Commons:Village pump/Archive/2014/02

Correct name for a category

This category (Empoli's Countryside) has a bad English name: the 's after a city name and the capitalized countryside are not very good, as far as the language rules are concerned. What do you suggest as a better name for the category? Countryside of Empoli? I noticed also there are not many "countrysides of.." on Commons. Thanks in advance.--Carnby (talk) 14:30, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

• Rural Empoli? - Jmabel ! talk 18:32, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
  • Probably a Category:Countryside in Tuscany (subcategory of Countryside in Italy and in turn Countryside by country) would be better, there are a lot of pics about Tuscan countryside left uncategorized; something similar to Countryside in England with subcategories for each district/province/municipality.--Carnby (talk) 23:20, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
    • Yes. Carnby's answer is better than mine. - Jmabel ! talk 18:04, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Jmabel ! talk 18:04, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

February 02

Sputnik sound file

There is apparently some disagreement over whether our Media of the Day, File:Possible PDM signal labeled as Sputnik by NASA.ogg is really a recording of Sputnik's signal or not. Interested/knowledgeable parties, please see File talk:Possible PDM signal labeled as Sputnik by NASA.ogg#Sputnik or not and comment there, if desired. - dcljr (talk) 01:17, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Pictures not uploading - technical problem?

I can get neither the Commons Wizard nor the old form to work. In the Wizard, the image fails to complete uploading, thus I can never get past that stage. Sometimes, I can't even get to the Wizard and receive a "bad gateway" message. With the old form I get the error message:

Could not create directory "mwstore://local-multiwrite/local-public/0/02".

Voceditenore (talk) 11:46, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Never mind. Seems to be working now, possibly because I didn't try to change the actual file name to a new destination file name? I changed the name on my computer instead, Voceditenore (talk) 12:36, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Photos in Facebook pages

One of my friend agrees to upload his photos in commons under CC licenses. I hope my other friends also will accept the same. But I want to identify these type of facebook pages with some tags like creative commons. Is there any tags in facebook which offers page photos under CC licenses? If not means may we create any tags in facebook?

If any tag created for CC photos means we no need to ask that FB user and we can directly upload into commons after validating the photos in reversible search engines.

What about other opinions and suggestions?--தென்காசி சுப்பிரமணியன் (talk) 13:14, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Facebook is not supporting any machine readable CC license tags. So our bots can't review it (the license added by authors in the description) properly; I afraid. Facebook is not just a web-album for "own works" like Flickr; so more copyvios too. Jee 13:48, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Problem with Muslera4678

This user is importing a great number of high-quality, low-resolution pictures [1], certainly taken from the web. Best regards. Peter17 (talk) 16:41, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

 Done. Nuked all but two initial samples (those are tagged as speedies). User warned, and I'll monitor. Эlcobbola _talk 16:46, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Unsplash

Hi everyone, I want to share with you this website: http://unsplash.com/ which has very nice CC0 images. --Viscontino (talk) 10:37, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Nice pictures, I test uploaded this one. A few comments and issues, though:

• They call these «hi-resolution photos»: While maybe some or all were indeed photographed in the smallish displayed resolutions (1024×683 px for this one), that seems unlikely. If so, that limits useability and maybe yet another instance of this.
• This website is an urlmasked Tumblr feed with all its annoying quirks, including infinite loading. I.a., the only way to find the permanent link to an individual photo page (as simply clicking it will feed your browser the JPEG file, just like the link/button labelled "download") is through the monthly thumbnail sets page (which in turn is infinite loading).
• This website is terribly scarce on details, and the photos seem to lack EXIF data. Typically all we know about each photo is the author’s name, and a link to the/an author’s website. There’s indication that some of those individual photo page include comments and other 3rd party data («notes», in Tumbler parlance), but they seem to be disabled in each individual photo page. All this will needlessly hinder categorization and again reduce the useability of these photos.

I’m not sure if the best way to go about these is to pick them wholesale as they are; an arrangement with the Unspalsh curators that includes some additional information about each photo would be preferable. -- Tuválkin ✉ 15:02, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

These aren’t many, 10 new pics in 10 days means one upload a day; 2 uploads daily would eat up the backlog. Most these images are a net gain, even if identification is an issue. I’m going to go ahead with it; later on authors could provide addition info on each shot. See Category:Images from Unsplash. -- Tuválkin ✉ 17:27, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

How should new users find pictures in cats?

I'm sorry if I'm asking for a discussion that's been had a thousand times, but I can't find it. I'm working with a local tourist office to make them use and link to our Wikivoyage guide, and in explaining the benefits of free licenses etc. I also pointed them to Commons, as a database they could use. However, when I checked back in, they were quite disappointed as Commons "only had a handful of pictures" for their city. This wasn't the case, there's a great lot of images hidden in the categories and subcategories, but there's no clear link on the city page or explanation that more pictures can be found by clicking the category under the page content. I imagine there's a reason for this, but I'm not getting it. Can someone explain or point me to an explanation? Thanks. JuliasTravels (talk) 12:56, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

The answer is probably an unfortunate confession that the design of Wikimedia Commons manages to suck and blow at the same time. There are pages with name of cities that are always going to be ghastly as we have no systematic maintenance of them. Even though some enthusiastic volunteers do a good job on the topic pages, generally we might actually be better off without the majority of them as they get automatically returned in a search, rather than the category where people can find useful lists of all the uploaded photographs. It remains an annoyance or even worse a confusion, for most surfers and casual users. --Fæ (talk) 13:20, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

I see. That seems a really big miss. But then why don't the pages have a simple "see this category for more images on this subject", or a template or something? JuliasTravels (talk) 13:51, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

@JuliasTravels: , I'm currently working on improving FastCCI to both simplify the userinterface, and make the more advanced functions available. The gadget will support category tree flattening (i.e. showing all pictures in and below a category). Currently only FPs, QIs, and VIs can be listed. In the current dev version these three buttons are combined into one single button that will list all images that got one of these "badges". This seems like a good start to me to make our quality content accessible to users. --Dschwen (talk) 16:14, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

@Dschwen: , tree flattening would be highly useful for many users (and certainly for me! :-)). So would the single button, but I don't quite see how that would fix this specific problem. For many topics there are no or only a few files labelled as quality ones. It wouldn't bring that tourist office any nearer to finding the other 240 images about their city, unless there's another button saying "click here to see everything else we have on this topic. JuliasTravels (talk) 19:13, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

There won't be a button for that (in the interest of avoiding interface clutter), but a menu item in a dropdown menu with advanced options. --Dschwen (talk) 19:17, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

"Eureka!" it seems to me that this very old problem is now solved with the button "Good pictures" and the dropdown menu.

Now, it's only lacking simple/clear/concise instructions explaining to beginners "What are categories and what they are not". Most beginners use categories as they use "tags" in "Flickr" and other images websites. Maybe a new item in How to use Commons linking to the page Commons: Categories, with a simple explanation on top. Perhaps a native English speaker administrator can do so. --JotaCartas (talk) 05:46, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Over -100 pictures...!

Hi! https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Qualitätsbilder tells me there are over -100 pictures of a certain quality here. I'm sure that's right, but I guess a positive number would be more exact...? --Eike 20:47, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Habe es versucht zu korrigieren, und den exakten Quellcode für die Seitenzählformel der englischen Urseite zu übernehnen; dort stimmt es nämlich Commons:Quality images (Over 61,700 images....). Allerdings muss hier wohl noch was länderspezifisches rein. Dschwen sollte sich hier auskennen. --Wladyslaw (talk) 21:06, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

FWIW, none of the translations work for me. The original English (and the German translated version) uses {{formatnum:{{#expr:floor( ( {{formatnum:{{PAGESINCATEGORY:Quality images}}|R}} - 100 ) / 100 ) * 100 }} }} which, after removing the tvar wrapper, here parses to 352,400. The Special:Translate function shows $qinumber on the English left hand side. The French translation shows $qinumber on the right side, but it too does not calculate correctly. -84user (talk) 21:21, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T62604

Ja, das ist ein Fehler in der Translate extension. User:Odder hat dazu schon einen bugzilla bug geoeffnet. --Dschwen (talk) 21:32, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Actually that's a bug in a parser function (see bug #60604 for details), and it already has a patch awaiting review, so it should be fixed quite soon (I hope). odder (talk) 21:40, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

February 04

A friendly reminder as we approach the Olympics in Sochi

To anyone taking photos at the Games, please remember that there is no panorama freedom in Russia, which means that you cannot upload images of the exterior of any Olympic venues in Sochi to Commons because they are non-free in their source country (they can be uploaded locally to English Wikipedia, because as far as I know, they apply U.S. FOP rules for all images, regardless of country). ViperSnake151 (talk) 04:06, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Commons:Valued images/Recently promoted is a mess

Hello,

There are several issues there, and nobody seems to care. See Commons talk:Valued image candidates/candidate list. If this page is not maintained, it should be closed altogether. Anyone still alive here? Yann (talk) 06:32, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Locally officially bilingual toponyms and Category names

What’s the policy? I stumbled on this, which led me to this, where is says in not so many words that the Castillian (=Spanish) name of this city is inherently better than its Catalan (=Valencian) one in an English language (or maybe in any foreign language) context (as it says also «People of»).

I’m worried this is being done in multiple akin categories (like in all those about such toponyms in officially bilingual Catalan and Basque locations administered by Spain) in ways that will eternize edit wars and confuse unfamiliarized users (the example at hand presents scarce difficulties, but who’d guess that, e.g., Pamplona = Iruñea?).

I know well that the issue is thorny, but I am sure that the only solution is a blind blanket applying of a single simple rule for toponyms which lack an established assimilated English form — either the national language or the local language should be used. So, what is the reccomended policy? -- Tuválkin ✉ 16:42, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Error: Invalid time

Why is there no maintenance category for such errors? See File:Adam Dutckiewicz-masfield.jpg for an example. --Leyo 23:06, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Don't know why there is no maintenance category for this, but it was fixed by this edit. Lupo 09:24, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

BTW, this google search yields 2330 pages with that problem. Lupo 09:30, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Strange: [2]. --тнояsтеn ⇔ 09:43, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

That is odd and there seem to be many causes:

• some were directly added to the files like with this edit by user:Mattbuck
• File:U4-539.jpg has it because of use of unmaintained home-brewed infobox templates like User:Torben/Info, written and maintained by user not longer active for last 4 years. We have a lot of those, see for example User:Biopics/info.
• File:Cagiva 500cc GP racer.jpg has it because of issues with another undocumented user namespace template User:FlickreviewR/reviewed-pass

--Jarekt (talk) 14:30, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

We should really rewrite User:Torben/Info to use standard templates and merge User:FlickreviewR/reviewed-pass with Template:Flickrreview. --Jarekt (talk) 14:50, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

In contrast to the other user template, User:Torben/Info is not used so many times. Hence, replacing them with {{Information}} might be an alternative.

@Lupo: Thanks, but I was aware of the cause and the solution. I think that creating a maintenance category is essential. --Leyo 17:18, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Any other opinions or suggestions? --Leyo 19:32, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

→ Thread copied to User talk:FlickreviewR/reviewed-pass --Leyo 01:08, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

January 23

Merging two separate uploads in one versioned

I suppose File:Schongauer, Martin - St Antonius - hi res.jpg should've been uploaded as a new version of File:Schongauer St. Antonius.jpeg. Is there any way to merge them somehow automatically? --Numerosity (talk) 10:58, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Per COM:OVERWRITE, no the other version was rightfully uploaded under a different name.

(to answer your question: yes, it is possible to merge them − see Commons:HMS#History_merging.)

Cheers, Jean-Fred (talk) 21:13, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

But it already was once upgraded to a new version. This appears to be against the rules? --Numerosity (talk) 20:13, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

February 03

Public domain templates

Hey there again, Commons community. I'd like to ask a request of a Commons administrator, though regular Commons folks are also welcome to help: Can a willing administrator please query the wiki database if possible for all public domain templates currently in use? I'd like to ask this in order to do a side-by-side comparison with the public domain templates also in use on the English Wikisource, see the discussion at Wikisource:Scriptorium#Importing more Public Domain templates from Commons. The resulting query can be listed either at Commons:Database reports or in one of my subpages [[User:TeleComNasSprVen/Public domain templates]] for example. I have this page watched, so you do not need to notify me. Thanks! TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 01:07, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

•  Comment All PD templates on Commons should appear in either Category:PD license tags or one of its subcategories. --Stefan4 (talk) 22:40, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Presentations about Commons

I volunteered to make a presentation to a Photography club about Wikipedia, especially Commons. I am hoping there is a repository of similar presentations somewhere, or someone reading this has made such a presentation, and can share it with me.--Sphilbrick (talk) 15:13, 4 February 2014 (UTC) On a similar subject, what do users like as a repository for images. Flickr is the one I use, and seems Commons friendly, with the ability to specify machine readable licenses, but as part of my talk, I want to briefly discuss the options and mention which one is best liked by Wikipedia/Commons editors.--Sphilbrick (talk) 15:17, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

The Wikimania presentation slides categories are a good place to start looking. Cheers --Dschwen (talk) 15:18, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Not much there unfortunately. A few slides with intro and then mostly about copyright in those two: File:A_common_answer_to_Commons_problem.pdf, File:Freedom_of_panorama_and_Wikimedia_Commons.pdf. --Dschwen (talk) 15:23, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

There will be a big presentation about Commons at the upcoming Wikimania in London though :-) --Dschwen (talk) 15:24, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Category:Wikimedia presentations. -- Asclepias (talk) 15:25, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Right, and Category:Wikimedia Commons slides in particular. --Dschwen (talk) 15:42, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

• Nothing is well organized and I know of no good presentation. The historical documentation is at outreach:Category:Best practices documentation. The newest effort to create and manage this kind of information is at meta:Programs:Evaluation_portal/Library/Learning_patterns. OR drohowa is probably doing more of this kind of outreach than anyone else in the United States, so you might ask her. Another Believer has been developing an on-wiki presentation format which, while it would not do for an in-person presentation, can explain at a glance what Wikipedians are doing to integrate picture sets into articles. See what he did for Portland State University. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:01, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

File:EForum2011 public speaking presentation.pdf by Anthere & File:Présentation Wikimedia Commons.pdf by Letartean are fairly good in my opinion. I also remember seeing an awesome one by Rama a few years ago − I should ask him to upload it here. Otherwise, see meta:Presentations for more presentations. Jean-Fred (talk) 23:42, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

French Revolution Digital Archive

Hi there. Not sure this has been noted before, but 14,000 images of the French Revolution were released online. Might be useful. ~★ pikolas ^{[[mia diskuto]]} 04:01, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Wow! -- Tuválkin ✉ 17:47, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

"People from" vs "People of"

The newly created Category:People of California, and many other People of categories, does not sound grammatically correct. I am from California, I am not of California. Why the change to Category:People of California from Category:People from California? --Mjrmtg (talk) 18:01, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Please see Commons:Category scheme People#People_by_country / People by occupation by country and Commons:Categories for discussion/2010/07/Category:People by country. —LX (talk, contribs) 18:21, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

So Category:People from California by occupation is now under Category:People of California. I read through the discussion and don't see why the change in prepositions from 'from' to 'of'. Seems like a whole lot of work someone is going through. --Mjrmtg (talk) 20:52, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

"People from" denotes people who were born or grew up in a place. "People of" denotes people who live in or for whatever reason are particularly associated with a place. (For example, artist Andy Warhol could be described as "from" Pittsburgh, and "of" New York City. Important distinctions - while there can often be overlap, the two should not be confused or conflated. -- Infrogmation (talk) 18:30, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

I like this logic but I'm noticing a lot of redirects are being setup on People from" categories. --Mjrmtg (talk) 20:52, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

On a side note, and regardless of these two, I have seen a third concept mixed up and some times recategorized and/or redirected: "People in …". Things like "Tourists in …" or "Visitors in …" are most emphatically not a subset of "People from …" or "People of …" that same place. This third concept needs also to be separated. -- Tuválkin ✉ 21:48, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

I have to say I agree with this change; it is a long overdue implementation of COM:PEOPLECAT. The categories previously used "of" and "from" on an arbitrary basis. The change provides consistency which makes it easier for categorization. "People of" is the broader term, is grammatically correct, and includes the narrower "People from". Kudos to the folks who have been doing this work. I also agree with Tuválkin - a tourist in Paris is not necessarily of Paris, and therefore we need to be careful with those categories. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 22:24, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't buy it. I will always be "from" California. I will never say I am "of" California. --Mjrmtg (talk) 00:51, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Mjrmtg, we never say "of" in the singular in contexts like this, but this is in the plural. Similarly, we would never refer to "an animal of California" but we would refer to "the animals of California". - Jmabel ! talk 06:16, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Mjrmtg, it is fine to have your own personal preferences, and without a doubt you are entitled to "buy" or not "buy" whatever you want, but as Jmabel points out it works from an English language perspective, and in fact it conveys a more appropriate meaning given the nature of these categories. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 13:41, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Plurally my family is from California, a group of 10 people are from Colorado, 97 relatives (or unrelated people) are from Connecticut. Yes it is a personal preference to say the right thing. It is not correct to say you are of somewhere singularly or plurally. --Mjrmtg (talk) 02:59, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

I have no strong objection and the cited link makes it clear that former residents are included. However, on its face I would have thought that people of was the narrower term. I also find it illogical that we make this change when it is acknowledged that the occupational categories need to stay from. Dankarl (talk) 17:22, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

comments wanted ?

mind numbing conversation seeks minds to numb @ Category talk:Islamophobia, how did I ever get sucked into that page, oh yeah, helping out. whatever, you can pretend the subject is a gameshow, I quote my take on this idea "I'd like to see a game where we vote off all but the strongest category one by one in a tribal council with games and a big prize at the end. I liked that guy with the beard who caught a lot of fish, what was his name I can't recall, but yeah lets do it!!!" yeah, I looked excited there, but then the boring takes over with the usual edit warring starting all over again Penyulap ☏ 19:39, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

If you wish to get blocked for persistent edit-warring over unsourced points of view, please ask at Administrators' noticeboard. --Fæ (talk) 09:24, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Are you going to help there Fae ? I've been away for a while, how are your latest requests for adminship going, maybe you can take over on that controversial topic, after all, didn't someone say you're pathologically drawn to controversy and conflict. Let me check, was it in the first, second, or third failed request for adminship. hmm, oh here it is, wait, it says you're pathologically "drawn to creating controversy and conflict". My mistake. Penyulap ☏ 10:37, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Are you done turning this project into a hostile environment? This village pump is not intended to be used like 4chan, please dump somewhere else. --Fæ (talk) 11:40, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

I see your efforts to crush the lighthearted environment of self-critique of wikipedia has backfired badly and publicly too. The last in you long line of attempts to delete my work out of process here turned a completely unknown work into a popular tool to criticize Wikipedia, the irony of crushing lighthearted criticism by having an artwork comparing wiki to an intolerant regime has not been lost on the public in your latest public disgrace of the project. It's on wikipediocracy it's on encyclopediadramatica, its on Jimbos talkpage. It has gone from internal jest to public disgrace with your personal attention.

If you now don't like the topic which you brought up, why tell me ? if you did not want to stray from my topic of Category talk:Islamophobia, then why did you change the subject yourself ? I'm here to help you Fae, but in order to do that, you have to know what it is that you want in the first place. Penyulap ☏ 12:01, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Pointing out how you are promoting images that were perfectly correctly deleted from Commons with a supporting record of community consensus, and at the same time running a hostile long term campaign making deliberately offensive personal attacks in an attempt to ridicule me, and other good faith contributors to this project, off-wiki does not make you a martyr.

Again, this village pump is not a replacement for 4chan. --Fæ (talk) 12:22, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

---

Penyulap -- I really haven't been too impressed by your contributions to the debate on this matter in 2013 or 2014. It sounds theoretically nice to bring in the "hierarchy of disagreement", but it can't do much to change the fact that the faith of User:Liftarn and myself in each other's good faith was rather thoroughly destroyed back in 2006. Otherwise, your contributions to the discussion are not distinguished by clarity of argument or helping other people to arrive at a constructive or useful resolution of the dispute... AnonMoos (talk) 04:07, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

February 05

Discussion on Jimmy's talk page

There is a discussion about Commons at User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#Section_break. I see not much meaning in WMF's attempt to stay away from responsibilities; still blaming Commons. I tried to defend; but can't participate further, as I will be away for 3 days. Jee 08:34, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Meh. If anyone wishes to propose a change, the starting point is to discuss it on Commons, not Jimmy Wales' soapbox. --Fæ (talk) 09:19, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your efforts, Jee. However, as per Fae, these kind of "discussions" on Jimbos talkpage are rarely constructive. Besides of the fact that usually they are one-sided and totally overblown (especially with the current case), they are mostly restricted to an :en-inside-only perspective. Thereby it's no longer surprising, that many of the participants seem not even be aware of or really understand the Aims of Commons, but consider Commons simply an addendum (not to say slave) to :en-Wikipedia. --Túrelio (talk) 09:49, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

You are discussed on Wikipedia, because that is the place to discuss Wikipedia licencing - what an earth has that got to do with you? Besides which, discussion here would be futile as you are incapable of even managing one rogue Admin - assuming that is that he rogue by your standards, even that's uncertain. It seems to me that you all have a very inflated view of your own importance here - that's easily cured. Giano (talk) 08:10, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Speaking of inflated views of one’s own importance, Giano, please say "English Wikipedia" when that’s what you mean. -- Tuválkin ✉ 09:31, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

I find it very interesting, that not once has anyone here gone to the Admin concerned on his page and said "What the hell did you think you were doing?" The leadership here is either a disgrace or such Admin concerns are common place - I suspect it's a combination of both. However, the problems I have encountered here have highlighted the monopoly and stranglehold you seem to want to exert on Wikipedia, and that you have an unhealthy and worrying obsession with retaining image numbers even when you are alerted to copyright problems. That is a disaster waiting to happen; I couldn't care less if you sink, but I'll be damned if I let you take Wikipedia with you. Giano (talk) 10:36, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Sorry you feel the need to move from a legitimate complaint to a diatribe against Commons in general. I make a lot of contributions to this project and I'm not an admin. Your assertions that everyone but you is involved in a conspiracy to bring down Wikimedia does not help your case, nor do statements/threats like this encourage others to assist you. If you wish to propose any useful changes to the way Commons policies work, then I suggest you step back from alienating everyone. I note that even Jimmy Wales, who has hardly been shy of publicly condemning Commons in the past, does not support your current viewpoint. --Fæ (talk) 11:21, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Obviously this place is incapable or unwilling to address its faults or problems. I shall watch the unhindered career of the lying JcB and his ruling peers with interest and leave you all to wallow here. Farewell. Giano (talk) 11:58, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

JcB has been publicly admonished by many here on Commons for the way he bit the newbie. That's how we deal with misbehaviour, as you are experiencing now. Your childish petulant display, because you are not getting your way, speaks much about your charcater not Commons'. 131.137.245.208 15:05, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

February 06

Discussion on indefinitely blocked IP editors

I want to bring to the community's attention about a proposal that I'm planning to stage for discussion on indefinitely blocked IP editors, since I have searched for and found no thread on this topic that I know of in the relevant Commons discussion archives. I'm not sure of the exact venue for proposing new stuff, and I thought about RFC subpaging it, but Commons:Requests for comment's guideline says: "However, before doing so, it is recommended that all but the most experienced users seek a second opinion on whether an RFC is appropriate for the topic." So I guess I have to ask here, would it be appropriate to create an RFC on this topic, or mayhaps we can hold the discussion on this page right now? TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 10:21, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Why? We don't seem to have a lot of those (list) or do you want more to get blocked? Multichill (talk) 12:31, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Ps. Can anyone please fix that link? Using brackets in MediaWiki urls was a bad idea.

Done --Fæ (talk) 12:41, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, a bit more detail on what exactly you want to discuss about them would be helpful. --Dschwen (talk) 12:53, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Those seem to be mostly pen proxies anyways. What's to discuss about those? --Dschwen (talk) 14:15, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Doesn't seem to have many on it because you're looking at the wrong list. The right list is here and if it is anything like en.wiki, it goes on forever. Penyulap ☏ 14:08, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

TeleComNasSprVen was specifically raising the issues of IP blocks. So why was Multichill's list of blocked IPs not the correct one? --Dschwen (talk) 14:15, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

(Edit conflict)yes, I read it too fast. there has been talk about 'editors' blocked on en.wiki before, thought it was more of that. Penyulap ☏ 14:20, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Well I was being intentionally vague so as to have people commenting concerned more with discussing what the appropriate venue is for this type of discussion rather than discussing the actual merits of the RFC, but as people have pointed out that this is just a small matter that probably does not need an RFC, I'll just host the discussion here then.

Here is the full proposal then, cross-posted on the English Wikipedia's main discussion board as well as on other wikis, and adapted suitably toward each one:

Hi, this RFC is meant to facilitate discussion as part of an ongoing cross-wiki trend of various discussions and discussion boards I've noticed recently opened concerning the issue of indefinitely blocked IP addresses. Specifically the purpose of RFC is twofold, namely:

1. The unblocking of currently indefinitely blocked IP addresses at Special:BlockList.
2. Amending Commons:Blocking policy to discourage future indefinite blocks, with proposed language changes like adding "Administrators are strongly discouraged/prohibited/advised against indefinitely blocking IP addresses.

As I have explained elsewhere on other wikis, my reasons for doing so are thus:

1. IP addresses should never be indefinitely blocked as they can change hands pretty quickly.
2. In the event that any single IP address does need an indefinite block, such as for open proxies, the Meta Stewards have already implemented an indefinite global bock for it.

Please add your comments to the discussion below. Thanks!

I probably wasn't very clear when I made this thread on the English Wikipedia that, as a reminder, this is actually two different requests in one proposal: the first calls for a review of and eventual removal of current indefinitely blocked IP editors (whose list is very small as pointed out by MultiChill) while the second calls for prohibiting administrators from administering future indefinite blocks against IP editors. The reason it is separated like this, is that I can imagine the case that someone supports reporting future indefinite blocks only to the Meta Stewards, but to leave the current indefinite blocks in place on Commons as it is perceived as a "problem looking for a solution" (a very annoying and oft-quoted adage that tries to stifle the freeform nature of wikis from undergoing any sort of change, one that I have thankfully had only rare occasions to invoke myself, but I digress). TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 16:12, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Oh, do note that I've found a recently inactive database report on this issue. Wonder if that should be deleted, in favor of Special:BlockList as mentioned above? TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 06:08, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

A Deletion Request vanishes

Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Daemon2010 is currently not in Commons:Deletion requests/2014/02/06. Any idea? 91.64.240.220 09:42, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Guess it was never listed there? Just made up for that: [3]. --тнояsтеn ⇔ 11:41, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you very much 91.64.240.220 17:16, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Update needed

Can someone make new version of File:Madrid Barcelona services.jpg? There is now an international service Barcelona - Perpignan and beyond. Al Fiqueras trains either terminate at Barcelona or Madrid.Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:42, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

• And it would be better made as an SVG. - Jmabel ! talk 17:11, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Problematic user duplicating categories

Moved to Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems#Problematic user duplicating categories - Jmabel ! talk 17:15, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Database report: Unused categories

Right now, Special:UnusedCategories is not working properly when it comes to looking out for unused categories to tag with the {{Emptypage}} template, as it currently contains a lot of unfiltered entries which have {{Category redirect}} at the top. So can anyone run a modified script similar to UnusedCategories that would specifically exclude any mention of "category redirect", and then generate a database report going from there? TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 18:17, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

That would be a rather simple SQL query with a left join to the templates table to exclude pages with the redirect template. --Dschwen (talk) 18:34, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Ok, let's see. This lists categories with no files/images in them:

select page_title, page_id, cl_to from page left join categorylinks on page_title=cl_to where page_namespace=14 and cl_from IS NULL

...--Dschwen (talk) 19:09, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Ugh, that takes a bit longer than I anticipated. It requires either two left joins (which I cannot get to work), or a subquery/temporary table (to filter out only the category redirect templatelinks). Will try again later (after lunch). --Dschwen (talk) 19:21, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Got it!

select page_title, page_id from page left join categorylinks on page_title=cl_to left join templatelinks on page_id=tl_from and (tl_title="Category_redirect" or tl_title="Disambig") where page_namespace=14 and cl_from IS NULL group by page_id having tl_title is null;

Let me know if you are interested in having this run (maybe as a tool). --Dschwen (talk) 20:35, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm running this now and will generate a report page at User:Dschwen/emptycats. --Dschwen (talk) 20:47, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Please be careful when deleting supposedly empty categories. In some maintenance categories are empty most of the time, but must not be deleted, some empty categories just need a {{Disambig}} template added, some (taxo categories for example) I'd rather leave alone. --Dschwen (talk) 21:11, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Category name

Could someone please rename the category "Category:Henry VIII by Hans Holbein der Jüngere" to "Category:Henry VIII by Hans Holbein the Younger", and any other similar categories relating to Holbein?

Amandajm (talk) 15:04, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Wikidata

So on Wikidata, I had to have talk with one of the resident administrators there and it got me thinking about how Wikidata's current clunky implementation of one link per site affects Wikimedia Commons. And after a little bit more digging around I came to the page at Wikidata:Wikimedia Commons which discusses how best to integrate Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons together and also found this RFC page about it. Problems there raised were about how Wikimedia category pages are semantically speaking, for all intents and purposes, the same as the object called 'article' on Wikipedia. My question is then, when I create future Commons categories here and then create a corresponding item for it on Wikidata, whether I should use the same item for Wikipedia articles as for Commons categories for easy interwiki linking, if there is not a corresponding gallery page for the article, or create a separate item. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 08:06, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

I gather that for the time being Wikidata will continue to have two separate items about the same topic where necessary, one for articles and another for categories. These can be linked using wikidata:Property:P910 and wikidata:Property:P301. Once the software is upgraded to allow multiple sitelinks to an item from a single project, the data structure will be reorganised to have a single item for each topic holding data on both articles and categories about that topic. At least that is my understanding of the RfC closure, which isn't entirely clear. --Avenue (talk) 14:57, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Multiple sitelinks per item? Nah, that's not going to happen.

When we have access to data from arbitrary items we'll be happy, that means that on the category we can just grab the information of the Wikipedia articles even when these are connected with a different item. I'll give an example to make it easier to understand:

Category:Amsterdam -> d:Q4495 -> category's main topic (P301) -> d:Q727. On that item we can than access all labels, descriptions, aliases, statements, etc. Multichill (talk) 09:58, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Notification of file deletions

Lots of images are deleted on Wikimedia Commons every day, and many of those are actively used by other Wikimedia projects. I know that bigger projects like Wikipedia have the luxury of using CommonsDelinker that at least removes links to deleted images. But younger projects like Wikivoyage don't even have that. We have absolutely no way to know that an image we are using has been removed here on Commons.

I looked through the available solutions and, regrettably, did not find any:

• Commons Ticker seems to be inactive since several years

• Commons Delinker is working, but I don't understand who is operating it. I left a message on the relevant user's talk page. Now 10 days passed, and there is still no response, which makes me believe that the bot is active, but its operator is not.

What should one do in this situation? --Alexander (обсуждение) 16:16, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

It is unfortunate that Commons Delinker isn't running on all projects. Apart from image deletion, Commons Delinker is supposed to help with a couple of other things such as file renaming. If the Commons Delinker maintainer isn't around, maybe someone else could write a Commons Delinker replacement which does the same task.

In the past, there was a bot, w:User:CommonsNotificationBot, which placed notifications on English Wikipedia article talk pages when files were nominated for deletion on Commons. Unfortunately, this bot has been offline since 2012, and it was only ever running on English Wikipedia. I think that we need a replacement of this bot, and preferably one which runs on multiple projects. This would in particular help fair use projects in case they wish to keep an image or two under a fair use claim. --Stefan4 (talk) 23:48, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Commonsdelinker has several maintainers (bryan, me, siebrand, krinkle and hoo), but we're not very active. We already have problems keeping the bot running, let alone improve it or add features. We send out requests for people to help out several times (example), but we haven't had a lot of response.

Stefan4's suggestion to write something new is not a good plan, we don't need more people to reinvent the wheel.

I do agree that the functionality CommonsNotificationBot had would be very useful to have again. Multichill (talk) 09:43, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

I'd call the WMF to help out with some paid programmers (or some of their volunteer programmers) as that's an important inter-wiki task, forming a programming task force to identify Bots with problems and find ways to fix them. Helping out with Delinker would be nice but it's more important to spread deletion warnings to the local wikis (so they could interfere or leave comments in the DRs). There are also some important Bots that need to be moved from Toolserver to Labs, fix bugs in Flickrreview/Flickruploadbot, the lack of properly working maintenance bots with multiple active maintainers, etc,etc. --Denniss (talk) 10:24, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Commons:Deletion requests/File:Fortutah replica.jpg

I'm not sure exactly how to post this appeal for a re-review, since Commons:Deletion review is mostly for files that have already been deleted, so here goes:

It's often been the case that uploaders to Wikimedia Commons attempt to retract their licenses with any sort of wild claims in order to retain 'copyright' or 'ownership' on a particular image, and I'm not sure about the best place to direct their questions about it (perhaps Commons:Licensing?). Anyway, because this is problematic for Commons, even requests from the author of an image to remove it are quickly declined. There should probably be a better solution to handle these requests than at Commons:Deletion requests, since often the image is either kept or deleted with the user quickly returning there, not understanding copyright.

However, in this particular case which I found stashed away in the DR backlog, I'm inclined to assume good faith here and give the user a chance to explain their actions. I've encountered evidence, located at this website which suggests the picture was actually uploaded on 16 August 2007 by a "JacobBarlow", contrast this with the timestamp for this image at 29 September 2008. Again, I think we should do a re-review in light of this new evidence, but I'm not sure if this is the right place for it. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 23:15, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

If you find new evidence, then the usual thing is to nominate the file for deletion again. I have done so now. --Stefan4 (talk) 23:56, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

February 09

Category:Freiburg

This was emptied due to it being listed at User:CommonsDelinker/commands but the target category at Category:Freiburg im Breisgau is redirecting back to the original Category:Freiburg. Can anyone explain the reason for this, or if we can change it to make more sense? TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 11:21, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Fixed. --A.Savin 11:25, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

The images taken by employees of the ICRC of captives held at Guantanamo

An image of Omar Khadr widely used before the copyright status was made clear.

Before the IP rights of images of Omar Khadr was clarified an image of him, as a child -- 'like this one -- was widely used.

In 2009 employees of the International Committee of the Red Cross -- the people authorized to check for compliance with the Geneva Conventions were allowed to take portraits of the captives held in indefinite extrajudicial detention, and to provide them to the captives' family.

Some of the captive's familiies subsequently made some of the photos available to the press. I uploaded several of these image. I can't now remember whether I uploaded them as "fair use" on en.wiki, or whether I uploaded them here. I do remember that some contributors voiced the opinion that an {{OTRS}} ticket was necessary.

I figured the intellectual property rights to these images either belonged to the ICRC, or, possibly, the ICRC signed over all rights to the families.

I tried contacting the ICRC, and did not receive a reply. Well, apparently, someone else did succeed, as there is a an OTRS ticket on File:Mohammedou Ould Salahi.jpg.

First, can someone who has access to ticket #2011031110011057 share some details from that ticket. Specifically, is there any reason why this ticket shouldn't apply to all the other images the ICRC took of Guantanamo captives?

Second, if the ticket does apply to those other images, is that sufficient to get the other images restored? Geo Swan (talk) 05:25, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

The ticket 2011031110011057 relates to one image and cannot act as a more general release. The description at File:Mohammedou Ould Salahi.jpg is "The ICRC took this photo at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. They gave it to Salahi's brother, who passed it on to Salahi's lawyer." and the email correspondence does little more than support this statement. Though the correspondence does include a statement from the mentioned legal firm, it does not include a verifiable copyright release from the ICRC or the individual photographer who was working for the ICRC at the time, leaving it at risk of potential future deletion if challenged on Commons. I would not presume that photographs taken by members of ICRC in the course of their work would be automatically public domain. I believe that the most credible release for these photographs needs to come directly from the ICRC or their legal representative as neither the subject in the photograph (the captives), their families or their lawyers have a direct claim to the IP for photographs taken by ICRC employees. --Fæ (talk) 09:08, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

OK, thanks.

In my opinion this is an instance where the common sense interpretation is directly at odds with a strict interpretation of copyright law.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has a well-known history of well over one hundred years of devotion to the interests of prisoners. Is there anyone who really believes the ICRC is going to reverse their entire history, and suddenly try to use their ownership of a not particular valuable image to make a profit -- thus completely undermining their credibility?

I am going to repeat the story of the wikipedia's use of images of Omar Khadr. For years there were two image various newspapers used, and that en.wiki used. Eventually, his eldest sister Zaynab Khadr weighed in. Initially she sounded very impatient with us that there was any question over re-using images of her brother.

A lot of people had argued that the press had to be using images we had permission to use. Some people argued that the images were PD because they were taken in Afghanistan, which had no copyright protection.

It turned out that, just prior to an event where the press would be present, because her brother's case was going to be discussed, they raided the family photo album. They handed out photos to reporters, without placing any conditions on how those images should be re-used. They didn't ask the names of the reporters they gave the images to.

I think her frustration with our insistence that she submit an explicit license before the images could be re-used are typical of how ordinary people react. I think ordinary people would regard handing out images to photographers without taking names or stating explicit terms for re-use as a tacit release of the image into the public domain.

Luckily for us, by this time, she had a good friend who was an experienced WMF contributor, so we do have an OTRS from the Khadr family.

Realistically, the priorities of families that released any photos of a Guantanamo captive is going to be the same as that of the Khadr family. Any question of intellectual property rights would be completely secondary to the idea that releasing the image as widely as possible might help get their relative released more early. Realistically, they are going to resent any effort on the part of commons contributors to be sticklers for protecting IP rights they are not aware of and not interested in.

With regard to the idea that it was the ICRC who retained the IP rights to the photo, oI agree that one might speculate that it might make sense for the ICRC to transfer all the IP rights to the family, when they transferred the image. However, I suggest our experience shows the general knowledge of IP rights is so sparse that it is not likely the ICRC ever considered this question. Why there are many individuals whose job is to manage libraries of photos who are completely innocent of any knowledge of IP rights.

(I wrote to the photo editor of a major newspaper, about the IP history of what looked like an official DoD picture. She informed me her newspaper didn't keep a record of the attribution of the images it had used. However, when it published images without an explicit credit, I could assume it was either taken by a photographer working for the paper -- or the image was in the public domain.)

Finally, one of the complaints of both the early images that were widely re-used was that they were misleading, as he must have been older when he was involved in the firefight that preceded his capture. In fact, his sister said the older of the two images had been taken about two months prior to his capture. It was an image submitted to the Canadian government with a request to renew his passport. Geo Swan (talk) 09:59, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree getting the i's dotted and t's crossed for copyright can be a drag. There is some room for common-sense in how we choose to interpret what counts as reasonable efforts to verify copyright. When acting as an OTRS volunteer, our responsibility is to support the rights of copyright holders and provide reasonable assurance that re-users are unlikely to have any issue with using images/media in compliance with our stated licence. Hopefully if volunteers continue to write to the ICRC or can track down who the original photographer was, we can get a more credible release as I have no doubt that copyright concerns are an unexpected consequence of the somewhat ambiguous release/provenance of the images.

In an attempt to tidy this up, I have sent off my own request as below. --Fæ (talk) 12:26, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Probably too late if you've already sent this, but in the future you should give them the option of a CC license, not just a release into the public domain. - Jmabel ! talk 16:49, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I was keeping it simple. I normally link to Commons:Email templates/Consent. If they reply and are struggling, I'll do it then. --Fæ (talk) 06:18, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

I am confused as to whether we are talking copyright or consent. I'd be very leary of using "prisoner of war" photos without the consent of the indiviual shown. 131.137.245.207 15:04, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

---

I am pleased to confirm that I have had a response from the ICRC which is logged on OTRS Ticket:2014021010009657. The statement was:

The ICRC therefore confirms that any portrait photographs taken in 2009 for the purposes of captives corresponding with their families during the ICRC access to Guantanamo, are to be considered copyright of the families (effectively a work for hire). Consequently any photographs verified as released by the relevant families on a free licence are suitable to be retained on Wikimedia Commons. --Fæ (talk) 14:18, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

I think you are mistaken in your summary. The images were taken for the benefit and use of the idividuals in question, not their families. I get that may be a subtle distinction but in truth the consent for licensing should come from the idividual, not the families. 131.137.245.209 16:04, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

The Canada Department Of National Defence is free to hold its own views, however for the purposes of Wikimedia Commons, the statement from the ICRC is clear enough and specifically states the pictures belong to the detainees and their families. If you wish to raise a DR to test the community's views as to whether the two related statements we have on record from the family's lawyer and the ICRC itself leave "significant doubt" or not, please yourself. I don't intend to spend any more of my volunteer time debating with anonymous IPs with undeclared conflicts of interest. --Fæ (talk) 16:13, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

The IP may resolve to DND but I am not here in any official capacity nor am I representing any views held by the department. Your insuation of a COI is offensive and akin to bullying. My question was a legitimate one of copyright and you try to vilify me for expressing it. 131.137.245.206 18:06, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

February 07

Links in the picture of the day feed are broken

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T63058

Hi,

the atom feed for the picture of the day at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/api.php?action=featuredfeed&feed=potd&feedformat=atom currently contains broken links to the image pages. Todays image has an entry of

 <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FeedItem/potd/20140208000000/en"/>

but that page only tells me something about an "Invalid feed timestamp". --2001:638:904:FFCA:B41B:5146:9A7E:D7F0 10:19, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

User:MaxSem has a fix for this pending review deployment. See bugzilla:61058. Bawolff (talk) 17:07, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

p.s. Unless the fix gets backported (Deployed ahead of normal time) the fix will probably reach commons on the 18th. Bawolff (talk) 17:10, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

I guess my bugzilla-fu was not good enough to find that, thanks! --2001:638:904:FFCA:1D80:C676:7C41:4A14 17:13, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Don't worry, mine wasn't either. I was looking at the source code (of the most recent version, not the version on commons) for about ten minutes trying to figure out how what you described could possibly happen, until I noticed that the file was recently edited. Bawolff (talk) 00:24, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Classifying ambience pictures

These two pictures I classify in the normal way, but dont we have classifications for images having emotional or feeling impact. These give me travel envy.Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:35, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

I think that images impact the viewer in different ways, so any such categorisation is likely to be subjective and possibly not useful. Rodhullandemu (talk) 17:02, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

In general we try to avoid subjective categories. If one couldn't define objective criteria as to whether a particular picture belongs in a given category, it's an invitation to perpetual edit warring. - Jmabel ! talk 18:52, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Well, I am not so sure. For example, we do have Category:Famous photographs, which is kinda subjective too (I knew some as super-famous, others I had never seen), and well, I don’t there is any edit warring on it. We do not have much NPOV obligations so I would not mind ambience categories :) Jean-Fred (talk) 19:03, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Every stock photo agency catorgizes images with both objective (place, etc) and subjective (romantic, etc) categories. It helps people find the stuff they might wish to use. 131.137.245.209 16:11, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Elucidation

If i want to obtain permission via OTRS for all images from a certain website, the website's owner should send answer to me or to commons OTRS team? XXN (talk) 20:05, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

The copyright owner(s) of the images should send their declarations of free licensing to the OTRS permission address. -- Asclepias (talk) 20:55, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

But you should probably ask to be cc'd so you can tell that this has been sent and can deal proactively with any problems. - Jmabel ! talk 01:21, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Ok, thank you.--XXN (talk) 03:18, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Simple sound/video

Are there any examples of sound or video files under formats like .ogg that would qualify for {{PD-ineligible}} while also retaining sufficient and useful quality to stay in Commons:Scope? TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 05:07, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

If you include midi files, you get things like File:Middle_C.mid. Just audio ogg files you get:

MariaDB [commonswiki_p]> select img_name from image inner join page on page_title = img_name and page_namespace = 6 inner join templatelinks on page_id = tl_from and tl_namespace = 10 and tl_title = 'PD-ineligible' where img_media_type = 'AUDIO' and img_major_mime = 'application' and img_minor_mime = 'ogg';
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| img_name                                                                           |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Sine.ogg                                                                           |
| Triangle.ogg                                                                       |
| Square.ogg                                                                         |
| De-Heiliges_Römisches_Reich.ogg                                                    |
| White_noise.ogg                                                                    |
| Square_wave_1000.ogg                                                               |
| Gray_noise.ogg                                                                     |
| En-us-fool.ogg                                                                     |
| 392Hz.ogg                                                                          |
| 262Hz.ogg                                                                          |
| 175Hz.ogg                                                                          |
| Halberstadt_Germany_ASLSP_2006-01-05-17h.ogg                                       |
| Es-Antofagasta.ogg                                                                 |
| Whitenoisesound.ogg                                                                |
| Brownnoise.ogg                                                                     |
| Emanuele_Saiu.ogg                                                                  |
| Gts_(bbc)_pips.ogg                                                                 |
| Outer_marker.ogg                                                                   |
| Middle_marker.ogg                                                                  |
| Inner_marker.ogg                                                                   |
| Lion_dance_percussion.ogg                                                          |
| Wählton_(bis_1979).ogg                                                             |
| Anab.ogg                                                                           |
| 2600hzfeedback.ogg                                                                 |
| 435.ogg                                                                            |
| 436.ogg                                                                            |
| 437.ogg                                                                            |
| 438.ogg                                                                            |
| 439.ogg                                                                            |
| 440.ogg                                                                            |
| 441.ogg                                                                            |
| 442.ogg                                                                            |
| 443.ogg                                                                            |
| 444.ogg                                                                            |
| 445.ogg                                                                            |
| 446.ogg                                                                            |
| 1TR110-1_Kap8.9_Suchton_1100Hz+1200.ogg                                            |
| 1000Hz.ogg                                                                         |
| Krusty_sigh_impression.ogg                                                         |
| Livro.ogg                                                                          |
| Origem.ogg                                                                         |
| SAQ.ogg                                                                            |
| Qnm.ogg                                                                            |
| Tri.ogg                                                                            |
| Tcp_d1_4_phonetic_alphabet_nato_irdial.ogg                                         |
| NorthAmericanBusySignal.ogg                                                        |
| Old_North_American_busy_signal.ogg                                                 |
| Et_scale.ogg                                                                       |
| Et_fifths.ogg                                                                      |
| Anthem_of_Morocco.ogg                                                              |
| Pertini_proclama_lo_sciopero_generale_a_Milano_25_aprile_1945.ogg                  |
| CQD.ogg                                                                            |
| SOS.ogg                                                                            |
| Shepard_tone.ogg                                                                   |
| Metadata_BWV565_Attribution.ogg                                                    |
| GH_Mars_Attribution.ogg                                                            |
| MM_Night_on_Bald_Mountain_attribution.ogg                                          |
| 1050Hz_Tone.ogg                                                                    |
| Tone_258-65Hz.ogg                                                                  |
| Tone_2600Hz.ogg                                                                    |
| Tone_380Hz.ogg                                                                     |
| Tone_400Hz.ogg                                                                     |
| Tone_409Hz.ogg                                                                     |
| PL_JezioroZarnowieckie.ogg                                                         |
| PL_OsowaSien.ogg                                                                   |
| Torture_tone.ogg                                                                   |
| Tone-422.5-Hz.ogg                                                                  |
| Tone-423.2-Hz.ogg                                                                  |
| Tone_450Hz.ogg                                                                     |
| Tone_480Hz.ogg                                                                     |
| Tone_880Hz.ogg                                                                     |
| Tone_439Hz.ogg                                                                     |
| Tone_440Hz.ogg                                                                     |
| Tone_430-54Hz.ogg                                                                  |
| Tone_435Hz.ogg                                                                     |
| Tone_451Hz.ogg                                                                     |
| Cracow_trumpet_signal.ogg                                                          |
| Brummdose.ogg                                                                      |
| Tryouts_Junky_Punks.ogg                                                            |
| Onu_New_power.ogg                                                                  |
| 220_Hz_sine_wave.ogg                                                               |
| Paul_Lincke_-_Berliner_Luft.ogg                                                    |
| NobleEightfoldPath.ogg                                                             |
| Anapanasati.ogg                                                                    |
| PL_Voice_of_Jerzy_Waldorff.ogg                                                     |
| Michael_Jackson_911_Call.ogg                                                       |
| Auto_jede_po_kostkách_a_brzdí_(BxB_-_JdV).ogg                                      |
| Auto_projíždějící_okolo_na_kostkách_(BxB_-_JdV).ogg                                |
| Brdzící_náklaďácek,_zatažení_ruční_brzdy,_blízský_motor_(BxB_-_JdV).ogg            |
| Brzdící_a_skákající_tramvaj_(BxB_-_JdV).ogg                                        |
| BělehradskáxBruselská_0001.ogg                                                     |
| Kašlání_autora_(BxB_-_JdV).ogg                                                     |
| Prochází_paní_s_mobilem_(BxB_-_JdV).ogg                                            |
| Projíždějící_skútr_a_troubení_auta_(BxB_-_JdV).ogg                                 |
| New-York-City_Demo_MedalComposer.ogg                                               |
| Gtr-Nylon_Demo_MedalComposer.ogg                                                   |
| Piano1_Demo_MedalComposer.ogg                                                      |
| Pronunciation-Herman_Van_Rompuy.ogg                                                |
| 24_hours_of_silence.ogg                                                            |
| Baritone_110-349.ogg                                                               |
| Basso_82-329.ogg                                                                   |
| Alto_174-587.ogg                                                                   |
| MultiMorphing_Demo_MedalComposer.ogg                                               |
| Karlova_0001.ogg                                                                   |
| Kolem_projíždí_auto_-_část,_Karlova_ulice_001.ogg                                  |
| Lidé_obdibují_skútr_-_Karlova_001.ogg                                              |
| Otevření_a_zevření_dveří_-_Karlova_001.ogg                                         |
| Radio_v_Karlovce_001.ogg                                                           |
| Shusterlovescurling.ogg                                                            |
| Linus_pronounces_linux_(english).oga                                               |
| Linus_pronounces_linux_(swedish).oga                                               |
| Maynard_Ferguson_Theme_From_Star_Trek_1977.ogg                                     |
| DTMF_dialing.ogg                                                                   |
| Ebs.ogg                                                                            |
| National_Anthem_of_Iran.ogg                                                        |
| National_Anthem_of_Kenya.ogg                                                       |
| National_Anthem_of_Kyrgyzstan.ogg                                                  |
| National_Anthem_of_Montenegro.ogg                                                  |
| National_Anthem_of_Laos.ogg                                                        |
| National_Anthem_of_Namibia.ogg                                                     |
| 256Hz.ogg                                                                          |
| Gallinago_gallinago_drumming.ogg                                                   |
| Br-Acaraje.ogg                                                                     |
| Crex_crex,_July_2010.ogg                                                           |
| TRACK47.ogg                                                                        |
| Alouette_(song).ogg                                                                |
| 1500Hz.ogg                                                                         |
| Theta_drumming.ogg                                                                 |
| 1200Hz.ogg                                                                         |
| Surah_Ar-Rahman.ogg                                                                |
| Aubing-St.QurinGlockengeläut.OGG                                                   |
| PontMirabo3.ogg                                                                    |
| Hugh_Aston_Hornpipe.ogg                                                            |
| RomansOvLuna3.ogg                                                                  |
| RomansOvLuna4.ogg                                                                  |
| Bloom_Radiohead.ogg                                                                |
| Himno_UCH.ogg                                                                      |
| Hunter_railcar_dva1_cityrail.ogg                                                   |
| 220_Hz_anti-aliased_triangle_wave.ogg                                              |
| 500Hz.ogg                                                                          |
| Sscmalarme_gen.oga                                                                 |
| Kuchelere_Su_Sepmishem_by_Rashid_Behbudov.ogg                                      |
| Prague_st_Vitus_Easter_ringing_2012.ogg                                            |
| Cygnus_columbianus,_2012-04.ogg                                                    |
| 12_03_23_1930z_G06.ogg                                                             |
| DE-Für_Elise.ogg                                                                   |
| KoubkovaxBělehradská,_sobota,_sněženi.ogg                                          |
| Kutná_Hora,_Vlašský_dvůr,_neděle.ogg                                               |
| Praha,_ApolinářskáxViničná.ogg                                                     |
| Praha,_KoubkovaxBělehradská.ogg                                                    |
| Vojníkov,_3._jez,_středa.ogg                                                       |
| Vojníkov,_dvorek_čp._21,_25_stupňů.ogg                                             |
| Vojníkov,_lavička_před_pomníkem,_čtvrtek,_25_stupňů.ogg                            |
| Vojníkov,_před_kapličkou,_čtvrtek.ogg                                              |
| Vojníkov,_vjezd_do_statku_č.p._2.ogg                                               |
| Český_Krumlov,_zámecký_zahrada_v_korytu_3._lavička_zleva.ogg                       |
| Simple_duple_drum_pattern.ogg                                                      |
| Morddrohung_Leitner.ogg                                                            |
| God_Bless_Our_Homeland_Ghana_(Instrumental).ogg                                    |
| National_Anthem_of_the_Republic_of_Kosovo.ogg                                      |
| Opening_of_Prime_Minister's_Questions_2013-02-13.ogg                               |
| AAR214-KSFO-Crash.ogg                                                              |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
162 rows in set (13.47 sec)

Video files (all types of videos. Animated gifs do not count):

MariaDB [commonswiki_p]> select img_name from image inner join page on page_title = img_name and page_namespace = 6 inner join templatelinks on page_id = tl_from and tl_namespace = 10 and tl_title = 'PD-ineligible' where img_media_type = 'VIDEO';
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| img_name                                                                                  |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Wilms_Tumor_CTScan.OGG                                                                    |
| Москва_(Совкино,_Кауфман_&_Копалин,_1926_or_1927),_noaudio.ogv                            |
| 320x240.ogv                                                                               |
| 320x240.ogg                                                                               |
| 320x240.skeleton.and.cmml.ogv                                                             |
| Videotestsrc-720x576-16-15.ogg                                                            |
| 322x242_not-divisible-by-sixteen-framesize.ogg                                            |
| Chained_streams.ogg                                                                       |
| Yue_Yue_Accident.ogv                                                                      |
| LRIDY_NADY.oggtheora.ogv                                                                  |
| Zeitumstellung.webm                                                                       |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
11 rows in set (0.44 sec)

Bawolff (talk) 06:14, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Concern about mass speedy requests by User:Kanko3131

I noticed that Kanko3131 (talk · contribs) is tagging a lot of Japanese soccer images as copyvio, based on the FAQ at the J-League site. This seems to be a gross misreading of the policy - the copyright issue should only apply to images that are credited as ©J.LEAGUE PHOTOS, but the user is tagging images by independent photographers and fans. Please review these cases before they're speedied. Thanks. Ytoyoda (talk) 16:52, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm also concerned that the user is not notifying uploaders about the deletions, so they don't have a chance to respond to the seemingly erroneous taggings. 16:53, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Wikia

Hi. Does someone knows if Wikia's pictures are able to be uploaded here?. I found some pictures than could fill a quite empty category. Site says "Content is available under CC-BY-SA", but pictures like this make me doubt. Thanks. --Ganímedes (talk) 23:22, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

I would not trust the "curation" on wikia wikis at all. My advice would be to carefully check each image individually. --Dschwen (talk) 23:47, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Ok but, how can I check licence in Wikia? Thanks. --Ganímedes (talk) 00:26, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm saying you cannot. You'll have to find the sources for the images and verify if they are indeed freely licensed. --Dschwen (talk) 00:51, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

I can only confirm what Dschwen said, they have CC-BY-SA as some kind of global default. If you find another free license it could actually mean something. –Be..anyone (talk) 16:47, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Ugh, ok, thanks both. --Ganímedes (talk) 11:30, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

February 08

Wouldn't it be a good idea to put some of the "welcome" text on the main page?

Hi, I originally left this on the main talk page: First time visitors, who have never heard of Wikimedia Commons, I imagine, go to the main page through Google and get no idea of what the purpose of this site/project are. The Welcome page, as far as I can tell, is at least two clicks away (through the main page "Discussion", which most non-wikimedians would probably never think to click). I'd like to suggest that, at least, the "What is Wikimedia Commons?" text be added (maybe transcluded from a common page) to the main page. Klortho (talk) 02:34, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

The main page says Wikimedia Commons a database of 105,240,700 freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute. To me this is a nice and short summary of what commons is, and just barely below the length of text that nobody would bother reading ;-). --Dschwen (talk) 02:41, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

There were some Main page mockups by @Mono: and @Kelvinsong: which go into more detail in the project purpose − see eg. User:Kelvinsong/Sandbox/en. This is a path worth exploring in my opinion :) Jean-Fred (talk) 11:28, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Kelvinsong's mockup retains the tagline, however he adds a bit more explanatory text to the action buttons, which is quite nice (but should probably be done through tooltips to avoid clutter). It is worth mentioning that we do have the Participating box which offers action items. Can we improve the text for further clarity? The challenge is improving without becoming too verbose. --Dschwen (talk) 05:09, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

To be honest, I was working in a hurry and missed the fact that there is a link to the welcome page in the left sidebar. But, I still think it's too hard to find over there, perhaps because I've gotten used to big, prominent "about" buttons. Could I suggest renaming the "Participating" box to either "Welcome!" or "About", and adding the text from User:Kelvinsong's mockup there? Like this. Klortho (talk) 10:47, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Tolosa

Has redirect to Toulouse but it is also a Basque town with its own category: Category:Tolosa. This is confusing and misleading.Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:10, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Then go to https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tolosa?redirect=no and edit it to be a gallery for Tolosa, instead of a redirect. AnonMoos (talk) 21:32, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Done: But better still if the original redirect page is removed.Smiley.toerist (talk) 23:12, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Slash in category name

I can't move files from Category:WIKI loves parliaments/European Parliament 2014 to other categories, using HotCat, presumably because of the "/". Is such a category name allowed? Should the category be replaced? How? Or is this a HotCat bug? Andy Mabbett (talk) 17:55, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

As far as I know, we don't have a general rule against slashes in category names. In this case, a colon might have been a better alternative. (In some namespaces, a slash is a delimited for subpages, but that's not the case with the category namespace. It would not make much sense to use subpages in the category namespace to describe a hierarchy; the hierarchy of categories is already described by the categorisation itself.) —LX (talk, contribs) 18:21, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Nice bug, but slashes seem a poor choice compared to commas, colons or dashes. I suggest using VFC to move these rather than HotCat. --Fæ (talk) 18:40, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Hot-Cat works if "copy" instead of "move" is used. -- Tuválkin ✉ 20:12, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Re LX: Category is a subpage enabled namespace on commons. It would show breadcrumbs if the page Category:WIKI loves parliaments existed. Bawolff (talk) 00:20, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with slashes. Hot Cat has its own bugs (like it annoying inability to remember user’s preferences) but this is not one of them. The issue here is that Category:WIKI loves parliaments/European Parliament 2014 is not directly put in each file page but transcluded from Template:Wikipedians in European Parliament 2014.

Policies regarding both slashes in category names and transclusion of categories do exist — the former are not being disrespected in this case, but the latter seems to be. In practice, we have things like a 1970ies Opel hatchback tagged with this category just because it happened to be photographed in Strasbourg while the photographer was on his way to the Wiki loves Parliaments / European Parliament 2014 event, which is scarcely useful. This category, if kept transcluded in the template, should be demoted to non topical, and the media items tagged with is that actually refer to European Parliament, 2014, should be categorized with Category:2014 in Strasbourg and Category:European Parliament.

Most of the stuff in Template:Wikipedians in European Parliament 2014 seems inappropriate for things like the mentioned Opel snapshot, though, namely all that longwinded legalese about the European Parliament. That should be reserved to media items with actual cogent content, while the rest, if anything, should be tagged with something simpler reading «This was uploaded as part of the WIKI loves parliaments/European Parliament 2014 campaign». Truely useless, but at least not misleading, and we know how these Wiki loves Something-or-Other campains like to show off their numbers…

-- Tuválkin ✉ 20:12, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Good catch; thank you. So perhaps the solution is to remove the project template from pics that are not of MEPs? Or add a switch too the template? Andy Mabbett (talk) 14:01, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Keep It Simple. I see far too many templates being created with hard to debug embedded categorization and (even worse) intelligent categorization. Just reduce the need for fancy templates and categorize the images in the normal way. A bot could sort this out in a flash, Commons:Bots/Work requests. --Fæ (talk) 14:06, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Categories:Destroyed in ... only for buildings?

I have just become aware that Category:Destroyed in 1893, and all similar categories, are subcategories of Category:Buildings by date of destruction. What, then, about other objects? Should they not be categorized by date of destruction, or may all these categories be disjoined from the buildings’ category tree? --Abderitestatos (talk) 17:42, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

I wondered the same thing on Commons:Categories for discussion/2010/08/Category:Buildings by date of destruction. --ghouston (talk) 01:30, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Actually I think Category:Destroyed in 1893 etc., function as general purpose destruction categories and so can include objects. They shouldn't be subcategories of Category:Buildings by date of destruction. See what I just wrote in Commons:Categories for discussion/2010/08/Category:Buildings by date of destruction. --ghouston (talk) 23:53, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

How about Categories:Built in ...? Should they be taken out of Category:Architecture, too, for the same reason? --Abderitestatos (talk) 18:26, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

• Logically I think so. An example is Category:Built in 1998. Most of its subcategories are works of architecture, but some are not. So the category as a whole is broader than architecture and so shouldn't be its subcategory. The architecture subcategories should be addded to Category:1990s architecture directly. --ghouston (talk) 21:19, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
  • Or perhaps create a subcategory Category:1998 architecture. --ghouston (talk) 21:22, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
    • More likely something like Category:Buildings and structures completed in 1998. Category:1998 architecture would be even more ambiguous than in past names about whether it is concept date, start date, or completion date. - Jmabel ! talk 01:11, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

February 11

Need deleted files lose their File: pages?

Those trying to see why something was deleted as a copyright violation, and possibly to get it undeleted again, would have an easier time of it if they could see the File: page. (This could also be handy for files whose copyrights have already expired in the US, and can therefore be expected to eventually be allowed here.) —SamB (talk) 00:17, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

This would also be a service to reusers, maintaining evidence that the image was posted here as a free image. Dankarl (talk) 03:16, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

We discussed this earlier at Commons_talk:Courtesy_deletions#Thoughts_for_further_development and a few of us (Adam Cuerden, John Vandenberg and me) agree on the benefit of maintaining information of deleted files accessible to public. Jee 07:09, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. Though let's not use this as an excuse to go on a mad deletion spree: Wide reuse of images is probably evidence they're useful for an educational purpose, after all. We do have a custodial duty. Also, those images out of copyright in the U.S. have a unique position: They're welcome on (part of) Wikipedia, but not Commons, as English Wikipedia uses American copyright alone.

Another thing we sometimes do, but aren't consistent about, is mark accidental copyvio files for undeletion at the start of a certain year (when they leave copyright). This could have advantages in many cases. Adam Cuerden (talk) 11:30, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Commons is one project where deleted page is typically free of actual problems (even when the media file is all sorts of wrong) and there is a very good reason for the public to read the deleted page. I wonder if we could give anons the 'viewdeleted' permission, perhaps after the oversighters and admins work out how much deleted material should probably be suppressed.

It would be very cool to have an end date on delete actions, like we do on protect and block actions, but it is likely to be an attractive nuisance. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 09:05, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

February 12

Railway station or train station

There's a lot of inconsistency between whether or not categories should be named "<country name> train station" or "<country name> railway station", which Orrling and I briefly bring up at User talk:CommonsDelinker/commands. Has there been previous discussion on whether or not which of these is the correct category naming convention, and can someone supply links to them if they exist? TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 08:01, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

It's Category:Train stations at the top level, and this version dominates Category:Train stations by country (every country except the UK). --ghouston (talk) 09:28, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Although it's frequently used, "train station" is considered incorrect in the UK. Discussion here.  An optimist on the run! 14:03, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Good Free Photos -- Free Public Domain Photos

I just found this site: — Good Free Photos -- Free Public Domain Photos http://www.goodfreephotos.com/. The author, Yinan Chen, says:

All photos on this site were taken by me and I have chosen to license them under the Public Domain license to form a free photos database. This means you are free to use them personally or commercially(except for photos that require a model or property release) on any project without asking for permission. Please consider giving credit to goodfreephotos.com when you use the images. Please note that any trademarked models or logos that are in these pictures do not have release authorization(such as brand name cars, etc) so you may have to obtain permission from the trademark holder for such photos.

He seems to know what he’s talking about, and the photos are pretty good. There doesn’t seem to be a list of all photos, just albums to browse through. Definitely borgable. -- Tuválkin ✉ 21:56, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

 Reminder Batch uploading is a good way of logging suitable sites for mass upload projects. Listing the projects in one place helps to ensure we are a bit more consistent and influences our common best practice. --Fæ (talk) 11:15, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

 Done! -- Tuválkin ✉ 21:10, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

February 13

Commons:Valued images/Recently promoted blanked and blocked

Hello,

Even after numerous questions and warnings (including here), this page remains unmaintained, and has become a mess. :(( Hopefully someone will notice. Regards, Yann (talk) 13:15, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

I participated in COM:VIC a bit during some time in the past. Apart from the fact that there already were big problems with maintenance and reviewers' activity that times, I'm still curious about the purpose of that project. It seems to me that COM:VIC is just yet another way to collect "stars and seals" for the own user page. And there's quite an easy way to do: you can select an unimportant village church, a not very well known flower etc., go and take a photo (not necessarily a technically good one!), create own category for it, where your photo will be the only one at least for the next time, and let promote it to a VI since it's the only one (and so the best) image in this scope. That causes a specific bias: not particularly good or useful images become promoted, but way more images of niche subjects which aren't necessarily "valuable". After that all, I lost my interest for COM:VIC completely and for me there's no wonder now that there are problems with maintenance and participation. --A.Savin 10:52, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

February 14

Newspaper headline from 1935

Hi, is the license okay for this image (to the right) that I just uploaded? It's a headline from 1935. This source suggests that it's not protected by copyright.

NYT May 4, 1935

Thanks.Anythingyouwant (talk) 15:54, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

• That source is talking about de minimis. We don't accept that as a justification for things like this, only for minor elements within a larger image. What you uploaded appears to be from the New York Times. If it is, I'm pretty sure it is still copyrighted, but you might want to bring this to Commons:Village pump/Copyright for a more definitive answer. - Jmabel ! talk 16:31, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

February 15

DynamicPageList

I was surprised seeing that mw:Extension:DynamicPageList (Wikimedia) was not enabled on Commons. Is there any specific reason for that or can I start a RfC for that? Searching through the archives I last saw it mentioned in 2006, but the arguments against a that point might well be invalid by improvements in the software since then. --Ainali (talk) 22:07, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

The way the software is implemented is not efficient, particularly when you take the intersection of multiple big categories, and commons has some huge categories. In order to be made efficient, it would have to use a back-end more like what search uses. Bawolff (talk) 00:17, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

A backend like Help:FastCCI. :-) <--Dschwen (talk) 02:15, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Indeed. Bawolff (talk) 06:03, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Related ticket, for historical reasons: bugzilla:1710 --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 11:11, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

That ticket is actually not all that related. Bawolff (talk) 13:58, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

I am thinking that we should not restrict ourselves to ask for enhancements on the base that they might be non-efficient. If there are no other reasons I would rather make a request for enabling and let the WMF engineers decide whether or not they think the servers can handle it. --Ainali (talk) 22:45, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure it would be rejected (Smaller wikis than commons has had requests to enable that extension rejected), and if someone asked me what I thought, I would recommend rejecting it in its current state. However, one can of course still request it I suppose. User:Greg_(WMF) generally makes the final call about things getting enabled or not on Wikimedia sites. Bawolff (talk) 20:30, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

February 10

Removing "uncategorized" tags on images with cat-a-lot

I am categorizing images that show up in a chosen category of "uncategorized|day|month|year". Sometimes, by opening the images individually, I find that one or more images are already categorized, but the "uncategorized" tag remains. Is there a way to remove the "uncategorized" tag a) from the main category by using cat-a-lot, and b) from the page, using HotCat. At this point, the only way I know to do it is by clicking "Edit" and manually scrolling down to the bottom of each image, one by one. Downtowngal (talk) 04:43, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

(High five from another toiler in that thankless job!) I can say that the same happens to me some times. Not many times, though, considering the number of added categorizations envolved, but still. Of course I learned soon enough that from those "uncategorized|day|month|year" maintanance categories Cat-a-lot will only do "copy", never "move", but that’s an unrelated issue, I think. -- Tuválkin ✉ 21:20, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, Tuvalkin. It may not be possible with cat-a-lot, but what about HotCat? File:A study among the rocks of Echo Canyon. Summit County, Utah - NARA - 516641.jpg is an example. The tag "Media from the National Archives and Records Administration needing categories as of 8 October 2011" remains at the bottom of the category box, and the only way to remove it is to Edit the file. I would like to see a way to click on it with HotCat and remove it. Downtowngal (talk) 04:19, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

(You’re welcome!) Like said above, categories transcluded in a file page (through a template; in this case is is {{Uncategorized-NARA}}), as opposed to those simply typed in the regular way, are unavailable to HotCat (no "(−)(±)(↓)(↑)" tool set), and only copiable, not movable, with Cat-a-Lot. -- Tuválkin ✉ 21:56, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Not that this helps with the direct question, but: Remember that many files that have {{Uncategorized}}, but have some categories, should be {{Check categories}}, not marked clean just because they have 1 or 2 categories. I'm assuming, based on the question, that HotCat doesn't have a link that can switch {{Uncategorized}} to {{Check categories}} or already-checked, like it does to remove {{Check categories}} when that already exists. Maybe this should be made a request for Cat-a-lot — providing that users are given the option to make it {{Check categories}} instead when the categories are clearly incomplete, so that incomplete categorizations aren't simply treated as finished. --Closeapple (talk) 01:47, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

I never add a {{Check categories}} tag, but I think that adding this kind of functionality would be helpful. However, only experienced people are likely to use it correctly. Downtowngal (talk) 04:19, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Is there a problem with duplicate checking?

For my batch uploads I very carefully check for duplicates using the API. I recently uploaded several duplicate files where the old version of the file had been cropped and replaced. For some reason the API no longer appeared to recognize the past versions in the file history as being on Commons. Is this expected behaviour or a glitch? I am at a loss of how to compensate for this.

My example was to call this SHA1 check which at the moment finds one file, even though it is identical to the old version in the history of this file and so two matches should be returned. --Fæ (talk) 10:19, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

That's why I wrote this tool. You can ask my API for old files. See bugzilla:21345, bugzilla:58993 and bugzilla:57697 -- Rillke^(q?) 20:27, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for that, it seems to do the job with the example SHA. I'll have a play around with it in a couple of weeks as it may be a useful fifth pre-upload check I can build into my customized uploads. I doubt I can get around the problem of duplicating previously deleted uploads for the time being, I guess I'll leave that to admins to worry about. --Fæ (talk) 14:28, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

The Houstonian 100-year anniversary

• http://www.houstonianonline.com/houstonian-100th-anniversary
  • w:The Houstonian (newspaper)

There are some images here from over 100 years ago.

Would any of them be free-use available for upload here to Wikimedia Commons?

Thank you for your time,

-- Cirt (talk) 03:23, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

• Anything published in the U.S. before 1923 would be public domain. - Jmabel ! talk 04:57, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

According to John Mark Ockerbloom, no newspaper outside of New York renewed before WWII, and a quick search of the Gutenberg files reveals no entries under the name Houstonian, which means that the local contents of the paper are obviously good up to the end of the 1940s. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Prosfilaes (talk • contribs)

Okay, thank you very much! -- Cirt (talk) 19:56, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

uncategorised files

When I try to categorise File:Lophophorus impejanus (Himalayan Monal) 1.JPG I get an error that the file no longer exists while it is in the uncategorised category. What is going on? The same for File:Lophophorus impejanus (Himalayan Monal) 2.JPG. Smiley.toerist (talk) 14:09, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

The problem with these two files doesn’t seem to be only about a bug when categorizing with HotCat — the file page is not available to edit in any way:

The revision #0 of the page named "Lophophorus impejanus (Himalayan Monal) 1.JPG" does not exist.
This is usually caused by following an outdated history link to a page that has been deleted. Details can be found in the deletion log.

(On scary reddish background.) It stays like that also after purging… -- Tuválkin ✉ 21:31, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Bump bugzilla:32551 maybe? TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 03:13, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

question about a recent deletion requests

First of all, my apology if this is the wrong place to ask this but commons doesn't make it easy to find things.

Good day, I have a question regarding the following deletion request that was recently Speedy-Kept before I was even able to reply (It was closed just 35 minutes after my nomination!).

On February 12, 2014 I nominated a number of photos that I thought were a copyright violation. The uploader (and also the flickr reviewer), Matanya, directed me to the following deletion request that took place a few years ago. Shortly after, Steinsplitter speedy-kept the files, citing "Speedykept: per Commons:Deletion requests/Category:Images taken by Israel Defense Force".

Now, I have a number of questions/issues with that. The reason given by both Matanya and Steinsplitter is a previous deletion request where Matanya stated "On December 1st 2011, the IDF spokesperson has re-licensed all his flickr photos from cc-by-sa to cc-by-sa-nc.". Of course they can't really do that as these licenses are irrevocable. My real issue is this: ALL the images in my deletion request were "Taken on March 13, 2012" (per the IDF's flickr account) and were uploaded to commons on June 13, 2012. The IDF uploaded these images 3 months and 12 days after the IDF changed their license - therefore they were never cc-by-sa. So how come my request was speedy-kept?

As part of that nomination, Matanya brought up the fact that Template:IDF has an OTRS ticket. Unfortunately nothing really explains anywhere what that ticket says. Does it simply clarify the IDF's license change? or does it cover ALL IDFs images (I.E. including those that were uploaded AFTER the license change)?

Thank you! --65.78.114.251 09:13, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

I can't see the OTRS contents; so can't comment on it. It will be OK, if that ticket contains permission for future uploads too.

But I see a problem in Matanya's comments/actions. S/he stated on that previous DR that IDF changed the license on December 1st 2011. So s/he can't say "This image, originally posted to Flickr, was reviewed on 13 June 2012 by the administrator or reviewer Matanya, who confirmed that it was available on Flickr under the stated license on that date." unless IDF again reverted the license to CC BY SA 2.0 on File:Flickr - Israel Defense Forces - Soldiers to Citizens, What to do in Case of Rocket Attacks (1).jpg. (Note that IDF licensed there files with CC BY 2.0; not CC BY-SA 2.0, earlier.) I expect a statement from Matanya. If an admin made such a statement on a file even if it didn't have such a license on that date is a serious issue. Jee 09:58, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Sorry for not clarifying this earlier. The IDF had two rounds of releasing files. The first, prior to 2011, the files were released on flickr itself as cc-by-2.0. This is the first bacth, and was the one talked about in the first DR. The second batch, were as part of Operation_Pillar_of_Defense, the IDF has released their flickr photostream under CC-BY-SA-3.0 with an OTRS ticket. The ticket was to allow the upload although the license on flickr is -NC, for technical reasons, i used a bot i wrote the move the files, and attach them the IDF template containing the OTRS ticket. For political reasons the IDF refused to change the license on flickr itself, and hence, the OTRS ticket. Hope this clarifies this issue. Best matanya • talk 10:41, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks matanya for the clarification. So please correct the license to CC-BY-SA-3.0 (if it is in the OTRS ticket) and remove the Flickr license review which is not valid in these cases. Also note that Flickr has only CC 2.0 licenses. (There is no need that the publisher change his license in Flickr; but in such cases we need OTRS, don't use Flickr license review.) Jee 10:55, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarification! --65.78.114.251 04:57, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

• @Matanya: I just noticed an update from Amada44 which leads me to this discussion. So all those images are CC BY-SA 3.0 if the ticket is valid. We/You can't use CC BY-SA 2.0 and "Flickr review passed" as you did at File:Flickr - Israel Defense Forces - Soldiers to Citizens, What to do in Case of Rocket Attacks (1).jpg. So please make those corrections. (I repeat; there is no need that the publisher change his license in Flickr; but in such cases we need OTRS, don't use Flickr license review.) Jee 13:02, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

sure, will do. matanya • talk 07:34, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Maps of the history of...

There's currently a lot of categories that are named "Maps of the history of <countryname>" and most of these can be found in Category:Maps of the history of Europe and related subcategories. This naming schema is incorrect English however, as 'maps of history' implies that the 'history' of these countries has some sort of 'map' to it, the best example of which that I could come up with is a timeline, which is a 'map' of sorts of 'history'. I think it more accurate to rename these "Historical maps of <countryname>" instead, which is the proper English. I've raised this issue at User talk:CommonsDelinker/commands, but it was met with some opposition. So I'm asking here to see what the community consensus is on this. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 05:32, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

"Historical maps of <countryname>" means that the map itself is old. "Maps of the history of <countryname>" means that the map is not old but is showing something that no longer exists Oxyman (talk) 13:43, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. I've cross-posted the information to Commons:Village pump/Proposals#Changing "Maps of the history of..." and there was a suggestion there that provided a better alternative than the current setup. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 20:33, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Search for used watermarked files in

Hi, is there a tool to look in a category like Category:Images with watermarks for all files used in any project? - Andy king50 (talk) 11:57, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, use Glamorous. Jean-Fred (talk) 16:10, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

thanks, exactly what i looked for....Andy king50 (talk) 17:25, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Getty Open Content Program

Hello,

I am surprised that it seems there never was an mass import of Getty Open Content Program. Only a few files were copied. However this is high quality and high value content. There is a template which was not used systematically: {{Getty Research Institute-no known copyright restrictions}}. Is this template sufficient? If not, what license should be used for modern pictures of 3D art? Any idea? Regards, Yann (talk) 19:06, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Geocommons

I found on [4] that the Geocommons database was updated on 12 October 2013. In the meantime thousands of new images were geocoded, but are not present in that database. Some tools use Geocommons in order to show Commons images on OpenStreetMap, Google Maps and Google Earth. Unfortunately the author (Para) appears to have left the Wikimedia community. Is there any way to update that database in the Toolserver? Best regards, Alpertron (talk) 12:08, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm currently building new public coordinate databases on Wikimedia la using dispenser's GHEL tools from the Toolserver. --Dschwen (talk) 13:55, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

While reading about the tool you are using, I found the logs on [5] for Commons. It says that there are 4407538 coordinates across 4359469 pages. After your database is built, it would be important to know if you can update it using some delta files, instead of reading more than 4 million coordinates daily. The log also shows thousands of geocoding errors in the file description pages. Best regards, Alpertron (talk) 16:01, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Delta'ing is not currently implemented. I could add this by querying only the pages that were modified in the last 24h. This would be easy in the case of adding coordinates and a bit trickier for coordinates that get removed. We could also implement a faster script to build that DB that skips over a bunch of format validations and extracts the minimum information (lat, lon, heading). --Dschwen (talk) 16:25, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

@Dschwen: Why build it yourself if you can just grab the data from Special:Nearby? That table is exposed at Toolserver/Toollabs and contains all the information you need. Multichill (talk) 10:54, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Incomplete data. No list articles on the Wikipedia's for example. For commons it could work, but I'd still have to process the data for the WMA anyways.--Dschwen (talk) 13:58, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Why doesn't it work for list articles? You can have multiple (secondary) coordinates per page. Can you specify what data is missing according to you?

I also pointed out this discussion to MaxSem (he wrote most of the extension afaik).

Oh, and what is "WMA"? Multichill (talk) 12:51, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

WikiMiniAtlas. That's the map widget you can open when clicking on en.wikipedia, for example at en:Berlin. But it's not only at en:. -- Rillke^(q?) 13:43, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

How to add a list of files to a category, and how to remove sortkeys from all files in a category?

So, I have two operations I want to perform on some files.

• First, I want to add all files in a particular list to a particular category. The list is rather long, so clicking AWB a few hundred times seems a dubious manner. Is there a tool which does this?
• I want to remove sortkeys from all files in a particular category, but only the sortkeys for that particular category. I know I can do that in AWB, but I can't work out the RegEx to do it.

Anyone got any ideas? -mattbuck (Talk) 10:55, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

COM:VFC -- For the first one, save the list as a gallery to a sandbox page and use it as the source Full page name, then use append any text to add the category; for the second one, try custom replace: (\[\[\s*Category:Foo\s*\|)[^\n\]]*?(\]\])(where Foo is the name of the category) → $1$2 --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 14:43, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

I knew I was missing something obvious *facepalm*. -mattbuck (Talk) 14:02, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

wall paintings vs. murals

Guys what is the difference between the new "Category:Wall painting" and the long-established "Category:Murals"? Can they be merged? --Schwarzorange (talk) 17:54, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Murals are usually large and often depict complete scenes. Wall paintings would include these but also smaller, decorative panels. I'd say murals are a subcat. Dankarl (talk) 19:30, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Even if this fuzzy definition should be used, the pictures are not organised this way now. --Schwarzorange (talk) 20:05, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

The basic difference would probably be the same as the difference that exists between "Category:Painting" and "Category:Paintings". And between "Category:Wood engraving", the activity or technique, and "Category:Wood engravings", works that resulted from engraving. "Category:Painting" would refer to media relating to an activity, a technique, described as painting. "Category:Paintings" would refer to media showing painted works, typically artistic, that result from an activity of painting. "Category:Wall painting" would group media relating to the activity of painting (on) walls, the result of which activity would be wall paintings. "Category:Murals" would group media showing works that resulted from the activity of painting murals or from the technique of muralism. However, if one asked, instead, the difference between "Category:Wall paintings by country" and "Category:Murals by country", then, if a difference is required, "wall paintings" might seem potentially broader than "murals". -- Asclepias (talk) 22:47, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree. Therefore the category "Wall painting" should only contain images of painting activity (i.e. painters), while category "Murals" should contain images of the results (paintings). A lot of images need to be recategorized. --Schwarzorange (talk) 08:24, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

February 16

Advertising campaign of hotel

Advertising campaign of hotel in african national park was performed [6]. Probably, some of the photographs may be useful. What to do in such cases? Ю. Данилевский (talk) 13:15, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

as the images themselves are quite ok, i would suggest the over-enthusiastic add file descriptions to be cut down to neutral descriptions of what the images really show. - Andy king50 (talk) 22:33, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

WMFlabs kaput?

WMFlabs currently only gives me this: "Bad Request

Your browser sent a request that this server could not understand."

Broken? --Rosenzweig τ 14:55, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Hm, it's working again. Seems to have been some kind of hiccup. --Rosenzweig τ 15:18, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

See the labs mailing list (which is a good place for Labs related stuff. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 20:36, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Rotatebot

Rotatebot seems to have stopped, again. Can someone give it a kick, or do we have a backup? Andy Mabbett (talk) 19:25, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Now working again, thankfully. Andy Mabbett (talk) 20:43, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Natural heritage site

How to define the term "Natural heritage site" here in Commons? I'm considering the category Natural heritage sites in Kiev. Should all the photos/categories of parks, animals and plants of Kiev be inside that category? On the other hand, this category includes also images of several buildings, streets and monuments; are all of those in some Natural heritage site? --Kulmalukko (talk) 20:08, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

normally, such categories comprise natural heritage sites/monuments listed by some specified official body only. - Andy king50 (talk) 22:30, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

February 17

Are texts taken from songs posted on the Commons free?

I plan to create an audio-visual work - videotape performance of the song and upload the record to the Commons.

Artist (singer, she is a musician and author of music) - agres on publishing the records in the Commons. Poet also gave permission to disseminate the records.

Question. Does this mean that anyone can get lyrics from the song, and this text can be freely distributed? --Perohanych (talk) 15:47, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi, Perohanych! The Project scope policy says that Commons aims to make available educational media content. Later it states: "A media file which is neither realistically useful for an educational purpose, nor legitimately in use as discussed above, falls outside the scope of Wikimedia Commons". This includes "artwork created by the uploader without obvious educational use" and "advertising or self-promotion". --NaBUru38 (talk) 16:33, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi, NaBUru38! Of course I am aware of the Project scope policy. I mean the content, which is realistically useful for an educational purpose, it has to be demonstration of music on the very old folk instrument bandura.

I would be glad to find an answer to my question. --Perohanych (talk) 18:05, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

It would be necessary for the poet to free-license the lyrics. Otherwise, the song and performance would be derivative work from material that is not free-licensed, and hence could not be hosted here. - Jmabel ! talk 20:26, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Is it possible for the poet to to free-license the lyrics only for the case the lyrics is performed (singed) by certain artist? --Perohanych (talk) 14:53, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

No. That wouldn't grant the freedom to create derivative works, which is one of the essential freedoms that must be granted for a work to count as free. --SamB (talk) 06:16, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

@Perohanych, if you figure out how to do it here, please post pointers. At the moment I'd guess that official lyrics are a kind of subtitles, and there should be a way to upload audio with lyrics/transcriptions/subtitles here. –Be..anyone (talk) 02:49, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

License Education

For a while now I've slowly been seeing an increase in commons pictures being used in different media outlets – many of which say "Photo Courtesy/Image Credit: Wikipedia/Wikimedia Commons".

This has me wondering: Has there been any attempt to promote/increase awareness of the licensing requirements? Many of these photos are licensed under things such as creative commons and while they are mostly free to do whatever, the original author must be correctly attributed. These media companies are mistakenly attributing commons, which is actually a copyright violation.

While it's not common's responsibility if they don't attribute the photos correctly, the growing trend of misattribution might be hinting, at least to me, at an underlying issue with how commons is presenting its information. About 2 google searches pulled in the following examples (ABC, Forbes, The Blaze, HNGN, Newslo, [7], UBC, Nature World News, [8] (not even free, not even on commons, still credited commons), [9], IndiaWest, Latino Post, Defense News) (and 10s of 1000s of other pages), all mis-credit "Wikimedia Commons" as the original author.

If that's how news companies misattributes the photos, I can't help but conclude that regular people are probably doing it much more frequently. Either way, they are very likely unaware of it. --65.78.114.251 13:41, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Hmm; all we can do is to educate our contributors to mark their works properly. Moreover, we can provide easy to use tools too. But it is ultimately a contributor's responsibility (uploader in case of third party uploads) to mark them properly.

The default system is not very helpful. It assumes a reuser will read all our manuals prior to a reuse and find the attribution parameters that are scattered into different places like "author" field, license tag, profile page, URI, etc. etc. :(

See my attempt to club them together. Jee 14:46, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Commons:Reusing content outside Wikimedia is a very long page that deals with the issue. It's linked from Commons:Welcome. Still, the WIkimedia community has still a lot of work to do to promote attribution. --NaBUru38 (talk) 00:42, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Commons:Consensus

I wish that Commons had its won consensus guidelines, like on Wikipedia - WP:Consensus. --Rezonansowy (talk) 13:58, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

There's a lot of stuff Commons can use. Unfortunately, there's quite an anti-enwiki bunch of folks here that doesn't want this place to be anywhere near like enwiki. In my opinion of course, I completely agree with you. Rehman 14:05, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

any consense is not dictated by some people who think to overrule all other opinions by number of articles or their language. Commons is definitively no "en:wikipedia project", not even a english language project (even if english is quite useful as a "lingua franca") , so if you look for any consence, this your opinion is not very helpful. - Andy king50 (talk) 22:40, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

+1. We're like UK and US. If they spell 'colour', we prefer 'color'. Jee 14:08, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

 Strong oppose, I like colourful vowels, but not Wikipedia's approach; one guideline for each comma contra-dicting itself and any commons﹘ly accepted standards with a sandbox, testcases, and special user rights. –Be..anyone (talk) 02:35, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

+1, even Wikivoyage has one --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 14:30, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

File:S.M. Küstenpanzerschiff Beowulf.jpg

Has something gone weird with the file history of this image? It seems like the first image should be larger, as the second says it's a crop, and, in all others in the set, that crop removed a border, but with some loss of "good" pixels. Adam Cuerden (talk) 15:56, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

MediaWiki believes that all 3 files in the file history are identical (Have same sha1 hash). Bawolff (talk) 05:29, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Which is... odd, frankly. I would expect them to be different. Adam Cuerden (talk) 16:09, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

My guess is that Jpegcrop attempted a lossless crop either of the whole image, or a crop cutting less than 8 pixels from one or more edges, resulting in no change. Something similar to what is described at User:Cropbot#What_is_the_difference_between_.22Crop_exactly.22_and_.22Crop_lossless.22.3F (even though I do not think CropBot was used here). -84user (talk) 13:41, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Possibly, it's just a bit weird as it would be the only Mr. Nostalgic scan without a border. I know the border actually had the lithograph glued to it; perhaps it had come off, so was left out of the scan? But it still seems a bit weird.Adam Cuerden (talk) 17:43, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Question on Template:MyUploads/h-photostream-1

Recently uploaded File:L'Illustration 1862 gravure B. Juárez, président de la république du Mexique par Louis Pauquet.jpg shows a strange link from the template page: Template:MyUploads/h-photostream-1 . Can someone explain me this? --Havang(nl) (talk) 17:01, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Me too. It shows up in all my most recent uploads, up to four such galleries, an eventually disappears. I suppose that Template:MyUploads/h-photostream-1 etc. are a kind of test using the most recent images, but the name is misleading: "My"-something doesn’t agree with the overall wiki philosophy (and Mediawiki implicit policy) of a "User:" namespace. -- Tuválkin ✉ 20:33, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't care for the name. Please feel free to rename the template. It's a wiki. Until 2 years ago it was wiki philosophy (and Mediawiki implicit policy) having "My" prefixed to the contribs and uploads link. -- Rillke^(q?) 21:33, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

I didn’t even know that — sorry I sounded smarmy, shows what I know. -- Tuválkin ✉ 21:36, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

You were completely right "my" is an asocial pattern. So please rename it before it's used very widely. Also, don't be disappointed when it ceases to work: MediaWiki developers are currently shutting down Scribunto functions that output HTML. I don't know whether special page preprocessing and unstripping stripmarkers (which this template makes use of) will be affected at some time. -- Rillke^(q?) 08:01, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

It seems to be one of Rillke’s projects. -- Tuválkin ✉ 20:46, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Documentation of that template is available at Template:MyUploads. You can display one's user's latest uploads using that template. -- Rillke^(q?) 21:33, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Great tool, I think I’ll add it to my vanity user page! -- Tuválkin ✉ 21:36, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

The high astonishment factor for me was that a new file was immediately flagged as in-use. No big problem, I guessed that it's some kind of recent change patrol. –Be..anyone (talk) 03:00, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Nice hack. Bawolff (talk) 05:09, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

@Bawolff: But I see an issue: All pages using that are not cached in the parser cache. Why that? Just open two tabs of User:Rillke, for example. -- Rillke^(q?) 15:50, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

transcluding any special page disables parser cache (so dont go putting your template on the main page ;). I believe this is a historic implementation detail (special pages usually arent entirely separate from which user is viewing it. Often admins get slightly different view) from back in the time when performance standards werent as tight. Dont get too used to it as i consider this cache disabling to be a bug that will probably get fixed at some point far in the future. Bawolff (talk) 19:22, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

February 18

Flattened gallery

Is there any external tool to view all images that fall under a specific category including those under all subcategories? For instance I want to be able to give a quick browse into all the images in Category:Salticidae without having to navigate to each subcategory. Shyamal (talk) 14:12, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Never mind, Cat Scan seems to do what I need. Shyamal (talk) 14:42, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

FastCCI button maybe is more interesting (bigger images), although it's not working for me for the last 48 hours. --JotaCartas (talk) 05:10, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Categorizing actors by signs of Western astrology

I request deletion of http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Cancer_%28astrology%29_actress, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Gemini_%28astrology%29_actor and so on. If you want to ridicule the project keep them and add categories by ascendant. --94.221.95.234 18:53, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree, and have opened a discussion here. Rodhullandemu (talk) 19:45, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

February 19

FastCCI button

Is the server of FastCCI down? For the last 48 hours it was not working for me. Thanks --JotaCartas (talk) 04:52, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

i will check shortly. Sorry I'm on travel right now. --Dschwen (talk) 13:38, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Take your time. After all is not a big problem. Thanks for the reply --JotaCartas (talk) 13:49, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Ok, back in business. I went on IRC and the labs guys fixed a filesystem issue that was crippling my backend server. --Dschwen (talk) 14:36, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Meta RfC on adding "c:" as an interwiki shortcut for Commons

Commons users will probably be interested to know that an RfC has been opened on Meta to discuss whether c: should be added as an interwiki link prefix for Commons. The RfC was originally run in 2011 and met a positive response, but was not well-attended. Following concerns of some editors at Wikipedia that it was insufficient to demonstrate broad consensus across projects for the feature, it has now been reopened to attract more discussion. — Scott • talk 16:27, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

my Checkuser access

Dear Commons community, due to problems with accessing commons from my country, couple of minutes ago I stepped down from being Checkuser in Commons, if situation gets any better I may ask community to trust me again Mardetanha ^talk 17:17, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your CU service! --Steinsplitter (talk) 17:33, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, thanks for your help. Regards, Yann (talk) 17:38, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks indeed! Trijnstel_talk 18:50, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Universal Language Selector will be enabled by default again on this wiki by 21 February 2014

On January 21 2014 the MediaWiki extension Universal Language Selector (ULS) was disabled on this wiki. A new preference was added for logged-in users to turn on ULS. This was done to prevent slow loading of pages due to ULS webfonts, a behaviour that had been observed by the Wikimedia Technical Operations team on some wikis.

We are now ready to enable ULS again. The temporary preference to enable ULS will be removed. A new checkbox has been added to the Language Panel to enable/disable font delivery. This will be unchecked by default for this wiki, but can be selected at any time by the users to enable webfonts. This is an interim solution while we improve the feature of webfonts delivery.

You can read the announcement and the development plan for more information. Apologies for writing this message only in English. Thank you. Runa 12:30, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Hope there's still a "Display image descriptions in all languages" option... AnonMoos (talk) 07:21, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Change of file - photo of Hanne Sørvaag

I mainly contribute on the Norwegian Bokmål/Riksmål language version of Wikipedia and we have an article about the local musician Hanne Sørvaag, with some photo of her.

https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanne_S%C3%B8rvaag

In the infobox there was a photo of the artist, taken and uploaded by the contributor Jarle Vines (jarvin):

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hanne_S%C3%B8rvaag.JPG

A couple of days ago there was a change in credit for the picture in the article, from Jarle Vines to Ole Martin Halvorsen. I registered the change and checked with the photo here on Commons and as I saw that the photo was taken by Jarle Vines I gave a warning to the contributor that had changed the credit:

https://no.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hanne_S%C3%B8rvaag&diff=12979048&oldid=12979031

However, it seems that a new picture had been uploded over the old one, using the same name, so at the time the contributor I warned did the change, he was stating the correct while I was wrong. At the time I checked it the picture had however been reverted to the old one. If I had looked more down on the page I would have seen it, but I had no idea that such a replacement was possible or even allowed, so that was not on my mind.

My question is: How could this happen and was it some technical slip, or is it possible to overwrite a photo with a new one, using the same name, and then uploading something totally different?

If it was some technical mishap I do hope it will be quickly fixed. If that is not the case and this is possible I believe it open up for some very unpleasant surprises, to say the least.

I notice that it seems all traces of the change on the file - Hanne Sørvaag.JPG - has now for some reason been removed, so it seems that it has only been one file there from creation, which is not the case.

Any comments and clarification about this is highly appreciated. Ulflarsen (talk) 16:32, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Cleaned-up by Russavia. --Denniss (talk) 16:44, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

So, Denniss, is this resolved? - Jmabel ! talk 16:56, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

That traces of the photo that was uploaded over the original is removed seems to me the easiest part of this. That it could happen at all is what bothers me. As a contributor to Wikipedia I could find some photo on Commons and insert it in the article I work on, just to find that someone had uploaded a different photo with the same name, that may at the best render it useless for the article and possibly also degrading it. If someone could give me some answer to this problem I would be happy about that. Ulflarsen (talk) 21:39, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

It's like Wikipedia; it's a wiki open for editing. Sometimes people can upload a better version of a file over a new one. Commons at least has more rules about changing stuff then Wikipedia is; we will rollback situations where a completely new photo is uploaded.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:52, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

To Prosfilaes: I guess I am stupid, but I do not get what you write. Here was user A that uploaded a file, and then it was overwritten by user B with a totally different file, and you say that is allowed and within the rules? And as the file was credited with the name of the user A in one article it means that the credit was not correct when user B had done the overwriting upload, which lead to that another user changed the credit, while still another user rolled back the picture from the one from user B to user A, which then made me give a warning to the user that had changed the credit.

Again, I guess I am stupid, but I really can not understand that this can be allowed or that it is anything like Wikipedia. If I write something on Wikipedia then I get the credit for it, its in the logs and stays there, even if rolled back. But if this way of doing things (one user overwriting a file with a completely different one) is allowed here I seriously have to think about how I use files from Wikimedia Commons. Ulflarsen (talk) 22:22, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

No, it's not permitted to upload a file with a completely different file. It's just not technically stopped, because it is permitted to make improvements to the existing file.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:39, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

There's nothing in the software that would prohibit users from completely overwriting any of our files. That's the same with any Wikipedia, whether there is local upload enabled or not, MediaWiki permits users to contribute to and overwrite the filename however they want to. However, Wikimedia Commons policies only permit certain circumstances where a file may be changed. For example, if it's small changes to an existing image, like rotating the image, a bit of coloration or shading to give it contrast, it may be permissible as an "official" version of the image meant to overwrite the preexisting version. But if it's something completely wrong, like overwriting the image of a person with the image of a map, it has to be uploaded by Commons policies under a different filename. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 23:05, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm amused because less than a week ago about 3 weeks ago we had a different user complain that the link to upload and overwrite a file should be featured more prominently. - Jmabel ! talk 01:04, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

• Commons:Help_desk/Archive/2014/02#The_link_.22upload_a_new_version_of_this_file.22_is_too_hard_to_find - Jmabel ! talk 01:17, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

• Well, the "edit" button is always prominently displayed above any Wikipedia page. Should a complementary "upload" button be displayed above an image then? Perhaps it should be placed between "edit" and "history"? ...Has a bugzilla ticket been filed for this change, or should I start writing one up? TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 04:33, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

• I would hope not. It's totally reasonable to encourage whomever to readily make edits to try to improve image descriptions, but improving particular images (as against simply providing a different image which should be uploaded under a different name) is not at all a widespread skill. - Jmabel ! talk 06:24, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I do understand that anyone can take any file I have uploaded here and change it, add or delete parts of it, and then upload it again, that is what I accept when I add content here. But if the same person change my original file, and then upload it under the same name, then he/she has deleted my original file and I can not see how that can be acceptable.

In the case above user B uploded a better photo that "pushed away" the not so good photo by user A, still the original was gone, until some admin put it back. What if user B had uploaded some obscene photo that had degraded the various articles that used the original photo, still no problem with that? To repeat myself, I have of course no problem with user A uploading a new version of his own previously uploaded photo, or user B uploading a modified version of the previous photo, but under a different name, so the original is not "pushed away" (I use that expression as it seems more correct than delete). Ulflarsen (talk) 05:47, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

It is not “pushed away”. All older versions are, in usual situations, visible in the file history section, and any user can revert to a previous instance of an image (or any file, really). In the case at hand, for copyright reasons (I think?) the intermediate file was expunged, but that is not the usual case. I advise you to click where it says "random file" and browse through typical file histories, in order to familiarize yourself with the process. -- Tuválkin ✉ 06:46, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

There are also revert buttons next to the image that allow any user to revert to a previous version of an image, especially one that has been vandalized or overwritten, just like the common practice on Wikipedia of being able to undo any edit, vandalism or otherwise. You don't even have to download the file onto your local disk drive, you can take advantage of the MediaWiki software and revert directly. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 07:15, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I see an edit war there and it seems the picture you are talking about which was previously overwritten above your work. (?) Our policy is COM:OVERWRITE and our admin will interfere if noted a violation; but it is better you keep all of your files in your watch list and report it when a violation found (repeated revert war). (A file from a different copyright holder should not be uploaded over (unless the existing file is in PD) as it will infringe the license terms, mainly attribution requirement.) Jee 07:22, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Replacement uploads are allowed because there are many circumstances on Commons when a replacement makes sense, even for normal editors who are not administrators: see Commons:Overwriting existing files. Examples of routine replacements that happen often on Commons:

• File:2014 Senate election map.svg (a user-created map) shows the incumbent senators in the November 2014 United Senate elections. Until November 2014, it will be changed each time a Senate seat become vacant or is filled by a temporary senator. (After November 2014, it won't be changed again unless someone notices a previous error.)
• File:Cain mcc.jpg (a photo) was uploaded in 2011, but a higher-resolution source was found by a different user in 2014.
• File:Watara supervision.jpg (an photo) had copyrighted material and would have been deleted entirely from Commons if it were not replaced. (This is an ugly compromise, but it sometimes happens.)
• File:Illinois - outline map.svg (a user-created map) had missing borders added between counties and also received a slightly thicker border.

However, it is against Commons rules to replace a valid file with an entirely different work or with a version that removes other important things from the file. Replacements like that should have different filenames. An example:

• File:Sid Caesar.jpg was cropped, but we don't know if the other person in the photo is famous, or someone may want the full photograph, so the original was restored.

If someone overwrites a version that would still remain useful, you are allowed to revert it: There is a "Revert" link next to each version of the file, which will restore the file to the version you clicked. In the reversion edit summary, I usually add a suggestion that the replacement can be uploaded under a new name, so that the user understands that the option is available. Also, if a user uploads an obscene or disruptive file over yours, treat it the same way as a disruptive edit on Wikipedia. (Revert it; say something nice if it is a good faith upload; or report it to administrators if it is hostile or persistent vandalism.) I hope this helps. --Closeapple (talk) 07:57, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Template:PD-textlogo

Can we just have the {{Trademarked}} template show up by adding a parameter |trademarked=yes to PD-textlogo so that we don't have to remember to add trademarked after this tag all the time? It's currently protected from editing, by the way. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 17:35, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

My personal solution; never ever use one of the frustrating "upload"-wizards. They lure on page x of a monster-form, where your only choice after hours of research to answer stupid "wizard"-questions is back, and at that point the complete form input is lost. OTOH {{Information}} in an ordinary upload is just brilliant; for your purposes just add a line |other_fields={{Trademarked}}|other_fields_1={{ValidSVG}} or similar, ready. –Be..anyone (talk) 05:12, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

That reminds me about the numerous complaints against Microsoft's "setup wizards". TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 08:04, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Actually please do not use other_fields for this purpose. That field should rarely be used for individual files and only works when combined with {{Information field}}. --Jarekt (talk) 13:31, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

I don’t understand why use other_fields as a “hanger” for additional templates such as {{Trademarked}} or {{ValidSVG}}, inside template {{Information}}, instead of just adding them next to it in the "Summary" textarea of Special:Upload. -- Tuválkin ✉ 06:13, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

The upload wizard can make a batch upload easier. However, I just fill in everything with blah blah, upload as CC-by, then delete the whole information template after. Because it is absolutely useless for anything that's not dead simple.

It also has some annoying checks. For instance, for restorations, uploading as both a PNG and JPEG is normal. The UploadWizard - and only the UploadWizard - lets you upload files over 100 megabytes, which PNGs can often go over. But if you uploaded the JPEG first, then it throws up an idiotic message about a file with too similar of a filename already existing, and makes you choose a new name. It's annoying, stupid, and could be fixed by just adding an "Ignore any warnings and continue" button. Adam Cuerden (talk) 20:08, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Wrong title and description in photo of Crete

About File:Isola di Chrissi - golfo di Mirabello.jpg: as far as my liitle knowledge about Crete goes, the description and the coordinates may be absolutely right, but in that case, the island is not Chrissi nor the sea is the Gulf of Mirabello. Chrissi is in the South coast of Crete, off Ierapetra, while the Gulf of Mirabello is on the North coast.

As the photo is used in several articles, all related with the South coast, it would be good that this situation is clarified. Thank's. --Stegop (talk) 19:13, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

You'd probably be better off talking to Wikipedia for WikiProject Crete or somesuch group. -mattbuck (Talk) 23:27, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Good suggestion! I'll try to do that. --Stegop (talk) 23:54, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I've already renamed and replaced the picture. I'm convinced that the English and German descriptions are correct. It's not Chrysi, but the Gulf of Mirabella seen from Gournia. On Panoramio, you can find some more pictures of the location: [10], [11], [12]. --Sitacuisses (talk) 00:25, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. --Stegop (talk) 01:24, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

February 21

A photo with CC and Copyright at the same time

Streisand Estate.jpg

I noticed that the photo Streisand Estate.jpg is uploaded to commons under a CC-BY-SA-3.0-license, but that the file description states: Copyright (C) 2002 Kenneth & Gabrielle Adelman, California Coastal Records Project, www.californiacoastline.org. I looked at the website and it says that the photo is copyrighted. There is a OTRS verification on the photo, so I guess the photo is no longer copyrighted.

• If it is copyrighted, it means that all rights belongs to Kenneth & Gabrielle Adelman and that no one can do any edits or remixes without permission from them.
• If it is under the CC-BY-SA-3.0 license, anyone can share, remix and even sell the photo.

These are two very different licenses, and a photo can't have both. I put a {{Wrong license}}-template on the filepage with an explanation, but the template was removed by Denniss without any explanation. I put it back with the explanation "My edit was removed without explanation", but it was removed again by Hym411 with explanation "Valid OTRS, CC tag exist". When I removed the section saying the photo is copyrighted, I got a message saying I am vandalizing.

Is the photo copyrighted or not? -abbedabb^disk 12:59, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Basically all photo which is not in PD is copyrighted, so yes, this photo has copyright. But, with OTRS tag and CC tag, he granted a permission with CC BY SA 3.0. So, no need to remove © tag. That notice is probably attribution, so no furthur action is required, I think. —레비Revi 13:12, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

The photo is multi-licensed; all rights reserved at that source, but CC BY-SA 3.0 here. Don't be confused by "Copyright (C) YYYY"; it can be used with any license. Jee 13:14, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I have been taught that Creative Commons is not Copyright, and copyrighted material is not allowed on Commons. Is that wrong? -abbedabb^disk 13:19, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

See http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-community/2014-January/008706.html and http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Marking_your_work_with_a_CC_license Jee 13:26, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Jkadavoor! I've been living a lie. -abbedabb^disk 13:29, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Hello! Using a Creative Commons licence is a way of exercising copyright. The concept that conflicts with free licence is "all rights reserved". Good luck! --NaBUru38 (talk) 16:14, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Creative Commons is a method of taking a copyrighted work, and allowing its use, while maintaining certain fundamental rights. A CC-by license maintains the right to be attributed as the author of your work - which is one of the rights given by copyright - while giving others permission to use your copyrighted work freely, and without possibility of this permission being retracted. Licenses (including CC) are a way that copyright holders give some of their rights to others, they do not undo copyright. Adam Cuerden (talk) 20:14, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Basically, the default state of a copyrighted work is that you cannot use it without asking permission. A CC license is basically an announcement that there's no need to ask permission - it's been granted already, with certain limitations Attribution, share-alike, and - although not allowed on commons - Non-commercial-use-only are examples of the possible limitations people wanting to use CC can choose from. However, a CC-license is only possible if the person granting it has a copyright on the work already, since otherwise, they have no rights under copyright law that the CC-license can reserve for them. Adam Cuerden (talk) 20:18, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

w:All rights reserved is simply an old way to claim copyright. It was once required in the US and certain other countries under a copyright treaty signed between them, and while all signers have become Berne Convention signers, some people still use it as part of a copyright notice.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:54, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Amendment to the Terms of Use

Hello all,

Please join a discussion about a proposed amendment to the Wikimedia Terms of Use regarding undisclosed paid editing and we encourage you to voice your thoughts there. Please translate this statement if you can, and we welcome you to translate the proposed amendment and introduction. Please see the discussion on Meta Wiki for more information. Thank you! Slaporte (WMF) 22:00, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

February 22

Freedom of Panorama in France: clarification needed

[Please feel free to redirect me to are more appropriate venue if there is one]

I have a lot of pictures from Paris and Strasbourg, and I am uncertain about what I can and cannot upload.

I understand that pictures of recent buildings, whose designs are still in copyright, are affected by the lack of "freedom of panorama" there. But what about, for example, cars, buses, trams and trains whose designs are in copyright? Public artworks? Market stalls? Shops, banks, and post offices? Post boxes? I do not wish to spend time uploading pictures, only for them then to be deleted. Andy Mabbett (talk) 12:35, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

The rationale of De minimis applies to most general photographs in public spaces where odd creative works are somewhere in shot. Due to no FoP exemption, a specific shot focusing on a statue or other public work of art must take into account the copyright of that work (at least when in France). A shop or market stall would normally fall under de minimis so long at no specific creative work such as a poster advert or a stuffed toy on a stall, is the main focus of the shot. Mass produced utilitarian objects such as trams or post boxes are normally accepted as being free to take photographs of, however this may not be true if they are decorated in unusually fancy paintwork.

Yes, photography of public spaces in France is a complicated matter. --Fæ (talk) 12:46, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Note that some utilitarian objects are copyrighted. See Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Le Corbusier: Getty Images France was fined for distributing pictures of two chairs. I don't how to determine whether any given utilitarian object is copyrightable in France or not. A post office is part of a building, so you need to be careful not to violate the copyright of the building. --Stefan4 (talk) 23:56, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Automating Flickr-change-of-license

I noticed that File:Young Yellow-bellied Marmot suckling.jpg had its license on Flickr changed; the author on Flickr says that all his images on Flickr are all rights reserved or CC-BY-NC. Since he is a really awesome photographer, we have several hundred photos from Alan Vernon on Flickr here. Is there any way to have a bot check them and add {{Flickr-change-of-license}} to them?--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:33, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

@Prosfilaes: I searched the latest dump for all occurrences of the phrase "Alan Vernon", and am currently adding all files that included it into Category:Images by Alan Vernon. After this is done, I will add {{Flickr-change-of-license}} below {{Cc-by-2.0}} like you did here. I'll let you know as soon as this is finished; I apologize in advance for any and all false positives (if they occur). odder (talk) 18:19, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

@Prosfilaes: The bot has finished its task, and I manually removed some false positives. All pictures in Category:Images by Alan Vernon are now tagged with {{Flickr-change-of-license}}. odder (talk) 23:25, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

February 20

Posture of WMF Board of Trustees about deletions by the URAA

WMF BoT reply regarding to Wikimedia Israel and Wikimedia Spain letters about URAA

Original link: m:Talk:Wikimedia Israel/Letter to the BoT regarding URAA#Response from Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees (permalink)

Response from Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

Thank you for efforts in improving and expanding Wikimedia Commons. The URAA is a frustrating issue for the community. We agree that we should oppose, when possible, laws that interfere with our mission to distribute the same free knowledge to everyone in all countries.

URAA opposition

The WMF does not support the URAA. We have sought to overturn the pertinent provision of the URAA when it was challenged before the US Supreme Court. We filed an amicus brief, along with the EFF and many other organizations, recommending such an overturn. But, unfortunately, the decision in that case was unfavorable. The community is free to explore organizing a protest, as it did with SOPA/PIPA, and there may be ways that we could make the negative impact of URAA more visible to readers. However, the law seems unlikely to change in the near future.

Deletion of content

The WMF does not plan to remove any content unless it has actual knowledge of infringement or receives a valid DMCA takedown notice. To date, no such notice has been received under the URAA. We are not recommending that community members undertake mass deletion of existing content on URAA grounds, without such actual knowledge of infringement or takedown notices.

Hosting servers in other countries

There are advantages in locating our servers in the United States, including protection of freedom of expression. There are also unfortunate constraints such as the URAA. Last year, the WMF legal team published a detailed analysis of the implications of the law, with guidance for editors. The team has also done considerable research about the possibility of moving our current servers or establishing additional servers in other jurisdictions to support hosting this sort of content. Unfortunately, they have not found a tenable option for a number of reasons. We have confidence in their research and advice.

As a follow-up to this note, the legal team has volunteered to publish a short statement within about a week explaining some of the challenges in the establishment of servers outside of the U.S. and some alternative considerations.

Jan-Bart de Vreede

Chair Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

13:44, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

--

Regards, --Alan ^(talk) 15:53, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

@Alan: does that mean we can restore some of the highly historic images that were deleted even after very strong opposition such as this? The community made it very clear that they wanted to keep the picture, unfortunately it was deleted anyway. --CyberXRef^☎ 00:26, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

@CyberXRef: See Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard#Massive_restoration_of_deleted_images_by_the_URAA. Cheers, Alan ^(talk) 00:33, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! --CyberXRef^☎ 00:50, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

I actually have another question regarding the use of {{Not-PD-US-URAA}}; people have been tagging many of the PD-Israel photos with that tag all over the place (File:IDF Paratroopers 1956.jpg, File:Israel 2nd government.jpg, File:The first meeting of the Israeli 3rd government.jpg, File:The fourth Israeli government.jpg, et al..). Are these photos tagged correctly? Do we still not accept such photos (even when we have no reason to believe they are not in PD?). --CyberXRef^☎ 01:17, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Resurrecting an older version

Our file File:Soho - map 1.png was replaced in January 2013 by a much larger version. The new version is extremely different to the previous version, which is actually much more convenient in size for use on a Wiki. In cases such as this, is there a convenient way of splitting off the previous version under a different filename? --Ross Burgess (talk) 18:44, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

• Nothing automated that I'm aware of, but it would be easy enough to download the new version, re-upload it under a different name, then revert this one to the old image. - Jmabel ! talk 18:55, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

The {{Split}} template can be used to request this... AnonMoos (talk) 10:05, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

February 23

Valenciennes City and region

The public transport network extends far beyond city limits and only be described as a regional transport network. (see transville network). There are mass uploads of tram and tramworks images, that will have to be classified per commune. Nearly all images have geolocation information and the borders are visible on the openstreet maps, so classification by commune is easy and has been partialy done in (streets of ..) and (Trams of Valenciennes (xxx)) categories. That is why I asked for a rename of Category:Trams in Valenciennes. As the city of Valenciennes is really dominant city in the region a "Trams in Lille, Roubaix and Tourcoing" solution is not really posible. The buses of Transville are also regional.

This monday (24 febr) the second line wil be running. Transville has decided to rename tramlines A and B into T1 and T2. Temporarely only one branche of the T2 wil be open and the T2 line will have the same southeast terminus as T1. Updating and drawing new maps would be appreciated.Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:26, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Localisation of sitenotice message

I've placed a request for localisation of a sitenotice message about POTY 2013 Round 2 to czech language. Please, have a look and put the translation in the message, thanks.

Sincerely, Polda18 (talk) 14:56, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

What is happen with Cat-a-lot?

Hi at all. Every now and then Cat-a-lot does not work. The moment I give the order to move the files to the correct subcategory that appears on the right, he declares that it is not possible because "the following pages were skipped, because the old category could not be found". This is absurd. Cat-a-lot does not execute the movements because it denies the existence of the category of departure, where the files are located, and from which instead should leave. Why? Usually Cat-a-lot work for me, but then suddenly no longer works, then it works again after an hour, or maybe the next day. It's very boring. Because if I change my pc it is the same thing. What's going on? What crashes? It is just my problem, or Cat-a-lot is malfunctioning for all? Thanks for the answers, tips, solutions. Best regards, --DenghiùComm (talk) 16:40, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Assuming you are trying to move from an existing category, I think this happens because the file has already been moved to another category and no longer is a member of the source category; if you are trying to move a file to more than one category, you should copy to the first, then move to the second. If you refresh the category view between Catalot runs, those images which have been moved no longer appear. I haven't had any problems with this, and hope that helps. Rodhullandemu (talk) 17:11, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I know exactly how it works Cat-a-lot. If the files are moved, it is obvious that it do not accept again a move request, even if the pictures still appear. The fact is that the files are really in the category, and when Cat-a-lot goes crazy I can only move them individually using HotCat. It's a big waste of time. This evening it happens that Cat-a-lot works for copying; when I request to move 5 files (tree of this statue and two of this other statue) the tool moved me only the files of Apollo, not that of Artemis; for these last two files I must use HotCat. It's very strange! A mystery! --DenghiùComm (talk) 00:49, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Maybe there was something odd about the syntax? I would suggest that the category might have been added by a template, but if that were the case I shouldn't think HotCat could do anything about it either ... —SamB (talk) 05:12, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

I believe I have answered the question here... TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 06:55, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

If there are invisible characters put in the category name by FrescoBot, then I cannot do anything. But I look to the chronology of these files of Artemis, and I see that FrescoBot doesn't touch them. So the mystery still stay there. If it is a problem of cache (did I understand correctly TeleComNasSprVen?), I will try next time to clean it when Cat-a-lot will be crazy again, in the hope that after it will works correctly. Thank you very much at all for your answer! Cheers, --DenghiùComm (talk) 08:22, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Actually, FrescoBot is trying to remove the characters in order for Cat-a-lot to work. I contacted BasilicoFresco, the maintainer of FrescoBot, on the English Wikipedia and he's assured me he will restart the bot's jobs. Maybe later the bot will get around to removing the characters from the files. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 10:32, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

I think what you have suggested doing, cleaning cache, definitely helps in this case. But I think Commons needs a more efficient way to solve this problem than relying on the bot, when the bot owner goes on WikiBreak. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 10:34, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

YES ! SO IT WORKS !!! Thank you so much TeleComNasSprVen ! When Cat-a-lot became crazy and doesn't ricognize the files, it's necessary to clean the cache. After it works. Fine! Wonderful! Thank you very much again ! Cheers, --DenghiùComm (talk) 11:34, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Gulf Oil

I noticed a particular series of key rings are mentioned in this article. Can I upload a picture of such a key ring? It dates from the 1960s. I get the message on copyrighted CD-covers, but this was a promotional item for a discontinued product. -- User:Btns (talk) 13:24, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

• Partial answer: being a promotional for a discontinued product would have nothing to do with copyright status. Assuming this is U.S., copyright status of something from the 1960s, it would remain copyrighted if it ever had been, unless rights were explicitly released. - Jmabel ! talk 17:32, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Btns -- Photographs of purely utilitarian objects do not create copyright problems (at least under United States law), so a photograph of a generic keyring would not be a problem, but if the interest of the object is in some copyrightable decorative design, then it's not necessarily purely utilitarian anymore... AnonMoos (talk) 20:54, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Series of copyvios

Dear all,
Can an admin stop Tunis tunis (talk · contribs)? He uploaded a lot of pictures and all those I looked at until now are copyvios taken on the web. I strongly suspect all of his uploads to be the same. Moumou82 (talk) 16:16, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

• I've posted at Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems. Better place when you want specifically administrative attention. - Jmabel ! talk 22:52, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Wrong title

I have a simple question: my picture named "File:Trafalgar Square in 1974.jpg" is really: "File:Piccadilly Circus in 1974.jpg".How do I go about renaming it? Thanks in advance K.Oppolzer — Preceding unsigned comment added by Karl Oppolzer (talk • contribs)

• Done. For the future, you can just use the {{Rename}} template for uncontroversial name changes. - Jmabel ! talk 22:57, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Jmabel ! talk 22:57, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Notification of DMCA takedown demand - DMCA takedown for File:AircraftBK.png

In compliance with the provisions of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and at the instruction of the Wikimedia Foundation's legal counsel, one or more files have been deleted from Commons. Please note that this is an official action of the WMF office which should not be undone. If you have valid grounds for a counter-claim under the DMCA, please contact me. The takedown can be read here. 

Affected file(s):

• File:AircraftBK.png (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

To discuss this DMCA takedown, please go to COM:DMCA#DMCA takedown for File:AircraftBK.png. Thank you! Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 07:35, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Two new problems

• HotCat doesn't seen to be working in the MonoBook skin.
• I can't dismiss the PotY announcement at the top of the page. Pushing the button does nothing.
• Also, why were the tabs removed from Preferences in favor of one very long page?

Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:55, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

• Cat-a-lot not working either. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:01, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

• Umm... Never mind, I purged and rebooted and things seem to be working. Sorry. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:12, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

• If the tabs at Special:Preferences did not show as tabs, some MediaWiki developer or server outage was responsible for that because no scripts by Commons (site) are loaded at this page. -- Rillke^(q?) 08:51, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

February 24

Flipping images

Car №16, not №∂꜓…

I come across File:Cable cars (1).jpg, which is horizontally flipped. While overwriting it with a corrected version is probably uncontroversial, I take the opportunity to ask whether is there streamlined process to mark and correct such images. (Although a rare situation in digital photography, this is all too common when dealing with positive film prints.) I’d expect this to be a possible lossless JPG transformation, too. -- Tuválkin ✉ 08:18, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

A related discussion at FPC Talk too. :) Jee 08:55, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Fixed it with lossless program... AnonMoos (talk) 13:08, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Great, thanks! -- Tuválkin ✉ 08:17, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

502 errors

An error saying "502 Bad Gateway" has begun to appear sometimes when I try to view or edit pages. Rybec (talk) 10:05, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for reporting! According to the #wikimedia-operations IRC channel, there have been various intermittent 5xx errors with the Varnish servers, and this is being investigated. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 11:15, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

For the records: Error graphs can be found here. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 11:16, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, I also had this problem in es: and I was wandering me if was my PC. --Ganímedes (talk) 17:52, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

CC-IGO licenses

Hello all. There now exist CC-IGO BY 3.0 and CC-IGO BY/SA 3.0 licenses. How would an intergovernmental organization upload to commons a media file under this license. Is it possible? Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) 22:40, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

I suppose that whoever wants to upload something with that license could mention it clearly on the description page and create a Wikimedia Commons template for it, just like there are templates for CC licenses such as Template:Cc-by-sa-3.0-nz, etc., on the same model. It's probably not likely that Commons would be the first place where an intergovernmental organization would directly upload its material itself, although it's welcome to do so if it wants to. It's probably more likely that a non-IGO user will upload to Commons a copy of the material from the organization's website or even that a non-IGO user will upload its own work under that license just for the sake of using it. -- Asclepias (talk) 23:23, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

I guess someone wants to create some templates for that. {{Cc-by-3.0-igo}} [13], {{Cc-by-sa-3.0-igo}} [14]. -- Rillke^(q?) 08:47, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

gerrit:115597 -- Rillke^(q?) 11:38, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

February 25

Flickr review help

• File:Marjorie Heins.jpg

I cropped this image from a free-licensed image on Flickr, licensed as CC-BY-SA-2.0, but the bot didn't recognize the cropped version.

Could another flickr-reviewer help out and review this image please?

Thank you for your time,

-- Cirt (talk) 03:32, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Overwritten image

File:Russian Empire-1898-Bill-1-Obverse.jpg represents the obverse of a banknote of a ruble (1898), but was overwritten with an image of the back (not the same). Is there any way to separate the images and keep the history or should I download it and upload it again? I propose to call File:Russian Empire-1898-Bill-1-Back.jpg. --Metrónomo's truth of the day: "That was also done by the president" not an excuse. 08:05, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

It seems there are already 2 files containing this image, see Category:1 ruble. --Túrelio (talk) 08:08, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

You're right, thank you very much. Now I have another question, if the Russian Federation is the legal successor of the USSR but not of the Russian Empire, what license corresponds to these files? {{PD-old-100}}? --Metrónomo's truth of the day: "That was also done by the president" not an excuse. 08:13, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

{{PD-RusEmpire}} MKFI (talk) 08:36, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Why? --Metrónomo's truth of the day: "That was also done by the president" not an excuse. 09:12, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

{{PD-old-100}} would apply if the author died more than 100 years ago. The file does not name the author, so we don't know if this is the case. In my opinion PD-RusEmpire would seem the likeliest choice. If bank notes did not receive copyright protection (as {{PD-RU-exempt}}) then PD-ineligible could be used. You can ask more help from Commons:Village pump/Copyright. MKFI (talk) 19:40, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

{{PD-RU-exempt}} may not be acceptable for the works of the Russian Empire are not governed by the laws of the Russian Federation. In this case it is not known the author of the work, I think it is an anonymous work. I ask where you said, thank you very much. --Metrónomo's truth of the day: "That was also done by the president" not an excuse. 20:05, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Mobile usability (or lack thereof)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T64034

I visit it from a phone which is not an Android and is not an iPhone. (It is a Firefox OS phone). The homepage has no upload link.

The sidebar does link to my uploads, but when I try to upload an image there, enter a description, and press the big fat green tick, it spins for a very little time (1 second) and it returns to the uploads screen, with no actual upload or error message. (I later realized that the file is corrupt on the filesystem itself, but an error message would have been nice.)

—Gryllida 10:27, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Do you refer to the MobileFrontend at https://commons.m.wikimedia.org ? That page has an "Uploads" link in the dropdown. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 14:52, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

when i tested mobile frontend uploader with a non-allowed file format (making an invalid file from my phone seemed difficult. Maybe ill test from desktop later) it just went back a page with no warning, no explanation, which doesnt seem right. I suppose bugs should be filed. Imho the mobile web upload is probably not a very good choice for uploading media to commons as it doesn't let you specify license, or author which is pretty key functionality. Bawolff (talk) 16:50, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Filed as bugzilla:62034. Bawolff (talk) 04:01, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Someday we ought to merge mobile into the main commons.wikimedia.org domain, just as we did the secure server for https. (I believe that's also been reported as a bug.) TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 04:54, 28 February 2014 (UTC)