Commons:Village pump/Archive/2016/08

Time-outs loading user pages

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T141714

Whenever I try to open user pages like User:Glasshouse, User:SajoR or User:Heralder my Firefox stops and displays an error message. How to solve this probnlem? -- MaxxL - talk 04:36, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Hello MaxxL, I can confirm that, this seems an jQuery performance bug on huge gallery. This could be reported on Phab:. If you block scripts it works. But it would be interesting with test other browsers and what other users say. I can also confirm that this pages are in the past had not this problem. ↔ User: Perhelion 12:15, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

PS: I've created the report. (@MaxxL: ) ↔ User: Perhelion 12:31, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Browsing the user pages with Chrome shows the same error messages. Helpful is the Chrome devoloper tool PageSpeed Insights which gives you an idea of what improvements are recommended. -- MaxxL - talk 15:55, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

I've had the same problem for a long time with outsize galleries, using firefox; I get "Warning: unresponsive script. A script on this page may be busy, or it may have stopped responding. You can stop the script now, open the script in the debugger, or let the script continue. Script: https://commons.wikimedia.org/…&skin=monobook&version=05zc3z0:12. It is a complete pain, and would certainly like to see some limits put on permitted gallery sizes to prevent it happening any more. - MPF (talk) 20:37, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Beware: as I only found today, there has been once a commendable sysop who suggested a limitation of extensive galleries on com:user pages. He retired shortly after the rejection of the guideline he had proposed and quit because he was accused of censorship. Seems that this is a highly political and dangerous issue here. -- MaxxL - talk 20:57, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

---

timeout at inaccessible large user page

It's easy to divide galleries into numerous sets without censoring, just have User:Name/Gallery1, User:Name/Gallery2, etc., etc. (or whatever other gallery names the user likes!) ;-) MPF (talk) 21:29, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

The unpleasant timeout experience happened also to me when I was using a slower browser than I have at home. I can imagine how it must be for somebody trying to receive such huge pages by e.g. a smartphone or a similar device...

@Glasshouse, SajoR, and Heralder: You all are enriching Wikimedia with fine pictures, and often people coming to one of it will see more about. Allow this people the joy to browse through your pics without the troubles mentioned above, by sub-paging your galleries, e.g. as MPF is recommending! Thank you -- sarang♥사랑 06:44, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Need help in the "copy to commons" category of Arabic wikipedia

We want to import by bot around 5,143 pictures to commons. They are available in this category. The problem is that we no longer have picture-specialist in Arabic wikipedia to evaluate if they are really free. There is a lot of pictures coming from internet and are copyright. I have deleted a lot but I think that you may have a better view. Is it possible to take a look at the category, and why not identify those that are not free.--Helmoony (talk) 02:07, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

@Moumou82: do you have time to take a look? It seems that no one is interested.--Helmoony (talk) 18:16, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Thumbnail preview not correct

Recently, I uploaded some files such as this and this. I wanted to overwrite the images to crop out to display the numberplate. However, when I overwrite the image, it shows the preview as the original image being squashed. I cleared my cache many times on my computer, but the preview is not showing the cropped version. Can anyone explain to me what the problem is with the images, and please can you help me figure out the problem. :) --Nim Bhharathhan (talk) 03:28, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

This strange behaviour is reported several times before. In most instances it was caused by servers that do not synchronize, which means they don't exchange updates rapidly. An instant cure is to add the string "?action=purge" at the end of the image address. This will work most of the times. Good luck. -- MaxxL - talk 09:42, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

@MaxxL: mate, I have done that, but the images are still becoming faulty, such as File:2015 BMW 640i (F06 LCI) Gran coupe (2016-04-29) 01.jpg. It did not work amongst the other images that I have tried. Are there any other methods to try. Can you or anyone explain to me the meaning of "servers that do not synchronize" please. It will be much appreciated my friend --Nim Bhharathhan (talk) 11:28, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

What I see here are your two uploads per file. The cropped version is on top and the thumbnails are rendered perfectly. -- MaxxL - talk 11:45, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Just to give you a proof: see this and that. I hope you are happy now. -- MaxxL - talk 16:13, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

@EurovisionNim: The WMF uses webservers in multiple datacenters, for efficiency.... when you edit, you are editing pages on the main server, but when viewing a page you are probably seeing the version cached at whatever datacenter is closest to you. Normally, this does not affect the content of pages, but it can sometimes temporarily cause the thumbnails you see to not reflect the actual state of the file. It's something that appears differently to different editors, depending on which datacenter they are accessing, and appears intermittently depending on the server load. If this is the problem, purging the file page will often not fix it, as it's the 'file' and not the page that is out of sync. Normally, just waiting a few minutes will let the servers catch up.... this is particularly annoying when reverting an image to a previous version, and still temporarily seeing the 'old' version. Revent^talk 03:46, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-31

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

• A prototype for structured data on Commons is available now. [1]
• The RevisionSlider beta feature can now be tested on mediawiki.org, German Wikipedia, Arabic Wikipedia and Hebrew Wikipedia.

Problems

• Renamed users on some wikis were not connected to their account on other wikis between 20 July and 21 July. This has been fixed. [2]

Changes this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 2 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 3 August. It will be on all wikis from 4 August (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 2 August at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
• The next CREDIT showcase will be on 3 August at 18:00 (UTC). This is to present and comment on new gadgets, small projects and works in progress. See how to join.
• You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topic this week is "notifications in core". The meeting will be on 3 August at 21:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

21:48, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

August 02

Commons as advertiser

Is this pure advertising? --Jos1950 (talk) 23:26, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Well, nothing especially “pure” about it. (See: Commons:Deletion requests/File:Cabina de fotos instantaneas ( Photo Booth ).jpg.) -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 02:41, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

Speedily deleted as obvious spam. Random advertising material that includes contact information (website, phone #) is KOS. Revent^talk 09:38, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Speravir (Talk) 18:35, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Correction

Hello.Please replace "غريغوريوس" with "غريغريوس" in Category:In the spirit world preliminary definitions.Thank you --ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2 (talk) 13:10, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

• I don't see that text anywhere on that page (and if it were, you could edit it yourself). Could you try to be clearer about what you want done? - Jmabel ! talk 17:17, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

• Part of the Author field in each individual file? --ghouston (talk) 00:28, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

•  Done: Wrong "غريغوريوس" changed to correct "غريغريوس" in 81 files. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 01:07, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Speravir (Talk) 18:35, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

More information needed

I have found two pictures of the ship SV-Legend in Oslo: File:14-09-02-oslo-RalfR-180.jpg,

. There is an Norwegian website SV-Legend, but I dont get any historical information (year of build, etc) to make a new category.Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:32, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

Oeps. It seem there is alraedy one: Category:Legend (ship, 1915)Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:35, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Speravir (Talk) 18:34, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

How to see all the description languages of an image?

Hello.I am using Commons in Greek language. In an image has a description in Greek, I can only see that description and not all the others. How can I change that? Xaris333 (talk) 20:48, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

@Xaris333: Go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets, and the "Language Support" section, near the bottom. The "Language Select" gadget (which is on by default) gives the 'functionality' that you want to turn off, so disable it. Revent^talk 22:00, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks!! Xaris333 (talk) 22:33, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Speravir (Talk) 18:33, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Uploaded a new version... to where?

Can someone take a look at this and see why the cropped version of the image is not showing up? Thanks! Maury Markowitz (talk) 15:43, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

It does not show because you reverted the crop to the original download. -- MaxxL - talk 16:47, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

I don't see any reversions but I see two cropped versions were uploaded and one of those is displaying for me. It is common for you to see a cached version instead of the most recent one. Usually that can be corrected by clicking reload on your browser but not always. I had one recently that was persistent and I just moved on to other things. The next day the updated file was showing. Delphi234 (talk) 02:56, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Local ferry ships

has a sister ship Category:Oslo XI (ship, 1989) wich is categorised. I however dont find information on the local ferry ships, such as the build year, needed to make a new category. There is travel website visit Oslo but no technical website. I find that Category:Ferries in Norway should also be subdivided per locality and ferry compagny.Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:59, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

I found the building year for this ferry at Oslo-Fergene's website. You are probably right about subdividing the category. Blue Elf (talk) 20:32, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Before dividing the category, take a look at the current subcategories of Shipping companies of Norway and Ships in Norway. Any subdividing of ferries in Norway should be aligned with the categories that have already been created here. Toresetre (talk) 23:35, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

 Done I created Category:Oslo-FergeneSmiley.toerist (talk) 11:53, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Userbar problems

Someone saw what happened to "Notices" and "Alerts" of the userbar? 😄 ArionEstar 😜 (talk) 19:19, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

No, what happened to it? It looks normal to me. Matma Rex (talk) 20:06, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

The last change I know of is importing nonsense notices from all other wikis that you have visited. Terribly annoying and you can only turn them off on a per wiki basis. So I don't see any of them here but they show up on every other wiki I visit and there is no way I am going to turn them off 200 or 300 times. Delphi234 (talk) 02:45, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Commons:Photo challenge June results

Rock formations: Entries • Votes • Scores

Rank	1	2	3
image
Title	Storm Over the Badlands in South Dakota, USA	Gozo, Malta: The Azure Window	The Grand Canyon showing washouts by the Colorado River, Arizona (USA)
Author	Rapahanock	Cccefalon	CatalpaSpirit
Score	12	9	9

Congratulations to User:Rapahanock, CEphoto, Uwe Aranas and User:CatalpaSpirit. -- Jarekt (talk) 02:47, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Manufacturing: Entries • Votes • Scores

Rank	1	2	3
image
Title	Workers are cutting big timbers into planks in a sawmill in Sandakan, Malaysia	Taken the photo from outskirts of Bengaluru during a workshop	Ferreiro ou metalúrgico tradicional
Author	Cccefalon	Nikhilvrma	Wagnerggomes
Score	21	14	14

Congratulations to CEphoto, Uwe Aranas, Nikhilvrma and Wagner Gomes. -- Jarekt (talk) 02:47, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Do we have a category for this?

and

Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:34, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Category:Marine algae of Denmark? - Takeaway (talk) 10:04, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Its taken before the coast off Denmark but it could be anywhere on the Baltic sea. Its not seaweed in the sense that it is in a fixed place, but more plankton organismes that move and gather at the surface by a very still sea. I think for example on Algea blooms.Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:34, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

I put it in Category:Algal blooms.Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:41, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Seems this currently over-full (238 items) category could be usefully subdivided, perhaps into Category:Freshwater algal blooms and Category:Marine algal blooms? Anyone want to have a go at sorting them? - MPF (talk) 20:47, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

File:Algal Bloom - പായൽ 01.JPG is misplaced. These are more floating plants.Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:03, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Mobile edits and uploads, continued

This is a continuation of Commons:Village pump/Archive/2016/04#Mobile edits and uploads.

We are still seeing a very large number of useless edits, copyright violations, and uploads without any source, authorship or licensing information whatsoever from mobile editors.

In the previous discussion, User:El Grafo and 2607:FB90:428:7D21:DCD9:5DDF:8F58:C2 claimed that uploads from mobile web browsers were disabled in 2014, but I can confirm (and so can anyone willing to follow a link) that https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:UploadWizard is very much alive and accepting uploads. I just uploaded File:Town crier Alan Myatt announces the birth of Princess Charlotte of Cambridge.jpg with a completely empty file description using that interface and received zero warnings that I was doing anything wrong (apart from the rather subtle inclusion of the text "add a license tag in the permission field above, or this file will be deleted" in the pre-selected licensing option).

So of course User:Jdlrobson's speculations about rogue apps using APIs were not the answer to this "mystery". Of course it's much simpler than that. Of course it's our own damn main interface for uploading that, when visited from a mobile device, practically encourages the user to create useless file descriptions. There you have it. —LX (talk, contribs) 13:43, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

(enter a bunch of nsfw caps-locked 4-letter-words here) I'm actually pretty pissed off right now, and believe me: that's a rare thing to happen. Not only was the old problem not fixed as promised: The same thing is happening all over again right now with cross-wiki uploads (phab:T120867). --El Grafo (talk) 14:04, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

I just randomly clicked on two of the recent mobile uploads without even looking at the file names and what did I get? Exactly: A useless, unused selfie and a penis. On the bright side: numbers of uploads per day through this channel are pretty low, so it seems that whatever they did back then to "disable" mobile web uploads kind of works for most of the people. --El Grafo (talk) 14:26, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

To use some actual numbers: I counted 205 upload entries from 21 July to 27 July. If that's representative, that's roughly 890 files per month or 10,700 per year, and my previous investigation (only based on one day's data, but my impression is that it's pretty representative) showed that 88% of the uploads were junk. So that's 9000+ junk files being piled on per year by this interface, which we don't need. If anything at all has been done, it must have been limited to removal of some incoming links to the upload page, but there are of course thousands of ways for people to end up there anyway. —LX (talk, contribs) 20:20, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

@LX and El Grafo: I'm afraid you're misunderstanding what's happening here. UploadWizard is not enabled on mobile, despite my efforts to do so; you're seeing the fallback form (identical to Special:Upload, but without Commons' customizations) used when UploadWizard can't be shown. Normally only users of obsolete browsers see it, but due to the hacky way the mobile site disables a lot of stuff mobile users get the same thing.

Mobile users can obviously upload files, if they really want to, by navigating to Special:Upload on the mobile site (which works just fine, and shows all the usual warnings and customizations) or by switching to the desktop site (desktop UploadWizard works just fine on mobile devices).

If you want to prevent users from uploading files with no description, create an abuse filter that would block it. I have recently spent a great deal of time making this possible (action='upload' in AbuseFilter now provides the usual variables for page text, edit summary, etc.). Abuse filters work identically on mobile and desktop.

This is really entirely unrelated to both the old mobile upload fiasco and the new cross-wiki upload fiasco (which, let it be known, I consider a huge failure of our development processes).

I just fixed MediaWiki:Uploadwizard-summary to include identical warnings on Special:UploadWizard with UploadWizard disabled as the ones shown normally on Special:Upload: [3]. I hope this quenches your rage at me and Jon Robson, entirely undeserved by us in this case. Matma Rex (talk) 22:22, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

@Matma Rex: Thanks for clearing that up. An Ent was roused yesterday, and he made hasty conclusions – sorry about that. So maybe that fallback mode should be changed to something more useful? mobile Special:Upload at least has a blank {{Information}}. Something like Special:Upload&uselang=ownwork would probably be even better. Or can it just be re-directed to the non-mobile UploadWizard? Or maybe actually enable UploadWizard on mobile? (As far as I remember, that mobile upload thingy that was disabled had extremely dumbed-down functionality and was not comparable with the normal UploadWizard – correct?) I hope we can somehow avoid creating abuse filters (but nevertheless a big thanks to Matma Rex for making that possible!). --El Grafo (talk) 08:59, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

@El Grafo: Most of these customizations are Commons-specific code, hosted somewhere on this website in the "MediaWiki:" namespace, and I'm really not familiar with it. It's probably a matter of finding all the customizations, and changing them to run on "Special:UploadWizard" in addition to "Special:Upload". This would probably be a pretty painful tasks even for someone who knows this code. Hopefully we'll just enable the proper UploadWizard interface on mobile instead soon (see my comment below). Matma Rex (talk) 17:42, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

Matma Rex: Not sure what you think I've misunderstood, or why you think I'm enraged at you or Jon Robson. Back in April, I noticed that edits tagged as mobile edit and mobile web edit were overwhelmingly useless. Focusing on uploads, several users expressed the belief that uploads from mobile platforms have been disabled. Others speculated that the uploads may be made using third party apps or scripts via the API, and asked me to replicate the workflow to prove otherwise. I've now done that.

These uploads are not made using third party apps or scripts. They are coming from Special:UploadWizard, our standard page for uploads with a lot of links pointing its way. Yes, I realise that what's rendered is not the Upload Wizard, but that's not the point. I don't particularly care what the useless upload feature that's enabled is called, what falls back to what, or whether the mobile site is hacky. I don't care if mobile users go to the desktop site to upload (because those interfaces do perform some basic form validation).

The point is simply this: There is an easily accessible interface for uploads (for example, type in "Upload" in the search field at the top, end up at Commons:Upload and follow the advice to "try the Upload Wizard") that practically encourages users to upload files with empty and otherwise obviously inadequate file descriptions without warnings, and that's unacceptable in 2016.

The added instructions are a step in the right direction, but until there's basic validation of the form, I'd really just like to see this gaping hole plugged, through an abuse filter, as I suggested in April, or any other means necessary. If there are possibilities available that weren't there last time we discussed this, that's great. —LX (talk, contribs) 09:40, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

I don't see any benefit in adding a wall of text. If MobileFrontend needs to destroy the UploadWizard interface, https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:UploadWizard should redirect to https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:UploadWizard&mobileaction=toggle_view_desktop so that the user has a functioning upload form. It's not acceptable to throw the user back in 2005. --Nemo 13:34, 29 July 2016 (UTC) P.s.: As far as I know, adding $wgMFNoMobilePages[] = 'Special:UploadWizard'; somewhere in the UploadWizard code or in the Wikimedia configuration should stop MobileFrontent from breaking the links to UploadWizard.

@LX: I thought you're enraged because your message appeared rather angry. I've been working with the mobile team recently to get the real UploadWizard enabled on mobile (in particular, replacing some jQuery UI usage which they consider unacceptable on the mobile site), and the final two patches which would enable it are waiting for review: [4] – I'll try to make this happen soon. Matma Rex (talk) 17:38, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

@Matma Rex: thanks a lot for that, hope it works out! --El Grafo (talk) 14:44, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

@LX and El Grafo: The patches have been merged and the real UploadWizard will be available on the mobile site starting next Wednesday, 10 August 2016, as per the usual deployment schedule. Matma Rex (talk) 16:51, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Matma Rex: What tags will those uploads have in the recent changes list? —LX (talk, contribs) 21:16, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

@LX: They should be tagged with "mobile edit". Matma Rex (talk) 23:20, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Project The Netherlands and the world - tips and requests welcome

Wood carvings from Bali at the pasar malam in Surabaya - 1905-1906. Image from KITLV, Leiden.

Hi everyone! Wikimedia Nederland has recently initiated an international cross-wiki project entitled The Netherlands and the world (project page on meta). In this project, we want to stimulate the exchange of information and media on Wikimedia projects, about 'shared heritage' between the Netherlands and those regions and countries with which the Netherlands has historical ties (most notably Indonesia and Suriname, but it includes many other regions in the world as well).

I'm announcing this project here, because we are welcoming all kinds of input for it.

• We're creating an international project group of Wikimedia volunteers who want to actively participate in this project. It is still very open to all input and ideas. If you are interested in the project, feel free to leave your signature on the project page on meta, or to contact me directly.
• Are you an active Commons volunteer who regularly works on this topic, and do you have any questions or requests for information or content? We have a requests page especially for that. Feel free to post all your questions there. You can also get in touch with me directly.
• Any other questions or remarks can be posted here, or at the project's talk page on meta.

Thanks! Spinster (talk) 13:00, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Spinster, why you didn't sign? hehehe I already left a question there. -- Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton 18:58, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Rodrigo.Argenton! I replied there :-) Spinster (talk) 12:06, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Can ı upload?

Hello. I want upload photo from Birmingham Public Library Collection. Copyrights section "This material may be protected under Title 17 of the U. S. Copyright Law which governs the making of photocopies or reproductions of copyrighted materials. You may use the digitized material for private study, scholarship, or research." Can I upload files like that or I should upload to wikipedia for Fair Use? --Aabdullayev851 (talk) 13:43, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

• Certainly cannot come to Commons on that basis, although it is imaginable that some image in the collection might be in the public domain, in which case that image would be OK. "private study, scholarship, or research" hardly covers our requirement for allowing even commercial use. You don't indicate the specific photo in question, but (assuming you are referring to the English-language Wikipedia) it is possible that something not in the public domain might be acceptable there on a non-free use basis. - Jmabel ! talk 15:59, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

• That is boilerplate language libraries use to protect themselves from possible legal liability. 17USC108(f)(1) : "Nothing in this section shall be construed to impose liability for copyright infringement upon a library or archives or its employees for the unsupervised use of reproducing equipment located on its premises: Provided: That such equipment displays a notice that the making of a copy may be subject to the copyright law".... the 'warning' then gives a very generic description of fair use.

The statement has nothing to do with if the specific work is copyrighted, and does not intend to. It's essentially a statement that determining the copyright status is completely the reuser's problem. Paragraph (h) of the same section is what allows libraries to digitize 'old but still copyrighted' material that can't be placed on Commons. Revent^talk 19:01, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

you are going to have to make your own copyright assessment on each item. who took the photo? when? is there a registration at the LOC copyright office. [5] these early auto glass negatives are common. but your metadata here is not helpful. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 02:44, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

я так и не нашол как обратитсо к администратору с предложением

слишком много букв — Preceding unsigned comment added by Intizim (talk • contribs) 00:26, 03 August 2016 (UTC)

Translation: I did not find how to contact the administrator of the proposal. Too many letters. Delphi234 (talk) 02:49, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

→Commons:Форум — Speravir_Talk – 23:51, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Advertising?

Hi all, this seems like if someone is advertising here. Out of scope I would say. Thank you for your time. Lotje (talk) 15:49, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

thx, filed a DR --El Grafo (talk) 18:32, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

LoC images without any template

May you please help me cleaning up the LoC uploads of User:Trialsanderrors (Uploads)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kopiersperre (talk • contribs)

@Kopiersperre: I've cleaned up the file pages of the ones in Category:N162 (Goodwin Champions) (some of which had no information templates)... unfortunately there are a lot of them. I suspect many of these have probably been uploaded separately by Fae with his bot. Revent^talk 03:12, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

doubt it, these are old flickr uploads and cut and past info. Fae only did HABS ones, many more Bain, NPCC, Highsm to go. there is a m:File metadata cleanup drive and tools: https://tools.wmflabs.org/add-information/no_information.php and visual file change Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 01:24, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

July 30

CfD Categories

Should CfD categories such as Category:CfD 2015-10 be hidden categories? I always think it looks odd when I see them, and they're certainly non-topical so they meet the criteria. @Achim55: I don't know if you make these by hand or by bot. 22:43, 2 August 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by BMacZero (talk • contribs)

Maybe it's not a big problem, since there are relatively few of them. It might also be helpful to people using the category to see more clearly that the category is being discussed. --Auntof6 (talk) 04:53, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

August 03

Too strict a category hierarchy?

Right now, Category:Buildings in Seattle is in Category:Architecture of Seattle, which in turn is in Category:Culture of Seattle, Washington; only that last is directly in Category:Seattle. There is nothing strictly wrong about that but if you start from Category:Seattle and are looking for buildings, you are unlikely to consider that they will be under "culture". Theoretically, everything human (e.g., government, transport, etc.) could be strictly under "culture". It seems to me that Category:Architecture of Seattle should be directly under Category:Seattle, even if it is also under Category:Culture of Seattle, Washington. Do people thing that would be overcategorization? It seems to me that the current state errs in the opposite direction. - Jmabel ! talk 00:26, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Shouldn't Category:Architecture of Seattle be a subcategory of Category:Art of Seattle instead of in Culture directly? You are lucky that Category:Structures of Seattle hasn't been created yet. The point about Category:Culture and what is in scope for it is interesting, and it does come directly under Category:Topics (although under Category:Homo sapiens would be another choice). A "culture" category may be redundant for a city. Otherwise, I don't think the category system makes things easy to find, that's what the search box is for. --ghouston (talk) 05:00, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Looking around, New York City has architecture of... under culture but Chicago, Detroit and Los Angeles have categories on buildings directly under the city category. The built environment is a major defining element of a city so I would expect to find it as a high level category. Rmhermen (talk) 05:09, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

I always assumed that the categories restricted by geography follow the same hierarchy as the unrestricted categories, otherwise you end up with over-categorisation. E.g. buildings in Seattle shouldn't be in Seattle because it's already in Architecture of Seattle. --ghouston (talk) 05:19, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

I'd like to see architecture directly under the city (or state, country, or other location). That is because, while there is an artistic aspect to architecture (artful buildings and structures, for example), there are things under architecture that are not art (and not culture, either, for that matter). --Auntof6 (talk) 05:08, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

RFC regarding the future of cross-wiki uploads

FYI: I've started an RFC regarding the future of cross-wiki uploads at Commons:Village pump/Proposals#Rfc: Should we request a configuration change to shut down cross-wiki uploads?. --El Grafo (talk) 12:27, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

August 05

Odd horizontal black lines on pic

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T142638

I've just uploaded File:Passerina versicolor, Patagonia Lake, Arizona 1.jpg under its CC0 license from Flickr here. The commons file is, for me, showing closely spaced horizontal black lines on the 1,024 × 723 pixels size, and widely spaced horizontal black lines on the 1,280 × 903 pixels and 800 × 564 pixels sizes. No black lines on the Flickr original, nor on the full-size 1,729 × 1,220 pixels.

This is the first time that I have ever seen this happen. Is anyone else seeing these lines, and if yes, can anything be done about them? - MPF (talk) 22:48, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

phab:T142638 Matma Rex (talk) 22:50, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! - MPF (talk) 23:00, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Speravir (Talk) 02:06, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Picture of the Year 2015 Results

The 2015 Picture of the Year. View all results »

Dear Wikimedians,

The tenth Picture of the Year competition (2015) has ended and we are pleased to announce the results:

In both rounds, people voted for their favorite media files.

• In Round 1, there were 1322 candidate images.
• In the second round, people voted for the 56 finalists (the R1 top 30 overall and top 2 in each category).

In the second round – the “three votes” was used – eligible users could vote for up to 3 finalists – each of these 3 votes counted equal.

There were 5822 people who voted in either round, and there were 1862 people who voted in both rounds.

• In the first round, 3678 people cast over 175000 votes for all 1322 candidates.
• In the second round, 4019 people cast 11570 votes for all 56 finalists.

We congratulate the winners of the contest and thank them for creating these beautiful media files and sharing them as freely licensed content:

1. 658 people voted for the winner, File:Pluto-01 Stern 03 Pluto Color TXT.jpg.
2. In second place, 617 people voted for File:Nasir-al molk -1.jpg.
3. In third place, 582 people voted for File:Heavens Above Her.jpg.

Click here to view the top images »

We also sincerely thank to all voters for participating. We invite you to continue to participate in the Commons community by sharing your work.

Thanks,
the Picture of the Year committee

This section was archived on a request by: Speravir (Talk) 18:20, 12 August 2016 (UTC): (After consultation with Steinsplitter who’ve written this section.)

Delist QI

Hey guys, as most of us now, there is no regulated way to do a delist of QI images, however as we just need one dude to approve, sometimes very doubtful images passes (and we don't see) or as the times goes by, some images photographed in past starts to not be as good as some now. How can we proceed to re-discuss the QI status of some pictures? -- Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton ^m 17:43, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Ask on Commons talk:Quality images candidates. --A.Savin 20:31, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

 Done tks A.Savin. -- Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton ^m 08:06, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: -- Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton ^m 08:10, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Is there an automated way to handle this?

I recently uploaded over 300 public domain images with Commonist, but the file pages all say that the public domain template added by Commonist is out of date. Is there an automated way to replace the outdated template with the current one? Abyssal (talk) 01:50, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

With VisualFileChange you can, if you know, how to use it correctly, see Help:VisualFileChange.js – or another one can do it for you, if you tell us, which license template should be used instead of {{PD}}. I think the uploaded files are the ones with “The Osteology of the Reptiles”? If yes, as a side question, what is the purpose of these random letter strings in the filenames (“ugytfrdygr hhgy juhghgh” as example)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Speravir (talk • contribs) 02:01, 12 August 2016 (UTC) (UTC) (Oops.)

Thanks, @Speravir: I've used the tool you recommended to fix the license templates. Abyssal (talk) 16:29, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Speravir (Talk) 17:05, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Replacing file

Salalah Beach Banner 2

I'm trying to replace a file with another altered version. Despite three attempts, however, the file still hasn't been replaced – it's the same, dark file originally uploaded. I then tried to upload the altered file separately as a new image, but was blocked with the message that the image was already in existence. What can I do to fix this problem? –StellarD (talk)

@StellarD: It seems to be a cache issue. Have you seen the photos in full resolution? Because they look OK to me: the oldest version and the newest version. --jdx ^Re: 12:11, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Yes, that was the problem – thank you! –StellarD (talk)

This section was archived on a request by: Speravir (Talk) 17:07, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

File:Tomas giner-san vicente-prado.jpg vs. File:Vicente de Zaragoza anonymous painting XVI century.jpeg

Both photos come from the Prado website, but the first one is a few years older. The second one I uploaded a several minutes ago. The older photo has slightly higher resolution, but it looks like the painting is lit irregularly. Should both photos be kept? --jdx ^Re: 10:16, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

I do not see any "irregularity" in lighting. Ruslik (talk) 20:59, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

@Ruslik0: Just place both photos alongside each other. You should see that the lower half of the older photo is a bit brighter than the upper. --jdx ^Re: 07:01, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

Keep both photos. This sort of thing happens all the time. Two perfectly valid attempts to reproduce the same underlying object. - Jmabel ! talk 22:23, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

edit-a-thons and wikimeetings category

Few weeks I've created Category:Edit-a-thons_Wikimedia_Toponomastica_femminile. "Toponomastica_femminile" is the name of a partner association, not a concept. I've used the plural form because they were a series of edit-a-thons in more than one day, so I was told. These are details, the problem is that I see a lot of "styles" in these titles, so maybe it is time we produce some guidelines? Or a least agree on something?

These events are more and more everyday, we didn't pay a lot of attention so far because they're "meta-wiki" and not a primary goal for external users, I guess, but maybe it's time?

Should we put "Edit-a-thons" and "meetings" and "Wikimedia conventions" always in the category title? Is it ok to use non translated title such as Category:Mitgliederversammlungen Wikimedia Deutschland? Should we always put a date in a title and in which form?

I mean if we agree on something, maybe it won't be so bad.--Alexmar983 (talk) 20:39, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

August 07

Getty Images sued for selling and claiming copyright for public domain photos

I don't know if this type of post is allowed, if not then delete it. Just thought some might find interest in this news post regarding Getty Images. Offnfopt^(talk) 08:58, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

Jep, read that on Petapixel yesterday. We have quite a bunch of her pictures at Category:Photographs by Carol M. Highsmith.

RE: "is it allowed to post this here?": If there is one place for stuff like this on Commons, it's probably the Village Pump. But technically, it's off-topic here: "This page is used for discussions of the operations, technical issues, and policies of Wikimedia Commons". Actually, one thing I'm missing at Commons is something like de:Wikipedia:Café – a place where you can sit back, relax and chat about stuff like this. Imho, a community needs a place to socialize. --El Grafo (talk) 09:10, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

This passed me by, but thanks for raising this as in the past I've speedy deleted images on the basis of there being a Getty watermark on an image, now it would seem that Getty are not above putting bogus watermarks on images and making claims of ownership, or to represent the rights of copyrights of aauthors which they have have no rights to. I would hope and expect the vast majority of Getty watermarked images to be legitimate, but it would be another thing to bear in mind before tagging for speedy delete.--KTo288 (talk) 19:05, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

But even if they are in PD, we should then try to find an original image without the watermark Elgaard (talk) 13:06, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

FWIW, I have in the (distant) past reported Getty Images to NASA's legal department, for doing exactly this... The specific images ended up being removed, but obviously they are still exploiting this. Revent^talk 01:26, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

we should quick do a mass upload of her images from LOC here. i think i did the top 50 but still only 31000 growing to 100000 to go. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 01:16, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

We should make a note of the article on her Creator page.--Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 13:55, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

Standards of behavior

I'd like to know what standards of behavior are enforced on this site. This question has come up at COM:FPC. Have there been any users who have been suspended or permanently blocked for incivility? What does a person have to do or say in order to get blocked? Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:02, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

• I don't think this is neatly codified. There's sort of a running joke that it comes down to "don't be a dick." The problem with specific rules is that trolls are very good at gaming them. Are you asking because you have an issue with someone else's conduct? If so, I suggest you bring it to Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems. - Jmabel ! talk 00:24, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
  • I think the Wikimedia terms of use apply. --ghouston (talk) 02:08, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
    • Thanks for your replies. I haven't so far had personal problems with anyone, or at least nothing that hasn't been resolved or manageable and totally undeserving of reporting. However, I sometimes find the atmosphere at COM:FPC a bit poisonous, and it's surprising to me that people who routinely blow up at some other users who vote against featuring their photos are not suspended for doing so, and ultimately given permanent blocks. Some examples here and here.

• I am an admin on Wikivoyage. Being an admin requires thinking about the balance between overmoderating and antagonizing valuable users (including new users) that way, and tolerating chronically intemperate behavior that leads to an exodus of extraordinarily valuable longtime users, which we experienced at Wikivoyage a few years ago. It's clear that some people are avoiding threads involving an overly thin-skinned user because they prefer not to expose themselves to unpleasantness, but their lack of participation is unfortunate because it means that valuable opinions and votes are lost.

• At Wikivoyage, we had a user who did a very large amount of great cleanup work - in other words, he was very valuable - but he also was too often nasty toward people who disagreed with him in policy discussions, and that led to the exodus I referred to and ultimately prompted the remaining admins to make the hard decision to block him and his various sockpuppets, eventually on a permanent basis. Wikivoyage still needs new editors and more content, but things are certainly more peaceful without this individual there to disrupt things and willfully buck consensus just because he thought he knew better (and sometimes did! but that's not the point on a Wiki). -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:31, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

• The most referenced "best practice" on Commons is Commons:Staying mellow; the guideline is Commons:Talk_page_guidelines#Communication_good_practice. Commons:Blocking policy allows blocking users who create a hostile and unproductive environment. Nemo 09:27, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

• Thanks for the links. I would observe that there can be people like the former Wikivoyage user I mentioned whose accounts are not "used primarily to create a hostile environment" but are nevertheless so disruptive and destructive to a good atmosphere that they eventually have to be blocked. But what I understand from Revent below is that unless a person who's attacked decides to contact an administrator, nothing will be done. I'll keep that in mind and continue to try to ignore thin-skinned behavior when determining whether and how to vote on nominations. Thanks, everyone. Ikan Kekek (talk) 14:08, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

@Ikan Kekek: I'm not saying that people are never given 'unilateral' blocks.... do something like directly call someone a f***head and you will probably get a vacation, but Commons does not have a civility policy (and probably never will, it's an unpopular idea). Revent^talk 18:48, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Got it. Thanks for explaining. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:11, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

• After following the posted links I have to say this post is a massive over reaction, Commons is not run like Wikivoyage and that is a very good thing. Oxyman (talk) 21:23, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

• If you seriously think these examples are the only or worst...but nevermind...and I'm holding back from commenting on how not being run like Wikivoyage is a "very good thing". Ikan Kekek (talk) 13:57, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

• Honestly, I have seen much worse then your examples and still haven't reacted in your manner...but nevermind...and I'm holding back from commenting on what I am about to comment on, Seriously some users really should examine their behavior before commenting on others or perhaps refrain from areas that are confrontational by their nature Oxyman (talk) 20:37, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

• I really don't know what you're talking about. I haven't gotten into any fights with anyone on this site, and I don't think that complaining to someone about their behavior toward others or giving examples of what I'm talking about for the purpose of discussion and information-gathering constitutes getting into a fight with him. I started this thread mostly for information and got it. But I'll thank you for your comments, bid you a nice day and declare this conversation between us over, as far as I'm concerned. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:11, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

• I did not say you got into any fights, can't see why you assume I did, but to point out a particular user on this very public forum requires a good reason and I just can't see that you had one, Indeed I find it hard to imagine what you perceive was so bad that you were motivated to start a discussion on standards of behavior, let alone start talking about permanent blocks. The problem is that Wikivoyage is a small wiki where a few 'respected admins' are in total control, they impose their strict ways of doing things on anyone else and simply remove anyone who disagrees in any way with them. I suppose when you have been doing that for so long you simply forget that outside your fiefdom things can be a little different. I passionately do not want Commons to be run like Wikivoyage Oxyman (talk) 00:36, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

It might be worth noting that the 'voting on images' sections of Commons exist as a bit of a walled garden, in a way... there are quite a few people that don't do much outside of those areas, and it's probably the most confrontational area by far, just by it's nature. "Behavioral" sanctions on Commons are very uncommon, and normally not needed, but that area is probably the closest to places like wikipedia in terms of behavior. I think most admins here prefer to not enforce 'behavioral rules' unless actually asked to by the community, so the standard of behavior is essentially what other editors will tolerate without lynching the person at AN/U. Revent^talk 03:36, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

I'd second that last statement. I pretty much stay away from those areas. - Jmabel ! talk 20:08, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

yeah, keeping head down is one response. i would suggest that the "cultural buzzsaw" is a major reason new editors stay away from commons, and english and german wikipedia. smaller wikis cannot afford to be so toxic. but it is a matter of time until commons becomes smaller in editors, and then maybe the community will take civility seriously. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 19:58, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

Commons, English and German Wikipedia are some of the most popular wikis that exist, whereas many small wikis such as Wikivoyage are suffocated by excessive admin monitoring and control and are thus prevented from growing. You only have to look at reality to see this is self evident. Oxyman (talk) 20:40, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

July 31

Basic Commons policy criticized on English WP?

Can't this be considered some sort of general complaint about the basic policy here at Commons that images donated preferably also are to be used are for various projects of the Wikimedia Foundation such as for illustrating articles? Just asking, 'cause I don't get it. --SergeWoodzing (talk) 10:32, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Not sure I completely understand the whole issue, but there is no policy at Commons about how files hosted here are to be used at other projects. Commons hosts stuff that is useful for educational purposes, whether it is actually used in one of our sister projects or not. --El Grafo (talk) 11:05, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Exception: We also allow a small amount of images that are not educationally useful, such as profile pictures of Wikimedia Users. This kind of image may actually be deleted when it's not in use somewhere. --El Grafo (talk) 11:10, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Oh, sincerely, I thought I read somewhere that Commons encourages the use of its images to illustate WP (sister project) articles. Maybe I dreamt that? --SergeWoodzing (talk) 11:11, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

"The aim of Wikimedia Commons is to provide a media file repository: that acts as a common repository for the various projects of the Wikimedia Foundation." --SergeWoodzing (talk) 11:13, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Yes, of course Commons encourages people to use the files hosted here, that's what this project is all about. All I wanted to point out is that Commons doesn't have policies on how to use files. The decision on which (if any) image to use in a given article is up to the people writing the article. --El Grafo (talk) 12:19, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Another way to put it... we shouldn't be 'encouraging' the other projects to use our files any more than we encourage everyone else to do so, by curating a useful collection. Instead, we should encourage the other projects to store their 'free' files here, so they are more broadly useful. When you use an image on another project, you are acting as an editor of that project, not 'of Commons'. It would be a bad idea for us, as a community, to try to tell the others what to do. As it is, we have enough trouble with people trying to overwrite files here in order to invisibly change what is used somewhere else. Revent^talk 12:38, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Good point and in fact several Wikis at Wikia use Commons content as do other unrelated websites. Reguyla (talk) 18:17, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

It's not so much as us encouraging the use of our files by other projects, so much as other projects encouraging their editors where possible to use our files where possible. So at en wikipedia, if the choice is between using a non free or fair use file taken from elsewhere and using a file from Commons, it should be the Commons file that is to be used; and other projects are stricter editors at es wikipedia can only use files compatiable with Commons policy, no fair use files at all. However, these policies are not Commons policies, but policies adopted by editors at the sister projects themselves.--KTo288 (talk) 15:33, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for all this interesting input! --SergeWoodzing (talk) 21:02, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

UploadWizard soon available on the mobile site too

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T97169

Your favorite uploading tool, UploadWizard, will become available on the mobile site (https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:UploadWizard) starting next Wednesday, 10 August 2016. This will be the real, complete UploadWizard, and not any limited tool, unlike with previous widely-disliked experiments with mobile uploads. It will replace the simplified form you can see on that page now (which is based on Special:Upload, but without some modifications specific to Commons). I hope you will like it. Matma Rex (talk) 17:19, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

• UploadWizard is certainly not my favorite uploading tool, and I strongly doubt that a sizeable fraction of serious Commons users would say that. It might be someone’s favourite portfolio project when applying for a job at 9gag or ImgUr, but it adds nothing of value to the creation of a free-media repository, quite the opposite: It is a cumbersome, misleading, dumbed-down exercise on turning (or trying to turn) the crowd sourced content movement into a “consumer experience” segment. Of course, the same could be said about Visual Editor and Media Viewer. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 01:31, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

• Thanks MatmaRex. Anything that removes special-cased tools from mobile or other, ensuring consistency of the user experience, is an improvement! Nemo 15:18, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

• And when we gonna have a 21 century mobile app?

And DNG files?

It's very normal to see devolopers working in things that community will not use. I really appreciate your work, however we need to be more intagrated. -- Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton ^m 01:46, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

August 04

Clickbait

Hi, I was wondering, is this some kind of clickbaiting on commons? Lotje (talk) 15:15, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Clearly not, the only possible clicks go to PubMed... --Nemo 15:21, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

But whey was it then in the Thought suppression category? I really thought thas was some kind of advertising. Thank you for your time. Lotje (talk) 15:31, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

no advertising on pubmed, which is a government repository. as we do collaborations with PD-us government, we will be uploading their videos. the paranoia that this is "promotional COI," should be resisted. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 14:54, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

For the record, User:Open Access Media Importer Bot is a long-approved, award-winning bot account, with over 20k uploads, the creation of which was funded by WMF Germany. The concern is legitimate (it is something that actually happens a lot) but very much the wrong target in this case. Revent^talk 03:31, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Albert-Kahn collection

Hi ! 23 000 pictures from all around the world from the Albert-Kahn are available online. The copyright status is complicated (several different photographers, lot of anonymous work... Anyone interested to work on an import with me ? Léna (talk) 11:28, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-32

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

• In notifications, the icon for Notices has been changed from a speech-bubble icon () to a tray icon () for consistency. The Alerts icon has been redesigned too. The colors have been changed for accessibility. [6]

Problems

• If you use the wikEd gadget, changes you made were not kept when you switched from the wikitext editor to the visual editor while you were editing. This has now been fixed. [7]

Changes this week

• Wikimedia search will now ignore question marks at the end of the sentences or words you use when you search. Until now the question mark was just a wildcard. [8]
• On Commons, UploadWizard will now be available on mobile, rather than just the old upload form. This should reduce the workload for the community in reviewing images. [9]
• When you edit with the visual editor a puzzle symbol tells you there is an invisible template in the article. It will now mention the name of the template. [10]
• The button to read something in another language will move for mobile users. This will happen on 9 August. [11]
• When someone mentions you and links to your user page you get a notification. You will now get a notification when you mention yourself this way. [12]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 August. It will be on all wikis from 11 August (calendar).
• A message on Notifications panel will invite users to try Special:Notifications page. [13]

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on August 9 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

15:41, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

August 09

Maps of China

Without supporting the claim, it's still bizarre that all the main pages and categories for maps of China either completely exclude its claims on the South China Sea or—very rarely—include it as an afterthought inset like this one. Is there an actual policy against inclusion of Chinese maps like this? Are there some Chinese-language ones hanging around that just need to be categorized in English? or is this just some accidental biproduct of this idea being too new to fit in the public domain?

Surely the PRC has some public domain copies lying around... — LlywelynII 04:02, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Commons doesn't have such policies. It just depends on what maps are available with a free license or public domain, and which ones have been uploaded. --ghouston (talk) 07:00, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Part of it may be uncertainty about what the infamous "nine-dash line" is supposed to mean in precise legal terms (the Chinese government seems to cultivate a certain degree of carefully-calculated ambiguity on that point), but there's no ban on such maps here (as Ghouston has said). AnonMoos (talk) 14:28, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Question about Inkscape

Is there a way to rotate an entire picture, with all its component parts, by a specified number of degrees? The only way I know of is to create a .png and rotate it in a paint program. But then it is no longer a .svg program. HowardMorland (talk) 20:53, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Inkscape’s native document (not «program»!) format is SVG. While rotating with Inkscape itself is trivial, using Inkscape to edit SVGs that were created or tweaked manually may needlessly damage the file. The simplest way to achive a rotation by n degrees centered on cx,cy is to edit the SVG (in a simple text editor) and add <g transform="rotate(n cx,cy)"> (with its closing pair </g>) around the whole content.

(Any use of «a paint program» to work with vectorial images is an abbomination unto the eyes of the Lord.)

-- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 02:39, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

I'm afraid your explanation is over my head, except for the statement "rotating with Inkscape itself is trivial." That inspired me to select the entire image and click on it once to change the expansion arrows at the corners into rotation arrows. Whether I have needlessly damaged the file, I don't know. It doesn't seem so. HowardMorland (talk) 04:15, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

Should not be a big deal. There is a "transform" function in the "object" menu of inkscape HowardMorland . That has a "rotate" folder where you can enter a specified number of degrees. Alexpl (talk) 06:18, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

HowardMorland -- SVG files are basically just text files, so Tuvalkin was referring to the possibility of opening a file in a text editor (not word processor!) and editing by typing SVG code. This can fix problems that are hard to fix inside Inkscape, or sometimes avoid creating problems, but you have to know something about SVG code, and it's probably not required in this case... AnonMoos (talk) 14:16, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

August 06

Images of Olympic athletes

Given the high possibility of images of these people being widely reused very quickly, I would like to propose a 'temporary' suspension of the waiting period for {{No permission}} images sourced from the websites of sports federations or national organizing committees that clearly indicate copyright, such as http://olympic.ca/, http://www.fig-gymnastics.com/, etc. Such images, even if used on other projects, should be speedily deleted until the Olympics are over. Revent^talk 09:49, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

It would be nice if we nevertheless enlisted some fans to pester such federations until they adopt CC-BY-SA though. ;-) --Nemo 10:03, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

why suspend consensus? do you have evidence of abuse? Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 19:48, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

@Slowking4: Not really asking to suspend consensus, I'm talking about just not waiting the 7 days on 'no permission' headshots of athletes (which is what sites such as I mentioned have) from such official websites.... many admins would speedily delete such images as simple copyright violations anyhow. I don't have evidence of abuse, and it would not really be 'abuse', directly. My concern is the possibility of some 'little-known' athlete becoming a sensation for whatever reason, someone uploading such a copyrighted photo to illustrate an article about them, and it then being copied widely 'from us'.... such people are likely to be 'notable', in many cases, for less time than we would wait generally wait for a no-permission deletion.

As an example, Virginia Thrasher was getting a lot of coverage, briefly, and has no photo on Commons. If someone tries to upload the photo from here, it should be a speedy, not 'no permission', for the time being, IMO. Revent^talk 23:37, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

i see you are speculating about future hypothetical problems. i have a full task list with existing problems that have not been fixed for ten years. and it's always a new reason to delete, why not a new reason to fix licenses, or get an accredited wikimedian at the olympics to illustrate the living people? i think you would find it happier editing. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 02:28, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Merging categories Category:Franco-Provençal language and Category:Arpitan language

I have started a discussion about merging these at Category talk:Franco-Provençal language. --Terfili (talk) 08:12, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Problems with e-mail

For a while now I have been having trouble with the e-mail user function on here. Normally, I would send e-mails and check the box for receiving a copy of my e-mails. On the English Wikipedia I have never had any problems with receiving copies of my sent e-mails. Since my e-mail access was revoked on there I have been using this site and Meta to send e-mails. Early on I would just have spotty instances where sometimes a copy would not get through and in other instances it would come through much later then when I sent it. As early as the middle of June I have not even been able to receive copies of any e-mails I send out with exactly one exception. Though I have kept records of the sent e-mails, they are not coming into my inbox or my junk mail. By all indications copies of my sent e-mails are just not being received. People still receive my e-mails through the e-mail user function and I still receive their e-mails through it, so it is only affecting copies of my sent e-mails. Given this has only been happening since I started using Commons and Meta for e-mail, I am wondering if this could be some issue with the e-mail user function on these sites. Have there been any others experiencing this issue?--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 00:26, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Probably the DMARC policy of a freemail provider (if you use a freemail provider)? See phab:T130723, phab:T134886, phab:T136468, phab:T137337... --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 10:07, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Those all seem to involve complete inability to send or receive e-mails through the e-mail user function, but that isn't my problem. People have responded to my e-mails using the e-mail user function so it seems to specifically affect copies of my e-mails. Just now I attempted to e-mail myself using e-mail user, but I didn't receive it. Could there be an issue specifically affecting my ability to e-mail myself using e-mail user? That is essentially what it means when you have a copy of your e-mails sent.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 16:43, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

If you are comfortable with making this public: Do you have an email address configured that is a freemailer service, like Yahoo or something similar? --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 06:57, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Could I just e-mail you so you can check if it is related to my e-mail service?--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 14:05, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

@AKlapper (WMF): By all indications I can send others e-mails through e-mail user and receive them from others through the same service, the issue is just with receiving my own e-mails as far as I know. So, there would be no issue with me e-mailing you through e-mail user to see if it is something specifically affecting me or my e-mail service. Is that alright? Rather not mention publicly what kind of e-mail service I use.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 23:19, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure what would be the difference between emailing me and emailing other people.... What's more interesting though is to know whether you use an email address that is a freemailer service or not. :) --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 09:52, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

As I said the problem isn't my ability to e-mail people using e-mail user, but getting copies of e-mails I sent. People have responded to e-mails I sent them through e-mail user and I have received e-mails from them through e-mail user. It seems to specifically affect my ability to get my own e-mails.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 00:21, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Are you checking off the box that says "Email me a copy of my message"? Delphi234 (talk) 22:23, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Why, I didn't think of that. How stupid of- YES!--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 16:15, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

Well, it started working for a few days, stopped working for a few days, and is now working again. Not sure if this counts as fixed yet.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 21:08, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Save/Publish

The Editing team is planning to change the name of the “Save page” button to “Publish page” and “Publish changes”. “Publish page” will be used when you create a new page. “Publish changes” will be used when you change an existing page. The names will be consistent in all editing environments.[14][15]

This change will probably happen during the week of 30 August 2016. The change will be announced in Tech News when it happens.

If you are fluent in a language other than English, please check the status of translations at translatewiki.net for “Publish page” and “Publish changes”.

The main reason for this change is to avoid confusion for new editors. Repeated user research studies with new editors have shown that some new editors believed that “Save page” would save a private copy of a new page in their accounts, rather than permanently publishing their changes on the web. It is important for this part of the user interface to be clear, since it is difficult to remove public information after it is published. We believe that the confusion caused by the “Save page” button increases the workload for experienced editors, who have to clean up the information that people unintentionally disclose, and report it to the functionaries and stewards to suppress it. Clarifying what the button does will reduce this problem.

Beyond that, the goal is to make all the wikis and languages more consistent, and some wikis made this change many years ago. The Legal team at the Wikimedia Foundation supports this change. Making the edit interface easier to understand will make it easier to handle licensing and privacy questions that may arise.

Any help pages or other basic documentation about how to edit pages will also need to be updated, on-wiki and elsewhere. On wiki pages, you can use the wikitext codes {{int:Publishpage}} and {{int:Publishchanges}} to display the new labels in the user's preferred language. For the language settings in your account preferences, these wikitext codes produce “Publish page” and “Publish changes”.

Please share this news with community members who teach new editors and with others who may be interested.

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:02, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

This is actually a really good idea. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 20:52, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Dating lifts

Is suspect fairly old on seeing the clothes and the dressed up children. There is an other postcard File:West Cliff Folkestone England.jpg (certainly not 2007)Smiley.toerist (talk) 17:50, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Image preview thumbnail not correct

Hi, I have a problem with File:2015 Toyota Corolla (ZRE182R) Ascent hatchback (2016-08-13) 01.jpg. I uploaded a new file, and the image had some problems with the upload. I recently cleared my cache, but the thumbnail preview is not showing. I had a similar problem last month, but the issue has started to arise. This issue is getting out of hand and i would like some help in fixing up this file for me. Is this possible, and if it is could you please help? To add to my problems, it appears that this image is showing the correct version of the file as requested, but the other one is not showing the correct version. I cannot find any Wikimedia developers, do you know any other solutions. --Nim Bhharathhan (talk) 10:10, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Looks fine here. See perhaps Help:Purge. — Speravir_Talk – 01:07, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Speravir (Talk) 02:35, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Can someone remove audio from this video? Thank you!

Panama Canal Time lapse

I uploaded the video from Youtube and i didn't pay enough attention: The CC licence for the video is great, but the used music is actually all Non-Commercial CC. Can someone remove audio from video? Thank you! --Atlasowa (talk) 20:58, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

 Done --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 04:59, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, Zhuyifei1999! --Atlasowa (talk) 20:25, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Speravir (Talk) 21:25, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Echo (Notifications) extension issue

Hello again. The first time I can not clearly explain what I meant, so I got a screenshot to illustrate. 😄 ArionEstar 😜 (talk) 21:59, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

(For anyone else confused by this screenshot and not seeing what the problem is, click the image to view it in full size.) I think this is filed as phab:T141923. Matma Rex (talk) 22:08, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Actually, nevermind, I am still confused. What exactly is the problem here? Matma Rex (talk) 22:50, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

@Matma Rex: The functions of the icons appear inverted. It is observed in any Wiki. I nade a comparison. See now. Is it part of the Echo (Notifications) extension changes? 😄 ArionEstar 😜 (talk) 23:02, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

After

Now

Hm, yeah, I guess they were swapped. I think some of the notification types were also moved between the two "tabs". I think these are intentional changes. The documentation page you linked to looks nice. Matma Rex (talk) 19:05, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Notification icons, again

Thankfully, the WMF engineers listened when we objected that the new notification icons were too low on the page; no longer do they obstruct the right end of the row of top-of-page tabs. Unfortunately, my tabs are now too high. I can only see about five pixels at the bottom of the right one, and ten at the bottom of the left one; everything else is above the top of the page. Are others seeing this? I have Monobook and Internet Explorer 11. Nyttend (talk) 00:35, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

I have the same problem those places where I use Monobook, but not the places where I use Vector. --Dannebrog Spy (talk) 20:51, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

@Nyttend and Dannebrog Spy: This should be fixed now, a fix was just deployed around an hour ago [16]. This was specific to IE 11 and apparently slipped through the testing. Matma Rex (talk) 01:26, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Request for PD-NASA upload

Moved discussion to Commons talk:WikiProject Aviation#Possibly free images of the rare Douglas and NASA TSTO aircraft/spacecraft concepts. -- 93.73.36.17 20:13, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Time and station

Its probably not 2015, but it cant be that old because of the fairly modern car in the picture. There is a station name, with hills in the background but I cant read it.Smiley.toerist (talk) 08:50, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

The car appears to me to be a Maruti Alto, second generation, Which Wikipedia says existed from 2012–present. Oxyman (talk) 16:35, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

There is also a mast with it seems elektronic equipment. Old fashion telefon and elektricity poles are still used everywhere in India.Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:22, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

I accept year 2015. I see that ´9999 in rail transport in India´ categories are not developed. There are only two.

Does the milepost (609?2) give any indication where this is?Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:44, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

August 08

Template:Regions of France

When will it be time to update this template to reflect the current French administrative regions? It still has the old ones. Its sandbox, which is used on many pages, has both the old and the new, so we could take the needed code from there. I would think we'd eventually want a template with just the current regions. --Auntof6 (talk) 03:13, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

The new region limits are effective since January 1st 2016, but their names will be official only in October, after the final Parlement agreement. For instance, Aquitaine-Limousin-Poitou-Charentes is still the official name, but Nouvelle-Aquitaine is the chosen name internally in this region, that will be approved only in October. Jack ma (talk) 04:21, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I know that the names aren't final yet. Even so, the new regions are in effect. If a region were to change its name, we could change the template. Is this name issue the reason that the template hasn't been changed yet? There's also the matter of the category structure, some of which has been changed, and some of which hasn't. Is any thought being given to how the categories will be organized, or to a method for making the change without anything falling through the cracks? --Auntof6 (talk) 05:03, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

How to deal with deletion requests which are obvious vandalisms?

E.g. like this one. When somebody nominates a file for deletion using the script, four files are modified/created: file description page and uploader's talk page are modified (i.e. appropriate templates are inserted), deletion request file (Commons:Deletion requests/<FILE NAME HERE>) is created (however sometimes it already exists) and finally, the deletion request file is added to Commons:Deletion requests/<YEAR>/<MONTH>/<DAY>. I usually revert changes in file description page and uploader's talk page and leave a comment in deletion requst file. But perhaps there is a better/standarized way to deal with such vandalisms? --jdx ^Re: 06:15, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

@Jdx: If the fate of a DR as 'keep' is obvious and non-controversial (which something like that blatantly is) you can also just close it even as a non-admin... the bot will then archive it. You can also simply speedy the DR itself under the first criteria (gibberish). Revent^talk 07:08, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

@Revent: How can I close a DR as a non-admin? You mean manually insert appropriate stuff into DR page (and remove templates from other pages)? --jdx ^Re: 07:46, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

@Jdx: Indeed, per the directions at COM:DR#Procedure. The gadget only works for admins, so you can't do it 'automatically'.... just speedy (and letting an admin use the tool) might be easier. Revent^talk 07:49, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

Trig points and geodetic control points

The classification between Category:Geodetic control points and Category:Trig points is confusing (which one should be included in which one ?). Both mean survey markers, used to make maps. They have 2D or 3D co-ordinates. Category:Benchmarks are 1D co-ordinates (included in Geodetic control points). Jack ma (talk) 06:58, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Trig points are intended for long-range surveying (trigonometric surveys, historically done to determine the overall 'shape' of the landscape), while control points are local reference points for normal boundary surveying. In the US, at least, trig points are marked by medallions much like those of control points, and originally had a temporary tower set up above them so they could be seen from miles away when 'making triangles'. Trig stations are marked with a triangle with a dot in the middle, on both the medallion itself and on topographic maps. At a quick glance, many of these medallions are incorrectly identified, and some are neither... things like reference marks and witness posts.

If you want to work on sorting these https://www.geocaching.com/mark/ would be a good reference, though it uses the term benchmark generically, and 'vertical control point' for actual benchmarks. Revent^talk 07:29, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. So, presently, trig points are geodetic trig points, they are national base points for mapping purpose (pillars, monuments, ...). And ordinary trig points, used for small surveys (nails...), should be in another category, say Category:Control points or Category:Survey points. So the title Geodetic control points is ambiguous (not really control points, but base points)... Jack ma (talk) 07:38, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

It's hard for to look at too many of them now (on my tablet) to see how they are currently sorted, but it's probably quite mixed up, but.... the term 'geodetic control point' means any permanent physical monument placed on the ground (or a permanent structure) and then precisely marked, surveyed, and documented, for the purpose of providing a geodetic reference. Trig points, trig 'stations' (a station technically includes the reference marks placed around a trig point so it can be relocated if damaged), actual 'benchmarks', level gauges, etc.... all are types of geodetic control points. Given how hard it can be for even 'benchmarkers' (locating and identifying these is a hobby) to get them straight at first, the categorization is probably terrible. The term 'control point' is also used more generically in 'regular surveying' to mean locations marked for later reference, even temporarily.

Technically, it's only a 'trig point' if it was intended and used, specifically, for long-range triangulation... measuring angles over distances far too long to directly measure, and using trigonometric methods to 'locate' them, in order to establish a 'geodetic control network' of precisely located reference points for later surveys. Most trig points are only marked with medallions now (the towers were usually portable) and it's not unusual for them to have become buried over time....most actual geodetic surveys were over a century ago.

The exact terminology also varies between nations... Triangulation station might be useful.

Sorry I'm not being more helpful about exactly how the are sorted now, but... to be honest, I seriously doubt it's not all rather random, since identifyng a random point from a photo can be hard even if you know what the things are, and they are kinda obscure. Revent^talk 10:35, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

This post gives a perspective, at least in terms of the method used by the USCGS, of how complicated these can be...just for a standard trig station, there might be as many four different types of medallions in the same vicinity that a person might have photographed, all easily confused, and sometimes as many as six different reference marks within a few hundred feet. Revent^talk 10:53, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for your answers. I just wanted to be sure. In summary, geodetic control points do include trig points (or triangulation stations), and benchmarks. So the present categorisation is fine. Just maybe we need to create Category:Survey points (name is ok ?) for all other kinds (not geodetic) : in particular very small survey points (e.g. this one or that one), see Other points in Trig points and benchmarks. Jack ma (talk) 05:58, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, I likely got a bit verbose there, lol. Those kinds of markers are known as 'survey nails'...they are indeed marking control points, but ones for local surveys, not 'geodetic' ones. Such nails will sometimes be driven through a washer marked with some identifying info, but they are different 'in kind' from geodetic ones. Revent^talk 12:09, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

A tidal gauge like File:Tour-du-maregraphe-de-la-Ra.jpg (or a modern one) is also a geodetic control point..... so, for that matter, are (technically) the tops of many tall structures (the top of the San Jacinto Monument, for example, is NGS survey monument AW6290) but the latter are probably not worth categorizing that way. Revent^talk 12:28, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

You're Right. Tidal gauges are geodetic control points as well. Not survey nails. Jack ma (talk) 05:44, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Differend file numbers in the same category

Who has an explanation for this.

• Category:Roman Catholic Diocese of Nuestra Señora de la Altagracia in Higüey gifs by Catedral de Nuestra Señora de la Altagracia en Higüey‎ (1 C, 9 B)
• Category:Churches in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Nuestra Señora de la Altagracia in Higüey gifs by Catedral de Nuestra Señora de la Altagracia en Higüey‎ (10 B)

--Jos1950 (talk) 01:31, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

I do not see any problem. Ruslik (talk) 12:04, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

As you can see, the first option reported 1 (empty) cat and 9 files, the second option 10 files (normal). After a few days it now be mentioned good. --Jos1950 (talk) 14:06, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

August 14

Views from the Stockholm Helsinki ferry in Sweden

I uploaded 40 images taken from the ferry Stockholm - Helsinki. (File:Views from the Stockholm Helsinki ferry in Sweden 99.jpg)(01 to 40) It was a nice evening. There are numerous islands and it should be easy with the timestamp in the pictures to find the locations. Does this bird island have a name?

Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:44, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

It is rather hard to know where exactly you were on 19 July 2016 at 19:09:45 CEST (assuming the time and date in your camera is set correctly). So take a good map and look for the island(s). Perhaps OpenStreetMap and/or Google Maps will be enough. Also you may read Commons:Geocoding. --jdx ^Re: 12:32, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

The ferry passed the Oskar-Fredriksborg fort at 18:11:44 File:Views from the Stockholm Helsinki ferry in Sweden 23.jpg. Some other passing points can be determined. (for example local ferries). From there it is simple interpolation to convert the time to a position. The ferry had a fairly low speed until passing Köpmanholm on Yxlan to limit the bowwaves. A second passing point is File:Views from the Stockholm Helsinki ferry in Sweden 15.jpg (island Kungsborg) at 17:43 (see panoramio picture)(Smiley.toerist (talk) 20:57, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

I have added some island categories and created Category:Köpmanholm. Köpmanholm was passed at 20:26:41.Smiley.toerist (talk) 08:45, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

August 15

FBI surveillance video of 2015 Baltimore protests

FBI recently released dozens of gigabytes of aerial surveillance footage taken from April 29 - May 3, 2015. I believe the footage has historical significance not only for being one of the largest if not the largest release of aerial surveillance footage, but for documenting the aforementioned event. Since taken by FBI, they are Public Domain. Is Wikimedia Commons an appropriate place to host the files, which may not remain accessible on their current site forever? Carlelliss (talk) 15:12, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

License tag for Copernicus satellite imagery

I created a license tag for {{Attribution-Copernicus}} for Copernicus satellites, which include Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-3. I based the content of the template indirectly off the Legal Notice on the use of Copernicus Sentinel Data and Service Information.

Attribution

I have not yet applied it to any images but intend to add it to images like the ones in http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/Copernicus/Sentinel-2/Sentinel-2_delivers_first_images (which are not free enough for Commons, though) and these two

• 
• 

Does this look reasonable and well laid-out? Did I miss anything? Any feedback is appreciated. —Quibik (talk) 17:57, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Requesting additional comments on Commons:Categories for discussion/2015/06/Category:Deceased persons by name

The Category for discussion, Commons:Categories for discussion/2015/06/Category:Deceased persons by name has been open for 14 months. It was suggested posting a notice here might help attract more eyes on the page so in an effort to close this out and garner some kind of consensus on what to do with this category I would like to request additional comments. Reguyla (talk) 19:08, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-33

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

Problems

• Last week Tech News announced you will get a notification when you mention yourself the same way as if someone else had mentioned you. This caused some problems and will happen later instead. [17]
• Creating and editing links to sections on other pages on the wiki now works again in the visual editor. [18]
• For some users, cross-wiki notifications haven't been working properly. The count has been wrong when only cross-wiki notifications were present. The cross-wiki bundle has been showing only the names of wikis and not the actual notifications. This will be fixed soon. [19][20]

Changes this week

• The login session when you choose "Keep me logged in" will now last a year. Previously it was 30 days. This will happen on August 16. [21]
• Some abuse filters will have to be updated during the week. This is because a bug will be fixed. [22]
• In compact language links, two new kinds of languages will be shown in the shorter language list: Languages that are used in the article's text, and languages where the article has a badge like "featured article" or "good article". [23][24]
• The visual editor will be available by default for logged-out editors on Wikipedias that use the Arabic script. It is already default for logged-in editors. [25]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from August 16. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from August 17. It will be on all wikis from August 18 (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on August 16 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• Starting the week of August 22 there will be three software deployment windows. They will be at 13:00, 18:00, and 23:00 UTC. This is to have more times when software of the wikis can be updated and make it easier for developers in different parts of the world. [26]

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

19:37, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Category:Cristian Montaño

Hi, could an admin restore Category:Cristian Montaño, as it is now populated? Thanks, Mattythewhite (talk) 21:16, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

• Done. - Jmabel ! talk 21:47, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

August 16

Real-time gallery of recent mobile uploads?

I patrol recent mobile uploads. I spot selfies and other uninteresting body close-ups, and nominate them for deletion.

Unfortunately the recent changes pages is a list of links, so I have to click (or hover) each of them individually, which is time-wasting.

QUESTION: Is there a way to see a gallery of recently mobile-uploaded pictures?

Like https://tools.wmflabs.org/para/Commons:Special:NewFiles but only for files that have the tag "mobile app edit". Thanks! Syced (talk) 07:56, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Hey Syced, watchlisted User:Didym/Mobile upload yet? And https://tools.wmflabs.org/catfood/catfood.php?category=Uploaded_with_Commons_Reloaded --Atlasowa (talk) 20:14, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Nice thanks! User:Didym/Mobile upload is great because it fits many pictures on the screen, and https://tools.wmflabs.org/catfood/catfood.php?category=Uploaded_with_Mobile/Android is great because it is live. Now a solution combining both of these advantages would be wonderful :-) Syced (talk) 09:37, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Syced: Make your own gallery via User:OgreBot/gallery! Works great, see for example User:Atlasowa/New video2commons for Category:Uploaded with video2commons. --Atlasowa (talk) 21:24, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Unlike the RSS feed, OgreBot galleries are not real-time, right? The fastest possible refresh frequency seems to be once per day. Syced (talk) 03:19, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Bulk Upload Problem

• I uploaded 30 images with the wizard. Wizard wanted more meaningful titles(they had dates) I changed them into texts and clicked "retry" Only "one" file succesfully uploaded which the system thought its title meaningful. I had this problem before, and hour of editing gone waste. Can we fix the wizard?--Kafkasmurat (talk) 22:19, 10 August 2016 (UTC)
  • use Commons:VicuñaUploader. wizard is designed for ones and twos. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 13:28, 11 August 2016 (UTC)
    • I upload large batches of photos with the Upload Wizard on a regular basis without problems. It's less of a hassle than external uploaders. --Sebari (talk) 19:51, 11 August 2016 (UTC)
    • @Slowking4: The upload wizard is perfectly capable of handling up to 50 uploads at once. We're currently working on raising the limit to 500 uploads. Matma Rex (talk) 01:20, 12 August 2016 (UTC)
      • i understand upload wizard is much improved, but if you want to save your session metadata, and it hangs for say a date input, or bad file name, you do not have options, it leads you by the nose. the java tools have save settings. wizard designed for single source; can't easily upload many multiple source items in artwork template. i regularly steer GLAMs to the java tools, after they ask about Glamwiki toolset. much work needs to be done on GLAM friendly tools. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 01:43, 12 August 2016 (UTC)
  • @Kafkasmurat: I'm sorry UploadWizard let you down. According to our error logging (I work on UploadWizard and other multimedia tools), you got a bunch of 'bad-prefix' errors when attempting to upload files with filenames like "IMG_20150628_142525_Mevlana_Museum.jpg". UploadWizard will not let you upload files under titles whose prefixes are on this list: MediaWiki:Filename-prefix-blacklist, so if you weren't able to upload them, I think that's the expected behavior.

    I'm not sure what was the problem here, wasn't it possible to correct the titles? I just tested locally and I was able to correct each problematic filename and click the "Retry" button, at which point the corrected uploads succeeded. In the future, adding a screenshot is very helpful for bug reports. Matma Rex (talk) 01:20, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

    • see instead of blacklisting file names, how about some dashboard front end help in naming files. it's all trial and error and word of mouth. making people correct error before proceeding is bitey, how about autocorrect ? you realize each do not pass go hurdle is a percentage turn away? Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 01:47, 12 August 2016 (UTC)
• @Matma Rex: I shortened the names and it only uploaded a picture without any dated title. Why is the wizard prompting such a name? There's a date- hour and an explanation. I thought it would be nice to have them in the title. We can't say wizard works properly because my uploaded files gone missing without an explanation. System says uploading succeeded, but leaves me only one file which the title doesn't have a date.--Kafkasmurat (talk) 10:23, 12 August 2016 (UTC)
  • @Kafkasmurat: I am sorry, but it is not my decision. UploadWizard implements the file name policies of Commons. I'm not in power to change those policies.

    I'm afraid I can't do anything about the issue you say you're having with lost uploads… it doesn't happen in my testing, and I can't even guess what might have happened without a screenshot. As far as I can tell, you got an error message telling you to correct the file names, then closed the page without correcting them. Matma Rex (talk) 16:46, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

August 11

Duewag

Wie ist ordnung:

• Duewag wie category:Duewag M6D
• DÜWAG wie category:DÜWAG GT4

oder

• nur MGT6D‎ wie category: MGT6D‎  ?

sehen auch: Category:DÜWAG trams

Zwiadowca ²¹ 15:01, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

I would suggest prefixing all with Duewag (or not prefixing when the names are long enough and usually used without the prefix. Cheers! Syced (talk) 03:23, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Category moving and action throttling

I am currently moving a category tree to a new naming scheme. Every few moved the annoying new throttling system kicks in. I think I am averaging two to four moves a minute, depending on my workflow and the number of sub-categories. Is there any way to raise the limit to a sensible value? --Sebari (talk) 18:56, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

• I'm not sure what approach you are taking or what is throttling. Are you using Commons Delinker? VFC? or what? - Jmabel ! talk 03:06, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
  • I am manually moving categories and their contents. Throttling is that feature that was introduced recently that prevents people from making too many "bot-like" changes in a too short amount of time. Only that that limit is obviously too low in this case. --Sebari (talk) 12:18, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

A great gift for wikisource projects: CropTool for djvu and pdf files

@Phe and John Vandenberg: Wikisourcians, please give me your attention! Just to let you know that recent update of CropTool allows to crop & upload illustrations of books from multipage files (pdf & djvu) and converts the work from a heavy and difficult one, into a simple and fast one. Please help me to spread the word. Thanks a lot Danmichaelo! --Alex_brollo Talk|Contrib 10:21, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Special:Upload no longer allows custom templates

Special:Upload recently, the old upload form, shows the old field layout, and then changes to a new set of input fields including "description", preventing the use of custom templates, such as "photograph" or "artwork".

so now there are no commons tools enabling GLAM uploads. i am quite happy with all the java tools, but you realize that the newbies will have no clue what to do when you try to pound their square metadata into your round description?

would the person who "improved" that, care to change it back, and dispense with all the old "tips" at the top (tl;dr) ? Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 14:36, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Slowking4 Can you say again, in another way, what is missing? Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:45, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

once upon a time you could upload images of artworks, since there was a large input field into which you could put your "template:artwork" in wikicode. but not any more. when you click on the old uploader (above) you see a tantalizing transformation: the old field is there for a second, and then the new field overlays prevent use of the old fields. someone has reconfigured the special extention out of reach of mere editors.

it is quite a hurdle for new GLAMs to figure out how to upload images, since none of the tools work for them, rather we have to counsel them one on one, about all the java scripts to work around the UX. i guess we can also use flickr as intermediary as long as they last. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 15:04, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

It looks like you need to turn off the javascripts in your browser. — regards, Revi 15:21, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

this reconfiguration of special:upload is across chrome, firefox and ie regardless of java settings. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 15:41, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Go to Preferences -> Gadgets. Find "ImprovedUploadForm" gadget and disable it. Ruslik (talk) 16:55, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

why, thanks you, i'll just turn off upload wizard while i'm there. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 17:57, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

User talk pages created by Wikimedia Commons Welcome

User talk pages such as User talk:Mwojcikiewicz created by Wikimedia Commons Welcome do not show up in Special:NewPages, they are not automatically patrolled, and their creations are marked as minor edits when this generally cannot be done with creations. GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 23:28, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

@GeoffreyT2000: Please generally indicate whether you have some question and your intention behind this comment. Do you think the current behavior is incorrect? If so, please explicitly say so and why. Thanks, --Malyacko (talk) 06:52, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

August 17

Maiden names or married name or both?

We categorize by surnames, should we categorize women by both the married name AND their maiden names? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 00:41, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Well I think it depends. I think it should generally be the one they are most known for but I wouldn't be opposed to adding something like Category:Smith (maiden name) if applicable. Since some women could change their names multiple things it could get a little confusing. Reguyla (talk) 02:47, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

I think we should not treat maiden names differently from other former names. Also men can take the spouse's name when marrying, and there are other reasons for changing names. And yes, a former name may be the most well-known, or even still in use as stage or pen name. --LPfi (talk) 12:08, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

I don't think we need to create Category:Smith (maiden name), I think the best strategy is just to list all surnames, most married women will have only two, and in some special cases they may have married multiple times like Elizabeth Taylor. We can't guess how someone will be searching here. It appears that Wikidata uses both the surnames too. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 15:56, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

It is probably best to echo Wikidata's practice. We need to remember that Commons does not only reflect English language practice, but also the practice of many every language around the globe. Even within the English-speaking community practices are known to vary. For example, I believe (though I am open to correction) that in the United States, the Duchess of Cambridge (as she is usually know in the United Kingdom), is still often referred to as Kate Middleton. Martinvl (talk) 16:46, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

It's also relevant that not all names are "surnames". Middle eastern and Asian names do not necessary use the Given name/Surname structure and in the case of married people, to say that their "married name" is their surname is not quite right to me. But maybe I am just being picky. Reguyla (talk) 20:22, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Iceland is another example where surnames do not follwo the "Normal" Western pattern. Most people in the country use patronyms - boys taking their father's first name and adding "son" to it and girls taking their mother's first name and adding "dottir" to it. Wives do not take their husband's name on marriage. Thus a household consisting of husband, wife, son and daughter will all have different surnames. It is also normal for everybody to use first names when addressing each other. Martinvl (talk) 20:38, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

File without image

Hi there, there is a file on Commons which has no image and only the description: File:'13-'14 Ford F-150 King Ranch Crew Cab. Could somebody please repair this? --Arnd (talk) 11:41, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

It is not a file. In is a page created in error. I marked it for speedy deletion. Ruslik (talk) 12:51, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Thank you. --Arnd (talk) 12:54, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Advice for librarians and other gatekeepers for how to deal with adult content on Commons

I expect this is a well-worn subject, and perhaps better for the help desk (feel free to move if so), but a search is failing me. Do we have a page of advice/guidelines/information for librarians with regard to adult content on Wikipedia? A librarian arguing to delete a particular explicit media file has an anecdote about being shocked that the inappropriate content a kid at the library was looking at came from Commons. I thought there was a good place to direct that person other than just "not censored", but I'm not seeing it. — Rhododendrites ^talk |  13:09, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

I think that is the place. We also have Help:Sexual content. I think we have no page on the issue written for librarians or other non-commonists. Except for child pornography, copyright and personality right issues and bad quality files there are no restrictions that I am aware of. If you search for it, you will find it here (although we lack good images about many aspects of sexuality). We try however not to show too chocking images in other than specific categories. --LPfi (talk) 17:14, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Rhododendrites I think you will find nothing set up to meet the need you describe.

The closest thing to a content filter is en:Talk:Muhammad/FAQ#FAQ-q3, where you can find guidance for English Wikipedia on removing images of Muhammad.

On Commons, one perspective is to divide adult content into two sorts: the kind which should not be here and the kind which should. Already, lots of porn is deleted from Commons just because Commons is not a broad porn collection. Commons does keep some adult content, including porn for the sake of illustrating the concept of porn, historically significant adult content archives, erotic content said to be art and not porn, medical images including nudity, and adult content of other sorts. If content is in Commons which should not be here, then it should be deleted. If there is adult content which should be here, then it is supposed to say and there is no filter although any developer might propose one. If anyone proposed to develop a filter then I think it would get support if the proposal included thoughtful insight about being minimally invasive to other needs. There also are not clear policies differentiating what should stay and what should go. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:18, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

They tried to suggest filters, but there was too much resistance, if I recall. The resistance was mostly out of principle, regarding it technically impossible to construct a filter that would actually work (i.e. without risking too much false positives). --LPfi (talk) 20:22, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

I personally think filters would be a fine idea, but imagine the technical difficulty of setting them up to meet the differing standards of (say) the U.S., Germany, Japan, and Saudi Arabia. My experience with Flickr's three levels of "safety" has led me to understand how tricky this all can be: e.g. having to carefully scan my photos of naked body-painted cyclists in the Fremont Solstice Parade to determine just what body parts might be visible in each photo, definitely not the way I normally think about the pictures. - Jmabel ! talk 23:11, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

tell the librarian that commons is a "cultural buzzsaw" [27] - filters are a tool for admins; commons cannot trust users to set their own filters; rather commons will jam their free speech down their throats. see also m:Image filter referendum/en don't read the talk - it's ugly. and we do not have a wiki'splaining page, since the community has their slogan, they think that is all they need. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 01:15, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

File:Fortress of Guaita 2013-09-19.jpg

There is fortress of Guaita in the foreground and City of San Marino in the background. Could somebody translate into English Italian description introduced in this edit? The author is native Italian speaker, not fluent in English (neither am I), and his English description sounds like a nonsense to me. --jdx ^Re: 13:47, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Surname categories

If a person is added to a surname category should they be taken out of "Category:People by name"? I am not familiar enough with the hierarchy of "Category:People" to figure out on my own. Category:William Salter is an example. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 20:03, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

The surname categories fall under the People by name categories so my opinion is having both of those (and in some case a third one with People by name (flat list) is unnecessary. I brought this up some months ago however and it was decided then that it was better, for the purpose of commons, to have one gigantic category as well, so I didn't argue it. I do agree though that I would prefer to see this cleaned up and use less redundant categorization. Reguyla (talk) 20:19, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Not all the surnames are under people by name. I don't think any of them should be. I think people by name should include only categories for individual people. Surnames are a separate thing from full names, as are given names. For one thing, the surname and given name categories can contain files where the people by name category cannot. Also note that the people by name category is a hidden category, and so maybe shouldn't be treated the same as non-hidden categories when it comes to overcategorization issues. --Auntof6 (talk) 01:48, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

August 18

Old German wikipedia pictures

Why cant Rummelsburg-Ostbahn.png be uploaded on to the Commons? 1894 seems to be old enough to prevent any license problems.Smiley.toerist (talk) 08:23, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

• Not really. If the photo was taken by a young person, that person could have lived into the 1960s. - Jmabel ! talk 15:17, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

It is a map, not a photo. If it is anonymous, it has 70 years of protection from the day it was published or distributed. If we discover the creator, then the 50 year rule from the creator's death kicks in. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 15:48, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

We already seem to have a few parts of that map in Category:Parts of old maps of Berlin and actually the whole map in better quality. --Sebari (talk) 17:31, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

The file is categorized in dewiki as “Datei:Gemeinfrei (100 Jahre)” which translates to “File:Public Domain (100 years)”. So, I think (Sebari’s hints in mind, as well), it should be safe to transfer to Commons. @Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): It’s 70 years in the European Union, and especially in Germany since 1965 70 years after death; before it was 50 years. Hence, only if we discovered the author died in early 1915, we could use the 50 years rule. @Smiley.toerist: The warning “Do not transfer this file to Wikimedia Commons without an individual review!“ is added for all PD templates in dewiki. It does not mean that any transfer is forbidden. — Speravir_Talk – 18:42, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

• Thanks for the clarification. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 19:59, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

The Anonymous-EU tag, as in existence here, isn't applicable to German works. That is because German law says that pre-1995 anonymous works are only really anonymous if the author (here: the cartographer) was never publicly disclosed anywhere, not even in a lecture or similar. One cannot prove that, so pre-1995 "anonymous" works from Germany are not suitable for Commons (or de.wp). The "Gemeinfrei (100 Jahre)" files of the German wikipedia are likely free because they were published at least a 100 years ago and there is nothing known about an author who died less than 70 years ago. That's the theory at least. --Rosenzweig τ 18:58, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Rosenzweig, so for the maps, that are already here, it is pure luck, that no one has sued Commons until now? — Speravir_Talk – 21:20, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Complaints are rare for material that old I guess. --Rosenzweig τ 18:01, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Maps generaly dont have one author, but is a teamwork and a incremental compilation of data and maps from before. ´The cartographer´ is a fictional figure here, but there is probably an editor/publisher in charge of the whole mapmaking team. (most maps are existing maps where the new features are updated) I see no reason to treat maps differently from other collective works such as newspapers (where only the signed articles are treated seperatly) or dictionaries. For the US licence it does not matter as anything published before 1923 is PD.Smiley.toerist (talk) 23:21, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

• We should have an article Commons:Collective works like we have one Commons:Anonymous works that discusses the issues. One question I have on fair-use: Can you display more text from a large collective work such as a newspaper since it represents a smaller percentage of the total larger work, the day's edition. One paragraph out of 1,000 paragraphs is 0.1%. If you publish an entire paragraph of a two paragraph copyrighted story you are displaying 50%. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 23:36, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Interwiki links

Should interwiki links be created on Commons Galleries or Categories where both exist?

I attempted to add interwiki links to Category:Mount Gambier, South Australia but failed as there is already an interwiki link to Mount Gambier, South Australia.

I searched the FAQ and the closest answer I found was Commons:FAQ#What are 'gallery' (main namespace) pages for? How should they be designed? which includes The files should be followed by interwiki links (also generated by Sum-it-up) and at least one category. but since the Sum-it-up tool has been replaced by MultiDesc, I assume the advice is somewhat dated and may not fully reflect current practice and interwiki links are now provided by WikiData rather than in-content links. --Scott (talk) 05:07, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

• As a rule, do it via WikiData. Even if that's not yet all rock-solid, it is future-oriented. See, for example, Wikidata page for Seattle. The Commons category is given in a "statement"; the Commons gallery page as "Other sites/Commons" near the bottom of the page. - Jmabel ! talk 05:24, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

OK, it looks like Mount Gambier (town) on WikiData already has Commons category and Commons gallery properties, but there is nothing in the "In Wikipedia" list in the sidebar of Category:Mount Gambier, South Australia and nothing in the FAQ to tell me that what I tried to do was wrong or how to do it "right". --Scott (talk) 05:53, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

I added an {{Interwiki from wikidata}} template, which seems to be the best option so far. --ghouston (talk) 01:52, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Billboard magazine

Has anyone done a renewal notice search for Biillboard magazine? I see Google and Billboard went to court over the copyright status. If anyone is familiar, let me know the outcome so we can have a copyright tag like we have for Category:Time Magazine. That way we do not have to duplicate the research in the future and we can identify all the articles by the tag, should the copyright status change. The research is a lot of work, so if someone has already done it ... let me know. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 17:06, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

@Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): A quick check of the digitized records shows what at least appears to have been a continuous series of weekly renewals since the earliest date (the 1950 issues) that would have a renewal in the database. I'm not going to go hunting older ones wihout a specific target. Revent^talk 12:08, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! I found the document that lists the earliest renewal filings for magazines and papers that did file. Most magazines and newspapers did not bother with the expense of renewals unless there was a market for republication such as fiction magazines. The New York Times was diligent because they always published yearly news summaries, indexes, and cumulative collections of obituaries, movie reviews, book reviews, and Broadway play reviews. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 19:06, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Wikicology (talk) 20:11, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Wording for permissions for 3d artwork

Is there a sample letter granting permission to use images of a 3d work? I am trying to clear images from a few different photographers by the same artist, and would like to ask for one letter from the artist (granting rights for all works) and one from each photographer (for just the photos they took). Thanks, --SJ+ 19:31, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

You can use Commons:OTRS#Declaration_of_consent_for_all_enquiries and modify it appropriately. Ruslik (talk) 17:42, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Thank you! --SJ+ 04:42, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Wikicology (talk) 20:12, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

NARA terminology

• At File:Theodore Roosevelt - NARA - 559330.jpg what does the field "Record creator" mean? the notes say "Creator's name". The Author field says unknown. Can someone help me with the terminology. Is creator meant for physical works and author for written works? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 01:02, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ), author is the original photographer and Record Creator may mean compiler or collector. Wikicology (talk) 08:39, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

No, I think I am correct. Wikisource uses "Author:Charles Dickens" and at Commons we use "Creator:Ansel Adams" to designate the person who authored the text or created the photograph. If the item is part of a collection, that should be a category.

But your question was about the terminology of the NARA and of the special template for NARA. To that question Wikicology gave the correct answer. You can see also the documentation of the NARA template. The record creator means the collector or the organization who created the record, who provided the objects to the archive. It must not be confused with the creator of the work (author), which is what Commons means by "creator" in the creator templates such as "Creator:Charles Dickens". The creator of the record is noted by the archivists when they acquire the objects. Commons is more interested in the identity of the creator of the work. For example, for the portrait of T. Roosevelt linked in your question, B.C. Reece happened to collect a copy of the portrait from somewhere and one day his copy was transferred to the National Archives. For Commons, this is only anecdotical. It was copied along with the rest of the description from NARA. What is more interesting for Commons is the creator of the portrait. This information is not written in the NARA description. However, we can find quite easily from other sources that this photograph is from the Pach Brothers studio. Compare with this file from the Library of Congress. It's not the exact same photograph, but it's obviously from the same photographic session. -- Asclepias (talk) 01:38, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Wikicology (talk) 20:13, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Is this unlawful Copyright

This image on commons and this (Copyright © 2016, Hartford Courant) on the Internet. I see more pictures which I wonder whether copyright is correct. What happens if a (private) work in this way is displayed on the Internet and someone (like me now) checked the picture? I see more images I wonder if it is true copyright. --Jos1950 (talk) 18:56, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Jos1950, the original source at https://catalog.archives.gov/id/532590 says the creator is "Department of Defense. Department of the Navy. U.S. Marine Corps. 9/18/1947-", and that the file is from the records of the U.S. Marine Corps, which I tend to take as being a commission by the Marines. I think the copyright template {{PD-USGov}} is acceptable, or it could be changed to {{PD-USGov-Military-Marines}}. Hartford Courant even states it was taken from the National Archives, so they can claim copyright all they want, but that doesn't make it a valid claim. — Huntster (t @ c) 19:23, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

IMO, those two template can't do, because there's no evidence that the painter Philip Colprit was an employee of the U.S. Marine Corps. The PD-USGov-Military-Marines may seem to fit, but I think it's because it's poorly worded and it should probably be interpreted as having a meaning similar to the other similar templates such as Template:PD-USGov-Military-Army. The image may be PD for some reason, but not with those templates. -- Asclepias (talk) 20:42, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the answers. I know too little about copyright so do not messed with. That it came from the US government was enough for me. But what is the answer to my question? If that happens with my pictures and someone sees one copyright, they are then deleted? --Jos1950 (talk) 23:16, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Philip Colprit, the author of the work wasn't an employee of the U.S. Marine Corps. It's possible he worked under a contract for services but he's still the copyright holder of any works he produced, unless there is a contractual agreement to the contrary. There is no evidence of written or signed contract stating a transfer has taken place. Although, the work may be in public domain for other reasons but I'm not sure about this. Wikicology (talk) 19:10, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

If you are not sure, why did it still pending removal? Find out first. --Jos1950 (talk) 20:36, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

It was so simple. It is a photo of Robert Hurst and property of "Photo of illustration created by U.S. National Archives and Records Administration". navsource. --Jos1950 (talk) 21:22, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

I think U.S. National Archives and Records Administration is the record creator, the organization who created the record, who provided the works to the archive. This should not be confused with the creator of the work, Philip Colprit (author). Wikicology (talk) 21:41, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

It's not a photo of Robert Hurst. It's a photo by NARA. R. Hurst is one of the users who collaborate to a website about boats. They find images on the internet or elsewhere and they post them to that website. Sometimes they mention the sources, such as the Imperial War Museum, NARA, etc. For example, R. Hurst sources this image from NARA. Which means that he found it on the website of NARA and he sent it to the boats website. It's good for their website but he has nothing to do with the creation of the image or with its origin. A link directly to the actual source of the image at NARA is already mentioned earlier in this discussion. -- Asclepias (talk) 00:58, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Then my English is different than yours. it says "Photo of illustration created by U.S. National Archives and Records Administration". If you still in doubt look here and enjoy. --Jos1950 (talk) 22:16, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

I didn't say any different. But the photo doesn't affect the copyright status of the pictured painting. If the NARA photo reproduces a public domain painting, then the image is in the public domain and Commons can publicize it as such. But if the NARA photo reproduces a copyrighted painting, then the image is not free and Commons can't present it as such. It's the copyright status of the painting that must be determined. The category you linked should probably not exist. The source of the file is relevant and it is mentioned on the description page, but the name of a user who merely copied a file from one external website to another external website is anecdotical and should not be a category on Commons. However, categories that can sometimes be added, in addition to the immediate sources, are the categories for the original sources from where the images come. -- Asclepias (talk) 00:58, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

How is it possible that the US government place a graphic with ¢ in public domain. --Jos1950 (talk) 22:22, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

I can't remember mentioning anything like this. However, I agree that Robert Hurst took the image of a painting by Philip Colprit. The U.S. Marine Corps. can be the copyright holder of the image if the original painting is not copyright protected. In my first comment on this thread, you will noticed that I mentioned "Philip Colprit" as the original author of the work. I think Asclepias also pointed that out. Generally, the original author of a work is the copyright holder of that work. This painting was created by Philip Colprit and it was the exact image of the painting that was taken by "Robert Hurst". Thus, a claim of ownership by the U.S. Marine Corps. will depend on the copyright status of the original painting which you have not clarify here. Wikicology (talk) 23:17, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

@Jos1950: I have been enjoying that category, before I even saw it mentioned here. You've created a nice catalog on images NOT by Robert Hurst, that he merely contributed copies of to that website. At least one, in fact, our file page actually QUOTES where that website says it was copied from a 2008 book.

There is nothing at all to indicate that Robert Hurst took the photo. There is an indication that he slightly retouched the NARA photo. We don't care, because the painting is probably copyrighted, and the photos all derivative works. The image at NARA was probably taken by someone working for the Marine Corps. Hurst then apparently retouched that image from NARA slightly, and probably owns a copyright in his contributions that is also unlicensed. You've discovered the rare 'double copyvio'. Revent^talk 00:21, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

What's a graphic with ¢? Is that a theoretical question? If a work was entirely created by employees of the U.S. government, it is automatically in the public domain in the U.S. The U.S. government can also acquire from someone else the copyright on a work and then release it voluntarily into the public domain. -- Asclepias (talk) 00:58, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

• File:832-rokpf62-06-51-a.jpg - Claimed to be by Robert Hurst. Not. Speedied copy of this photo.
• File:Capitán Prat (CL-03).jpg - Claimed to be by Robert Hurst. Also claimed to be a US Navy photo of the ship, but with a post war paint job from Chile. At DR.
• File:Derzkiy1944-1945a.jpg - Claimed to be by Robert Hurst. Also claimed to be a US Navy photo, while from Russia. Go figure. At DR.
• File:EK-2-1945-1950.jpg - Claimed to be by Robert Hurst. Claimed by Robert Hurst to be copied from a 2008 book about the Russian Navy. Also claimed to be a US Navy photo, yet somehow from Russia. At DR.
• File:HM MTB-422.jpg - Claimed to be by Robert Hurst. Claimed by him to be from an IWM book. At DR as a crappy photocopy of this photo. Not by Hurst, obviously.
• File:HMCS St. Francis.jpg - Claimed to be by Robert Hurst. Apparently in Canada and the Soviet Union at the same time (while also in both the Canadian Navy and the US Navy). Can't find a better copy or a source.
• File:HMS Brighton (I08) 1940-1944.jpg - Once again claimed to be by Hurst, who actually says the IWM photo number. We have it here. DR the crap copy.

@Jos1950: This isn't me looking at them all... this is all I have looked at, so far. Hopefully you will now admit that Hurst did not create any of these. Revent^talk 01:40, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

There you have it. I believe that an image of the US is free in public domain, it is still possible that it is not possible. And it is like the real world, there are always people who make a mess of it. If I come across something I do what seems good and leave it to others. Will it be deleted, too bad, not my fault. I go erase hurst, also rumbling. Thanks. --Jos1950 (talk) 03:37, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

@Jos1950: To be honest, most of these Hurst images needed attention anyhow, because most of them 'are' PD, we just have them elsewhere in better versions now. They've been sitting around way too long, and most were messed up years ago. We also had (as I recently found) File:Zharkiy1944-1949.jpg this, which is really terrible, and is also a duplicate of one of the Hurst ones, and was claimed to originally be from the Soviet Union. It's just that there are several people here used to looking at these things... NARA never really says stuff 'is' or 'is not' PD, they just say they own a copy. It's only PD that way, normally, if the US Government actually 'made' it. Revent^talk 04:06, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

I have Hust not checked, only seen. I no now, that Cr is something I should not interfere, too little knowledge. Good that it has come forward, now it is viewed by connoisseurs. --Jos1950 (talk) 17:46, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

yeah, we need a major effort to go the the National Archives II and get some high res scans of all this old milhist thumbnails with broken links. i did a few, but you could spend days and months there, and the metadata on the photo will not be much better. rarely get the photographers name, only a OWI stamp. 99% of photos there are PD-US gov, and the USS Hanson photos has a archival box number, so we could pull it. then we could get NARA to make ARC number. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 23:05, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Wikicology (talk) 20:15, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Conflicting licenses

I was looking for some pictures of the area of the recent earthquake and there are on flickr some photos of this natural area in the civil parish of it:Accumoli.

So, I've just uploaded File:Pantani di Accumoli.jpg and checked it with flinfo because the page clearly states this license. But now I see that there's a small copyright mark at the bottom of the image! What should we do?

I mean if The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms., I assume that he gave this right whatever the image is, including the watermark. this means that watermark is not intended as valid. And if I am free to "remix, transform, and build upon the material" I can probably cut the border too?

Or we should be 100% sure and in case of contradictory statement, let's assume the worst?--Alexmar983 (talk) 02:06, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

it's already used on plwikipedia, I write to the guy.--Alexmar983 (talk) 14:01, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

The phone of his agency in Foligno is not answering, I left a message on his flckr page.--Alexmar983 (talk) 14:14, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Solved. He uploaded a new version without watermark. I replace it. He was very nice.--Alexmar983 (talk) 19:52, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Wikicology (talk) 20:14, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

File moving, catching errors

Hello!

Is there any way to enforce the filling of the "reason" field in the "move & replace" dialogue? I just made a move where I actually forgot to name the reason (COM:FR#reasons 2, disambiguation). It would be nice to have a reminder here to fill out this field in case it got forgotten... Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 15:38, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Preferences -> Editing -> "Prompt me when entering a blank edit summary". Ruslik (talk) 17:40, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

I don't think that setting will catch the output of a script like we use for moves, unfortunately. Revent^talk 12:34, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

I would actually prefer the way, it is done for non-filemovers: The script RenameRequest.js adds automatically reasons according to Commons:File renaming#Which files should be renamed?, cf. Special:Diff/201328778. For filemovers probably it should be possible to overwrite this or at least to add something. Unfortunately Rillke takes a rest for some months now (hopefully it’s just this). — Speravir_Talk – 18:57, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Mmh, maybe it’s actually RenameLink.js doing this job for non-filemovers, and this calls RenameRequest. @Grand-Duc: We would need someone with script knowledge (and at best admin rights). — Speravir_Talk – 20:42, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

August 13

"Logs" and "Woodpiles"

Not a woodpile.

Category:Logs is a soft redirect to Category:Woodpiles, but clearly File:Timber for the construction of the Mechanics Pavilion at the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition, Seattle, Washington, ca 1893 (LAROCHE 166).jpeg or File:400 Y.O. Log - panoramio.jpg are logs, and not woodpiles. I see no "redirects for discussion" page; is this (Village pump) the best place to discuss this, or should I just be bold and make it a category in its own right with "woodpiles" as a child category, or is there some equivalent of "Categories for discussion" for redirects? - Jmabel ! talk 04:01, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

logs?

To me, a category redirect stays a category, so I think it would be OK to discuss it at the CFD. Incidentally, I wouldn't call these logs. --rimshot^talk 07:03, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Agreed that a woodpile can be made up of things that are too small to be logs. - Jmabel ! talk 15:01, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

We've had a good discussion at Commons:Categories for discussion/2016/08/Category:Logs and seem to have a basic consensus about what to do, but not about the best mechanism to achieve it (e.g. is it OK to have a category redirect to a category disambiguation page?). We could probably use participation by someone who is genuinely expert on policy around things like that. - Jmabel ! talk 14:45, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Colourblindness template requesẗ

Some diagrams can be illegible to colourblind viewers (e.g., the red line might look just like the green line to someone with red-green colourblindness, and the key won't help). This article in Nature covers it pretty well. I'd like some tools to help me make diagrams intelligible. I suggest templates that sayː

1. This image is unintelligible/problematic to a viewer with [form(s) of colourblindness] colourblindness. (tagged by a person)

2. This image is intelligible/unproblematic to a viewer with [form(s) of colourblindness] colourblindness. (tagged by a person)

3. This image has been tagged by a bot as probably being problematic to a viewer with [form(s) of colourblindness] colourblindness. (possible, for especially for SVGs)

4. A review of this image by a person with any of [form(s) of colourblindness] colourblindness is requested.

For further reading, this page has some good advice on making stuff intelligible to the colourblind, and a palette of distinct colours.

If you have ideas, please post them. HLHJ (talk) 15:34, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

@HLHJ: , we do have {{Colour blind}} template. MKFI (talk) 06:46, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

Is there a way to search for files available under a certain license in a category tree?

Hi all

I want to prepare some social media messaging for Wiki Loves Monuments however sharing images on Facebook requires a CC0 license, is there any way to search for only CC0 license images in the category tree for Wiki Loves Monuments? It would be really help if I could also do this search within the winners of each national competition to make sure the images are high quality.

Many thanks

--John Cummings (talk) 10:14, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

• If a usable flat category exists for what you are looking for, for example Category:Images from Wiki Loves Monuments 2015, then you can simply use the usual search box directly on Commons. Example of search terms: incategory:"Images from Wiki Loves Monuments 2015" incategory:"CC-Zero"
• If you really need to search trees of categories, then you can use the tool PetScan at wmflabs. Use CC-Zero as one of the terms and the name of the main category you want to search as the other term. Don't forget to set the page properties to "file".
• Not many files of Wiki Loves Monuments use CC-0. I guess that may be because new participants are prompted to use CC-by-sa or some other license. If you search a very specific category, you may get 0 results.
• Sharing images on Facebook does not require a CC-0 license. IMHO, that's an exaggerated interpretation by some users. If the image has a free license and in your post you clearly identify that license and the other mentions required by that license, you're not claiming to be giving Facebook more rights than you have.

-- Asclepias (talk) 11:53, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Many thanks Asclepias, this incredibly helpful, thanks again. --John Cummings (talk) 12:14, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Is there any way to embed an audio or video clip from Commons that would only play a section of the file?

Hi all

I'm working on importing a few 1000 audio files into Wikimedia Commons, however they are all quite long (between 5 - 60 minutes) and whilst small sections of the files would be very useful for Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects it would not make sense to add the whole file to e.g a Wikipedia article. Currently the only process I am aware of to offer an shorter section of a file on Wikimedia Commons is to create a new file which is an excerpt, the process of doing this is quite long and I think it will discourage people from reusing the files:

1. Download the audio file from Commmons
2. Download software to crop it that works on your computer
3. Learn how to use the software
4. Crop the audio
5. Save in a format that Commons will accept and that won't lose audio quality from the original
6. Reupload to Commons, linking correctly to the original file and categorising correctly.

Is there any way to embed an audio or video clip from Commons onto another Wikimedia project that would only play a section of the file? I'm thinking about something similar to the cropping function on Template:Annotated images where you could specify which part of the file was played when the user clicked the play button?

Thanks very much

John Cummings (talk) 14:56, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

You can set the start/end using this type of syntax: [[File:Accordion chords-01.ogg|300px|start=6|end=10]]
Starts at 6 seconds and ends playback at 10 seconds Offnfopt^(talk) 15:22, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Amazing Offnfopt, thanks so much, are there any written instructions any where for this? --John Cummings (talk) 16:19, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

The features are provided by the TimedMediaHandler Extension so you can find the information there. Offnfopt^(talk) 23:15, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Mini biographies

Category:Henry Justin Allen some categories have a few line mini biography, some do not. Which is proper? I find it helpful when the category gets disconnected from Wikipedia. Otherwise they are just photos of John Smith, they may not have the same name at Wikipedia and may be difficult to connect again. We had two problems last month because there were several people with the same name born close together, and the wrong photos were linked to the Wikipedia biography. They may not even have a Wikipedia entry. For people with no Wikipedia entry is ok to add a full paragraph mini biography to give the image context? After all, if we upload an image of a public domain book page, we add the full page of text. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 19:25, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Categories can be used to give information of the type in your example. Any text should be kept to a minimum, because this is a file repository, not an encyclopedia. If there is not a Wikipedia article, maybe one can be written. --Auntof6 (talk) 20:31, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

You are the one that either deleted outright, or nominated for deletion, my last 5 entries at Simple English Wikipedia here despite their having extensive obituaries in the New York Times. Your behavior stopped me from contributing there. I do not put a lot of faith in your opinions based on that. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 22:41, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

I would also say mini biographies are the way to go. A Commons user should see what person a category is about without having to click category or wp links. Categories are not guaranteed to give any clear picture about which namesake (or similarly named person) the category is about. Also, there are many persons who are in scope on Commons but do not have, and in some cases should not have, biographies at Wikipedia. The mini biography I'd write for Commons would hardly survive on en-wp, and if I am writing a proper biography I am not likely to write it in English.

The same with other categories. A description of a few sentences is important especially when the name itself is not clear enough. Often the name is an English word that I do not understand, at least not fully. Sometimes the words used to name separate categories have overlapping meaning. What images should go in the Sleighs category and what images to the Sleds‎ category? Is the structure a hut, shelter or cottage? Do log homes include homes the logs of which are covered with planks?

Even when the category is not ambiguous, an explanation is very valuable. E.g. national parks have names that say little to people not knowing the region, The description may give a hint about whether the feature I am looking for is likely to be found in the category. I might be creating a category about the feature, or the feature may be one often not used in categorization.

--LPfi (talk) 06:54, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

statue of?

I am not strong on religious figures. What is the patron saint for fireman? And what is this flagwaving figure? (

)Smiley.toerist (talk) 13:44, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

The patron saint for fireman and flagwaving figure is en:Saint Florian. Not sure about the sculpture. --Sitacuisses (talk) 14:10, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

The female figure is probably Saint Cecilia en:Saint_Cecilia who is sometimes depicted with a harp. -- Herby (Vienna) (talk) 16:39, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Train stations in Washington, D.C.

I suspect that all of the train stations in Category:Former train stations in Washington, D.C. really belong in something more like a Category:Demolished train stations in Washington, D.C., but I don't know the city well enough to be sure. If someone knows D.C. better, could you please take this on? Thanks. - Jmabel ! talk 22:45, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Commons:Moving files to Wikipedia

There should be an easy way to move files that are ineligible for Commons onto the Wikipedia's they are used in - with the condition that the file is fair use. There is a tool for moving stuff from Wikipedia to Commons, why not the reverse?

As an example, see this list of images of Syrian banknotes that will most likely have to be deleted off Commons. There should be an easy way to move each file onto the Wikipedias that link to it (and allow fair-use). Brightgalrs (talk)

This seem like a brilliant idea to me but there is no doubt that such idea would create a lot of problems for the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) because fair use laws vary from country to country. Content deemed acceptable under, for instance, US fair use concepts is not usable in the majority of other countries. In fact, the Licensing resolution of the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) explicitly forbids Commons to host fair use materials. Wikicology (talk) 14:28, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Your objection seems irrelevant as this is about moving stuff out of Commons to wikipedias, not about hoisting fair use material here. Rmhermen (talk) 04:25, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

My argument is not solely based on hosting but the problem I foresee. I agree that instead of just deleting fair use files, it is better to move them to Wikipedia where such files are acceptable but this simply means that users will be permitted to upload fair use images to Common. The permission to move these files to Wikipedia would probably be given to administrators or a group of users who are familiar with file licenses. No doubt, there would be overwhelming backlogs of fair use files to be moved to Wikipedia. Prior to their moves to Wikipedia, a good number of them would have been used for commercial purpose with credit to Wikimedia Common. This will raise so many legal issues for allowing them here in the first instance. I believe the WMF would have considered so many factors before their firm decision not to allow it. Just my thought. Wikicology (talk) 08:20, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

there is User:Commons fair use upload bot. which requires some care and feeding, it would also require a change in culture, the anti-open, free only is quite happy to delete things even if it benefits the gettys and APs of the world. they selectively cite legal risk even while saying "bring it on" to the Prado. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 13:20, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

This is exactly what I had in mind - it seems very inactive, and Fae himself is inactive at the moment. I'm not quite sure what the second part of your comment means. Brightgalrs (talk) 15:16, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

the second part means: step one is transfer file to english; and then you must write an article to incorporate the image within seven days or it will get deleted there. for images in use it is done, but for public art (for example) it will require some stub creation skills, and you will be limited to one fair use image per object. perhaps other wiki's EDP will be more inclusive. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 02:22, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

The suggestion was rather obviously about files unacceptable for Commons that are already in use on other projects. Revent^talk 02:07, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Pinging Fæ for an insight. Wikicology (talk) 15:19, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

I feel like the bot could be massively expanded by using this summary table of Non-free content rules. At the very least it could do all the "similar to enwiki" and actively skip the "no non-free content" projects. Then again, that assumes the table is up to date. Brightgalrs (talk) 15:28, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

I'm overstretched on real life stuff for this month, so on a wikibreak. Getting the FUUB working again is not that hard. It's not been a priority and I would like to take care to test it out step by step, get it working with pywikibot-core (currently written for compat), and ensure that host wikis have formally agreed that images should be transferred. By the way, it works in a slightly naff workflow, so I would also like to take time to think about that too. In practice there were only ever a few images a month that were marked for transfer, though if admins were more aware of the options we might find more files being marked for transfer before files are deleted as a result of successful deletion requests.

By the way, adjusting the list of wikis where files can be transferred it easy to tweak. We probably should ensure that files are flagged for review in some way on the local wikis that have opted-in for Fair Use copies, and leave them in an easy to understand category. --Fæ (talk) 18:38, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

:This section was archived on a request by: Wikicology (talk) 15:07, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Crop Tool

I can't get it to work for me (It has always been very good in the past). Now when I click Preview it comes up with this:

[Error] Command "/data/project/croptool/jpeg-9a/jpegtran -copy all -crop '1212x1833+1611+903' '/data/project/croptool/public_html/files/404851b935ceea1fd87b9d836360e40d6385a49e.jpg' > '/data/project/croptool/public_html/files/404851b935ceea1fd87b9d836360e40d6385a49e_cropped.jpg' 2>&1" exited with code 1: 1

and stops dead in its tracks. Its been like that for 24 hours now. I can't seem to get "Report issues here" to respond to what I put into it, either! Eddaido (talk) 09:49, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

you know? yesterday it did not work for me as well (on Google Chrome). Not a error message, just no final upload.--Alexmar983 (talk) 18:03, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Reported on Github --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 15:42, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

@Eddaido: The issue should be fixed now. In a recent upgrade I introduced a bug in the handling of rotated images. – Danmichaelo (δ) 14:24, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Thank you very much both. Eddaido (talk) 23:20, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

:This section was archived on a request by: Wikicology (talk) 15:09, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Images of threatened/destroyed cultural heritage in Syria

The Great Colonnade at Palmyra is one of the sites that have been damaged during the war.

Dear everybody,

Through a partnership between Wikimedia Sverige, Wikimedia Italia and Gruppo Archeologico Romano (GAR) a batch upload of 442 images of cultural heritage in Syria have recently been added to Wikimedia Commons. I am very happy that we can now share these images with the world as they depict objects and places that have been damaged or completely destroyed during the war in Syria.

To increase the value of this collection we hope that you can assist us with the following (it will help to encourage more image releases such as this in the future):

1. Translations of two templates used on Wikimedia Commons into as many languages as possible: Template:Connected Open Heritage and Template:Gruppo Archeologico Romano cooperation project. This task only take a few minutes but is of great value.
2. Identify if any of the images would be suitable VI candidates, as some of these objects can no longer be photographed.
3. With adding the images in the category to different suitable Wikipedia articles. This is a new collection and many articles would benefit from images being added that show the object or a specific detail. The more views the images get, the happier the GLAM institutions usually are. It make it easier for staff members to convince their boards to release more media files later on.

Please help spread the word!

Best,

John Andersson (WMSE) (talk) 13:19, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

It would be better if you used the Translate extension for templates, see Template:BEIC for an example. Nemo 14:31, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

My fault. I hadn't seen the translation extension used for templates before. I just remember that it didn't work when the Translate extension was first introduced on Commons. I will try to migrate the templates (and any existing translations) but it will take some rearrangement to avoid puzzle style messages (which are not a problem in the autotranslate method). /André Costa (WMSE) (talk) 09:29, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

@Nemo: I've prepared Template:Connected Open Heritage/i18n. Would you mind giving it a look? Is there an easy way of including a (discrete) list of languages and/or ideally some indication for readers that it can be translated (when it isn't already in their language). /André Costa (WMSE) (talk) 18:09, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Figured that one out. /André Costa (WMSE) (talk) 18:18, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Both templates now use the translation extension instead. That should make them easier to update. /André Costa (WMSE) (talk) 10:19, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Can I use this picture from 1870 on Wikipedia as found on the Canmore website

Hi, not sure if this the right place to post this, but I was wondering if I am allowed to use this picture of Loch Slin Castle that was drawn in 1870 on Wikipedia ? It is on the Canmore website here: [28]

The licencing on the Canmore website states:

Attribution: © RCAHMS

You may: copy, display, store and make derivative works [eg documents] solely for licensed personal use at home or solely for licensed educational institution use by staff and students on a secure intranet.

Under these conditions: Display Attribution, No Commercial Use or Sale, No Public Distribution [eg by hand, email, web]

Any advice appreciated.QuintusPetillius (talk) 18:53, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

It's public domain, so yes. The copyright claims are meaningless. --Fæ (talk) 19:58, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Technically, they're not "meaningless", but they clearly have no legal force in this case. Which is to say, this is not carte blanche to use everything on the site, but in the case of an obvious public domain photo, their claim of rights has no value. - Jmabel ! talk 22:50, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

i would upload it, but such claims are not meaningless, and they have some value. they give them an opportunity to litigate in a British court, that might well hold for a "sweat of the brow" claim. the Prado would have a better case. until the court decides, you do not really know for sure; after all, we have "right to be forgotten" jurisprudence, and the Swedish case. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 23:46, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

No, I hold that the claims are meaningless and morally repugnant. I respect any attribution requested both as a courtesy and so that appropriate metadata stays with the image.

It would be simply great if the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland were to attempt to take someone to court for ignoring the Canmore copyright claims for a poor reproduction of a work created 150 years ago for which they have no claim to represent the estate of the artist, nor have any claim as the original publisher. In terms of British or Scottish courts, there is no case law or existing legal acts that make the pseudo legal flimflam about "sweat of the brow" in the least bit meaningful. It is not morally defensible for public sites such as Canmore to claim that they cannot add more accurate licensing claims, it would be extremely easy (i.e. cheap in terms of resources) for Canmore to separate out documents published, say, before 1911 and apply a 'no copyright known' statement rather than the current vague way material is presented that leave academics and teachers so unsure about reusing material, that in fact it never does get used for educational purposes. --Fæ (talk) 07:06, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

i tend to save my outrage for the gettys sending a dunning notice to Carol Highsmith. also here, for people who nominate works for hire with a CC by 4.0 license, that happen to have an AP notation in the exif, or "no known copyright" we have to hand-hold these institutions as they evolve towards a freemium model, getting sanctimonious is not helpful. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 00:10, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

The case in point is not a declaration of no known copyright, or attribution, or even a mistake, but a major government agency deliberately choosing to falsely claim commercial rights over blatantly public domain works. The fact that the works are correctly dated on the website and therefore in their source metadata, and could be separated by a basic database query is a question of professionalism, and implementing the charter that the government funds them on.

Yes, holding hands with unpaid volunteers like us is very nice. However as a UK taxpayer, I expect my tax to be used to implement the promised charters, not do precisely the opposite and have to rely on unpaid volunteers to educate the professionals as to why copyfraud is a bad thing.

See my tweet to them at https://twitter.com/Faewik/status/767329248524832768. We'll see if they can give a sensible reply. --Fæ (talk) 11:47, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

The good news is that HistEnvScot has today passed my tweeted enquiry to their contact at the Canmore website. I always find it odd that tweets may get more timely replies than letters or emails. --Fæ (talk) 09:45, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Opinion from the UK Intellectual Property Office

For a credible expert opinion, any views expressed by the IPO would be central to a UK court's understanding of the copyright act. In Copyright Notice: digital images, photographs and the internet ref: 1/2014, the IPO made an extremely clear statement that effectively debunks claims to old UK public domain works on websites like Canmore's:

Are digitised copies of older images protected by copyright?
... according to the Court of Justice of the European Union which has effect in UK law, copyright can only subsist in subject matter that is original in the sense that it is the author’s own ‘intellectual creation’. Given this criteria, it seems unlikely that what is merely a retouched, digitised image of an older work can be considered as ‘original’. This is because there will generally be minimal scope for a creator to exercise free and creative choices if their aim is simply to make a faithful reproduction of an existing work.

I think it's worth keeping this IPO notice handy for future questions like this, and to help GLAMs understand UK IP law a little more accurately. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 09:05, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

It seems that IPO comment referred to the context of how the European Union affected the UK situation. That may not be the case anymore. -- Asclepias (talk) 12:09, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Keep in mind that the UK has not left Europe, and will not until after 2018. At this time nobody is lobbying UK government to do anything other than comply with European copyright standard practices, I think it would be bizarre if the government started to drift away on a legal tangent due to the complexity and (financial) risks associated with corporations not believing that the UK was compliant with European intellectual property rights.

Anyway, Commons volunteers that make reasonable effort to understand and comply with current UK/European legislation now, are at no risk of later prosecution or civil claims after 2018 as that's an acceptable legal defence, and the law would not be retrospective if changed in bizarre ways. --Fæ (talk) 12:24, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

The New York Times archive has their pre 1923 articles stamped with a new copyright notice, I think it is just routine to all items they add to their archive and I do not think they are trying to reset the copyright clock. Whatever program they are using just stamps every item in the archive. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 19:00, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

August 19

Gamma problem

I just reinstalled GIMP so that must be the problem. Look at the full photo and the thumbnail. See how washed out the thumbnail is? Is this the GAMMA problem? It use to cause the full image to look washed out if I did not check the "save GAMMA" box. Is it worth re-saving the image with GIMP and check off the "save GAMMA" box and re-upload it? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 22:45, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I do suspect that gamma settings are the problem. The uploaded image has a colortype "grayscale with alpha" but the thumbnail is just plain grayscale. Imagemagick does not seem to be able to handle this correctly. MKFI (talk) 06:25, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

More precise: The outdated ImageMagick version used in the Ubuntu build (very probable one with Longtime support), which is installed on the WMF servers. According to Phabricator Task T106516 version 6.9.0 is used. If you’d go on the ImageMagick website, download a recent build and look into the Changelog file, you would find lots and lots of bug fixes (not only for PNG by the way). I had some dispute with André Klapper from WMF (in German, see here: Commons:Forum/Archiv/2016/February#Fehlerhafte Vorschaubilder bei PNG-Dateien), who told me someone had to convince a Ubuntu developer to produce an updated install package. :-/ — Speravir_Talk – 18:34, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

I actually got corrected by bawolff in https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T106516#2076015 ... :) --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 11:26, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for this update, André. — Speravir_Talk – 17:36, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

And alas, here we all still are... Bawolff (talk) 08:24, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

August 20

Annotating pictures

Could I get some advice on annotating pictures? I have been working on the following three images (one is a crop of one of the others):

• File:Queen Victoria & Royal Family.jpg
• File:Queen Victoria & Royal Family (identification key).jpg
• File:Queen Victoria & Royal Family (identification key) (cropped).jpg

What I would like to do is:

• (a) Crop out some of the detail for various purposes, but before doing so it would help to have a much larger file size to work with - is anyone able to upload a much larger version of this image from the source given there (Library of Congress) or from elsewhere (possibly other sources have the same image in a better condition)?
• (b) Annotate the picture with various level of details, starting with adding mouse-overs for each individual. I can't remember whether this is encouraged or not, and whether having a precise identification key (as we do here) makes a difference. I'd ideally like to add several levels of annotation as well as the tags identifying the individuals. Is it possible to add group annotations, such as "children", "spouses", "grandchildren" and so on? Ideally it would be possible to hover and have those groups highlighted. Is that level of image annotation possible on Commons or not? I am reading through Help:Gadget-ImageAnnotator and I'm not sure if that would be suitable or not or if something better might exist?

Thanks for any advice on this. Carcharoth (talk) 14:19, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

• I can't help with the uploading higher resolutions, etc., but you add the mouse-hover annotations with "Add a note" and standards are pretty much the same as for image descriptions in general. - Jmabel ! talk 16:49, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
  • Thank-you. The 'add note' function is useful but I am wondering if something could be done to combine the two images here? What I was thinking is that File:Queen Victoria & Royal Family (identification key) (cropped).jpg provides ready-made shapes. If the two images could be overlaid in some way, that would work really well. Imagine 39 different versions of the identification key, with a high-quality crop of each person 'area' from the original appearing as you mouse-over... Failing that, is there any way to annotate an image with links without the rectangle appearing? Could I use very small rectangles as a 'point' to which to attach the 39 notes? That might work. I will do it first with the two versions of the identification key, and then see if that can be copied over to a high-quality version of the main image if someone can do that (I may be able to do this on a different connection, the hi-res image is 205 Mb). Carcharoth (talk) 19:01, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
    • You can use an image as part of a note. Include it just like on any other wiki page. - Jmabel ! talk 20:40, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
    • If you will give the URL of the full-res image you want uploaded, I'm sure someone with a high-speed connection can do that. - Jmabel ! talk 20:43, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
      • The link to download the full-res image is here (the .tif marked 205 Mb, though see COM:TIFF). Carcharoth (talk) 22:31, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
        • Do we know that the 205.7mb TIFF actually carries significantly more visible detail than the 189kb JPEG? - Jmabel ! talk 04:23, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
          • I would hope so. When I said above "Crop out some of the detail for various purposes", I meant crop down to obtain individual images of the various people in the image. See here for an example of the detail visible in a good quality version of this antique print. Some of the articles already have good photographs of the grandchildren when they were children, so any images cropped from this will likely just go in the relevant Commons category (where it exists), but some don't, such as en:Albert, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein. There is a Commons category for him, at Category:Albert, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, but only one image there (so far). I have just now, on a search, found File:Vitória, Imperatriz-viúva da Alemanha e família.jpg, which has been annotated extensively. I just added that image to the person category. I intend to do the same for the group portrait from 1877 at some point. You are right that it may be possible to use the existing image to crop down to details. See this example which illustrates three royal cousins and grandchildren of Queen Victoria (all children of her daughters). I've just added this to the article on Albert. Am going to try a few other things now, as they can always be redone if a better image comes along. Carcharoth (talk) 08:21, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
            • I tried to download the TIFF to my PC so I could upload to Commons & it failed out after about 20 minutes. Could someone else please take this on? Thanks. - Jmabel ! talk 22:55, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
              • @Carcharoth and Jmabel: I have uploaded a 5% compression JPG version to File:Her majesty Queen Victoria and the members of the royal family.jpg. It is virtually impossible to see any difference between it and the TIFF, but if an upload of the TIFF is also desired, I can take care of that as well. If it is also desired to replace the lower resolution crop at File:Queen Victoria & Royal Family.jpg, I can do so pretty exactly. Carcharoth, I know editing giant images can sometimes be a pain, so if you want high res crops of any particular members, just leave a message on my talk page any time with whatever you're wanting, and I'll take care of it. — Huntster (t @ c) 07:31, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
                • Many thanks for that! Carcharoth (talk) 10:55, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

PS. I forgot to ask. Is it possible to have a note that highlights multiple points within the same image? In this case, to highlight the grandchildren and children of Victoria separately, and to highlight other relationships, e.g. the grandchildren and their parents form 5 groups. I am guessing that grouped notes like that aren't possible, but I could use local notes to do that locally, right? I may do that, or I may play around with editing the image to highlight the groups and upload the images separately. Is that generally the best approach if doing complex image annotation, to do it in a new copy of the image? Carcharoth (talk) 19:14, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

• You can copy-paste the same information into multiple notes, including putting the information on a separate page and transcluding just like you transclude a template. - Jmabel ! talk 20:42, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
• Kind of off-topic, but @Carcharoth: I uploaded File:Queen Victoria & Royal Family (identification key).svg in case you want to use it. Offnfopt^(talk) 17:47, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
  • Many thanks for the svg of the identification key. Carcharoth (talk) 10:55, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

August 21

Images with future "taken on" dates

There are a lot of images in categories indicating that they were taken on future dates. One has been created but most have not. An example is Category:Photographs taken on 2020-08-18. You can see more here. What should be done with these? Is there a parent category for categories with bad dates like this? --Auntof6 (talk) 09:35, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Template:Invalid EXIF date and/or Template:Wrong date should fit here, and the images should be removed from the wrong categories. The templates will add the images to Category:Incorrect EXIF date or Category:Incorrect date. --Sitacuisses (talk) 11:08, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Upload tools which produced these should probably warn the user about future dates. (For example, UploadWizard does it.) Matma Rex (talk) 16:19, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Category:Picture requests and Category:Requested free media

Category:Picture requests and Category:Requested free media have some issues. It is clearly a little bit "abandoned"...

Local requested images categories (on enwiki, frwiki...) are quite often not very organized, I've looked inside, so it is a general problem. Now, we can't solve the dispersion at the local level, I just hope their cat system work for them and indirectly for us since image updates are often global. I believe that on commons we should be more concerned as a cross/meta-wiki platform to work in synergy, and avoid at least here the creation of other partial and semi-abandoned requested image categories for many specific classes of media.

Here are some aspects:

• Is anyone really using this template and this one? Not talking about theory, but practice. Do you really expect to use the way it is now organized and make a difference?

• Links to local cats are partial and often broken (look at the table with English wikiquote, wikisource...), we could list them but just what about using d:Q5324355, and that's it?

• Over the past few months, I've summarized all the missing images tools for locations/places and studied wikidata image properties, I am quite convinced that for these missing images there are good tools (we can discuss about it later but you know WDFIST, Wikishootme... ), we don't have to be concerned to point out any requests of such kind on our local commons cats as well, IMHO. We can just list all the useful tools in a specific page without creating any new category for "missing pictures of places/monuments/locations" at all. Local platforms have already a lot of categories for missing images of places/monuments/locations... and they can be obsolete and very partial, I wouldn't encourage to do another one here.

• For other items we can do better using the expertise from wikidata. I am not asking for the moon but for example, let's consider one topic at the time. Category:Species needing images: this would be useful to organize some photo competition for undocumented species. The way it is now, with a bunch of empty cats is de facto useless, am I right? Creating a bunch of empty cats from wikidata is a possibility but it is very invasive, what do you think if we make a Listeria-based list of "wikidata items of species without P18 (image) [and P373 (Commonscat)]" ? It is as effective but less invasive. Wikidata species items are not perfect but 99% of the time is going to work...

Comments?--Alexmar983 (talk) 17:27, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Template:Subject by century and its surrogates

I would be like to know the opinion of the Commons community about the template {{Subject by century}} and its clones. At the moment, this universal template has a lot of questionable clones: {{High-rises in Canada by century}}, {{High-rises in Russia by century}}, {{High-rises in Germany by century}}, {{High-rises in the United Kingdom by century}}, {{High-rises in the United States by century}}, etc. Is there really a reason to create a separate template for 2-3 categories? Perhaps, it should be determined when it is accepted to create a version of the template {{Subject by century}}.--Russian Rocky (talk) 18:51, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

There is no clear standards. You are, however, free to nominate some of them for deletion. Ruslik (talk) 19:38, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

They are redundant, certainly, since they simply transclude something like {{Subject by century|high-rises in the United States|nobc=y}}. But, they don't really hurt anything or diminish usability, and they do categorise usefully alongside similar templates in categories like "Category:Category navigational templates for Architecture in the United States", so I'm not seeing any real harm. — Huntster (t @ c) 19:39, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-34

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 review tool is now available on Special:Contributions as a beta feature. It can make it easier to find contributions that are probably damaging the wikis. The ORES review tool is available on Wikidata and Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Dutch, Turkish and Russian Wikipedia. [29]
• The norm and ccnorm functions have been updated to make it easier to write abuse filters. This also affects the TitleBlacklist extension. You don't have to transform "I" and "L" to "1", "O" to "0" and "S" to "5" anymore. [30]
• The old pageview data in the "pagecounts-raw" and "pagecounts-all-sites" files is no longer being updated. You can find the new pageview data here. This happened on August 5. [31]

Problems

• Some big image files could not be thumbnailed. This has now been fixed. [32]
• When you moved a page over a redirect it would delete the redirect without saving it in the logs. This has now been fixed. [33]

Changes this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 23 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 24 August. It will be on all wikis from 25 August (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 23 August at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• Sometimes when you mention another user they don't get a notification. You will be able to get a notification when you successfully sent out a mention to someone or be told if they did not get a notification. This will be opt-in. You can test this on the test wiki. [34][35]
• How you add text after an edit conflict might work in a different way in the future. You can test the prototype. [36]

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

21:17, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

August 23

"C" - Private Collection

I sometime come across old photos with a warning that they are under copyright because they are part of a "private collection". In this particular case they are a few photographs taken in Somalia in 1885 by a named foreign traveler, and it is said they were added to his photo collection that same year.

Here the problem is compounded by the fact that Somalia doesn't have a recognizabled copyright legislation due to the civil war. Should I consider those photos off-limit for Commons? Thanks. --Lubiesque (talk) 16:36, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

@Lubiesque: It really depends on where they were published, and if ever previously published. Old unpublished works, published posthumously, can have copyright protection in some cases (see, for example, publication right). Revent^talk 16:53, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Somali works are protected by the copyright Law No. 66 of 7 September 1977. Since the photos were taken by a foreign traveler, the copyright status of the photos will depend on where they were originally published, the date of publication and registration under the copyright Law No. 66 of 7 September 1977 (if originally published in Somali). If they were published in Somali prior to September 1977, the works must be registered under copyright Law No. 66 of 7 September 1977 within 12 months starting from 7 September 1977 to be copyright protected. If the works were not originally published in Somali, the copyright of these works will depend on the copyright law of that country and the publication date. For Somali persons, regardless of whether his work was created or published in the country or abroad, it is under Somali copyright law. In this case, if a Somali person published a work in the U.S for example, it means the works will be under the U.S copyright law and Somali copyright law. Wikicology (talk) 21:14, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Proposal related to metacategories that don't specify a criterion in the metacat template

I've made a suggestion to track metacategories that don't have a criterion coded in the metacat template. Your comments are invited at Template talk:MetaCat#Metacats that don't include a criterion parameter. --Auntof6 (talk) 17:40, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Forensic Art as "Work For Hire"

I uploaded some w:Forensic artwork from artist w:Karen T. Taylor after she gave her blessing to use the files. I requested that she would send an OTRS email and she informed me that the work she did was under the authority of the law enforcement department (as w:Work for Hire that she worked at in Texas at the time. She stated "With law enforcement agencies, the artwork enters the public domain."

She has also had work uploaded and cleared through OTRS in the past, such as File:Age progression sculpture by Karen T. Taylor of fugitive William Bradford Bishop at about age 77.jpg and several other images.

I hope that we can still keep the images that I added, which have been flagged for "missing permission" as Ms. Taylor has not sent the email yet. Thank you, Gourami Watcher (talk) 20:18, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Karen T. Taylor wasn't an employee of the law enforcement department. It seems she worked under a contract for services, which means, she is still the copyright holder of any works she produced in the course of her service, unless there is a contractual agreement to the contrary. Karen T. Taylor needs to send permission to our support team. Wikicology (talk) 21:25, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

When she published a book on forensic art, she had to credit the departments for the images that she created under their jurisdiction. Does this affect anything?Gourami Watcher (talk) 21:59, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Ownership of copyright can be transferred and the original copyright holder must agree in writing. In that case, I suspect there was a signed contract or written agreement between her and the department for the transfer. Wikicology (talk) 22:25, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

August 24

Category for reparations

Do we have a category for reparations? As the roof of this railway coach.Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:05, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

There are several files in Category:Repairs, though it doesn't seem to formally exist. Category:Restoration is quite large, though it seems to be for more formal, pompous acts then fixing up a roof so it doesn't leak. The word wikt:reparation means something different.--Prosfilaes (talk) 10:48, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

There is Category:Repairing, which has various subcategories. --Auntof6 (talk) 16:43, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Category:Restoration of buildings ? --Havang(nl) (talk) 17:44, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Vehicle repair is the most usefull one.Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:20, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Pejorative categories

Raised this in February without a conclusive response, and have just chanced across the problem again: does placing a photo of a person into Category:Hipsters trigger COM:BLP#Defamation? "Hipster" is (at least according to Wikipedia's definition) often a pejorative term, and one which people typically don't self-identify as. --McGeddon (talk) 14:42, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

That whole category seems totally subjective to me. As such, I'd vote to  Delete it. --Sebari (talk) 17:24, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

It could potentially provide a useful selection of cartoons, related images, fictional characters, fancy-dress shots and people happy to self-identify with a pejorative for whatever reason, as seems to be the case for similar categories like Category:Chavs and Category:Rednecks. If there's consensus that there's a defamation issue here, perhaps a {{Pejorative category}} reminder template across all such categories would be a good idea. --McGeddon (talk) 19:24, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

 Delete Too subjective and problematic from a BLP point of view. Kaldari (talk) 01:48, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

With two delete !votes I've started an actual discussion at Commons:Categories for discussion/2016/08/Category:Hipsters. --McGeddon (talk) 13:31, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Process Nazis

Commons is obviously a useful resource for providing free media content for the various wikisites. But I'm concerned that valid material is being deleted because it hasn't jumped through the site process hoops. If a public domain image doesn't have the "correct" tag, does that mean that it must be deleted? This seems like both a good way to deny valid media to the wikisites fed by Commons, and to make it more difficult for contributors.

We don't need our contributors to be copyright experts, but it seems to me that if an image is genuinely in the public domain, but for whatever reason the contributor hasn't ticked all the boxes, it should not be removed. If we don't require contributors to have a full grounding of copyright law, then why require them to have a complete knowledge of this site's bureaucratic requirements?

What sparks my inquiry is a recent notice for deletion of an image I contributed some time ago. This well-known figure was installed in its current location at the Launching Pad restaurant on Route 66 in 1965, has no copyright notice displayed, and photography has always been encouraged by the owners. There must be millions of similar images taken over the years, and vast numbers are on the internet. According to the wording at Freedom of Panorama, there is a specific reference to artworks which reads

…any public artwork installed before 1978 without a copyright notice is also in the public domain (unless the copyright owner actively prevented anyone from copying or photographing the work until 1978).

What's more important, I ask? Actual real-world copyright law, or site-specific procedure? --Skyring (talk) 23:35, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

• It seems pretty strong to call someone a "Nazi" for nominating an image for possible deletion where nothing on the file page gave any indication of why the artwork shown would be in the public domain. Nothing on the file page indicated the date of the sculpture, and clearly if such a sculpture had been made post-1978 and erected in the same spot it would not be public domain. You've now provided the relevant information, and presumably the image won't be deleted. What exactly else would you expect? - Jmabel ! talk 23:45, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

This isn't about any one image. It's about the wider question. Why delete public domain images simply because the uploaders didn't jump through all the bureaucratic hoops? We must be losing vast numbers of valid images through this process. --Skyring (talk) 23:53, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Probably so. And would be keeping vast numbers of invalid images by people not challenging things when in doubt. The precautionary principle says that between the two alternatives this is the way we go. One major reason is to minimize the chance that someone reuses a Commons image in good faith and ends up getting sued by someone who actually owns a copyright of which we were unaware. That really doesn't seem to me like it merits being called the activity of "Nazis". - Jmabel ! talk 00:29, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

No, the Precautionary principle says - and I quote directly - "The precautionary principle is that where there is significant doubt about the freedom of a particular file, it should be deleted." I think that to have a significant doubt about some of the images that are nominated for deletion you'd have to have so much doubt that just getting out of bed in the morning would be an existential crisis. This isn't about having significant doubt. This is about seeing an image that doesn't have a tag and just nominating it the f*uck for deletion. And before you know it, six million innocent images are nothing but bitdust. Significant doubt is something stronger than "well, maybe, I dunno", wouldn't you say? --Skyring (talk) 02:09, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

skyring, Commons is a small project with relatively small number of active users, and we just do not have the manpower to do the homework for all the files that people upload a file without proper license info. I agree that ideally anytime there is a file with problematic license info a team of experts will swoop in and fix it. I rescue many such files with simple issues, but there is too many of them that needs fixing and some of them might need a lot of work. So that task falls on the uploader. --Jarekt (talk) 03:27, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Well, why not modify the wording to reflect this? I've been referred a couple of times now to policy that I find doesn't reflect practice. From my point of view, it's people sending good files to the gas chambers without a real lot of thought. --Skyring (talk) 04:15, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Please stop referring to things and people as "Nazis" and "gas chambers". That is really disrespectful. Josve05a (talk) 04:33, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

You know what's disrespectful? It's thousands of well-meaning contributors uploading media files, thinking they are helping a good project, and then seeing their perfectly valid files deleted because we don't follow our own policies. --Skyring (talk) 05:39, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

@Skyring: It would be great if you would help identifying the copyright status of all these 3D objects in our backlog, so they don't get deleted because their copyright status is unknown. We don't have enough manpower, but you can help to increase it. (And please note that some admins may consider argumentum ad Hitlerum as a blockable offence) --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 16:32, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

You don't need to ping me, Zhuyifei1999. I'm watching, as indicated by my response times here. Ok. Lack of manpower a problem. Identifying status of "unknown" files a priority. I can see that. But that's exactly my complaint. Some users have chosen sending such files on their path to doom as a priority. So which is the priority, in your opinion? Saving files, or killing them? --Skyring (talk) 17:36, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

If we have images with unknown copyright status tagged as public domain, that makes our repository of PD images much less usable (every reuser would have to research the real copyright status). We should be clear about us needing information to be able to keep the images, and an admin should not delete a potentially valuable image that probably can be proved to be PD, or a file for which other admins are likely better equipped to make the judgement call. But if proving the PD status is difficult and the file not obviously especially valuable (and unlikely to be so for somebody else), then deleting is often the best thing to do. [And the ad Hitlerum thing could very well have caused me to ignore this thread.] --LPfi (talk) 19:09, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. That doesn't apply to the files that caught my eye and brought me here. None of them were tagged as PD. Nor was there any great difficulty in demonstrating the copyright status of the artworks shown in the images, all used in multiple wikiplaces, and thus presumably of some value. If there is "significant doubt" or it is "difficult" (to use your wording), LPfi, then fair enough, start the deletion discussion. But my problem is with users deleting images without much in the way of investigation. Some of the files I've uploaded represent difficult and expensive effort or a rare opportunity and I'm sure this applies to many uploaders. Just how many useful and valid files are we losing because some users are taking the easy way out? --Skyring (talk) 20:32, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

I'll put it briefly... you are more than welcome (in fact, we would be grateful) if you were to decide to work on cleaning up some of the more than 120,000 files in Category:PD files for review, which is probably a small part of what should be in there. To keep up with what was 'actually' deleted so far this month, just between the 20 most active admins, would be over 28 hours a day for each of them if they spent a minute per file, and the vast majority would still be deleted as copyvios or useless crap. It is quite obvious exactly why COM:EVID is a Commons policy... if uploaders supply the needed information, the files won't need to go to DR. Most uploaders, it seems, even when they become aware through a deletion notice of a problem with their uploads, do not go back and fix the same problem on their others. (The Green Giant, for instance, now has an 'explanation', but is actually still not really properly tagged). Revent^talk 17:51, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

If it makes any difference, there is (and I could point at examples) a lot of 'potentially valuable and useful' material deleted from Commons because the uploader either never said where they obtained it or did not provide a license, and failed to respond when asked. There is also such material deleted as 'useless' simply because the uploader never told us what the hell it was, and failed to respond when asked. We accumulate massive amounts of material every day, we have to have processes in order to maintain some degree of sanity. Calling people Nazis does not help. Revent^talk 17:58, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Mmmm, I think you may have missed the point. Cheers. --Skyring (talk) 21:39, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

deleting images is a really poor way to get people to work your backlogs. yes Skyring commons is a morally bankrupt place, where people delete before collaborating. it is a snake-pit of individuals who place their solitary mastery of scripts, over the community health of an image repository. institutions upload to flickr rather than commons, and stop uploading using GLAMwiki toolset after being bitten. admins sock to delete images. language wikis keep images local only, because they do not trust commons to keep images. so it goes. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 20:52, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Rouge admins. I like it. --Skyring (talk) 21:39, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Then get lost. Seriously. Instead of posting shit like this, walk away. Shit like this makes it more stressful to work on Commons, it poisons the community. Why should I stress about community health when you're going to call me a snake for it, and support someone who is calling me a Nazi for it?--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:20, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

You set a fine example, friend. --Skyring (talk) 06:54, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

"Shit like this makes it more stressful to work on Commons," absolutely not. your incompetent "adversive leadership" creates the Shit like this; you want to act like betacommand and russavia, you will be treated like betacommand and russavia. the reasonable people you may be able to drive off, but the unreasonable people will remain, and you will have a hell of your own creation, if you don't like it, stomp off like fastily. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 12:59, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Yes, people who hang a website just to complain about how bad it is do make it more stressful. I am not an incompetent adversive leader for the simple and easily checked fact that I'm not a leader on Commons, I'm just an average regular non-admin. The fact that you spread personal abuse to random people who aren't even here is grossly inappropriate.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:07, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

The fact that the statue has no copyright notice is not verifiable from the image. There's no way to check that without physically checking the statue, which is way more than can be expected from anyone who doesn't live there. Have you actually done a 360 degree examination of the statue?--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:10, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

if you think "soup nazi" is actionable, go for it. i might even support some civility enforcement, but we both know you will be laughed at. it is not personal abuse, it is an accurate assessment of the toxic culture here. venting on VP about backlogs is a waste of time. rather, you must build a team elsewhere i.e. m:File_metadata_cleanup_drive it is perverse to delete three years after upload, with minimal collaboration. it drives away editors that might will have donated more content.

i tend to rely on SIRIS for "no notice" i.e. File:Kiepenkerl - Jeff Koons.JPG but even a physical examination may not be enough. deleting sculpture pics in use harms the wiki, and the legal risk is minimal - you have a greater chance of a DMCA takedown for FoP germany than a "no notice" less than 10% of sculpture in database have one. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 22:55, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

You could start civility enforcement by being civil. Yes, "your incompetent "adversive leadership"" is personal abuse. If you want to be a thief, shamelessly ripping off people's works because you don't think they'll respond legally and then adorning Wikipedia with stolen jewels, well, I stand against such criminal activity. I stand for Wikimedia being an example of legality in the copyright-infringing wastelands of the Internet.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:00, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

August 22

Which one was first

Which was first, this or this one. --Jos1950 (talk) 03:53, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Exif data on http://www.puntacana-information-guide.com/images/Punta-Cana-Resorts-location-thumb.jpg says April 17, 2006, but it was only uploaded to wikipedia in 2007, so probably the external image was first. Bawolff (talk) 16:43, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

The older revision even has a copyright notice: 2006 Playa Coco (possibly 2008, it's hard to read). Looks like an obvious copyright violation to me. --rimshot^talk 18:02, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

I noticed something but do not have the knowledge. Someone with knowledge will detect this and take action. Thanks --Jos1950 (talk) 12:09, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Adding location information to NARA images

I'd like to add location image to some NARA images. For example, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Near_Camp_at_Big_Bend_of_the_Truckee_River,_Nevada._-_NARA_-_519575.tif is almost certainly located at 39.683669568 -119.273023572. I've identified the locations for two other images from that set as well. If it would be useful, I could fairly easy identify the location of a number of these images.

The issue is that the NARA image says "The metadata on this page was imported directly from NARA's catalog record; additional descriptive text may be added by Wikimedians to the template below with the "Description=" parameter, but please do not modify the other fields."

On one hand, having the location data for old photos would be useful for things like Google Earth.

On the other hand, this is original research on my part using Google Earth, though I am an author about a book north of the Truckee River, so I may be considered an expert by some.

Is adding location data permitted to these files? Cxbrx (talk) 04:55, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

The reason that the files are marked this way is to allow for future housekeeping and bot datamining of the collection. If you add the coord data in a very standard way (by adding {{Location}}), this probably will be okay, as I would expect future automation to be able to cope with extra standard templates. It may be that a future refresh of metadata from NARA would overwrite your changes, but again I find it unlikely that a bot task would be quite this "mindless" and not take account of intervening edit history. If something like this happens, you can contact the bot operator and discuss how to fix it so we don't lose any value-added edits like yours. My comments are as someone who has mass uploaded from NARA and helped with some past automation of housekeeping on the collection. --Fæ (talk) 07:30, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Larger thumbnails

Hi, is there a way to get larger thumbnails in the category and search pages? My eyes have a natural unsharpness for which glasses don't help. I am involved in a project that involves visual scanning many thousands of thumbnails, so it's quite urgent.

I would like my thumbnails at least one and a half time larger, preferably with twice as many pixels (1.5 × 1.5 = 2.25). I can't find a way to achieve this. Using the browser zoom (Ctrl-mousewheel) helps a little bit, but gives just larger thumbnails with larger unsharpness. It's also cumbersome. Suggestions anyone? Thx a lot! — bertux 19:27, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

That feature request is only a little over 10 years old. I guess we'll have to be patient... —LX (talk, contribs) 14:29, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Category slide show gadget may be of some help, but you need to click on it for every category. MKFI (talk) 06:00, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Add the following to Special:MyPage/common.js

$( function() {
 $( ".searchResultImage a.image img" ).each( function() { if ( this.width*3 < $(this).data( 'file-width' )) {this.srcset = ''; this.src = this.src.replace( /\d+(px-[^\/]*$)/, (this.width*3) +"$1" );this.width = this.width*1.5; this.height = this.height*1.5} } );
 $( '.mw-gallery-traditional li' ).each( function() { var $this = $(this), child = $this.children( 'div' ), child2 = child.children( 'div' ), img = child2.find( 'img' ); if ( img[0].width*3 < img.data( 'file-width' ) ) { $this.width( $this.width() * 1.5 ); child.width( child.width()*1.5 ); child2.width( child2.width()*1.5); img[0].srcset = ''; img[0].src = img[0].src.replace( /\d+(px-[^\/]*$)/, (img[0].width*3) + '$1' ); img[0].width *= 1.5; img[0].height *= 1.5;  } } );
});

This will increase the gallery and search thumb size on the page by 1.5 times. It will also switch the thumbns to high-dpi mode, which should make the browser zoom feature not make the thumbs blurry [Assuming you don't actually have a high-dpi display. if you have a high-dpi display, we'd want to increase the resolution even further to compensate for the larger number of real pixels even before zooming]. (Note: This may cause galleries on categories not to line up vertically, and also might not work on images that are very small). Hope that helps. Bawolff (talk) 16:36, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, Bawolff, that does the trick! It need not work perfectly or all of the time, so I will be very happy with the result. Anyway I did not encounter the issues you mentioned. — bertux 09:44, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Hello @Bawolff: , many thanks for this script!!! I have tested and this will be my new standard. Thanks and best greetings. Orchi (talk) 12:24, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Wikicology (talk) 11:34, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Using description as title: Is it OK?

Entering both a description AND a title can sound redundant. And indeed, sometimes we see that one of them is just random characters. The problem is especially important on small devices where typing and copy-pasting words is difficult.

Idea for the Android app: How about requiring a description, and using it as a title (filename)? We can shorten it and make it unique if needed.

Reducing to a single field would allow users to spend their typing effort for a more meaningful result.

Thanks in advance for the feedback! Syced (talk) 11:48, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

@Syced: Using the description as file title isn't a good idea at all, see Commons:File naming. Is this the same app which has created a lot of problems (copyvios) in the past? --Steinsplitter (talk) 13:20, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

The proposed policy page you link to essentially says that a title should be "descriptive, chosen according to what the image displays or contents portray" and "accurate, especially where scientific names, proper nouns, dates, etc. are used". Fortunately enough, descriptions fit this criteria. As for your question: No, not the same. The vast copyvio scandal you are thinking of was caused by the mobile web upload wizard. Our app's copyvio rate is currently less than 5%, and we have plans to completely make copyvios a thing of the past, for instance by blocking beginners from uploading images without EXIF, etc. Cheers! Syced (talk) 14:08, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

As far as I have seen, the vast majority of the images submitted by the app appear to be legitimate. Also, AFAIK the past copyvio issue was caused by the web app (as in, the mobile version of the web upload wizard), not the Android app. Feedback noted re: the desc though, thanks! Misaochan (talk) 14:32, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

@Syced: Description != file title. Please follow standard practices. --Steinsplitter (talk) 10:54, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

I understand this is your point of view, but there is no policy backing your claim. And in practice, many veteran-uploaded files naturally have the same title and description, and that does not make them bad, if descriptive enough. You recently uploaded a file with the same title and description, and you did the right thing, because if you already explained everything in the description, then what else would you say in the title? Furthermore, we are talking about a mobile app here: Typing is painfully slow while walking outside taking pictures, so we won't get people to enter more than 200 characters anyway. Splitting that typing effort between two redundant fields would only have negative consequences in terms of quality. Cheers! Syced (talk) 13:39, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

The upload app that I am using allows me to upload multiple files, and copy the description and/or title from one to the rest. I can see the utility of designing a mobile app that allows you to copy the title to the description if you wish, and to modify one from the other as well. In general though I would not expect the title to be the same as the description. Sometimes I cut and paste the title to start the description, but tend to spell things out more in the description, using "United States" in the description, but "US" in the title, for example. Right now though most of my files are ones that get updated with new data, so I do not want the date in the title, but have to put it in the description, in order to properly show context. Delphi234 (talk) 18:58, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for your input! Is there any drawback to using "United States" in the title as well, besides it being longer in wikicode? I agree that files that you update every once in a while (for instance yearly population charts) should have the year in the description but not in the title. In the special case of our mobile app, though, nobody has ever used it to upload such a chart: Only static pictures/videos/sounds have ever been uploaded. How about having by default a single "Description" field, plus the ability to add a shorter name if wanted? Cheers! Syced (talk) 04:40, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Another tool that always use the same title and description is the Panoramio upload bot, and nobody has ever complained about its titles being equal to its descriptions :-) Syced (talk) 04:53, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Pre-filling for mobile

The Android app's upload interface. It currently doesn't pre-fill the title with the original file name. How about having the title copied from the description initially (or perhaps the other way around)? The pre-filled field should remain editable before the user proceeds to upload.

In the Android app, title has been required while description is optional (phab:T47453). Developers (including me) of the app recently have seen that the way it asks for title and description may be confusing to the user - comments from the app users seem to indicate that. [37] We are trying to remove this confusion.

On mobile, there is less chance that the original file name is meaningful than on desktop - this is why the Android app, unlike UploadWizard, does not pre-fill the file name and ask the user to come up with a title when uploading. Both have to be entered from scratch, often with duplicated information, which does not seem like a use of the user's time. In fact, probably because of this, I have seen some do not bother to do that and end up entering a garbage text to the description, or a too short (highly ambiguous) title.

Seeing the problems above, I'm thinking of ways to pre-fill title/description, including:

1. First ask the title and pre-fill the description with it. The description can then be enhanced.
2. First ask the description and pre-fill the title with it. The title can then be edited.
3. The user can choose to enter to one of the two fields first. The other will be pre-filled with the same text and can then be edited.

Either way, these manners of pre-filling seem like a sensible solution for mobile for not having the user to input the same thing twice. I don't believe encouraging to reuse texts will do harm, because our expectations on the two fields at least partially overlap. Consider the question "Please describe this picture. For example, what is depicted? What is it called? Where did you take this?". The answer would be acceptable as a Commons-style description. I believe in most cases it would be acceptable as a Commons-style file name, too, maybe after a slight modification. At least that is my reading of Commons:File naming and Commons:First steps/Quality and description.

I'm not saying it would ensure a perfect description and file name - although I believe it would would give the user a starting point better than what is currently provided. To be frank, getting a description in multiple languages, full of historical/scientific background, etc, from people on the go would be unrealistic, no matter what fancy graphical user interface we invent. We would have a better chance if we remind them saying "please add more descriptions to the file you uploaded yesterday" later, as suggested in phab:T47453. whym (talk) 03:50, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Showing the description field on top, and pre-filling the title field as they type, seems like a great compromise. Of course, this real-time automatic copying from description to title should cease whenever the user modifies the title field. Syced (talk) 11:02, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Another argument pro title:the wikidata flag needs it to show nicely--Oursana (talk) 16:56, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Unknown source

Hi! I noticed that within {{Information}} sometimes the field "source" contains only the word "unknown" (or synonyms). If the field is empty the page is categorized in Category:Images without source, but in this case the automatic categorization does not work. The questions are:

1. Is there a legitimate use for "unknown" as source?
2. How should be fixed? Should be blanked? Should be replaced with {{Unknown}} or something else?
3. What about the same problem with author or date fields?

Basilicofresco (msg) 12:27, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

• To the first question: It's not legitimate when uploading a file. But when a file has in fact been uploaded without a source and the uploader didn't fix it and a serious research by other users could not find the source but they concluded that the file is undoubtably free and in scope and should be kept as useful, then that can be an exception when it can be legitimate, to replace the yellow box that reads "please edit this file description" with something, without marking the file for deletion.
• To the second question: There are some suggestions at the top of the category:Images without source. If, without the actual source, it's not possible to be certain that the file can be kept, the file can be nominated for deletion with "Subst:Nsd" or nominated for a deletion discussion for closer examination. If the file seems useful, a good first step, as always, is serious research to find relevant information. In the exceptional situation explained in question 1, the template "Unknown|source" can be used. If the page already contains relevant and credible information about why a precise source is not mentioned, of course this information should remain somewhere.
• To the third question: It can be legitimate more often than unknown source. In some cases, it's possible to conclude that the author or the date are indeed unknown. Unfortunately, such mentions are too often used abusively just because the uploader didn't look well enough to find the information. As always, research is the key. If you conclude that the file should not be kept without more information about its authorship or about its date, you can nominate it for deletion. Or you can start a discussion at Commons:Village pump/Copyright or here. If you conclude that the file can be kept and after research you are quite convinced that the author is actually unknown, not only to the uploader and to you, but to the world, you can use the template "Unknow|author". The mention unknown date can be used more liberally.

-- Asclepias (talk) 14:44, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

There are a lot of old postcard pictures without a known photografer. In the source I put as much detail about the postcard: publishing house etc. In the EU countries the EU anonymous license template is used. Most of the research work is done to determine the date. (It is nearly never mentioned in postcards) In practice most of these postcards editing houses used local photografers an did not keep any records. Some uploaders mistakenly upload this under own work.Smiley.toerist (talk) 16:30, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Although the date of a photograph might not be mentioned on the postcard, many postcards are in fact franked and this allows the contributor to write "Before xxxx" and hence conclude that certain postcards are out of copyright. Similarly, photographs of Queen Victoria are out of copyright (she died in 1901). Again it is legitimate to record the photographer as "unknown" if that is the case. To put things into context, before the Second World War it was common not to name contributors. This was the case on BBC news reports until the BBC realised that one fo their best defences against Nazi broadcasts purporting to be from the BBC was to name their announcers. Martinvl (talk) 17:21, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Ok, so the word "unknown" should not be removed without adeguate research. For this reason, as first step, we should properly tag and categorize the files with unknown/missing source or author. So I propose:

• when the author or source field of {{Information}} is just the word "unknown" (or "not known", "desconocido", "sconosciuto", "dunno", "???", "n/a", etc.) we should replace with a bot the content of this field with {{unknown|author}} or {{unknown|source}}
• when the author or source field is de facto empty (eg. "-", "—", "none", "&nbsp;", "<nowiki></nowiki>", "null", "empty", etc.) we should blank the content of this field in order to get the proper warning message and the Category:Media lacking author information or Category:Images without source.

What do you think? There are thousands of files in this state. –– Basilicofresco (msg) 14:39, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

I understand you're trying to define edits that could be made by bot. It may be possible, although my comments may not help you much about that aspect because they are more about edits that should be made by users.

If the "unknown" template is thought of as only a language localization template, I suppose you can replace the word "unknown" or its equivalents with the template "unknown", without your action being interpreted as a confirmation of the "unknown" statement. Of course, it would be better to check if the statement "unknown" is justified and, if it is wrong, to replace it with something else.

In some cases, removing the "null" mentions and leaving the field blank, thus triggering the maintenance warning and category, may be right, if it looks like attention from users is required. However, there may be some cases where there's no better solution than a "null" mention.

The best solution in each case can still be different if it's about the source or the author. You did well by making this distinction in your original question. I probably tried to keep my first comment too short. Maybe it can help also if I add a few subjective comments.

• About "author", my point was that a mention "unknown" should not be used or added without adequate research showing reasonable evidence that the author is truly unknown, in the legal sense, after consulting credible sources. The fact that the author is known or unknown can change the copyright status of the work. Determining that the author is unknown has legal meaning and consequences. The mention "unknown" can be removed if it looks like it merely means that the immediate source did not credit the author or did not have the information about the author and did not bother to look for this information.
• If you think that the author is probably known but there is enough other information about the work to conclude that the work would still be in the public domain anyway (e.g. published in the U.S. before 1923 and other such situations) you can replace "unknown" with another wording that presents the actual situation more accurately. In such situations, after checking the source, I often choose to write something like "Not mentioned in the source". It's factual, it's all that can be said with the information from the source, it does not risk misleading people with a wrong "unknown author" statement, and it leaves open the possibility that the information can be found and added.
• For example, this file is a file I uploaded in 2013. The source (a national archive in Canada) does not mention the author. But, because we know the date, we know that it is in the public domain and that it can be uploaded to Commons. In the "author" field, I wrote "Not mentioned in the source", which is a factual and accurate statement I can think of in such a case. Because from the context and the nature of the photograph, it can't be said that the author is unknown, and it is possible that the information exists somewhere. It is likely that the archivists at the source did not go out of their way to find the information. Archivists are quite good at documenting who collected the physical copy of the photograph, but not always good at documenting who the author is. Later, I happened to read a book with more information about this photo. Today, I added the information to the description page on Commons: [38]. (Some may say that we're not entirely sure if W.B. Edwards took the photo himself and thus the author might be "unknown", but Edwards was actually the main photographer for his studio, and the mention of his name with the word studio in the "author" field seems fair in this case.)
• About "source": The immediate source is never unknown. A file does not miraculously appear on the uploader's computer by spontaneous generation. Personally, I do not feel comfortable to add "unknown" in the "source" field. I would rather add something like "Not mentioned by the uploader". But the option "source" exists as a parameter for the "unknown" template, so I guess it is legitimate if users want to use it in cases that can justify it.

-- Asclepias (talk) 19:11, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

August 25

En-us-aristocracy.ogg

I uploaded a new version of "File:En-us-aristocracy.ogg" as the original pronunciation was incorrect (the stress should be on the third, not the second, syllable). However, despite reloading the page several times, only the old recording can be played. What's wrong? — SMUconlaw (talk) 13:28, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

• Sounded right to me. Caching problem? - Jmabel ! talk 15:25, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
  • Do you hear a woman or a man? If you hear a woman, then it's the old recording. That's what I'm still hearing. — SMUconlaw (talk) 19:23, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
    • Definitely a male voice; I'm pretty sure you have a caching issue on your end. - Jmabel ! talk 22:40, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
      • Hmmm, it's been a day and I'm still hearing the old file. Any idea what I can do to clear the cache? Ctrl-F5 and adding "?purge=true" to the URL don't seem to have an effect. — SMUconlaw (talk) 12:38, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
        • No, but you can probably verify that it is a caching issue by accessing with a different browser or a different machine. - Jmabel ! talk 15:45, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

BTW it seems to me, it would have been sufficient to revert to the first file version. — Speravir_Talk – 22:57, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, I had no idea that file contained the correct pronunciation as I can't seem to hear any file other than the one uploaded on 9 September 2007. However, I tried what Jmabel suggested and used Google Chrome to access the page; this time I was able to hear all the files properly. I therefore reverted the file to the oldest version. I still don't know how to clear the Mozilla Firefox cache, though. — SMUconlaw (talk) 21:07, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

August 26

Bus, tram or snow mobile?

Bus, tram or snow mobile?

Should this thing be categorized as bus, tram, snow mobile or something else? It seems to get electrical power from overhead lines. MKFI (talk) 13:01, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Category:Dresdner Haide-Bahn? (Which is a subcategory of Category:Trolleybuses). -- Asclepias (talk) 15:19, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

That's it, thank you. MKFI (talk) 17:52, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

image of banknotes

It is allowed to place an image from the bills of this file on Commons? --Jos1950 (talk) 15:40, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

When you have questions about currency consult Commons:Currency first. According to that page, you can not upload the images. Offnfopt^(talk) 16:04, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

I didn't know Commons:Currency, thanks. --Jos1950 (talk) 22:59, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

August 28

Commons admin and oversighter @Rama: from France refusing Licensed-PD-Art-tag and insisting on her copyright for merely PD-Art photographs

When I find a PD-art -photo tagged with a cc-by license I change it to {{Licensed-PD-art}}. But now User:Rama reverted with the comment (You have no right to add or remove licences. Image taken and published in France, which grants copyrights for photographs of paintings.) I am deeply upset about the tone and missing knowledge of this Admin and Oversighter, which really endangers our PD-Art Policy. Everything was explained in my license tagging, especially see Commons:When to use the PD-Art tag#When should the PD-Art tag not be used?--Oursana (talk) 02:56, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Do you consider Rama's reversion disruptive and decided to report them here or you actually want to know the correct license? Wikicology (talk) 08:06, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

The image in question was taken and published in France. France grants copyrights for reproductions of 2D artwork, I am thus entitled to claim copyright and release the image under a licence of my choosing. I find Oursana's unilateral editing of licences applied by other people reckless in the absolute (this is a legally binding matter; you should be really, really sure of what you are doing, possibly ask people before, and certainly listen to them afterward), and I am uncertain that they are even aware of the French legal situation. Rama (talk) 08:56, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

PS: I'll explain the entire reasoning plainly:

• the WMF etc. consider that such claims are moot and refuses to honour them. I am aware of that fact.
• the statement in question entails that when a museum publishes a 2D reproduction and claims copyright on it, we basically tell them something rude, take the image and publish it as Public Domain.
• this is completely different from the case of a Commonist publishing the image under a Free licence on the project: in this case, we have the image, it is freely usable under a Free licence. I would understand reservations if the licences in question were in practical terms limiting usage (such as when you publish under GFDL only), but this is not the case here, I use a Cc-by-sa.
• There are in fact excellent reasons we would like to do so: if you consider copyright as moot, you can simply disregard the licence; if you do not, you use the Cc-by-sa with minimal hassle; if you are one of these museums claiming copyright on things and using the image, you are confronted by the consequences of your own actions. This is a militant stance.
• There are no reasons why we would enforce Licensed-PD-art in these cases:
  • it does not improve usability over a Free licence
  • it changes nothing to the PD status of the image
  • it can be badly done, coming out as dickish, or removing some of the Free licences while keeping others for no discernable reason (like Oursana did, replacing the Cc-by-sa with the PD tag but keeping the CeCILL: what does that mean?)

TL;DR: we should not force PD tags on our own 2D reproductions because they are implicit, and doing so makes use weaker against copyright-claiming institutions. Rama (talk) 09:24, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

I don't think these two cases are completely different; on the contrary, I think they are quite similar. By placing a CC BY-SA tag on the picture, as visible in this diff, you are effectively claming copyright over a picture of a two-dimensional work of art, with little or no creativity on your part, falling under Bridgeman. This is exactly the same thing that the Prado museum are doing, only in your case you agree to release your work under a free culture licence, in this case the CC BY-SA, requiring that your authorship of the photograph be acknowledged, a link to CC BY-SA be provided and any derivative works be licenced under CC BY-SA — none of which is required if the work is in the public domain. That French law allows copyright on faithful reproductions of two-dimensional works of art is a mistake that severely restricts the public domain, and we should be lobbying against it — but then who are we to tell others what to do when we're doing the exact same thing? P.S. Please kindly avoid bringing @Rama's oversight-ship on this project in this discussion, as it has absolutely nothing to do with his decisions on how to licence his works. odder (talk) 16:04, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

One aspect of the issue is indeed that it is the same thing; but from this perspective, absence of PD templates is no hindrance. In fact not only do we import files from outside that lack this template, but we disregard and treat with contempt notices that explicitly forbid us to do so.

In my idea, this is lobbying against the law: we are telling others that they are free to use our images in any case, but that if they do so without abiding with Free licences they are de facto supporting our argument. Since they very hardly ever do this forces them to confront the hypocrisy of their position. It is basically trolling them.

Incidentally, I will not oppose PD templates put on images in such cases if somebody feels they absolutely have to, but please do that properly: one should do not touch the licences of authors, ever. Rama (talk) 16:42, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Rama for those not aware (like me), which french law are you referencing that grants these rights? Offnfopt^(talk) 17:12, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

The law is the "Code de la propriété intellectuelle" [39], but the question is one of jurisprudance: what constitutes an original work (sufficient input to generate copyright); on this, the reference is Guide pratique du droit d'auteur by Anne-Laure Stérin. Rama (talk) 18:14, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Commons policy is Commons:When to use the PD-Art tag#Why do we allow the PD-Art tag to be used for photographs from any country?, and that is the same where Commons:Village pump#Image change request from the Prado Museum - Request for community input is about--Oursana (talk) 20:19, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

lol, edit warring over metadata. waiting for User:Rama to sue somebody for not abiding by SA. (i can imagine the wiki'splaining before the judge. but "as it has absolutely nothing to do with his decisions on how to licence his works." - it has everything to do with it, ideology run amuck in one area tends to undermine credibility in another. only a functionary could edit war to prove a point without getting taken to User problems. here's a compromise - how about PD-art-CC-by-SA ? Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 20:29, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Bonjour Rama, Ça va être un peu long. Si c'est TL, tu peux lire seulement l'introduction, où se trouve déjà l'idée essentielle, puis sauter directement à la fin.

I don't see a major problem. The template Licensed-PD-Art is made exactly to respect the copyright claim and the licenses of the photographer, while at the same time also respecting the policy of Wikimedia and of Commons and providing the relevant information about the copyright status of the original artwork. This clarification is also to the advantage of the photographer, because it explains and justifies why the photographer could make and publish his/her own reproduction. I will address separately your paragraphs in order:

• 1. You say "the WMF etc. consider that such claims are moot and refuses to honour them." -- Commons can't speak for the WMF (whose recent moves and switches from one declaration to the other may have been a bit hard to follow), but that is not how Commons understands and presents the position of the WMF, that is not what Commons says, and that is not what the template says. Commons informs its readers that the WMF's understanding of the legal situation in the United States is that reproductions of PD artworks are in the public domain in the United States. And that people in other countries must instead check what the legal situation is in the countries in question about this subject.
• 2. "the statement in question entails that when a museum publishes a 2D reproduction and claims copyright on it, we basically tell them something rude, take the image and publish it as Public Domain." -- If "we" means Commons, it's not what Commons does. That is what some individual users occasionally do, on Commons or on other projects, just as users occasionally do many other things that are not in line with the policies of Commons. For example, individual users on de.wikipedia made provocations there by claiming that reproductions were PD in Germany, whereas Commons warns its users that photographic reproductions are likely under copyright in Germany. I agree that the WMF's replies to REM-Mannheim were unnecessarily "rude", in that the WMF's replies were mostly beside the point and they sounded closed-minded compared with the limited expectations of REM, who basically complained that some of their files were presented on de.wikipedia as being PD in Germany without caveat. Expectations of REM which, interestingly, could have been partly met by ensuring that the tag Licensed-PD-Art was actually used prominently with their files on Commons and maybe made even more obvious. The attitude of the WMF with REM can be discussed, but it is not Commons and it is not a reason against the use of the template. Quite the opposite actually.
• 3. "this is completely different from the case of a Commonist publishing the image under a Free licence on the project" -- The basic situation is identical, be it a reproduction made by an external source or made by a Commons contributor. There is a reproduction on which the photographer claims a copyright. There was a discussion a few years ago, where the question was if Commons should forbid its users from claiming a copyright on such reproductions. The rationale was that users are free to do what they want outside Commons, but when they contribute to Commons, they are expected to accept the principles of Wikimedia. For example, outside Commons users can publish their own works with non-free licenses, but those works are not accepted on Commons. They would not meet the mission and principles of Wikimedia. Given that the WMF advocates that copyrights on reproductions of PD works should not exist, some users believe that allowing Commons users to upload their files with such claims might look inconsistent and would make more difficult to convince outside sources to not make such claims when Commons allows its own users to make them. That discussion did not decide anything, and the situation remains that the practice, by some contributors, of claiming copyrights on their reproductions of PD works is allowed, although it is frowned upon by some other users.
• 4. "There are in fact excellent reasons [...]". -- All the goals you mention in this paragraph are reached by the use of the template. They are only made explicit, and there are links to other resources, instead of being implicit and of being reserved to a few people.
• 5-a. "it does not improve usability over a Free licence" -- It makes usability clear. For example, in the case of the file linked in the question, people in the United States can know that they can make a derivative work without necessarily offering their own additional work under the same license.
• 5-b. "it changes nothing to the PD status of the image" -- It makes clear that the artwork is in the PD and for what reason it is, and it makes clear that the reproduction is not in the PD in some countries.
• 5-c. "[...] removing some of the Free licences while keeping others for no discernable reason (like Oursana did [...]" -- Oursana left both licenses, although not at the same place on the page. The reason would be that they did not use the best syntax in this particular case. IMO, a better syntax in this case would be {{Licensed-PD-Art|PD-old-100-1923|rawphotolicense={{self|CeCILL|Cc-by-sa-2.0-fr}}}} (By the way, is there a reason why you prefer to copy separately the wording of the template "Self" instead of transcluding that template?).

The template Licensed-PD-Art does this:

• I) It provides a place to insert the information about why (and if and where) the original artwork is considered to be in the public domain. This is information that Commons normally requires for all uploads that claim to be using something from the PD. Be it a PD photograph, a derivative of a PD image, a free-licensed photo of a PD 3-D work, or, as in this case, a free-licensed photo of a PD 2-D work. It justifies that the file is not a copyright violation. It allows readers and potential reusers to better know what they are dealing with, and to evaluate if they can use it or not. It would not be prudent to rely on the notion that "it is implicit". It may seem obvious to an uploader that a particular work he used is in the PD, but it's not obvious for all works on Commons and not to everybody. Depending on each case, the PD reason may not necessarily need to be stated with templates. I suppose it could be stated differently. Still, when templates exist, they can be useful. For photographs of 3-D works, the templates Art Photo or Licensed-PD can be useful to help the reader distinguish the status of the PD artwork from the status of the photograph. For photographs of 2-D works, one of the advantages of the template Licensed-PD-Art is similar.
• II) It provides a place to insert the licensing information by the photographer about the image.
• III) It warns potential reusers that although the reproduction is believed to be in the public domain in the United States, it is not so in some other countries (which means that in those cases it should be used with the license). It also provides links to resources for reusers who want to find more information.
• IV) It formats all the above information in a box and orders it in logical order so it is more easily readable and understandable. The standardized format also allows readers to compare more easily the statuses of different files since thing are presented the same way, instead of having to find what is where in the different pages.

It is a matter of clarity. There's no reason to leave ambiguity or conceal information. Clarity is good for everybody. However, I could see two reasons why a user might refuse to use the template. One is if the user thinks that there is something too poorly written in the template. Then the user should still try to convey the information in other words. The other reason is if the user disagrees with the notion that reproductions of PD works are in the public domain in the United States. I think it can be useful to format the information into the template. I agree that if a user really refuses the template after explanation, templates like this are not an obligation. -- Asclepias (talk) 01:44, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

•  Comment Hmmm; I've to agree with Odder and Asclepias. Further there is a lot of mistakes in Rama's arguments. 1. "this is completely different from the case of a Commonist publishing the image under a Free licence on the project." I had seen similar arguments earlier in many places like talks about attribution etc. No; Commons treats Wikimedians and other copyright holders in equal weights. There is no special preferences. We don't expect more credits when our works are used off-wiki than how they are used in wiki. I know many people disagree with me; but this is a mere fact. 2. "Licensed-PD-art does not improve usability over a Free licence." The licenses Rama used (CC BY SA- 2.0-fr, CeCILL) are much stricter license compared to PD/CC 0. So there is indeed a limitation. (There may not be a difference if the re-user is from France.) The edit by Oursana was not perfect as Asclepias. But it looks to me just because he don't know how to mention two licenses (CC BY SA- 2.0-fr and CeCILL) in Licensed-PD-Art. Jee 06:48, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks @Odder, @Asclepias and @e. Contributing for a GLAM project I learned to know this license, which is seldom used here on commons. I simply did not check, that the tl is not possible with two licenses. What about using the tl twice: {{Licensed-PD-Art|PD-old-100-1923|CC BY SA- 2.0-fr}}+{{Licensed-PD-Art|PD-old-100-1923|CeCILL}}.

My “changing"of the licensed is backed by Commons policy Commons:When to use the PD-Art tag#When should the PD-Art tag not be used? And as Asclepius puts it clearly the template in question does not deny or affect Rama's licensing, it just brings commons legal point of view, which is not adventurous at all into perspective which Rama's licensing neglects. I do not and never blamed Rama for his wrong licensing, neglecting that commons is not simply a french project and if one is uploading in an international project one has also to consider main jurisdictions. But I blame Rama for two things: first as Admin she should know and respect commons licensing policy and especially not offend other users especially visable in the edit-summary, whose action is expressively covered by commons policy. One should never offend other users, especially not when they are right. By using her lic tags she is pretending to have more rights in an merely two dimensional reproduction photo than she has in most jurisdictions concerning this project. And commons policy and my intention working for open knowledge is not to mislead other users as Rama's licensing obviously does. And even in France, Germany, Spain etc. Rama's point of view is disputable with good chances at all.--Oursana (talk)--Oursana (talk) 20:46, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

I am sorry I did not read the whole discussion above, but I would have replaced the license in that file with {{Licensed-PD-Art|PD-old-100-1923|rawphotolicense={{CeCILL}}{{Cc-by-sa-2.0-fr}}}}. --Jarekt (talk) 21:47, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

A slightly different variation is suggested above at paragraph 5-c, but yes, the comment was a bit long and it can be missed. -- Asclepias (talk) 22:16, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

 Comment I have edited the file page to use {{Art photo}}, which clearly separates the copyright status of the depicted work from that of the photograph. Hopefully this makes people happier. @Rama: @Asclepias: @Oursana: Revent^talk 16:49, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

• Revent, that template is for 3D arts. A photograph of 2D art can't claim such copyright. Jee 17:10, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

@Jkadavoor: {{Art photo}} itself doesn't make any copyright claim, and while it's normally used for 3D works, there's no reason to not use it here... all it does is separate the information into two different sections, and I didn't 'change' any of the claims made, deliberately. {{Art photo}} actually 'uses' {{Artwork}}, which is what was previously on the page, for information about the depicted work. People can still argue about if Rama's license is valid... it's just now more clearly separated. Revent^talk 17:20, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Images taken in museums by Commons Photographers should always be dually licenced. A license depicting the status of the artwork and a licence for the photography taken. What strikes me more, is the fact that Rama chooses to crop his image out of its frame. What a waste of effort! We are cropping images of scanned artwork out of their frames, because there is indeed a separate copyright issue inbetween the 2-D artwork of the painting and the 3-D artwork of the frame. That is the reason why for instance I go into museums to get the "whole picture" and make it available to the world on a CC-license. Because I believe the frame is an integral part of the artwork, because it shows how the artwork was to be presented to the viewer. So please Rama, I urge you. If you make the effort to go into museums to take photos, bring back the whole image. Because than you have also produced something, that you can genuienly lay a license claim to, that nobody will contest. --Wuselig (talk) 18:06, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Copyright reviewers needed for 991 British military medical and wartime photographs up for deletion

Example - Portrait in chalks of General George James Guthrie, founder of the Royal Westminster Ophthalmic Hospital; dated 1863.

I have raised Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Wellcome DR request for RAMC on behalf of the Wellcome Library against 991 images I uploaded in 2014. The copyright stated at the source has been corrected to CC-BY-NC-ND, but many of these photographs could be kept on Commons, so long as we have a stated copyright rationale based on age or subject, which confirms it to be copyright ineligible or public domain by age.

Help would be appreciated in chipping away at these historical value images, by volunteers with an understanding of UK copyright so we can make a determination of which must be deleted from Commons. It would be a mammoth task for one pair of eyes!

Keep in mind that the original project was a release of 100,000 interesting historical medical images from the Wellcome Library. With such large public releases with our most friendly GLAM partners, some later corrections are almost inevitable; so nice comments in the DR please as the Wellcome remain an important future partner for Commons and open knowledge. --Fæ (talk) 22:50, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Holy crap, Fae. Yeah, that's going to take a while. Revent^talk 17:12, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

August 27

Excessively specific categories?

Hi,

I notice that @ComputerHotline: has created a number of equipment-specific categories such as:-

• Category:Taken with Nikon D300 and Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC HSM + Hoya ND1000 filter + Hoya PRO1 Digital Circular Polarisation filters, a subcategory of
  • Category:Taken with Nikon D300 and Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC HSM + Hoya ND1000 filter + polarization filter, itself a subcategory of:-
    • Category:Taken with Nikon D300 and Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC HSM + Hoya ND1000 filter, itself a subcategory of:-
      • Category:Taken through Hoya ND1000 filter + Nikon D300, itself a subcategory of:-
        • ...well, I could keep going, but you get the picture.
      • Category:Taken with Nikon D300 and Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC HSM + ND1000 filter
      • Category:Nikon D300 and Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC HSM + Hoya ND1000 filter
    • Category:Taken with Nikon D300 and Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC HSM + polarization filter
  • Category:Nikon D300 and Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC HSM + Hoya ND1000 filter + Hoya PRO1 Digital Circular Polarisation filters
  • Category:Taken through Hoya PRO1 Digital Circular Polarisation filters + Nikon D300
  • Category:Taken with Nikon D300 and Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC HSM + Hoya PRO1 Digital Circular Polarisation filters

Even though those appear to be being used quite accurately (and the images they contain are of good quality), my personal feeling is that they're incredibly over-specific and over-complicated.

I've nothing against accurate and complete categorisation- in fact, I'm strongly in favour of it, provided that it's useful- but (IMHO) this level of detail and specificity does strike me as excessive and unwieldy and (were it to be applied consistently across Commons) completely unworkable.

Any thoughts?

Ubcule (talk) 13:21, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

• Categories like these does not make sense to me and I think they are not in line with our selectivity principle. If I may ask, does it mean if I take images of churches with Nikon D300 and images of mosques with the same camera, I can place the images on Category:Churches simply because they were taken with the same camera? Wikicology (talk) 14:48, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

While for example Category:Photographs with polarization filter or Category:Taken through ND400 filters could be useful and therefore make sense, Category:Taken with Nikon D300 and Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC HSM + Hoya ND1000 filter + Hoya PRO1 Digital Circular Polarisation filters is absolutely pointless. There is no realistic use for this information, but most of all it makes no sense to group together these images because the sum of these properties does not give any additional meaning to these images. IMHO these kind of categories should stop at "Category:Taken with camera and lens" and "Category:Taken through type of filter" wihout any further ramification about the brand of the filter (pointless) or the combination of camera+lens+filter+tripod+hood+picture_style+postprocessing etc. If Category:Photographs with polarization filter will become too crowded, than we can use subcategories that make sense relative to the parent category. I mean for example:

• Category:Photographs with polarization filter of landscapes
• Category:Photographs with polarization filter of water surfaces
• Category:Photographs with polarization filter of glass surfaces
• Category:Photographs with polarization filter of subjects behind reflective surfaces

Basilicofresco (msg) 15:57, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

@Basilicofresco: From that, I assume that you could be okay with (e.g.) Category:Hoya filters and Category:ND filters but not Category:Hoya ND filters?

Even that (IMHO) might be justified for the more specialised filters (e.g. diffraction effects) that were specific to one manufacturer, but Category:Hoya ND1000 filter is already getting too overcategorised for my taste and that doesn't even come close to the examples I gave above...! Ubcule (talk) 16:50, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

@Wikicology:  ; If it's not a church, I would assume that it can't go in Category:Churches. While I disagree with the category structure under discussion, I don't see that following its rationale would lead to the conclusion you describe.

I'm not entirely sure that the "selectivity principle" is being violated either (though I'm not entirely clear on that that means even after reading the link provided).

However, it *does* appear to violate the "simplicity principle". Ubcule (talk) 16:45, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

I agree: it could be ok with more specialised filters but the problem here is that an image taken with a Kenko ND1000 filter does not look enough different from an image taken with an Hoya ND1000 filter. Moreover to be honest Category:Taken through ND4 filters probably does not require Category:ND4 filter because do not exist pictures of actual ND4 filters. That category tree is a maze for no reason, we have to simplify it. -- Basilicofresco (msg) 17:33, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

I agree entirely that it needs simplified. While we might be debating a few metres' difference in where one draws the line, I think we're both in agreement that this specific case is quite clearly several miles over the wrong side of it regardless! Ubcule (talk) 19:27, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

I think will be better to not use such details until we'll have local Wikidata. Then equipment property could be used to enumerate all gear. --EugeneZelenko (talk) 14:10, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

We don't even need Wikidata to get round the problem that this is a (misguided) solution for.

We simply need an improved (and more advanced) search facility so that a user can perform an "AND" search on the several categories that each embody one of the desired attributes (e.g. the category covering neutral density filters, the category covering that specific camera model, etc.)

There are, of course, cases where it makes sense to combine attributes, such as Category:Churches in Russia. But cases like that are generally obvious when we consider how overstuffed the parent category would be without them, and/or what suggests itself as being useful in the context of the subject.

Ubcule (talk) 14:40, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

@Ubcule: Such searches are currently possible, actually, using the "incategory" filter of the search engine. Take a look at mediawikiwiki:Help:CirrusSearch. Revent^talk 17:31, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Also mentioned at Commons:Categories_for_discussion/2016/08/Category:Taken_with_Nikon_D300_and_Sigma_10-20mm_F4-5.6_EX_DC_HSM_+_Hoya_ND1000_filter_+_Hoya_PRO1_Digital_Circular_Polarisation_filters in order to generate further discussion and feedback. Ubcule (talk) 14:21, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Commons:Categories for discussion/2016/08/Category:Uploaded with UploadWizard

Hi. Since this CFD is regarding one of the most populated categories on Commons, I am cross posting here for wider reach. Rehman 13:07, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Automatically categorise images from EXIF?

Is it a future possibility to automatically categorise images based on their EXIF data? I'm a little bored of manually filling out "Taken with Canon EOS 6D" etc. when I upload files, yet I appreciate being able to go to, say, "Category:Taken with Canon EOS 6D" and look at others' images taken with that camera. Automatically populating these camera, lens, exposure etc. categories would also make them a lot more complete. Thanks -- Thennicke (talk) 13:54, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

@Thennicke: User:BotAdventures does this task, but does not normally add files to well-populated categories. Revent^talk 17:36, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Creator:László Josef Willinger

How do I edit the categories? I added the Wikidata, so now no need to be in the category for "no wikidata". --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 22:30, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

• Convenience link Creator:László Josef Willinger - Jmabel ! talk 00:39, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
• I'm confused. I don't see P1472 at wikidata:Q550579. I see the Commons Category (P373). Not sure if I'm the one missing something here or Richard is, so I'm not taking any action until that's clarified. - Jmabel ! talk 00:43, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Fixed I added Commons Creator page (P1472) to wikidata:Q550579. I am working on a way to do it for all the files in Category:Creator templates with Wikidata link: item missing P1472. --Jarekt (talk) 02:31, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

August 29

Creator red text

At Creator:Osborne Theomun Olsen the occupation appears in red text because the occupation does not appear in Template:Occupation/en, can someone add it. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 17:06, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

 Done. Wikicology (talk) 19:32, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Wikicology, you actually didn’t – or did not solve it the way Richard intended. By the way: “decorator” already existed in the occupation list, cf. in Special:Diff/204889749/204899332 the line below the deleted one. Richard, if you are still keen on using china decorator, you should request this (and perhaps also porcelain decorator) in Template talk:Occupation/en, and do not forget the magic string {{editrequest}}. — Speravir_Talk – 22:52, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

I think 'porcelain artist' is a better description, but, yes, just make an edit request on the talk page. Revent^talk 17:10, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

It is too much work to find an admin to add a new occupation to the locked list, so I will find something similar. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 22:33, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, Richard, but this is not true. See the requests on the linked talk page or in its archive. — Speravir_Talk – 17:09, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Set camera date and time

I created a {{Set camera date and time}} template which i missed. However, I'm not familiar enough with English as well as with programming. Please improve and translate the template if you can and want. --ŠJů (talk) 14:18, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-35

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

• Wikimedia mobile sites now don't load images if the user doesn't see them. This is to save mobile data and make the pages load faster. [40]
• When you edit a table with the visual editor, pressing Tab in the last cell of a row will take you to the first cell in the next row. Pressing Shift and Tab in the first cell of a row will take you to the last cell in the previous row. [41]

Changes this week

• The name of the "Save page" button will change. The button will say "Publish page" when you create a new page. It will say "Publish changes" when you change an existing page. [42][43]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 30 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 31 August. It will be on all wikis from 1 September (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 30 August at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topic this week is "RfC: image and oldimage tables". The meeting will be on 31 August at 21:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

15:59, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

What to trust in bot upload

I'm wondering whether there is any reason to believe File:StateLibQld 1 170571 Shandon (ship).jpg belongs in Category:Ships of Australia? It appears to be the same ship as File:British three-masted bark SHANDON at anchor, Washington, ca 1900 (HESTER 829).jpeg, which is described as "British" in an archive that looks to me to be pretty well curated. I suspect that the attribution of country in the former was just because the bot that uploaded it was uploading from an Australian archive. - Jmabel ! talk 04:02, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Further: I'm pretty sure both are the Shandon built at Glasgow in 1883, as depicted at http://digital.slv.vic.gov.au/view/action/nmets.do?DOCCHOICE=81088.xml&dvs=1472443420544~623&locale=en_US&search_terms=&adjacency=&VIEWER_URL=/view/action/nmets.do?&DELIVERY_RULE_ID=4&divType=&usePid1=true&usePid2=true and http://www.clydesite.co.uk/clydebuilt/viewship.asp?id=16629. - Jmabel ! talk 04:07, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Mass bot uploads should have {{Check categories}} template in my opinion. MKFI (talk) 07:39, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

I've noticed a lot of those Queensland Library images have Category:Ships of Australia even if the ship depicted is obviously not from Australia. BMacZero (talk) 22:31, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

The bot presumably just works with what it finds on the source page, which in this case doesn't include any location information. Presumably it's assuming that every ship is "in Queensland" and "of Australia". Who knows what the success rate of that is, @John Vandenberg: ? --ghouston (talk) 00:01, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Taiwaneese

When I [request that someone] move a file, a nice long overview of reasons for moving files comes up, which includes this note:

"A file like "File:Taiwaneese Tiaoyutai islands map.png" would be acceptable on Commons, even though it is not neutrally titled (see here)."

So, files can describe some islands somewhere as pertaining to Taiwan, fine by me... but shouldn't "Taiwaneese" be spelled "Taiwanese"? Based on how very few times it's used in Google Books (and based on how many of the books that use that spelling also use "Taiwanese", suggesting the less-frequent occurrences of "-eese" are typos), "-eese" seems to be a misspelling rather than an alternative spelling. Template:File renaming reasons seems to be the source of the text. -sche (talk) 18:56, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

It should be changed, of course. You can ask at Commons:Administrator noticeboard. Ruslik (talk) 20:36, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

I've fixed Template:File_renaming_reasons/i18n. I don't know if there is anywhere else it may need to be fixed. - Jmabel ! talk 15:19, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

It should be marked for translation. Ruslik (talk) 19:27, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Subjects by backgrounds

Hi everyone. I've realized there is no homogeneous choice in the "by background" categories. For instance within Category:Animals by background we can find categories "with xxx background" and categories "on xxx background". Wouldn't it be a good idea to choose only one expression ? And which one to choose ? --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 20:41, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

• I think either would be equally acceptable. Probably a task for the Delinker. - Jmabel ! talk 15:07, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

August 30

Please let us know what you think of the Pattypan uploader!

Hello Everyone,

The Pattypan uploader written by Yarl has been around for a little over 3 months. Over 2500 files were uploaded so far – thank you! Recently the version 0.3 was released with some major improvements. We'd like to know your thoughts on Pattypan's functionality and potential, and have put together a 5-minute survey. Feel free to fill in only selected fields, or fields relevant to you; but do let us know! We'll get back to you on the results, or future developments. Thanks to all in advance! --Marta Malina Moraczewska (talk) 11:48, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

International Paella Contest in Sueca / Concurs Internacional de Paella de Sueca

There is a Wiki Takes prepared to get images of Sueca and its international paella contest, next September 11th. Some free places are still available, so you can join us here.
B25es (talk) 15:05, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Template:POTD bnwiki

I just saw this template on a file and find it a bit unusual as it is not translatable and it doesn't have lot of similar ones. Don't we have any replacement for it? −ebrahim^talk 18:59, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Templates Derivative versions and Image extracted

When I used CropTool i realize that using the format <gallery> is better.

• See vrasion A by the tool using {{Derivative versions}}.
• See version B using <gallery>.

Which one of the options looks better? I believe the second one using <gallery>.
Now, according to my suggestion {{Derivative versions}} replaced with {{Image extracted}} which make it better but still using <gallery> looks to me much better. I suggest to change both {{Derivative versions}} and {{Image extracted}} to <gallery> format. -- Geagea (talk) 21:45, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Using {{Derivative versions}} seems more appropriate when dealing with derivative versions. Perhaps the formatting of the template output could be improved by embedding a gallery inside it. --ghouston (talk) 23:50, 30 August 2016 (UTC) Likewise for {{Image extracted}}. --ghouston (talk) 00:03, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

August 31

Category sort of files

It was my impression that category listings sort the files in the categories, and show you the first 200. But Category:Distribution of wealth has three files that are bizarrely sorted. File:Distribution of Wealth in the Czech Republic.svg comes towards the beginning and File:Distribution of Wealth in the Netherlands.svg and File:Distribution of Wealth in the United Kingdom.svg come towards the end. Any reason? Delphi234 (talk) 00:35, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

That's the default, but files can be given individual sort keys. The first of those is Distribution of wealth|Czech Republic, the last is Distribution of wealth|United Kingdom. --ghouston (talk) 00:46, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Europabus

Looking at this image I remember that there used to be a Europabus network. I dont find a lot of information accept that this is mixed upp with Eurolines. I have updated en:Eurolines a bit with wat I found, but its confusing: Was Europabus rebranded into Eurolines? Could someone with bushistory knowledge clarify?Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:27, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

The Danish railway magazine Jernbanen actually has a short article about Europabus in no. 3/2016. According to the article 11 West European railway companies founded a tourist bus co-operation named "Union Internationale des services routiers des Chemins de fer européens" (URF) in 1950. The name Europabus was used for marketing together with a common timetable, logo, and standards for the buses. The concept became quite succesfull with 119 lines in 1962, including 77 to popular tourist spots, 22 roundtrips and 20 to special resorts. In the following years the tourists however begun using travel company trains, private bus companies or their own cars. According to the article it ended after the oil crisis in 1973. How the later fit with your picture from 1981 I don't know, but perhaps it was just the Danish part which ended then. --Dannebrog Spy (talk) 14:14, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

I suspect that the connection tot the railway compagnies was stopped in 1973, but the Europabus operation was big business and continued under national Europabus concessions and where taken over by other compagnies. For example: http://www.volkskrant.nl/archief/arke-hi-krijgt-met-belgische-europabus-greep-op-busmarkt~a399476/.

The organization existed in the early 1980s (see national archives) I suspect the buscompagnies/touroperator replaced it in 1985 with the Eurolines network.Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:02, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

More information on the beginperiod is found in https://pure.tue.nl/ws/files/3288422/200811607.pdf (very usefull source), https://www.ruor.uottawa.ca/bitstream/10393/20196/3/Sherwood_Dana_Whitney_2011_thesis.pdf and http://archive.commercialmotor.com/article/21st-august-1964/34/new-europabus-link-from-munich-to-istanbul.Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:11, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Dutch article nl:Europabus (Q26722323) now created.Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:15, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Error in automatic completion of translations

I suppose the template template:VN used for biological species gathers data from the wikilinks or wikidata. I was trying to know why Gallinula chloropus links to ES states es:Euskalduna (which is not Spanish, but Basque language) with link and Polla de agua without link and sends to es:Gallinula chloropus. Any technical help or guess? Sobreira (parlez) 11:40, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

This is really question about Module:Wikidata4Bio. Ruslik (talk) 20:28, 31 August 2016 (UTC)