Commons:Village pump/Archive/2012/06

CC License templates trouble

The CC-BY-SA License templates that we use for publishing our images, they contain only two terms of use: 1) attribution, to show the author's name, 2) same license, to keep the license terms. The templates skip that reuser of media has to show the license title and link. I think it will be better to fix the license templates and to underline this legal condition. I've seen the situations when people don't care to show the license title and link.--PereslavlFoto (talk) 14:58, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

• I strongly agree. - Jmabel ! talk 15:31, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

The creative commons general page on the license doesn't mention it either, which is probably why we don't. But, it is a requirement. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:35, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

• I strongly agree too. Some time ago, one of my pictures was used in a Book: They mentioned my username and that the pic was from Wikipedia, but they did not mention the license (there were more photographs from other users too, all without license). This case is consistent with what can often be observed on the web: People credit the author (and Wikipedia, though they don't need to) but fail to mention the license. Probably because they simply don't know because virtually nobody reads the fulltext version of the license. --El Grafo (talk) 13:18, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
• I'd guess the reason why this isn't pointed out more explicitly is the fact that this template is more or less an adaption of Creative Commons' Deed page. That one does mention the "show license" condition now (as far as I remember it didn't in the past), however it's hidden in a small "Notice" at the bottom. That alienated me and made me take a look into the legal code, which definitely requires that "[y]ou must include a copy of, or the Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) for, this License with every copy of the Work You Distribute or Publicly Perform". So I agree with you, but also think that Creative Commons itself should show that condition more prominently. --F30 (talk) 10:43, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
• Support I have not thought about this before but I assumed that things worked this way. Why would they not? Yes, add a way to find the license or keeping the license terms makes no sense. Blue Rasberry (talk) 00:26, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Can't Upload New Images

For the past few days, every time I try to upload a new file, the upload wizard window will open but the contents never come up. The rotating timer in the center just continues to spin without opening anything up. I've logged out of commons and then back in, and I've rebooted a couple of times but nothing is working. I'm not getting an option to go to the old uploading system, either. This is only the case for uploading new files. I can still upload revisions to existing files. Please advise.--Glasshouse (talk) 12:38, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Are you using Safari? If so, you're likely hitting this bug. Another browser should work, and we'll aim to deploy a fix for Safari later this week.--Eloquence (talk) 21:24, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

No, I'm using Internet Explorer 8--Glasshouse (talk) 00:36, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Hm, I tested it yesterday with IE8 and didn't experience any issues; however, I saw a JavaScript issue in IE7 which will be fixed once this change is deployed. Can you give me the exact Internet Explorer version number (usually under Help|About), and also try visiting Upload Wizard from this URL and report any JavaScript errors?--Eloquence (talk) 16:45, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

I have got the same problem as mentioned above: The rotating timer in the center just continues to spin without opening anything up. --Grentidez (talk) 20:35, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm using Explorer 8.0.6001.18702--Glasshouse (talk) 01:10, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

We just deployed the fix for IE7, see if that makes a difference for you. I'm still not able to reproduce any issues with IE8. I'd appreciate it if you could also try clearing your browser cache, and repeatedly reloading the page, to see if that makes a difference. We're likely either dealing with a specific IE bug that can be fixed, or a timing issue that'll be harder to track down. If it's a timing issue, it should happen inconsistently.--Eloquence (talk) 10:51, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Your fix worked. I tried again before cleaning my browser cache and was able to upload new images. Thank you very much.--Glasshouse (talk) 10:37, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

House in Shusha

There are two images of the same painting with conflicting descriptions: File:Armenian House in Shusha in Nagorno Karabakh, 1873, by Louis Figuier (1819-1894).jpg and File:Azerbaijani house in Shusha.jpg. The first one refers to w:Louis Figuier, who was not a painter, and clearly borrowed the images in his book from various sources. This is the picture in the book by Figuier: [1] The second one comes from Russian published collections of works by the prominent Russian artist w:Vasily Vereshchagin. A Russian collection of works by Vereshchagin's biographer published in 1896 has the same picture and describes it as a work by Vereshchagin, created in 1865, when the latter traveled to Shusha. [2] Figuier as we know never traveled to Caucasus. Also, the website created by the Russian Ministry of Culture also lists the same work as Vereshchagin's creation, described as "Hall in the house of a Tatar in Shusha" (Russians referred to all Turkic people as Tatars back then): [3] It is also interesting that Figuier often mentions in his book "Vereschaguine" and his "Journey in the Caucasian Provinces", so Figuier was aware of Vereshchagin and his works.

In addition, comparing images, one can see that Figuier's image was substantially cropped, removing at least one figure, and a large part of the ceiling. This shows that the Russian collections have the reproduction of the original. I believe in this case we have an error by Figuier, who mistakenly called a Tatar (Azerbaijani) house an Armenian one. Also, the people in the picture look like typical Muslim people of the time, see for instance File:Bek.jpg by another Russian artist. Are there any suggestions on how to resolve this conflict between the sources? --Grandmaster 07:54, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Le Tour du monde, Volumes 19-20, published in 1869, describes the same picture as "Salon d'une maison tatare, a Schoucha. Dessin de Metzmacher d'après un croquis de B.Vereschaguine": [4] So clearly Figuier made a mistake in his book, which was published 4 years later. --Grandmaster 08:37, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't think we are really in a position to resolve it unless you know how independent the sources are, but we can document it. Change the descriptions to say "Described as ... and attributed to ... by ... . But please see also ..." (fill in the blanks) and state all your sources and arguments. It would be appropriate to ask for a rename of one or both images to something along the lines of "Guest room in a House in Shusha.jpg" so that the filename isn't misleading. --Tony Wills (talk) 08:48, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I was thinking about something like that, but the problem is that Figuier is the only contemporary source to give such a description. Russian and other French sources of that period gave it a different description. Plus, the Russian Ministry of Culture is also an expert source. Therefore I think the majority view must prevail, and Figuier needs to be shown as a minority. --Grandmaster 09:03, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Well if you are fairly certain, then just modify the Figuier file as described (including rename, but don't put "Azerbaijani" in the filename). Our files aren't here just to depict the original work (the painting), but also the historic publications. The image is an accurate depiction of an illustration in his book, which apparently has a mistaken caption, so document what we know, and link the "correct" image back to the "incorrect" one (eg through "other versions"), so that other people can find all that we know about reproductions of the painting. --Tony Wills (talk) 09:41, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

I note that the Figuier book has been scanned a number of times, and is available in archive.org [5][6][7][8][9][10]. I think they are scans of different copies of the same book. If I had the time and interest I would download the large tar/zip files containing the raw tiff or JPG2 files and see if there were better copies of this and other images. I don't think a google books link is the best source link. --Tony Wills (talk) 10:27, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

The problem with Figuier's image is that it is cropped. Therefore the image from Le Tour du monde at google books is better, but I don't know if we can take the image from there and upload it here. It is supposed to be copyright free, as it was published more than 100 years ago. --Grandmaster 17:12, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

If that is how the image looked in Figuier's book, then that is fine, it serves to illustrate usage in Figuier's book, but of course doesn't illustrate the original painting very well. --Tony Wills (talk) 11:55, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

I uploaded a new version of File:Azerbaijani house in Shusha.jpg. It could be renamed, if needed. The image is from Le Tour du monde, but not from google books. --Grandmaster 17:49, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Oh! That was a bad idea :-(. The new image is certainly larger, but of far inferior quality, I think you should revert to the original version, and re-upload the new one under a different name. Commons is very happy to have multiple versions of the same thing, but it is seldom a good idea to upload anything but minor revisions over top of existing files (see Commons:Avoid overwriting existing files :-) --Tony Wills (talk) 11:55, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

But then we are going to have 3 images of the same painting. Is it good? I reverted to previous version. --Grandmaster 12:38, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that is fine, we can cope with multiple versions of the same art work, eg see Category:Mona Lisa :-) --Tony Wills (talk) 03:59, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Alright then :) Grandmaster 09:48, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Why did I get an email?

Long ago, I purposely turned email notification for talk page messages OFF. Today, I was surprised when I received an email telling me I had a talk page message here. Why the fuck did this option turn itself on? Or if a developer turned it on, then someone needs to find the idiot that did so and fire him. I DON'T WANT these emails, so don't opt me in without my permission. I believe that's called "spam", which is exactly what I will mark further emails as if this option is ever turned back on without my EXPLICIT permission. jcgoble3 (talk) 22:43, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

I gather you got one unwanted email. Have you determined whether the option you set is currently set as you meant it? Also, is it possible that the email you got was, indeed, truly spam and not actually sent by the Commons? In any case, I don't think anyone here will be bothered if you mark any inappropriate email as spam. - Jmabel ! talk 01:27, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

No, it was an actual notification alerting me to a real edit on my talk page. The timestamps match and the diff links in the email work. I checked Special:Preferences after logging in, and the box next to "E-mail me when my user talk page is changed" was checked, contrary to my previous action of unchecking it (it is now unchecked again). What I want to know is why was the box checked and who is responsible? One unwanted email is one too many. jcgoble3 (talk) 01:44, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Whatever -- depending on your chosen "skin" and the results of the process of installing various upgrades to the underlying Wikimedia software, certain preference values can sometimes be reset to default. I really would not freak out over one single e-mail. A year ago or more, my preference for a basic few-frills light edit window was reset to the default of a scripting-heavy slow-loading edit window, and I just changed it back... AnonMoos (talk) 03:54, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

I am with AnonMoos. I think it was decided to check this for all users during a previous software upgrade, because many people complain they have no way to know what is going on with their files. I can understand you’re not happy with that, but you turned it off and won’t get any email any more... Jean-Fred (talk) 06:51, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Please keep in mind that most people reading this page had nothing to do with you receiving the unwanted e-mail. Shouting and swearing at everyone here is uncalled for, won't help you with your problem, and really only reflects poorly on yourself. —LX (talk, contribs) 20:28, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

What lecherous cad is responsible for transgressing my virginal inbox‽ What villainous web of deceit and lies has entangled my reception of electronic messages so thoroughly‽ Beest thou a Nigerian Prince? Art thou, perchance, discounted Viagra? Nay, tis Wikimedia! A box unchecked‽ Treachery most foul! </melodrama> ▫ JohnnyMrNinja (talk / en) 22:04, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

I love this. Killiondude (talk) 17:07, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

AFAIR it happened during a MediaWiki software upgrade in Jan/Feb this year. I was also wondering about a notification mail despite having this turned off a long time ago. Disabled again and no more mails yet despite several more MW upgrades. No need for drama. --11:48, 1 June 2012 (UTC) User:Denniss

May 31

2-byte characters in the preview text are shown incorrectly

Somebody might be already working on this, but I have noticed that 2-byte characters (e.g., "ū", "屁") are not shown properly in the preview text before uploading. I hope this will be fixed soon. --トトト (talk) 11:30, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

I have the same problem when proposing something for deletion: if I click on the "propose for deletion" link, the automatic preview sometimes thinks that 2-byte and 3-byte UTF-8 characters are encoded as Latin-1, and so the characters become unreadable in the preview. --Stefan4 (talk) 15:18, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

I also experienced this. Now, it seems to be properly encoded. -- RE rillke questions? 21:39, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

That may well have been yet another effect of bugzilla:36839, which got fixed on 2012-05-31. Lupo 23:49, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

First World War African pictures

I uploaded File:Baron Dhanis.jpg and File:Watervliegtuigen Eerste Wereldoorlog Tanganyikameer.jpg. I use the Eu-anonymous license, but is there a more specific one for colonial Africa? It is taken by the Belgian colonial army. I mis a lot of categories. First World I Africa? Ships of Belgian Congo. I have a lot more pictures to upload. Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:54, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

File:Mortiergranaat lanceerinrichting WW I Afrika.jpg what type of mortar is this?Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:23, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

User:Rcbutcher will most probably like this material very much. --Foroa (talk) 12:47, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

source

I just added a source here. Is it good to stay? Pass a Method (talk) 18:13, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

No, it is good to delete. You can't upload magazine covers without permission from the publisher of the magazine. --Stefan4 (talk) 18:26, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

strange message

When you try to view File:Irene_Esser_Quintero,_Miss_Venezuela_2011_(15).jpg, you get "[6b6c51c2] 2012-06-01 18:42:16: Fatal exception of type MWException" (whatever that means)... AnonMoos (talk) 18:44, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Strange error. Deeplink to the file is [11], upload is in the uploaders log. I wait for now if someone wants to investigate the error. But the file will be deleted as a blatant copyvio later (bit by bit copy from e.g. here). --Martin H. (talk) 19:52, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Update on IPv6

(Apologies if this message isn't in your language. Please consider translating it, as well as the full version of this announcement on Meta)

The Wikimedia Foundation is planning to do limited testing of IPv6 on June 2-3. If there are not too many problems, we may fully enable IPv6 on World IPv6 day (June 6), and keep it enabled.

What this means for your project:

• At least on June 2-3, 2012, you may see a small number of edits from IPv6 addresses, which are in the form "2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334". See e.g. w:en:IPv6 address. These addresses should behave like any other IP address: You can leave messages on their talk pages; you can track their contributions; you can block them. (See the full version of this announcement for notes on range blocks.)

• In the mid term, some user scripts and tools will need to be adapted for IPv6.

• We suspect that IPv6 usage is going to be very low initially, meaning that abuse should be manageable, and we will assist in the monitoring of the situation.

Read the full version of this announcement on how to test the behavior of IPv6 with various tools and how to leave bug reports, and to find a fuller analysis of the implications of the IPv6 migration.

--Erik Möller, VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation 00:48, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

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Universal login

My universal login will not work on commons. Sniffing around and asking people questions for a bit and it sounds like it happens to other people too. If I log into any other mediawiki site, I'm not logged into commons. If I log into commons, I'm universally logged into other mediawiki sites. It did work way in the days gone by. Bgwhite (talk) 04:55, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

The login is handled with http cookies, which probably follow the logo images for the different sites (as the projects are in different DNS domains, they cannot share cookies). If the image link isn't there or the server has problems at that moment you won't get the cookie and thus your browser does not tell the Commons server you are logged in (without the cookie there is nothing in the page request connecting you to your logged in identity). --LPfi (talk) 18:06, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Upload date

Just wanted to know how to find out the upload date of an image in a particular website. —Vensatry _{(Ping me)} 07:02, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

From a UNIX terminal, download the image using wget URL where URL is the URL to the image. The downloaded image should get the same file modification date as it has on the server hosting the image. --Stefan4 (talk) 08:34, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

I work with windows. Is there a method available for it. —Vensatry _{(Ping me)} 17:31, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

If the URL above is in the form http:... or https:... wget uses HTTP for the transfer and should not get any information other than what a HTTP HEAD request would give (accessible by telnet, lynx or some "page info" like function of other browsers). This date can be totally wrong, but is usually deduced from the time stamp of the file. The time stamp can be correct, but may be the date of something unrelated to the upload, e.g. copying the file to a new location (depending on how the copying was done).

wget, telnet and lynx are available for Windows also, but you might want to use the "page info" functionality of your regular browser instead. Not all browsers give the full information of the head request and there may be two menu items at different places for some "more usable" and the real info. Somebody that use the same browser as you (IE? Firefox?) should be able to give more specific advice.

--LPfi (talk) 17:59, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

I use chrome. —Vensatry _{(Ping me)} 06:21, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Why do these files never update?

1. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nuevo_mapa_del_virreinato_del_rio_de_la_plata.PNG?uselang=es
2. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Captaincy_General_of_Chile_(orthographic_projection).svg

I changed the first one on May 26, and the new version never appeared in the preview neither in the articles where it liks to. Then I edited it once more on May 31, and the newer version still doesn't appear either. The second one was edited on May 26 (more than a week ago!) and it doesn't update until now. But I edited this other file YESTERDAY and the new version was visible IMMEDIATELY. So, what's wrong with the other files? Is it they are too heavy or something? Thank you in advance! Franco-eisenhower (talk) 22:48, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Picture of the Decade

Commons is closing in on its 10th anniversary which will be on 7 September 2014. I think Picture of the Decade would be a good way to celebrate it. There was some support on this on the mailing list already. This event could be organised like "WikiLoves monuments". -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 23:24, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

June 4

Can I get another set of eyes on a disputed edit?

Over at File:ОХС.jpg, I reverted an edit by User:Incnis Mrsi that was, to my judgment, nonconstructive and inappropriate in that its purpose is to belittle the uploader of the image. Incnis Mrsi has re-done his edit, with this comment, so I thought I'd ask for another set of eyes to take a look at the edit. Thanks. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 21:30, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, let us reason… if we admit that I "belittled the uploader of the image", then, certainly, Philosopher insulted me by claiming that the rewritten image description is a "inappropriate and nonconstructive edit". Could one trust a man whose action violates exactly the same ethics he claims to adhere? I do not insist on rating of this image as "one of the worst", though. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 04:59, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Philosopher's revert. -84user (talk) 23:40, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

How do I make an svg file?

I want to do so using this map:

to create a better version of this map:

since I can make a way better map. Can any one tell me how? Thanks!

ThisguyYEAH (talk) 01:11, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Try out Inkscape, it's a free vector graphics editor. InverseHypercube 01:40, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Overcategorization

I just noticed that some IP performed a wide overcategorization of some files related to history of Bulgaria. Here is example of IP editing: [12]. While this map was already categorized under "Maps of the history of Bulgaria" category, the IP also included there parent category "Bulgaria" and redirect category "Maps of history of Bulgaria" - practicaly, IP included as much as 87 files into category that was meant to be a redirect: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Maps_of_history_of_Bulgaria Is there a way that some bot revert edits of this IP automatically? PANONIAN (talk) 07:36, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Also, seems that this IP belongs to this user: [13]. PANONIAN (talk) 07:46, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

2011 Picture of the Year competition

македонски • norsk • polski

Dear Wikimedians,

Wikimedia Commons is happy to announce that the 2011 Picture of the Year competition is now open. We are interested in your opinion as to which images qualify to be the Picture of the Year 2011. Any user registered at Commons or a Wikimedia wiki SUL-related to Commons with more than 75 edits before 1 April 2012 (UTC) is welcome to vote and, of course everyone is welcome to view!

Detailed information about the contest can be found at the introductory page.

About 600 of the best of Wikimedia Common's photos, animations, movies and graphics were chosen –by the international Wikimedia Commons community– out of 12 million files during 2011 and are now called Featured Pictures.

From professional animal and plant shots to breathtaking panoramas and skylines, restorations of historically relevant images, images portraying the world's best architecture, maps, emblems, diagrams created with the most modern technology, and impressive human portraits, Commons Features Pictures of all flavors.

For your convenience, we have sorted the images into topic categories.

We regret that you receive this message in English; we intended to use banners to notify you in your native language but there was both, human and technical resistance.

See you on Commons! --Picture of the Year 2011 Committee 18:08, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

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Creative Commons

The Creative Commons license requires attribution. That is, in order for the image to be free the user must comply with all its clauses, otherwise it is void. But what happens when someone uses it and fails to comply with the attribution clause? Is the user automatically voids the protection of the license and falls into copyright infringement? Is there jurisprudence on this? --Tomascastelazo (talk) 00:58, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

To question 1: It is a copyright violation. To question 2: Yes. That's what you explained correctly in your second sentence. To question 3: I don't know. -- Asclepias (talk) 01:47, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! --Tomascastelazo (talk) 01:58, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I would say since there is a breach of the licence conditions the user has committed a copyright infringement. I'm not aware of anyone who has sued under the terms of a Creative Commons licence yet (but then I haven't done any research on the issue). If someone has made use of one of your images without proper attribution, I would suggest contacting the person and requesting that he or she do so. Usually, this solves the problem. However, if the person does nothing, then create an invoice and bill the person for the unauthorized use of the image. (Don't claim an excessive amount – you could use the prices charged by Getty Images as a guide, for example.) It is probably not worth taking the matter further than that, but if you really wanted to you could then start legal proceedings to claim the cost of using the image. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 07:51, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

There have definitely been lawsuits brought to enforce the GPL, in several countries -- but to prevent so-called "code-hoarding", not really to enforce attribution requirements... AnonMoos (talk) 16:45, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

---

The situation here is that someone downloaded one of my photograhs, created derivative work (almost exactly the same image) and is offering it for sale under his name, with no attribution. I contacted the guy and he claims that it is a free image... I told him about the attribution requirement and he now placed a small notice crediting Wikipedia on his site, but not on the image, and definitely not according to my requirements. I know that many people do not follow the attribution to the letter according to the creator´s requirement, but thay operate in good faith, so I let those go, but this guy is blatant. If there is out there a British lawyer who wants the case, let me know... I think that it is important to defend the rights that remain for the uploaders as to not to discourage participation. --Tomascastelazo (talk) 18:06, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

The Creative Commons website has a list of "CC Friendly Lawyers" that you can consult, but they are all from North America. I guess you could try contacting Creative Commons United Kingdom to find out if it can put you in touch with law firms interested in taking a pro bono case, or even the Wikimedia Foundation's general counsel Geoff Brigham. (The Foundation was recently involved in litigation in Germany.) By the way, it seems there have been a number of cases where people not complying with CC licence terms were found to be in breach of copyright. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 18:55, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

The requirement is to attribute you personally (not "Wikipedia", which is not the copyright holder), but the attribution doesn't have to be in the image itself. By the way, on several web-pages outside of Wikimedia/Wikipedia, I'm credited for public domain images I uploaded (which are of course without attribution requirements); or for images where I happen to be the uploader of the most recent file version, but I only made a slight image edit, and the real main image author is someone else -- so it seems that plenty of people are just confused about attribution requirements... AnonMoos (talk) 20:01, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

The way it works is: the license is the only document that permits others to use the work, a right that you normally have exclusive control over, unless they meet the license terms. If they use it without complying, then you have not given them permission to use the work, and they are liable for infringement. This is why content reusers do not need to all sign the license in advance for it to be effective. Dcoetzee (talk) 12:32, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

13 million files

...within the next few hours. --99of9 (talk) 15:23, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

staying tuned. --PierreSelim (talk) 17:28, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

I am out of tune but we are at 105,246,746 files. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 23:24, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Somebody should update that in the community portal.--Gauravjuvekar (talk) 17:28, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Since Somebody didn't do it, I decided I would. Time to update the translations. I'm looking at you, speakers of Breton, Luxembourgish and Spanish, whose news sections haven't been updated since 2005; Danish, Galician, Indonesian, Kazakh, Lithuanian and Norwegian (either flavour), whose news sections haven't been updated since 2006; Afrikaans, Bulgarian and Catalan (2007); Arabic, Japanese and Slovak (2008); Bengali (2009); and Azerbaijani, traditional Chinese, Interlingua, Korean and Macedonian (2010). —LX (talk, contribs) 15:51, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Isn't this a causal thing though? I mean 10 mil or 25 mil, I can see those as milestones... :) -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 02:22, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Causal? In what way?

13 million may not be a major milestone, but the translations that haven't been updated since 2007 are still excited about hitting the first million (not to mention the ones that haven't been updated since 2005 or 2006), and all of the above translations are of course missing any mention of the 10 million mark that we passed in April last year. Having no news section is better than having a news section that is half a decade out of date, because that just makes it appear (or perhaps makes it apparent) that the community is not particularly active, which is not very inspiring. —LX (talk, contribs) 14:20, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

June 5

Multiple violation copyrights

Here. Could someone delete these 11 pictures ? Totodu74 (talk) 18:48, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

 Done, user warned --Denniss (talk) 20:00, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks ! Totodu74 (talk) 09:44, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

June 8

504 Gateway Time-out - what does this mean??

Hi,

Every time I try to add a category, I get this message: "504 Gateway Time-out" and the category isn't added. What's happening? I don't understand. MathewTownsend (talk) 02:53, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

The API is down, without it a number of tools on Wikipedia and Commons will not work. Bidgee (talk) 03:30, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

ok, thanks! MathewTownsend (talk) 04:04, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Seems to be back up. I'm at least able to use Common Good to transfer files from en.wiki to Commons without any apparent errors again. — Huntster (t @ c) 04:21, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Category:Nova scotia

This is wierd. The cat page says it doesn't exist, but it has 4 images in it? Category:Nova Scotia with a cap S exists though. --Canoe1967 (talk) 15:24, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

• Someone added the images to the category (placing [[Category:Nova scotia]] on each file page) without actually creating the category (following the redlink and putting some content, such as a description or parent category, on it). One was also placed in the non-existant Category:Nova scotia buildings. I think I've fixed all of these. Thanks, cmadler (talk) 15:46, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

You are very welcome.

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Canoe1967 (talk) 15:54, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

National Park Service symbols - Usage for Commons?

Hi guys, I found a series of symbols used by the Park Service at http://www.nps.gov/hfc/carto/map-symbols.htm# - Some of them are definitely AIGA symbols. All of these should be PD, right? If so, they can be very helpful to use in Commons categories (pictographs to help illustrate concepts covered by a given category). WhisperToMe (talk) 00:33, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

"NPS symbols are free and in the public domain" it says on that page. And being available on nps.gov without any kind of copyright warning would be pretty suggestive in the first place. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:00, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Please upload them. They are good. --Jarekt (talk) 17:44, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Good - I'll go ahead and upload them :) WhisperToMe (talk) 20:25, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Hmm... I created Category:National Park Service map symbols only to find that Category:USNPS map symbols existed, and many of the symbols are already there. How should the categories be merged? WhisperToMe (talk) 21:04, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

ALA Library signs

Does anyone know the copyright status of the ALA Library sign at: http://www.ala.org/tools/libfactsheets/alalibraryfactsheet30 ? The ALA website is copyrighted, but I'm not sure if the sign itself is copyrighted. Or is it too simple to be copyrighted? WhisperToMe (talk) 00:12, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

It doesn't strike me as too simple; the standard is not very high.--Prosfilaes (talk) 09:15, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Since it was first published in 1982, you could check for copyright notice/registration. If there's no copyright notice and no registration, it's PD. (Though the 2009 laptop version is certainly copyrighted.) cmadler (talk) 11:53, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Ship categories

I transferred the discussion here on Ships categories to the discussion page of Category:Ships by name, as that is the place where the discussion has to be and goes on. --Stunteltje (talk) 13:51, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

File:RifleM4-wGrip-Small.jpg missing source

Can a WP admin check this file if it is realy the same one and add the information. I think it was uploaded around the 21st April 2004. Thx--Sanandros (talk) 13:27, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Ugh. Would rather not speedy a file that has been here 7 years; the documentation requirements were a lot different back then. But, sure has the look of an image grabbed off the web. Carl Lindberg (talk) 20:50, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Yea i know it's also possible that it was taken from a military webpage where it is also PD, but i don't know how it was back then on WP with licening.--Sanandros (talk) 08:43, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Help:Gadget-VIAFDataImporter

As some of you might have noticed, there is a new optional gadget available through my preferences: VIAFDataImporter written by User:Inductiveload. The purpose of the gadget is to allow easier an much faster addition of {{Authority control}} templates to creator templates, institution templates, categories and galleries. The purpose of {{Authority control}} templates is to uniquely identify a person or institution and to provide link to metadata about him/her/it. See Help:Gadget-VIAFDataImporter for more information. --Jarekt (talk) 03:05, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Missing thumbs for big image (jpg)

Some thumbs appear to be missing for (big) jpeg files I uploaded recently with the upload wizard.
I am not sure if it is related directly the upload wizard or not.
When trying to generate a thumb, for example with this file , it outputs the following error:

Error creating thumbnail: convert: Insufficient memory (case 4) `/mnt/upload6/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/Night_Panorama_of_the_Potsdamer_Platz_-_Berlin_-_2012-06-03_-_P1400487-P1400537.jpg' @ error/jpeg.c/EmitMessage/235.
convert: missing an image filename `/tmp/transform_4597d64-1.jpg' @ error/convert.c/ConvertImageCommand/2970.

Esby (talk) 23:39, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

uploaded a new version of the file with commonist, had the same bug. I also managed to upload a 38 mb file using commonist while keeping the thumb. Esby (talk) 09:01, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

to be precise, this file (16 069 × 4 141 - 37,91 MB) has a thumb while this one (20 000 × 3 963 38,39 MB) does not have any. Esby (talk) 09:13, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Forgot to mention I had opened a bug on bugzilla [14] Esby (talk) 14:05, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Usually this occurs with progressive encoded JPEGs. Standard/baseline encoded JPEGs can be rescaled scanline by scanline, but progressives cannot, and the standard converter requires enough memory to hold the entire image. Try resaving it with baseline encoding and similar or slightly higher quality. Dcoetzee (talk) 12:27, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Hm, COM:MAXTHUMB has the limit lower than that, at 12.5 Megapixels or around 3500 x 3500 px. If possible, this should be updated. Rd232 (talk) 17:58, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Unrelated, we are talking of jpeg, not of png / tiff files etc. I fixed the issue by reuploading the file saved as non progressive. Esby (talk) 13:58, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

June 6

Category:Boat launch and Category:Food service

I can't think of what parent categories would go with Category:Boat launch (there is 1 file in this category)... and shouldn't it be renamed to Category:Boat launches? Also, what would be the parent category of Category:Food service? WhisperToMe (talk) 20:57, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Looks like the in-use category is Category:Boat ramps. Rmhermen (talk) 13:13, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Boat launch categories redirected to existing Category:Boat ramps. "Food service" redirected to Category:Food industry (though in the latter case all 3 files moved to more specific cats.) -- Infrogmation (talk) 04:13, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Categories for ships with the same name and year

There are two ships with the name Atlantic built in 1871: Category:Atlantic (ship, 1871) / RMS Atlantic and File:Atlantic vor Harriersand.jpg / Atlantic (1871) (without category until now). How do we name the category for the second ship? --Gepardenforellenfischer (talk) 13:08, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

One possibility to disambiguate further is by the type of ship. The British Atlantic was an "ocean liner" and a "steam ship", the German Atlantic is a "training ship" and a "ketch". The two resulting categories Category:Atlantic (ocean liner, 1871) and Category:Atlantic (training ship, 1871). The nationality of the ship's could also be used. The plain Category:Atlantic (ship, 1871) would be a disambiguation page.--Nilfanion (talk) 13:17, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Adding a third parameter, the city of building. See Category_talk:Ships_by_name#Upcoming_de_facto_ship_naming_convention From the discussion higher up:

Also "place of built" is added when name and year for more vessels are the same). Example: Category:Bolero (ship, 2003). In very few cases, when we have two ships with the same name, built in the same year, at the same place, the "yard number". Example Category:Stena Transporter (ship, 1978, Ulsan, 649). Perhaps even better not just the number but Yard Nr. --Foroa (talk) 13:37, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Category_talk:Ships_by_name#Double_names_per_year_of_built has a few other samples. --  Docu  at 13:53, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Its better to have one disambiguator than two. Its better to have two than three. In some cases, such as the 2 Stena Transporters there really is no option (two identical ships built almost simultaneously at the same yard). However, in most cases its best to keep things simple and limit it to two disambiguators: Year and type of ship is simpler than its a ship, year and build location. IMO that it clearly a better option - why shouldn't it work?--Nilfanion (talk) 14:35, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Category:Atlantic (ship, 1871, Kiel) is the answer. I made also a disambig page for these two ships: Category:Atlantic (ship, 1871), but perhaps better to create one for all seven Atlantic (ship) categories. --Stunteltje (talk) 14:37, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Category:Atlantic (ship, 1871, Kiel) is an answer - that does not mean it is the best answer. To quote User:LX: "needless disambiguation suffixes are an abomination and should be killed with fire". Why use 3 disambiguators, when less will suffice? If chosen properly, two will do the job just fine here.

The 1871 page is needed, because there are at least two ships; a redirect at that location will work.--Nilfanion (talk) 14:45, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Please bear in mind that "<shipname> (ship, <year>)" is a naming convention for ships, not a disambiguation rule. --  Docu  at 14:48, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Partially. The naming convention was chosen to address the most common disambiguation problems, which it does. These conventions inevitably break down in some cases: Sometimes "<name> (ship, <year>)" doesn't uniquely describe one ship, just like sometimes "<village>, <county>" doesn't uniquely describe one UK village (see w:WP:UKPLACE for that convention). However, "<village>, <district>" normally resolves those problems - so is used in preference to "<village>, <district>, <county>". Likewise "<name> (<type of ship>, <year>) will resolve most of the ship conflicts, in a simpler manner than 3 part disambiguation.--Nilfanion (talk) 14:56, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

I doubt there is any best answer, because we all have an opinion. This was discussed before and there are aleady a lot of ships categorised this way. Assume it is better to discuss this in the discussion of Category:Ships by name. --Stunteltje (talk) 14:58, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

For now cases where "<shipname> (ship, <year>)" can't be applied are rare and most couldn't be resolved Nilfanion's suggestion. It would introduce other consistency problems though. --  Docu  at 15:02, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

It should be able to handle most cases. If the ships are different designs it should be practical to separate and all the examples I've seen mentioned above can be separated. The exception is the Stena Transporters, which there is no elegant solution too. Consistency problems are rarely of crucial importance, and using the minimal amount of disambiguation is not a bad thing.--Nilfanion (talk) 15:11, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

This might be true, but there is no standard way of naming the designs. One does not know whether the category is Category:Atlantic (training ship, 1871) or Category:Atlantic (ketch, 1871). Simplicity is good, but so is consistency. In what situations does one need such category names without being able to copy and paste the name? Will the consistent scheme or the simple scheme work better in those cases? --LPfi (talk) 17:14, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

One relatively common case is someone using HotCat. All ship categories start with the ship name, so typing the name will get the categories that might be right. If you have a picture of the sailing ship, and know called Atlantic and was built in the late 19th C (which is a plausible level of knowledge) will the Kiel/Belfast pairing or the Ocean liner/Training ship pairing be more likely to be helpful? I'd suggest in most cases the port of construction is trivia that hardly anyone will know, but people will be able to tell the difference between broad classes of ships in most cases (such as warship/civilian or steam/sail).--Nilfanion (talk) 19:15, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Then it is crucial that the category name starts as conventional, i.e. "Atlantic (ship, 18". At that point you will have a few ships to choose from, one of which is the right one, given that the category exists. If it is named "Atlantic (ketch, 1871)", then the category won't be in the list and you have no hint it exists. You might create the "Atlantic (training ship, 1871)" instead. --LPfi (talk) 23:50, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, but habitually applying a particular needless disambiguation suffix and calling it a convention doesn't suddenly mean it's no longer a needless disambiguation suffix. There's no reason to treat ships any different from streets, films, churches or paintings. —LX (talk, contribs) 18:10, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

+1. Of course many ships will need the disambiguation as the name is likely to be generic and used by multiple ships, and is probably named after something that isn't a ship in the first place - making the disambiguation required. The fact this is so commonplace, makes it reasonable to disambiguate by default. However, if you do know there are no other ships of that name, or no other concepts of that name, why disambiguate?--Nilfanion (talk) 19:15, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

The nice thing about the current system, is that you don't need to know. You can just build as you go. At least, that's the experience I made when applying it.
BTW after checking, films seem have the format "<name> (<year> film)". That is more or less the same as ships. --  Docu  at 21:52, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Close Commons:Disputes noticeboard

Commons:Disputes noticeboard is a page that is rarely used (no new threads in six months). It is supposed to be for disputes which don't require administrator intervention, but it doesn't seem to work very well now, if it ever did. I suggest closing it, and replacing it with a notice directing people to use either

1. User and file and other talk pages
2. Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems (which people mostly do anyway)
3. Commons:Village pump (or other language equivalents)
4. COM:RFC (for content disputes that need wider attention)

In addition, I'd like to put the new

• Commons:Contributor feedback

into the {{Discussion menu}} navigation bar, either instead of the Disputes noticeboard, or in addition. Comments? Rd232 (talk) 19:23, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

• Certainly getting rid of an unused process page makes sense. No opinion on Commons:Contributor feedback. - Jmabel ! talk 01:16, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
• I'd support. What would be ironic is if someone posted a complaint there about this. :3 -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 03:53, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

File:Петергоф, Коттедж парк Александрия.jpg

Whats going on with this image (File:Петергоф, Коттедж парк Александрия.jpg)? We can see that there are three files in the file history, but if I go to Revision history page, I see only one upload. Also, if I go to File:Петергоф, Коттедж(фасад5) парк Александрия.jpg, one of the images in the file history of the former is displayed as a duplicate of this file in the bottom sub-section. How can we fix this? --Sreejith K (talk) 05:51, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

For th 1st one: look here. There are 3 uploads. --JuTa 07:21, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Category search in commons

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T39469

There is a minor and correctable error in the Commons' Category search engine results display. I just don't know where to report it. If someone who understands this problem, is in the know and can direct me, I'll report this issue on the proper site.

The problem is with the search results display for any category. The results display starts with one category past the searched category. The user must click on (previous nnn) and go to the bottom of the page to find the category. I upload many images which must be categorized, and this bug is time wasting.

Here is one example where the search is for the category "Watermills". — User talk:Ineuw 06:08, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

I noticed too why I would use this workaround if I think on it. --Foroa (talk) 06:19, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

This has been discussed before: Commons:Village pump/Archive/2011/05#Category search result is incorrectly displayed. It is counterintuitive but seems to be standard behaviour. I suppose there is some reason for it. You could try advanced search or use Special:AllPages. MKFI (talk) 14:00, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Special:PrefixIndex may also be useful. MKFI (talk) 14:22, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for everyone's help. The best option for a quick list of possibilities is still my example and will alter the search word to get the list right. But, I still think that this should be changed. Would a bug report on Bugzilla help?

I am also impressed with MKFI's finding my post on the same subject of a year ago. — User talk:Ineuw 15:07, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Filed as bug #37469. Regards, Jarry1250 (talk) 20:34, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Ability to override "uselang" in URLs

Is there a way for commons to ignore the ?uselang= parameter in inbound links? I prefer to use English and so I set that in my "Internationalisation" user pref. But if I'm reading some other language's site and follow its inbound link to an image on commons, my interface and multilingual templates switch to that language because that site's link explicitly passes its language. For example, the German-wikipedia page de:Datei:Sulphur-Calcite-154859.jpg has a link "Zur Beschreibungsseite auf Commons" with a URL https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sulphur-Calcite-154859.jpg?uselang=de and following it makes the commons site jump into German as well. Neat trick, there's probably a use for it (I see previous discussions about implementing it) but I visit lots of other languages' sites, some of which I can barely or not-at-all read well, and I want my commons pref to control the commons interface regardless of what other language's site I used to get here. DMacks (talk) 19:24, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

If you want to get rid of that problem from svwiki, add

var LocalFileLinks = true;

to sv:User:DMacks/common.js. -- Lavallen 19:30, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. I can also do it using the normal user-pref control for the interface on any particular site. And that's exactly my gripe...it's a pref on the linking-site but affects commons. I'm looking for a way to scope the pref to the site being affected and not have to set the same pref in however-many-dozen sister-sites we have. DMacks (talk) 20:05, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

New template for Bundesarchiv image collection

As discussed at Commons_talk:Bundesarchiv#New_template there are plans to revamp some of the templates used for Bundesarchiv images. The new template {{BArch-image}} will replace currently used templates. Template replacement will be done by a bot. Some examples from trial runs can be found at Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:BArch-image. If there are any issues, concerns or additional changes that can be performed, than please join Commons_talk:Bundesarchiv#New_template discussion. --Jarekt (talk) 19:52, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

By the way, the new template adds some new texts compared to the previous templates (and part of the previous templates were not well internationalized). Translations would be welcome at Template:BArch-image/i18n--Zolo (talk) 14:02, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

UploadWizard auto-watch feedback

Hi! UploadWizard developer here, looking for some ideas from the users.

We've had a bug filed that suggests auto-watch for every uploaded file, possibly with an option to turn it off on the UW form. I was wondering about the following:

1. Does the auto-watch feature sound useful to you?
2. Would auto-watch be a sensible default action to take, or should it be opt-in only?
3. Would a user preference (in Special:Preferences) be a helpful thing, or should the option only be on the form?
4. Is another checkbox on the UW form too obstructive and/or confusing? We could put it into the "extra options" div, but then it would be hidden, so we couldn't have it on by default (I think, though I'd be willing to entertain that option).
5. Would it be enough to do the auto-watch without question, then notify the user after the upload that they should turn it off manually? Seems like a cop-out, but possible.

Your feedback on any or all of the above would be very much appreciated, thanks in advance!

MarkTraceur (talk) 17:27, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

1: yes!; 2:yes, default, especially for new users; 3:a user preference; 4:I don't need it. If, then perhaps only for the whole batch.; 5:Users will notice if they have watched a file :P, no real need to tell it after upload is complete. -- RE rillke questions? 17:53, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Please (also) use Commons_talk:Upload_Wizard. Cheers --Saibo (Δ∇) 00:54, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Agree with Rillke, but if that is technically possible, it could be nice to have a sort of second "welcome" message after the first upload was reviewed and approve (as explaining it all before the first upload may drown new users in too much information). Perhaps something like "you successfully uploaded files to Commons under the XX license. You can use the watchlist to see changes done to them, more about them on help: . Well actually it should probably be a tool for reviewers than a feature of the UploadWizard. --Zolo (talk) 07:18, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Translation "faults" in content: difference in numbers

When I search information about some subject, I sometimes look also for information on other languages-pages. But during the search of information concerning the Vietnam War I found out that some important information was wrong, I don't know anything about that war, but numbers were different in dutch, english or magyar for exemple (it's basicly about the strenght of te army's, witch is very divergent but also the numbers of casualties!). I also saw that numbers about dead people were given as: "between 50 thousand and 2 million" !! There's a huge hole between those two numbers, so why is it mentioned??

Another "fault" I noticed is pure maths: on the english page on the vietnam war, the strength of the anti-communist forces is given (on the left side of the page, in the column): ~1,830,000 (1968) but when you add up the numbers of the specific forces (mentioned below in that column), the total amount is only 1,519,729 (that's 300,000 poeple less!!)

So my question is: can somebody look at this pages and correct those numbers? Better no information then wrong or vague information is my opinion

Further, i appologize for my bad english (I'm from Belgium :p) and if this request is placed wrong, I also appologize therefor (I'm new :p)

IQ8 (talk) 12:59, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

• You might bring this up on the respective Wikipedias, probably on the talk pages of the relevant articles. This has nothing to do with Commons, which is a media repository. - Jmabel ! talk 15:25, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Possibly free content

Hi, I've got a book on German Philosopher Friedrich Engels. The book contains several rare pictures of Engels, and are more then 100 years old. The book itself was published from soviet union in late 1980's.
Now I want to ask since the picture inside the book are more then 100 years old, then is there any possibility to upload them here. I suppose that they must be copyright free...
regards
-Viplovecomm (talk) 14:27, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

When did the photographer die? Unless the photographer died at least 70 years ago, the images are presumably unfree in the source country.

When were the photos first published? If the Soviet book was the first publication, the photos are copyrighted in the United States until the end of 2047. On the other hand, if the photos were published somewhere else in an earlier book, they may already be in the public domain. --Stefan4 (talk) 14:58, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

help me

How do i get my burping audio used on the english wiki encyclopedia? since they took away my files on english wiki encyclopedia (using my user name Jason135 wiki insted sinc its already "in use) and told me they were BAD, so THEY R REALY MEAN! plz help me. -- 14:28, 13 June 2012? User:Jason135

• Wikipedia works by consensus, so you'd have to convince other editors that your file is worth including, and it doesn't sound as if you've managed to do that. Consider what encyclopedic value your file brings to the article you want it in, and please discuss that on the article talk page. But in the end, if you can't convince others, your file won't be used. Hope that helps. Rodhullandemu (talk) 15:12, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Errors in DerivativeFX

Everytime (literally) I use DerivativeFX to upload a derivative file, after I have loaded all the data and have clicked on "Upload", I get this message: "Sorry! We could not process your edit due to a loss of session data. Please try again. If it still does not work, try logging out and logging back in.", and the uploading is interrupted. Does anyone know why? --GianniG46 (talk) 13:57, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the DerivativeFX does not know your edit token which is required since a while to "prevent drive-by-uploads". I am surprised it is still offered this way. -- RE rillke questions? 19:31, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

I thought it was just me having this problem! Is there a new method to show derivative files now? NikNaks _{talk - gallery - wikipedia} 13:33, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

I recommend using the tool until the last step, submit a small dummy-file and then upload the real file after being redirected to Commons (and the error-message appeared). -- RE rillke questions? 10:14, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

This is exactly what I do, except that I submit the real file, instead of a dummy one (I'm not sure the software will not work...). The odds, of course, are that I have to wait twice for the upload time. --GianniG46 (talk) 13:03, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps you get Luxo updating his tool. It's fairly simple to transfer the editToken from Commons to derivativeFX. Then, also the first step there (check whether you are logged-in) could be skipped. -- RE rillke questions? 20:04, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Have added a hint to Commons:Upload and Commons:Hochladen. Cheers --Saibo (Δ∇) 22:51, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Images from the FlightGlobal Archive (again)

There are 255 files in Category:Images from FlightGlobal Archive which are "licensed" under bizarre terms through e-mail by a FlightGlobal magazine editor. There are two important issues:

1. The clearance e-mail (quoted on each file page description) does not state a license explicitly and seems to restrict usage to English Wikipedia; it is blurry at best;
2. Many files have contradictory licensing information on their description page, e.g. :File:Albatross_1938_prototype.jpg.

This problem was brought many times, at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2009/12#Flight_Global_PDF_archive_permission and https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Licensing/Archive_24#Images_from_Flight_Global_PDF_archive and most recently at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/2012/04/20#File:Crusader1117.jpg but it never did receive a lot of attention. We need a clear and firm decision on this.

My view is that we should delete all files, for we are planting the seeds of copyright infringement problems here. I’d rather we err on the safe side.

I look forward to your opinions and guidance so we can finally get this solved. Ariadacapo (talk) 16:03, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

If we can't get any clarification from the copyright holder, I think COM:PRP applies. Move to en.wp would be good, as the images seem valuable and usable as fair use. Rd232 (talk) 21:43, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

A number of those images look to be very old -- World War I era. They may be PD regardless of license. Disentangling those could be tough. Carl Lindberg (talk) 21:50, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

How are images moved back to wp.en (is there a specific tool for that?)?

Can I tag nominate all of these images for deletion (without being lynched)? Ariadacapo (talk) 10:44, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

June 10

File:Aix en Othe Baltard.jpg

Hi,
I was watching pictures when I saw this one.
I ask myself why this file are not in the POTY.
The next time ? !
Sincerely,
Mike Coppolano (talk) 17:50, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

If it gets a "featured picture" in 2012 it will enter the contest for POTY 2012 next year. You could nominate it: Commons:Featured_picture_candidates. Cheers --Saibo (Δ∇) 18:25, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Mike Coppolano (talk) 02:26, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

"Greetings" photo essay on Wikimedia Foundation blog

Hi all,

My name is Matthew Roth and I'm one of the editors of the Wikimedia Foundation blog. Over the past few months we've tried to more regularly feature content from Commons with interviews with the photographers who took the pictures. We are attempting to showcase the stories behind the images and hopefully encourage readers of the blog to consider contributing themselves. We've also been promoting the interviews through the main Wikipedia social networks. We've been occasionally featuring Pictures of the Day with interviews with the photographers who have taken the photos, as well as a couple of longer-format interviews. In an effort to diversify the coverage for the blog, I wanted to try a photo essay post based on a particular theme: greetings. I've put up a short draft post on the Wikimedia Blog portal on Meta and have included a number of photos, but I'm seeking your assistance in adding more/better images to the draft post. Do you have favorite images that depict greetings between people or animals or other? I'd love to have images with greater diversity of subject matter (the U.S. military has a lot of images of greetings, but I don't want the post to be too heavily skewed toward the U.S.; it needs to be more diverse geographically). Happy to get your feedback, advice, or any other commentary. If you're inclined, feel free to just edit the Meta page and add what you like. Thanks! Matthew (WMF) (talk) 18:15, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Hello,

Very nice selection of images! I thought the gallery format wasn't working though; hope you don't mind that I enlarged them. InverseHypercube 19:31, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

It would also be nice to use more images created by Commons users; only three of them are at the moment. InverseHypercube 20:09, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Very nice change, Hypercube! I would love to have more images by Commons users, for sure. I hope folks here can help me find them. thanks, Matthew (WMF) (talk) 22:06, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

June 14

HH The Prince Konstantin V Mustafaev

Hello! Trying to upload pic from flickr which is under correct copyright

http://www.flickr.com/photos/51688536@N08/4747619389/in/photostream/lightbox/

but getting:

Unknown warning: "duplicate-archive".

Please advise

--Wifimedias (talk) 02:25, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

I think that that error usually happens when there is a duplicate file already on Commons. My guess is that there was, and it was deleted (note that the file remains on the server, so it can still be detected). That Flickr account looks very dubious; it is probably a case of Flickrwashing. InverseHypercube 02:51, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Commons:Deletion requests/HIH The Prince Konstantin V Mustafaev might be relevant. —LX (talk, contribs) 06:16, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Downloading .svg

How do I download a Wikimedia Commons .svg file into Inkscape in order to modify it. I can download it in .png format and then construct a new .svg based on a trace of the .png image, but that is a lot of work. Also I don't wind up with exactly the same image. Thanks to anyone who can advise me. HowardMorland (talk) 04:50, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Right-click on the link right before "...(SVG file, nominally..." and click "Save Link As", or whatever your browser calls it. Alternatively, you can click on the preview and "Save Page As".

Hope this helps! InverseHypercube 04:59, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

That works. Thanks. HowardMorland (talk) 06:29, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Jmabel ! talk 14:54, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Using images of Commons without attribution

The page travel66.com is currently using Commons images to illustrate your tour guides that I can't find anywhere proper attribution. For example: Sierra de Guadarrama, if you click the right mouse button on any image to see its name and then search with the same name on Commons always find it, because Commons is the main source of them. http://travel66.com/pics/Matterhorn-SouthSide-viewedFromSkiRegionBreuilCervinia.jpg -> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Matterhorn-SouthSide-viewedFromSkiRegionBreuilCervinia.jpg, etc. What do you do in these cases? --Metrónomo (talk) 05:51, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Yech... not only are they using them without complying with the licenses in any way – they've added horrible and misleading watermarks all over their low-resolution copies. See #Attribution of externally re-used Commons content above for a related discussion. Keep in mind that it is always possible for publishers to negotiate different terms directly with the copyright holder. In this case, it's pretty obvious that's not what's happened, but it's still up to each copyright holder to act. I don't see any contact information on the site, but the domain is registered by vincent@vincentlecorre.com. —LX (talk, contribs) 07:36, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Must you create/have on bugzilla.wikipedia.org an account, to name a proposal for wikimedia administration-philosophy changes?

The heading contains already my principle question, because I first asked you to point me to the decisive sub-community or whatever which/who can decide and realize such changes. Achim1999 (talk) 13:32, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Good afternoon,

Bugzilla is the place to request to the development and operations communities technical stuff. Here some samples:

- fill bug reports when you see a feature is broken ;

- request Wikimedia sites configuration (e.g. a new extension to be installed, a change in an user group, etc.) ;

- suggest a new feature.

Bugzilla isn't the place to have a debate or a proposal, but to ask the changes to transform this proposal into code or configuration.

Generally, this kind of discussion are usually on on meta.wikimedia.org.

If you give me more precisions about what you want to propose (in a nutshell, not in large), I will be welcome to indicate you the right place. --Dereckson (talk) 14:00, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

If it's for the SVG stuff, you can go on to discuss this issue here, as it concerns Wikimedia Commons and not the Wikimedia community in general.

The best to resolve the bug 5899 is to have a formal decision about what we want. Once it's done, I can provide a test wiki environment to demonstrate how it could work on the field and allow willing people to improve the SVG editor. --Dereckson (talk) 14:07, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Editing conflict :-/

I hope this is no longer necessary. See in this page "Commons:Village pump" the section "Maintaining (and thus editing) SVGs' text like wiki articles" (you guessed rightly in the meantime). I already created some(?) minutes ago an account to correct the URL mentioned in a comment to bug #5899 -- but due to missing knowledge of special-chars in URLs I did this wrongly. :-/

Thanks for your general explanation and answer of my question. Achim1999 (talk) 14:12, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

But hell! My proposal has nothing to do with an SVG-editor! ;-) Achim1999 (talk) 14:14, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

June 16

Not created description page

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T39480

Yesterday I uploaded images through Commonist but there was some database problems, see here. Description pages of these images wasn't created so I tried to create it manually but every time I tried to save page there was edit conflict so I need some administrator or other technical help. Descriptions for every page are here. Please, try to create it or let me know how to fix this problem Thanks.--Sevela.p 12:20, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

same as COM:AN#Flickr2Commons upload bug -- RE rillke questions? 17:46, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

There are several images without descriptions in Special:UncategorizedFiles, for example the auerbach files. Maybe it is related. --Foroa (talk) 15:54, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

And another database error Category:Ships built at Stettiner Maschinenbau AG "Vulcan", Bredow. --Foroa (talk) 11:07, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

I did delete and created the category [[:Category:Ships built at Stettiner Maschinenbau AG "Vulcan", Bredow] and at least, this is solved but the old history is gone. --Foroa (talk) 16:59, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Categories: the primary way to search/navigate Commons

As categories are the main way to search/navigate Commons, couldn't we drop the "Category:" part from the HTML page title of category description pages? This could make it easier for users who come from other sites to Commmons to notice that this is a good place to start. The main heading on the page would still read "Category:". --  Docu  at 13:53, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

• Unless I misunderstand you, wherever we have a gallery page as well, this would give us two pages with the same name. - Jmabel ! talk 16:19, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
  • In about 5% of the cases, we would have pages with the same HTML page title. This wouldn't have any effect on internal (or external) links. Thus, I don't think it's much of an issue. --  Docu  at 16:29, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
    • Many of our users come from a Wikipedia and are used to categories. Having them behave differently than in Wikipedia would be confusing and should therefore be avoided when possible, unless there is very good reason for the change. I am not convinced, especially as galleries will be more important as the categories grow and people have had the time to create the galleries. --LPfi (talk) 17:18, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
      • It wont have a visible effect to those coming from Wikipedia nor would they see it behave differently.
        The main problem we got with galleries (IMHO), is that they are not really maintained and keep getting confused with articles (from people coming from Wikipedia). Maybe we can find a way to address this as well, now or later. --  Docu  at 21:03, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
        • Not a visible effect when coming from Wikipedia? Would the header be shown with or without the "Category:" depending on the link you followed (and perhaps depending on referrer header)? I think that would be utterly confusing. Or no visible effect at all? I am lost.
          I think the galleries are very useful for cases where we have a lot of images and want to make a collection of good files easy to find. There is some confusion and some ill maintained galleries, but I think that is a legacy of the time before categories; when good galleries become more usual they will be understood, like the importance of references have been on the wikipedias. --LPfi (talk) 11:21, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

• I don't understand the premise, that dropping something from the HTML page title will make it easier for users who come from other sites to Commmons to notice that this is a good place to start. How? If they enter on a category page they're already there, and it makes no difference if the page title includes "Category" or not (except possibly to cause confusion if it's missing, though probably not). If they enter on a file page, it makes no difference anyway. I don't understand how it helps. Is the intention to change what shows up in search engines? Because that sort of makes sense, but I'm not sure it's a good idea. Rd232 (talk) 21:36, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
  • if you are already on the page, it shouldn't matter as the main heading still includes "Category:". It would have the side effect that the result in search engines may present itself differently and, as you say, this sort of makes sense. --  Docu  at 05:49, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Not sure I understand it. Do you mean that basically, category should become the default name space and that for galleries, people have to use gallery:xxx to address them explicitly ? --Foroa (talk) 04:51, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

No, it would just page the HTML page header. Internal links and external links to Commons would remain the same. --  Docu  at 18:43, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

To make it easier to visualize it, I made a corresponding edit request at MediaWiki talk:Pagetitle. --  Docu  at 18:59, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Tagging of obvious copyvios

Hello,

To all people tagging images without a proper license: I think that obvious copyright violations should be tagged with {{Copyvio}}, not with "no license", "no permission", etc. This includes posters, CD/DVD/book covers, TV/movie/game screenshots, promo images, and images from media agencies (Getty, etc.) or with Internet, Google, Tweeter, Facebook, etc. as a source. Thank you, Yann (talk) 15:15, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

June 17

dansk

Hi all. A minor detail, needs to be corrected; when I upload a picture and put a danish description on it, the language-info-line starts without caps.... (danish - Danish),(dansk - Dansk) ... see example here [[15]] --S.Juhl (talk) 09:22, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

That's because {{#language:da}} returns dansk. Presumably because language names don't start with a capital letter in Danish. It's the same for some other languages: français (fr) español (es) slovenčina (sk). Given that it appears at the beginning of the description, we should probably force a first capital letter. Dansk ¿Opinions? Platonides (talk) 14:45, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

I changed it in {{Description}}. --Slomox (talk) 15:45, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

It's the same thing with the interwiki links on Commons. Currently, Commons displays some languages with the first letter in lowercase and others in uppercase, but other Wikimedia projects display them all with the first letter in uppercase. See the interwiki column of this page (Village pump) for example. -- Asclepias (talk) 15:46, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Proposal to enable three gadgets for all users

Hi all. Discussions to enable three gadgets for all users have been started on Commons:Village pump/Proposals (without much interest). Please voice your support or opposition to these proposals there.

Jean-Fred (talk) 10:31, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Jugoplastika photos

Hi, I've found those photos in the croatian wiki. hr:Datoteka:Jugoplastika1.jpg and hr:Datoteka:Jugoplastika5.jpg. Can anyone who understands croatian tell me if those files can be transfered to commons? --Coentor (talk) 11:47, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

how to remove incorrect copyright claim in EXIF metadata?

I uploaded the copy of an 1883 image [16] I got from the New York Times that should be public domain because of its age. The image contains EXIF metadata that states that the image is copyrighted and this note now appears on the page of the file. Since this claim cannot be right and appears to conflict with the public domain template used there, it needs to be removed. How is this done? --İnfoCan (talk) 17:07, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

I found a free Windows program called FileMind QuickFix that removes EXIF data from an image. Then I uploaded the cleaned-up image again. --İnfoCan (talk) 21:05, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

I usually use exiftool to selectively remove or alter EXIF metadata. Dcoetzee (talk) 12:34, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Commons:EXIF#Editing_EXIF_fields. Rd232 (talk) 18:00, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Would it be fair to say that as a rule, no PD-old image should contain EXIF metadata? I would worry that, among other things, that crap might be claimed as copyrightable. Wnt (talk) 09:54, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

"no PD-old image should contain EXIF metadata? - Wouldn't you want metadata in such a case to say that the image is PD (or metadata describing the title of the image if appropriate, who the photographer was, etc). Bawolff (talk) 12:45, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

And of course EXIF data on the digitization device (scanner/camera), exposure, resolution ..., are just as relevant as for any other image. --Tony Wills (talk) 01:14, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

18 USC 2257 Age Record Requirement and editor liability

Please note [17] and a resulting new page in Meta,

• m:Legal and Community Advocacy/Age Record Requirement

Federal law 18 U.S.C. § 2257 imposes record-keeping requirements on producers of materials containing sexually explicit conduct to prevent child pornography (§ 2257A additionally covers simulated sexually explicit conduct). Although the Wikimedia Foundation should not be considered a producer for the purposes of § 2257, Wikimedia users arguably may be considered primary or secondary producers of sexually explicit content depending on their level of involvement with the sexually explicit images.

Primary and secondary producers have record-keeping requirements defined by law (documenting the name and age of the models shown).

On a somewhat related matter, note that German admin User:Achim Raschka was earlier this year taken to court in Germany for adding a hardcore pornography video to a German Wikipedia page. He's written an article in the German Kurier about it: [18]. --JN466 14:50, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

This is not correct. There was according to this German Kurier article just a preliminary investigation that was closed without bringing him to court. --AFBorchert (talk) 16:35, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Note that US law only applies in the United States. Users in other countries might get into trouble because of local laws in their own countries, though. --Stefan4 (talk) 16:49, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

The prosecutor's office was involved, Achim was indicted ("angeklagt") and had legal representation. His lawyers managed to persuade the prosecutors to drop the case before it went to trial, because it was a relatively minor offence ("aufgrund geringer Schuld"), but the way I read Achim's article, there was a case – Achim speaks of a "Fall" and a "Verfahren". IANAL however. --JN466 00:22, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

I find it problematic that this issue is brought here when the discussion at w:User talk:Jimbo Wales is far from complete. Moreover the linked source states at its conclusion

“

There is still much uncertainty regarding the application of § 2257. The potential circuit split on the constitutionality of § 2257 and lack of clarity on basic definitions including "trading" and "otherwise managing" leave its future application in doubt. It would not apply to a hosting site such as the Wikimedia Foundation under § 2257(h)(2)(B)(v). However, unless it is found unconstitutional, some argue the law may apply to users posting content they personally created and users uploading or managing relevant content created by others. Even under the government's limited interpretation of § 2257's scope, users posting to the site may be viewed as "trading" images. Although the government may choose not to prosecute § 2257 violations against individual users, its scope remains theoretically broad.

”

-- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 03:58, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

While I'd agree the discussion should not be fragmented unnecessarily, I don't see w:User talk:Jimbo Wales as the best venue for long-term discussion of these issues. The discussion there seems to be producing more heat than light. Hopefully the core issues will be explored somewhere else (meta?) once tempers have died down. And notifying people here seems useful, since Commons could be affected. --Avenue (talk) 00:39, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, but neither is this page. Issue concerns all of Wikimedia and should be discussed on a place like meta or Wikimedia-l. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 22:13, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

This statement is quite consistent with what {{2257}} has said since its creation. I don't disagree with とある白い猫's conclusion that uploaders may in theory be in legal peril (untested), but uploads are always conducted at the uploader's own risk. Dcoetzee (talk) 18:34, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Compliance statements

Another related issue is that according to [19],

“

(d) A computer site or service or Web address containing a digitally- or computer-manipulated image, digital image, or picture shall contain the required statement on every page of a Web site on which a visual depiction of an actual human being engaged in actual or simulated sexually explicit conduct appears. Such computer site or service or Web address may choose to display the required statement in a separate window that opens upon the viewer's clicking or mousing-over a hypertext link that states, “18 U.S.C. 2257 [and/or 2257A, as appropriate] Record-Keeping Requirements Compliance Statement.”

”

According to the Section 230 safe harbour clause, it seems the Wikimedia Foundation itself cannot be held legally responsible for failure to comply with this requirement, but according to Jesse's research in Meta, it would seem that individual admins and editors may. I've asked Jesse for clarification of this point. It's worth bearing in mind here that the Terms of Use require Wikimedia contributors to comply with applicable US law. --JN466 14:13, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

June 11

Three requests

Is there a way to pre-fill the re-upload comment (similar to the edit summary for a normal page)? I am doing a lot of watermark removals and it gets tedious. Also is there some CSS trick to hide the wall of text at the top of the upload form, I have read it once already now it is just in the way? Werieth (talk) 16:09, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

PS is there a way to make the search bar "Go" by default instead of search? Werieth (talk) 16:10, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Re#3 Yes. -- Lavallen 16:47, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Re#1: The Firefox addon Clippings may be useful for you. Of course you could also hack something up with JavaScript.

Re#2: You can add that "CSS trick" to Special:MyPage/common.css:

div#uploadtext {
    display: none;
}

Warning: a. Be sure to know the "wall of text" although it is hidden ;-) b. That will hide all div with id "uploadtext". That may also be used on other pages on Commons - those elements will be hidden, too.

Hiding elements (or finding out the correct CSS selector) is quite easy with Adblock plus and elemhidehelper. Cheers --Saibo (Δ∇) 01:12, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

I've added a reupload link (with "edit summary") to the template itself. In theory, one could also add a link to automatically remove the template (using a script). -- RE rillke questions? 21:14, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

And there it is (removallink). -- RE rillke questions? 06:53, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Likely hoax

Hello, this image was uploaded by the same user who used it to illustrate this fake article. I don't know who this person is but it certainly isn't "Adam Ceesteate Bucchaale". Président (talk) 16:58, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

I guess identifying the coat of arms in the upper right corner would be a useful first step towards identifying the person. --Slomox (talk) 17:15, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

It seems like it is a B&W scan of some sort of money perhaps? -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 21:37, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Trails in England / UK

The categories for trails / footpaths in the UK seem a bit confusing:

Category:Public footpaths in England - Category:Trails in England - Category:Hiking in England

There are categories like Category:Lee Valley Walk, which makes sense. But trying to classify them as trials, hiking, or public footpaths is tricky. Consider also non-public footpaths, bridleways, byways etc. Is it really useful to try classifying trails according to their exact legal status / usage? I think it would be too difficult - this can easily vary even over the length of one trail.

It looks like most work has been done under Category:Public footpaths in England at the moment, it has a large set of subcategories. County subcategories does make sense, for a long trail, simply add it to all the county categories that are relevant.

But if it was up to me, I wouldn't name the categories as Public footpaths, but simply as trails (or whatever other name is preferred).

Ghouston (talk) 00:01, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

June 18

my uploads

I've noticed that not all my uploads are presented under the tab "my uploads". Then, chosing "Gallery tool: files uploaded by Eitan f" there are pictures marked (Top) and others marked (Top*). The later are those that are not shown under "my uploads". Why is this? and can it be changed? Thanks. Eitan f (talk) 04:07, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Like it says in its introduction, Special:ListFiles/Eitan_f displays only the files of which you uploaded the most recent version. It does not display, for example, File:Mycenaean krater.JPG, because the most recent version of this file was uploaded by Rotatebot and consequently it is displayed in Special:ListFiles/Rotatebot. About the "gallery tool", I'm only guessing that "top*" seems to mean "not top", i.e. files of which you uploaded a version that is not the most recent one. -- Asclepias (talk) 04:47, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Hello Eitan f, could you translate MediaWiki:Listfiles-summary to your native language, (e.g. MediaWiki:Listfiles-summary/he for Hebrew). That would be great. Please post your new translation either on MediaWiki talk:Listfiles-summary/he along with an {{Edit request}} or simply ping me on my talk. Thanks. -- RE rillke questions? 06:45, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

OTRS talk

Hi,

The OTRS talk page seems to receive a lot of questions but few answers. I would be glad to have comments or answer about this particular topic. Thanks, Pethrus (talk) 09:27, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Review

I need someone to confirm or review this File:Webb Simpson cropped.jpg. Thanks!HotHat (talk) 04:01, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

What's the question? It looks like it comes from Flickr, an appropriate license is offered on Flickr, and that it is consistent enough with the photographer's other work that there is no reason to suspect Flickr washing. My only question is in what sense you are an "author". If all you did was crop it, it would be more honest to specifically say "cropped by User:HotHat". - Jmabel ! talk 14:53, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

The file's licensing was reviewed by Ww2censor 15 minutes after you uploaded it, 8 minutes after it was flagged for human review by a bot and 3 minutes before you posted here. Please be patient, as all work on Commons is performed by volunteers, and please don't crosspost. If everyone posted to the village pump for every minor routine housekeeping task to enter our backlogs, it'd be inundated. —LX (talk, contribs) 18:02, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

"Ku" iso-code in auto-translation choices to be replaced by kmr

List of affected pages ({{Ku}} uses)

see Commons:Village pump/List of affected pages containing template ku

Discussion

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T39310

ku (ethnologue.com) is a macrolanguage code which contains multiple mutually unintelligible sub dialects of Kurdish (see this work by UCLA Language Materials Project for more info):

• Wikipedia has hosted 3 main dialects (as far as wikipedia article count is concerned anyways). These dialects are:
  • diq (Zazaki): Zazaki, Southern (classification of it as Kurdish may be controversial)
    • ethnologue.com: Latin script
    • Zazaki dialect has separated from ku.wikipedia on 5 January 2007 with m:Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Zazaki to form diq.wikipedia.
  • ckb (کوردی): Soranî (سۆرانی)
    • ethnologue.com: Arabic script
    • Sorani dialect has seperated from ku.wikipedia on 14 November 2010 with m:Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Kurdish (Sorani) to form ckb.wikipedia.
  • kmr (kmr): Kurmanji
    • ethnologue.com: Arabic script. Cyrillic script, used in Armenia. Latin script, developed in 1932.
    • Currently the UI and vast majority of the content in ku.wikipedia is in this dialect.
• Incubator has two more dialects:
  • sdh (کوردی خوارگ): Southern Kurdish (کوردی خوارگ)
    • ethnologue.com: Arabic script
    • incubator:Wp/sdh
  • kiu (Kırmancki): Kirmanjki or Zazaki, Northern (classification of it as Kurdish may be controversial)
    • ethnologue.com: Latin script
    • incubator:Wp/kiu

I don't know if there are exceptions but the problem is practically all of the uses of ku iso code refers to the Kurmanji dialect which has an ISO code of kmr which should be preferred over ku.

Currently "kmr" isn't implemented on MediaWiki which is why {{#language:kmr}} does not currently work. This proposal is dependent on the implementaiton.

-- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 15:18, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

There isn't any consensus about that "kmr" should replace "ku", which was much discussed in 2011. The users of ku.wikipedia still want it to remain "ku" and thus include any of the "mutually unintelligible" dialects of the Kurdish language in Latin script, as it appears today (2012). --MikaelF (talk) 08:32, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

This isn't how language templates operates on commons (this isn't ku.wikipedia). We avoid macro language iso codes on commons which is why the language code zh is not used for Chinese and instead zh-hans, zh-hant is preferred. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 18:12, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Your example invalidates your argument. We do use the macrolanguage zh for Mandarin even thought zh technically includes a number of other languages. The fact that it's necessary to use a script code to differentiate different orthographies of Mandarin doesn't change that. "ku" is Kurdish; it may be technically correct to change it to kmr, but I think that's technical correctness that doesn't really improve anything; if we have a bot going around changing ku to kmr (and we will need to, in perpetuity), then we've basically declared the identity of ku and kmr anyway.--Prosfilaes (talk) 19:58, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Similarly, {{No}} is used instead of {{Nb}} and {{Nn}} in many cases. --Stefan4 (talk) 20:14, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

I can run the bot task if needed. On templates we avoid using zh (中文) and instead we use zh-hant (中文（繁體）) and zh-hans (中文（简体）) marking the difference (Traditional/Simplified Chinese). Both are still Chinese but the use of "zh" could be very confusing to the reader.

The difference is Norwegian has two dialects (bokmål/nynorsk) and using no or nb generates the same output:

• {{#language:no}} norsk
• {{#language:nb}} norsk bokmål
• {{#language:nn}} norsk nynorsk

As you can see regardless of the language code is used the output clearly specifies the variant.

{{#language:ku}} (kurdî) on the other hand merely reads "Kurdish" without specifying the variant. To make matters more confusing {{#language:ckb}} (کوردی) also reads "Kurdi" but in arabic script without specifying the dialect. This is very confusing to the reader whom may be speaking neither kmr nor ckb dialect. Not to mention Kurdish has many dialects and currently ku refers to more than one even if you subtract ckb which has its own wiki.

No matter how you look at it ku. related codes are confusing and this needs to be fixed.

-- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 22:42, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

zh refers to 14 different languages, with Cantonese (to pick just one) being mutually unintelligible with Mandarin. Frankly, I see no point in jumping the gun on this; if there are speakers of Kurdish that want it changed, we can discuss it then, if not, then there's not really a problem.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:51, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

This is a good point. None of Kurds wants to change the codes. We have already discussed this topic. White Cat still insists on.. He has started a discussion last year and we didnt accept. i would like to know, if he will keep to discuss it every year? (: --Gomada (talk) 14:01, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Written Chinese does not have 14 dialects and they all use two distinct writing styles (Simplified/Traditional) and we mark whichever one is on templates all the time. Not counting Zazaki, Kurdish has three distinct dialects with at least two completely different scripts of writing (Arabic, Latin, and possibly Cyrillic). Why do you not want to mark the relevant dialects? -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 01:20, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

It had taken a bit of effort but I found an example where ku template is used with arabic script: File:Drapeau du Parti pour une vie libre au Kurdistan - PJAK.png which means it isn't kmr dialect. Vast majority of ku uses refers to kmr but not always. A clean-up must be handled with a case by case basis. Automated scripts can perhaps determine if the following text is in Latin or in Arabic script (or both). There are only two uses of {{Ckb}} therefore other uses of it probably is using {{Ku}}. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 02:21, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Written Cantonese is not mutually intelligible with written Mandarian. We mark the writing styles, but we still let zh stand for the more accurate cmn.--Prosfilaes (talk) 02:54, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

When given the option to tag something which template should be preferred? Macro-language {{Zh}} or {{Yue}}({{Zh-yue}})/{{Zh-hant}}/{{Zh-hans}}?

As for {{Ku}} What are you trying to argue? Do you propose we tag arabic script and latin script with the same template? Why would we not want to separate the two? Even the directions can get messed up. Also the text on {{Ku}} should be multi-lingual (in all dialects).

-- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 13:58, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Scripts are not dialects. The ISO script standard is w:ISO 15924, which tells us that Arabic is Arab and Latin script is Latn; per the RFC language tagging standard we seem to be at least a de facto user of, that would be ku-Arab and ku-Latn, just like Hant and Hans are Traditional and Simplified Han ideographs.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:47, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Why would we do that? Why would we want to invent a brand new standard? Why cannot we simply use the existing ISO standard codes for the individual dialects? Could you please name a few reasons? In the case of kmr, ckb and sdh, script changes with the dialect. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 01:27, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

It's not a brand new standard, as I explained in the message you replied to. Stop bringing up scripts, if you don't want to tag scripts. This is the standard way to tag the script the text uses. In fact, it is the only way to tag scripts for Kurdish; according to the IANA language subtag registry, while you can assume that ru means Cyrl and en means Latn, kmr, ckb and sdh do not have Suppress-Script labels and thus can not be used to imply script in any standard way.--Prosfilaes (talk) 05:31, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

•  Oppose Let the ethnic speakers hash this out. White Cat is just stirring his usual nonsense. -Nard (Hablemonos)(Let's talk) 00:55, 4 June 2012 (UTC)Let's see where this goes -Nard (Hablemonos)(Let's talk) 04:17, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

  My usual nonsense? How nice of you. Doing that means one dialect will be superior over the other there are more kmr speakers but ckb is the only official dialect. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 01:20, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

The matter won't be decided here, and I wonder why you even raised it here (unless you think that a Wikipedia should get a different domain name just to make a Commons template more symmetric...). -- AnonMoos (talk) 03:43, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

The matter should be decided here. This is commons not Wikipedia. This has nothing to do with domain names. Also even if domain names mattered, there is no zh-hans or zh-hant Wikipedia and we do use those which do not match the domain. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 03:53, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Being a user and editor of the ku.wikipedia, it's still, after a year, difficult for me to understand White Cat's intention and persistent interest in changing the name "ku" to "kmr". The actual ku.wikipedia is receiving and is welcoming articles in any major Kurdish dialect in Latin script. There is nothing confusing about this for a Kurdish speaking user!! I am sure of the fact that if White Cat (とある白い猫) knew Kurdish, any of the "mutually unintellegible dialects" s/he's referring to, s/he would understand how much the Kurdish dialects intermingle with each other and that there is no dialect superior to an other. I agree with the above, that let the Kurdish speaking community here on Wikipedia sort this out, and that is if there were a problem... --MikaelF (talk) 06:45, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

From what I understand, White Cat is not wanting to change anything on kuwp, but rather the way that Commons treats the variants of the Kurdish languages on Commons in translation and informational templates. And it would appear that White Cat has some valid reasoning in wanting to create the "kmr" template for use on Commons, whilst also keeping the "ku" template. russavia (talk) 07:10, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

The proposal here has no impact on ku.wikipedia or any non-commons project for that matter. This has to do more with technical handling of language codes and templates here at commons that are not visible to the reader and the label of such parameters (what text would be shown for the label)

Have you read this work by UCLA Language Materials Project? There are linguists whom even regard ku and kmr as separate languages (McCarus 1992). Language Committee approved ckb wikipedia's creation over linguistic differences in the dialects (ckb, kmr).

How do we expect native Kurdish speakers to sort this out when they need a non-Kurdish language to communicate if they only know the dialect they speak? Even the script they'd use (arabic or latin) would be an issue. What prevent's us from participating if we know the third language they are using? Also vast majority of this problem has to do with technical aspects.

I am sure it is confusing to a first-time visitor to Commons whom finds it difficult to read script he or she is not familiar with. You are giving superiority to kmr if you mark it with the macro-language code. The de-facto default currently on Commons for Kurdish is latin script and kmr dialect since vast majority of the uses of {{Ku}} shows this. There are only two uses of {{Ckb}} meaning Sorani dialect is either immensely underrepresented or tagged with {{Ku}} which adds to the confusion.

-- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 12:40, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

How do we expect native Kurdish speakers to sort this out? Is this White Man's Burden or Japan Knows Best For Asia? Nothing prevents us from participating, but it seems right now a lot more like making a decision for them. --Prosfilaes (talk) 21:15, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

This is a technical problem and it has more to do with how bots, templates and auto-translation codes operate. We could have expressed language codes in database numbers, hexadecimals or even hieroglyphs. We preferred to use ISO 639-3 codes and the codes for the individual dialects (kmr, ckb, sdh) are clear. I am yet to hear one reason why we shouldn't use individual ISO codes for the individual dialects. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 01:27, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Because it's none of your business how the Kurds tag their data. Because you're trying to force other people to tag things in the way you want, and they seem disinterested in it, with the best result being that a bot is going to go around examining new edits and taking a correct tag ("ku") and converting it to a possibly incorrect tag (since distinguishing language of short text strings by bot is a hard to impossible job, even on standardized distant languages like English and German, much less unstandardized Kurdish dialects.) Because it makes everyone's day to have someone else lecture them about their language.--Prosfilaes (talk) 05:31, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

• With Artificial Intelligence language identification isn't that difficult of a job (even by hand Latin text is Kmr, Arabic is Ckb with less than 1000 total uses of the template). With AI identifying languages like English and German had been trivial for quite some time. You know, actually a good deal of the uses of {{Ku}} is probably by bots whom tag images based on the interwiki links which actual speakers were not involved. Ku.wikipedia used to have multiple dialects but now it only has one (with the exception of something like 15 pages).
• Our Kurdish language content isn't COM:OWNed by the native speakers of the language, we do not resign content to to their native speakers. You are quite deterministic of "what Kurds want". A good portion of ku.wikipedia community (in 2007) went quite far (to the point of declaring all Zazaki speakers also speaking Kurmanji/Kurmanci) in trying to declare Zazaki as Kurdish even when the actual speakers of Zazaki did not want it. Furthermore (in 2011) there was a ku.wikipedia user that complained about stub creation at diq Wikipedia years after it's creation.
• Moreover (in 2010) ckb users decided to separate under better terms which is proof that they want to be an independent wiki. Main reason for separation was the differences of script which was why ckb Wikipedia was created. The Board of Trustees and language committee approved ckb not ku-Arab. The dialect is distinct enough to have a separate wiki. Also the use of ku-Arab could be controversial if you think about it as the word Arab can be associated with a different ethnicity.
• Might I add there is an underrepresented sdh dialect speakers on Wikimedia sites.

-- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 11:37, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Also, based on your source from above I read:

• Subtag: ku | Description: Kurdish | Added: 2005-10-16 | Scope: macrolanguage
• Subtag: kmr | Description: Northern Kurdish | Added: 2009-07-29 | Macrolanguage: ku
• Subtag: ckb | Description: Central Kurdish | Added: 2009-07-29 | Macrolanguage: ku
• Subtag: sdh | Description: Southern Kurdish | Added: 2009-07-29 | Macrolanguage: ku

What exactly is the problem?

-- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 11:58, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

One: language detection is formally impossible, like many other AI problems, and in practice the problem is very real with short strings. Is Roméo et Juliette French? Possibly, but it's also the name of an opera as listed in the English and Portuguese Wikipedias. And those are languages with standardized orthographies; is Romeo va Juliet supposed to be Turkish or Vietnamese?

Right; when making changes to content of use to one group of people, them wanting something is a clear violation of COM:OWN. The English speakers should feel free to make whatever changes to the non-English content of Commons we want, because hey, we're the majority!

If you use quote marks, you could actually try and quote me. I didn't say anything about "what Kurds want"; what I said was that Kurds are currently tagging their data with ku, and there's no Kurds coming here that are saying to change that.

So basically you're for proper tagging except when you're not. The standards say that you can assume nothing about the script of ckb. Don't invent controversy to get your way; if you want to label a piece of text as being in the Arabic script, you have to add -Arab to the language tag unless the language is Arabic, Persian, Pashto or Urdu.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:08, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

•  Oppose As a Sorani Kurdi speaker and user of ckb wikipedia, I'm againist to change codes. We (users of ckb) don't have problem about codes. Because, ku.projects are for all Kurds. For example; I can create Sorani articles by latin alphabet in ku.wikipedia. ku code represents all of us. If Kurds have problem about codes, they can ask to change. We don't need to some people to decide for us. I hope, you have respect to our decision. Thank you.--Calak (talk) 09:13, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

  This is commons though, not a ku.project or wikipedia. Also "ku.projects" should be for everyone not just a particular ethnicity. How would a visitor whom does not know how to read latin characters know what to read at "File:Mahabad Dam.JPG"? -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 15:39, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

  Huh? That's plaintively absurd; even if you don't read Latin characters, it's trivial to scroll down that page until you find a language you can read. Are you telling me you can't figure out what File:Imari Jar DES.jpg is about because it doesn't say English on the page?--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:08, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

  Why even mark different translations at all? You seem to have a fundamental problem with how commons marks languages. We want to mark languages and if needed the individual dialects. You have not stated a single reason why this should not be done. I have listed plenty of problems why dumping mutually unintelligible dialects (with 2-3 different writing scripts) into one template is problematic. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 21:17, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

  Rather, you've ignored my reason; that any improvement is negated by the fact that you're overriding the judgment of the Kurds on how to handle their own language. I don't want the Kurds running around changing all the English tags to be en-US or en-UK, and in turn I will not interfere with their use of ku. And for about the 45th time, using those dialect tags to distinguish between scripts is wrong. Period. ku-Latn and ku-Arab are the ways to distinguish between Kurdish in the Latin script and Kurdish in the Arabic script. Even if you tag something ckb, you still need to tag it ckb-Latin or ckb-Arab if you want to make a script distinction.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:50, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

  Kurds do not get any special say on commons template structures any more than Palauans. ku template is not "theirs" to decide. Commons templates have no bearing on how people handle language(s) they speak. {{En-US}} and {{En-UK}} do not exist so your point is moot.

  It really helps to read about the topic you are commenting on. ckb dialect uses Arabic script only. ckb content should be tagged with {{Ckb}} not with anything else.

  -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 00:13, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

  I think I've wasted enough time on discussion. If you try and unilaterally force your will down everyone else's throats--because apparently only White Cat gets a special say on Commons template structures--I will revert you, and drag you before the Administrator's Noticeboard.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:55, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

  I oppose script-based tagging. This isn't done on commons and there is no consensus to start a brand new standard. Do you edit templates often? How do you propose technical difficulties be addressed? -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 01:12, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

•  Oppose I fully agree with Prosfilaes above. White Cat, you see plenty of problems by the use of all the mutually unintelligible Kurdish dialects, because you don't know any of them. Thank you for the references about the Kurdish language, but do listen to the users of the language and respect their decision. Again I oppose to this proposal as much as Çalak above, and also to White Cat's (とある白い猫) proposal to change the name of the Kurdish Wikipedia to Kurmanji Wikipedia. --MikaelF (talk) 17:36, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
  • No, I proposed the adjustment of the database code based on the content on the wiki. Kurmanji (kmr) is a dialect of Kurdish and is hence Kurdish. Sorani (ckb) is another dialect of Kurdish and is hence Kurdish. "ku" is just a database value just like "kmr" or "ckb" or "sdh". We use ISO codes to mark databases but we could have used numbers. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 20:41, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
    • とある白い猫 is just a database value too, but I see to recall someone making a big fuss over it recently.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:28, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
      • Ah my username. What about it? -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 15:11, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
• Any more comments? -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 21:31, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
  • Yes; learn how to let a subject drop.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:28, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
    • Not quite. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 15:11, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

White Cat blocked

White Cat has been warned by me for not changing the description from ku to one of the dialects, based on this discussion of not only not being supported by the community but also for not being a native speaker. He has continued to do so, so I blocked him for 1 day and will keep blocking until he stops. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return fire)} 19:04, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

The block has been lifted by Geni, pending on him not making such changes in the future. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return fire)} 19:27, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Issue was raised at user disputes but it seems there is no oversight on the matter. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 20:31, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Date

Why does this old sculpture (1st century) look so good and fresh? Has it been refurbished or just carefully preserved? Pass a Method (talk) 22:59, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Because it's not from the 1st century, except for the darker upper part, which was a sculpture of Domitian. The rest is a modern "restoration". -- Asclepias (talk) 23:32, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Huh? The statue of Nero is a statue of Domitian? Are we talking about the same image? Rmhermen (talk) 01:48, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, that's what some of the flickr comments about the photos of this bust seem to imply from a quick look, but that could be only part of the story. I just saw that this other flickr image has an interesting, perhaps more complete description. It says: "Portrait of Nero reworked as Domitian and later restored in the modern era as Nero (beg. of 17th c.)". That would seem to make sense. The Capitoline museum's page about this bust does say that the sculpture is from the 17th century and that only part of the face is ancient, but the page doesn't tell the story of that part. You can likely get more complete and definitive answers about the story of this sculpture if you ask at the Wikipedia reference desk or at one of the related Wikipedia project pages. -- Asclepias (talk) 02:43, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

June 19

Personality rights

File:Jayne Mansfield.jpg has a personality tag. I am under the impression that film or film trailer screen shots don't require a personality right tag. User:Megapixie is of a different opinion. Commons:Photographs of identifiable people has no explicit direction about this particular issue. What is appropriate? Aditya (talk) 06:28, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

The tag is purely informational, it does not change the rights of reusers and it is not demanded by Commons policy. Thus it is never required. On the other hand, while trailer screen shots hardly can have any privacy issues (other than if the trailer itself has), I think there is no reason they wouldn't have personality rights issues if used in unsuitable context. The actors have probably not given any carte blanche for being used in commercials and I cannot see how the trailer itself could be regarded as such. --LPfi (talk) 07:46, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

But, COM:IDENT mentions the possibility of reuse anywhere, it only deals with consent to be photographed, and that too applies only to certain cases. It is not required at all for a public personality (i.e. a movie star) in a public space (i.e. a mainstream film) without breaching any moral barrier (i.e. a commercial film trailer). As far I can see of the US laws, a published picture can be used commercially too (no carte blanche needed; see: Commons:Country specific consent requirements). Aditya (talk) 09:47, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

The linked requirements page says you usually do need permission for commercial use in USA. Having consented to use in a film (and related posters, trailers etc.) does not give any right to use the image in unrelated commercial contexts. Other countries (such as mine) are even stricter. Thus the warning template is justified. --LPfi (talk) 16:22, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Personality rights (also called publicity rights) are about using someone's name or likeness in a commercial situation like advertising -- using somebody famous to promote your product, etc. They are not the same thing as privacy rights, at least in the U.S. Those rights are generally never given out without a fee (you have to pay someone to promote your product), and can last past death in some places. In the U.S., it is defined by state law, so it can and does differ between states. Sometimes it's common law (and that usually expires at death), and some states have passed statutory laws which create an inheritable right, such as the w:California Celebrities Rights Act in 1985, which protects the rights 70 years after someone dies, and Indiana passed one which lasts 100 years after someone dies. Courts have ruled that those law were not retroactive (i.e. did not apply to someone who died before the enactment), though I think California recently made theirs retroactive in response to one of those judgments (Sect. 3344.1). So... Mansfield's estate or heirs may have some rights in California at the least, but probably not most places. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:25, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

EXIF data

Does anyone know if any data is removed on upload? There is concern that camera serial numbers are contained in it and this could be a privacy issue.Canoe1967 (talk) 21:31, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't believe we remove any EXIF data. Many people would want their camera serial # preserved as evidence of authorship, so I doubt we'd want to remove that automatically. - Jmabel ! talk 23:16, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

I agree with that. The point that another editor brought up is in the case of those that don't want the number public. Is it technically possible to have an option on upload or warning that their personal data is possibly in the image? Even a link to a reliable EXIF editor may help. I didn't realize that my number was in my images until I saw that thread. I don't really care that my number is public because I actually have the receipt still. There is a link in that other thread to a site that can trace stolen cameras if you input an image or number. Canoe1967 (talk) 00:17, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Removing some or all EXIF data should be technically easy, the tools exist. There are two trickier questions. One is at what stage the user should be asked and what to do with the original image - if the data is removed at Commons we will have a copy with the data included. The other is that it is hard to know whether the EXIF serial number is the only place where identifying information is recorded. E.g. printers (at least colour printers) mark every output page, supposedly to fight counterfeiting. I would not be surprised if similar information was hidden in the jpeg files. --LPfi (talk) 15:39, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, there are a few issues here. This is a sample image File:EXIF Canon 500D .JPG I made that contains the EXIF reader that came with the camera. I also just realized that some have GPS (I don't have the add-on GPS module so it is blank) This could cause issues if an uploader takes a picture 'my cat', 'my neighbour' etc. Then their location is stamped on the image within roaming distance of their cat. I don't have an issue with it but others do in the other thread. Commons talk:Deletion requests(the exif section) The thread was started over another issue and this issue came up in the thread. Others may wish to find a way to deal with the issue. I wonder if at this point we should choose a venue to discuss it as this one will get buried fast. I started one here Commons talk:EXIF I don't know if that is a good place for it?--Canoe1967 (talk) 16:04, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

I see where the suggestions are coming from. There are many things about EXIF that can be problematic from a privacy point of view, including geographical coordinates (as much as we like to have them). I'd think long and hard, though, before giving uploaders an easy way to scrub or modify all EXIF, as it's one of the best aids we have for detecting copyright violations. —LX (talk, contribs) 06:29, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Is it technically possible to have the option to just remove serial number or geo data as an option on upload? I agree that the data is handy for copyvio and it shouldn't be too easy to remove all of it. I also like the fact that I can link to the camera model to see if images have been overly cropped before upload.--Canoe1967 (talk) 07:53, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

See bugzilla:20326. Bawolff (talk) 13:43, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

1. Tracing a serial number is not a crime;
2. Stalking IS a crime;
3. Tracing a serial number ≠ stalking anyone. I.e. one might ever find that some of the photos uploaded on commons have been taken by someone who stole their camera (ok, ok, is an extreme situation, but no less extreme than stalking someone simply starting from searching for someone's photo with the same camera serial number);
4. Thus we, at the most , can warn the uploaders about the hazard of publishing a file with EXIF data. Is not our task protecting uploader's privacy;
5. I do reckon, anyway, that an exception can be done for uploaders of such countries (like i.e. China, Iran, etc.) where rights are denied or significantly curtailed or where democracy is only officially stated but not respected (former soviet countries, some Arab countries, and so on) in order to avoid being maliciously traced. That's the most we can do as Commons. Not encouraging scrubbing EXIF data as widespread habit though. -- SERGIO ^{(aka the Blackcat)} 11:29, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Systematically scrubbing EXIF data would not just complicate copyvio detection (and detection of falsified images) but compromise many legitimate educational uses (e.g. commercial apps and research have made extensive use of file geodata). Many consumers are interested in evaluating cameras based on sample pics, which is an application of model EXIF data, and many photographers interested in how a particular shot was produced have an interest in aperture, shutter time, ISO, etc. Uploaders interested in privacy are better served by using pseudonyms on their accounts. That said I'm all for giving uploaders the option to remove certain sensitive data at the time of upload, as long as such options are off-by-default. Dcoetzee (talk) 18:19, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Apart from the discussion two weeks ago about two photos in the "my cat" category, today I noticed a problematic upload on English Wikipedia where someone presumably uploaded a picture which falls in the "my dog" category with a GPS position given in the EXIF. Maybe the upload guide at least should mention that EXIF metadata may contain an exact geographical position. There is no issue if you take a photo at an easily identifiable public place, but there may be an issue if you take a photo in your own home. Of course, any actions made on Commons would have no effect on English Wikipedia. --Stefan4 (talk) 12:20, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

It seems the geo data can be stripped. If that 'my dog' image is worthy of commons could admin move it here and remove the geo data in the move?--Canoe1967 (talk) 18:03, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

June 12

Attribution of externally re-used Commons content

The current edition of English Wikipedia's Signpost has an article about problems with Wikimedia content (particularly images) being reused without correct attribution, or in violation of licensing terms. en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2012-06-11/Special_report. It includes quotes from our very own User:99of9 :).

Aside from flagging an article of interest, I'd like to see if we have any ideas on what might help reduce re-use problems. For instance, we could in theory automatically watermark every (non-PD!) image somehow (Javascript?), and only provide the unwatermarked image when users click the download button. That might seem extreme (and not easy to do, probably) but it would effectively prevent the click-click-got-the-image-bye-then of users grabbing the image without being confronted with the need to respect licensing terms. (It's too easy to ignore the text on the file description page, especially for users who don't understand and don't really care.) Other ideas? Rd232 (talk) 20:20, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Could we create a list page that has sites using images from commons that violate the rules? We could list all their emails and just pressure and expose them into changing their policies? Bad plan. See reasoning further down in article.--Canoe1967 (talk) 20:40, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Here is a list of improperly used images: Category:Images used by media organizations but violating license terms. InverseHypercube 22:00, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

That idea seems pretty silly given our own watermark policies ;-) It's also against our purpose, making media freely re-usable as easily as possible -- many uses are damaged by watermarks and that would be a bad thing to try to enforce. Maybe adding an EXIF tag or something is possible, but it's also nice to store the bit-for-bit original versions. Springer did partially attribute some of their images correctly. Perhaps we really need better documentation on what is expected for people who re-use works. It has been suggested to change the CC license tags here to emphasize the usage requirements. But I'm sure that anyone who looks closely will find plenty of examples of derivative works on Commons where the author of the underlying work is also not attributed correctly (or perhaps the CC-BY license was applied to a derivative of CC-BY-SA, that kind of thing). Everyone makes mistakes. Carl Lindberg (talk) 20:52, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

In case it wasn't clear, the watermark would only be shown in the preview on the file description, not in the "download for reuse" files. Rd232 (talk) 00:19, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

What I think might be useful is, instead of the individual uploader having to approach the copyright violators themselves -privately, is to have a tool where they can send them an email via the Wikimedia Foundation. This would have the advantage that standard form letters could be composed that would capture the recipients eye. Anyone that works in a busy office knows that a lot of stuff that comes from private individuals just gets deleted -almost before it gets read. A comment to the effect that we keep a black list of copyright violators (easy to set up) might also help -without it sounding like a threat as it would be a fait accompli already and their PR department might not be happy to know that they are on such a publicly readable list. Links to our licensing terms can be included on the form letter. --P.g.champion (talk) 21:07, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

That's not going to happen - see Commons:REUSE#Enforcing_license_terms. I did draft something resembling a form letter (Template:License enforcement request) but it can only come from the copyright holder. In theory it might be possible for uploaders to send emails from UserX@wikimedia, but even that's probably too much connection to the WMF that the WMF would want that. And sending emails on users' behalf via a main WMF address is out of the question; policing of the facility alone is a nightmare just to think about. Rd232 (talk) 02:06, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Also if we all use something like this (which should be added to the upload tool), it will not only give re-users an idea of how to attribute the image it but it cleary shows a “ © “ symbol.

DescriptionVillage pump/Archive/2012/06
Date	12 December 2012
Source	Own work
Author	John Doe
Attribution (required by the license) InfoField	© John Doe / Wikimedia Commons /
InfoField	© John Doe / Wikimedia Commons

If a re-user 'aint told he wont know! More info at Commons:Credit line. --P.g.champion (talk) 21:35, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) See also a discussion on the Swedish village pump. A major Swedish newspaper published two Commons photos with improper attribution (credited to "Wikimedia Commons", original licence not listed). In this and many cases, the problem seems to be that newspapers don't know how to attribute Commons users. --Stefan4 (talk) 21:10, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

You know, P.g.champion's suggestion inspires me to think that maybe what we need is a giant symbol at the top right of every file description page which indicates or PD. Just to make it visually much clearer this thing is copyrighted (if it is). This should be integrated somehow with the reuse icons; clicking the symbol should give you a similar popup that explains the basic "you can use it under certain conditions" idea. Rd232 (talk) 00:19, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

I like this idea! Clear and concise - and everyone should know what © means. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 00:27, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Agreed with all of these broad ideas. Education and clarity is going to give us the most benefit, with the least risk.

Having previously gone through the loop of clearing Commons content for commercial re-use (from both sides), I'd also find it a little easier with better signposting to the "How to" and the "Success stories" pages. Andy Dingley (talk) 01:51, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

(Edit conflict)everyone should know what © means - well, not necessarily; people might think "oh I can't use it" and go away before understanding the actual licensing. In fact, I'd accompany the C symbol with a tagline something like "usable without charge if correctly attributed as shown". "as shown" would refer to the recommended attribution, which would appear directly under the main preview image (above all other text, including image data about pixels etc). Javascript might be able to do this using the Information template. This way, it would be very clear what is expected from reusers, because we're showing it (on a sort of "monkey see, monkey do" principle which might seem insulting as a guide for action if we didn't know how readily people ignore quite simple instructions). Rd232 (talk) 01:57, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

@Canoe1967 - I'm horrified by your proposal of offering email addresses to a lynchmob of halfwit wikivigilantes. That's going to set open media back by years! Remember that this is a project with no competence requirements on its editors and where even Commons admin(s) don't understand basic ideas like a CC licence being irrevocable. I've already suffered commercial embarassment and harm from two wikivigilantes who took it upon themselves to hunt down cases where my IP was being breached by evil corporates (it wasn't). One was a well-known WP idiot, known for his ability to worm his way into any English publically-funded project and cause havoc, the other was an apparently respected Commons contributor who appears to have disagreed with me over a trivial DR, then to have gone out of their way to find trouble to stir up. In both cases the media wasn't even sourced from Commons, although it is available here - they'd been given separately licensed copies of it, in one case at quite a bit better resolution than I was willing to upload to Commons under a free licence. I've also been pursued by a Commons vigilante who was checking out my own attributed use of CC media from Commons and then took it upon themselves to harangue me for using copyright (and credited) media from Flickr too. Once again, this had been cleared by a separate agreement directly with the photographer.

Commercial use and skipped attributions are a bad thing -- but stirring up that sort of hornet's nest would invite an absolute disaster! Andy Dingley (talk) 01:49, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

I did the /s thing to my statement above. It probably is a bad plan.--Canoe1967 (talk) 05:26, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Those experiences really underline that not only is it only the copyright holder who can enforce copyright (which is well known, I think) - but that others trying to do so may be actively harmful (less obvious). Rd232 (talk) 02:01, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

• I am amazed at a discussion of Commons freely licensed material is considering use of the instead of . Maybe the copyleft symbol is not as widely recognised but it is so obviously related to copyright that there shouldn't be much doubt about what it is about. Creative commons licenses are about subverting the idea of copyright which seeks to restrict the use of material, by using it to maximise the use of material - to make it part of a common heritage that all can use. There are of course a minority who try and use awkward GFDL licenses etc to restrict the use of their material, but that is not in the spirit of Commons. --Tony Wills (talk) 02:55, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
  • The copyleft image might be a better idea than the copyright image - I'd forgotten about it, actually. Please be careful, though, that you don't confuse "creative commons" with "free use" - if I release my work as "attribution required," that is substantially different than releasing it as "CC-BY" - someone who is releasing an image as "CC-BY" is releasing it under a particular legal license. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 03:45, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
  • Creative commons does not have a monopoly on the idea of copyleft, and unilateral declarations about "the spirit of Commons" seem divisive to me. CC-SA licenses are arguably not copyleft enough. --Avenue (talk) 04:04, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Never suggested CC was the only copy-left license. Wikimedia policy to migrate images from GFDL to CC may have been divisive and some who clung (and still cling) to GFDL 1.2 licenses have stated they are doing so to specifically to thwart distribution (specifically commercial use) - most certainly not in "the spirit of Commons" ("Commons" as in CC, Wikmedia Commons, and "Reclaiming the Commons"). I don't remember anyone clinging to GFDL licencing of images on the basis it was more copy-left than CC-SA (but I may have missed that one :-). --Tony Wills (talk) 11:45, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

I haven't found anything on-wiki, but there was a hearsay comment along those lines here. Ancient history perhaps. --Avenue (talk) 15:27, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

CC-BY-SA is a copyleft license; CC-BY is not. It's not a universal solution. But it might help in some situations. Carl Lindberg (talk) 12:05, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

•  Question Common practice on WMF projects is not to attribute or give the license on the page on which the image is displayed (e.g. a Wikipedia article), but to link the image to the file description page where the full attribution and licensing information can be found. Is this usually adequate to meet license terms? If it is adequate on WMF projects, is there a reason it would not be adequate for external reusers also (link the image to the file description page here)? Thanks, cmadler (talk) 13:14, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

  In short: yes, but it's a bad idea to do so. Non-fiction books often provide image credits on a separate page at the end of the book. Linking an image to a page that provides the credit is widely considered the online equivalent of that and a means of attribution reasonable to the medium in question. Outsourcing your copyright compliance to a third party is generally a bad idea, though. When Commons has an outage or if the image is renamed without a redirect for some reason, otherwise legal uses can suddenly become illegal. —LX (talk, contribs) 08:50, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

  There are some advantages to this approach however: corrections to attribution metadata on Commons would be inherited, so that sites linking to us would fall into compliance while those that don't may remain out of compliance. Dcoetzee (talk) 18:07, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

• Responding to OP: although I generally assume good faith, in cases where no attribution is offered despite the file description page clearly specifying the desired attribution, I can only assume the content reuser has no understanding of or interest in proper attribution, at least in the context where the reuse was done. User interface changes will do nothing to deter the user who is looking for the quickest possible solution. The only real solution I can think of for such people is embedding visible watermarks/attribution bars in the image itself by default, which would be effective but I regard as a detestable solution. Dcoetzee (talk) 18:29, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Attribution requirement where the file is used

creditline here

• Someone writes some nice and awesome JavaScript that adds a partial overlay to the thumbs in WP-articles showing attribution information in case a work is not PD.
• This partial overlay is only shown when the file is hovered intentionally.

Requirements:

• Commons:Village pump/Proposals/Archive/2012/05#Clear author indication

-- RE rillke questions? 20:32, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Bots should stop misguiding people

One major problem with attribution that we see is that even those reusers who at least make some effort to provide attribution don't understand whom to attribute. People often look at the upload log instead of the {{Information}} template (if available). We also have problems with users uploading other people's work while claiming that doing so makes them the copyright holder.

The bots that transfer files from English Wikipedia and other projects compound this problem on a daily basis by perpetuating the misunderstanding that uploading a file makes them the author. We have hundreds of thousands of files stating "Author: Original uploader was (some user) at en.wikipedia". We seriously can't actively mislead people and then act all surprised when they follow our lead.

So: make the bots stop this nonsense. If it's clear who the author is, put the information in the author field without confusing rubbish around it. If it's not clear who the author is, don't fill the author field with unrelated confusing rubbish. —LX (talk, contribs) 08:50, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. I suggest to move the original uploader somewhere out of the "author-field" we don't have a database.... Sometimes it's helpful to have this information, or at least a link to the "source file" so one can lookup the uploader. -- RE rillke questions? 10:55, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Most files moved to Commons have a "Original upload log" section that contains this information. /Ö 21:38, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Seconded. Also, just a thought. The Upload [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:UploadWizard] screen that gives useful tips before uploading, just says in the last box “We can't accept work from others without their explicit permission. Thank you for your help: This is important.” Would it not be useful to point out that it is the uploader claiming false attribution that is at risk from having legal proceedings taken out against THEM and not WC. Both WP & WC psyche has an anathema against providing anything that could be construed as being legal advice but in this case I think upoaders should be made aware that it is they that would suffer the penalties – and have this as the first tip they see? Maybe a glossary defining the WC meaning of ambiguous terms (Author, Source, etc.) would also help to remove any excuse for getting things mixed up. --P.g.champion (talk) 15:58, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Pardon me for being late to this conversation: I can program my bot to remove the "original uploader" text if you'd all like. It already removes it if the uploader unequivocably is not the author. What I can do is this: if the bot is unsure who the author is, it can place the name of the uploader in comments, something like this: <!-- {{user at project|Magog the Ogre|wikipedia|en}} REMOVE THESE COMMENT TAGS IF THE UPLOADER HAS INDICATED S/HE IS THE AUTHOR -->. But I definitely would want community consensus for that, because I would quite possibly get some blowback on my talk page if the bot is commenting it out when the author is the uploader. Magog the Ogre (talk) 00:00, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Magog the Ogre, that would be great (my suggestion was instead to move the "original uploader" info to the source entry instead of the author), I believe this would make a positive difference. Ariadacapo (talk) 07:01, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

I agree that "original uploader" information belongs in the "source" field rather than the author field (except where "own work" is claimed?). cmadler (talk) 14:24, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Ok, for me. -- RE rillke questions? 11:19, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

 Comment I think {{Information}} code is greatly outdated and should be improved. It simply needs a few more fields. An author filed and a separate uploader filed would be helpful. Also code to transfer files from other wikis to here perhaps be revised to better handle these new parameters. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 14:07, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

We don't need more template-mess but a separate database field in MW for attribution information, geo-location, ... Otherwise we/Commons users will be never able to process and evaluate these data efficiently. -- RE rillke questions? 11:17, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately we currently only have the "template-mess". It does not appear likely that we will ever get such a database so we might as well improve what we got. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 17:10, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

But do you agree in general, that separate database fields for some information would be desirable for files? Then we could at least open a bug/ discuss the details. I also don't like that anonymous users can vandalize license-tags. This can cause legal implications. Using AbuseFilter does not sound efficient. But being able to protect such a license-database-field from anonymous editing does. -- RE rillke questions? 15:33, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

• I think we should try again with those buttons right next to the image: "Reuse this image", then pop up some clear instructions with copyable html for attribution. I can't remember why it was removed last time, but if we worked on it a bit, I think it would be the best solution for the user. Go to one of our file pages with fresh eyes, and imagine being a reuser confronted with a wall of templates and headings. --99of9 (talk) 13:45, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

• I very much agree with 99of9's fresh eyes approach. 'We' know WC but to a neonate, the whole thing is not intuitive. WC was designed by geeks interested in photography but not all up-loaders and re-users are that sad enough, to to be on our wavelength. There are other people unlike us out there (yes really, I've met some – they try and sell me double glazing or life assurance policies and such like). They need clear, unambiguous instructions. --P.g.champion (talk) 14:24, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Anefo - collection of 140.000 Dutch press photos

I have started a large upload project for the Anefo collection. This is a collection of 140.000 Dutch press photos that today have been released under a CC-BY-SA by the Nationaal Archief. I'd like to ask help in categorizing these images. The images can be found in Category:Uncategorized images from Anefo. Each one has a description (in Dutch), and at the bottom a few suggested categories have been added based on the metadata given with the file. However, these suggestions are not always good, they are in Dutch, and there might be other good categories. Thanks in advance! - Andre Engels (talk) 13:26, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

I created Category:Anefo temporary redirects for some of them. --  Docu  at 09:55, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Andre, please pause, open a page at Commons:Batch uploading and read Commons:Guide to batch uploading. You're now making beginners mistakes. Multichill (talk) 12:14, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

For example it would be good if it were possible to templatize stuff like "nummer toegang", "bestanddeelnummer" or the source. That way localization would be possible. But I don't know, whether the original data allows to reliably templatize it. --Slomox (talk) 15:36, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

This is fantastic: we have hardly 1200 images and already 950 suggested categories. Just to make sure that we don't run out of (avoidable) work ? --Foroa (talk) 16:59, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

See also Commons:Nationaal Archief - mention this project there? Regards, HaeB (talk) 22:41, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Can't stay logged in

I can log in, but going to any other page (even watchlist) logs me back out. What can I do? Ntsimp (talk) 17:20, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Have you tried from another computer? That may sort whether it is this system or yours. You may want to try another IP computer as well, but I doubt that makes a difference. Does it do the same on sites like en:wp if you have accounts there?--Canoe1967 (talk) 18:26, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the help. It's all resolved now; I had somehow disabled all cookies. Ntsimp (talk) 21:40, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

You are very welcome. I always enable all cookies, turn off firewalls and anti-virus, etc. This gives me a really good excuse to buy a new computer and give the old one to someone that I don't like.

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. --Canoe1967 (talk) 00:04, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

June 21

Maintaining (and thus editing) SVGs' text like wiki articles

Administration (and thus user editing) of SVG-files like wiki-articles seems to be an even more appropriate header

After a week almost nothing happened, I like to warm up this issue once more: Whom must I contact on (commons-)wikimedia, or to which sub-community of wikipedia must I go to explain my wish/demand/proposal of this to get an expert peer-reviewing and a realization hopefully:

I like to see (in generally replacing every) "File:*.svg" media presentation and especially the technically/logical administration for the user like an article-page, such that anyone can simply modify the svg-code by text-editing. Of course a valid rendering can only occur with a valid SVG-syntax, but this is in principle the same problem as for any articles! And if you are afraid of too much mistakenly(?) chaos with invalid SVG-files, permit it firstly only users which have a few days (some article-editing) expirience. But this is not necessary in my personal oppinion -- we already have many protected SVG-files -- as long as we have (as usual) the revert button.

The main difference to an article is that it is not interpreted as a wiki-article syntax for when the page is called, but it is interpreted as a wiki-SVG syntax for default display!. The difference to SVG-1.1. is simply: it starts like any legal SVG-1.1-code, but after the final </svg>-statement there follows the Wiki-special description text which is now also presented below on the page "File:*.svg" after displaying the rendered image.

I think to realize such a feature an expert Wiki-programmer should only need at most a few hours to create the necessary context -- correct interpretation and display of this kind of SVG-file. But we get ride for this "special download" for unstructured media of huge amount of data each time you like to make any (small or not) correction to an existing SVG-file. :-( A side effect is: we have also simplified the internal wiki-administration structure a bit. This may also take over later for other structured (XML(?)) content, IMHO. Achim1999 (talk) 11:31, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

summary

The page "File:*.svg" shows up as usual, but if you press the edit-button (if it is not protected, then you have only the view-button), you switch into article-editing state. You get for editing the content which consist of

• the raw SVG-code (the content of the *.svg file)
• followed by a template which generates the currently immediately below the image seen part

Size of this preview: 800 × 400 pixels. Other resolution: 320 × 160 pixels.

...

...

This image rendered as PNG in other sizes: 200px, 500px, 1000px, 2000px.

-stuff

• the text which now already is given for modifications when editing "File:*.svg"

Achim1999 (talk) 17:24, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

"After a week almost nothing happened" - where was this previous discussion after which nothing happened? --Saibo (Δ∇) 18:06, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Commons:Help desk#Modify an uploaded SVG-file. -- Asclepias (talk) 18:59, 13 June 2012 (UTC) Thanks, converted to a perm link. --Saibo (Δ∇) 19:53, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

I headed over to the bugzilla:5899 and posted a link to these conversations. I also marked the bug as "REOPENED" - not sure if I'm technically supposed to do that, but maybe it'll bring the bug to the attention of the devs there. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 22:42, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

---

As has been discussed before, editing of SVGs as text would be more harmful than helpful unless the full range of tools for text is available (independent version histories, diff listings, watchlists, etc.). Also, it would be advisable to disable the edit privilege for those who do not have permission to upload files (anonymous IPs, those whose accounts are less than 4 days old, etc.). AnonMoos (talk) 04:09, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, it is really a bit off-topic, but your personal judgment that editing of SVGs as text would be more harmful than helpful unless (here we shall have the full set of tools ...) is too subjective, even if you have not this tool-set of maintaining article by the users, IMHO. To open your eyes: Compare a typically English-text article page and a SVG-code-article page. If we make a minor ("random or similar" -- the definition is up to your intelligence what is appropriate in this context :-) ) change in both pages, the SVG-text page can't not be rendered and you see nothing or a black rectangle or a red error message and thus knows something must be wrong! And a minor tricky change, changing the "dark red" of a disc to "light red" is not very important, changing "red" to "blue" would be obviously at first glance and a well-informated user will correct this very soon! In the case of the English-article page you either read instead of the correct word "well-known" the word "bull-shit" or the "word yxnmre" or the word "not agreed", or ... . Then the typically user can only recognize in the case "yxnmre" some sort of vandalism, in the case "bull-shit" bad language, but in the case "not agreed" there is a good chance that he got tricked and believe this wrong information! :-( Thus the statement editing English-article-text is more harmful than helpful (compared to strictly syntax-checked-text), would support the opposite opinion in this case -- and this case is for sure a real danger, not a minor artifical idea! So, be careful to claim subjective judgment as objective correctly. ;-) Thank you. Achim1999 (talk) 10:20, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

BTW: this is the reason why typically (e.g. in jurisdaction) if things are defined by a picture and a describing text and there is a contradiction between both, the text-information takes prior over the picture-information if one must decide. Achim1999 (talk) 10:31, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Whatever -- if it's cumbersome to keep track of exactly what each edit is (and the only effective feedback is whether the SVG displays or does not display), then that would be a recipe for disaster, and I would be vehemently opposed to any such system of SVG textual edits without the proper accompanying tools. AnonMoos (talk) 22:53, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Whatever -- your statment is meaningless, because we would have all tools for articles, because I have demanded this hereby! ARGH Achim1999 (talk) 23:23, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Please try to maintain some minimal degree of self-consistency, because if you're incoherently flopping around all over the place, it's very difficult for others to evaluate or even understand your ideas. I will vigorously and vehemently oppose any proposal to open up SVGs to text editing without appropriate tools for viewing an understanding such edits (comparable to Wikipedia article editing tools), and its far from clear to me whether or not your proposals include this. Certainly your notion that we'll notice there's a problem only when an edited SVG fails to render does not inspire great confidence... AnonMoos (talk) 00:46, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

I like the idea proposed by Nicholas in first suggesting the bug - though I don't see anything in the SVGEdit extension referred to at the bug that suggests that that idea was followed through. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 04:31, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

How to (comfortable) editing SVGs as text is a different thing than I proposed here! I want to have the full range of tools for text is available (independent version histories, diff listings, watchlists, etc.). and this is trivial, because it is really a (kind of) article page! :-/

The difference is only when displaying such a page! Please don't mix up these two different aims. You may always write an editor for SVG-text or not, totally independent of my proposal! ;) And what I want is not to resolve a bug, but to implement a new feature or better philosophy(!) in maintaining SVG- and to be visionary, general (human-readable / xml) structured media-files! :) Achim1999 (talk) 09:55, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Could you do me a small favor, Philosopher? Because I can not editing bugzilla.wikimedia.org, don't I?, please correct the sub-link there to the (by me changed, hopefully apropriate) correct section-title.

A further point: We need not a test-wiki-embedding, IMHO. It can be tested much simpler: Make it ready to work in generally, BUT when clicked on edit-button, firstly the actual chosen wiki-page is checked against a small list of selected addresses (SVG-files), and if it is NOT among them do the old (current) behavior. So the developer or a small chosen set (hopefully including me) can use this only for a few selected SVG-files which are in this hidden(?) list. And this list can be secretly increased and lastly be removed and the default behavior reverted to the new maintainance for all SVG-files. Keep things simple, avoid superfluous work! ;) Achim1999 (talk) 13:25, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

(i) I would prefer to seperate file content (in a new namespace, like Media:) and description page (in File: namespace). To separate those seems to be more useful, and will avoid bots to replace stuff in the SVG code.

(ii) How have you calculate 4 hours of work? A correct alpha-quality integration of a SVG editor to Commons would request 2 to 3 weeks, 2 developers (2 days evaluation and planning, 4 to 6 days to deploy existing extension code, 3 to 4 days to write unit tests and maybe some UI tests, 2 days to prepare and deploy a testing environment, then 1 week with the community to debug all the stuff). --Dereckson (talk) 14:13, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

to (i). I would not! Because it causes mainly artifical problems for nothing! There must be a criterion to distinct SVG-article from say English-articles (SVG is like a further language!) to get displayed the SVG-article correctly as SVG-graphic which is (of course) different from rendering an English-article page when displaying it -- or an arabic article :-) ! Thus bots can use this existing criterion, too. In the simplest case it would be a different category, like talk, template, category or whatever page which robots already (should) know to distinguish -- call it SVG.

to (ii) Sorry, this is not my problem! I want not to have a special SVG-editor, ARGH! I estimated the needed real-time only for recognisation of SVG-articles when displayed! We already HAVE the article-logic-maintenance/administration! It is a rather simple change. :-/ Achim1999 (talk) 14:48, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand why you want the change you want. In any case every time you edit and save an svg you would have to create an entry in the version history and the upload log for the same reasons as you would with articles. --Cwbm (commons) (talk) 22:38, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Because I want to be able to modify, especially small changes, simply. Now you also have not to download/upload a whole article page (or user-page, or talk-page or ...) if you like to change some words! Now you see no differences for File:*svg to previous versions, the whole tool-stuff which already exists can not be used to your comfort for SVG-files! :-( Achim1999 (talk) 23:23, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Say I want to fix a typo or move an image slightly to the right, this would be helpful. svgs should be stored as text rather than as binary files perhaps as that way we can even have diffs to see what exactly changed. Upload would treat svg files differently. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 00:09, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Making SVGs easier to edit is a fine idea, but it's unclear how you would diff text that is laid out in 2D space, or how you would deal with it when the resulting text overflows the space reserved for it in the original image, leading to changes in layout, etc. You really need the ability to edit the SVG in a much richer way than is suggested. I think a decent short-term solution is enabling Extension:SVGEdit. In the mean time, files do have file revisions, and visual examination can clearly identify the differences between versions, so that seems to work fine. Dcoetzee (talk) 18:05, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I dislike to insult you, but you miss the topic:

• as said several times this is not a request for a featurefull (or not) SVG-editor. :-/
• ...visual examination can clearly identify the differences between versions... Exactly this is NOT the case! Why exists the diff-philosophy for text-pages on wikipedia? There has happened a bad design-decision in earlier times for SVG-files and thus users and wikimedia has again and again pay the price for it! :-(
• you are forced (if you can't urge to a system-admin to act behind the scene) to upload a full new SVG-file if only a few characters needed to be change in a current SVG-file. Everybody would shake his head (at best) if this would be forced for an article-page, or talk-page, or user-page, or ... !
• given these version-control-tools, which already exists and are well-proven, then a further step might be to discuss and/or implement a special SVG-editor (capable of syntax-check editors already exists for many CS-languages), if people agree on it.
• BTW: Ever look at an article-page? It's text is also laid out in 2-D space! Achim1999 (talk) 10:00, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

I would also like to see the change in code via diff for version control. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 19:17, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Valued image in wrong category?

I have just checked the warthog photos on commons, correcting several identification (long story short: the widespread P. africanus was formerly included as a subspecies of the more localized P. aethiopicus, meaning that some mistakenly still use the latter name when "their" warthog actually is the former -- if requested I can provide a longer explanation of the various features that separate the two, seeing that one user used a feature incorrectly when reviewing the photo).
A photo I corrected is File:Muenster-100720-15883-Zoo.jpg, but I did not correct the identification in the "Valued image" template. Should it be left as a valued image of a category it doesn't belong in, be corrected to the Phacochoerus africanus (the species it really shows), be removed entirely as a valued image, or something else? RN1970 (talk) 03:45, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

I have notified the VI project to get this fixed. Thanks, cmadler (talk) 14:24, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. RN1970 (talk) 15:29, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Pictures by Harold Maxwell-Lefroy

Hi, could somebody upload with robot this images from book ? Every picture is under public domain (check here)Indian Insect Life: a Manual of the Insects of the Plains. Thanks Dominikmatus (talk) 20:33, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

 Done Category here Dominikmatus (talk) 23:20, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

How to have multiple uploads of the same image deleted?

The first upload of THIS IMAGE was of poor quality and I replaced it with a higher resolution image which accidentally generated 2 identical uploads because of an upload glitch. I would like to replace with a fourth upload (the best), but before doing so, I would like to have the last two deleted. What is the right process in such cases in general, as older images of my uploads are unnecessary. — User talk:Ineuw 21:16, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

If you are just talking about multiple uploads under the same name, there's no point to deleting them. Even if an admin "deletes" them they are still on the server, so it makes work without saving any space.

If you uploaded under a different name, use {{Duplicate}} on the page for the name you want deleted; see documentation of that template for how to indicate what it is a duplicate of. - Jmabel ! talk 21:37, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Jmabel. They are multiple uploads under the same name. So I'll just leave them as is. — User talk:Ineuw 06:49, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Jmabel ! talk 21:37, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Question on North Korea / Rodong Sinmun copyrights

On the en.wiki for , we are trying to see if there's a free image of Kim Jong-un to use. An editor has discovered an image of him from the NK state-run paper , our discussion now is whether this can be considered free or not. The editor has pointed to Template:PD-DPRKGov (on commons) suggesting this applies to works put out by the paper, though the paper's website has copyright notices. Is there any advice that commons can supply towards this? --Masem (talk) 23:50, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

The template not suggests this. A photo in a newspaper is not a document of state management and it is not copyright ineligible news/fact or bulletin. --Martin H. (talk) 00:14, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm the user Masem to whom Masem was referring. My argument there ran as follows. First of all, by way of context, the full text of the relevant DPRK law, as referenced in the template, is here [[20]]. It does state that photographs are generally subject to copyright, but the relevant Article 12 limits the applicability of that section in the case of all copyrighted works, and does not make any special exemption in the case of photographs, hence there is no reason to suppose that photographs as a category of work are not covered by that exemption (and indeed, every reason to suppose the reverse). Moreover, whilst the term "documents of state management" is not defined, one of the examples it does specify is "current news and bulletins". When the news is to the effect that Kim Jong Un is the head of the state and his appearance is as portrayed in an accompanying photograph, that would indicate to me that such a photograph constitutes current news covered by the exemption.

But the claim that a picture I referenced of Kim Jong Il that another user immediately had deleted does not constitute a document of state management puzzles me still further. As is stated here [[21]] - on a page that also contains two examples of images of Kim Jong Un released as official portraits by the DPRK, and thus I would argue per the above could be candidates for inclusion under the template I linked - it is a legal requirement that all DPRK citizens display and venerate that very portrait in their own homes. If it's a fundamental law of the DPRK state that a certain image must be displayed and venerated by its own citizens, how can it be argued that that image is not a document of state management? Lordrosemount (talk) 23:03, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

PD-DPRKGov is invalid, see Commons:Deletion requests/Template:PD-DPRKGov. Since the law was changed recently, it's non-commercial only. -- Liliana-60 (talk) 23:48, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

First of all, the law is not here but here. The former link is just a budget translation of the law (meaning that it contains lots of errors). Secondly, the Korean text implies that a "document of state management" (

국가관리문건

/

國家管理文件

/

kukka kwalli mun'gŏn

) is a literary work whereas a photo is an artistic work. Third, "current news and bulletins" (

시사보도물, 통보자료

/

時事報道物, 通報資料

/

sisa podomul, t'ongbo charyo

) are not "documents of state maintenance" but separate things which are also excluded by this part of the copyright law. I would still guess that "current news and bulletins" have to be literary works, though, due to the use of

報道物

and

資料

--Stefan4 (talk) 18:40, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Need OTRS...

...this image? (File:Plity Gris.jpg) --Metrónomo (talk) 05:50, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Hrm. Uploaded in early 2005, before OTRS existed. Different standards then. Might be impossible to determine if existed on the web prior to March 2005. Carl Lindberg (talk) 06:09, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

"Copyright free (Granted permission by the author)." means that ru.wiki there should be some kind of authorization? --Metrónomo (talk) 06:35, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Means that the uploader either is the copyright owner (and the image is PD-self), or they got permission from the author, meaning it's PD-author. That was the claim anyways. Carl Lindberg (talk) 07:10, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

See link COM:GRANDFATHER... -- AnonMoos (talk) 11:51, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

OK, I will use PD-author. --Metrónomo (talk) 19:59, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Template:Deminimis

User:Gestumblindi suggested a {{Deminimis}} template at Commons:Village pump/Copyright/Archive/2012/04#"De minimis" box template? with a reply from User:Cmadler, and so I decided to make one. Please improve it as you see fit; I have first used it here on File:Louvre at night centered.jpg and here on File:Wildlife Centre entrance.jpg. -84user (talk) 21:29, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Made a change and another. --Saibo (Δ∇) 23:41, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

The tag which was already on that image is probably more appropriate. Not sure that is really de minimis, but more a theory I think termed the "theory of the accessory" or something like that. Carl Lindberg (talk) 05:19, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Can/should it be internationalized? Also, as I mentioned previously, I think maybe it should link to Commons:Reusing content outside Wikimedia and mention that, while we think it's accurate, reusers should make their own determination. cmadler (talk) 13:24, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

That reuse help page applies to all images and is linked in the info template's permission field (if existent; it is existent if the de minimis template would be put there). --Saibo (Δ∇) 16:39, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Football Line Ups

Hey!

I did some week ago an line up for the football match between the swedish clubs AIK and IFK Göteborg. (2010 Svenska Supercupen) And the thing is, it's not good. If you take a look at it you'll see there's an black spot at IFK Göteborgs half. And the shirts aint good either...

So my question, exactly how do you do tactical line ups, where do you find the shirts? I'm using Inkscape

Thanks, Hastaro (talk) 22:32, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

The black spot wasnt there when I uploaded the file, so I have no idea how it got there.--Hastaro (talk) 22:41, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

(unindent) I uploaded File:AIK - Göteborg Supercupen 2010 inkscape plain.svg which has the first "flowRegion" element removed and Commons appears to render that correctly. However, neither Firefox nor Opera had any problems with your version, so I guess the problem is due to mediawiki's software renderer. If anyone wishes to fix the original version, the flowRegion text I removed appears after the "Hysén" element and looks like this:

<flowRegion
             id="flowRegion3158"><rect
               width="22.731783"
               height="13.371637"
               x="478.70462"
               y="399.82626"
               id="rect3160" /></flowRegion>

-84user (talk) 12:16, 24 June 2012 (UTC) Also, the football shirt shapes are rather large (internally) raster images and not vector shapes - that might be what causes the poor appearance. -84user (talk) 12:28, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Hey, thanks for the answer! Do you know where I can find the football shirts that's used on almost all the line ups? I cant find them anywhere. And yes, the size of the shirts I used was way to big.

And thanks for fixing the black spot.--Hastaro (talk) 17:20, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

By the way, the Inkscape "flowtext" nonsense is a well-known longstanding problem (I've personally probably fixed at least a hundred such images) which is almost always what's responsible for unexpected black rectangles in a rendered SVG. See Commons:SVG Check for diagnosis... -- AnonMoos (talk) 05:13, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

June 24

Template:Copyright by Wikimedia/tg

Anyone understand Template:Copyright by Wikimedia/tg? The creator has no other contributions, and it doesn't exactly look like a valid translation. I hesitate to delete it without confirmation though. Thanks, Rd232 (talk) 21:18, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

User has a few contributions on tg and ru wiki, so I think we have to assume good faith unless there is evidence otherwise. Perhaps ask on tg Village Pump or embassy etc? --Tony Wills (talk) 08:49, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

June 25

Excessive use of Personality rights template

I am thinking of removing {{Personality rights}} from all categories except Category:Personality rights warning. Images may contain personality rights, not categories.

Additionally I find some of the uses not necessary. I can of course remove them but I want to have some second opinions. For instance Tracy Caldwell Dyson in Cupola ISS.jpg is physically in international extraterresial territory. US personality rights or US laws have no jurisdiction. It is taken in the ESA built Cupola module and it would be very difficult to determine what countries laws we are to follow. In the case of 11-11-20-talk-with-sue-03.jpg the use is more jaw dropping.

I understand the purpose of this template and I support the intended use but I see far too many unnecessary uses. "Better safe than sorry" logic shouldn't override common sense.

-- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 05:01, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

There are some bogus uses (see just now File talk:Paul McCartney Arms.svg‎), but it's almost never out of place when added to the description page of an identifiable photograph (including a clear view of the face) of a living or probably-still-living person who has not signed a model release (or similar document)... AnonMoos (talk) 05:08, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

(EC) I have removed the template from the notepad image, nobody is depicted. Regarding the ESA pic, the template is not only about US law, there are personality rights laws in most countries (although I have no idea which apply in space). I would leave the template on that photo. I'm not sure about categories, if the entire category is about a person, I suppose it makes sense to have a warning for reusers on it. --99of9 (talk) 05:10, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

And we just have to wait before someone starts nominating shitloads of these images because "there is no consent". Multichill (talk) 10:07, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

"Consent" is only necessary when you use a photograph to claim that someone is endorsing or affiliated with something which they have not in fact endorsed or affiliated themselves with. The personality rights template is in fact a warning to potential image reusers, in exactly the same way as {{Trademarked}} and {{Insignia}}. It is not a copyright matter, and does not affect our ability to host images on Wikimedia Commons... AnonMoos (talk) 12:30, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

I think Multichill is referring to privacy-related {{Consent}} (which does lead to some deletions) rather than publicity-related consent. {{Personality rights}} is about the latter, but there's a fair overlap between images in both sets if they're taken in private situations. --99of9 (talk) 13:05, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, if he meant something other than {{Personality rights}} in a discussion which had only been about {{Personality rights}}, then he should have clarified... AnonMoos (talk) 18:59, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

IMO the personality rights template is missing in thousands of file description pages, especially with children (example). --Leyo 06:23, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Going back to the original question, I think it is OK to remove {{Personality rights}} from all categories except Category:Personality rights warning, after they are added to images in the category that might need it. Those should be added on by image basis, not by category. --Jarekt (talk) 13:03, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

This can be done though I'd imagine most (if not all) of the files themselves contain the template but I will make sure. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 17:57, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Personality rights is not an issue of where the photo was taken, it matters where you want to use the person's likeness or name. If you are promoting a product in the U.S., you cannot use the image to connote that Tracy Caldwell Dyson likes the product without her permission. That basic concept is shared by most countries around the world. The template is absolutely appropriate for that image regardless of where it was taken. I'm ambivalent about using the tag on categories, but frankly, the protection also extends to the person's name as well. It's just that since it applies to basically every living person (and in some jurisdictions, much longer), it's really a pervasive situation that people really should be aware of without having to remind them. It's true of just about any photograph of a person, unless they died in the 1800s or something. I'm sure it could be legitimately added to a couple million photos here. File:11-11-20-talk-with-sue-03.jpg was a mistake though. Perhaps a copy-paste from other uploads where it was appropriate. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:50, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

I am under the belief vast majority of the incorrect taggings are from bulk uploads were a mixed variant of files are uploaded. This alone is not a problem but if too many files have a bogus warning it quickly gets ignored. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 17:57, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

• Some of this thread was brought up by the WMF representive. I think most agreed to discuss it here: Commons talk:Photographs of identifiable people section 13. It seems to have stalled out though.--Canoe1967 (talk) 17:52, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
  • I think that discussion was more to do with privacy rights than personality rights. cmadler (talk) 18:19, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

There was discussion of both. I think many get the two mixed up, including the OP. I changed the header to match that after discussing it with him.--Canoe1967 (talk) 18:24, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Special:UserLogin languagelinks

At Special:UserLogin there are a lot of languagelinks (which reload the page in the specified language when clicked). A suggestion was made (at MediaWiki talk:Loginlanguagelinks) to restrict this list of links to the most used / most important languages. Toolserver preference statistics can be used to identify the most used languages (click on Users to sort them). So: do we want to restrict the number of languages? If so, how many links do we want to have? There are currently 32 at Special:UserLogin; Commons:Language templates list a lot more than that, and Category:Language templates has 343 members. We surely want to stop adding language links at some point. Comments? Rd232 (talk) 14:42, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

What is the advantage in restricting it (apart from ongoing maintenance)? The "most important" language is probably one's own language (even if only spoken by two people ;-). --Tony Wills (talk) 08:57, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Status quo is OK for me (it was someone else's idea to reduce the number of links). But there has to be a limit, because if we make languagelinks for all languages, it'll fill up the login screen... Rd232 (talk) 12:28, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

We should also respect the accept-lang-header sent to the server. Some users may not set their language in the prefs (for various reasons): User:Multichill/Browser language statistics (needs renewal, asked Erik Zachte). -- RE rillke questions? 09:58, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

That's presumably a MediaWiki issue. I don't know anything about accept-lang, and the only bug I can find is Bugzilla:21672. Are you sure MediaWiki doesn't do this? Rd232 (talk) 12:28, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

MediaWiki does not do anything with accept language (Unless the situation has changed in the last few months. Usually the excuse is cache fragmentation, and the fact accept-lang is often incorrect). Javascript can do stuff with accept-lang by querying the api which can return what accept-lang header the browser passed in (I believe that commons already does this with the nice message asking me if i want to view the page in british english). Bawolff (talk) 19:40, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

p.s. relavent bugs are bugzilla:3665 and bugzilla:33677 Bawolff (talk) 19:46, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Two more cat-moves on the wait

New categorenamings waiting for your stimulus !
Come help maintain the project on the right side, have a look at the background-argument for each move tag and voice your pro- or con- to keep debates & error corrections going.

• Category:Deaths from terrorism
• Category:Munich massacre

Contribute at respective talk pages.
Orrlingtalk 09:03, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Removal of original uploader information

I was thinking about having OgreBot 2 remove the original uploader information from the author field of {{Information}} templates. We discussed the issue above (#Bots should stop misguiding people), but it's not getting many eyes, so I'm rehashing it here. I want to get community consensus for this. I will list some of the pros and cons below:

Explanation of process

• OgreBot 2 goes over all of the uploads on a given day and looks for poorly formatted information to clean up. This usually involves internationalization (e.g., "selbst fotografiert" -> {{Self-photographed}}), but can also be clean up of bad bot moves (User:Magnus Manske can't be arsed to respond to even the simplest requests;[22] it's bad enough we might consider writing an alternative bot and ask the Toolserver to take his one down).
• When OgreBot 2 detects that a file has been uploaded from a local project, it already removes the uploader information altogether if the licensing templates indicate the uploader isn't the author (e.g., [23]).
• When OgreBot 2 detects that a file has been uploaded from a local project, it already changes the author field to indicate the uploader is the author if it can unambiguously tell from the licensing templates (e.g., [24])
• When OgreBot 2 detects that a file has been uploaded from a local project, sometimes it isn't sure who the author is. Currently, in cases like this, it just leaves the original uploader in the author field. The following discussion is about these cases.

Pros

1. Frequently, the uploader is not the author, and having the information present is wrong altogether. Thus, we are fixing an inaccuracy. Example: [25] [26] [27] [28].
2. It serves to avoid confusing the reader with extra information.
3. The information is usually down below in the original upload log field anyway
4. There are times when not even a human reader can figure out who created this file. (Example: [29]: who created this SVG code, which is copyrightable?. Or [30]; no author was ever explicitly stated by the uploader). We should not be including the information if it is possibly wrong.
5. It can remove redundancy and pretty up the description page. Example: [31].

Cons

1. Sometimes the uploader has already indicated that s/he is the author in the textual description instead of in the information field. Removing the original uploader would make the template incorrectly state the author hadn't been specified. This is especially common with older uploads and uploads from smaller projects. Examples: [32] [33].
2. Sometimes the uploader actually had indicated the authorship at the local project, but the bots are poorly written so they didn't properly transfer the information. (Example: [34], which you can tell from the old version of the file here, in that the page at sr.wp transcluded sr:Шаблон:Двојна лиценца, which is equivalent to the {{Self}} template on Commons).

Proposals

1. Do nothing
2. Remove the uploader information altogether
3. Replace the uploader information with comment tags giving an explanation: e.g., something like this: <!-- REMOVE THE COMMENT TAGS AROUND THE FOLLOWING IF THE UPLOADER HAS INDICATED THAT HE OR SHE IS THE AUTHOR --> <!-- {{user at project|Magog the Ogre|wikipedia|en}} -->

Discussion (Removal of ...)

It is my opinion that this information should be removed or placed into comment tags. Magog the Ogre (talk) 00:52, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

 Support #3

I really appreciate your efforts for cleaning up file description pages of files moved from local projects.

In my opinion, only information that is relevant for readers and re-users (i.e. information on image, attribution of author) should be included in Template:Information, in order to avoid confusing them with irrelevant extra information. The following should not be included in there, because it is not relevant and redundant (contained in the original upload log or next to the thumbnail in the file history):

• Who transferred the file to Commons, from which project, using which tool and when.
• The date of the original upload, especially if there is information on the date of creation of the work.
• The original uploader, especially if there is information on the author available or it's unimportant because of the age of the work (PD).
• Permission = [just a rehash of the templates under the licensing section in the language of the source project]

There is obviously not yet consensus on these point. This cleanup edit was reverted by the user who moved the file (and is an admin on Commons).

I want to stress that I really dislike Template:User at project. Replacing e.g. “Example user” by “Example user at English Wikipedia” IMO even violates the condition You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor. Therefore, I think we should stop using this template, especially these automatic insertions by a bot or a script. --Leyo 06:39, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

You only want "own" in the source field for a transferred file? Do you also just want "no source given" for flickr uploads (those are also "transfers", more or less)? I think it is quite clear that the info template needs to get more fields to clearly describe all that information from the different point of views. --Saibo (Δ∇) 16:55, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, only {{Own}} or {{Self-photographed}}. Additional information in the original upload log is certainly sufficient. We could do the same for Flickr uploads. There are however two differences: (i) Flickr is a different website, whereas Wikipedias and Commons are both Wikimedia projects; (ii) the file description page in the source project looks exactly right (as the original local file description page) without information about the transfer in Template:Information. --Leyo 19:23, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Where will you stop dereferencing? In the end every work is "own". When someone uploads a work here he has to specify the "source" from the uploader's point of view, doesn't he? You want to use the source field only from the author's point of view? Why can't we directly indicate in the source field (as it was done for ages) where the file comes from from the uploader's point of view + the source info which was mentioned at the uploader's source? That shows at one glace that the uploader is not the author. Why do we mess up with the "source" field instead of directly separating it to a more sophisticated info template which maybe got more than one source field? "uploader's source", "source 1", "source 2", ... "source author"? --Saibo (Δ∇) 00:55, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

I draw the line between Wikimedia project and non-Wikimedia project. IMO the information contained in Template:Information should be the only relevant for re-users and readers. And the fact that a file was first uploaded to Wikipedia is definitively not relevant for them. --Leyo 08:27, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, but, hmm, hmmm - that is not really conclusive for me. template:Information/doc ("information about where the file is from") and Commons:First_steps/Quality_and_description#Good_file_descriptions both target the uploader. --Saibo (Δ∇) 22:08, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

 Support #3

I am especially concerned about making re-use easier. Upload-related data is meta-information, useful for us, not for external re-users.

Thank you for your work cleaning up the disorder... Ariadacapo (talk) 08:59, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

If the bot can't determine whether it's really the author or not, I don't think it should remove that information. It would be even harder for reusers to dig into the history to get who was the uploader in a different wiki (where the file will be deleted), in order to ask that guy who made it or decide if he looks like the author (yes, there are usually wikitext copies of the upload log, but harder to parse or may be missing, not to mention a bot who could be tryng to extract that information). I'd place the original uploader in a template like {{original uploader-author unknown|Example user|project}} which expanded to We have no information about the author of this file. It was originally uploaded by Example user at English Wikipedia, he should be able to provide more data. and properly categorised it ({{Original uploader}} could be repurposed for that) -- Platonides (talk) 14:24, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

• I agree with Platonides' suggestion. cmadler (talk) 13:31, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

I am often appalled by the metadata of files moved from other wikipedias, and I really appreciate the cleanup you are already doing. It would be great if you could also use it to tackle already uploaded files. I see for example a lot of PD-Art files with the only author information being the original uploader and "Original upload log" section (which is quite useless for those files). As with any bot edits there is a trade-off between value added by the changes and potential damage by bot's bad edits, in this case removing useful information. Different users have different threshold for how many bad edits they can take for how many beneficial ones. And this one is getting too close for me. I think that if bot can not determine the author than it should leave the information about the original uploader. I am also concerned about the cases with multiple authors, like photographs of PD-old monuments. In such cases we might need both the name (and hopefully license tag) of the sculptor and the photographer or original uploader if photographer is not known. How does bot currently handle such cases? --Jarekt (talk) 13:55, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

 Oppose any bot action. Your JS script did suppress useful information in the past (e.g. "internationalized" accurate source descriptions into just "{{Own}}") - I do not like to see a bot automatically doing that. Is there a reason why you did not mention all that "cleanup" you intend to do in the "proposals" section? Please clearly list what you want to replace. Keep in mind that nice looking file pages can simply hide that the case is not very clear. Also please don't mess with already manually "cleaned up" transfers. Bots should only be used for uncontroversial changes. --Saibo (Δ∇) 16:55, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

The hell? That is a total red herring. The cleanup JS is an entirely different animal. Talk about the proposal at hand. Magog the Ogre (talk) 21:57, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

And I was more than clear about what exactly was entailed in the bot request. You had your chance to oppose the bot, and you didn't. I gave plenty of notice, more than what was required. I have no idea why you're bringing other edits by the bot into question, as they have nothing to do with this. Now, either put up or shut up: if you don't like the bot's edits, put a nobots tag on the page. Magog the Ogre (talk) 22:00, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Pissed? I take the "shut up" part, that is soooo nice here - have fun. --Saibo (Δ∇) 00:25, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, only half shutting up. Same issues as with the JS: "Attribution: Roehrensee at German Wikipedia" - that was never specified like that by the author. Bot is deleting the real author information. Yes, I only checked about 15 of the bots contribs. Btw: "Foobaruser aus der Deutsch Wikipedia" is awful German. --Saibo (Δ∇) 00:45, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Attribution makes sense there to me (particularly bearing in mind SUL issues). The author info deletion is a bad bug, it shouldn't delete existing author info! The bad German is due to {{User at project}}. I have a vague feeling there is a template that does it better, but I'm going to bed now rather than pursue that right now... Rd232 (talk) 00:54, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

It makes sense (despite the bad German which no author would choose; also probably very few author's would choose a attribution in another language) - but it was no way specified like that by the author. But exactly that is suggested here. That is why I referred to the JS - nothing different than the bot. User_talk:Magog_the_Ogre/cleanup.js/Archive#Attribution_in_the_license_template, User_talk:Magog_the_Ogre/Archive_2#Botmovecheck. --Saibo (Δ∇) 01:07, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

I think 3. is broadly a good idea, but there are various issues raised. Maybe the best way to handle that is with a series of limited test runs, so that we can all see what happens in different situations, and identify edge cases that need further discussion on what should be done. With limited test runs subject to careful review summarising the results, we can be sure that any errors arising will be fixed by the bot operator or others, so I don't think this can be objected to. Rd232 (talk) 22:18, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

 Agree with Rd232 --Jarekt (talk) 02:49, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Good initiative. I already implemented a lot of this cleanup logic in imagecopy_self.py. Would be nice if you could improve on that. Multichill (talk) 11:53, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Page move

Can someone move Category:Geochelone nigra abingdoni to Category:Chelonoidis nigra abingdoni. I searched the VP history and it said that newbies can't move a page, but I'm not a newbie but I can't do it either(no move option available). Anyway, move it or let me know what to do next! Regards, SunCreator (talk) 22:53, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Done. Kaldari (talk) 22:59, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank. For your information it's not an English common name as implied by an edit summary but the scientific name. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 23:25, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

You can always request uncontroversial name changes for files or categories at User talk:CommonsDelinker/commands. - Jmabel ! talk 01:33, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Somewhat the same issue can the category move to Category:Chelonoidis nigra abingdoni (double ii at end), the above move process says the bot is down. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 19:18, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Update lag

Is there a reason that the updated version of European aviation organisations members.svg is not being displayed? Is this normal? --U5K0 (talk) 16:39, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

I purged the page. Does it show now?--Canoe1967 (talk) 16:57, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, thank you. --U5K0 (talk) 17:08, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Jmabel ! talk 00:20, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Category not listing images properly

Category:Brick houses in Indiana has 554 images at the moment (I'm thinking of splitting it soon!), but when I view the first page, I get a message of "The following 202 files are in the current category" instead of the normal "The following 202 files are in this category, out of 554 total", which I've always gotten before on the first page, and which still appears on subsequent pages, such as page 2. Why? Moreover, why 202 instead of the normal 200? The parent Category:Brick buildings in Indiana appears to be working fine, giving me "The following 200 files are in this category, out of 547 total" even on the first page. Nyttend (talk) 11:36, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

I suspect the problem is with File:Andrew F. Scott House.jpg and File:Houses in the Old Richmond Historic District.jpg. These two images show up as first ones in the category, even if you go to page 2 or 3. MKFI (talk) 12:34, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like my question from three months ago. Someone answered with a link to a bugzilla page. May be the same bug. -- Asclepias (talk) 19:41, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

If a category says "The following 202 files are in the current category" with no total number of files listed, that means mediawiki has detected the category table has an inconsistent total count (Sometimes bad things happen and the total count becomes out of sync). In this case it is most likely not actually inconsistent, just the returning 2 extra files triggers the inconsistency detector. Most likely what is occouring is a db inconsistency in the categorylinks table, where an image is listed as being a normal page (Basically when we output a category, we get first 200 files,first 200 pages, and first 200 subcats, and then sort them by namespace after. If they have wrong type when we sort them afterwards one of the types will have more than 200 items, and always stay at top when paging its section). Looking at the api output we get [35]:

      <cm ns="6" title="File:Andrew F. Scott House.jpg" type="page" timestamp="2011-07-07T15:47:21Z" />
      <cm ns="6" title="File:Houses in the Old Richmond Historic District.jpg" type="page" timestamp="2011-07-07T15:59:26Z" />
...

So MKFI is indeed correct that that is where the problem lies. The timestamp is from june july 2011 which i think was roughly when 1.17 was depoloyed which is one the categorylinks table was being changed around. This is probably some artifact from doing that. Removing all categories from those images, saving the page, and re-adding the relavent categories should fix the issue. Bawolff (talk) 13:54, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Removing and re-adding all the categories? Ok, thanks, I will try that. (Although I don't understand why that is required to reset the page type data.) But I have a question. Does that mean removing also all the templates through which the files are categorized, such as the source templates and the license templates? Can I just blank the pages and revert? That would be more simple for fixing many files more rapidly. Will that work? (Assuming it's allowed to fix files like that without it passing for vandalism.) -- Asclepias (talk) 15:27, 15 June 2012 (UTC) P.S. Answering my own question: I tested it and it works [36] (although the anti-blanking filters make it less easy). -- Asclepias (talk) 15:53, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Another question: Is there a way to identify all the files that were affected by that bug and fix them once and for all? Or must we wait until we happen to bump into each of them individually? (Can we estimate how many files are affected? A few hundred? A few thousand?) -- Asclepias (talk) 16:09, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

I feel such files are very rare by virtue of very few people complaining about them (Case in point this thread is happening a year after the issue occoured). I might be able to run a query on the toolserver this weekend [not on my normal computer right now] to find other similar files (Not sure if it would be efficient enough to give meaningful results quick enough. However if they all have timestamps around July 7, 2011 I could just look at categorylinks from around then). I may have been wrong in my previous statement about the timestamp co-inciding with the category schema changes, because the category schema changes for 1.17 happened on march 6, 2011 according to the log. (Perhaps that's one the issue occoured and something else updated the timestamp on the categorylink. Or maybe something else happened on July 7). Bawolff (talk) 16:32, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

btw, the reason one has to remove and re-add the category is that a ?action=purge doesn't touch the categorylinks (or other links) and a null edit will only compare the sortkeys of the categories and won't look at cl_type. Technically one only has to add/remove the affected category, not all, but sometimes its easier just to add/remove all of them. Bawolff (talk) 16:32, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Huh, that's odd - Category:Brick houses in Indiana was added way before its timestamp, there are no edits to that page on the july 7 2011 timestamp, and its directly added category so no template changes should have changed the timestamp. /me confused how it has that timestamp. Bawolff (talk) 16:54, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

That's also a mystery to me where the timestamps come from. Those files and those categories have no edits around July 7, 2011. From your above comments, I thought you were saying that that was normal and the timestamps did not have to do with any edits but with something else, but apparently not. :) -- Asclepias (talk) 17:02, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, on July 6 the maintinance scripts namespaceDupesWT.php and cleanupTitles.php were run on commons [37] I wonder if that's related somehow. In theory an old maintinance script which manually modified the categorylinks table could cause this (Since page is the default for cl_type, and cl_timestamp will magically update on a row change if no value specified). However neither of those scripts touch the categorylinks table, so that seems unlikely. Bawolff (talk) 17:22, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for those very useful explanations. Yes, it's probably easier to just remove and re-add everything. Before editing the file I linked above, I looked at all the categories where that file was included and all those categories with more than 200 files were affected. If it's not too much trouble to run the query and list the files, I think that would be useful. I've noticed about thirty files with that problem, but that's only me and I wasn't really looking for them at that time, so I suppose there are probably much more. -- Asclepias (talk) 17:02, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Bugzilla:35609 has a link to a list of files with this error. /Ö 21:23, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Ah, nice list, thanks for the link. It's not that bad, considering that some files are listed multiple times, once for each category in which they are included. So now, do we go through that list and do the remove/re-add trick on those files or do we wait for someone to do something about the bugzilla discussion? -- Asclepias (talk) 22:59, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

My query on the toolserver said 48,331 catgorylinks rows are wrong (have wrong cl_collation field. Some of those actually are normal pages and not images so aren't as noticable). The updateCollations.php maintinance script should fix the issue easily though. Bawolff (talk) 18:45, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Since they all have cl_collation set to empty string, they can easily be fixed by having the devs run updateCollation.php. For comparision purposes, there's also about 15 000 such rows on enwikipedia Bawolff (talk) 19:35, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

I had a new file which wasn't listed in the category I'd added 20 hours ago.

Now it suddenly does.

So it's a delay issue,

or someone ran the fix just now?

--Ikar.us (talk) 20:55, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Probably unrelated to the above discussion. Sounds like either a cache purge on the category didn't happen for some reason, or the linksupdate when you edited failed and a subsequent linksupdate occoured. Bawolff (talk) 16:17, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Segregating the corpse images of animals

I really do not want to see images of dead kittens when browsing Category:Kittens, I think these should be a subcat of Category:Kittens (something like Category:Dead kittens or another suitable name) these subcats of animals can be linked together so Category:Dead kittens and Category:Dead birds would share a parent (so it is a many to many relationship). We do not have a lot of these images but I feel this would be an improvement. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 21:34, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

• You are presumably as capable of setting up such categories as anyone else. - Jmabel ! talk 23:42, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
  • Yup, but I want to hear from the community. I am not proposing censorship, just re-categorization. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 00:07, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
    • As long as it's a subcat (subkitten?) I can't imagine anyone objecting. - Jmabel ! talk 03:23, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
      • Oh the Pun! :D -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 21:42, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
• I support the idea of such sub-categories. It supports the idea of least astonishment/editorial judgement. I have once uploaded a photo of a dog that had been killed from a shot with a rifle. That has given several unpleasant reactions from other users. I have the feeling that the response have been triggered by shock over seeing something that was not expected in the category for the perticular breed of dog. Had it been found in a subcategory, users who are shocked by seeing such photos do not have to see it, and other users know what to expect when unfolding that specialized category. There are probably many other examples and subject areas, where this can be relevant for people who has certain phobias for instance, such as arachnophobia. --Slaunger (talk) 11:44, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
•  Comment This is basically the same situation as the one discussed in Commons:Categories for discussion/2011/10/Category:Nude or partially nude people with electric toothbrushes. --Stefan4 (talk) 11:57, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
• Go for it. Especially if there are at least 3 such images, it seems like a genuinely useful and noncontroversial subcat to me. Dcoetzee (talk) 17:59, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
  • I would welcome some assistance since there are far too many images and it is a needle in a haystack kind of search. A lot of files in Category:Dead animals should also be migrated to more specific categories for individual species. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 21:44, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
• By all means, create and populate the category. --Auntof6 (talk) 21:53, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
• Could I have some help with this? It is too overwhelming for one person to go through practically every file with an animal on it. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 22:16, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Help: Choosing a lens

Hello,

I am looking for a new camera. I found very good prices for Nikon D200 and D300S, but I wonder which lens(es) I should buy with these bodies? Thanks, Yann (talk) 13:44, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

That would depend on your budget and the type of pictures you wish to take. I have a Canon. I just bid low on Ebay for lenses for mine. They are used, but cost about 1/2 the price of new ones. My camera came with and 18-55mm. I ended up with two more from Ebay, 80-200mm and 100-300mm. I didn't intend to win both, but I may trade one off at a camera store for a good macro lens, memory stick, etc. I mostly use the 80-200mm and the 18-55mm for closer work. As to the cameras, the 300s has more mp. If it were me I would go that route, and avoid kicking myself later for getting the lower model. You may wish to see how the images look before you decide on a lens. If the camera doesn't come with a lens then you may wish to start with a wide range zoom. 28-200mm type thing. It may cost more but covers 2-3 lens ranges.--Canoe1967 (talk) 16:15, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, if you want to take a multi-purpose lens, I would suggest that (1) AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR. or (2) AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR II, lens with Nikon D300S body may be taken. Most of the general photographic works are possible and a very popular body and lenses also. -- Biswarup Ganguly (talk) 16:19, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

First regarding the bodies, I'd stay away from the D200. It was launched in 2005, and sensors have come a long way since then. I'd also take a good, hard look at the new D3200, which is is nearly half the price (and weight) of the D300S, but outperforms it in several ways (twice the nominal resolution and better video performance, for instance). The D300S does have better build quality and battery capacity (when new, anyway) and a built-in AF motor, so you're not restricted to AF-S lenses.

Lenses are a matter of preference. I find myself wanting to go wide more often than I want to get close, so the 16–85 stays on most of the time, unless I'm using my 35 prime. Since the 16–85 eclipses my 18–55, the latter hardly gets any use at all. When I do want to get close, the 55–200 usually doesn't get close enough, but it's at least easier to lug around than the 150—500 Sigma behemoth (and that one's broken at the moment). In short, if I had a DX body and no lenses today, I'd start out with the Nikon Nikkor AF-S DX 16-85/3.5–5.6 G ED VR and the Nikon Nikkor AF-S DX 35/1.8 G. An external flash and a good tripod would also be high on my list. —LX (talk, contribs) 11:06, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks LX, yours are most useful advices. Actually, I first thought to buy a second-hand professional camera (at least for the body), instead of a entry-level new one. Now I see that may not be the right thing to do.

My main subject are portraits and events. My question was about the quality of the lenses matching a certain camera design. It would be a pity to get a professional body, and a lens of poor quality. Yann (talk) 14:49, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

I think most of the popular lens makers may be close. Ziess may still make the best ones but they cost more than my car. You should be okay if you get a lens made by the camera body company. I know there are crappy lens companies out there and the quality may go up and down over time. The same as stereos, cars, guitars, etc. Check out these really expensive ones. http://lenses.zeiss.com/photo/en_DE/home.html --Canoe1967 (talk) 16:04, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

To be honest, I wouldn't call any of the cameras we've discussed so far professional grade. I'd reserve that for the one-digit FX (full-frame 35 mm equivalent) models like D3 and D4 or, to some extent, the high-end three-digit FX models like the D800 and D700. Any camera with a DX sensor (APS-C equivalent) is unlikely to seriously outperform a DX lens, although the D3200 is pushing the capabilities of the 18–55 mm kit lens. Professional cameras aren't for everyone, though. They tend to be large, heavy and based on relatively old technology. You pay a lot for build quality to survive bashings and thousands of shutter releases per day. For event photography, I'd personally make weight and low-light performance a priority (and yes, I'm biased in favor of the D3200, as it'll probably be my next purchase). For the lens, I'd get something with a built-in AF motor regardless of the body – faster focus that way. I'd look for a zoom lens with a wide maximum aperture through the whole range or a fast prime. That's hard to find, though. You could go with a Nikon Nikkor AF-S 70–200/2.8 G IF-ED VR II, but then you're paying serious cash for an FX lens and only using a small portion of the glass. Gangulybiswarup's suggestions are probably more reasonable. For portrait photography, prime lenses are the way to go. I love my 35 mm, and they're practically giving them away. :) —LX (talk, contribs) 17:22, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

I was tempted by a Canon EOS 5D selling for less than 900 US$. The Nikon D300S is selling for 430 US$. Yann (talk) 18:02, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

I've got a AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR II and it stays on the camera pretty much all the time. Bear in mind that some of the non camera lens manufacturers make pretty good lenses usually at rather better prices. Tamron springs to mind and I've had and used an 18-200 of theirs quite extensively.

It really does depend what you mainly want to do with it and I'd echo LX's comment on a good prime lens - my Nikon 35 f/1.8 is stunningly sharp, very fast and for the quality amazingly cheap. I would certainly look at Ebay for lenses - a good lens will hold its value far better than the body probably. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 17:30, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

• I have a Nikkor 18-200 myself and it is a fine "all purpose" lens, very useful when you travel and don't want too much weight on your shoulder. But it is not an excellent one. It is not really sharp, the chromatic aberration is a problem and the geometric distortion is difficult to correct. An irritating feature is that the zoom comes out by itself when you carry the camera lens down. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 23:22, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

I finally followed LX' advice and bought a D3200 with the standard lens. I will probably buy a 55-200 or 55-300, not sure yet which one of these. And yes, a flash and a small tripod. I am still experimenting with my new toy. ;o) Thanks to all, Yann (talk) 16:06, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

June 20

English-speaking users.have a better interface

Sorry if that has already been discussed but I noticed that when using an English interface, I get at least to nice things I do not have with the French interface:

1. A thumbnail of the image when previewing a file description
2. A "transclusion count" in the "What links here" of templates.

Is that a known bug ? Is is supposed to be fixed some day ? --Zolo (talk) 08:31, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

That is "known" - yes. The second one (the first one is probably similar): Our customization MediaWiki:Linkshere adds that link to the English version. For visibility in other languages the respective /langcode subpage has to be created. The real bug here is that we have no possibility (AFAIK) to easily add some link template to all languages (even if it shows up in English then). This would solve the problem: On Special:WhatLinksHere there should be some inclusion (like Template:Anon-check-links) which is not translated via Translatewiki. Hint: you can find out the relevant MediaWiki pages by using the language code qqx. --Saibo (Δ∇) 13:06, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Ok thanks. I thought that when translations where missing, we got English translations (which is what happens in the left-hand menu). About case 1, I do not see how it happens, it is just a thumbnail of the image, so there should not be any language problem. --Zolo (talk) 13:57, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

I had a look now but cannot find out where the preview image comes from / which code produces it. --Saibo (Δ∇) 14:33, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Where does case 1 happen? On the file description page, or somewhere else? I've never had issues like that when switching language interfaces (as I've done quite often). It's just possible it's a cousin to the problem I've had for absolutely ages on one of the computers in my household: no Commons images (in any language). At all. Anywhere. (Not even the Commons logo top left.) But all other websites are OK... Rd232 (talk) 14:52, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes this is when editing an image description and previewing. I get a preview of the image itself with my interface in 'en' or 'de' but not when it is in 'en-gb', 'de-AT' or 'fr'. --Zolo (talk) 16:28, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Occurrence of issue 1: 0. set your interface lang to fr or vi (uselang param not possible!), 1. open, 2. hit preview, 3. no preview image is shown. If you try that with en or de there is a preview image.

To really solve issue 2 I think the devs should add include a mediawiki message linkshere-project-tools right after linkshere (that is similar to Sp-contributions-footer-anon which is also empty per default/not translated in translatewiki). That can be kept empty per default (and in translatewiki) but get used by multilingual projects like ours. On that page we could do our usual {{LangSwitch}} tricks which falls back to English if no translation is provided. Agree? Better ideas? Cheers --Saibo (Δ∇) 16:41, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

#1 is defined in MediaWiki:Previewnote following a suggestion by Mattes. --  Docu  at 17:51, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! So it is is the same issue as above: translatewiki localized messages and only in some languages the preview image has been inserted (of course - it is hard to edit all languages and will lead to no updates from TW). --Saibo (Δ∇) 20:23, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Unless it's changed in MediaWiki, one could argue that the translation at TranslateWiki should remain w/o the preview image. --  Docu  at 05:47, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Arguably MediaWiki should just display the image on preview, without it being part of any sort of interface message. Bawolff (talk) 13:27, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Agree. BTW there is a request for this at Bugzilla:11243 (2007-09-08). --  Docu  at 07:54, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Commented there. --Saibo (Δ∇) 20:18, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

June 22

question about penis foreskin

Hi,I find a photograph series of foreskin retraction ,which is [[38]].I want to ask if the process of the foreskin retraction is automatic in the above picture when the penis expands to erection ,or foreskin pulled back after the glans by the hands? Thanks!!! --Edward, June 26,2012

Hi. Wrong board. Try here: w:WP:RD/S. Magog the Ogre (talk) 07:04, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

It's a shame that the original photographer seems not to be a participant on Commons any more, that he could have been asked personally about his foreskin retraction technique. -- Thekohser (talk) 17:18, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Contacting on Facebook, re: disaster images

Hi all, a large number of images have been posted to Facebook, regarding the mall roof collapse in Elliot Lake. Is it appropriate to contact the people directly, or is it better to just post a message on the board, asking people to opt in? I doubt anyone in the groups knows (at least in detail) about Creative Commons. Similar discussion here: w:Talk:Algo_Centre_Mall#Facebook_groups:_the_source_of_those_images_outlets_are_showing -- Nick Moreau (talk) 14:08, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

I think personal, one-on-one contact efforts such as what Zanimum is doing are preferable to a message on a board. I'd view it as a bit odd to be participating in a dialogue about a tragic event, then someone taking over the thread with queries about copyleft licenses. -- Thekohser (talk) 17:14, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Africa religions

We need an updated map on religion in Africa. One such map on commons, (this one), depicts Africa as either Muslim, traditional or christian, even though there are many irreligious people, most notably in South Africa at 15-20%. Is anyone willing to create such a map? Alternatively, could you direct me to a website where i can design a new map myself? Thanks in advance. Pass a Method (talk) 14:54, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

There's a collection of blank maps of Africa at Category:Blank maps of Africa. Pick the one that best meets your needs, open it up in the image editor of your choice, and start coloring. --Carnildo (talk) 21:01, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

June 28

SUL does not work on Commons

Hi there, I hope you can help me. If I log on on the German Wikipedia or on another Wiki Project and then switch to Commons I have to enter my username and password again. If I go from the German Wikipedia to the English Wikipedia or any other project the SUL works fine, I don't have to sign in again. There must be a problem with my account here, but on this page it says that my global account should work on Commons too. So why do I have to log me in here again? Thanks for every help. Kind regards --Simon.hess (talk) 09:48, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

What about other non-Wikipedia projects? Maybe you are using a browser option/add-on which limits communication between wikipedia.org and wikimedia.org? --AVRS (talk) 10:19, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

I suspect the problem lies in how your browser handles cookies between wikipedia.org and wikimedia.org. I have had the same problem with one computer that has an older version of Opera browser. On newer computers with Firefox logging to wikipedia will not ask logging in again in Commmons. MKFI (talk) 11:31, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. There was actually a problem with the cookies. Works wonderful now. --Simon.hess (talk) 13:06, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Simon.hess (talk) 13:08, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Category:PD license tags

I've found Category:Egypt-related tags, and wondered if we shouldn't more generally organise Category:PD license tags by country (i.e. Category:Egypt-related PD license tags as a subcat of Category:Egypt-related tags; Category:Canada-related PD license tags etc. This might make it easier to find an appropriate tag. On the other hand, it may also be helpful to have everything in one category for purpose of having an overview - maybe Category:All PD license tags? Rd232 (talk) 12:05, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Internal error

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T39978

What's wrong with File:Juan Andreu con la selección.jpg (presumably a copyvio)? Every time I try to access it, I get an internal error, something like “[1f14a497] 2012-06-26 23:27:09: Fatal exception of type MWException”. --Rosenzweig τ 23:28, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

description, image (no copyvio by quick GI and TE check). But, yes, I also get "[b6200044] 2012-06-26 23:56:49: Fatal exception of type MWException" (instead of the file page with the usual skin framing) when accessing the file page (also with "oldid" parameter). I have asked the techies in IRC. Cheers --Saibo (Δ∇) 23:59, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

In case that matters: "Served by srv285 in 0.142 secs" (from source). Happens regardless of logged in / not logged in and regardless of http or https (tested logged in only via https). No response from the techies. --Saibo (Δ∇) 00:12, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Added to bugzilla (see box on the right side). Please try to avoid deletion as copyvio. ;-) --Saibo (Δ∇) 00:16, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Could someone have a look at the files in Special:UncategorizedFiles: many are shown but do not exist in the database (for example Auerbach, Barras, Bruxelles, ..). --Foroa (talk) 07:47, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Most definitly a copyvio. Image metadata has a Credit: REUTERS. Bawolff (talk) 13:02, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. Open the image in a text editor, there is a content description and "REUTERS/Damir Sagolj (CROATIA)". --Rosenzweig τ 17:18, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Exiftool (or other metadata viewers) is an easier way: link. However, I think it would be useful to not delete it now (it is not really accessible, dear reuters) but it is quite a tricky situation (next time please do not publicly note such info). :-P --Saibo (Δ∇) 20:11, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

delinked from article --Saibo (Δ∇) 13:57, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

---

Same error as seen at Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2012/06#strange_message... -- AnonMoos (talk) 00:58, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Also a Reuters image. Wonder if there is something funky in the EXIF information. I suppose it could be kept temporarily if it helps fixing the bug, but it should be deleted ASAP once the developers think they have found the issue. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:26, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Same nonsense with this image File:MARCOS personal.jpg. --Túrelio (talk) 15:56, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Also a Reuters image -- "REUTERS/Jason Reed" in the EXIF. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:59, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

I also have to note that the error on the image page does *not* prevent these copyvios from being used as illustrations in article space. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:04, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Well I hope its not the metadata (If it is, its probably my fault ;). If the metadata was causing a fatal, I would kind of expect the api to fail as well. Bawolff (talk) 12:54, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for that pointer - have delinked the first case and checked the second (not used). --Saibo (Δ∇) 13:57, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

The bugzilla entry also notes File:Ali Al-Nono.jpg has the issue; not a Reuters image but still a copyvio: AFP PHOTO/KHALED FAZAA. Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:17, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

June 27

meta:Requests_for_comment/Internet_Defense_League

meta:Requests_for_comment/Internet_Defense_League – There's a discussion at Meta about whether or not the WMF should join the Internet Defense League. Feel free to participate in the discussion and to share this news with other Wikimedia projects. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 20:40, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

June 29

Attribution templates

Someone at the help desk brought up how the templates (678 by my count) can be confusing if they don't state how to attribute. It was brought up that the wording of the templates could be changed to state 'attribute to author field' type thing. As worded now it just says attribute in the manner specified, but sometimes the manner is not very clear. Others may agree with a change that should probably be discussed. I looked a few and I can't see where it is in the templates. It may be just one sentence in one place and used by all cc-by and GNU-by templates. Thoughts?--Canoe1967 (talk) 19:35, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

upload wizard problems

When the new upload wizard was made the default, I tried it out, found it unreliable, and have generally stuck with the old basic form.

In theory, using it should save time, when uploading multiple similar images. In practice, I have found it doesn't save time, due to the very common failures.

Here is today's example. I don't use the upload wizard to upload more than a dozen images at a time, because it is too aggravating to have it collapse. Today it successfully uploaded a few files. It started to upload about a dozen files. While it was going through the time consuming actual upload of those images, I opened a new tab, picked another dozen images, added descriptions, categories, then clicked on "next".

I got the following warning -- a step the upload wizard couldn't get past. File:Please wait.still checking the title for uniqueness...jpg Clicking on OK, brings the previous screen, where clicking on NEXT gives the same warning, over and over again.

In other instances of the upload wizard's failure the warnings have been different, but the wizard still collapses, and can't get past the warning -- meaning the considerable investment in picking the images, giving them good descriptions, names, categories, was a complete waste of time.

Maybe the wizard is not re-entrant -- can't have multiple instance run at the same time. I suggest this is a weakness, and, if it is a known problem, merits a prominent warning prior to use, or perhaps a retirement, until is more robust.

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 21:29, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Same: Commons:Forum#Gefangen_im_Hochladeassistenten (with 30 images failed - note: I think in the first place, such a high number should not be allowed by UW).

Could you please mention which browser and version you use (looks like some not that old Firefox) - that helps finding the error.

Currently (maybe that is fixed now) Internet Explodrer users could not use Upload Wizard at all → Commons:Help_desk#Upload_wizard_doesn.27t_work (and sections below).

I proposed over and over (e.g. here that solution: Commons:Hochladen - it includes a warning that UW could be more easy but may cause problems. Some months ago a poll was done which is quite clear in favor of that. Additionally we can easily make a gadget which is off by default to directly go to upload wizard (if someone prefers that). --Saibo (Δ∇) 23:28, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

I use firefox. Which version... You`d think I could just click on help:about, but that tells me I recently uploaded version 12.0, and it is waiting for my permission to apply the update.

I loaded about a dozen add-on, FWIW. Geo Swan (talk) 06:37, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Could you clarify your comment about a maximum number of images to upload...

Will multiple instances of the wizard run properly in parallel in multiple tabs...

The notes say that the same description can be applied to all the images in an upload, but I didn`t see how that was selected.

Cheers Geo Swan (talk) 06:47, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the version (usually that info is important to debug software problems), but version 12 is fine - that is likely not the cause of issue.

AFAIK there is a hard limit of 50 images. A German user tried to upload 30 at once (linked above) but ran into the same error message (maybe / probably not caused by the high amount of files) you got which led to no uploaded files at all.

I do not know if you can run multiple instances concurrently. You can run multiple instances of the old upload forms in parallel.

Same desc - I don't know, I only "use" it to debug for others. But someone else here will know.

Cheers --Saibo (Δ∇) 13:07, 30 June 2012 (UTC) clarified a sentence --Saibo (Δ∇) 14:14, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

June 30

meta:Requests_for_comment/Global_bans

meta:Requests_for_comment/Global_bans – The Global Bans RfC is now live. Feel free to participate in the discussion and to alert other Wikimedia projects. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 00:50, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Help - bird identification in photo

Bird, Tamil Nadu India

Can somebody help me find the name of this bird?. I shot this photo near Western Ghats in Theni District in India. --எஸ்ஸார் (talk) 12:43, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

My first, layman's guess was that it is some kind of pelican (Pelecaniformes#Pelecanidae_.28cat..29). Please ask at en:Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science (hope that is the right section) or just wait - I have categorized the File into Category:Unidentified birds where it will be identified sooner or later. Here at village pump is not really the best place for that question (village pump would be very crowded if all such questions would be here). Cheers --Saibo (Δ∇) 13:19, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Overwrite filetype?

I want to replace this image with an updated version. But, I made a new version using the .svg extension. Hence, if I upload-update this file the file will be .svg while the title will be .png. Should I 'update' the old one or submit it as a new file?--Gulpen (talk) 12:19, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Please submit it as a new file. It would get terribly confusing if we had images of one file type uploaded to look like another file type. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 12:55, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

You can always link between the two images to show which one is the updated version - a file wikilink is styled [[:File:filename.suffix]] --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 12:57, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Great, thanks.--Gulpen (talk) 15:47, 30 June 2012 (UTC)