thoughts on these projects at their discussion pages. TeunSpaans 22:08, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Is this like wikispecies? More to the point, is it just a duplication of their work, or something different? pfctdayelise 05:00, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

If my understanding is correct, this is not a Wikimedia project but a Commons project: a project to collect freely licensed images and other media of all forms of life. This seems nonredundant to me, although I'm sure we can borrow much of the media from other projects. It seems like a great idea to me - it'll help locate missing plants and animals we still need pictures of. Deco 05:04, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Having read a bit of wikispecies, I don't think this is redundant, but it's obviously very closely related. Their image guidelines (does the prefix work? species:Image guidelines) recommends all pictures be uploaded to commons. They also mention it might be possible to open a related species subdomain (m:Wikispecies_FAQ#Why_is_Wikispecies_not_part_of_the_Wikimedia_Commons.3F). But then that would be like... species.commons.wikimedia.org. Somehow I don't think that's possible. :) At any rate, it is probably worth working in conjunction with wikispecies for this project. pfctdayelise 05:28, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Indeed I intend to be this a commons project, allthough in close cooperation with wikispecies. I have also announced these intented projects at the village pump of wikispecies. Preferably I'd like to avoid duplication by "borrowing" taxaboxes from wikispecies, but alas that's not yet possible. Wikispecies builds up the taxonomy tree(s), commons should provide excellent media.

Of course we already do that to a large extent, but imho we could achieve better quality and a more complete coverage by a joint effort with the projects as base for communication. TeunSpaans 10:53, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

One value of this project could be to build up lists of red links for species lacking galleries. We have lots of lion and tiger pics, "want lists" could help people plan trips to go visit zoos etc to take non-redundant images. Stan Shebs 15:34, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I was thinking, it would be great if it had some kind of "Identification Unit" too, where you could "send" pictures of animals/plants. pfctdayelise 00:50, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

What do you mean? TeunSpaans 06:41, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

If I understand correctly, he means a place where you can post pictures of random animals you don't recognise to be identified by experts. Deco 09:56, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I mean. It comes up sometimes in COM:FPC and would make images more useful for the other projects, if they are searching for a specific species, rather than having to go through hundreds of unidentified images lumped under "trees" or something equally general. Also, I'm . pfctdayelise 04:23, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Oops, excuse my sexist language. Deco 04:25, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Both identification units and wanted-lists sound like useful ideas to me. TeunSpaans 17:08, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

There is Category:Unknown species -- Tarquin 13:42, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

SVGs with arguments

I realise this isn't the place for proposing new software features, but I was wonder if I could get some feedback on this idea. I've noticed that some categories contain huge numbers of largely identical images. The most frightening example I've seen is Category:Texas_Highways, which has a picture of a highway symbol for every highway in the state of Texas. The only difference is the number printed on each.

An effective way of dealing with this maintenance nightmare would be to enable the use of SVG "arguments" in the same way that we have template arguments: just chunks of literal text that can be embedded at desired positions inside the SVG file at rendering time. For example, for our highway example above, imagine:

[[Image:Texas_farm_road.svg|highway_number=1036|right|200px]]

Inside that SVG somewhere would be a text tag using an appropriate embedded SVG font that substitutes the number 1036 at rendering time. We'd only need to embed the digits here, but unused stuff in the SVG doesn't affect the PNG in any case. Another example is that En has a map showing the location of every city in the U.S. - for cities in the same state, the only difference is the location of a red dot that could be specified dynamically:

[[Image:Tennessee_with_dot.svg|lat=45.23|long=105.34|right|200px]]

The impact of this would be more than sparing the server space and the uploader immense amounts of time - it would also facilitate rapid changes to the base image by eliminating redundancy. In more complex examples, you could print arbitrary text using an embedded font, for example printing the text written on the One Ring with the text itself embedded in the article and the image just having a free text tag.

It somewhat complicates casual image reuse, but I think it would be a big help for increasing flexibility and cutting work, making things feasible that weren't before. What do you guys think? Deco 10:13, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Would a method like that used for the dot maps of Great Britain on en.wp work? See w:Template talk:GBthumb. Thryduulf 13:28, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Parametrized SVG would be quite cool - but i belive that should be implemented as a parser hook extension, not in the core code/syntax. I.e. it would look like this: <generate-svg source="myimage.svg" width="80px"> lat=45.23 | long=105.34 </generate-svg>, or similar.

Alternatively, implementing "overlays" may also be nice - i.e. combine a pixel background with an svg overlay, for example to highlite portions of a satelite image, etc. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 14:53, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

If I knew more about the Wikimedia codebase I probably would've realised that a parser hook extension is more appropriate, good idea. I think parameterized SVGs would cover "overlays", since I believe bitmaps can be embedded in SVGs. Overlays alone wouldn't help much, since you still need to upload an overlay image for every variant. Deco 23:09, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Although my knowledge on SVG could use a little refinement, I believe it would be possible, especially for road number signage, to create an SVG background and a defaultly invisible instance of each number, and use Javascript to show/hide and move the actual numbers into the correct locations on the sign. I'm not familiar with the MediaWiki software, but I believe it sounds rather possible that this could be done. —UED77 02:15, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

It's not possible with javascript, because mediawiki does not allow custom javascript in the wikitext, and also not in SVG files, for security reasons. It would also make little sense to have all possible numbers hidden in the file.

It is however possible to use CSS to position arbitrary text over a fixed position of an image. Combined with a template, that would work for Number-Signs and maybe even map labels. Font family and size may be an issue, though. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 03:26, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

What you described would be perfect for dynamic map labels, but I doubt it would work efficiently for road signage, due to, as you stated, a specific font being used. As for including all numbers in a road sign SVG, I can see why that's a bad idea. However, if an SVG existed for the background, and separate SVGs for each digit (to attain the correct font-family and size), they could be overlaid (by CSS?). That would be an intermediate solution, and it would cut down the number of SVGs in each road signage category to eleven (a little more if letters can occur as well). Would that work? —UED77 04:17, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, the reason I brought up the idea of parameterized SVGs is that embedded SVG fonts solve the issue much more effectively than simple overlays. Only the content of a single text tag has to be altered for each rendering, the font only has to include paths for the glyphs used, and it handles all the nasty kerning, spacing, centering, etc. details that we don't really want to mess with. Embedded bitmaps are a bad idea, yes, and it's usually a bad idea to mix bitmaps with vector graphics anyway (brings back nightmares of popular Flash movies. :-) I don't think anything existing is going to do this in a really good way - I might check out the Mediawiki codebase and determine the feasibility of fully parameterized SVGs. One could make a case they could be exploited for vandalism, but this would take a pretty sophisticated vandal and we could always limit the tags/characters allowed in such a field. Deco 06:32, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

@Deco: embedded bitmaps are generally a bad idea (does it even work?)... bitmaps used in svg are usually included from an external file - which will not work with mediawiki, because the file isn't there on the server, and also because this has been explicitely forbidden. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 03:28, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

It works, check http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/Flag_of_Moldova.svg which has the bitmap included inline. Resizing by rsvg tends to reduce quality more than normal bitmap resizing, however (see Image talk:Flag of Moldova.svg). ¦ Reisio 09:36, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Category:Autobahn numbers and Category:Bundesstraßen numbers too :-)

I think will be also great to adjust some SVG image colors for particular template color scheme.

Other benefit - football uniform template could be finally implemented as SVG in whole :-)

EugeneZelenko 16:46, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I thougt of this too, as and after I made the maps in Category:Maps of Ugandan districts. Would be so nice if I could take my newer SVG map Image:Uganda Distrikte 56.svg and only give a parameter so a specific district would be highlighted. I don't know whether SVG allows so (I fear it doesn't) but it would be best when I could reference it like [[Image:Uganda Distrikte 56.svg|thumb|HIGHLIGHT=Kampala]]. Would ve very useful. --::Slomox:: >< 18:05, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I know that an SVG could be written with an external stylesheet, although I'm not completely familiar with XML styles. As I've been working with Florida counties, it seems that the if the huge SVG files that make up Florida's county borders are labeled with adequate ID's, an external style sheet could be used to turn, say, Alachua County red rather than Marion County. One can also embed a PHP object in svg format into a web page using the "image/svg" option. I bet I could even program it if I set my mind to it. If I wasn't already getting too much slack at home for spending too much time on my PC, at Wiki. Bas ^parler _voir 01:25, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I have entered bug 4702 to suggest parameterized SVGs. Deco 09:21, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Voluntary quarantine for files

I've got photos I'd like to upload but for some of them I'm worried about spreading spyware / viruses. Could a quarantine area be set up where a user can upload files and other people can check them for viruses? Or is there already an effort to scan all wikimedia files for viruses? Thanks, Andjam 06:22, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

If you are running MS Windows, then I strongly reccommend you download and use the free (as in beer) AVG anti-virus. Its available from http://free.grisoft.com (others are available, but this is my personal favourite) Thryduulf 08:12, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

MediaWiki can, in theory, automatically scan for viruses on upload. But this is not configured for WikiMedia servers, sadly. If we push a little, we meight get it enabled :)

Something else: if you are concerned about the images containing viruses (which is possible, but not likely, btw), I have to wodner where you got them. Please make sure you know exactly who created the images, and under what license they are. If you are not sure about appropriate licenses, blease read Commons:Licensing carefully. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 11:03, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry that I created confusion about this, but the photos I have are perfectly "legit" - they are photos taken by a digital camera I have, or digital images created when I get camera films developed. The problem wasn't that the images came from a dodgy place, but that I was worried that already existing spyware might infect the images. Andjam 11:46, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Which file formats do you use? JPEG? I don't see how to spread spywares or viruses through JPEG (perhaps using buffer overruns in decoding libraries, but...). David.Monniaux 12:37, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, there's a known exploit for the windows jpeg library, see [5] and [6]. Virusus using it are rare, i belive, and the exploit should not work on an up-to-date system. But still... -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 13:38, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

You could always just try uploading files first as attachments in blank e-mails at places like Hotmail or Yahoo! Mail. They scan uploaded files when they received and won't let an e-mail be sent with an infected file attached. Get a virus scanner as recommended and you will already be covered. --Nidonocu 22:26, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Andjam 11:46, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Newb question about resolution

The FAQ states that the highest available resolution is preferred in case of pictures. Commons must have tons of diskspace, lol... Anyone have more details about that? Anyways, it seems not too many of the uploaded images use the absolute maximum res of the equipment.

The main reason why I ask the question is: does the absolute filesize of the uploaded content influence the actual loadtime of the wikipedia articles that use the files? Which would mean that both a full res and reduced version have to be uploaded. Or is there a simple method which makes that the images are automatically loaded in a much reduced version?

Like I said, newb question..

JH-man 22:38, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

When an image is uploaded, the master copy is stored at full size in the main file area of a MediaWiki based site. When someone uses the image and views it at whatever size. The software takes a copy of the image, re-sizes it to the size specified in the wiki markup and saves the new smaller file in a cache. From then on, that file is used when ever the page containing the image is displayed making access quicker. Yes it uses a lot of disk space but it ensures quick retrieval of images at smaller sizes. :) --Nidonocu 22:45, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I believe that if you upload the original super high res, then upload a lower-res version over the top of it, the higher res one is still available. true or false? (if true, is this really any different to uploading the lower res one separately?)

And how come no one knows the maximum file size accepted for uploads?! pfctdayelise 13:22, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I believe the current maximum is 8MB. Yes, Commons is loaded with disk capacity. If you upload a lower res over a higher res one, the higher res one would still be available, but could not be displayed except by clicking history links. Don't ever upload a smaller resolution version over a larger, or somebody will revert you - just use the appropriate markup, as in [[Image:Blah.jpg|120px]], to show a smaller version. The only reason you might ever upload two versions is if the generated thumbnail version has problems such as excessive filesize or rendering issues (in other words, don't upload a redundant copy of an image that isn't associated with a Mediawiki bug). Deco 01:39, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

allow .midi

The file extension .mid is allowed, but not .midi. At this point I'm thinking this is just a pref that can be altered in one of these files. We should allow .midi - we allow both .jpg and .jpeg, after all. ¦ Reisio 23:13, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Following entry rather supersedes this one - do check it out. :) ¦ Reisio 06:47, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

simplifying filenames

It'd probably simplify things for us if all extensions were automatically converted to lowercase. Converting files with multiple file extensions to just one would probably also help (e.g., boink.jpg to boink.jpeg / woink.JPG to woink.jpeg). ¦ Reisio 23:13, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. We should really standardize on one extension per format. In fact, there's a Mediawiki bug proposing that we eliminate extensions altogether, instead relying on the MIME type to indicate the correct format to the browser. This has the advantage of greatly facilitating format conversion, and not revealing irrelevant implementation issues, but people seem uncomfortable with it. Deco 01:41, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Mmmm, Bug 4421, that's the cat's pajamas. I've voted for it & hope everyone else will do the same. ¦ Reisio 06:45, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Keywords

With 300k+ files commons are quite big now. I'm a bit worried they are also becoming harder to search, and with current system of articles + cathegories after some time we'll have million of files mostly dumped here on a big haystack. Searching would then rely of inspection of wikipedia articles and advanced googling.

From what I can see in various big media libraries, the sustainable way are categories + keywords, allowing refinement, subtraction, etc. Keywords allow easy access with various levels of accuracy (if I want a picture of a yellow bird, I search yellow + bird - there is no easy way to do it with categories).
Other advantage for commons is keywords would be easier subject for computer-aided translation.

Q - is there some work on developing the feature in mediwawiki?

Proposal - while the developement may take its time, we can start keywording images immediately. All it needs is to create suitable template, Template:Keywords-en, for example, and some format, like separated by commas, and write some guidelines how to use it.

What I've seen, done, and now I'm affraid of is use of categories as a substitue for keywords. With current functionality its a poor substitute, and in long-term will make categories mess of kategorized images and keyworded images. Example: in hierarchical categories, proper place for image illustrating plain yellow colour is in Category:Yellow. Proper place for yellow birds is under their species, maybe location where taken. In keyword system, proper keywords for yellow birds are their zoological name, yellow, bird, location where t was shot, country, and much more. If keywords are mixed into existing category systems, IMO it won't work neither as keywords, nor as cetegories - simply it will not work.

What do you think? --Wikimol 23:55, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I brought up something similar to this a while ago. As I recall, it didn't go down too well. I agree that yellow birds should not be in Category:Yellow. But images do need to have a decent description written of them, not just copyright info. Template:Information should be used more widely.

Another solution would be more comprehensive gallery pages, but since they don't update automatically and are all just done by hand, it's not a complete solution.

A related problem is that Google does not index the commons. Well, more or less. It is basically impossible to find any commons content in there - as you normally can by going keyword site:commons.wikimedia.org . Personally I find this rather unbelievable and appalling on Google's behalf. Does anyone else think we should, um, make them aware of this? pfctdayelise 13:26, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

This has been discussed before. Part of the problem is that descriptive info is in "foo.jpg", but Google has no way of knowing that we have text pages that just happen to be named identically to the nontextual image files that everybody in the world uses. Another problem is that Google ranks by references to the page, and most commons pages look like orphans or near-orphans, image references from WP articles being made "secretly" via the MediaWiki local/commons two-step lookup. On keywords, feel free to add them anywhere, they will help our own search algorithm. I'm not so inclined to be concerned about that, considering how many thousands of images still have not a single link or category. Stan Shebs 00:22, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Google does have a way to know that those pages are HTML, not binary files: it's in the http header field called "Content-Type". Google just ignores it (or does not even try to load such a page).

@Wikimol: I don't see a difference between categories and kewords - other than that categories can be categorized themselves forming a (multi-)hierarchy. As to creating intersections between categories... that would be a very nice feature to have. I have in fact written an external too that can do that for you: CatScan. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 02:01, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I see the diference. With categories, you rely on the hierarchical tree to create link of image to more general terms. (you don't include Cat:Pine Cat:Tree Cat:Plant to a picture). With keywords, you are explicit. Also, in practice categories are rarely used to include general properties such as important colour, type of shot (e.g. panorama), location.

Relying on category tree to find more general links is less useful than with keywords. For example category intersection "europe, mountain" including subcategories will list also mount Ararat. (because Ararat-Turkey-Europe link). --Wikimol 23:25, 17 January 2006 (UTC) thanks for the tool

@pfctdayelise hand-made galleries also have a good use, when you want to link it as a media complement of wikipedia article.

The google thing is realy fascinating, try to post it to wikitech-l --Wikimol 23:25, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

OK, I did that. It is awaiting approval (as I didn't join the mailing list, just posted that). pfctdayelise 04:01, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Internationalization of templates

I would like to propose a convention for internationalizing templates. As of now, we either have the template in english only (which is bad), or all languages in one template (which is also bad - see {{Nazi symbol}} as an example). Ideally, templates could be localized like system messages, so that people see them in the language they selected in their user preferences - but we don't have that feature, and i'm not too confident we'll get it soon.

To solve this problem, I would like to propose to handle template translations similar to the way we do translations for policy files, etc. I have implemented this for {{PD-Art}} as an example: I have put translations into Template:PD-Art/de and Template:PD-Art/fr, and links to those into Template:PD-Art. Note that the localized versions should not be used as templates - people should only see them when clicking the links in the (english) "main" template. The naming scheme i'm proposing would allow an easy transition to automatic localization, in case that would be possible in the same way as it is for system messages in the MediaWiki namespace.

So, what do you think? -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 15:45, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with your proposal, although I hazily recall that something like this has been proposed before — but not implemented. As for the links to other language versions, it would be logical if there were a separate template for that. While the drawbacks would be increased server load and creating a new "other langs" template for every license template (and related templates such as copyvio), it would make translations easier to maintain. I know there are plenty of template-phobic people, but I'm hoping the Commons is much less against solutions like this than good old Wikipedia. As for the server choosing the right language template to display from interface preferences, isn't this method of language code "subpages" used for the upload intro text? Can it be not implemented the same way? —UED77 17:45, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Hm, I don't think it would be a good idea to create an additional template for every license tag, etc, we have, just to include the languages. Because of the simple naming sheme, however, it would be possible to use one languages-template for all tags, etc - the only drawback would be having red links for translations that are not there yet. But I belive that would be an advantage, actually, because people tend to fill in red links.

Yes, the language-code-subpages scheme is used for the upload text, and (neraly) all other non-content text you see in a mediawiki (see Special:Allmessages). And I indeed hope the same will be implemented for templates - hence my proposal. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 22:51, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Apparently at the same time you were typing your reply, I created {{PD-Art/lang}}, but if you would like to have a general all-encompassing lang template (not for every single tag), then that can be changed. It's mainly for demonstrating how it would look. By the way, I've been trying since 22:55 UTC to send this, and it doesn't seem to work. —UED77 23:21, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Why not use a single article for all tranlations of a specific tag ? Use PD-Art Translations to display all translations available for this template. No need to create templates for every available language, sooner or later you'll see these translated teamplates uses for tagging images. --Denniss 01:22, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

While having a page for all the translations would help by not allowing people to tag images with lang-specific templates, it would make the transition from default (English) tags to localized (based on preferences) tags more cumbersome. I personally support localized templates, but there should be a vote on this. —UED77 02:26, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Do we have some indication that what we're doing is future compatible? Does anyone know what the developers have in store for the future? It will suck if we decide some great scheme,the devs have no idea, and then we have to redo everything. Also, is there in fact any difference between transcluding templates and pages? It seems to me that we may as well have everything in pages, and eschew templates, if there's no difference. pfctdayelise 02:39, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

It would be rather simple for developers to implememnt that French Wikipedia fetch a {{PD-Art/fr}}, Swedish Wikipedia fetch a {{PD-Art/sv}}, etc. It would also be simple to assume the language of the user, instead of having English the default language, because I think this is a parameter supplied by the browser (I'm not sure, but if Google can do it, we should be able too). Maybe someone should pressure them a little. / Fred Chess 17:50, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Sadly, this is not quote simple. Remember that for example, the database stores in an extra table which articles link to which - this includes links that result from including a template. If we have internationalized templates, the links from which template should the database contain? That's just one of many small problems involved in implementing this.

I really want that feature, and it is possible somehow, but it ain't easy, and I wouldn't hold my breath... -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 18:05, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I think we should have in mind that there is more and more people on commons that don't speak english. On wikipedia.fr we advise everybody to put their illustrations here, but they often don't understand english. That's why it is really important to have the licence information available quickly in local language. Duesentrieb's solution is good, because it gives users a fast access to their language. --Fabos 13:31, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Creator:Alexandre Benois

Forgive me if I'm bringing up something that's been discussed before, but as I was doing some cleanup I stumbled upon a number of articles named as if there was a "Creator" namespace. See Creator:Alexandre Benois, Creator:Albrecht Altdorfer, Creator:Józef Chelmonski, and many others in Category:Painters. Based on the text that shows up in the upper lefthand tab ("<nstab-creator>"), I'm assuming that this shouldn't happen. So should all of these be moved to the regular article namespace? --Spangineer^en es (háblame) 03:25, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

From the whatlinkshere, it looks like they are intended to be templates. So I propose that they are moved to the template namespace. pfctdayelise 03:28, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Nope, there is a Creator namespace. Check the discussion tab. If there were no such namespace, it would be Talk:Creator:FOO, instead of Creator_talk:FOO. To fix the tab display, I made MediaWiki:Nstab-creator; presumably that's either a new MediaWiki feature, or a bug. (Looks like a bug to me; MediaWiki should default to using the namespace name in the tab.) User:dbenbenn 11:13, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

How is the creator namespace different to template? Is creator only used on commons? pfctdayelise 03:49, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, the Creator namespace is unique to the Commons. Kind of like Portal on the English Wikipedia. I don't understand the point of these fake templates, though. For example, instead of putting information about Alexandre Benois on Image:Benois Annensky.jpg, Image:Alexandre Benois 004.jpg, and all other artworks by Benois, I think it should simply be on Category:Alexandre Benois. User:dbenbenn 09:19, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

After looking at Special:Allpages for creator namespace, I think this namespace was introduced when the Directmedia paintings were uploaded. See Commons:10,000 paintings from Directmedia. pfctdayelise 06:43, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Friendlier Main Page

One of the main criticisms of the Commons is that it's not user-friendly enough. A look at the Main Page partly reveals why that is. Does the average uploader care about when the Commons started? Probably not. Similarly, by telling people on the front page that "Additionally some files under a non-free license which are copyrighted by Wikimedia are hosted by the project", not only don't they care, but our quest for libre (free speech) content suddenly seems ironic, if not downright hypocritical. Only essential information needs to be included. Also, people don't typically like to read long paragraphs (such as this one =] ). It's much easier to find one's way in a bulleted list, or something of the like, when there's actually some breathing room among all the text. Therfore, I've created Main page/Draft2 (as there is already a Draft, with slightly different goals). Please, following these guidelines and your own best judgement, try to streamline the Main Page. Keep in mind that this proposal is intended to benefit casual users who don't really know their way around, and are unlikely to ever wander into the Village Pump. Please, make constructive improvements to that page as you make it fit, and use its talk page for discussion about the project. —UED77 04:20, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

If the Main Page were semi-protected, you could address your concerns directly. See #Semi-protection above. User:dbenbenn 21:27, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Proposal, labeling touched up pictures

I'd like to propose this template

Retouched Picture This is a retouched picture, which means that it has been digitally altered from its original version. Modifications: Recolored Empire State Building to match my shirt. The original can be found here: NYC_Top_of_the_Rock_Pano.jpg.

to label photoshopped pictures. This way the reader can make up his own mind. I'll have to code a switch into the template in case the original is not available (although I think it should always be made avaliable).

My general idea is list everything except touch ups by the photographer, which only try to compensate for technical deficiencies of the capturing aparatus (camera, scanner). These include whitebalance, contrast, saturation, sharpening, color curves (i.e. to lighten shadows). see template discussion for more details --Dschwen 12:09, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

The proposal was introduced on en.wikipedia.org, but the template should probably be used on commons instead. --Dschwen 12:09, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I like the idea -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 18:06, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I like the idea too. But the word "retouched" can make some confusion... is it a croped version a retouched version ? How about changing the color balance just slighly? For some people those changes are obviously a retouch, but for others a retouch means removing or adding something to the photo. In my opinion the template shoud be used in photos with any change made by anyone except the original author. --OsvaldoGago 19:52, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, good idea :-) thats what the initial draft on the template discussion page says. Sorry for the confusing split up! --Dschwen 20:29, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I dislike this idea. Check out Image:Pretzel.jpg. It has been touched up. Where is the original available? As with anything else on Wikimedia, it is available in the history. I see no reason to make the original available under a different title. That confuses the category system (do you put both versions in categories?), and separates the versions unnecessarily. Also, if someone else wants to improve on my touching up job, they can just do so in place. User:dbenbenn 21:24, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Images should generally be touched-up "in place", unless both are useful in different circumstances. The template is still useful for indicating that an image has been touched up from the original, and the history and/or image description should describe how it was touched up. In other words, this template doesn't need any arguments except when the images are uploaded separately. Deco 21:28, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Whoops, please don't dismiss the whole idea on this basis, I was about to code a switch in which only shows the original image link, when the argument is provided. Thats a tiny technical detail.--Dschwen 22:16, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

If original is in history, its great. The template would be most useful for images

• which were edited before uploading ("several contrails replaced with blue sky")
• which aren't edited in place

--Wikimol 22:57, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

The template now has an optional parameter orig to specify an unmodified image. When omitted the template looks just like below. --Dschwen 22:46, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Retouched Picture This is a retouched picture, which means that it has been digitally altered from its original version. Modifications: Recolored Empire State Building to match my shirt.

After reconsideration: small improvements on the image should be uploaded with the same name and therefore the original should be on the image history (just like a new edition in a text article - see the example: Image:Pretzel.jpg). The tag shoud be used for those circustances corresponding to a text article split - When the new image has a different meaning. For example the image Image:Eberswalde zoo 014mod.JPG is a modificated image of Image:Eberswalde zoo 014.jpg. The modified image has a different meaning than the original one. I still thing that the word "retouched" can be confusing for a significative number of users. I prefer "edited" or "changed". --OsvaldoGago 08:27, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

The modifications should be in the history, still few users check the commons history, when viewing an image from a wikipedia (like en). But they will see the tag. The Eberswalde pic is a good example, but I'd like to tag smaller modifications like removed contrails as well. --Dschwen 12:17, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I also prefer "edited" rather than "retouched". Edited is much clearer. pfctdayelise 01:31, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Aha! The reason for choosing retouched over edited was that some editing should not lead to tagging (see template talk page), whereas retouching (as a subset of all editing) always should. --Dschwen 11:14, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Frauenarded not possible

For some articles the option is no longer possible of frauenarded. I tryied to propose it, but an admin should correct and add a link. --84.73.68.129 18:26, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

WTF is "Frauenarded"?! -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 19:26, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I think the user means Frauenorden, which according to my Google translater, means "Woman medal". Therefore, this user means that one can no longer put a woman medal on it. WeTF that means... Bastique 01:34, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

A "Frauenorden" is an religious order of women, i.e. nuns ("Orden" means "order" in sens of an organisation, as well as "medal"). But I still don't get what "option" he's talking about. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 12:53, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Goggle suggests Frauenarzt for frauenarded. Thats an option, but for commons? -guety 02:12, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Proposal: Split VP to VP and HD (Help Desk)

I am concerned that due to the increased traffic on this page, policy and technical proposals are not receiving the audience they need because they are being 'lost' among all the other posts. So I propse we create Commons:Help desk and direct these enquiries there:

• questions about how to use the Commons
• copyright enquiries ("can I use this?", "is this image really PD?", "please look at this user's contribs")

Enquiries/comments that do not definitely belong to either page can be posted on either. Any developing discussion on HD that becomes a discussion of policy, or requires wider community feedback, should be referenced on VP so that people are aware of it.

Here is my breakdown of the current 97 topics on COM:VP:

• Help desk style enquiries, requests for (admin) attention, copyright enquiries: 123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345 (45)
• Policy or technical comments/proposals, announcements: 1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012 (52)

As you can see, it's pretty closely split. This is not exact because many items could be posted to either board. Even if we split the board, we will still get mistaken postings, but that's unavoidable.

I don't want to go crazy like en: and branch out into five boards, but I think this would help sort the wheat from the chaff. In the future it may be worth splitting off technical discussion as well.

While I did this short analysis, I noticed that many discussions are about bugs or technical problems. What do people think about Commons:Known bugs? Or maybe it would be better to just make Commons:FAQ more comprehensive. pfctdayelise 04:27, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

 Support — it would be quite nice to weed out the help questions from the proposed policies. As for the Commons:FAQ, I'll try to add to it in the coming weeks by scouring the archive for common questions. —UED77 05:08, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

 Support --Wikimol 09:12, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

 Support --EugeneZelenko 15:37, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

 Support --Bastique 19:19, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

 Support --Thryduulf 21:37, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

 Support -- WB 06:43, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

 Support Anna 00:48, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

 Support --Dschwen 17:48, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

 Support --Nicko 12:46, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

 Support --Lumijaguaari 06:01, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Bot policy

Also, it would also be nice if we had a Commons:Bot policy. This comes up frequently and would really assist transfer of images.

I could propose one suggestion to bot policy (based on expirience with User:FlickrLickr and User:Maksim): if bot can't categorize images well enough, then bot's owner should fix it manually. --EugeneZelenko 15:37, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I know I have proposed a lot of new pages this week, but I have been thinking about commons development with the end goal of only allowing fair use images to be uploaded to local wikimedia projects. That's where I see commons heading, and we will need the pages I've proposed in between now and then sooner or later - I am just trying not to introduce them before they're really needed. pfctdayelise 05:09, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Is this going to happen? We have unanonymous consent but no execution here, it appears. I could do it if the original poster has lost interest. Deco 08:44, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Believe it or not, it's only been two days. I have spent enough time on COM:FPC to know that two days of votes are not necessarily a good indicator for future votes. :P Nevertheless, Commons:Help desk now exists. If you like answering questions, please put it on your watchlist! pfctdayelise 10:18, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

sh: link on Template:Lang-mp (Glavna stranica - Главна страница)

Can someone put sh: link on this template? Just put Srpskohrvatski / Српскохрватски on the list of languages. Thank you. --Pokrajac 20:44, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

What does "sh" stand for? What is the name of the language (in that language)? Please fix the following line:

<span lang="sh">[[Glavna stranica - Главна страница]]</span> |

User:dbenbenn 05:49, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

SH is for Serbo-Croatian language. Srpskohrvatski/Српскохрватски is local name and interwiki name on Wikipedia for language on latin and cyrillic. Glavna stranica - Главна страница is name on two alphabets. Look Main Page on sh Wikipedia. --Pokrajac 18:58, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Willy on Wheels vandalism.

Can an admin please take some action against this vandal: Special:Contributions/WoW_on_WoW_on_WoW?

thanks Lycaon 20:51, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Help needed!

A user has, probably illegally, uploaded a .jpg file, that as far as I can tell is the property of the Naperville Community Unit School District #203, Naperville Illinois, and relinked it to a Wikipedia article - the same image had been on Wikipedia before, but deleted due to lack of attribution/permission. It's attributed, but I sincerely doubt permission from the district has been granted. On Wikipedia, I could just ask for a deletion or a speedy deletion, but I don't know what the process is here. Could someone let me know what to do either here, or on my talk page here, or my talk page (same user name) at Wikipedia? Thanks! --JohnDBuell 21:38, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I should have mentioned that the photo is Image:NapCentAerial.jpg.

Relevant tags are listed at COM:CSD. I tagged it {{Unknown}}, since I couldn't find a notice on the website that explicitly stated copyright either way. I agree it is unlikely though. Now the image can be deleted after a week. If you can find a statement to the effect that it's copyrighted, all rights reserved etc, you can retag it {{Fair use}} (which is actually a deletion tag, unlike en:), and it can be deleted on the spot. I'm not sure, maybe we should just tag it that right now... pfctdayelise 03:29, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the help! I'll have to try to remember this in the future. The homepage at www.naperville203.org states only that the website is "Copyright ©2005 Naperville Community Unit School District 203". There are no further legal statements; maybe I should go to a board meeting and tell them they should be more explicit? There's also nothing that says that any images on that website can be reused elsewhere, so I'm going to do as you suggest with tagging the photo. Thanks again! --JohnDBuell 22:04, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I think your site was explicit. I've run into users who have erroneously thought that school district websites counted as "works of the federal government", which is certainly not the case. Anyway, I have deleted it as a blatant copyright violation. --Fastfission 01:33, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

John, if you want to be especially explicit, I'd encourage you to consider a page on your copyright policy, explicitly stating that all rights are reserved and that your content cannot be reused for any purpose. Also consider adding explicit metadata to your images stating their copyright with a link to your policy, and possibly also consider a digital watermarking scheme. Deco 07:58, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

DISCLAIMER: I am not now and never have been an employee of Naperville Community Unit School District 203, nor do I have anything to do with their website (except I might be listed under their alumni pages). That said, I am still a resident of the district, which is why I suggested that maybe I could refer information to the District's School Board, or to the company currenty redeveloping the District's website. Thank you for the suggestions. --JohnDBuell 16:35, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Where are featured pictures?

Can someone direct me to featured pictures?--Dakota ~ 22:18, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Sure here --OsvaldoGago 22:50, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Images from sxc.hu ?

Hi. I've noticed that there are some sxc.hu photos in the Commons. Probably about 1354. However after browsing I started checking its license.

Quoting the sxc.hu license:

You may not use the Image:

• (...)
• SELLING AND REDISTRIBUTION OF THE IMAGE (INDIVIDUALLY OR ALONG WITH OTHER IMAGES) IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN! DO NOT SHARE THE IMAGE WITH OTHERS

Always ask permission from the photographer if you want to use the Image:

• In website templates that You intend to sell or distribute.
• For creating printed reproductions that You intend to sell.
• On "print on demand" items such as t-shirts, postcards, mouse pads, mugs (e.g. on sites like Cafepress), or on any similar mass produced item that would contain the Image in a dominant way.

End quote.

- Isn't this not compatible with the Commons image licencing policy ?

Many of those images (i.e. 1, 2,3) are tagged with:

The copyright holder of this image allows anyone to use it for any purpose, including unrestricted redistribution, commercial use, and modification. Note: If this is your own work, please consider using {{PD-self}} instead.

Probabily the licensing terms of those images has changed and they were under a free license at the time of upload to the Commons, but when did the change (If there was a change) of license took place ? --OsvaldoGago 23:52, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Commons:Stock.xchng images may be relevant... I just found that page by accident yesterday! pfctdayelise 01:26, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

There was a vote to here, thanks. --OsvaldoGago 06:37, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Ability to rate pictures

I know m:Article validation feature is going to be introduced into the wikipedias sometime. (As I understand it, it basically allows everyone to "rate" each version of an article. So then by viewing the edit history you'll be able to easily see which version has been considered the best.) I was wondering if any similar thing might happen at commons with images. If we had it, it would be useful if we also had some kind of category sort ability, so instead of "sort by file name" we could have "sort by rating", and high-rated images would rise to the top/front. Just an idea. pfctdayelise 13:41, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I'll go with Wikipedia is not about voting on this one. I'd rather have discussions to find a consensus, work on improving pictures than just a rating button. On the other hand that's not mutually exclusive. --Dschwen 13:56, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Bug report

I've trying to reupload "image:Östergötland coat of arms.png" but the uploading insists on renaming it into "image:Stergötland coat of arms.png" / Fred Chess 15:04, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I experience the same thing, with Firefox on Linux. It appears to be a server-side problem. File a report on bugzilla? User:dbenbenn 19:18, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Attempted same upload via Internet Explorer. It didn't change the name until after successful upload, then notified me it was saved to "Stergötland" rather than "Östergötland". Bas ^parler _voir 20:13, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

(I bet you checked the "Ignore any warnings" box at Special:Upload, didn't you? User:dbenbenn 23:15, 19 January 2006 (UTC))

No, actually, it told me it was going to upload it as Östergötland. Bas ^parler _voir 01:17, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Filed as bug #4679 / Fred Chess 01:04, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

→ bugzilla:04679#c1 regards Gangleri | T 01:37, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

It's a bug in PHP 5. I've worked around it now, your upload should now work as expected again. --Brion VIBBER 09:13, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Images by Text

Moved from Talk:Main Page.

I have spent quite a bit of time working on Category:Images by text please let me know if you oppose the idea of categorising images in this way before anyone invests any more time in it. Please also let me know if you think it is a good idea, or if you have any other comments/suggestions.

Thanks, John Cross 19:55, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

{Images by text}

In my opinion, this would result in far too many categories containing a single image. Very common pieces of text can have such categories. For the rest, I instead suggest a template to be used on their image description page which describes their textual content using text, in a format that enables easy searching. Deco 01:21, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it's a useful categorisation. I can't imagine someone who wants to find a sign saying "interstate" would go to Category:Text:Interstate, more likely they would go to Category:Road signs or Traffic sign. Sorry, but I don't think it's a good idea. pfctdayelise 01:31, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Generally, it's a bad idea to make a category that will never have more than 1 or 2 members, for example, Category:Text:Eu. I don't really see the point. User:dbenbenn 23:12, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Well this may not have been the response I had hoped for but I am still glad I asked. I am going to start the process of removing the categories which are unlikely to have more than one or two images. I will leave the others for the time being. John Cross 18:30, 24 January 2006 (UTC).

I have left categories such as Category:Text:Wikipedia and Category:Text:I and cleared all the others. I still need someone to delete:

• • category:text:En
• category:text:Eu
• category:text:Interstate
• category:Text:Ar== Wikimedia copyrighted images ==

I've noticed some images like Image:150px-Wikisource vignette.png tagged as copyright with all rights reserved by Wikimedia Foundation. Surely this license is not allowed on Commons, considering it doesn't allow any sort of reuse? Does {{CopyrightByWikimedia}} need to be deleted? Deco 08:33, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

This was discussed in some detail at Commons:Village_pump_archive-16#The_logos_of_the_WIKIMEDIA_are_not_straight_GFDL._But_what_to_do_about_that and Commons:Alter Wikimedia Commons policy to allow Wikimedia logos. pfctdayelise 09:28, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Requested move (Category:Menhir ? Category:Menhirs)

Apologies in advance if I've missed where this should be posted, but I'd like to request the above move so this category's name follows the "use plurals as norm" pattern for category names. (Cf the other subcategories in Category:Stones). Thanks.
David Kernow 02:16, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
PS A nod to where I should post any future requests would be much appreciated!

m:Help:Moving a page says that categories can't be simply 'moved' like articles, and To change the name of a category, one needs to change all category tags, and copy the editable part. So actually, you can do that, and when the old category is empty, it can be speedy-deleted (tag it like this: {{db|redundant to [[:Category:Menhirs]]}}). Requests like this can be posted here, or also at the Commons:Help desk. pfctdayelise 03:24, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Yikes. Looks like I'll have to roll up my metaphorical sleeves. Thanks for your prompt advice!  Best wishes, David Kernow 04:06, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Keeping metadata when uploading new versions??

So I uploaded original versions of my pics first, to get the metadata displayed. Ok, but when I next edit the images and "upload new version", the metadata simply disappears?? Is there a way around this?

JH-man 18:03, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Kind of:

• use an editor that preserves metadate
• use a tool to copy the metadata from the old to the new file, before uploading (jhead can do that for jpeg files).
• download the original version and use some tool to show you the metadata (like jhead - or something with a GUI, if you prefer).

Metadata of old image versions is not maintained in the database, and ther's also no place in the web-ui to show it. If you really want it, you can file a request on BugZilla. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 19:33, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

PD-art after 50 years

I strongly oppose the upload of images like Image:Mondrian CompRYB.jpg, since I don't see a way how any project outside the US can use these images legally. Most other country have a period of 70 years after the death of the author, and this painter isn't even an American. What is the policy? --AndreasPraefcke 23:09, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Our policy for PD works can be found at Commons:Licensing: A work is generally considered to be in the public domain after the creator of the work has been dead for more than 70 - or in the US, 95 - years. Thus the answer is easy delete --Historiograf 14:20, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I created the template, which is a copy of the one on Wikipedia, for images that are PD in countries where copyright law is fifty years instead of 70 (such as Australia). But if the official policy is that anything younger than seventy years can't be hosted on Commons i'll understand that. Husky 20:31, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

(a bit late, but) Australia changed to 70 years in 2005. Thus, anything pre-1955 is public domain. pfctdayelise 12:03, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

That's right, so Piet Mondrian's paintings (for who i created the template) fall into the PD in Australia. Husky 00:03, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

An interesting question is where Mondrian painted this image. This determines the "country of origin" law to apply. Then we might discuss the implications of the Berne convention. David.Monniaux

Mondrian mainly painted in the Netherlands (mostly figurative), Paris (most of his well-known works), London (only a few paintings) and New York (his famous last works, such as Victory Boogie-Woogie. Husky 15:59, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Then his works are still copyrighted in the EU and in the US, at least, as far as I understand the Berne Convention and other applicable international law. David.Monniaux 08:36, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I do not mean to disagree with the opinion that art works passing only 50 years after the author's death should be deleted, but Japanese copyright, for one, gives the life+50 years of protection.

Also, as David.Monniaux points out, place of first "publication" is the primary factor determining the "country of origin" as defined in the Berne Convention, is not the same as creating a work and making it public. Showing a painting in a exhibition does not constitute publication. So a work could be created in New York and first exhibited in the Hague, and the work's country of origin could be France.

You can read the Convention's article clarifying on this at here.

Tomos 17:01, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

How does the GNUFDL apply to photos?

Hi, I've found a photo I would like to edit and use as the background for a website that I wish to make. The photo however is covered by the GNU Free Documentation License and I'm wondering. How exactly does that apply to a picture or photo? As the license was originally designed for text and documentation. Can I make modifications to this image and use it a background for a website? --Nidonocu 22:05, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Nobody really knows exactly. GNU FDL is unsuitable for photos. IMO you can certainly make modifications, the tricky part is how to convey copyright information along with the derivative work (your new image, used in background). I would suggest you copy the original copyright and your new copyright into JPEG header description filed of your new image, and make a link to some copyright page from the pages where the background is used. Probably if you will show even a minimal effort the original author won't object. --Wikimol 22:27, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I plan to use PNG as my major image format, however that can store some copy protection data. I'll do my best to include as much as possible and link back to the original image on the site credits. Thanks for your help. --Nidonocu 22:55, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Don't worry. Simply take the image modify it and make at the bottom (where contact, changedate, copyright and such is) a small text line saying something like (in the language of your website) "Foobar image is licensed under GFDL (local link to GFDL text) and created by author1, author2... and was taken from link-to-image-page-at-wikimedia-commons". Don't worry about wired interpretations and formulations of the GFDL. Arnomane 20:56, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Linking CC license images back to Commons

Okay, there are three ways on how we can use CC license images without any trouble.

1. Just check User:Datrio/Template:Cc-by-2.5. This uses a template from the English Wikipedia (originally from nl, I think) and should work in every browser without problems.
2. Contact Creative Commons. I think this has been said already, so I'll skip this point.
3. Contact the developers to enable the <html> tag in the MediaWiki: namespace, and link to the templates through that. So for example, we'd create MediaWiki:Cc-by-2.5, which would be a substitute for Template:Cc-by-2.5. If <html> would work, the code would be something like that:

<html>[http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/
 <img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Somerights20.png" 
title="Creative Commons" />]</html>

So? Datrio 07:58, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Huh? What are you getting at? We already have Template:Cc-by-2.5. User:dbenbenn 23:40, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Datrio is talking about the fact that the CC images are apparently not licensed under suitable CC licenses, and thus are not 'free'. Ze is proposing ways we could link directly to the CC website (the first one is by using template:click) for the images, instead of to their info description pages. But I don't think this is a complete solution because we just can't host images that are not free. I think a discussion has been going on about it but I don't know where. pfctdayelise 03:17, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Uh, maybe it's me, but I completely fail to see what you are talking about. Why do you belive the images are not licensed properly? Why would we want to link directly to CC, bypassing information about authorship, etc? I don't get it. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 10:33, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

The Creative Commons policies page indicates that "Except where noted otherwise below in our Trademark Policy, all content on this site is licensed under [cc-by-2.0]. ... Creative Commons licenses the use of its trademarked corporate logo ... on the condition that the trademark licensee use the mark to point to the Creative Commons homepage, http://creativecommons.org, and only to the Creative Commons homepage. Creative Commons retains full, unfettered, and sole discretion to revoke this trademark license for any reason whatsoever or for no specified reason." That sounds like a non-free license to me. User:dbenbenn 20:34, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

BTW, regarding the possibility of using non-official Creative Commons icons (the coloured ones), I note CC's website says [7]:

Q. Can I change the Creative Commons logos so that they look better on my site or with my work?

A. Please don’t change our logo so that it works better with the look of your site or work. Our “Some Rights Reserved” and “No Rights Reserved” buttons need to be used consistently because they are our trademark and a core part of our licensing system. So... this is a problem. Maybe we have to do away with pictures all together and just but "Creative Commons" in a large font? pfctdayelise 02:41, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

No, Image:CC SomeRightsReserved.png is not a modification of a Creative Commons logo. The Creative Commons has absolutely nothing to do with that image. The fact that we now use that image on a template where we used to use the Creative Commons buttons is irrelevant. User:dbenbenn 00:05, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Wow...what a big can of worms. But we are using the CC images specifically as intended in accordance with thier requirements. In fact, they want us to use their images for items licensed. Consider the fact that the use of CC's images as intended will subject the Foundation to realistically no liability. Bas ^parler _voir 03:57, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, we are. But they're available here on the commons, to anyone to use for any purpose. Perhaps this is copyright paranoia... pfctdayelise 23:03, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, there would be no problem with us using the Creative Commons logos in our Creative Commons license templates. The problem is that we can't host the logos here on the Commons, because they are not free. A technical workaround wherein we displayed the logos in the license tags, but the logos were actually located somewhere other than the Commons, would be fine. User:dbenbenn 00:05, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I agree completely. I doubt CC is going to be too happy if we start hotlinking their logos to thousands of image pages, though. So, what then? A private wikimedia server? (the unCommons?) Actually, we could also move the Wikimedia logos there, if we did that. pfctdayelise 00:13, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Given that we already host several images that are copyrighted by the Wikimedia Foundation, I can see no reason why we couldn't upload the CC logos as well. Sure, the primary purpose of the Commons is to host free images. However, for convenience, we've breached that rule a few times, and so far, it has not crumbled on us, has it? Looking up, but ignoring the cracks that start to appear at the ceiling, I think we should contact CC and ask for authorization to upload the logos to the Commons to save them some massive bandwidth. I strongly doubt they would object. Then we should add prominent "Copyright of Creative Commons" notices based on the "Copyright by Wikimedia" template and protect the images to prevent tampering. Now, I'm not recommending we allow non-free content on a regular basis; however, occasional exceptions, provided they are preceded by thorough discussion, should be granted. —UED77 14:45, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Note that we don't need the Creative Commons' "authorization" to upload their logos here. We could host them here under fair use, for using them in the copyright templates. The only reason we can't do that is our own policy against non-free images. I oppose any proposal to add more non-free images here. Especially since in this case we have perfectly free alternative images. User:dbenbenn 17:19, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Worrying trend: fake authorizations

I lately found a number of pictures (both on en: and commons) for which the uploader claimed to have obtained authorization from the photographers, but which the photographers denied to have licensed when I emailed them.

This means that some people upload copyrighted photos, see them deleted, then start again, putting in "fake" authorizations.

Similarly, a number of people claim "self" photographs that are clearly taken from web sites (including, occasionally, photos with CNN or other copyright tags).

Finally, an image tagged "CNN Common License" was found. I contacted CNN, and they do not grant any such license.

We have to find solutions to make it more difficult for uploaders to lie through their teeth... David.Monniaux 09:07, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

We generally require written copies of granted permissions, especially from "Red" users or if suspicious. This may not be critical for trusted members, but usually they know to provide proof in any case.

Users with a history of uploading copyvios won't last long. If they do it repeatedly they may be blocked. / Fred Chess 11:30, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I've taken up the practice of blocking indefinitely those who are either obvious liars, either totally negligent in what they're doing, asking them to provide explanations (talk page or email to me), so that they can be eventually unblocked if needed. David.Monniaux 12:31, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Watch out for web proxies and dynamic IPs. I'd limit blocks of an IP not known to be static to at most a week. Deco 23:14, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Exactly. I connect myself via a dynamic IP, as it becomes more expensive to acquire a static IP with BellSouth (a southern United States ISP for those that might not know.) Therefore I would hate to not be able to log in because some other BellSouth user was being a simpleton. Bas ^parler _voir 03:50, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Contact page

We should have an easy-to-reach contact page. By "easy to reach" I mean that somebody following an image link from one of the other projects should be able to find where to click almost instantly in order to find this "contact page". Presumably, we should have one contact page per language.

These contact pages would give the address to the OTRS info address for the given language.

Basically, people have to be able to see quickly who they should contact about copyright violations, breaches of privacy, libel etc. It's not only a matter of courtesy, but also a matter of legal safety: in some countries (France but I think also the USA), Internet hosting services are immune from lawsuits about copyright, libel, breach of privacy etc. only if they provide an easy to find means of redress. And the first step to that goal is to have contact addresses that people can find easily.

I'm also asking developers if perhaps the interface could be localized according to the navigator's preferences. Otherwise I suggest putting at the top of each image page a list of links to the appropriate complaint pages.

Comments? David.Monniaux 09:42, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

It would be cool if we had a "flag as possible copyvio" option, although I don't think that's what you're suggesting. (What is OTRS?)

Every commons page has a link to the Village pump in the left-hand nav bar, right? But it's not at all obvious that's what you would do. pfctdayelise 10:28, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

The link to the "Village pump" is in English. And even for an English speaker, it is not evident that "Village pump" means "place where people can have a chat". We should use plain language ("Contact") when we deal with such legal matters.

OTRS is the email tracking system used by the info-XX addresses, among others. David.Monniaux 10:45, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps adding a commons:legal queries page to to deal with this type of issue. Adding a link to it from the sidebar between Village pump and recent changes looks like it will just be a case of modifying MediaWiki:Sidebar, which any sysop can do. Thryduulf 12:34, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I suggest we link to the existing Commons:Copyright violations, as well as add a section to that page, "List suspected copyright violations here". That's pretty straightforward, isn't it? Although in the toolbox, it's still not very visible, but at least it is on every page. pfctdayelise 22:23, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think this could work. 1) This page is in English. 2) People need to know how to edit the wiki. I think we really need a contact page. David.Monniaux 22:07, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Hm. I can only speak for my limited experience on german websites: Every German website (or a website mainly targeted at Germans, saying in practice: A website written in German) needs to have a fully responsible natural or juristical persons with full postal adress. An email adress is not required but strongly recommened because it is the natural mail messaging system of the internet. In the US you need as far as I know a so called "designated agent" for websites. So in the usual bottom line of MediaWiki (where the license link and such is) there is in de.wikipedia a link to de:Wikipedia:Impressum. en.wikipedia has a different one that does not contain such information see en:Wikipedia:Contact_us, but some helpful contact navigation. Wikimedia Commons however has instead Commons:General_disclaimer which is not that helpful. So I would suggest an mixture out of the de.wikipedia "Impressum" and the en.wikipedia "Contact us" for Wikimedia Commons. That way we have a contact on every page with existing software. The page Commons:General_disclaimer can be edited by admins (and the appereance where exactly at the foot note it apperars can be edited via the admin only editable MediaWiki namespace) and can also be localised to local languages. However I would suggest that we first make a proposal and then informally agree. The negative side effect is that the contact information is at the bottom but we cannot write everything on top and every web page has the contact information either in the left navigation bar or a the the bottom, so this should be no problem. And of course we could also move this contact page in on of the left navigations bar (eg the "support" box) via a change in MediaWiki namespace, as you can rearange the interface via this namespace in large parts without the need of a developer). Arnomane 20:44, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I think we should have a "Contact" in the left navigation bar. With respect to French law, it would be much much better (and I based this on my understanding of the LCEN law, but also on that of the Foundation's legal officer) if we had an easy to reach e-mail contact (info-fr AT wikimedia DOT org). So I suggest we put a kind of multilingual contact page (as with the main page or village pump) with clear information on how to reach us. I'll put one sample up when I have time. David.Monniaux 23:12, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Done! Added 'contact' in sidebar. I don't know how to localize the label though. David.Monniaux 21:00, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

just create MediaWiki:Contact/de, MediaWiki:Contact/fr, etc... at least, that's what I think. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 22:06, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Hm strange. I have created MediaWiki:Contact/de and MediaWiki:Contact/fr in order to translate the string displayed in the "support box" and this works fine with German and French interface language. However the link target of that string gets controlled by MediaWiki:Contact-url but MediaWiki:Contact-url/fr has no effect and it still links to the enlish page. Did I do something wrong? Arnomane 23:03, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

France: No Right to the Image of One's Own Property (... but right of image of the creation of the architects)

M. Monniaux, homme de lettre who cannot read German, will as I hope able to read in English the interesting article of Christophe Geiger, The Right to the Image of One's Own Property on the Run: Has the Brake Finally Been Pulled on the Privatisation of the Public Domain, in: IIC. International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law 2005/6, pp. 706-712. The author comments a very important decision by the French Supreme Court (Cour de cassation) in plenary session on 7 May 2004, "in which the supreme judges reversed recent judicial practice which had granted the propietor the right to prevent the use of the image of his property" (p. 707). Arrêt n° 516 du 7 mai 2004 See also [8] --134.130.68.65 --Historiograf 02:29, 21 January 2006 (UTC) 02:20, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like great tidings to me. Now we don't have to worry about cropping houses out of the picture when we don't have the homeowner's permission. Deco 06:58, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Here here! A victory for common sense in a copyright case -- a rare treat. Raul654 08:10, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Our main issue is not the right of the homeowners, but the rights of the architects or designers. As I explained, the problem is that courts have traditionally ruled that a photo of a work of art was a derivative of this work of art; the Terreaux 2005 ruling, however, found that this did not apply when the work of art was a mere part of a bigger scene.

Thus, this 2004 ruling does not help us much for dealing with people who claim their architectural work is a work of art, such as the case of the Pyramid in the Louvre.

This situation, as you can guess, is annoying for French photographers. During the discussion of the DADVSI copyright reform project in the French National Assembly, some amendments adding freedom of representation of works exposed in a public places (amendments number 11, 157, 216, 248). Unfortunately, these amendments were rejected (and I doubt there's enough lobbying behind them for them to be efficiently carried in the Senate, given that all the attention goes to the global license and the DRM issues).

And, Raul, don't rejoice: as you can see, common sense hasn't won.

(By the way, Historiograph, the phrase you were probably looking for is homme de loi, but I'm neither a homme de lettre nor a homme de loi...) David.Monniaux 18:11, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Historiograf, the next time I see you taunting people like this, I block you for one week. I am not kidding, and I am sick of your viscious personal attacks on other contributors, and your assumptions that they back the laws of which they are the first victims. Rama 21:16, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

I cannot see that "homme de lettre" or mentioning the fact that M. Monniaux is unable to read German is an injury or against our rules. --Historiograf 22:58, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Of course it isn't. You just happened to use a French expression out of respect for David, and it happened to sound extremely sarcastic. By pure chance. 85.218.26.132 08:46, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

There is nothing new here - the situation after the 2004 ruling is not a piece of info in 2006. As perfectly stated by David, the current main and only issue regarding the French right of author is connected to the work of the architects, which is protected. villy ?? 12:32, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually, he has a point: I should have stated in Commons:Licensing#France that being owners of buildings etc. don't have exclusive rights to the image of that building etc. David.Monniaux 14:27, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I did NOT write on the copyright problem thus it is extremly UNFAIR to argue there is nothing new. --Historiograf 23:00, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, right. I suggest you give lessons on French law to Villy, since you seem to be more competent than him in saying what is new and what isn't in jurisprudence. David.Monniaux 03:56, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Suspicious image tag?

I frequently find myself suspicious of images with free licenses that come from un-trusted users and which appear to be professional photos (like this one). I don't want to label them copyvio automatically, but I would like an admin with more experience with licenses or that particular user to review the case. However, I don't find a template like {{suspect|reason}} that is merely a flag for suspect images. I imagine it would say something like:

This image has a suspicious license or was uploaded by a user with a history of abuse of free licenses. It is under review and may be subject to deletion.

Or perhaps there is a category I can add that gets reviewed? --Tysto 18:29, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion a tag or a category is not the best way of dealing with a suspicious image. If you are sure that an image is a Copyvio you should label it with copyvio. We dont label someting as supicious, its not ethical. However it could be usefull to create a page somewhere in the commons to point to pages that need to be checked. For example Commons:Need to be checked. Question: How can they be checked ? --OsvaldoGago 19:02, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

I think it is appropriate to put stuff like that on COM:DEL. If it is at risk of being deleted, if the uploader knows it is genuinely free, they should come to its defence pretty quickly. Lots of things on Deletion requests get debated - it's not an automatic deletion. pfctdayelise 22:04, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

The uploader actually did put up a source URL for the image which is the ROC tourist info site... And the English version of it was the licence terms (which the user actually put under the {{Pd}} template, but not in English). Anyway I've now tagged the image as {{Noncommercial}}. Thanks/wangi 18:21, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

• Please note that the poster of the original image I used as my example has uploaded a personal photo over the example and altered the license. However, this merely underscores my original desire: I would like a way to flag images with suspicious licenses. The delete tag and unknown tag aren't really appropriate. --Tysto 23:10, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

ALLOW COPYRIGHTED IMAGES!!

I understand that commons is for wikipedia, etc. commons is not only for FREE IMAGES!!

To make a wikipedia, user quote some IMAGES. and, according to Berne Convention, EVRY PEOPLE(include wiki users) quote ANY IMAGES lawfully. OF COURSE COPYRIGHTED IMAGES!!!

To make wikipedia, user need many quotation. include thesis, newsreport, AND ANY IMAGES!!

It is no relation with GDFL.

Wikipedia articls which is included COPYRIGHTED IMAGE QUOTATION have no problem to publish as GDFL. It is NEVER copyright infringement.

ALLOW ALL IMAGES!! (of course, only for Quotations)

Berne Convention, 160 countries joined now.

Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works

Article 10

Certain Free Uses of Works:

1. Quotations; 2. Illustrations for teaching; 3. Indication of source and author

(1) It shall be permissible to make quotations from a work which has already been lawfully made available to the public, provided that their making is compatible with fair practice, and their extent does not exceed that justified by the purpose, including quotations from newspaper articles and periodicals in the form of press summaries.

(2) It shall be a matter for legislation in the countries of the Union, and for special agreements existing or to be concluded between them, to permit the utilization, to the extent justified by the purpose, of literary or artistic works by way of illustration in publications, broadcasts or sound or visual recordings for teaching, provided such utilization is compatible with fair practice.

(3) Where use is made of works in accordance with the preceding paragraphs of this Article, mention shall be made of the source, and of the name of the author if it appears thereon.

-- WonYong (talk) 11:13, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

What's your problem? It's Commons policy to allow only fully free images without any restrictions - it has to serve all wikis and does not need luristical problems. If you need copyrighted images try it at the en wiki with fair use. --Denniss 12:48, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Dear WonYong, what you are alluding to is the Berne Convention allowing certain legal exceptions from copyright. These differ significantly between countries; for instance, in France, there is no "right of quotation" on images, but extension rights for parody; conversely, in the US, there is a notion of "fair use" on images (but, I think, weaker rights of reuse for parody). David.Monniaux 13:28, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) This has been discussed in length over an over again. Here are few few key points:

• The Commons is a media database, not an encyclopedia - it cannot claim "fair use" or "image citation", because there is no informational context.
  • The Commons is a media database, not an encyclopedia...but, commons is not flickr.com. The Commons is a media database for multi-language encyclopedias. -- WonYong (talk) 04:17, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
    • You are wrong. Please read Commons:About and all linked pages. --Avatar 09:01, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
• The rules for "fair use" and "image citation" varry much among different jurisdictions. It's very hard to tell what images would be legal to use where, and in what way. Also, an image that would be legal if shown in one article may be illegal in annother.
  • It's very hard to tell?? you don't know citation? you understand that some country prohibit citation? Citation is free even in north korea also. -- WonYong (talk) 04:17, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
• We do allow copyrighted images - in fact, all images under a free license are also copyrighted, otherwise the license would be void. But we require images to be usable without restriction.
  • We don't allow any copyrighted images. you think that there are many GFDL, CCL images?? thoes are few. -- WonYong (talk) 04:21, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
• WikiMedia is about free content - this is a self-imposed limitation, which is the very basis of these projects, and one of the basic rules defined by the founders. Otherwise, we would be just another website offering hosting / blogging. Collaborative work and (commercial and non-commercial) re-use would be impossible.

• @Denniss: afaik, fair use is deprecated on the english wikipedia.

I hope this clarifies the matter a bit. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 13:31, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Fair use is not deprecated on English Wikipedia, but the restrictions are getting tighter (not before time, many say). Physchim62 18:13, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

• • Do you see Non-US Wikipedias? there are only text!! Fair use is deprecated on Non-English Wikipedia -- WonYong (talk) 04:17, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Here is a useful thought experiment - anybody is allowed to thumb through all the images in commons, pick some nice ones, print them up into a nice coffee-table picture book, and sell it for a high price in bookstores. If that would be a problem for an image's copyright holder, that image shouldn't be on commons. Stan Shebs 18:45, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

• • print them up into a nice coffee-table picture book? It is also wiki project? I understand that main wiki project is to make a "multi-language" "wiki" "encyclopedia"...and, for non-us wikipedia, founder make commons...I see. printing photos is not main project. Flicker also provide free image BBS. -- WonYong (talk) 04:17, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes. I imagine my images being used on billboards by tobacco companies before I upload them. :) pfctdayelise 00:10, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

The original poster's claim is a complete misunderstanding of fair use and/or the Berne convention, which both apply only in extremely limited circumstances. Because we want our images to be used in any context at all without limitations, and because we don't want to fight any legal battles over whether something is really fair use or not (a very difficult decision even for a judge), it just makes sense to sidestep this issue. It's not like we don't have enough images as it is. Deco 18:52, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Pleasem, Monitor non-US wikipedias

you don'know other languages? it is not problem. some articles use "fair-use images", click other language version.

I ungerstand that US "fair-use" means "fair-quotation". US have no problem to quote a any images. but only US. non-US wikipedias have a serious problem to make a encyclopedia. what? they can't qoute images. free image? what free image? only US federal government's works is public domain. most government have image copyright. etc...

And..."only wikipedia" need "free image" for quotation(not include only US wikipedia). Do you hear that some country(such as north korea) prohibit quotation? restrict quotation? need "free license"? "All PEOPLE" can quote "ANY" copyrighted works.

You like "Free license"? wikipedia can quote any copyrithed text works. It must be prohibited. Users must be able to quote "only Free License" Thesis, News articles, books, etc. All Copyrighted text quotations must to be deleted.. :) This is so stupid thinking, right? It is not relation to wikiproject's GDFL. Quotation is a "human right". Don't restrict quotation rights!! To restrict quotation is very stupid policy. "ALL" countriy allow "free quotation". even non-Bern convention countries...is it wrong?

and so...If all language wikipedia allow "ANY IMAGES TO QUOTE", to avoid dupicate image upload to each language wikipedias, Commons must allow "ANY" iamges "TO QUOTE". Printing free is important? USE FREE IMAGE CATEGORIES!! there is no problem. -- WonYong (talk) 04:53, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Quoting text and using images are not analogous. Even in text, you are not allowed to quote unlimited amounts of text, especially if not using them in a critical or informational context, and you're almost never allowed to quote entire works. People have attempted to do this, arguing fair use or their own country's equivalent of fair use, and lost in court. With an image, you almost always use the entire work - it's all or nothing.

While you might wish that unlimited quoting were a "human right", the fact is that people have paid enormous fines and even gone to jail for this type of activity. Need I remind you of what happened to lyrics.ch? And that was in Switzerland, not the U.S.

For your other point, it is true that most images are copyrighted, but as long as the copyright owner makes an irrevocable legal statement explicitly allowing others to use it, we can do so legally without any risk. Really, just give it a rest. Deco 05:11, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

you don't know quote? you confuse...unlimited lawfully quoting and unlimited (legally and illegally) use...illegall quote is not quote. it is only illegall use. quotation muse meet some facts. purpose, quantity, need, relation, etc...

Entire work? you mean 1000pages text as entire work? any country don't allow it.

but, korean copyright agecy say that iamge, short poet, etc can quote entire. especially, image is entire...because of WORK'S NATURE! I think you don't know quotation. hmmm...in US, quoation means only "text" works? In Korea, quotation means "ALL WORKS" of course incluse image. Bern convention describe "WOKR" not "TEXT WORK."

(1) It shall be permissible to make quotations from a work which has already been lawfully made available to the public, provided that their making is compatible with fair practice, and their extent does not exceed that justified by the purpose, including quotations from newspaper articles and periodicals in the form of press summaries.

My english is poor, some expression, understand me..we, korean say...KONGLISH :) -- WonYong (talk) 05:47, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Dear WonYong, I'm sorry but I cannot make head or tail of this.

• Our copyright policy, especially regarding "fair use" photos, is based on competent legal advice. The various "fair use" or equivalent policies across the globe are inconsistent. There exist, for instance, significant difference between "fair use" in the US and the "right of quotation" in France.
• In any case, these legal provisions are contextual: i.e. the authorization to copy depends on the context in which the copy is used. These conditions are not fulfilled on commons at least with respect to US law. David.Monniaux 19:09, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I must agree to David.Monniaux too. Appart from the difference between "fair use" and "right of quotation" there are further restrictions regarding quotation:

• Quotation has to be in spare manner, so you cannot write an article and let's say quote 5 images within it...
• Quotation has to be in the context of the text (be it another text or a quoted image). The text itself has to go into details of the quoted content. So if you separate the text and the image you do not quote it and thus you are committing a copyright violation. And thus if you are uploading an image as quote in Wikimedia commons but use it somewhere else (let's say some Wikipedia) you do not quote.
• Conclusion: Even if we would like to have "quoted images" we are legally not allowed to do it in Wikimedia Commons.
• Apart from that you may want to have a deeper look at Wikimedia Commons. There are much more free images than only images from US-governmental sites and of course the second largest Wikipedia, de.wikipedia does only allow free content, maybe have a look at: http://de.wikipedia.org and decide for yourself if it is a good encyclopedia or not?
• You can easliy create free images by youself. Take a digital camera and make photos of local sights and important local public events and upload them in Wikimedia Commons under a free license. See Commons:Licensing. It is simple as that. We do not need to appoint us to the human rights for everything. Arnomane 20:18, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi. I'm not a professional lawyer, law student, or a legal scholar. But please allow me to make a comment on this.

According to one Japanese copyright case, images of a copyrighted work, say a painting, is not something you can unconditionally quote in your work.

So uploading images freely to Commons is not something safe, I would say.

There was a book series on art history which contained images of paintings one of the painter's family members brought lawsuit for the unathorized use of a painting. Among the points of dispute was if the use of the image of the paining in the book was legal. The court determined that painting could legally be quoted in a book, but in this particular case, the quoting did not fulfill the conditions necessary to make such quoting.

Court cited two reasons among other things:

• The image was not very relevant to the critiques and explanations in the book.
• The image had the quality as to allow readers to enjoy the reproduced painting

independently of the book's text.

Given this ruling, it seems that it is safer to limit the image use only to copyright-free & licensed ones, because wikimedia projects' systems allow users to independently enjoy the images in most cases, and images could remain uncited in articles as opposed to highly relevant.

The full text of the court's opinion is available here.

Tomos 01:58, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

WonYong, you base your opinion on you statement ""ALL" countriy allow "free quotation"". However, not all countries allow free quotation. It is good for you that North Korea does, but for example, the Netherlands do not. In the Netherlands, free quotation is only allowed in very restricted cases. Most likely Wikipedia is not considered one of these very restricted cases. For some articles on the Dutch Wikipedia maybe a exception could be made, if that article can be seen as a scientific thesis (which is one of the restricted cases where free quotation is allowed). So please, do not place images on Commons that we cannot use, while suggesting that we can. (see also [9]) Fruggo 10:28, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

cc by nd

I wonder if much of the present problems with images being edited into trash could be avoided if the cc-by-nd was allowed. This would really only be a notice to everyone that "you can't legally edit this image", yet it would be free to use. The only ones being seriously limited by this would be those pesky wikipedians which edits paintings into stupidity and have weird ideas about well-known photos.

When you see Ansel Adams image of the the woman from Mexico, the one where she looks out of the image, cropped to get "correct balance"... When "Madonna" gets a color brushup.. When old maps gets twisted and sheared to get them to match with present days maps.. When flags gets "color corrections" and become "transformed" to fit into some weird users mind. I believe it is time to discuss how this kind of vandalism can be stopped.

Flag can't be cc-by-nd so some other license has to be made.

— John Erling Blad (jeb) 17:28, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Do you have an example of any image being "edited into trash"? Note that, as with an article on Wikipedia, you can always revert a change or upload your own improvements. I oppose allowing ND licenses here, by the way. User:dbenbenn 18:15, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think discussing specific users edits will be a good idea, but yes, I have examples. — John Erling Blad (jeb) 18:20, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Generally, most users can be discussed with. Maybe they can be convinced not to overwrite an old version of a picture with a cropped or otherwise heavily manipulated version, but upload it under a new name. What I'm wondering about is how pictures by Ansel Adams can be US-PD. --Fb78 18:47, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

What then happens is that the original is tagged {{redundant}} and thrown out... Noorse 21:45, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Example? The original image should always be kept, so that any modifications can be improved upon. User:dbenbenn 19:52, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Your memory does not stretch far back, does it? Remember the edit-war around one of my photographs last year? The only evidence of what happened there, including the {{redundant}}-tag being moved hence and forth, is today at a talk page. But, what's the use - I've seen the denial towards what John Erling Blad says regarding his pictures. Who are we, only users, to say that the moderators here falsifies the history of the images. Nobody, apparently. Noorse 12:07, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Ah yes, Image:Dumper Truck.JPG. It's true, GerardM deleted your photo, and re-uploaded it. If you aren't happy with his name in the "File history" section, you can simply upload the photo again and request deletion of the old revision. User:dbenbenn 22:08, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Why are you twisting this into a "who dunnit"? I'm talking about what happened, and what has happened later to others (actions). I talk about an editwar concerning redundant-tags, you talk about the correct image being uploaded again - now. At least get your facts straigth when you play that game, and while you're at it - go play it somewhere else. What would be useful was to discuss case, and not persons. Noorse 23:22, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I also strongly oppose allowing ND licenses. You're right that obviously contributors should not be altering the nature of a work without uploading the result under a different name and making it clear that it's a derivative altered from the original. If there is not a policy to this effect, there should be.

On the other hand, many images are retouched to eliminate borders, rotate when they're unintentionally tilted, change image format, or eliminate artifacts introduced by the scanner or camera used to take the image. These are legitimate cleanups that are not altering the nature of the work, but rather seeking to bring out the original nature free of distraction from errors in capturing it. Deco 20:56, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

No need to have a different treatment then text. If something doesn't improve the article, in this case image revert or change it. If an image is used as a work of an acient artist (like Caravaggio all edits that changes the image making it different than the original must be reverted. --OsvaldoGago 21:37, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

First, I clearly stated earlier in the thread I do not want to discuss specific users work. They most likely know what they do themselves.

Second, reverting an edit isn't always possible, especially if the image history is truncated.

Third, I believe most people would defer from editing a well done image. An image taken by an amateur, blurred, tilted, etc should be edited by someone capable, and the retouched image uploaded under another name.

To facilitate this I believe the only feasible approach is to clearly tag the image as no derivative work. This will not block any use of the image except for those very eager «contributors».

— John Erling Blad (jeb) 21:57, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry but CC-ND will not be possible at Wikimedia Commons. It is not the question if CC-ND makes sense and if we could attrac more contributors. For sure ND makes sense for some people and in some respect but not at Wikimedia Commons as Wikimedia Commons founding principle was "only free images" (with the exception of the Foundation logos). It is just the basic principle of the Commons like e.g. NPOV at Wikipedia. Also en.wikipedia now discrourages unfree images and has started deleting them. There are a lot of other good places for ND pictures e.g. flickr and there are also alternatives to Wikipedia that were not satisfied with NPOV (e.g. Wikinfo). So people that do not "assume good faith" that others do respect their work should not use Wikimedia Commons but use or create another thing. Arnomane 22:26, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

If you define a free image as something you can edit you are right, still a cc by nd is a free image. You may define it out of your likeing but that does not make a cc by nd an un-free image. — John Erling Blad (jeb) 22:52, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Being able to edit something is the whole point of a wiki. If the founding definition of Commons doens't explicitly define "free" to inlcude "editable by others" then it is certainly implied by the spirit of the Wiki software and the Wikimedia Foundation. cc-nd is not compatible with this definition of "free", and cannot be, and so will never be allowed on the Commons. If beleive strongly that "free" should inlcude cc-nd images then you are free to fork the Commons and start your own project with all the media uploaded here (except the Foundation logos) - there are even instructions on how to fork a Wikimedia project (I can't remember where they are, but a good place to start looking will be w:en:Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks). Thryduulf 23:39, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Commons:Licensing links to w:en:Free content which includes the line "To be considered free content, a work must allow modification and redistribution." in the introduction. Thryduulf 23:46, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

It is definitly not a point of Wikipedia to use images which does not convey the information of the original image. Edits which destroys the image, or the information, or the expression of some artist, is pure vandalism. Use of cc by nd is a last resort to block such edits. I believe it is urgent to find ways to handle this. I believe without a solution commons will not be dependable as a service provider for the rest of the wikies. To answare someone seriously conserned by the present state of commons with «you are free to fork the Commons and start your own project» is very close to be ignorant of the problems, not to say plain rude. — John Erling Blad (jeb) 00:43, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

@John Erling Blad: Please consider what a wiki is. Lets lokk at an example: I'm the main author of 2 featured articles in de.wikipedia (and wrote at several others larger parts) and I hope that others will respect my work. And I must say up to now there was a little bit vandalism as everywhere and sometimes peple did make it worse by mistake but it was quickly reverted. This is the wiki nature. So what's the difference to an image? I guess these articles are equally good work as a high quality picture. Are you only worried by fact that an admin can delete an image really (and not only hide it like text articles)? Do you believe that CC-BY-ND would make this imposible? For sure not. And: An image has versions like a text too. You can revert images as normal user to an older version too. If you are concerned by such a problem I must say and this is really nothing offensive: A wiki is not the right thing for you, but I hope that this is not the case. And please also try to understand us: We have the very same discussion again and again and at some point we are tired. That's why I added the note at the header of this page. Please to not waste your energy with things that won't change. I'm sure there are many places in Wikipedia or here in Commons were your work with other things is highly appreciated. Arnomane 00:59, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

You can't revert an image when the previous revisions are deleted. I've paged through my previous uploads and (even if I like to believe I'm very orderly person, I'm not) nearly none of them had any previous revisions. What consequences does this have? Any image which documents an event or a historical/cultural object can't be assumed to stay correct over time. This has very serious implications on the quality of Wikipedia. I'm not sure how this can be avoided but perhaps it could be possible to flag an image as the original and only admins and the the original uploader should be allowed to delete such an image. This would make it possible to edit the image and still keep the original somewhat safe. — John Erling Blad (jeb) 15:49, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay. So you have uploaded own created images. Some other persons modified them and did upload them under the same title?

• This is something that we strongly discourage. A modification by a different person should always be uploaded under a different title and it has to link to the original in the image description. However you know you cannot avoid this in fully but we definitely need better help texts in order to minimize this unwanted behaviour.
• Only an admin can delete an image version (try to delete one of the versions of your images you will get a failure notice). So in this case it was not a "normal" user that did something wrong it was in fact an admin that did something wrong. As we strongly discourage deleting older versions of an image (only exception: if the uploader wants you to do so or if it was an image vandalism or a completly different image covering the original) every admin should have learned that. So I'm sorry that this happened to some of your images.
• Result: We need better help pages and should identify the admins that did this wrong (you can do this for yourself: simply look into the public deletion logfile and look for your images) and give them a friendly note what they did wrong and why it was wrong. Arnomane 17:07, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it makes sense to go after individual users or admins who makes errors. The fault is that there are no way to signal what is an original work (yes, a photo is an original work) and what is an edited copy. I've entered a note in the bugzilla if it could be possible to flag the original explicit as to avoid unintentionally destruction of the original. I believe much of the problems most likely comes from normal cleanup duties because someone makes an edited (crappy) copy, then much later someone do a cleanup, and still very much later someone starts wondering why the image looks crappy. It is better to change the system so (a) the original survive and (b) the admins do know what to keep. — John Erling Blad (jeb) 22:12, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I should note that the ND license is much more restrictive than the original poster actually wants. They just want people to upload derivative works under a new name. One possible solution is a software feature that prevents certain images from being overridden with new uploads. Unfortunately there's no automatic way to distinguish changes that deserve a new name from changes that don't, but human review and reverting should help determine this. ND, on the other hand, would allow no derivative works whatsoever, whether major or minor, whether or not under a new name. This is throwing the baby out with the bath water. Deco 23:25, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I've believe the same. The License cc-by-nd is overkill and will be as much trouble as benefit. Most of the time the original contributor just want to make the image available but after a couple of edits, and storage as jpg, the image has lost so much quality it can't be saved. — John Erling Blad (jeb) 04:20, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

We do have an informal policy of uploading JPEGs with very high quality levels (at least on the second upload and subsequent) to help deter generational decay. And we should definitely be keeping all old versions as well (I don't believe in clipping image histories). Deco 20:28, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

John, you commented above that "You can't revert an image when the previous revisions are deleted." I'll ask one more time: can you point to any single example of this happening? I've looked through your upload log a bit, and I couldn't find any example of that. You keep saying that "I don't think it makes sense to go after individual users or admins who makes errors.", but unless you are willing to back up your claims, the allegations are pointless.

Arnomane, I don't agree that uploading modified images in place is "something that we strongly discourage." There is a range of different opinions about it. Personally, I see no reason for Image:Garmo Stave Church Winter (edited).JPG to be at a different location from Image:Garmo Stave Church Winter.JPG. If I had uploaded that new version, I would have uploaded it in place. Then if the photographer had reverted me, or had been unhappy with the changes, I would have uploaded it to a different title. User:dbenbenn 23:22, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

You move the trouble of managing a destructive edit from the one doing the edit to the original contributor. This is a completly wrong model for everyone. This should not be something the original contributor should worry about.

Some stats about the image you have tagged as a thumbnail

Original: 2048px x 3072px

Size of file: 2290.9 KB (2345881 bytes)

Edited copy: 1182 px x 1600px

Size of file:324.09 KB (331869 bytes)

In my world this is a destructive edit but it is not a thumbnail of an image. The edited copy can never be used for anything which needs a high resolution copy. It can never be of the same resolution. It's not even possible to produce the same effects with the original resolution without introducing an higher artificial resolution. Editing an image will always destroy information in the original, not to say storing an image in a lossy format. In this image there have been a reduction from 2.3MB to 0.32MB.

You keen on saying revisions of old images will allways be retained. Sorry to say but I've paged through a lot of my own images and nearly none of them has old revisions. This I find puzzeling. Now, if I'm in doubt after editing an image, especially after editing someone elses image, I upload to another name and clearly states that this is a copy of the original. — John Erling Blad (jeb) 14:24, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

If your images do not have old revisions then they have almost certainly not been edited and reuploaded with the same name. The edit history of the description page is recorded on the history page, like it is for articles. The revision history at the bottom of the image description page records different versions of images (or different images) uploaded with the same name as the current image.

There are only two possible reasons why the revision history has only one entry. The most likely is that there has only ever been one image uploaded with this name. The other option is that one or more revisions have been deleted, but this is much less common. The way to check which reason it is is to look at the deletion log, if there are no entries for the image in the log then no revisions have been deleted. Thryduulf 15:05, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedians have a bad habit of uploading the thumbnail version of images shown on the image page to Commons. You can usually identify them by a name beginning with a number followed by "px". If you spot an image like this, mark it with the {{Thumbnail}} template with an argument giving the URL of a higher resolution image. Deco 02:52, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

False licensing problem

It occurs to me that lately on Commons:Deletion requests we've been getting a rash of deletions for items that claimed the work was released under a free license but investigation revealed that it never was. I imagine the ones clever Wikipedians have detected are only the tip of the iceberg. I'd question what drives this phenomenon and how we can fight it more effectively.

I think part of the problem may be how easy we've made it to tag images - the uploader simply selects a random tag from the drop down list. Even well-intentioned uploaders uploading their own material may not really have any idea what the effect of choosing a certain license is. Have we made it too easy to tag images? Or do we just need to more thoroughly review and research each new image? Or what? Deco 19:00, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

The drop down list makes the process of choosing a license much easier. I remember the day I saw the drop down list for the first time, and I really appreciate it. Today I'm starting to think that making things easier isn't always a good thing. --OsvaldoGago 19:36, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

You are welcome to suggest improvements on the current Uploadtext; perhaps a change there could remedy the situation. / Fred Chess 19:53, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I dont know if a better Uploadtext page can improve things... Perhaps lots of people who upload images with fake licenses don't want to have the trouble to read it, some don't even care that they are uploading a copyrighted work. Before the dropdown list the file was and deleted later for lack of an acepted license (or the user had to read about licenses) , acordingly with commons policy. Now it's easy for the uploader to chose a random license.

By the way, in my opinion there's too many tags in Commons:Copyright tags - It doesn't has to be that dificult to chose a license. I like the licensing page of Creative Commons. Can we create a form that, after the user clicked some options, returned a {{Copyright Tag}} acordingly ? --OsvaldoGago 22:44, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

We could do that but only for people submitting their own work. If an image requires attribution, that doesn't mean we can use the cc-by license unless the copyright holder has explicitly said that. But maybe we could do a multipage thing, where like the first page is "where did you get this image?" - it's my own work - from a website - from a wikimedia project etc, guiding them through it (and of course putting a big fullstop on people who get stuff off the web with no evidence of a free license). But that might not stop them just going through it again and choosing different options just so they can upload their image... pfctdayelise 22:55, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I can confirm that a number of people just put any kind of random license, or simply do not understand what copyright and licenses mean. We should indeed separate self-produced work (and then probably have a preset GFDL+CC-BY-SA license), and other works found on the web (for which we should say that such things require extra knowledge, reading Commons:Licensing etc.).

Currently, we probably make it too easy to get pictures off the web and upload them without thinking of the pesky little choice in the dialog box. David.Monniaux 23:14, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Assume good faith and a multi-page license tag generator is probabily the only thing we (You, I don´t know how to code except in Basic) can do ;-) --OsvaldoGago 23:31, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

As to people who just want to dump stuff on Commons and aren't interested in legal niceties: I don't think that offering them dropdown-boxes or not doing so will make much difference to them. If you specificaly ask them to describe the licence, they will write things like "found on the internet, therefore PD and/or fair use", of whatever comes to their mind first, and which may be highly amusing, BTW. If you have a dropdown-box, you will at least force them to make an explicit choice.

As to the optimal "warning text", there is always a discrepancy between legal phraseology and common sense... Should I be able to think of something possibly useful, I'll put it on the Uploadtext talk page. MartinD 12:47, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Video conversion

Are there any open source tools that will let me convert Quicktime video (or AVI if I need to go via AVI first) to OGG? I'm using Windows. Thanks. enochlau (talk) 12:02, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi. You can use ffmpeg2theora. There is some messages above about it. Regards, --Colegota 12:15, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Having just uploaded around 90 videos from my vacation last week in Orlando, I can say that's not a particularly good way of doing it, nor is it going to work at all in this case (because ffmpeg2theora *sucks* for direct quicktime->theora conversion). I posted a much better way of doing it to en here Raul654 09:26, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi. If you take a look to the link I've posted above, you can see that I also had problems with ffmpeg2theora and I solved it preprocessing files with tovid (I'm a GNU/Linux user). I'm looking for a place to "put the recipe". The en:Wikipedia:Media project can be a good one. But why did you write on talk instead of project page?

I also like to have some "easy to find" place in Commons where people can find how to convert files. I've been looking a lot and asking here and in newsgroups before learn it. Maybe a Help:Converting video like Help:Creating video page on Help:Contents? Do you agree?

Regards, --Colegota 13:24, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

The right licence for a photograph of a model

See the photograph in the article lungevene (never mind the article is in norwegian). As you all can see this is a photograph (my own) of a heart model. Two questions: Is this photograph usable on Commons? What would the right license be? (As free as possible). --Ekko 19:24, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Look in Swedish law if a model such as this one is protected as a work of art / a work of the mind with respect to copyright or droit d'auteur. David.Monniaux 20:19, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

The reason the article is in norwegian is because I live in Norway, not Sweden. The reason I asked here was because I thought Commons did have a policy regarding this. As far as I know uploaded pictures should be possible to use in any country.--Ekko 21:17, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Why yes, we do:

• usually, the laws of the country where the work was created apply. US laws should also be taken into account in some cases.
• for images showing people in a recognizable way, the person shown has to give consent to publication
• In cases where the person show is performing an act of are, he/she may have rights to the image, and needs to agree to the license.
• For (payd) models, it is generally assumed that consent to publication is given, and that the photographer get'S all usage rights. But check with local law (and/or ask the model) to be sure.

HTH -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 21:35, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Excuse my imperfect english. As you will see from the picture, it's not a person but a three-dimensional plastic depiction of a heart.--Ekko 22:02, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh... sorry for the confusion. In that case, the creator of the model is likely to have rights. Best ask for permission. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 00:49, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for the Swedish / Norwegian issue. It's not a matter of copyright policies on Commons, but a matter of applicable copyright law. David.Monniaux 14:03, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

About Image Copyright

Hey, I made and uploaded this image almost a year ago (D-Glucosa.jpg) and I checked recently that it has an unknown copyright status. I tried to change the Tag, but sincerely I couldnt find a link to do it.

Could anyone help me, I want to copyright it so it doesnt get delete and can be use for everyone who needs it. Thanks for your help.

Image:D-glucosa.jpeg? Just mosey on over to Commons:Copyright tags and pick one out. You add it to Image:D-glucosa.jpeg's page like so (e.g.): {{PD-self}}. ¦ Reisio 20:50, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

To cover the basics: you can edit the image description just like you edited this page here. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 21:04, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Images by **Me** Categories

I've noticed a number of uploaders have created categories for images that they themselves have created, and was wondering what people's general thoughts are about that. I'm asking because I was considering whether I should make one myself. Bas ^parler _voir 02:32, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Seems okay to me. On Wikipedia this would violate self-reference, but Commons image description pages aren't really intended to be reused. I think it's not a bad way to organize one's contributions, although just listing them on your user page is more conventional. Deco 05:35, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I really *didn't* want to make a Category for myself in retrospect. It seems kind of self-indulgent...but I wasn't sure if that was the typical thing to do. Using the <gallery> tags I guess. Except it's not "automatic", but I guess that's not the biggest issue in the world. I just have to figure out what my really old ones are.  :) Bas ^parler _voir 13:04, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Is there a way to accomplish this retroactive? / Fred Chess 21:03, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Special:Log gives you your uploads back to December 2004 or so. You can find earlier uploads with the "my contributions" link. User:dbenbenn 00:53, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't use it. There are many ways to find out the uploader or author of a picture and also ways to list all contributions of one user. So a uploader category adds nothing to the image description page. --::Slomox:: >< 17:00, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I use Category:Photos by Chris McKenna as a handy way of keeping track of my images, and for others to find images of mine. AFAIK there is no other way to get them in thumbnail format, at least at present. I started using a gallery, but as I have uploaded over a thousand images so far and have several thousand (and counting) more pictures to come I have found a category more practical as it is automatically updated. Thryduulf 17:38, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Image:Heartagram.svg

Afaik, this logo has been registered by the finnish band HIM (see http://www.heartagram.com/). I see a potential copyright violation problem here, though I don't know which tag to add. On en:Heartagram, one can ready Bam (Margera) has legally licensed use of the heartagram from Valo., if Margera has licensed it, I barely see how we could keep it on Commons. Dake 12:03, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

List for deletion. It's a copyrighted graphic symbol. --Fb78 12:40, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

PD-USGov only PD in the US?

I found this on wikien-l:

"The prohibition on copyright protection for United States Government works is not intended to have any effect on protection of these works abroad. Works of the governments of most other countries are copyrighted. There are no valid policy reasons for denying such protection to United States Government works in foreign countries, or for precluding the Government from making licenses for the use of its works abroad." http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000105----000-notes.html

Also see http://www.dau.mil/pubs/arq/2002arq/Manz.pdf, the section entitled "Copyright Protection Abroad For Government Works".

Does this mean that images tagged with {{PD-USGov}} are actually copyrighted and thus not free outside the US?

-- nyenyec ☎ 19:48, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's what it means. Speaking for the German situation, we only accept US-PD images out of general trust that the US are not going to claim their rights here. Legally they could - there is no such thing as PD-ing a work in German law. --Fb78 20:01, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

And you just never know what our government is going to do here in the US of A. Bas ^parler _voir 20:13, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm somewhat dubious this could affect us. (I am not a lawyer, but...) The quoted text says that US law does not prevent the US government from asserting copyright outside the US. However, it does not demonstrate any reason why the governments of other countries should accept this assertion of copyright.

The Berne Convention is the basic treaty that allows US copyrights to be enforced in Europe and other countries. It allows for enforcing copyright of protected works outside their country of publication with a maximal duration of copyright bounded by duration of the copyright over the works in the country of origin:

(8) In any case, the term shall be governed by the legislation of the country where protection is claimed; however, unless the legislation of that country otherwise provides, the term shall not exceed the term fixed in the country of origin of the work.

So I wonder how someone could use the Berne Convention to claim copyright over a work which has a zero term of copyright in its country of origin. We should ask our own lawyers about this. David.Monniaux 21:08, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

There NOTHING new in this topic. The German Wikipedia has decided to use the pictures and not to ask each federal agency. FWS has explicitly asserted to give the picture free worldwide. See http://blog.librarylaw.com/librarylaw/2004/09/copyright_in_go.html --134.130.68.65 22:18, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Beware of music writers

Some of the music that has been uploaded to the commons is in copyright violation. An example is Maurice Ravel's La Valse, which was featured on main page. The reason is that while the person who played the music may have licensed their recording under a free license, that person has no authority to license the music writing itself. The author of the music is Maurice Ravel, who died in 1937. According to French and European law, the copyright from that author has not expired (it will expire at least on Jan 1, 2008, and possibly in 2015).

I thus have deleted the file. David.Monniaux 10:20, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

2008 is not far away. Hopefully we can get another copy to re-upload then. Deco 20:40, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Unless WW2 extensions apply and it's 2015. David.Monniaux 23:23, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Can you elaborate on WW2 extensions? — John Erling Blad (jeb) 22:20, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

See Commons:Licensing#France. David.Monniaux 22:26, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Photos from books, dolls, toys, ...

Some images, like Image:Pooh.jpg, were kept on previous deletion requests. Now, there is new discussion about deleting it or not. I´m posting this message just to warn anyone who is not aware of this. --Patrick-br ^msg 11:40, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Image deleted - why? Who to consult?

Hi, I'm a Wikipedia editor who is new to the Commons. And image I uploaded (nogay.png - created by me and tagged as public domain) has apparently been deleted. The image was created to go on the Wikipedia userbox w:Template:User homosexual-no, and lengthy discussions of the rationale behind such a template and others like it can be found at w:Template talk:User homosexual-no and w:Template talk:User marriage man-woman. I am assuming that the image was deleted because it was deemed "offensive", in which case I would like to remind people that we have many other "offensive" images and Wikipedia is not censored. Please read the talk page discussions I referenced before making a conclusion on this... I don't know how to link to Wikipedia from here. How do I find out why this image was deleted and by whom and how do I contest its deletion? - AdelaMae 15:46, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Sure about that filename - Image:Nogay.png? ¦ Reisio 17:03, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, that was the filename. I have been informed that it was speedily deleted, despite not satisfying any of the speedy deletion criteria or even the criteria for regular deletion. - AdelaMae 18:14, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

See the log. It was deleted by User:Raymond de because "It is a personal attack image, created for a userbox which was speedy deleted as a personal attack on 'gay' people (for need of a non-sterotypical term)." User:dbenbenn 19:46, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I recently updated the "does not exist" Mediawiki page on En to link a search of the log and AfD. We can similarly link the log on here. Deco 20:26, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Good idea. I added a log link to MediaWiki:Newarticletext. User:dbenbenn 18:49, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Touchbot

Hello there! Is there anyone running a Touchbot (like Richie's one) and can touch Template:Map-Austria-GNU? I've created new (extra) category for the Austria city's maps (Category:Maps of Austrian cities), but there are about 450 maps uploaded before the creation of the new category and which now overcrowd the Category Maps of Austria. Please answer here. Schaengel89 16:15, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Dot maps like those aren't really necessary. It's easy to use CSS to position a dot on a blank map. See w:Template talk:Superimpose, or w:Vail, Colorado, for example. User:dbenbenn 19:43, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I know this Point mapping extension. But unfortunatley you cannot print thos maps. Schaengel89 20:15, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Australia flag 300.png

Why has this been substituted by a red cross? Look here: nl:Australisch Antarctisch Territorium I can't find anything on the web about a new flag for this area... Noorse 22:25, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

If you check the history, you'll see that it was marked as redundant to Image:Flag of Australia.svg. The problem is that someone's inappropriately carried out the instructions at Category:Redundant, but no harm done - I've reverted the image back. If you want to revert an image yourself in the future, just have to click the "rev" (for revert) link next to the appropriate file in the "File history" section. Click the linked dates to view a previous file. The information on the page will probably have to be reverted as well to make sense. ¦ Reisio 23:37, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. Noorse 12:08, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Found photo, then lost it, please help

Somehow I found and downloaded this photo from Wikimedia: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d0/Pyramids.jpg

Obviously it is still resident on the Wikimedia servers.

I would like to locate license info for the image, but I cannot find it. The wikipedia / wikimedia searches don't turn up this image ... but then again, I find the search interface kind of awkward.

The watermark in the lower right "Webshots" is no help ... I can't find it on Webshots, either.

All I want to do is confirm that my intended use (banner graphic on a university web site) is allowable under the license.

The image description is here: en:Image:Pyramids.jpg. It is tagged as PD, withoout further info, and gives http://www.webshots.com/ as source. Please look there to varify the license, i have my doupts about the claim that it's PD. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 14:38, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I have tagged the image as a copyvio, based on section 4 of http://www.webshots.com/html/terms.html Thanks/wangi 15:25, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and search for "giza sunset" on webshots... Have updated the source on the image. As to your own use question - no I wouldn't think so... thanks/wangi 15:31, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Intellectual property rights on industrial products

It seems this issue has never been addressed before. If you have any knowledge on this question, please take part in the debate on the following deletion requests : Commons:Deletion_requests#Image:Nokia_N-Gage.jpg and Commons:Deletion_requests#Image:IMac_G3_slot_loading.jpg--Teofilo 23:10, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

There is a lot of repetition and fragmentation of this debate. We need a page on it. My jurisdiction (UK) does not recognise copyrights on industrial objects, only purely artistic ones. Trademark law (which generally need not concern commons) applies for these. I believe that this is probably true in many other countries too, and people are being too paranoid. Even where it might apply in some countries (there is a claim without real legal evidence that in the US you can copyright the shape of a car), this would only cover making substantially similar 3D copies, not a photo which is not substantially similar. Justinc 10:57, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Painted pictures

Someone is continuously deleting my picture Image:Madonna - Popart by SaintKen.jpg [10]

Is it allowed or not to upload own painted album covers? --Ken-nedy 16:30, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I think there's a question of copyright and artistic derivation. I don't understand enough of international copyright law to know whether your derivation of the album cover image violates any one nation's copyright law, I'm sure the item is questionable here. The image is immediately recogniseable as being derived from the Album cover. So personally, I don't know whether it's a violation of copyright. It would probably require a lawyer. Since it is that questionable, I would vote to delete it. Bas ^parler _voir 17:56, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok - I think you're right. --Ken-nedy 18:45, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

File:Che new1 0.jpg

someone deleted this picture. Without explanation. It copyright status was OK. Any reasons?--Orlovic 17:40, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I have restored the page if you wish to restore the image to it. I believe it was labeled "speedy delete" and an overzealous administrator deleted it without checking. Obviously it should not have been speedy deleted as there are pages which link to it. Bas ^parler _voir 17:58, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I expect the image in question is the one at [11]. If it gets re-uploaded, I will tag it as {{Unknown}}. It's not clear that that site claims authorship of the picture (they might have stolen it from somewhere else) and regardless, "COPY, PRINT and PASTE Everywhere and Anywhere...." is not the same as public domain (in particular, it says nothing about derivative works). User:dbenbenn 18:45, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

This image was nominated for deletion at Commons:Deletion requests on January 13 and deleted on January 24. Thuresson 19:33, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Euro coins

Template:eurocoins fails to mention "When such information is distributed or reproduced, it must appear accurately and the ECB must be cited as the source." [12]. Sounds like a non-derivative license. ed g2s • talk 18:26, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

If I am reading this right, all it says that the pics need to be accurate, and if using the website above, cite it as the source for the image. If we find a better Euro photo, we can change the page, and upload a new image. Zach ^{(Smack Back)} 06:08, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Ed: "accurate" puts an unacceptable limitation on derivative works. User:dbenbenn 18:41, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Please grant me overwrite permission

I guess this is the place to ask. I want to replace an image I uploaded with a better conversion from .gif. I can't do so now because my account is too new (apparently). Thanks. Archimerged 18:56, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Huh? I was not aware of any such restriction. Is this image semiprotected? Deco 20:24, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Afaik, your account must be four days old to have full rights (moving pages, overwriting images). You'll have to wait another day. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 20:26, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I guess that seems like a reasonable measure, but I'm sure everyone's aware of the vandal strategy against aging: create a large number of accounts, sit on them, and then use them one by one to vandalize things until they get banned. Deco 05:17, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

The vast majority of vandals are spur-of-the moment type people, and if there is a waiting period between idea and execution, it greatly reduces our potential for attack. It sort of is congruous with the United States' handgun waiting period laws. However, there is that small percentage of supremely malicious user who will decide to simply sit on it and wait. Bas ^parler _voir 12:45, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I too belive that in at least 90% of the cases, the four days are enough. In addition, it meight be a good idea to simply delete accounts that have not been used after a week or so. That way, when creating lots of accounts, you would also have to do lots of edits, which would be noticed. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 18:13, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I still don't see a Upload a new version of this file button the way I do on en.wikipedia.org. It appears that it takes more than 6 days. Archimerged 11:40, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Hm, strange - try going to the upload page and re-uploading an image. If that works, it's a skin/css problem, i guess. If not, i'll try to find out what exactly the conditions for the "new user" flag are, and how thy apply to you. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 12:29, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I tried that, and it worked. It didn't offer me Upload a new version just before I uploaded, but it did afterward. Maybe it was a cache problem somewhere. So we still don't know exactly how many days it actually took, since I didn't try to upload right after four days. By the way, one problem with this policy is a new user might learn by experience that he is prevented from uploading over an existing file and assume he doesn't need to check before uploading. See my proposed revision to the help page: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Archimerged/Help:Images_and_other_uploaded_files Archimerged 19:46, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

The restriction is not for a fixed number of days, but the newest 1% of accounts (apparently a percentage is easier to implement, but I'm not a developer), which is currently roughly equal to about 4 days. However this does obviously depend on the number of new accounts being created. Thryduulf 11:16, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Afaik, not any more. The newest 1% was a hack, because the creation date of the user account was nowhere recorded. Now it's in the database, and is being used to determine which users are "new" (und thus don't have full previleges). This was made neccessary by the new semi-protection feature, because the 1%-thing is just too slow to be calculated often. The creation date is much faster, and thus now used for all "new user" restrictions, if i'm not completely mistaking. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 11:23, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Proposal: The Media Vault

I've noticed recently a number of deletions of works whose copyrights will expire in the next 10 years. Because deletions are permanent, and Wikipedia will probably still be around in 10 years, it makes sense to me that somewhere we should be holding on to these images to reupload them the moment they enter the public domain.

But where? I propose a Media Vault where you can upload media with a certain expiration date attached to it. Until that time, they are inaccessible - their license information and textual description is available, but not the media itself. When the time arrives, an e-mail is sent out to interested parties who can then grab them and upload them to Commons (or wherever).

Once we have the Media Vault, we can upload all sorts of things produced in the early 1900s to it and just wait for it to remind us when those things are expiring, without the risk of a contributor keeping them on their local disk and the user - or their disk - later disappearing or forgetting about them. Deco 05:44, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Where can we host such a page at? Is there a way we can enforce the above rules you have suggested? Zach ^{(Smack Back)} 06:09, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

This sounds like a good idea, but I think it might be outside the scope of the Wikimedia Foundation. I suspect it would need custom software as well - a wiki almost certainly isn't suitable. Thryduulf 11:25, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, the rules would have be enforced in software (the people operating the equipment would have access, but they're presumed to be trusted). And yes, it might be outside the scope of the Wikimedia projects. Maybe I'll think about doing it on my own. Deco 01:18, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

As long as it it is not public it is legal in most countries. I would still locate it somewhere with less stringent copyright rules to avoid any legal disputes. It would allthought be difficult to make it possible to figure out whats in there and what is not. — John Erling Blad (jeb) 15:12, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

IANAL but I cannot see any problems with creating, maintaining, publishing, etc a list of copyrighted works and descriptions of them along with a note of when the copyright will expire. e.g. "Photograph of a circus sideshow performer in Vienna, taken in 1948 by M.J.K. Schmitt. Copyright expires 15 May 2009." Thryduulf 22:24, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Professions vs Occupations

Is there a great difference between "professions" and "Occupations" in English. When I look in my English dictionary at Occupations I have the following definition : person's regular work or profession (Collins dictionary 1979).

Is it worth to have 2 categories : [[13]] and [[14]]?

If yes, what would be the best category (for example) for Grocer, [[15]] (category fishermen) ?

Romary 13:35, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Romary, in this context I believe the difference in definitions are minute enough to warrant keeping it as is. Bas ^parler _voir 13:43, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Very generally, a profession is an occupation that requires a professional qualification in order to practice it. For example Doctors, Dentists, Acountants, Scientists, etc. are professions. I'd put Grocers and Fishermen as occupations if the distinction needs to be made - but there are some that are more difficult to categorise - e.g. Civil servants (which is what I currently do for a living). Another distinction that I've heard of is that a job is a profession if you get paid a sallary (i.e. paid monthly) but is an occupation if you are paid wages (i.e. paid weekly) - this of obviously very difficult to determine remotely and may differ between organisations let alone internationally. Personally I don't think that the distinction should be retained and professions should be merged into occupations, with specefic professions getting subcategories if it is felt they need them (e.g. perhaps Doctors).The distincation between what is an occupation and what is a profession is getting more and more blury in modern British society at least. Thryduulf 22:31, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for this interesting explanation (I improve my English). Can you imaging the difficulty for a non-English speaking people to make the distinction between these 2 words? Some sociologists might been a bit afraid by your explanation, you mean that a professional fisherman (or some civil servant) does not need to be skilled ( This is a joke, ;-) ). Romary 11:50, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Skills are very different to qualifications. I would hope that my doctor is skilled - but I know that there are doctors who are qualified to do surgery but are not very skillful at it (they generally don't do it, but then could if needs be.). A fisherman needs to be skillful to make a living (and survive in high seas), and a builder needs to be skillful to get employed again. A civil servant on the otherhand, need not be either skilled or qualified! :) 14:17, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Image resize error

[16] - you should see Image:Budapest districts2.png here, but it doesnt appear. (It works fine without the 'thumb' option.) Is this a MediaWiki bug, or just some sort of cache problem? --Tgr 14:28, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

In Fire Fox: Try strg+shift+R --Stefan-Xp 14:54, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

It is certainly not a browser-side problem (as you can check for yourself). --Tgr 16:08, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

The problem was that the PNG image was broken. I fixed the encoding problems (by re-encoding it with the Gimp) and now it thumbnails fine. User:dbenbenn 17:54, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Seems to happen with non-Commons images too: hu:Kép:Nyelvcsaladok-wikiszinek.png. --Tgr 16:28, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Help:Converting video

Hi! I've collected the different ways we are using to convert videos to Theora format in this page about Help:Converting video. Please feel free to improve, fix and modify it if needed. Maybe you can translate to other languages. I'm working now in the Spanish version. Regards, --Colegota 18:21, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Update: I wrote the Spanish translation. Could anyone tell me how to make those pages "multilanguage". Just like in Help:Contents. --Colegota 19:09, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Hm, maybe it would be better to merge this with Commons:Media help... or at least link it there. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 19:45, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Sure! But when I talk about it some days ago I can't find that page at Commons, but in . I've been looking for help for weeks but it's a little difficult to find this information on Commons. In fact if you look at pages linking to Commons:Media help it saids that there is a lot including Help:Contents, but I can't find where. That's the reason because I linked to en:Wikipedia:Media_help_(Ogg).

Well, someone who knows where can do it? Regards, --Colegota 23:47, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

No, bad idea. Media help is for playing the files, and media is for editing them. The distinction is pretty necessary; 90% of the people trying to find out how to play the files don't need to be told how to edit them, and 90% of the people interested in editing them will already being able to play them. Raul654 01:14, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree that we need to have two different pages, one for play, one for convert and/or editing. But I can't understand why the editing page must have the name "Media". I think "Media" includes both play and convert/editing. So we can have a Commons:Media help page that links to Commons:Media help (play) and Commons:Media help (convert).

Then we can put links on help pages, video category or even video pages to Commons:Media help and people can choose there between the help for playing or convert.

Regards, --Colegota 10:28, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

local duplicate

How do I list an Image on wikipedia (en), when it is an local duplicate, of an commons image (i.e the image has since been uploaded to commons}. Brian New Zealand 11:04, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

For a listing of local duplicates, use CommonsClash. If you mean a specific image, I don't really understand what you want to list. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 12:35, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

{{NowCommons}}, {{NowCommonsThis}}, etc. ¦ Reisio 13:04, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Rename me

Can a bureaucrat please rename me from User:Fragenmensch to User:Klever? Thanks,Fragenmensch 17:33, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Redirect a user page

Is it possible to redirect a user page to another? I tried to make User:MoniqueBrunel redirect to user:MB as an answer to her request on Commons:bistro. Is there no way to make such a redirection work? --Teofilo 17:45, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

works fine for me... -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 18:46, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

User:MoniqueBrunel, the actual user account, does not yet exist. Teofilo, you might want to tell MB to create that account before someone evil takes it. User:dbenbenn 20:52, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

OK I'll tell her.--Teofilo 21:46, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

It works fine for me too now. It must have been a problem with my computer's cache. Thanks. --Teofilo 21:46, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Copyright tags on the upload box

Where do we go to discuss what copyright tags are available in the upload box? I really wish the "patent" one was removed -- people seem to select it haphazardly, or when they really just mean "PD", and now Category:Patents is almost totally useless; there are more non-patents in there than patents. I'm tempted to just delete everything that has been obviously mistagged but in some cases it is clear that the user just wanted to mark "PD", and I don't want to delete good content. Argggg. --Fastfission 02:21, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Just tagging as "PD" without further info does not help - if sufficient info is given, the image can be re-tagged and kept. Anyway, i agree that "patent" is much abused... I'm not sure why that is - it may just be because it's the last entry in teh box, or maybe it's a language thing ("patent" in a broad sense could be misinterpretet as "copyrighted"). Maybe it would be a good idea to repeat the "unknown" choice at the bottom? -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 02:43, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Good idea. I added a line to the bottom of MediaWiki:Licenses. Any links to Template:Unknown, license selector are generated from the last line of the selector. User:dbenbenn 03:41, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I trimmed down the menu somewhat. I removed "patent" because it's hardly ever used correctly. We anyway have more copyright tags than we can fit in this selector. David.Monniaux 06:52, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Image:Roma - Basilica di San Paolo fuori le mura - pianta.JPG

I take this photo outside the church; I gave the license (GFDL ); someone asked me if it was scanned from some book and I explained that I take it by myself. It was deleted! Why? Can any administrator restore it? Thanks, mac9

The deletion request is here: Commons:Deletion_requests/Archives06#Image:Roma_-_Basilica_di_San_Paolo_fuori_le_mura_-_pianta.JPG. I don't see any comment by you there, nor can I find anything on your talk page(s). -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 13:52, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Ins't enoguh what I reported above? --Mac9 14:37, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I was answering your question as to why it was deleted. Deleted images cannot be restored, so just re-upload it. Please remember to include sufficient information this time (use {{GFDL-self}} to indicate that you created it yourself, give details about date and place of creation, categorize the image, etc). After uploading, please drop me a short note, i'll have a look at the image then. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 15:17, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I suppose that {{GFDL-self}} is something recent, because when I uploaded the photo I didn't notice this tag; however thanks for the infos ( I don't have the photo any more, and it's a pitty because it was the plan of the church that stands out of San Paolo ). --Mac9 17:57, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Ah, you photographes a copyrighted, put publically accessible plan? That was probably a copyright violation anyway (reproduction of a copyrighted work) - in some countries (like Germany), that would be OK if the plan was shown in a public place permanently, and it was shown in context, i.e. as a sign with a plan on it, not just the plan. I don't know however if and how this also applies in Italy. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 18:30, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Before becoming administrators

To everyone seeking to help out Wikimedia in an administrator role, please be aware that there is plenty to be done that does *not* require admin functions! For instance, when someone uploads a SVG image to replace a PNG or GIF image, they put this tag: {{Redundant}} in it. This brings the images into this category: Category:Redundant, aka CAT:RED. All of these several thousand (?) images need to be checked for usage across the projects and replaced with cross images (see guidelines at top), and then put in the Deleted Duplicates Category aka CAT:DED Bas ^parler _voir 15:11, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Attn: All Administrators

Please do not delete files until you have checked usage!

Often users label items for Speedy Deletion that are being used in wikipedia projects. Do not delete anything simply because you are certain it is a copyright violation. We have Categories to deal with Copyright violations and Redundant Images. Many times you are leaving articles with no image replacements.

Thank you for paying attention to this notice... Bas ^parler _voir 18:27, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

If the image is an obvious copyright violation, it should be speedy deleted, used or not. It should, however, also be unlinked in the projects that have been using it. In all cases where it is not completely obvious, a regular deletion request should be filed. In any case, use CheckUsage before deleting. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 18:34, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Highlight unlinked in the projects that have been using it. Some admins still don't realize they have to check these things. Bas ^parler _voir 18:41, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

No you cannot put everything into one bowl:

• In case an image has been flagged as redundant it is in fact the duty of an admin (and much more even the duty of the person that flags an image as redundant) to check the usage and to change all references to that image that does not get deleted previous to a deletion.
• In case of speedy deletion an admin has to consider if speedy deletion is really the right thing and if not a vandal has modified the image and its description in order to harm people (that happened to me, luckily with no deleted image), so he also has to look in the image history.
• In case of a copyvio the person that detects the copyvio (and ideally that person that comitted it) should also help changing the links within the single articles; not everything can be the only job of an admin. So an admin can help with unlinking a copvio but never try to force an admin to clean after others alone. Imagine you see 20 images a day that need to be deleted and now remove all references to these images... That's a very hard job. I personally do remove all references to an copyvio image within the minutes after I have deleted it and write everywhere into the change comment that it was a copyvio in order to avoid that the image gets reuploaded again. But I would never enforce my personal working style in case of copyvios I would only suggest it.
• And of course Check-Usage (the version of Duesentrieb) is now linked in every important place, so it is not a lack of documentation. Arnomane 19:09, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

And I do never replace a copyvio image in articles I have not worked at or I'm not interested in (but I have in fact often replaced images in cases I worked myself at the subject). This would be too time consuming and would also not be ideal in cases I do not know the subject. And of course if I delete an unfree image I will never upload this image in a local wiki where unfree images are allowed as I don't want to support unfree images. Arnomane 19:21, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I delete copyvios, noncommercial images, and images that have been (correctly) tagged with {{No source}} for more than a week without using check usage. Category:Noncommercial and Category:Unknown have lots of images; I think it's more important to get the non-free images deleted one way or another. Leaving red-links behind in articles isn't that big a problem, in my opinion. User:dbenbenn 21:46, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I agreee with dbenbenn - a broken image link in a couple of articles is not a big problem, hosting dozents and hundrets of copyright violations is a problem. It would obviously be nice to go ahead und unlink the imag, but it's not crucial. On the other hand, when a logo, flag or the like is tagged as redundant (because perhaps ther's now an SVG version), and gets deleted without checking, breaking hundrets and hundrets of pages on dozents of projects, that should not happen. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 22:08, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Leaving broken links on projects is not good, though. Regular users won't be alerted that there's something missing unless they actually go to an article, and so the broken image will be there for a long time. If this happens often, people might lose faith in Commons and move back to using theire own projects -- where at least they can see what's happening. -- Ranveig 22:16, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I must agree with Ranveig. Also, remember. When an image is deleted...it is gone for good. Firstly, there is no lack of space on the wikipedia servers. This is the least of our worries. Secondly, while copyright images do not belong at Commons, hurrying to delete them serves no useful purpose. The first legal step of a copyright holder is notification. Wikipedia will have ample opportunity to remove the offending image on the off chance that some copyright holder sees their copyright image and decides to takes action against us. Avoid copyright paranoia.

I like the procedure with redundant images, uploading the little cross and then leaving them on deleted duplicates for 30 days before deleting them. It's working for redundant images, why not for other forms. Bas ^parler _voir 22:52, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

At the current rates of uploading, leaving copyvio images around for a long time will build up vast piles that will take huge amounts of time to sort through. Also, who is going to take our policies seriously if we don't enforce them promptly? If people can't manage to follow the short list of rules, we don't want them here anyway, let them go mess up their own projects. It's actually a selling point of commons if policy is enforced fairly strictly; project people can use any image they find here, secure in the knowledge that it has no usage restrictions. Stan Shebs 04:44, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with most others, it's more important to delete copyvios, noncommercial, unknowns and others than to additionally verify they are not used anymore anywhere. Checking them all for usage will double, triple (or more) the time and effort needed to delete this kind of images. Checking usage for redundant images should be required though. --Denniss 05:01, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

@Ranveig: Indeed, that's what happens at the dutch wiki's (nl-wiki). People are advised not to use commons anymore if not needed, since, well, you can't trust what's happening here. Images get messed up, and admins don't listen, so we're better of without using commons and instead use the own wiki's because that's the only way to keep the quality --157.193.214.17 13:44, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree that we should not keep copyvios around on Commons, but there are many Wikipedias that accept fair use images. The best possible thing would be to re-upload the image to projects that permit it and tag it appropriate on each one. On the other hand, no reasonable Commoner can be expected to know the policy of every Wikipedia, know how to upload and tag an image in their language, and so on, so we have to leave it to members of the project iself. I don't see any good solution to this at the moment, but one would be to just delete them and let the project members figure out how to grab it from the most recent database dump. Deco 08:52, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

As every admin knows that unlinking an image is a quite time consuming job that is lost for other more important things but on the other hand it would for sure be nice unlinking the image (alerting the users via a history remark, that it was unfree and avoiding bad looking articles) I came to the idea why not doing this with an automated tool? What do you think having in Check-Usage an additional "login" possibility (not a real login just a browser cookie) for Commons admins (and trustworthy people) that enables you some advanced features such as "unlink this image in every place it is" (in case of copyvios and such) and "replace image link a by image link b" (in case of redundant images). A pybot could be driven that way via the web GUI. In the change notice it would write something like "c:User:$foobar: image removed as it was a copyright violation" and $foobar is the user that did drive the bot (could be handled by the login cookie). Duesentrieb what do you think about it? Arnomane 09:39, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

That sounds like the sort of thing the en:Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser would be good at. I don't use it though so I can't give a definitive answer. Thryduulf 11:12, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Hm interesting. I personally use a similar tool called mwJed, see http://www.djini.de/software/mwjed/. A tool written in Java that does not depend on Windows Operation Systems. But a web based solution would be in this case much more better as it could be used without installing and learning some complicted software and as both tools are at the moment not able to handle this task efficiently. Arnomane 12:40, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I think that would be possible, but tricky to implement - and also not easy do make safe and secure. Go ahead, write it ;) -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 11:27, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I wonder how many admins have had the unique adventure of unlinking an image on ja: or zh: - I just hope their buttons and tabs are in the same places... :-) Stan Shebs 13:00, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I've done a bit of that; see ja:Special:Contributions/User:Dbenbenn. The trick is to use the tab key; tab order is the same everywhere. Tab once from the edit box takes you to the summary box. Then enter saves the page, or 4 additional tabs then enter does a "Show preview". You can also change the interface language to English with Special:Preferences. User:dbenbenn 18:06, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

It's even worse at he: or ar: where everything is right-to-left. Cary "Bastique" Bass ^parler _voir 18:50, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

The Tab key still works the same way at RTL wikis. (he:Special:Contributions/User:Dbenbenn) The "edit tab" is third from the right, instead of third from the left. User:dbenbenn 22:21, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Help for uploading photo please

I'm trying to upload a photo and it says ""." is not an allowed file format", but I don't know why because I'm trying to upload a JPEG as normal. What can the problem be?

Thanks for your help. --WibblyWibby 21:43, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Make sure you enter a full file name, including the file extension, in the "Destination filename" field. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 22:13, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Policy/etiquette on signing original images?

I have a few images that I'd like to create and upload to the Commons for use in the Wikipedia. Is it okay if I add an unobtrusive signature to the images I create? --Anca 30 January 2006

It's not against policy, but people are know to simply crop images to remove watermarks - which is OK by the license. I also feel that signatures in images look ugly in articles, and make it harder to reuse the image.

If you select a license that requires attribution, you are already making sure you are credited... so what would the point of the signature be? -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 01:10, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I particularly enjoy cropping off attribution information on free images. :) ¦ Reisio 01:34, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Make sure you use a lossless cropping tool like jpegcrop to avoid losing information during cropping. I use it for Category:Images with borders. Deco 08:53, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

By the way, if you're wondering if you can just choose a license that does not allow the removal of signatures, the answer is (for Commons) no. Deco 08:55, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Important Page at the en Wikipedia on Public Domain and Copyright terms - READ!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:PD --Historiograf 02:47, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Help Desk in French

Not sure how many authoritative people visit Commons:Bistro, but I could use an eye for French at the Commons:Service SVP. My French is like tres smelly... Cary "Bastique" Bass ^parler _voir 18:53, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

ACHTUNG!

The image known as Image:Achtung.png is used all over the projects, yet it has been replaced by the image Image:Achtung.svg. This will take a great effort to ensure that this image has been replaced throughout Wikipedia in templates and on other pages. I'm calling on everyone to help out in replacing the PNG image with the SVG one. Thank you, Gracias, Danke, Merci, ??, ????? , grazie, ?????, e??a??st?, kiitos, dziekuje, dakujem, dakujeme and ????? (did I forget anyone?) Bas ^parler _voir 15:11, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

This image occurs in templates. A null edit will have to be performed on every page containing any template in which it occurs. This task is not just monumental but altogether infeasible. I suggest a more incremental approach. Deco 10:21, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Why? This is a pointless excercise in make-work. If you don't delete the .png, but merely deprecate its use, you will have saved dozens or even hundreds of hours of volunteer time. - Amgine 18:12, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Huh? In which century are we living? Isn't there a search'n'replace in MediaWiki (at least for Admins)??? --Afrank99 13:17, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Service SVP

Sil vous plait... mon français pue terrible. J'ecrit le Commons:Service SVP page, mais il est necessaire que un indigène l'accomplisse. Cary "Bastique" Bass ^parler _voir 17:18, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid there are not enough French speakers on Commons to maintain both the Bistro and your new page. --Teofilo 23:11, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Je ne souhaite pas discuter ce la en anglais sur Bistro. SVP discutez avec moi sur le Commons:Village Pump. (C'est plus acceptable pour discuter en français a la que discuter en anglais ici. Cary "Bastique" Bass ^parler _voir 14:47, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

In fact there are ample French speakers here at Commons. It's likely the second most well-known language here or at the very least, tied with German. There are simply not any regular French-only speakers (of whom I'm aware). Most prefer to speak in English because it's the lingua franca (pun intended). In this more people are involved in discussions. This does not preclude a (fr-n/en-0) speaker from becoming involved at the Commons, and the rest of us from keeping watch over the Commons:Service SVP Help desk. Even someone who eviscerates the French language such as myself should have no trouble being understood by a French only speaker. A good many of us can keep a French help desk on our watch list--

And I'm sorry, but I do need the practice. I was once a fluent speaker, able to speak it like a was born. And I can read everyting you guys write. But I simply do not practice French enough. This is the reason for my willingness to use it all cost.

Furthermore, involvement at the Commons is growing, not shrinking. We do need to be ready to assist people of all nationalities, and not limit ourselves to expecting everyone to speak just one language.

Besides, you can't imagine how so much of your non-native English sounds to my delicate ears. I don't say a word, and still try to respond in English. We are an international community here at Commons. Cary "Bastique" Bass ^parler _voir 15:01, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I'd also like an opportunity to practice French and to assist the francophones visiting Commons who can't speak English. English may be the lingua franca of Commons, but that doesn't mean we can't answer many simple questions in contributors' native tongues and translate others to post here or on Help Desk, especially for the languages of the top 5 Wikipedias. However, I would suggest that as we add more language versions of VP/Help Desk that we organize them in some meaningful way. Deco 22:05, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

If the francophones do not receive sufficient help on the Commons:Bistro, just adding a new page will not magically create new French speaking users able to give right answers to difficult questions. --Teofilo 16:15, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Then the French users with questions will have to rely on the knowledgeable ones with less-than-perfect French. After all, we native English speakers have had to deal with some severe butchering of our language and have quietly responded with kindness and tolerance. It's time for you francophones to grit your teeth and allow some of us to converse in your wonderful tongue! (And I know you're simply relishing the thought!) Cary "Bastique" Bass ^parler _voir 22:55, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

When I said "French speaking users" I didn't mean necessarily people with a French language ability above Commons:Babel's level 1. Until now people wanting to ask a question have been able to do so on the Bistro, and I don't see why this should change. And of course you are welcome to come to the Bistro and answer people's questions there. Is the Bistro overcrowded? It isn't? Then why do you want to open a second Bistro? One Bistro is enough. And no language examination is made at the Bistro's entrance door. --Teofilo 03:15, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I didn't realise this was a proposal for a new page. I don't see any need for that, although I might propose moving it to a name that makes its relationship to the corresponding English pages more clear. 10:20, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I just don't see the point. French people like myself already have difficulties to think about checking the Bistro once in a while and you're creating another page where French people are supposed to express err ... something ? Gee. The commoners are not very talkative, whatever the nationality. *2* chit chat pages for 1 language are just useless IMO. villy ♦✎ 01:00, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Is there any volunteer to answer a new question (Commons:Bistro#Photo_personnelle) aked this morning on the Bistro? --Teofilo 16:31, 3 February 2006 (UTC)