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.
I would guess those are copyrightable -- a person or organization placed the camera trying to get particular shots of wildlife, and they are getting some of the intended results; not the same thing as a security camera, and the copyrightability of even those is possible. I don't think I would upload those, and no, to my knowledge we don't have a template for anything like that. Carl Lindberg (talk) 13:57, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
You could argue that surveillance cameras also have the purpose of getting particular shots of crimes, and that they do succeed in this. The intent should be irrelevant, but originality is the key-word. See these comments:
"The limitation of copyright to "works of authorship" also implies an author. This appears to mean that a human created the work, using the requisite creativity. In a work made through a completely mechanical process, copyright might be denied on the basis that no one was the "author". If a security camera mounted in a lobby, recording 24 hours a day, captured a dramatic event, the video could be uncopyrighted."
"in order to be entitled to copyright registration, a work must be the product of human authorship. Works produced by mechanical processes or random selection without any contribution by a human author are not registrable"
"A plaintiff could argue that the placing of the video camera and possibly even its operation involved skill, judgment and labour. These are the hallmarks of the test of originality for the subsistence of copyright. The counterargument would be that these skills alone are not enough because if they were it would allow a very low threshold of originality."
Some countries (Germany, Sweden) protect all photographic images, regardless of any personal creativity. Such neighbouring rights are generally shorter. (And {{PD-Art}} disregards those in the case of photos of paintings. )/Pieter Kuiper (talk) 14:26, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
PD-ineligible is arguable when it comes to security cameras (it may differ by country) but the little court case guidance we have points to being copyrightable. At least with security cameras, there is little creativity in the placement (trying to cover the whole room/area); with wildlife photos there is (to my mind) quite definitely in author in that they are picking the place and angle to put the camera to give them the best chance to get wildlife pictures (maybe even targeting particular animals). I would be very surprised if a U.S. court (or elsewhere) ruled those ineligible for copyright. Security cameras are closer, but it would be nice to have an actual court case to stand on, rather than theory. The en-wiki article mentions there was indeed a UK court case which did rule them copyrightable -- I'm sure there was criticism on the decision but that didn't help the defendant. That is not necessarily applicable in the US, as the UK has a very different (and lower) threshold of coyprightability. It's a lot more arguable in the U.S., but remote wildlife cameras would be quite different than a security camera situation to me. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:52, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
Error in script doesn't allow user to click on language links in license templates
There is obviously some error in script for license templates. When user is on the template page and wants to click on the language link to get to the relevant language subpage, it won't let him nor even AJAX reloads the content. (WXPsp2, FF7.0.1, Vector) Please fix that. Thank you.
Those of you involved with the Wiki Loves Monuments 2011 campaign know that the project made extensive use of the Upload Wizard to present uploaders with a simplified and customized uploading process. Here's an example of the Dutch language/Netherlands form for WLM. Now that the contest is closed, you can't see all the customizations anymore, but you can still see that it simplifies the licensing, as well as adding a default category for the upload and adding a custom field to the form for specifying the monument number.
All in all, more than 160,000 photos have been uploaded through the Wiki Loves Monuments competition, as far as I know most of them through Upload Wizard. So these kinds of contests/competitions can be a pretty powerful way to get new uploaders involved in Wikimedia Commons.
These campaigns are defined in Special:UploadCampaigns, which is currently only accessible to admins. Each campaign translates to a "&campaign=" parameter that can be added to the Upload Wizard URL to invoke it. Each campaign has several key/value configuration options which define it. These options are documented here if you don't have access to the campaign editor yourself.
We're wondering: What would make this toolset more useful for other media competitions, contests, and other purposes? Is there any particular piece of Upload Wizard you'd like to be able to customize for certain purposes? Any other thoughts on how it could be improved?--Eloquence (talk) 22:30, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
Killer feature: being able to pass along parameters to the template (in the WLM case, would have been the monument ID pre-filled in the Wikipedia lists). Jean-Fred (talk) 22:39, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
i'd love to extend the discussion a little beyond "uploading a lot made easy". competition means also a couple of people (or many people?) beeing able to efficiently select the best. just a couple of ideas:
display all works of a campaign, also localized (e.g. only dutch)
rate in general
personal rating, not visible to others (for jury)
rate, in a category
easy add "campaign categories", either after upload through others, or on the upload itself
easy "red link", e.g. offer openstreetmap where the desired things can be found
display all above a certain rating in selected categories, local
download the displayed to efficiently put it on a memory stick or print it for final selection
just a quick note that I've re-organized the pages related to the Upload Wizard. 1) They now all begin with Commons:Upload Wizard, which is now a landing page with general info. (I've opted not to use subpages because of the already complex archiving subpage hierarchy for feedback.) 2) They consistently use "Upload Wizard" as a description. Upload Wizard is a proper noun, so I've title-cased it in the UI as well. Only the special page and MediaWiki extension name is UploadWizard (CamelCase), otherwise there should be a space in between the two words. 3) They use a consistent layout. 4) I've eliminated references to it being a prototype and updated the FAQ and other pages.
There may still be some necessary cleanup (please help if you notice anything out of order), and there are a few remaining inconsistencies that we should eventually correct, but hopefully this will make some of the more obsessive-compulsive among us happy. ;-) --Eloquence (talk) 01:37, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
November 3
Licensing question
Since my question in the Dutch village pump wasn't answered, I'm trying again here. It involves the following image: [5] According to Licensing#Simple design I'm guessing it's okay to upload the file since the logo consists of "text in a general typeface" and "simple geometric shapes". Still, I want to make sure before uploading. What are your views on this? -- ZanderZ (talk) 17:19, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
The part at left is probably just within the limits, the rest is certainly OK. Anyone have a firmer opinion on the part at left? - Jmabel ! talk17:41, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
Next time please ask at COM:VPC. :-) Would say it is okay, but not a simple case - has some artistic touch... (not sure about other appearances of such rotated "c"s). --Saibo (Δ) 18:02, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
I knew there had to be a specific place for copyright questions, guess I didn't search well enough. I guess I will upload the image, if someone disagrees it can always be deleted. Thanks for your input. -- ZanderZ (talk) 11:05, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
Also files with a slash in the title don't upload on the upload wizard. Once tried to upload six images of F/A-18 and had to start over. I don't have time to file the report right now but point me to it if you create it. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 15:22, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
English Heritage conditions when copyright holder is not known or copyright expired
I see that a related issue has previously cropped up, but I have a question. This early photo of The Edward Colston monument states Photographer: not known Date Taken: unavailable and Commons:Licensing#Material in the public domain states If the work is anonymous or a collaborative work (e.g. an encyclopedia), it is typically in the public domain 70 years after the date of the first publication. Therefore, with regard to EH's Terms & Conditions, can such material be legitimately included here on Commons? (BTW, I know we already have File:Edward Colston 1895 statue.jpg but such period EH photos obviously put monuments in context.) All advice gratefully received. Apologies if this is covered somewhere obvious in a policy already - I tried to search and didn't find anything specifically relevant. Thanks. -- Trevj (talk) 08:56, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
In most counties anonymous is not the same as unknown I believe. Anonymous often means that the author actively tried to hide his identity with regards to publication. It is in the same category as Pseudonymous in that regard. In almost all cases however, your responsibility to discover the name of an author goes at least a bit further than; reading an origination does not know who is the author. You have to actively search yourself. TheDJ (talk) 21:29, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
The UK does have an "unknown" portion to their law -- see {{PD-UK-unknown}}. It does require a "reasonable enquiry" to be made, and also the date of making available to the public (such as publication) is also important. Carl Lindberg (talk) 21:06, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
DMCA Takedown
Pursuant to Wikimedia Foundation policy and as required under the Digital Millenium Copyright Law to retain Safe Harbor status, please be aware that I have removed one file from Wikimedia Commons today, as described at the archive of DMCA requests. Please do not readd or otherwise recreate this file, purported to be under copyright. Valid counternotices can be filed through the Wikimedia Foundation, as described at the Office Actions policy. Thank you. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 18:45, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
The "WP:OFFICE" policy is global policy, as listed on meta. Probably we should refer to it as META:OFFICE or something... in the absence of a project specific OFFICE policy. Let's write that one up to muscle memory (or, you know, me just not thinking). Philippe (WMF) (talk) 23:03, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
Geolocation doesnt seem to be working
When I click on google maps by geolocations on picture, I dont see any common location markers on the google map. The only way I can check if the location is correct is to zoom in. Is the server out of order? Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:07, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
The update for the image overlay is currently stuck. I asked the user maintaining it to check.
I filed a complaint at User talk:Dominic#Come Up Sometime regarding a relatively minor issue about self-referencing file links, but I am not getting any traction ("It seems like simply a cosmetic preference....Does it matter?" etc).
This maybe a cultural thing, but I don't get on with IT support types, as I usually get fobbed off with "its a minor glitch" or "we don't think it is a problem", which for me is like showing a red rag to a bull.
My proposal is that should be a page or section dedicated to complaints about Bots, so that we can keep a track of what is going on, learn from misakes and understand what problem are considered serious or fixable, and what are not. My concern is that since bots have almost unlimited scope to repeat mistakes without having to be held accountable, the bot owners might be getting the impression that they are not beholden to the rest of the community in any way.
Bots are not infallible (like the rest of us), but they are capable of making systematic mistakes on a grand scale. In my view there should be a fourth Law of Robotics, namely if a bot makes a mistake over and over again, then it has a duty of care to go back and make corrections in a systematic way. Would anyone suggest a suitable location for a central complaints page for bots? --Gavin Collins (talk) 14:48, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
Bots are very different. Some run on toolserver, some on local computers, some are just AWB operated by a user. Some are written in python, some in C#, C++, VB.NET, some using Qt. Even the task differs: Changing content, uploading, creating pages, ... . And the interval as well: Continuous editing, waiting for a small replag-lag, daily running bots, bots waiting for templates on their talk-pages, bots waiting for pages in categories.
It was intended making people aware of the fact that the only thing "bots" have in common is, that they perform a lot of edits. It is therefore nonsense to create a presumably chaotic page where everyone writes his/her complaint about every bot performing edits on Commons. If we are going to create such a “system”, I suggest not creating a page about bot-complaints, instead creating a page about upload-bot-problems, user-notification-bot-problems, … -- RE rillkequestions?11:23, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
Gavin, I think we're having some miscommunication. I don't understand why you say you're not getting traction. I think it makes perfect sense for me to ask questions in order to determine whether a problem is really a problem or a cosmetic change before I change 100,000 pages. And I don't particularly want to make a stylistic change without clear consensus, because there might just be someone turning up at my talk page the next day complaining about the new format. You explained the problem with the format in detail, but not why it was a problem, which is why I asked directly "Does it matter?". This doesn't mean that I am ignoring you or not taking your complaint seriously. I truly wanted to know why it mattered, because it wasn't clear to me. Indeed, I am somewhat amused by the comment about "IT support types," since that's not what I am; I'm the person inside the institution with access to the content, but who only has a background in humanities and has been running a bot written by some other nice techies. :-)
There are a million little things that go into the metadata on image description pages, especially with custom templates, and it is frankly impossible to predict beforehand which particular little things might be problematic. And I think I am being responsive, but I also don't think it is a very big deal if it takes a few days to change something that has been in place for weeks on tens of thousands of pages without any prior objection, since we want to get it right. Dominic (talk) 18:58, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
If there is a self-referencing link in a 100,000 pages, then that is 100,000 corrections that need to be made, if not by your Bot, then that is a lot of manual effort. The alternative, as you are suggesting, is to "do nothing", leaving a problem such that 100,000 users will encounter a problem every time they click on one of those links. Whether you belive that you don't have a duty of care or are not oblidged to make amends is one issue, and is seperate from the problem that you don't have the technical ability to correct these mistakes, is another.
I think the purpose of creating a central discussion page for complaints about bots is that all of us would be able to see the history of what has gone on before, and what the moral/techical issues are, and transparency it would bring could be an aid to problem resolution. In this case, I don't think a satisfactory moral response/techical solution has been proffed, but then again, my views on this issue are not necessarily held by the rest of community. Perhaps if we had a designated page for discussing these issues, then perhaps a consensus about the appropriate moral/techical response could emerge and evolve. --Gavin Collins (talk) 09:48, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
I don't understand your hostility. I am trying to be reasonable here. We had a short exchange in which I asked you to explain what the problem is, and now you are convinced that I can't and won't make changes and you have been making various insinuations like that believe I "don't have a duty of care" and that I am "not beholden to the rest of the community in any way" (and I have no idea what you mean by my "moral response"). I've suggested nothing of the sort. I have tried to be responsive to any issues people have raised, even here recently just a few sections above. Let's be clear: what we are talking about here is an image displaying a thumbnail of itself in its own "Other versions" field. I suppose it isn't ideal and should be removed, and I can do so if desired, but it's not the end of the world. Dominic (talk) 14:16, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
I agree this issue is not the end of the world, but on the other hand, it should not be difficult to put right either, which is why I think putting things right is the best thing to do, but if you disagree, I can respect that.
Where a central discussion page to discuss bot problems may assist in finding a solution may be useful is where there is some disagreement as to what is the best thing to do. Personally, I see no merit in leaving 100,000 self-referencing links in situ because they will have to be corrected at some point. Perhaps another bot user might agree with me, and be willing to create and run a rountine that could rectify these self-referencing links. I am just suggesting that a talk page for this sort of thing might be a good idea. --Gavin Collins (talk) 14:44, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
I don't believe you are listening to what I am saying. I am not arguing with you about the links. You seem to interpret any request for clarification or further discussion as me challenging you or me stalling. That is not my intention. I also think that the way you are trying to talk about both a specific issue (which relates to me) and proposing a new noticeboard (which I don't have a comment on, but now is getting lost in our exchange) is becoming a little confusing. Dominic (talk) 15:23, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
If you are not arguing about the links, then why not simply agree to my request to remove them, or simply decline my request? In fairness to you, you have not said that you would not help, but in fairness to me, you have not made it explicit that you will help either. So what is it that I have missed in this discussion that would help you come to decision and enable you to state what you intend to do, one or the other? Do let us know. --Gavin Collins (talk) 16:19, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
Comment: Because users like me could disagree. It is really a minor and while it is not "nice", I see on the other hand a lot of edits that only improve the pages a bit. If you would be familiar with our bot-approval process, you would be happy to see a bot running one week after the request was filed. Before you are going to make changes, please investigate whether there are other problems. I see no reason to hurry. -- RE rillkequestions?16:28, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
I also think it is important for other users to get involved, that is why I am suggesting a complaints page to facilitate this. I am happy to go through the bot-approval process to get the corrections, but it would be a bit odd to have one bot dedicated to correcting self-referencing links, while another one continues to do so. I think there needs to be a complaints page (or name it something less perjorative) for the sake of transparency and good governance, so the right approach can be agreed upon before a new bot is set in motion. --Gavin Collins (talk) 17:38, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
This is what bug-tracking software is for. Toolserver has bug-tracking. Authors should be using it, although not all of them are because these are very small informal projects. Right now I'm struggling just to get authors to publish their source so that we can fork them and fix issues after the disappearance of the author... I'm not sure about the answer but I think what we need is some kind of support person who goes around and really strongly pushes for authors to do these things. Dcoetzee (talk) 22:27, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
Access to source code of disappeared authors is a perennial problem. Maybe there's some way that access to source code by a small, privileged group of techy editors (I'm thinking of the w:WP:BRFA group on en.wp; is there anything similar here?) can be required as a condition of bot approval, for those authors who don't want to simply publish the code. Rd232 (talk) 09:03, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
There are probably many other issues that need to be discussed regarding the operation of bots, but from reading the responses above, its clear that there is no appetite for a seperate discussion page to discuss bot governance, complaints or technical issues at this time. --Gavin Collins (talk) 09:40, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
Upload videos ASAP
I've managed to obtain permission to use the following videos on Wikipedia under the "Creative-Commons 3.0 Share-Alike" license from an Indian media agency, Daijiworld Media. Please convert these videos into Ogv format, and upload them. The OTRS ticket no. is {{PermissionOTRS|id=2011102410000683}}. I would greatly appreciate it if the interested volunteer would mention that the work is in progress here, so that we don't have two people taking up the task. Thanks.
Most likely the user in question doesn't feel comfortable ripping the FLVs, acquiring and using the necessary conversion software, etc. Dcoetzee (talk) 11:48, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
I think it would be a good idea to create a new subcategory within Category:Videos of protests. And please have a look to the correct aspect ratio of the videos. On youtube they are coded in 16/9 however the origin source seems to be in 4/3 (so you have to resize it). --Pristurus (talk) 11:48, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
I'm embarrassed to admit this, but i have to. While i can download these videos, i simply don't know how to convert these videos into ogv format. Thanks for the help, Kramer Associates! :-)
My way for windows : 1.) download the mp4 versions of the videos 2.) download ffmpeg2theora.exe, put it in a new folder call it Ffmpeg2theora. 3.) open the Windows(text-)editor and copy the following command line in a new document: ffmpeg2theora.exe %1 -x 360 -y 270 -v 8 -a 2 save the file as "4to3.bat" in the Ffmpeg2theora folder (X and y are the parameters for the new dimension of the ogv-file). 4.) Drag and drop the Mp4 on the batch and converting will start... --Pristurus (talk) 15:14, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
At the suggestion of User:Moonriddengirl (a while back) I've created Template:Non-free graffiti which can be placed on photographs of graffiti that are not in the public domain to indicate why we permit them and warn reusers about the untested legal issue. Additionally this will enable us to easily target these works for deletion later on if case law comes out clearly in support of graffiti artist rights, similar to the role of {{Not-PD-US-URAA}}. I've added it to only a few files before getting feedback here. Dcoetzee (talk) 20:52, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
While I certainly do not the idea of copyrighting an illegal thing, but I cant say I feel comfortable with "it is unlikely that the artist would be able to enforce the copyright". I dont have the impression that it Commons policy (but if it is, we should accept many more files :). --Zolo (talk) 21:12, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
It's a tortured question... been discussed a number of times. "it is unlikely that the artist would be able to enforce the copyright" is not a valid rationale on its own, but the specific circumstances of graffiti (illegally painted) have some "interesting" questions around it. See Commons:Image casebook#Graffiti for a fuller explanation, and the various discussions on the talk page. Carl Lindberg (talk) 21:19, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
Yes, but "requiring a court to uphold the validity of an illegal act as the basis for damages or other relief against a third party" is a little different than that. Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:19, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
@Rillke: It does state that it applies to illegal graffiti in the text of the template (this is actually redundant - legal graffiti is not graffiti but a mural, but a little clarification doesn't hurt). The quoted text is copied directly from Commons:Image casebook#Graffiti. I'm not seeking to change policy here - many people have tried to do that before unsuccessfully at Commons talk:Image casebook (which is why I refer to it as policy, since we've had discussions with consensus outcomes about it). I personally would prefer to exclude this content. But failing that, I would at least like to keep track of it in case consensus changes in the future, and so content reusers are aware of the legal risk. Dcoetzee (talk) 01:09, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
It is necessary to separate the copyright status of a piece of art (in this case a graffiti-painting) from the issue whether it is criminal or not. For example was Anna Odell convicted for dishonestly procedure by pretending to be mentally ill during the production of the film Okänd, kvinna 2009-349701, but the film itself is nevertheless copyrighted. /Esquilo (talk) 08:54, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
The work itself wasn't illegal in that case. The case for keeping them is probably stronger in common-law countries though, as mentioned in the discussions. It's not a direct parallel, but rights given by one portion of U.S. copyright law (VARA, or artist's rights, a form of moral rights) were disallowed in one case because a work of art was installed illegally. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:06, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
November 4
Colon in filename
I tried to upload file with a colon into the filename (using the basic upload form, with the name Zola - Les Trois Villes : Lourdes, 1894.djvu), but the at the end of upload I got an error, stating the filename is invalid and was changed to Zola - Les Trois Villes - Lourdes, 1894.djvu, such filenames was working, any idea from where come the trouble ? Phe (talk) 13:06, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
So I tried standard/basic manual uploads: I repeatedly get an error msg, "This file contains HTML or script code that may be erroneously interpreted by a web browser." -- even entering the template line-by-line!
It happens when, like the error message says, "this file contains html or script code". The solution is to remove that code. Don't ask me how, I wouldn't know where to begin, but there are users here who do it routinely. Hoping one of them will see your message. -- Asclepias (talk) 15:51, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
Doh, RTFM: "If you get a message that the upload failed because the file is corrupt or contains script or HTML code, you can use a tool to remove the code (lossless) or just open it in an imaging program, save it as a bitmap and than as the target format (often jpg), then try to reupload." Took 2 tries, but see File:Moonrise over Escalante wilderness.jpg. Nice shot. Thanks, Rillke. Surprised we didn't get an edit conflict -- your upload took. At least now I know what to do next time. Cheers, PDTillman (talk) 16:03, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
Lainhart Farm Complex and Dutch Barn
This article already exists at en.wikipedia.org. I have been on that farm and would like to upload my photos. I just attempted with the barn picture, but the search result says no such page exists. Am I in the wrong place? What am I doing wrong? -- Genebuds
Although this image looks fine, both Tineye and Google images tell that they can't read its code because there's something wrong with it. Any idea what the problem with this image might be? -- Asclepias (talk) 14:30, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
Works for me (now). The problem could have been that our image scalers were too slow in generating the 300px thumb which is what our TE and GI gadget give both search engines to eat. Consequently they report that they cannot read it (timeout). Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 17:58, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
Interesting. I don't pass through our gadgets for this. I copy the original file's url directly into the input box of the search engine. I did it for hundreds of other files and it always worked. As far as I can remember, it's the first time an image blocks like this. I just tried again and It still doesn't work. So it seems it would pass if filtered through the gadgets thumb but not directly. -- Asclepias (talk) 18:41, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
Yes, can reproduce this with Google Images. If it gets the original image it complains. Not sure why. Maybe it has some special encoding - but it is strange that google isn't robust - apparently. If you give google a thumbnail to eat it is a reencoded image - completely different. --Saibo (Δ) 20:00, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
Opening the file in Photoshop (CS5) gives the warning "This document may be damaged (the file may be truncated or incomplete). Continue?" and upon opening the image is 4 pixels higher filled with corrupt data. So yes, it seems the file is corrupt. -- ZanderZ (talk) 11:05, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
Does the logo of ICAC (Hong Kong) match PD-textlogo criterion ???
the logo consists of two components : ICAC and chinese charaters "廉政公署”. Therefore, I think it is PD-textlogo, but i am not sure, so i want to get some opinion from here. thank you--Coekon (talk) 00:31, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
In the U.S., that would be considered text. But calligraphy may be protected in China... unsure about Hong Kong, particularly if that logo existed under British rule. Carl Lindberg (talk) 13:47, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
Stone age maps and water levels
This map shows where homo sapiens lived in Europe in 17,000 - 10,000 BC. This is very interesting, but it remains a mystery why they didn't live farther north, until you realize that this was during the last glacial period. The map is incorrect, because it leaves out the ice cover and it shows today's coastlines. As a comparison, this map from a few millennia earlier shows the last glacial in northern Europe and dry land where the English Channel is found today.
This is not a remark about an error in a single map, but a broader call for historically correct maps from this period. We could need one for each millennium. Is there a good source? I looked around the English Wikipedia, but couldn't find any good source of this knowledge. One interesting article is Doggerland. --LA2 (talk) 03:01, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
Svalbard/Spitsbergen
Most categories are switched over to Svalbard, the official name for the islands, but there is still a category "Spitsbergen" and "Islands of Spitsbergen". This causes unnessary confusion. Smiley.toerist (talk) 23:42, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
Caution: Svalbard is the official name of the archipelago in its entirety, but the individual islands of the archipelago have their own names, and the largest island of Svalbard is indeed named Spitsbergen, officially - see e.g. this map. So, a category Spitsbergen would continue to make sense as a subcat of Svalbard, I think. Gestumblindi (talk) 10:22, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
Does anyone know where this is? 1993 is a long is a long time ago and my memory fails me. This place is frequently used as a starting point for hiking, as there is a spectacular beach with a view on a big gletser and it has a protected bay area. I have camped there for three days. This is on the North side of the Spitsbergen island. Another mystery is the name of this schip.Smiley.toerist (talk) 21:10, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
The ship is the Hurtigruten ship Nordstjernen, built in 1956, which frequently also made cruises to Spitsbergen/Svalbard. Lovely ship, I travelled on her on Svalbard in 2007... and the most wonderful thing is that she's still in daily Hurtigruten coastal service! One of only two Hurtigruten ships of the old generation (the other is the Lofoten) which are still active... but sadly, this may be Nordstjernen's last Hurtigruten winter. I've read that Hurtigruten plans to replace her with a new ship and tries to find a buyer. Gestumblindi (talk) 21:18, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
And your other image looks to me like the Monaco Glacier, I think that the shape of the mountains there is fitting, but I'm not 100% sure and it seems we don't have a category for this glacier yet. Gestumblindi (talk) 21:30, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
I think you are correct. We visited the ex-Dutch outpost Smerenburg then continued to the 80 degree latitude and turned south to the Woodfjorden and Liefdefjorden. On the Eastside of the gletser there is a beach, where tents where set up.Smiley.toerist (talk) 14:24, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
Hi, we have create a new template called {{On OSM}} (see preliminary talk here). We need some help for the translation, beside we have a problem with it, because some languages need a word before or after... Could someone give a hand for that ? Otourly (talk) 20:11, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
To clarify: Currently the text is like this: <subject> <has an entry on> <OSM>. Only "<has an entry on>" can be translated - but some languages may need words before or after <subject> or <OSM>. --Saibo (Δ) 20:16, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
It seems to clutter category descriptions needlessly. Could you use it on gallery namespace or Wikipedia instead?
What exactly does the gadget do? Is it needed for the four things mentioned, or optional? And isn't firefogg uploading part of the Add Media Wizard, in which case perhaps it doesn't need mentioning separately? Maybe the gadget would benefit from its own Help page, so that it can have a little more explanation before sending users off to MediaWiki Extension documentation, which isn't terribly helpful for the average user. I would do it, as I just did for Help:Gadget-ExtraTabs2, but I don't understand this gadget enough. Rd232 (talk) 23:11, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
OK. Can we come up with a better description? Perhaps Provides support for some multimedia tools, including embedded video playing and the "Add Media Wizard". And then ideally have Help:MwEmbed with a brief description of these multimedia tools, so that users don't get booted off to the various Extension description pages so quickly. Not being familiar with these tools, I'm not well placed to do it. Rd232 (talk) 00:38, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
Well that has a message at the top from February which says " this documentation is outdated..." And anyway it's very techy and doesn't help me understand how to describe the gadget for an ordinary user. :( I've asked User:Mdale, whose message it is, for input. Rd232 (talk) 13:47, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
I think your updated description makes sense there is also this page on wikipedia that describes the different tools. It may be good to note on the page that the player is under review for to be a normal extension ( so that will replace that portion of the gadget ) Mdale (talk) 22:41, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
On a related note, what the heck is MediaWiki:Gadget-RemoveImageTools.js about? Its description says "Remove the image tools (the tabs labelled: orphans, untagged, gallery, find categories, and en)." It's something to do with the Extratabs and/or ExtraTabs2 gadget, but I'm not sure if it's still needed. Rd232 (talk) 00:18, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
OK, thanks, I've added an explanatory note. Where are we on the default gadget issue? That section seems to have run out of steam. Merging Extratabs1 and 2 would be nice - especially if it could have its own section in Preferences for choosing which links to include. Rd232 (talk) 00:38, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
Licensing of old paintings
Hi. This image was added with a Source of "Own work", however I find that doubtful (unless the user who added it is a very good painter).
What is the licensing situation/technique for uploading images of old paintings?
If there is some sort of fair-use principle in play, how old is "old"?
What sort of attribution has to be given to the owner of the original painting (be that a person or museum)? With the image in question, I'm concerned that we have no way of confirming the identity of the person in the portrait. It might well be Heinichen, but without some way of tracking the source, how can any one tell?
Usually it is {{PD-Art}}, meaning the author died more than 70 years ago. But this image is unsourced and may be nominated for speedy deletion (unless the author adds the source or somebody else finds the source).--Ymblanter (talk) 20:13, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
From the sparse file description "heinichen" I gathered that this is a painting depicting German composer Johann David Heinichen who lived from 1683 to 1729. Searching for this composer using Google Image Search turns up this painting several times. Most likely it is from his time, so the painter should be dead for far more than 70 years and then it's in the public domain. But we do not know for sure... yet (unless you can find the painter, I've not researched a lot). It certainly is not the uploader's "own work", I think. Gestumblindi (talk) 21:51, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for all your help, but the problem is getting worse. The user in question has added File:Heinichen.jpg here, and an anonymous editor (probably the same editor) is trying to repeatedly insert the picture in the Johann David Heinichen WP article. The user in question seems determined not to discuss the issue. What would people here recommend as a suitable course of action? GFHandel♬08:55, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
When all thumbnails have the correct rotation, but the full image doesn't, autoration actually works as it should it's just that full image would need autorotation as well. Bugzilla:31366 should solve this on MediaWiki sites, but it could still fail elsewhere. Using {{rotate|0}} has rotatebot upload a corrected version.
Sometimes thumbnails don't seem to display the correct orientation. Personally, I mainly saw that with older versions and thought it was due to server-side caching issues (thumbnails generated before we had the new feature). As both of your samples are recent uploads, the problem seems be another one. Possibly autorotation sometimes isn't performed or performed correctly. If you figure out the correct orientation - generally based on the full version - and apply {{Rotate}}, this generally fixes it, but is somewhat confusing. Both sample images you mention seem to have such issues.
"like this" refers to the example ("images like this"), and the easy mention of "the purge-link" may be forgetting that the link is added by a gadget. Help:Purge explains how to purge manually or via gadget, if that's what you wanted. Note the difference between "Page Purge" and "Thumbnail Purge", explained there. Rd232 (talk) 13:40, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
Indeed it does. Thank you, Rd232 for clarifying my fuzzy words.
I'm still somewhat doubtful which thumbnails the purge-link actually purges. Isn't it more complicated for thumbnails (see Commons:FAQ#PURGE ..)? Writing this I discover that the more recent Help:Purge actually offers a gadget for that .. cool!
Everyone complains that it remains difficult to upload content to the projects. I consider that to be true. However, we've done an amazing job at making it trivially easy to remove content. This appears to be a bad idea.
I spent some time gaining permission from the RAF Museum to upload several images. Everyone agreed that everything would be under CC-by-SA. In return, all they asked was that I put a notice linking back to their "Navigator" service. They suggested this notice contain particular language including the copyright symbol. So, being the nice guy that I am *coff* I did what they asked.
Today I noticed that one of these images has disappeared, with a two-word checkin note. As it was deleted, it has also disappeared from every display that I see. In fact, I would not have even noticed that it had been deleted, if not for the fact that the 'bot that automatically removed it from my article did a bad job of it and left behind whitespace.
I also learned that several other images of mine were also removed. I only learned of this because another user mentioned it to me. Once again, my Contribs shows no evidence that they ever existed, so again, I had no idea they had been deleted.
In none of these cases did anyone try to contact me to see if I posted in error. Given my 10-year history and thousands (yes, thousands) of new articles on the Wiki, would it have been too much to ask for someone to drop a note on my main talk page over on en.wiki asking if I had made some sort of error? Well likely it was, because people use tools for these tasks and never have any idea who they're working with.
I really think we've over-automated this. With a single "button press" one can remove a file, make it disappear, and then snowball that deletion to all the other pages involved. Unwinding this is going to lengthy manual process. It appears to me that we've made lives very very easy for admins, and don't little to help the creators. I consider this bad. Maury Markowitz (talk) 17:22, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
Well, just that you get another view on the this issue: We have >1000 deletions/day and some people are just uploading crap as e.g. copyvios and images, where you can't see anything because they are too blurry. We have also problems categorizing images and lots of vandalism that is additionally difficult to detect due to the language-barrier. If you would make it a requirement for the ~10 very admins removing the image-translations from their projects or notifying them, we would sink in the bog of work. After an image is deleted here, it will show up as a redlink in any other project.
But I agree, there should at least be something that delivers the messages from your talk-page to your home-wiki. Please ask someone in your home-wiki whether he/she is able to create such a bot. This would be great and the service should then offered to any user. Right now, you have to activate the e-mail service in your preferences. -- RE rillkequestions?17:56, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
Oh, and I would agree with that point -- I'm sure a huge amount of what shows up here is bad. In fact I have a rule of thumb I try to use in these situations - it should generally take as long to remove something as it appeared to take to create it. So an obvious copyvio that was cut and pasted into en.wiki in 10 seconds should take no more than 10 seconds to delete. But if someone writes an article that isn't a copyvio, then likewise it should automatically be granted some sort of "perceived effort" on the part of the other editors. And on that note...
"After an image is deleted here, it will show up as a redlink in any other project", no actually, there's a bot that goes around and deletes the reference entirely! Maury Markowitz (talk) 18:51, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
Deleted files will show up as red links in your upload log, even though they are gone from the contributions list. I do agree that that is not the most obvious place to look. MKFI (talk) 21:42, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
I went to his user page, posted the exact date and time of the email forward, and nothing apparently was done. Can someone undelete these images, and approve the permission that I received from the theme park staff? w:en:Morphsuits is on the front page of en.wp, in DYK right now, so it would be nice to restore them. -- Nick Moreau (talk) 19:04, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
It looks like a reply was sent to you by an OTRS member a couple of days ago. The e-mail you forwarded only gives permission for use on Wikipedia, but is not an explicit license agreement from the copyright holder. Please see the standard declaration of consent at COM:OTRS. (For reference, this is ticket #2011102410010912.) Dominic (talk) 19:26, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
Good morning, dear Wikimedians,
The order of the language names in the upload wizard is a wee bit cryptic. For example Nedersaksisch seems higher ranked than Nederlands. Why you guys did this to us? Just to make life and work more complicated :-{} Imagine the searching coleagues with a non-latin alphabet have to make. Poor people. Greetings and salutations to y'all, ZeaForUs (talk) 09:59, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
They're sorted by their ISO 639 language code. "nds-NL" (Nedersaksisch) comes alphabetically before "nl" (Dutch, Nederlands). Given that language names are shown in the respective language's script and give the local name of the language, what would be your proposed better sorting algorithm? How would you sort them? Lupo10:17, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
I've never used wikimedia commons before. Am I correct to assume that the statement, "by custom the uploading of small numbers of images (e.g. of yourself) for use on a personal user page of another project is allowed" means that I can keep this image on wikimedia commons with the expectation that it will not be deleted (regardless of whether or not it is educationally useful)? It's not a picture of me exactly, but it is an image that can represent me on wikipedia. Since it can also represent a well known principle, would it be okay to put it in the "Scholastic philosophers" category? (That may be a dumb question, but I figured that it wouldn't hurt to ask.) OckRaztalk10:09, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
If it's your personal emblem or logo, put it in Category:User logos. If it may have broader interest, put it also in some philosophy or epistemology related category (but not in "Category:Scholastic philosophers")... AnonMoos (talk) 10:45, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
Should the atomic number, electronic configuration and the name of the element be cropped off these vector images and the images themselves made to fit the actual structure?
Please vote with reasons {{support/oppose|reason}} Gauravjuvekar (talk) 09:49, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
The page itself says they are simplified from reality so their appearance is intentional. There's nothing preventing you from uploading revised versions under a new name. I, for instance, cropped off the atomic number, configuration, and name in File:Electron shell 006 Carbon - no label.svg (as well as several others) for use on one of the projects. – Adrignolatalk15:18, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
What is the accepted etiquette for indenting edits on Commons noticeboards?
I just had a minor disagreement with User:Fred the Oyster here[9]. It is my understanding that indenting a space from the edit above is standard Commons etiquette, and if that is not done there should be something else to make sure that one's edit is not confused with the edit above it. If I am wrong about that, I would certainly like to know so that in the future I will not expect something that should not be expected. The opinions of other Commons users will be much appreciated. Thanks. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 18:32, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
Clarification: this refers to a dispute over this indenting. Answer: indenting is not "from the edit above" but from the edit it is a reply to. Fred's comment is a reply to mine, not yours, so his indenting is correct. I'm not sure if or where this is documented on Commons, but en:Wikipedia:Indentation is very clear. Rd232 (talk) 18:46, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
If so, I am quite willing to go along with that. But my own understanding is that indents are intended to give order and clarity, and to avoid confusing a new edit with the edits above and below it. If he wanted to reply to your edit (which was above my edit), would it not be better to indent one space and begin his edit with '@Rd232'? Malcolm Schosha (talk) 18:56, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
If I was replying to you then I would have indented one more level, but as I wasn't I used the standard (accepted) practice of using one blank line after your signature. As far as I'm aware @Foo isn't an accepted standard anywhere, except maybe Twitter. --Fred the Oyster (talk) 19:07, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
I have seen @ used frequently on WP. There are, no doubt, other ways of clarifying who is being addressed also. You did not leave a blank line after my edit. I added that myself. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 19:33, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
No, you added an additional blank line, there are now 2 blank lines after your signature. Oh and whilst I'm here, don't ever refactor any of my comments. It's rude, it's arrogant and it's against the rules. --Fred the Oyster (talk) 19:36, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
You refactored the one I linked to above (albeit adding one colon is so minor as to barely qualify). @Fred: good-faith attempts to refactor ought to be acceptable (though when the person being refactored objects, it shouldn't be redone). And you could have been helpful just above instead of snarky. Rd232 (talk) 19:53, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
It may have just been one colon, but it had the effect of making me appear to be replying to the wrong person. I don't know about you but if someone else's fuckup makes me look either confused or inept then I get pissed. --Fred the Oyster (talk) 20:12, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
Well I don't know if you did it on purpose (to prove or possibly disprove my point that it's sometimes OK to fix others' comments), but you indented the comment above one too many (easy to lose track with many colons), and I fixed it. Malcolm's refactoring may have been wrong, but it seems to have been good faith. Rd232 (talk) 20:36, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
We have always followed that style of editing -- for the edit you are replying to, indent one level and put it immediately below (or on the same level as other replies). Indentation indicates which edit you are replying to, not necessarily chronological order. Twitter-style "@Rd232" notes are rare-to-nonexistent, from what I've seen (Twitter doesn't have the ability to mark "threads" with indentation like this, so that's the main alternative). If a reply is on the same level as another reply, I do try to add a blank line between them to more obviously separate them. But in general that Wikipedia guideline above is the one to follow I think. Carl Lindberg (talk) 19:46, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
@ has its uses, even with indentation available. I've seen it occasionally, and just had cause to use it above. Rd232 (talk) 19:53, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
What concerns me is that having two, or more, consecutive noticeboard edits without any indentation to differentiate them can sometimes cause confusion.
Rd232, I do not even see indenting mentioned on WP:REFACTOR[10]. All I was trying to do was clarify the discussion, not to change the comments of anyone. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 20:13, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
Refactoring is probably the wrong word; Fred brought it up with the remark "don't ever refactor any of my comments." Rd232 (talk) 20:36, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
Fred the Oyster, you wrote above "Oh and whilst I'm here, don't ever refactor any of my comments." If you read what you wrote you will see that you did "mention" refactoring. Perhaps you will explain what you think I refactored. Rd232 thinks you are referring to the indent, but that would not be (as I understand it) refactoring your edit. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 20:40, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
I didn't mention WP:Refactor, I did use the term "refactor" in context and using the dictionary definition. Okay, so now you've been proven incorrect about the indenting I presume this waste of time is now finished, or do you wish to avoid admitting wrong-doing for a little while longer? --Fred the Oyster (talk) 21:00, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
It is not, at this point, clear to me that I have "been proven incorrect about the indenting". In any case the discussion is worth while if it helps clarify a point. Refactoring has a particular meaning here, and using that word has particular meanings; and in any case the word is not much in common usage. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 22:10, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
You were incorrect to modify my comment. You were incorrect about my indent being incorrect. You were incorrect to revert me when I put it back to how it was. You've been pointed to the WP indent help essay which demonstrates that your assumption about indenting did not meet with the accepted method. As for "clarifying a point", well the only person here that needs it clarifying is you and you don't appear to be accepting that clarification. As for "refactoring", you changed what I wrote and in doing so you changed its context, who it was in reply to and introduced possible confusion. So yes I consider that to be an accurate depiction of refactoring. So is there more curmudgeonly behaviour to come or can we go back to doing something useful? --Fred the Oyster (talk) 22:27, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
Fred the Oyster, you still have not said what you think I have refactored. Also it has not been explained how confusion can be avoided when two or more edits in a row have the same indenting. Moreover, even if it were true (as you claim) that I am the only person who needs the clarification, that does not make it wrong for me to ask the question here on the Village Pump, nor does it make it any better for you to imply again and again that I am acting in bad faith. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 22:40, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
Comment On a practical note Commons has in common use a template, {{Comment}}, which can be used to mark the beginning of a new comment. That may be helpful sometimes when the indenting of consecutive comments is the same. Now I suggest neither of you reply to each other any further in this thread, because this sort of mudslinging is a quite unedifying sight which is common on en.wp but not on Commons. Please respect that and, leaving out the difficult notion of "civility", try to be nice - or failing that, stay out of each others' way. Rd232 (talk) 23:05, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
Hmm.. Mudslinging? Sorry if I did that, and I will certainly apologize for any edit you point out where I did that. In the interim: I regret tramping on the feelings of anyone with my hobnail work boots. Sorry. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 23:41, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
(Edit conflict)I don't think, I know what you refactored. Pretty much everyone else in this thread knows what you refactored. The fact you don't implies lack of competence. Oh and I have no problem with you asking the question, but when several people tell you that your assumption was wrong you still argue the point. That seems a strange thing to do. As for bad faith, well if you include deliberate trolling in that then yes that is what I'm saying you are doing. Now your question has been asked and answered, so if there's anything else we can help you with? The definition of trolling? What outdenting means? Where your teeth are. Then just let us know and I'm sure someone will be able to help you, that is unless you argue the toss with them of course. --Fred the Oyster (talk) 23:20, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
If consecutive posts are separate replies to the same parent, they should have the same indentation. It can be nice to have a blank line between them, creating a paragraph break to make it more obvious they are separate posts (sometimes, lack of a paragraph break can make two comments look like one). Carl Lindberg (talk) 21:28, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
Nothing wrong with using @; just that it doesn't change the usual use of indenting to indicate which part you are replying to, and it's certainly not policy or usual use. Carl Lindberg (talk) 21:28, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
Indenting like he were replying to Malcolm Schosha while at the same time beginning with '@Rd232' would be inconsistent and confusing. Beginning with '@<username>' may be done (especially in a long thread when two comments are separated by many others, or when a general outdenting has intervened, or in other circumstances), but it only serves to make things more clear, it does not exempt the user from using the conventional indentation, which remains the main indicator of who is replying to who. The point of following a convention is to make things clear for everybody. Threading conventions were not invented by Commons. They have existed at least since the early days of the internet in newsgroups and discussion lists. It helps if everybody use them consistently everywhere instead of each site or each user using a different system. If users B and C both reply to the same comment of user A, the comments of B and C should be indented identically, i.e. each reply is indented by one space in relation to the comment of user A to which it replies. They are not confused because each is signed by its autor. One may sometimes add an extra line between the two if it can help. Haphazard or unconventional indentation is already somewhat confusing when a user does it with his own comment, although some sense can sometimes be gathered from the context. However, it becomes very confusing and annoying when a user wrecks the previously correct indentation of another user's comment, because the correct indentation was an integral part of the context. -- Asclepias (talk) 20:22, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the comprehensive reply, Asclepias. Your comments are helpful. I would not have any way to know the history or the accepted conventions on the internet in general because my computer use does not do back so far, and my main experience is on WP, Commons and some e-forums. Nevertheless, the problems with readability of copy as been of professional interest to me for close to thirty years. I do know that things do not work very effectively on WP or Commons noticeboards where the discussion becomes protracted, and the text of multiple edits becomes difficult to follow. It is easy to see how confusing long discussions get by taking a look at WP:AN/I on virtually any day. If the convention followed is to be that there can be a series of comments to the same edit, all the same indention; I would suggest that signatures be placed on a separate line so the the user names in blue will serve somewhat to distinguish the comments. It would also help, as a general practice in long discussions, to allow an extra space between comments because such spaces aid the eye in distinguishing edits. Thanks again.
Is there anything wrong with #babel extension ? It has been around for weeks but still shows English text when using a French interface. I thought it was supposed to use MediaWiki:Babel/fr .--Zolo (talk) 16:07, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
Hello, currently you have to prepare a music scores as a complete file, and then load it up, and insert it in your article, as far as I know. Many user created files can be found in Category:Sheet music. But actually this is not what the wiki-principle is about, to have barrier-free articles easy to edit and re-use for everyone. It would be desirable to have music scores being editable like language text, without having to load a file up everytime. I don't know if there have been previous discussions or projects for a music score template.
For example, for a page List of folk songs on a wikipedia, it would be nice to have scores with the melodies of some or all of the songs listed. Of course in this example, you could instead write down the melodies of all the songs in the list in one large file with e.g. lilypond, load it up and insert the file in the list article. But as soon as someone else will add another song to the list article, the score file will be incomplete. So having freely editable music score templates would be more flexible, since in this case you just have to add a small music score template with the melody of the newly added song.
I'm not sure about loading times though. I know that pages with several and large files, or with several chess diagrams, or with several mediawiki-Latex formulas can have a longer loading time.
So perhaps the idea of eventually having music scores for say hundreds of folk songs on one fast loading wikipedia-page can not easily be realized at all?
Don't templates have to be local? In other words, it would not be any point developing a music score template here at the Commons as it wouldn't be accessible from, say, the English Wikipedia. I recall some earlier discussion about whether templates should accessible across projects, and that Commons should perhaps be the common repository for such templates, but believe that the conclusion was that this would require some updates to the Mediawiki software. — Cheers, JackLee–talk–12:52, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
Besides that, the sheer number of different musical symbols and elements makes templatizing even a short passage very difficult. Chess boards are a simple 8x8 grid that computers handle very well, and each square in the grid can have one of only 13 states. Music notation involves symbols of varying sizes in overlapping positions. The difference is enormous. Powers (talk) 18:19, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
A score extension for the software is actually one of the oldest requested features. Unfortunately though, the request has been plagued by a lack of volunteers to actually make the extension. Another problem was that all external tools that have been used in the past to display the scores had a considerable amount of security problems, that made them unsuitable to run on the wikimedia servers. See also bugzilla:189 and it's long long history. TheDJ (talk) 19:38, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
The Dutch Wikipedia actually already has a template that does much of what you're describing, but as Jacklee notes above you'd need to have a copy of the template on every wiki since templates aren't centralized in the way images are. Jafeluv (talk) 19:42, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
Many thanks for your responses. I did not know of the existing Template:MusicScore. This is already a very usefull template; it seems to be limited to monophone music; but it can be used to display many melodies. Obviously the design is nice and quite simple, you combine files from Category:Musical score components (2), which is containing 797 different files. So the Template:MusicScore is splitting the staff into its elements in horizontal direction. I believe that it could be possible to split the staff in horizontal and vertical direction at the same time, resulting in smaller svg-elements. Then you could reduce this large number of different files needed, and at the same time enable to represent polyphonic music in one staff. But this would be quite difficult to realize within a Mediawiki template.
I am still not sure: when several different .svg files are combined on one page or in one picture, what does the Mediawiki-Software do,
does it a) produce a .png file from each .svg and then combine this .pngs on your page; or does it b) first combine the many .svgs to one large .svg, which it then turns into one large .png? I guess b) should be faster than a),
I tried with the word "Shijak" the search in the field in the left column under the Commons logo. The result was nothing found. Later I found that a category Shijak exists. Apparently there is something wrong. Wouter (talk) 07:19, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
See history for Category:Thymus serpyllum, where my edit has been reverted twice without any counterargument, though asked. Plain species categories like this consist of specimens found all over the world, so in my opinion all of it shouldn't be placed under certain "Flora of <country>" categories. There seem to be two kind of approces: 1) like Category:Flora of Germany, which consists of categories using pattern "<species> in Germany", which makes sense and 2) Category:Flora of France, where many are plain "<species>" mostly consisting of images of specimens that aren't flora of France, which seems more messy. Has it been discussed somewhere or is there a some sort of consensus to do it one way or the other? 193.40.10.18008:55, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
You are rigth. Nature does not observe political boundaries. There are ecological locations (mountains, marches, lowlands, hills, deserts, woodlands, etc) where specific species are connected to. Unfortunatly there are no ecology categories except for mountain ranges. European temperate lowlands? (France, Benelux, Germany, Poland). Even mountain ranges have there problems: for example: The Ardennais horsebreed. The Ardennes mountain region is in at least three countries (France, Belgium and Luxemburg, but in Germany it is called the Eiffel range) Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:47, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
Absolutely. I reverted the same user 100+ times, and notified the community, yet as always he/she chooses to ignore all advice. I am not looking into his/her edits any longer as I lost patience. --ELEKHHT12:56, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
I've seen an increasing number of images, such as this one, that rely on the mere fact that an image is a publicity still as proof that an image is out of copyright. If this is in fact proof, the explanation should be standardized into a template and we should be uploading tons more publicity stills. If not, the publicity stills we do have that rely on this reasoning should be deleted. Thoughts on which is the case? Calliopejen1 (talk) 05:33, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
Publicity stills such as this one are found at http://www.doctormacro.com/ - a great page for anything movies and stars. Still doc macro follows a different attempt like we have to do on the Commons. He doesn't provide any "licence templates" in the first place. Given legal concerns by copyright holders, images are being deleted over there. Since there is no copyright statement, people assume that these shots are publicity stills and upload them here via {{PD-Pre1964}} or a similar template. In order to avoid any legal mumbo jumbo it might be useful to contact the studios (or anyone else who could provide a valid statement) and verify the publicity still status of these images. Regards, PETER WEISTALK10:40, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
User:We Hope has developed a standardized procedure and accompanying boilerplate text for pre-1978 publicity stills which can be shown to have been distributed without any accompanying copyright notice. This may be of very little use for photos which were not published in the U.S. before 1978 without an explicit copyright notice, however... AnonMoos (talk) 17:59, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
Well, I mean a template only for pre-1978 US ones. The potential problem as I see it is we have no explicit proof that the Dr. Macro photos and many similar images were distributed without a copyright mark, but many simply state that being a publicity photo is proof of no notice. Assuming we can verify their status as publicity stills, would this be enough to be proof? I'm personally skeptical, but if it's a line of reasoning that we accept, we should standardize it into a template to make it easier for uploaders, and to track similar images in case we change our minds. As for User:We hope (note capitalization), he doesn't need to rely on the publicity photo = PD argument because he has actual proof of no notice. Calliopejen1 (talk) 03:05, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
As far as I know, many publicity stills did in fact bear copyright notices, and were offered for use but not under any sort of formal license (more of a "we probably won't sue you" deal). Evidence should be in the form of showing the work was first published with no notice, and nothing else suffices. Dcoetzee (talk) 06:14, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
Proper respect for Aubrey. I can't speak Italian, so the content could be garbage and I wouldn't know (although I am sure it is not), but it was well done technically. :) Jorgenev (talk) 07:32, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
Following this majority decisionthe gadget is now a default. I admit that JavaScript isn't the best choice because it's slow. If it is unwanted you can disable it in your preferences Ctrl+F MyUploads take the checkmark from the checkbox, then save. If you find someone who codes this in php and merges it in MediaWiki, we would be all pleased. Thank you. -- RE rillkequestions?16:03, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
Although the page where I found it marked it as published under a cc share-alike liscense, the page has some javascript, or some other script that made downloading the image very difficult.
I was only able to download it at half the maximum resolution.
I was thinking of writing the web-manager there. But first I would like to have someone else confirm that the image is currently under a "free" cc liscense. CC liscenses are non-revokable, but many people don't know that.
And if anyone can figure out how to get the maximum resolution, that would be appreciated too.
You placed two different CC licenses on the description page, CC-by-sa-1.0-generic and CC-by-sa-3.0-unported, none of which is the licence offered at the source: Cc-by-2.5-Canada. My suggestion would be to place the correct license template and request a license review. Not sure why you are talking about revocability, but some people seem to confuse the non-revocability of a license actually accepted by a co-contractor with the cessation of the offer of the license to new co-contactors. The author can very well decide to cease the offer of a CC license. Can't help you with the resolution problem. -- Asclepias (talk) 18:52, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
I placed the {{Cc-by-2.5-ca}} liscense you recommended on the image. I have no idea how you determined this was the appropriate liscense.
WRT to revocability, yes, the author can decide to cease offering the image under a CC liscense. Once they do so none of their viewers can download it and reuse it. However, it is my understanding that the commons is entitled to continue to host this image, as it was uploaded here while it was being offered under a free liscense. Further, it is my understanding that our end-users are entitled to download and re-use the image, under the free liscense it was offered under when it was uploaded here.
Do you have a different understanding of CC liscenses and their revocability?
The reason I brought up revocability is that some flickr contributors think they can claw back their earlier free liscenses, and demand the deletion of images when they change their mind -- even when the images bore a valid liscense when uploaded here. Geo Swan (talk) 19:14, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
On the description page of the source image, there is a section "Creative Commons licence", which links specifically to the license CC-by-2.5-Canada. However, their page is somewhat confusing, as it has two sections, one that says "Copyright Statement: Copyright status unknown. Responsibility for determining the copyright status and any use rests exclusively with the user", and the other section states the Creative Commons licence. I interpret that in the sense that the first section might be some boilerplate text but the actual copyright status of that particular image is determined with the section that offers the CC license.
You are correct that Commons can continue to host the image. You actually accepted and "activated" the license when you reproduced it with the correct information at 19:00 (UTC) today. I just wasn't sure why you had mentioned it but now I understand that you meant it as an explanation of why you were posting the message. Yes, that is exactly why there is a license review procedure for material reproduced from external websites. Like I said above and in my reply on the image discussion page, the standard procedure is to request a formal license review by an authorized reviewer. You can do that by inserting, on the decription page of the image, the LicenseReview template that I linked above and the review will be done after some time when a reviewer gets to it. Or if it's especially urgent, you can contact directly an image reviewer or sysop and ask them if they will do it. -- Asclepias (talk) 20:21, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
I am not that familiar with Commons' procedures, I think there is a "grouped deletion" process, but I think all the pics uploaded by Santana.Lopez are copyrighted images, so I would appreciate if someone could take care of it. Sorry if this is not the appropriate place or if this looks like "I don't have time for this" ;-) Asavaa (talk) 21:55, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
talk page etiquette -- on snipping comments and questions...
In a recent discussion over the extent to which an
administrator was exercising their authority properly, and setting a good example of civility for other contributors the issue of talk page etiquette came up. I won't name the discussion, as my question is about the general principle. This discussion is over, and singling out the administrator in question may erode their ability or willingness to make a positive contributions to the project in future...
This administrator regularly excised questions and comments from their talk page. Their talk page had a note at the top saying:
"If I answered a question and you respond by asking the same question in other words, I will probably not answer. I don't like to have to formulate the same answer again in different words. Trollish comments may be reverted without further notice."
Other contributors voiced concerns in the deadminship discussion over this administrator generally failing to explain their exercise of administrator authority. Some other contributors shared the same experience I had with this administrator -- that he snipped follow-up good faith questions and expressions of concern from his talk page. The four times he snipped my comments weren't "trollish".
Prior to the deadminship discussion this practice disturbed me. Snipping comments from one's talk page, so they are not recorded in one's archives, seems deceptive.
During the deadminship discussion the administrator in question asked participants to look at his talk page archives. However key exchanges in those archives had been censored.
The bureaucrat who closed that discussion wrote that they had looked at the administrator's talk page archives, to read their record of responses to questions -- unfortunately a distorted record.
I had suggested to the administrator that, if they thought there were comments or questions left on their talk page that weren't serious enough to answer they do what I do. I don't snip them, so they don't show up in my archives. I enclose the most problematic comments in the middle of a <small><s> </s></small>. (I also generally put a note saying why I did this.)
The administrator in question defended the practice by claiming that one of the contributors who challenged this practice also snipped comments from their talk page, and threw them away. But this other contributor wrote that while they did snip some comments from their talk page -- but rather than throw them away, they manually made sure they pasted those comments they regarded as problematic in the appropriate place on their talk page.
Some times we lose our cool, or lose our perspective. All of us, at times, are at risk of reading a question or comment that most people will regard as valid as unworthy of response. Out of respect to our own fallibility I think we should not snip comments from our talk page. I think my approach, or the approach of the other contributor, who sent problematic comments right to the archive, are preferable to throwing away comments we don't think merit a reply.
I'd welcome other contributors' comments on the general principle of whether we should throw away comments or questions on our sole judgment that the comments didn't merit a reply.
I'd welcome other contributors offering how they dealt with comments or question left on their talk page that they thought didn't merit a reply.
This is why comments should be archived, and not removed. It's a very simple rule that ensures a proper record of conversations is kept. It also makes it more likely that appropriate responses are given. If you know you're allowed to remove annoying comments, you may do so at the initial moment of annoyance. If you're not, you may ignore it initially, and respond later. In any case, removal is, on average, bad for communication. Exceptions should really only be made for vandalism, breaches of privacy, and egregious personal attacks. Everything else can be ignored, if the user doesn't want to respond. Rd232 (talk) 15:15, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
I rarely use the commons, I'm not a big media guy. So when people post things here I rarely see them. So my media gets deleted. Is there a way to forward these messages to my en.wiki account? Maury Markowitz (talk) 22:58, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
How about a message on your Commons talk page directing people back to your en page? Perhaps somebody could knock up a template for this? Railwayfan2005 (talk) 20:05, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
You could use something like Template:SOFTREDIRECT. The trouble really is that automated and semi-automated posting tools would need to respect such a template. So it may be a false sense of security to use it on a talk page. Email is really the only option. Rd232 (talk) 00:06, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
Email is the best option because a record of you being notified can be a necessity, enabling such a feature would make it difficult to assertain whether you have been notified. In some cases it necessary to identify that a number of editors have notified and trawling thru 100+ projects to find where someone was notified would cause significant difficulty especial in non native languages. Gnangarra00:45, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
Fair point, but in theory the tools could post at both Commons and at the target redirect page... But a simpler solution I thought of long ago but never managed to get implemented is an "echo bot" which simply echoes one project page to another (controlled in a similar same way to User:MiszaBot). So you could then have, on en.wp or wherever, a /Commonstalk subpage of your talk page, and comments from Commons get echoed there, and replies get echoed back to Commons. Rd232 (talk) 00:57, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
November 6
Thumbnail problem
Hi, there are some problems updating/creating the right thumbnails on these images (this, this and this), especially 800px and 120px. Best regards and thanks in advance.--Carnby (talk) 07:39, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
I've been referred here by User:Wknight94, to whom I posed the question:
I just uploaded File:Erasmus_Smith_1611-1691_by_John_Michael_Wright.jpg & then saw the embedded copyright notice from Christ's Hospital. That appears to assert copyright on the reproduction of the image but does give some rights for educational, non-commercial use. My initial rational was PD-ART, since the painter died in 1694. Please could you verify whether it is ok or whether I need to seek deletion.
I say utter copyfraud. No real basis at all, as far as I can tell. I'd be inclined just to remove the notice from the EXIF. My only doubt is that the UK is one of the few places in the world that recognizes a "sweat of brow" claim on copyright, so wait for someone a bit more expert than me to weigh in. - Jmabel ! talk17:29, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
I don't think the notice should be removed. Reusers have a right to know that information, so they can draw their own conclusions about it, and they can determine their actions on the basis of on an accurate knowledge of the situation. We should not hide information from them. If someone wants more explanations, the PD-Art template, and the help pages associated to it like Reuse of PD-Art photographs, provide some basic guidance, to be completed by the reuser's own research. -- Asclepias (talk) 18:01, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
Sitush, I think your work is consistent with policy. "WMF has made it clear that in the absence of even a strong legal complaint, we don't think it's a good idea to dignify such claims of copyright on public domain works. And, if we ever were seriously legally challenged, we would have a good internal debate about whether we'd fight such a case, and build publicity around it. This is neither a policy change (at least from WMF's point of view), nor is it a change that has implications for other Commons policies." (Commons:When_to_use_the_PD-Art_tag#The_position_of_the_WMF) --Walter Siegmund(talk)18:11, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
This is encouraging because I have found another "copyrighted" source for an image of the guy at the National Portrait Gallery, here. By George White (1684-1732, reproduction by him of an earlier work). - Sitush (talk) 21:27, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
It is fine, this is exactly what PD-Art is for. We will accept the image whether or not it is copyrighted in the UK, which remains somewhat uncertain (PD-Art is an explicit exception to the general policy that a work must be in the public domain in the source country). See Commons:Reuse of PD-Art photographs#UK for details on that. Dcoetzee (talk) 10:19, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
Category naming (fur vs furs vs hide vs skin)
I'm currently at work fixing up Category:Furs and related subcategories (namely, Category:Furs by species) and I was wondering when I should use the following: fur, furs, hide, skin. "Furs" seems to be too narrow - e.g. "rabbit furs", besides sounding awkward, seems to mean merely "rabbit pelts" (unworked skins with fur on them). "Fur", on the other hand, seems to be too broad - e.g. "rabbit fur" would include the fur of live rabbits. "Hides" only seems to apply to animals with a short coat (cows, horses) and may imply removal of the hair. "Skins" and "skin" seem to follow the pattern of "furs" and "fur", but "sheepskin" and "bearskin" have pretty much the exact shade of meaning I'm looking for: a material with animal skin on one side and fur on the other, often used in clothing etc. I've made a sketch of proposed changes to the subcategories of Category:Furs by species at User:Kramer_Associates/Fur_Names. Any assistance would be helpful. --Kramer Associates (talk) 11:29, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
Personally, I thought the former category Fur Skins conveyed the concept you're looking for quite well. A Google search will confirm it is in use in the industry. On a related note, I find the reclassification of File:EastCapehouses1885ric00653.jpg to Category:Furriers a little puzzling.Dankarl (talk) 13:35, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
Anything out of place in Category:Furriers is due to my hasty emptying of Fur Skins into both Furriers and Furs. "Fur Skins" seems to me to be as restricted as "pelt" - both refering to a raw hide intermediate between the dead animal and the expensive clothing. --Kramer Associates (talk) 21:24, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
Single image galleries
Once upon a time, Commons relied much more on galleries and much less on categories. The system had some benefits, you could pick the best images and order them in a nice way. But it was a a daunting task to maintain them all and many were abandoned to their fate. Yet while seemingly moribund, they continue to monopolize search results, making it harder for the uninformed reader to find what he wants. I would like very much to have search directing by default to categories rather than galleries but even if we cant do such drastic changes, shouldn't we delete useless one image galleries like Tarleton Hoffman Bean and hundreds of others ? They no longer serve any purpose.--Zolo (talk) 17:21, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
Personally I have nothing against single image galleries (if we only have one image) but I see it is a reason for speedy del now sadly. No idea how it "improves" Commons to delete a gallery with one image in though... --Herbytalk thyme17:34, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
In at least two ways imo:
it is easier to maintain (since we dont have to take care of both the gallery and the category)
It makes search easier (if we want to find other images about a topic we otherwise have to go to the category, which is not very difficult, but maybe not so intuitive for non-contributors. When we want to look for images that are not yet categorized, it is even more annoying since we have to escape the simple search box and go to the advanced search menu)--Zolo (talk) 17:58, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
In a sense I accept the first point BUT folk will still create single image galleries so will will still have "work" deleting them - kinda pointless to me but maybe not
On point two - search is pretty dire anyway on Commons sadly. It really looks very dated now. I wonder how many folk actually find what they are looking for? --Herbytalk thyme18:05, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
Per current guideline, there shouldn't be any single image gallery. I'm aware that there are quite a few created by bot ages ago and that these still need to be cleaned up. A database query probably could identify them quite easily.
The easiest solution for such galleries is just to redirect them to the equivalent category. No need to delete. -- Docu at06:30, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
Ok, I knew that such galleries were not encouraged but was not sure about deleting them altogether. We should also try to keep information like categories that were added to it. From what I see many were manually created but quite a while ago so it seems unlikely that we will get many new ones. I have made a bot work request for it--Zolo (talk) 08:23, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
Since, as far as I know, all the new images that are uploaded for image galleries are required also to be categorized, I do not see why the gallerys (no matter how small) make a problem. In fact there are images I have uploaded that I think will be easier to find through their gallery than their category. It can work either way, it seems to me. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 12:59, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
Neat and well maintained galleries can be useful - and may allow to bypass the poor overall search capabilites of Commons. But outdated galleries with one or two images hide the content since search directs by default to the gallery. True the content should also be in the category, but I am not sure it is that easy to find at first glance for an outsider). Tthere are also topics -have a look at category:People by name- that have their own gallery but not their category or -worse- the gallery is not categorized in the category. Granted, this can be fixed, but it we remove useless galleries, it should be easier to avoid.--Zolo (talk) 18:10, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
How to improve galleries
If we could have a bot placing all QIs, VIs and FPs from each category into existing galleries, with a small featured icon as caption, that I think would boost the usefulness of the galleries. --ELEKHHT12:38, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
Upload Wizard Malfunctioning
Today, I am having nothing but trouble with the Upload Wizard. I have a batch of images I am trying to upload that reside on Flickr with the appropriate Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike license but when I launch the Uploader, click on the button to Select Media, click on a local image I have of the image that is on Flickr, the uploader attempts to upload then returns with a message "unknown error". If I retry failed upload, I get the same message. Yesterday, I wasn't getting any message. The upload would simply fail. If I opened the image in Photoshop and saved it with less quality (Medium-5), I could then get the image to upload. Today, however, that ploy doesn't work. I even tried the old form page and filled in all the fields then clicked upload and it would return to the upload page as if something was wrong but all fields were empty as if I had never filled anything in. Very frustrating! Mharrsch (talk) 23:50, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
I tried several different files. Some worked others didn't and I tried downsizing them in Photoshop. I use Google Chrome as my default browser and I'm on Windows 7.
Sorry about this. We had some problems with the new chunked uploads feature (which splits each file into smaller "chunks" for transport, behind the scenes). The problem affected files larger than 1 MB. Unfortunately in our deployment testing, I typically use files under 1 MB, so I did not catch this. This was a serious flaw in my deployment and testing procedure and I'll try not to make similar mistakes in the future.
The chunked uploading feature is also intertwined with the multi-file selection feature, so we have temporarily turned them both off. A fix is being worked on and should be deployed soon. At the very least, you'll have multi-file selection and will be able to upload large files (but they won't be chunked uploads). Chances are you probably won't notice the difference.
As I remember, the number of "P" was the number of contained gallery pages only, but now it shows a sum of categories, files and pages.
Is it an intentional change or some bug? --ŠJů (talk) 22:19, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
I recently uploaded a batch of images provided to me personally by the RAF Museum, with the explicit direction that they could be released under the CC-by license. I have forwarded these to ORTS, but looking now I see that only two of the eight images have received a notice back from ORTS, one of them is some sort of confusing pending message, and the other states that the message received was not sufficient. I cannot find any trace of anyone trying to contact me here, on en.wiki, or in email.
I also had Denniss undelete a number of other images that were also "silently deleted" some time ago. I have forwarded ORTS messages about these as well. Most of them have no update about the ORTS message, and the one that does once again says it's insufficient, again with no apparent attempt to contact me.
If you refer to File:Course Setting Bomb Sight Mk IA.jpg, the OTRS member who placed the tag about the OTRS communication being received but not sufficient is User:Odder. Perhaps you can ask him directly about the details of what exactly is missing. Or you can post the question at the Commons:OTRS/Noticeboard. -- Asclepias (talk) 23:24, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
I've copied this conversation over to the OTRS noticeboard in the hope that one of the agents volunteering there can shed some light on the situation. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:37, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
November 15
Calling all frog-experts
Hi everyone. It's been a while since I've done anything on wiki other than read articles all day. Any ways, I was just wondering if there any experts with frog species. I took this snap recently when I visited Bamburgh Castle and thought it was quite good. It's probably just a common species which commons has enough photos of, but I'd still like to know what it is and if it's of any use. If there is any thing you would like done with this photo, just ask as I still have the RAW file on my computer. John Aplessed (talk) 20:54, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
I dunno myself. If you want a second opinion, you could ask at en:Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science (although having parallel requests bot here and there is somewhat abuse of peoples time, which some would perhaps frown upon). I usually use Wikipedias reference desk on science when I need some help on identifying some organism. Usually the responses are quite fast and qualified. --Slaunger (talk) 21:22, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
Probably the best places to ask are the relevant WikiProjects (here reptiles and amphibians) on Wikipedia. I don't know much about European herps, but I think you can be sure it's a common toad, looking at en:List of amphibians of Great Britain. By the way, Saibo, it couldn't be both Bufonidae and Ranidae—these are both biological families, groups of the same rank. —innotata02:53, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
It is definitively a toad of the genus Bufo most probably B. bufo. However to exclude Bufo calamita in a proper way it would be nice to have a look on the dorsal parts of the animal. --Pristurus (talk) 10:02, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
That's why we invented the request rotation - button. Use it and wait until the throbber disappeared, then select an appropriate angle. -- 10:12, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
The problem is that within Commons the orientation is right, but when used in Wikipedia it is wrong. So there was no need to use the "Rotate" in Commons. Now somebody has changed the rotation of the image in Commons. The result is that in Commons the orientation is wrong. On the Wikipedia page the orientation is still the same (=wrong). Clicking on the image in Wikipedia it mentions "This image will be rotated 270° clockwise (90° counterclockwise) by Rotatebot.". I conclude from this that when that has happened, the orientation of the image in Wikipedia is right and that in Commons still wrong. Wouter (talk) 12:31, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
It is a caching issue. If you would have clicked on request rotation, you would have seen that the rotation on Commons was also wrong. Rotatelink automatically purges the server's cache and asks for fresh thumbnails. Therefore it is now wrong on Commons, too but after the bot has processed the image, it should be right here and on wp. Sincerely -- RE rillkequestions?13:29, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
Multi-file selection and more for UploadWizard
We have a few new features we're working on in UploadWizard. Please help us test them!
Multiple file selection. In browsers which support it, you can now select many files from your filesystem at once.
By multiple file selection, we mean you can press the "Select a file to donate" button, then select a lot of files from your computer, and they will be all added at once. Unfortunately, we had to turn off the instant file preview when you do this, because it was just too slow, and that work can't be put into a 'background' task, with the current generation of browsers. You can still get a preview for individual files by clicking the preview button. Kudos to Raindrift for leading the development of this important feature!
Custom license You can enter a custom license for your files in wikitext.
We're trying to mitigate a number of problems here. The main one is that we don't offer enough choice, for people who need a different license. But, we also don't want to give naive users another way to do the wrong thing (they are magnetically drawn to picking the option that we explain the least -- at the moment it is the Free Art License). There is also a less frequent problem where users go crazy and just click multiple checkboxes to multilicense everything.
So, several changes have been made: a "trap" has been reintroduced. If the user does nothing, it tags the file as Uploaded without license. A field for custom wikitext has been added, but it won't allow you to type random stuff; it tries to figure out if the wikitext you have entered really is valid, and if it contains a template that really in a subcategory of License tags, before publishing. (This won't work for all licensing tags used on Commons -- some people use stuff in their personal namespaces that invoke other templates -- but this is the best I can do for now.) And finally, the wizard now only allows you to pick one license at a time. If you need multilicensing you can use the custom wikitext box.
A question: sometimes we can determine that the wikitext is syntactically valid, but we're not sure it has a correct license. So perhaps we should submit it with problem tags. What problem tags, if any, should be added?
Geocoding If your photo has location information, the Wizard will now try to write geocoding templates for you. You have the option to change the latitude and longitude information before submitting.
Maplebed really wanted to see this feature, so he took the lead hacking this together at the NOLA hackathon. Jeroen De Dauw did some cleanup work. Right now you only get input fields for latitude, longitude and altitude, but we really want to see a map-based interface, more like this spec for geocoding in UploadWizard. Volunteers welcome!
Some of these features still require polish and bug fixes, but we wanted to get your feedback on them now. We are also having some other issues with the test server which may make page loading slow. Please bear with us. I'll be updating it continuously based on your feedback and as I fix stuff.
These are very good news. Thank you! What do you mean with "sometimes we can determine that the wikitext is valid, but we're not sure it has a correct license"? Why you are not sure? Is the selected template not in category license-templates or a common misused license template or ...? Sincerely -- RE rillkequestions?20:34, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
The lookups are done with API requests, and for various reasons I have to stop the user from progressing while it does these checks. So for UI reasons that sets a maximum possible delay, maybe 30 seconds or so. And it is possible that the API requests will not complete. Or, that it will not find its way up to "License Tags" within five hops (that's the maximum depth I allow). Also, there is the case I mentioned earlier where the wikitext entered into the form doesn't contain any template under License Tags, but somehow generates it anyway. I am only doing a "shallow" parse here, not a deep one. That said it should work for wikitext like {{Eso}} or even {{free screenshot|license={{BSD}}}}. -- NeilK (talk) 23:06, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
Except, there's a bug where I accidentally normalized the template title, so "BSD" doesn't work -- it is looking for "Bsd". I have to fix that... NeilK (talk) 23:17, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
Is this feature perhaps trying to be too smart? As far as I can tell, there are basically two groups of users: the ones who know nothing about licensing or templates, and who just want to upload, and the ones who know what template they want to use. If we implement just a check for whether a template -- any template or transclusion -- is added to the form, wouldn't that be sufficient to deter most misuse, while retaining maximum flexibility?--Eloquence (talk) 23:56, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
Yes, this is the point of the question I posed to the community above. I'm going to relax it a bit. It might be better to allow anything that seems to be valid wikitext that has at least one template. But we do a secondary check with a simple parser, and if we find that there is a valid license, then great. If not, then and only then do we add a problem template. -- NeilK (talk) 01:07, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
Well, guys, the new UW version is live without any new or adjusted processes here in Commons (or am I missing something)? I am not really happy about this - but, well, WMF decided...
{{subst:uwl}} is added by UW for files without a license and {{Custom}} is added for files which were uploaded with a custom license template.
1: do we fully trust Nikbot to tag files without licenses or do we directly want to insert something in template:uwl (which gets substed on uploads by users who select the "internet file and I have no clue of COM:L" option? We could redir uwl to {{Nld}}. Or: do we copy nld to uwl but add a template which informs the user how to help himself? Read COM:L, provide all information about author's date of death or publication he can find? Ask at Help Desk? Or write his questions directly on the file page?
2: should custom license files be tagged in any way (for review?). I think not. We do not have the manpower to do additional checks. I do think that the custom license files are not high risk like the files without license (because I guess this will be the option of all FAL uploaders now). And: we should rather try to check (whatever such a check should include/how deep it will be) all files by non-autopatrolled users (at some day in the future). So my answer to "2" is: no tag needed. What do you think? Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 00:41, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
2: Currently we haven't the manpower but it's not bad if they have a tag. It is also interesting just to see, whether this option was used. Some piece of information that is not evil. -- RE rillkequestions?11:04, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
3: For the tools at all it would be the best if we would add an additional category to all real-license-templates. Then, no recursion would be required. -- RE rillkequestions?07:30, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for your comment Rillke!
1: I think the nld template (+its use talk page notification tmpl) is sufficient. In addition, for statistics or tracking (Catscan?), we should insert something in uwl - the question is what? {{uploaded with initially no license|yyyy-mm}} which would display nothing but only contain a hidden cat Category:Uploaded with initially no license yyyy-mm? So we could catscan (negative cat "Copyright statuses|5") after a month to look if there are files which were not detected by nikbot. The question is: who does it? ;-) Anyway, even if no one does it - the possibility would be there. Disadvantage: those templates need to be removed at some time in the future. n.b.: {{ImageUpload|full}} (which we still see in file desc. pages today...). ;-)
2: Done Yes, having categories or tags for statistics would be nice. currently we have 11 "custom licensed" files. But ASA the template is removed by whomever the information is gone. Since we have (and probably will not have) no review process I think it would be best if the template just contains a hidden category. That way it gets not removed too early. If we decide one day that we want to clean up all file pages we can run a bot to kill it everywhere. But having not really useful clutter on the file page (and a uploader who is, maybe, waiting for his file to be reviewed is not useful).
3: Yes, sure. A flat cat would be best. Do you think it is manageable? It is already hard to have all license templates somewhere in the current cat tree there. ;) Are there lic. templates in Category:License tags (except the l. related templates) which are not "real licenses"? I had a quick look: Except the subcat "Category:Translated license tags" and "Category:License tags non-free" (although this would disable the WMF copyright tags) I would say that all should be accepted. Leaving those two categories in is no big harm, I would say. For UW the traversing parser is already written - for other tools maybe we could make a bot-updated plain list of all tags in Category:License tags for easier checking? Otherwise most license tags need to have one additional, redundant category. Do you agree to pull out the Category:License-related_tags? Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 15:00, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
1: The {{uploaded with initially no license|yyyy-mm}}-method has the disadvantage that it must be removed by the user when the license is added. So it should better read "{{Remove this line and insert a license instead|dd|mm|yyyy}}". This template could then directly transclude {{No license since}} and a category like suggested to get some statistics. However we must make sure the user is notified.
2: Agree. Using subst: would additionally allow to sort this by date.
It is still dead despite the TS is up again since 2011-11-16T11:24:59 and e.g. Rotatebot (was dead 2011-11-13T02:00:31 - 2011-11-16T10:06:20) is running again. I have written Filnik an email as apparently not the TS is the problem. Stats: 87 files were tagged with uwltag in the approx. 10 hours between 2011-11-16T02:48 - 2011-11-16T12:34. --Saibo (Δ) 12:45, 16 November 2011 (UTC) Follow up: Filnik tries to fix it - was was already aware but waitet for the person who broke Nikbot's code to fix. --Saibo (Δ) 19:21, 16 November 2011 (UTC) Note for myself mostly: 2011-11-16T14:45 - 2011-11-16T19:07 we got 56 untagged new uploads. 2011-11-16T19:24 - 2011-11-16T20:15 → 11 Bad vs. Good: 30 files: 2 files textlogo, 3 files maybe PD-old. The remaining: stupid copyvios. --Saibo (Δ) 21:40, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
So many changes to be discussed in one section? Very well. The multifile picker was pleasant when it worked yesterday. Today it didn't but it's no big loss. The geotagger is definitely a big improvement because it works immediately. Like the old daily bot geotagger it often fails to find the locations in my image files added or adjusted by Picasa that MS Pro Photo Tools and Google Earth can read, but better to know it sooner than later. Jim.henderson (talk) 16:52, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
The longitude / latitude fields only accept points as separator of decimals. In France (at least), we use the comma. Maybe this should be considered valid as well and replaced at upload time.
There is a question regarding these 2 uploads by BLRMoora (talk·contribs) — the user falsely asserted in the license that these are "public domain" and "a work of the United States Federal Government", when in actuality they are from a state court, and have authorship by an individual author who has not given permission for them to be here on Commons.
Decisions by state courts would be {{PD-EdictGov}}; when it comes to arguments that probably doesn't quite hold though. They are definitely public records so there is no real problem in copying them and making them available (it's done all the time by many websites), but as a technical matter, they may be under copyright of the lawyers (or defendant rather as a work for hire) when it comes to derivative works. Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:15, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, well, these are certainly not decisions by state courts. No worries, they'll soon probably be speedily deleted anyways as now missing license, now that the wrong license was removed and that part has been cleared up. :) Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 22:19, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
Hrm, well I don't think any free-use license actually applies here, thus, the file pages will simply be on Wikimedia Commons with no license at all? -- Cirt (talk) 05:23, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
They should not survive the DR without licenses, but unless it's a case where speedy deletion applies, we shouldn't try to undercut an existing DR discussion -- that becomes the preferred place to put arguments, and only leaves one message on the uploader's talk page, etc. Carl Lindberg (talk) 19:51, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
Sometimes, users invent pragmatic temporary solutions to some situations, even when they are not regulated by an official standard. In this case, the subcategories of the Category:Bulding interiors in the United States are organized mostly along two types of subcategories: by type of buildings, and by geography (States). But the subcategories are not exhaustive, they do not cover every type of building and every State. This leaves out a few categories about specific buildings. Those specific categories would normally go into one of the normal subcategories, by type or by geography, but unless or until an appropriate subcategory is created, they are left loose in the parent category. Apparently, the user decided that the parent category would be better organized if those few specific subcategories, which are different in nature from the majority of the other subcategories, were sorted at the end of the parent category. That is not necessarily a bad idea, if you accept the premise that the parent category is primarily meant for subcategories by type and by geography, and not primarily meant for specific buildings, which are only parked there, so to speak, until a more appropriate subcategory is created. In a way, it is an application, but in the opposite sense, of the principle, more often seen, where a parent category groups, at the same time, mostly specific subcategories but also a few subcategories by subtype, and the categories by subtype are sorted at the beginning of the parent category. -- Asclepias (talk) 18:22, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
I always wondered why commons discourages empty categories. I mean, this specific case won't be necessary at all if "by type and by location" scheme had been fully deployed from the start. Certainly it needs some safeguards against creating meaningless intersections (like Glaciers of Senegal), but to me the benefits outweigh the (possible) inconvenience. Right now each contributor fills the blanks to the best of their knowledge, and in the end it's an inconsistent, sometimes barely readable mess. And very time-consuming when it comes to finally sort it out. NVO (talk) 16:47, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
But by sorting all (or, in this case, some, which makes even less sense) of the individual synagogues under '~' with no further sort, it puts a large number of categories into an unsorted lump, in that there is no alphabetization within the many categories dumped into '~'. - Jmabel ! talk17:23, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
I also see little point in this kind of temporary part-"solution". With similar effort the problem could be fixed. Particularly if in the same time categories like Furniture in the United States are placed into it to further confuse... --ELEKHHT12:50, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
My response, I’m sorry it was delayed.
The sorting was done in response to several friends mentioning that on their small laptop, tablet, or smartphone smaller screens sometimes the leading images were confusing per a category title (place, biota) they were unfamiliar with. I began to notice, albeit on a large screen, that the order is ‘random’ per the uploaders’ choice of a title label, with any image using a date or personal filing # leading, and the alphabet following. There is no standard naming convention followed. Often it doesn’t matter, but occasionally the ‘by chance’ queue does not assist small screen comprehension (or larger sometimes).
For example, in a biodiversity hotspot nature reserve in the Caribbean (Puerto Rico?) the leading images were of a cute house cat and of the turquoise food stand near it. Those of the endangered tropical rainforest habitat were a row ‘down the line’ (even on my screen). Of course the cat/bldg. images belong there as part of the whole scene - but perhaps not as the introduction however?
If the editor community consensus is that this type of sorting is unimportant, considered a ‘personal project,’ or just unacceptable I will not continue it. My intentions are not ‘personal’ but assisting the educational focus of this visual encyclopedia.
Screencaps yes, posters not necessarily. Unless they contain screenshots themselves, or are derivative of the actual film content in some other way, the posters are separate works and not subject to the film copyright, and would have a different term anyways. They probably have different authors as well. Carl Lindberg (talk) 19:55, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
Size and # of Files of All Uploads?
Can somebody give me an estimate of the number of files uploaded and the total size of all uploaded files (all Wikimedia projects, that is, everything under uploads.wikimedia.org)? - unsigned
I don't know the answer, but let me ask a few clarifying questions (and please sign your posts here with ~~~~, which will be turned into a signature).
By "all files", do you mean all media files, or also text pages?
Are you asking for a number including earlier versions of images, which are visible only by clicking through the history?
Are you asking for a number including deleted files, virtually all of which remain physically on the server?
I'm sorry for not properly signing my posts. By "all uploaded files" I mean just the current versions of uploaded media files (that is, every current file under uploads.wikimedia.org, e.g. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/Crash_Test.jpg). That is, no pages, no older versions, no deleted files. The link Commons:MIME type statistics just shows statistics for Commons, but not for other projects (the English Wikipedia, Wikibooks, ...). Does the host ms7.pmtpa.wmnet contain all uploaded files or just those for Commons? 'Just' 4 TB more (18 minus 14 TB) to cover all files *not* uploaded to Commons seems a little bit small, doesn't it? Jack1021 (talk) 20:19, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
I have tried into translate to FR: the legend of this picture. I can't understand what goes wrong with the "{{", the "|" and the "=". The fact is I couldn't succeed. Thanks if someone can repair the "légende". Hop ! Kikuyu3 (talk) 17:13, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
It is fine for me. I copied the whole original description. BTW it would be nice to have also the original high resolution files on Commons. Yann (talk) 20:55, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
The reason it looks fine is that User:Öfixed it. Kikuyu3, {{En}} and {{Fr}} are templates. The most common use of templates is to add some pre-defined text on a page. Some templates accept one or more parameters. This is the part after the | character. If a template accepts multiple parameters, they are separated by more | characters. {{Fr}} accepts an unnamed parameter and simply displays it after the name of the language. "Unnamed?" you ask. Well, parameters can be named or unnamed. Using a template with a named parameter looks something like {{template name|parametername=Parameter value}}. Using one with an unnamed parameter looks like {{template name|Parameter value}}. Unnamed parameters are implicitly numbered starting with 1. You can also assign numbers to them explicitly: {{template name|1=Two plus two = four}}. There is usually no need to do this, but if an unnamed parameter contains an equals sign, explicitly assigning the number prevents the part before the equals sign from being interpreted as a parameter name. Without the explicit "1=" in the example, "Two plus two" would be interpreted as a parameter name and only "four" would be used as the value. Clear as mud, yeah? As you can see from the diff I linked to, the problem was that you passed your text in as parameter number 2, which is simply ignored, instead of 1. —LX (talk, contribs)00:42, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
Commons standard icon set
Irony: a multilingual image repository which doesn't use icons to support its user interface.
Proposal: develop a standard, high-quality icon set which can be used across Commons to support communication across our multilingual userbase.
Error: http:⁄⁄commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:AjaxQuickDelete.js/fi&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript at line 7: unterminated string literal
Regarding the issues around images related to the articles on w:de:Loriot, please see the following from our legal team.
The WMF's legal department made a determination that these images arguably contravene U.S. copyright law. We are basing our decision on U.S. law, but we do note that a German court has ordered their takedown, claiming that the stamps are also in violation of DE copyright law. We will provide more details on the German decision within the next few days.
Okay, so I love Big and Small, great kids show. But the characters in it are puppets, and by extension, they're essentially moving sculptures. But I uploaded a ton of CC-BY photos of Sesame Street characters: displayed in the Smithsonian, shooting on location, etc. There were also picture of costumed characters in theme parks, based on the Sesame Street characters. All deleted.
It's mentioned in the description. This picture was provided directly by Kindle Entertainment, the copyright owner of the characters. -- Asclepias (talk) 14:50, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
I would suggest you ask the copyright holding company of Sesame Street for permission. If you get it, we are happy if we could restore the images. -- RE rillkequestions?16:06, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
Considering Sesame Street is an educational show, it's entirely plausible they would release single photos of characters for WMF projects. We should really pursue this. Dcoetzee (talk) 13:55, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
I'm a little confused. Carolee Mitchell, a random New Yorker, takes a photo of a copyrighten puppet, out in a public park. She posts that image on Flickr with a CC-BY-SA 2.0 license, but it's not Creative Commons, as it includes copyrighten content. But if we ask the producers, they can approve this image being CC. But in approving this image as CC, they're not unintentionally releasing every image of "Murray" as CC. Just that one image. Correct? -- Nick Moreau (talk) 00:18, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
Moreover, videos are editable using any standard video editing software. Very sophisticated transformations are possible, but the most common derivative works are stills (as images) and clips. Dcoetzee (talk) 18:28, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
Issues with the bots
Just wish to alert that there seem to be problems with multiple bots running incorrectly atm. FlickreviewR skipped many files in the last days only reviewing some and leaving behind a growing number unreviewed, and noticed issues at QI and VI as well. Are we collapsing? --ELEKHHT01:30, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
No. It's just toolserver. (They recovered a database or similar.) At this point we see how dependent we are from bots because we don't have enough volunteers. -- RE rillkequestions?11:17, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
JFYI: Gadget Gallerypreview is currently disabled for security reasons. Upd.: on again.
This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Saibo (Δ) 15:19, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
100 MB size limit
I'm becoming increasingly unsure about the purpose and scope of video on Wikimedia Commons. This stems partly from the 100MB limitation, which restricts the utility in my opinion.
There are some videos which obviously serve an encyclopedic purpose, such as File:Hyperboloid_Print.ogv. Then there are other questions:
Should public domain films, no matter their length, be uploaded? The size limit puts a restriction on this, unless a file is split into many parts. Commons has not achieved what Internet Archive has (see Template:Internet Archive); should it strive to? Should the full-length Metropolis be uploaded, for example, once it enters the public domain? Or just short clips that can be used in an article?
For what it's worth, the 100 MB limitation is partly about technical limitations and partly policy. We are trying to build a "chunked" upload protocol into Wikipedia and UploadWizard so that you could upload files of any size. Behind the scenes, your 100 MB file would be decomposed into 1MB chunks, uploaded separately, and then reassembled on the server. So you could potentially upload files much bigger than 100 MB. We are still working on removing all the technical limitations but perhaps the community should be thinking about what they want on the policy side.
I was about to start this discussion on VP when this discussion serendipitously appeared, so I changed the title of this section to attract appropriate attention on second thought, it's probably better to split the two parts of InverseHypercube's question. Splitting into "100MB size limit" and "Secondary sources acceptable on Commons?" -- NeilK (talk) 14:40, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
I'm not clear what the reasoning is behind the current maximum file size. I guess that the likelihood of failed uploads may be a factor, and chunking would help with that. Is there any other reason? Rd232 (talk) 15:32, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
It does increase the chance that uploads fail. Also, we want to be able to kill PHP processes that are considered to be taking too long. There are limits in PHP itself (although it's getting better). We are also transitioning away from NFS to OpenStack Swift, which can in theory support files of virtually unlimited size.
Our technical limitations would then mostly come from policy and technology decisions -- like, is it reasonable to offer resizing of any image on the fly, even super-gigantic JPEGs? (Brion Vibber thinks that, above a certain size, we will have to go to a policy of mixed browser-side/server-side resizing.) And how do we get a SHA1 of a 3G file without making the user wait 60 seconds? And so on. Other sites have opted for an asynchronous "we'll tell you when it's ready" model, but we still have a model that assumes all this work gets done within one web request.
The above are mostly questions for techies, but for you the community, I guess you might want to ask yourselves different questions. Like if it's reasonable that anybody can upload any size file. Or, if there are any points in the whole Commons process that break down if the file gets too big. NeilK (talk) 16:29, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
Just a technical consideration: Isn't it possible to calculate the hash while "reading" the data? I built a simple update-engine myself and immediately pass little chunks of data into my hash-object (as I read it works internally with 64 Bytes clusters) as they are downloaded. This is fast and prevents the whole file has to be read again. Of course I am not very knowledgeable in this area. There are maybe some pitfalls. -- RE rillkequestions?17:30, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
"Like if it's reasonable that anybody can upload any size file..." probably not, put like that! I think it's desirable for much larger uploads to be possible (at least 1gb or more, to accommodate long videos; perhaps not literally any size - that seems an invitation for DoS), but perhaps not for just anyone to be able to do this. Perhaps such large uploads should be limited to certain authorised users, with an onwiki request queue for everyone else. However, it may be best for the details of this to wait for nearer the time when the tech is ready, and then have a widely advertised community discussion on how to take advantage of the tech. There's certainly no doubt, though, that we want to be able to upload 100MB+ files without having to ask the devs. Rd232 (talk) 17:45, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
The standard numbers are 4.7 GB for a DVD movie rip, and 50 GB for hi-def movie rip. If we plan to support full-length movies, those are the numbers we should be thinking about. Archive.org is handling it just fine, IMO.--Prosfilaes (talk) 11:18, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
(regarding the reason for the limit) Of course there was also the fact that up until 2 years ago, our available hard disk space was limited by real life infrastructure limits. Think of it like this. Until 2 years ago, the file hosting for wikipedia was more of the type 'one big server' then that it was a system that would allow uploads of the type that we were all doing, in the number that we were doing it, and with the fallback options that we needed. Luckily this has improved a lot (and only getting better), but changes like that take time. We are getting closer to being a content distribution and archiving system at the backend now (although frontend wise, we really have big stapes that need to be taken in my opinion) TheDJ (talk) 16:26, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
Just a small problem: I uploaded in April the svg flag Banner of Lincoln, but after the first day, the statistics tool showed absolutely no hit. It was just annoying for my self-esteem, but it remained so when another contributor uploaded a revised version of the file in September. So I guess there is a bug (or it's my software that malfunctions). Is there another source where we can access those view statistics? Thanks. Ec.Domnowall (talk) 17:30, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
It is that very tool, and I was accustomed to see something like a dozen hits a month for other files I uploaded, but not zero. That's why I wondered if we could access for example the wikimedia source from which this tool draws its data. Ec.Domnowall (talk) 18:02, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
Ec.Domnowall -- Such stats would in any case only cover how many times the image description page here on Commons has been loaded, which in the case of an image used in a Wikipedia article etc. could be very different from the number of times that the image itself (or a rendered PNG version of it) has been viewed. It would also omit the number of times that http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:Banner_of_Lincoln.svg has been loaded, etc... AnonMoos (talk) 23:29, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
I'd like to upload a Powerpoint. It is 3 megs in pdf format. 100 slides. All images are Commons compliant. Purpose is for discussion on en and meta wikis. (Is Wikipedia relevant, but not for building articles, for strategy work.)
Is this possible? Where are the instructions? Will it be viewable by readers?
Do en-wiki (or strat-wiki or meta-wiki) handle this type of file? Hopefully with a decent display, but at least hosting the file itself?71.246.144.15404:43, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
Er ... we do accept PDFs for upload: see, for example, "Category:PDF files". Just make sure that it is within the scope of the Commons project, and categorize it properly (don't just put it in "PDF files" – choose suitable categories based on the subject of the file as well). However, PowerPoint (.PPT or .PPTX) files can't be uploaded. — Cheers, JackLee–talk–06:52, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
The photograph entered in contact with the owner of the site which answered he had the rights of use of this picture as the previous owner of the website gave them all. The photograph asked to see the authorisation for his picture and met a "no". The owner of the website is now no more answering. The photograph is certain that no contract of use of this picture was sold and as such is certain it was taken on Wikipedia. He is seeking for help !
Quick personal check. I notice that the website concerned is using other images from commons. For example
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Drought.jpg
www.itsnature.org/news/huge-drought-struck-16000-years-ago/
In a general way, this site does not mention any author, source or licence, which is highly suspicious.
My questions
has this site already be reported as violator ?
if so, has it already been contacted ?
if so, what was the feedback ?
what do you recommand doing ? Where can we find simple templates to send the owners ? He may not realize that he can actually use lawfully the image with a simple precaution.
in case there is resistance and no improvement is seen, what's the current consensus on what to do ?
Additional note. This site address is in the spam filter. - unsigned
May I assume that above when you say "The photograph entered in contact..." etc. you mean "The photographer entered in contact..."? - Jmabel ! talk18:56, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
Unless I'm missing something, this is between the photographer (copyright holder) and the site that misappropriated his photo. We are simply a legitimate licensee of the photo. The fact that the illegitimate user may have obtained the file from our site is neither here nor there. Not that I condone it, but I don't think we have any standing in the matter. - Jmabel ! talk18:58, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
Yes, I meant the "photographer". Sorry. The photographer is not complaining against us. Apparently the image is published only here and on the non compliant website. The photographer is asking whether we can help him or not. I can naturally tell him that it is entirely his business and we do not care at all. He is also likely to be disappointed and maybe to reconsider his own participation to publishing freely licenced images (not that he indicated that. That's a guess from I. The guy is simply reporting the abuse and asking if we can help in any way). Or I can provide him with advice and maybe draft a text that he will be able to send the cheater, if only to explain that the guy can actually use the picture but simply add below it a licence and an author. Very simple. Now, I somehow doubt that this is the first time it happens in 10 years or so that we operate (I am actually sure of that). So my questions which stand are
do we have any template answer that the photographer can send to the cheater; so it will save time for me to draft it and avoid reinventing stuff
if we already have an history with the cheater website, it may be best to tell the photographer to not dream too much of a possible peaceful solution and to suggest him that he should contact a lawyer or drop the case entirely. This website is reusing only high quality images from us and elsewhere. Other participants may have already reported abuse from this website. Is there a page on commons where non compliant websites are listed ? I remember such a page on the English wikipedia in the past. Perhaps there is such a page here as well ?
The English Wikipedia has en:Wikipedia:Standard license violation letter (with interwiki links to a number of Wikipedias' local versions). If Commons has an equivalent, it's well hidden; certainly it's not mentioned in the obvious place, Commons:Reusing content outside Wikimedia. I think we should have an equivalent, but it will be substantially more complex because of the greater variety of licenses used on Commons (though I suppose the letter could try and sidestep that by being very general and pointing to the relevant File page(s) for the license details). Rd232 (talk) 19:19, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
According to WHOIS information, the owner of itsnature.org is located in Carlsbad, CA, USA and thereby underlying the DMCA.
(ec) You could add the {{Published}} template to the talk page, with a "legal=no" parameter. I'm not sure we have a page devoted to serial abusers. It can actually be harder to determine for images, since with those there are individual authors and other sites could negotiate a separate license from that author which allows them to use it without attribution -- it's impossible for anyone but the author to know that, so having such a page could be problematic (we don't want to be wrong). Obviously, this case sounds a bit different -- the author would presumably be aware of whatever contracts they signed. If the website won't respond to a request to either remove the image or attribute it properly, I guess legal action (like a DMCA takedown maybe) is one way, but unless the image has already been registered with the U.S. Copyright Office, it would seem unlikely that there would be a way to recover any damages in the end. It's up to the author to take action -- Commons or the Foundation has no standing in the matter, so can't really do anything. Carl Lindberg (talk) 19:51, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
"standing" isn't the issue, since the Wikipedia versions of what Anthere is asking for aren't on behalf of the Foundation either; they're tools for the copyright holders. In the case of Wikipedia, that's an individual user who contributed to the material used, and is probably just one of many contributors; here, it's the author. Either way, any letter should make it clear that the request is on behalf of the copyright holder, and not anything to do with the Foundation. Some of the guidance on Wikipedia around how to do this makes this clear. As to coordination - well in the case of Wikipedia reuse the need is more common, but in the case of media content as well the publisher may be reusing a range of content. Establishing this doesn't mean anyone can act except a copyright holder, but if copyright holders know this it may affect what they do. But any such coordination would have to be based purely on specific statements by copyright holders ("they used my image X without attribution, and ignored my emails", and not make overarching judgements. On that last point, funnily enough, the current Category:Images used by media organizations but violating license terms is presently under discussion, and being too definite and judgemental is definitely an issue there. Rd232 (talk) 20:33, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
Good observation. It is probably because of the previous version, now hidden. (From the file's history, apparently that original version had a free license from its upload and was deleted more than a year after its upload. So, not sure why it was deleted.) -- Asclepias (talk) 21:05, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
... but if they're using a version released under a free (non-attribution?) license, they can't be violating the different license of a later version... The free license doesn't get revoked by deleting from Commons. Rd232 (talk) 21:24, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
It certainly does not help the photographer's case that he messed that much with the file, first by having the licences of the original photo changed to a more restrictive license, and then by uploading a different photo over the original one. And apparently making private requests (i.e. not through his Commons account, so there is not record of it) to a sysop to make the license changes for him and have the original photo deleted. From what I can see, chronologically it went like this: The original photo (possibly the one republished by the site itsnature.org) was upoloaded to Commons 18 April 2008 with the licenses GFDL and CC-by-3.0 (note: not by-sa). Those licences remained on the description page from 18 April 2008 until 31 October 2008. Then they were replaced by a user-specific license template, which in turn used the Template:Pink CC (now deleted). From what I could gather, that deleted "Pink CC" template was some sort of avatar of the CC-by-3.0 and/or CC-by-sa-3.0 templates, but anyway it apparently was displayed as the license of the original photo from 31 October 2008 until 12 June 2009. Then it was replaced again, this time by the license CC-by-sa-3.0 (the GFDL and CC-by options vanished in the process and were replaced by a CC-by-sa). It can also be noted that all the license changes were made, not by the author, but by the sysop (apparently on the request of the author, as we have a statement from the sysop on the uploader's talk page, although there is no record of such requests in the uploader's contributions on Commons, so the situation on this point may be problematic, considering this uploader's attitude of "you don't have a document that I have signed, therefore I say that you are violating my copyright", which he expressed in the DR linked below). Then, on 2 July 2009, the original photo was overwritten by a different photo by the same uploader. Finally, also on 2 July 2009, the sysop deleted the original photo, leaving only the second photo. Some insight into the uploader's intentions can perhaps be found in a deletion request from June 2008 about another of his photos. Anyway, at least on Commons at all times between 18 april 2008 and now, it looks like the two photos were under licensing conditions requiring at least an attribution. So, if an external website copied it from Commons under one of those licences (various as they were), that website would still need to mention the attribution and the chosen license. However, taking into consideration that this photographer is under the belief that his actions do not bind him unless there is a document bearing his signature, as he said in the DR, I would be very hesitant about the real meaning of his statement to the effect that he "is certain that no contract of use of this picture was sold". Without knowing all the facts, I would advise Anthere extreme caution before she places herself in a difficult situation between that photographer and other people or before she starts providing lawyer's services to him. -- Asclepias (talk) 00:09, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
Very informative answers. Thank you so much guys. I answered to the photograph the best I could and will keep the links for further use. Very interested by the category reporting media use without respect of the licence as well. Anthere (talk) 16:44, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
could PLEASE somebody help me with my pictures??i have no idea, why they are not allowed?? the administrator told me, i would have the wrong license, but i have no idea how to change it! this would be my page: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kap-herr
all of the pictures are unallowed :) thank you!!!!
Regarding File:Stockportbigsign999.jpg - this image will resize to several different widths, but it won't size to 265px wide. Try out each of the following in a sandbox:
[[File:Stockportbigsign999.jpg|260px|Big sign at Stockport]]
[[File:Stockportbigsign999.jpg|265px|Big sign at Stockport]]
[[File:Stockportbigsign999.jpg|270px|Big sign at Stockport]]
The 260px and 270px ones produce an image, as you would expect. However the 265px one produces the link , instead of the image, which is no use to me: this requirement is for passing |image_name=Stockportbigsign999.jpg into en:Template:Infobox GB station which uses 265px as the default width. How can the image sizing be fixed? --Redrose64 (talk) 22:26, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
OK, sorted now. I tried every purge technique that I know of: F5, Ctrl+F5, adding ?action=purge to the URL, clicking the "*" tab, the "purge" tab, null edit. At least twice each. At some point overnight it started working. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:49, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
FWIW, Wikipedias mostly only seem to have one or other of these (usually "Wikimedia"). En.wp has both, with en:Category:Wikimedia Foundation inside en:Category:Wikimedia, and the latter category having just two categories in it (the other being en:Category:Wikimedia chapters). So a merger definitely seems in order, and whilst "Wikimedia" is more popular in Wikipedias, that category on Commons is much the smaller one, and would be easier to get rid of (and turn into a redirect, I suppose). Rd232 (talk) 18:45, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
Pissed off (updating the thumbnails after a new file version upload)
I am really, really pissed off by wikimedia commons. I have worked on files for years but something is happening the last couple of days that really frustrates me. It is the rendering of edited pictures.
In this picture I removed the watermark: [[12]]. Still, the watermark can be seen. But not in the thumbnail on the wikipedia-page.
And see the discussion here about the removal of a line: [13]. Here too, the line that can be seen on the wikimedia page cannot be seen in the thumbnails or in the enlargment of the file.
What is happening? It is not my cache. I emptied my cache of my browser (firefox). I tried to reload the page (Shift+Reload). But I have still these problems. Citypeek (talk) 08:45, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
This is a common server-side caching issue. Here's what I usually do to work around it: right click the preview image, choose "View image" (in Firefox) or "Open image in new tab" (in Chrome). Then refresh the image by itself with CTRL+F5. In Internet Explorer you must right-click the preview image, choose Properties, copy the URL, then paste it in your address bar. Then do CTRL+F5. Dcoetzee (talk) 10:07, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
Seems to be a thumbnail server problem. To generate a new thumbnail is also taking ages. The only workaround now is to let the thumbnail server render a new size (increase the pixel by one). See my example. This of course doesn't solve the problem with already existing thumbnails which are not being deleted by a purge. Amada44talk to me11:12, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
So, what is really the problem? Is the wikisoftware not good enough? Is there not enough space on the servers? Are the servers too much used and therefore slow? What is it? Citypeek (talk) 13:51, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
We appreciate your help and it is annoying to see that the servers/software are/is not working as they should. If you would like based answers and solutions, go to bugzilla: and report this problem, please. Thank you. -- RE rillkequestions?14:04, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
Thanks, have merged mine/duplicate. I do not search for already existent bugs since I do not expect such an bug to exist and don't get fixed. --Saibo (Δ) 16:15, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
I have observed this issue as well on many occasions - sometimes my workaround does not work either. The developers have had some trouble reproducing it which appears to be the main reason it hasn't been fixed. (they can't make it happen, and by the time we report it the issue has gone away by itself) If anyone can come up with a systematic series of steps causing this bug to happen every time, it would be very helpful. Dcoetzee (talk) 00:01, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
What Powers says is true from a technical point of view. However, Commons is not a place to write articles. The idea is do have only content highly relevant to the media files. If you use the description space to write essays, expect them to be deleted. - Jmabel ! talk00:58, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
If it can be summarised in one line is great, links to Wiki articles should provide further info for those interested. --ELEKHHT01:32, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
You should describe the who, what, where, when, and how in less than 200 words. (Some images don't have all of these attributes.) I just clicked on Random File ten times before a found a description with more than 5 words. Some images can be described in one line but most images here are a mystery. A one word description of some random building is not helpful. -- Swtpc6800 (talk) 02:16, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
The Commons collection should be around for a long time. Twenty years from now, will someone be able to use your picture? Or will it be a mystery photo? -- Swtpc6800 (talk) 03:16, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
Elekh -- some historical images are richly annotated with details of source and description, while some computer-generated images include their source code, etc. It's nice to be able to link to Wikipedia articles, but sometimes there's a lot of relevant information specifically about the image itself... In any case, there's a category Category:Long file description pages. AnonMoos (talk) 07:07, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
What happens once in a while is that Flickr users add the Wikipedia article about the image to their file description and a Flickr bot then copies it to Commmons .. obviously, all this can simply be replaced with a set of categories and a link to Wikipedia. Sample: File:Sen. John Warner Elizabeth Taylor (215151711).jpg -- Docu at07:46, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
Ecole à Monteux
Let's put it this way: Most people write descriptions that are too short. And most people who write long descriptions fail to limit the description to the relevant stuff.
But what is the right amount? The first file "random file" led me to, was the one on the right. It's described in French as "Ecole à Monteux" which means "School of Monteux". That's obviously not enough. But what would be right? At least the word Monteux needs to be linked so we get some geographic context. "Monteux, France" would be even better to have a rough orientation without clicking on the link. Ideally the file description shoud tell us, when and where the photo was taken: "taken at 13:49, 4. Apr. 2008 on a Friday shortly after school was out from Rue de la XYZ looking northwards". (Or should we rather omit this info and rely on the "date" and "location" parameters to reduce data redundancy?)
Now what about the details? Should the description tell us that we see a monument (of whom?) in the pic? What species are the trees and the palm in the pic? Should it mention the street lamps, traffic signs and the yellow bollards? The clear weather? Should it mention how the depicted buildings are used? etc.
It's impossible to set a clear line or limit. But you should always ask yourself, whether the text is on topic (describing the image and not related circumstances that rather belong into a related Wikipedia article) and whether possible reusers do know where, when, what (lower limit) and whether possible reusers really have a benefit from the information (upper limit; in the Monteux image the reuser probably is not interested in the exact street signs depicted, because they are too small to be used in a street sign context and also too common). --Slomox (talk) 14:52, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
Don't want to be too technicalistically nitpicky, but it means "School at Monteux"... P.S. See File:Wernigeroder Wappenbuch 010.jpg for a somewhat lengthy image description page which could not really be significantly further shortened by linking to Wikipedia articles... -- AnonMoos (talk) 20:46, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
Personally, I think lengthy descriptions that actually describe the image are good. Unfortunately, the ones I came across were more like the one on File:Sen. John Warner Elizabeth Taylor (215151711).jpg. The initial text was hardly relevant to the image.
Mostly short description that describe the file is fine and easy to translate. Articles should be placed in wikipedia. However, there are circumstances that the description be longer. For example this file. Geagea (talk) 23:12, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
Only if someone wants to start transcribing the Wernigeroder Wappenbuch as a whole (note that most other pages have much less text than this one). AnonMoos (talk) 01:31, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
November 18
User:Officer
Hi, can someone please look into the contributions of User:Officer? He's going around and trying to get hundreds of Pakistani images deleted from Wikimedia Commons, even the ones that have license details provided. He is not giving solid evidence in many of the images he tags, and is putting lame excuses, such as at File:Motorway-Lahore to Islamabad.jpeg where his rationale is "unlikely taken by uploader". though you can judge for yourself, what's so "unlikely" about this photo being taken by someone? Please help, the situation is getting out of hand. Thankyou
He has also tagged File:Jinnah and dina.jpeg though it is clearly said that photo is old and has expired public domain, meaning it can used freely.
I strongly request admins to check his contribs.
File:Karachibeach with new fountain jet.jpeg is licensed under Creative Commons ShareAlike 1.0 License. His rationale here is: "in one day he uploaded images of different places of Pakistan." What the heck does that mean? People can take photos and then upload them into Commons in one day. What's odd about this? The reasons he's coming up with are bogus and not backed by solid evidence.
File:Iqbal Second Round Table Conference.jpeg has expired copyright according to Pakistani law as it is over 50 years old. Officer added the same tags to this, no reason provided.
File:Islamabadphoto.jpg is alleged violation, but no URL has been provided on the internet where this photo exists. Thus, I doubt Officer's credibility here too.
Same can be said for File:Faizabad Interchange.jpg, alleged to be violation, but no URL link given where image taken from.
{{PD-Pakistan}} only applies when the old Pakistani-created photo has been "published" in Pakistan over 50 years ago and there needs to be evidence that it was a work of Pakistan or the author was a Pakistani national. Just because you see an old photo taken inside Pakistan doesn't necessarily means that it was created by a Pakistani citizen. You assume that the PD-Pakistan applies to all 50 years old photos that shows a Pakistani person or a place in Pakistan, but that is wrong. In fact, most historical photos in the Afghanistan-Pakistan-India region were created by the British and other Europeans. Muslims in this region always believed that taking pictures is prohibited in Islam and cameras did not become popular in Pakistan until the 1980s.
Each of these files that I nominated are very likely copyvio because of the small sizes and other noticable things. For example, File:Faizabad Interchange.jpg was shot from the sky and most likely from a helicopter because a commercial plane wouldn't fly that close to the ground in populated areas. I know that there are no helicopters for touring in Islamabad so it had to be taken by a military person inside a military helicopter, and anything made by the military is government of Pakistan's work. In addition to this, I have seen the image with a small "Pak gov." shown in the bottom sometimes in the past when I was surfing through websites.
This person behind the IP most likely has a user name but it decided to come here anonymously. License details sometimes don't mean anything. For example, if I upload an image showing the planet earth from space and put "own" as sources don't you think this will create suspecions? Strangely this new account SKUDO (talk·contribs) comes and tells me to go investigate images pertaining to India.--Officer (talk) 15:20, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
These sound like generally reasonable concerns. I suggest that we let each of the discussions play out, and that those who disagree do so in the individual discussions. Geo Swan (talk) 19:57, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
The problem is that there are no individual discussions. Speedy tags were added, which means that any problems would have to be noticed by an admin batch-processing the speedy deletion content. He's setting them up to be deleted without real discussion. Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:51, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
Several of these concerns are quite reasonable. However, almost all of them require regular deletion requests, and are not grounds for speedy deletion or lack-of-permission tags, which is what you seem to have been doing. Please open up regular deletion requests on them instead. Small sizes do not necessarily mean copyvio (especially ones uploaded in say 2006 which many of them were), and that most definitely cannot be used as a speedy deletion reason. We assume good faith, unless you have reason to suspect a serial problem with an uploader. File:Faizabad Interchange.jpg, well, often photos can be taken from planes as they are taking off/landing -- but that photo does specifically say that it was taken by government officials, so yes there is grounds for speedy on that one. Those are good cases for speedy tags. Otherwise though, we usually want to actually find the image on the web which pre-existed its upload here (or to the local wikipedia, if transferred from there to Commons) before applying a speedy tag. I reverted one or two of your changes which I felt was not appropriate... I think in a couple cases you gave a reason that someone uploaded multiple photos in one day; not sure why you thought that was a real issue. A self-authored tag is permission and a source, so no-source and no-permission tags cannot be added to those, unless the tag is obviously wrong. If you dispute it, fine, then open regular DRs (use "Nominate for deletion" in the sidebar), but please don't mass-speedy-tag files unless it is a really obvious situation. Carl Lindberg (talk) 20:09, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
I'm on no mission. You're talking about this. The discussion didn't speak of "date of publication" (pre-1951) or who published them. Suppose I find on the streets of India someone's private pictures from 1942, does PD-India gives me permission to upload them here to Commons? This is the issue with these pics, regardless who is in them the dates and evidence of publication are required. Some of these people don't understand what "publication" means.--Officer (talk) 05:23, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
You can't compare "someone's private images" with images of well known people. These people were famous and obviously would have a lot of pictures. When these pictures are uploaded to Commons and the internet, the assumption is that they are obviously published and public domain unless otherwise stated. 123.211.72.15105:36, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
Can someone please also check his deletion tags of photos of Jinnah and Gandhi? Both died in 1948, and therefore, according to Indian/Pakistani copyrights law, their photos have entered public domain. Some of the tags he is adding there are based on unverified assumptions and twisted logic. 123.211.72.15123:28, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
For a photo to meet the conditions summarized in the tags PD-India and PD-Pakistan, the country and the year of first publication of the photo must be known. The year of the death of the persons pictured on a photo, or their apparent age on a photo, can be a clue to the year of creation of the photo, but it does not tell the country and year of publication, evidence of which is essential information for using those tags. -- Asclepias (talk) 02:32, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
The photographer would own the copyright, not Gandhi or Jinnah themselves. So those may not necessarily be PD. If they were published at the time, then yes, but that is the evidence he's looking for -- some photographs did remain unpublished for a while. Additionally, photos published in India 1941 or later had their U.S. copyright restored (though {{Not-PD-US-URAA}} is at least a temporary solution for those). Something like File:MahatmaGandhiLetterToIndira.JPG on the other hand should at the very least go to a DR -- there is nothing obvious about that, and should not be speedy. Carl Lindberg (talk) 02:33, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
Pieter Kuiper and everyone, making a small mistake doesn't make me disruptive. I always do a very good check on each pic and quickly realize if the file is deletable or not. All of these Indian files that I nomintated clearly qualify for deletion because none of them were "published" by India or any other country before 1951. I acted after being informed by SKUDO (talk·contribs) when he/she left this strange message on my talk page, "Dear sir, I appreciate some of your work in checking the licenses of pictures here on Commons and making sure that they are legal. I have recently been looking at and trying to clean up some Indian-related pictures on Wikimedia. Unfortunately, there are some massive copyright violations of Indian pictures here. I would request your help in cleaning up pictures related to India here, since this is a major area with potentially hundreds of illegal pics uploaded..."[14] Then the above IP shows up and starts removing my nominations from Pakistani images. There may be Pakistan vs. Indian game going on that I'm not aware of.--Officer (talk) 04:35, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
Please use regular deletions for stuff like this. It may be debatable, and many of the images may have some known provenances from elsewhere. Most of the ones you tagged were legitimate issues, but you were tagging them no-source when there is a source, and no-permission when there is a tag (there may not be enough evidence for that tag, but that is not a speedy deletion reason). That's all. Many of them are quite plausibly PD-India etc. even if the evidence is not present and lack of evidence does not mean that files are obviously a problem; putting them up for regular DRs lets other people do some research if desired. Speedy deletion implies there is definitely no hope and seems to be trying to get them deleted as quietly as possible. Please see Commons:Deletion policy; your tagging is in most cases inappropriate. They are reasons for deletion requests yes, but in most cases they are not valid reasons for using the speedy tags. You're doing mostly the right thing, but doing it in a way which prevents discussion and is against policy. And you have missed a couple where the source indicated a 1950 film. Carl Lindberg (talk) 04:50, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
First an anonymous SKUDO pops up on my talk and tells me to look over the Indian images and now this anonymous person somewhere from Australia pops up kind of insulting me and telling me kind of threatful messages [15]. He's pissed off because of this one passport photo [16].--Officer (talk) 05:10, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
Frankly speaking, I'm pissed off at every single image you're tagging. You seem to have no understanding of the deletion process. Stop putting speedy tags on Gandhi and Jinnah images, many of them don't seem stolen. You're just going around each minute and putting tags on basically any image you can find. It's like a rampage. And the problem is, most of those images do not seem blatant copyright violations at first sight. Why are you then, putting "speedy" tags? You should always start a DR and wait for a third party response. What you're doing is inappropriate. 123.211.72.15105:18, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
PD-Pakistan states big at the bottom: To the uploader: Please provide all relevant authorship and publication details If this is not provided then the file must be deleted. Instead of wasting your time here go search if you can find over 50-yr-old publication somewhere. Google books is a good place to look for that.--Officer (talk) 05:40, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
Slightly incorrect -- there is no evidence of being published before 1951 (or 1961 for Pakistan, which actually could very much apply for pre-Pakistani-independence photos due to the wrinkles of the Berne Convention). But you don't know they weren't published earlier either. That is a case for regular, not speedy, deletion requests. Carl Lindberg (talk) 08:24, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
I'm glad you are looking through them -- there are issues, for sure. You are also correct on many of the issues -- but using no-permission is not the correct approach when there is a PD-India or PD-Pakistan claim. Hardly any of the images you tagged qualify for speedy deletion per policy -- those are reserved when it is an obvious copyright violation or other problem. They were uploaded under a theory of being PD; unless you actually find first publication info (which country and when), and can conclusively prove they are still copyrighted, none of them should have these tags put on them. Rather, they should be nominated for regular deletion where you contest the claim, or state no evidence for it. The relatively small number of mistakes you're making (and it does appear you have a couple of misconceptions about copyright) are easier to catch by others when you do that. If there is any real chance of debate or these being free, they should go through regular deletion requests. Many of those images are probably PD, even if we lack the evidence to prove it -- that is not a speedy deletion case, as people should be given a chance to come up with more evidence first. Carl Lindberg (talk) 08:24, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
Tagging these images for slow speedy deletion is disruptive. You ignored the previous DR in File:Bapu and Baa.jpg, you did not look at the source, it is not just "one small mistake". Check you facts first, then make a regular DR if you still feel that the image should be deleted. But your requirement of publication seems misguided. Publication does not require a publishing house, most of these photos would have been published (copies changed hands without restrictions) at the time. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 08:07, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
Drspaz and Mar4d are legal accounts on Wikipedia, operated by the same person. I don't think there's any need to beat around the bush here. Instead of making personal attacks and slamming unproven allegations/accusations (that includes coming up with names of unheard users), it'd be nice if you focused on the topic under discussion and not try to stalk others (and fail badly). You're welcome to go and check every damn photo for all I care. But the way you're doing it is not right and you're picking up public domain photos which makes it more complicated. Check the concerns put by other users not just here but on other discussions. I'm just simply requesting you to go for regular reviews and not "speedy" anything when you nominate. When you speedy something, there are chances the image will get deleted when it may have required a neutral third-party review. Talking about sockpuppetry and blocking, it's ironic to see these comments coming from you, out of all. I have been editing Wikipedia for three years, for your information. I think you should double-check your allegations and personal attacks. 123.211.72.15114:28, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
Your exact location matches with the banned Strider11's [19][20][21][22] so under no circumstances can you and these mentioned accounts be used by someone different than you. According to what I was told you are in total control of all Wikipedia pages that involve Pakistan and patrolling all the significant Pakistani images. You blame others as sockpuppets but you yourself are a professional #1 sockmaster who has dozens of blocked evading socks and probably many actives ones. I really don't care about Wikipedia. Checking how many accounts you are using here will be a good idea I suppose so I can see if you're not a serial copyright infringer because that will make my work a lot easier. Even your very mentioning of my name at the very top was your attemp to get me in trouble here so then you can carry on with your normal activities of uploading any image you get to like. Uploading copyrighted images to Commons is theft and the authors/owners can easily see who did what with our history that we leave behind here and then sue us or even Commons, therefore putting this project in jeopardy because it is in America and the government takes matters that concern copyright violation very serious these days. A poor woman in America got arrested recently and penalized millions of dollars because she downloaded illegal music downloads, even though this is something almost everyone do. Pics is the same and it's becoming a business today, if you like someone's photos that you find online you must pay for a copies of them, but, when you upload them here illegally without the author's permission then that person cannot make money because it becomes free to everyone, one determined person can get lawyers involved and then they go after the infringer.--Officer (talk) 17:19, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
He has reasonable concerns on a number of images. My only issue was the use of inappropriate tags and the resulting speedy deletions, rather than going through regular DRs (when the concerns get documented, and debated, and further information may come to light). Images with no publication history at all are tough; even though they were obviously taken in the 1940s or before, they are not actually public domain unless also published in the same time frame (likely in many cases but not definite). In India, publication is defined as "means making a work available to the public by issue of copies or by communicating the work to the public", so if these were known photos back in the day, they are fine. Unfortunately provenance is almost always lost, which makes the copyright status very hard to determine. Determination can be worse if, for example, photos were taken by foreign journalists and published in other countries. This stuff is not easy, which is why they really should not be speedy deletions, but in most cases brought up there are at least grounds for a discussion. More modern Indian/Pakistan images are a lot easier to prove as copyright violations, and perhaps you intended him to concentrate on those, but there are potential issues with some of these. It may be that in the end, others feel that given the nature of some of the photos that they were likely enough published at the time, but regular DRs on them are legitimate. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:08, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
I have had categories I started suddenly have the elements I added to them hijacked by some
other contributor, who felt a different category name was a better choice.
A serious weakness of categories, in the current implementation of the wikimedia software, is that they have no history mechanism that can show what the previous elements were. When someone hijacks the elements in a category, leaving it empty, it is at serious risk of having an administrator delete it, just because it was empty.
Of course, if someone thinks a category could be under a better name they should initiate a discussion. I'd never claim my judgment was always correct -- but I want to be able to voice my opinion. Sometimes I don't get a chance, because some administrator will delete the category I started, that, in my opinion, has the correct name, because it is currently empty.
I don't re-hijack the elements back into the original category. Maybe I should though, as I have had yet another category deleted, after having its contents hijacked, even though I had initiated a discussion about which name was appropriate.
Just add a field to the file page for "key words". Then have intelligent search check there (and the name and description). Having the field will prompt people to put some identifiers down though. Then just use intelligent search to find what someone is looking for. This is 2011...71.246.144.15405:22, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
Are there any patterns? A particular user, or a particular way you're naming categories which people don't like? If not, I don't know any solution besides having a discussion somewhere when an issue arises, and if the consensus is for your original name, to recreate the original category. Rd232 (talk) 15:18, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
I would suggest adding back the old category name to the files, without removing the new proposed category, simultaneous with initiating a discussion of which to keep. Dankarl (talk) 15:39, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
No particular user. If I were to generalize about patterns I would say that we are all vulnerable to w:shibboleths, and about half the replacement categories I have encountered have been due to shibboleths -- Local usages that seemed universal to those favoring it. Geo Swan (talk) 06:22, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
There might be scope then for improving guidance on category naming. Possibly also we could do something like create a script which adds a "move" tab to categories, which gives a popup dialog with various options on what to do (send to COM:CFD, tag with {{Category redirect}}, tag with {{Move}}) and provides helpful links to Commons:Rename a category etc. The current lack of a 'move' tab makes it a bit easier for users to just do what they think is best. Rd232 (talk) 15:03, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
To me the only working solution was - clearing the watchlist. I used to have 10 to 100 category changes each day, and many were of "empty category deleted" kind - that is, someone emptied the categories, marked it {{Speedy}}, and did not leave the redirect. Sysops like Fastily delete such categories even when there's an explicit call to keep {{Category redirect}}. There's no way around it (call it vandalism or a quest for perfection), - just forget it and concentrate on content. NVO (talk) 19:52, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
Happens all the time and is getting worse as the delinker is not working half of the time, move requests are only honoured after months and cat-a-lot facilitate moves for normal users. {{Ex: user:Tm. Adding move tabs will only get it worse. Having the cat on your watchlist does not help; only when it is deleted. --Foroa (talk) 20:13, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
In theory a move tab could make it worse, if it's just "you want to move this category? here's how!" But I envisage a design of move tab which presents those options along with some guidance notes and links to the relevant policies, and encourages discussion. This would certainly be better than the status quo, where use of Cat-a-lot makes immediate, dramatic category moves fairly easy. Remember, the move tab script could ensure that a note is left on the category talk page, which would make the proposed-move issue appear on watchlists. Rd232 (talk) 12:02, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
All in all, this might be an improvement indeed as I suggested already several years ago (all users should have delete and move (guiding) tabs on all items), but this will not solve the basic problem. Before deleting such empty categories, I tend to search (tab "not in category" is quite efficient) the new category for the edit summary unless the category name is completely wrong. --Foroa (talk) 15:17, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
I've made User:Rd232/Catmove and User:Rd232/Filemove as first drafts of what a 'move tab' script might offer the user as choices. For categories, in theory the script could execute the move immediately using cat-a-lot code, but I think it best not to offer that. The other options allow more time for thought and feedback, and that's what we want to encourage. (Plus having those edits made via bot rather than by the user makes it somewhat easier to look through the user's contributions, if there's any reason to.) I do think people end up using the cat-a-lot route not just because it's quick but because it's pretty easy; so the answer is to make the preferred options easier. Rd232 (talk) 18:36, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
Hello from Greece:) Please delete the file "Roka (roquette) in garden bed" as it is wrongly named. Unfortunately I do not yet know the correct name of the pictured plant. When I find out, I promise to upload the file anew with its correct name. Thank you very much!--Saintfevrier (talk) 10:49, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
We host some images of female boxers (boxeuse in french), but - as to my search - we have no special category for these women. Currently they are put, as their male colleagues, into cat:boxers from country. Should we create a cat Female boxers? --Túrelio (talk) 13:59, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
Audio Files Uploads : is there a limited size for free material?
Hello, I've just uploaded a free audio file (.ogg) for the first time and managed to do it for a 1:30 file but not for more longer sizes: is there a limit for their size ?
And I cannot find my new uploaded file when I search it by its Title in WikiCommons...
Kaluvau (talk) 15:03, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
I have the same problem in Firefox 7.0.1 and Safari 3.2.1, But it works fine in IE 6.0. I am not sure how to fix it.--Jarekt (talk) 16:47, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
As we already briefly discussed here or here "Extension:Babel is now live on all WMF projects. It is intended to replace the extensive ecosystem of {{Babel}} templates. Usage: eg {{#babel:nl|en-4|de-2|fr-1}}." As it was pointed out , here and here, current version of the {{#babel:...}} function does not use localized messages on top and bottom of the box. This problem was reported at Bugzilla bugzilla:27793 and a new flag will be added "$wgBabelUseUserLanguage" to allow some Wikipedia allow localized messages. Unless there is any opposition I will follow advice from comment #11 of bugzilla:27793 and "file a new bug asking that $wgBabelUseUserLanguage be set to true for Commons". That will allow {{#babel:...}} function to behave like our current {{Babel}} template. --Jarekt (talk) 15:39, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
It's not necessary to set up categories; the configuration for Commons makes use of existing categories. And the local templates can stay for those not aware of the new extension, without forcing everyone to make use of it. {{Babel}} could be adjusted to call the extension instead, however. – Adrignolatalk16:08, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
In the current system User:Babel AutoCreate creates new categories as needed using MediaWiki:Babel-autocreate-text-levels and MediaWiki:Babel-autocreate-text-main messages. The user (which is not controlled by anybody?) was initially not working properly (see here) and was blocked until fixed. Recently the code was updated (see here) and I unblocked it and I am monitoring its edits (so far one). I think in the near future the local user language templates should stay - {{Babel}} has much more tweak-able parameters and will be hard to fully retire. However I assume that we will not need new user language templates and might stop maintenance, upgrades and improvements to them. Probably in the few years we can retire them. I also like the idea of {{Babel}} calling {{#babel:...}} function for simple cases. however we will have to make sure that this do not change template behavior. --Jarekt (talk) 15:07, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
Both paintings are by Gabriele Münter († 1962), and neither had any license template. I added {{PD-art|PD-US}} but since these are not even U.S. works, I doubt if we can keep them at all. The "BrooklynMuseumBot" uploaded 200 images from this Museum, but as fas as I can see none of them have a license tag (while the "no known restrictions" tag from the Museum is not sufficient at all). I think this should be addressed before any more pictures are uploaded. --FA2010 (talk) 10:08, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
The tag sounds like it means they believe there is no copyright in the U.S., so it's basically equivalent to PD-US, and it qualifies as a license tag for me. It's the same phrase the U.S. Library of Congress uses. Much like the Library of Congress (and NARA) though, there could be issues with foreign works since they would not take foreign copyright law into account when making that determination. These two paintings appear to be PD-1923 from a U.S. point of view but still copyrighted from a German point of view, so yes, I think they need to go. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:25, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
They are both OK on their own, but it is highly preferable to augment them with other tags if we think that is the rationale. I never got around to implementing this, but at one point I suggested that the underling tag should be passed as an argument to these tags, defaulting to PD-US (since that is the law they are really considering). However, reason #3 and #4 of the Flickr tag is in fact its own license (and the Brooklyn Museum may have images which need a similar rationale, if they upload photos taken by them); in those cases an underlying tag should not be displayed. It was discussed a lot at Commons:Deletion requests/Template:Flickr-no known copyright restrictions without a true consensus. Both could be improved, so that foreign users get better guidance on if they could use it, but are still OK to me as-is. And they could be examined for foreign works too. These images could be moved to en-wiki, actually, instead of being straight-up deleted. Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:12, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
Copyrighted work licensed for use by a US Government publication
OTRS#2011110110010212 points out that there may be a problem with File:Cytotoxic T cell.jpg. It's a derivative work of http://www.niaid.nih.gov/topics/immuneSystem/Pages/tCellImages.aspx#killercells. The NIH publication is clearly a work of the US Government, but the image credit states "All artwork is by Jeanne Kelly and may not be repurposed." This would seem to me to indicate that the artwork was copyrighted work by Kelly that was licensed to the NIH for use in this document, rather than being a work of the government that is in the Public Domain. Complicating matters is that the file on Commons is not an exact duplicate of Kelly's image, but contains significant enhancements. Hence, I'm not quite sure how to handle this. Delete the image and its derivatives? Keep per User:DO11.10's reworking? Something else?--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:10, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
If this is the only affected image, just nominate it for deletion and explain the situation therein. If there are more, nominate all affected images for deletion using the mass deletion nomination procedure. Add a link here when you're done. I anticipate that this and similar images will be deleted. Dcoetzee (talk) 17:27, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
A travelling POTY pictures exhibition to start in Warsaw
Dear Commonsers,
I am delighted to announce that Wikimedia Polska, the Polish chapter of the WMF, is organising a travelling exhibition of the winning POTY contest pictures. 16 images chosen by Wikimedians from all over the world in the annual POTY contests from 2006 onwards are going to be shown at exhibitions in various places around Poland.
Our first stop is Przystanek Książka (a Polish wordplay for "Book Break"), a media library of the Public Library of the district of Ochota in Warsaw. The exhibition starts on Monday, November 28, and will remain until the end of the year. 16 pictures, the best of the best of the Wikimedia movement, will be shown in an exhibition open for the public, with descriptions available in Polish, English and German.
For those of you currently living in Warsaw or going to visit the capital in the upcoming weeks: the library is located at 42 Grójecka Street, just four tram stops (and 8 minutes) away from the Warsaw Central railway station (tram lines "9" and "25"), and is open on working days from 10 AM until 7 PM (2 PM-7 PM on Wednesdays).
We hope to have a great event, and even if you can't visit the exhibition, please keep your fingers crossed that it goes well, and spread the news!
As you might know the Wikimedia Foundation publishes a "Report Card" every month. The September report card is really interesting for Commons
Content: 11.3 million Binary Files. You can really see the increase of tiff files here. I'm not sure when tiff rendering was introduced, but I do know that a lot of batch uploads contain tiff files (for example NARA)
Community: 16,405 New Editors Per Month for All Wikimedia Projects. You can see a huge increase of new editors at Commons. I blame Wiki Loves Monuments for this . I hope we can keep a lot of these new editors on board.
Community: 92,781 Active Wikimedia Editors for All Wikimedia Projects (5+ edits per month). Also an increase here. We passed the German Wikipedia making Commons the second largest community (after the English Wikipedia).
Community: 12,202 Very Active Editors for All Wikimedia Projects (100+ edits per month) . Also second here. I wonder if we can keep this up.
There have been many new uploaders indeed, but almost none feel concerned about categorisation (I see only 1 or 2 in my area). The wiki loves monument action put a high burden on categorisation people to get primary basic categorisations (often by using Cat-a-lot moves) and ID corrections done, but the deeper categorisation does not really follow. In the mean time, I see in User:Multichill/Categorization stats that the "to be categorised/checked" list has grown with 20 % to 360000 last 3 months, so I am wondering if there is a relation. --Foroa (talk) 07:37, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
November 22
What does "Cat:People from <fooville>" mean?
Is this interpreted as "from" (originated from there) or "once lived there" or even "is strongly associated with" ? Note that we also have some categories for "Cat:Residents of <fooville>", but this is in relation to those that clearly state "from".
I'm not aware of a convention but it seems Category:Carl Schurz is not unusual, in being listed as "from" various places far apart, for various reasons. If we specificually wanted birthplaces, we would make birthplace cats and whatever else. Jim.henderson (talk) 20:49, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
Those are rather imprecise categories and I think all 3 interpretations are fine. Unfortunately that means that some people can be "from" few dozen places. I would use such categories as "famous one-time residents whose contributions are somehow associated with the city". --Jarekt (talk) 20:55, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
I agree as well. It's a bit imprecise, but that's OK. We don't need to make a long series of categories for different possible associations with each town, city, or country in the world. I tend to use it for a place where someone was born, where they spent a large portion of their childhood and youth, or where they lived and accomplished something notable. I also tend to annotate for the benefit of other editors, viz.: [[Category:People from Bavaria <!-- born there -->]] [[Category:People from Seattle <!-- career there -->]]. - Jmabel ! talk22:23, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
This is one of many weaknesses of the ill-defined Commons category scheme. FWIW, en.wp [usually more well-defined, so a useful reference, whether we agree with it or not] on this subject interprets "People from..." as notable residence, and says birthplace is usually not notable: Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(categories)#Residence. Unfortunately, "people from" is an elastic concept. It might be better to have "People born in..." and "People associated with..." - but given that "people from" is (a) a common expression and (b) well established on Commons, I'm not sure whether that's possible. Rd232 (talk) 12:00, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
yes, that was the right link, thanks. I'm not sure that Commons:Category scheme People is necessarily better; en.wp also mixes "of" and "from", using "of" for eg Category:People of Canadian descent. Commons' mixing of "of" and "from" is another way to handle the issue, but the definitional vagueness remains. Rd232 (talk) 16:12, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
per Commons:Category_scheme_People#Categories_for_specific_persons, that talks about "from" as Category:Physicians from South Africa rather than "People from". This has (IMHO) some implicit meaning for physicians as the narrower "the place where their physicing comes from" (where they do it, or where they trained), which I would suggest does map to birthplace, not just residence, for the "People from...".
"From" has a bounded sense of time about it: it's something that happened in the past, presumably its instigation. After all, if we want "residents of", we can just use Category:Residents of.... 80.195.69.19708:40, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
I uploaded a number of PNG black and white woodcuts from this text. For some of them, they were too large for PNG, and as such will not thumbnail properly. I've replaced most of them with new versions with "small" appended. Please delete all of the nondisplaying images in that category. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 23:17, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
Goodness no ;-) We want the higher-resolution versions; they are preferable for further work. We often make a JPEG version from the too-big PNG, and use that for display on articles (such images would be tagged with {{JPEG version of PNG}} so that image editors know to start with the PNG version, and the PNG is tagged with {{PNG with JPEG version}} so that people know the image to use in articles). Or, upload smaller versions like you did, and add {{LargePNG}} to the big version, with a link to the smaller one, and {{LargePNGthumb}} to the smaller one. In a similar vein, we often upload too-big-to-display TIFF files as archival source versions, and there are similar templates for them. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:46, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
November 26
Journal de Bruxelles nr 76
I have added 5 images of the "Journal de Bruxelles nr 76". This is a 7 december 1799, french revolution propaganda newspaper published in occupied Brussels. These are in the category: Journal de Bruxelles nr 76. There are a lot news dispatchtes from a lot of European places. I stil need to categorise individual pages, with the local history categories. There are also Generals and other people in the text to classify. Help is appreciated. Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:23, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
To make the document really accessible the text needs to be put in a readable digital form. This wil enable search engines to acces the materiaal. Unfortunately de the OCR programs dont work very wel on sloppy printing work with old style letters. I am afraid it is hands-on work. The next question is where to put the text? In the commons in the file article or in wikisource? Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:23, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
are external, non-wiki sites permitted to link to media in commons?
Are external, non-wiki sites permitted to link to media in commons? In other words, can I use commons.wikimedia as the image server for my own website? I would assume that the answer is 'No', that I must serve the images from my own host, but since I can't find where it is expressly forbidden I thought I should ask.
There are thousands of misspelled and non-existent categories showing up in the selection when one is using the Upload Wizard. Are there an admin group that manages these? Is there a way to get rid of them? How could I volunteer as a user to remove them? Ineuw talk page on en.ws 06:13, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
I think part of the problem is that there isn't anyone managing these, it's all ad hoc. Actually, maybe a real solution to this is to create a way of hiding such categories from the Upload Wizard (and some other places where they're not needed), and keep them just as {{Category redirect}}s for when someone goes directly to the page. I'm not immediately sure how to do this; COM:HIDDENCAT might work, at the expense of widening what that's used for? As for "non-existent" categories - that has to be a bug, doesn't it? Rd232 (talk) 07:22, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
I don't see any point in keeping misspelled or empty categories. I saw in the list categories spelled 3 to four ways. Just get rid of those and all empties. If people need them, recreate them. Why hold on to them and make work more difficult?Ineuw talk page on en.ws 07:48, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
Someone asked this good question on the Commons:Bistro#Rotation (French-language Village pump): Why is the same file displayed in two different orientations depending if it has a fixed-size parameter or a thumb parameter?
Old upload (2011-06-20 - before MediaWiki's 1.18 update) → the thumbs (in the server caches) which were already generated before 1.18 do not have autorotation applied. The thumbs which are freshly generated are generated by the current software → autorotation applied. The "usual" sizes are old - the unusual ones are fresh. No relation with thumb or not thumb - just the requested image size matters. When you have finished looking use RotateLink to request a rotation. There is no bug report on this as it is not really a bug. We could theoretically purge all files - then all thumb sizes (of files with wrong EXIF rotation information like this one) would be wrong. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 02:50, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
I am quite concerned with the image rotation issue. I suspect that a LOT of images we are currently hosting have correct rotation but incorrect EXIF tags with witch we will be dealing one by one for the years to come. I wish there was some automatic way of cleaning incorrect EXIF tags. Also I consider this new update to be a cure to a minor problem that causes side-effects much worse than the original issue. --Jarekt (talk) 14:42, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
Well the problem originates (as I understand it) with EXIF data not being updated by software rotating the image before it is uploaded. Presumably these are typically cases where the camera is held at 90 one way or the other, and the EXIF will record that (eg File:Budd. albiflora.jpg). So... couldn't a bot categorise images that have such EXIF data in an appropriate category? Then all the (likely) problem images would be in one place, the category could have a note explaining the issue, and it would be a workable backlog instead of a vague problem. Rd232 (talk) 15:54, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
The vast majority of images which contain an EXIF rotation tag AND which were uploaded before 1.18 are wrong, yes. Not all - some were uploaded before 1.18 containing a correct EXIF rotation but just were abandoned - now they show up correctly (although they could need a purge due to pre-1.18 thumbnails.
We could make a maintenance category of this and then fix them with rotatebot (the tagging could be done with RotateLink or other batch tools (if the operator knows what he is doing). Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 16:57, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
Yes, I assumed some of those cases would not need rotating; they can just be removed from the category. What batch tools are there to allow quickly tagging lots of files for rotation-fixing? Rd232 (talk) 17:30, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
I like the idea of creating a category with all the images with rotate EXIF data. That would allow us to gauge the magnitude of the problem. Although at the moment I am not sure how to find such images. Problem with Rotating them by a bot, (which by the way I think is a great tool) is that rotated images (or images with EXIF cleanup) are reuploded by the bot and disappear from user upload lists. For example File:Budd. albiflora.jpg is no longer in Special:ListFiles/Ptelea. I assume that all the future deletion requests and similar communication will go to User talk:Rotatebot instead of pages of the uploaders (?). Also in the worst case we might have large fraction of portrait images with this problem, if all those images need reupload than we will be wasting a lot of disc space. --Jarekt (talk) 17:46, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
I don't see any realistic solutions for that which can be implemented on a useful timescale. It's worth pointing out that the Gallery tool, linked from ListFiles, doesn't have the same problem; eg it lists File:Budd. albiflora.jpg on page 2 for Ptelea. (The tool has options to show/hide such overwritten uploads; by default it shows them.) This is one reason I wanted the Gallery tool as the default link for MyUploads. It's just so much better.... Rd232 (talk) 20:11, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
Even if someone could it call forum-spamming: Gallery tool because it is not linked from all interfaces (only en and de). Concerning the notification scripts: No worries. Some notify all uploaders and some the first uploader. -- RE rillkequestions?20:57, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
Do we need that link to remain on pictures forever ? Should we not have a means to delete that link after one has checked that the orientation of a picture is OK ? I think it is strange that a maintenance tool should remain displayed forever in such a conspicuous place, just below the picture, close to useful descriptive information such as the file size. Teofilo (talk) 22:52, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
Well, it is at this unusual location to make people see it (so they are able to correct images - only few people did know Rotatebot before). Maybe we can move it to the toolbox at some time. Not now, I would say.
Also note, that only logged-in users see it. And: every user can easily switch it off or only show it for some images. See RotateLink (accessible also via the ? link in the popup). Yes, we could also add all checked pictures to a category Category:orientation okay and do not display the link for those images. However, this is way too much overhead in my point of view. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 00:10, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
Assuming that every picture is wrong and needs a rotation like this tool is assuming, is, in my view, wrong. Commons should remain a wiki. A wiki is a place where you can forget the older version that was wrong as soon as you have corrected the problem and edited a new better version. Also we are facing here the ugly habit people have on Commons to dump image description pages with useless gadgets only a very small number of people actually use. Some time ago it was the image annotator tool. Now this one. Will that never end ? Teofilo (talk) 21:39, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
I somehow agree. Give a note to all users «hey, we changed something on the software, please check your uploads if something is wrong with oriantion, for a short time we have enabled a tool that makes it easy to correct such problems». Wait two or three weeks, remove the tool and allow people to enable it again in their preferences if they need to work with it. From my point of view rotating images is one of the least important tasks, but it is most prominently linked on file descriptions. --Martin H. (talk) 21:47, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
Does the need to fix the EXIF on badly-rotated files not apply to new uploads? And the link is small and the toolbox overloaded by various gadgets - I'm not in any hurry to get rid of it myself. Rd232 (talk) 21:58, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
Early usability mock-ups: rename in drop-down 'Edit' button
Maybe, especially if we have a nice "rename" script that applies the relevant templates (after briefly explaining the options and policies in a popup dialog - see User:Rd232/Filemove and User:Rd232/Catmove for some ideas on that theme). For the rotate issue specifically, it's actually discussed above at #Image_orientation to create a maintenance category for all potentially affected images. The rotate link could then change prominence or location on files in that category. Rd232 (talk) 02:24, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
Do what ever you want with the link. I have no strong opinion regarding to this link and I don't need it. But I was tired to see the newbie's questions and lossy rotations. I can make it non-default immediately. If we put it in the tabbar-cycler, we can remove it. No one will have a look there if he/she wants to get his/her image rotated. Finally popular picture viewer put such buttons below the image, too so I thought it would be most intuitive. -- RE rillkequestions?10:37, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
I've recently been in contact with Robert Webb, the creator of the Stella software, to clarify on the licensing templates en:Template:Stella4D and en:Template:Great Stella whether the {{attribution}} statement is correct or whether the full terms of CC-BY-SA-3.0 are intended. In the course of that discussion, he pointed out to me that File:Schlegel wireframe 120-cell.png does not contain the attribution statement he requires; it appears CommonsHelper lost the attribution during transfer. This can be fixed by using the Commons versions of the above-mentioned templates, but someone will need to check the rest of the images to fix any that have the same problem. Thanks for your prompt attention to this matter. Anomie (talk) 16:44, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
This is a known bug in Mediawiki thumbnail generator with CMYK images (etc. conflicting information in EXIF and ICC metadata on the color profile: Bugzilla: 24854). MKFI (talk) 11:56, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
We regret the inconvenience. Could you help us and provide the text of the error message? Was the word "server" or API included in the error-message? Thank you. -- RE rillkequestions?13:31, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
I just made a test-renaming to visualise the message. Here you have a copy of the error message:
An error occurred while trying to do the requested action. A detailed description of the error is shown below: API request returned code 504 errorError code is Gateway Time-out Report the error here.
I am able to check my en.wp contribution, and by chance I know that I was able to check it in the morning (I am on CET time I guess as you are). This means the problem is either with the particular tool, or on your side.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:32, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
Thanks. It seems to be a specific problem of IE (8). Likely caused by the usual hate of the open-source mafia against MS products, ;-). --Túrelio (talk) 15:58, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
I cannot access the TS - but this is due to DNS problems (apparently on Arcor/Vodafone's side (my ISP) since others can access. --Saibo (Δ) 01:42, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
Unlikely to be the cause, as I also use Arcor and have no problem when using Opera, but 100% problem when using IE (8). --Túrelio (talk) 07:33, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
True, my Opera is in Turbo mode, whatever that means. In between, I've checked with Google-Chrome, same problem - all using the same ISP. --Túrelio (talk) 11:54, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
Opera's Turbo mode uses an Opera operated proxy server (and consequently/apparently the DNS of Opera, too). Therefore a query to toolserver.org with Opera turbo doesn't use your DNS to lookup the IP of toolserver.org. Since the problem prevails I have put in the openDNS DNS servers 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220 in my router. Works too. I have not noticed problems with other servers than Toolserver, though. Btw: I think we should move this thread to COM:VP (that isn't really admin related) ;-) --Saibo (Δ) 19:16, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
Hi, maybe this suggestion has been made before, but I wonder if it's possible to add a button on videos embedded into Wikipedia to watch them on full screen size. Currently, if you want to watch a video in wikipedia at a bigger size than "thumb", it's necessary to open the video, maybe on another tab but still leaving the wikipedia's article. Maybe just putting a button next to the volume button would be nice. Thanks. --UAwiki (talk) 07:14, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
I use Internet Explorer 8 on Windows 7, and I have no problem following the links to the description page right to the file page on commons File:Lt. Governor Joseph Garcia (cropped).jpg. I tried both following the links from the article page via the picture to the en file page, and directly via the en file page. I am not a techie concerning browsers and I have no clue why you are experiencing this problem. --Slaunger (talk) 13:02, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
I see where the problem arises. The link when I clicked on the text "description page there" is http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lt._Governor_Joseph_Garcia_(cropped).jpg. That is correct. But apparently when I click on it it changes to the address without the brackes and an underscore before the .jpg, thus File:Lt._Governor_Joseph_Garcia_cropped_.jpg. It also adds a number (each time a different number). Wouter (talk) 13:23, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
It is the XSS protection of NoScript which in this case produced a false positive - probably due to the () in the file name. After a page was blocked you see a banner on top of the page, click its button and select unsafe reload if you think that the link you've just clicked is not malicious (the URL to be loaded will be displayed in a pop up).
If you wonder why a script or gadget does not work, please note that there is an API service disruption. You will receive error messages or just nothing happens but you do not get the results you expect. -- RE rillkequestions?14:20, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
I want to create a similar category (If we haven't got already, of course). Does title sounds fine? Better: "Images to be replaced with color version"? Any suggestion? Thanks--Pierpao.lo (listening)05:50, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
FlickreviewR seems to have stopped operations as of 02:15, 24 November 2011 (UTC). Might this be related to the toolserver issues above? Jappalang (talk) 00:55, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
It's again only partialy working: Sometimes it reviews only one image per hour and sometimes several. Is the toolserver acting up again? 400+ files are awaiting review. --Denniss (talk) 01:46, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
While most of en:wikipedia seems to remain available, En:Peter Klashorst makes our firewall return an error (Access Denied (policy_denied) ). That's progress. Curious to see when this will generalise. --Foroa (talk) 08:58, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
Just for information: the Proxy products from Blue Coat, licensed by many companies and countries (Syria ?) to do content filtering (blocking). The annoying thing is that they start to filter at the article level, so who is setting the "adult" bit ? --Foroa (talk) 07:46, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
en:Blue Coat Systems - possibly in use, but not licensed by, Syria. By the sound of it each enterprise user would do their own setup? Anyway I do think en.wp should be notified, not least so that people may know what the error's about. Rd232 (talk) 08:14, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
As far as I can see, their proxySG is licensed and run by the client. Clients can define their filtering policy (categories) and add items to the white and/or black list. Blue Coat maintains and dispatches its filtering database, just like virus detection systems. No idea about their free K9 Web Proxy. Feel free to inform en: or meta:wiki. --Foroa (talk) 09:55, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
OK. Well it turns out their Sitereview shows the https: version of En:Peter Klashorst as "reference", which is probably the case for Wikipedia generally, while the http: version is classed as "nudity". This is technically correct given Blue Coat's definition of the category ([23]), given the gallery at the bottom of the article. Rd232 (talk) 12:42, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
Does Commons have the equivalent of WikiProjects? If so,
Does it have a project about the United States yet? If it doesn't exist, how would I create it?
WhisperToMe (talk) 22:37, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
When I try to use a location category for File:Cristalisetb12 tcl croixroussenord.jpg I hit a problem. The Lyon city is divided in numeric districts 1 to 8. The bus terminal is on the edge of "Lyon 4e". I suspect it is called localy Croix-Rousse Nord. Should I create a Croix-Rousse-Nord category or "Lyon district 4"? It is messy whatever way you look at it. Numeric districts are for most visitors meaningless. Other place names such as Croix-Rousse or Vieux-Lyon are ill defined.Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:48, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
I wonder how it is or is not working to remove images because I was looking at the page of requests for removal and more than 1,700 images, only to be removed in November and October there are still 252 to be deleted.
It is not a criticism, I'm just trying to understand what is happening, or if it is normal in these days. Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton (talk) 12:34, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
Yes, that's about the usual. Anyone can nominate for deletion; a small group actually close the discussions, so there tends to be a backlog. - Jmabel ! talk23:19, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
Comment: Because users like me could disagree. It is really a minor and while it is not "nice", I see on the other hand a lot of edits that only improve the pages a bit. If you would be familiar with our bot-approval process, you would be happy to see a bot running one week after the request was filed. Before you are going to make changes, please investigate whether there are other problems. I see no reason to hurry. -- RE rillke questions? 16:28, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
Fixed grabbed the image from Flickr and remove script code. (losslessy) -- RE rillke questions? 15:59, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
Done Yes, having categories or tags for statistics would be nice. currently we have 11 "custom licensed" files. But ASA the template is removed by whomever the information is gone. Since we have (and probably will not have) no review process I think it would be best if the template just contains a hidden category. That way it gets not removed too early. If we decide one day that we want to clean up all file pages we can run a bot to kill it everywhere. But having not really useful clutter on the file page (and a uploader who is, maybe, waiting for his file to be reviewed is not useful).
This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Saibo (Δ) 15:19, 18 November 2011 (UTC) 
, instead of the image, which is no use to me: this requirement is for passing 
vs 
P.S. See File:Wernigeroder Wappenbuch 010.jpg for a somewhat lengthy image description page which could not really be significantly further shortened by linking to Wikipedia articles... -- AnonMoos (talk) 20:46, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
![[5]](http://www.martiniplaza.nl/img/logo.png){kind=link}
.jpg&action=edit&redlink=1){kind=link}
![[12]](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fortress_of_Rogoi_2.jpg){kind=link}
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![[16]](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Quaid_passport_burhan.jpg){kind=link}
_in_garden_bed.jpg){kind=link}
_-_Gabriele_M%C3%BCnter.jpg&action=edit&redlink=1){kind=link}
_-_Gabriele_M%C3%BCnter.jpg&action=edit&redlink=1){kind=link}
. I hope we can keep a lot of these new editors on board.
.jpg){kind=link}
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