Commons:Village pump/Archive/2016/06

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Something that lets you see global usage for category

Is there a bot or a tool that lets you see the global usage for every file in a category? I'd like to be able to know the global usage for pictures that I have taken. Elisfkc (talk) 20:32, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

" 19 Delphi234 (talk) 04:44, 1 June 2016 (UTC)
Sweet, thanks Delphi234. Elisfkc (talk) 05:02, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

June 02

Filename checking doesn't work?

In the last days, the Special:Upload form appears as not succesfull with checking of destination filename. The "hourglass" sun is rotating and rotating as if the check process is never finished. (However, overwriting warning, wrong name warning and duplicate warning work correctly when clicked "Upload file".) --ŠJů (talk) 19:23, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

Sorry to contradict: the duplicate warning currently doesn't work correctly with upload wizard: just now I tried to upload the files
De-international.ogg and De-Klee.ogg.
I got the general message: There are 2 errors with the forms above. Correct the errors, and try submitting again. with the detailed specifications: <br
A file with this name exists already. If you want to replace it, go to the page for File:De-international anerkannt.ogg and replace it there. and
A file with this name exists already. If you want to replace it, go to the page for File:De-Kleeblatt.ogg and replace it there.
You will agree that the names are quite different, contentually anyway. --Jeuwre (talk) 14:13, 1 June 2016 (UTC)
@Jeuwre: That was (probably) a different issue, filed as phab:T135394, which was fixed recently. The fix should have just been deployed to Commons a couple hours ago. Are you sure this is still occurring? I don't get that error message when trying to upload a file named "De-Klee.ogg" now. Matma Rex (talk) 22:08, 1 June 2016 (UTC)
@Matma Rex: I uploaded about 600 .ogg-files in steps of 50 with the upload wizard, uhmm, yes, yesterday, Jun 1st. I guess around 20 files had to be changed to ".oga"s, otherwise upload would have been impossible. The messages mentioned above occurs every time when a filename exists with exactly the same starting characters however longer (more characters): Klee -> Kleeblatt . I'm sorry, all I can do is to describe what had happened ... --Jeuwre (talk) 22:22, 1 June 2016 (UTC)
@Jeuwre: I am saying that I just fixed this. It should not be occurring anymore. Matma Rex (talk) 23:53, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

Problems at tools.wmflabs.org?

Since yesterday the GLAMorous no works at my Computer, is it down? --Ralf Roleček 05:12, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

Doesn't seem to work for me either, can't get a connection. Also, the "Usage of all files" button in the side bar is gone. --El Grafo (talk) 07:47, 2 June 2016 (UTC)
https://tools.wmflabs.org/magnustools is down, so most (if not all) Magnus's tools cannot load the css and js properly. @Magnus Manske: Could you look into it? --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 10:51, 2 June 2016 (UTC)
Both restarted. Other tools seem to be down as well. I suspect some underlying issue in Labs. --Magnus Manske (talk) 12:43, 2 June 2016 (UTC)
Well, my browser on other tools (at least this GLAMorous & commonshelper) says it's simply waiting for CSS/JS in https://tools.wmflabs.org/magnustools forever --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 12:52, 2 June 2016 (UTC)
Thank you. It works in Edge, Chrome and Firefox. (Win7). --Ralf Roleček 15:39, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

Search tools

I'm a freelance Picture Editor working with a number of online news and features sites.

Wikimedia is a create asset for sourcing sharealike images and material, but the process of finding these images is more complicated than it needs to be.

Why is the default search for 'categories' rather than 'files' and why do some searches not bring up the option to change search parameters? It's fvery frustrating and mars an otherwise create assets.

You can search for files if you just put file: in front your search term. --Magnus (talk) 19:18, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

June 03

Is there a tool for making edits to EXIF data available on Commons?

Hello!

Well, my question already serves as thread title. Do we have an online tool on Labs or a bot available here on Commons that can do custom EXIF modifications? I'd like to avoid causing an additional and unnecessary file revision only because I forgot to erase some fields locally (using a GUI for the EXIFTool fittingly named EXIFToolGUI) on my PC before uploading stuff here… Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 01:22, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

Hello Grand-Duc, that’s logical not possible, because the EXIF get only read from current file revision (If I understand you question rigth) ↔ User: Perhelion 11:01, 2 June 2016 (UTC)
You understood it right, meanwhile, I solved the problem (new version uploaded, asked an admin to hide the "bugged" one). But I'm still thinking that an EXIF edit tool for online work on Commons, akin of the CropTool, would be nice to have. Any comments for that? Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 14:29, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
  •  Comment: A tool to edit EXIF once uploaded to WC could be misused. Then there is also the possibility that if the up-loaders account gets hacked we could also lose the original exif info which helps to provide provenance. Think, better not to have one.--P.g.champion (talk) 20:25, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Advertising

Besides nominating their uploads for deletion, what is the usual procedure with users such as User:Lavyhair, who use Wikimedia as an advertisement vehicle?

I don't think there's any Commons policy or guideline restricting text content in a user page. Commons:User pages is a rejected policy, Commons:User-specific galleries, templates and categories doesn't say anything. --ghouston (talk) 11:19, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
COM:ADVERT addresses userpage contents, pointing us to COM:PSP#Non-allowable user page/gallery/category content, which is firm enough that I'm about to delete the userpage. Nyttend (talk) 11:24, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
Yeah, that seems to cover it. --ghouston (talk) 11:29, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
Aha, that's where the user page policy on advertising was hidden away! :) Thanks! - Takeaway (talk) 11:53, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
Note that spammy images need not be deleted in all cases. I've just deleted the two with big watermarks, because nobody's going to use them (see COM:SCOPE) with those watermarks, but the company's logo is potentially different (if someone writes a Wikipedia article about the company, they'll definitely use the logo) and thus shouldn't be deleted without a discussion that examines its usefulness, and File:LavyHair China.jpg could be used for something depicting fashion shows, so it's in scope and likely shouldn't be deleted. Of course, this totally ignores the copyright infringement issue that you mention; the logo isn't a copyvio (it's just {{PD-textlogo}}), but the China photo could be. Nyttend (talk) 11:22, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

June 04

Identifying Belgian train type

I suspecta classical EMU of an early type. Only these have drop down windows, but it could be a coach. However I dont find any match with the Belgian car coach type. I only saw this type of interior once, so it could be a special case where they had a trial interior. I got no responce on the Dutch Wikipedia so I try here.Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:06, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

June 05

English Wikisource has old book illustrations that need improving and importing — seeking help

English Wikisource has a plethora of book illustrations (see s:en:Category:Pages with raw images (hi-res scan available)) that have been extracted from (old) PD books that need tidying (page yellowing removed, trimmed, +++ other maintenance) and then uploading to Commons. If there is anyone out there who would be willing to help improve the stock of old photographs/images/sketches here at Commons, then English Wikisource would appreciate your help, as we have good transcribing skills, but not so blessed with image skills. Feel free to hack at what is there, or talk to the community at s:en:Wikisource:Scriptorium, especially if there is better information that we can prepare to assist the clean-up and migration. Thanks. All suggestions welcomed (please ping me).  — billinghurst sDrewth 06:12, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

review needed for some 'category' problems

1. I was looking some images in the category named 'Kama' and found an unrelated image has been included in that category, too.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kama_sur_le_temple_de_Parshvanath_%28Khajuraho%29_%288638392628%29.jpg

The file discription of above file stats with : "Le Dieu Kama ~", maybe that's why this file is put in the category.

2. It seems there is only one category named 'Kama' on Commons and it has no further discription.

Checking 'Other' section of 'Kama (disambiguation)' page on English wikipedia, there would be many 'Kama's. Including :

  • Kama (Japanese tea ceremony) a pot = Chagama
  • Kama (Japanese) a pot
  • Kama (Sanskrit word)
  • Kama (Hindu god) one of the name of Kamadeva
  • Kama (Estonian food)
  • Kama (Japanese farming tool) a sickle [Commons has this 'Kama' category]

3. I'm not sure if this needs a category renaming or relocation, but anyway needs a review. Thanks. --119.192.236.224 11:29, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

I would rename the category we have so that the name couldn't be taken for anything else. Then I would turn Category:Kama into a disambiguation category. If anyone put something into the disambiguation category, it would show up at Category:Non-empty disambiguation categories. This is how we handled this with Category:Hyde Park. --Auntof6 (talk) 17:01, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for your kind explanation as well as those review and measures to be taken.--119.192.236.224 14:17, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Armenians (1920) or Greeks (1916) ?

File:Armeniagen6a.jpg and File:PONTIC-GENOCIDE.jpg: two versions of the same photo with completely different descriptions. Can anybody clarify the issue? Sealle (talk) 20:19, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

  • Fascinating. Unless there is clear internal evidence that I don't know (e.g. details of clerical garb) this merits someone with some time on their hands tracing this back to sources. It is quite possible that even tracing it back to early published sources won't clinch it, because some newspaper might (for example) have used a picture that was actually of a 1916 massacre to illustrate an article on a 1920 massacre. The only thing that would really determine that is if some publication predated the latter event. Anyone looking for a good research project? In any case, probably descriptions both images should indicate the uncertainty unless and until it is resolved. - Jmabel ! talk 22:20, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Quite fascinating! I've found many examples of it being used to illustrate both events, but the only sources that give it any specifics suggest it is from Allepo in 1919. The source cited in File:Armeniagen6a.jpg Der Spiegel. The sources that reference the Greek genocide don't attribute the photo to a specific time or place. The only other evidence I can find is this photo also (ostensibly) taken from the same relief hospital. The stones that make up the floor seem to be rather similar to those in the above photos (google a larger resolution image to see clearer). That's hardly solid evidence, but it's what I could find. - Themightyquill (talk) 09:35, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

There is always some degree of uncertainty with regards of old photographs, especially of executions, mass killing, etc. as different groups might reuse the same photograph to illustrate different events. Propaganda machines need extreme graphic depictions of events, which are often in short supply, so they "borrow" photographs depicting different events. Same with many people coming forward with conflicting claims about identity of people in famous photos. It all becomes part of history of a photograph, so the best thing would be to capture that history in the file description, which in case of this photo should say that different sources claim that the photo shows different events, hopefully with links to the sources. --Jarekt (talk) 19:21, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

June 06

Tech News: 2016-23

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

  • MathML/SVG is now the default <math> rendering mode on Wikimedia projects. [1][2]

Changes this week

  • The history page can tell you if a page on your watchlist was updated since you last visited it. This now works the same way in Vector as in other skins. The change broke local designs on some wikis. This will be fixed this week. [3]
  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 June. It will be on all wikis from 9 June (calendar).

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

20:51, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

June 07

Dating painting

Any idea when this was painted?Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:46, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Here the same postcard has a date + date stamp of 5th Oct. 1902. --Magnus (talk) 09:59, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

June 08

Seal or flag ?

Please let me know if this is not the right forum for the following issue.

I am wondering if something can to be done about File:Bantayan, Cebu seal.jpg: the original 2013 version was just a seal over a blue background, and in 2016 its background was stretched to give it the shape of a flag. Now the name of the file no longer matches its content, and the seal by itself is no longer available anywhere. However I believe the flag version would also be of some use.

I am not familiar enough with Commons to figure how to address this, but I believe it would be appropriate to create a new item for the flag version, then revert the 2016 change to restore the seal version, and finally to edit the original seal version to cut off the background and just retain the central portion, the seal itself.

Is this feasible at all? thanks --Laddo (talk) 00:29, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

@Laddo: you can use the {{Split}} template to request that different revisions of a file be separated. It is something only admins can do, so I have split the flag off to File:Flag of Bantayan, Cebu.jpg and the seal is back in the original file. You can upload a new version of the seal by clicking on the link in the File History section of the page (note this is not the history of the file, strange as it might sound, but look near the foot of the file page). I hope that helps. Green Giant (talk) 01:00, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
@Green Giant: Wow, thanks for the quick action! I will manage to upload a nice circle for the seal, now. --Laddo (talk) 01:12, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
You're welcome. Green Giant (talk) 01:15, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
I tried uploading a nice round seal on white background to File:Bantayan, Cebu seal.jpg, but for some reason it would not replace the version displayed. My attempt to revert my changes failed as well... Can someone clean up my mess and "select" the version on white background? Thanks --Laddo (talk) 02:02, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
@Laddo: ✓ Done Green Giant (talk) 02:21, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
OK I finally see the right thing. I needed a Ctrl-R ro reset the Firefox cache... Thanks again --Laddo (talk) 02:26, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Laddo (talk) 19:10, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Commons scope + upload wizard

We have a serious problem with junk uploads. Wikimedia Zero in particular is terrible for reasons we've already established.[4] But in fact all uploads coming from new accounts have this problem. I recommend anyone look at a random gallery in User:OgreBot/Uploads by new users‎ for evidence.

In particular, we have the following problems, in descending order of frequency:

  • Users uploading selfies, PDFs about close ones, cirriculum vitae, and other out of scope content.
  • Users uploading fair use content, e.g., company logos, etc. These almost always are marked as self-created.
  • Users maliciously uploading copyright violations and claiming it as self-created.
  • Users uploading expired public domain works but placing an inappropriate license on it (e.g., {{self|cc-zero}}).
  • Vandalism.

This has problem has been getting worse for a while, and it has frankly exceeded Commons' ability to oversee it. Is there anything we can do to add to the upload process to somehow to communicate to users what our scope is? I have something like this in mind:

  •  Not OK Pictures of you and your friends, unless you are somehow famous.
  • OK Pictures of people, places, and things which are relevant to the whole world.
  •  Not OK Logos of companies, sports clubs, or other organizations if you are not the owner.
  • OK Old logos which have expired due to copyright, or which are too simple for copyright.
  •  Not OK Most pictures you found on the internet.
  • OK Pictures you took yourself.

Any thoughts? Caveat: I admit to am mostly ignorant about the upload wizard because I just use Special:Upload directly. Magog the Ogre (talk) (contribs) 03:20, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

My personal experience is that the problem is particularly bad with cross wiki uploads. Even when the file is legit (a personal photograph of a building for example), they usually lack categories and even the date is very often just the upload date. MKFI (talk) 06:43, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
Tracked in Phabricator
Task T120867
See https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T120867, including further analysis (bad ratio etc.). For a random, single day of cross-wiki uploads, see my current check via User:Gunnex/Cross-wiki uploads 08.03.2016. For a single wiki, see also my current checks via User:Gunnex/Cross-wiki uploads from pt.wikipedia.org. I already suggested to turn off the cross-wiki upload wizard but... well... that's a WMF-thing. Gunnex (talk) 07:34, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
I think defining scope more accurately would be useful. As for copyright violations, is there some way that all images (by new users?) with very low resolution (<100kb) and no/limited exif data could be flagged somehow? The anyone uploading such images could be reminded of the rules before the upload is completed, or the images could automatically be tagged for inspection? - Themightyquill (talk) 08:09, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
I think one of the main problems with mis-attributing uploads as "own work" is the fact the this option is pre-selected in the Upload Wizard. Also, the only other alternative on the top level is "not my own work". It would be psychologically better, not to pre-select anything and provide alternatives like "I downloaded it from the web" on the top level. Also, cross-wiki uploads only for auto confirmed users, if this is not the case yet. --Sebari (talk) 09:04, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
I frequently come across old postcards wich are scanned and uploaded as ´own work´ often with the mention ´private collection´. It should be pointed out that scans in principe are not ´own work´. Al posible information from the backside should be mentioned. They mostly go under the EU-anonymous licence unless the photographer is mentioned.Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:58, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Shutting down the cross-Wiki stuff would be simple and helpful in reducing maintenance workload, I agree. But as this feature won't cause an outcry as the filthy image filter stuff from some time ago, I do not see any way to put pressure on the Foundation to go this way... But suggestions above aren't so bad, albeit I think that they'll need some tuning. Magog's wordings are a bit too permissive, IMHO. I'd suggest to cut of some explanations following the commas and simplify/clarify the others, giving:

  •  Not OK Pictures of you and your friends.
  • OK Pictures of people, places, and things which are relevant to the whole world.
  •  Not OK Logos of companies, sports clubs.
  • OK Old logos which have expired due to copyright, or which are too simple for copyright.
  •  Not OK Most Pictures you found on the internet.
  • OK Pictures Photographs you took yourself.
    • The selfie thing is pretty straightforward: how many selfies landing in scope are to be expected? I guess that they are too few to speak about an exception here.
    • Logos pose often a quite hard task to assess, better leave it to experienced Commons editors. Not having a logo does not harm the repository aim of Commons too much. I'd even strike the "old logo" point.
    • Striking the word "most" gives the needed clarity here. We've enough experienced Flickr (Panoramio...) uploaders that can use internet sources.
    • Exchanging the word "pictures" with "photographs" may avoid the problem of screenshots here.

From a technical viewpoint, disallowing all cross-wiki JPEG and TIFF uploads without camera data or EXIFDateShot field would be a sensible way of filtering potential copyvios. Additionally, Sebari's idea of restricting the usage of the cross-wiki feature is a good idea, but auto-confirmed may be too low. There should be some edits on-wiki or a membership in groups as "editors" or users of the flaggedrevision extension before getting access to this tool. Last thing about cross-wiki: I could imagine that all cross-wiki stuff lands in a special Wiki or a special Commons namespace, from where embedding into Wikis is not allowed. Only more or less experienced Commons editors will have the right to review and move these files in the main repository, that'll have the effect of discouraging self-promotional selfie uploads and reducing the amount of copyvios to be processed by volunteers (that's somehow in the line of thinking: the WMF wants cross-wiki, then it'll shall take care of the results by itself, Commons volunteers will use the results pool as a normal internet resource when needed...) But the first thing that must be done is indeed to remove the pre-checked "own work" in the wizard. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 10:09, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Huge problem indeed. A while back I walked through the uploads (first two pages in Category:Photography, which seems to be used frequently as sort of an easy category. At least more than half of the images in there were nominated (and later deleted). Loads of out of scope images, but more pressing IMO loads of copyright violations, or at least cases where I heavily suspect a copyright violation. The scope issue I think is more easy to tackle than the copyright issue. We could for example tag loads of suspected files for nomination if they are not used after 1 month. I thing such an approach would for example be a good idea for the category:logos (and unidentified logos). Where lots of logos are incorrectly claimed to be own work and not used. Those are either out of scope (because they are not used) or a (copyright) violation because the attribution is incorrect (even if below TOO). Efforts towards more direct solutions for large batches of images would be welcomed by me, and I'm always interested to help. Maybe some sort of vandalism filter based on description and some general facts combined with machine learning would be an idea (but lets start with the more easy and hands-on ideas of just default nominating/deleting files according to certain (strict) criteria). Basvb (talk) 19:05, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
@Basvb: I agree with much of what you say, but could you clarify "out of scope (because they are not used)"? The majority of images on Commons are not used elsewhere in WMF projects. I think that's fine. - Jmabel ! talk 19:17, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
@Jmabel: That statement in itself is a bit oversimplified and should be seen together with the attribution issue and is specifically on logos. When nominating logos for this reason I use the following, which explains my argument better: "The logo is either of a non notable subject or company and could thus be considered out of scope as advertising content. On the other hand: if the logo is of a notable subject, and might thus be in scope, than the own work claim is almost surely incorrect and as such the author and source information are likely false." For the full reasoning please see my page of standard nomination reasons. Basvb (talk) 19:23, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
I fear that this discussion will end into virtual Nirwana because I doubt that guys from WMF are following this thread. Instead of this (or additionally), try (also) to participate at the mentioned Phabricator task which is followed by several WMF-staff. I found @Grand-Duc: 's résumé and thoughts above quite useful as it summarizes several options for further improvements and may be worth to just copy&paste it to Phabricator. Concearning the idea of some kind of quarantine (="(...) all cross-wiki stuff lands in a special Wiki or a special Commons namespace (...)"): this may be especially interesting (despite to simple turn off the wizard) because (and the following is some kind of "loudly thinking") it interrupts the "Facebook-style"/"instant success-feeling"/WYSIWYG-effect of the upload wizard (just a random-"I don't care" "X" at the form, store the wiki entry, and ready) and may decrease the ratio of spontaneous uploads (note that nearly 80 % of cross-wiki uploads are made by "fresh" users) — but they must be informed about that before the upload (and maybe that makes them to just abort their upload). Nevertheless: we have > 30.000 uploads monthly (in 03.2016: 36.478) via cross-wiki uploads and I fear that (considering the constantly understaffed Commons "crew") we will not be able to handle this amount of files (which may be lower after the improvement, but still will go into thousands). Btw, I did a 6th update on User:Gunnex/Cross-wiki uploads 08.03.2016. I started to check these files on 10.05.2016 with 902 files living, 387 files deleted. Today: 446 files living, 833 files deleted + 73 files pending deletion. That indicates to a "Not-Yet-Tagged-Ratio" of > 50 % --> an indicator which I already reached in other cross-wiki checks. That means, if I assume 30.000 cross-wiki uploads monthly since 11.2015 [ignoring 10.2015: the tool was introduced on 21.10.2015) = 210.000 (7x 30k) uploads till May 2016 --> 105.000 (+/- 50% bad ratio) --> 52.500 not-yet-tagged living files (copyvios/no-permission-source-etc/out of COM:PS)... Gunnex (talk) 19:53, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
The exact number of cross wiki uploaded files is currently 229,842 I believe, see Special:Tags. Basvb (talk) 20:00, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
I wrote some stuff as a Phabricator comment just as Gunnex had suggested. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 00:28, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
Re phabricator:T120867#2362804 where you propose blocking all cross-wiki uploads of JPEG images without EXIF, GIF and PNG files, did someone try doing that with Special:AbuseFilter? I think such content blocks should be managed by the community if possible. --Nemo 06:21, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
My concern with the structure of the suggestion is that a potential uploader will scan down the list, see "Photographs you took yourself." with an okay button next to it, and upload. Sorry for identifying a problem without a solution, but some change in format is needed.--Sphilbrick (talk) 13:13, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
I fear that I did not fully catch what you (Sphilbrick) do see as the problem here. Do you mean that any cross-wiki uploader simply does not see the points above "photographs"? Second possibility, that the same person does only react to a green OK flag, disregarding the text? Or that all explanations altogether aren't read or seen, as the uploading person only searches for the button to do the job? The last and the first possibility could be treated by making the options an entry point to the uploading process. Those which aren't admissible could even fake the uploading process, without actually transferring a file, and if the would-be uploader reiterates his transfer request for three or four times, or if he switches to another "greened" option, he may get a short block. If the positioning of an OK-flag as last item of the list matters, then all of the admissible points could be placed first, the forbidden ones last, directly above the button. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 13:39, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
Perhaps I'm not fully following the proposal. As I understand it many uploaders are uploading junk, and the proposal is to provide some guidance to help cut out some of the junk. I thought the proposed icons and text would appear on the upload wizard and/or get added to phone apps. It wasn't my understanding of the proposal that there are buttons here that one clicks on but only icons and text explaining what is and what is not allowed. My point is that if you have a green checkmark with the text "photographs you took yourself", you leave the impression that any photographs you took yourself are acceptable, but that's not the case. I don't think it has anything to do with cross wiki uploader.--Sphilbrick (talk) 16:11, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
  • Maybe we can imagine have intermediate screens, after selecting an option. E.g. you select "This file is my own work." then instead of to have directly the licensing, another screen that say "Be sure that you are the owner of the work, e.g. you created the work yourself or you have gained flow rights, in any other legal way, and not that you have downloaded this file from an existing work (screenshot, image found by you on the web...). Do you confirm this?"
  • Then a check box "yes or no"
  • if "no" is selected then a message "Please chose another option instead of "This file is my own work."
  • if "yes" then another screen "What kind of subject is depicted in your file? To upload pictures of people, places, and things which are relevant to the whole world is allowed. Pictures of you and your friends, unless you are somehow famous, are generally considered out of our project scope and may be deleted. Click to continue if your file can be useful.".....
  • Maybe we can keep the upload wizard as it is for the autoconfirmed users and for the newcommers a tool with more confirmation to give and with more check boxes with all the options, or more, described by Magog the Ogre, for an educational purposes. Christian Ferrer (talk) 18:44, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

(Un)user pages

On a related note, user pages for users with no actual contributions (on Commons or any other Wikimedia project) seem to be on the rise, particularly from the mobile zombie herds (much more so than the Zeros). These are often accompanied by selfies, which can't be deleted because current policy is to treat user page images as sacred, COM:NOTSOCIAL notwithstanding. I think we should tighten up our deletion policies to list user pages and user page images of accounts with no constructive contributions to any Wikimedia project within a reasonable time of creation as subject to deletion. —LX (talk, contribs) 10:10, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

+1 I already delete without any problem of conscience, the nominated images for deletion that are used on user pages but whose accounts do not make real contributions, apart from the creation of the user page here or elsewhere... Christian Ferrer (talk) 11:31, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
Indeed, none of such nominations of mine resulted in a kept either. Just found out that we already have a CSD (U3) covering userpages that contain purely advertising or promotional material, should definitely use that more often.    FDMS  4    15:23, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
+1 ↔ User: Perhelion 12:14, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Courtesy deletion request

The owner of the building depicted in File:(1)Berowra in Lavender Bay.jpg was surprised to see this photo in Commons, and contacted Wikimedia (OTRS ticket:2016060210012291 ).

With the caveat that I am neither a lawyer, nor fully conversant with relevant laws in Australia, I think it is almost certainly permitted. However, just because something is permitted does not automatically mean it should remain in Commons. If the building were a notable building and used to illustrate it existing article, I would immediately reject the request. However, that does not appear to be the case. It is not used in any existing article. I checked with the uploader To see if a courtesy deletion would be opposed, and I assume that if the image were a notable building and plan for an upcoming article that would've been mentioned. (The response is on my talk page.)

While we definitely do not someone asks, I believe we have done courtesy deletions in some cases. In this instance, with a photo is not being used in any article and there appeared to be no particular plans for use, and no indication that it has special qualities that would otherwise deserve inclusion, I think it would be polite to honor a request for courtesy deletion, but I'd like to hear from others.--Sphilbrick (talk) 13:07, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

  • I'm neutral on this, but thought I'd speak up anyway. The uploader apparently has no problem with a courtesy deletion, so presuming that the building is indeed considered not at all notable, I'd have no particular problem with it either, but I might not agree to a similar request about a similar photo I took. This building is on a public street. Nothing in the picture shows anything that is in any way private. I'd understand the request if they had (for example) their laundry hung out to dry, or some such, but this picture simply depicts what any passerby can see any time. As I understand it, they are apparently objecting not to this particular photo but to any photo of the building. - Jmabel ! talk 13:20, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
  •  Oppose The image is not great, but the house could be of interest. According to this page it is a very expensive 1888 house in a great location. It is also "National Trust listed property". You can find on the web plenty of photographs of inside the house and even floor plans. Google street map has the same shoot of the house. I also do not like the precedent. I can not imagine why someone would go to the trouble of writing OTRS about it. --Jarekt (talk) 15:22, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
  •  Oppose A house built in the 19th century in Australia? Sounds pretty notable to me. To be honest, people moving into cultural heritage buildings should not be surprised to find photos of their homes all over the web, and rightly so. --Sebari (talk) 19:47, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
  • So much for "presuming that the building is indeed considered not at all notable".  Oppose If it's a heritage-listed building, they can hardly expect not to have public photos of the exterior. - Jmabel ! talk 19:54, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
  •  Oppose The request is entirely unreasonable being that the photograph is of an important building in the middle of a major city and from a very public place, it should be firmly declined no matter how politely the requester asked or whether he asked through the right channels or not. These sort of unreasonable requests should be seen to be firmly discouraged. The file "not being used in any article and there appeared to be no particular plans for use" is not a valid reason for deletion, the correct course of action would have been to immediately reject the request. Oxyman (talk) 20:15, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
  •  Oppose. Think this OTRS might just be a nee-jerk reaction on the part of the owners whom may think that as they own the property they own all images of it as well. As Jarekt pointed out it is "National Trust listed property" and the owners are the only the current guardians of this example of Australian heritage. Think, that if the current owners looked at it from this point of view they would quickly loose their objections and realize that this photograph is a worthy image for WC to host and be proud of it. --P.g.champion (talk) 20:29, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

I'd say the consensus looks clear. I will inform the owner.--Sphilbrick (talk) 23:51, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Just to be clear, the status of the building as a "National Trust listed property" was unknown to me (and added to the image after I posted here.) That changes my view as well.--Sphilbrick (talk) 00:24, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
The National Trust list doesn't seem to be available online. However it's also part of the Lavender Bay Conservation Area. --ghouston (talk) 05:18, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

June 09

Notification of DMCA takedown demand - House-Ant1.jpg

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

Affected file(s):

To discuss this DMCA takedown, please go to COM:DMCA#House-Ant1.jpg COM:DMCA#Takedown of House-Ant1.jpg Thank you! Kbrown (WMF) (talk) 20:25, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

June 10

Animals by location

Would it make sense to add Category:Sarcophilus harrisii (for the Tasmanian devil) to Category:Mammals of Tasmania? The Tasmanian devil is an animal of Australia that is now extinct on the mainland. I believe the category Mammals of Tasmania is intended for animals located in Tasmania, but some of the photos are of captive animals in other places. I could create Category:Sarcophilus harrisii in Tasmania, but I once tried to do that for Category:Araucaria heterophylla in Norfolk Island but it was reverted, so I'm uncertain if there's a consensus about how these location categories should be used. --ghouston (talk) 06:50, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

It seems like it should be fine to me. I don't know enough about Araucaria heterophylla to discuss that one, but surely there are plenty of Tasmanian devils outside Tasmania, so I don't see an inherent problem with Category:Sarcophilus harrisii in Tasmania either. Your other option would be to create Category:Sarcophilus harrisii in zoos which would effectively remove all photos *not* from Tazmania from the base category, though I guess there are likely some in Zoos in Tazmania that would also be removed.
I think "of" is ambiguous, covering both animals located in a place and species from a place. Maybe that was intentional to cut down on parallel category trees, but it seems like there is room for improvement there. It was essentially discussed at Commons:Categories for discussion/2011/04/Category:Birds endemic to Australia in 2011 (and Commons:Categories for discussion/2010/02/Category:Animals by country & Category:Flora by country in 2010), and is effectively under discussion at Commons:Categories for discussion/2016/04/Category:Sounds of birds by country right now. - Themightyquill (talk) 07:50, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
Category:Sarcophilus harrisii in Tasmania seems more logical to me. But that was also the case for Araucaria heterophylla. Maybe @MPF: could give more insight. --ghouston (talk) 07:23, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for the ping! Sarcophilus harrisii is endemic to Tasmania, just as Araucaria heterophylla is endemic to Norfolk Island. All specimens of either outside those locations are captive / cultivated, so should be in a subcategory of non-natural "incarcerated" specimens. Therefore, Category:Sarcophilus harrisii in Tasmania is a pure synonym of Category:Sarcophilus harrisii, and superfluous; all it would do is (a) mean that people have to click through one additional superfluous layer to get to files of the species, and (b) deny access to these files for automated users (e.g. Encyclopedia of Life) which access files through detecting the Taxonavigation template at the top of the category. So in conclusion, (1), yes, Category:Sarcophilus harrisii should be added to Category:Mammals of Tasmania (I've added it now!); (2), no, Category:Sarcophilus harrisii in Tasmania should not be created, and (3), check regularly that all non-wild, captive specimens are subcategorised to Category:Sarcophilus harrisii in zoos or its subcategories; in supplement to this (relevant to taxa with many more wild-origin files than we have of Sarcophilus harrisii), ensure that (4) all subcategories that contain files showing wild specimens include the taxon's Taxonavigation template duplicated on the page, but that (5) subcategories of files showing non-wild specimens do not have the Taxonavigation template. - MPF (talk) 08:14, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
Thanks MPF, for explaining and for sorting out the category. --ghouston (talk) 11:19, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

TED speaker challenge

Participate in the TED speakers challenge!!

From 6 June to 6 July we are holding a writing challenge about TED speakers which includes image uploads and adding images of speakers. Everyone can participate by writing about people who have held a TED talk. For an overview of TED speakers in the in competition see here: List of TED Speakers. For an overview of all the TED talks that these people have held, see here: d:Wikidata:TED/Ted Talks. More information about the challenge, the points, the prizes, and the sign-up is here: TED speakers challenge. Jane023 (talk) 11:04, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Hi Jane, I believe you are being paid by TED for this work, could you please make this clear when you post notices, and on the landing page on the outreach wiki you have linked to? Thanks --Fæ (talk) 11:20, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
Oops! Sorry about that! Do I need to post that on all projects where I post notices (that's a lot!)? It's already stated on my Wikidata page here d:User:Jane023. On Commons I uploaded the logo for them so I hope that is OK. Jane023 (talk) 11:58, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
Logo is fine (clearly ineligible for copyright, clearly notable organization). I would say that it would be a good policy that each time you come to a new page in your paid capacity you indicate that. I'd use talk page for file pages etc. here on Commons or articles in Wikipedia; when posting a notice like this in a forum, it should be part of your notice to say who you are representing. That's not policy as such, just my suggestion on how to be clear that you are operating as a paid representative of an organization rather than a regular contributor, which should be made as clear as possible. - Jmabel ! talk
Good, because this is the only commons additions - the notice here and the logo. Jane023 (talk) 14:11, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
  • Were it me, I would create a new "official" legitimate sock account (like User:Fæ (TED)) which I only used during my contracted work with TED, exactly as WMF employees are now supposed to do for their employee activities. Secondly, for that account's user page, I would set up a global one on meta, then have that automatically reused in all Wikimedia projects (it's a preference setting I think). Then my commercial interest and any paid editing type work can be fully declared on that user page, along with an explanation that TED is a non-profit (but not a charity). If the landing page on Outreach had said somewhere clearly on it that you were managing this work as a TED employee/paid representative, then I would not have mentioned it here as that probably would have been sufficient; however I agree with Jmabel, it would be good practice to find a nice way of ensuring that notices make it clear that this is a TED initiative, not a spontaneous unpaid volunteer project, nor a Wikimedia funded project or via a Wikimedia funded association. --Fæ (talk) 13:40, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
Seems a bit much since I have only been working on Wikidata for them. The notice is meant to get people jump-started in using the data donation. I also don't think that such a notice would be easy to understand in translation. I have tried to keep the notice as short as possible. A specially named sock account might be useful for full-time work, but here would only be used for a couple days and I would probably forget to use it. For data donations I don't need a sock account on Wikidata. Jane023 (talk) 14:11, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
Jane023 thanks for heads up and I am a big fan of TED talks on local NPR radio. You should think about creating categories here on Commons for cataloging and maintaining photographs, videos and recordings that might be uploaded as a part of this collaboration. For example all the people on the List of TED Speakers should have their own category on Commons. --Jarekt (talk) 14:11, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
Nice! I imagine most of these people already have categories on Commons, though these categories may need to be linked to their Wikidata items. The list I linked is just pulling the images from the items that are marked with the property "TED Speaker ID" or P2611. We don't have TED images hardly at all, except for the ones uploaded by Wikipedians. The data donation from TED did not include any photos, videos, or other media unfortunately. Jane023 (talk) 16:44, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
I see so the donation is of "only" non-copyrightable (in US) metadata which is uploaded to Wikidata. Sounds like something someone can put in a spreadsheet and email you. That is great but photo/video/audio media or transcripts would be so much nicer. --Jarekt (talk) 19:17, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
  • It would be a good gesture if TED's policy for copyright shifted a little bit more from everything being CC-BY-NC-ND, before launching Wikimedia initiatives. As Jarekt points out, what is being "donated" is a small set of metadata information of the type I routinely pull from GLAM catalogues for free, and most top level educational establishments now set policies to make the metadata {{CC0}}, even if the artefacts the data is about are copyrighted. If every new TED video had one frame grab or special portrait photograph of each speaker released as CC-BY, then this would seem more balanced. At the moment, unless I'm seriously misunderstanding the pages Jane has provided, it feels a lot like TED is using this for free publicity, hoping to get lots of TED video links spammed into Wikipedia articles to get more visitors to their website, rather than usefully opening up some of of their knowledge repository so that some of its media can be used directly on Commons or Wikipedia. It's not a healthy model for other organizations that are seeking to monetize knowledge or use Wikipedia's popularity to attract website hits. Personally, I'm investing my volunteer time on GLAMs with better approaches. --Fæ (talk) 19:47, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Earth Biosphere Reserves running in 120 countries

Hi all

I'm very happy to say that Wiki Loves Earth Biosphere Reserves is running in 120 countries throughout June covering all 699 Biosphere Reserves, the website is available in in English, French, Spanish and Russian but you can help to translate it into other languages.

I would really appreciate it if you could tell groups and individuals who may be interested in taking part, we can't run banners because of the number of countries involved. UNESCO is promoting the project so I hope this will encourage people from outside the Wikimedia movement to take part. You can also promote the project on social media by sharing any of these message from UNESCO on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, French, Spanish and Russian messages are linked to from the site. You can also contact Biosphere Reserves directly to encourage them to share their photos.

UNESCO have also made descriptions of their Biosphere Reserves available under CC-BY-SA so they can be used to start missing Wikipedia articles, I have created a simple to use guide to help.

Thanks very much and please feel free to contact me or ask questions here.

John Cummings (talk) 19:54, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

June 11

Template:Featured

Hello.Please replace "{{Featured}}" by "Featured" in these pages using AWB because the template is meaningless.Thank you --ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2 (talk) 09:15, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

 Oppose Why do you believe it is meaningless? It adds a to the top-right corner of the page. Storkk (talk) 10:57, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
@Storkk: Text, link and use are wrong --ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2 (talk) 09:03, 16 June 2016 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I don't understand. Storkk (talk) 09:47, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

@Storkk:

  1. Description: says that the page is featured article
  2. link:to a disambiguation page
  3. use:used in candidates pages

What is the benefit of these things?! --ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2 (talk) 11:47, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

 Support First, we should use this either on all FP candidate pages or on none of them. Not on 47. Second, the mouse-over text says "This is a featured article. Click here for more information.", which is indeed nonsense in multiple ways: 1) we don't have featured articles at Commons (or any articles for that matter). 2) clicking there brings you to en:Feature article, which is a disambiguation page on the English language Wikipedia. 3) the template is obviously intended to be used on featured article pages, not featured article nomination pages. Looks like the template was imported from en.wp some time ago without adjusting it to Commons needs, then nevertheless used for a while and later abandoned because it's it doesn't really make sense in this form. Just remove it and delete the template afterwards. --El Grafo (talk) 13:00, 16 June 2016 (UTC)
Also, for example, have a look at the last line of Commons:Featured picture candidates/Image:John-bell-II-B-6.jpg, which in wiki markup is 10 support --> {{Featured}} Roger McLassus 07:31, 15 April 2006 (UTC). It is supposed look like
10 support --> Featured Roger McLassus 07:31, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
but it actually looks like
10 support --> Roger McLassus 07:31, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
It's this edit that broke it, so we might just want to revert that? --El Grafo (talk) 13:10, 16 June 2016 (UTC)
But then again: But do we really need a template that just makes the word "Featured" bold? {{Featured}} isn't really quicker to type than '''Featured''' and nobody seems to be using it nowadays anyway. I'd says: Just nuke it. --El Grafo (talk) 13:17, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

The template must be replaced by the word --ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2 (talk) 14:08, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

  • ✓ Done I modified the template (see also). It was used in the past but is no longer present, I modified the text and the link, at least it's better now. I see no reason to delete it now In fact I'm neutral regarding if it should be removed or not from these old nominations, it does not bother me, I was not even aware of it. Christian Ferrer (talk) 18:35, 16 June 2016 (UTC)
    • Sorry, but it's  Not done. This is not how the template is supposed to work, please have a close look at my example: it was originally intended to be used in the closing comment of a nomination to make the word "Featured" appear in bold typeface. With this edit, the behaviour was changed completely. If we want to keep it as a means of adding a star to a page, someone still needs to go through the nomination pages listed above and replace the template with '''Featured'''. --El Grafo (talk) 08:13, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
 Support removal of the template, El Grafo makes plenty of valid points. Also I went ahead and removed the template use on the 47 pages. So now the decision is not pending the usage on those 47 pages. Offnfopt(talk) 08:43, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
Thanks to both of you, Offnfopt and Christian Ferrer! I've put a speedy template on it, as it's now unused. If anyone disagrees with that, please feel free to convert that into a regular DR for further discussion. --El Grafo (talk) 11:52, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: El Grafo (talk) 11:52, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

Android gallery for Commons - Wikieye

Would love some feedback and suggestions.

I have released a first preview of a free Android app idea I've been toying with for Commons.

The idea is to provide a simple-to-use image gallery for Commons. You can tap on an image to view more details and to zoom into a full resolution image, which is something I personally love doing for photography and artwork. I would like to make it search through all categories, but for now I've implemented only a selection of 5 interesting categories, including Pictures of the Day (and it only fetches 50 images from each).

I intend to keep working this and improving it in my spare time over the coming months. It's a hobby, not a commercial project, and I will likely open source it once it is a little more mature.

Google Play link - Available for Android 4.4+ phones. --Ktcher (talk) 09:29, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

Template:PD-Egypt correction

See [5] --ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2 (talk) 14:16, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

ten.wikipedia.org files licence

Hello, I would like to know what is the licence of the files on Wikipedia 10 wiki (no licence mentioned), and why they are not on Commons. Thanks -- issimo 15 !? 16:50, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

  • As there are no explicit releases of images, they do not appear suitable for Commons. Most of the people involved have moved on, so as the images are on a locked wiki, it's most probably best to be read as a record, not a freely reusable resource. --Fæ (talk) 20:52, 11 June 2016 (UTC)
  • I wonder about the chosen subdomain name, ten.wikipedia.org. Is it the Tama language version of Wikipedia? Seems not, although variant language versions is what is expected of two- and three-letter subdomanins under Wikipedia.ORG. Why are we given the impression that people who select these high-visibility labels have no knowledge nor regard for the specificities of our project? -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 23:48, 12 June 2016 (UTC)
It was created for the 10th anniversary of Wikipedia (i.e. the English Wikipedia). There were big celebrations at the time, I avoided getting too involved as organizing these things is very time consuming. In fact a couple of very good volunteers I respected retired soon afterwards, due to what we often call 'burn out'. --Fæ (talk) 23:56, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

How do I get the upload_by_url right?

Hi, I am an experienced Commons user with almost 700 uploads, most of them from FlickR. I would love to take advantage of the UploadWizard's Flickr support, but for it to work I need the upload_by_url right. AFAIK it is automatically granted to admins/sysops. Is there any procedure for me (filemover) to get it? — Le Loi (talk) 08:33, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

You need to be license reviewer or admin. I'd say use flickr2commons. — regards, Revi 08:42, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll try to use this tool. — Le Loi (talk) 08:50, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
By the way: For url uploading i suggest https://tools.wmflabs.org/url2commons/ (which allows upload from *all* urls, the mediawiki upload by url tool allows only uploads from whitelisted domains). --Steinsplitter (talk) 10:24, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
Thank you, I'll try this one too. — Le Loi (talk) 10:26, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Use of English in image descriptions

One of the problem areas in Wikimedia Commons is translation of descriptions from the contributor's native language into one of the world languages (usually English). Would it be appropriate to develop a protocol template with the text "Please copy-edit". ("Copy-editing" is improving the text's grammar without changing the meaning of the text). A non-native English speaker would then:

  • Add a machine translation of the text to the description area.
  • Add the "Please copy-edit" template to the image.
  • Put image into the category "Items awaiting English copy-editing".

Native English speakers would be encouraged to follow up any item in this category and:

  • Copy-edit the English
  • Remove the item from the category

In this way English-speakers (many of whom do not speak any other languages) can put something back into Commons.

If this is successful, it could be extended to other major languages. Martinvl (talk) 12:24, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

If you don't understand the source language, messing with machine translations is a really, really bad idea. I'd rather have a no English description at all. Even the machine translation itself would be better since it would make non-sense pretty clear, but after someone "corrected" that non-sense, probably the remaining rest will also be complete non-sense, but much less apparently so. --WolfD59 (talk) 17:31, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
There is a fundemental difference between understanding a foreign language and writing it. Consider the following English sentence "I wrote a letter to my cousin Mary and another to my cousin John." It was autotranslated by Google to "Ich schrieb einen Brief an meine Cousine Maria und ein anderer zu meinem Cousin John." Any native German speaker who understands basic English could correct this sentence without any problem. I know enough German to realise that the translation is poor ("Vetter" and "Kusine" rather than "Cousin" or "Cousine" and "Ich haben einen Brief ... geschrieben"), but I do not know enough German to get the tenses and the genders correct. Martinvl (talk) 21:22, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Drinking Water Solution for Village Bhojuchiwadi Nanded District

Dear Friends,I started this subject here because of I belongs from a small village & am feeling proud on Wikipedia team who's given me a chance to write here to show actual Peoples & their life style. Okay So now Bhojuchiwadi is the village of 650 population approx.. All peoples have primary Earing Source is Yield Only. They all are middle class families my self also. Following Facilities are available there: 1.Primary School :Yes 2.Primary First Aid Centre: No 3.Water Supply : Yes But Depend up on Raining. 4.Road to Village : Not Good ( Accident Ratio due to Road is 30%) 5.Solar Light : Yes — Preceding unsigned comment added by Laxmangutte (talk • contribs) 15:19, 13 June 2016‎ (UTC)

Wikimedia Commons is not a place for writing about things. That is what Wikipedia is for. Wikimedia Commons is for media, such as pictures. Have you tried writing a out the village on Wikipedia? --Auntof6 (talk) 16:59, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-24

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

Changes this week

  • You can filter user contributions to hide minor edits. [11]
  • It will be easier to edit galleries with the visual editor. [12]
  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 14 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 15 June. It will be on all wikis from 16 June (calendar).

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

18:41, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

An idea

why File:জবা ফুল (কমলা).jpg is listed in Category:Incomplete deletion requests - missing reason and how to get it out of it? There never was a DR on that images. I allready tried to nulledit and purge the image and the category without success. Thx. --JuTa 19:02, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

I do not see such a category. Ruslik (talk) 19:17, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
{{Delete}} has been placed in a redirect, which causes that the file gets listed in the category. Probably a bug or just a slow jobqueue. --Steinsplitter (talk) 19:21, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
Thx a lot. I fixed that now. --JuTa 21:51, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

June 14

Notification of DMCA takedown demand - Beautiful-dream-beach.jpg

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

Affected file(s):

To discuss this DMCA takedown, please go to COM:DMCA#Beautiful-dream-beach.jpg Thank you! Kalliope (WMF) (talk) 09:42, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Transferring files from xx.wikipedia.org to Commons, tool question

Hello!

Is there any tool that allows nowadays a direct file transfer without saving a file locally on my computer from a Wikipedia (eg the German one) to Commons? I remember that back in the Toolserver days, there was something like this. Is there anything new available? As I just wanted to transfer some images, I got the idea to use the "upload from an URL" technique that I can use, owning the license review right. But unfortunately, it wasn't allowed. What's the rationale behind that and could it be allowed? Kind regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 22:12, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Yes, CommonsHelper for example. See w:Wikipedia:Moving_files_to_Commons. --ghouston (talk) 00:29, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

June 15

Commons related events at Wikimania 2016

I aggregated a table of events at the upcoming Wikimania 2016 which could be of relevance for Wikimedia Commons and commons users (content creation, organzing media files, license issues etc). Feel free to comment and add some more.

Event Date Time Venue Comment
Wikimania Takes Lake Como Monday, June 20th - Thursday, June 23rd all day Milan, Como content creation
School of Rock(ing) EU Copyright Thursday, June 23rd 2pm - 5.30 pm Collaborative space licensing/copyright
Commons categorizer meetup Sunday, June 26th 9 am - 10.30 am School - room 30 organizing media files;
organized by User:MB-one
Explainer Video Workshop Thursday, June 23rd 2pm - 5.30 pm Museum content creation
Detecting Copyright Concerns in Near Real Time Friday 24 June 2 pm - 2.30 pm Theatre licensing/copyright
Training Session: Improving the photographic skills of wikimedians Friday 24 June 2pm - 3.30 pm Museum content creation;
hosted by User:Poco a poco
Training session: How to make a short documentary with a smartphone Friday 24 June 4 pm - 5.30 pm Museum content creation
SVG illustration workshop Saturday 25 June 10.30 am - 12 pm Collaborative space content creation
Dynamic SVG for Wikimedia projects: Exploring applications, techniques and best practice for interactive and animated vector graphics Saturday 25 June 4pm - 4.30 pm Hall content creation

--MB-one (talk) 17:19, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

June 16

Help monitoring Photo Challenge entries

I would appreciate some help monitoring the Photo Challenge entries. This forum has seen an increase in the number of newbies entering, and they come from all round the world. While this is excellent, I only speak English, and only have so much time available to help fix things. We are getting quite a lot of malformed entries. Sometimes this causes no more harm than to the nominator's own efforts, but sometimes they wreck the page and even lose other people's work. And they can make such a mess at times, that others are then confused how to add their entries.

Perhaps there is a better way to submit entries? If you have a suggestion then please help. I know I would love if there was some more automated Javascript user interface that made it easier. And if anyone here has the skills to do that then I would be very grateful for their assistance. But in the mean time, we are stuck with wiki text and this is very hard for newbies.

So I'm asking for some more eyes to help keep the challenge submission pages in their watchlists. The current ones are:

Even users familiar with embedding images on Wikipedia get confused with the gallery syntax on that page. All we need is a new line at the top of the gallery body containing the filename, a vertical bar, and a description. But often entries are added with the bracket syntax and a thumb or size parameter, or they create another gallery, or they enter the full URL, etc, etc. Usually you can figure out what they intended. Sometimes you need to look at their upload log to guess which image they meant to add. Occasionally, people add images that really don't meet the theme description or are not their own photographs. I try to assume the user was editing in good-faith and so help them include their nomination rather than simply reverting anything that isn't perfect.

Hope you can help. Especially people who speak languages used outside of Western Europe, which is where many of these newbies-with-difficulties are from. But even having more English speakers watching the page would be a help. Thanks. -- Colin (talk) 16:33, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Christian. It is certainly an option. I don't know how much effort it is to set up targeted upload wizards for each month, with all the translations also. Not everyone uses the upload wizard currently, and I know from WLM that those who chose not to use the "official" tool had to figure out how to add categories themselves. And since nobody is watching the file pages where the categories get added, anyone struggling to enter their image is invisible. We'd have to create a page where people could ask for help, and it seems many are reluctant to ask for help (whey they are clearly having difficulties). Perhaps that's because they think they'll have to ask in English. Categories do have several draw backs. For a start they are visually much less attractive to look at (something that really should be fixed in MediaWiki). They don't offer the chance to label your image, other than with the filename, and quite often giving a title is important for the Photo Challenge. It doesn't let you submit pairs of images (we have had some challenges like that) or to link an existing image with an new image (we had one challenge like that). It doesn't seem that easy to monitor changes to a category such that we can check new entries to make sure they are on-topic (if there are off-topic images, it can be misleading to others). The existing entries in a category can inspire others to contribute, but I don't find the category listing page very inspiring, as I need a magnifying glass to see each thumbnail.
There is a gadget for entering images to QI, though it is a bit clunky. So I'm sure it is possible to make a gadget for PC. It is also possible I'm sure to create a variant of the upload wizard that enters the image to a challenge, rather than (or as well as) to a category. -- Colin (talk) 07:43, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

June 13

Can Wikimedia UK help you with your photography?

Spain national football team Euro 2012 trophy 02

Wikimedia UK has grants to cover expenses to add content to Commons. We are looking for people who are going to cultural events like the Olympics over the summer. Please find out more on our blog. --Jwslubbock (talk) 10:11, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Jwslubbock, I may be interested, but I note with dismay that the image on your blog is published illegally. This is a copyright photo that can only be used under the terms of CC BY-SA 3.0 or GFDL 1.2. The CC licence requires you to mention the author/photographer, provide a link to where you got it, and note which licence you are using, also with a link. Please also note that your blog asks for CC BY-SA 3.0 licensed images, but 4.0 has been the default on Commons for some time. I hope your grant encourages/requires larger image donations than the 0.29 Megapixel one used here, which is OK for a thumbnail but wouldn't even fill a modern TV screen. -- Colin (talk) 10:41, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
The link and license has been added - apologies for the oversight. Please get in touch with volunteer@wikimedia.org.uk if you are interested! --Jwslubbock (talk) 12:23, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
Jwslubbock, you added a link and credit, but I think you still need to mention/link the licence (e.g. CC BY-SA 3.0). On Wikipedia, they avoid including the credit/licence info by using a link to an internal (on-Wikipedia) page that gives this. IMO you either need to do the same (i.e. a page on your blog that gives the file info) or inline the credit/licence info within the article (the best approach, and one that is easier for others to copy). I'm not expert, but I don't think liking off-site to Commons is sufficient to meet the terms of the licence. Also, please fix the "create high quality images available under a CC BY-SA 3.0 license" to 4.0, as otherwise we are perpetuating an old licence version, for no good reason. Thanks. -- Colin (talk) 12:42, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
IMO a link to the description page on Commons is sufficient. Commons-images may be used on non-WMF-wikis, as long as they link to Commons. I think the same is ok for non-WMF-blogs and websites as well. Josve05a (talk) 19:40, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
Josve05a, look at the legal code. It says "You must...provide, reasonable to the medium or means You are utilizing: (i) the name of the Original Author ...the title of the Work if supplied... ", etc, etc. The obligation to provide this information is on the publisher. Wikipedia, as a publisher, host a sort-of-copy of the Commons page that they link to, and which then Wikipedia provide the relevant legal information. We've all see the notice (e.g. on BBC) "This publisher is not responsible for the content of external sites". So publishers must satisfy the legal requirements of CC themselves. Commons does not promise to keep file description pages in perpetuity -- we do delete content, and Commons might not even exist in 10 years -- plenty internet companies have come and gone. So WMUK should set the right example for other publishers to follow. I note that the Wikimedia UK home page does it just like Wikipedia, with its own sort-of-copy of the Commons page. The blog seems to be built on Wordpress rather than MediaWiki, so I guess they should do what every other blog/publisher has to do, and include more of the licence details in the image caption. -- Colin (talk) 20:01, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

Delete a picture I posted

I recently wrote a wiki page about my great-grandmother which was a writer and a poet. The page was deleted and I also wanted to delete her picture since my dad asked me to. The picture is her and my grandfather, and I want it deleted, I requested it but they decided to keep it because apparently a famous guy took it. Is there any way to delete the picture from public domain since I was the one who posted it?

Here is the picture: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Irene_Ferreira.jpg

Thank you --Ricardo Pinto Filho (talk) 02:43, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

  • You uploaded saying the photo is in the public domain, which means the intellectual property rights to the picture are no longer held by anyone and that absolutely anyone is free to do as they wish with the image. If that is a true statement, then you have no more ownership over this image than anyone else does. But at Commons:Deletion requests/File:Irene Ferreira.jpg you say "I have the rights to this picture." Offhand, I can't understand the claim you are now making to rights. Someone has now closed the deletion request and this is unlikely to get sorted out differently here. If you have a basis for your claim of owning rights to the picture, then there is a chance of explaining that basis and sorting it out at Commons:Village Pump/Copyright. Otherwise, if the picture is in the public domain and was taken by a notable photographer, I'm sorry but it is not relevant that you were the uploader or that you are related to the people in the photo. - Jmabel ! talk 04:10, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

کمک

مقاله ای که گذاشتم برچسب حذف خورده ، چجوری میتونم به یه نفر خبر بدم که بیاد تغییرات و بهبود مقاله رو ببینه و حذفش نکنه؟؟؟؟

That's not a question for Commons, please ask in your local Wikipedia (fa:). --Magnus (talk) 07:01, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

Deletion

By mistake I've uploaded the same picture twice. I want to delete "File:Marsin Water Museum, filtration.jpg". Thanks. Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 13:56, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

Done. --A.Savin 14:01, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Jmabel ! talk 14:02, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

Iconography for Jo Cox

I am a little bit throwing a message in a bottle here. We lack free images of the recently assassinated Jo Cox. I think that there are good chances that individual sympathisers of the Labour might have taken private photographs, or that we could negociate the release of a portrait under a Free licence from the Labour Party. However I have had luck with neither of those approaches for now, so I am asking here in the long hope that somebody with particular connections might see this.

I have also noticed that we have very little photographs of British politicians in general, even though some are known to campaign on the street. It would be nice to develop the habit of taking photographs and uploading them in such situation if you can. Rama (talk) 07:19, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

There is one series of photos on flickr: flickr.com. They don't show her, but the memorial site. The best photo has already been uploaded to Commons: File:Jo_Cox_memorial_-_17-06-2016.jpg, but I'm afraid the portrait photograph is neither de minimis nor freely licensed. --rimshottalk 07:58, 18 June 2016 (UTC)
I suggest not relying on that photograph being kept long term. The central portrait probably is copyright and it is the main focus of the image, so I don't see a de minimis rationale holding water. As Rama requested, it would be useful if someone with their own personal photographs were to release one or two as CC-BY for the public good. --Fæ (talk) 14:33, 18 June 2016 (UTC)
My point is also that we should develop a coverage of such matters. Ideally, in the way it has been done with the European Parliament, but at least by watching for street events and meetings.
To give an example, I was surprised to see that upon examination, our most published images of Natalie Bennett were copyvios, and that we have two sources of valid images: one photograph from Flickr, and a series of mediocre images taken by happenstance. For a leader of a proeminent national political party I find this surprisingly scarce. Rama (talk) 15:22, 18 June 2016 (UTC)
Wikimedia UK may consider to organize Wikipedians' studio photo sessions of UK politicians similarly to German chapter, where they already had that sessions in all Landtags, +Bundestag + European Parliament. (Don't ask me howto, I've nothing to do with WM-DE, just an idea for our British colleagues.) --A.Savin 19:26, 18 June 2016 (UTC)
+1 The images of Wiki Loves Parliaments help a lot when Politicians from the second row suddenly become relevant (for good, bad or sad reasons). In Germany we have even Newspapers using our images, because we have a lot more MPs in stock then the agencies.
So if anybody from the UK (or elsewhere) is interested: Feel free to contact me (or any other participant of the WLP-Projekts). Btw: Diliff und Pigsonthewing (both from the UK) were with us in the European parliament two years ago. // Martin K. (talk) 19:47, 18 June 2016 (UTC)
Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Monuments and memorials to Jo Cox. I nominated them for deletion, since it seems better to do it now before they spread further. However one is protected from modification and didn't get the notice. --ghouston (talk) 02:18, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
I think File:Jo Cox MP Memorial 3.jpg may be de minimis. --ghouston (talk) 02:21, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

CC-BY-NC-SA scan of a PD work

I've come across this PD work, but the University of Oxford claims the scan is under CC-BY-NC-SA. I haven't been able to find evidence of originality in this scan that would warrant this license, apart from the header which could be clearly removed. Perhaps MartinPoulter could shed some light into this? ~★ nmaia [[mia diskuto]] 12:06, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

It's public domain as it was published in 1881. Oxford University has no claim of copyright so their attempted licence is not enforceable. If anyone in Oxford Libraries would like to disagree by attempting to claim "sweat of the brow" (which would actually be Google's sweat being defended), or to discuss how they can upgrade all of their licenses to avoid misleading the public, I would be happy to arrange a phone call or correspond by email (which I will then publish). If they would like to try taking me to court, that would be very interesting, but I'd like advance notice so that WMF legal give me the all clear to have some money from their Legal Fees Assistance Program for this purpose.
See File:Quatro regras de diplomacia.pdf. The scan of the binding has been removed so there can be no doubt about the rest of the scanned pages. --Fæ (talk) 12:35, 18 June 2016 (UTC)
Fæ you're awesome, thanks :) ~★ nmaia [[mia diskuto]] 12:53, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

Misspelt category

This morning I opened Category:Ballot papers in the provice of Burgos. It is misspelt and won't be used, so I'd like to supress it. I haven't found the right template to ask for it. Sorry. Can you help me? Thanks. B25es (talk) 18:18, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

Add {{SD|G2}} to the redirect. Ruslik (talk) 19:49, 18 June 2016 (UTC)
✓ Done Deleted. Rodhullandemu (talk) 19:58, 18 June 2016 (UTC)
Thanks a lot! B25es (talk) 05:02, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

Two for one

Flickr image 1 has been revised to 2.

File 1 is probably undesirable and overhaul unnecessary. There are more files with this operation, very confusing.

What is better:

  • Move the information to 2 and remove 1.
  • Add 2 as a new version to 1.

--Jos1950 (talk) 21:49, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

The derived file 2 is higher resolution than file 1, suggesting it was interpolated. The original version should be kept. --ghouston (talk) 01:58, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

What than is the procedure to put the two together as files with a new version? Then they stand together, and it is clear that they are the same. --Jos1950 (talk) 21:09, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

It's normal on Commons to keep both files when there's a modification like this. I wouldn't delete the first, because it matches the "original" on Flickr, and I wouldn't delete the second, because the crop seems useful, and it's not clear if Inefable001 somehow got hold of a higher resolution version of the image. --ghouston (talk) 22:32, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

June 20

Renaming issue during FP promotion

Hello! Renaming this file during a featured picture nomination has caused problems now that the image has been promoted. The incorrectly-named file was promoted and the FP list fails to display it. Could somebody who understands this issue please fix it for me?

The nomination page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Featured_picture_candidates/File:National_Carillion,_ACT_-_Rectilinear_projection.jpg

The original file: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:National_Carillion,_ACT_-_Rectilinear_projection.jpg

The renamed file: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:National_Carillon,_ACT_-_Rectilinear_projection.jpg

Thank you in advance -- Thennicke (talk) 05:50, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

I've never dealt with the featured template before but went ahead and winged it and I think I have it fixed. But since I don't ever use this template or deal with the featured picture procedures hopefully someone else more familiar with these procedures can confirm I took the correct action (i.e. I'm not sure if the template requires any additional parameters or if how it is now is all it needs.) Offnfopt(talk) 06:10, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Doubt on author and licensing

The file File:TERAlsace_LineStDié_LogoAlsace.JPG is doubtfull for me in terms of author and licensing :

  • No freedom of panorama
  • Main element of the photo is a logo which means that the photo is just a derivated work (not the author).

Not sure how to handle it due to : threshold of originality perhaps not met. Regards Loreleil (talk) 15:29, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-25

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

  • Notifications were not always marked as read when you followed a link from an email notification. This will now happen. [13]

Changes this week

  • The list of other languages an article is available in will be shorter on small Wikipedias and non-Wikipedia projects. This is to make it easier to find the most relevant languages for each user. You will still be able to see the other languages. [14][15]
  • Alerts (the red badge) will not be automatically marked as read when you open the Notifications popup. [16]
  • When you get several thanks you can see them as one notification. This is instead of one notification for each thanks. [17]
  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 21 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 June. It will be on all wikis from 23 June (calendar).

Meetings

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

19:14, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

existing nonexistent category

Stumbled upon this category. The page says 'This page does not currently exist.' But you still can view the page anyway.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Intolerance

Checked the only file in this nonexistent category, and it was once belonged to a category 'Intolerance' now gone. I don't know how to deal with this problem by myself. So I suggest someone more experienced go and check it. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:|]] ([[User talk:|talk]] • contribs)

  • This can be confusing to beginners but: technically, placement of images in categories is entirely independent of whether those categories "exist" in the sense of having a description, a place in the category hierarchy, etc. While you are supposed to either use existing categories or build the new categories you want to use, at any given time I'm sure there are hundreds, if not thousands, of categories where someone has placed an image in the category, but no category "exists". The corresponding category page will show the images, but it won't be hooked into the category hierarchy (it will have no parent categories) - Jmabel ! talk 21:17, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
See Special:WantedCategories. There are many thousends of them., unfortunately. --JuTa 22:53, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
Note: if you decide to work on resolving these "wanted categories", please don't create any just because they have things in them. "Wanted categories" just means that they are used somewhere but haven't been created, it doesn't mean we actually want them. First look to see if there's already a category, maybe under a different name. Some of these redlinked categories are misspelled (such as a typo or incorrect use of capital letters), misnamed (for example, "Fooian people" instead of "People of Foo"), bad names (such as "Italy - Rome - Colosseum" or some such) or categories that aren't desireable for some other reason. --Auntof6 (talk) 05:35, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

June 21

Maps are now LIVE on Commons :)

Map
Template:Location had integrated maps for many years. You just had to click the globe. I guess the difference is that one is in pull down window and the new ones can be embedded in the page. I like the idea of making Template:Location a template that can be un-collapsed to display a map. Yurik can we add a layers of locations like photographs, categories, or wikipedia articles with geotags? --Jarekt (talk) 17:18, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
Apparently wikivoyage gets that feature - https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Wikivoyage:Travellers%27_pub#Maps_with_extra_layers_on_en-Wikivoyage (Click on the icon 2nd from the top in upper-right corner) no idea about commons though. Bawolff (talk) 13:05, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

June 18

Int:Talkpagelinktext

What exactly is Int:Talkpagelinktext? Normally, when you sign a message, it somehow provides the ordinary link to your talk page (at least if you're like me, using an unmodified version of the default signature), but apparently it's vulnerable to template limits. See User talk:Fastily/Archive 1, which exceeds the template limits: lower on the page, where template transclusions start to be replaced with template links, the links to user talk pages also start getting replaced with unworking links to the Int: page.

Aside from checking with Fastily about splitting the archive page, I don't suppose that there's anything we can do for this individual page. But is there anything we can do with the Int: page to ensure that it work when a page is exceeding the template limits? It's apparently not a template, since when you click the link to it, you have a button that would enable you to create the page as a gallery. Nyttend (talk) 12:39, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

int: is a parser function for i18n/l10n. {{int:Talkpagelinktext}}transcludes (sometimes subpages of) MediaWiki:Talkpagelinktext based on the user's language, so new users can more easily know how to contact other users. Compare en de zh versions of this page. As for template limits, ugh... imho they should be highly optimized already and shouldn't be counted as a template usage. Maybe file a ticket? --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 15:31, 18 June 2016 (UTC)
Hmm. It didn't ran out of template transclusions, but page size. Mediawiki seems to refuse to do further transclusions after proxessing a certain amount of expanded page text. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 15:41, 18 June 2016 (UTC)
Just as a random digression. While fetching messages for int translcusions might be highly optimized, that doesn't necessarily imply they're cheap - any page with an int: transclusion on it has to be marked as varying per-language, so its actually more expensive in some ways than a normal template which doesn't vary by language. (Obviously this depends what part of the system you are measuring). Bawolff (talk) 13:02, 21 June 2016 (UTC)
How about a bot task to transclude/replace these for any sub-user pages (i.e. invariably archive pages) where the transcluded file size is giving errors? I doubt anyone would mind terribly if these were left in the default English-American template name, but users could always opt-in, or maybe mark a page for fixing, if that was necessary. --Fæ (talk) 13:07, 21 June 2016 (UTC)
That would not work. This error only happens if the total size of the article after template expansion is > 2mb. But there is also a similar limit of wikitext not allowed to be > 2mb. So if you subst all the templates, you'll just hit the other limit and not be allowed to save the page. (Unless possibly dead code is being included in the post expand size that wouldn't be included with substituting. Not sure how that works.) Bawolff (talk) 16:24, 21 June 2016 (UTC)
In which case, I suggest that if any pages become a real problem, then if the user in question does not object that breaking up their archive pages into small pages would be okay, and this might include boldly changing their auto-archive configuration in their long term absence. In practice, I doubt that anyone will be worried enough to invest the time fixing this for absent users. --Fæ (talk) 16:50, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

Is there a bot to upload the USGS image catalog?

I was looking through the USGS image catalog and uploaded a handful of images. I thought in the process I would find some of the images already uploaded, but didn't encounter that issue meaning there could be a large number of these images that are missing from our own image catalog. I was wondering if there is a bot that could handle uploading these images to ease the task? So far the only images I've uploaded are listed below. Offnfopt(talk) 06:35, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

This would need a new scraping programme, but the site is set up in a pretty straightforward way. I see that there might be non-PD files on the site, but I can't find any. Do you know of any parts of the image archives that are marked with a restrictive license? All I see is images with no separate licenses, making them PD, so I'm unsure how the difference could be automatically detected without an example case. --Fæ (talk) 16:45, 21 June 2016 (UTC)
Here are a few I assume are not PD:
I think the best logic would be to use a whitelist of terms to look for in the "Photographer" section such as:
Found a older image though that would fail this whitelist, but hopefully the missed images would be limited.Offnfopt(talk) 18:31, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

Are these logos too simple for copyright?

I found some Hilton Worldwide logos brought up here:

I think they would be copyrighted... WhisperToMe (talk) 21:27, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

  • Logo #1 is marginal with that loop in my mind. Logo #2 without question is PD-textlogo. Logo #3 probably as well - merely slightly stylized lettering is generally not enough to make originality.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 22:46, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

June 22

Category:Florida, its history and its romance (1898)

All of the images in this category are from a book called "Greater Sacramento", nothing about Florida. So the category is wrong as are the file names, dates, author, etc. The links to the original image reveal the correct information but this is hardly the first time I have run across these badly done Flickr sourced images. Rmhermen (talk) 05:26, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

I have alerted the original uploader at the Internet Archive. You can check their other uploads at https://archive.org/details/@bunna. As this was originally released in 2008, it may be that they are not about, but fixing the source is the best place to start, as my uploads rely on the accuracy of the published catalog. Note that the IA book plate uploads rely on Flickr for the cropped book plate, but pull in the catalog metadata using the IA API. The project page is at User:Fæ/Project list/Internet Archive. --Fæ (talk) 06:58, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Please help reconciling our Authority control identifiers with Wikidata's

As you might have heard we are in the process of migrating identifiers stored in {{Authority control}} templates to Wikidata and replacing them with a single "Wikidata" parameter with a q-code which allows the template to pull all the identifiers directly from Wikidata. We are done with majority of 20k Creator templates and about half way done with 105k categories that use {{Authority control}}. Majority of the Commons pages matched directly identifiers already on Wikidata, transferred from Wikipedias; however there were some pages with mismatches that have to be reconciled manually. I fixed most of those but there is still Category:Pages with mismatching VIAF identifier with few hundred pages. Please see instructions at Category:Pages using authority control with parameters about how to process them. It is a good way to get more familiar with Wikidata, which we hope to be utilizing more and more on Commons. --Jarekt (talk) 12:58, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

How about fixing the user interface at Wikidata so it can be used? I need each item in a column so I can copy and paste the wiki name (such as dewiki, not de, not Deutsch), and the page name. Extra columns are fine but those two are essential and when doing a copy and paste they need to be tab separated one line per item so I can paste the list into a spreadsheet. And no putting other stuff next to it. It used to be like that but now it is messed up and useless. Delphi234 (talk) 09:12, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Uploads

Uploads by by User:Pargatrurki

Is it just me or are all uploads from this user either (badly categorized) self promotion or a violation of personality rights? --Magnus (talk) 12:55, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

The burn pictures appear to be fine. The pictures of him can be deleted unless a claim of notoriety can be made, which seems unlikely. But you can never take too many pictures, they just have to be within our scope to be uploaded here. User's language is Punjabi. Delphi234 (talk) 16:26, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

A puzzle

First question ever. I have found an image I would like to use in a website I am building. The file I am interested in is a collection of panoramas without download instructions at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_pictures/Places/Panorama. The specific Image I am interested in is the sixth Image in the sequence.A Tree posed against Blue sky. The majority of the rest of the image is Green Fields,. The photographer is Alvesgaspar. Question: how do i download a moderate size file for reproduction on my website and give Credit to the photographer.? Morley— Preceding unsigned comment added by Morley Chalmers (talk • contribs) 16:04, 22 June 2016 (UTC+1)

You refer to File:Campilhas_March_2015-1a.jpg, by Alvesgaspar. This image is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Please click that link to see a summary of its terms. Storkk (talk) 15:08, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
In terms of how you download, on page File:Campilhas_March_2015-1a.jpg below the photo it offers various resolutions, or you can click through on the photo for full resolution. - Jmabel ! talk 16:50, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Ethnographic documentation in 5 countries for Wikimedia Commons

Participating Wikimedians wanted for a planned GLAM-Wiki project with the help of several museums of ethnography from Poland, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania. The project aims to identify authentic arts, crafts and folk dress; traditional crafting methods and tools, then take and upload at least 1300 high-quality images of these to Wikimedia Commons (to later illustrate new&existing articles on European anthropology and ethnography). There will be a 4-day Wikiexcursion to each of the 5 countries and we are looking for volunteers locally. The project plan can be found here – please see the project idea, description and details.

Sign up if you'd like to participate, endorse the project, or let us know of any questions! --Marta Malina Moraczewska (talk) 16:38, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

 Thank you. Marta, I wish I could be a local volunteer, unfortunately I am a few time-zones away, but if your project need any help with templates or that require administrators, let me know and I will be happy to help. --Jarekt (talk) 15:25, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

June 23

Could a Administrator provide me a copy of my deleted images?

Just a quick request, could a administrator provide me a copy of my deleted images listed below? I didn't keep a local copy because I thought they would exist here, but since they have been deleted... I now have no copy. I would like a copy of them for my own personal use. You can see the deletion requests below:

If a admin could copy the markup to my talk page, or a pastebin link it would be appreciated. Offnfopt(talk) 13:09, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

✓ Done --Didym (talk) 13:39, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
Thanks Didym. Offnfopt(talk) 13:43, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
ResolvedOffnfopt(talk) 13:43, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

anaphase

CommonsẠ↔«««៛₰¥»»» I need help with anaphase — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.169.35.44 (talk • contribs) 2016-06-23T14:35:38‎ (UTC)

There ya go: Category:Anaphase. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 15:05, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

Adding a photo on behalf of someone else

I have been approached and potentially paid to help someone upload a photo on Commons to be used on a page. She is the copyright holder but not well versed in Wikipedia and asked for my help. I believe it'd basically be released as "own work" although it would not be done by me but the person in question. I believe there is a process in place to validate such copyright releases? I am not well versed in Commons and hopefully someone can help guide me so it gets done appropriately by the rules. MPJ-DK (talk) 23:14, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

See COM:OTRS. That can be avoided if the copyright holder uploads it herself, assuming it hasn't been published elsewhere. --ghouston (talk) 00:10, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
Do make sure to credit her as author rather than saying it is your own work. And, after she sends email as described at COM:OTRS, remember to tag the image page with {{OTRS pending}} so that no one hastily starts a deletion process. - Jmabel ! talk 14:04, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

June 24

POTD in an other wiki

Hello, We would like in kabwiki to show the POTD of Commons in the Main Page of the wiki. Can someone tell me how to link to it. Thank you.(Notify me please). -- issimo 15 !? 14:33, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

Hi, Issimo 15, you might want to read this first. Lotje (talk) 16:34, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
Sorry, but I can't find an answer to my question in that page. -- issimo 15 !? 16:47, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
You can not link to it, you need to set the POTD templates yourself and update it on the daily basis.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:14, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

June 25

French law against FoP and commons

Dear editors,

We would like to express our dismay over the various measures that are being taken by French parliamentarians and that will seriously harm the Wikimedia projects and free knowledge in general.

It all began with fight for freedom of panorama in French Parliament last winter. Right-holders associations heavily mobilized against it, and got a lot of coverage. Initially this was intended to prevent FoP inclusion in the bill, and then to add to it a non-commercial clause, making it ineffective (we described all these steps on our dedicated website, in french: http://libertedepanorama.fr/). But this "fight" was just a tree hiding the forest.
With the Creation bill, two new measures are about to privatize the public domain:

  1. Very soon, it will not be legal anymore to upload pictures Castle of Chambord, Versailles, etc on Wikimedia Commons. You can find the explanation in this blog post (in french) : http://blog.wikimedia.fr/copyfraud-sur-les-domaines-nationaux-9172
  2. Perhaps even more importantly, search engines will be charged with a mandatory fee, which that puts on the same level all legal and illegal images and totally violates the creative commons licenses...

These two measures will be ratified by the French National Assembly. We did everything we could at Wikimedia France to try to stop this madness.
Your action is, in our view, the last remaining hope to create a political and media consciousness to prevent the Creation Bill from including these absurd and harmful measures.
Do you want to take action, here or on Wikipedia, to stop this?
We remain of course at your disposal to discuss it further.

Nathalie Martin and Emeric Vallespi, from Wikimedia France. ShreCk (talk) 11:14, 22 June 2016 (UTC).

@ShreCk: If you mean the Château de Chambord, could you please explain what is the issue with this building, which is certainly old enough to be in Public Domain?
Here on Commons, as far as I know, only copyright issues are relevant for the question if something may be uploaded, but not things like personal property etc.. That is, even if France would (for whatever reason) prohibit all photographs of any certain object in public place, this would not mean that its pictures are subject to deletion from Commons. --A.Savin 15:53, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
I highly recommend everyone not living in France (which is 99% of the population) take billions of pictures of buildings in France while they are visiting and just say F u to France's silly prohibition. Delphi234 (talk) 17:18, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
OK, still I would like to know what is the point of the WM-FR blog post, as I neither know French nor trust Google Translate. But really, our Commons policies are mostly about copyright, partially about personality rights, but, for example, the German Hausrecht has never been relevant (I hope I didn't miss something). --A.Savin 00:43, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
@ShreCk: After reading a translation of the blog post, I remain unsure how this can be enforced. If a photographer (or their friend/bot acting on their behalf outside of France) pseudonymously uploads their photographs of buildings on Commons or Flickr, exactly who would be liable for damages, who would be the claimant and which court would hear a case? --Fæ (talk) 18:07, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
It seems like this should really be in the realm of trademarks, not copyright (the monument authorities are not really objecting to somebody taking a photograph which is sold to a publisher and printed in a book offered for sale, but rather to somebody such as a beer company using a depiction of the monument as a brand logo). If the law does apply to copyright instead of trademarks, then it's written very poorly... AnonMoos (talk) 02:25, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

If you could say one thing to a non-Commons-regular at Wikimania, what would it be?

Asking this for the obvious reason. Adam Cuerden (talk) 12:18, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

  • The reason isn't so obvious. Are you talking about making a formal presentation, or what you'll bring up in casual conversation? - Jmabel ! talk 14:05, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
    • Something called "User digests", where a report on various communities is presented to the conference. (Also, if anyone here at Wikimania is up for helping write or present it, please contact me - only found out about it this morning, and am frantically preparing something. =) )

Well for future reference, by far the most important thing that anyone can say is that Commons exists. If anyone is thinking of uploading an image, ask yourself, could this be used on another wiki or outside of wikipedia? Does it have a license that lets anyone use it, or does it require fair use? If not, it is a royal pain to upload it locally instead of to commons, as it will just need to be tagged for being moved to commons, which can take years[18] to do. All new accounts are SUL accounts and work on Commons. Delphi234 (talk) 21:46, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

Classifying music bands

I heard nice music during a street music festival in Strasbourg. I am not used to classifying and describing music bands. I found the website. (there are two other pictures: xx II and xx III)Smiley.toerist (talk) 23:24, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

June 26

Accessing Wikidata from Commons

Implementation of Interwiki links from Commons categories to Wikipedia articles follows a sitelink from commons category to wikidata category item and than follows Property category's main topic (P301) to wikidata article item. Interwiki links to wikipedia articles are merged with default interwiki links to wikipedia categories (if present)

There is a lively discussion about accessing Wikidata from Commons on d:Wikidata:Project_chat#Accessing_Wikidata_from_Commons, please join. --Jarekt (talk) 15:22, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

Interwiki links from Commons categories to Wikipedia articles

During above discussion I was advised on how to solve a long standing problem of having interwiki (aka. interlanguage) links from Commons categories to Wikipedia articles, which are based on Wikidata. Please follow the graphics on the right. The approach was coded as Module:Interwiki and new template {{Interwiki from wikidata}}, which when added to categories which are linked from wikidata category items, will ad proper interwiki links. Old style "local" interwiki links could be removed. See examples.--Jarekt (talk) 03:32, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

That's the Wikidata model that forbits cross-namespace site-links, so that you need to create category items on Wikidata for any Commons category where you want interwiki links (a tedious thing to do manually). There's a discussion at wikidata:Wikidata:Requests for comment/Category commons P373 and "Other sites", about whether cross-namespace site-links should be tolerated instead, but it hasn't reached any conclusion. --ghouston (talk) 04:31, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for reminding me, I forgot about that discussion. My take from it was lets wait on arbitrary access and than see what can be done. The arbitrary access is here, and it is time to figure out what is the chosen model of linking commons and wikidata. Commons categories need to be able to detect which Wikidata item has all the relevant properties. The current discussion on Wikidata started with me asking about ways a page on Commons can detect what items lists them in some specific property. That capability would allow us to connect to wikidata items without a need for a separate wikidata item for each commons category that needs it. However users with much more Wikidata experience argue that items for categories is the way which is more compatible with current way Wikidata and tools that were build around it works. I am fine with either way. In the first scenario I would never use the sitelinks and I would not care if they are cross-namespace or not. The second scenario would require many new items for commons categories to be created, hopefully by bots. Either way can be made to work with {{Interwiki from wikidata}} template, so we can take interwiki links to be displayed on Commons category pages, out of this discussion. --Jarekt (talk) 12:06, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
So we would need to add that template to every single category here? It sounds like a shot-term hack and not a long-term fix. (And no, my bot (the interlanguage-removal task) is incompatible with this) --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 12:28, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
Zhuyifei1999, All local interwikis will eventually need to be replaced by Wikidata based, as we no longer have bots updating existing local links the way we did before Wikidata made them obsolete. Your interwiki removal task is still needed. However the task assumes sitelinks between commons categories and Wikidata articles, which is controversial and might not continue. The problem is that Wikidata article items with sitelinks to commons categories (we need some acronym for this term) will loose those sitelinks the moment someone creates a matching category item for wikipedia category, so they are and always will be unstable. {{Interwiki from wikidata}} template would only be added to categories with category-items on wikidata, in order to restore the customary interwiki links. --Jarekt (talk) 13:51, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
Yes, but Wikidata article items with sitelinks to commons categories would me the majorityminority if outcome of the RfC is held. About my bot task, it's running otherwise, as cross-namespace links (in the case of Wikidata article items with sitelinks to commons categories) are ignored, and only those consistent with the RfC are removed. If {{Interwiki from wikidata}} is implemented, more complications would exist: the bot could not determine which interlanguage links are fetched from wikidata and which are local (the same ones are removed, but {{Interwiki from wikidata}} will always override the local ones). Besides, what if Wikidata article *and* category items with sitelinks to commons categories *and* galleries *and* creator templates *and* etc (multi2multi items) are finally implemented as the long-term solution/fix? All these template usages shall be removed? (the reason I term it as a short-term hack) --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 15:35, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
Zhuyifei1999 I do not think there was any consensus reached in RfC. I do not think Wikibase software allows adding sitelinks to multiple pages (one-to-many scenario). As for {{Interwiki from wikidata}}, if we going to use it than I would only use it for pages linked to category items, and I would remove interwiki from the page first. --Jarekt (talk) 23:51, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
I will use {{Interwiki from wikidata}}, as on Category:Barton Appler Bean, since it's superior to what I was doing previously (adding a single en: interwiki link). --ghouston (talk) 01:42, 25 June 2016 (UTC)
That category still lacks the "Wikidata item" link in the Tools menu, because I'm still reluctant to create cross-namespace sitelinks on Wikidata, or new "category" Wikidata items. --ghouston (talk) 01:46, 25 June 2016 (UTC)
@Jarekt: Oh sorry I meant d:Wikidata:Requests_for_comment/Commons_links. I thought the link above pointed to it, but apparently it's another RfC. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 06:53, 25 June 2016 (UTC)
Zhuyifei1999, That RFC also did not reached consensus, that I can detect. And it seems like almost all of the proposed solutions are being implemented by different parties. We need one solution. May-be we need to revisit this RFC, and have another vote. --Jarekt (talk) 13:03, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
It is my understanding that wikidata can only accommodate 99% of interwiki links and there will always be a need for local links for special cases. Delphi234 (talk) 21:54, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

Do-Not-Ask List

A Flickr user tells me Commons has a do-not-ask list of photographers not to ask for pictures. Is there such a thing, and does anyone know where it's located? --Rrburke (talk) 11:08, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

There is a list of accounts where automatic upload is blacklisted based on past problems. The current process is set so that only administrators can add Flickr IDs to the list. See Commons:Questionable Flickr images and an associated live report as a source of practical examples at Faebot/Flickrstreams of concern. --Fæ (talk) 11:15, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
Different user may also have perosnal lists of flickr photographer which they have asked to relicense their images (and possibly failed), but nothing is listed on a "official" public list, that I am aware of. Josve05a (talk) 11:17, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-26

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 ORES service has now moved to a new location. This should make it easier to use ORES. The ORES review service is now available as a beta feature on Wikidata and Persian Wikipedia. ORES is an artificial intelligence system for Wikimedia wikis to help editors. [19]
  • The order of wikis in collapsed cross-wiki notifications was different than when the list was expanded. This is now fixed. [20]
  • A new category for tracking pages with math errors was added: Category:Pages with math errors. [21]

Problems

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 29 June. It will be on all wikis from 30 June (calendar).
  • The way to mark notifications as read or unread will be changed to be more clear. [24]

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 28 June at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

  • The Collaboration team at the Wikimedia Foundation will look at developing better tools for edit review. This is because research suggests we scare away newcomers who want to help. [25]
  • An e-mail from the Editing Department explains the technical work that is planned and being researched for the future. Items include better wikitext and visual editing, prompts for edits, language improvements, annotations, and meta-data separation. [26]
  • The sorting of Notifications into the two fly-out menus is going to change on July 5 to 7. Bundled notifications should be easier to explore and mark as read individually. [27][28][29]
  • From 29 June git.wikimedia.org (running Gitblit) will redirect all requests to Phabricator. The vast majority of requests should be correctly redirected. [30]
  • Catalan and Polish Wikipedias will have Wikidata descriptions added to articles in the mobile view by default. This is currently a beta option for the mobile versions. This might come to other wikis later. [31]

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

15:42, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

June 28

Seeking for reconfirmation of OTRS ticket

Moved to Commons:OTRS/Noticeboard --Steinsplitter (talk) 13:22, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Transferring Wikimania 2016 videos to Commons?

Apparently, there is quite a lot of videos of Wikimania 2016 presentations available on Youtube, see here. That's great, but I think these should be here at Commons, too. It looks as if they aren't uploaded to Commons yet, I can't find them in Category:Wikimania 2016 videos. As it should be, most of these are uploaded on Youtube under a CC-BY license, so transfer to Commons shouldn't be a problem license-wise. Apparently (maybe per accident?), some of them use the standard Youtube license, which isn't compatible with Commons, maybe that can be corrected? Ironically, for example the video including a talk about Licenses, open policies isn't using a CC license... Well, I'm not experienced in such transfers, maybe someone has the skills and tools to easily transfer the CC-BY licensed videos from Youtube to Commons? And about the licensing question... not sure who to ping, I'll try some of the organisers: User:Iopensa, User:Yiyi...? Gestumblindi (talk) 20:23, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

You can use toollabs:video2commons to transfer the video. Regards. --Thibaut120094 (talk) 20:37, 28 June 2016 (UTC)
Hi Thibaut120094, we are working for this transfer, but it takes time. For the licence, it was just an accident: videos will be uploaded with CC licence, on YouTube and on Wikimedia Commons. --Yiyi (Dimmi!) 18:10, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

June 30

Commons:Photo_challenge

Commons:Photo_challenge is a very popular monthly photo challenge developed and run single-handily by user:Colin for last 3 years. I noticed that user:Colin did not show up to monthly new theme discussion, so I dug a bit deeper and noticed at Special:Contributions/Colin that he asked to be blocked indefinitely and wants to be unblocked after a solution regarding Fae has been found. I an not familiar with what is the problem but it might have something to do with this. In case "solution regarding Fae" is not found by tomorrow, we will have a problem, as that is a time to count votes and announce winners of May challenges, close June challenge and create voting pages, and choose and create pages for July challenge. I will work on this, but need help:

  1. I need opinions on Commons_talk:Photo_challenge#July_themes discussion, or I will have to pick them myself, which I do not want to do.
  2. Does anybody knows how voting pages were created and vote counting done. I am sure it was not done by hand.

--Jarekt (talk) 15:21, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

What images are realistically educational?

Hi, I'm the BYU library's coordinator of Wikipedia initiatives. I've been looking through our content collection trying to identify public domain images that would be useful to upload to the commons. I'm not sure that all of them fall under "realistically useful for an educational purpose." For example, I found some images of unidentified BYU students participating in athletic activities that are in the public domain: http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm/search/collection/p15999coll20/page/11. They could possibly be useful for showing what athletics at BYU looked like? Should I only upload photos that I plan to use on a Wikipedia page, or are photos like this generally useful? Thanks, Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 16:12, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

There doesn't have to be a plan for using images or other media in Wikipedia articles. That's just one possible educational use. BYU athletics is definitely within Commons project scope. If you're considering uploading anything, just ask yourself if it could reasonably be used for any educational purpose you could think of. Could someone study it, or use it to illustrate an article on a website, or use it in a book or presentation, etc? I would think that BYU would have a lot of material well within educational scope for Commons. Another question to ask yourself pertains to quantity and quality. In regard to the BYU athletics images you link above, quality images showing athletes participating on teams or in other sports would definitely be within our project scope. Just do your best to be reasonably selective. I do the same when I transfer images from Flickr. If I find 100 images of buildings and churches in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, that are free and can be transferred to Commons, I try to pick out the best quality images from that 100. I'll usually end up with 60 or 70 because I've weeded out images with bad lighting, sub-par exposure, tilt, distracting people, etc. Trust your own judgment and you'll probably be fine. You could start by uploading a batch of images and then coming back here for opinions on quality and educational value if you'd like. INeverCry 17:32, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for the advice! I'll try to find the best images for the commons. :-) Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 18:14, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
@Rachel Helps (BYU): If it turns out that you have thousands of images that could be transferred to Commons from the BYU library, you may want to talk to User:Fæ, who is highly experienced in working with collections and facilitating the transfer process, which could otherwise be very time consuming or difficult. INeverCry 18:35, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Prizes for LGBT+ themed Featured Pictures

Brighton Pride photograph uploaded as part of the LGBT Free Media Collective campaign.
m:Grants:Project/Rapid/LGBT/Wiki Loves Pride Featured Picture drive 2016

A grant request has been proposed above for a fund of prizes for successful new Featured Pictures candidates on LGBT+ topics. The envisaged prize fund for Wikimedia Commons will be $300 over two prizes, with three more $100 prizes set aside for Featured Picture candidates on different language Wikipedias, these projects having different criteria and definitions to Commons. This is a first-past-the-post competition which will run until the prizes have gone, or the start of 2017. Please add your name to the meta page if you like the idea of encouraging more Featured Picture Candidates with prizes, or comment on the associated talk page. If you haven't been active with the Wikimedia-LGBT+ user group in the past, this would be a good time to join in :-).

Candidate photographs need to have a unambiguous LGBT+ related theme (i.e. clear to any viewer looking at the photograph without having to read a text explanation), with those running the prize awards process not making an assessment about whether it should become a Featured Picture, apart from helping a photographer by highlighting if a candidate photograph does not appear to meet the basic criteria to be a FP candidate.

Any feedback or improvements to the text of the proposal on meta are welcome, including how the process is best governed. If you would like to help with the small assessment panel, or would enjoy being a wiki-helper for interested photographers who may find the process challenging, drop a note on the meta discussion page or email me privately.

Thanks --Fæ (talk) 19:35, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

July 01

Retrieved from "https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2016/06&oldid=388019685"