This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Protection request

I request full protection of my goatse placeholder, Hello.jpg. People may upload that disturbing image again some day (wikipedia has a hello.jpg placeholder). It should be indefinitely full protected because of this.

The image doesn't seem to be heavily used (13 user pages only). --MichaelMaggs (talk) 20:21, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Yeah but look at the history...goatse has been uploaded 3 times before. I

Support protecting this name for that reason. -Nard the Bard 14:47, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

OK, I didn't appreciate the history. No objection if anyone want to protect this. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 21:23, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Done — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 00:17, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

September 1

Image:Polish II Corps (79) - 1946-04-27 - Rome.jpg

Can someone help me identify this location in Rome? --Jarekt (talk) 02:49, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I think that's the Vatican Plaza.

It must be taken from near the main building, maybe from the top of it.

Look on google map, you'll see it, east of Vatican plaza.

Esby (talk) 07:04, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Take a look at e.g. Image:Piazza S.Pietro.jpg. In your picture there are some statues that you can easily identify also in this picture. Thus your picture is also taken from the cupola of St. Peters Basilica. Interesting picture by the way, and valuable to see how it looked back then. Haros (talk) 16:42, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

thanks a lot for your help. --Jarekt (talk) 00:20, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Need second opinion on Image:2_USGA_ANWR_Oil.png

Can somebody else please have a look at Image:2_USGA_ANWR_Oil.png and compare it to the source PDF given? I don't see that graph anywhere in that PDF; there's a graph that is similar, but it is not as optimistic about oil production, and it also spells "Alaskan" correctly. - Jredmond (talk) 17:12, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

It looks very similar to Fig 2 (page 9) of the third PDF, but with the spelling corrected. Might be worth updating to that. Finavon (talk) 19:40, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

September 2

Banknotes of Portugal

Can anybody figure out what happen to this page? Were they all deleted for some reason? Related Category:Bills of Portugal have files. --Jarekt (talk) 03:07, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

They were deleted back in April 2007 as being unsourced. Lupo 06:32, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

19th century Photographs

I just uploaded some scans of photographs from 1800's. The photographs are "printed" on a metal sheet with black or dark yellow coating on the back and unexposed regions. I am having trouble identifying the process used to create them. I assume it is one from the w:List of photographic processes Can someone help me with identifying which one or point me to ways of testing it? --Jarekt (talk) 03:53, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

w:Tintype (ferrotype)? /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 05:48, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Better location data needed for images

From what I have seen, images that get geotagged leave the location up to the image author. The {{Location}} template assumes that the specified location is where the camera was. However, many photos probably end up with different coordinates. I figure the mostly likely pick other than the camera's location would be the location of the object in the photo. I think the template needs to ask which location is passed. I also think that the template should ask for each of the following: Camera Heading (relative to North), Altitude, Zoom (in mm), and Camera Tilt (up/down and rotation). If all these are included, applications like Google Earth can figure out how to display the image so that you see what the camera saw when GE's camera is at the same point.

But not all images are photos. In fact, I have yet to upload any photos other than those of myself. My images are normally SVG maps. As such, I think that the template should take the lat/lon values for the topleft and bottomright corners of the image. Now Google Earth can turn that into an overlay on its own. Will (Talk - contribs) 13:13, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Great idea, but be aware of {{Location-Panorama}}, {{Object location}} and other existing and possibly underused templates in Category:Geocoding templates. I would suggest improving current templates and their documentation instead of creating new ones. --Jarekt (talk) 14:24, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I should have included a range parameter for photos. It might also be appropriate for the caller to pass the photo template two lat/lon values (like for the map version), but with altitudes tacked on.

As for the surplus of templates, you could do what was done with {{Pd}}: Put Obsolete in them and ask for new template. I believe that images still marked with {{Pd}} are in a special category. Such a category would allow for quick searches for images needing new or better locations.

Image:A man racking himself in The Meatrack on Fire Island.jpg

I hate being prissy. But since this photo is flamebait (and being used on the Fire Island Pines article), I was wondering whether it is considered appropriate. Americasroof (talk) 16:37, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Can't see anything wrong with it myself. However, the photo does look a bit under-exposed, in contrast to its subject! TimVickers (talk) 16:45, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

September 3

Rumcas, images from the Olympics

Are those Olympic images credible? Haukurth (talk) 06:23, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

They seem fine to me. What did you find suspicious? --Jarekt (talk) 17:03, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Image:Bednarek-Pekin_2008.jpg was taken from a position level with the volleyball court, not from an ordinary spectator position. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 17:42, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I'd also like to know something about the uploader. And the images have no metadata. If this is legit, that's great of course. I'm wondering if a Polish speaker could maybe have a chat with him and get his story, so to speak. Haukurth (talk) 17:52, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I have the impression that Image:Bednarek-Pekin_2008.jpg was also taken with a very long focal. Something which rings the "6000-euro super-telelens" bell in my head. Rama (talk) 18:05, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I left a note at users page. --Jarekt (talk) 19:37, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Date of publication and date of creation

Far too many public domain images here don't have any information on their date of publication. I think the fault is partially with the upload interface. It currently asks for "Date of creation and/or first publication of the work" but it's not a good idea to conflate the two dates in this way, we should ask for each separately. The date of publication is generally more important to establish public domain status. Haukurth (talk) 10:04, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Date of publication is usually in the "source" field together with info on where it was published.--Jarekt (talk) 14:14, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Sometimes it's there, yes, but you're lucky if it's anywhere at all. And that's a pity because you always need a publication date to establish public domain status. Haukurth (talk) 14:21, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I thought that it depended on the license for example {{PD-old}} needs date of authors death, while {{PD-Polish}} need date of the first publishing. I can't think of, without checking, the license that needs date of creation. --Jarekt (talk) 02:01, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

It's not enough to establish that the author died 70 years ago - you also need to know when the work was first published or you don't know the copyright status in the US and you don't know whether the work could be under a publication right in the EEA. Check the Hirtle chart[2] and you'll see that there's no way to know the status of a work without knowing its publication date.

You're right that date of creation more rarely comes into play (but you can check the Hirtle chart for some examples). Haukurth (talk) 10:42, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, someone should really get to those deletion requests. I feel like just deleting the incomplete DRs since they're not going to be deleted anyway. Rocket000(talk) 19:24, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Obsolete pages?

What is the meaning of pages like Churches in Europe ? There are many thousand churches already pictured, this page is just a chaotic choise without motivation. Should n't it be better to delete such pages? Havang(nl) (talk) 14:25, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

A better option is fixing it. (hint, hint) --Jarekt (talk) 02:02, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh well, a gallery is always some sort of "inder construction". One day, it will become a beauty. One day. --Foroa (talk) 05:56, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Our Commons talk:Featured galleries never seems to get off the ground. Man vyi (talk) 07:00, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

But we have something close to it, Commons:Valued image sets by scope, which is slowly building up. -- Slaunger (talk) 19:24, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

However, there are some kind of nice galleries (such as Sexual identity symbols, which I helped improve) containing images most of which probably aren't eligible for "valued" status (non-photographic images seem to be the red-headed stepchild of the whole Valued Image process...). AnonMoos (talk) 14:53, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing that gallery to the community's attention. I've taken the liberty of adding it to the list of possible model galleries at Commons talk:Featured galleries. Man vyi (talk) 17:16, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

August 30

Wikimedia Belgium local chapter creation

Hi,

I'm relaunching the process of the creation of a Belgian local chapter.

The chapter locals help to promote Wikimedia projects in a country, with meeting at public or academic events.

A important point for photographs is the local chapter can help them to get press accreditation to take personalities' open source pictures.

If you're interested to invest yourself in the process or to become a member, please drop me a note or send me a mail. --Dereckson (talk) 10:58, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

September 4

Images not showing up

Just uploaded a series of images, see: Image:Mumbai fort remains 3.jpg. The photograph does not preview unless you click it. What's wrong? Nichalp (talk) 09:57, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Having the same issues here, Special:NewImages only show a couple of previews. --Nerzhal | ?! 10:09, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

It's back up now. Nichalp (talk) 13:03, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Closing a proposed deletion

The concerns at Commons:Deletion requests/Image:Wilhelm Molterer.jpg have been clarified, so the image should not be deleted -- but how exactly are these discussions closed here on the Commons? —Nightstallion (?) 09:11, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

They are closed by any admin as soon as there's a clear consensus :) This one needed only some minor corrections to image descritpion. A.J. (talk) 09:33, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Great, thanks! —Nightstallion (?) 09:46, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

About OTRS permission

Hi, I'm in process to get some images that another user published in an external forum. I know that I need an email that grants permission and establishes license and send it to the OTRS, but the question is: do I need to do that for EACH image, or with only one is enough and I can upload all of them? Logic says me is enough with one ticket, but just to be sure and not waste time. Regards. Gothmog (talk) 14:39, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

As long as the permission granted by the email covers them all, one ticket is fine. Remember to mention which licence they are allowing you to publish under. -mattbuck (Talk) 14:44, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Gallery within a Category

In a category of plants there are often many subcategories. When searching for an image of a certain plant it is a lot of work viewing all the subcategories to find the right one. Media in a category are shown with their filename only, which is not always clear in telling which species it is. Moreover I found that many people are very active in deleting such an example because of over-categorization. What I suggest is to include a gallery within a category that contains one good example of each subcategory and as description the same name as the subcategory.--Wouter (talk) 08:29, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi Wouter, could you give an example? Multichill (talk) 10:49, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

See Category:Silene as an example. --Wouter (talk) 11:14, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Ah, i see. I think this is more the function of the gallery Silene. Would be nice to have links between Category:Silene and Silene for easy navigation. I added a link at Category:Silene, but what is the template for linking to a main category at a gallery? Category:Silene is getting somewhat crowded. I will put some images in the subcategories. Multichill (talk) 12:33, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

The taxonomy navigation now shows the gallery instead of the category if the gallery exists and shows this with a differently colored link in the navigation. Adding the {{See more}} template and providing what is sometimes a third or fourth link to the gallery is interesting -- is it needful or educational? Perhaps if the galleries need that much advertising it would be better to improve them to make them more appealing to view instead of the constant display of their existence. That last sentence was my opinion and is not necessarily shared by anyone else, btw. -- carol (talk) 15:49, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

{{See also}} is better. And magically multilingual. Rocket000(talk) 20:10, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

For genus and species names? That is some kind of magic that converts Silene to Silene and that same magic works with the taxonomy navigation, btw. -- carol (talk) 20:45, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Hehe.. the "See also" is in whatever language your interface is in. Rocket000(talk) 22:19, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Normally, a category should contain no galleries. I changed already several categories for that and each time I encounter one, I will change them as categories with galleries tend to grow and take ages to browse through. I agree that many people chase over-categoristaion without understanding the need for it. I would suggest for images a "showcase" or "postcard" template that indicates that this is the reference image that can have "over-"categorisation and make sure that it is catsorted in the beginning of the list. --Foroa (talk) 21:28, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Photographs of sports uniforms & copyright violations

Hello! Recently I had two images that I had photographed and uploaded to WikiCommons marked as "copyright violation". The images were meant to be used in a Wikipedia article about the player. I could see how that copyright violation decision was made due to the fact that the team's copyrighted logos are featured prominently in the photograph. However the logos are only on the front side of the jersey. Therefore, could the photographs be considered as acceptable free images if I were to remove the current pictures and replace them with only the reverse side of the jersey? I'd appreciate anyone's input and thoughts on this issue.

For reference, the images are can be seen here:

Thanks! --Amineshaker (talk) 01:08, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Due to certain features of U.S. copyright law, a photograph of someone wearing a sports jersey can be a lot safer from a copyright point of view than a photograph of a sports jersey alone (not being worn by anybody). AnonMoos (talk) 14:45, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Category:Undefined

This category comes from the upload form, it sometimes appears automatically, in my case during an manual upload of an flickr image, but i can not reconstruct it. Does this category make any sense or is it just an error of the upload form? --Martin H. (talk) 02:33, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Appears wrong and useless to me, see Commons:Deletion requests/Category:Undefined. Multichill (talk) 03:21, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Problem solved see Commons:Administrators' noticeboard#Category:Undefined. I'm cleaning out the cat now and will delete it when it's empty. Multichill (talk) 09:20, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Hack for search suggestion field width will be obsolete

Looks like hack to modify search suggestion field width will be obsolete in version r40507. --EugeneZelenko (talk) 15:40, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Commons:Categories for discussion

Is any administrator ever going through Commons:Categories for discussion and determining that something has reached resolution? There are topics there dating back over a year, and topics where it seems to me that consensus has been reached but nothing is marked as resolved. - Jmabel ! talk 16:20, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, that page doesn't get a lot of attention. I have a look and see what I can do. Rocket000(talk) 17:50, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Swastika

I am concerned at the labelling of any swastika as a Nazi symbol with the template {{Nazi symbol}}. The swastika is an ancient symbol, not a Nazi invention. The swastika commonly used in India is different from the Nazi swastika, in orientation and rotation. The template should be kept off such symbols that are part of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, and other groups such as the Falun Gong. Nichalp (talk) 06:10, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

The innocuous Image:52-square swastika.ant.png was labelled like that already three years ago. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 06:39, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

As per the English Wikipedia, religious symbols of Jains and Hindus (the swastika) are exempt from the ban. Nichalp (talk) 19:04, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Many small pictures representative the swastika are not a symbol NSDAP. But is very very resemblance. In many coutries who use swastika otherwise than education perpetrate a crime! France, Poland, Germany... Crime! We must add {{nazi symbol}} in every site with swastika. A thousand GENERATIONS will pass and still this guilt of swastika will not have been erased. The swastika one forbade in countries, where is the huge percentage of users of the Internet. Inhabitants of India are the small percentage. In my country for the usage of the swastika... Just what. Mob laws. In my country every swastika is illicit without exceptions. This was the ancient symbol. I underline: This WAS the ancient symbol. Now it is a symbol of only most disgusting from the ideology and nobody more. The {{nazi symbol}} must be, so that somebody do not expose himself on legal troubles. Hindus are out of luck. Nothing himself bad will not stand if this pattern will stay. And surely somebody it will protect before troubles. In the text is written: This image shows (or resembles)... Let us not expose the human life, healths and the happiness because of the avoidance of inconvenience. The only pure rationalism. --Starscream (talk) 02:56, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

To label any swastika symbol as a Nazi symbol is inherently false. It would be misleading and incorrect if your logic was used to label something as innocuous as the Ahmedabad Stock Exchange logo as a Nazi symbol. Nichalp (talk) 05:22, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Most of all netizens originates from the Western circle cultural. I do not know every law from these states. But is the risk that for courts or common men will not be the difference between the bazi swastika, and a not nazi swastika. Adding {{nazi symbol}} protects very much many men {people} before troubles. Let us not expose the human life because of the avoidance of inconvenience. The legwork is by swastikaed to threaten with the mob law. --Starscream (talk) 16:20, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Firstly. this project is not for a solely Western audience, and secondly, Wikipedia is not censored. As I mentioned on your talk page, we can put up a notice on the image page that derivative forms of swastikas may be banned in certain countries, and illegal to display them. What I am against is having all swastikas categorised as a "Nazi symbol". Nichalp (talk) 18:11, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

This does not change the fact that in many countries in which lives very much many users of the internet, every swastika can run into serious troubles. For Asiatics it is insignificant. This what you promote is very unwise endangering. Listen to sound arguments. Is written: "This image shows (or resembles!!!!)" For many the resemblance is sufficient. You attend that bad is the only black swastika in the white circle? --Starscream (talk) 18:40, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Mixing up the Swastika from Hinduism with the Nazi Swastika is inherently wrong. As a symbol, the Hindu swastika has been used for thousands of years. The Nazi swastika is a related but different symbol, and the ban on Nazi swastikas doesn't apply to the Hindu Swastika. Considering that one in 6 people in the world is from India, disregarding their views and culture is a bad example of systemic bias. --Ragib (talk) 18:34, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Hinduism is not here essential. Essential is that in many countries for the usage of the swastika threatens the mob law. And legal implications. Asia is not among them. The prohibition of the swastika sufficiently general. Is written: "This image shows (or resembles!!!!) --Starscream (talk) 18:43, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, you're making a judgement call by using vague terms like "resembles". Where do you draw the line between some that is vs. something that resembles? I could tag half the symbols that have two lines running perpendicular to each other as "resembling" Nazi Swastikas. This logic is as ludicrous as slapping a "This image shows (or resembles) a Christian symbol" on an image depicting the mathematical "+" sign. You may continue to tag the Nazi swastika if you wish, but please desist from tagging the Hindu and Buddhist symbols as such. AreJay (talk) 19:01, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

The distinction of the swastika from other symbols is very easy. There will suffice to possess eyes. You invent odd difficulties which on an everyday basis a difficulty are not. All graphicses containing the swastika are very similar to Nazi without exception. Preventatively must be {{Nazi symbol}} . --Starscream (talk) 19:16, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Your view is actually quite biased in the sense that, you denounce the two-thousand year+ old holy symbol of 1 billion people, just because over the history, one political party/regime used it over 10-15 year time in the last century! This is bias in its extreme. That you see a similarity between the Hindu Swastika and the Nazi one is your personal interpretation. Wikipedia is not limited to Western countries and their citizens who are unable to see the clear distinction ... systemic bias against non-Western cultures is not desirable. --Ragib (talk) 19:25, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Starscream isn't biased, he is simply stating what the law is. You can call the law stupid and biased, but it remains the law: in Germany, displaying the swastika, even in a context that has nothing to do with the Nazis, can cause serious legal problems. We have to warn our re-users of this issue. Pruneau^talk 19:42, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, Wikipedia is not under the jurisdiction of German law. And even in Germany, Hindu and Jain swastikas are not prohibited under the law. And finally, Wikipedia is not censored, AFAIK. --Ragib (talk) 20:30, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

The resemblance between Hindu, and a German swastika is as between two drop waters. For Asiatics {{nazi symbol}} is not there the meaning. But it counts the very large group of other users of the Internet. Traces were left by the swastika in history before NSDAP are like to a hell of nazism. With nothing. This is not my interpretation. This is the interpretation of the healthy society. --Starscream (talk) 20:41, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Am I correct to interpret your above comment as: "the healthy society" considers the Hindu/Buddhist/Jain Swastika to be the same as the Nazi Swastika??? (and in the same line of thought, about 1 billion+ of the world population are not part of your "healthy society"? :o ) --Ragib (talk) 20:49, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Interpret as you want. A fact it is that in many countries in which lives the considerable percentage of users of the internet, the usage of the swastika threatens with the mob law and the law case. Protect people before this. In many countries the difference between the Hindu swastika , and of German is not there for the society. --Starscream (talk) 20:59, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean I'm "inventing odd difficulties"? I'm merely pointing out the absurdity of slapping "resembles a Nazi symbol" tags on symbols that have nothing to do with Nazism or Germany. The resemblance between Hindu and the German swastika is not the same as the difference between two drops of water. They are different in color and orientation. The Nazi symbol is rendered in black, while the Hindu symbol is in saffron. That's the most bleedingly obvious difference.

All of this without even going into the meaninglessness of adding tags like "The use of insignia of organizations that have been banned in Germany (like the Nazi swastika or the arrow cross) may also be illegal in Austria, Hungary,....depending on context.". Wikipedia is not censored. If it were, we'd be slapping such tags on images and content relating to nudism, idolatry, alcohol, and depictions of some religious figures, which are all illegal representations in a great many countries around the world. AreJay (talk) 21:45, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

The usage of the swastika on Wikipedii surely does not threaten with the law case. {{Nazi symbol}} is a caution for these which would like to use outside the Internet. Understand this. Do not expose people because of the idealism. Here I worry for the world outside Wikipedia. Wikipedia are not yet the all the world. --Starscream (talk) 16:14, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Nichalp writes that he is concerned at the labelling of any swastika as a Nazi symbol with the template {{Nazi symbol}}. We should respect that concern, but the template merely warns the user that the symbol resembles a symbol that is banned under many legal systems- and it is right and proper that all such symbols should be tagged for three reasons:

an editor on say wikipedia.fr should avoid using the image because he may have to defend an expensive legal action against him personally.
an editor on en.wikipedia who is making an edit from French/German soil (as I am doing now) could have similar problems.
if some of the down market German newsheets (Bild Zeitung z.B) learnt that Wikipedia had such images, but had not tagged them then they would be running front page stories that Wikipedia was a front organisation for the banned organisation. Tagging the image tells them that the image resembles an image banned under their law-- and thus is not an attempt to contravene their law.

Commons is a resource that can be used world wide on Wikipedia projects and outside Wikipedia. If we know of a legal problem that an image could cause, anywhere, it is our duty to attach a caution to that image. When we are debating an issue- as a world wide community- we must also understand that users whose mother tongue is not English, may have difficulty is expressing themselves. Their phraseology will lack the nuances of a native speaker- and this will make it difficult for them to issue a warning in an unemotive way. Their contribution remains valid. If users wish to debate the relative symbolisms of w:Swastika, please read the en.wikipedia article which is a former featured article, and the debate on w:Talk:Swastika

ClemRutter (talk) 21:59, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I'd love to read an article featured on the Bild that mentions that Wikipedia is a front for Nazi sympathisers just because articles on Jainism and the Ahmedabad Stock Exchange do not have their identifying symbols/logos tagged as a Nazi-symbol. I would pay good money to anyone who could mail me a hardcopy... unless of course it was featured on April 1. Nichalp (talk) 05:39, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

If that ever happens, you will find a copy at the BildBlog telling all the errors Bild made in their article. -- Cecil (talk) 05:55, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, how about applying the same rationale to all "controversial" images? For example, the Muhammad images are banned in many Muslim countries. Shouldn't a similar tag be attached to all such depictions? Quoting you, "If we know of a legal problem that an image could cause, anywhere, it is our duty to attach a caution to that image.". So, shouldn't Image:Maome.jpg also have such a tag/disclaimer to protect readers/editors in some Muslim countries?

It is this application of double standards that is fundamentally wrong. Wikipedia isn't censored. Nor is it subject to British-French-German law. It may be subject to US law as the servers are located in US soil. --Ragib (talk) 22:17, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

This is my point exactly. User:Starscream, as far as I know, Commons servers (and therefore content contained in the servers) are physically located in Florida, in the United States and are therefore governed by US law, which doesn't outlaw the symbol. Now, I do not know much about internet censorship in Germany, but if it is done, you should leave it up to the proxies of your local ISPs to filter such content, and not assume the role of moral police on a website that, as you yourself mentioned, is used by the world-wide community. Particularly since your issue seems to not be about the Nazi Swastika itself, but with something that, in your opinion, resembles the Nazi Swastika. I'm sorry, I cannot buy this argument. AreJay (talk) 23:32, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Not important what has to be legal on Wikipedia. This {{nazi symbol}} warns before the usage of the swastika outside Wikipedia. Let interest you the matter of the legality of the swastika outside Wikipedia. For courts can not exist the not nazi swastika. I do not represent such which world she wants to see. I represent the world as-is. --Starscream (talk) 02:47, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I know of a very large Vietnamese Buddhist temple complex in Germany that has swastikas on statues and so forth, and the opening ceremony was attended by some government officials and politicians - and it hasn't been fined/litigated in court. So I think people are aware of the context, per the note in the template about the law. And I'm sure this applies to the hundreds of other temples in the said countries which have not been shut down and the monks have not been thrown in jail. Blnguyen (talk) 00:25, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

{{Nazi symbol}} explicitly refers to the Nazi swastika, not the Hindu one. They may bear a resemblance, but they are clearly not the same thing and tagging them as if they were equivalents is inappropriate. We shouldn't be adding a disclaimer to ancient religious symbols which anyone (who carefully scrutinizes it) can see that it is not the same symbol used by the Nazi party. Nishkid64 (talk) 00:36, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

So one ought to add {{Nazi symbol}} because of the prevention. The prevention! The prevention is the good thing which to nobody injures. --Starscream (talk) 02:56, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

To Starscream: Notice the similarity between the Japanese and Bangladeshi flags. If tomorrow, the Government of Singapore were to outlaw all Japanese symbols that remind them of the WWII invasion, are you going to tag the flag of Bangladesh as a Japanese imperial symbol with similar notices? (With due apologies to citizens of all three countries) Nichalp (talk) 05:58, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

If the following translation of paragraph 86a of the criminal code (StGB: "Symbols which are so similar as to be mistaken for those named in sentence 1 shall be deemed to be equivalent thereto." is trusted, then {{Nazi symbol}} can be included, But only with another template preceding {{Nazi symbol}} that says this is NOT a Nazi symbol, but a Hindu/Jain/Buddhist symbol. The current {{Nazi symbol}} does not make a clear distinction between the Nazi swastika and other ancient swastikas.--Redtigerxyz (talk) 11:04, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

It is categorized as a Nazi symbol. Now, the Jain symbol is not banned in those countries, so a disclaimer that the Jain symbol is banned is false, BUT a disclaimer that "derivative uses of the image in other forms might land you in trouble" is more appropriate. Nichalp (talk) 07:06, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

To Nichalp: Do not push around me. Descend on the ground. The use of every swastika. Every swastika causes serious consequences in many countries. Do not expose people because of the idealism. Asiatics have here nothing to the point. I speak about states from where originate the considerable percentage of users of the internet. Not I fixed these laws. Add to {{nazi symbol}} that theoretically the judge can treat softly hindu. Maybe. The swastika is always a swastika. And always her usage is a danger in countries, where lives the considerable percentage of netizens. If will not be nazi the symbol, many persons will be found in prisons. Or it will become {will stand} sacrifices of mob laws. Nothing you this does not interest? --Starscream (talk) 16:23, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, the Wikipedia images are not censored based on laws in Europe or Asia. Nor it is up to Wikipedia to tag images to warn readers. As a matter of comparison, I have already mentioned the Muhammad paintings ... in certain Muslim-majority countries, those images are in the same boat, but yet, it is Wikipedia's consensus NOT to have warning tags there. We ARE on the ground, and looking at reality. It is up to *you* to prove that looking at a Hindu or Buddhist swastika is considered criminal offense in Germany. Even it is so, why should Wikipedia provide "warnings" if it doesn't apply the same standards to all "banned" images (such as the Muhammad paintings)? Double standards should never be applied, nor would ignorance about other religion's symbols be promoted. --Ragib (talk) 03:18, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

A theme of this discussion is the swastika. The prevention to nobody will harm. And surely she will protect from bad lucks. --Starscream (talk) 04:15, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

The theme of this discussion is not the swastika, rather your claim that the Hindu / Buddhist swastika is illegal to be viewed in certain countries (along with other incorrect claims that netizens from those countries outnumber those from India/South Asia). But you still haven't been able to argue why no warnings are needed in case of Muhammad paintings (which are banned in many countries), but yet, there needs to be incorrect warnings on Hindu/Buddhist swastikas, which are banned in NO country in the world. Once you provide a valid answer to the question, we can move on. Otherwise, you are continuously repeating the same words without providing an argument. --Ragib (talk) 04:36, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

My argument is the prevention. The predictability. The swastika is the swastika, and Mohammed is Mohammed. Very many users of the Internet one is found in countries, where the swastika is pursued. Do not expose people because of the avoidance of inconvenience. Because of this nothing himself bad will not become. For lack of {{nazi symbol}} surely will become to certain persons something terrible. Absolutely unimportant is the religion here. Important is the legislation of states. I this the legislator did not fix. I describe to you is which the world. The world does not limit itself only to the Internet. It is still rivers, mountains, stars, the moon, the sky and courts!!!! Courts! Not is important the use of the swastika. Important is prudence. --Starscream (talk) 05:38, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I didn't exactly follow your comment ... so just answer the following: if any image is banned in a country, are you suggesting that Wikipedia must put a warning tag there? If yes, then why treat Muhammad paintings differently? And again, can you please show the name of the country that banned viewing of Hindu / Buddhist swastikas? No more handwaving please , just answer the above questions in brief. Your incomprehensible comment still didn't have any argument regarding the issues I mentioned. So, just be precise rather than "Germany has more Internet users in India/Pakistan/Bangladesh / Arab/Muslim countries" (which is quite likely to be untrue, but irrelevant anyway). --Ragib (talk) 06:19, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Mohammed is Mohammed, and the swastika is the swastika. Will suffice to possess eyes, it to differentiate. If you attend that is necessary legal disclaimer concerning of Islam, then create something like this. A here sole theme is the swastika. A reason of the prohibition of the swastika into Germany, Austria, Hungarian, Poland, Czech Republic, France, Brazil, Russia was the use of the swastika by nazis. To these made for legislators of written out states. Do foresee exceptions for Hindus? Be it can. But always it is proper to add the caution. I don′t get the idea the why this caution to you hinders? It does not change the law, we have not the influence right, but it protects before the potential law case. But for you this picayune. If somebody will be found on the trial as the accused for the use of the swastika, then will be your guilt. Even if Hindus have an immunity, the effacement {{nazi symbol}} is a madness. {tl|nazi symbol}} must be wherever is found every swastika. For the safety!!! --Starscream (talk) 06:41, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Its not the caution we are debating about. It is the fact that you are calling all swastikas a nazi symbol without differentiating them into the "good" and "bad" kind. What does the Polish law say? Nichalp (talk) 07:06, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Starscream, if I had a twin brother, and he committed a crime, should I be arrested because I look like him? It is not fair isn't it? Similarly, this case. I am for a disclaimer that "derivative usage might be banned" but NOT a blanket categorization that it is a Nazi symbol. Nichalp (talk) 07:06, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Nichalp Again you deride me. All swastikas are potentially threatening and not I fixed this. Do not expose people because of the idealism. --Starscream (talk) 19:56, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but you will be checked, which of you two was it, so you will probably get arrested at first until the guilty one was figured out. -- Cecil (talk) 07:52, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

But I would still be deeply anguished. :D Nichalp (talk)

Now a little bit to the situation in Germany: there it is forbidden to use swastikas (and that does include both the hook-cross and those that look similar to the hook-cross) and other symbols that were miss-used during Nazi-time. That went so far that a student who was wearing a crossed swastika as anti-nazi-sign was sentenced to community work and a fine, and later a record shop was sentenced to a larger fine because of selling t-shirts, ... with that sign. The sentences both later were revoked and now it is handled so that it is not criminal to use the swastika if it is obvious for everybody that you are against the Nazi idea. But it still is very difficult: a few weeks ago there was a festival with several nordic bands. One of them had a 'S' in their name and the logo showed it in a way that was similar (not the same) to a Sig-Rune. There were lots of protests because of that band which in truth has nothing to do with Nazis at all.

In my opinion it would be better to inform people that using that kind of symbols can lead to problems for them in some countries like prison (in Austria it are 5-10 years, 20 in serious cases). They should be aware that it is enough that the symbol looks similar to one of the forbidden ones. If they use it in a way that is not obvious enough it will bring them problems. Same for the mohammed-pics. Why not a note that in some countries it could lead to serious consequences. -- Cecil (talk) 07:52, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

tkany You Cecil. Good idea. --Starscream (talk) 19:59, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

<reindent> I've drafted {{Non Nazi swastikas}} to address the issue. Reviewers needed. Nichalp (talk) 16:22, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I really don't understand the need for this template. If the (German) ban, as the template says, "does not apply to swastikas that are of a religious nature, specifically that of Jainism, Hinduism, and Buddhism", why is there a need to label non-banned images in such a way? As I understand it, the template will only be used on non-banned insignia, and after some legalistic discussion about German law on Nazis, the template ends up by saying that such law does not apply to the image that has been tagged. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 16:35, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm guessing that derivative uses of the images might be banned. Could someone translate the German and Polish laws so that we know what they say? Nichalp (talk) 11:15, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Once again, I reiterate that User:Starscream's argument is invalid. The reasons are:

Is the Hindu/Buddhist/Jain swastika banned by law in Germany/Poland/Brazil etc.? Yes, or No? (per the en wiki page, the answer is NO, but I'd like to hear a clear answer ... no hand-waving please ... just let me know if a Hindu temple has a Hindu swastika symbol in it, will that violate the laws of Germany/Poland/Brazil etc.?
If the answer is No, then we are done ... stop tagging the Hindi/Jain/Buddhist Swastika images with the nazi tag. If no one in those countries will be prosecuted by law to own/look at a Hindu swastika, then no matter of hand waving by any number of users here will justify the tag falsely applied to non-Nazi religious symbols. (Per Blnguyen, the Buddhist swastika is displayed in a Buddhist temple in Germany, so it will be a very interesting thing to know how a legally-banned symbol, as claimed by starscream, can be displayed in a public place in Germany.)

Even if the laws of a few countries ban looking at a particular image, Wikipedia's role is not to act as the baby sitter for wikipedia readers from those countries. Just as Wikipedia has reached a consensus not to tag the Muhammad paintings, there is no need to falsely tag images based on views of certain wikipedians/demographics. --Ragib (talk) 07:06, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

A similar extensive discussion about the Swastika has occured on Wikipedia a year or so ago. This can be found at wikipedia:Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Hinduism/Archive 3 and wikipedia:Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Hinduism/Archive 4. That was about whether the Swastika should be used on Hinduism related templates. DaGizza (talk) 08:51, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Off topic: A poll on the use of Nazi symbols is being prepared in the German Wikipedia at de:Wikipedia:Meinungsbilder/Verwendung nationalsozialistischer Symbole -- Framhein (talk) 16:11, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

All swastikas are potentially dangerous. The law of these countries forbids propagations of criminal ideologies. And with nazism the swastika is indissoluble. Hindu are not essential. The swastika is always a swastika. One ought to introduce cautions for the safety. I don′t get the idea why you despise with the prevention. This is irresponsible. Hindu can celebrate their own religious ceremonials. But the prudence must keep. Except the legal threat is the threat a mob law for the usage of the swastika. If you will remove {{nazi symbol}} , many persons can be found in the hospital. --Starscream (talk) 18:27, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I support Nichalp's {{Non Nazi swastikas}} template idea, except that I think the template should explain what it is rather than what it isn't: {{Hindu swastika}}, {{Buddhist swastika}}, or {{Jain swastika}}, with an explanation of the religious symbol followed by the relevant national laws (perhaps stating that the symbol is allowed in that country, if that is the case). This would serve to both explain and categorize these religious symbols that are meaningful and positive to so many people. Priyanath (talk) 03:53, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

{{Non Nazi swastikas}} is good idea. --Starscream (talk) 18:20, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I like this template too. Even in Poland one can find many pre-NAZI swastikas as decorative/architectual element. Many old buildings in the Tatra mountain region have them. --Jarekt (talk) 19:17, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Comment: It should be stressed that the German government recently tried to ban the display of all forms of the swastika (including Hindu left rotating ones) here in the entire European Union. The local Hindu population in Europe, with some support, I believe, of the Indian government, protested this ban as a form of discrimination against Hindus and Berlin soon retreated from their plan for an EU ban as this Jewish web page clearly notes. My point here is that the swastika is not a symbol of racism in Hinduism. If the German government itself can grudgingly accept that the swastika can be used by Hindus for their festivals, then no Nazi tags should be attached to the Hindu form of the swastika on Wikipedia. --Leoboudv (talk) 09:56, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

This needs to be clarified. If I use a Hindu-type swastika, rotate it by 45 degrees, and then print it on my T-shirt, can I be arrested in Germany if I wear it and walk around in public? Nichalp (talk)

The arrest this the least terrible possibility. Presenting publicly with the swastika, you expose yourself on the mob law. Not be with the idealist. I show the world as-is. --Starscream (talk) 13:26, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm with Ragib on this, this whole initiative to slap pseudo-legal tags on articles and images doesn't make any sense. If these images are illegal, why haven't Germany's ISPs banned them? If User:Starscream would draw the attention of the local ISPs in Germany to these images and inform them of the relevant German laws, I'm sure the ISPs would block access to these images in Germany. Let your local ISPs handle the issue, if you're so against seeing these images. Let's not turn Wikipedia into a self-censoring machine. AreJay (talk) 18:30, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Do not lie. This is not censoring!!! This is the caution before the usage outside Wikipedia. The removal is this a symptom of the irresponsibility. One may not to remove to none of signs warning. Because they prevent to terrible with the consequence. The arrest this the least terrible possibility. For the usage of the swastika outside Wikipedia, you expose yourself on the mob law. If we will remove this, many people can meet the beating. Surely not you want this? Be responsible. Prevent to tragedies. --Starscream (talk) 13:32, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Caution before use outside Wikipedia? If you're concerned about use outside Wikipedia, you should also let controls outside Wikipedia detect and prevent the display of any type of swastikas in Germany. This tag that you seem to want to use for Wikipedia doesn't prevent a thing. If there's a possibility that someone in Germany may be arrested for even viewing the image, I'd say you're tag is a useless control, since it doesn't prevent anyone from viewing anything on Wikipedia. If you really did want to prevent access to these images, your best option is to contact your local ISPs and inform them of what needs to be done. Even fairly basic filtering technology these days can block access to images and articles by just reviewing the filename or keywords ("Nazi", "Swastika", etc). This is an infinitly better control than your current plan. This way, you get what I believe you want (swastika-resembling images filtered out of German view) and I get what I want (the sanctity of images and data in Wikipedia). I ask that you give this a thought.

Finally, I appreciate that English is not your first language and that you're trying your best to communicate in it, but please don't call me a liar. I can only assume good faith and hope that you weren't trying to attack me personally. Thanks AreJay (talk) 14:43, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Addendum: I'm also providing you a link to Germany's ISPs. Please click here. Thanks AreJay (talk) 14:52, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break

I still don't get clear answers to the question:

Is a Hindu or a Jain Swastika banned by law in Germany/Austria/Brazil? Yes, or No? I don't want to hear again Starscream's personal theories about a resemblance causing the viewing of the Hindus/Jain/buddhist swastika to be an offense. I'd like to know IF the law of these countries bans a Hindu/Buddhist/Jain religious swastika. Yes or NO, which is it?

In the answer is NO, i.e. the religious symbols are NOT banned by law, then personal opinions don't count at all regarding the tagging of these photos - nazi or non-nazi tags whatever.

I would once again reiterate another point ... many things are banned here and there by various country-specific laws. Wikipedia's task is not to act as the nanny and chaperon the readers. Viewing certain maps of Kashmir is banned in India, that does not mean we must tag any such maps for the benefit of Indian readers. Starscream is being very stubborn here without answering why we need to tag images and "warn" readers ... that way, we'll have to tag Azad Kashmir maps for Indian readers, palestinian maps/articles for Israeli readers, Georgian maps for russian readers/ russian maps of ossetia for Georgian readers, Muhammad paintings for some Muslim countries, etc, certain images of body parts for certain countries, articles on evolution for towns/places that promote creationism etc. Wikipedia doesn't censor, nor is its task to act as the nanny for readers.

But aside from the argument in the preceding paragraph, I just want to know, yes or no, whether a Hindu/Jain/buddhist swastika will be unlawful in any country. If not, please untag all such images, and let Starscream's personal views remain with him. BTW, starscream might want to reword his comments about calling other people liars. I understand he is not a native English speaker, but in that case, asking someone else to translate his comments to English might help avoid the unnecessary offensive words which look like personal attacks. --Ragib (talk) 00:54, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

26 August 2008

Specific user rights can be granted

Since a couple of weaks stewards are able to create global user groups for local user rights (I know that this sounds strange). We can ask stewards to create groups like rollbacker or "edit blocked pages". --~/w^{/Talk - Usefull stuff} 08:05, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I think you may misunderstand what happened here. Those are global groups and apply to the user on every wiki where they have a unified account.

Are you proposing something specific? — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 17:29, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

This global user groups can be opted-in for just one or more wikis. --~/w^{/Talk - Usefull stuff} 10:14, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Why is this broken?

Image:Blueprint Barnstar 2.PNG isn't working. Spits out a bare 404 error, the likes of which I don't think I've ever seen around here. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:18, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Probably related to #Massive image loss. — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 22:48, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Add to that, Image:Editors Barnstar.png. Presumably the same issue. Is there someplace specific that missing images should be reported? --Willscrlt (Talk) 09:52, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Maybe someone has another copy they can upload to that filename instead? Cirt (talk) 10:02, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Reporting them to #Massive image loss is probably a good idea. If you're feeling bold, add them to the lists linked to from there. Also, if the image has a source listed, reuploading it with a different title would be good. (We can then run CommonsDelinker to replace images globally with the new, good, version.) Giggy (talk) 10:04, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I dropped a note to the talkpages of w:User:Smurrayinchester about the first image, and White Cat (talk · contribs) about the second one. I see Erik Baas (talk · contribs) uploaded a lower res version for both, thank you! Cirt (talk) 10:34, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

September 7

Template talk:Clear#Template not working as designed

Someone with admin editing privileges, please read the comment on the {{Clear}} template talk page. The template is currently a redirect to a similar, but not identical template. This is causing some formatting problems where the slightly different syntax would help because the Template:{{Village pump/Archive/2008/09}} template adds too much space. I've included the code for the template currently in use on en.wiki. Here is a link with additional details about how the two templates are (or in this case, should be) different. Thanks! --Willscrlt (Talk) 09:43, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

London (UK) image categories

The miss-match between the categories on the English WP and Wikicommons appears to be confusing a lot of people who upload images of London when it comes to adding a category to indicate where the photo was taken. The categories of London boroughs (on WC) are abbreviated i.e. Ealing or Islington etc instead of Ealing Borough of London or Islington Borough of London. Because most of the boroughs are named after the principle town it appears that the majority of contributors do not realise that these categories apply to the whole borough and so ignore all these suggestions when they come up in a category search -unless it is a photo taken in that principle town. Thus, too many images just don't get a location cat. Now, although I like short cat names, I think this is a problem that needs a compromise. Is it possible for a script to run through and make the changes automatically?

The other problem is that it is impossible to group the images together by location in the same way that people 'think' in terms of localities. On en:WP they categorise by neighbourhoods which is better than 'districts' which are invisible administration boundaries and even a local might not be sure of its name and even less as to which end of the street the boundary is. I suppose, using a London District category is all right in conjunction... but as a category for images it is very limited in usefulness. So reviewing what images are available for a given location is not as easy as it could be. Can anyone see any reason why I should not create a new set of categories on WC mirroring these Neighbourhoods of London categories? I have hear others complain about these two things before but I hadn't realised the extent of the problem until now. --P.g.champion (talk) 16:50, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Let's automate deletion of files

- but let's do it right:

Obviously, a file should not be in use when it's deleted. The equally obvious solution to that, is to remove all links to it, preferably by replacing it with a perfect replacement.

Such replacements could be divided in four classes:

No difference apart from the filename: This ought to be the only class described as "Exact duplicate". Replacing these images should be trivial.
Differences in format: These may be rescaled images, or images with a different file format, but the notable thing is that they show the exact same content; if they would be rescaled to the same size, the only difference might be the quality. This is the only class to be described as "Duplicate", although NOT an exact duplicate". (In fact, currently a move from bitmap to vector is excluded from this class.) In reality, wikis will see these images replaced as "Exact duplicate".
Difference in detail: These images display the same thing, and they have matching descriptions, but they are not the same image. One would expect them being replaced as something like "Similar image", but in reality wikis will see these images replaced as "Duplicate", although NOT an exact duplicate".
Difference in content: These images are about the same context, but they do not display the same thing, or their image description differs. They may show a different element from the same class, or they may include different peripheral objects. This class would be eg. "Similar content", and its replacements ought to include the warning to check the page context. As this places the burden on the other wikis, it's doubtful whether such replacements should ever be made, except for copyright, yet in reality wikis will see even such images replaced as "Duplicate", although NOT an exact duplicate".
The rest: If there's no replacement in one of the above four classes, there's no replacement. If copyright violations require deletion, the other wikis had better be told that there's a problem. This is in itself a problem, as the other wikis will usually not know about the deletion effort until it reaches them, which means their objections, if any, will be raised exactly after the matter is closed.

Either, let's automate deletion of files correctly, or
Let's not automate deletion of files.
Aliter (talk) 17:49, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism would screw us unfortunately. -mattbuck (Talk) 19:05, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

There is really no way to automate deletions well enough. Vandalism is but the first problem. I wouldn't even want to think about all the other problems that would arise; it would not be worth the effort. — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 09:34, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, as I said: Either, let's automate deletion of files correctly, or
Let's not automate deletion of files.

So, if the process can't be automated correctly, then it shouldn't be automated at all. As I concentrated on the replacement task in this, this leads to: If the process can't be made so it guarantees that CommonsDelinker only performs replacements within the rules, then it shouldn't make replacements at all. Aliter (talk) 01:30, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Very Bad Idea. — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 14:11, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Making replacements automatically is different from making deletions automatically. I think you're aware of this already. Superm401 - Talk 18:31, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to voice my "bad idea" opinion as well. It'd be too easy to game the bots, which would cause massive headaches for all involved. EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:45, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

When there are problems it is not CommonsDelinker, but the admins ordering the replacements and doing the deletions. I agree that there are some problems. I think two specific things can be done better:

Firstly, I think the comment '"Duplicate", although NOT an exact duplicate' should be avoided, since the deletion guidelines specifically says that only exact duplictes and scaled-down versions can be speedy deleted. So it is much better to use a specific reason like "scaled-down version". And when files are removed for some other reason ("better colors", "border cropped", "watermark removed", ...), it is better to use that reason even if it is not strictly valid according to the guidelines.
Secondly, when deleting files that are renamed from reaonable names it is very good to create redirects from the old names. By reasonable names I mean for example images like Image:Drupe fruit diagram.svg, Image:Wrist and hand deeper palmar dissection.svg, Image:VladimirOblastCoat.png renamed to follow some standard; or Image:Archduchess Maria Christina, Duchess of Teschen.JPG, proposed to be renamed after the painter instead of who is depicted; or Image:Barend van Orley03.jpg, proposed to be renamed from a alternative name of the painter; or Image:T-banen mellom Lindeberg og Furuset.jpg, renamed to a specific line of T-banen; or many other cases. (Of course redirects are not needed from titles which are more or less non-descriptive (IMG_123 and similar), nonsense, or misleading (e.g. wrong species name, wrong painter).)

/Ö 22:28, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

For those reading the word "process" as refering to just the software: I fully intend it to refer to those applying the software to a task as well. I don't want CommonsDelinker out, if it can be helped; but I do want it put to good use only. Renaming I applied just to deletion for a simple reason: Renaming to change a filename, which ought to be a wiki issue BTW, shouldn't create any problems, as long as the process guarantees the same new names. The summary in such a case ought to be something like: Commons file is being renamed because of <reason>.", to demonstrate clearly that were talking about the same file.

Of course, with that category out of the way, "Exact duplicate" represents just that: Two files that are exactly the same. It ought to be possible to limit this message to this situation, eg. by using a page Exactduplicate that can easily be checked by a human, especially with a template that will scale both with the same factor to fit the page.

I don't think '"Duplicate", although NOT an exact duplicate' should be avoided. Rather, I believe it should be applied correctly. If the exact duplicates have their own page, the same scheme could be applied to Sameimage, which has images scaled to the same size; again easily checked by the controller.

Of course, replacing files for some other reason ("better colors", "border cropped", "watermark removed", ...), it would be better to use that reason. In fact, the current pratice of claiming just a scale difference when in reality it's something else, means Commons as a community is lying to the other wikis. But would it really be a good thing to force people on all those other wikis to check the change, for mere "border cropped", etc.? Or would it be better to just offer a link to the imrpovement from the old images description page. And then, how can you guarantee that those will always be limited to trivial changes? Aliter (talk) 00:37, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Paintings can be named according to who painted it, look at all the images uploaded by the Yorck Project. Gryffindor (talk) 13:08, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes paintings can be named after the painter, but there are also other correct ways to name images of paintings. And if images are already uploaded using a correct name, they should not be reuploaded using a new name, replaced on all wikis, and then deleted. That causes extra work for admins here who have to check that the images are replaced, delete them, and preferrably redirect them. It also causes unnecessary edits to replace the images on projects were they are used. And if the deleted images are not redirected (which they often are not)links from ouside Wikimedia are broken (for example from reusers of Commons content). /Ö 18:44, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

A hazard of the nifty new thumbnail display of old image versions feature

The thumbnail display of previous revisions of an image is generally very nice, but on Image:Flag of Israel.svg it now makes the revision of "21:00, 26 February 2008" really stand out... Could someone just delete that revision? AnonMoos (talk) 22:37, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Done -- Lycaon (talk) 22:46, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

September 8

Spines of books

The cover of books are generally copyrighted, even if they are just bland text with no real creativity involved. Would it be fine to upload a photo of several books on a shelf, showing just the spines, e.g. [3] (assuming it was suitably licensed). Richard001 (talk) 02:07, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Image:Cranes from Encyclopédie.jpg

This image I have uploaded is from Encyclopédie (originally). I'm not sure if we already have it though. I have searched for 'crane' and 'Encyclopédie', but don't get any results. Dennett doesn't give a page or volume number, or a page number for his source, so I might have to flick through hundreds of pages to find it. Does anyone know if we already have this one, or have a good idea for finding out? Richard001 (talk) 02:07, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Regions of Chile - category naming convention questions

Hi. I would like to clean up the Category:Regions of Chile a bit. Before starting, I am seeking some advice, especially from Chileans or at least Spanish speaking South Americans familiar with Chile and also from Commons participants who work on categories a lot.

First a little background information. Chile has 15 administrative divisions, or regións, that are comparable to states or provinces in other countries. All but one of the regións are numbered with a roman numeral that indicates (at least through number XII) it's relative north to south position within the country (originally I being the most northern región and XII being the most southern). The Metropolitan Region of Santiago (Región Metropolitana de Santiago) is abbreviated RM but takes the place of number XIII. RM is similar to the U.S. District of Columbia, in that it is not a regular state, but a special administrative region that is the home of the nation's capital (Santiago de Chile in the case of Chile). Two new regións were carved out of existing regións, and they became regións XIV and XV (breaking the north to south numerical order). Several of Chile's regións share the name of large comunas (similar to counties and/or large city areas), like Antofagasta which is within the Antofagasta Región.

Currently, Commons has a terrible mixture of names in use for the various regións . They combine English and Spanish in a very inconsistent manner. Photos of regións are stuck in categories covering the comunas. Many of the regións don't even have categories setup, and their photos are just dumped in Regions of Chile or some other Chile-related category. It makes it very difficult to locate media or organize the media that is there.

The official Spanish name of each región is quite long, and I do not think it would make a very useful category name. The regions each have a shorthand name (e.g., "O'Higgins" instead of "VI Región del Libertador General Bernardo O'Higgins") that could be used instead of the full name. I think using the abbreviated name would be very acceptable to native speakers and locals, while also keeping the names simple to type.

In Spanish, the proper order for a category name would be "Región de O'Higgins" (as you can see in use at w:es:Categoría:Regiones de Chile), but each category must be manually ordered, otherwise they would all be alphabetically sorted under "R" for "Región". It is customary in English names to reverse the order ("O'Higgins Region"), which also helps with the automatic alphabetizing of the category names.

Therefore, I suggest using the Spanish spelling of each región's abbreviated name (Biobío instead of the English Bio-Bio), followed by the English word "Region" on Commons and en.wiki. On es.wiki, keep the categories in the "Región de ___" format currently in use. I think that would be clear and non-offensive to native speakers and locals, while also making it easy for Commons contributors to find things. I do not know whether it would be better to name RM in Spanish ("Región Metropolitana de Santiago") or in English ("Santiago Metropolitan Region"); Spanish would be more consistent with the other names. Where regións and comunas share a name, the región will be easily identifiable as the región, though someone will still have to move miscategorized media occasionally from the comuna category into the región.

I was also going to suggest that the English Wikipedia's (en.wiki) categories be organized in the same way, but I discovered that they already are that way. I seem to be duplicating the efforts of other people. The main variation from en.wiki that I would recommend on Commons is to use the Spanish name for RM ("Región Metropolitana de Santiago") instead of the English name, since all the other regions are (mostly) in Spanish.

I am also curious if it would be proper to shorten "Magallanes y Antártica Chilena Region" to "Magallanes y Antártica Region" as it is currently on Commons? I like short category names, but only if they are proper and would not be offensive or misleading. Another common short name I see is just "Magallanes Region", though that really short name might have political overtones and be more popular with people who do not feel Chile has legitimate claims to land in Antartica. If either "Magallanes y Antártica Region" or "Magallanes Region" are acceptable, then en.wiki's category should be renamed, too.

Below is my complete recommendation. I do not speak much Spanish, so all spellings came from the w:es:Categoría:Regiones de Chile and its related articles.

Please leave your comments on Category talk:Regions of Chile. Thanks! --Willscrlt (Talk) 03:27, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Proposed names "(nc)" means "no change"	Current category names			Official name
Proposed names "(nc)" means "no change"	commons	en.wiki	es.wiki	Official name
c: Tarapacá Region (nc) en: Tarapacá Region (nc) es: Región de Tarapacá (nc)	Tarapacá Region	Tarapacá Region	Región de Tarapacá	I Región de Tarapacá
c: Antofagasta Region en: Antofagasta Region (nc) es: Región de Antofagasta (nc)	Region of Antofagasta Comuna Antofagasta also has several images of the Región in it that don't belong there.	Antofagasta Region	Región de Antofagasta	II Región de Antofagasta.
c: Atacama Region en: Atacama Region (nc) es: Región de Atacama (nc)	Atacama	Atacama Region	Región de Atacama	III Región de Atacama
c: Coquimbo Region (nc) en: Coquimbo Region (nc) es: Región de Coquimbo (nc)	Coquimbo Region	Coquimbo Region	Región de Coquimbo	IV Región de Coquimbo
c: Valparaíso Region en: Valparaíso Region (nc) es: Región de Valparaíso (nc)	n/a Comuna Valparaíso also has several images of the Región in it that don't belong there.	Valparaíso Region	Región de Valparaíso	V Región de Valparaíso
c: O'Higgins Region (nc) en: O'Higgins Region (nc) es: Región de O'Higgins (nc)	O'Higgins Region	O'Higgins Region	Región de O'Higgins	VI Región del Libertador General Bernardo O'Higgins
c: Maule Region en: Maule Region (nc) es: Región del Maule (nc)	n/a	Maule Region	Región del Maule	VII Región del Maule
c: Biobío Region en: Biobío Region (nc) es: Región del Biobío (nc)	Bío-Bío Region	Biobío Region	Región del Biobío	VIII Región del Biobío
c: Araucanía Region en: Araucanía Region (nc) es: Región de la Araucanía (nc)	n/a	Araucanía Region	Región de la Araucanía	IX Región de la Araucanía
c: Los Lagos Region (nc) en: Los Lagos Region (nc) es: Región de Los Lagos (nc)	Los Lagos Region	Los Lagos Region	Región de Los Lagos	X Región de Los Lagos
c: Aisén Region en: Aisén Region (nc) es: Región de Aisén (nc)	Aisen Region	Aisén Region	Región de Aisén	XI Región de Aisén del General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo
c: Magallanes y Antártica Chilena Region en: Magallanes y Antártica Chilena Region (nc) es: Región de Magallanes y de la Antártica Chilena (nc)	Magallanes y Antártica Region	Magallanes y Antártica Chilena Region	Región de Magallanes y de la Antártica Chilena	XII Región de Magallanes y de la Antártica Chilena.
c: Región Metropolitana de Santiago or c: Santiago Metropolitan Region en: Santiago Metropolitan Region (nc) es: Región Metropolitana de Santiago (nc)	n/a Santiago de Chile also has several images of the Región in it that don't belong there.	Santiago Metropolitan Region	Región Metropolitana de Santiago	Región Metropolitana de Santiago
c: Los Ríos Region en: Los Ríos Region (nc) es: Región de Los Ríos (nc)	n/a	Los Ríos Region	Región de Los Ríos	XIV Región de Los Ríos
c: Arica y Parinacota Region en: Arica y Parinacota Region (nc) es: Región de Arica y Parinacota (nc)	n/a Comuna Arica also has several images of the Región in it that don't belong there.	Arica y Parinacota Region	Región de Arica y Parinacota	XV Región de Arica y Parinacota

Upload script for photographs

Hi all,

I have written a Perl script, Nichalp's upload script, that you can use to batch upload your photographs to Wikimedia Commons. The script has a lot of functions including:

adding infoboxes, categories, and geoboxes;
embedding your name, caption, and GPS data as Exif data;
autorotation of images to correct the orientation;
renaming images on-the-fly; and
rigorous checking to ensure that categories, licences and descriptions are added.

Do have a go at testing it. Regards, Nichalp (talk) 07:03, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Commons Search error

I keep getting a database error every time I try to search. No idea if it's just a small issue or a larger issue. Bidgee (talk) 13:20, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Working now! Right after I posted of course. Bidgee (talk) 13:22, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

September 9

Massive image loss

For those that didn't see; message from Tim Starling. Replies are preferred here if necessary. I'm not sure how much this affects Commons, but imagine it'd be a fair bit. Not pretty. :-( —Giggy 10:15, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

List of missing images. Cirt (talk) 10:19, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

That's terrible. At least there's a list, let's go through it, warn uploaders, check sources. I've copied it to User:PatríciaR/missing images, give me a few minutes to format it... Patrícia ^msg 10:27, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

A list of those with Commons in their path:
List removed. Didn't make much sense. Siebrand 11:36, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
--Túrelio (talk) 10:34, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I made a table with the list, with fields to note whether images have been reuploaded and/or the original uploaders warned. I'm still fixing some file names, but that should be done soon. Patrícia ^msg 11:27, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

All files, including those outside Commons: User:PatríciaR/missing images/all. Cheers! Siebrand 11:36, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

We could make a standard message (template) and tag all the user's talk pages with this message (sounds like botwork). Multichill (talk) 11:44, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Is it just me or do a random sampling of images at User:PatríciaR/missing images work just fine? —Giggy 12:03, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I was wondering the same o_O. Patrícia ^msg 12:10, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Yep, there is some thumbnails only, you can't see anything if you click them for full images. — str4nd ☕ 12:31, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

No, click on the Full resolution, some are there. You should get some error or just a line with the path otherwise. Patrícia ^msg 12:33, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Some of them have previews available, but not full resolution. I guess they're cached somewhere. Is it worth trying to grab a copy or a backup before that cache expires? And especially so for the svgs? Ben Aveling 13:25, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

You should be able to find those thumbs at http://upload.wikimedia.org/lost-image-thumb-backup/ . Multichill (talk) 13:40, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Just in case anyone needs a quick overview: gallery of affected Commons files --:bdk: 13:46, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

One remark, Image:Kit socks.png was also gone, but is not on the list. I hope this was the only exception... --Wimmel (talk) 16:39, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I've made a list of the ones I have copies of in user:sanbeg/missing images; if we can copy those back, that should help somewhat. -Sanbeg (talk) 19:42, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I was curious to see what would happen if I attempt to restore a missing file. It logged the restore, but it can't log the delete. See [4]. Maxim_(talk) 19:54, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

User:Wiki-Bot keeps a copy of the newly uploaded files. It has a copy of all at [5] but 46: User:Platonides/missing_images - Platonides (talk) 22:07, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks to Platonides and Gmaxwell, we're missing only 45 (or thereabouts) now. YAY! — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 00:09, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

~~Another one missing not on the baleeted list: Image:AdamSmith.jpg. MER-C 10:10, 6 September 2008 (UTC)~~

~~Another: Image:Arrowhead.jpg. --Carnildo (talk) 03:43, 9 September 2008 (UTC)~~

David Rumpsey Map Collections

Do any one know how to download a map, with the best resolution, from http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/view/search?search=Search&q=soldan&os=0 ?

Greetings, --[[User:Createaccount|Antipatico]] (talk) 19:43, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

My initial take is (given that the "Export" button only gives you a middle-quality image) one would have to rip the Flash file, and use a Flash editor to get at the big version. It is obviously embedded in the Flash, so there doesn't seem to be another option. A tedious process, to be sure. PS: Your sig seems to be broken, as it is including the [[ and ]] markup as if part of your username. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:24, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

They used to have links to the full MrSID file, but apparently that's broken (maybe intentionally?). For this map, I get a "Full Image Download in MrSID format" link in the left sidebar. Clicking that doesn't work, as it goes to a non-existing URL http://www.davi But opening the page source and scrolling down, you'll find that the full URL is "http://www.davi drumsey.com/rumsey/d ownload.pl?image=/D0 057/4363026.sid". Copy-paste that into your URL bar, delete the blanks such that the URL reads "http://www.davidrumsey.com/rumsey/download.pl?image=/D0057/4363026.sid". Hit return. Your browser should now ask you whether to save the file. SID files can be read and converted to something else using e.g. IrfanView. Lupo 13:31, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you!

I followed Lupo's instructions and downloaded the sid-file. I had installed "MrSID Viewer" and used the convert function. There was no problem.

Thanks also an SMcCandlish!

--[[User:Createaccount|Antipatico]] (talk) 19:28, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Categorizing galleries

I'm not really sure how galleries that have an associated category of the same name are supposed to be categorized. Should they be categorized just like the associated category, or should they be placed simply in that associated category? I can't see any guidance on this on either of the pages I have linked to. On the one hand, categorizing a gallery identically to the category allows the gallery to be seen by browsing above the level of that category. On the other, it is not clear looking at the category itself that there is an associated gallery. Or, I suppose, you could do both (if you don't consider this excessive overcategorization). Richard001 (talk) 04:53, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi Richard001, i was wondering the same (see my post in #Lot of possible new categories). I like option 1 (categorized just like the associated category) or maybe option 3 (in both). The category should have a template pointing to the associated gallery (like {{See more}}). Multichill (talk) 05:23, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Don't know the official policy, but what I've most often seen is that if there's an exact match in intended scope between a gallery and a category, then just place the gallery in that one category (e.g. Eye of Providence, Bikini, also many galleries biographical to one specific person, etc.). AnonMoos (talk) 07:14, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

One disadvantage of not nesting the gallery in the category is that from the gallery it is not longer clear that there is a category on the same subject. Take for example Erasmus Darwin and Category:Erasmus Darwin. From either it is not clear that the other exists (and they also both have unique content - there is in fact no overlap between them, at least until I edited an image just now). Richard001 (talk) 05:49, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Pluto Image

I'm about to log off for a while, but I just noticed that Image:Plutoncharon1.jpg is a derivative of which was deleted as not PD per Commons:Deletion requests/Image:Pluto.jpg. Would someone else mind addressing it. Dragons flight (talk) 05:07, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Commons:Category scheme flora

All interested parties are invited to contribute at Commons talk:Category scheme flora to the discussion of this proposed scheme -Arb. (talk) 11:59, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

As instigator of the move of the Plants of categories into the Flora of categories and the creation of Flora by country, the discussion needs to be about what you and with all of your knowledge did. Flora of categories are now reduced to whatever the Plants of categories were and it needs to be determined what they were. Of course, you must know this as it was your goal to merge them and then ask questions.

The discussion is too late, until Siebot undoes the merge the discussion there is to be "What did the Plants of categories really mean". I am impressed by the questions that you asked after the move of the Plants of categories into the "Flora of" categories. At least have enough ability to ask the question of what you are looking at now. "What did the plants of categories really mean?" Anything else there is simply a waste of other peoples valuable time.

-- carol (talk) 18:21, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

question...

The mast-head of the publication "w:Stars and Stripes" describes itself as:

The First-Amendment, editorially independent daily newspaper for the U.S. military community, authorized by the Department of Defense.

Four of the six email addresses on the "contact us" page are .mil domain.

Do Stars and Stripes employees count as employees of a US Federal Agency? Are images credited to Stars and Stripes employees in the public domain?

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 16:48, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Subject to the standard caveat that works by government contracters may be treated by the government as public domain but Commons usually doesn't accept them without proof the contracter has assigned copyright to the government or agrees to release the work to the public domain. -Nard the Bard 19:18, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

A strange claim

A new contributor has had serious objections to the article on Guantanamo's former Staff Judge Advocate w:Patrick M. McCarthy. He has replaced the page with patent nonsense over half a dozen times now.

He started with removing a public domain image of McCarthy. On September 3rd, after being admonished by an administrator, he left the following note on my user page.

Geoswan is a contributor on Wikepedia whose main emphasis is to endanger members of the United States military and their families by plastering their names and images on the web when they work in highly volatile situations in the War on Terror.

Well, he did offer an explanation for his deletion:

First, any story about as (sic) private individual that uses his name and image require that individual's permission ..... period. That includes pictures taken. While the photo may be used free of copyright concerns re. the federal government, one is still required to gain the permission of the individual pictured before it may be used.

I'd ignore this guy, except he insists that he has had some kind of legal training.

His claim that we need a release from the subject of every photo, and from every individual we write about on the wikipedia -- has anyone ever heard anyone who knew what they were talking about make this claim?

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 16:48, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

He is simply wrong. At least in the US there is no such legal requirement to obtain blanket permission. The rules we work to on Commons are at COM:PEOPLE. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 18:41, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the link... public and private places...

So, in the case of the picture of McCarthy, briefing a subordinate, in his office, public space? Geo Swan (talk) 19:27, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Should be irrelevant in this case as the image was taken and published by army personnel. --Túrelio (talk) 20:56, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Problem with viewing image

How can File:Image-Gloeden, Wilhelm von (1856-1931) - n. 0027 - Socrate alla fonte - WV Gloeden Taormina 1902.jpg be transcluded? __meco (talk) 22:14, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Look at the source of this: Image:Image-Gloeden, Wilhelm von (1856-1931) - n. 0027 - Socrate alla fonte - WV Gloeden Taormina 1902.jpg -- AnonMoos (talk) 23:42, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Very good. I notice that the image has also been tagged for renaming which is probably also a good solution. __meco (talk) 08:30, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

September 10

Lot of possible new categories

I made a list of possible categories to create based on the uncategorized files which are used in galleries. It might be useful for creating new categories. When you create one of the categories my bot will put the uncategorized files in the category. Multichill (talk) 20:45, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

The guidelines about recommended gallery names are different than for recomended cetegory names, so with a lot of those "suggested" category names one should be careful that new names meet those standards, especially in case of foreign names. Other than that, can a bot be written to create those categories? --Jarekt (talk) 21:02, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Sure. For each category: take the categories from the gallery and link to the gallery. Example at Category:Avena sativa (other template than {{See more}} might be nicer). But the list should be checked manually before actually running this bot. Multichill (talk) 21:10, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

For categories that include the taxonomy navigation, that template now defaults to showing the gallery instead of the category if a gallery exists so the {{See more}} template is simply a redundancy and perhaps without any educational features other than providing a third or fourth link to the gallery. -- carol (talk) 15:43, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

What is the procedure to change some of them ? Or just to indicate that it is checked ? --Foroa (talk) 06:02, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I having a little difficulty in understanding what is being suggested here. I have looked at the list, and particularly at the German items, many of them which are railway related. Some of the uncategorised shots have two categories. Some of the suggested names are weird. Some don't relate to the geography on the ground. Then we have the translation problem in the existing categories z.B Category:Train stations in North Rhine-Westphalia, which are not predictable to a German speaker, and why the hyphen?

User:Jarekt- can you provide the link to the rules of Category naming, and the rules of Gallery naming?

Wouldn't it better to do this manually- and refer the lists (with the rules)to the various wikiprojects to sort out the mess. ClemRutter (talk) 09:15, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Rules of Category naming, and the rules of Gallery naming:

*Commons:Categories#Category_name and Commons:Naming categories - Category naming policy (the last one in perpetual "proposed" stage)

*Commons:Galleries#Naming_conventions

--Jarekt (talk) 13:27, 5 September 2008 (UTC)--Jarekt (talk) 13:27, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

*Commons:By location category scheme to add one more. Its good to show then together. Thanks. ClemRutter (talk) 23:13, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

The categories can be created automaticly, but which categories to create have to be sorted out by humans. I propose that the categories to be created are pasted at User:Multichill/Categories to create and categories not to be created at User:Multichill/Categories not to create (useful for future queries). Please remove useless cats and cats copied to User:Multichill/Categories to create from User:Multichill/Category suggestions I will sort out how to create these categories with a bot.

About the categorization itself i have a question. I noticed these kind of edits. I would expect Anobium punctatum to be in Category:Anobiidae and Category:Anobium punctatum including a link to Anobium punctatum. Seems easier to navigate to me. Multichill (talk) 15:48, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I think I have got the idea now. The Bot is taking galleries and converting them into Categories. We are going to suggest the category names to be used, and it will do the business. I have mentally followed the process and have come up with a few problems that I hope the Bot will resolve.

On the Gallery page there is a description in one or more languages of the contents of the gallery. This the Bot will transfer to the new page so no data is lost. What happens if the title of the new category is significantly different from the gallery page? Is this information also written to the image?
On the gallery, information is given under each image. This needs to be preserved. Presumably the Bot will transfer this data to the image. See Preußischer Landtag first image Image:Berlin Abgeordnetenhaus 1900.jpg where the description on image and on gallery are different.
As the Bot is creating Categories, these will have Categories. I have chased a few of these and discovered that if the Galleries containing categorys, are converted into Category containing categories that they do not resemble the containing categories of similar places in similar towns Alter Botanischer Garten (Marburg). Sometimes they are better. Sometimes not. Sometimes they are too general. Zentralvieh- und Schlachthof (Berlin) and need an intermediate category Category:Slaughterhouses in Berlin leading to Category:Slaughterhouses in Germany. When the Bot does its job, it should put the Category into Category:Bot created category so we can manually check the category tree.
As previously said the Category names use different conventions: one immediate improvement is to remove all the brackets.Alter Botanischer Garten (Marburg) should be Alter Botanischer Garten, Marburg. (I am of the endonym school of thought for location place names.)

In short it is a good idea- but it is easier to do it once correctly than to have to revisit it later. ClemRutter (talk) 11:58, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

About the question of Multichill "About the categorization itself I have a question. I noticed ...". When you use the search field in the left column you arrive always(?) at a gallery page. I tried it also with the given example of Anobium punctatum. At that page I find it important to have a link to the category page with the same name. That allows to switch between the category and gallery page visa versa. What I would like for the pages of plants is also the category of the higher level included. This allows the user who comes via the search at the gallery page to go also to the higher level category immediately. However I experienced that this option is usually very rapidly eliminated because of over-categorization. --Wouter (talk) 20:01, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Wouter have you done anything to alter the search options and are you really talking about Multichill's searches or your own? English can be a little fuzzy due to the metaphorical way of using the word "you" when the word "I" was intended. I ask both of these questions of Wouter because when I search for that plant, I get gallery pages. I get a linked gallery page at the top of the search page and the gallery page is first in the options. If you would like to demand a specific next category from a genus -- you (and I specifically mean you) need to demand this from each of the wiki (they have differing views on where species belong) and perhaps the need is to be demanded from each herbarium and species name server. Or perhaps you could determine a way to uniformly apply the different options that the experts at the wikipedias, the name servers and the herbariums and others suggest. I also think that the requirement for yet one more link to plant galleries has the appearance of being an unnecessary and overused request. -- carol (talk) 20:33, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I created a few Swedish categories like Category:Visingsö, but the bot has not yet put anything from Visingsö in it. Am I expected to do something more? /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 20:25, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

It does seem to be that some of Multichills software endeavors would be more quickly accomplished by a human being which (last I looked) was not the state of software in the 21st century. I suggest that you do what I did. Put one of the images on your watch list and do not do anything else that is requested of you from that "software author" until things really have the appearance of a software move of the files. Perhaps "BotChill" can add a string to the html comments indicating that a software did indeed move the file? -- carol (talk) 20:37, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Seem to be a lot of exceptions. Let's stick to manual creation of categories until we figure out a standard way to create categories. Pieter: I'm somewhat backlogged. Tagged about 100.000 files as uncategorized in the last couple of days. My categorization bot cant keep up, still have several thousands of files to categorize. I'm currently only categorizing files where <category name> equals < gallery name> so that images wont end up in parent categories because a category was not yet created. Multichill (talk) 20:14, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Some statistics. We currently have 303592 uncategorized files (about 10% of all files) of these files 115326 are used in a gallery, so about a third can be categorized based on the gallery. Multichill (talk) 20:35, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

But those are not really a problem. That is the uncategorized stuff that is not in galleries. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 21:52, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

For those images we can get info from the usage at wikipedia's (Commonsense), but the result has to be checked for each image. Multichill (talk) 21:33, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

September 5

Indicating location for pictures

This may not be the place to bring up an issue like this, if so please feel free to delete this. One of the most interesting pieces of information about a photo is where it was taken. In the case of plant or animal pictures it is particularly interesting because it gives an idea about the range of a particular species and even regional differences.

Right now, a lot of images don't seem to have location information included. Should the photo upload process include a request for location information? Where is the standard place to put location information? Does it belong in the description block?

--Davefoc (talk) 19:55, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

See Commons:Geocoding for more information. There is no agreement. I upload with Commonist so do put it in the Description as here, others don't.

ClemRutter (talk) 20:57, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Making consistent geocoding of plants is something which I have just started a thread on in Commons talk:Category scheme flora. You may want to join that discussion (because then we will be two users discussing, so boring to be alone).

I prefer to always put the {{Location}} directly underneath {{Information}} as the two tables align nicely this way. -- Slaunger (talk) 21:20, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

September 11

Upload form following category redirects

I love this feature and whoever added it - enter for instance "railway maps" on the upload form and it corrects it to "rail transport maps". --NE2 (talk) 05:58, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Lupo should get the credit, see here. I agree it is a good improvement. Disambiguation categories are dealt with in an equally elegant manner as well; the user is presented with a list of forked out categories when entering a disambiguation category. Try for instance Channels;-) -- Slaunger (talk) 06:30, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

question

Could user request speedy deletion to his own images? i've notice some admins permits, some don't--ZHModdlyg Talk+ 17:56, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Crystal ball?

Not sure what I should do when I see an edit like this (basically, saying what will happen in the future with a building I photographed). If it was from a named contributor of course I'd ask where they got their information, but it is from an anon with no other contributions. - Jmabel ! talk 23:26, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, my natural instinct is to say remove everything that would normally need a source for if it was on Wikipedia, but of course a good description is nice. I would change it back and put "see talk" in the edit summary where you then say why you changed it back (in case that anon comes back). Rocket000(talk) 00:09, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Agree with everything said by Rocket000 (talk · contribs), could not have said that better myself. Cirt (talk) 00:32, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Turns out it's basically right, so I'll just cite. - Jmabel ! talk 07:20, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Even better when you learn something. :-) Rocket000(talk) 17:09, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Quite a normal thing (I leave such notices too). Here's a starting point: [6]. Dig deeper, you'll find the city ordnances. NVO (talk) 08:35, 12 September 2008 (UTC) // oops, the link was just a line above, anyway, it seems to be resolved by now. NVO (talk) 08:38, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

September 6

Problem with Creator space - decision needed

Users are removing {{Creator}} tags from images. I believe they are doing this because they see a problem with double categorization. See Template talk:Creator#Problems with automatic categorization. In May, the problem was reported here at the Pump, but apart from general consensus for option 4, has anything been done? If 4 is impossible to implement, what about an Option 5 - disable automatic categorization from the tag so that it behaves like Template:Photographer? Finally, how does Creator work when there is no "category" in the source? -Wikibob (talk) 00:44, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Templates that categorize always cause problems, but if done right can have many benefits that out weigh those problems. You can totally rename a category with 1000s of members in a single edit. It centralizes categorization. If there was no learning curve, I would say most categorizing should be done though templates, but the problem is people would have to learn a template/category, sometimes complex, for each topic. (For example, see {{Translated tag}}—a template designed to do all categorizing of the pages it's on). I don't recommend that for non-maintenance categories but there are similar methods like with {{Crystal icons}} and {{Convert to SVG}}. So subcategorizing through templates is something to consider, although it's probably best to keep templates and categories separate for accessibility. how does Creator work when there is no "category" Not sure what you mean "work". Aren't they just there to provide info? Rocket000(talk) 17:38, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Another problem with {{John Doe}} template is that it creates category Category:John Doe instead of something like Category:Artwork of John Doe. Category:John Doe should contain images of that person and not images by that person. That is the reason I never use this template. Removing automatic categorization would be great, except for all the work needed to add categories to the images that use this template. --Jarekt (talk) 21:41, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

That could be done with a bot, shouldnt be that much work. Multichill (talk) 22:02, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

That's not a problem of the {{Creator}} template. It doesn't include a category. It's a problem of the people writing the entries in the "Creator:" namespace. Lupo 08:51, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Technical problem with a picture

Hi, the following picture Image:Ibn haithem portrait.jpg seems to have a technical problem : the file exists but the picture doesn't appear, and when i click on it ( http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/Ibn_haithem_portrait.jpg ) a technical error message is displayed : 404 error: File not found. The URL you requested was not found. Does anyone have a solution for that? Guérin Nicolas ^(messages) 13:37, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Image:JohnDeacon1979.JPG

Hi! This picture cannot be reached. What's the problem? 82.141.181.18 20:58, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Technical problem, it should be re-uploaded i think. Guérin Nicolas ^(messages) 21:18, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Bot behavior question

What's the best way to proceed when a bot seems to be doing something incorrectly? I've noticed a behavior in a bot that looks erroneous (tagging non-media files, specifically geolocation XML snippets, as "image needs to be categorized"), but the owner prefers not to change the bot. It's a fairly minor thing, but whenever I undo the bot's edits, the bot immediately repeats the action. I hesitate to keep doing that per 3RR. (example) Should I just accept that the text added to the KMLs will be incorrect? Thanks! Huwmanbeing ☀★ 13:46, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Those Geographic overlays look great but I am not sure is the xml code for them should be in Image: namespace as it is in your example Image:Yorktown, Indiana 1878.png/overlay.kml. I am not sure what is the proper place (section of discussion in Image Talk: namespace maybe), but current one does not seem to be working well. --Jarekt (talk) 14:20, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

You can find the original thread User talk:Multichill#Bot tagging of XML files, but it looks like Huwmanbeing prefers to have it here. You have two options

The pages stay in the imagenamespace; add categories to it
The pages move to another namespace

And as you have noticed, you cant remove the uncategorized template, so please not try. Multichill (talk) 22:01, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Multichill: Just seeking other opinions -- no need to take offense. Something about tagging a non-image file as "image needs category" still seems wrong, but if I can't change things, then (as you suggest) I won't even try. Huwmanbeing ☀★ 00:36, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I do not think "non-image files" should be in image namespace. Are there other types of subpages also in image namespace? If there are and we are going to keep them than they should be in a category:Google Earth scripts or something similar. --Jarekt (talk) 02:41, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

All files in the file namespace (which happens to be called "Image") need categories. In fact, every content page on the site (excluding talk pages) should be categorized. Superm401 - Talk 06:54, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

One Map, two images?

I uploaded two versions of a map.

Image:Chile.Pissis-low-A-rioloa.gif (low resolution 1,830×1,300 pixels 1.88 MB)
Image:Chile.Pissis-high-A-rioloa.gif (high resolution 5,470 × 3,800 pixels, 17.68 MB)

I think it is reasonable because "high" is out of reach for modems and other slow connections, yet someone can need some day the details of the map. "low"-Version is accessible to any user.

I think, in times of Gigas and Teras it is arguable such double uploads.

Is there any impediment?. If no one disagrees, I will upload the rest of the "highs".

I'm all ears (in this page). --[[User:Createaccount]] (talk) 19:08, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

It is enough to upload only the "high" version. You don't need to worry about people with slow connections: the version displayed in an article or on the image page is always a reduced one of the large file, so they won't encounter any problem even with the high version. And if someone does want the details (which they would get by clicking on "Full resolution"), the high version is better. Actually, when one file is a scaled-down version of another one (as is the case of your "low" version file), it qualifies for speedy deletion (see {{Duplicate}}). Pruneau^talk 19:25, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Maybe, though there are significant differences between Image:Chile.Pissis-low-A-rioloa.gif and the 1830px thumbnail generated by our software http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2c/Chile.Pissis-high-A-rioloa.gif/1830px-Chile.Pissis-high-A-rioloa.gif But some technical comments:

We do accept GIF, but our preferred non-lossy format is PNG. Simply opening this 17.7 MB GIF file and saving it as a PNG reduces the size to 15.1 MB.
However, the original SID you created this GIF from already is a format that uses lossy compression. It doesn't make much sense to open the SID and then save in a non-lossy format such as GIF or PNG. Saving the 3.7 MB SID as a JPG yields in GIMP at a quality setting of 96 a 13MB file, and at a quality setting of 85 a file of a mere 7.7 MB without any visible degradation. De-noising the file a little in GIMP and then saving as JPG at quality 85 in GIMP gives a 6.1 MB file.
If you have a tool to convert SID files into DJVu files, you might also upload a DJVu file. The two formats are similar, and a DJVu would be about the same size as the original SID file.

In summary: upload the high-res version, but in JPG or in DJVu. Then look what the software produced as thumbnails from that. If those thumbnails are poor, then consider generating a smaller version and upload that as a JPG. But if those thumbnails are OK, then don't bother uploading a smaller version.

Some comments of the image description: please give the direct URL to the source, not just to the top page. For these images, the source would be David Rumsey Historic Map Collection, image ID 520016. Please also add the life dates of Aime Pissis: 1812-1889. "Other versions" can be linked, just like you did here. Lupo 21:16, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Heads up

Heads up: I just set MediaWiki:Pagetitle-view-mainpage to "Wikimedia Commons". This means that bookmarks to the main page will now read "Wikimedia Commons" instead of "Main Page - Wikimedia Commons", similar to the English and German Wikipedias. I don't think this will upset anyone, but I wanted to leave a note just to be sure. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 21:43, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

September 12

Rubik's Cube

Ok, what am I missing about Image:Rubik's cube.svg? Is this not a derivative work? It was invented in 1974 by Ernő Rubik (still living). The official website has a page regarding intellectual properties which explicitly asserts Seven Towns Ltd holds copyrights. How did this get featured? Эlcobbola _talk 00:03, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

The svg you point to is based on Image:Rubiks cube.jpg, which is a photo of a rubik's cube. Per the page you link to, I don't understand how this is free. See Commons:Deletion requests/Image:Rubiks cube.jpg. Giggy (talk) 08:00, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Wimedia Commons database inconsistency and missing image

At 16:24, 12 September 2008 I was uploading a modified version of Image:Piazza Santa Maria del Pianto Rome.jpg but unfortunately during the upload an error message regarding a database appeared (unfortunately I do not have a copy of the message). Then Commons web was inacessible for a moment and finally when it was accessible again I saw that the new picture has been uploaded but several problems have appeared:

The original picture uploaded by User:Yann disappeared from the File history but fortunately we can still find some data about it at some places:
- Piazza Santa Maria del Pianto Rome.jpg . . Yann . . 21:22, 10 September 2008 (duplicate search)
- Piazza Santa Maria del Pianto Rome.jpg image/jpeg, 1720x1244, 1631 KB (usage) Yann (gallery / orphans / untagged) 2008-09-10 21:22 (new) (Yann's gallery)
The picture does not appear in my gallery.

Is it please possible to put the original picture back to the image's File history and correct the database inconsistencies? --Pabouk (talk) 18:22, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

September 13

Problem with creating a subcategory

If this is a stupid question, my apologies.;) I was trying to get some yet uncategorized images off this list of media to be categorized, and stumbled on Image:Luxembourg Stolzembourg Police Car.jpg. I tried to get this into a cat "Police cars of Luxemburg", a subcat of Category:Police cars by country. There is (was) not yet a subcat of that name. I just copied the code of one of those subcats, i.e. from the one containing images of Dutch police cars, Netherlands. But his did not get the result I had hoped for: this BMW is still in "Police cars by country".

I'm afraid I don't understand this type of code (main cat - pipe symbol - subcat?). But I see this code frequently. My impression is that is should somehow faciliate unambigious subcats, but I can't get it to work. Is there a spot where this is explained?

Best regards, MartinD (talk) 09:58, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you made a pipe, but as this image is the only one in the choosen cat, you don't see any effect. You need to create a subcat "Police cars from Luxemburg" to make it disappear from the current cat. Done. --Túrelio (talk) 10:12, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your answer, but how do I make a subcat?;) MartinD (talk) 10:44, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

1) You may follow the edit-history of Category:Police cars in Luxemburg. 2) sub-cat is only a functional definition, they are "made" as any other cat on Commons. The easiest way is to add the name of the still non-existant cat to the media file you want to sort into that cat. Then click on the resulting red link and enter a fitting parent cat, click Enter and voilá. --Túrelio (talk) 12:31, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your help, once again. I think it worked, I made a subcat "Police motorcycles in the Netherlands", in the "regular" way, i.e. without piping. I accidentally got it wrong the first time, naming the cat "Police motorcycles of the Netherlands. Could someone please delete this cat, as it is now empty? Regards, MartinD (talk) 13:35, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

An empty category should not be a problem if it is possibly usable. If you do not think so you can mark the page for deletion. See COM:DP. Also I would like to explain you the pipe in the category link. I was searching the meaning of this too several days ago. After the pipe symbol you write the string by which the page should be sorted in the parent category list. For example Category:Police cars in Luxemburg should not be sorted by "Police cars in Luxemburg" but by "Luxemburg" thus you write [[Category:Police cars by country|Luxemburg]] to include the category to Category:Police cars by country with correct sorting. --Pabouk (talk) 18:57, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, that is what I tried, or rather, what I think I tried, I'm very bad at technical things.;) OK if I give it another try this weekend? If I do it the "regular" way, as explained by Turelio, it works OK: I make a cat "Police cars in XXX", and this gets a "red" cat, which I can subsequently put under "Police cars by country". (Of course, this discussion isn't really about police cars...) But I'll give it another try. Do I understand correctly that this string-thing should work at any level between "major" and "minor" cats, for instance when I would try to create a sub-sub-cat "Police cars in Amsterdam"? If I do things wrong, please tell me. just check my user contributions. Best regards, and thanks to both of you for helping me! MartinD (talk) 19:34, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it works that way. However, it wouldn't make much sense to create a (sub)cat if there is only one image to put in; in such cases it might be better, not to create a new cat at that timepoint. --Túrelio (talk) 19:59, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

You're quite right about not making a subcat for just one picture, just wanted to illustrate my line of thinking.;) MartinD (talk) 08:42, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Image:Koffice-kplato.png

I can't work out what is wrong with this. Here is it: , but it looks like text (won't highlight though) Can someone help? - tholly ^--Turnip-- 16:29, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

It seems like it could be a missing image, though it's not on the list. Unfortunately, I think someone will have to reupload. Superm401 - Talk 17:27, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. It shouldn't be too hard to find, it was the icon of some freeware I believe. - tholly ^--Turnip-- 14:46, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Done - I've reuploaded. - tholly ^--Turnip-- 14:55, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Delete

How do I delete/close my account? I have had a look but can't find an option. Thanks.

Unfortunately our software currently does not permit deletion of accounts, since the purpose is to retain attribution. However, it does not hurt anything to leave accounts unused; you may simply stop using the account. If for some reason you wish to remove your userpage or user discussion page, please let me know, and I will delete it for you. You may request a rename if you would like to exercise your right to vanish. — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 20:12, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes please. If you could delete my userpage and talk page that would be nice. Thanks. Harris578 (talk) 07:12, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Template standardization

There is now a proposal to standardize the template messages used by Commons, see Commons:Template standardization for more info, and feel free to expand. ViperSnake151 (talk) 15:20, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Category:Kyūshū

The word "Kyūshū" <--are those letters members of the Japanese character set and that is the reason they are being used for this category name? (First asked at board administrators....) -- carol 15:51, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

The letters with macrons are one way of transcribing the long vowel sounds of the Japanese language, but this word would be written in a completely different way in Japanese orthography itself (using non-Latin-alphabet symbols). AnonMoos (talk) 00:52, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I would have a difficult time recognizing it if it were written in the Japanese character set, but the names of things here should not be about what I can recognize or not. If it were written in the Japanese character set, I would have to do the same thing that I do now which is use the search so that I can paste the correct eh, string (since it is not even a word). That category contains an ogg which is the pronunciation so it seems wrong to use pronunciation characters as a category name and also: If I were Japanese, I am guessing that not only would I have to learn that 26 letter character set to use this international server, but additionally, I would have to learn to use some pronunciation characters as well? I would angry perhaps.... As I said, I am not Japanese, so I really am simply guessing at all of this.

I really wouldn't mind knowing what a Japanese user of commons has to say about this. -- carol (talk) 19:17, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

First off, the current policy is that galleries can have names in non-Latin alphabets, but categories shouldn't. Also, literate Japanese know the Latin alphabet -- considering that the native Japanese writing system contains 2000 or more morpheme-writing characters (kanji) and two separate syllabaries of about 50 symbols each, they've found relatively little difficulty in adding the latin alphabet into the mix... AnonMoos (talk) 22:35, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Fyi, the English Wikipedia article is named as such. --O (谈 • висчвын) 22:43, 13 September 2008 (GMT)

According to en:Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles): "Article titles should use macrons as specified for body text except in cases where the macronless spelling is in common usage in English-speaking countries". Of course whether the supposed policy of using English for category titles necessarily means following en: conventions is a question on which I'm not certain there's a consensus. Man vyi (talk) 16:39, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Image:Padlock_red.svg

I request it to be uploaded to wikipedia so it can be full protected, because it is widely used on wikipedia. --Frogger3140 (talk) 13:49, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

That picture doesn't exist on commons apparently... -mattbuck (Talk) 14:23, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Still waiting for the e-mails

I still haven't got any email although a page on my watchlist was changed three times today.[7] I have written my email address correctly, confirmed it, ticked the appropriate box and put the page on my watchlist. Any explanation? Should I post this to Bugzilla? --Eleassar ^(t/p) 16:40, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Image:Sin escudo.png

Image is missing. There is another similar version at Image:Wappen_fehlt.jpg. Since I can't fix it, could someone who can convert the jpg to png and re-upload? -Nard the Bard 01:46, 14 September 2008 (UTC) I can see it. ClemRutter (talk) 08:27, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

01:52, 15 September 2008 Mike.lifeguard (Talk | contribs) uploaded a new version of "Image:Sin escudo.png" ‎ (jpg->png conversion)

Done Pruneau^talk 08:49, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

random image

link 任意文件 on chinese ui seems a little bit strange.

i think 随机文件 is better.

--Liangent (talk) 08:12, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you. Sounds like someone used Google Translate but didn't double check the translation. OhanaUnited ^{Talk page} 16:58, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Could this be uploaded to Commons?

Does this qualify as art? http://flickr.com/photos/mattandbern/1172337388/ FunkMonk (talk) 17:19, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Think that its okey to upload Sterkebaktalk 17:38, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Picture of the Year 2008 in risk of not happening

Hello everyone,

Commons:Picture of the Year is a competition started in 2006 to pick what the community thinks is the finest picture from our Featured Pictures, the crème de la crème :). Last year, Bryan and Pfctdayelise organized a very successful Commons:Picture of the Year/2007; however, this year they are both seemingly too busy to make the bulk of the work ([8], [9]).

If nobody picks this up, we might not have the competition this year. That would be very disappointing: this engages people from other wikis to come and look at what is being done on Commons, and is a great showcase of what Commons users do best. Besides, it's great to look at all those nice pictures in one go ;).

So the question is: who's up to the task? I can try helping with some on wiki work, but forget about toolserver-based work or anything that requires non-wiki software knowledge, I'm too technologically challenged for that :).

So help is needed. Let's keep this thing running! Patrícia ^msg 21:54, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I may be able to help on the toolserver side of things at the minimum. --O (谈 • висчвын) 22:52, 13 September 2008 (GMT)

Like Patrícia, I'm happy to help with the non-technical part. Pruneau^talk 23:23, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't necessarily need to be very hard. The hardest part is basically making everyone happy (enough) amid long-running discussion. If you have 2-5 people who are really dedicated to it it will be ok. And you just need one techy person. Bryan might still do that, if it is much the same as last year it should be pretty routine.

The first things to decide are the format, timing and suffrage. Format is probably the most contentious because there are so many images and it's hard to make sure they all get a fair viewing. I suggest to start discussions at Commons talk:Picture of the Year/2008. It's also always a good idea to review the feedback from last year (probably Commons talk:Picture of the Year/2007 somewhere).

I'm not definitely not helping, but I basically won't commit myself and I would be very pleased to see some others pick it up. You don't need any special standing in the community, just a willingness to devote some time and discussion to it. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 12:00, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

It is quite a big "if" but if I can I certainly would want to help. It is likely that Dec/Jan will see merely even more inactive though sadly. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:05, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

From a technical view point: Everything is run from the stable toolserver which is intended to be used by multiple people. This makes it very easy to run the software by multiple people. The software itself is open source but can be unclear in some parts. If people are willing to run the software I can spend some time in explaining how the software works. It is of course also possible to run the competition entirely on the wiki, but that is at least gonna be troublesome with many hundreds of images and thousands of votes. (manual vote counting is not fun I can assure you.

From an organizational viewpoint there are some things that should be considered. As organization you should rally up as many people as you can to help. You will need to make everybody happy which is certainly not easy. You will need to make sure that messages get spread among as many wikis as possible. Translations. And some more.

I will be there to help a little but I will not be able to follow all discussions. If you need me (semi-)urgently send me a mail me. -- Bryan (talk to me) 18:45, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you all for your feedback, I'm so happy to see so much interest :). Alvesgaspar kicked it off Commons:Picture of the Year/2008/Preparation. Patrícia ^msg 22:29, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

September 14

The Commons at Flickr?

Flickr has (as of January 2008) a project called The Commons on Flickr, which hosts a number of files from various institutions that state that they have “No known copyright restrictions”.

This is of obvious interest to Wikimedia Commons (more public images! maybe.), so I’ve added a note at Commons:Flickr images#The Commons on Flickr, but it should be discussed here at the pump.

The key problem is that what “No known copyright restrictions” means for Wikimedia Commons is unclear (the images are not asserted to be public domain, but they are generally old and thus presumably public domain), and beware that some institutions (such as the Smithsonian Institute’s Right Statement) flatly contradict “No known copyright restrictions”, asserting copyright and “No commercial use”.

See: {{Flickr-no known copyright restrictions}} and mail on commons-l, with discussion by George Oates, Flickr employee heading The Commons, expressing some reservations.

What do we think about The Commons on Flickr?

Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 19:26, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "what do we think" about it. Are you asking whether it is a legitimate source from which Wikimedia Commons can draw materials, without reservation? Or what? I would think that the involvement of the Library of Congress would constitute something of an imprimatur, for what it's worth. - Jmabel ! talk 17:58, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi Jmabel,

By “what do we think”, I was just trying to start discussion. (And have a discussion here, rather than just posting something at Commons:Flickr images#The Commons on Flickr.)

Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 21:28, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

September 15

Wikileak of US Govt document

After seeing wikinews:Wikileaks obtains 10 years of messages, interviews from Osama bin Laden translated by CIA hit /., I have uploaded Image:FBIS Report - Compilation of Usama Bin Ladin Statements 1994-2004.djvu, which is the first 12 pages of Wikileak: CIA FBIS: Usama bin Laden Statements 1994-2004, constituting only the table of contents. The first page contains a warning:

   THIS REPORT MAY CONTAIN COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL
   COPYING AND DISSEMINATION IS PROHIBITED
   WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

As I have not uploaded the content pages, I think this is not a copyright violation. But it also is a leaked document which says:

   For Official Use Only

I am currently transcribing the first 12 pages at Wikisource.

Is this breaking some other US law?

I will begrudgingly stop and delete this material if there are credible concerns about legality. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 09:46, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

The funny thing about laws governing use of classified material, is they (for the most part) only apply to people with security clearances who have access to said material. They usually do not apply to third parties (which is why reporters go to jail for contempt of court for refusing to disclose their sources, rather than for actual misuse of the material). "For official use only" or "FOUO" is a handling instruction, not a classification. It is often used to indicate the material is sensitive under the Privacy Act, or HIPAA, or because it is part of an ongoing investigation. Since Bin Laden's statements have always been public, they aren't really classified. If FOUO is the only marking on the document, you should be fine. -Nard the Bard 21:45, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Linguistic maps of Europe

Namely Image:Languages of Europe no legend.png, Image:Languages of Europe.png, Image:Sprachen_Europas_1990.png. I look at these I consider two possibilities, the author attempted to focus on the 'native' languages of the regions (which makes absolutely no sense, and is decidedly not the case per the absence of Corsican and extent of English in Ireland), or that he is attempting to represent the current linguistic situation in Europe, which leaves me wondering whether he has ever set foot on the continent. A couple of examples just off the top of my head: despite the map Sorbian is not a majority anywhere, Breton is in real danger of extinction (not a thriving country-sized linguistic region), the minorities inside the Czech and Slovak Republics seem to be drawn for cosmetic reasons rather than anything to do with reality, Basque is massive - to say the least - and I can't actually find evidence of a large Dutch-speaking region of north France at all. These maps are bordering on useless with their grievous inaccuracies. In my mind they have been largely supplanted by Image:Image-Languages-Europe.png and Image:Languages-Europe.svg but I thought I should ask whether other editors believe there is merit in keeping them. PS: Also, while on this, can I ask someone to redraw a few things on the two 'good' maps I just mentioned? The shape of the Czech Republic could be better, and there really isn't a German minority of any significance residing in either Sudetenland (CR) or former eastern territories of Germany (Poland). If someone could fix this up that would be wonderful. +Hexagon1 ^(t) 11:52, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Those are some bad-ass gaeltachts, my friend! Haukurth (talk) 12:37, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

:-) Far be it from me to defend either map, but as for Dutch-speaking people in France, maybe you should read en:Nord-Pas de Calais#Demographics or fr:Nord-Pas-de-Calais#Culture. Related: Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis (highly recommended!) ... Lupo 13:11, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Western Flemish is indeed a langue de France, but of course not a majority language within the territory of the French state these days. The question is what type of information a linguistic map gives: does it supply answers to "what languages are spoken in particular areas?" or "what languages are spoken by a majority in particular areas?" or "what languages are spoken either by a majority or a significant minority in particular areas?" or "in which particlar areas are given languages spoken?"? Maps should probably be described so as to make clear what info they are intended to give. Man vyi (talk) 15:50, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, that is what confuses me too. +Hexagon1 ^(t) 23:49, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Copyright question relating to videos

What if someone gives a public reading from one of their copyrighted books? Is it okay to upload here if the person who filmed them releases rights, or would the author (or even the publisher) have to give permission? Richard001 (talk) 08:25, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Such a recording/filming would be a derivative work, and you would need permission from the reader-writer, and maybe from the publisher Badseed ^talk 08:31, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Ah yes, derivative works, of course. I'll avoid those then. Richard001 (talk) 10:45, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Deleting images without informing projects?

I noticed a few images are being deleted while several wikimedia projects are still using them. This Zeppelin image for example. This means readers of articles will see missing images. Should there be a mechanism to inform user projects that an image may be deleted in so many days? Maybe a bot that goes to each user (via check usage) and adds a "may be deleted in N days" message to the caption? -Wikibob (talk) 03:04, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I thought we had a Commons Delinker to take care of the empty links. Is it down? Bastique ^demandez 04:54, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

And even if CD would not work, there's COM:CT... Siebrand 04:59, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I guess you're talking about Commonsticker. Seems to be down (at least at nl). Multichill (talk) 11:44, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I meant what CommonsTicker is intended to do, only I did not know its name until now. As far as I can see it is not working for de:wikipedia nor for en.wikipedia. But my question goes deeper: should Commons tag images for deletion and then forget to check that the images are actually delinked before deleting? I guess the Ticker was meant to warn each sister project that an image got tagged so that they could take action (replace the image, or maybe challenge the tag). (See also: Commons talk:Licensing#Older Picture Postcards clarification needed) -Wikibob (talk) 18:07, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Commons appears to be having problems with some Wikipedia links inside gallery descriptions

See Image:Monza track map.svg for a whole series of examples. The same links work outside galleries. The same problem happens in the sandbox. Will (Talk - contribs) 01:23, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Comment: There is only a problem with [[w:2008|]], [[w:2008|2008]] works fine in galleries --Martin H. (talk) 20:21, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Please submit a bug report. — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 22:18, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

It is bugzilla:2700. /Ö 22:41, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

It's a bug dating all the way back to 2006? It just keeps coming back? Bad. Will (Talk - contribs) 04:39, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Kosovo

There has been a lot of edit-warring recently about the inclusion of Kosovo on maps, specifically which maps it should be included in. My suggestion is Kosovo gets excluded in maps of organisations/countries/etc which haven't recognised it (e.g. UN maps/Maps of Greece/Maps of Serbia/etc) and included in maps of organisations/countries/etc which have (e.g. CIA maps/Maps of Albania/maps of the UK/etc), now about the European Union, mos of it (21 out of 27) have recognised Kosovo so it would be logical to include it in EU maps, however, if the map is taken from the internet (official sources etc.) it won't be changed (to including or excluding Kosovo), what do you say? Though I don't have any idea what to do with custom-made geographical maps, any suggestions? --Cradel (talk) 17:27, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

In general (following Commons:Scope#.22Neutral_point_of_view.22), it would be better for those who object to an image to upload a version "corrected" according to their preferences to a new image name (instead of overwriting previously-existing images). AnonMoos (talk) 17:41, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes but the edit-war would then continue at the articles the maps appear in --Cradel (talk) 17:57, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Commons provides images and not articles. The problems at the wikipedias are their own, an article should be written at those hundreds of wikis that uses both maps and explains the problems -- but that doesn't involve Commons, nor should Commons decide which map is accurate. -- carol (talk) 17:59, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Well ok then, I will add a map with Kosovo as part of Serbia for many maps which include it --Cradel (talk) 19:37, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

September 17

OTRS requested

We have a template {{OTRS pending}} to indicate that a ticket has been filed and is in progress, however there are often times where a permission request needs to be initiated from our side. If it is initiated via a user talk page comment there will not be a ticket ID, however a ticket ID is generated when the email requesting permission is sent from either OTRS, or when OTRS is cc:d to the request. The wording of the "OTRS pending" permission is not ideal for this circumstance as it starts: "An email containing details of the permission for this image has been sent in accordance with Commons:OTRS". Also, that template does not support an id/ticket parameter.

The following three images are examples where I have tagged them with "OTRS pending" in lieu of a better template, so that they are not lost in the system:

Image:MD-RGB.gif
Image:MD-CMYK.jpg
Image:RESTORE Logo.png - this one doesnt have a ticket id as I didnt have an email address to contact.

Do we need a new template "OTRS requested"? John Vandenberg ^(chat) 05:07, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

{{Npd}}. If you use the "No permission" link in the toolbox, it will tag the image and leave the uploader a note telling them to send a permission e-mail to OTRS. --dave pape (talk) 15:04, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Problems with big image

An anonymous user wrote on my talk page. Since I don't know how to help him, I copy and past his message here. Does anyone has ideas? Alfio (talk) 17:08, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Hey ! My name is Milan and i am from Serbia. I try to upload picture to wikipedia but it has some problem with size apparently. The picture is 8400x8600, GIFF format and about 1.17Mb. When I upload the picture it doesn't show me little preview. Everything is all right whet i click on show the image in full resolution, but i need also that little preview so the people can now what is on that picture.

Here is link to the the page with that picture and were you can see the problem. http://sr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A1%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B0:Etnicka_karta_Hrvatske.gif

I see that your picture here is also a large one so i think that you can help me. I dont know so mutch about wikipedia so every help is welcome.

That you in advance. :-) 82.208.224.122 10:20, 17 September 2008 (UTC) Milan1237

It is currently not possible for technical reasons to generate thumbnails for PNGs larger than 12.5 million pixels, unfortunately. — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 18:33, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

The best option would be to regenerate the image in svg format and upload it again. Conversion from gif to jpg would work too but svg would be much more prefered. --Jarekt (talk) 18:51, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

What are the PD rules for Spain?

User:Sairu has uploaded numerous images and media relating to bullfighting in Spain. The ones that are dated are ~60 years or older. Many of them are not attributed to specific authors and the uploader usually claims authorship. Are they actually fair use? --BrokenSphere 18:17, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Spain appears to be 70 years, BUT if the author died before December 7, 1987, its 80 years. ViperSnake151 (talk) 18:57, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

September 18

Proposal to close down Commons:File upload service

Our Welcome page has a whole paragraph about how to upload files if you don't want to do it youself (see bottom right of page). A link to Commons:File upload service is given but that page appears to be non-operational, as only four volunteers are listed, none of whom have any edits after 2007. It's not impressive to offer a service which does not actually work. Since nowadays the emphasis is on helping new users to make their own uploads, I suggest that we re-write the relevant paragraph and that we close down the service. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 16:19, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Maybe whe should look for new people who wants to run it. Sterkebaktalk 17:28, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't quite see the point of this service, as it just obfuscates the identity of the person who submitted it. I say close it down. -mattbuck (Talk) 18:49, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

It does make verifying copyright permissions a bit more complicated. J.smith (talk) 01:26, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree. The page is useless. I have nominated it for deletion (or maybe it should be marked as inactive). -Nard the Bard 01:34, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Done. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 18:33, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

big-ass Commons logo in the background

Is that new? I just noticed it. Is there anyway to remove it? It is really annoying now that I see it. -Nard the Bard 23:30, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Yes. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 23:43, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh, BTW - it is more transparent than our last BG so..... not sure how it could be annoying. Hell I knew where it was and when it was put up and I had a hard time spotting it. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 23:44, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Try looking on a mostly empty page like my talk page after I archived. It's REALLY BIG AND NOTICEABLE. Seriously, can we get a vote started on this somewhere? I tried to have the image deleted but they speedy closed it. -Nard the Bard 23:47, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

YEA AND YELLING IS COOL. Oh, and no, it wont be deleted. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 23:52, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, a DR isn't the right way to go about it. It's definitely not more annoying than the previous background, so I don't see that anything needs to change. — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 23:53, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Change your monobook.js file if you're really fussed. I suggest a picture of a kitten. -mattbuck (Talk) 00:01, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

@Nard - Seriously, if you wanted to get some change - maybe you should have been nicer about it. Starting a DR was just wrong. Complaining that it is annoying and shouting is just not nice. Frankly... We're just going to go meta:TINC on you and keep you down. Now if you want to play nicely, we can play nicely too. Maybe if you said "Hey, I see there is a new background and I'm not a fan of it. If there is a way, could you please tell me how to change it for myself?" Then I would have happily said "Sure, all you need to do is put the following code in your monobook.css file: body { background: #fffbfb url('http://commons.wikimedia.org/skins-1.5/monobook/headbg.jpg') 0 0 no-repeat; } " --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 00:05, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Excellent. So where's the old logo at? :) (and thank you :) -Nard the Bard 00:10, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

actually: background: #f9f9f9 (it changed with the logo). There is no "old logo" it's just the tired old monobook book Bastique ^demandez 00:17, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

This is all you need for the tired old background:

body { 
      background: #f9f9f9 url('http://commons.wikimedia.org/skins-1.5/monobook/headbg.jpg'); 
       }

Where did you change the background for all the project? Thanks in advance. Rastrojo _(D•ES) 00:46, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Look at the edit history of that stylesheet -- carol (talk) 01:19, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I think the logo background is great. Kewl idea! As for the pink, maybe it should go (i thought my retinae were just tired and seeing pink, lol) - Badseed ^talk 02:39, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

For what it's worth I think it's pretty annoying too. And telling people to fix the annoyance by changing their stylesheet is no substitute for not annoying them in the first place. --Dori - Talk 03:25, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

This is hyper-annoying. It needs to go. Far too obtrusive. Poor color choice, too, (pink, ferchrissake!) and the Commons' logo is stupid anyway: what's it supposed to mean? Get rid of it. Globally. Anons just browsing our collection can't just switch it off in their stylesheets. Lupo 06:41, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I like it, it's better then the older book-picture. //moralist (talk) 09:20, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I find it visually displeasing, and I would much prefer the previous look - without having to edit any special files. I will do it, of course, if there is no other way. -- Slaunger (talk) 11:10, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Looks fine on my screen. How about a poll if there is so much rejection ? →Christian .И 11:32, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Is this good design? Either it's so fragmentary as to be unreadable, or it's so obtrusive as to be unbearable. Is there a design rationale for this somewhere, please? Man vyi (talk) 12:27, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

The bg is barely visible, it's hardly a distraction, even on your talk page Nard. Now, please be mellow about this. -mattbuck (Talk) 12:40, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I like it, it's visually distinctive and makes Commons look different than other projects as well. rootology (T) 16:23, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Ugh. Remind me never to visit Commons while logged out again. --Carnildo (talk) 19:30, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Let's not argue about the bike shed please; this is ridiculous. — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 22:20, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Heh right. I still like it. Funny how people can get upset about utterly trivial changes in their daily routine. --Dschwen (talk) 22:24, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I can't say I like it though it doesn't really bother me either. On the other hand it's a completely reasonable thing to have a discussion about. We don't have any nuclear power plant to discuss and we're not a committee which can only have one conversation at a time. Haukurth (talk) 22:30, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

The power of abstraction... ;-) --Dschwen (talk) 22:53, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

September 16

Audio and video

There are a lot of videos that have audio (perhaps we should have a category relating to this, e.g. category:videos [with](and/or) [without] audio). However, it would probably not be that easy if you just wanted the audio content to get it from the video file. How does one extract the audio from an ogg video just to play the audio part? Should we attempt to do this for some of our videos? Richard001 (talk) 01:15, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I was able to get the wav file out of video files with GIMP Animation Plug-in; that being said, I never did this with an ogg but only from movies taken from my own camera. -- carol (talk) 01:32, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Converting vorbis audio stream to wav and then possibly back to vorbis is not a good practise because vorbis is a lossy format and with every encoding you lose some information. The correct way is just to extract the vorbis stream without converting it. You can use for example oggzrip, ffmpeg or ogmdemux. --Pabouk (talk) 09:03, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I have no experience with ogg video format and GIMP GAP, but GAP should be built with ffmpeg and they included the source for that software years ago in the source for GAP.... -- carol (talk) 02:08, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

So would there be any benefit in having audio versions of (in some cases parts of) the audio in videos? Richard001 (talk) 10:04, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I think that there is no benefit in extracting the audio unless you are going to use it in a specific Wikimedia project. I think that theoretically the best way how to technically accomplish this is to extend the Wikimedia software to extract the audio automatically on demand (similarly like images are automatically resampled to a different resolution on demand). But probably it would be an unnecessary overkill as I do not expect much of demand for the extracted audio and it could be difficult to implement. --Pabouk (talk) 13:08, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Obliged mentioning name of company in description

I have asked the same question in Licensing but did not get a sufficient answer. I have taken pictures of plants in a modelgarden in the Netherlands. They do not have problems when I put the pictures on Wikimedia, but they want that in the description is included their name. For example "Cleome pungens rose. This photo has been taken in "De Kijktuinen" in Nunspeet, Netherlands www.kijktuinen.nl.
What licence should I use so that a user of the picture includes that phrase in the description? --Wouter (talk) 14:57, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

They don't have any copyright on a picture of a rose that you took. You chose the license as you see fit. And since they are neither the author nor the copyright owner of these images, any contractual agreements between you and them (aka "house rules") cannot bind third parties, so they cannot enforce that sentence being present. Lupo 15:11, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

The company can't enforce terms on users of Wouterhagens' pictures, but the company could refuse permission to Wouterhagens himself to take any additional pictures. The correct template is Template:Copyrighted free use provided that ... AnonMoos (talk) 16:12, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Wouter can certainly license his images with an attribution requirement which is consistent with the Kijktuinen request. If he were to choose not to we would, however, still accept his images. Haukurth (talk) 17:34, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. Just an example see Image:Solanum_rantonnetii_A.jpg --Wouter (talk) 21:16, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

This is fine. You are the copyright holder of the image and you can certainly impose these conditions. Haukurth (talk) 21:37, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Zh main page

The main zh welcome page title is the wrong way round, well not exactly the wrong way round, the title is okay if read in the traditional right to left, but as the rest of the page has adopted the western left to right format, the title is the wrong way round with respect to the rest of the page. I had a look at editing it, but couldn't find where it is to flip the characters around. KTo288 (talk) 08:39, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

To be precise its the Zh-classical main page that has the reversed title, hadn't realised that there were four Chinese main pages.KTo288 (talk) 18:47, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Motorsport Categorisation

As I'm sure you will be aware, when a big motorsport event takes place (with the possible exception of endurance events), there are other races which happen alongside it as support - much like bands at gigs. Currently, Commons categorises (as an example), this photo of BTCC driver Colin Turkington under BTCC > 2008 in BTCC > 2008 BTCC Oulton Park. However, what should be done about the other photos from that event - the ones that aren't BTCC? Generally there aren't enough to bother with their own category, but I'm unsure about whether they should go in the BTCC;s cat for that event. -mattbuck (Talk) 20:47, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

September 19

Afghan images again

I brought this up before -- Afghanistan is not a signatory to any international copyright protection agreements. I have been told it has no domestic copyright laws.

When I asked the first time two contributors concurred that this would make images from Afghanistan are not protected by copyright.

What I have noticed is that there are images from Afghanistan that are being treated as if all the rights to these Afghan images belong to the first person to publish them in a country that has copyright protection.

Yesterday a google search brought me this image: Image:Application form from the Khalid bin Whalid training camp.jpg. I uploaded it, and half a dozen others: Category:Al-Qaeda documents. As I was uploading the images to my computer I noticed that this collection contained thirty-four images. It looked like nine of the images made the final cut, and were used to illustrate an article, while the remaining twenty-five did not.

I figured that these were images captured by GIs. But then I did some google searches of the NYTimes website, trying to figure out whicharticle they had illustrated. The most likely candidate is an article about NYTimes journalists conducting their own tour of the former sites of the suspected training camps and suspected guest houses. The article says they found 5,000 documents.

So, while some of those claiming all rights to Afghan images had nothing to do with their creation, these images were probably made by the publishers. I would welcome opinions on the copyright status of these eight images I uploaded, and the twenty-six I didn't upload.

I uploaded them in good faith. But I have no problem asking for deletion, if that is the way the discussion goes.

So, this page from a Marine Corps sniper training manual, should be PD, no matter what...

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 08:21, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

"Houses in Canada" not a valid category?

Recently I added a picture of a house in Princeton, BC and categorized it in Category:Houses in Canada. Much to my surprise, a bot moved it to Category:Buildings in Canada. Apparently, someone did a deliberate category redirect in 2006, which has stood ever since. Unless I am mistaken, this category redirect is just plain wrong: certainly we should have more than a handful of pictures of houses in Canada, enough to justify a category. But since it has stood for over two years, and I don't normally work on Canadian topics (I happened to be passing through southern BC on vacation) I figured I'd come here and ask if anything might be going on that I'm missing. - Jmabel ! talk 16:09, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Categorisation is an evolving and learning process, and when looking in Category:Houses by country, you will see that these houses are perfectly normal. Please adapt to bring it in line with the other countries. --Foroa (talk) 16:33, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, will do. - Jmabel ! talk 17:38, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

problem uploading an image

i tried uploading two images but they do no display properly and i do not know why. please help.

Hi! First of all, please sign your comments with four tildes, like this: ~~~~. I'm guessing that you're talking about Image:BenchMach.jpg and Image:BenchMachjpg.jpg. As far as I can tell, they work fine; could you describe your problem in further detail? Also, it would be helpful if you added categories to your uploads: that way, everyone can find them! Pruneau^talk 18:48, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Deletion of User Page

My old user page was deleted for not following the scope of the project. A user page is supposed to follow scope now? Is Wikimedia Commons the only project that this is being enforced on? I am a member of a dozen wiki projects including Wikipedia, Wikimedia (Meta), Wikisource, Wiktionary, and some Wikias and on none of them have a had a problem with using my user page to describe myself and my interest in the project or other projects. So why am I being treated differently here?Wjhonson (talk) 07:05, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I have replied to the user on their user page pointing them to the discussion here about another user. I have also pointed out that pages on Foundation wikis belong solely to the foundation not to individuals. As such it is up to the community to decide what is appropriate not the user. Where a contributor's contribution is a page of links then the consensus at Meta seems to be that it is outside scope (indeed the individual referred to in the discussion at Meta is now blocked on a number of projects. Thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 07:12, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Commons policy does cover user pages, and indeed there is a special section defining what is not permitted: seeCommons:Project scope/Pages, galleries and categories#Non-allowable user page/gallery/category content. Your text was deleted as it amounted to "Content that does not advance Commons' aims, including advertising or excessive linking to external domains". Blatant self-promotion is not allowed. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 07:28, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry that is false. My set of links was not "blatant self-promotion". What it in fact is, is a set of links I use for navigational purposes so I can jump from project to project easily. Many or most of the links are to inter-wiki pages as you can plainly see. My content does advance Commons aims as it allows the interconnection of related content. And it more importantly perhaps, allows me, as a highly valued user to interconnect my content cross-project more readily. If Wikimedia Commons, wants to cripple its users by not allowing them a easier method of inter-wiki connectivity than I want nothing to do with Wikimedia Commons. No other Wikimedia project views my work with such disdain. As you can see, I have been a Wikian for many years. Wjhonson (talk) 07:36, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Interwiki linking is welcome & it was my mistake to remove the whole page when some were actually interwiki links & I have apologised to you for that. I have also pointed out on your user page how to deal with interwiki linking in the best way. External linkage & self promotion is another issue. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 07:40, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I would certainly consider this self promotion & unacceptable here. Other views are welcome of course. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 07:42, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

The first sentence is OK, but not the second. It may or may not be blatant self promotion, but it is certainly advertising which is explicitly probibited under Commons:Project scope/Pages, galleries and categories#Non-allowable user page/gallery/category content. Your user page is being used to advertise personal services which have nothing to do with the aims of Commons. We are not here to host advertisments. Your contributions are more than welcome here, but not that advert. Sorry. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 08:51, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Deleting a userpage has always been a pandora's box. OhanaUnited ^{Talk page} 17:43, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Need a tool

Histogram of the GIF filesizes *per pixel*. Images on the right side of the curve are likely to be animated GIFs.

Is there a tool which can find out all animated GIF files in Commons? I want to organize all of them. If there is a robot which can find them out and add them to Category:GIF, it whould be more helpful. --百楽兎 (talk) 07:42, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

How to make the difference between an animated gif and a gif picture ? impossible no ? Yug (talk) 01:34, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

There seems to be no data in the db. So you'd have to download a thumb for each GIF-file (thumbs are animated when and only when the original is animated). Quite a chunk of work. --Dschwen (talk) 03:02, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

We currently have 88755 gif files on commons. You (or the tool) could start with images which have a large filesize per pixel count, those should be more likely to be animated. Width, height and filesize are stored in the db. --Dschwen (talk) 03:17, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Made a little plot, list of filenames is available. --Dschwen (talk) 04:12, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

This could be refined even more, if only GIFs had a constant header size, then after subtracting anything above 1 byte per pixel would almost certainly be an animated GIF. --Dschwen (talk) 12:48, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

GIF files are not hard to parse. My GPL licensed library at http://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/caTools_1.9.tar.gz has source code of GIF encoded/decoder called GifTools.cpp. This code can be easily converted to very fast tool for extracting GIF metadata. --Jarekt (talk) 15:37, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Good to know. However parsing time would not be the limiting factor. Download time would be. However if your library could be made to work with partially downloaded files then we might just have to download a few hundered bytes per image to extract the meta data! --Dschwen (talk) 15:49, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm almost ready to launch a bot based on my findings. I wrote an incrementally downloading GIF parser in python. As soon as more than one frame is detected the download stops and the image will be tagged with the new category Category:Animated GIF. Justt adding Category:GIF seemed a bit pointless since I'm doing all the work to find out if they are animated! --Dschwen (talk) 21:51, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

You can not tell number of frames in GIF file from image header. You need to download at least one frame. But size should not be an issue since you can perform your checks on image thumbnails. If thumbnail is animated than the main image was too. --Jarekt (talk) 01:30, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Exactly, just as I wrote above :-). And as I also wrote above, I'm incrementally downloading up to the second frame. --Dschwen (talk) 12:43, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you all. Robot's assistance is very helpful. I will watch Category:Animated GIF. --百楽兎 (talk) 16:07, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Renaming

Hello, is there some news about the Image renaming function ? Is it possible ? is it planed ? We do it for articles and their history, why not for images (and their history) ? Yug (talk) 10:08, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

There's the rename template which can be found at Template:Rename, a bot carries out the rename after the request has been reviewed. KTo288 (talk) 18:51, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but please use it only for cases where the name is really misleading or cryptic. The bot does not really rename the image, it just creates a duplicate under the new name and then marks the old image as duplicate. The rest of the work - checking if the old image is used in projects, replacing it everywhere and then deleting the duplicate - has still to be done by people. Currently we have a lot of people who rename a lot while obviously forgetting that there are only few people who clean up behind the bot. -- Cecil (talk) 19:00, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

And why isn't it a bot doing all this really basic replacements ? it need :

some few admin/trusted noting : Image:Bad_name.jpg -> Image:New_correct_name.jpg (we have admins)
a bot on commons making a duplicata-image with the good name (we have the Luxo's derivate FX tool, but full historic renaming should be possible too) ;
a bot on en.wikipedia.org then replace all Image:Bad_name.jpg by Image:New_correct_name.jpg (we have bots doing automatic replacements).
a bot deleting Image:Bad_name.jpg 2 days laters (we probably have this too)

+ some steps check points such as check if the new file name is not already use.

Renaming is really need, so many files are with crazy names without any sense. There is frequent requests of this function since [at least] 3 years. Yug (talk) 19:34, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Just in case you think you're unappreciated, thank you to all those who clean up behind the renamers. Why not try and stop the problem at source, one of the biggest sources of cryptic names is when uploaders, upload files with the default file name produced by their camera, if we were to disallow uploads of the format image:dscxxxxxx etc and their ilk that would be fewer images that would be cryptic, and perhaps force uploaders into thinking of a suitable name. KTo288 (talk) 09:57, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

@Yug: one problem why a bot can't do all the replacements are the projects (Commons, too). First of all images are used not only in en.WP but in several hundred projects. The CommonsDelinker can do a lot of replacements and it trys to do them if somebody tells it, but there are many weird templates out there where the bot does not have a chance at all. Every time there is a page with a large amount of data or a page that is protected or a template which gets its data from other templates or several other weird ways to include pictures in articles the bot fails. Each time when an image is used at a wikinews project somebody has to go there and leave a message asking them to replace the images because of the page protection. Templates also often are protected. And there are several usages where even as a human it is very difficult to figure out what the template programmer has done. It's just my estimation but about 20% of the image usages are in a way that no bot can do them. That's one of the reasons why this process is not automated. -- Cecil (talk) 10:35, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

That high? Is there something about Commons images that makes it hard to deal with them? I run ImageRemovalBot on the English Wikipedia, and I'd estimate that it's able to remove images upwards of 99% of the time. --Carnildo (talk) 18:59, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I also think it's largely possible and need (I means « NEED ! »). Of course there are many project, I know it. That's why we need boss help saying

« Ok, we need this function :

We need 2 programmers working on this issue, to have a working solution next month. [paid if need !] »

Then...

« Dear ALL WIKIMEDIA projects' Bureaucrats : grant immediately [user:IMG_RENAME_BOT] full bot rights with rights to edit protected pages. That's will help us to spread knowledge. »

That's make already 3-4 years that we heard and wait this function~. That's seems to me all NEED, possible, and interesting to get. Yug (talk) 23:59, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Question about using Translation table for plants

I wanted to use the translation table as given in for example Category:Tropaeolum majus. I copied the table and pasted it in Category:Cortaderia selloana and added a few translations. Viewing the page shows that everything has gone, just a empty page. What procedure should I follow so that it works? Thanks. --Wouter (talk) 11:32, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

You don't appear to have added it, judging by edit history. -mattbuck (Talk) 11:42, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

You are right. Before saving the changes I previewed it and did not see anything of the changes and therefore canceled it.--Wouter (talk) 12:29, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I think I have found the cause of the problem. I had copied the translation table to a "flat ASCII" document (in BBEdit) where I have also other things to be used for Wiki activities. When I copy from that document I get the problem. When I copy directly from for example the page of Category:Tropaeolum majus there is no problem. The small "o" behind the word inline and hidetitle is the cause. Apparently it is not the same as the second character in my first name. Wouter (talk) 17:27, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Option for AJAX suggestion box width is obsolete

MediaWiki software was updated finally. It automatically adjust width of AJAX suggestion box width. So, existing hack for AJAX suggestion box width option in Special:Preferences is obsolete now. --EugeneZelenko (talk) 15:15, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Check Wikipedia

Hello, I have create a new page WikiProject Check Wikipedia, but someone delete this page. Here you find the original page. I think this page should be recreated, because there you can find many syntax errors in the cy.wikipedia. I hope I can help you with this page. Every morning my script scan Wikipedia Commons and you can find a updated page. Please copy this page then at the right place in Commons. -- Stefan Kühn (talk) 20:05, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

For example show in en:Wikipedia:WikiProject_Check_Wikipedia or other languages. -- Stefan Kühn (talk) 20:07, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Hello Stefan, thanks for that useful script. It has been moved to Commons:WikiProject Check Wikipedia. I wonder if you could include Category:Commons maintenance content in the output file on the toolserver to stay on top of things ? Thanks, →Christian .И 20:19, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

No problem. -- Stefan Kühn (talk) 05:44, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Missing images

Image:Hiragana KI 01.png and Image:Hiragana NO 01.png aren't displayable. Maybe further victims of September's image loss? --91.65.114.63 21:03, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Google Images still had the images, so I re-uploaded them. Pruneau^talk 21:44, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

September 21

Videos from YouTube

How can I go about uploading a video from YouTube? It's a little like Flickr, but it's video/audio rather than images. The other thing is that they don't have any copyright status there, which makes things a little tricky. I can't really transfer them directly, especially as they require an external software to download and then another to convert to .ogg. But some are videos (with an audio component, often) that would be useful here, and their uploaders would be willing to release rights to them (I'm also aware that often the uploaders aren't the ones who hold the rights, and that a lot of stuff there is technically illegally uploaded).

What do I do if someone says to me by YouTube message that they are okay for it to be uploaded here under say CC-BY? It seems so much more difficult then Flickr, but there are actually quite a few I have my eye on and I will probably get some positive responses soon, so I would like to know how to go about this.

Should I just upload the file and send an email to permission requests, quoting the person's response? Should I ask them to upload it? (But what about converting it? This seems too much to ask) Of course, we can never be 100% sure they are the copyright holder, but if it seems highly likely that they are it is no different than people uploading here. If only YouTube had the sort of copyright status feature that Flickr does (even its is not that great, but better than nothing). Richard001 (talk) 05:02, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

As you say, one needs to be very careful with videos on YouTube, but there are indeed some videos there which could be useful and which belong entirely to the uploader. There is a problem however with YouTube's terms of use. Article 6A states that "you agree not to distribute any part of or parts of the Website, including but not limited to any User Submissions, in any medium without YouTube's prior written authorisation". Also, if you were to somehow download videos from YouTube, you would presumably end up with the YouTube logo on the video, which is not something we want.

I think the safest thing to do would be to ask the uploader to send you the original video by e-mail, along with a statement that they release it under a free licence, circumventing YouTube. You can then take care of the conversion and forward the e-mail to OTRS. Pruneau^talk 08:38, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

The videos don't show any YouTube logo when I download them, so that isn't a problem. I'll make a few more requests and see how it goes. Richard001 (talk) 04:03, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

You don't need YouTube's permission for this at all. The uploader owns copyright (or they're infringing someone else's...), as the TOS explicitly says, "For clarity, you retain all of your ownership rights in your User Submissions." The best way for the uploader to give permission is for them to send an email to OTRS or put a note on the video description (or in the video). Superm401 - Talk 06:51, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I suppose the latter (a note on the description or the video) could work - it seems a bit easier than the email route (I would first have to ask them their email address, them get them to reply and then forward that, or ask them to email OTRS, with my chances of a result shrinking all the time. Wouldn't somebody then have to verify that though, like with Flickr? I could ask YouTube to give people the option to license material, though I don't even know how to make a suggestion to them, and even if it got read, they would almost certainly ignore it. Richard001 (talk) 10:44, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Ideally, someone would verify that you had interpreted the license correctly. There is no special process for doing so, though. Superm401 - Talk 04:04, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

What Commons is Not

Commons:What the Commons is not

started working on this. we truly could use one of these :) ViperSnake151 (talk) 19:32, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

May be useful to have a short page that can be linked to, to advise and warn newcomers. Make sure that it's consistent with COM:PS, though, where a lot of this is already said but perhaps in a more formal way. This should be a page where policy is explained in simple terms, not where new policy is created. Lots of cross-references could be helpful, to link to the official policy in COM:PS and elsewhere. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 20:33, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Most people now refer to "Commons", rather than to "The Commons". --MichaelMaggs (talk) 20:35, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Ok, fixed up the name, and I also activated COM:NOT as a redirect. ViperSnake151 (talk) 01:57, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

September 22

Commons image used in commercial media

Yet another Commons image has been used in the commercial media. At least they bothered to attribute it (but they failed to reprint the text of the GFDL along with it. Maybe they used the cc license instead). We're gaining influence! -Nard the Bard 19:30, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Some time ago I googled my own name (now don't say none of you have even done this) and was surprised to see a link to an article on the website of Dutch newspaper NRC, which had used Image:Bloedafname Sanquin.jpg, and had attributed it to me. I was very flattered. MartinD (talk) 13:04, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Could you both please add {{Published}} with the publication data on the talkpage of the respective images. This will add them automatically to Category:Commons as a media source. Thanks. --Túrelio (talk) 15:01, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I've had four images that I know of that have been used, one of Tom Paines Lewes home turns up on lots of libertarian leaning blogs, two images of commercial organisations is used by the same web based news digest, and one of Kingston Bridge has been used by at least two organisations including Encyclopedia Britannica. I was pretty stunned by an act of serenpidity when I found a hardcopy version of one of my images in a European edition of a Chinese newspaper. I think the odds against that happening are pretty good. Anyway thanks to this thread I've now added the published template to these images. KTo288 (talk) 08:53, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

@ Turelio: I've tried to add this template, but I can't get it to work properly. (As Turelio knows by now, I'm not too good at adding code...;)) Could I please ask you to look at the pic and correct this mess? MartinD (talk) 12:11, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Nard the Bard was faster ;-) The template belongs on the talkpage and I know its syntax looks terrible on first view. --Túrelio (talk) 18:42, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

The published template seems to be geared toward news sources, but what about non-news uses of our imagery? For example, there have been several tourism agencies and science literature which have used my images. I tag them with published since that's the closest thing I can think of... is there a non-news "published" template or should our published template be tweaked to be broader in scope? --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 19:30, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

I do the same. But it might be the time now to propose another template fitting for non-media use. --Túrelio (talk) 20:12, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Which Camera ? What do your camera ? which price ?

Hello, I'm interesting to create a gallery such as following (camera - photos produced) :

« Nikon 4100 »,
(price about: ?)
Object's picture.

« Canon EOS 40D »
(about 1.300 US$ / 1.000 Euro[1])
Macro: Rhagio scolopaceus...

« Canon EOS 20D »
(about 1500 US$ / 1200 Euro)
Lens.
Macro: Dragonfly's head (6mm).

This to illustrate the possibilities of our cameras, for Macro + landscapes first. Can you complete the upper gallery with :

your materials (camera [+ lens])
the prices
one example of good pickture take with it

That should be interesting. Yug (talk) 00:06, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Please do not post large number of images at above-standard-thumbnail sizes to this page, which is a somewhat general Wikimedia Commons forum; it would be better to establish a separate sub-page for the purpose... AnonMoos (talk) 08:55, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

The village pump is an highly visible page, that's the good place for such request. When the answer will be here, yes, I plan to move their into a new page. Yug (talk) 14:32, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Why not do something like this? Bidgee (talk) 14:52, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

^-^y yeap ! That's what I want ! We need to show clearly want our cameras, at which price, can do. That will help users to buy suitable cameras, to download good picture, and to strengthen our spirit of community. All good ! Yug (talk) 15:12, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think such a list will be too useful, particularly for the higher-end cameras. Image:Dragonfly compound eyes02.jpg, for example, was created using a $1500 camera with a $700 lens, but I could do the same with my $500 en:Pentax K100D and a $25 lens -- if I had the skill that Fir0002 does. --Carnildo (talk) 19:15, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Seriously ? With which $25 lens ? can you create a gallery exposing your work ?

I think that a such gallery will allow us to compare cameras, and ease buying choice. If you show us that you have a great result with a Pentax K100D and a $25 lens, those of us who plan to buy a camera will of course buy a Pentax K100D and the $25 lens. That's the aim. Yug (talk) 17:37, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

September 20

Converting MPG to OGG

Hello. I've recorded three vids of a storm, in MPG format, default for my camera. How can I transcode it to OGG? I've tried converting it to AVI and then to OGG, but Commons says that stream is undecodificable due to zero channels. What can I do? --JJ - Schumi4ever (talk) 16:10, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Have you had a look at Help:Converting video? This question comes up every few weeks. So either the help is too difficult to find, or doesn't answer peoples' questions. (Mh, yeah, or people aren't looking hard enough ;-) ) --Dschwen (talk) 16:41, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I've looked it, but it didn't help much. It doesn´t specify the format of the input video, not the format it has to ve transformed. I think it needs a new explaining easier for those with zero knowledge about computers... LOL --JJ - Schumi4ever (talk) 21:07, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

405th FIW, Clark AFB, PI -

This subject was entered at Wikipedia - Bien Ho AFB, Vietnam. All of my photographs were either made by Air Force Cameramen, Army Helicopter Units or personal photographers. All were used by the Air Force Investigation Board. As a member, I was given the photographs for my personal File. They were taken on May 16, 1965. So, I don't know about any copyrights on these pictures.

I would like to enter them in my article to give a pictorial explantion of what happened during and after the explosions that destroyed 26 aircraft on the grount and killed 27 people.

I was the Maintenence Officer for these B-57s. How do I get permission to use several pictures in support of my article above?

--Satxusa (talk) 02:54, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

If they were photos taken by Air Force personnel during the course of their official duties, then use Template:PD-USGov-Military-Air Force. If they were photographs taken by you, licence them however you want. If they were photos not taken by Air Force personnel during the course of their official duties, but published in an official U.S. government report, then that gets more complicated... AnonMoos (talk) 06:33, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Complaint

ResolvedUser errors-10 out of 11 software bugs are user error. I ought to have known that a screen shot of w:Apple Inc. and or w:FRISK Software International software was unsuitable for the Wikimedia Commons. w:Yahoo!-w:Flickr has a different system and I can't use it just now but perhaps http://www.thedeets.com/ can. But I refuse to reply again on this thread.

Just a minute here. I have two persons deleting my images. URLs coming up. -SusanLesch (talk) 07:16, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Image:Software Update-MacOS1039-20080919.jpg and Image:F-PROT-20080921-Thank you.png. Not one of you has quoted the commons FAQ on reuse of screen shots in derivative works. Maybe you would do so here? Yes, you may delete any of my uploads. But you're acting very mean from my point of view--my work is being treated as meaningless--and are out of step thus this note. I will check back in a week or so to see what the FAQ says then. -SusanLesch (talk) 07:24, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

From what i see... It is a screenshot of a program running on a mac. I don't think de software on the image has the licence gnu. So i think it can be beleted Sterkebaktalk 07:45, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi Susan. These are being deleted because they are derivative works. Please feel free to ask for clarification if that page isn't clear. Giggy (talk) 07:46, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

To me clearly a screenshot and so cannot be validly licensed/held on Commons in my mind. However I am happy to learn if others think differently. Thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 08:10, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your replies. Flickr is full of screen shots with no value added. Neither of mine here are full-screen, only parts of a screen, and both have maybe an hour of my work in them. I suggest that to avoid misunderstandings like this in the future, that you, the people who take charge of the Wikimedia Commons, add your rules about this to the FAQ. I ain't gonna do that work for you this time, and I looked, this isn't there. Corrections welcome. Best wishes. -SusanLesch (talk) 08:13, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I did find one original. Let me check a little more to see if I even have a copy of my dream that you don't share. Fortunately, yes I do. I would appreciate a speedy deletion of the other file. You're making me sick by asking for artwork, on the very page you challenged what was there, and I quote, "Surely you could easily cook up a fake no updates message." And the person who is selecting files from Category:Files by User:SusanLesch said nothing about that. I support both deletions and am not planning to revisit this topic. Sorry to create work for all of you writing, reading and archiving this section. -SusanLesch (talk) 08:28, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, just to clarify things, which FAQ were you looking at (so we know which page to update...)? Giggy (talk) 08:29, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Commons:FAQ. Thanks to you, or thank heavens, I don't have an open deletion discussion anymore. Hope you enjoy your time here more than I did this week. -SusanLesch (talk) 08:34, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Also not mentioned in the authority cited above, Commons:Derivative works. -SusanLesch (talk) 08:54, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

According to Category:Mac_OS_screenshots no visible elements of the operating system may appear, which explains one deletion, and no non-free software, which explains the other. I found this in Google, no trouble at all. The source, if it is accurate, is the Wikimedia Commons category for Microsoft Windows screenshots, copied here. But "All text, graphics, user interfaces..." applies to apple.com (all I found so far) is enough to say I agree with the deletions and thank you for taking care of them promptly. -SusanLesch (talk) 10:14, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Just checking back a few hours later. Kindly let me know on my talk page if possible if you need more information or post to this thread later (last time that was much, much later). Sorry but I don't know enough about graphics to help much in the Village Pump and may not see any follow up. Best wishes and thank you again (for what beside deletions without written rules, time will tell I guess). -SusanLesch (talk) 17:11, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

No thank you, for a photograph of chocolate cake, but it does remind me to say thank you to Symantec Corp. and FRISK Software International for the software--which all the commons adminstrators can now see but I cannot. -SusanLesch (talk) 10:55, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Just a thought, Susan is right. We should apply the same standards to Mac screenshots as Windows screenshots. Any parts of the interface that are ineligible for copyright should be allowed. Conversely those that are not should not be allowed. It does appear the standard for the MacOS is set a bit higher. Whether or not this is on purpose or just unintentional (ie just on gut instinct, since the Mac does have that whole complicated grey gradient thing going on) maybe should be discussed. -User:Nard the Bard sorry forgot to sign

Apologies for any errors on my part, but this unsigned comment was written by the person ("Nard the Bard" is a new username since the last series of deletions this account requested as "N" from Category:Files by User:SusanLesch) who requested deletion. Sorry to those of you who volunteer your time here but I am not able to continue a conversation of this nature under the heading of Complaint (which I wrote for a different reason). If the Village Pump wishes to discuss the above comment, kindly move it to a new thread. Also my apologies, the chocolate cake was inserted above the "Complaint" heading--that been suggested as a good practice, at least as I remember it, on the English Wikipedia sometimes, but one heading level down. -SusanLesch (talk) 17:48, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

As for your complaint. Don't take what I do personally. I nominate dozens of files a day for deletion. I do not single out authors for persecution. Also, pardon me for trying to take the conversation in a direction that may have resulted in your files being undeleted. Especially since you first mentioned the Windows screenshots. Apparently all you want to do is rant and whine and not actually hold a discussion. -Nard the Bard 20:10, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Thoughts on WikiProjects?

Commons hasn't really got into the WikiProject thing thus far to a great extent. Assuming there is more growth in this in future, how should we go about it? We can either have sister branches of existing projects on Wikipedias (this would be a nice way to have a multilingual intersection of WikiProjects on different wikis) or we could have Projects here only if they merit a project based on Commons activity alone (for example less specific projects would not appear, and only very general projects (like WikiProject Biology instead of WikiProject Birds) would exist). Richard001 (talk) 08:51, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Do we even have anything that uniquely focused here, content-wise? I know Carol Spears focuses on plants, and some of us are like that, but beyond the odd person here and there? rootology (T) 20:17, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I could imagine doing them usefully for geographic areas. Being able to request an image for a particular geographic area and know that relevant photographers would see it would be useful. - Jmabel ! talk 22:01, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Commons is so different from the encyclopedia, the interlinking of the articles is somewhat natural there; to make a gallery here which interlinks to that extent is too much like writing an article. The wiki interface is somewhat a natural for botany but I personally had to use the interface both here and on the encyclopedia wiki to be able to 1)understand the difference and 2)understand the collection of images that is here or will be here in the future. I think that anyone who is active in a project on the encyclopedias should perhaps spend sometime here with the whole collection to see how it is and should be different here. Images seem to just get uploaded to the encyclopedia wikis and their whereabouts are unknown if not displayed via an article. It is my opinion that this is not a good way to exist if managing images is all that the wiki does and there are too many images that exist here which if not displayed on an encyclopedia or a gallery their whereabouts are unknown -- that is not management as I understand that word to mean.

It really was after I understood the plants project some and also understood the problems here with finding the images here and uploading software that suggests existing categories that the ideas for ways the wiki interface, the commons collection and future additions to the collection could be used to enhance the Wikiproject without violating the no articles suggestion here. A good gallery walks a fine line between category collection and article here.... -- carol (talk) 22:48, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I dabble in road transportation categories quite a bit & upload plenty of images; and I also upload all my images from travels which don't have friends and family standing right in the middle of them. WikiProjects are neat ideas, though I can't say that actually maintaining a WikiProject has ever interested me beyond adding my name to a "Participants" list. --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 22:58, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Flickbot malfunction?

Please can some Admins and trusted users review new images posted on Commons through flickr? No review has been done for many images posted here for up to 20+ hours according to this: [10] and there are now almost 200 images waiting here. I had posted 15+ images Saturday evening and they have still not been inspected. I thought that the flickrbot, Admins or trusted users inspect images every 6 hours. The bot did not review images last night and when I woke up this morning 8 hours later, this was still the case. Now, its 8 PM where I live in Canada and the images have still not been reviewed by the flickr review bot. I don't know what's the problem? I have had these 2 images posted for almost 1 full day here: Image:The Wadi es-Sebua Temple by Dennis G. Jarvis.jpg and Image:The Temple of Kalabsha by Dennis G. Jarvis.jpg and no one has yet reviewed them. Please help. Thank You, --Leoboudv (talk) 03:04, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

A trusted user has now just passed these 2 images thankfully. However, I pray that an admin/trusted user can deal with the abnormally large 'backlog' of new Flickr images. With kind Regards, --Leoboudv (talk) 04:06, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Bryan told me yesterday the bot would run this night, but it hasn't. There were 236 image's in the category. I have done a few. There are 156 left. I hope the bot will run again soon. Sterkebaktalk 04:29, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Its currently 163 images. More Admins or Trusted users have to step in and fill the void here, I think. --Leoboudv (talk) 07:00, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

i have done a few again. There are 100 left. I did more than 150 revieuws today i guess. I have to go to my work now. I ask bryan what.s wrong with the bot. I hope it's fix't soon. Sterkebaktalk 07:48, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

It was hard work but the category is empty. Sterkebaktalk 19:01, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Mattbuck :-) Sterkebaktalk 12:20, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Tasty cake and good work by folks aside, the bot problem seems to remain. -- Infrogmation (talk) 10:09, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Bryan hasn't been online en both of his bot's have problems. Already there are more than 70 image's waiting for review. Sterkebaktalk 10:14, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

~~How do I become a trusted Flickr reviewer?~~ Found it! I'll be happy to help out. Bidgee (talk) 10:18, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Backlog in uncategorized media

There seems to be a bit of a backlog in uncategorized media, see Category:Media_needing_categories. I try to do my bit, but it's a rather time-consuming business, and of course I can add only cats to a small percentage of the media, as Commons contains pics from all over the globe. At the same time, there are a number of images whose purpose baffles me. I understand that even at this number, the great majority of images have been categorized, but still, could I ask everybody to take a look and see if you can add a cat or two? Best regards, MartinD (talk) 19:45, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

We should first concentrate on Category:Media needing categories requiring human attention. --Martin H. (talk) 19:55, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I'll add it to my to-do list...;) MartinD (talk) 20:05, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I would like to have some help with User:Multichill/Category suggestions. This is a list of category suggestions based on uncategorized images in galleries. If a category suggestion is right you can create the category and put {{Populate category}} on it, my bot will put the images in the category (see for example Category:Juan Bautista Villalpando). When the uncategorized images from a gallery should be put in a category with a different name than the gallery, you can add {{Populate category|gallery=<gallery name>}} on that other category to add the images in <gallery name> to that category (example). Multichill (talk) 21:45, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

When creating such a category, I suggest to copy all information such as explanation, translations and interwiki links from the gallery to the new category. --Wouter (talk) 10:59, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

September 23

Geocoded photography requests

It would be a piece of cake with the given infrastructure to write a little bot, that correlates geocoded photography requests with the names of users which geocoded their userpages (and deploy automatic messages). This would make geocoding userpages on commons useful! It would also be possible to query wikipedias which provide photo wanted templates and geocode their articles. This would have to be announced broadly, as to be remotely useful we'd need a large userbase with geocoded user pages. Or.. ..we could correlate requests with existing geocoded pictures and their uploaders. The location of existing pictures may either be close to the users' homebase or the user might have further pictures from that region which he hasn't uploaded yet. --Dschwen (talk) 22:23, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Interesting idea. Such a project would not need images to exist of that location yet and it would be very useful to know what locations there needs to be images gotten from. I am really in favor of not having empty categories deleted unless there is a problem with them and this really seems like another example of how useful empty categories could be.

And further, while I understand it would probably take days and days and perhaps weeks to author a software like Commons:COMBotBot in the meanwhile, these other lesser difficulty projects are like little cookies of goodness? -- carol (talk) 22:48, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Ooops. Yes, now that you remind me about COMBotBot... --Dschwen (talk) 23:00, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

It would be useful if made into a crosswiki project. Many users from the content encyclopedias only visit occasionally to upload. If the bot could also ping en wikiprojects, it might produce a better response. Nichalp (talk) 11:58, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

COM:PROD?

I'm thinking maybe we should adopt something like the proposed deletion system on Wikipedia for "non-controversial" deletion requests here on Commons, such as spam, and stuff that is blatantly out of scope (though personally, blatant advertising and spam should be speedy deletable here, which I find quite weird that it isn't). This could help keep RFD's backlog from growing ever larger every day. TFor those not in the know, basically a template declaring why a user thinks the image/page/etc should be deleted is placed on the page. If there are no objections or contestments for 7 days, its deleted. If there are, its taken to a regular RFD. ViperSnake151 (talk) 02:30, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Sounds pretty much exactly like speedy deletions :-) --Dschwen (talk) 02:36, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Spam and out of scope stuff is regularly speedy deleted. Giggy (talk) 03:06, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

The problem with COM:DR is that many files are listed there even though they qualify for speedy deletion, either as obvious copyvios or as obviously out of scope. It would be great to have less of those there, and more actual controversial deletion requests for which a discussion is necessary. There are a couple of things we could do: 1. make it clearer on COM:DR that some files shouldn't be listed there; 2. include a "Nominate for speedy deletion" quick-link in the toolbox, under "Nominate for deletion". Pruneau^talk 09:27, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Everything that is needed to know about deletion of things is on {{Delete}}. Apply the template, use preview, read what the template says, follow the instructions. I suggested once that a user probably shouldn't be an admin here (at their vote) because this simple task was seemingly beyond their ability. The problem with COM:Anything is that for a very long while here, people did not communicate with those:things or need to and now people seem to be communicating with THOSE:Things and suggesting stuff that already works if people can read.... -- carol (talk) 11:29, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that when you click on "Nominate for deletion" in the left column, it creates a complete deletion request without a chance to preview. By the time you can read the (short) bit about speedy deletion in {{Delete}}, it's too late: the subpage has already been created. It's great to have that quick-link in the left column because it's easy to find for newbies and quick to use for everyone, but unless we also include a "Speedy deletion" link, we're bound to continue having loads of deletion requests which should have been speedied. Pruneau^talk 13:37, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Then someone needs to get scripting. However a PROD process is pure bloat - this is covered (beyond) adequately by speedy deletions. — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 13:44, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Javascript buttons that don't work real well then -- great. It is not so difficult to type those 10 characters, especially when it is requesting that an image be deleted. Or is it so difficult? Perhaps the javascript added template can be handled a little differently just so the deleting admin know that it was a button that was pushed and not necessarily a well-thought out user event. Is it typical or too much to ask a deleting admin to look at the "what links here" before deleting? -- carol (talk) 13:57, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I've used prod on some wikis & it can be useful. Not sure that it is here - most of what I see is either clear cut "del" or something that needs talking about. Cheers --Herby ^{talk thyme} 13:46, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree that there should be a quick button tool to mark for speedy deletion, just as there is for nomination for deletion. It's always easier to press a button that to type a template and it's commands, and I suspect that if so much clear speedy deletions end as nomination for deletions, it's because the only button available for "mark this image quickly, without typing template code" is for that. Thialfi (talk) 14:57, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Image:Scourist.com alvor & portimao beach, portugal (204512300).jpg

Why does {{Delete}} template thinks this is incomplete deletion request? The link to deletion discussion page seems to be fine. --Jarekt (talk) 13:09, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

It seems fine now. Pruneau^talk 13:17, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

When I look at it I still see "This page is a member of Category:Incomplete deletion requests because it is incomplete (you failed to create the subpage Commons:Deletion requests/Image:Scourist.com alvor & portimao beach, portugal (204512300).jpg. PLEASE fill in all five variables and create the subpage!)" --Jarekt (talk) 13:53, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for deleting the image until this problem was fixed... you should use the "purge" tab above the image to refresh, the request was ok. --Martin H. (talk) 14:43, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Ogg format

I'm still finding that most of the major media players will not play this format. This is annoying - I have tried getting my university to modify them, but they haven't done anything, so I have to actually go home to watch video/listen to audio files (I can't play them in my browser either, for some other reason). I think there needs to be more pressure on e.g. Windows Media player, Real Player etc to make this a default format. Perhaps the Wikimedia Foundation could send them a letter or something? Richard001 (talk) 01:15, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/openletter.html <-- 2002!! -- carol (talk) 01:29, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but there are two reasons why this will never happen. Firstly, most Linux distributions only ship with support for OGG because its not encumbered by patents, and OGG is also open-source. Also formats such as WMV are incompatible with the GFDL, as it requires that anything licensed under it be in a "transparent format", defined as "a format whose specification is available to the general public". ViperSnake151 (talk) 01:06, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
- Pst, Vipersnake, I think you misread the request. The user is asking why don't we pressure Real and Microsoft to support .OGG not why we don't support Microsoft and Real. -Nard the Bard 01:35, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
  - Yes I'm not complaining about us using the format, I'm complaining that none of the major media players support it, despite the popularity of Wikipedia. This must be annoying for more people than me. I know that you can patch your player, but some people won't be bothered to do this or know how, and others like me don't have permission to do it on all the computers we use. What we really need is a ton of people to write in to them complaining about it, or a petition, or something like that. Richard001 (talk) 06:41, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
    - At the risk of recommending a particular product over another, there is a widely-available media player that supports OGG (and is GPL'd or otherwise free) and is available across most commonly used platforms (Windows, MacOS-X, and of course, most Linux/Unix distributions. It is the VLC Media Player and is available at the VideoLan.org site. --Onos (talk) 04:54, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Copyright issues with pictures of French bank branch

Hi,

I took a few pictures of Société général bank's central branch, in Paris, France. It is very famous for its glass roof and is a Monument historique (historical monument) as far as I know.

I'd like to upload this picture on Commons, but first would like to be sure there won't be copyright violation if I do so. The picture show some bank desks and windows. Could this be a problem ? I ask because people there told me not to take the desks and windows, but only the ceiling and structures around. But I also know that there are some abuse most of the time when people ask you such things... -- Benh (talk) 11:13, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually the real problem here is that there is no freedom of panorama in France. ViperSnake151 (talk) 19:31, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
- That doesn't mean one cannot take anything there. This building is normally old enough (although I don't have exact dates of death of architect). My question is more about the right to show desks from a bank branch. Benh (talk) 20:35, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
  - If there is really any content that might be at issue, you might use a Gaussian blur on the image to make that portion illegible. - Jmabel ! talk 21:57, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
    - I don't think my picture shows anything confidential. I'll just upload it, once I'm sure architect died more than 70 years ago. Thank you for the suggestion. Benh (talk) 16:17, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
      - Here it is Image:Socgen Agence Centrale 01.jpg. - Benh (talk) 21:36, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
The Architect died in 1930. This should be fine. (I removed the direct inclusion, people that want to see the image will just click on the link.) Esby (talk) 21:50, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

direct link to Commons image

I noticed that http://www.astrostation.at/ikreator/ast/cms_pub/content_88-de.html is linking directly to the Image:Rotating earth (small).gif using commons bandwidth instead of theirs. What is a procedure of dealing with that? --Jarekt (talk) 14:01, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

That subject came up about two years ago, and it was concluded at that time that there was no policy against it, but that if bandwidth-leeching became a significant drain, then it might become necessary to adopt one. Not sure if things have changed since then... AnonMoos (talk) 15:24, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

There has been some discussion on en:w about spesificly encouraging this type of leeching. I think it's a bad idea, but thats just me. J.smith (talk) 03:54, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Thumbnails and image previews not purging

Hello, lately on Commons I've found that some images do not display correctly. Sometimes in a thumbnail gallery there is only a text link to the image, and on the image's page itself there is also sometimes just a text link. Going to "generate thumbnail" seems to solve the problem but it's quite annoying having to do it on a lot of images.

Also, I recently uploaded a new version of Image:Space in Chinese.svg, but the displayed version continues to be the original. I have tried purging the page and generating new thumbnails manually but it still shows the old version. I have tried to link this image from Wikipedia and it still shows the old version. I understand this could be a problem just on computers that haven't seen the image at all yet, but it's still rather annoying when an image doesn't change like it usually does and I don't like the idea of Wikipedia users also not seeing the updated version.

Has anyone else been getting these problems? Hopefully it can be fixed soon. Regards --Joowwww (talk) 21:06, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

They usually update eventually. I do not think that it is an unusual problem, the thumbnails get cached here and also might be being cached on your computer and who knows where else this caching occurs between the host computer and yours (when I have seen this done, it has always been for making pages display faster or software work faster). I read somewhere here a suggestion to try to make the thumbnail a different size -- 2 or 3 pixels is enough to recache a new thumbnail without upsetting the layout much.

They usually update eventually. -- carol (talk) 23:36, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Country category issues

Hi people, i created a list of categories which should be a subcategory of some country. The list is available at User:Multichill/No country. It contains some false positives, but most categories need human attention. The list will be updated every once in a while. Thanks for you help! Multichill (talk) 22:35, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

By the way, Category:SVG flags - Inner Mongolia should probably not be a subcategory of Category:Mongolia, unless you want to advocate a controversial political position... AnonMoos (talk) 14:49, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

September 26

Image Renaming : your support is need !

See more: Commons:Rename

The convenient Image renaming function is still not available on commons despite it's highly requested since 2004 (!), the very beginning of Commons. This function is NEED to bad names or even very misleading names to be change into correct names, this will de facto ease images spreading and usage. This "Image renaming function" is doable now by combining functions (page rename) and bots (text replacement's bot) already working fine on commons and wikipedia. Your support is need to underline this request : please, take 1 minute to Add you name there~ Yug (talk) 14:23, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

First off, the links you gave don't work. Second, this would probably be better on a user sub-page rather than in the "Commons:" space. Third, the real action will be on the MediaWiki bug-reporting system (http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/), not here. Fourth, there is now a convenient way of making image redirects, and also a way of requesting that a bot move an image to a new name, which together meet the need to a signifcant degree... AnonMoos (talk) 15:02, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

[The link have been restore, you came between 2 edits]

Some asnwer: 1. On commons space or in my personal space, for a such public petition, I think the both are acceptable.

2. Yeap, I know bugzilla.wikimedia.org/, the request is already there since... years. The result is not amazing. Why : because this request is difficult and bugzilla.wikimedia.org depend on volunteers' goodwill. Often efficient for small patchs, not for big issues. If we can get forty of more signature, I hope they will then frankly launch their forces to solve this request. That's my aim.

3. I have heard about a bot making a copy of the last version of the file,. If you know more, any information are welcome. But if it's just that bot, then that's not what I request: a true, easy to use, fully integrated rename function allowing us to make the several thousands renaming highly need, and probably, to the long term, several tens of thousands. Yug (talk) 15:11, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Please do not substantively edit other people's comments in a discussion. Changing their indenting level, or occasionally moving them -- to group together related remarks and/or clarify which comments are in reply to which specific other comments -- may be OK, as are minimal fixes for certain obvious technical problems; however, substantive changes to what other people intended to say are rarely acceptable. AnonMoos (talk) 15:23, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Answered on your talk page. The links being restored, I sincerely think that your 1st point is now useless and deletable, but sorry for this deletion. I still welcome more information about renaming. Yug (talk) 15:48, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

categorization madness?

While working on this list (to get the "...by country" back in line) i came across these contributions. Most of the categories only contain subcategories or only some images. Am i the only one thinking this is categorization madness? Multichill (talk) 14:41, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure who's reading the commons mailinglist. But no, you sure as hell are not the only one who thinks this is categorization madness. --Dschwen (talk) 16:17, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Some of it does seems like madness like the whole tree of Category:Churches by patron saint, but other like categories related to architectural styles seem useful if someone would take time to apply some of those categories to the images we already have. --Jarekt (talk) 17:50, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

OGV

I converted Image:Georgetown PowerPlant steam reciprocating engine 01.ogv from an AVI file made by my camera. I used ffmpeg2theora-0.21.exe, which I believe is the recommended tool for this purpose. It doesn't seem to be working right for me: I get all the audio, but only the first bit of video. Since this is my first dealing with an OGV file, I have no idea whether the problem is with the file or with my software to view it. Could someone else please take a look and let me know if it's working?

By the way, the Village Pump seems like overkill to me for a question like this. Is there somewhere else I should have asked? - Jmabel ! talk 08:10, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

There's Commons:Graphics village pump, but I'm not sure that there's much depth of video-audio format expertise there... AnonMoos (talk) 09:00, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't need an expert. I just need someone who knows they can successfully view OGV files to take a look. - Jmabel ! talk 16:41, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Still waiting for even one person to say "yes, the file works" or "no it doesn't". - Jmabel ! talk 21:55, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

OK. I tried. I got a the Java image- then a black square- and Firefox 3.0.2 froze. It was difficult to close- I suspected I should need to reboot XP- but while rebooting the router (yes it may have taken that down) XP regained control. I am not surprised that noone has responded! So to see if I could get a better punch line- I opened Firefox 3 beta 5 on Ubuntu Hardy Heron. It worked perfectly taking about 6 seconds. On my Eee PC, Firefox 2.0.0.11 Xandros Linux there was a buffering problem- I got sound and part of the image but no movement- then it froze. So I conclude that it is a little unstable at the moment. ClemRutter (talk) 18:30, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Sounds like someone should feel free to delete this file, and I should not try to upload other similar OGV files. I know my AVIs are fine. - Jmabel ! talk 00:06, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Category:Malformed deletion requests

Ugh. 84 of them. The first one I clicked at random was from February 2008. I guess this should keep me occupied for awhile. -Nard the Bard 14:31, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Fixed some. Adding

<noinclude>{{Commons:Deletion requests/box}}</noinclude>
=== [[:Image:NAME.EXT]] ===
REASON {{subst:unsigned||}}

and then adding the page to Commons:Deletion requests/2008/09/21 (if it's not already deleted) goes quite quick though. /Lokal _Profil 18:23, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Category:Incomplete_deletion_requests is anouther hotbed of fun. 191 entries, right now. J.smith (talk) 19:30, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

And now both sem to be empty =). /Lokal _Profil 11:34, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

WTFPL

Template:WTFPL - do we seriously accept this licence? -mattbuck (Talk) 21:07, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I do not know, but I sure had a good laugh once I realized what is was about. Luckily it is only used on two images created by the template creator. -- Slaunger (talk) 21:11, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, um... I guess it fits in COM:L... Patrícia ^msg 21:13, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

It's free, isn't it? So what's the problem? — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 21:14, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Interesting ......... But being a free license, I guess we do. - Rjd0060 (talk) 00:15, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I think we can do what the fuck we want in terms of accepting that license. Giggy (talk) 00:24, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Apparently there is an article about it on wikipeida... so the author didn't just make it up. J.smith (talk) 03:56, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Certainly unorthodox, but I see no problem with it. - Jmabel ! talk 00:10, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

September 25

old jimmy durante sone lyric

I recently heard a clip of an old jimmy durante song on NPR that would make a good camp song for my older girl scouts - it's about not reading books - can anyone help me find the lyric? Part of it went... I know it wasn't a history because there wasn't a plot - I know it wasn't a mystery because nobody got shot - I know I read a book once but I dont remember when - but one of these days I think I'll do it again." I'd sure appreciate the help - Cher

Hi, The Village pump is not for this but you are looking for the song I Remember the Day I Read a Book i can't find the text but now you have a title :) Sterkebaktalk 16:59, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, it's I'll Never Forget the Day I Read a Book. With that, you should be able to find lyrics online. - Jmabel ! talk (the old guy) 00:14, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Need help with iw linking

Hi, i'm iw linking [[Category:Valves]], now most of it works, but on the Swedish wiki the link [[Category:Ventiler?uselang=sv]] doesn't work, do I have to make a redirect to the EN name ? and how do I do that, or just leave it, or back to square one and remove the link from SV wiki ? thanks. Mion (talk) 18:41, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think you need to add the 'userlang' variable on interwiki links. Just add [[sv:<pagename>]]. There is more info on interwiki links available at m:Help:Interwiki linking. - Rjd0060 (talk) 19:41, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I did ad [[sv:<pagename>]] on commons, (so links out are working) so if i use that link i'm on SV wiki, and the link from sv to commons isn't working, so, I thought, maybe it has to be redirected overhere, (if i follow the link from SV, i get a page on commons, this page doen't exist, ). Mion (talk) 20:46, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

it works now, thanks. Mion (talk) 20:47, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Glad to hear! Regards, Rjd0060 (talk) 21:53, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

GNU license

The image Image:History comparison example.png contains a lot of text that was released under GNU Free Documentation License by its multiple authors, I was under the impression that to use this text the authors had to be credited but there does not seem to be any mention of them on the image description page, are they credited elsewhere or am I misinterpretting/ misinformed about the content or licensing of the image? Regards, Guest9999 (talk) 21:20, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I added a link to the history of the Vit-C article. That should bring it within compliance, I think. J.smith (talk) 22:41, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

September 27

Straw poll for "view-deleted activation" now open on English Wikipedia

In June 2008 the Arbitration Committee announced a request that the English Wikipedia consider allowing some non-administrators the ability to view deleted material. The summary of the announcement was -

The activation of the passive "can view deleted" right, and a policy allowing its grant for good cause, would allow non-administrator users to gain wider participation in the English Wikipedia community. For details and discussion, see en:Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/June 2008 announcements/Activation of view-deleted-pages

Note that this is a request that the idea be considered, nothing stronger. The announcement led to this proposal. As this conversation has gone on for several months, the proposal has shifted around quite a bit. This makes it very unclear where editors are currently giving their support or opposition. For the sake of clarity, I am attempting to pick out the main proposals, and create a straw poll around them. Please share your opinion at en:Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Persistent proposals/Straw poll for view-deleted. ~ JohnnyMrNinja (talk / en) 16:16, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm supportive of this in general but it strikes me that it would be even more useful on the Commons than on the Wikipedias - and have fewer drawbacks. When I had adminship on enwiki but not over here I was often frustrated to be unable to see the image description pages of deleted material. And the sort of ugliness which I think those who oppose the idea are afraid of tends to (I think) occur less over here than over there. Haukurth (talk) 17:00, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Whatever happened to commons admins getting view deleted image privs on all projects? -mattbuck (Talk) 17:34, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

The most recent news on this subject can be found here (as far as I know). There seems to be no real progress :( →Christian .И 17:58, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

There definitely does not appear to be a consensus at this time. Many good points have been brought up on both sides. J.smith (talk) 19:13, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

September 28

Glacier Express

Sorry to bother you again with a categorisation question.;) A number of pics of the Glacier Express have been uploaded, for instance Image:GlacierAlbula.jpg. This is a train running form St. Moritz to Zermatt, operated by the MGB (see Category:Matterhorn–Gotthard-Bahn) and the RhB (see Category:Rhätische Bahn).There is a page "Glacier Express", but not a cat of that name. Do I make a new cat, as a subcat of Category:Narrow gauge railways in Switzerland? I suppose there are more situations where named trains are operated over routes run by different operators. See, for instance, Category:Orient Express. Best regards, MartinD (talk) 08:36, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Show jumping Cat. to Eventing

Hi, I don't want to mess up, could someone change this Cat. Category:Show jumping at the 2008 Olympic Games equestrian - they are not Show Jumping photos but Eventing. So should read Category:Eventing at the 2008 Olympic Games equestrian - - Cúlnacréann-(talk) 00:56, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Done - Normal procedure: insert template {{Move|category:new name|reason}}. --Foroa (talk) 20:47, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

People in pictures - are their permissions needed?

There were fans at a football game asking for their picture to be taken. Can such be uploaded to wikimedia commons or is a release form needed? What are the guidelines. If photos of players are taken playing on the field, that I believe is public domain. Kind Regards SriMesh | talk 19:08, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

May wanna put {{Personality rights}} on it just in case, but its a public space with no expectation of privacy. ViperSnake151 (talk) 20:01, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
See COM:PEOPLE. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 20:02, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Template:Personality rights. The very brief story is that photos with people in public places seen in the background are generally not problematic, but that someone wishing to make use of such a photo with identifiable persons for a commericial advertisement might have legal problems (but that would be the advertiser's difficulty, not ours). AnonMoos (talk) 20:05, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. SriMesh | talk 14:24, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Adding "must be dead by" years and such on PD-Old and similar templates

In the interest of helping people figure out if an image is {{PD-Old}} or not, I think we should add some indication of "what" year the creator of a work would have to have been deceased by in order for it to count under its criteria. It's easy to do, cause you can easily slap some parser functions in there, like {{#expr:{{CURRENTYEAR}}-70}} (which produces 1954, the current year subtract 70). But, we just need consensus to do this. It could be as easy as slapping "To the uploader: Please provide evidence the author of this work died before 1954" in it. ViperSnake151 (talk) 21:18, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Make it subst it, but yes, it makes sense. -mattbuck (Talk) 21:47, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Uhh, but that defeats the purpose. We'd have to make major edits to heavily used templates once per year. If we use parserfunctions, we can just set it and forget it^tm ViperSnake151 (talk) 23:24, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

We have Template:PD-old-100, Template:PD-old-80, Template:PD-old-75, and Template:PD-old-70. The rules are not actually always the same in all countries, which would make a one-size-fits-all template quite complex... AnonMoos (talk) 23:27, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

No, that's not what I'm doing. I'm just saying we should use parserfunctions on them to specify the "cutoff year" for each of those templates as a quick reference (like for example, PD-old-70 would say something like "Please provide evidence that the author of this work died before CurrentYear-70"). ViperSnake151 (talk) 23:36, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

However, Template:PD-Old itself does not have one specific year associated with it which absolutely guarantees legality; that's why the complicated disclaimer language is there, and why it's distinct from PD-old-100, PD-old-80, PD-old-75, and PD-old-70. AnonMoos (talk) 11:55, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Parks in France

Are those picture eligible for copyright if yes is it copyviolated?

Images

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Zil (talk • contribs) 19:57, 10. Jul. 2008 (UTC)

Parc logotypes are public domain because they are considered as traffic sign by french governement [11]. Ske (talk)

Five questions. Is a town plan, (a street plan 1.5m X 1.25m on metal, in the pedestrian zone) considered a traffic sign, so we can reproduce it/ convert to SVG?

If that map is then published in paper form- can we say that it is a copy of a published traffic sign?

Is a sign, Image:Millau7641.JPG considered to be a traffic sign?

When a commune has erected a interpretation board with text and graphics, explaining the significance of a building or geographical feature is that a traffic sign?

What license do we use for a traffic sign?ClemRutter (talk) 14:34, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

How many of you upload from public domain books/literature?

I frequently upload images from old books (I'm working on at least 3 at the moment), sometimes scanning them myself, other times uploading them from other sites (where they exist). I was wondering how many other people there are who regularly do this. I should create some categories for users based on the work they do here (e.g. scan, upload images from Flickr, move images from Wikipedia etc) so that such people can find each other (and others find them) more easily. I would also like to see a 'to do list' for this area, so that people interested can help out (this could be populated by/include images available on other websites to make it easier on those who aren't able to scan). Richard001 (talk) 08:51, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

German Wikisource folks upload many scans of PD books. --EugeneZelenko (talk) 14:52, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

That's my main area of work. Sometimes my own scans, sometimes stuff from the Internet Archive or other sources. Haukurth (talk) 16:05, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I do this pretty often, but have no desire to be added to a category for it. - Jmabel ! talk 22:00, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I bought an 1885 edition of Ridpath the other day, might consider uploading some of the illustration of Mexico and the southern United States. Ottre (talk) 23:10, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I have created a couple of userboxes: {{Scanner}} and {{User books}}, for the (often overlapping) activities of scanning and uploading from public domain books. Richard001 (talk) 07:58, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Flickr upload bot errors

Some of the files are damaged, only a part is saved, for example Image:Camino de Santiago - May 2006.jpg, Image:FordEconoline.jpg, Image:Habrosyne pyritoides.jpg, Image:FordEconoline-rear.jpg, Image:Ennomos alniaria.jpg, and nobody seems to notice - not even the Flickr reviewers. I fixed a number of them ( Image:Julien Blondel.jpg, Image:San Jose Sharks v. Vancouver Canucks..jpg, Image:LotusAPX.jpg, Image:1965LotusType30.jpg, Image:The Jewish Ceromonial Hall, Prague..jpg), but there are just too many... Who runs this bot, and why don't they check their uploads ? - Erik Baas (talk) 10:20, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

It gets worse: the first version of Image:Lapices Hispania, El Ferrol.jpg was OK, but then the file was uploaded a second time, saving a damaged image ! - Erik Baas (talk) 11:12, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd think that maybe flickr was having hiccups at the time. Reupload them and fix it. -mattbuck (Talk) 11:21, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

It's not that simple: this has been going on for a couple of days now, with possibly a dozen or two damaged files per day... - Erik Baas (talk) 11:29, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I think it has the same problem as the flickrrevieuw bot. This bot is not working for three day's now. Maybe all bot's of bryan are broken. Sterkebaktalk 12:19, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

May be Flickr changed API? So Bryan bots need update. --EugeneZelenko (talk) 14:51, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I think this bot needs to be stopped, at least for now. Take a look at the file history (six versions !) of Image:Patio de los Leones.jpg, it looks as if this bot is not satisfied until it uploads a damaged file. Mind you, this is not the only example: see Image:SinclairZX81PCB.jpg. I counted 35 incomplete files in the last week, some of them uploaded twice or more. - Erik Baas (talk) 21:25, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Image:Alhambra-Granada.jpg: 8 (!) versions, of which #1, 4, 5 and 7 (manual upload by Garden) were good. - Erik Baas (talk) 22:52, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

September 24

Metadata EXIF tip

The Metadata on pictures should say

Exposure time 10/371 (0.026954177897574) sec

not

Exposure time 10/371 sec (0.026954177897574)

Jidanni (talk) 13:54, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

14 digits - why? NVO (talk) 16:05, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

September 30

Including images from commons

Anyone know how I can include images from commons on a wiki? What code do I need to add to LocalSettings.php? Mww113 (talk) 23:20, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

See Commons:First_steps/Reuse#Embedding Commons media in third party projects, in short: you will have to download the images and upload them at your wiki. Direct inclusion of images is at the moment only available for Wikimedia wikis. --rimshot^talk 06:19, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that is entirely correct, some MediaWiki wikis can use Commons directly. I know translatewiki.net can use images directly from here. See this blog post by Erik Möller. /Ö 09:44, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I use direct inclusion on my private wiki so I only have to upload my images once - to commons. Very convenient. --Dschwen (talk) 19:29, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

September 29

Photo of tattoo

I'm a total newbie with this so please excuse my ignorance. I have permission to upload an image of a tattoo by the owner of both image and tattoo. How do I go about doing this? Or does he have to do it himself? --Dakinijones (talk) 11:43, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

You can do it. Start with Commons:First steps -- AnonMoos (talk) 11:50, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

OK thanks. I was worried as I'd already looked there and a first look at the decision tree looked like it said no. Taking a second look it says I just need written agreement. I'm assuming an email's sufficient? And how does that work with the licence saying "own work"? --Dakinijones (talk) 12:12, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Wouldn't the tattoo artist own the copyright of the image? /Lokal _Profil 14:30, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Maybe, if he did the tattoo purely on-the-fly, or created the original artwork on which the tattoo is based. Probably not if he just copied from an artwork supplied by someone else, or did a slight variation on standard designs (hearts with names in them, etc.). AnonMoos (talk) 14:37, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

The photo has already appeared on the tattoo owner's website so I'm assuming that means there's no issue with the tattoo artist. --Dakinijones (talk) 15:04, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

It appearing on the website doesn't mean the artist (possibly the tattooist) has made it as free as Commons requires. Indeed most images on the web are not sufficiently free. /Lokal _Profil 17:27, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

This is untried territory in most jurisdictions (I don't know that there's been any precedented legal cases), but having done some investigation in the past, it's generally considered that an artist does not hold copyright on something which appears on someone else's body. An artist can own the copyright to the flash art, but the tattoo itself, being a permanent fixture on a human being... I'm fairly certain the copyright belongs solely to the photographer.

This probably becomes tricky territory when it comes to tattoos of copyrighted characters, such as Mickey Mouse. Bastique ^demandez 18:01, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd be interested to see case law on this. If it's truly considered a permanent fixture, it generally would be copyrighted. Superm401 - Talk 18:25, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Flickr upload - what now?

I just uploaded three images from Flickr using Bryans script (1, 2, 3). So I need to do anything manually (like adding {{flickrreview}} removing the upload-template), or is there a bot scanning the category and adding the corresponding licence? --schlendrian •λ• 13:34, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

The bots have been acting up. I've fixed the images for you. -Nard the Bard 13:56, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
- thanks. If theres an admin with too much time (haha), he or she could delete the double/four times existing images. Another case of acting up, I guess --schlendrian •λ• 15:52, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Why? - disabled special pages

Why does my watchlist no longer function and gives the message No such special page / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia / Jump to: navigation, search / You have requested a special page that is not recognized by Wikipedia. A list of all recognized special pages may be found at Special:Specialpages. / Return to Main Page.. And why does the catscan on my computer turn without end? Havang(nl) (talk) 16:14, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

There's a problem with squid caches affecting watchlists, recent changes or main pages on several Wikimedia sites. The devs are working on it, but it will take some time before all the caches are cleaned. In the meanwhile, you can login by the secure site, the watchlist works there. Patrícia ^msg 16:25, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

What's "the secure site" ? --Foroa (talk) 18:37, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Fixed now, it seems. But the secure site is https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/w/index.php?title=Special:Userlogin — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 19:05, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Mike, sorry I didn't make it clearer... When you login, there is a text underneath the login fields, Secure your account:, and the first item has a link to the secure server login. When things are wonky on the normal site, it's a good idea to try this way. Patrícia ^msg 22:10, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

$10Surinam.jpg

I don't know very much about licencsing a banknote. Can somebody please check a valid licence. I don't think that {{self|GFDL|cc-by-sa-all}} is a valid licence for this image.
thx D-Kuru (talk) 19:42, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Done - Nominated for deletion. ViperSnake151 (talk) 21:49, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Commons:Village pump/Archive/2008/09