Commons:Village pump/Archive/2020/03

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New video tool

I am trying to help out Doc James with a request here, but I do not feel that I know enough about how to edit the sidebar to do this myself. Could someone help?--Sphilbrick (talk) 16:28, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

How to avoid that after adding Structured data to a file that the file comes on my watchlist

I experienced that after adding structured data to a file the file comes on my watchlist. I have not seen in the preferences an option to avoid that. How can I switch this off? Wouter (talk) 16:27, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Did you try turn of adding pages after edit to watch list at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-watchlist? --GPSLeo (talk) 22:18, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
screenshot
As far as I know I did not turn that on. Wouter (talk) 10:27, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Does this video comply to Commons standards?

Just stumbled upon File:Vegan Witnesses INSANE Halal Slaughter.webm which makes me wonder if this is supported by the Wikimedia community. It's not the slaughtering itself that I find unsettling, but rather the comments, both spoken and written, and the video's title. In my opinion the entire video has a clear POV and makes sure to convey it with a good portion of drama. The question is: Is this just a statement against eating animals which Wikimedia is a good place to host, or is it more like political propaganda? I'm honestly not sure. What do you think? --Till (talk) 19:59, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

@Till.niermann: Well, personal thoughts, I worked in and around a slaughter house once upon a time as a teenager, and I wish he hadn't blurred out the actual slaughter, since that's the more educational bit about how the process is actually done, even if it's graphic. Second, I highly doubt all the music in this video is properly freely licensed, and if it is, there doesn't seem to be any obvious indication. So at the very least, we may need to delete entirely or redact large parts of the audio. Other than that, I mean, some bits could be remixed and repurposed for purely educational content, at least on the halal slaughtering process. Whether the video as a whole is useful for anything other than source material for reusers? Not clear. But video's are different in that they can be used and remixed for source material for people who want to make other videos, and their educational usefulness isn't necessarily only as a "whole work". GMGtalk 22:11, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Importing portraits of french kings and queens

Hello,

I downloaded in bulk paintings from this french website: https://regards.monuments-nationaux.fr/fr/asset/fullTextSearch/search/HLW19-0089%20/page/1

I uploaded them to https://github.com/lovasoa/regards.monuments-nationaux.fr

These are 2D reproductions of 2D artworks whose author is dead since the 17th century.

Would there be an interest in uploading them to wikimedia commons ?

--Lovasoa (talk) 20:26, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

@Lovasoa: If you can upload them with good metadata, and if they are not images we already have, then absolutely. For example, on the source site I see information (in French) like
  • Titre : Charles VI le Bien-Aimé
  • Légende : Portrait situé dans la galerie des Rois.
  • Crédit(s) photographique(s) : © Reproduction Hervé Lewandowski / Centre des monuments nationaux
  • Auteur(s) de l'oeuvre photographiée : Anonyme
I don't see equivalent metadata on your Github site, but maybe it's there somewhere and I missed it.
User:Fæ is probably our most experienced person about doing bulk uploads like this. - Jmabel ! talk 00:59, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Do we still need bureaucrats?

As 1989 raised this at Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems#Jameslwoodward we should perhaps discuss this.

Bureaucrats in practice do pretty much this:

They can't and don't revoke admin bits, that requires a steward. Promoting admins is sometimes also already done by stewards. Granting and revoking bot flags, account creator yadda yadda I see no reason why admins can't handle that. And the same goes for closing requests for adminship/de-adminship.

Allowing admins to promote admins could bear some security and even legal issues (related to the undelete right, DMCA, etc), so it's probably better to leave that to stewards. All this being said: I don't really see what we need bureaucrats for. They haven't had any major authority for years and there is no technical reason to have them around anymore either from what I can tell. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 13:57, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

The current system works just fine. I'd rather limit the changing of these rights to a limited number of people, than to all administrators. It doesn't appear broken so no need to try to fix it. Multichill (talk) 16:08, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
I'm with Multichill here. I'd like to maintain some sense of community autonomy. Can stewards do all the things 'crats can do? Sure. Do I want to relegate those things to them? No. No I do not. As a side note, 'crats are the only ones that can grant/revoke int admin as well. --Majora (talk) 16:20, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
@Majora: for everyone who's scratching their head (like I did for a minute): int admin means interface admin. Well, granting admin and interface admin would be relegated to stewards in this case, but those aren't very common. I did think about the autonomy argument, but realistically, if we can't trust stewards anymore we're totally screwed anyway, bureaucrats or not. And if stewards would really fail us, bureaucrats could be reinstated at any time. And as a community, I think we'd become more autonomous in a way when admins can grant/revoke bot flags/gwtoolset/etc without bureaucrats. All this would be far less of an issue if our bureaucrats actually were a group of our most experienced, active and trusted users. For most of our bureaucrats, you can pick one or maybe two of those things. I'd totally trust Zhuyifei1999 with handing out bot flags, much more than [insert random bureaucrat]. I'd trust you, GreenMeansGo and Natuur12 (to name a few) easily over Jameslwoodward to close a contentious RfA. (see below) But none of you are bureaucrats. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 17:11, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
I agree with Majora in that we should maintain some local autonomy here. Bureaucrats in theory here could also resolve very contentious RfAs that fall between majority and supermajority support. Abzeronow (talk) 16:34, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
Uh no, they can’t. 1989 (talk) 16:42, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
@1989: can you elaborate on what you're referring to? I took a look, I think I'm counting 29 support votes (but I may have miscounted myself) instead of 28 and that last oppose vote from a renamed user seems dodgy, so perhaps there are only 11 oppose votes instead of 12. That would change the support percentage to 72.5%, still not enough. Or is some possible inaccuracy what you were pointing at? - Alexis Jazz ping plz 17:24, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
I’m referring to the closure (and yes, it is 29). Per COM:A#Voting, it could of ended with determining consensus instead of vote count, unfortunately however it didn’t. 1989 (talk) 17:32, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
@Abzeronow: In theory. After what Jameslwoodward did on that UDR, I wouldn't trust him to close a contentious RFA ever. You see the discussion that resulted from a supervote on a simple UDR. Do that on a contentious RfA and it'll be WW3. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 17:11, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
Yes, which is why I said "in theory". A 'crat chat if a RfA is between 65-75% support would be more transparent than giving one bureaucrat a wide amount of discretion in determining if there was consensus to promote, but status quo of 75% and over works too. Abzeronow (talk) 18:04, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
I am happier having Bureaucrats available as a group. Over the past decade Wikimedia Commons has effectively given away authority to OTRS and Stewards in various ways. A significant area where 'crats have a role is in dealing with recurring issues of the authority of the WMF, governance issues with the administrator group, such as handling any supermario effect, and being the obvious role for closing difficult and potentially project strategy or scope changing RfCs.
Refining and reforming the 'crat role is something to be encouraged, while at the same time discussions about other roles would be equally healthy for the long term life of the project. -- (talk) 22:59, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Upload does not copy GPS

I upload photos to Commons with GPS coordinates, but I have just noticed that upload has stopped copying them. Files uploaded up to 25 May 2019 such as File:Heyshott Down (1).jpg have them. I then temporarily stopped unloading until 28 October, and files uploaded after that do not have coordinates. For example none are shown for File:Bray Meadows (1).jpg, even though they are on the copy on my computer. Can anyone advise how to solve the problem (apart from doing each one manually, which would be very time consuming) or sort out the problem. Dudley Miles (talk) 22:31, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

If you scroll down on the file description pages of the 2 files you have mentioned you will find the section metadata, click on "show extended detail". You will see the exif-data of the files as interpreted by the upload software. On the first file there is a long listing including gps position. On the second file there is a short listing without GPS. The exif shows also that both fotos were taken with a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ60 camera. This camera has a 18MP sensor, but both files were uploaded with 640x480 pixels = 0.03MP. Obviously you edited both files down by a factor of 600 in the first case keeping the GPS and in the second case loosing it, so that it was never uploaded to commons. --C.Suthorn (talk) 23:26, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
Thanks but I do not understand. I did not edit the files and the second one still has the GPS on the file on my computer which I uploaded. All the files I have checked have the GPS on the copy I uploaded but not on the copy on Commons. Dudley Miles (talk) 23:40, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
  • "No higher resolution available." Why are the images so small, are you uploading thumbnails? Heyshott_Down_(1).jpg ‎640 × 480 pixels, file size: 176 KB, that is an image size from a camera 20 years ago, or a thumbnail to preview the photo. Is it a 20 year old camera? Or have you set the image size in the camera that small to maximize what can fit in the memory? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 02:17, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
  • My camera switches for reasons I do not understand between large and small image sizes, but it does not make any difference to whether GPS coordinates are shown. File:Mills Rocks (2).jpg is 5810 KB and File:Mills Rocks (3).jpg 163 KB. They were uploaded on 5 May 2019 and both have GPS. Should I try to find out how to always use the large file size? It is far more trouble to upload as the upload wizard gives an error if I try to upload more than one large file at a time. Dudley Miles (talk) 12:05, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Yes you should try to always upload with maximal resolution (with your camera 18MP). @CJackel (WMF) and RIsler (WMF): This is rediculous: I can upload 10 files with 200MB each (webm) with the UploadWizard today, another user may quit commons because he cannot upload two files wiht 8MB each. The UploadWizard needs to be fixed and the WMF needs to make this the top priority. If actually the Wizard cuts parts of the EXIF from some files and not other files this is even more severe. The Wizardd is the one feature of commons that absolutly needs to be functioning at all time. --C.Suthorn (talk) 21:35, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

@Dudley Miles: this could be phab:T240509TheDJ (talkcontribs) 23:29, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks TheDJ. I am glad to see that the problems with the wizard are already being dealt with. CJackel (WMF) there also seems to be a decline in functionality with "View this and other nearby images on: OpenStreetMap" I am finding far fewer nearby images and most are missing. E.g. clicking on it on File:Footbridge at the eastern end of Heath Lake - geograph.org.uk - 773404.jpg does not find File:Heath Lake near Crowthorne - geograph.org.uk - 696189.jpg and vice versa. In each case the map shows only one image in the area even though there are several with GPS coordinates nearby. Dudley Miles (talk) 10:48, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
Dudley Miles, unfortunately, I'm just the strategy liaison for german language and am not really involved in the tech department, so I won't be able to report your comment properly. What I can do (and have already done) is to raise wareness for a better handling of functionality problems in the future. Regards --CJackel (WMF) (talk) 13:23, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Photo challenge January results

Rural decay: EntriesVotesScores
Rank 1 2 3
image
Title Бабушкин дом]]] Hammer und Sichel, ehemalige UdSSR,
heutiges Kirgistan
An abandoned village in Kaiping, China
Author Александр Водолазский Benjamin Goetzinger Mx. Granger
Score 14 13 11
Fruit: EntriesVotesScores
Rank 1 2 3
image
Title Heidelbeeren auf dem Zweig. Aufgenommen im sächsischen Wald. Deutschland. Strawberry half Grapes on a balcony in Germany
Author Kora27 5snake5 Ermell
Score 22 15 11

Congratulations to Александр Водолазский, Benjamin Goetzinger, Mx. Granger, Kora27, 5snake5 and Ermell. -- Jarekt (talk) 04:19, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia's: Family Agyriaceae & Family Trapeliaceae have the same list of species

that's it...make a choice & explain. <elraywms@gmail.com>

How can I massively download all pdf/djvu files from category?

From Category:文淵閣四庫全書史部, Category:續修四庫全書史部 and its sister categories? MBH 19:49, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

@MBH: Imker is a tool that downloads any file (djvu, pdf or otherwise) from a given category. Cheers   • hugarheimur 05:41, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

What Images Are Wanted ?

I'm a bit confused about what images are sought and on what basis to make that judgement. For example, I've taken a load of photos of more obscure temples at Bagan (Myanmar) which I would assume could be useful though would not have immediate requirements in Wikis but would make the repository more "complete". Whereas I assume Commons is already swamped by pictures of e.g. Machu Picchu (so as I doubt my own efforts are significantly different, I assume uploading them would just waste disk space).

When there is no immediate need for use in a Wiki article, what criteria should be used to decide about uploading (or not uploading) images? Or should images only be uploaded when needed for use within a Wiki?

(I've done a search but could not find an answer to my uncertainty) PsamatheM (talk) 18:35, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Hey PsamatheM. The full answer is at Commons:Scope, but in a nutshell, Commons accepts images that are 1) freely licensed and 2) educationally useful. While part of our mission is to house media for use by our sister project like Wikipedia, we also house content for any future use on these projects, and also for the general public. So while it is important that the content be useful, it's not necessary that every file have an immediate use, but only potential use.
Generally speaking, images of prominent buildings like temples are normally within Commons' scope, are would be especially wanted if we don't currently have any at all. GMGtalk 18:56, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
Yes, these would be useful, but for heaven's sake make sure the file has clear information of the subject, and is put in the correct category (creating new ones if needed). We have between 1-2 thousand images of Machu Picchu and only a few hundred in Category:Buddhist buildings in Bagan, but note how there are 237 in Category:Unidentified Buddhist temples in Bagan and 111 in Category:Unnamed Buddhist temples in Bagan - much less likely be of any use. Johnbod (talk) 22:12, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
Bagan was an example, as I seemed to have visiting loads of deserted temples round SE Asia. All are thoroughly titled and geotagged and good resolution 20MP. I didn't intend to upload my pics of Machu Picchu as I'd assumed you have far more than enough already - the two places were examples of more extremes. I'll be doing it gradually as I process the originals and if I get the categories wrong hopefully people will correct and point out so subsequent ones will be done correctly. PsamatheM (talk) 22:20, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
You do not need to upload Machu Picchu images, if it is to time consuming for you. But there is no "to many images". Your images of Machu Picchu might cover an aspect that is not covered by all other images. For example a place might be vandalized at some time or destroyed by an earth quake. If something like that happens, your images would document the situation at a specific time (before or after a place changed). --C.Suthorn (talk) 05:41, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
There is a cost for every image uploaded; it takes time to categorize, update templates, makes categories larger and harder to search through. It may, paradoxically, reduce the number of images searched through for a Wikipedia page; a user might look through 100 images, but stick to looking through QI and other Wikipedia pages rather than look through a thousand images. Not to mention that we are deleting images every day of people who might be notable in the future, which seem as likely to be useful as the thousandth image of the same thing.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:45, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
I would support C.Suthorn's suggestion that we should not be dismissive of uploading more images of Machu Picchu, depending on their content. There are only 11 images in Category:Inca bridge, Machu Picchu and only Category:Temple of the Moon, Machu Picchu. On the other hand, we're probably well covered with the 339 images in Category:Views of Machu Picchu with Huayna Picchu in the background. Similarly, we have an enormous number of images of the Eiffel Tower, but not so many of the Category:Chimney of the Eiffel Tower or the Category:Spire of the Eiffel Tower. In short, the usefulesss of the content may have less to do with location than with focus. - Themightyquill (talk) 08:06, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
I would like to add that I am under the impression that specifically user PsmatheM is likely to carefully categorize their uploads. --C.Suthorn (talk) 14:20, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
PsamatheM has good intent, recognises (even for personal home work) that unsorted, untitled, uncategorised work is often wasted, will attempt but may get it wrong and require pointing in the right direction ... That said, in the past I've been lazy about some categories e.g. the "Taken with Sony DSC-RX100 VI" category - partly laziness (I can't see many people desperately searching on such a tag) and partly because there seems to be a bot running round adding such tags based on EXIF data. PsamatheM (talk) 16:29, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Unofficial logos

Never used by Microsoft as far as I know

What to do with logos like this? The uploader, Codename Lisa has admitted to adding the colors herself.

My suggestion is to remove the logo from any mainspace articles it is used in and rename the file to "Unofficial Windows logo variant - 2002–2012 (Multicolored).svg" without leaving a redirect. Any wiki who re-adds the logo after that is on their own.

I'm throwing it in here before taking action because this might be controversial. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 08:35, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

On second thoughts, while none of userboxes etc. that use it appear to be protected, I would move it while leaving a redirect initially. After I can verify no wiki uses the redirect I'd request deletion of the redirect by an admin. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 08:49, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
I generally think it's a good idea to be extra clear when we have fictional flags and logos, so I would support adding "unofficial" or "derivative" to the file name. Another similar image by the same author (File:Windows logo - 2012 derivative.svg) already does as much. - Themightyquill (talk) 08:58, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
I would honestly just replace the uses and start a regular DR. Sebari – aka Srittau (talk) 18:38, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
@Srittau: it's used in a bunch of userboxes and I don't think there is a suitable alternative (with the same pretty colors) because both multicolor versions are unofficial. All the official multicolor logos have complex shading etc that push them over the TOO. As nobody really opposed (you would just go one step further), I'll carry out my original plan. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 10:43, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
@Themightyquill and Srittau: I did it, glad I left a redirect because shit is broken. Replacing usage with my own account didn't work, perhaps it was skipped entirely because too many pages are using it. (mostly through a couple templates, but the renaming gadget doesn't know that) I'm looking at a jquery spinner that will never stop with the message "Instructing CommonsDelinker to replace this file". Underlying that I see this:
"Error: Error while asking CommonsDelinker to replace Windows logo - 2002–2012 (Multicolored).svg with Unofficial Windows logo variant - 2002–2012 (Multicolored).svg Reason: API request failed (protectedpage): This page has been protected to prevent editing or other actions. Help: You can request an edit to 'User:CommonsDelinker/commands' at COM:AN (the Administrators’ noticeboard). at Thu, 05 Mar 2020 13:16:18 GMT served by mw1235"
Can't you just change the protection level for User:CommonsDelinker/commands to allow filemovers? - Alexis Jazz ping plz 13:26, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Best mechanism to request an image be moved to en

What is the best way to request an image be moved from Commons to en.wikipedia.org? There are a sizable number of images that are mistakenly uploaded or moved to Commons from en that are acceptable at en but not at Commons e.g., images used under fair use. It seems like a waste of volunteer time to simply delete those images from Commons and force another volunteer to go find and reupload that image to en. Is there perhaps a template that can be added to the deletion discussions of these images that will automatically move or copy the image to en (or other language wikipedias, too)? ElKevbo (talk) 17:18, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

{{Request fair use delete}} looks like what you want, but it looks like the underlying bot is not active? @: whose bot it is. DMacks (talk) 17:38, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
Automation is indefinitely parked. It would mean reopening the request on en.wp and probably depend on me becoming a sysop unless someone with sysop access sorts it out. -- (talk) 18:11, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
I recall trying to figure this out a couple years ago but never found a good solution. But I agree that automation would be really nice, albeit rarely used. - Themightyquill (talk) 07:31, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Speedy deletion

Hi,

How quickly does "speedy deletion" normally work? I am a bit surprised to see a file that has been categorized for speedy deletion on March 6 still online. As far as I can tell, it's a pretty clear case, with the name of the copyright holder (the photographer) and the information "Urheberrechtsstatus: Geschützt" (copyright status: protected) in the EXIF data. --87.150.4.146 18:04, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

✓ Done. --Achim (talk) 18:37, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Thanks! --87.150.4.146 19:27, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Speravir 04:24, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

"Invalid license tags"

I added two new images and am getting "invalid license tag" errors. The tag used is Template:PD-author, which as far as I am aware is valid - though I did notice it wouldn't work within the accompanying NHHC template. Could somebody please look at these files and explain where things are going wrong? The files are File:Somerset (1863 steamship).jpg and File:Allegany (1863 steamship).jpg. Thanks, Gatoclass (talk) 00:12, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Update: it seems the software doesn't like the NHHC template for some reason, because if I remove it, the error is cleared, but again so far as I am aware the NHHC template is valid so I still don't understand what is going wrong. Gatoclass (talk) 00:28, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

I believe {{PD-author}} is to be used in only cases where the author explicitly releases their work into the public domain, e.g. by contractual agreement with a museum or other declaration (there are no usage guidelines on the template page however, so confusion is inevitable). Is there evidence that Erik Heyl did this? If the work is in fact PD, different rationale may be needed, such as {{PD-US-no notice}} or {{PD-US-not renewed}}. The fact that a work of art is hosted on a US Navy website, or photocopied by a Federal employee or officer, does not in itself make something PD via {{PD-USGov}}. It looks like at least two volumes of Heyl's Early American Steamers are considered public domain by HathiTrust, possibly via failure to renew copyright, but sufficient evidence should be supplied or linked-to to justify any license or PD-template. --Animalparty (talk) 01:36, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
Animalparty, the NHHC source pages specifically state Courtesy of Erik Heyl,[1][2] which surely can only mean that Heyl gave his permission to have them published by the NHHC. The NHHC website additionally states that all images on its website are public domain except those which include information in the copyright section,[3] and there is no copyright section on the Heyl images, which means they are public domain.
Regardless, it wasn't my intention in starting this thread to haggle over which might be the most appropriate tag. The point here is that I uploaded the images with what is supposed to be a valid tag, and the software for some reason is tagging them as invalid. What I'm asking for is an explanation as to why the software has decided a valid tag is invalid, and also why the tag won't work with the NHHC template, that's all. Gatoclass (talk) 02:31, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
Looking at the template code at {{NHHC}}, it is expecting you to nest the licence within the template. For example {{NHHC|license=PD-old}}. However, I can't see a way to nest {{PD-author|Erik Heyl}}; you can get PD-author to nest but it immediately generates a warning template to say that the author's name is missing. If the licence isn't nested, it will apply the Category:Invalid license tags. From Hill To Shore (talk) 02:58, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
Yes, that's what it looks like to me too From Hill To Shore, but then somebody needs to fix the NHHC template so that it takes copyright tags which themselves take parameters. Gatoclass (talk) 03:56, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
If a search for copyright registrations indeed fails to find evidence of renewal, then {{NHHC |id= |url= |license=PD-US-not renewed}} might be most appropriate, and may eliminate the problems with nesting too many templates into one. I have no serious doubts that the images are in the Public Domain, but as stewards of free media, we should do our due diligence to credibly indicate why an item is free, even if the immediate source does not (US Government archives don't have the best track record of rationale justification, see Commons:Batch uploading/NPGallery). PD-author would be appropriate only if Mr. Heyl made a public proclamation that his work is forever in the public domain to anyone in the world. PD-author invokes active release into the public domain, while other rationale may involve passive release (an author dying 70+ years ago does not rise from the grave to release their media freely, rather it may fall under {{PD-old-70}} and/or {{PD-US-expired}} by default). We can't use PD-author to infer what an author might have intended. --Animalparty (talk) 03:40, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
The Erik Heyl book was not renewed, I'm fairly sure, which is why I put that license on the File:Heyl watercolor SS Carroll NH 63869.jpg image. That image page also has a link to the book online, which means HathiTrust also believes it is public domain. Carl Lindberg (talk) 06:27, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
Just one more point, Animalparty. If you look at one of the images scanned from the book, such as File:Admiral (1847 steamboat) by Heyl.jpg, you can see the halftone (dot) pattern that makes up the image. But if you look at one of the images from the NHHC website, such as File:R. R. Cuyler (1860 steamship) by Heyl.jpg - no dots - just solid blocks of colour. That indicates to me that the images on the NHHC website are not from the books but are reproductions of the original watercolour paintings that formed the basis of the book images (indeed that's what the NHHC pages say[4][5]) - which is further evidence of direct collaboration between the NHHC and Heyl or his estate. Gatoclass (talk) 14:11, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

It appears that the NHHC template was created by User:Revent, who has been inactive for 2 1/2 years. So if the template is to be fixed, it looks as if somebody else with template-writing skills is going to have to do it. Gatoclass (talk) 14:26, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes, it would appear Heyl gave them the original drawings or paintings. However, that does not necessarily transfer copyright as well (U.S. law was fuzzy on that before 1978; after that copyright definitely would not transfer without a signed, written instrument). We have no idea what the gift may have stipulated; at least I have not found a description of the gift terms. It's quite possible the lack of copyright notices on each of them made them PD at the time of the gift, as well, even if not technically transferred. But once the book's copyright expired, that aspect should be moot. The Navy may not have published them until after the copyright on the book expired, for all we know. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:46, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Image copyright

File:Windows 3.0 logo.svg

My question is: Do you consider the public domain tag right? I ask because this image is in an article I'm reviewing in Wikipedia and I want a second opinion on this. --Urbanoc (talk) 12:16, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

      • Thanks both. As I'm bad to judge these gray cases, I needed some feedback to decide. If it isn't clear cut, I'll recommend to just let it out the Wikipedia article, to avoid any future problems. Regards. --Urbanoc (talk) 19:46, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Bulk speedy deletions of many old files?

Back when the Earth, and Commons, was younger, files were uploaded here and the metadata recording was not as we perform it now. Should we delete all those old files, just for that reason?

There is some sort of bulk 'bot task ongoing at present, with no evident discussion before it, which is either to do just this, or to do something so similar to it that I can't tell it apart. Many files (couple of thousand so far) are now in a couple of categories waiting for speedy deletion:

Category:Files uploaded over 3 years ago in a speedy deletion subcategory
Category:Files uploaded over 10 years ago in a speedy deletion subcategory

Some examples of files affected:

US Mil PD sourcing, like a myriad other US military images. This is already in the image file metadata.
Evidently a (very typical) user self-upload, without the formatting we would use today. If we extend any sort of GF to uploads of that period, this would qualify.
An artistic work from 1912, by an artist who died in 1918 (100+ years ago). This is recorded in a formatted artist template on the page.

See:

I am particularly confused by the last one. "Apply GF as default" seems to have a lot of support for it. Yet the action has been to start the deletion process anyway? What gives?

There are a number of problems with this process:

  • The whole approach is pejorative. The assumption is that this is a process of speedy deletion, and the files are already headed for it. Why? On what basis should they be deleted?
  • Why speedy deletion? Without even a regular DR? And these are files for which there isn't even a reasonable ground for deletion.
  • Why have the uploaders not been notified?
  • Where is the community discussion supporting this bulk deletion process?
  • Why are files (like the ones above) when for 2/3rd of those the basis for keeping them is obvious? An answer of "But the 'bot can't tell" is not good enough! If the 'bot can't distinguish, then it shouldn't be running at all!!

Andy Dingley (talk) 15:00, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

There are lots of words here, and it duplicates discussion at the VPP linked above AND the project page linked above AND the discussion at the bot talk page AND the discussion on my user talk page. Why do you think that it is a good idea to create a fifth place to have this discussed rather than absorbing the earlier discussions first?
Here's a short answer to what is probably your main question, but I really do not want to expand on this here, as it looks like forum shopping.
Adding "Files uploaded over 10 years ago in a speedy deletion subcategory" helps to highlight the fact that the file was uploaded a decade ago and is already in a speedy deletion subcategory. Adding the maintenance category does not make it more likely that the file will be deleted, it actually makes it less likely.
If someone wants to "fix" the reasons why the file has been added to the subcategory of speedy deletions, that's great. In some cases the way very basic templates like {{information}} have been changed to auto-categorize old images into speedy deletion subcategories is at fault, for example flagging a file as missing the source, when it is very clearly published as own work. In those cases fixing the template should be the priority. -- (talk) 15:21, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
  • "Why do you think that it is a good idea to create a fifth place to have this discussed rather than absorbing the earlier discussions first?"
Because you sneaked any public discussion of this terrible idea away so well that I didn't find it until I'd posted this.
And in just which of those many places did you receive consensus support for a bulk speedy deletion like this?
"If someone wants to "fix" the reasons why the file has been added to the subcategory of speedy deletions, that's great."
i.e. fix two thousand files now, or I'm going to delete them anyway, and it's your fault they went. Sorry, but no. I reject that shift of responsibility entirely. This deletion push is on you.
Andy Dingley (talk) 16:32, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
As far as I understand, this is actually a push to keep those files. As Fae said, the files are already in categories that may result in them being speedy deleted (lack of source, author, etc.). This is an effort to identify those files and either fix them or grandfather them, pending approval of a proposal to do so for sufficiently old files. See COM:VPP#Apply a default of Good Faith for very old files. clpo13(talk) 16:42, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
+1. As I already remarked on Fæ's talk page, the category name was poorly chosen, but the intent is to prevent anyone from speedy-deleting old files that were sitting in categories that might normally mean speedy deletion. - Jmabel ! talk 16:53, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

FYI User:Fæ#pronoun -- (talk) 17:01, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

  • The purpose of the category is as I understand it to  Keep as many of the files as possible. Often the problem is that files have an information template but source or author is not properly filled. Putting spot on old files is a good idea. If we can have 100 users go check 20 files then most of the problems are fixed :-) Hopefully I fixed a few hundred with my bot yesterday.
The original name of the category and the intro in the category could have been better. But that's not a reason to give up the project. --MGA73 (talk) 19:22, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Between the dates 31 March 2019 and 25 February 2020 I posted NC licenses by mistake

I am now asking if these images should be deleted from all the articles I have made or if I should wait for the Wikimedia Commons community to decide the validity of their usefulness here. I reported everything I did. Mário NET (talk) 00:09, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

@Mário NET: All taken care of. In the future do not make DR nominations manually. Please use the "nominate for deletion" button on the sidebar. Very few of your nominations were added to the actual DR listing pages so if you did not say something they would have just existed in limbo, permanently, as no admin would know they were there. Thanks for letting us know. --Majora (talk) 01:09, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
Now they are informed, for the period that I mentioned. If I find another older mistake, I will do it the way you said. Mário NET (talk) 01:14, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
Just one more question. I would like to revert this image to the one I had originally loaded, removing its darker and smaller version. It is for use in the article, since the original image was not allowed. Mário NET (talk) 03:20, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
Use the "revert" button in the file history then. The intervening version can stay as removing it won't really do much. --Majora (talk) 19:12, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
In order to clean up the never-listed DR subpages, should they now either be speedy deleted (CSD COM1) or properly marked as closed and added to the DR list pages? 2001:4BB8:250:4FD5:FD3F:281E:F913:87C7 18:36, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
They should be left alone. It is a lot of work to delete them all and they aren't hurting anything to just exist as independent pages. --Majora (talk) 19:12, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Template:Translated page/doc needs more params

Similar tl on wikipedia applies params for original Pagename and oldid, localized oldid, and as an option to define particular section translated. Don’t we need to specify those, at least for making it easier to update the localized page per the contents of original Pagename? --Omotecho (talk) 08:30, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Subcategory not found

Looking through Category:Pages with local coordinates and similar Wikidata coordinates, it looks as if categories beginning with numbers ranging from 1 to 22 (but not 18, 19 or 21?) have subcategories, while in reality they do not. Expanding (clicking the blue triangle of) one of these categories then results in the message "nothing found". Any idea why? --HyperGaruda (talk) 08:18, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

It's strange, and I don't see any pattern to it. Notice also the (4 C, 9 F) after the name, where there are varying numbers of ghost categories, and the number of files is off by one in some cases. --ghouston (talk) 06:00, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
There are also some in Category:Media with coordinates in DMS format. --ghouston (talk) 06:06, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
Even the first subcategory in Category:17th-century portrait paintings of men not categorised by year, where the subcategory doesn't use templates. --ghouston (talk) 06:20, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
I created a Phabricator task for it. --ghouston (talk) 06:42, 8 March 2020 (UTC) .
Thanks for looking into it! --HyperGaruda (talk) 17:02, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Better version of POTY candidate exists

File:TianqiZhe.jpg this jpg seems to be blurrier than the tif you can get from https://theme.npm.edu.tw/opendata/DigitImageSets.aspx?sNo=04020370 . I think the best version available should be hosted on Commons. What should we do about this?--Roy17 (talk) 17:02, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

We should host both as they are different images. We can host multiple versions of the same image, or multiple distinct scans/photographs of the same artwork. The file linked above is different from the POTY candidate in having a golden border, so it should be uploaded separately and described/evaluated on its own. And it's often preferable to host .tif and .jpg copies of the same high quality image, as .tifs tend to display poorly on Wikipedia but are good for archival purposes. Exact duplicates or scaled down versions of the exact same file can be deleted per COM:DUPE but normally multiple files are kept if they have distinct aspects and different potential educational uses. I don't know how this affects Picture of the Year nominations, but that is a different issue from what can be hosted on Commons. --Animalparty (talk) 18:26, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Smithsonian

When you look at an image from the Smithsonian museums, how do you determine the copyright status. Look at https://timeandnavigation.si.edu/multimedia-asset/pioneer-earth-inductor-compass If the image was stored at Commons I would click on it and it would take me to the page with the rights info, but here it is not clear. Does anyone know how to discern what is PD-US-Gov or CC-0 or still under copyright? The page on copyright says some images are under CC-0 and others are under copyright. This seems to be a page on the object that was photographed, not a page on the image. Is there a page with specific info on the status of this particular image? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 21:49, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Remove the whole border?

For images of that kind : https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-W0318-030,_Berlin,_K%C3%A4the-Kollwitz-Preis_an_Werner_T%C3%BCbke.jpg

Should I remove the bottom border with the text or the 4 borders?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Zonderr (talk • contribs) 19:36, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

@Zonderr: The border includes data about the file creation, so I'd keep it for that file. You can upload a cropped version as a new image. From Hill To Shore (talk) 21:56, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
I don't think it is necessary for the text to be kept, and the file could simply be overwritten with a lossless crop per COM:OVERWRITE, but there are no hard rules. All the data is in both the file description and the EXIF metadata. Overwriting would keep the text visible in upload history should it be needed for verification purposes. Personally I'm generally opposed to needless redundancy created by uploading virtually identical crops as separate files. --Animalparty (talk)
Thanks to both of you. I think I can remove the text and overwrite the file since the information is entirely in the metadata. But you didn't really answer my question : can/should I keep the three other sides of the border?
I can make a lossless crop by removing a bit more than necessary since a lossless crop can only be done by removing 8 pixels wide block boundaries, I understand I should accept to loose a few pixels at the bottom.--Zonderr (talk) 10:51, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
@Zonderr and Animalparty: See the section about legal issues in Commons:Watermarks. So, you should not remove the borders and overwrite the existing images (though others did this in the past for Bundesarchiv files), but as Hill to Shore and Richard wrote you can crop and upload as separate file, the CropTool should be very helpful here, it even adds the linking templates. — Speravir – 02:59, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Split graph file

Graph of several economies' GDP over time

This graph, while it is potentially useful, was uploaded over two previous versions. The immediate preceding was a graph of a different set of economies, and may not have been used elsewhere. The original version, however, was a graph solely of Chinese economic growth (though only to 2005), and as this it seems it was widely used, and even as a thumbnail has expressive power. The current version requires opening the image to see which curve is which economy. Could someone split the graphs into separate images, and ensure that the appropriate images are linked to from other projects?

Rich Farmbrough, 16:02 8 March 2020 (GMT).

See COM:SPLIT. But you would have to suggest new filenames. — Speravir – 02:47, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Wikimedian photographer details on Structured Commons

Hello. Some of you may wish to comment at Wikidata:Project chat#Wikimedian photographer details on Structured Commons. Rehman 05:15, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

I have seen several Wikimedia Commons photographers add a creator link, for example this Wikidata page of Benoît Prieur which they use for authorship information on Wikimedia Commons. I see no reason to exclude Wikimedians who wish to include themselves like this on Wikidata, as this would actually make it easier for them to include authorship information and attribution information on Wikimedia Commons, this would make it within Wikidata's scope as it fulfills a structural need for another project. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 18:44, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
Unfortunately, that is not allowed/recommended, from what I learned in the above link. Rehman 18:57, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
@Rehman: , you can always propose a new property for "Commonswiki creator" separate from the general creator category, and migrate all existing Wikimedia Commons photographers to this property. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 19:02, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Why?

Why is the interface recently (today?) changed, so wikidata-properties need to be confirmed on the left side of the box, instead of at the right side? It happened to me every single time that I now press automatically on the "explanation button", opening browser windows I don't want nor need. Who is deciding on these user interface changes? And why are they made. All I can tell that this is absolutely annoying and not necessary. Edoderoo (talk) 17:53, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

The first image I wanna change today ... same issue :-( ... please do not change the user interface, unless you want to aggrevate your long term users. Edoderoo (talk) 08:12, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
About which interface are you talking? Wouter (talk) 16:49, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
I assume that by "wikidata-properties", Edoderoo means structured data. I cannot say I had noticed before, but having the save button on the left is the default position in regular wiki-editing. Perhaps they wanted to make structured data editing look more like regular editing? --HyperGaruda (talk) 17:10, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
They should have done that from the start. After 1000 edits my mechanics click automatically on the wrong box, which is extremely irritating. Edoderoo (talk) 22:38, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

How do I make irrelevant tag suggestions go away?

Special:SuggestedTags#user keeps on requesting that I add: winter, glacial landform, slope, glacier, sky, snow, and mountain to File:Biochar pile in tarp.jpg even tho none of those things are depicted and it also already has structured data that I applied to it upon upload. What weird robot thinks this is a photo of a mountain and how do I make it go away? Similarly, File:Biochar made at convergence 2016.jpg does not depict composting, Earl Grey tea, compost, soil, or plant. This seems like by far the biggest screw up I have ever seen from the Wikimedia Foundation. PLEASE MAKE IT STOP. —Justin (koavf)TCM 03:59, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

@RIsler (WMF): as you seem to be the outward-facing point person for this. Apologies if you're not. —Justin (koavf)TCM 04:03, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
Hello. Thanks for letting us know. We'll soon be adding the ability to do an "all these tags are incorrect" action and remove the image from your list of uploaded images that have been analyzed. It is an unfortunate side effect of AI image analysis that it sometimes gets things wrong. This is why we don't automatically apply the data to the images, and instead ask users to confirm. If you'd like to opt out of the tool entirely, you can go to Preferences -> Notifications and uncheck "Suggested tags for Review" RIsler (WMF) (talk) 17:43, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
@RIsler (WMF): Thanks. I am very interested in structured data applied to our media, so I would prefer to be (pardon the language) "inside the tent peeing out" rather than "outside the tent peeing in". Again, I appreciate the efforts being made here but this seems like it is not going very well. I don't want to be negative or dour but this is a very uneven and confusing deployment. I've never seen anything like this in 17 years on Wikimedia Foundation projects (except maybe the Mood Bar). —Justin (koavf)TCM 18:35, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
@RIsler (WMF): Could you please (programmatically) suspend all editing of SDC until all known issues are fixed? The situation is troublesome as it is. My own main issue is a bot adding SDC to files on my watch list. On sunday within 7 hours, while I was away taking photos, the bot made 5 edits each to more than 400 files in my watchlist (>2000 edits). Had the bot also been able to extract the author information from this 400 files (which the bot managee with other files), than it would have been 9 edits per file. This means, that even if I choose "only bot edits" and "only last edit of a file" I will not been able to see, if one of the files in my watchlist was edited by another bot in these 7 hours, if it was later edited by the SDC bot. Important information for me may have been lost forever. It renders the watclist useless (not to forget the more than 400 mails, that were generated). This will repeat with the other 25000+ files on my watchlist, and it will repeat once camera model SDC is addd, once pixe resolution is added, once file size is added, once exposure time is added, oncew f number is added, once iso rating is added, once focal length is added, ... --C.Suthorn (talk) 13:15, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Hello, @C.Suthorn: . Although we can't suspend SDC edits, we can potentially disable watch list notifications for SDC edits from bots only (no guarantees, but we think this is feasible). If we were able to make that change for SDC bot notifications, would that improve things for you? RIsler (WMF) (talk) 20:41, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
IMHO that would be a real improvement. --C.Suthorn (talk) 21:30, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

PNG files with white borders either side

I want to upload some high art png files. They come with white or checkered borders either side of the images, think these are supposed to be transparent. Sometimes they are black, usually the original web page host is black too in that case, think they are not transparent. I never see any of the above in commons, should I crop them off? Broichmore (talk) 10:30, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

  • Hard to say without seeing them first, but (assuming copyrights are in order), there is nothing wrong with having two versions under different filenames, as we do on plenty of historical images. You can link with {{Other}} or with {{Derivative work}} + {{Derived from}} in the "other versions" section of {{Information}}. - Jmabel ! talk 17:40, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Cropping PNG is lossless, and since the border does not actually add anything to the image, but you want to keep the history, I would just upload first the initial version, and then right after that upload a cropped version over the top of it. ℺ Gone Postal ( ) 21:41, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Redundancy?

Category:King Aleksandar Bridge and Category:Most Kralja Aleksandra seem to be redundant. Is this right? Who can merge those? --2A02:810D:6C0:2FB0:5112:F5C:D777:699A 19:14, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

✓ Done Redirected cat. with Serbian name to English one. — Speravir – 21:58, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: --Speravir 21:58, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Old upload

Is there something wrong with the Old Upload? My uploads haven't been working lately. The Upload Wizard hasn't worked any better. Sardaka (talk) 08:29, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

2019–20 coronavirus outbreak in the Netherlands

I noticed that most maps of the 2019–20 coronavirus outbreak in the Netherlands only depict the infections based on the 12 (twelve) provinces of the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the other map is based on GGD data. Something similar happens to maps of Switzerland about the SARS-CoV-2 there. I would suggest using maps of municipalities (or whatever is the smallest political division) if more accurate data is available.

I noticed that some maps used a country's largest subdivisions while others used its smallest. While preferably both should be included, maybe some people better at making these vector maps than I am could make them all based on the smallest divisions for each country as opposed to using the largest divisions, as this would be more representative of the actually affected areas. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 18:39, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

  • Should be always the smallest, of course. But this not a matter of Commons policy, is it?, it’s a matter for individual map creators and reuser communities, namely in Wikipedias. (Incidentally, the same concerning this PT map, using the 18 districts instead of the 308 municipalities, and, even wronger, indicating places of hospitalization instead outbreak locations…) -- Tuválkin 13:07, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Incorrectly Categorised Photos

What should one do when discovering a photo incorrectly categorised? I noticed which is not of "Tunanmarca" (as per category and I have no idea what it is of. I am worried about just removing the existing category and it just becoming "lost in limbo". But "Tunanmarca" is wrong ... so what sould one do under such circumstances? The general question is what to do about such photos (i.e. for this and any others I notice). This image is used by French WikiVoyage for Hyancayo and Tunanmarca is Jauja not Hyancayo anyway. (which is some distance from Tunanmarca). PsamatheM (talk) 17:31, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

If the category is wrong then find the closest alternative that you know is accurate. In this case I would go with Category:Ruins of buildings as I can't see what basis either the editor here or the editor at French Wikipedia had for saying this was in Peru. It would have been useful if they had expanded the description with any evidence they found of the location. I'd advise placing a copy of this discussion on the file's talk page so the reasoning for your change is clear to future editors. From Hill To Shore (talk) 18:01, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
There are also "Unidentified" categories like Category:Unidentified buildings where, theoretically, someone who wanted to do some detective work might look for images to categorize. – BMacZero (🗩) 20:02, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Many thanks. Done (Both suggested categories). But mainly now I know what to do in future (i.e. search for an appropriate "Unidentified ..." category) PsamatheM (talk) 20:26, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Ghouston’s assumption is quite reasonable. Note that the username of the original uploader ist Rethymnon-Martin. Rethymno(n) is a city and a region on Crete, and Maroulas is a village in this region. — Speravir – 01:46, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Wikidata & Commons event in Ulm, Germany

Hello all,

I wanted to let you know about the Wikidata Wochenende, a week-end dedicated to working on Wikidata-related projects that will take place in Ulm, Germany, on June 12-14. We are especially looking forward to welcome Commons editors, people working on Wikidata-powered templates or Structured Data. The event, held in German, will be the occasion for you to meet other people working with Wikidata, learning new skills and sharing yours.

If you're interested, you can read more about the details and the funding possibilities here. Please help me sharing the information to people who could be interested. Cheers, Lea Lacroix (WMDE) (talk) 08:49, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Categorising of ships/watercraft

An example of such a category: Green Ridge (ship, 1998)

There seems to be some differing opinions on how categories for individual ships, boats and watercraft should be categorised. The way it has been until fairly recently, is that these ship categories (for each name a ship has had in its lifetime) have been put into more or less all relevant categories: for type of ship, building year, building place (country, city or ship yard), IMO or ENI number or similar where that applies, later also for port of registry, and so on.

Lately a few users have started removing several of these categories, with the argument to "avoid overcategorisation". First the categories for building place and then building year (which, it has to be said, is visible in the category name for each ship anyway) have been relegated to the category for the ship's IMO number. Now one user is also removing the category of ships by country (e.g. "Ships of Portugal") on the grounds that it is unnecessary because there is a category for the ship's home port (e.g. "Ships registered in Lisbon").

I do see a logic in this. In general we try to categorise at the lowest maintainable level. Not doing so is technically overcategorisation. And when a ship has an official registry number, like IMO or ENI, that number will remain the same even though the ship's name changes, so there is definitely a point in connecting that number to relevant categories.

But I still think we are losing some important oversight if we are removing or hiding parts of the categories for vital information about the ships. It won't be obvious to all users that (for instance) Siófok is a town in Hungary and thus making the ship registered there Hungarian. And it certainly won't be obvious to everyone that they'll have to click on the ship's IMO number to find where it was built or when it was scrapped. And at least to me, a category containing just IMO numbers (pretty much like Category:Ships scrapped in Alang) makes little sense. A name and building year tells the user something just on oversight, a 7-digit IMO number does not.

Many of the practices here on Commons come about without discussion. Often individual users decide to start doing things a certain way, and others accept it and follow suit. I do that, too. But in this case I think we need to have an informed discussion before we make any lasting changes. Blue Elf (talk) 11:33, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

I agree with you in principle. I'm no fan of over-categorisation either, having said that the development of wikidata is gathering apace.
If these categories are going to disappear because they're caught in the IMO number, then perhaps the Wikidata Infobox should be enhanced to display in lieu the information you want.
On a slightly different note, we don't seem to be taking into account any kind of compatibility with Wikipedia, its ship articles and more importantly it's disambiguation pages. Example: Wikipedia identifies a ship by its launch date and displays a ship's multiple completion dates (If known).
Our role has morphed into providing images for use in Wikipedia, and our catting should be tailored to maximising visibility to that end. Our presence, where we have a category, should be made known there with a commons link, for every ship's article where possible. We need to tailor our categorisations in the certain knowledge that the public's start point for research and reading lies with Wikipedia and not commons. Proof of that is the decline here in the creation of Gallery and Disambiguation pages. We still need to categorize in an attempt to identify unknown ships, by sail or steam, mast and or funnel. bow and stern shape. However we seem to spend more resource catting oil, litho, etching, drawing and watercolour. Just saying...
Of course someone going to say that we cater for others outside of Wikipedia, true, but if we can cater adequately for the Wiki, others are handled too by default. Broichmore (talk) 14:24, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

If you are interested in real-time-results for POTY round 1 visit Commons:Picture of the Year/2019/Real-Time-Results. You can sort the results by clicking on the top row of the table. Enjoy! -- Eatcha (talk) 08:56, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for setting this up, Eatcha. This came up on IRC (pinging Zhuyifei1999) before realizing you set this up. I think it's a neat page, but I think it would be best not to publicize this too widely or it'll affect the outcome (greater distance between top and bottom, and more significant impact of an early lead). — Rhododendrites talk19:53, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm inclined to delete the page. You are free to analyze your results yourself or publish your list of results after the end date, but I do not think real time results is acceptable. CC committee @Christian Ferrer, Steinsplitter, and -revi: --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 20:43, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

@Eatcha: Oh if you wanna help: Commons:Village_pump/Technical#Looking_for_someone_to_take_my_part_in_POTY --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 20:45, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

I was planning but this setback doesn't motivates me. There's no evidence that it was affecting voters in an unwanted manner, but action was taken based on opinions only and no evidence was provided.
Does anyone remember PewDiePie vs T-Series ? T-Series was a clear winner considering the population of The Indian subcontinent, but there were various real-time subscriber counters, were they playing the disstrack "Bitch lasagna" ? Yes, some of them. What were the outcomes ? PewDiePie got dethroned as expected, live results couldn't affect the outcome. Peace //Eatcha (talk) 05:33, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
There is no evidence because you cannot perform a controlled, randomized experiment. However, Does Knowing Whom Others Might Vote For Change Whom You’ll Vote For? - FiveThirtyEight might be relevant. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 06:12, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Proposing new section to Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2019/Help

I'm thinking of something like:

Are there results for contest before a round ends?

No. We don't want the results to influence voters and cause a more significant impact of an early lead. We will publish all the voting statistics after a round ends. You may however analyze the candidate vote pages yourself in whichever method you like, but we are strongly against publishing such results before the end of the round.

--Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 21:37, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

+1 fine Christian Ferrer (talk) 21:39, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
+1 --11:56, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
  1. Ok, I'll wait a day for any wording suggestions before I mark for translation --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 21:49, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
  • I still think the live results can't influence the voters, the results were accurate (about 4.5 minutes accuracy) and not fake/biased. I'm not asking anybody to vote for my uploads. In reality if you guys were analyzing the results, the number of images with 0 votes decreased drastically in the time-period when my results weren't deleted. The data is publicly available, not that I am getting the data illegally. I remember a similar incident with FPC results, I had created a web-app to display number of FPs per user, incl. nominated + uploaded with percentage. I was asked to take the site down by 2 users, including an admin with similar accusation, the site is still down and I have no motivation to start the service again. Did anything change at FPC ? Certainly not, but it's getting harder to track the number of FPs per user. I am not publicizing anyone's name, not a case for oversight or anything else. If you think that the position in a list is luring voters to vote for a certain image, what about positions of images in Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2019/R1/Gallery/Settlements all the galleries ? and Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2019/Candidates ? The first image will certainly be noticed by more users. //Eatcha (talk) 03:45, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
Nobody said or consider that you have made this page to influence voters to vote for your uploads, or even for other specific images. We just think that such a ranking can push people to choose their favorites among the images that are most likely to win, a kind of selection before the selection normally made by the round 1.... Christian Ferrer (talk) 05:52, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
Position in Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2019/R1/Gallery/Settlements is randomized per user unless you don't have JS... in which case it is sill randomized but globally. Correction: At one point it was sorted by time of FP; I think I should add shuffling to the Lua code... Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2019/Candidates is not a voting gallery. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 05:58, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
Does it implies if I sort the list randomly then there's no problem with having a live result page. -- Eatcha (talk) 06:01, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
Then you must not show the number of votes and must not permit sorting, in which case, I don't see the utilization of that. And when you are in doubt, ask. A live contest is not a good place to be bold in. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 06:05, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
Fair, but maybe voters should have some more freedom to sort according to their own free will. Aren't we making it harder by asking them to choose from 1000s of random images with no power to sort the candidates by number of votes or uploader. When you buy something online, wouldn't you want to sort the list according to your requirements ? Everyone should have the right to vote easily, sorting makes it easier. -- Eatcha (talk) 06:17, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
Online shopping is neither a poll nor a contest --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 06:22, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
Well, unless sellers think they are competing on those platforms, in which case, the platforms are not inclined in any way to make the 'contest' fair. Getting more revenue is more priority than making the sellers that think they are a competition platform happy. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 06:24, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
Polls on Twitter ? Facebook ? They all display live results or news sites ? Major online surveys have real time results facilities. -- Eatcha (talk) 06:30, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
A lot of polls only show results after the person votes. Many of them are just a poll and are not a major one that tries to be fair. No randomization, for example. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 06:45, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
Still, there's no evidence that live results creates unwanted bias. The allegations are based on personal opinions. -- Eatcha (talk) 06:51, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
I have addressed this. Special:Diff/403296558/403297691. You have not responded and just repeated your point. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 07:00, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
I don't think this discussion's outcome, is going to change. Thanks for answering my questions. // 07:14, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

I tend to think that deletion was a bit much. I don't think it should be in the POTY space or linked from the POTY pages anywhere (nor from VP, etc.), but it's well within reason for an individual user to collect/organize publicly visible statistics in their userspace. Anyone can click to each voting page in a category and note the status, after all. — Rhododendrites talk18:35, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

I also think that deleting that page was too much. The bot was just scraping publicly available data in Eatcha's own userspace. What is wrong with that? If we don't want the results to be publicly available, let's hide them. --Podzemnik (talk) 01:28, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Sure, go ahead with userspace; I'm not going to break your userspace. However, make it clear that 1. it's not endorsed by the committee 2. it is inaccurate (doesn't check eligibility, for example) 3. and absolutely no advertising. No "linking from the POTY pages anywhere (nor from VP, etc.)". Let's not make the contest a game of cryptography. Yes releasing cryptographically-verifiable results (i.e. you can trustlessly verify the results against the encrypted votes) only after the contest ends is fully within my capability, but it's a lot of work for me and it would be really bad for anyone who don't use the POTY gadget, either because they are on mobile or they don't have JS, and be very difficult to check manually. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 06:27, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

  • I don't think a lot of users will try to cast fake votes (at least I won't), because there's no prize (AFAIK). But as the page is in my user-space and it's not officially part of POTY-2019, I don't need to care about it. I created the page but I will not link that here, someone may consider that an act of advertising. I also requested a bot task because I don't want further disputes or any kind of unwanted deletions in my user-space. I am not linking the BRFA because someone may have an opinion that it's a secondary type of advertising. Peace //Eatcha (talk) 09:31, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
    @Eatcha: "However, make it clear that 1. it's not endorsed by the committee 2. it is inaccurate (doesn't check eligibility, for example)" --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 14:56, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
    Zhuyifei User:Eatcha/Disclaimer -- Eatcha (talk) 15:31, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
    Thanks. LGTM. Mind including it on the page, before the table? --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 15:34, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
    "may, from time to time, contain errors". It is faulty. It doesn't check eligibility. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 15:37, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
    Although it's not a standard practice to add disclaimer at the top I added the important stuff at the top with bigger disclaimer at the bottom of the page . The disclaimer is up-to standards and covers all types of errors. // Eatcha (talk) 16:55, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

@Podzemnik: As you wish: Commons_talk:Picture_of_the_Year/2019/Committee#Cryptography_proposal --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 17:54, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Full colour 3D models on Wikimedia projects

Hi all

If you'd like full colour 3D models to be available on Wikimedia projects please subscribe to this phabricator task to show that it is a feature people want.

https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T246901

Thanks

John Cummings (talk) 15:09, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Category for cycling people in the Netherlands

In the Netherlands we distinguish between people who are using their bikes:

  1. for transporting or recreation purposes, "fietsers" in Dutch; and
  2. for competition sport purposes, "wielrenners" in Dutch.

"Wielrenners" could be a subcategory of "Fietsers" (all wielrenners are fietsers but not all fietsers are wielrenners).
For (2) wielrenners the Category:Cyclists from the Netherlands is in use.
Media with (1) fietsers are now in the main category Category:Cycling in the Netherlands, but I would like to make a subcategory for them, however I don't know how to name it.

My question: What would be a good name for cycling people (in the Netherlands or elsewhere) who are not using their bike for competition sport purposes? Could it be: Bicyclists in the Netherlands or Bicyclers in the Netherlands? Or would another name be appropriate? I guess this new category could be used for other countries as well, especially in flat areas. JopkeB (talk) 10:34, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

@JopkeB: just cyclist, I think bicyclist is less common. The category you were looking for seems to be Category:People with bicycles by country. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 10:48, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
It's confusing. Can we move Category:Sports cycling in the Netherlands (unique) to Category:Cycle racing by country and rename it Category:Cycle racing in the Netherlands to match the peers there? Our system is confusing because we have Category:Cycling (general) and Category:Cycling (sport) (competitive racing), but the latter has subcategory Category:Cycle racing by country‎ (not Category:Sport cycling by country) and we have Category:Cyclists (but no Category:Sports cyclists). I wonder if we shouldn't follow swimming and use Category:Competitive cycling and Category:Competitive cyclists? - Themightyquill (talk) 12:31, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
My answer to the first question of Themightyquill: Yes, I agree that we can move Category:Sports cycling in the Netherlands to Category:Cycle racing by country and rename it Category:Cycle racing in the Netherlands. There is no description in this category and, as far as I can see, it should indeed be Cycle racing. JopkeB (talk) 19:36, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
This issue has been carried out by me. JopkeB (talk) 14:44, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
  1. Bicyclers is not generally considered an English word.
  2. Cyclists is much more common than bicyclists.
  3. We certainly use the terms "recreational cyclists" an "competitive cyclists", but I can't think of a term that generally covers people who use bicycles for transport. If they are going to work and back, they are "bike commuters" or less often "bicycle commuters"; if they are working professionally they are "bicycle messengers" (a term which generally covers even people who might be moving rapidly through a city transporting medical material, even though that is hardly a "message"). There are probably some other specific terms, but I can't think of anything in English that embraces all of these and excludes competitive cyclists. - Jmabel ! talk 17:40, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
@Jmabel: isn't this the case with just about anything? What about fishing? Some people fish for fun/relaxation and throw back whatever they catch. Some people fish non-professionally to eat fish. Some people fish for a job and sell their catch. And some people fish for sport in a competitive manner. Interestingly, Category:Fishing tournaments is a subcategory of Category:Recreational fishing. Seems wrong? The other thing is at Category:Commercial fishing. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 10:14, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
@Alexis Jazz: Exactly. English draws the line in a different place than Dutch. We have no single word equivalent to "fietsers", assuming it has been described correctly above. If it includes everything from a bike messenger to a kid in a driveway, but excludes both amateur and professional racers, we don't have a word for that. - Jmabel ! talk 16:44, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
No, "fietsers" does not exclude amateur and professional racers, they are also included in it. My conclusion from the discussion above is that [[:Category:Cyclists] should be the correct parent category, not just for racers. But it might be a hell of a job to get there. JopkeB (talk) 19:08, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
The usual phrases used in English (at least in the campaigning world) are "utility cyclist" and "utility cycling". --bjh21 (talk) 10:27, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
@Alexis Jazz: , @Themightyquill: , @Jmabel: , @Bjh21: Thanks for all your research, suggestions and other remarks. My conclusion for now is to opt for a pragmatic solution: I'll make new categories for "utility cyclists" and "recreational cyclists" (both for the Netherlands and general) and perhaps combine both for the Netherlands because it is not always clear on a picture which of the two has been depicted. "Utility cycling" might have a lot of overlap with "utility cyclists", so I'll leave that for now. Wether Category:Cyclists should have such a profound change as Themightyquill suggests: perhaps, but I think that this first requires a regular discussion of this category. JopkeB (talk) 19:36, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
This morning I found Category:Cycling people, with subcategories for all kind of people (men, women, children, some occupations). And I found Category:Walking people in the Netherlands. So I thought Cycling people in the Netherlands would be a good solution for my problem. Simple and all types of cycling people fit in it: recreational, utility and racing cyclists. So in the end I did not need to make categories for "utility cyclists" and "recreational cyclists". JopkeB (talk) 17:36, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Import of Canadian weather data, request for comments

Good day Commons,

At the end of last year, Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) and Wikimedia Canada decided to explore possible synergies between Wikimedia projects and the federal agency. A first reflexion brought ended around the data produced by ECCC and distributed under an open licence on their website.

As such, we have created tools allowing to convert official historical data to the JSON format required for their integration on Wikimedia Commons. The inclusion of weather data on Commons is not a novelty since a similar work has already been done in the United States from the data of nceii.noaa.gov. The basic principle of this import is to reuse the same data structure which will allow to keep the compatibility with existing templates on different Wikimedia projects.

An important point is that those tools are available for everybody and were developed to allow to keep the data updated in the future.

The data proposed to be imported were published on a Git repository. Today, I launch a call for comments regarding the integration of those data on Commons. The structure tree would be comprised as such:

A few notes on the conversion process and the final result:

  • ECCC distributes its data under four level of details: hourly, daily, monthly, and an almanac[1]. For now, only the last two are proposed to be imported because they mostly correspond to the needs of the templates on different Wikimedia projects. Nonetheless, if the community decides that the other levels of granularity are pertinent, it is very possible to add them before the publication.
  • In order to ensure a high level of quality of the data published on Commons, all values are tested before being added. In particular the values that are obviously aberrant (unreal temperatures, negative precipitations, etc.) are eliminated. As such, the data on Commons would be a subset of the data published by ECCC.
  • The contributors that are familiar with the structured data on Commons may have notice the presence of an unusual field “wikicode”. This is linked to a proposed modification to the JsonConfig Extension that will allow to add categories (as per Mediawiki categories) to the data, among other things. If this modification is rejected by the development team, this field would simply be deleted.

I take the opportunity of this message to mention that not all the descriptions of the columns are currently translated in other languages than English and French. If you are able to make translations into other languages, I would be very happy to include your work before the import of the final data.

(the same topic has been opened today on Common's Bistro - if you're familiar with french language, you can follow it there too)

Peuc (talk) 18:29, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Hello @Donald Trung: thanks for your message and your support. As you've probably noticed, the proposal is not about importing maps/images but raw, structured, and finite historical dataset like this. Following your advice, I'm currently looking for past discussions concerning weather data (in the broadest sense of the term) and I've only found the one you're mentioning back in 2005, and this one. Can you point me to threads stating about this kind of import, that I may have missed? Thanks again for your help. Peuc (talk) 20:33, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
@Peuc: , I am honestly not aware of most of these discussions, but if you believe that there may or may not be any "COM:SCOPE" issues with these imports you can always propose it at the proposals village pump (which I would recommend). --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 20:37, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
@Donald Trung: I've opened a topic on Village pump proposals. Peuc (talk) 15:45, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
@From Hill To Shore: In fact, both of this projects originates from the same people, so yes Peuc is involved with it. Thanks for your interest, Dirac (talk) 13:37, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

References

  1. The almanac is a compilation of record data (i.e. extremes) by day

PetScan question

I tried to figure out how to use PetScan with it's manual. I want see all files that are listed in bot categories (eg. CC-BY-SA-3.0 and CC-BY-SA-4.0). As far as I understood this should work and yet it does not display any result (to switch the Combination didn't do anything for me). Anybody got some ideas?
--D-Kuru (talk) 09:58, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

I must confirm this and opened an issue ticket in Github: Petscan apparently stopped working. — Speravir – 02:36, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
… for which it turned out that I made serious mistakes myself. D-Kuru you should test with smaller categories where you know you have to expect some intersection results. You made (at least) one mistake I made, too: You forgot to activate File namespace in Page properties tab. — Speravir – 19:22, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Was about to continue, but get a "504 Gateway Time-out" for petscan :-(
@Speravir: I actually tested it with two categires I know share some images (CC-BY-SA-2.0-AT and CC-BY-SA-3.0-AT). I tested it with the checkmark on the File enabled, but it didn't work again. I have to recheck when petscan is online again.
--D-Kuru (talk) 21:46, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

@Speravir: PetScan is back up again.
Add File namespace in Page properties tab: I thought the tick in place means any and that you can limit the output. If you tick the File it seems to work.
Union seems to be display if files are in category A OR B (it looks like a large category where both are collected). Intersection seems to be display if files are in category A AND B.
So even I was not successfull on my own, with your help I managed to get it going! I think I will add this to the list of examples and sharpen the manual a bit.
--D-Kuru (talk) 08:02, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes, union and intersection are from the set theory concept. — Speravir – 19:06, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Notification of DMCA takedown demand - Harrie Smolders Vestrum

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

Affected file(s):

To discuss this DMCA takedown, please go to COM:DMCA#Harrie Smolders Vestrum. Thank you! Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 22:28, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

If it was anything like File:Harrie Smolders Vestrum Team.jpg where Thomas Reiner is in the EXIF data as the author, that was a definite copyvio. Nominated the two other photographs for deletion Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Zacumein since EXIF data is not conclusive, but in light of the small picture size and the copyvios, they look suspicious. Abzeronow (talk) 22:56, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Why mobile access of Commons redirected to https://foundation.wikimedia.org/ ?

Is this a bug? Note: Main Page only, as visiting any other pages are normal. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 12:19, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

@Liuxinyu970226: I am not experiencing this behavior, either through my mobile device or mobile web-on-desktop. Are you still seeing the issue? I believe under certain circumstances there are some web error messages that redirect the site during brief communication outages (whether localized or at large scale), you might have seen something like that if the problem has resolved on its own. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 21:41, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
I am also experiencing this issue, it's really odd. I load the page as "https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:UploadWizard" and then it redirects me to the Wikimedia Foundation UploadWizard, while I am not experiencing this on my Microsoft Lumia 950 XL (Microsoft Windows 10 Mobile), I am (consistently m) experiencing this on my Elephone P8 Mini (Google's Android). On Android I need to go back to the previous tab and then it opens up the desktop version of the MediaWiki Upload Wizard. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 00:11, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Flickr Uploads

Is there currently a form with which to undertake such a thing relatively painlessly, kind of intuitively without me reading tons of stuff to find a tidbit of relevant substance, and possibly in the end I might find out that the tool has been disfunctional for several years? Thanks for your assistance. Oalexander (talk) 15:24, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Thank you very much, highly appreciated. Cheers, Oalexander (talk) 22:34, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Speravir 01:39, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Redundant media renaming requests without rename template

There is the category Redundant media renaming requests. In the cat. description you can read “Media in this category has been renamed and {{Rename}} should be removed.” In the moment only these 3 files are in this cat.: (1) Hussein Zein 2019.jpg, (2) Richard Grenell, Elmer Schialer, & Matt Lashey, 4th of July 2018.jpg and (3) Yelizaveta Khristoforovina Peshchurova.jpg. But I do not see the {{rename}} template in their descriptions. Do I overlook something? — Speravir – 19:09, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

I had several times tried to purge the pages, and also the category page. But I had forgotten to try null edits. Now I did, and the images have disappeared from the cat, hence section is resolved, it was a caching issue. — Speravir – 22:28, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: --Speravir 22:28, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Any problem with this upload I made?

Hello, I would like to know if this image I put on the page has any problem, the way I put it. Mário NET (talk) 01:05, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

@Mário NET: How can it have a different date than the image it was cropped from?
You presumably ought to link User:Pet~commonswiki in the "author" field of {{Information}}.
If attribution to User:Pet~commonswiki is required, that is certainly unclear from your page, where it would look like you are saying you need to be attributed. You should add "author=[[User:Pet~commonswiki|Pet~commonswiki]]" to {{Cc-by-sa-4.0}}.
This version and the original should be linked by {{Derived from}} and {{Derivative works}} in the "other versions" field of {{Information}}.
This of course all assumes that the original image is OK. Jmabel ! talk 04:15, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
I put Pet ~ commonswiki as author of the image. Mário NET (talk) 08:16, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Copyright texts in Videos

(Same question/answer probably applies to photos with copyright watermarks) I have a video that I think worth uploading (nothing similar on commons). It's my work (my camera, I held it, pressed the shutter, edited it, etc.) but there is a copyright title at the end that would be a real nuisance to remove.

When I upload and release the media under the Creative Commons License I assume this supersedes and end-title but is this the case or does a "© psamathe.net 2020" at the end make it break copyright policies of WikiMedia? PsamatheM (talk) 10:04, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

@PsamatheM: It's totally fine to have a copyright notice in the video, so long as the notice simply says that the copyright belongs to you (which is factually correct regardless of the license). If the notice said "All rights reserved", however, that might be a problem. Otherwise, I think it's fine as is. Kaldari (talk) 15:35, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
Many thanks. I'll proceed and upload (when I get a chance - looks like I'll have to extend a category tree a bit as nothing very close at the moment). I corrected the title (said "tests" but should have said "Texts".PsamatheM (talk) 23:05, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
Checkmark This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. PsamatheM (talk) 13:53, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

How Far Do I Go Creating Categories For Videos?

I uploaded a video and created categories appropriate under existing video categories to a degree. Maybe done it wrong but "best efforts" (it is

. But the video categories seem a bit "empty" and there are loads of additional categories I could create but then there are loads of videos that should also be under the new categories should I create them. For my video I've added categories under the "animals" tree (subject>nature>etc.). But I could also add under subject>Videos by country by subject‎> and start creating Thailand>Videos of animals of Thailand>Videos of bats of Thailand. But then there are loads of other videos that could be added at least to Thailand>Videos of animals of Thailand>Videos of birds of Thailand and probably more categories.

I felt the categories I added already were the useful ones for somebody looking for such a video and I don't have time to search through what would become a fairly big categorisation project if I started on the "of Thailand" (country) categories (probably don't have the expertise either).

So how far should I go creating category (sub-trees)? I appreciate how useful categories are and thet they will always be a "work in progress) PsamatheM (talk) 12:35, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

  • It's not that important that videos be in a bunch of special "video" categories; where those don't exist, just put them in the same categories you would put a photo of the same subject. - Jmabel ! talk 16:42, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
  • I second Jmabel's comment. Keep in mind that the more subcategories you create, the harder it may be to browse and find appropriate media. --Animalparty (talk) 20:24, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
Should videos be categorised with the same categories as used for still images? (as well as the "Videos of ..." categories). e.g. my bat video is currently categorised with only the appropriate "Videos of ..." categories but should I add e.g. "Chaerephon plicatus" (currently used for still images), "Animals of Thailand", etc. (I appreciate 1 video is not a massive issue but part of my learning process) PsamatheM (talk) 21:02, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
Sorry, I'd read that (incorrectly) as the equivalent categories and thus unsure about same. My fault. PsamatheM (talk) 11:11, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
Checkmark This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. PsamatheM (talk) 13:51, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Notification of DMCA takedown demand - The Weeknd

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

Affected file(s):

To discuss this DMCA takedown, please go to COM:DMCA#The Weeknd. Thank you! Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 23:37, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Did anyone take them up on their offer to permit use of these substitute files under a CC license: https://www.dropbox.com/s/g4nqkih3kho3ji3/_N9A3803.jpg?dl=0 and / or https://www.dropbox.com/s/0scet933xnxppu5/_N9A4174.jpg?dl=0  ? — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 19:07, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
They would not be allowed anyway, SMcCandlish. They specify the license would have to be "limited, non-commercial and revocable". Huntster (t @ c) 22:31, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
Ah, right. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:08, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Is Is Possible To Rename A Category?

I saw (and contributed to Category "Parón" but for consistency (and as described in Wikipedia and pretty well everywhere else) it should really be "Laguna Parón" (I know Laguna is Spanish but everybody calls it Laguna as for e.g. nearby Laguna 69 (nobody says "Lake Paron" or "Lake 69"). Probably being a bit perfectionist but get getting things right will always be an ongoing process (and part of my learning). also, if it is renamed, what happenes to references in other Wikis e.g. Wikipedia "{{Commons category|Parón}}" PsamatheM (talk) 14:34, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

@PsamatheM: According to Wikidata, d:Q3646208, it is called Laguna Parón in Spanish, Lake Parón in English, Lac Parón in French and Parun qucha in the Quecha language. It is incorrect to say that everyone uses a universal name for it. However, if you think a change of name is appropriate, you can follow the process at Commons:Rename a category. From Hill To Shore (talk) 16:06, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
Many thanks. Proposals on category talk pages and raised (with links to those pages) here of Village Pump.PsamatheM (talk) 17:12, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
Checkmark This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. PsamatheM (talk) 17:12, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Who was San Juan el Real?

A question to those who know Spain and Spanish very well. There are many Saint Johns, but which one is San Juan el Real? There are a few churches of San Juan el Real in Spain, e.g. es:Iglesia de San Juan el Real (Calatayud), es:Iglesia de San Juan el Real (Oviedo), es:Iglesia de San Juan el Real (Llamas). According to the articles, the first church is dedicated to San Juan el Real, but the second to Juan el Bautista (John the Baptist). Is it possible that San Juan el Real is other name of John the Baptist in Spanish? --jdx Re: 09:25, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

San Juan el Real (Llamas) is called "Real" because it was funded by King Ordoño I. "El Real" means "the royal one" and it's more likely due to the particular history of each building rather than what specific John they are dedicated to. B25es (talk) 11:29, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Irma violense

And again: New user, copyvio, clearly marked by huge number of wrong cateogries: Apparently 2015 ist Venus Berlin 2018, it is MarilynManson, and so on, and so on. Would be easy for a bot to single out this type of vandalism, but is only catched by chance. --C.Suthorn (talk) 23:09, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Category Rename Proposals

Two proposals to rename category names (that I consider "poor"). Proposal and reasons on category talk pages:

Category talk:Pastoruri and Category talk:Parón

Looking for consensus (on the talk pages)? (Do tell me if I'm going about this the wrong way so if there is another time I will be able to do it better) PsamatheM (talk) 17:10, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

  • If this needs discussion, it would much better go at Commons:Categories for discussion than on the Village pump.
  • Do you have "Nominate category for discussion" in your left-side tools list? I'll be honest, I set it up so long ago I don't remember what I did. Can someone please say how to add "Nominate category for discussion"? I don't see that phrase anywhere in the preferences, probably some preference should be reworded to match the actual UI. - Jmabel ! talk 20:06, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
Many thanks. There was the link and I've run the script (for both categories) - it seems only on category pages. I was following advice on Commons:Rename a category which said to post on Village Pump (under "Controversial fixes" which includes "been in use for a long time or a lot of items"). Does that page need to reference the "Nominate for discussion"? PsamatheM (talk) 22:38, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
I guess so. I'll update it The only time I'd bring that to the Village pump would be something massive, affecting dozens of categories and/or thousands of photos. - Jmabel ! talk 23:29, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
Checkmark This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. PsamatheM (talk) 10:15, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

I can't add the photo to Wikipedia

I just uploaded a photo and I try to add it to Wikipedia but it doesn't work. I tried to add "

S3 Deltachrome S8 video card (the cooler was removed to expose the graphics chip)

" to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S3_Chrome but I keep getting this message: "Action throttled

Jump to navigation Jump to search

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I don't understand what have I done wrong? Did I upload too many photos? Castwolf (talk) 03:47, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

?? now it worked ? I can also create a user page now, that didn't work a few minutes ago! Thanks! Castwolf (talk) 03:57, 23 March 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Jmabel ! talk 04:52, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

User license tag for a specific purpose, and "machine readability"

I created User:SMcCandlish/Templates/McCandlish Tartans License, to thwart a particular kind of failure to acknowledge authorship (or even fraudulent misrepresentation thereof). The license is actually more permissive than usual (it doesn't even require individual attribution; either no attribution, or attribution by at least surname, under any spelling thereof; the only thing

verboten

is false attribution to another individual, organization, or family name). This would seem like an unnecessary thing to specify, but there have been various instances of woollen mills and other textile companies stealing a design they like from an individual or small family, and marketing it under an unrelated name of a more numerous group, to sell more tartan cloth and kilts. Concerns about "poaching" or "usurping" of tartans was the main impetus for the Scottish government finally setting up an official register of them in 2009 (taking over from various mostly defunct non-profit organisations).

I've had images like File:McCandlish, red, 1255x1255 square.png flagged for speedy deletion for having an "invalid" license on them (which the tagger removed, which in turn resulted in distribution of the image, including via en.Wikipedia.org, without the licensing information that pertain to it). I've since learned that the license was not in the prescribed section (since fixed, though this is really the fault of the upload form; see thread below), and that a "machine readable" license tag is required, either in addition to this one, or by way of modifying this one somehow.

So, what exactly needs to be machine-readable, and in what way? I know my way around template coding. I would rather not add something like CC-By to this, since that license is technically more restrictive than mine (requiring complete attribution to me, the author, in particular).
SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 19:12, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

I think I've found what I was looking for: Commons:Machine-readable data#Machine readable data set by non-copyright restriction templates defines some COinS-style metadata spans, which will be easy enough to implement. However, I don't find any policy requiring this, and lack of it doesn't appear to be a deletion criterion. Indeed, Category:Files with no machine-readable license has a bazillion entries in it, and a note atop it that various standard Commons licenses don't yet comply with this metadata scheme. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:55, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
Yep, the metadata tagging instructions at that page worked; the upgraded license is now sufficiently machine-readable to prevent categorization as missing a license or having an invalid one, at least if it's in the right section of the page. It was unnecessarily difficult to find the information, though. Some reference to Commons:Machine-readable data (and to Category:User custom license tags should probably appear anywhere we're mentioning custom user license tagging. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 19:39, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Another, possibly sometimes simpler solution to something like this would be to offer {{Cc-by-sa 4.0}} as an alternative license. - Jmabel ! talk 00:29, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Meh. I don't see the point is offering an alternative license that in at least two ways is more restrictive that the one I wrote for this. And the discussion at Commons:Deletion requests/File:McCandlish, red, 1255x1255 square.png seems to be dominated by people who will not actually read the license and notice that it is less restrictive even than CC-By; they're falsely claiming that it's more restrictive of reuse and derivative works than Commons permits, when the exact opposite is true. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 19:07, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Covering events - how many files do we need?

I wonder how many photos we should have about each sporting events. For example Category:2020 - SCCL Chawton House. I would suggest 50-100 of the best but atm. there are more than 2100 and new photos are still being added. That makes me wonder if we have or should have some sort of limit. There are perhaps 10 million events every year and if we add 2000 photos (and some videos) of them all then we will have a huge amount every year. @Ser Amantio di Nicolao: . --MGA73 (talk) 21:35, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

My own feeling: as many as we can get, from as many angles as possible. I like finding large collections of images from events, sporting and otherwise - I think they can provide an in-depth view that's not always available to viewers and/or users. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao (talk) 21:39, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
@Ser Amantio di Nicolao: You uploaded 2,340 photos of non-notable people (the race specifically excludes runners above a certain skill level) at an amateur race of no particular import. (A handful of the files might be useful to illustrate the sport and typical events; any addition images add no value.) Many of the files were taken so close together than they are effectively duplicates. The filenames and descriptions are nonsense codes. The category that you placed the images in has one very broad category, when it should have several specific categories. These are basic errors that new editors are able to learn very quickly, yet you persist in them after hundreds of thousands of uploads. For this reason, I have blocked you from the file namespace until you make it clear that you understand why your uploading style is problematic, and commit to more responsible behavior. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 23:37, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
@Pi.1415926535: I understand. If unblocked I won't be doing mass uploads for a long time. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao (talk) 00:29, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
@Ser Amantio di Nicolao: Do you agree to abide by the conditions I listed on your user talk page? If so, I will release the namespace block. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 01:34, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
@Pi.1415926535: I do, yes. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao (talk) 01:35, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
A problem you will have with limiting them is deciding on which is "best." We would have to set up a whole new deletion process to determine which ones make the cut and the consensus could change on a whim. One year a clique forms to protect a set of images they deem as the best and a year later a new clique forms and deletes the previous set in favour of a new set of "best" photos. From Hill To Shore (talk) 22:15, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
I concur with From Hill To Shore and Ser Amantio di Nicolao. WMF isn't going to run out of disk space any time soon. And the premise is obviously fallacious anyway: given ~X number of events per year, and given that for some very small fraction of them we have will have > Y photos, it cannot logically be concluded that we will have > (X × Y) photos of events per year. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 19:16, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Use common sense. Rules can't replace common sense. Someone took the effort to upload these images. I hope that person did that because he or she thought the images are useful for Commons. Sometimes a user might go a bit overboard. If that doesn't happen too often, that shouldn't be a problem. Talk with each other about it. Starting deletion requests over these kind of cases is a complete and utter waste of time and effort. Multichill (talk) 17:39, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
    • This user has done disorganized, highly questionable mass uploads totaling hundreds of thousands of images for almost a decade. Their talk page is a litany of hundreds of DRs, including many of copyvios. Clearly all attempts to have them follow basic rules have failed, which is why I have resorted to a namespace block until they agree to follow the rules. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 23:37, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Ditto. Uploaders who upload multiple very similar images should be made aware of Buridan's Ass, i.e. when given too many choices, unexpected consequences may ensue. Rodhullandemu (talk) 17:57, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
  • I did not start this discussion to get someone blocked. I started it to get an opinion on what would be a good balance so that could guide us in the future (not a specific rule). Its not about if someone upload 101 files and our "guide" says 100 max. Its about 1000 vs 100. Now we have the files so lets just keep them. There is no reason to waste time discussing which file to keep. --MGA73 (talk) 07:12, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Upload form needs a fix, for custom licenses

The "?" help pop-up at the "Permission:" line in the Upload Your Own Work form instructs those using a custom license to put it in "Permissions:" and subst it. The section below this for license tags, "License:", is nothing but a drop-down selection of existing license tags. Thus, if you follow these instructions you end up with a license tag in the "Permission" part of the "Description" block, and an empty "License" section, and people or bots will flag your images for deletion as not having a license tag despite them having one. So, either the upload form needs to change, or some other process does. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:19, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

From your thread above you mention that some editors are removing your licence from the permissions section and then marking your files for deletion. That should not be happening. As a first step, discuss it with the user involved. If they do not agree to stop then take it to Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems. At worst, the editor should move your licence from one part of the page to another, not remove it entirely.
If it is a case of the editor thinking you are using an invalid licence, then discuss that with them and bring in other editors from the Village Pump if you can't reach consensus among yourselves. From Hill To Shore (talk) 22:31, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
I'm not looking to escalate it as some kind of "behavioral" thing; I think it was just a misunderstanding. My point here is that the upload form says and does one thing, but it seems that the community and perhaps license patrolling bots want another thing, so this conflict should be fixed (e.g. by changing the bot and human expectations of where a user license can be placed on the page, or changing the upload scripts to put it in the prescribed "License" section and change the "?" icons' pop-up help to reflect that change). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont]  ‹(-¿-)› 07:41, 16 March 2020 (UTC); revised 19:09, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
@SMcCandlish: I agree with From Hill To Shore. No user or bot should be nominating files for deletion simply because the license isn't in the exact spot they expect it. Kaldari (talk) 23:05, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
Sure, but that doesn't fix the underlying issue: the mismatch between the form's instructions/behavior, and what is actually expected/wanted. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:12, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
@SMcCandlish: I don't expect anything besides what the form is providing. If there's someone who does, let's invite them to this conversation. Kaldari (talk) 15:42, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
if you choose in the upload wizard "this file is not my own work" a selection will unfold with the last option a free input field. enter your own license template in this field and klick on the test button on the right side to see, if the license template is displayed correctly. fill out also the input field for source (With {own}) and author (with your name, then go on. the license will be displayed in the license section like a standard license. --C.Suthorn (talk) 12:56, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
I was not using the Upload Wizard (who does, besides noobs?), nor if I had been would I have selected "This file is not my own work" since it is my own work (otherwise I would not be entitled to put a custom user license on it in the first place). So, that comment doesn't appear to relate to this thread. Again, this is about the Upload Your Own Work form. Even if there is a way to "game" the UW's "This file is not my own work" to trick it into properly inserting a license in the right section, for something that actually is one's own work, that's actually another bug! An instruction to use that exploit does not resolve the original bug I'm reporting, is not good advice, and is not a part of the documented upload processes. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 18:59, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Would a RFC on limited time hosting under fair use for *exceptionally* high value pandemic related files be worth trying?

Testing the water for whether it would be worth posting a RfC to allow a Wikimedia Commons Fair Use for a strictly limited time and only for truly exceptionally high value media files to inform and educate about the Covid-19 pandemic.

I have in mind exceptional educational videos which may be only available on Non-Commercial licenses or No-Derivatives licenses and even 3D model files for printing respirator valves.

These files could be hosted on a special Fair Use template, with very visible warnings that they are hosted as fair use only, and will be deleted in a few months time when they are no longer considered of immediate exceptional value.

This is a vague description, a full RfC would need more detail and address questions raised here. -- (talk) 16:36, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

I expect this would cause a mess for all sister projects who do not allow fair use, or who allow fair use under local standards that may not exactly match those of most or any other projects. GMGtalk 16:42, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
A good point. Thinking this through, I believe there would be no practical conflict if our Covid-19 exceptional rule was actually limited to allowing files with ND and NC restrictions but nothing stronger, e.g. we would still disallow All Rights files. Given the context that thumbs on sister projects would automatically fit their local Fair Use interpretations. -- (talk) 16:47, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
Except that many/most have no local fair use doctrine whatsoever. GMGtalk 16:50, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
Here's a whacky approach, how about asking WMF dev to enable a transclusion rule that will only allow transclusion display on projects that have opted in?
It might be an easier thing to implement than it sounds. -- (talk) 16:57, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
Even that may be difficult. It's not quite as simple as having fair use/not fair use. The policies are qualitatively different (see the list at m:Non-free content). For example, is.wiki has "no comparable file on Commons" actually written into their fair use standards, of course with the assumption that files on Commons are properly free.
It may be a substantial task simply to develop "a fair use standard" that would be equally applicable across all projects that allow fair use, and then to technically disallow transclusion on non-fair-use projects. That's if there was consensus for it on Commons, which may require an RfC. And by the time we get all that done, it's not clear whether there would be a similar persistent public health crisis to warrant it.  GMGtalk 17:05, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
Fae this condition would exclude the projects, that are the only one's that would actually need this files/profit from this files. The projects, that have not enough man power to come up with a fair use policy, but otherwise would be able to host this fair use material themselves. --C.Suthorn (talk) 17:12, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
I think we would be better served in the long term by coming up with ways to obtain free versions of the things that would be useful. With respect to emergency supplies like the above-referenced 3D model files, nothing technically or legally prevents us from having a page with external links pointing to such resources. BD2412 T 17:32, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
I was thinking the same thing as BD2412. @: no STL file appears to have been made public for that respirator valve. In addition, there's a possibility some part of that valve is protected by patents. (I'm not sure, no expert) Educational videos, we should ask the creator(s) to consider releasing them with a free license or create something ourselves. I'm starting to have some vague idea for an instructional video, but I'm not likely to get much done alone. (read: volunteers are welcome) - Alexis Jazz ping plz 20:05, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
I seriously doubt we could host 3D models of a commercial medical valve under fair use, as it horribly fails the 3rd and 4th criteria of U.S. fair use analysis. Kaldari (talk) 22:58, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
Wouldn't this be a patent issue? Assuming the valve design is purely utilitarian, I'm having a hard time conceiving how copyright would come into it. -- Visviva (talk) 23:39, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
Maybe you're right. I hadn't considered that it's a utilitarian object. Kaldari (talk) 15:40, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
I thought Commons isn't permitted to have a fair use policy, per wikimedia:Resolution:Licensing policy --ghouston (talk) 22:23, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
Indeed. Fair use is not allowed, no exceptions. We either ask the creators of the NC/ND work to release their media under a free license, or we create our own. pandakekok9 09:02, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Please add for me

de:COVID-19-Pandemie in Italien#Regionale Verteilung needs urgent a flag for the italian region "Emilia Romagna". I have a file, but no User-id to create it in Commons. Would someone please be so gentle. Or someone can comment here, why there isn't this file in commons.

Thank U

194.120.150.21 17:59, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Tja. Melde dich an, lade im Dewiki hoch und bitte darum, dass jemand anderes die Datei nach Commons exportiert. Steinsplitter, entschuldige das direkte Anpingen hier, aber: Warum dürfen it:File:Logo testo Emilia-Romagna.svg und it:File:Bandiera Emilia-Romagna.svg nicht nach Commons transferiert werden? Fehlt da eine richtige Lizenz? — Speravir – 18:58, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Ist möglicherweise urheberrechtlich geschützt. Müsste man aber genau prüffen. --Steinsplitter (talk) 06:01, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
Ist so, ist dort ja auch vermerkt: "A causa di restrizioni che riguardano esclusivamente Wikipedia in lingua italiana, questa immagine non deve essere sostituita con corrispondenti esistenti su Wikimedia Commons.Non sostituire questo file con il corrispondente su Commons! " - frei übersetzt: "Aufgrund Beschränkungen auf das italienischsprachige Wikipedia darf dieses Bild nicht nach Commons exportiert werden. Diese Datei nicht in Commons überführen" (oder so ähnlich) --194.120.150.21 11:46, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

OK, ist erledigt durch Regione-Emilia-Romagna-Stemma.svg

This section was archived on a request by: --194.120.150.21 18:35, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

The reverse of "some consensus for removal" for Commons:Administrators/De-adminship?

Commons:Administrators/De-adminship states "De-adminship requests that are opened without prior discussion leading to some consensus for removal may be closed by a bureaucrat as inadmissible."

This has been an issue for a long time now, because a request effectively can't be started before its outcome is already a foregone conclusion. When there is a serious argument, there are always some people who want the admin's head, some people who think the admin did nothing wrong and (frequently) a majority who either doesn't know, doesn't want to upset anyone or doesn't want to mess up the relation with a fellow admin who probably won't be desysopped anyway, even if they strongly disagree with the action.

In practice this leads to an admin gradually losing more and more support of their fellow admins (if their bad behavior continues) until the bucket tips over and they get desysoppped in a firestorm.

What if, instead of requiring "some consensus for removal", we would require "some consensus to keep the admin" in order not to start a de-adminship request? If almost nobody is willing to defend the admin when the idea of a desysop is brought up, I think it's time for a desysop request. At the same time, the original reason this rule was made in the first place (to stop frivolous requests for de-adminship) would be preserved. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 13:06, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

I've long thought this should be explicitly changed to a "consensus to open a deadmin discussion". I'm perfectly comfortable saying that I might not personally think someone should be desysoped, but that there is enough doubt cast/uncertainty among the community that there should be a formal structured site-wide discussion, this is especially the case when an unstructured discussion at a place like ANU just devolves into protracted bickering among a handful of involved parties.
Many people don't watch the dramaboards, or don't participate even if they do, especially when things have gotten to the point where it requires pages of reading to have an informed opinion.
At the same time, a deadminship discussion is essentially an abbreviated RfC on adminship, and I think that's how we should treat it. You don't need a consensus for the outcome of an RfC in order to open one. In fact, opening an RfC where there is already consensus would be fairly disruptive and time wasting. But what you do need is prior local discussion that raises sufficient issues to warrant an RfC. GMGtalk 13:21, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
The effective double vote process is bizarre. The process should be reviewed, eliminating the WP:Super Mario effect.
At the end of the day, the worst that might happen is a frivolous nomination in a RFA vote. By definition what happens in the community vote cannot be unfair nor of itself frivolous. -- (talk) 13:24, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
@GreenMeansGo and : so what could be done? GMG, while I agree, in practice a deadminship discussion is just the first step towards deadmin. If we want anything to change we'll have to all get behind one proposal. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 16:21, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
Personally, I would just change those few words. It should be treated as an RfC. A local discussion decides that a matter is worthy of site-wide discussion, and we elevate the level of consensus accordingly. GMGtalk 16:43, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

I created this category by mistake

I created this category by mistake

The name is tupiniquim, not carioca. Both names usually refer to nearby locations. I know how to request the removal of images, but not categories. Thank you. Mário NET (talk) 04:00, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

You can use the speedy deletion template: {{Speedydelete}} Ruslik (talk) 05:32, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Speedy deletion

Just wondering... how long does "speedy" deletion usually take in a pretty obvious case? This picture has been nominated for speedy deletion about 16 hours ago, and it's still there. I wouldn't mind so much because of the copyright violation which is the actual reason for the deletion request, but this crop from a facebook video is an absolute insult to the person herself (I don't know her and I am not connected to her in any way) and should be deleted as quickly as possible. I am not saying that we should photoshop every woman into a Claudia Schiffer, but let's rather have no picture at all than such an insultingly unfavorable one. --217.239.14.212 09:48, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

It depends. We don't have enough admins who could keep up with the backlog, so there would be a case where a speedy deletion takes too long. All we can do now is to be patient. :) pandakekok9 11:05, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
Now deleted. - Jmabel ! talk 20:28, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Jmabel ! talk 20:28, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Hi, I was wondering if someone could take a look at the images and that category. IdreamofJeanie made a comment and as I am not familiar with that copyright status I'dd like someone to take a closer look. Thank you for your time. Lotje (talk) 09:51, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Apparently they are screenshots of a non-free show, therefore all of them are copyright violations. This is a case of flickrwashing. I marked all of the images in the category as copyvio, which should be speedily deleted. Thanks, pandakekok9 11:04, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
Deleted now by Green Giant. pandakekok9 02:03, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: pandakekok9 02:03, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Changing information by language (IP-users)

I only patrolled for 15 minutes and multiple time I see users add the English information to 'it' (Italian) or 'sv', etc. and then delete the english one. It are multiple IP-adresses. Do they really don't understand, or is this vandalism? Example: see here. - I can only revert it, it looks like it are different users. Someone has an other idea? - Grtz. - Richardkiwi (talk) (talk) 15:47, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

This happens many times and definitely needs to get reverted. But we could not find out if this is a bug or interface issue or intended vandalism. --GPSLeo (talk) 19:05, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
IMO it's vandalism. Quite common one. Although for sure there are also ordinary morons who do not know what they are doing. --jdx Re: 21:20, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
  • How about using the phantastick advantages of having this info in a “real” database instead of «locked in wikitext» and just run a SPARQL job to detect and undo (or at least flag) this kind of edits? -- Tuválkin 18:22, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Let's brainstorm ideas on how to defeat the unpatrolled edits backlog

Currently we have 664585+ unpatrolled edits as of 19 March 2020. Despite having RTRC (and its masspatrol feature), my attempts to encourage patrollers to clear the backlog, and users who love using MassPatrol, we still aren't able to get the number down to at least 10000 (afaik). This is a big deal, as it means we are missing out a lot of edits. Imagine if 90% of that is vandalism. That's a lot of vandalism left unchecked and unreverted! I think it's time that we brainstorm ideas on how we can clear this huge backlog, and not only for one-time, but consistently (like only about 1000 unpatrolled edits on average per month).

One idea I thought about is filtering edits by language. There are some edits which are done in a language I don't understand (like Arabic, Russian, French...), so I won't be able to decide whether it's good or not. So I skip it in RTRC. Probably this is the main reason why we have a huge backlog despite having like 600 patrollers, 200 admins, and 275 image reviewers. They probably shy off after seeing that there's a lot of edits in languages they don't understand, so they give up and move on to other tasks instead. If we could filter edits by language, we can clear the backlog easily, and we can recruit other users who know the languages in the remaining unpatrolled edits.

Another idea is giving patrollers the ability to grant autopatrol to other users. This can help quicken the process of autopatrolling trusted users (COM:RFR is quite slow). But this can also be a bad idea, because of the possibility of abuse (like granting obvious vandals autopatrol to make it harder to detect them).

Pinging users who would probably be interested in this: @Steinsplitter: @~riley: @Jianhui67: @Krinkle: @Rillke: @Jdx: @Zhuyifei1999: @1989: @Minorax: @GPSLeo: @Eatcha: @DannyS712: pandakekok9 09:44, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

There's also this by Masumrezarock100, though I don't know if that's faster than RTRC's MassPatrol... pandakekok9 10:05, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
I strongly oppose the idea of giving patrollers the ability to grant autopatrol. RFR is only slow right now because Eatcha added over 300 requests over the span of 48 hours. Dozens and dozens of which were, or are going to be, declined. That alone is grounds for strongly opposing the ability for patrollers to grant rights. Generally if it is a good request it is acted upon with a day or two. Only those that present other issues generally take longer. Burying us under hundreds of requests all at once is going to make the process agonizingly slow and newer requests are going to languish. --Majora (talk) 10:09, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
I also do not think patrollers should be able to grant autopatrol right. The admins should do more patrolling and granting rights to trusted users. If they do not have the capacity to do this we need more active admins.
But I think it would be good to put a huge banner with "WE NEED HELP!" on the top of the Village pump. --GPSLeo (talk) 10:31, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
I hate to sound the way I'm going to sound but we simply don't have the time to do general patrolling or for pursuing the lists looking for people to grant autopatrol to. If we stumble across something that needs to be reverted, of course we take care of it. If we stumble across someone that should have autopatrolled, of course we grant it. But there is far too much to do that requires the admin toolkit, far too many DRs to go through, and far too many copyvios to deal with to really do a lot of patrolling. We do expect that patrollers will ask for people to be granted autopatrolled during the course of their patrolling. That is fine, and as already mentioned if it is a good request it is generally acted up quickly. If patrollers are not doing that on a regular basis perhaps that needs to be more frequently advertised that asking for autopatrolled for others on valid grounds is encouraged. Burying us under hundreds of requests all at once though with the only criteria apparently edit count and account age is simply unacceptable. --Majora (talk) 10:37, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
pandakekok The ping didn't worked. Try pinging all of them in 2 or 3 separate edits. Limitation of echo ext :( //Eatcha (talk) 10:42, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
I totally agree. Adding at script generated list without any check for activity and warnings on talk page to the regular RfR page does not help anyway. Such a list should be on a separate page as a hint and for further checking. --GPSLeo (talk) 10:47, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
from my talk-page User:Krd . How do we do that ?, is there any extension that needs to be installed, WD assigns auto-patrol automatically based on edit counts, if I am not wrong. // Eatcha (talk) 11:02, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
Regarding how wikidata did this: d:Wikidata:Requests_for_comment/Restructuring_of_the_"minor"_user_rights --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 19:23, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
This has already been discussed before. We are not going to grant autopatrolled via the autopromote system. As already mentioned, edit count and account age is not a valid rationale for granting that right by themselves. As clearly evident by the sheer number of denials of the massive batch of nominations you just made. --Majora (talk) 11:39, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
Hell no, we ain't doing autopromotions here. Might as well remove the patrol thing if we do that. pandakekok9 11:42, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

As per Majora, DR back log and copyvios are more important than reviewing edits that might be bad. Was Commons:Village_pump/Proposals/Archive/2020/01#Patrol_all_old_edits_of_now_autopatrolled_users completed?--BevinKacon (talk) 13:57, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

At least at mobile edits by IP users the vandalism rate is very high. There we definitely need to patrol every edit. The patrolling of the old edits can be done, as the bot request is still open I only did some manual runs. --GPSLeo (talk) 14:17, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
Very high, hehe. Let's face it, it's something like 98%. Basically when you see an anonymous edit tagged as "mobile edit" you can revert it in the dark. The proper approach in case of mobile anonymous editors is "assume bad faith". --jdx Re: 21:50, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
If 98% of IP edits are vandalism and you have proof, then propose to block all IP edits, or add restrictions such as forced CAPTCHA or only allow edits in certain spaces.--BevinKacon (talk) 20:49, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
I agree with this.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:36, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Looking for some deleted file history...

Hi, am having a discussion here about the colour of the extinct American lion. The image is an artistic reconstruction but the colour is wrong. There are two files in the history, but the file dates back to 2008, when there seems to have been several file changes. For one reason or another the old versions have been deleted, but their addresses have been noted in the talk page. Would it still be possible for an admin to look at those deleted files and check if there is one of a lion with a reddish and black colour, rather than the stereotypical yellowish of the cougar and the African lion? ~ R.T.G 08:34, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

  • @RTG: Could you please be more concrete about exactly what files you want to see, rather than an admin having to sort through a lengthy discussion to see what is at issue? - Jmabel ! talk 19:53, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
@Jmabel: On the talkpage there is a template listing the original revision history, not part of the discussion. I just want to know if any of those feature a brown/red cat, rather than a yellow/white one, thanks. ~ R.T.G 20:11, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
Here are the links, [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] ~ R.T.G 20:13, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
For convenience in following this up:
There is only one version of the image. Everything else is edit history. - Jmabel ! talk 23:21, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
The only image there is identical to the original image at File:Panthera_leo_atrox_Sergiodlarosa.jpg; as you can see in File:Panthera_leo_atrox_Sergiodlarosa.jpg, the current image is not the same as that original. And there is nothing that looks at all interesting in the edit history, just slow addition of categories, addition of Arabic-language description, etc. - Jmabel ! talk 23:26, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
Excellent. Thank you JMabel. ~ R.T.G 23:38, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Risk taking

Do we have a category for youth taking some risk? By the way this is an an of lack of social distance in Spain six days before the lockdown in Spain. Other example is File:Cádiz seafront 2020 2.jpg.Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:13, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

That seems like it would be a highly subjective categorization scheme. GMGtalk 13:01, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
It's a highly subjective and context-dependent scheme that would be poor for categorizing images. Motorcycling, Rock climbing, Substance abuse, Camping, Sex, Smoking, and Shellfish-based food can all be considered "risk taking", depending on context. If crowds are risky currently, you're better off simply using Category:Crowds by place and time. and selecting appropriate images to illustrate whatever purpose needed. The image above can have a hundred different uses depending on context and article it appears in ("fun", "friendship", "isolation", "beach-going", etc.), most of which don't necessitate explicit categorization. --Animalparty (talk) 20:06, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
True, although such a category does exist at Category:Dangerous situations. --ghouston (talk) 03:23, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
The fact something exists on a Wiki does not mean it should. It may as well include War, Fires, Rusty nails, Explosions and Crab fishing. --Animalparty (talk) 06:38, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
Category:Stunts is a good one, or we could just include Category:Life and save further bother. --ghouston (talk) 11:34, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
I think its more as a puberal activity. In the children categories I dont see any specific categories for the in-betweens: Youth, Puberty activity. These are not serious risc takers, such as cave divers, etc.Smiley.toerist (talk) 16:50, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
This category actually seems useful to me. What if I was writing a paper about adrenaline or something and wanted to find a few illustrations? The category name and description could be used to reduce the subjectivity by narrowing down what is meant by "risk-taking". Probably it would have to be limited to things that are obviously risky based on the picture alone, without any other context (so failing to socially distance would probably not fit). – BMacZero (🗩) 16:19, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Categories and depicts on multiple versions of the same file?

I've been uploading scans of photos such as the below, where there's a full scan, a cropped version (sometimes multiple, e.g.), and a scan of the back. Should they all be added to categories and all take the same depicts (P180)? Or only the cropped version, to reduce clutter in the categories? Does the scan of the back depict anything other than inscription (Q1640824)? Do these depict a photographic print (Q56055236)? Anything else I should do better?

Sam Wilson ( TalkContribs ) … 00:56, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

  • @Samwilson: Don't put the categories on the back about what the front depicts (but do make sure it is linked from the images of the front). It would be worth putting more categories on the back if this were, for example, a postcard of a particular place; a publication of a particular company; something with a particular date associated; etc.
  • I know this isn't a universal consensus, but I would put the categories on both images of the front; if they are mutually well linked, though (by {{Other}}, {{Derivative works}}/{{Derived from}}, etc.), it really hardly matters. I wouldn't be overly worried about clogging up the categories: different people might find either version more useful for their purposes, and it's good that they are both easily found. - Jmabel ! talk 04:48, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Category:Person by year

Today marked a new record: Category:Amanda Lear, containing nine (9) photographs of Amanda Lear, was subdivided into six (6) categories: Amanda Lear in 1978, 1990, 2004, 2009, 2010 and 2011, by @Spinoziano: . In my view this is a ridiculous way of overcategorization, whereby a simple overview is destroyed. I would like to propose that if someone wants to make a subdivision "by year" of a category containing less than 200 images, it should be compulsary to keep the old category as it is. Even better would be to change the category names into Category:Amanda Lear|1978 etc, so a chronologicial order is introduced while maintaining the overview. Vysotsky (talk) 11:14, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

I created only the 1978 one, only for uniformity, the others already existed.--Spinoziano (talk) 12:42, 23 March 2020 (UTC)
200 seems maybe high, but I basically agree. I think you should feel free to undo those scatter-gories and bring those back together in one category. - Jmabel ! talk 16:21, 23 March 2020 (UTC)
Thanks! 200 images can be viewed in one page (desktop view), that's why I chose the number of 200 images. Apologies to Spinoziano for the incorrect accusation: this is not about blaming someone, but about over-categorization in general. What I propose to do with this category (and others whenever I will see them): add Category:Name person|year, and leave the other categories as they are (even if I think they are not necessary). Vysotsky (talk) 16:35, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

This could easily be solved with a "View all" button for every category, where you could view all files in not just the main category but also all sub-categories. Then over-categorisation wouldn't be a problem and Wikimedia Commons would be easy to navigate, regardless of how many sub-categories a subject has. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 17:10, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Pssst, don't tell anyone, but: Commons:Village pump/Proposals#Category overdiffusion by date. --HyperGaruda (talk) 20:23, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Images from open dataset for reviews

We are working on a project for open reviews of places, websites, books and companies (for now). You can see the current site and an article with our motivation. The first project that started linking to Mangrove is this great castle map, which uses Commons images. Since Mangrove allows for image upload along with reviews, creator of that project suggested that we should try to work with Commons to host these images. Is it something that would make sense? How would we go about integration?

We are open to any suggestions about the Mangrove project as well as open image hosting in particular. --Keornion (talk) 14:13, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

  • @Keornion: If those pictures on the site right now come from Commons, then you are almost certainly non-compliant right now: I don't see at all how, when looking at a picture, I can see any attribution or license information. Am I missing something? (Let's get that sorted out first so that you are legal, before we look at all deeply into hosting.
  • Also, though, up front: when you say, "[the] creator of that project suggested that we should try to work with Commons to host these images" that can be parsed two ways. Do you mean that you want to host images that are currently on Commons, or that you want Commons to host images that are not currently on Commons and would come from your users? - Jmabel ! talk 19:59, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
  • @Jmabel:  :) Hi! The images hosted on Mangrove Reviews are uploaded by our users and have currently nothing to do with Commons. All of our data is however under open license, so the thought was to rather than create our own dataset of images, to integrate with Commons. If we would introduce the integration then we would include appropriate changes to our T&Cs as well as proper attribution. (I think confusion resulted from me referring to another service Castle Map, which makes use of both Mangrove and Commons). --Keornion (talk) 08:45, 23 March 2020 (UTC)
    • @Keornion: If the images can be properly licensed, described, and at least moderately well categorized, we'd be glad to have them. And as long as you aren't at the level of tens of thousands of image hits per hour, I believe Commons would have no problem with you deep-linking here to display the images directly from Commons as an image store; at a certain point if your traffic really grows, it would become necessary at least to cache so that you are not always hitting Commons for every image on a heavy-traffic site.
    • If Keornion wants to pursue this, is there someone who could help create an appropriate Commons upload tool? This would probably be analogous to a cross-wiki upload, or one of the uploaders we use for a contest. - Jmabel ! talk 16:17, 23 March 2020 (UTC)
      • @Jmabel: You have mentioned 4 criteria: license, volume (image hits) , description and categorization. Volume is not a problem (hopefully some day), license is not a problem, as for description and categorization, when reviewer uploads a picture we can know a few things about it: 1) Does it refer to a place, company or a book. 2) What exact place (coordinates and place name), book (ISBN), company (LEI number) does the image refer to. 3) Optional caption for the picture. 4) The review itself, which may or may not refer to the picture directly.
      • If that sounds reasonable then ideally we could have access to an upload API which we can integrate with the backend. Let me know how that could work. --Keornion (talk) 21:40, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
        • @Keornion: I'm probably not the one to drive this; again: is there someone who could help create an appropriate Commons upload tool?
        • One caveat: we are super-strict here about any copyright on the underlying work for photos that are derivative works. Most images of books would be unacceptable (limited to something so old as to be out of copyright or so simple as to be ineligible); in countries with limits on freedom of panorama, we enforce those strictly. E.g. we can't accept pictures of copyrighted sculptures or other artwork in the U.S., even if they are in a public place; in France or Romania, this is an issue even for buildings. I don't know how strictly you enforce these things on your site. - Jmabel ! talk 22:16, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

60 million files

We just passed 60 million files sometime in the last few days (the content-page count is not as high, for some reason that I do not understand). Did no one comment about this somewhere at the time it happened?

To estimate when that was, I have used records of Commons file counts collected by a script that I run periodically (locally on my computer). Unfortunately, not only do I run it manually, but I don't keep all the past counts, since that would eventually take up a lot of space. As a result, I don't have counts for every day at exactly 00:00 UTC. But here are the counts I do have from around the time we passed 60 million files:

Time File count
2020-03-21T06:22:29Z 60,182,391
2020-03-17T01:49:51Z 60,005,183
2020-03-13T00:11:33Z 59,847,567

Since the count was 5,183 files past 60 million at about 110 minutes after 00:00 UTC on the 17th, and images were being added at approximately 28 images per minute during this time period, it looks to me like the 60 millionth image was probably created before 00:00 UTC instead of after. (This is obviously a very crude way of estimating this, but it's the best I can do.) So, I say it happened on 16 March 2020. Does anyone disagree? Does anyone have a better source of counts (closer to when we passed 60M or closer to 00:00 UTC each day)? - dcljr (talk) 01:45, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

According to the Wayback Machine (perhaps a cached version but still), on timestamp 16 March 01:05:45 (unsure timezone) we were still at 59,969,470 files. On 17 March 07:30:42 (unsure timezone) we were at 60,004,172 files. So, sometime between those timestamps. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 16:43, 23 March 2020 (UTC)
Hmm. Since that info is not necessarily "live" (as you point out) and time-stamped based on an unknown timezone (unless someone wants to chine in with that info), it can't really be used to supplement my information. Does anyone know of a wiki page like m:List of Wikipedias/Table that includes Commons? (Unfortunately, Wikistats 2.2 doesn't seem to provide any way to see past stats, only the most recent. Or am I wrong about that?) - dcljr (talk) 01:25, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, dcljr, Jonatan Svensson Glad! --Brateevsky {talk} 08:34, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

Expired API key

When trying to use Fickr2Commons I get the message: "Invalid API Key (Key has expired)". What do I do ? Bengt Nyman (talk) 04:02, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

Fickr2Commons => Flickr2Commons.
@Bengt Nyman: Are you current with OAuth (http://tools.wmflabs.org/magnustools/oauth_uploader.php?action=authorize)? - Jmabel ! talk 16:05, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
Yes, I just reauthorized again to make sure, same message: "Invalid API Key (Key has expired)" Bengt Nyman (talk) 16:38, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
I'm also having issues. It appears that the problem is the API for the tool, not with OAuth. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 17:11, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
I have now notified Magnus Manske, the designer of the Flickr2Commons tool, hoping for a fix. Bengt Nyman (talk) 18:06, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

Something went wrong...

with a deletion request. I had used an external link so I was asked to enter a Captcha. It did that multiple times and apparently did not accept the words I entered (correctly). Eventually, the dialog gave up. So now for some strange reason the deletion request made it into the list of deletion requests but not into the file itself. Can someone fix this please? Thanks! --87.150.0.98 10:41, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Not sure why or how, but the problem seems to be solved. --87.150.0.98 12:32, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: --87.150.0.98 12:32, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Categories Tutorial or Explainer Video

Hello!! For Wiki Loves Africa we find that people are terrified of adding categories or do it incorrectly. I thought a video about the best way to do this might help, but I don't want to reinvent the wheel. Is there already a video or series of videos that do this? Islahaddow (talk) 09:36, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

There doesn't seem any video about categories AFAIK. Feel free to do a video about it. :) pandakekok9 11:24, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Reclassifying train categories to tram categories

Historicaly the Denia to Alicante railway line, was treated as a local narrow gauge railway. This however is in practice no longer the case as the Alicante to Benidorm part was rebuilt and electrified as a tramline. The non-electrified trains no longer run through to Alicante and are limited to Benidorm where a tram connection is offered. My suggestion is to reclassify al the stations used only by trams as tram stops. For example Train station Sangueta to Tram station Sangueta. From Category:Benidorm railway station to Category:Train station of Dénia wil remain train stations, Only the Category:FGV's 2500 series will be considered train for yesr date categories. I await feedback and concencus before the massive reclassifying action.Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:41, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

with the “tram” being called a “light railway” these days. No need for change since vehicles (define) still run on rails here. --Zenwort (talk) 13:16, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
There is a little bit of inconsistancy here: File:Alicante tram 2020 01.jpg is on a new tramline T2 wich have never seen trains running. There is also a new second tramline 4. See File:TRAM - Alicante Esquema de Red.svg. For these lines 'CCYY in tram transport in Spain' are used. “light railway” is mostly an British and American concept, for vehicles between trains and streettrams.Smiley.toerist (talk) 23:42, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Then-and-now

Do we have any categories for "then-and-now" comparisons? We have a lot of such images, especially postcards, e.g.:

Jmabel ! talk 00:49, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes: Category:Then and now. --A.Savin 02:22, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
THANKS! - Jmabel ! talk 16:17, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Jmabel ! talk 16:17, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Transclude template from English Wikipedia

Hello, I need some help to transclude this template from the English Wikipedia within this file to show as part of the file description, would that be possible?   ~ Newfitz Yo! 02:11, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

  • You can't transclude from en, any links on there would need to be modified to work correctly on Commons, and that template is presumably evolving so I presume you would want a permalink to a fixed version of it to reference, no? Would it meet your need to generate a permalink on en-wiki, and link to that, or do you actually need to transclude (and if so why?). - Jmabel ! talk 20:21, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Copyright question

Hi, some of this user's uploads, like this one or this one, have a copyright note in the metadata. The name of the copyright holder is identical with the name of the uploader, so I am assuming it is actually her. Nonetheless, don't we need some kind of proof of identity in such a case? And is it o.k. to keep a copyright tag in the metadata while at the same time licensing the photo under a Creative Commons license? --217.239.14.212 08:42, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Common practice is to assume good faith first that the files are the own work of the uploader. If there's significant doubt, then that's where COM:DR and COM:PRP comes in. I don't see any reason for significant doubt in the examples you given, so they should be kept. pandakekok9 09:13, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Permission to place a large collection of shell images on Wikimedia Commons

Hello all members of Wikimedia Commons.

First I would like to explain how this profile called Mário NET acts, here on Wikipedia support. From my history of edits and errors, you can see that I am more interested in the dissemination of free knowledge than in attempts to elaborate damage to the worldwide Wikipedia project in all languages.

It so happens that I recently talked to the owner of a trade and information page of mollusks, in Brazil, called Marcus Coltro. He explained to me that the entire image collection on his Femorale page would be fully allowed for placement on Wikimedia Commons. The conversation is on a page called Colecionadores de Conchas, inside Facebook. It was quoted just now.

Here, on these links, is placed the entire catalog of images allowed, including the fact that he commented that there are the possibility to delete the logo for use here. The only thing to do would be to quote the page on the download. I imagine that everyone who understands here will say that he will need a virtual document to guarantee these licenses.

I do not believe that it is the correct way for you to work with licenses here. However, I don't have the time to play games with the seriousness of the material included here.

A great year for all members of this page. Mário NET (talk) 23:08, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

@Mário NET: I looked at the Facebook post that you mentioned and I'm not seeing a license stated. What license are they agreeing to put these images under? Please note that in order to be acceptable here the license must allow anyone to reuse, or modify, the image, at any time, and for any purpose (including commercial use). This is not because Wikipedia accepts donations but because Commons is a central repository for free images anyone can use. Anyone at all. Regardless of their affiliation with any Wikimedia project. We need confirmation from the copyright holder what license they are putting these images under in order to be acceptable here. For more information on what licenses we accept please see COM:L. --Majora (talk) 23:19, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for the answer. I also don’t understand the copyright mentioned in the images. I believe that they do not work with these license codes. It was just an attempt that I didn't doubt could be 99% unsuccessful. Mário NET (talk) 00:27, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
"I didn't doubt could be 99% unsuccessful"? Meaning you considered this as likely to have a 99% probability of failure? Or am I misreading you?
For any situation this ambiguous, we would absolutely need the copyright holder to use the approach described at COM:OTRS and explicitly grant a sufficiently free license. - Jmabel ! talk 00:48, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
Hi, the website author needs to confirm their identity and permission with COM:OTRS using their email@femorale.com account. Or they need to update their website to license images under one listed at Commons:Licensing. Once completed, Commons:Batch uploading would be the next step if it's a very large collection.--BevinKacon (talk) 09:39, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
I said "I didn't doubt could be 99% unsuccessful" because I believe that the page in question does not work with Wikimedia Commons license codes. In any case, the recipient of the images did not know that they could be free for commercial work. He did not agree with that probability. I also warned him that it is not so simple to donate images to Wikimedia commons with a simple permission. Mário NET (talk) 00:22, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
Mário NET, the process can be as simple as the author wishes it to be. By far the easiest and simplest is a declaration placing a work in the public domain. No license, no pre-requisites. The licensing requirement is really to intended to make it easier for others to reuse the work. -Green Giant (talk) 01:06, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Photo challenge in the Time of COVID-19 pandemic

Traditionally at the end of a month, I start a discussion at Commons talk:Photo challenge about next month Photo Challenge themes. Most months nobody have any thoughts on the subject, and I pick the themes (from the most voted ones at Commons_talk:Photo_challenge/themes) and create the pages. It is time to choose again, however most of the themes proposed are outdoor themes, which I think we should avoid next month. I feel like we are getting a lot of photographs in Category:COVID-19 pandemic category (over 12.5k at the last count) and it would be nice to recognize the most interesting ones, so I proposed COVID-19 pandemic theme. However on the other hand, we do not want to encourage anybody to be taking unnecessary risks. An alternative would be to do 2 indoor challenges, like Interior clock or Home cooking videos theme (which I think is an excellent idea by Rhododendrites). So I would like to get more opinions if it is a good idea to have a pandemic themed challenge, with "The new challenge features COVID-19 pandemic (please stay safe and follow all the recommendations of your community)." explanation. --Jarekt (talk) 15:59, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, Jarekt. Staying indoors was indeed the reason for my proposing the home cooking videos theme, so of course I support these. :) Another one I was going to propose was "cleaning," but I didn't because it was previously rejected in 2016. Maybe worth bringing back. — Rhododendrites talk16:05, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Help with translated version of a map

Hi! I've translated and uploaded File:Provincias de España-pt.svg, with a few modifications, from File:Provincias de España.svg, but I'm having difficulty linking and categorising the files, as well giving proper credit to the original author. I'm afraid, I'm not finding Commons:Translation possible/Learn more clear enough. So, I would like to ask if someone could help me with this? Thank you very and sorry for the inconvenience. - Sarilho1 (talk) 18:35, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Instead of of attributing yourself as author (template {{Own}}) you give the other file as source. Giving a {{Self}} license is also wrong. For the categories you look for the categories of the source. For all of these cf. Special:Diff/407429410/407461322. Both files could be linked each other in the other_files field, as well. — Speravir – 21:37, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
@Sarilho1: I tweaked things a little to set things up for you. As a derivative work of a creative commons file with "atribution" terms, you can licence the new file as your own work (provided that the new licence has equivalent terms to the original) and you give clear credit to the original creator. For the author field I have used the {{After}} template to say that your derivative is based on the original creator's work. I've also used the {{Derived from}} template to make the relationship to the original file more clear. For the licence you were just missing a bracket; the 4.0 licence is equivalent to the 3.0 licence of the original so it is fine to use it here. From Hill To Shore (talk) 23:30, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
From Hill To Shore (ping also @Sarilho1), this is a “simple” translation and hence below threshold of origin (though admittedly mentioning as translator is not wrong). — Speravir – 19:12, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

1902 Encyclopædia Britannica

I have found and uploaded to Commons PDFs of ten of the eleven volumes of the 10th edition (1902) of Encyclopædia Britannica.

The eleventh file, the index, will not upload; I've made several attempts. Can anyone assist, please? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:36, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

✓ Done by Ratte. Ankry (talk) 08:58, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

That's great; thank you. Volume 34 as a 1012-page atlas and (from page 509) gazetteer; does anyone have the wherewithal to extract all the map images? Maybe ?. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:19, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Here's the theory, you can take a pdf as a source and pull all images from that "package" to save locally, then (I guess) one can mass upload whatever selected subset you want to Commons, in this case probably by manually deleting all the pages that don't look like maps.
I'll fiddle with this case in the background, it may be an unintelligent upload.
Okay, run into an old problem, just cannot get ImageMagick to process jp2 files despite following the guidelines and an uninstall/reinstall (jp2 is what the images in the pdf are). Giving up for the moment. -- (talk) 15:17, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
@Pigsonthewing and : I can do this task. I have prepared 248 images, ready to be uploaded to Commons. But before I proceed, please see samples and provide some feedback. 4nn1l2 (talk) 07:26, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
@4nn1l2 and : Thank you. All looks good to me. Perhaps also add a temporary "Category:1902 Encyclopædia Britannica maps needing location", to aid classification? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:29, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
+1. Out of interest, what compression quality did you go for, and did you consider trying PNG? -- (talk) 11:03, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

WikiCup on Wikimedia Commons

Is there any possibility of organizing wikicup on Wikimedia commons? Points based on FPs/VIs/QIs/FVs/MOTD/POTD/POTY/Monthly photography competition/Edit count/Total number of files uploaded/Tools or User scripts or Bots created/Participation in DRs/General Maintenance tasks like categorization anything else ? weights of points should be discussed E.g. Weight of QIs < FPs. // Eatcha (talk) 18:26, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

  • I, personally, am strongly opposed to making Commons more competitive. I'm reasonably comfortable with having the "Wiki Loves …" competitions, because they usually get us photos we might not otherwise get, but I can't see any purpose at all served by turning this sort of thing into something competitive, and by singling out some tasks to the exclusion of others, so that people are effectively discouraged from working on potentially equally valuable tasks. - Jmabel ! talk 22:30, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
    • Agreed. In particular, rewarding edit count and number of uploads would reward rather than discourage the problematic behavior of mass-uploading images without regard for quality or usefulness. I'd rather see encouragement for unexciting maintenance tasks like finding copyvios, improving descriptions, and identifying mystery images. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 22:46, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
      The tasks I mentioned are just examples. It's up-to the community to discuss the eligibility/weight of tasks. And any one from dewiki ? // Eatcha (talk) 03:29, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Upload campaigns on a map?

Let's say I want to invite people to upload pictures of eg. all churches in a given country. I have their coordinates, ideally loaded into Wikidata as individual items. I would like to put the pins on a map and enable participants to click on a pin and be redirected to Upload Campaign where some information about the church is already pre-filled from Wikidata (eg. description, category). Is something like this currently possible? Thanks, --Vojtěch Dostál (talk) 09:05, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Esh family

Whether my picture --- File:Esh Family 1959.jpg --- is properly licensed, if not Tell me, please, what exactly should I add or fix. Thanks in advance. Wiki82esh (talk) 12:31, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Whether my picture --- File:Esh Family 1959.jpg --- is properly licensed now?Wiki82esh (talk) 17:24, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Wiki82esh, What I am getting from your image is that, this is a family photograph, taken by the member of the family in 1959, which you have scanned. You or someone else in the family, is the copyright holder of this image, and that person has a right to release the image under whatever license they like, including {{Cc-by-sa-4.0}}. If my interpretation is correct than the it is properly licensed, However in such cases we usually ask for the copyright holder to send email to OTRS stating that they hold the (inherited) copyrights to this image and that they are releasing the image under cc-by-sa-4.0. Please see, COM:OTRS/CONSENT for details. --Jarekt (talk) 18:45, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

properly licensed now?

Whether my picture --- File:Eli Sjchechtman 1947.jpg --- is properly licensed now?Wiki82esh (talk) 09:09, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

@Wiki82esh: This one? No. This is obviously not your own work. Who was the author of this image, what was the country of origin, and when did the author die? Thanks, pandakekok9 09:22, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
And also add a source. pandakekok9 09:23, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
@Wiki82esh: , It would be easier to follow the discussion if we kept it in one place. We were already discussing your uploads at Commons:Village_pump#Esh_family. Could you tell us about the source of those photographs? --Jarekt (talk) 13:25, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
  • The questions are: 1) to the best of your knowledge was the image taken by a member of the Schechtman family, and 2) Are you a member of the Schechtman family that is authorized to release it under a creative commons license? Multiple people have asked, but there is still no clear answer, and apparently the OTRS statement did not provide a clear answer. People are worried that it was taken by a news photographer and that photographer or news organization would own the copyright. We make a clear distinction between family photos and commercial photos. We would be very happy to host images from the Schechtman family archive, if you answer the two questions in a timely manner. We already house many photos from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Jewish Museum Berlin, but the people who loaded the images, answered the questions asked clearly. Start by telling is who you are and your connection to the Schechtman family and you can fill in your profile at User:Wiki82esh with a statement of your connection to the family, and if you are legally authorized to act on the family's behalf. Also if you want to create entries for each of the books Schechtman wrote, the best place is Wikidata. I see that the images of the covers are being deleted, the publisher owns the rights to the covers if they contain photographs or drawings. Text only covers are allowed at Commons because they do not meet the threshold of originality. Text based titles and headlines are trademarked not copyrighted. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 21:40, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Esh Family (continue)

{{helpme}} Hi, Jarket and R.A.Norton!
Thanks for yours explanations!!
I, Lev Berny, born in 1936, Odessa, USSR. My wife, Larisa Berny, born in 1939, Kiev, USSR, pen name - Alma Shin, is the daughter and sole heiress of the Jewish writer Eli Schechtman.
1. As far as I know, this photo (File: Esh Family 1959.jpg) was taken by one of the members of the family of Eli Schechtman. 2. At the request of my wife, I am trying to introduce the Jewish writer Eli Schechtman to an English-speaking reader.
I hope that I answered on your two questions.
There is another photo (File: Eli Schechtman 1947.jpg) that was taken immediately after the end of WWII. Who made it is unknown to anyone and photo is over 70 years old.
The photo (File: Eli Schechtman L.jpg) was taken by my wife Larisa Berny and the photo (File: Eli Schechtman's grave.jpg) was taken by me.

Now about the covers of books. Yiddish books are copyrighted by Larisa Berny.
Yiddish
File: Afn Sheidveg.jpg File: EREV Yid Full 83.jpg File: Ringen oyf der Neshome 1981.1988.jpg File: Sunset yid esh.jpg

Copyright for books in Russian
Russian translation
File: EREV I&II esh.jpg File: Ringen 1 esh.jpg File: Ringen 2 esh.jpg File: Last Sunset 2008 esh.jpg
belong to Larisa Berny. See (https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Альма_Шин).

What to do with English translation
English translation
File: ErevFull.jpg
and with french translations
French translation
File: A la vielle de esh.jpg File: EREV fr ash.jpg File: La Charrue de Feu 2015.jpg
and with translations into Hebrew
Hebrew translation
File: Tabaot ba Neshama (klassika) Heb rsh 1992.jpg File: Ringen heb esh1.jpg
I do not know and ask for your help.
With my regards
Lev BernyWiki82esh (talk) 23:16, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Problem/Help: Upload Wizard - Overwritten (Existing) Images

I uploaded 30 images of Chavín de Huantar names Chavín de Huantar-1.jpg to Chavín de Huantar-30.jpg.

When I look at my uploads they are attributed to somebody else with different settings, though the image is the one I uploaded and the camera EXIF data is for my image.

But there is an image history and it seems my upload has uploaded a new version of an existing image. On uploading I got no warnings of images with same name or anything - all went like a normal upload of new images.

My images are very different from those they have superseded (my images are photos I took myself) - so Commons really wants both as completely different images.

How do I "untangle" situation? And how do I avoid it happening in future? PsamatheM (talk) 10:54, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

What tool did you use to upload the images? If you are using the default UploadWizard and duplicating a title, there is a red warning message on the Describe page that says "A file with this name exists already. If you want to replace it, go to the page for File:FILENAME.EXT and replace it there." - so I'd be surprised it let you overwrite. I'm afraid you'll probably have to re-upload all of them with different names, then revert the ones you overwrote to the previous version. There is Commons:History merging and splitting, but I don't think that's the solution in this case because your page text did not make it up at all. – BMacZero (🗩) 17:02, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
I used the standard "Upload file" link on the left sidebar. Didn't get any warnings about file existing (I'm sure about that because I have seen them before). I'm wondering if it might be something to do with having a non-ASCII character in the name where my file was "Chavín de Huantar-29.jpg" (with the accented i) and the existing file was "encoded" (%xx) so something didn't detect "same". PsamatheM (talk) 18:29, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
I'm quite happy to re-upload with new names (there are only 30). Also quite happy to revert the overwritten ones to their originals (again, only 30). Just wanted to make sure I was doing things the correct way. So "revert" my uploads that overwrote existing and then change filename on my computer and upload again (as a new upload). PsamatheM (talk) 18:29, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
PsamatheM, do not reupload, please. Go to COM:SPLIT, instead and request splitting. You do not need to open a new section for every file, write a slightly more general title. (There is also a template {{Split}}, but I have the impression that the category belonging to it is very seldom processed). — Speravir – 02:07, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
(Also ping Jmabel. — Speravir – 02:08, 30 March 2020 (UTC))
@Speravir: So split and then write the accurate information about the recent uploads into the file pages for the recently uploaded files? Because if not, they'll all end up with completely wrong metadata. - Jmabel ! talk 02:54, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
Added request to COM:SPLIT. Many thanks PsamatheM (talk) 08:23, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
@Jmabel: Yes, but as far as I understand it would also work to write the new information into the file descriptions first (overwriting the info for the first revision) and then do the splitting. The old info for the first revision will reappear. — Speravir – 23:47, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Translation request: Japanese to English

Could someone please translate the label on the left in this photo File:Terpsiphone paradisi - National Museum of Nature and Science, Tokyo - DSC07287.JPG please? I am hoping the Japanese text might include data on where the specimen was obtained from. Thanks! - MPF (talk) 09:44, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

@MPF: The label is blurry, even in high resolution, and difficult to read but it gives "distribution: India" and "(something too blurred to read): Asia." I think both are talking about the species rather than the specimen. From Hill To Shore (talk) 16:39, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
@From Hill To Shore: - about what I expected, unfortunately! Many thanks for looking, though. The problem is that Terpsiphone paradisi has recently been split into 3 species (T. paradisi in India & Sri Lanka, T. affinis in southeast Asia, and T. incei in mainland northeast Asia); I was looking for any clues as to which this specimen might be! - MPF (talk) 17:56, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Upload photos from Flickr (with copyrights) with the authorization of their owner

Good time of the day,

I am new here, so my apologies if I don't post at the right place. I wrote an e-mail to the author of some photos on flickr.com here to ask him if I could upload some of them here. He kindly answer that he agrees, as long as he is mentioned as the author. How can I proceed next ?

Thanks in advance ! --Tricholome (talk) 10:00, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

@Tricholome: We need the images to be placed under a specific license that meets our requirements, such as {{CC-BY-4.0}}. If you could have the author change the license on Flickr, that would be the easiest way. Otherwise, you will have to have him e-mail a permission statement to OTRS - for instructions, see COM:OTRS. – BMacZero (🗩) 16:03, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
If the Flickr user would change the license in flickr to one of the CC licenses (there is CC-by-2.0 and CC-by-SA-2.0) it would be much easier for all, cf. COM:FLICKR. — Speravir – 23:15, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

"Image was used in old version of an article" as objection to deletion

If an image has been superceded by another image (for example, fixing quality problems, then uploaded at a new filename) and its uses on Wikipedias replaced, is the fact that it was formerly used a valid objection to a COM:DR on the superceded file? I occasionally see the reasoning given that if someone looks at older revisions of the wikipedia article, it would render "not as it was at that time" if the image were deleted. I thought in general the idea was that we want to keep high-quality images have no general problem scrapping lower-quality images that do not have other offsetting advantages. I don't see anything in COM:SCOPE about a fundamental "keep" premise of an image formerly being in use or being "no longer high-quality among our options". DMacks (talk) 08:01, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

In general, I don't think that having once been used is a reason to stop deletion. However, your hypothetical case suggests that the new image might be a derivative of the old one. In that case we should keep the old image to provide provenance for the new one. --bjh21 (talk) 10:04, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
Right. The question was just limited to this one specific aspect. Depending on licensing, whether the old had other advantages (despite problems), etc there might be other reasons to keep. For the cases I've encountered, the both the old and new were intrinsic-PD and all based on more fundamental material (not protected or creative item with a followup to improve derived from its creative nature). DMacks (talk) 16:06, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
It would have to stand on its own merits. Having been formerly used would not be one of them. On the other hand, please don't tendentiously remove all uses of an image without consensus and then promptly nominate it for deletion on the basis that it is no longer used. - Jmabel ! talk 16:19, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
+1: COM:INUSE is about files that are being used, not files that at one point were used. A file being used is a reason for keeping, a file not being used is (on its own) not a reason for deletion.
Also consider this: The 22:01, 10 July 2017 version of en:Wikimedia Commons today looks different from how it looked on July 10 2017, because File:Commons Growth.svg has seen regular updates until late 2018. If we were to follow the argument of "not as it was at that time", we would also have to disallow uploading new versions of files completely. Similarly, Wikipedia's main page from 31 January 2006 doesn't look the same today either, because the default skin has been changed and templates have been edited. The version history is not a time machine, that's not how it works and that's not how it is supposed to work. If somebody wants a snapshot of how a page looked like on a certain date, the internet archive is a better address. --El Grafo (talk) 08:47, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
@DMacks: image being used now or in the past is generally a good indication of it being within the Commons:Project scope.
What benefit is there of hiding an image (deleting is just hiding, it doesn't save disk space) because someone thinks a "better" image is available? Here we would mess the source chain, completely different version of artwork, a "better" version is available. How do these deletion requests make Commons a better place? Multichill (talk) 18:19, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
The COM:INUSE policy explicitly identifies "Files that add nothing educationally distinct to the collection of images we already hold covering the same subject, especially if they are of poor or mediocre quality." as a type of image that is not in-scope (presuming it isn't covered by some other INUSE). That's commons policy, which is presumably based on wide consensus, not solely on there being an intrinsic benefit to hiding or the fiction of saving server space. As a reminder, I asked solely about this one specific position as a reason to keep, notwithstanding that there might be other (for example, license) reasons to keep, and even emphasized that there was not a COM:DR-chaining issue. DMacks (talk) 22:41, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
I would not want to see a deletion rampage against images just because they are not the very best we have on a topic. If they are really technically flawed (shaky camera, super-dark, etc.), and we have something better, then sure. But remember that it's not just about what is useful to Wikipedia. If something has been around for a decade, there is a good chance someone is using it already outside of WMF projects, and we should be leaving online the evidence that it was offered with a particular license.
On the other hand: let's say someone uploads a bunch of unmitigated crap, and promptly links their crap from Wikipedia articles, from which they are later removed. The fact that they were once linked from Wikipedia articles is not a reason to keep the images. - Jmabel ! talk 23:06, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
I completely agree with your last sentence. Otherwise, we would also need e.g. to make sure that changes in templates are not affecting old versions of articles. This obviously wouldn't be practicable. --Leyo 09:04, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Captions?

Hi, I retired like 3 years ago, and just returned now. I see this weird "captions" thing in all File: pages. What's the purpose of this new thing? When did this thing got implemented in Commons? Isn't the description in the {{Information}} template enough? I don't understand. Should we copy-paste the text in the description to the captions (as long as they fit the character limit that is)? If yes, is it possible to automate this (since most descriptions use the language templates like {{en}})? Thanks, pandakekok9 11:36, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

TBH, it's best ignored. Of course it's a vandal magnet because they don't show up when you hover over the "diff" in your watchlist, so they can escape scrutiny. Rodhullandemu (talk) 11:41, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
They are a huge blot on the project and nobody is even clear why. It's as intrusive as if someone backed up a Coca-cola van to be in shot on every photograph you can take of an open charity event. -- (talk) 11:46, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
It's described here. I've experimented with it and have found no practical use or added value for it. It doesn't supply a suggested title for a wikipedia caption, and I'm not aware that it has improved the search function either, in fact in my experiments it flatly did not. Perhaps Jean-Frédéric can enlighten us. Broichmore (talk) 13:14, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
@Broichmore: The actually useful description is at Commons talk:File captions#A complete and utter failure and its appendix at User:Alexis Jazz/Fixed captions are bloody useless. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 13:39, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
@Pandakekok9: Captions are part of Structured Data on Commons and were deployed in January 2019. Captions are akin to item descriptions on Wikidata; they are snippets of descriptive wikitext stored in Wikibase here on Commons. Captions serve as both a descriptive and disambiguation tool for structured data; as tools are built to pull out file information from structured data without showing the file itself captions can help make a determination as to what a file is when there is ambiguity. They are multilingual and translatable without needing knowledge of wikitext templates.
As to the question about why captions are not populated by existing descriptions, there are couple of reasons. First, captions are released under a CC-0 license and the creative threshold for a description may be beyond what CC-0 will allow. Files need human review to make that determination. The second reason is that there are a significant number of files on Commons without a meaningful description. For example, the third image returned to me from random file just now. Copying over this description wouldn't help anything, really, so another reason to not trust a bot. I don't think there's a script written at the moment for you to help copy your own descriptions into captions, so a manual copy and paste is the workflow for now. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 16:47, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Is that «the workflow» for now? Let’s say it is a workflow. Another, as said above, is to ignore the whole thing altogether. @Keegan (WMF): Interesting example case by one of Commons’ most prolific uploaders, to exemplify useless descriptions. If you hadn’t said it was random, I’d think it was picked to make a subtle point. Yet the file in question, even though its description is useless and redundant («Photo uploaded by PicBackMan»), has its contents fully identified by means of its categories. And we don’t need anything else: We most often don’t really need descriptions and we certainly do not need “captions”. -- Tuválkin 18:40, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
  • @Keegan (WMF): When I publish changes and an error occurred while publishing one language, why does the saving stop there? The publish changes button is disabled, and the rest of the languages aren't saved (the ones below the language which had an error), which means I have to refresh the page and copy-paste one line at a time again for those unsaved captions. Waste of time. And how do you even copy all captions from one file to another at once, instead of copying one caption at a time? It seems obvious the devs didn't think about this. pandakekok9 09:42, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
Like for example, I want to copy all captions from File:COVID-19 Outbreak World Map.svg to File:COVID-19 Outbreak World Map (36).svg. That's a lot of captions to copy. Obviously I gave up doing it all. pandakekok9 09:44, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
  • @Pandakekok9: I feel your pain: if captions were editable by means of wikitext, it would be trivial to copy them in one go to another file page. However the whole “structured Commons” thing (just like Wikidata) is based on zero wikitext. The “simpler” and “easier” UI is only simpler and easier for casual edits casually made by casual editors — this is the kind of unaffected, disaffiliated users that the powers that be want as their base, not “power users” who dedicate many solid hours of consistent work to the projects. Users who wont rock the boat, to avoid futurely things like the “rebellion” against bad ideas such as Media Viewer, Visual Editor, or Flow. That’s why I snort in derision every time I read the word "structured" in this context. -- Tuválkin 15:23, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
    • I continue to believe a serialize/unserialize capability would be valuable and relatively easy to create. I argued for this 2 years ago at the Wikimedia conference in Berlin, and was basically ignored. - Jmabel ! talk 16:53, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
  • (unarchived) @Jmabel: I agree that it seems relatively easy to create, and it would bring unvaluable reach concerning content curation and fight against both vandalism and copyvio. Not implementing it and keeping SD as a separate “workflow”, editable exclusively via the UI or by direct SPARQL jobs can be simple geek iternecine bickery (wikitext power-users losing against database demigods), or something more nefarious concerning Big Data and other realms of nebulous vapourware and aboundant funding. -- Tuválkin 18:56, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
  • I regard the caption as a 255 byte precis of the description. If my description is short, I cut and paste it into the caption, if the description is long, then I summarise it. Martinvl (talk) 12:54, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Issue with Privacy

Hi, I saw this picture and I think we need to blur the face, it's been used in many languages in the articles related to kidnapping and there is no evidence the guys in picture are kidnappers. Thanks --Gnosis (talk) 22:57, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

@Jmabel: No, I'm just saying that out of general principles, I don't have any evidence against the original description. --Gnosis (talk) 03:56, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
I suppose we should change the file name and description, however. They are probably persons just arrested as suspects. Over here no one is convicted without a trial, and I hope that principle holds for Commons, too. It might be there is more information available already, but the information I see on the Flickr page is insufficient to convince me. --LPfi (talk) 11:50, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Stand by for more bad 'depicts" statements

From Tech News:

"The beta version of the Wikipedia app for Android can now help users add tags on Commons. These tags are called depicts."

(For background, see Commons:Village pump/Archive/2020/02#Misplaced invitation to "tag" images - which was, I note, archived unresolved, and the questions which RIsler (WMF) insisted he was not ignoring... ignored.). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:10, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

(Just as a minor contextualisation, this is something that will go out in the Android Wikipedia app to logged-in users who have a number of non-reverted previous edits in the app, and currently only in the beta version of the app. This will be seen by a relatively small number of persons, who will lose access to the workflow if their edits get reverted, as an attempt at a quality safeguard. /Julle (talk) Johan (WMF) (talk 20:04, 30 March 2020 (UTC))
Thanks for the update. I do not think that the criteria of non-reverted previous edits will help much as many of such edits go unnoticed for the simple reason that most files have very few watchers, if any. This will put a significant burden on patrollers of recent changes. Right now a lookup of the last 500 tag additions will not even cover two hours. Most of them are pretty useless like this one. I really do not know what WMF tries to achieve with this kind of pollution against the clear consensus in the last discussion. --AFBorchert (talk) 21:37, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
The problem is, it's going out with a description of "tagging", but the "tag" values are then being stored by a property intended for a different purpose. Perhaps you meant to post this from your other account, User:Johan (WMF). As a WMF employee, perhaps you can answer the questions which your colleague ignored in the previous, linked discussion? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:11, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
Ah, I hang my head in shame. I did indeed post from the wrong browser and thus the wrong user. My apologies and thank you for pointing it out.
I can't speak for the SDC team, but my understanding is that they consider this to be a question of creating a decent understanding, especially in a multi-lingual environment. /Johan (WMF) (talk) 19:26, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
What an interesting reply. I am confident that the majority of the Commons community - across all languages - has a "decent understanding" of what the depicts statement is for, and of the difference between the nature of tagging and of applying structured data about what an image depicts. Sadly it seems that the SDC team have no "decent understanding" of that difference; nor of the community's consensus on this matter. I note also that you have not addressed the questions which your colleague ignored in the previous, linked discussion; foremost of which is "where is the consensus for the deployment of this tagging model?" The persistent failure to answer that in particular is quite telling. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 08:39, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
The persistent failure to answer that in particular is quite telling. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:55, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
Still nothing? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:18, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

File:Special Barnstar Hires.png

I don't know why it's rendering a solid white background, but could someone fix File:Special Barnstar Hires.png back into full transparency? Jerm (talk) 21:53, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

The background looks fully transparent to me on all revisions of that file. – BMacZero (🗩) 22:27, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
@BMacZero: I see it's transparent on my phone, but not on my computer. Does anyone else see a solid white background on their computer besides me? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jerm (talk • contribs) 03:01, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Which browser are you using on your computer? With Firefox 74 and MS Edge, the background is transparent for me, too. De728631 (talk) 03:16, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
@De728631: I'm using Safari on my Mac. This is the only barnstar rendering a white background. Jerm (talk) 03:25, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
That's strange. Maybe some other Mac users can reproduce this error? De728631 (talk) 03:33, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
@De728631: It's only the current version displaying a white background. Older versions in the upload history do not have that issue. Jerm (talk) 04:13, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
File:Ss56345674567.png


Hrm, the current version equals the one from 8 January 2015. Have you tried to clear your browser's cache? Sometimes that can fix display issues with the thubnails. De728631 (talk) 19:35, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

@De728631: I have plenty of times. Am I really the only one who is experiencing this issue? Jerm (talk) 22:12, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
  • I remember at least one time that I experienced this issue, but it's gone now. I'm using the same browser and OS, and it's been fixed, magically. Ahmadtalk 00:36, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
@Ahmad252: Yeah, now it's fixed for me. Jerm (talk) 01:14, 15 April 2020 (UTC)