Commons:Village pump/Archive/2016/03

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Strange upload error message

When I try to upload this JPG file I receive this error message: “The file is a corrupt or otherwise unreadable ZIP file. It cannot be properly checked for security”. Any idea why? --AFBorchert (talk) 09:25, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Unzip says "zipfile claims to be last disk of a multi-part archive", while for a random jpg it says "End-of-central-directory signature not found. Either this file is not a zipfile, or it constitutes one disk of a multi-part archive. In the latter case the central directory and zipfile comment will be found on the last disk(s) of this archive." The image may share similar properties with images in this DR. However, something weird is that convert 20130917-IMG_5344-pc.jpg 20130917-IMG_5344-pc.convert.jpg results in an even larger file, 4.7M as opposed to the original 4.2M, but unzip the resulting file behaves like normal jpgs. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 10:25, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
Looks like phabricator:T33930. —LX (talk, contribs) 12:36, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for that link. Amazingly, this bug is open since 2011 with no fix coming since then. I've now recreated this JPG file, tweeking one of the JPG options and the upload worked then. --AFBorchert (talk) 15:38, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
Yes, but look at it from the bright side. Ignoring that bug (and thousands of others) freed up a lot of time needed for shoving a broken Upload Wizard, a copyright-violating Media Viewer, and a silly Visual Editor down our throats. —LX (talk, contribs) 17:34, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
Of course, ignoring that bug also ensured that people can't upload files that take over your account ;) Bawolff (talk) 19:48, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
I'm sure there's a correct way to detect the particular exploit in question. If it really is a computationally unsolvable problem, the bug should be WONTFIX'ed instead of letting it languish (but I think the real problem is that UploadBase.php is a 2000-line, poorly documented, poorly structured code puke that takes an easy problem and makes it hard). Not to mention that these checks are a charade on par with airport security. Only caring about new uploads without checking existing files for newly discovered vulnerabilities is extremely naïve. —LX (talk, contribs) 17:24, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
Sure, there's probably a better check that could be used. But... this has affected what, one file in 5 years. Given how many things are broken involving MediaWiki and commons, I think there are much more pressing areas to concentrate on. (I disagree about this particular check being equivalent to airport security, although you could perhaps say that about some of our other security checks). Bawolff (talk) 00:36, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Two similar categories for template LangSwitch

What’s the difference between the cats Internationalization templates using LangSwitch and Templates using LangSwitch for internationalisation? And I do not mean the different spelling here. The former is automatically added when using {{LangSwitch}}, the latter has been added by hand into the templates. Shouldn’t be one of them enough? --Speravir (Talk) 22:04, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

@Speravir: They are not the same thing. The automatically added "Templates using LangSwitch for internationalisation" means 'all' templates that use langswitch, including things like infoboxes and licensing templates. "Internationalization templates using LangSwitch" is for only 'internationalization templates'.... templates that exist only to translate a certain word or phrase, such as {{Australia}}... all it does is translate the word itself into the chosen language and link to the correct wiki. Revent (talk) 02:29, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
Revent, oh, you’re right, I mixed up, which of these is the automatically added on. And it sounds very logical to me, but then not all subcategories are correctly sorted into Internationalization templates using LangSwitch. I do not know, how to fix this. Nethertheless thank you for your answer. --Speravir (Talk) 23:01, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
My understanding is that Category:Templates using LangSwitch for internationalisation is added automatically by {{TemplateBox}} when you set i18n-method=switch. Internationalization templates using LangSwitch is added manually to templates that directly call {{LangSwitch}}. The purpose of the template is to allow translators find more easily templates to translate. --Jarekt (talk) 03:53, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

By the way, a pet peeve of mine is that LangSwitch is really designed for software interface messages, and should NOT generally be used for substantive image descriptions whose content may vary between languages (this makes it very difficult to check on translation accuracy, among a number of other things)... AnonMoos (talk) 04:06, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

February 29

Crowdfunding for User:Jacek Halicki

Hello, in the case that somebody wants to make a contribution: there is a new crowdfunding campaign started to help Jacek with a new computer for the processing of his pictures. Jacek has uploaded over 9000 pictures since september 2012 and is one of the most active users in QI, VI and FP delivering quality content from Poland. If you don't know him here is an entry about him in the WM Blog. Cheers, Poco2 17:50, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Thank you Poco_a_poco for bringing it up. It looks like a worthy cause. --Jarekt (talk) 04:02, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Uploads by User:Prsuperstar

I came across these uploads by Special:Contributions/Prsuperstar when I was recategorising files. The uploader seems to have placed these files in as many categories as they could find, most of them non-relevant. There's also an issue with the licensing as it now states that it is "own work". Can an admin take a look at these files? - 11:24, 23 February 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Takeaway (talk • contribs)

Max file upload size is now 2GB

The patch for phab:T76614 was just deployed and the max file upload size is now 2GB (technically 2047MB, one MB smaller than 2GB), as seen on Special:Upload. Some of our help pages (such as COM:MAXSIZE) might need fixing and some chunked upload tools (@Rillke, Prolineserver, and Yarl: ) might need updating. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 01:24, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Good improvement (noting that the task phab:T76614 took a year to be implemented). Hopefully we'll see some high quality videos that touch this new limit. :-) --Fæ (talk) 09:28, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for bringing this up. -- Rillke(q?) 10:25, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
👍 Like --★ Poké95 11:37, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
Great --Jarekt (talk) 13:32, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
Cool. --Steinsplitter (talk) 13:37, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
Very useful -- Biswarup Ganguly (talk) 16:45, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
\o/ Yann (talk) 17:07, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
That's a great improvement. Does anyone want to upload all the video's at Youtube like this that were formerly too large to upload? There is also a lot of good free content here. Reguyla (talk) 19:18, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
Sure, but this are just a few dozen MB. Only long films and HD videos are above 1 GB. See examples. Regards, Yann (talk) 20:40, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
If you upload old TV material please take care of right deinterlacing.--Kopiersperre (talk) 17:12, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
That's debatable. It's more pretty if you deinterlace it, but it's also less faithful to the original. If you upload an interlaced file matching the original TV exhibition, then a deinterlaced version can be made, but there's no way to restore the information going the other way, even if the deinterlacing process has badly mangled the image--and there's no way in theory or practice to always avoid that, short of throwing out every other frame.--Prosfilaes (talk) 10:24, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Looking for syntax errors

The pipe trick enables us to skip typing linked text after a pipe character in certain circumstances; for example, [[Cincinnati, Ohio|]] is saved as [[Cincinnati, Ohio|Cincinnati]] and displays as Cincinnati. When I was new here, I didn't know that the same was not true of {{W}}, so I sometimes typed nothing after the second pipe, e.g. File:Ohio State Route 117.jpg included the text {{w|Richland Township, Logan County, Ohio|}}, {{w|Logan County, Ohio|}}, {{w|Ohio}}, which produces Richland Township, Logan County, Ohio, Logan County, Ohio, Ohio. Is there a way to search for this kind of syntax error systematically? It should be simple to find (just look for a pipe character immediately followed by two brackets), but I can't imagine how you'd find this with Special:Search. Presumably it could be done with a database dump, like what the en:WP:WCW folks do at en:wp, but I'm not aware of any such projects here at Commons. Nyttend (talk) 20:42, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

-insource:"|}}" doesn't appear to work. I am quite sure @Leyo: knows a way; I can remember there was a Lua module at de: for spotting this kind of issues in template usage. -- Rillke(q?) 20:56, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
Nyttend, Rillke, with RegExp you get more results than you expected: insource:/\|\}\}/. Search results for "insource:/\|\}\}/" in all namespaces, reduce them for your needs. --Speravir (Talk) 22:43, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
And the results amount for two | is also astonishing: Search results for "insource:/\|\|\}\}/". --Speravir (Talk) 22:47, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
Hm, interesting. As you can imagine, I had no idea there would be so many of these. Is it possible to find only the results that appear within {{W}}? I can't imagine that Special:Search will work for this. Nyttend (talk) 05:38, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
Adding hastemplate:W is supposed to do this job. --Leyo 09:23, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
@Nyttend: Using 
hastemplate:W insource:/\{\{[Ww]\|.{3,30}\| *\}\}/
I get ~100 hits with relatively few false-positives. --Leyo 10:54, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

March 01

3D object files and Chemical Markup Language files on Commons

I have head discussions for awhile about allowing 3D object files on Commons. However, it seems that most 3D image files are in proprietary formats. Is there anyone here who's familiar with the current status of deliberations about what 3D image file formats might be allowed on Commons? I've seen a few mentions of potentially allowing Blender files.

Also, are Chemical Markup Language (CML) files allowed on Commons?

Related: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T115987

Thanks!

Pine — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pine (talk • contribs) 05:40, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

See phab:T18491 for CML, phab:T3790 for 3D files, and COM:FT for a list of what is supported and what is not. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 06:30, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
@Pine: Rillke worked in 2014 on Chemical Markup support for Wikimedia Commons. This project later went dormant. We may also take a look on CDK Depict.--Kopiersperre (talk) 11:13, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
Actually, the server side component still awaits security review. Maybe I should try finding out why this still isn't progressing. -- Rillke(q?) 11:37, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
I'll ask about its status tomorrow. Bawolff (talk) 22:07, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

All the wikis are probably going to break for 10 or 15 minutes later this month

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T124671

This is a heads-up note for everyone who gets asked tech questions:

The Ops team is planning a major change to the servers, (very) tenatively scheduled for Tuesday, 22 March 2016. One probable result is that when this happens, all wikis will be in read-only mode for a short time, likely less than 15 minutes for all contributors. You will be able to read pages, but not edit them or upload files. "All wikis" means all of the WMF wikis, not just Commons or the Wikipedias, and it may affect some related sites, such as mw:Wikimedia Labs (including the Tool Labs). There will also be no non-emergency updates to MediaWiki software around that time.

Many details are still being sorted out, but I am asking you to please share the word with your friends and fellow contributors now. This will be mentioned in m:Tech/News (subscribe now! ;-) and through all the other usual channels for Ops, but 99% of contributors either won't read or won't remember that. If you are active in other projects or speak other languages, then please share the news with your fellow contributors, so that whenever it happens, most people will know that everything should be back online in 10 or 15 minutes. In particular, I would appreciate it if people would share this information at the central non-English pages here at Commons.

Thanks, Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:26, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Launch of second Inspire Campaign

This March, we’re organizing an Inspire Campaign to encourage and support new ideas focusing on content review and curation in Wikimedia projects. We collaboratively manage vast repositories of knowledge in our projects. We’re looking for your ideas about how to manage that knowledge to make it more meaningful and accessible. We invite all contributors to participate and submit ideas, so please get involved today! The campaign runs until March 28th.

All proposals are welcome - research projects, technical solutions, community organizing and outreach initiatives, or something completely new! Funding is available from the Wikimedia Foundation for projects that need financial support. Constructive, positive feedback on ideas is appreciated, and collaboration is encouraged - your skills and experience may help bring someone else’s project to life. Join us at the Inspire Campaign and help your project better represent the world’s knowledge! I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 20:13, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

March 03

Flicker images of trains in Oxford

There are many similar images uploaded from Flicker on 2013. They all seem to be from the same date. It would be very usefull to determine the year from the clues in the images. (or at least a range) This must be from the BR en slamdoor period.Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:05, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

The "slamdoor period" is a misconception, it began in the 1800s and hasn't yet ended: all Class 253 units have slam doors - these trains, introduced in 1976, are still in service and I expect to see several in the next couple of hours, on my way to m:Meetup/Oxford/36.
Anyway. The photo is of a Class 121 driving trailer second, car no. 54287 and unit no. L287, in the livery of w:en:Network SouthEast. This livery was introduced in 1986 and lasted until privatisation in 1994, but car no. 54287 was not repainted into that livery until 1988, and still bore that livery when withdrawn in 1992. So the photo dates from the 1988-92 period. --Redrose64 (talk; at English Wikipedia) 11:54, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
The two cars coupled either side of 54287 are Class 101. --Redrose64 (talk; at English Wikipedia) 00:29, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
Just noticed the Old Oak Common shed plate; this dates the pic to no later than 1991, as it was transferred to Reading during that year. The car on the left is probably no. 53155, which was semi-permanently coupled to 54287 in unit L211 in the 1989-92 period, possibly earlier. --Redrose64 (talk; at English Wikipedia) 15:36, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

File:47583 - Oxford (8962629840).jpg, File:47705 - Oxford (8961398891).jpg, File:47705 - Oxford (8961403541).jpg, File:47705 - Oxford (8961409557).jpg are all from Flicker user `Jim` so I suspect these pictures are taken in one visit.Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:46, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

File:50 028 "Tiger" in Oxford station.jpg is in back and white and a different Flicker user. Maybe it would be usefull to add Flicker user information.Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:46, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

A couple of the photos show Oxford station in the middle of rebuilding work (Network SouthEast completely rebuilt the station), which I believe concluded in 1990. That may narrow it down a little further. Hassocks5489 (talk) 20:17, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
They didn't completely rebuild the station. They built a new footbridge (work on that is visible in a couple of the pics), rebuilt most (but not all) of the buildings on platform 1, and filled in the underpass - but the buildings on platform 2 were untouched. --Redrose64 (talk; at English Wikipedia) 00:29, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Historical photos from Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg

This will probably be obvious to some, but I'll ask just to be absolutely certain. I have found a some historical photos at Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg (one example here) that I would like to upload here. These photos are also published at Europeana and Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek, where they are marked with a CC-BY license. But I haven't been able to find that license on Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg's website. It is quite possible that it is mentioned with other words somewhere there, my German isn't too good. But just to be on the safe side, is it okay to upload this and similar photos to Commons? Blue Elf (talk) 17:34, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

The license is here in the terms of use, section 3.2. They say they have the exploitation rights needed to grant a CC license. My advice though is to only upload images where it is plausible that the archive actually acquired those rights - example: File:Weinsberg Luftbild 19180308.jpg, which was taken by a military officer of Württemberg in 1918.
A rather negative example is the estate of Hans Noller, which contains lots and lots of original railway photographs by Noller, but also a lot of slides which obviously reproduce other people's photographs, magazine articles and the like. Now the Landesarchiv did buy Noller's estate, presumably along with usage rights, but I don't think those rights include photos and magazine articles by other people. So for that estate, it'd be prudent to only upload Noller's original photographs (the ones in color).
Your example image is from photographer de:Willy Pragher. His photos were purchased by the Staatsarchiv Freiburg (part of the Landesarchiv) and are ok to upload with CC-BY-3.0-DE tags; Category:Photographs by Willy Pragher already has over 1000 of them. --Rosenzweig τ 18:15, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
Thanks a lot! Blue Elf (talk) 13:44, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

BSicon

Here we have several dozens of delayed Delinker renaming requests related to BSicon. Does anybody know what the story is? The files have been renamed, we need either to run Delinker on them, or rename them back.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:48, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

March 04

WP sidebars now link to Commons categories

It was in the Tech News a couple of weeks ago, but as it's a change explicitly affecting the 'discovery' of Commons content, I thought it was something worth highlighting with its own section here for discussion.

Namely: A change has been implemented in the last couple of weeks affecting the links found in the sidebars of Wikipedia articles, so that link will now point to a category here, rather than a gallery, if there is a P373 ("Commons category") set in the Wikidata item for the article. This therefore no longer depends on whether the Commons sitelink for the Wikidata item points to a gallery or a category -- if the software can find a P373, then the sidebar link will not point to the gallery, it will point to a category.

On most wikis it is still possible to link explicitly to a Commons gallery using a high-visibility template in the article, usually near the "external links" section. But the above will change the default link given in the sidebar.

In practice, I don't know how much difference this will make -- it seems to have been two weeks so far, which seem to have passed without comment (or even notice) of the change here. But this was something that it was perceived that Commons people wanted -- so now we have got it. Jheald (talk) 17:05, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

@Jheald: any chance we can have this the other way round as well? For example, en:Denarius links to Category:Denarius (great!), but Category:Denarius only links to ru:Категория:Денарий (ru seems to be the only Wikipedia with a Category for this). However, the gallery page Denarius (which hasn't been updated since 2008) links to the whole list of Wikipedia articles. It seems I can't link the category to the articles as long as the gallery links there, right? --El Grafo (talk) 14:45, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Link shown on category pages by the wdcat.js script, pointing to article information on Reasonator
@El Grafo: That is the way that the software is currently set up, yes. For the moment, if you want to see Wikipedia articles link to a category, the best I can offer is the script User:Jheald/wdcat.js, which puts a link to Reasonator on the category page when it can, as shown in the image on the right. This can be activated by adding the line importScript('User:Jheald/wdcat.js') to your common.js file.
In principle, presumably the Wikidata team should also be able to change the links shown in the sidebars on Commons pages. But we should think what we want to ask for.
In particular: if there are both a set of WP categories and a set of WP articles associated with a Commons category, which set should the links be displayed to? Do we always want to link to the article, not the category (eg where should c:Category:London link to?) I think we need to think about this. Jheald (talk) 19:05, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
@Jheald: the "other projects" link to Commons category shows up also in Commons category pages themselves, pointing to the very same page (tested with Monobook skin). MKFI (talk) 16:58, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
I have added a note of this to phab:T94989, which was the tracking bug for the update, so that should get seen by the developers who made it happen. Jheald (talk) 19:19, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

sidebar links update

@MKFI, El Grafo, Alexmar983, and Jarekt: @Revent and Jmabel:

Hoo man has now updated the code, so that links to Commons should no longer appear "in other projects" for Commons pages. (phab:T128661). The patch is now live, though for the next 30 days links may still show up on pages that have not been refreshed. Adding ?action=purge to the URL should make them go away.

As for what sitelinks should be shown from Commons category pages (eg where should c:Category:London link to?), Hoo sensibly suggests that first we need to have a discussion here, to work out what we as the Commons community want. Once we know that, then it can go on the to-do list. Jheald (talk) 10:47, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

The question is: What leads the user to click on a sidebar link on a category page? I'd say there are two common applications: 1) find a new home for a file you've uploaded and added to that category and 2) get more information about the content of the category. In both cases you'd want to go to a Wikipedia article rather than a category. Also, for most Commons categories there simply are no corresponding Wikipedia categories: It doesn't make sense to try to link things like Category:Liriodendron chinense or Category:Extra 300 to wikipedia categories, because there are none. Imho, both Category:London and London should link to en:London, es:London, fr:London etc. --El Grafo (talk) 11:15, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
Many Commons categories are linked with wikipedia articles, like c:Category:Erwin Schrödinger -> en:Erwin Schrödinger and this relationship is expressed in wikidata as d:Property:P373 (linking article with category). A less frequent interwiki link is Commons category to Wikipedia category, like c:Category:Albert Einstein -> en:Category:Albert Einstein. Commons always had the problem that it was never clear which link you would get, but usually if there was matching wikipedia category than it would take precedent over article for that language. I think the cleanest solution for Commons categories would be to expand current "In Wikipedia" section with interwiki links to two sections: "In Wikipedia articles" and "In Wikipedia categories", or keep "In Wikipedia" section for same namespace links and add "In Wikipedia (articles)" section for links to articles. I would also propose to do a bot run to clean up wikidata so that all wikidata sitelinks point to pages within the same namespace and move wikidata links from article pages to commons categories to d:Property:P373. --Jarekt (talk) 13:17, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

I do not have a preference of which one will be on top. It seems to me that a category would have to do 2-3 queries:

  • find wikidata record linked by sitelinks. That it is instance of Wikimedia category only them show wikipedia interwiki links as "In Wikipedia categories"
  • follow category's main topic to the main wikidata record and show its wikipedia interwiki links as "In Wikipedia articles"
  • find wikidata record with Commons category linking to itself and show its wikipedia interwiki links as "In Wikipedia articles"
  • follow topic's main category to the categoruy wikidata record and show its wikipedia interwiki links as "In Wikipedia categories"

Any category might have both article and category links or only one of them or none. --Jarekt (talk) 14:59, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

February 28

User Analysis for Dthomsen8

The page User Analysis for Dthomsen8 says

Not Opted In
This useris not opted in. As a result, monthly counts are not available, top pages edited are not available.
Please add content to User:Dthomsen8/EditCounterOptIn.js to opt in locally or add content to User:Dthomsen8/EditCounterGlobalOptIn.js to optin globally.

What does this mean? What content would I add to either or both of those choices? How would it change my experience on WikiMania Commons?--Dthomsen8 (talk) 01:37, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

@Dthomsen8: Any text on either of those pages would suffice. It would not 'add anything' to your experience on Commons itself, it would just enable the tool on wmflabs to show more information. Compare:
That's the only difference it makes. Revent (talk) 02:23, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
Thank you. I will do it.--Dthomsen8 (talk) 13:53, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Crowdfunding for User:Jacek Halicki

Hallo allemaal, in het geval dat iemand een bijdrage wil leveren: er is een new crowdfunding campaign begonnen om Jacek te helpen met een nieuwe computer voor de verwerking van zijn foto's. Jacek heeft meer dan 9000 foto's geüpload sinds september 2012 en is één van de meest actieve gebruikers in QI, VI en FP. Hij levert foto's van hoge kwaliteit over Polen. Als je hem niet kent. in WM Blog staat een artikel over hem ( entry about him de WM Blog).
Met vriendelijke groet,--Famberhorst (talk) 07:05, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Hi Jacek, I have sent your request to Wikipedia Nederland and hope to find it on Dutch Wikipedia-page very soon. Greetings --Michielverbeek (talk) 07:42, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Template help (languages) please

How can I make {{Nys}} display the name of the language, as {{En}} does, and not the ISO code for the language? Andy Mabbett (talk) 12:10, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

By asking developers of the mw:Extension:CLDR to add support for NYS and/or other languages to {{#language}} parser function. {{#language:en}} -> "English" because "en" is recognized, but {{#language:Andy}} -> "andy", because "Andy" is not recognized as code. Documentation is unclear which codes are supported and which are not. --Jarekt (talk) 14:39, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
Thank you. What a palaver. We've already had to make a separate request, elsewhere, to have the language enabled in Wikidata. Surely all this could be done once, in one place? Andy Mabbett (talk) 19:08, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Categories by WayneRay

Hi, I think that categorization added and removed by WayneRay (talk · contribs) is wrong, i.e. [1]. Category:DjVu files from India does not replace Category:Books from India. Third opinion needed. Regards, Yann (talk) 12:25, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

As an FYI Category:DjVu files from India was already there when I looked. It already contained djvu files. DJVU and PDF are the only true books. All the rest are images found in books with no text pages. Therefore they should be seperate I believe. I just noticed that it was not connected to Books from India so I added it. That's why I couldn't find it the first time you deleted the files. WayneRay (talk) 13:49, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

IEG proposal: Improve Upload to Commons Android app

Hi folks,

I've been working on the Upload to Commons Android app for the past few months as an Outreachy project (which was recently completed successfully :)). A few changes were made to the app to make categorization of pictures easier, via suggestion of nearby categories and more flexible category search. However, there are lots of improvements (documented on our GitHub page) that we couldn't fit into the scope of the Outreachy project. I would love to be able to continue working on the app to improve it further - hence an IEG proposal.

My IEG proposal for the app involves:

  • Fixing long-standing bugs and looking into old crash reports to try and prevent them from recurring, to provide a smoother user experience
  • Making several enhancements to the app to make it more user-friendly and newbie-friendly, new location-based features (e.g. a list of nearby articles lacking pictures), and further enhancing categorization.
  • Increasing awareness of non-Wikimedians about this app to grow the contributor base

Several of the proposed features are based on previous suggestions by users, and I would very much appreciate more feedback and suggestions! If you are interested, please do take a look at the current proposal, feel free to ask questions and make new suggestions on the Discussion page, and review/endorse it as you see fit. If you would like to be part of the project, volunteers and additional advisors are always welcome.

Thank you so much! Misaochan (talk) 05:28, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

@Misaochan: , this has a very large potential to increase participation. I wanted ask a question that is outside the current grant request but is related. I know that there has been some previous work on a Wiki Loves Monuments app and could see a clear use for a similar app for Wiki Loves Earth. I don't understand the technical side of Wiki Loves Monuments and Wiki Loves Earth but I can see having an app may help increase the easy of participation for people. Would there be an easy mechanism to have a link somewhere in the front page of the app to contribute to the competitions? I think there are a few advantages of integrating the competitions into a central app rather than having an app for each competition:
  1. If people install the app for the competition it means they can continue to contribute to Wikimedia Commons after the competition has finished
  2. May encourage people to take part in multiple competitions, inccreasing the participation for all of them. E.g someone installs the app for WLE and then continues to add photos afterwards and the app makes them aware that WLM is happening.
  3. Smaller competitions can have contributions by an app without needing to create their own.
Thanks
John Cummings (talk) 13:52, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
Hi @John Cummings: , thanks for the suggestion! Do you mean just a link to http://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/participate/ etc, or actually integrating competition submissions into the app? The former would be easy and should definitely be doable, the latter might still be doable but would probably need more discussion and agreement from the competition organizers. Misaochan (talk) 02:29, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
@Misaochan: Ideally I mean integrating competition submissions into the app, maybe this could be a follow on grant request? John Cummings (talk) 11:15, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
@John Cummings: Sure, sounds interesting! I have created a GitHub issue as a reminder/discussion, hopefully something can be worked out. :) Misaochan (talk) 01:05, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
@Misaochan: I have no idea if it has even been addressed, but a minor issue in the past with the mobile apps was editors (presumably unintentionally) uploading 5, 6, or more duplicates of the same image within a couple of minutes, under a numbered series of filenames. A check, of some type, of if the person has previously uploaded the exact same image would be a good thing. (I can't point at an example offhand, since they get speedied quickly). Reventtalk 22:13, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
Hi @Revent: , thanks for the feedback. As far as I know there isn't such a check in the app yet. I will talk to the app maintainer (my advisor) about this and get back to you; maybe we could include this functionality in the grant proposal. :) Misaochan (talk) 02:29, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
@Revent: , I have been discussing this with Nicolas on a GitHub issue. We would like to work on this, but it would be most effective if there were an API that could tell us whether a picture (identified by its SHA1 hashcode for instance) is already in Commons or not. Otherwise we could work around it with a local DB perhaps, but that would be less ideal. Do you or anyone else know if such an API exists? Thanks! Misaochan (talk) 03:19, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Anyone in California?

See here. If anyone is in driving distance of Death Valley, this seems like a chance to get photos of a rare event. Reventtalk 10:20, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

http://www.nps.gov/deva/learn/nature/wildflower-update-2016.htm <- The NPS site that says where the best places are at any particular time. Reventtalk 10:23, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
If there was a kind of database of things that people want to be photographed where/when, we could integrate it into the Commons app, so that a notification pops up to people who happen to be in that area at that time. Syced (talk) 07:37, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Category:Internet Archive

Why found only less than million images from more than five million images?!Thank you --ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2 (talk) 16:14, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

[[:]]

Is this image genuine or is it a photomontage? Its being used in the same article across a lot of languages but that article has been deleted in ENWP (and possibly others) and is now up on SVWP for deletion. (If this image is made up one could guess that the information in the article is fake to.) /Hangsna (talk) 17:27, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

It's a pretty poor photo montage. The guy in middle might be real (the odd lighting could come from the flash), but the other two are certainly pasted in. --rimshottalk 17:42, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
"The guy in the middle" is definitely Ferlinghetti, and that is definitely the Caffe Trieste in North Beach (a hangout of his), but I agree that the other two are not part of the same photo. Indeed, there is an absolute telltale at the young man's right elbow, and another where the woman's right shoulder meets the purple shirt. - Jmabel ! talk 20:50, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
Same photo of Ferlinghetti, different person partly visible at Ferlinghetti's left (our right). Just part of a shoulder, but entirely different clothes. - Jmabel ! talk 20:54, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
Nominated for deletion. - Jmabel ! talk 21:07, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Adding a "changing" link to a template

One user left a {{End of copyvios}} template at another user's talk page, so the recipient decided to follow the template's instructions to Please leave me a message if you have further questions, but being new, he couldn't figure out how to do this and ended up leaving a request for help at COM:AN. The user's been pointed to the right place, so all's resolved here, but I'd like to improve the template by adding a link: things would be easier if "leave me a message" were linked to the talk page of the user who left the message. How can this be done? Many user warning templates at en:wp have such a feature, as you can see at en:Template:UW-sourced1, which includes the code [[User_talk:<includeonly>{{sub<noinclude></noinclude>st:REVISIONUSER}}</includeonly><noinclude>Jimbo Wales</noinclude>|my talk page]]; the link goes to en:user talk:jimbo Wales if clicked from the template page, but if I subst the template at a user's talk page, the link goes to my talk page. However, in the past, I've tried copying en:wp templates to here, but things failed (even with templates that didn't transclude any other templates), so I fear making a mess if the magic words at en:wp don't work identically here. Nyttend (talk) 21:36, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

That's a good idea. I don't see any reason why it shouldn't work, but I'm mostly posting this to test it: {{subst:REVISIONUSER}} = BMacZero. Looks like it works. BMacZero (talk) 01:28, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
{{{{{|safesubst:}}}REVISIONUSER}} = CommonsDelinker is more syntax-correct and transclude-compatible, though --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 02:29, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
It is possible, but some users prefer keeping discussions where they started. Feel free to tweak it as needed. -- Rillke(q?) 02:56, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

March 07

Expired copyright

I think images from 1905 has expired copyrights? If that is the case this image de:Datei:Gustav Schilling.jpg can be transferred to Commons. Sander.v.Ginkel (talk) 09:24, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

It's much more complicated than that. The PD policy on commons is that works must be PD in both source country and US. For US, "images from 1905" qualify the criteria as "works published before 1923", but to be PD for some source country (is it Germany?), one might need to know the author and their death year (some countries have different copyright rules for anonymous works; they may apply instead). --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 10:51, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
If the photo is anonymous, then the German copyright expired in 1976. Ruslik (talk) 20:18, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
Wrong, in 2006. --Hubertl 17:30, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
Why? It is 70 years after the publication. Ruslik (talk) 16:31, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-10

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • Files on Wikimedia Commons can now be 2 GB big. The old limit was 1 GB. [2]
  • Welcome notifications now have a different symbol. English Wikipedia already had this one. [3]
  • The Wikimedia memory cache servers in the Eqiad cluster have now been upgraded to Debian 8 (Jessie). Some users might have had to log in again because of this. [4]
  • It is now easier to categorize images uploaded to Wikimedia Commons in the Commons Android app. [5]
  • Bare attributes in tags now parse according to the HTML5 specifications. <pages from= to= section=1> will parse as <pages from="to=" section="1"> instead of <pages from="" to="" section="1"> as it used to. Please use <pages from="" to="" section=1> or <pages section=1> instead. This is mostly likely to affect pages on Wikisource projects. [6]

Problems

  • Phabricator has been a bit unstable lately. This should be fixed now. [7]
  • The PageView API shows wrong data between 23 February and 29 February for pages with special characters in their title. [8]
  • The parsing change mentioned above caused a large number of pages to break, especially on Wikisource. [9]
  • You may see falsely formatted edit links on both mobile and desktop devices. Mobile devices can also show incorrect formatted table of contents. This should be fixed soon. [10]
  • Templates using TemplateData that were edited with the visual editor might have some problems in wikitext mode. This can be fixed by editing and saving the page by using the visual editor without making any changes. [11]

Changes this week

  • Cross-wiki notifications will be enabled as a beta feature on all wikis on 10 March. You will be able to get notifications when something happens on another Wikimedia wiki. [12]
  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 March. It will be on all wikis from 10 March (calendar).
  • Wikivoyages will get the Kartographer extension. Kartographer will allow <mapframe> and <maplink> tags in an article to insert an interactive map and overlay it with different markers. You can add ideas and suggestions to the Maps talk page. If you find any bugs, you can report them in Phabricator. [13]

Meetings

  • You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 8 March at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

  • The buttons in interfaces will be simplified. Instead of white, red, green and blue buttons, in future there will only be white, red and blue ones. [14]
  • The Wikimedia technical operations team plans to do some server work on 22 March. This could cause some problems, for example make it possible to read but not edit the Wikimedia wikis for a short period of time. The date for this might change. [15]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

20:24, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

File sorting

Is it possible to have the images sorted by file extension. I am going through 10 of thousands of book related categories and need to make DJVU and PDF subcats. It would be so much easier using Cat-a-lot if I could? WayneRay (talk) 02:43, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

You can filter by file extension using GalleryFilterExtension. Activate the GalleryFilterExtension gadget now! -- Rillke(q?) 20:48, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
Note that Cat-A-Lot doesn't support range selection properly when a filter is applied. Thus only search helps. (I recommend the advanced search gadget). Activate the advanced-search gadget now! As a last option, you could use VisualFileChange.js. It has an advanced selection dialogue but is somehow bulky. -- Rillke(q?) 20:59, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
Thanks I will try it out and see what happens. It says GalleryFilter so hope it works in Cats as well as galleries. WayneRay (talk) 22:39, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

March 08

Costume Construction Kit

I've recently uploaded a major update to this., in the following category : Category:Costume Construction Kit, review and expansion would be greatly appreciated, as I wanted this to be a a useful resource. :) ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 09:59, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

If you want more people to see it, add more relevant subcategories in the Category bar at the bottom of the page. WayneRay (talk) 13:21, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
Any suggestions? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 13:43, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

There are lots of subcategories in the last one WayneRay (talk) 14:23, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Add a source of public domain images to the upload-by-url configuration

With Upload by URL image reviewers, Admins, GWToolset users can upload files by just specifying the image URL (and do not have to download and upload the image again). I'd like to add pixabay.com to our whitelist of domains this upload method is supported for as it seems to be a great source of very permissively licensed files. Is this okay to you? You may comment here or directly on gerrit:276069. I'll make sure to sync discussion before any decision takes place. -- Rillke(q?) 00:32, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

10 doors are not doors?

Please take a look at the history of Category:10 doors. User:Jacquesverlaeken removed twice already the parent category Doors, argueing cryptically that there’s «no link with architecture». I suspect lack of knowledge of what a Commons category is (probably this user knows what "10" and "door" mean, but is unable to make the leap), but don’t want to risk edit warring, nor to be accused misusing AN/U for this case. So, what do you all think? -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 22:03, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Okay, this is getting serious:
  • (diff | hist) . . m Category:Trams with 8 doors‎; 13:37:18 . . (-27)‎ . . ‎Jacquesverlaeken (talk | contribs)‎ (removed Category:8 doors using HotCat) [rollback]
  • (diff | hist) . . m Category:Trams with 6 doors‎; 13:36:53 . . (-27)‎ . . ‎Jacquesverlaeken (talk | contribs)‎ (removed Category:6 doors using HotCat) [rollback]
  • (diff | hist) . . m Category:Trams with 3 doors‎; 13:36:17 . . (-27)‎ . . ‎Jacquesverlaeken (talk | contribs)‎ (removed Category:3 doors using HotCat) [rollback]
  • (diff | hist) . . m Category:Trams with 2 doors‎; 13:35:53 . . (-27)‎ . . ‎Jacquesverlaeken (talk | contribs)‎ (removed Category:2 doors using HotCat) [rollback]
  • (diff | hist) . . m Category:Trams with 5 doors‎; 13:35:33 . . (-27)‎ . . ‎Jacquesverlaeken (talk | contribs)‎ (removed Category:5 doors using HotCat) [rollback]
So tram doors are not doors, either? -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 01:08, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
Category:Doors says explicitly "…an entrance to or within an enclosed space, such as a building or vehicle…" so doors on vehicles should certainly be subcategories. - Jmabel ! talk 02:49, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
Boldly undone. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 01:29, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
My initial problem was with the image File:Ziegenproblem zehn Tueren 1.svg which I believe merits better categorization. In my mind,as defined, doors are physical objects. For the trams, I do not see the interest of the parent category n doors. Subcategories of trams seem enough for the special study of trams with n doors. Sorry if I was unbold in this case.

Jacquesverlaeken (talk) 21:49, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

March 02

Template help needed

Could someone take a look at File:Adoration of the Magi Hieronymus Bosch autograph ca. 1470–75 (NY).jpg and work out what is going wrong with the included template? The Summary edit link takes you directly into editing Template:Artwork/The_Adoration_of_the_Magi_by_Hieronymus_Bosch_(New_York). Thanks --Fæ (talk) 17:26, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

That's interesting. I would imagine it's simply because the section header is actually in the template. So naturally if you wanted to edit what was under the section header, you'd need to be taken to the template page. If you want it to stay on the same page you'll probably need to have it on that page itself. BMacZero (talk) 18:16, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Commons:Credit line

I propose that this this essay is now adopted as a Wikimedia/Wikipedia Guideline. Since its creation (by Jarekt (talk)) in 2009 it has stood the test of time. It provides examples for the newbies and yet doesn't prevent more experienced contributors from customizing their credit-lines in accordance with CC licences. A big hurdle for newbies (and even some other contributors) is that they have difficulty in seeing their minds-eye, the right credit-line format for their contributions when following the very verbose advice available. This essay gives all the common variations that should suit most needs. Therefore, to go forwards from here, a consensus is needed by our community, that this essay should become a recognized Wiki Guidance document. I welcome comments, whether they be yea or nay.--P.g.champion (talk) 17:53, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

 Support (as an original author) --Jarekt (talk) 18:08, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

March 10

Tuning of the AP right

Hello, I was working with User:incola on some wikimetrics concerning commons users and we had to make a short test about the composition of our 5,170 AP users. Long story short, if you want to select a group of "expert" users there are different ways. You can target for example the users with a lot of activity (number of edit in a certain namespace), or you can use the AP group which has a good correlation with user activity. This second way is easy because the list is ready, but of course you prefer to check its composition if you are going to "use it". That's what we did.

We can all agree that the correlation between this flag and experience is not perfect, and it is more precise on platform where there are specific thresholds to grant specific flags, we all understand that. It can happen that AP user rights are granted to users with a limited activity but trusted on many other platforms, and It is not the end of the world.

That does not mean IMHO that we should "exaggerate" with this type of AP flags. In the end, the flag is not a de facto banstar and if a user is not very active there is no real advantage in removing his/her few edits form the huge noise of non-patrolled edits. Plus, we can't be sure that (s)he actually got the dynamics of commons correctly. I remind you all that image copyright is still a delicate issue. In addition to that, maintenance of a huge dataset of media requires more and more attention to details such as description, category and geocoordinates. I doubt a little bit that a user with few uploads and few edits is a good expert on that aspect. If (s)he starts to upload more pictures without a proper "training", it won't be easy to integrate its work on this platform: I myself have met at meeting AP commons users who had no idea how to insert a georeference tag, for example. We could all agree that sometimes if you wait a little bit longer, certain small defects can be pointed out in the long-term interest of the platform.

So here are some data I hope you will enjoy. There is an xls file if you want to take a closer look.

  • 63 AP users out of 5170 have less than 50 edits, 104 AP users out of 5170 have less than 100 edits.
  • 98 AP users out of 5170 have 0 uploads, 275 AP users out of 5170 have less than 10 uploads.
  • there are 20 AP users with 0 uploads and less than 20 edits, 8 users with 1 upload and less than 20 edits, 4 users with just 2 uploads and less than 20 edits.
  • there are 53 AP users with 0 uploads and more than 1000 edits.--Alexmar983 (talk) 01:35, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
For all wondering what AP means: It is probably related to the patrolling system. -- Rillke(q?) 12:56, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
Ah, that makes sense, AP probably means "auto-patrolled". I was wondering what this was about. --Sebari (talk) 16:58, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
I have seen it used so many times on different discussions (and did not invent it) I though it was quite universal as an abbreviation. I have personally always guessed what all this wikiacronyms are about and never complained so I am probably very tolerant on the issue because I survived. I understand if the explanation is often never enough: it is true I forgot to put the link to the patrolling page, although I did insert a link from the discussion page of the patrolling system to here.
More confusing to understand but formally more correct would have been if we had performed the analysis on AP users and users with more advanced flags. Here on commons for example the groups with patrolling flag do not include by default the autopatrolled group. That's quite annoying because information about users with AP right is split in more groups. if I want a quick list of "expert" users I have to add up AP, patrollers, sysops etc...
So, coming back to the core information. AP rights are here on commons I guess a quite technical matter, but the definition of what is an AP user should come from a general discussion, and I see some ambiguity here because on commons this interpretation of what is an AP is a little bit "fragmented". For example instead of having a detailed page about the autopatrolled right like on other platforms, we left this description "concealed" in the general patrolling page. That's a little bit reductive, because the flag is currently more "technical-oriented" than "community-oriented". Statistically when fewer people deal with a flag, on the long term its meaning is not very "stable". For example even if the page clearly states This right is commonly granted to users who aren't necessarily involved in patrolling pages, edits or uploads, but create a high level of quality pages or uploads that do not require patrolling by other users. This reduces the backlog... you can see that in a modest yet non minimal percentage of cases this was not respected and the flag was given to users with very little activity, which is a little bit in contrast with the above definition. First of all, few edits per year don't reduce effectively any backlog and secondly, a "high level of quality pages and uploads" cannot be estimated with such a limited activity.
It is not the a big problem, but I think more attention should be paid in the future.--Alexmar983 (talk) 02:23, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
At Commons, I try to avoid wikronyms (except in links) as people from multiple communities are here. -- Rillke(q?) 16:34, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Distortions

Ballonbomen in Eindhoven I processed with GIMP
Ballonbomen in Eindhoven I processed with ShiftN

How can I get this building straigth?Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:09, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

@Smiley.toerist: before taking it, by pointing the camera less upwards (see View_camera#Back_tilt.2Fswing). After taking it, you're looking for a software function with a name similar to "keystone" or "Perspective". Storkk (talk) 12:51, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
Although in this case, the subject is probably to close to the borders for straightening. In general, if you plan on straightening an image, I would suggest to leave plenty of space around the border of the subject for easier cropping later. --Sebari (talk) 17:00, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
GIMP] will straighten it out. Download it and in the left-hand window you will see Perspective (Shift + P). You have enough 'sky' in this image to get away with it. Gimp is a very useful tool here on WC. You can also use it for loads of other image manipulations.--P.g.champion (talk) 23:30, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
He has enough sky but not enough earth. Once you make the building at right vertical, there will be empty space at lower right if the whole building remains in view. - Jmabel ! talk 00:08, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
The balloon are still the central subject – building on right are vertical- As I suggested, there is plenty of sky. The left hand can also be more vertical. GIMP, allows one to alter the whole image. So left- hand can be done the same. I am not going to provide Smiley with step by step instructions because GIMP/Photoshop are tools that one needs to get some hands-on-experience with in order to discover their full potential. P.S. In my consideration 'Balloons' are not a very convenient method of transport, even in Holland– one ends up going where the wind blows. --P.g.champion (talk) 14:54, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
I linked to step-by-step instructions for Gimp in the very first reply. Storkk (talk) 15:29, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
So you did Storkk but your link (to the solution) did not make clear that that this just one tool of GIMP, which is a free image manipulation suite that needs to be downloaded. Your assuming Smiley knows all this. So I underlined it. @ Smiley. Download GIMP and have fun!--P.g.champion (talk) 16:59, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
I like using ShiftN.exe. It does only one thing, and I usually do not tweak it at all. I either like the output or do not like the output. --Jarekt (talk) 17:22, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Picture of the day randomness

Guys, looking closely to POD I realised how random this is, and bad selected. At International Women Day we have a flour, and in the next, them we have a important woman.

A lot of repeated authors and themes very closed from each other, e.g., 2016-03-10 and 2016-03-12 both Uoaei1 pics, and churches.

I think that we need to fixes,

  • We need to related pictures to dates - as we care about the content, FP are great pictures, but also the ones with a interesting content. Relate day with some special dates could bring more meaning to the picture.
  • Spread your contributes, I saw a lot of Uoaei1, none Diliff lately and I don't no why...
  • Think about some thematics... As USA Government loves to create and share pictures, we have tons of that, however, if we put this war promotion in our POD we attached our brand to this military theme. For me, this is not good, not good at all.

Just some ideas, let me know what you think about that. -- RTA 17:46, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Rodrigo.Argenton Organizing things is difficult. Have you tried going to POD and making proposals or changes yourself? I expect that currently decisions are made by 1-3 people. Do you feel that anything prevents you from having pictures you like shown on any given day? Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:41, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
In fact, there are no rules on topical diversity on POTD. Anyone may set any FP not previously used as POTD for any vacant day. We have some people with hundreds of FP who nominate them all (and nothing else) as POTD. So I would suggest, simply go ahead and nominate a couple of pictures, that's the only way to make it less boring. --A.Savin 23:56, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
Bluerasberry, A.Savin, that's the point, should not rely on a volunteer to do it, but should be a community decision to have more care to this selection.
This is one of the doors that we create to new viewers and new volunteers, so we should care more. Just that...
About being bold, I'm too old on the Wikimedia Movement to believe in that... unfortunately. -- RTA 11:15, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
Rodrigo.Argenton What do you think should happen? What response did you want to your suggestion? It is a good suggestion and as you say, that seems like the way things ought to be. I want more community engaged and am trying to encourage the community growth rate and so are others. That is the best long term solution that I can identify.
You are Brazilian, right? If you want to speed things along then consider encouraging a Brazilian university journalism department or nonprofit organization to apply for a grant to do a Wikimedia Commons project. You said that you are old in the movement. One thing that has changed is that there is money for grant now that was not there previously, and Brazil is a high priority target for establishing relationships including funding. See meta:Grants:Start. If you do not want to be bold, encourage someone else to do the project. As you say, this is one of the doors to new users, and some of the most valuable media space on the Internet. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:24, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
Bluerasberry, I was, at 2009, deep in Strategic Planning of WMF, and Brazil was a priority, now... now is totally irrelevant. I was in front of the idea of a Brazilian WM Chapter, however WMF created a competitor office and spend more then half a million dollars(~ 640 thousands) in projects that we, community, told than to not invest in, in addition to that AffCom really like to f Brazilians that don't approve their top-down and not transparent workflow. Result of that, chapter broken, no more volunteers really involved, no more activities in Brazil... , except one former WMF staffs, that now spend tons of dollars in shallow activities (to not get deeper, but you can see something here >>> meta:Requests for comment/Bad usage of money in Brazil), and WMF don't care, it's their offspring, note that he was almost fired, and don't bring any results...
To mining my influence in BR chapter, even a Stewart started to use his tools to block possible contributions, WP, WN, WY,..., you can choose, you will find arbitrary blocks. Most of that, after offline workshops at Universities.
So, no, one that have this level of experience and are in full sanity would recommend come to trough this way that you are recommending, especially here in BR. But even so, I have projects undergoing on university journalism ... (shh I can't talk more ;))
And I'm bold, look all that shit and I cut a great part, and I'm idiot enough to still here, standing, and you can see that part of it hit me even here...
The suggestion is very simple, community starts to care, and make efforts to create a calendar with important dates. And maybe stablish the date before the image, and find/create the image could be a interesting challenge.
For example, in Pink November, we have during all month posters orienting about breast cancer, films about it, any educational resource that we can create.
Or even more simple, on anniversary of, I don't know, Tanzania, we have photos of Tanzania.
Now, we just take some random photo and that's it, some picked more then 5 times...
Just ideas. -- RTA 16:07, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
Rodrigo.Argenton I do not think Brazil was treated differently than other organizations. Other chapters have similar stories. All the stories are terrible, but I do not feel that there is specific targeting to disrupt any individual region even though I have heard that some people felt that was what happened. Since these stories seem to repeatedly happen in different regions with different cultures, I only wish to blame the infrastructure. I think that when this happens to a chapter, they feel alone, but actually, there are stories that could be shared if it were not so shameful to share them. Making documentation at meta:Requests for comment/Bad usage of money in Brazil is only a positive action reporting a real problem. If we had better communication then I think these things would happen less often. I am hopeful that communication will improve with time.
Sometimes I feel crazy for tolerating so much crazy behavior. Sometimes I feel foolish for still standing here. I think it is right for you to say that you feel doubtful also because there are many people who say they have seen waste in the movement.
Incidentally - are you participating in election discussions? Elections for 2 of 10 board members are in process at meta:Affiliate-selected Board seats/2016. Some people say that South America will vote in a block and be the single biggest influence. If I may ask, please would you encourage the Brazilian chapter to have a good vote, whatever that means, and encourage anyone else to vote. I would like for everyone to be more satisfied with governance. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:35, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

License review needed

Hi, Currently Category:License review needed contains 2,369 files, not counting subcategories. Help needed... Yann (talk) 20:43, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

I'll be working on it. These piled up faster than I would've expected. Videos are getting easier to upload, so the numbers of videos needing review will be staying pretty high from now on. Hopefully we can find a few other dedicated reviewers to keep the backlog more manageable. INeverCry 03:52, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
Thanks a lot! Yann (talk) 20:58, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
Funny Yann I can't help, INeverCry is one of the responsible to remove my flag... and thanks to you, I can't get back... So have fun you two.
And I know that this is just the tip of the iceberg...
This goes far beyond a simple license review, some volunteers really don't care about the scope of the community, and bring tons of low quality and without educational purpose images using Flickr2Commons...
-- RTA 11:31, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

March 09

duplicates

File:St. Martin's Church, Canterbury, England-LCCN2002696466.jpg, File:St. Martin's Church, Canterbury, England-LCCN2002696466.tif and File:St. Martins Church Canterbury England.jpg are all the same image. The last one can be removed, but should we only keep the tif version?Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:05, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Splatting all subcategories into a flat page

I've looked high and low for a way to view all photos in all subcategories (including the category itself) and I can't seem to find it. Take Category:Short Skyvan, 9 are available in the base category but a hundred more squirreled into the subcategories, and the only way to get to them is to individually access each category. Is there a way to see them all at once, or should I make an enhancement request to the developers? SilverbackNettalk 05:39, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Template:Potd/2016-04-31

The Picture of the day is missing for April, 31. Maybe, someone forgot that April has 31 days. --Tohaomg (talk) 15:59, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Except ... it does only have 30 days? --Sebari (talk) 16:02, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
um... early April fool's? Secret capitalist plot to skip the 1st of May? Storkk (talk) 18:45, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Buttons dont work anymore

The buttons underneath dont work anymore (for example add category tekst). I can work around with cut and paste but it is frustrating.Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:09, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

These are the so-called Edittools, I suppose. Can you confirm that? No clue why they stopped working though. -- Rillke(q?) 16:31, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
Edittools no longer work for me either. --Jarekt (talk) 17:05, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

This is probably at least partially my fault. I made a change last week to the <charinsert> tag, to no longer use inline event handlers. This is because I'm hoping that eventually Wikimedia will implement Content-security-policy (Still a long way off. mw:Requests_for_comment/Content-Security-Policy isn't even out of draft yet). But I wanted to start by changing extensions that were incompatible with Content-Security-Policy, thus I started submitting patches to remove inline event handlers. Anyways, it looks like my change conflicted with assumptions made by the mediawiki:Edittools.js script. Bawolff (talk) 02:18, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

The script is essentially disabled now, until we found a way to fix it. -- Rillke(q?) 02:23, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
Thanks, the default tools works. ↔ User: Perhelion 02:36, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

The change in question was causing problems on other wikis too, so it was reverted (at least until we figure out what is going on). Sorry for the inconvineance. Bawolff (talk) 11:28, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Replace Gadget-MyUploads with Extension:UploadsLink

For technical reasons and the following benefits, I'd like to replace the default gadget MediaWiki:Gadget-MyUploads.js with mw:Extension:UploadsLink in its default configuration:

  • Better performance. The link is created by the server at the time the page is created by MediaWiki (the server software behind Wikimedia Commons)
  • As the result, the link is not dynamically injected after the page is loaded any longer, which has lead to mis-clicks in the past. E.g. one wanted to open the own talk page but because all links were shifted, one opened the preferences.
  • Proper internationalization with gender support (for female and male uploaders so far). An enquiry that came up recently caused me to start this bureaucratic procedure (yeah 60% of the time you spend reading documents and doing other bureaucratic stuff instead of writing code).
  • The link is available from every page (the gadget isn't loaded e.g. on Special:Preferences for security reasons, some developers say, although it's a blatant lie).
  • Functionality will be otherwise the same.

What exactly do these 2 pieces of software do?

  • Both add a link to the personal uploads listing, within the personal tools menu and one to the Tools-box on user pages and pages that relate to a user.
  • The link target is Special:ListFiles/<user>?ilshowall, essentially the Special:AllMyUploads redirect resolved for the personal one.
  • Extension: The label of the link and the page name are taken from system messages and will be translated at translatewiki.net. Gadget: The traslations are stored within the gadget and add to the already huge JavaScript payload at Wikimedia Commons that makes out pages slow.

Individual opt-out

  • Extension: To disable the feature for yourself, add one of the following snippets to your personal CSS page when the extension arrives at Commons:
For the link within the personal tools
#pt-uploads { display: none; }
For the link in the Tools box
#tb-uploads { display: none; }


Support because

Oppose because

Talk and questions

  •  Question Just for clarification: In the end I still end up at Special:ListFiles/El_Grafo&ilshowall=1 and the proposed change is just a better way of directing me there? Then by all means just do it … --El Grafo (talk) 09:45, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
    • Exactly, you got it. Another difference is that translation will be maintained at Translatewiki.net. From a user perspective, nothing will change, or maybe the contribs link is where the uploads link now is and vice versa but I guess that's okay, too. -- Rillke(q?) 14:04, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Rillke: Be very, very careful here! Although I fully agree with making these improvements, this is precisely the sort of improvement that the Wikimedia Foundation has threatened to revoke rights over. I know that Erik Möller is no longer part of the Foundation (despite still claiming to be its Deputy Director on his user page), but I haven't seen any official withdrawal of that position. You're far too valuable a member of the community to lose over something like this, so please make sure you have our overlords' blessings before proceeding with this. —LX (talk, contribs) 18:49, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

I have to get an overlord's okay in order to get the extension installed, so no worries. The above btw. is part of the bureaucratic procedure that I mentioned above. Certainly, a short notice about the change would have done it for staff when working on one of the prioritized projects, but as a volunteer it is to prove community consensus. Therefore we get a long text to read with a lot of technical details and are polemically talking about former VPoEs. Thanks everyone for commenting. -- Rillke(q?) 20:48, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
This is pretty normal procedures for getting a volunteer-developed extension deployed (ie massive hoop jumping). Erik's statement was not about this sort of thing, actually his statement was kind of about the opposite. (And its pretty unclear if that statement still stands. I doubt the Foundation has the political capital or internal cohesion to pull off a super protect type thing at this juncture in time). Bawolff (talk) 03:53, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
To be honest, establishing consensus to replace a highly used JS tool (which generates just a link) with a php server side script is imho ridiculous. The bureaucratic procedure at phabricator (ex bugzilla) needs a review. --Steinsplitter (talk) 14:41, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
I agree, and it's probably my fault for not letting Rillke know that earlier (c.f. phab:T32915#2113161). Legoktm (talk) 19:24, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
I would like to thank Legoktm for reviewing the extension and helping me getting it deployed. Without this help, it would take much longer than it will take now, which is already long enough. -- Rillke(q?) 23:32, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

API for checking whether a specific picture is already in Commons

I've been discussing potential improvements to the Upload to Commons Android app with folks here while drafting my IEG proposal, and one suggestion that came up (by Revent) was checking for duplicates to prevent contributors from (presumably unintentionally) uploading multiple duplicates of the exact same picture. I'd like to implement this feature, and the best way to do this would be to use an API that says whether a picture (identified by its SHA1 hashcode for instance) is already in Commons or not. We've asked around but haven't managed to find one - does anyone know if such an API exists?

Thanks! Misaochan (talk) 05:29, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

@Misaochan: Go to COM:SHA1 and monitor your browser's requests. The tool computes the SHA1 client-side and checks against all 3 file tables (top revisions [img], overwritten revisions [old image, oi], and deleted [file archive, fa]). -- Rillke(q?) 12:09, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
Of course it would be better to get a visual fingerprint of a file and compare that as opposed to a binary fingerprint. -- Rillke(q?) 12:11, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
The API call does exist and it looks like this: [16]. BMacZero (talk) 18:09, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
Awesome! I have added this feature to my proposal draft, and we will be implementing it if the project is approved. :) Thanks for the help BMacZero and Rillke, and thanks for the suggestion Revent! Misaochan (talk) 07:01, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Redirect on generic license templates

Some (all?) of the generic license templates points to a specific version, like Template:Cc-by-sa which is a hard redirect to Template:Cc-by-sa-1.0, but I think this is wrong. A generic version-less template should point to the latest version available (Special:PrefixIndex/Template:Cc-by-sa) and follow the update cycles. If a user wants a specific version s/he should say so by using the correct template. I would say change all present use of Template:Cc-by-sa into Template:Cc-by-sa-1.0, and let the Template:Cc-by-sa be a smart redirect/transclusion of the latest version. That is as of this writing the latest is Template:Cc-by-sa-4.0.

I noticed this problem at File:Fenrik_Werner_Christie_at_the_wing_of_a_Spitfire_AH-M_BL314.TIF where the source says "CC BY-SA" ("Mer…" → "Regler for gjenbruk"), but when I added the template Template:Cc-by-sa I got Template:Cc-by-sa-1.0 which I believe to be wrong. Digitalarkivet does not ask reusers to use Cc-by-sa-1.0 but Cc-by-sa, which I believe is any version of Cc-by-sa up to the last one, and as such the last one would include all the previous versions of the license. The correct redirect/transclusion would then be to the last valid version of the license. Jeblad (talk) 21:24, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

 Comment Also see {{Cc-by}}. Josve05a (talk) 21:32, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
The problem is that redirect can not be changing otherwise the images using Template:Cc-by-sa would be "relicensed" each time a new CC license comes along. So redirect Template:Cc-by-sa to Template:Cc-by-sa-1.0 is the simplest solution. A better solution would be to run a bot each time a new CC comes along and change all Template:Cc-by-sa to the previous latest CC version and once, Template:Cc-by-sa is no longer used change it to the latest CC version. --Jarekt (talk) 22:41, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
Maybe that redirect should be a generic CC template with parameters that govern which version displays, with "1.0" being the default.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 13:47, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
A CC License version has to be specified, we can't guess which version is intended. So these two templates default to version 1. --Denniss (talk) 19:57, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
 Info {{Cc-by}} doesn't redirect or defaults to a specific version, but is a "slow delete" template Josve05a (talk) 20:01, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
The thing is; when someone doesn't ask for a specific version we can't replace s/his claim for a license with a specific version, the claim is for a generic last valid version. If someone ask for CC-by-sa s/he doesn't ask for CC-by-sa-1.0 or CC-by-sa-4.0, s/he ask for a generic CC-by-sa. To replace the claim wih a specific version and locking it there is simply wrong. Jeblad (talk) 12:03, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

March 12

Enwiki RfC on embedding vs. linking to full-length films/videos

There is a request for comment on the English Wikipedia that may affect or be of interest to some here. My apologies if this is not an appropriate venue (feel free to move/remove if necessary).

The question concerns articles about films/videos for which the full-length work is available on Commons. In such a scenario, should the article embed the video, link to the Commons page in the external links section, or neither?

The discussion and additional context are at: en:Wikipedia talk:Videos#RfC: Full-length films/videos in articles.

Thanks. — Rhododendrites talk |  02:21, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Although my vote doesn't count, I would prefer the use of option B over A or C assuming that the video still displays the same and otherwise renders the information to the reader. Reguyla (talk) 19:31, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
It seems many people have the wrong impression that the video automatically start downloading while reading the article. IMHO, this RfC is complete nonsense. We are in the 21st century where streaming video is a common feature, so an article about a film without the film looks completely ridiculous. Regards, Yann (talk) 00:05, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
@Yann: When I noticed a few parallel discussions on the subject I was also surprised that embedding wasn't an obvious extension of current policies/guidelines/practice. The problem is the original subject under discussion was sexually explicit (en:Debbie Does Dallas). I think that in an effort to take down that video based on its content, people began making much broader arguments about policy. Those arguments then started spreading and we had another RfC at en:A Free Ride, a historically significant but nonetheless sexually explicit film from the 1910s. When I noticed that enwiki's guidelines for video use were woefully underdeveloped, I started this RfC in an effort to divorce the question of typical media usage in articles from content-specific objections/exceptions. Whether it will be successful in doing so is uncertain... — Rhododendrites talk |  19:40, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Category:Things named after the United States

Am I missing something here? Why are there subcategories for things named California, Pennsylvania, etc. ? Shouldn't everything in the category be named some version of United States or America? Rmhermen (talk) 05:11, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Apañado: Those categories are no longer in category Things named after the United States as they are not named after the United States. B25es (talk) 07:40, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
The reason for that, I believe, is due to the volume of things and to improve ambiguity. If someone is looking for something in California, it's better fro it to be there than have to scroll through thousands of pages for all things US to find it. Reguyla (talk) 17:15, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
Category:Things named after places in the United States would make sense but putting them in "Things named after the United States" doesn't. Rmhermen (talk) 00:56, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Wordmark vs logo and file renaming

While trying to resolve "Shadows Commons" situations on enWikipedia (i.e local files which hide Commons files thus making them not usable via InstantCommons) I've encountered some instances where copyrightable logos (e.g ) are stripped of copyrightable elements and then uploaded here as "logos" (here File:Eurogamer logo.svg). I've to wonder if such derivatives can still be called a "logo"; they appear more to be a now as logos are usually used in their original appearance.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 13:45, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Do you have any specific suggestions of how they should be called? Ruslik (talk) 18:41, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
II think such things are usually called "wordmarks".Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 19:07, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

March 13

Lugares de la Guerra Civil Española (1 a 30 de abril de 2016)

In April 2016 a photo contest about the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39 is going to be carried out.
During that month we want to increase the contents in Wikimedia Commons about 371 places related to the conflict. Those places are representative of many different kinds of items: former hospitals, prisoner camps, airfields, coastal defenses, government offices, air raid shelters and many others.
Our list is too short to include every significant place, but we have done our best to provide directions and instructions to reach the places. Some of them are easily found, some others are in unusual places, from a bar terrace to a nudist beach.
And as it is a contest, we have prices. We have opened a registration page here.

B25es (talk) 09:40, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

PD-by

Noticed that File:Camilla Collett 1839.jpg had the license template {{PD-old-100}} and that this license template gives "false" as "AttributionRequired" [17] but this is wrong for Norwegian work of art. Even work of art that is sort of PD must be attributed. They are not PD, but close, they "faller i det fri". It is the same with Swedish and Danish work of art. I think we need something like a "PD-by" which says that even if this piece is old and sort of in public domain you still have to credit it properly.

The relevant law on this

And a lot of existing files must be relicensed, unless someone have a clever way to avoid this. Jeblad (talk) 12:15, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Jeblad, we just ignore this. The PD-art template clearly states this: The official position taken by the Wikimedia Foundation is that "faithful reproductions of two-dimensional public domain works of art are public domain". So no, we're not attributing images because we have to, but because we can. Multichill (talk) 15:32, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
As I said, 'They are not PD, but close, they "faller i det fri".' I have argued previously that marking Norwegian work of art as PD is wrong, they will never be PD but something like CC-by. Note also that an uploader in Norway can't just ignore Norwegian law. That is why we said that we follow the law both in the US and in the country of origin. Jeblad (talk) 15:37, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
I guess artworks from Scandinavian countries should be encouraged to use {{Licensed-PD-Art}} license when possible. The case you mentioned is one of the exceptions to "US and the country of origin" rule that we usually follow. We also do not delete anymore images which are clearly in PD in the country of origin but are somehow copyrighted in the US because of URAA laws. --Jarekt (talk) 16:24, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

March 14

Help

I just removed in bulk using Cat-a-lot several hundred images (maybe 400) from Category:The Biological bulletin thinking I was removing duplicate files from Category:Marine biology as I had placed it in the main Category. How do I get those files back without doing it manually one by one . WayneRay (talk) 01:42, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Problem solved, no need to reply, thanks. WayneRay (talk) 12:13, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Uploading changes

Gotta love it when changes just appear without any advance warning, like the new notice when you click the "Upload a new version of this file". New today, as far as I am aware, is a stern warning that appears below the before discussed useless warning about providing a license,
"File:xxx already exists.
Before overwriting a file, make sure you are familiar with Commons:Overwriting existing files."

Two things, I do not mind it being there, but could it be in the same font as the above license warning, without that danger triangle, without being in a box, and even better, replace the license warning? Whatever happened to the concept of notifying everyone of impending changes? Do you have to notify everyone of every little change? It would be nice.

The license warning is "If you do not provide suitable license and source information, your upload will be deleted without further notice. Thank you for your understanding." And it simply does not apply, because you can never change a license or even provide license information when you are over writing a file. Delphi234 (talk) 03:14, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

I think my first observation is "File:xxx exists"? Did you think I was missing that information? I clicked a link that ONLY exists because a file exists, so of course "File:xxx" exists. I think what the notice should be saying is, "Caution, most files need to remain as is without being over written. Please make sure you are familiar with Commons:Overwriting existing files." Delphi234 (talk) 03:21, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

MediaWiki:uploadtext unfortunately does not know what you have clicked "re-upload". You may have bookmarked an upload link or another wiki sent you there. All it knows that you followed a link that suggests you want to upload to the name which is pre-filled in the text-box. It is therefore necessary to somehow communicate that the file exists at the specified location.
I should really see that I get gerrit:195230 fixed and merged. -- Rillke(q?) 04:30, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
It is a user interface issue. WMF has rammed through tons of lousy user interfaces, and all I am really saying is that if enough people are notified of proposed changes someone will be more likely to point out flaws or glitches. Maybe with a new Executive Director there will be more responsibility. Right now the UI for Wikidata is almost useless, and that is just brushed aside as unimportant. For now I just think the warning is much sterner than it needs to be. Delphi234 (talk) 08:50, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
The message was added by Commons Community. This doesn't mean that I would appreciate if the UI was developed in a way that this wouldn't be necessary or properly solvable at our side. Steinsplitter, maybe you could adjust a few things in the meanwhile? -- Rillke(q?) 16:08, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
I reverted my change. --Steinsplitter (talk) 16:18, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
But why...? I think there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the message; I appreciated that someone thought about it. What about: Before overwriting [[:{{FULLPAGENAME:File:$1}}|a file]], make sure you are familiar with [[Commons:Overwriting existing files|our policy on overwriting existing files]]. -- Rillke(q?) 16:29, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
Just found there was already notice about overriding. It was just technically not working. -- Rillke(q?) 17:12, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
What you have now is excellent. "Please mind our guidelines on overwriting existing files. You agree to publish your upload under the same license as stated on the file description page." Thanks for the prompt response! It would not hurt to make it red though. Delphi234 (talk) 19:38, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
@Delphi234: Please request changes at MediaWiki talk:uploadtext. Personally, I believe the more red and stuff we add, the less our visitors will recognize. Banner and boilerplate blindness. -- Rillke(q?) 20:51, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
It's fine. Delphi234 (talk) 21:17, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-11

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • The mobile web interface no longer suggests HiDPI thumbnails. This is to take up less bandwidth on slow or expensive connections. [18]
  • The search engine on wikipedia.org has been updated. [19]

Changes this week

  • Wikimedia has a new backup data center in Dallas. Because of planned work on this, you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for a short period of time on both 22 March and 24 March. This could be postponed to April 18. You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. Because of a test, there will also be a couple of minutes where you can't edit the wikis on 15 March starting 07:00 UTC. You can read more about the server work. There will be more notifications and updates about this.
  • Administrators and other users with advanced permissions will need to have an 8-byte long passwords. This change takes place on 15 March. Users with too short passwords will be asked to change password the next time they log in. This was decided in a discussion on Meta and is because they can use tools that can hurt the wikis. [20]
  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 March. It will be on all wikis from 17 March (calendar).
  • The buttons in interfaces will be simplified. Instead of white, red, green and blue buttons, in future there will only be white, red and blue ones. [21]

Meetings

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

18:37, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

OTRS review + undeletion needed

Admin and OTRS agent User:Jcb has recently deleted a number of files, despite OTRS permission by the copyright holder having been given in ticket 2015121610021807.

As I explained to Jcb in the OTRS discussion (to which I was CCd, having negotiated their donation), the wording used was that in the box on Commons:Email_templates:

I hereby affirm that I, [redacted], a trustee of [redacted], the creator and/or sole owner of the exclusive copyright of the work in the following files...

Jcb has subsequently rejected my request, on their talk page, to restore the files.

Please will someone review the OTRS permission and undelete the files concerned? Andy Mabbett (talk) 20:26, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

The ticket was not in order and you know that. I clearly explained what was wrong. A ticket is in order if there is a valid permission from the real copyright holder. Pressure from a user should not lead to confirmation of a file if such a valid permission is missing. Jcb (talk) 20:30, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
And I clearly explained why it was right - not least because it uses Commons' own boilerplate text. And it was sent by "the real copyright holder". But I'm not asking you to restate your previous lack of understanding, I'm asking for someone else to review the case. Andy Mabbett (talk) 21:04, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
This should probably be moved to COM:OTRSN since nobody else can see the ticket contents. However, that said, I don't think that the fact that it was Commons' own boiler plate is germane at all. The only question is whether it was sent by the "real copyright holder". In the ticket, I do see an assertion to that effect... this was then questioned, and I don't see a material response. OTRS isn't some kind of incantation where the correct words said in the correct order will open doors, rather you are asking an OTRS agent essentially to vouch for the validity of the license. Of course, you can ask for a second opinion, however now that the issue has been raised and not answered, any future agent will probably also need to see evidence that the organization owns the copyright to all material it publishes in order to vouch for it, and assertions like "other organizations make these types of statements all the time" are really neither here nor there. Storkk (talk) 21:23, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
Not just "other organisations", but "other uploaders". We all assert copyright over our (self-published) uploads. And no, no one is asking an OTRS agent to vouch for anything. Simply to record the assertion made by the copyright holder. Andy Mabbett (talk) 22:32, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
To your second sentence, yes we do, and when that is questioned, then the uploader is asked to provide evidence to OTRS. Your suggestion that the function of OTRS is simply to serve as a rubber stamp is just wrong. Storkk (talk) 00:00, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Is anyone able to help with this, please? Andy Mabbett (talk) 17:43, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

You came to the wrong noticeboard to ask for a second opinion, however an experienced OTRS colleague had a look at the case. But his conclusion was not what you hoped. So now you are waiting of yet another OTRS colleague to have yet another look at this case? Jcb (talk) 17:50, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
Your second clause disproves the first; but you seem to have failed to read what was written above. Andy Mabbett (talk)

New version of File:Ambox notice.png

Low resolution makes this image render poorly on high-DPI/resolution screens

The current iteration of File:Ambox notice.png is very low resolution. This image is used over a large number of Wikis and pages, and as such "Cannot be overwritten" by ordinary users. Instead of replacing each and ever use of the image on other Wikis (hundreds of thousands as far as I'm aware) — I suggest we up the resolution by using a higher resolution png version of the image File:Information icon4.svg. With the advent of modern cell-phone screens and computers with higher resolutions I believe it is important that Wikimedia projects have quality rendered icons. For an example of different uses see the galleries below:

20px
40px
80px
120px
150px

Thanks, CFCF (talk) 13:00, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Something in between would be much better. You have to realize the information content - the letter i, and not distract from that by providing excruciating details about the letter i. What sizes is it being used as? Delphi234 (talk) 16:08, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
Mostly between 20–80px, so I guess we could maybe just use the 80px png thumb. So essentially this file : [22] — which is 25kb — does that seem viable? CFCF (talk) 16:39, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
Noting here that if the local copy is changed, one may want to request an update to en:File:Ambox notice.png and en:File:Imbox notice.png to the higher resolution versions.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 16:58, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
Did you mean this? I would prefer a softening of the edge of the letter, so it is not completely sharp, which tends to be distracting. Delphi234 (talk) 19:47, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
No, I mean the 240px version, which is what the MediaWiki software uses to render a 80px thumbnail. CFCF (talk) 22:41, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
Off-topic
The PNG is superseded, so why using this PNG⁇ ↔ User: Perhelion 21:25, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
Because running a bot to replace all of its uses across 250+ Wikipedia's isn't reasonable. CFCF (talk) 22:39, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
Your topic is the "resolution". So the logic is to increase the size (value on transclusions) but not change the file-type⁇ There is no logic. Have you an example where this icon is bigger than 40px used? I guess there are rather transclusions without image-size (as your first example here), so you can't replace this PNG without destroying some layout. On the other hand, if so, you are also able to replace it with SVG. ↔ User: Perhelion 02:45, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
What are you on about? You fix a bot that can replace each and every use of the icon across 250+ wikis and sure we can use the SVG. Now stop being obstructionist just because you had a dispute with me elsewhere. CFCF (talk) 08:35, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
And for your request here Commons:Toolserver — the first link I clicked on shows the icon at ~50px. CFCF (talk) 08:37, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
┌─────────────────────┘
OT: Why you going off-topic? Why you going ad hominem? I mean this is very irrational (it seems more like you flee from argumentation). On you link the icon is normally 40px. So there must be something like extra communication between Commons and you to solve this (this could be possible, but I'm not sure that really happens). I really don't believe "modern cell-phone screens" have a higher resolution than 2000px as my screen displays it as 40px. Anyway you can't sure the icon is always inserted with size value.
@"What are you on about?" Simply you can't replace this PNG with higher resolution, as I've established above. ↔ User: Perhelion 13:48, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

How to create a deletion request

Where do I make deletion requests? Luke (talk) 21:39, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

  • Typically you start this process from the page of the relevant file. Do you have "Nominate for deletion" among your tools when you are looking at a file page? (Typically near the bottom of the left nav, but it would depend on what skin you are using.) If so, click that on the relevant page, and the rest should be obvious. Otherwise, come back here & someone can walk you through a more tedious older way of doing this. - Jmabel ! talk 21:52, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
  • →Help:Nominate for deletion illustrates what Jmabel explained. But please only use it from the page or content you would like to start a deletion request about. -- Rillke(q?) 22:04, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
Thank you all. Luke (talk) 14:04, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

March 16

Lizenzhinweisgenerator

That tool has been created by people working for WMDE (a Wikimedia chapter); it is open source. Using it, I remembered derivativeFX and how I sometimes miss it. Perhaps someone wants to fork it or finds it otherwise useful. The workflow and questions are well-thought, at least for Creative Commons (CC) licensed files it works. -- Rillke(q?) 12:15, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Translation: "License Note Generator". Delphi234 (talk) 15:23, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
Rillke, click on that page on “Über das Tool“ and you can see that (in the moment?) only CC licenses are supported (we don’t care about the subtlety with CC0 here). This tool should be linked prominently. Regarding forking: Shouldn’t it be enough to get it multi-lingual (perhaps also with an at least english domain name)? --Speravir (Talk) 00:51, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Open call for Individual Engagement Grants

Hey folks! The Individual Engagement Grants (IEG) program is accepting proposals from March 14th to April 12th to fund new tools, research, outreach efforts, and other experiments that enhance the work of Wikimedia volunteers. Whether you need a small or large amount of funds (up to $30,000 USD), IEGs can support you and your team’s project development time in addition to project expenses such as materials, travel, and rental space.

Also accepting candidates to join the IEG Committee through March 25th.

With thanks, I JethroBT (WMF) 23:01, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

March 17

No permission tagging and notification

In Special:Diff/153291382, FDMS4 changed the text of the English version of {{No permission since}} to state that notification no longer is mandatory; deletion is already possible seven days after tagging, and you no longer need to wait until seven days after notification before the file can be deleted. Was there a discussion which resulted in this change? Also, why was it only implemented in the English version of the template? Different language versions of the template now provide different information:

  • Swedish, Italian, Japanese, German, Norwegian and French: You need to wait at least seven days from tagging or notification, whichever is later.
  • English, Dutch and Danish: You need to wait at least seven days from tagging, but the date of notification does not matter.
  • Spanish: The file can be deleted seven days after the date indicated in the template, without any information on how the date in the template is chosen.

I find these differences confusing and I do not see any discussion which lead to these differences in the templates. I discovered this because of a related discussion on English Wikipedia: w:WT:CSD#Why does F11 require notification? --Stefan2 (talk) 22:53, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

@FDMS4: - Jmabel ! talk 00:05, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

I think it is a simple case of trying to simplify the language of the template and loosing important details. I think we should restore the "notification" section. --Jarekt (talk) 02:02, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
Yes, agree that it should be restored. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 15:30, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
✓ Done See Special:Diff/190390473--Jarekt (talk) 16:42, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Note that the text also disappeared from {{No source since}} and {{No license since}} around the same time. The no source template also lacks wikicode to post on the uploader's talk page, making notification difficult for those who do not use automated tools. As in the no permission case, the text was only removed from the English version but is present in other versions such as the Swedish version. --Stefan2 (talk) 23:51, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
I think it also should be restored. Please do it or file {{Edit request}}, with specific changes. --Jarekt (talk) 14:41, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

March 15

Asking for feedback after a complex license review

Hello!

I got some nice stuff on my plate when I took my first ever look at the Flickr review backlog. I think that this edit was right, but I felt somewhat unsure afterwards. So: OK or not OK? Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 22:57, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

I've checked the Flickr uploader and I am not seeing any evidence of Flickrwashing. The provenance of the photography seems plausible to me.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 23:03, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

March 18

Downtime re-scheduled to mid-April

The Wikimedia Technical Operations department is planning an important test of the new "full" data center in Texas. The test will result in about 30 minutes of downtime for all the wikis, including Commons, on two days. This work was originally scheduled for this coming week, but has been postponed until the week of 18 April 2016. The official schedule is kept on Wikitech; more information is at m:Tech/Server switch 2016. More announcements and notifications for editors are planned.

If you experienced problems with the five-minute read-only test on Tuesday, 15 March around 07:05 UTC, or if you have suggestions for places to announce this, then please contact me directly at w:en:User talk:Whatamidoing (WMF). Thanks, Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 01:53, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Upload wizard failing

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T130242

After the description screen has been filled in, I click on Next and then I am returned to the description screen with all the fields still filled-in and no error messages and no NEXT button. There is nothing that can be done to progress the wizard to the final step. I repeated the wizard from the start and exactly the same thing happened. Help! Kerry Raymond (talk) 02:58, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

I have successfully uploaded a number of photos earlier in the day. There was nothing particularly different about the failed one that I can see (a relatively small JPG) sourced from an out-of-copyright old newspaper (the sort of item I often upload). Kerry Raymond (talk) 03:00, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

What is the intended file name? Delphi234 (talk) 04:18, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
The file name is Remember Belgium.jpg - no weird characters. 05:14, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
A file with that name was uploaded in 2009. Are you getting the error "A file with this name exists already. If you want to replace it, go to the page for File:Remember_Belgium.jpg and replace it there." Delphi234 (talk) 05:25, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
Other images are now uploading OK so maybe it was a temporary glitch or maybe it's just that file.Kerry Raymond (talk) 05:27, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
OK, I tried to load the Remember Belgium.jpg file again. Exactly the same behaviour as before AND absolutely no error message of any kind. But at least it seems we have pinned down the bug to the case where the file name is already in use. I tried to rename the file in the Description screen which causes the "barber poll" effect on that text box as I type in other titles but doesn't cause a NEXT button to appear to progress things. Kerry Raymond (talk) 05:36, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
It sounds like an operating system specific glitch in the warning generator. Try renaming the file on your computer to something else, like <>Remember Belgium 2.jpg<> (note:your operating system might hide the .jpg part) and try uploading it like that. Normally when the same filename error occurs you can just provide a different filename and upload Remember Belgium.jpg from your computer to Remember Belgium 2.jpg. If it is operator system specific, you will need to let someone know. If it is just not noticing the warning that is there and does allow uploading as Remember Belgium 2.jpg from Remember Belgium.jpg on your computer, then it is just a user interface issue. Are we making the warning obvious enough? Delphi234 (talk) 15:21, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for the bug report, I'll look into it. Filed as phab:T130242. Matma Rex (talk) 18:45, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
@Kerry Raymond: I can't reproduce this issue locally either. Can you send me a copy of this file too? You can email it to matma.rex@gmail.com or upload it at https://www.dropbox.com/request/HHhmjsHAoveZjEtHzQV9. By the way, what is the browser and operating system you're using (I think it's something specific to the file and not browser/OS, but it never hurts to know)? Matma Rex (talk) 18:56, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Book template yes, but is there a book namespace that hooks up with books on Wikidata the way creators & artworks do?

Hi I was fiddling around with the book template here: Category:Women Painters of the World and couldn't get the wikidata item for the book to show up, though I now see a reasonator link. Never worked on a book before like this, though I have created several book categories that match up to Wikidata book items. Is there a book namespace? Thx in advance. --Jane023 (talk) 10:06, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

YOu can look here for some template help Category:Navigational templates I have templates for books by year and pdf files by year and book covers by year that User:Butko created for me. Hope this helps. Also Books to be categorized by year incorporates both books by country and booke by year so for exampls 1876 books should be added in the catalog bar at the bottom as 1876 books from Germany (for example) it will then automatically show up in 1876 books and Books from Germany by year. I will adjust your 1905 one to show. WayneRay (talk) 13:27, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
Interesting, thanks! Looking at, for example, the template Template:BookNaviBar it seems that this is something that might correspond with Wikisource, whereas I was looking more for something like Template:Book that would behave regarding Wikidata in the same way as the Template:Creator does. When you open a creator template you see this: "Creator page template, created by filling parameters of {{Creator}}, is intended for author/artist field of {{Information}}, {{Artwork}}, {{Art Photo}} and {{Book}} templates". The artwork template accepts the "|Wikidata=Q2300xxxx" form and I was hoping to see this in the information template (but that is reserved for the Commons Structured Data project) and book template. That's why I was asking. --Jane023 (talk) 14:05, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
Found this and added the template as it was empty. Was it yours? Category:Woman of the Century WayneRay (talk) 23:18, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Category:Transparent pixels

Couldn't these 14 duplicate images be merged into three (1 gif, 1 png and 1 svg)? Or even less of them (ideally 1 svg, but I know it is too much controversial). --Dvorapa (talk) 22:54, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

March 19

Copyvio or not ?

Hi everyone. I was wondering something. Isn't there a risk of copyvio when we take pictures of films sets or film costumes, especially when they are shown in a museum, but also when people dress as a film character (cosplay) ? Of course, we have plenty of that kind of files in Category:Film sets and Category:Film costumes. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 08:59, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

Any helpful guidance in COM:CB? --Túrelio (talk) 09:04, 19 March 2016 (UTC)
@Túrelio: Indeed it helps, thanks. And I guess we have many files for which we may launch DRs... :-( --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 16:17, 19 March 2016 (UTC)
@TwoWings: -- Clothing as clothing is considered "utilitarian" or "functional" and so is uncopyrightable under United States law (which is why ready-to-wear clothing manufacturers can make knock offs of couture clothes), though art printed or painted on the clothing could be copyrightable. Ordinary household goods are much the same (see "Utility items" on the linked page). AnonMoos (talk) 01:54, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

Tenth Picture of the Year in preparation

Hi there, the Picture of the Year 2015 is in preparation. Since it is the tenth POTY, we wonder whether there are ideas how to make it greater or what we could do differently this year. Please feel invited to list yourself, if your time permits, as a committee member or help to make the contest great by wiki-gnoming. -- Rillke(q?) 11:46, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

Norwegian comments

In File talk a Norwegian comment was added. When I translate in English by Google translate I get: (This is not the last regular tour with such carriages , however rental driving after wagon type was taken out of regular service . A few of the 600 carts were used as charter wagons after they had stopped going that route wagons.) The Norwegian comment cannot transferred directly to the file page as the existing english text first has to translated to Norwegian. The english translation can be added to the english commentary (except for the last sentence wich has to be adjusted)Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:58, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

Automatically make links using Wikidata?

Is it possible to automatically make links to Wikipedia articles using Wikidata?

Let's say a template looked something like this: {{template|Q34|en}} and it created a link to the article about Sweden (Q34 in wikidata) on English Wikipedia. That would also make it possible to do {{template|Q34| {{int:lang}} }} (that automatically makes the last parameter the language the user is using on Commons (for you it's en)). -abbedabbtalk 14:52, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

Arbitrary access to Wikidata on Commons is not yet enabled. :/ --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 15:53, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

March 20

No FoP in France? It can't believe it!!!!

fr: Bonjour.

Je n'ai pas lu tout ce qui se passe ici depuis quelques jours, mais je suppose que tout le monde est au courant qu'il ya une pétition et un mouvement "rebel" qui nous invite à relayer/signer la pétition contre cette loi qui interdit la liberté de panorama en France (et dans d'autres pays) et nous invite aussi à verser des photos, après avoir masqué les créations incriminées, sur Commons, à cet endroit.

La question qui me tracasse est : pouvons-nous reverser des photos qui ont été supprimées pour le motif "no FoP in France", en ayant masqué la partie non FoP ?

Cette question est aussi sur le Bistrot Commons.

Bonne fin de semaine. --LW² \m/ (Lie 2 me ...) 00:44, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

en: Hi!

If you're not up to date... We have a petition to be relayed/signed (in French) here and a place in Commons to upload censured pictures to show how ridiculous it is to let this law rule our photographer's life...

The thing scratching my mind is : can we re-upload pics that have been deleted for "no FoP in France", after blacking the no-FoP creation?

Sorry for my bad English but I'm French lol. --LW² \m/ (Lie 2 me ...) 00:44, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

 Ghouston for the link. Of course the monument will be blacked out... --LW² \m/ (Lie 2 me ...) 03:20, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

My block on IRC

I just got confirmation that the global block that was unfairly placed on my account in IRC by RD will not be lifted for this channel. Apparently the Commons ops decided they did not want me to be able to access the channel. I never really felt all that welcome here anyway since the lies and hyperbole about me led to me getting banned on ENWP but now it's good to know how this community feels about my participation. Since a lot of discussion on commons issues happens in IRC I probably won't be editing much here anymore. Cheers! Reguyla (talk) 17:34, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

@Reguyla: I think it's more accurate to say that the ops in the commons IRC channel simply 'cannot' do so... we can only edit bans on the -commons channels, and you are not banned in them. The only way for us to change it would be to 'unban' all users banned in #wikimedia-bans, and that would clearly be a rather bad idea (and would not stick). I am unaware of any decision to, or even discussion of, a ban against you in the commons channel... my impression was, when it was once discussed, that regulars don't think you should be. Reventtalk 02:00, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply. Since my ban was done as a global IRC ban, that affects the Commons channels as well. So its not that it was implemented by someone in commons, it was implemented by RD as a gobal ban on all (or almost all) IRC channels. As it was told to me, if a community wanted to unblock a member the global ops would have to do so. I was also informed that a discussion was held on IRC and the decision was that I not be unblocked on the channel. Which is unfortuate but I wished someone had told me instead of finding out second hand which is what pissed me off more than anything else. Reguyla (talk) 03:46, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
As far as I'm aware (as someone who has set up a couple of related channels and is an op for a couple of them) there is no community agreed process for how a channel community can establish a consensus for bans. Consequently if there was a discussion (which presumably has no record of having occurred) then all that establishes is the opinions of a few individuals that happened to be hanging out on the IRC channel at that moment. There is also, as far as I'm aware, no consensus agreement as to how ops, Wikimedia staff or people with other roles should limit their rights or document bans. I'd be happy to be set right if policies have been established with a verifiable consensus over the last few years and I've not stayed up to date. I'm vaguely aware that some WMF staff seem to believe that they have authority over IRC channels, but I don't think there is a reference list of channels anywhere, nor is there any legal rationale that forces authority, nor records of a community agreement to hand over control of channels like #wikimedia-commons to the WMF. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 12:10, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
User:Fae as an aside if you see this. Your Bot Script is dumping (or placing) Seed Catalogs in different Books by year categories. Please dump them all in Cat:Seed catalogs. I have to send them over there then resort. Sorry for the interuption in the discussion WayneRay (talk) 22:30, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
Well there may or may not be policy, but RD took it upon himself to ban me from all but a couple of the WMF related channels including the one for commons just the same. I am also not arguing that the decision to not allow me to participate in the commons channel was based on the opinions of a couple people logged in there at the time. Personally I don't think RD has the authority to do it and have stated as such and even complained about it in the past. Nothing was done and no one really cares so he remains able to do anything he wants. It's really not a big deal. People don't want me to edit because I have been outspoken that admins on ENWP should have to follow the rules. That's why I was banned there. It's no surprise that people here, who also edit there, would not want me to be able to edit commons or participate in IRC. Reguyla (talk) 14:08, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
@Fæ and Revent: If the community here indeed agrees that I am welcome in the Commons IRC channel then we can go to one of the IRC ops or on Meta and ask for my access to the channel to be restored. If the community says it's ok then IMO they would be hard pressed to disallow it on their own volition. If you all don't want me there then just say so and I just won't be able to edit here much. It's up to you though either way. I can't do anything about it if you all don't want to tell the IRC ops I am welcome there. Reguyla (talk) 21:35, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

I've asked for feedback on #wikimedia-commons (@23:24 UK time). We'll see if there is anything like a consensus there either way. I'll keep a (personal) log of it overnight, unless my account drops out, and we can see if any of the powerful IRC overlords want to pay attention to this type of local consensus or not. --Fæ (talk) 23:31, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Ok thank you Fae, I appreciate the help. Reguyla (talk) 01:32, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

There was neither no discussion nor consensus for the jbans to be placed on -commons...enwiki arbs have no rights on other wiki or dictate who should be banned on other channels..there is and there never will be a policy on global bans on IRC and if one does come to pass, it will be in the hands of the WMF Staff and Stews to control, not IRCops or IRC GCs who themselves should have no actual rights outside on enwiki or #-en related channels..ironic how the lack of 'transparency' in this has gone from the BoT, to wmfstaff to now the IRC GC's and IRCops...what next? blocking ppl on other wikis just because they are blocked on enwiki....oh wait...... WMF's 'newish' policy on harassing and banning its own contributors would be its own downfall one day..mark my words..--Stemoc 02:40, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

That was part of my complaint about RD before to Barras who doesn't care to do anything. Unfortunately they are both in virtually unlimited control of IRC and neither is disposed to undo my block on any IRC channels. With most channels it's not that big of a deal because their deader than a doornail anyway. Commons is a bit different though in that a lot of discussion does occur there. Since I was under the impression I was still welcome to contribute on Commons, I thought I would raise the issue here. Of course all of this is just collateral damage due to my abusive ban on ENWP that should have never been allowed and only remains out of spite and to send a message to the community. But that's another matter that won't be resolved here. Reguyla (talk) 02:54, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
Okay, here's the current situation after flagging a discussion about your block on-channel. There have been some past discussions (which I have not seen) about your block and questions about how an "unblock" can technically work just for the one channel (using +e, though I have no understanding whether this is a difficult technical thing or not). It seems that there is no agreed way of appealing an IRC block, so you writing on this Village pump is as valid as any other method, though in future you might want to take it up on your personal talk page and ping interested parties by email. Here's my suggestion for your "appeal" - If you are unblocked on #wikimedia-commons but then fail to stick to Commons matters and fall back into soapboxing about Wikipedia and other non-Commons issues, then you should expect bans to apply for a month and then increasing periods before you can appeal again. This has an advantage for you as the blocked party as you know it is time-limited and a fair procedure and it gives any on-channel aggrieved parties the sense that something is being done to ensure that perceived disruption to the purpose of the channel has consequences. Generally people will accept that permanent bans without the possibility of appeal should be avoided. It was also mentioned that you have been banned and unbanned a few times and this seemed to not change your use of the channel (I'm just relating the comment, I have not seen the background to support it). It was also quoted that "He has disrupted chanops with questions about his enwp-ban in this channel", certainly that sort of thing is off-topic for the channel, so please recognize that you can not and should not use the #wikimedia-commons (or this project) to have a go about how unfair your treatment elsewhere might have been.
Reguyla, I'm reading the above thread as an IRC #wikimedia-commons unblock request. If you formally accept the conditions that you will only use the channel for "Commons matters" and accept that if you stray from that you will be subject to blocks, you may have a chance of being unblocked (so write out your understanding in this thread to make it formal). To make this happen in the absence of a documented procedure for appeals, I suggest some IRC 'names' chip in to this village pump thread with clear 'okays' or 'no-ways'. I'm happy to see you unblocked in the channel on the above condition, as it fits my sense of natural justice and transparency, however I would like to see, say, @Bastique: or @Odder: and maybe @Josve05a: comment here to make this look like a de facto appeal in the absence of a community agreed procedure or policy for how to go about it. --Fæ (talk) 14:05, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
@Fæ: Thanks, that sounds fair although I suspect RD or someone will find some petty reason to block me again. But it's worth a try. Really I shouldn't have been blocked at all so I feel like I am being forced into compromising on an agreement that the other party (not you) has no intention of upholding. Personally I think more effort should be focused on building content and writing encyclopedia's than in enforcing bans like mine that shouldn't even be in place at all because they embarrass some of the admins on ENWP and they don't want them discussed in public venues. Reguyla (talk) 18:20, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for the kind ping, @Fæ, however as I have no advanced privileges on IRC, I feel that I am unable to help in this situation other than comment in my capacity as a (ir)regular member of the IRC channel. I believe @Reguyla's block has been discussed quite extensively in the past, including by myself, but as both of us have no influence whatsoever over anything happening on IRC, this was effectively ignored (multiple times even). odder (talk) 21:15, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Per Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems#De-adminship straw poll it appears Reguyla is incapable of not using every possible forum to soapbox about Wikipedia and their "unfair" treatment there (e.g. "my situation on ENWP that only exists because people there want to create disruption out of nothing"). I suggest this request be denied and furthermore admins consider whether the threat of escalating blocks proposed by Fae be extended to Reguyla activity Commons. -- Colin (talk) 18:19, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Ok, First I shouldn't even be blocked in IRC to begin with. Secondly, I just wanted to see if I was even welcome to participate in this community and this discussion has at least shown that I am...at least by most. So I have continued to edit.
Colin I am trying to be patient with you but really you are trying my patience. Your attempts to constantly bring my ban into every situation is really annoying. I made a reference to ENWP's multiple venues. I didn't mention my ban until you did. Please stop attempting to derail discussions. I'm not sure what your motivations are, but it's really starting to get annoying. It's not bad enough I have to deal with people on ENWP trying to manipulate and disrupt every discussion to try to blame me for, I don't need you doing it here as well so please stop. If you cannot stop bringing my ban up every time I mention something on ENWP I am going to ask that you be blocked for disruption. Reguyla (talk) 18:40, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
I didn't mention the ban. Not at all. Ok, given the "I have to deal with people on ENWP trying to manipulate and disrupt every discussion to try to blame me for" comment, I now propose an immediate one month block on Commons. -- Colin (talk) 19:37, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
Of course you did Colin, I didn't bring it up at all until you did. Also there is nothing to block me for other than responding to your disruption and harassment. Now stop and go find something constructive to do for once rather than instigating because if anyone needs to be blocked on here Colin it's you. Reguyla (talk) 20:04, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

@Fæ: Greetings Fæ, I just wanted to see if there was any decision on this yet? I tried to access the IRC channel last night and it still didn't work so I assume no change has been made. Reguyla (talk) 19:07, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

There is no special objection to you rejoining the channel. It will take one of the 'names' mentioned to actually go ahead. I suggest you try emailing one of the contacts. --Fæ (talk) 22:57, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
Ok I'll see if I can find one thanks. Reguyla (talk) 00:24, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
@Fæ: No one seems to either know how or have the desire to unblock my account on IRC. I'm not even sure who is the right person to ask so I left a message at Meta for on the IRC Group talk page. Maybe someone will act on it but probably not. As long as Barras and RD are in absolute control it's unlikely anyone will do anything out of fear or retribution. Reguyla (talk) 16:43, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
Just FYI, I dropped a note on Meta asking for one of the IRC Ops to unlock me from commons and Barras and RD both told me, in no uncertain terms, that the commons community does not have the authority to unblock me and its their decision and discretion to keep me blocked there. Barras did state that there are commons ops who have access to do it and if they need to know they should look it up on Freenode. Sooo, if any IRC ops want to figure out how, great, otherwise Barras and RD get their way I guess and I am just as disappointed and frustrated with this one sided, unfair, unscrupulous and abusive system as I can possibly be. Reguyla (talk) 01:59, 19 March 2016 (UTC)
Ignore them, You are NOT banned on commonswiki and if those 2 idiots think the community has no say on who is allowed on that channel, then they should not be allowed to moderate that channel.. funny how they use "IRC=!Wiki" when it suits them....I say, come on IRC, use a proxy for all i care.. You are neither globally banned on Wikimedia NOR blocked on commons so there is NO REASON WHATSOEVER that you cannot come to just ONE F**KING IRC Channel...Freenode's new jbans was an idiotic move, no wonder all their staff ran away..it seems to be run by the same idiots running WMF.. (lol)...heck even russavia moves freely across the channels and he isn't even allowed anywhere near the project....I like how WMF knows how to screw people who follow the policies but is incapable of controlling those that don't ...I wonder if this is why Darth Vader went to the dark side? ...There was no transparency WHATSOEVER in your banning, no community input either so as far as i can see, You are very much allowed on -commons (just commons, I accept that you should not enter #-en or #wikipedia as u are technically blocked on enwiki even though its a dumb block but hey, dumb ppl make the rules, we just follow it... #GOTRUMP)--Stemoc 03:19, 19 March 2016 (UTC)
For the most part I do ignore them and I have stated openly that neither Barras nor RD should have any authority of IRC based on their past. It's not a coincidence that RD is the one that did the global block since I criticized him openly on wiki. It looks like I am going to have to just use a proxy to get on IRC I guess. I tried to avoid it but if clowns like Barras and RD are going to be allowed to force their influence on others then I guess that's what I have to do. Cheers! Reguyla (talk) 13:51, 19 March 2016 (UTC)
Well I tried asking the IRC ops to unblock me on the commons channel on Wiki and in IRC. In both cases I was told that they don't have to follow WMF policy, that they do not have to abide by community decisions and that even if they did the commons ops can unblock me if they want too. So, if the commons ops don't want to unblock me then that's fine, but its pretty obvious that the Alex, RD and the other group ops don't have enough respect for this community or WMF policy to unblock me based on this discussion. Reguyla (talk) 17:47, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

March 05

Commons upload failing

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T130238
RESOLVED
Tracked in Phabricator
Task T130204
RESOLVED

I am trying to upload a 24M TIFF file. Normally it takes a number of minutes to upload. Today it uploaded in seconds. Strange. However, I proceed with adding the Source, etc, and then when I have finished the Title/Description etc, I click on Next and get

Unknown warning: "emptyfile, stashfailed".

The file looks fine on my computer (opens in photo tools and looks like I expect it to look). I have repeated the upload a few times and the error persists (as does the unusually fast upload). What is the problem here? I have tried changing the file name but the problem persists. Kerry Raymond (talk) 07:31, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Ditto. --21lima (talk) 09:57, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
Are you using Upload Wizard? I see a new deployment happened today, so likely a software change. "stashfailed" is very likely related to chunked uploading --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 10:03, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
Yes. --21lima (talk) 10:31, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
I selected "Back to the old form" and was able to upload. --21lima (talk) 10:35, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
@Rillke and Matma Rex: maybe you guys can find out why this is happening? --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 11:22, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
I thought this is some javascript error, but it is not. Reported on phab:T130204 --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 13:02, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
Upload Wizard is out of my support. It's been in the state of brokenness since it was introduced. 40 hours of volunteer time spend is enough. Please report any issue to Phabricator. -- Rillke(q?) 13:03, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
Hey, I'll look into it. The issue reported by Zhuyifei1999 seems to be yet another thing, so I filed another one. Thanks for the detailed bug report. Matma Rex (talk) 18:42, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
phab:T130204 (thumbnails of large files and SVGs not working in UploadWizard) should be resolved now. Matma Rex (talk) 23:55, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
@Kerry Raymond: I tried to reproduce your issue a few times and I'm not getting this error. Perhaps there's something weird about the specific file you're trying to upload – can you send it to me? You can email it to me at matma.rex@gmail.com or upload it through https://www.dropbox.com/request/Py854hq6b3Kp1jkHpEsI (you can use 'example' for firstname/lastname and 'example@example.com' for email). Matma Rex (talk) 18:28, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
I have the same problem as Kerry (but not the fast uploading!). I had it Wednesday and Thursday and I have just tried again and I am still getting it. Everything works fine until the last stage after putting in the description and category, and when I try to complete the upload I get a message "Unknown warning: "emptyfile, stashfailed"." I am trying to upload 6 pdfs. As it seems to be related to the recent software update, could this be reversed to go back to the version which works? Dudley Miles (talk) 18:53, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
@Dudley Miles: If this happens consistently for specific file(s), please send them to me and I'll try to find out why. Right now I don't even know what is broken and would need to be reverted. There don't seem to have been any changes to MediaWiki itself that last week that look relevant, perhaps something on the backend was upgraded recently, but this doesn't seem to be the case either. I doubt that we can get any fixes/reverts deployed today, anyway (no one likes when you break things on a Friday). Matma Rex (talk) 19:10, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
Many thanks Matma Rex. I have emailed them to you - please advise any problems with the email. I can also email you a screen print of the failure message if that would help. Dudley Miles (talk) 20:07, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
@Dudley Miles: Please do, a screenshot is always helpful. I've received your email. Matma Rex (talk) 20:29, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
Matma Rex: Same issue with me (and with Uoaei1 and Malopez 21). It is really painful because the problem appears at the very last step of the upload process (during publishment) and my batch of files take a while to upload. I tried to upload a batch of 26 and 16 failed. Among them were 10 panoramas of ~ 25 MB and none made it, but there are also smaller files of ~ 10 MB that got the same issue. --Poco2 18:00, 19 March 2016 (UTC)
Have the same problem when the files are larger than 10 MB. Smaller ones cause no problem. --ManfredK (talk) 07:28, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
This should be resolved now, there was a bug in the upload backend that caused "async" uploads not to work, and UploadWizard uses this option for files bigger than 10 MB (see phab:T130238#2137290 for details). I've just disabled this for now (UploadWizard will use non-async upload for all files for now) until I can get a proper patch deployed after the weekend. Uploads of big files might be less reliable until then. Matma Rex (talk) 07:51, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
@Kerry Raymond, 21lima, and Dudley Miles: @Poco a poco, Uoaei1, Malopez 21, and ManfredK: Pinging you in case you're not watching this thread. You should be able to upload the files now. (Please say if it's not working!) Thanks for reporting this problem – wasn't UploadWizard's fault this time :) Matma Rex (talk) 08:28, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
Great. I have just uploaded 18 files. Thanks for your help. Matma Rex. Dudley Miles (talk) 11:07, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
It is working again for me now, I just uploaded bigger files, no issue. Thank you! Poco2 12:01, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
It is now working for me. The file upload took the usual several minutes. Thanks to everyone who helped! Kerry Raymond (talk) 00:50, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Carpathian Mountains vs Mountains of the Carpathians‎‎...

Hello.

Was sorting some pics of Category:Carpathian Forest‎‎ and I found Category:Carpathian Mountains‎ and Category:Mountains of the Carpathians‎‎... I'm not sure but don't we have some "double" with these 2 cats ?

Thanks to who'll correct that. --LW² \m/ (Lie 2 me ...) 14:22, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Carpathian Mountains is a mountain range, while Mountains of the Carpathians‎‎ is for individual mountains (mainly collected in individual categories) of that range. Compare to Mountains of the Alps‎ and Alps. But there are not that many individual mountain categories in the carpathian mountains … Consider the mountain range as a region with all the geography, the settlements, the nature, the lakes, the mountain passes … and , well, the individual mountains. --Herzi Pinki (talk) 23:22, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks a lot @Jmabel: , @Martinvl: , @Herzi Pinki: . --LW² \m/ (Lie 2 me ...) 14:32, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

Category:Images for cleanup

Hello.please add the method of work on these categories.I do not know only "Images requiring rotation" and "Images with borders".Thank you --ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2 (talk) 07:22, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

I don't understand what you're trying to say. Can you make it more clearer? Thanks, ★ Poké95 07:47, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
@Pokéfan95: How can I work on these categories? --ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2 (talk) 08:16, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
See Commons:CropTool for removing borders. Rotation is entirely handled by a bot, so there is nothing you can do to help out. - Jmabel ! talk 18:26, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
The user are not asking how remove borders and rotate, the user is asking what should be done in the other categories. Is there some page that describes what needs to be done in each single category?
In some categories there is a description on the category page that tells something about it. /Hangsna (talk) 20:52, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
I don't know what the user has access too but there are always a lot of images that need to be renamed, borders cropped and categories added. If any of these interest the user I would be happy to provide some links to some to help. Reguyla (talk) 21:38, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

March 21

Unsplash: a case of license review

Unsplash is a website that features selected «high resolution» photos licensed in CC-0. We have some of their stuff in Commons: The normal process is to uload each photo and ask for license review by adding {{Unsplash}}{{CC-zero}}{{License Review}} to the new file page; a licence reviewer will confirm it later on, as usual.

Recently, however, {{CC-zero}} was hardcoded by @Jarekt: into Template:Unsplash, making the process speedier, but leaky. Anyone can now add {{Unsplash}} to any new upload and presto, no verification needed. And mechanism that track undue use of licence tags will miss this, as {{CC-zero}} is transcluded.

So, is this okay? Is is okay to transclude licence tag templates into mere source tag templates? Is is okay to exclude Unsplash images from the LR process?

-- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 02:57, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Template:Unsplash does say file is released under CC-zero, and when used without {{CC-zero}} it was showing up as no-license, so I added {{CC-zero}} to {{Unsplash}} as they always should be together. You still need {{License Review}} to verify that image come from the website. --Jarekt (talk) 03:16, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
License review is still needed, not only to verify that the image come from the website, but that Unsplash is also a photo sharing website. Unsplash can be used for license laundering. ★ Poké95 03:55, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

2014 RfC for the Media Viewer

On wikimedia-l, the 2014 RfC at Commons:Requests for comment/Media Viewer software feature is being used to ask the WMF to turn off the Media Viewer on Commons for logged out users: see [23] and the ensuing thread. Is this 2014 RfC still representative of community consensus, or does this need reconsidering? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:29, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

And someone let the same mindset see as with the hostility against the community in the superprotect disaster: Fuck the community, ignore the rules, act just with might. But perhaps it was just sarcasm. --Sänger (talk) 20:43, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
As an anonymous visitor, it was sometimes useful and sometimes nasty, depending what I wanted to do. As a logged-in user, it was almost always nasty. The discussion starts here. -- Rillke(q?) 20:45, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
Please shut it off for everyone. I am often logged out and always find it annoying and frustrating. This is just a long ago made decision that simply needs to be implemented. Delphi234 (talk) 22:06, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
I like Media Viewer on wikipedia but it makes no sense on Commons. --Jarekt (talk) 02:07, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
Incentive to register then, so someone can use media viewer. But I think even on the wikis the choice was to not have it be the default. Delphi234 (talk) 02:57, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
I feel the Media Viewer creates more problems than it solves -- primarily, in that it presents millions of pages with no hint whatsoever that the viewer is invited to "edit" or improve the pages. It also fails to convey important information in various specific cases; it was built on the assumption that there is more structure and consistency in Commons images than there actually is.
I think a new RFC would be needed before this could be considered significant consensus. However, I am not sure there is a pressing need to start a new RFC right now, relative to other concerns. I would rather see some clarity on the WMF's intentions relating to Superprotect, and some discussion about how software development will be approached going forward; the reasons to disable MediaViewer for anonymous Commons users is less pressing than those related issues, in my view. -Pete F (talk) 03:20, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
My understanding is that superprotect is gone and the person who thought it up as well. Delphi234 (talk) 05:03, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
Media Viewer is making Wikimedia Commons itself unusable. Please turn this stuff off for logged-out users. --Steinsplitter (talk) 11:17, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
See Superprotect is gone, mw:WMF product development process. --Malyacko (talk) 12:42, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
Yes, it is still representative. No, it does not need reconsidering. —LX (talk, contribs) 18:51, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
WTF? This is still enabled by default for logged out users? It's probably a nice thing on most of the sister projects, but it doesn't make any sense on Commons. --El Grafo (talk) 09:19, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
I agree that Media Viewer makes no sense on commons. It is confusing as hell for readers, that there is both a Wikipedia-MediaViewer AND a Commons-MediaViewer, and they both look the same and appear to be the same. Please disable MediaViewer for IPs too. --Atlasowa (talk) 21:41, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Seriously how do we get someone to get rid of it today? It is annoying as all get out, especially when logged out. 123.123.123.123 20:16, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

House in the bridge

Does anyone know what the function of the building is? Smiley.toerist (talk) 15:08, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

It looks like the work hut for the railway workers on the Firth of Forth Bridge. WayneRay (talk) 19:05, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
Yes I just saw it on Google Earth. It is a massive bridge.WayneRay (talk) 19:09, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

حق انتشار اثر خودم!!!

تصویری که خودم آن را ساختم و با مجوز خودم و به دست خودم بارگذاری شده برچسب حذف خورده. دو روز پیش این اتفاق افتاد و من توضیح دادم و مسئله رفع شد ولی امروز باز این اتفاق افتاده! و من نمی‌دونم چطور دیگه باید اثبات کنم که این اثر مال خودم هست؟ حیرت آوره--Alifatehighahfarokhi (talk) 15:36, 21 March 2016 (UTC)


Translation: The right to publish my work !!!

The picture that I made it myself and with my permission and I've eaten tag has been loaded. Two days ago this happened and I explained the problem was solved, but today it happened again! And I do not know how I got to prove that this work is mine? Vrh-- wonder Delphi234 (talk) 01:15, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

My guess is this movie poster needs to be moved to the wikis because commons has no fair use images. Delphi234 (talk) 01:17, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Crowdfunding campaign (update)

Hi everyone. I would like to update you with regards to this campaign (direct link) for one of our contributors, photographers, and administrators, User:Rehman. Since the campaign's launch about a month ago, we managed to raise $222; $1,378 short of the goal. At the current average of $27, the goal can be achieved if we're able to reach out to another 50 contributors. But our small contact circles are pretty much exhausted. Hence I think it is important, for the sake of the campaign's success, to ask for your support by sharing it with your contacts (on social media, mailing lists, talkpages, wherever). Thank you, Azeeztalk 15:41, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

for Rehman Delphi234 (talk) 04:24, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-12

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Problems

  • Wikimedia has a new backup data center in Dallas. The Wikimedia Technology department planned to test it this week. This will take place the week of April 18 instead. You can read more about the server work. There will be more notifications and updates about this.
  • In Firefox, the visual editor would sometimes just jump down to the bottom of the page when you double-clicked on a table cell. This has now been fixed. [24]

Changes this week

  • It will now be easier to list IP addresses that don't have to solve CAPTCHAs. [25]
  • You will now be able to mark Echo notifications as unread. [26]
  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 21 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 March. It will be on all wikis from 23 March (calendar).

Meetings

  • You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 22 March at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

  • URLs in the recent changes IRC feed will no longer be rewritten to unencrypted HTTP. This could be a breaking change for bots dependent on the IRC feed. This will happen on May 2. [27]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:04, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Hi, a minor correction: The MediaWiki deployment dates are March 22–24, not 21–23. My apologies. /Johan (WMF) (talk) 08:13, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Arbitrary access from Wikidata

Hi, This has been implemented on Beta Commons, and needs testers before being live on Commons. See phab:T49930 and phab:T98307. Regards, Yann (talk) 20:29, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

@Yann: Thanks Yann. So, just wondering here, but does this now mean that Wikidata will contain an entry for every file? Or is this specific to Categories and other namespaces already in use? Reguyla (talk) 00:30, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
That will allow to link information directly to Wikidata, i.e. in Creator and Institution templates. If I understand it correctly, an entry for every file will be implemented later. Regards, Yann (talk) 08:24, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
@Reguyla: My understanding is that it is not intended for Wikidata to ever have an object for every file on Commons, but instead to eventually add an instance of wikibase (the server extension itself) to the Commons copy of MedaiWiki so that we can use it for file metadata locally. Objects for the vast majority of Commons files would not be 'in scope' on Wikidata. Reventtalk 13:53, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
Ok thanks, I actually agree with that. It would be pretty pointless IMO to include all the images. Reguyla (talk) 13:55, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
Finally! Hopefully I can find some time to try this out. BMacZero (talk) 04:20, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

March 22

Adding Templates

Category:Navigational templates I have navigational templates created or at least provided to me by User:Butko for my work in all the book related Categories. How to I get them included on the above Main Category? Here is what I have already. Are they located some where else that I don't know of? WayneRay (talk) 16:18, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Coding supplied by User:Butko
  • {{CatAZ}}|Category in Alphabet listing (already exists)
  • {{Bookcoversyear|160|0}}|Book covers by year
  • {{Books in PDF by year|160|0}}|Books in PDF by year
Books automatically appear in both Books by year and Books by country by year
  • {{Books from Australia by year|160|0}}|Books from Australia by year
  • {{Books from the Netherlands by year|160|0}}|Books from the Netherlands by year
  • {{Books from Germany by year|160|0}}|Books from Germany by year|160|0
  • {{Books from Great Britain by year|160|0}}|Books from Great Britain by year
  • {{Books from France by year|160|0}}|Books from France by year
  • {{Books from Italy by year|160|0}}|Books from Italy by year
  • {{WorksHungary|160|0}}|Works from Hungary There are no books from Hungary Cats
  • {{Books from Sweden by year|159|0}}|Books from Sweden by year
  • {{Books from Russia by year|159|0}}|Books from Russia by year
  • {{Books from Poland by year|159|0}}|Books from Poland by year
  • {{Books from India by year|159|0}}|Books from India by year
  • {{Books from Portugal by year|159|0}}|Books from Portugal by year
  • {{Books from Belgium by year|159|0}}|Books from Belgium by year
  • {{Books from Finland by year|159|0}}|Books from Finland by year
  • {{Books from Scotland by year|159|0}}|Books from Scotland by year
  • {{Books from Spain by year|159|0}}|Books from Spain by year

I've created Category:Category navigational templates for books --Butko (talk) 17:40, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks you. If it is not too much trouble when I find more countries that need coding, can I request from you again? WayneRay (talk) 17:44, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
Yes, sure --Butko (talk) 03:08, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
I've created templates for other countries. See Category:Category navigational templates for books --Butko (talk) 06:40, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Takes Camí de Vera

Hi again! If you live in Valencia, Spain, or just happen to be an Erasmus student in one of its universities you may have seen the orchards just north of the Polytechnic. That used to be the Horta de Vera and is disappearing fast. That's why we are organizing a Wiki Takes for April 9th. We'll try to get images of everything and then go to the Polytechnic University of Valencia to upload the pictures.

This time assistance is limited to ten people, so we need you to send us an e-mail to info@wikimedia.es to join in. The Poly people are opening their premises just for us and they need some details.

Please hurry up and contact us if you're interested. The place was just about to become an avenue before last election, so may be we won't have another chance.

B25es (talk) 12:01, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Special:Search

Hello. Each time I write something in the search box in our toolbar, even if the page exists, the system shows me the DidYouMean page. Is there a way to avoid this? Regards, —MarcoAurelio 16:28, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Puede ser que falte el Espacio de nombres. ¿Ocurre eso también en Wikipedia? De ser así, es algo que sería mejor reportarlo en Phabricator. --Amitie 10g (talk) 17:00, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
Gracias. Encontré que hace tiempo formulé la misma pregunta y he añadido este código en mi common.js. Esperemos que funcione. Un saludo, —MarcoAurelio 12:42, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: —MarcoAurelio 14:47, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Creations in watchlist

Why isn't the preference "Add pages I create and files I upload to my watchlist" checked by default on Commons as it is on most other Wikimedia sites? GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 23:29, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

I would not want it checked by default. But I have almost never watchlisted anything. I would rather rely on placing a notice on a user talk page than trusting them to check their watchlist - if they upload 100 pictures, why would a watchlist help them if 99 were fine and one was a copyvio? The nature of editing on commons is totally different from on the wikis. Delphi234 (talk) 23:49, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
GeoffreyT2000 -- I've kind of been wondering that for ten years... AnonMoos (talk) 08:44, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
It gets even weirder - phab:T18961. For some reason commons is the only wiki to have this option disabled, despite an accepted request to change it from several years ago. I have no idea why. It seems to date from before we had the config files in public git (pre-2012). Anyways, it should be a simple config change to change, all that's needed is some proof that the change is wanted (show of community consensus), and devs will change it. Bawolff (talk) 22:39, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

If they change it, I hope it doesn't change for existing users. I wouldn't want all my created pages to my watchlist. --Auntof6 (talk) 02:17, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

March 23

Windfield Photographic Collection/WayneRay

This DR could use some scrutiny by other copyright experienced editors/admins: Commons:Deletion requests/File:ScoutsYorkminster.jpg. I'm posting here because I've mentioned the DR on en.wiki as well. INeverCry 18:11, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

WMF-legal had been notified about the issue already days ago. --Túrelio (talk) 22:09, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
    • We are indeed aware and are looking into the case (obviously quite a lot of edits to go through etc). For now can't say more from our side but child protection reports are always high priority so we hope to finish as soon as possible. (obviously that shouldn't get in the way of community review of what they want). Jalexander-WMF (talk) 22:24, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
  • @Jalexander-WMF: - thanks for this reply. I've been going through Mr. Ray's image uploads and there are some deeply worrying images on there - none obviously illegal, but nude photography that raise consent issues. I put a list on Odder's talk page, but to repeat: An Owl.jpg and CandleWPC.jpg should probably be removed at once (though I didn't want to examine the pages in detail because I felt sick by this point), Gooselanebook.pdf is a straight copyvio, an upload of his book published by a company and Category:Humber College 1973 Model Shoot raises clear issues, since I don't think we can tell how widely the participants expected to have these photos distributed. Blythwood (talk) 05:02, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

March 25

Is there a way to find all the images on Commons transfered from a specific Flickr account?

Hi all

I'm looking for a way to identify all the images on Commons that have come from the Yellowstone and Olympic National Parks official Flickr accounts. Doesn anyone know an easy way to do this? I would like to add them all to a category so I can see where they are are used using GLAMorgan.

The reason I want to do this is to show some national parks in other countries what is possible in terms of page views from making their photos open license.

Many thanks

John Cummings (talk) 10:45, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Special:LinkSearch should find the relevant files, if they are correctly back-linked to Flickr - see Yellowstone.--Nilfanion (talk) 10:56, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
The only way I can think of is using Special:LinkSearch with:
and the same with /olympics/. There might be even more as previously, they had another domain for HTTPS.
You can get the FlickrID using Flickr's API explorer.
Would a tools that does all that automatically and eliminating duplicates useful to you? -- Rillke(q?) 11:01, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
Hi Rillke, thanks very much, I think I can work out how to get rid of duplicates. The tool to find FlickrIDs is really useful, I've always got stuck on that when some Flickr accounts don't get recognised by Flickr2Commons.
Thanks again
John Cummings (talk) 12:51, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
@Rillke: Slightly related, but a tool (which would be very simple to code, I think) that would lookup images on Flickr based 'only' on the photo ID would be helpful.... it would merely need to call http://flickr.com/photo.gne?id=XXXX with the photo ID substituted in. Having to do it by pasting that URL into an address field and then edit it by hand is obscure and annoying.
As far as the question here, instead of using Special:LinkSearch for all those variations, using 'insource' in the regular search box (i.e. "insource:yellowstonenps" and "insource:80223459@N05") should accomplish the same thing without having to know how Flickr writes their URLs. Reventtalk 23:00, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

March 26

Files from geograph.org

donst rename it

most files in Category:Images from the Geograph British Isles project named like this --2003:4D:2C35:7019:C1DC:7339:755E:16D0 14:36, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

@Krassotkin: Thanks --2003:4D:2C35:7019:C1DC:7339:755E:16D0 17:06, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

March 27

Tenth Picture of the Year starting soon

Hi everyone, in a couple of days Commons will host the Picture of the Year 2015 contest. There is currently no mobile interface, so voting with a hand-held device isn't convenient as it is. Perhaps someone can help out here?

The second point is that a lot of users (we expect about 4000 people to vote in the contest this year) will come to Commons and may be willing dedicating their time to "simple jobs" like adding translations to the candidates while voting. Anything that encourages participation of our visitors is welcome. If you have an entertaining idea, please let us know.

The third point: Please be patient with and friendly to our visitors and direct them to our Help or main talk page in case you're encountering questions about POTY, of feel of course free answering them right away.

Thanks and kind regards, on behalf of the Committee -- Rillke(q?) 01:45, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Wikidata support: getting arbitrary access done

Hey folks,

Commons has access to the data on Wikidata for a while now already. One big missing piece is access to arbitrary data on Wikidata - not just a particular subset. We are currently working on the final steps towards making it possible for Wikimedia Commons to make use of all data in Wikidata in the user's language.

As of last week we have enabled access to all data on beta Wikidata for beta Wikimedia Commons. This makes it possible to test this new functionality in order to evaluate it for enabling it on the actual Commons. If you are working on templates or Lua modules on Commons or are generally interested in playing around with the new functionality, please do that on beta Commons.

The data access which Commons will get is the "arbitrary access" which already is deployed to various sister projects, including all Wikipedias. Commons is a special case because similar to Wikidata it is multi-lingual. Unlike Wikipedia or any of the other Wikis that currently have arbitrary access enabled, Commons will get data access in the user's language and not in a defined content language. That means that all functionality that we provide, in order to make use of the data on Wikidata, will be using the users language for localization, so that each user can see the content in their proffered language.

In detail that means that the {{#property:…|from=Q1234}} parser function will output labels, dates, … formatted in the users language. The same applies to the Lua functions we provide for advanced use cases. A detailed reference of the Lua functionality we provide can be found at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Wikibase_Client/Lua.

It'd be great if those of you familiar with both Commons and Wikidata could test this on beta Commons and let me know if you encounter any major issues. If there are none we'll go ahead and find a date to switch it on when I am back from the Wikimedia hackathon on the 11th of April.

Cheers --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 14:52, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

I'm working on a Lua module for {{Creator}} here (tested here) - if anyone else wants to pitch in on that, feel free. BMacZero (talk) 15:25, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
In case anyone else has trouble finding it, it's using beta Wikidata which is here: http://wikidata.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page - Nikki (talk) 19:52, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
@Lydia Pintscher (WMDE): Just a comment, for you and your team... despite all the gripes over time, it's pretty clear that Commons was a 'special case' for this, and it's been commented more than once that unexpected issues arose in getting it to work. Thank you for finally getting this to the point of a beta deployment... this is, in fact, a pretty significant step forward for us.
As a particular example of what we should be able to do with this, an "Artwork" gallery page for a work of art can be linked to the Wikidata object (and import information from there), and the metadata about the object itself then imported via transclusion to individual file pages.... there are many thousands of images that currently store such information on category pages, and then transclude the categories to file pages (and I don't think anyone does not consider that to be an undesirable hack). Reventtalk 00:25, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
Thank you! I hope it'll bring a lot of good stuff for Commons :) --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 11:43, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Wikimedia adds a strange symbol to the picture

I often load SVG maps. In the last two cases File:Diplomatic missions in Iraqi Kurdistan.svg and File:Diplomatic missions of Iraqi Kurdistan.svg, the map is displayed with a strange brand, which is not part of the file. At the top left. I don't understand at all. Brand is seen in most views. Only when you click directly on the map it is not to see. Can someone help me? Thanks. Jan CZ (talk) 09:20, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

There are several 404 errors in the browser console. Ruslik (talk) 17:43, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
Jan_CZ -- If you mean the thing on the north coast of Alaska, then mysterious black rectangles in renderings of SVG files are almost always due to Inkscape "flowtext" nonsense, as it says on the SVG help page on this site... AnonMoos (talk) 22:31, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
AnonMoos, You're a magician! How you are removed the symbol? If I work with my versions in Inscape, no symbols there. You removed it in some other program than Inscape? Thanks. Jan CZ (talk) 05:37, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
I just opened them in a text editor, searched down for "flow" tags, and nuked them when found. I only have limited experience with a now-obsolete version of Inkscape, but I've heard that in some more recent versions it's hard to know about or select an empty "flowed text" container. However, that's what you would have to do to delete them within Inkscape. AnonMoos (talk) 07:31, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

How to decide which one is the duplicate

According to which criteria is decided which one of two duplicates will be redirected the other, especially when they are exact duplicates? --Speravir (Talk) 00:43, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Duplicates of what? --Auntof6 (talk) 01:03, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
If they are exact duplicates, keep the one that was uploaded first? The subsequent ones are duplicates. --ghouston (talk) 01:11, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
In principle te first one, but there exceptions:
  • The bigger better quality one
  • The more direct sourcing. For example if the first one is downloaded from Flicker and later the original uploader also uploads directly on the Commons. Some uploaders upload the same picture on several websites.Smiley.toerist (talk) 08:20, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
This all should be described here: COM:DUPE. Please update.
Another exception: The significant more used. ↔ User: Perhelion 11:42, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks at all. Smiley.toerist, I think, too, that this should be added there. Perhelion, thx for the link. I had searched before, but did not find this (so, obviously the search was wrong ;-) ). BTW: Special:Diff/191683899/191693635 and Special:Diff/191693635/191699839 (I did not notice, that you edited this in). — Speravir_Talk – 18:04, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Speravir (Talk) 21:51, 3 April 2016 (UTC): Seems there will be no reaction anymore here.

List of users by number of uploads

Do we have such a list? I don't see it linked from Commons:Count of uploads. If it exists we should list it there, I think. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 08:47, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

@Piotrus: You will find it in stats. Ankry (talk) 11:02, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
Commons:Database reports/Upload log stats --Steinsplitter (talk) 14:21, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Speravir (Talk) 21:50, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Edit and wheel warring

Hello all,

Over the last week we have received many requests to review the recent issues that have surfaced on the de-adminiship page for HJ Mitchell, due to contributions made by a globally banned editor and consequent actions taken by active editors.

Taking punitive measures against someone for trying to enforce a global ban in good faith and enforce the Terms of Use is entirely unacceptable. The same is true for edit warring with that user or otherwise attempting to prevent them from taking actions to enforce the ban. This does not mean that contributors and admins have carte blanche authority to do whatever they want as they attempt to enforce the Terms of Use, but it appears here that reasonable actions were taken. Good faith contributions to the projects do not justify ignoring the statements that we have made on this issue or consistently attempting to override and ignore a global ban that we placed for the safety of the users on Commons and all of our projects.

In consideration of our statements on the matter of preventing good faith attempts to enforce a global ban in line with the Terms of Use, and in light of the recent actions performed by Denniss (twice reverting [1],[2] appropriate edits to remove content posted by a globally banned user and blocking [3] the editor responsible for said edits) we have de-sysop’d him for a period of 30 days. This action is not based on a one-off incident of admin right abuse, but is the result of Denniss ignoring our previous warning about using his rights to assist the same banned user in editing [4]. Denniss’ contributions to the projects are appreciated and we are not against him regaining admin rights in the future, hence our action is not permanent. If he wishes for his admin rights to be restored, a RfA can be opened once 30 days elapse, and the community may decide on the request at that time.

Let it be noted, however, that we will not tolerate sanctions against contributors attempting to enforce a global ban in good faith or of users who edit war or, otherwise, attempt to prevent them from doing so. It should be very clear that we consider the actions of The Photographer and Reguyla in edit warring to keep the comment to be in violation of the Terms of Use as well as our previous statement, despite not taking action against them today. On these grounds, we will not hesitate to take further or permanent actions should such abuse occur again. Jalexander--WMF 07:27, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

  1. ↑ https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons%3AAdministrators%2FRequests%2FHJ_Mitchell_%28de-adminship%29&type=revision&diff=190275488&oldid=190266127
  2. ↑ https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons%3AAdministrators%2FRequests%2FHJ_Mitchell_%28de-adminship%29&type=revision&diff=190313434&oldid=190266127
  3. ↑ https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/block&page=User%3AColin
  4. ↑ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Denniss/Archive_9#Undoing_actions_by_User:WMFOffice
Colin was the sole person edit warring against everyone else. Denniss didn't use any sysop tool in the edit war and it's not the WMF's business to proclaim that some users are immune to block. Denniss must be immediately re-flagged. Nemo 07:45, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
Well, de-sysopping Denniss will just make the situation worse. I hope you WMF reconsider your decision, you just want to make unnecessary drama on Commons.
@Nemo bis: Denniss actually blocked Colin for edit warring, which is the reason why the WMF de-sysopped Denniss. ★ Poké95 07:55, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
Also, de-sysopping someone without community approval will just risk the WMF's safe harbour. Do you want that to happen? Seriously, no one even raised a COM:AN/U issue against Denniss for blocking Colin, so it means, you WMF must not take any action against Denniss. This action is obviously a revenge against Denniss. ★ Poké95 07:59, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
@Pokéfan95: The aforementioned WMF Office action against Denniss couldn't be any further from what you assert as "obvious revenge". It has been made clear that this is a result of repeated abuse performed by him and only after he'd been warned about it several times. The COM:AN/U process is a local Commons process that is outside of the WMF's and is not a prerequisite when it comes to systematic disrupting and/or assisting one evade office actions, such as global bans. As far as Safe Harbour goes, we have discussed this at length with our legal department and they are confident that actions such as these do not come close to violating our Safe Harbour. Providers have the right, and at times obligation, to manage and protect their sites as well as to enforce their terms of use and this action falls well under that right. Kalliope (WMF) (talk) 08:31, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
Poor move indeed by WMF, Dennisss did which no other admin on commons has (i'm highlighting this) the balls to do, shut up a troll whose sole intention is to de-stabilize the integrity of commons by acting like he is bigger than the community and then threatening Denniss that he would get him blocked....there was no wheel-war, infact it was Colin who was wheel-warring and Denniss took the appropriate measure.. if that is wrong then maybe WMF should start blocking a few dozen admins on enwiki daily for doing exactly that...--Stemoc 08:42, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
Stemoc, I was neither "wheel warring" nor "edit warring", according to the definitions of those terms linked by Commons policy. Wheel warring is a term reserved for admin actions, and I am not an admin. In full "When another administrator has already reversed an administrative action, there is very rarely any valid reason for the original or another administrator to reinstate the same or similar action again without clear discussion leading to a consensus decision. Wheel warring is when an administrator's action is reversed by another admin, but rather than discussing the disagreement, administrator tools are then used in a combative fashion to undo or redo the action. With very few exceptions, once an administrative action has been reverted, it should not be restored without consensus.". According to this definition, Denniss was wheel warring, as he restored the block on me after it had been reverted by Yann, and made no attempt to discuss or reach consensus. This is serious misbehaviour by an admin, and should have been dealt with by our 'crats. Yet AFBorchert, a 'crat, warned everyone else apart from Denniss. Hmm. -- Colin (talk) 09:24, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
Wait, are you saying you were not 'wheel-warring'? apparently you think you are an admin and you threatened Denniss that he would "Join russavia" if he reverted you again and yet for threatening an admin, you think Denniss block was not justified?..lets ignore the fact that you removed what was apparently added by a 'globally blocked user' more than 6 times because the reason it kept getting added back in was because it was related to this de-adminship in the first place.. you basically removed 'evidence' which clearly showed HJMitchell made a comment he had no proof of, a post that could and would have gotten him de-sysopped had others that voted in that thread seen it before voting..mainly because you voted 'keep' (the fact that you changed your vote later means nothing, the damage was done)..so what WMF allowed is for example, say someone like me to make a claim that User:XXX was globally locked by WMF for being a 'pedophile' and that user has no rights to come to the wiki or any other wiki to disprove what was said about him/her? I re-iterate, the reason why you were reverted by not one but 3 people was because you removed "proof" (from the horse's mouth) and Denniss blocked you for doing that and NOW you are targeting "another" crat who decided Denniss action was appropriate and justifiable and yet you are still pointing fingers at everyone but yourself..Mate, if you do something like this on enwiki, you would have been banned a long time ago...Luckily for you, the commons admins are much more patient..its unfortunate WMF made this decision..its worse that that targeted the wrong person....Commons needs admins like Denniss, it does not need people like you...Good day..btw, our policy on 'reverting edits by a blocked user" is kinda bleak, it allows the edits to stay if they are related to the topic at hand and it most definitely was--Stemoc 09:50, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
@Stemoc: A global ban is an office action. Whether one's post-ban contributions (and therefore attemtps to evade their ban) are relevant to a conversation or useful to the project is besides the point. They shouldn't be there in the first place, and contributors attempting to enforce a global ban in line with the ToU, by removing such contributions by a banned contributor, should not be subject to sanctions. It is those sanctions performed by Denniss, despite previous warnings, that resulted in his 30-day de-syssoping. One has every right to disagree with the original office action (global ban), but when they start abusing their admin rights in order to demonstrate that disagreement and force it over the admins who happen to agree with it.... this is not on. Kalliope (WMF) (talk) 10:11, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
Global Ban or not, it was information which only he (Russavia) could have provided (and did) and it was very relevant to the case and the de-adminship..The way this happened, its like WMF wanted HJMitchell to survive the de-adminship...as if there was some form of vested interest..was there?...WMF didn't care for the truth did they? Were they worried about the libelous backfire had The Photographer called his lawyer? or does 'fairness' mean nothing at all anymore to WMF? Even a jailed Mafia Don's testimony is accepted if it can help close or solve another case and yet WMF policy is that anyone can make a claim against any WMF 'banned' editor and face no repercussion or consequences cause that banned user is not allowed to defend himself or others if a link is made?...If this is the future which awaits wikimedia, then we are surely going to lose a whole lot of editors (actual contributors, not pencil pushers who do the work of a foreman, not a contributor) in the next few years.....?..We all know russavia was 'scapegoated' by WMF....The events of today will only just strengthen what we have all believed thus far....the project isn't the problem, neither are most of its community....the rot goes to the very top..--Stemoc 12:44, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Nemo, the definition of "edit warring" linked to by Commons polices explicitly states that "Reverting edits by banned or blocked users is not edit warring." Both of Nemos claims are false and in the interests of having a fair discussion I ask him to strike them please. For the record:

history log

During this time I was twice blocked by Denniss and unblocked by Yann and Jcb. Regardless of one's view about globally banned users editing, and users enabling them to evade their bans, this is a clear abuse of tools by Denniss. He engaged in edit warring and twice blocked the user he was in dispute with. He engaged in wheel warring with other admins. I would expect our 'crats, who surely have a responsibility to keep an eye on admin abuse and lead the community in responding to that, to warn Denniss. But the only 'crat to get involved, AFBorchert warned everyone apart from Denniss. This is clear bias (or perhaps he is scared of Denniss?). Either way, he should resign his 'crat bit. -- Colin (talk) 09:10, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Of course the edit warring I'm referring to is the one with the non-banned editors. Nemo 09:17, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
It doesn't matter who you are referring to, it wasn't edit warring if the content was uploaded/written by a banned user. -- Colin (talk) 09:25, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
  • This action by the WMF extends their authority from "office locks" of accounts that break the TOU, to playing with de-sysop whenever some employees within the WMF disagree with the Wikimedia Commons community exercising its own policies using community consensus. Rather than raising a desysop request for Denniss, or asking on COM:AN for Denniss to explain their actions, or for a Commons administrator or bureaucrat to consider action against Denniss, they have added another weapon to their arsenal and chosen to further divisions in the community rather than being a force to improve governance of this project. Real improvement to governance on this project must bring the community with it, not have it slapped on by WMF policemen (they are all men) who have less experience on this project than most of the participants here but excessive and unlimited authority.
  • Shame on you Jalexander for taking a lazy path rather than the ethical one.
  • I have proposed an early RFA, so that Denniss can be reinstalled by the community as quickly as possible after this highly regrettable out of process action by a WMF employee. Refer to Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard#RFA_for_User:Denniss. --Fæ (talk) 10:58, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
@Fæ: Possible re-adminship should be requested by Denniss, and considered and determined by the community after the 30 days have elapsed, not before. Attempting to do this on behalf of Denniss before the 30-day period has concluded is an attempt to revert an office action, which can also lead to sanctions against the person performing it. Kalliope (WMF) (talk) 11:07, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
@Jalexander-WMF and Kalliope (WMF): You, the WMF must have notified us about this before you de-adminned Denniss. This action is very controversial, because first of all, Denniss was elected by the community. This is one of the worst actions made by the WMF. It is a shame you WMF are now de-sysopping admins instead of our community. <PA censored>. Too disappointing. ★ Poké95 11:11, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
You WMF should have started instead a RFDA against Denniss, so that the community can vote and express their opinions, rather <PA censored> making an unacceptable action. ★ Poké95 11:12, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
@Kalliope (WMF): Please stop making nasty threats to block everyone and making up new "rules" which have no community consensus - that's not how good governance works. The WMF pseudo-policemen may have the self-granted authority to desysop anyone you want, but you cannot stop the Commons community from having a public vote, unless you want to extend your powers into true dictatorship and start censoring discussion. If Denniss has an RFA next week and it closes before your arbitrary 30 days of punishment have elapsed, then we simply wait until the second the 30 days have elapsed and resysop Denniss' account. --Fæ (talk) 11:21, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
Kalliope, would you mind giving us a detailed explanation of how this is enforcement of an office action? meta:Office actions begins with Office actions are official changes made to content done under the authority of the Wikimedia Foundation, by members of the Foundation's office, and the rest of it likewise talks about changes made to content pages. It definitely looks like you're trampling community consensus on the basis of a WMF policy that doesn't talk about this type of situation at all. Nyttend (talk) 11:56, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
@Nyttend: : Let me try offer some clarification - and apologies if this feels like repetition to some. A brief re-cap is here:
history log
1. Commons editor, despite their valuable contributions, performs serious abuse (not ok).
2. As a result they get globally banned by the WMF(>office action).
3. Said editor repeatedly and systematically evades their ban (not ok).
4. Admin(s) X, who are against the aforementioned global ban (ok), assist him in evading his global ban (not ok).
5. Admins Y, in support of the aforementioned ban (ok) help enforce it, in line with ToU (ok)
6. Admin X reverts office action(not ok) and punishes Admin Y for enforcing a global ban (not ok)
7. WMF warns admin X against their actions.
8. Admin X continues (not ok).
9. WMF de-sysops admin X for limited period of 30 days (>office action).
10. Contributor/admin creates RfA on behalf of admin X, before 30 days elapse, calling for early action (with no clarification as to whether it's only the RfA that's early or potential re-admin too)
I refer to Denniss' 30-day de-sysop as an office action, since it was performed by the WMF. In lack of clarification by the RfA creator as to when possible community-consensus re-admin action is to take place, and with the only time reference used for any community action on this is "early", I understood that the [possible re-admin] action is intended to be carried out right away, which could well be before the 30 days have elapsed. This I see as an equivalent to reverting of the above office action [of de-sysoping]. If I have used the term 'office action' erroneously, I do apologise. I'll be happy to use a more appropriate term, if you can point one out to me. Kalliope (WMF) (talk) 12:57, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
"Out of process action" is correct, unless you can provide a link to the published and authorized procedure that was followed. Which, according to Jalexander's talk page statement, must include oversight by Stewards. --Fæ (talk) 13:07, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
@Kalliope (WMF): : Are you seriously threatening a trusted user that expressed concern about the actions of WMF employees and tries to petition against that with a ban? As someone who tries to usually stay away from drama, I find this a deeply concerning abuse of power. --Sebari (talk) 12:14, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
  • I'd say a true success for all fanatics of drama. Thanks everyone for you contributions. -- Rillke(q?) 11:51, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
    Oh give over. WMF employees can chose to recognize Community agreed policies and democratic votes, or they can use their staff authority to override them for their own convenience. To deride as drama queens, those who feel that elections and consensus are important for the WMF to respect is a silly thing to try. if the Commons community is going to be able to rely on the outcome of elections to mean something to WMF employees, then this is worth disputing. --Fæ (talk) 12:11, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Related: BN. Jee 13:02, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

@Jalexander-WMF and Kalliope (WMF): Thanks for the notification but I don't appreciate the baseless and pointless threat. I also agree that the action to desysop Deniss was out of process and is outside the scope of what the WMF is allowed to do under current policy and no that is not an invitation to change it. This discussion is another result of the WMF's decision to unilaterally ban Russavia without consultation or approval from this community as a favor for Jimbo due largely to a painting.
I judge every edit on it's merits without regard to who did it and you might try doing that once in a while instead of pontificate on how bad we are for doing it to improve the project. That is how the projects improve, not with poor decisions from the WMF who almost always refuse to do anything about the actual problems in the site unless someone on the board has a pet peeve. Russavia could be annoying but in the grand scheme he contributed a lot to this project, far more than you and pretty much anyone else at the WMF. So frankly, I am taking your threat with a grain of salt. I edit pretty actively but frankly the project wouldn't miss me if I was gone.
If you want to do something beneficial for the projects, rather than waste time with threats to editors trying to improve the projects and do the right things, do something about the IRC ops and WMF admins that are allowed to do whatever they want without any oversight or repercussions. That includes the ENWP arbcom not following their own procedures when making decisions. If you two start doing something about that, not only would I start listening to your threats and start having some respect for the WMF, it would also improve the attrition on these projects; it would improve the relationship with the communities and the WMF and you would see a marked improvement in editors actually adding and improving content. Reguyla (talk) 13:53, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
For what's worth, the following is hypothetical but I think Any user may remove content from a globally banned user and suffer no penalty for doing so. Anyone restoring such content is "assisting the banned user in evading their ban" and may be subject to sanctions from the WMF.)" [28] isn't applicable in all cases. It is clear censorship of speech, if the content is used as a quotation by another, not banned user. I do not tolerate censorship of uses who aren't banned for any good reason. When balancing censorship versus WMF banned users policy, I note that the right of free speech is one given by laws, while the banned user policy is grounded on the Terms of Use and IMHO the Terms of use should not impose more restrictions on free speech than strictly required for creating a productive environment. As a human being, I am of course biased and never suffered from the banned user's actions, in contrary to one of the involved parties. -- Rillke(q?) 17:56, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
I'm not entirely sure I understand your point about "used as a quotation by another". If you are suggesting, as The Photographer tried to with his "I will take this comment like mine" edit summary, that someone can simply wrap a dump of banned-user-text in a "He said ...." block quotation then this really isn't a convincing argument and simply playing games. A very short quotation e.g., "He said he was 'not at all happy' about being banned" seems quite fair however. A frequent argument is that the text posted was necessary for the discussion. Perhaps some of the information supplied was felt useful to some [though I don't think anyone pro or con thought that the allegation was actually true, so really the information was moot]. But information is not the same thing as text, and supplying information is not the same thing as participating in a discussion. Most of the posted text consisted of arguments picking apart on-wiki statements and claiming it was libel. Banned users are not permitted to engage in discussion here. There are plenty of the rest of us who can do that. The information about the leak could have been relayed by any non-banned user using their own words. For example, "Russavia claims that he received leaked OTRS wiki information from a least six people, none of whom is The Photographer". Anyone who has ever written an article on Wikipedia knows fully how to express source text into one's own words. The person doing so therefore takes full ownership of their own words and stakes their own credulity/reputation in choosing to relay that information to the community, and in how they choose to express it. There really is never any valid reason for a banned user to edit here. Using the "censorship" argument on Commons is just a Goodwin's law mistake. Your "users who aren't banned for any good reason" is really what this is all about. It is expressing denial and lack of trust, rather than any honourable principles about censorship or fairness. -- Colin (talk) 18:36, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
It's a waste of time and resources to load, delete and reload the same content. If the content is positive then leave it. If it's not positive then remove it, it's as simple as that. This revert and then some other editor can use valuable volunteer time to re-upload the same item again is just plumb F'ing stupid and is a direct insult from the WMF. The WMF does not give a damn about volunteers time and never has. They aren't adding content, all they are doing is trying to micromanage the community and requiring the community volunteers to waste our time reloading positive and beneficial content because they don't like the user. Reguyla (talk) 18:42, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
We all know, Reguyla, you use this "if the content is positive then leave it" line to justify your own ban-evasion on Wikipedia, but it's not a useful argument on Commons where the dispute here isn't about someone "unfairly" community-banned by evil admins, but about accepting the WMF global ban on Russavia, and Russavia alone. There are plenty people the community has banned that we do not wish to see again. Russavia closed his posting with a threat to expose one of the OTRS leekers if he "continue[s] to see worrying actions emanating from them". That's a pretty nasty blackmail: do my bidding or I'll reveal a confidence you had in me. And it's a nasty threat by a WMF globally banned user, which you restored three times. -- Colin (talk) 20:14, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
I really don't understand what it is with you Colin. Whenever someone says something you have to counter it with snide remarks and drivel. Yes I restored his comment because it had information that was relevant to that discussion. If he was just trolling, vandalized the page or even voted support or oppose in the desysop I would have wholeheartedly agreed to revert it without hesitation. But that is not what it was and it should not be treated as such. Honestly, removing it was nothing more than spiteful vandalism. When editors remove a positive change, upload or comment it's vandalism plain and simple regardless of whether it was done by an editor, an admin or someone from the WMF that doesn't even contribute here outside discussions and enforcing their will. Reguyla (talk) 20:30, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
The only thing that banning someone does is stick your own head in the sand and pretend they do not exist, which of course they do, and they probably have valuable contributions they can make once they learn how to not cause problems. It never matters who creates content, only that it does get created. A collaborative project is the wrong place for someone who wants to be combative. Delphi234 (talk) 20:36, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
I totally agree, not only that, it either turns them into a vandal or gives someone an excuse to start screaming disruption, sock or something else if they see something that person might be doing (sometimes it's not even them). We literally can't do anything to prevent it and deleting the content and chasing them around just creates a disruption and hurts the project. IMO, as long as it's not vandalism, spam or Copyright violations we shouldn't be deleting it. We shouldn't be deleting positive contributions at all! Reguyla (talk) 20:42, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

I am not really interested in having wikidrama extend to commons. It is pure malarky to cite "assisting the banned user in evading their ban" as anything wrong. Every edit anyone makes, every photo that anyone uploads, is "assisting the banned user in evading their ban". Who knows they might have made the same edit or uploaded the same photograph. As a collaborative project, what is important is working together, and not picking each other apart or pointing fingers at anyone. But the idea of "permanent actions" on a wiki is a joke. Someone needs to get a life. Delphi234 (talk) 20:03, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

@Jalexander-WMF: thanks for stepping in here. The Russavia fanclub is really undermining this project. It's a shame that they won't accept that he is not welcome here any more. Multichill (talk) 23:12, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
@Multichill: Not welcome by who? Are you speaking just for yourself, the WMF or the whole community? Because although I certainly agree the WMF doesn't want him here nor do several members of the community, there seem to be quite a few folks here including myself that wouldn't mind having him editing here again. It really annoys me when people make comments like that for the whole community. Reguyla (talk) 23:25, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
 Question: Who decided that Russavia is not welcome, the WMF or the Community? Who decided the desysop of HJ Mitchell? and of Nenniss? The actions of Russavia after his global ban is questionable, but the recent unilateral actions from the WMF are shameful, and almost everyone here agree with that. --Amitie 10g (talk) 23:31, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
The basic rule of wikipedia since its inception has been, "if its not vandalism, do not revert or delete".. I understand why Denniss refused to delete images uploaded by a 'banned' russavia then, cause nothing he adds can be classed as vandalism or failing one of our many policies in relation to commons... There is an old saying on wikipedia, target the editor, not the edits..if the editor is banned, then block him/her...anyone that intentionally "removes" or deletes "positive" edits regardless of who added them is a VANDAL themselves. The definition of vandalism from the English Wikipedia is "Vandalism is any addition, removal, or change of content, in a deliberate attempt to damage Wikipedia" ..removing meaningful content is vandalism....when WMF comes with a way to actually control who they block, let us know..maybe the reason Multichill, that Russavia has a 'fanclub' is because people that have known him for years on the project have not seen him damage the wiki in anyway...but WMF....does it on a regular basis now it seems..he has probably made a a million positive edits to commons since being banned....if thats the type of editor WMF likes to Ban, then none of us are safe...WMF has NEVER been transparent with anything they do, either its the staff or BoT and ironically, also his global block, No one still knows why he was locked..Once WMF decides its going to be Fully Transparent, the community will start trusting them, in the meantime, to the majority of people in commons, they are the ONE thing standing in the way of progress...Guess which kind of people rule by FEAR?... dictators.--Stemoc 00:02, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
Great points. It's also worth mentioning that no where in policy does it say that edits done by banned editors must be deleted or reverted. It merely says that can be and that is because editors who are banned are often that way due to Spam, vandalism or copyright violations all of which are valid reasons to revert and delete. It's also a common;t accepted practice that if an edit is controversial, it might be best not to do it. I would argue that reverting or deleting a positive contribution would and should be, controversial. Reguyla (talk) 01:26, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
This is specially true considering that Russavia was who uploaded the Picture of the Year of 2014 and other great contributions. Attemping to delete on the logic of getting rid the contributions of banned users is, at least, lack of common sense. The problem here is that the Anti-Russavia fan club become the anti-Russavia's contributions fan club. --Amitie 10g (talk) 02:34, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
Amitie 10g, you're repeatedly making this false argument. Nobody suggested deletion of his old works. Many of us worked together with him, earlier. Just check the file history of that POTY to see who identified that butterfly. The current conflicts started when he made some illogical license tags (like this) and tried to get verified through OTRS. I agree; I didn't quickly find the complexity. But I asked for verification of mail IDs. He responded very roughly and some other OTRS volunteers approved his mails. I left that case, since then. I'm not checking his uploads, now or earlier. But permissions should be 100% safe irrespective of who upload them.
Rillke, what is free speech? Threatening to reveal one name who may be his friend earlier? For me, it is just blackmailing and not in scope of Commons. Of course, he can contact the crats or oversighters privately. Jee 05:00, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
is just an example of how the WMF can behave (and as I remember, the removing files was mentioned). --Amitie 10g (talk) 15:07, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
They only meantioned post-ban uploads. Natuur12 (talk) 16:05, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
ahh, that makes sense. --Amitie 10g (talk) 17:02, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
So, my take.
I am fully in favour of Russavia being banned forever and a day. He used to be a good contributor, now he seems to be just a troll. However, I'm not going to go out of my way to remove edits he makes if they aren't problematic. Frankly I have better stuff to do with my life.
This deadmin though was entirely out of process, and without any community involvement. That is what started this whole mess, and it will not improve matters one iota. -mattbuck (Talk) 21:59, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
I don't understand the underlying dispute, but the most striking aspect of this high-handed pronouncement is that it sets "community" policy: it specifies that a specific user process (RfA) must be done for an admin who was not removed by community action. The acid test should be for the community to specifically pass policy (unless it clearly exists already) that an admin not removed by a community consensus decision does not require an RfA to have adminship restored. (That would have seemed tautological or impossible before this, but it remains logical enough) If the WMF wants to override this "bad policy-making" it can do so; however, in doing so, it makes clear that it holds the actual policy-making power, and if community policies are careless in regard to cyberbullying or make mistakes about copyright issues, the choice or negligence not to regard those as high priorities to rewrite and fix are theirs and theirs alone. Alternatively, they can simply say at a technical level that they will not grant admin flags to someone granted the status by community policy; but again, if an admin is selling personal info or soliciting little kids then that choice or negligence to make him an admin is theirs and theirs alone. The fig leaf of the community is stripped. In the past I would have regarded that as a bad thing, but this ship is sinking whether we want it to or not; maybe an abrupt cash outflow would reduce the number and influence of the paid-professionals in Wikimedia affairs or serve as the impetus for a more organized reconstitution. Wnt (talk) 17:23, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
Rather than getting all cross about "out of process" actions and playing power games, there is an alternative way of looking at the de-admin. Denniss knew full-well there would be "sanctions" from WMF for his actions, and a full block for a period would have been the cleanest and least controversial action. However, WMF decided to let him continue to edit, albeit without the ability to abuse his admin bit as he did. Pervert this kindness if you want, it just shows your bad faith and twisted logic. I'm sure it can be arranged that future "sanctions" involve complete and permanent loss of editing ability, if that makes some people happier. We all know Denniss abused his admin powers in multiple ways. There's no getting away from that. And we all know that, like all internet sites, WMF terms of use permit them to ban anyone without seeking community approval. Enabling a banned editor to get around their ban, as Denniss did multiple times, really can't be permitted, otherwise it isn't really a ban. -- Colin (talk) 18:19, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
It is regrettable the WMF had to step in and de-sysop Denniss temporarily and bypass community processes. It shows how miserable the community is at self-governance, that the community did not manage to stop Denniss themselves. Regrettable because when an 'external force' makes an action to a community, the reaction is almost always resistance, nomatter how sensible the action is (misuse of admin tools). It is completely unreasonable to block a user for removing content of a globally banned user, irrespective of what kind of contribution said user has. I am discouraged to see how many users here appear to seriously believe in cabals and conspiracy theories about the 'mean WMF' vs 'Commons'. It is time to stop digging trenches, and either accept the TOU or leave. The reality is much more boring, and much less colorful. -- Slaunger (talk) 20:51, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
The Terms of Use say the WMF can use various means (like its recent global block of 50 accounts) to keep Russavia from posting. They do not say that no one else has the right to repost what Russavia said, wherever he said it. And the rancor of the situation is amplified by the fact that all Russavia did was hire an artist to paint a picture! An unusual and creative artist, if you will, but still, there was no real reason to ban him. (Yeah, I know some bitter things have since been said, but you can't expect injustice to be met with perfect equanimity) And his actions continue to demonstrate the flaws with the control-freak mode of Wikipedia. Most importantly, they illustrate that no matter what kind of a community you want to make everything online is defined by all the rules of perfect dictatorship, including the lack of any real law but the will of the sovereign, the lack of transparency, etc. We are seeing the collapse not just of one organization but of an entire civilization play out here. Wnt (talk) 21:08, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
Wnt: You wrote "And the rancor of the situation is amplified by the fact that all Russavia did was hire an artist to paint a picture!". I note you state this is a fact. Can you provide a source to that 'fact' that this 'is all that Russavia did'? -- Slaunger (talk) 21:42, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
I was around when he posted it and saw the line of the discussion, and I recall that comments afterward, however veiled, hinted that some theory of "protecting users by stopping harassment" had been invented for his specific benefit (though it has been applied to very little else). But painting parody or caricature of public figures is not harassment! Wnt (talk) 23:27, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
Wnt I was around as well, and I have seen people bring forth speculations of the veiled, hinted, theory kind you refer to. But that does not make it a 'fact', that Russavias involvement in commisioning a painting 'is all that Russavia did' For me, this sounds more like an assumption, a widespread belief or a hypothesis. I do not know what happened either, but on the global bans in general Phillippe (WNF) gave this and this statement in Jan 2015, where he states "Believe it or not, there's a sensible reason behind our refusal to comment: we can execute global bans for a wide variety of things (see the Terms of Use for some examples - and no, "provoking Jimbo" is not on the list)". This indicates for me (but is not a fact), that there is much more than being annoyed over a painting behind the global ban. --Slaunger (talk) 06:37, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
Slaunger, Wnt is just trolling you. Everyone (well, everyone above the age of 12) knows this to be complete BS, but it is a very convenient line to play since the real explanation cannot be published for privacy reasons. As you said, the reality is "much more boring, and much less colorful". Now, Wnt, haven't you got something better to do, like troll Jimbo's page, because your only contributions to Commons seems to be to be a windbag about Russavia. -- Colin (talk) 07:03, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Category:Commons policies/ko and Category:공용 정책

Hi, these cats are redirects to each other. But I cannot find how the entries in Category:Commons policies/ko become categorzied into it. Can some (translation admin?) can have a look after it. thx. --JuTa 15:47, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

@JuTa: I don't have admin privilege, but by manually adding "?action=edit" at the end of the link I got [29] which shows me that the call to Template:langcat at the end provides the "/ko" part using #titleparts in its code. (it comes from the Blocking policy/ko name) Because the first part of the title ('Commons policies') is in the translation itself, you need to remove it by making a change in the translation, which is apparently out of date with the revised original... oh wait, the Langcat call is in the original. So either you have to change it there and percolate it along to all the others, or put everything back to Commons policies/ko, I think. But maybe the best thing to do is make a new template that generates the entire category name so you can use a look up table and revise that part without retranslating everything all over again. I don't know, you'll have to figure it out from here. Wnt (talk) 23:52, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Wrong Polish glyphs on POTY2015 gallery page

Please look at this image – this is how a part of POTY2015 gallery page looks in my Firefox 44.0.2 running on Windows. The small caps used in the header lack Polish glyphs, at least "ę", "ł" and "ż", so glyphs from a default font are used and the headers do not look good. This also applies to the earlier POTY contests, so perhaps it is time to fix this. Unfortunately, I completely have no idea how to do it. jdx Re: 16:38, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for spotting the issue. I've updated the font to include the missing characters. It may take a while until the changes propagate through ResourceLoader's and your browser's cache. -- Rillke(q?) 18:07, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Geography: Additional material

I would propose to indicate additional material re. geography within the categories by a "+ sign".

This concerns material like maps, diagrams, but also special views (satellite photography, arial views) etc.

I have been doing this myself in some cases, but it would be good, if others could accept the same method. Up to now, maps - rather important features in the context of course - are e.g. placed within alphabetical categories ("m"), with (*) or others. For me, it makes most sense to use the + sign.

What would you think?Reykholt (talk) 17:29, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

I'm afraid a symbol whose meaning isn't obvious to everyone is not very helpful. Take Category:Geography, for example. There is a mix of categories sorted by alphabet (which most people know) and categories sorted with "!", "*", "+", "-", and "_", without any recognizable system. The former helps in finding stuff, the latter hinders finding stuff, in my opinion. I think there should be only one special symbol for category sorting, my favorite one is the space. Only categories which are special in a well-defined way should then by sorted like that. Often, this is done for "X by Y" categories. I think that for categories with only few children (like Category:Geography, which easily fits on one page), this special sorting isn't needed at all, but many editors think otherwise.
To summarize: my favorite ordering of Category:Geography would simply be by name, with categories like Category:Geographic societies sorted under S. --rimshottalk 22:13, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-13

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

Problems

  • Adding references with Citoid was broken for approximately 6 hours on 24 March. This was fixed. [32]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 29 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 30 March. It will be on all wikis from 31 March (calendar).
  • You will be able to remove the header and footer style from User language (babel) boxes. This will make it easier to use them with other userboxes. [33]

Meetings

Future changes

  • Commons will soon have improved access to Wikidata's data. It will then be possible to access data about any concept on any page on Commons. Assistance with testing this on the beta cluster is appreciated. [34]
  • Wikibits.js will not be loaded by default anymore starting April 2016. Gadget and script authors should have already updated their code since the previous announcements, but there is another migration path available if needed. See wikitech-l for details.

Corrections

  • Last week Tech News said the new MediaWiki version would come to wikis from 21 March to 23 March. The right dates were 22 March to 24 March.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

19:43, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

March 29

Proper implementation of PD-old-auto with Arbitrary Access

I'm looking for some input on the "proper" way to implement {{PD-old-auto}} given that we'll be getting arbitrary wikidata access soon. I see two options:

  • Directly specifying the author's deathyear. This is the current method. It is simple, and the wikitext is more readable. If the author's deathyear changes based on new information, the template won't be automatically updated.
  • Specifying the author's wikidata ID as a template parameter. This will be possible with arbitrary access. The date will be automatically updated from wikidata, but the wikitext may be hard to read - it isn't easy to check that the attached wikidata ID is correct.

(This is related to Commons:Bots/Requests/BMacZeroBot 5). BMacZero (talk) 16:57, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

(I favor the original approach for readability and because I don't believe people's year-of-death is very likely to change). BMacZero (talk) 16:57, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
I agree, I do not think wikidata would be useful there. May be the best option would be to write a bot that looks up wikidata ID of the author, through creator template or by matching author string to categories (which are known to wikidata), or wikipedia link in the author field which is then linked to wikidata. Than bot would look up the year and fill it. --Jarekt (talk) 20:22, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Broadcast crew

This is obviously a camera broadcast crew for news or a commentary program. Does anyone recognize the presenter?Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:31, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

I don't, but the camera operator seems to be wearing a CBS News hat, if that helps. - Themightyquill (talk) 07:24, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Picasa Web Album

There is a problem with the usage rights for images being uploaded here from https://picasaweb.google.com/114532808184510641033/ElishaCuthbert02# None of the files are owned by the Picasa source or the uploader. Can some better informed editor deal with this. Secondarywaltz (talk) 13:30, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

The Picasa license is correct, but the uploader 11453280818451064? is dubious. Why not under his own name? When you google for 11453280818451064 you get sexualy tinted and teens pictures. This under free licence? Smiley.toerist (talk) 16:44, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
Copyvio, IMO. See earlier case. Picassa collection contains low resolution photos by various photographers. Ankry (talk) 11:23, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
Do we have a blacklist for dubious Picasa accounts like we do for Flickr? Couldn't find one … --El Grafo (talk) 11:36, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Paddle steamer in London

Is this a ferry or an excursion boat? I assume there where enough bridges in central London to need ferry services.Smiley.toerist (talk) 23:12, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Could be either. Ferries as you know, just don't always go from river bank to river bank by the shortest route. They often use the river as a navigable water way to get passengers from one place in London where they’d rather not be to another place in London that they wish they had not gone to. See the modern River Bus route map. Enlarging the 1914 image however, looks as though the passengers are donning their Sunday Best, so are probably on a sight seeing cruise- where they usually end up back where they started from (no, I don't see the sense in that either). There is an image on the page [35] of modern day folk in the same part of the river but doing it on a modern floating Greenhouse rather than on an old fashioned paddle-steamer. Don't ask me why they travel this way, it is just something that rich folks do when they can't be bothered to walk.--P.g.champion (talk) 20:31, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

March 30

{{Track maintenance categories}}

purge this page's cache
Maintenance Category #
Language templates with no text displayed 140
LangSwitch template without default version 3399
Pages using Information template with incorrect parameter 2215
Pages using Artwork template with incorrect parameter 74
Pages using Photograph template with incorrect parameter 0
Pages using Book template with incorrect parameter 0
Pages using Information template with parsing errors 552
Creator templates without key information 0
Institution templates without key information 0
Media without a license: needs history check 0
New uploads without a license 0
Media with erroneous locations + subs 288

I wrote a handy template that allows easy tracking of maintenance categories that could benefit from more people watching them. Most are related to tracking different types of syntax errors and other problems that need to be addressed, and all are usually at zero. No admin rights are required to help with backlogs in any of the categories. I used similar table to keep track of of maintenance categories, but it would be great if more people did that. Please add this template to your user page and adopt one or two categories and fix the pages that have the issues. --Jarekt (talk) 14:14, 30 March 2016 (UTC)


UploadWizard will no longer support IE 9, Firefox 3.6, and other old browsers

Screenshot of UploadWizard interface when viewed using an unsupported browser – in this case, Firefox 3.6 on Windows 7. The "View compatibility requirements" link leads to mw:UploadWizard#Compatibility.

Starting with the 1.27.0-wmf.20 release of MediaWiki (to be deployed to Commons on 6 April), per phab:T126763, UploadWizard will explicitly drop support for a variety of older browsers, notably Firefox 3.6, Internet Explorer 9 and Android 4 stock browser. The requirements are listed at mw:UploadWizard#Compatibility. As we're not doing browser sniffing, but using feature detection (except for Firefox < 7.0, which has an insidious bug preventing chunked uploading), any browsers not listed there that support the required APIs will continue working as before. The plan is that not having to support two parallel versions of the code will allow us to more easily resolve the various stability problems that UploadWizard is plagued by.

If your browser can't run UploadWizard, you'll see a plain upload form and a message advising what is going on, similar to what you can see in the screenshot to the right (it might look a bit different on Commons). The plain upload form continues to be supported for pretty much every browser that is capable of uploading files, back to Internet Explorer 6.

I don't expect this to affect many users. Judging by data from phab:T130563, this affects no more than ~100 upload attempts per day, compared to ~5000-7000 uploads that are completed with UploadWizard daily. Judging by phab:T130563 also, affected systems are mostly mobile devices with limited capabilities and extremely old desktop/laptop setups, both of which are probably better off with the simple form. Matma Rex (talk) 14:44, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

March 31

Lanna (northern Thai) manuscripts

I just came across this website which hosts digitised ancient Lanna manuscripts under CC BY-NC 4.0 license. Perhaps one of our resident mass-uploaders would like to take a look at it? - Takeaway (talk) 10:38, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

NC (non-commercial) is a big nono here, unfortunately --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 11:43, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
Considering the manuscripts are centuries old, {{PD-scan|PD-old-100}} should apply (unless exposure and other corrections are so extensive as to have their own copyright). Storkk (talk) 11:53, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
Yes, these manuscripts should be OK with {{PD-scan|PD-old-100}}. Someone knowing Thai or familiar with the subject would be useful for accurate names and descriptions. Regards, Yann (talk) 12:14, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
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