Commons:Village pump/Archive/2020/05

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Error Message "unknown ID"

A lot of category pages have an error: The ID "" is unknown to the system. Please use a valid entity ID. - like Category:Trams_with_fleet_number_2 or Category:February 2014 in Spain or Category:Aircraft registered in Germany. --XRay talk 04:36, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Looks like 1,645 categories to be exact, according to Category:Pages with script errors. The HTML of the error message says it's coming from Scribunto, which handles Lua modules. The only person with significant recent changes to modules is ‎Jarekt. Module:Interwiki seems like the most likely culprit, but I haven't confirmed that. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 05:01, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
Fixed Yes those categories must have been using the module differently than all the other pages. So none of my testing caught that scenario. Thanks for pinging me. --Jarekt (talk) 03:09, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Speravir 03:20, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Make the distinction between the release for the caption and the release for the work more clear on Upload Wizard

How can we expedite a small change to the text in the upload wizard? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:01, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

POTY 2019

Hello, Just fyi: The POTY 2019 results are now in: Commons:Picture of the Year/2019/Results. --Steinsplitter (talk) 14:33, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the notice. Nemo 20:10, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

How often do the 'unidentified' categories get checked and the files categorized?

Exactly what it says in the subject: How often do the 'unidentified' categories get checked and the files categorized? I just added a couple pictures of trees to this category so I hope somebody with the right knowledge can help me out there.

Best regards, NeoMeesje (talk) 01:24, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

It seems that User:Ronhjones unfortunately has died, according to edits by User:Graham87 to English Wikipedia (1 2). He was an administrator on Commons from 2013 until his death. --Stefan2 (talk) 15:41, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Sad; he was only 69 years. RIP. Thanks for notifying. I've protected his userpage and added him to Commons talk:Deceased contributors. --Túrelio (talk) 15:47, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
This is very sad :-(. --Steinsplitter (talk) 16:11, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
Sad :-( 4nn1l2 (talk) 16:36, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
Sad news. RIP, Ron. De728631 (talk) 16:41, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
It's very, very sad to hear this :-(. May his soul rest in peace. Ahmadtalk 22:08, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
I have some even sadder news that I can now share publicly: Ron and his wife Sue died together in a house fire, as noted in their obituary from the London Inland Waterways Association newsletter. The friend of theirs who confirmed his passing also told me this info, but I didn't want to say it here without confirming that it was publicly available or I had permission. Graham87 (talk) 16:26, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Three images with wrong nomenclature

Hello to the entire Wikimedia Commons community, I would like to warn you about the error of species determination on three images of the project, in the list of images of the beetle Passalidae Odontotaenius disjunctus.

The first image (and this other one) that I warn is of a beetle of the genus Proculus, which has a more rounded abdomen than the North American species. It belongs to the neotropical region and not to the range of the species. The location (Quintana Roo, Mexico) confirms this information.

The second species was photographed in Brazil and is a species of the genus Passalus, also extremely far from the region of origin of the North American species.

I wanted to comment here so as not to look like I'm distorting the information. I will be able to edit after permission. Mário NET (talk) 16:22, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

We should create a board specializing in the identification of living things. I often spend a long time looking at Internet field guides and comparing to pictures on the Internet to figure out which animal I just photographed. A place to amass the collective wisdom of the community would be very helpful. @Archaeodontosaurus, Charlesjsharp, Famberhorst, Iifar, JJ Harrison, Jkadavoor, and Llez: Thoughts? -- King of 16:53, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
This is a good idea as there are some 9000 files in Category:Taxonomy files (check needed)‎. Commons:WikiProject Tree of Life should probably be involved in this task. De728631 (talk) 17:02, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
There is de:Wikipedia:Redaktion Biologie/Bestimmung which I've used a couple of times. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 17:04, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
In the cases mentioned above, I am only sure about the genus. Not what species names are. Many species are impossible to determine just by looking at a photograph. Mário NET (talk) 17:10, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
  • French Wikipedia, as some other Wikipedias, has identification pages for plants and insects. I think I already seen a few french users complained that we have not such a thing in Wikimedia Commons. It will be a very good idea because as an international project Commons can bring together a greater number of specialists in a greater number of fields. Furthermore the identification of the images stored in Wikimedia Commons is fully in our project scope IMO. I support at 300% the creation of such board. Christian Ferrer (talk) 17:39, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
  • There are undoubtedly a large number of images of organisms that are misidentified, or that are impossible to confidently identify to species, even with accurate geographic info (often lacking). Users of course should always be aware of the general disclaimer, and exercise caution for user-submitted photos that don't come from peer reviewed articles or other authoritative sources. Suspected inaccurate names can be tagged with {{Disputed taxonomy}} or {{Inaccurate description}}, with concerns raised on the file Talk page. The photographer/uploader can also be contacted, to perhaps supply additional information. If the error is obvious and uncontroversial, then the descriptive text should simply be corrected, the file recategorized, and/or the file renamed (ideally with a note left on Talk page describing rationale for renaming). If the file is in use in other projects, leaving a note on the respective article Talk pages, or notifying the editor who added it, may also add clarity. --Animalparty (talk) 17:51, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
Incredibly, posting the photograph of the file on social networks (such as Facebook) attracts scientists willing to give the correct nomenclature and correct the wrong names that may be being provided. I know pages of determination of botanical species with scientists who are well committed to giving the correct name, if they have good evidence. Mário NET (talk) 18:17, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
https://www.inaturalist.org/ is also a good source of crowdsourced taxonomies. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 05:03, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

The visual distinctions of things within a category can be a great use of our main (gallery) space. I haven't done this for any species -- I'm more focused on buildings -- but for two examples of the sort of thing that can be done, see Romanian Orthodox churches in Bucharest and Places of worship in Seattle. Jmabel ! talk 23:41, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

I will modify the scientific nomenclature of the posts analyzed in my initial post and place the text on the discussion page for each photo, along with "Disputed taxonomy" in the download. If I make a mistake it's just going back on what I did. Mário NET (talk) 09:34, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
  • This is a very useful discussion. I spend hours identifying animals. Expert (and non-expert) guides provide the starting point, often with a vernacular name. I purchase the best field guides or borrow them when abroad, but for insects it is very difficult and for beetles, almost impossible. I go to all the best websites and search for scientific papers. I e-mail images to recognized experts. I know what I'm doing, but I still make mistakes. Last December I was in Nepal. I used the Nepal butterfly field guide from one of the two recognised experts. Some of his images are not clear. I was also misled by relying on specimens from the North of India, but which were different subspecies. And there are wet and dry forms. The other expert has kindly corrected the identification of four species. The differences are very esoteric. One was an aberration, missing some cell spots. We're still debating two photos. Some experts, in my experience, will engage with photographers who are knowledgeable. They haven't got time otherwise. I have [:https://www.flickr.com/photos/93882360@N07/albums/72157710137093727%7C 165 images on Flickr] waiting for identification, and hundreds more on my computer. I've not had a single id from another Flickr user.
  • I wouldn't contribute to identification pages on Commons. Why? Firstly, it would take too much time. I sounds arrogant, but I'm not interested in the opinions of most Commons users. I visit iNaturalist, but never rely on what I read there: "It looks like..." is no good to me. Information-sharing has to be a two-way process - so, for instance, I offer my images to authors of Field Guides and they help me in return. I give and receive advice on identification with a handful of Commons Users. The place on Commons where I do check the identifications (not just animals) is at Valued Image Candidates (VIC). From an encyclopaedic standpoint, these are the only images on Wikipedia which need to be curated. They are the ones that should appear in Wikipedia articles and hence (I assume) in Wikidata/Wikispecies (projects I'm not involved in). I have over 2000 VIs on animals. I reckon there are probably 10-20 incorrectly-identified species. About the same proportion of errors that exist in 'reputable' image-based field guides. I'm OK with that, but welcome all corrections: thank you User:Archaeodontosaurus, User:LamBoet and others. Charlesjsharp (talk) 09:41, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
My desire was to change the scientific names now, but now I just have chosen to put the taxonomy issue in dispute. However, I emphasize that I would use the images with the scientific names that I consider correct, if I write the articles in the language of my country. Mário NET (talk) 09:52, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Synthesis

Hello! I noticed there was a missing Br atom in the file Willstatter tropinone synthesis.png and I tried adding it (compare with File:Synthesis of Tropinone acc to Willstatter.svg). After uploading a new version of the image, the changes wouldn't appear on the new file. What could be done to correct this? Thank you! --Alex Nico (talk) 23:57, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

  • It would be fine if you purged the file page on your end, instead of reverting your change. You might want to “unrevert” although the original image has transparent background, while yours shows white background — you might want to fix that and reupload. -- Tuválkin 02:34, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
There are also some non-standard alignments of the text in that diagram (probably allowable and understandable meaning, but "no reason to be this usual" in this case). Should we just DR this image since we have an SVG that is correct (I agree that this is a factual mistake that makes the image fail COM:EDUSE) and better alignment (mine)? DMacks (talk) 16:54, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Is Wikimedia Commons sniffing user location?

I just had a warning in Chrome that this site wanted to know my location. I think that's the first time I have seen it, and I regret not getting a screenshot. Anyone else seen this or know why this might happen? -- (talk) 09:53, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

We normally do that for country-specific banners (such as donations, competitions, etc.) don't we? --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 10:16, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
This was full location data that Chrome would hold, ie pin pointing your home, not a region derived from an IP. -- (talk) 10:31, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
I remember a thread just like this a few months ago. Something about finding locations near you (Special:Nearby), but the user who raised the question got the GPS-permission pop-up on desktop as well...) Can't remember the thread or the outcome...--Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 10:44, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Images of US patents

What is the status of images of current US patents? Are they US-gov, are the eligible for copyright protection, do we have a special license for them? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 08:00, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

@Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): US patents are granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office which is a federal agency in the Department of Commerce. Therefore there is no copyright and you may use the generic {{PD-USGov}}, or more specifically {{PD-USGov-DOC}}. De728631 (talk) 08:20, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
Perfect wording in there to show the actual ambiguity of the status without disallowing use, I like that. The same ambiguity exists for passport photos, in that the government is composing the image, even though a non government person is activating the shutter. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 18:28, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Image down

In this image the beetle has its head down. Through the detailed observation of his other images and the opening angle of elytra it is possible to observe. I would ask for the image to be positioned upwards and I just won't do it because it gets smaller, in case I change. Mário NET (talk) 06:01, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

There exists a template for rotation {{Rotate}}. Is this what you are looking for? Taivo (talk) 10:25, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
Yes, I'm looking for that. Rotate upwards. Just put this sign that you gave me? Mário NET (talk) 16:50, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
Yes, please add {{rotate|180}} into file. Taivo (talk) 16:53, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
I put what you gave me in the image, now i'm just wait. Thank you for the help. Mário NET (talk) 16:56, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
  • @TommyG: You’re (almost) right: A JPEG lossless rotation or reflection would not affect the RGB of each pixel, but the file size would change slightly, due to recompression. @Steinsplitter: However the replacing file not only shows a disparate descrepancy in filesize but also has one pixel less in height. -- Tuválkin 20:35, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
The man page for the jpegtran utility (which is part of libjpeg) has information about lossless transformations that may be relevant. --Gazebo (talk) 07:06, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
@Tuvalkin, Gazebo, and TommyG: The images are rotated with the lossless (which means “no generation loss” here; note that even “lossless” jpegtran rotation can be slightly lossy [depends on the image's dimensions; at maximum 16 pixels are cropped at borders if a image is not consisting of full jpeg blocks – like most digi cam images are] but no new compression artifacts are added. It uses jpegtran. It is using -trim to drop non-transformable edge blocks, otherwise we would have a strange-looking strip along the right and/or bottom edges 1. --Steinsplitter (talk) 10:43, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
From the logs: "2020-05-03 18:00:53 - jpegtran -rotate 180 -trim -copy all /data/project/rotbot/cache/0.jpg > /data/project/rotbot/cache/0_2.jpg" --Steinsplitter (talk) 11:02, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Artificially making sky blue

I just noticed that File:Xinhua News Agency.JPG had a white sky, but the uploader then replaced it with a version in which the sky had been turned blue. It's now being used on articles where there's no indication that it has been modified from the real-life version. What is our policy on images that have been modified in a way that might be deceptive, and does changing the color of the sky fall under that? (In this case, I'm not sure whether the change was made to try to cover up pollution or whether there were just clouds that made it less pretty; the latter is a lot more innocuous but the stealth manipulation still makes me a bit uneasy.) Sdkb (talk) 23:45, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

  • @Sdkb: Should be marked with {{Retouched picture}}; also, it is very unlikely that we would want a retouched version on something like this and not also want the original.
  • That said: on something like File:Luminata 2019 - 116 (48785704592).jpg (one of mine) I doubt that this nighttime picture is exactly as it came out of the camera. (It's via my Flickr account, so I'm not sure without looking at archives of my own I don't particularly plan to take the time to check.) I suspect I did some manipulation of levels to make the men's faces visible at all, and I didn't mark it as retouched. - Jmabel ! talk 03:06, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
    @Jmabel: Okay, good to know! Based on that, I'm going to revert back to the unretouched version, and if anyone wants it with the sky blue, they can make a copy. The acceptability of retouching as a general issue is something that we should probably be thinking a lot about — it's a potential avenue for misinformation. Sdkb (talk) 04:30, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
    Also: I didn't look before answering, and didn't realize that they had uploaded the original (I thought you were checking against the source). Yes, this sort of retouching absolutely deserves a different filename, because it can be actively misleading. - Jmabel ! talk 17:05, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Commons:Overwriting existing files has explicit guidelines. There may well be cases where a retouched or modified version is preferred to the original (far too many Wikipedia articles use raw, uncropped negatives, rough edges, writing, scratches, stains, and all) but in many cases it's still best to upload the retouched version as a different file, and indicate that changes have been made. --Animalparty (talk) 04:46, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
    @Animalparty and Jmabel: Glad to see that guideline exists (I'm guessing it didn't in 2005, so can't blame the OP here too much). It's still a little different than a guideline about retouching that would apply even on an initial upload. Something like boosting the light in the luminata photo is fine, but for more significant alterations, I'd like to see something stating more explicitly something like, "if your upload differs non-trivially from the version you captured on camera, you are required to disclosure clearly that it has been changed, and you may be sanctioned if you don't". Removing pollution from the sky isn't that bad, but it's on a spectrum that goes to photoshopping your backpack into a nature photo and beyond to malicious hoaxes. Visual misinformation is on the rise and getting increasingly sophisticated, and I'd like to see us be proactive about dealing with it. Sdkb (talk) 08:19, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
@Sdkb: I certainly don't think sanctioning is warranted unless a user is clearly acting maliciously, nor do we need a heavy-handed warning against modifying images (many professional images in reliable sources go through color correction, selective blurring, etc. to best present the focal subject). Commons is not a journalism agency, not a court of law, and shouldn't take on the job of policing photography, usage, or truth. For modified images, we have a variety of templates such as {{Retouched picture}}, {{Derived from}}, and {{Extracted from}}, and maintenance categories like Flopped images. Many Creative Commons licenses already require reusers to indicate if changes have been made, among other attribution requirements, but issues of license noncompliance, personality rights, or other unauthorized re-use are private issues between the user and the copyright holder, not Commons volunteers. Hoaxes and made-up images (e.g. maps and flags of imaginary lands) are generally considered Out of scope, but should decided on a case-by-case basis. --Animalparty (talk) 20:21, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
@Animalparty: I pretty much agree. To be clear, I have no problem with things like color correction. It's deceptive, mostly deliberate misinformation that I'm concerned about here. Sdkb (talk) 21:03, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Calling for Volunteers : Wiki Loves Africa first review

Over 17,000 images were submitted to Commons:Wiki Loves Africa 2020 ... this is due, in main, to the hard work of volunteers and usergroups across Africa. Thank you to those that have been involved so far!!

It is also a lot of images to judge. We want to get a global team together to go through the entries as a first review - to weed out the selfies, watermarked and time stamped images, etc… Please, if you love photography and images, and have time between the 8th and 18th May 2020, volunteer to be on the First Review Team. Go to this form to find more information and enter your details in the Google Form.

Thank you !! Islahaddow (talk) 04:17, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

I just looked through some images in Category:Images_from_Wiki_Loves_Africa_2020 and there is a lot of great photos there. --Jarekt (talk) 13:03, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Photo challenge March results

Canyons and gorges: EntriesVotesScores
Rank 1 2 3
image [[File:|x200px]]
Title Combe Laval, France Grand Canyon National Park in
Arizona, United States
Iya Gorge, Tokushima Prefecture,
Shikoku, Japan
Author Celeda Islander61 OKJaguar
Score 34 11 10
Nature's yellows: EntriesVotesScores
Rank 1 2 3
image
Title Misumena vatia on a sunflower Hungrige Amseljunge Birds at dawn at lake Taudaha and
the fog illuminated by the sunlight
Author Ermell Ilka Franz Shadow Ayush
Score 27 27 13

Congratulations to Celeda, Islander61, OKJaguar, Ermell, Ilka Franz and Shadow Ayush. -- Jarekt (talk) 11:53, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

How to identify is a pic is "own work" or not?

Hi everybody. This may look like an odd question, but are there any "tricks" or "techniques" to identify if a picture is or not "own work"? Regards.--SirEdimon Dimmi!!! 03:29, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

  • @SirEdimon: I assume that you are asking is how to determine whether the file is the work of the user who uploaded it, rather than anything particular about the {{Own work}} tag? While the latter is used by Special:UploadWizard there is no particular requirement to use that tag as against other ways of clarifying authorship.
  • Sometimes it's pretty obvious: work from more than about 70 years ago, or if the person has a selfie on their user page and looks to be, say, 30 years old, even 25 years ago is pretty unlikely.
  • Unlikely that they took an obviously half-toned picture: that almost certainly came from a book or newspaper.
  • Unlikely that they took a picture that is wildly different from anything else of theirs they uploaded: e.g. if they upload three images that look like they don't even know how to focus a camera and one that is worthy of National Geographic or Vogue, it's unlikely that the last is really theirs.
  • Unlikely they took a picture that is widely circulated on the Internet attributed to someone else entirely, no relation to the name on the account, and especially if they upload pictures that are attributed elsewhere to multiple different photographers.
  • It certainly counts in their favor if their pictures have EXIF data and the ones from a given era seem to have been taken with a reasonable number of cameras.
That's off the top of my head, I'm sure others will have things to say. - Jmabel ! talk 04:06, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Yes and no. There are a lot of indicators to make it more probable to be either your own work or not, but in most cases no 100% guarantees. So to list a few
  • Signs that image is correctly label "own work":
  • Uploaded image is at the camera resolution with the full EXIF data
  • Name of the uploader matches name of the listed author
  • Indicators that image is not "own work":
  • You can find the image published on the web prior to the upload to Commons
  • Image is at the reduced "web" resolution
  • Image is missing or altered EXIF data
  • Image is a professional looking portrait of the "author"
  • Image has EXIF data with someone's else's name
  • Image is a photograph of a photograph, like iPhone photo of a B/W photo
There are probably a lot more of positive and negative indicators. And there are likely perfectly fine explanations to many of the "issues", like "I took the photo with my friend's camera", "I used a timer or remote to take a selfie", "I uploaded my photo to Flickr or Facebook prior to uploading it to Commons", etc. So often it is a judgment call, I like to "assume good faith" but at some point, "if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck". --Jarekt (talk) 04:10, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
Jmabel and Jarekt Thank you very much. That was exactly what I wanted to know. I really apreciate it.--SirEdimon Dimmi!!! 04:44, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Logo CITES

This is the logo of CITES in its simplest form. Does it comply with a "logo based on letters" or not exactly?

--Virum Mundi (talk) 09:17, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Jmabel: Thanks for the tip! Cheers --Virum Mundi (talk) 17:06, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Copyright

Our institution wants to batch upload thousands of images to wikicommons for sharing. Would the license CC Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) be acceptable here? --Angelonkichoi (talk) 09:35, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

@Angelonkichoi: Yes that's ok. Just be sure to read COM:L and COM:PD-Art first. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 10:11, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Dear Jonatan Svensson Glad, many thanks for your reply, I have read the two links. If our images are about musical instruments (3D objects), is it correct that we should not use the PD art template (because it is for 2D objects), but the Artwork template like this one https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:RCM0001_2012-12-03_CaseOpen_Preview.a.jpg#%7B%7Bint%3Alicense-header%7D%7D ? --Angelonkichoi (talk) 13:25, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Angelonkichoi your institution still have to communicate about their license choice. The current http://museumcollections.rcm.ac.uk/terms-of-use/ is not suitable as the CC BY-SA 4.0 is only allowed for "Non-commercial use", so either that page has to change to remove all commercial use restrictions, or your institution might want communicate privately by sending a permission to OTRS. Please read COM:OTRS. The permission could state that they the copyright owner of the images are releasing all images under CC BY-SA 4.0. They can also place constraint that the permission only applies to uploads by listed representatives of the institution. The first option is more clear to everybody, but the second option is also fine. It also need to be clear that, the images uploaded to Commons under CC BY-SA 4.0 license would be allowed to be used for any publication etc. without contacting your image licensing partner, ArenaPAL as is required now. They can still be the provider of the high resolution images, but such images could be uploaded here to replace current lo-res versions uploaded by you as the license usually applies to all resolutions. --Jarekt (talk) 16:04, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
@Angelonkichoi: Hi!, Before uploading anything or thinking about the details of formatting templates, there are basic copyright issues that really must be dealt with.

On 28 April 2020, you uploaded three files under CC BY 4.0 (you later changed one of the three to CC BY-SA 4.0) and linked to the terms of use page of the RCM, which, under the bold title "Non-commercial use", offers a CC-BY 4.0 license while restricting commercial use and requiring special permission. That is contradictory. Besides, at least one uploaded file appears to be under the copyright of a person other than the RCM. The copyright of this photo is mentioned as owned by Chris Christodoulou.

Please clarify the matter with the person who is legally authorized by the Council of the RCM to manage the intellectual property rights of the RCM. (If the legal authority is unclear, it may be safer to bring the matter directly to the Council.) Please be sure that the person reads and understands the terms of the CC licenses. If the person (or the Council) agrees to a free CC license, they should rephrase the RCM copyright page and eliminate the contradictions. Also, it must be understood that the RCM can offer free licenses only on images on which the RCM actually owns the rights. If the copyright is or was owned by someone else, evidence will be needed that the copyright owner licensed the work or explicitly ceded sufficient rights to the RCM through written contract.

When all that is clarified, we can talk about the templates. The general idea is to use a template that will help to best provide information about both the object and the photograph. You can choose in each case the template that you think is best. For example, for a photo of 3D objects in general, you can use the template "Art Photo", because information about the photographer and about the copyright of the photo is important and should be distinguished from the information about the photographed object. For a photo showing only a 2D work, you can use the template "Artwork", which allows much information about the 2D work but is weaker to convey the information about the photo. In any case, the objective is to provide as much relevant information as possible about the object, the photo and their respective authors, dates and copyright status, and to distinguish what applies to the object and what applies to the photo. -- Asclepias (talk) 16:18, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Bot boting OTRS numbers to SDC

I recently saw that a bot bots OTRS numbers from the permission field of the info template to SDC. However if a file comes with an OTRS number, but the OTRS number is not in the file description source, but gets included from a template like {Template:Respektpreis 2018 Presse-Akkreditierung} or {Template:Respektpreis 2018 Presse-Akkreditierung} the bot does not bot the number to SDC. Likewise if the name of the author is included from a template. Such included information is seen as machine readable by mediawiki and bots should not interpret it differently than mediawiki. OTOH: SDC can stil not be used in a useful way, so it might not matter at all. --C.Suthorn (talk) 12:50, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

You might want to address this to the bot operators (I think @Jarekt and Schlurcher?) BTW, I quickly put together a new version of the OTRS template at {{PermissionOTRS/sandbox}} that uses SDC directly, no need for a manual parameter in the wikitext, if that's useful. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 16:08, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I am the one adding OTRS numbers to SDC, per this discussion. The process currently does not distinguish between {{PermissionOTRS}} added directly or through the template as the numbers are striped using this SQL query and not by scraping wikitext. The OTRS templates are not listing names of the author, so there is nothing for the bot to interpret other than identifier allowing a link to OTRS ticket database. We do not do anything with those numbers at the moment, but they will allow QTRS related SPARQL queries in the future. As for usefulness of SDC see Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Geograph_from_structured_data for some examples of possible uses. --Jarekt (talk) 16:22, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
Thanks Mike for {{PermissionOTRS/sandbox}}. There is no consensus about keeping OTRS in SDC only at the moment. That would be my preference but I am trying to be respectful of the wishes an opinions of other users. Perhaps that is a discussion for the future. In the mean time it would be nice if we modify MediaWiki:Gadget-PermissionOTRS.js (maintained by @DerHexer, Steinsplitter, and Krinkle: and several other no longer active users) to also add OTRS number to SDC. I think {{PermissionOTRS}} should be modified to pull OTRS number from SDC, if missing, but also to check if there are differences between the two. In the future we could add links to SPARQL queries fo find other images with the same ID, etc. --Jarekt (talk) 16:42, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
@Jarekt: It would also be my preference, but it does sound like there are more steps to do first. {{PermissionOTRS/sandbox}} should work the same way as currently if the ID is provided locally, but falls back to SDC if the local definition is missing. I've also added the check for the differences. I think you could use this version live now without causing any problems, and then migrate over to SDC only as and when there's consensus for the change, but please double-check that. I can't help with the JavaScript, though! Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 16:59, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Categories of Current and former fleet

Some weeks ago I wrote there, that I found some strange categories about current and former fleet of airlines, made by Ardfern.
Check Category:ASL_Airlines_Belgium:

TNT Airways‎ - is fine. (screenshot)
Aircraft of ASL Airlines Belgium‎ - full of current/former fleet. I thought it should be only inside main current/former fleet category (marked yellow here). I just can't work with them now.

I thought we found decision, how to use current fleet category:
Ardfern create category "AirlineName current fleet‎" and all other inside it. Category "Aircraft of AirlineName by type‎" don't used for categories about current/former fleet, cause it's for aircraft types.
But I found he cancel my edits - example Revision of 412116936. I wrote him - Ardfern disagree with decision. So i write here. Help me to find decision. --DS28 (talk) 15:52, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

TNT Airways is of course fine as it is a defunct airline and therefore has no current or former aircraft. ASL Airlines Belgium is currently in service, so of course, may have current/former fleet cats. Don't understand the point re Aircraft by AirlineName by type. Ardfern (talk) 16:12, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
Cause I need all fleet in normal view. Actually, I don't understand the point of current/former fleet in categories of image (like there), but some of users said "it's okey, let Ardfern act as he want". So I changed my opinion - use branch of former/current fleet. But we also have location and type branches, and I don't understand why need put current/former in type? --DS28 (talk) 00:19, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Issues with templates using Wikidata

I was wondering if there is an ongoing issue with templates that use data from Wikidata. I am working on categories of human (Q5) and all it displays is the QID. See Category:Edward_Everett_Horton. William Graham (talk) 23:35, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Hrm, looks like there is a Phabricator task for it. William Graham (talk) 01:16, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
See Commons:Village_pump/Technical#template:Label --Jarekt (talk) 02:30, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
Looks like User:BBearnes (WMF) has reverted whatever change caused this breakage, and it seems that labels are starting to load correctly. Looks like it'll take a while for every bad cached version to clear out though. –IagoQnsi (talk) 03:02, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

More poorly curated WD content injected everywhere

As of right now and since at least yesterday, all categories named Maps of Xxxxxxx and transcluding an Wikidata infobox are showing the nonsense shown on the example screen grab on the right: A generic illustration showing a map — of almost zero use and taking up screen real estate —, and a handful of savvy sounding platitudes, one of them incidentally containing an outright falsehood: No, all maps are not «Part of »« siyahvarud», and regardless of how that particular error crept in (Wikidata’s faulty anti-vandalism protection and/or Wikidata’s faulty user interface?) we should not be subjected to this kind of perennial nonsense.

Wikidata did a good job at managing interwiki links (meaning that it works as expected). Everything else is either makework cruff or outright deterimental nonsense. Can we not have any of it already? -- Tuválkin 14:33, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Discussion linked from wikidata:Wikidata:Project chat#Issue on Commons template drawing from Wikidata. - Jmabel ! talk 15:41, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

I agree that {{Wikidata Infobox}} at Category:Maps of Angola is showing too much stuff unrelated to the concept of Maps of Angola. User:Mike Peel is the main developer of {{Wikidata Infobox}}, so lets bring him into this discussion. Category:Maps of Angola (Q55692012) has a property category combines topics (P971) set to Angola (Q916) and map (Q4006) and I think that in this case {{Wikidata Infobox}} is trying to do too much, by grabbing information from those 2 items. Categories like Category:Portrait paintings of women of Spain in national costumes combines topics of portraits, paintings, women, Spain and national costumes, but that does not mean that the infobox in the category page needs images from all the items related to those concepts. --Jarekt (talk) 16:01, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
The aim is to try to show more context for the categories that combine topics. It's particularly useful for the categories that are of names of ships, so the information about the ship can be displayed in multiple name categories. If needed, I can remove certain items/classes of items from displaying. For example, I've had to turn off the display of information about countries for performance reasons (the country items contain a lot of data). It also only shows for categories that combine two topics (or currently only have one 'combines' topic due to missing data).
BTW, I welcome constructive feedback/criticism of the infobox, but this isn't that. :~( Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 16:17, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
I also found Tuvalkin's comment's tone nonconstructive and inflammatory. However I do agree with the underlying sentiment that some parts of the displayed infobox are unrelated to the category. --Jarekt (talk) 19:32, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
BTW2, "siyahvarud" was vandalism to map series (Q1734578) that's already been reverted. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 16:20, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
It is showing a generic map, which looks fine to me. I think that looks better than showing nothing, and if a local map is desired, that can be arranged with a little programming. The beauty of the Wikidata infobox is that once a new look is programmed in, it can be implemented globally. The best way to go about change would be to put in a request at Wikidata for a change in Category:Maps of X, just like everyone else does. Don't you think that is easier than updating 180 infoboxes by hand? It isn't tyranny, it is differences of opinions over esthetics. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 18:24, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
I would assume that it can show a map of Angola provided that Wikidata has one as its image. There is no consensus of what map of Angola should represent Maps of Angola so I'd guess Wikidata doesn't have that either. Either way, I agree with the premise but I don't think the picture of "map" is the best. I think there's an agreement here largely to include Wikidata infoboxes so the issue then is the design at Wikidata. I think that's a better approach than programming the Wikidata infobox template with parameters which defeats the universality of it. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 19:40, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
Not a single thing in that screenshot infobox is actually useful. It's all just cruft taking up screen real estate. Why do we even want to put Wikidata infoboxes in map categories? What's the purpose? Kaldari (talk) 20:43, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
Agreed. Wikidata infoboxes are useful for a few items, but definitely not for these map categories. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 21:15, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
Yes. There's a time and a place for Infoboxes. This is not really one of them. Situations like this are also entirely unhelpful. Huntster (t @ c) 21:22, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
The use there might not be immediately apparent in English (it's in the category names), but try browsing Commons in another language - the infobox will show that summary content in the relevant language. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 08:26, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
I've now tweaked the infobox code so that it won't show 'category combines' information from map (Q4006) and a few other such general topics. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 08:30, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
@Mike Peel: some constructive feedback: Would be nice to have an actual map in the infobox with the OSM shape like the map in the infobox on Category:Angola. Multichill (talk) 19:27, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
@Multichill: Agreed, that would be nice, the problem is d:Wikidata:Project_chat#Items_for_countries_are_getting_too_large - including info from country items seems to lead to time-outs. Although I might be able to code up something specific for "X from country" categories, I'll have a think. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 19:51, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
@Multichill: I figured it out, now implemented (see Category:Maps of Angola). Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:31, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
(Learn to read, too: I said that «perennial nonsense» is to state that all maps are part of Siyahvarud and any other such unfortunate results of «Wikidata’s faulty anti-vandalism protection and/or Wikidata’s faulty user interface». What I said about (most of) Wikidata in general is that it «is either makework cruff or outright deterimental nonsense» — which is close to the nicest way I can put it.)
Funny that while four (out of six) different Commons admins above basicly agree with the OP, what you chose to engage with is my «lengthy rant», with an incedibly smug quip of your own: So I «could also learn how infoboxes are programmed», could I?! Guy, if that was not ridiculously off target, it would be a fine example of what the WMF’s T&S think is a pressing concern for the Wikimedia user community (which I don’t think it is).
I was going to let this topic run its course since the most urgent matter was dealt with but since any criticism of Wikidata brings its fanboys to the yard, I will try to address some of the concerns expressed above.
-- Tuválkin 11:30, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
Gentlemen. You can't fight in here. This is the War Room! Kaldari (talk) 19:26, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Which License do I select?

Hi, I am confused to which License I should choose. The file has been already uploaded at <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:10dinara.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:10dinara.jpg</a>. It was in the backlog under 'Moving files to Commons'. The file which was orginally from Wikipedia has a licensing stating it is public domain under Copyright law of Serbia. But in the upload (I didn't use the upload wizard), it doesn't have a custom option stating how it is under public domain.--User:PhoenixStarlight

That template would be more for discussions and lists of moves on projects such as WikiProject Images and Media. It doesn't seem much used today. The user was probably looking for en:Template:Now Commons, which goes on the description page of the file. Anyway, that's moot now that the page is deleted. -- Asclepias (talk) 17:24, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

File:Abel Rodrigues.jpg

The website given as source is portugese only. I am not sure, the file File:Abel Rodrigues.jpg is cc-by-sa as stated on the file description page? --C.Suthorn (talk) 12:33, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

  • @C.Suthorn: At Pois.PT’s terms and conditions page it is stated that «Todo o nosso conteúdo está protegido por lei. Qualquer cópia integral ou parcial, não autorizada, será alvo de sanções legais severas», which threatens with legal action any unauthorized “copy” of their stuff (copy, as in web browser caching? — wow, even viewing their site is illegal!). It’s as laughable as the outrageous misspelling in the next paragraph ("compras-te"), but basicly in line with current copyright law, so, yeah, this image, licensed as it is, gotta go. I’ll file a DR, though, as licensing might be obtainable from the photographer instead. -- Tuválkin 15:07, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Many identical images

There are many similar images in Category:Corvus tristis (museum specimens). Are all of them necessary? 217.117.125.72 15:15, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Molecules

Hello,

Do you have a special tool for modeling molecules?

Thank you. AirSThib 🌌 Cyclist stars cafeteria 🚴 09:59, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

@AirSThib: You might be interested in these molecule modelling websites:

--Red-back spider (talk) 21:21, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

There are lots of options. What kinds of molecules (inorganic, large biochemical, organic, etc) and what style (skeletal, 3D, etc)? DMacks (talk) 19:48, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Lua error again

Hello! Today I've found "Lua error in Module:Wikidata_label at line 37: Tried to read nil global capitalisation." at File:Dülmen, Hausdülmen, Mond über Schmalo -- 2020 -- 6307.jpg. Hopefully it will be fixable. --XRay talk 13:42, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes seeing it here for the past hour or so. Jane023 (talk) 13:57, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
It was due to this edit, which was fixed within an hour. I think it is all resolved now, and I purged all the affected pages. --Jarekt (talk) 20:35, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
Checkmark This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. --Jarekt (talk) 12:33, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Cannot make links to Wikipedia in a category of Commons

I created Category:Georges Deicha and wanted to add the links to the Wikipedias. However there was no possibility as usual in the left column to make these links. On the page Wikidata Georges Deicha I tried to add it on the item "Other sites". There it worked with success. However with Category:Georg Jenisch this trick did not work because on the Wikipedia page Georg Jenisch I have no access to Wikidata. There gives "Links hinzufügen" "Bitte wähle eine Website und eine Seite aus, die du mit dieser Seite verlinken willst." and I do not know how to continu to make the link to Commons. Is there an explanation for it? Wouter (talk) 09:51, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

@Wouterhagens: When I look at de:Georg Jenisch, there's a "Wikidata item" link under "Tools" on the left (in German, "Wikidata-Datenobjekt" under "Werkzeuge"). It goes to Georg Jenisch (Q1504879), where you can add a link to Commons like you did on Georges Deicha (Q34824702). I think if you want to link to a page for which there genuinely isn't a Wikidata item (and for which you don't want to create a Wikidata item), you can add (for instance) [[de:Georg Jenisch]] to the wikitext of the category using the "Edit" link. --bjh21 (talk) 10:20, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
Thank you very much. Via "Wikidata-Datenobjekt" it worked fine. Wouter (talk) 10:30, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
Checkmark This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. --Red-back spider (talk) 11:05, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

New Artist Wikipedia x Wikidata

Hey,

So I am a new artist here and I am trying to set up and creates Wikipedia page but this is impossible. The interface here is horrible and there way too many things going on here. Once I finally got my page up and running it was deleted. I was then referred to this page but the person who told me about the deletion. Two things. My pic was a notable pic while on tour in China which was the first to be “speedy deleted” and now the page has been deleted after I set it up.

How can I set up my page and stay within the guild lines and not have my page deleted. I was not promoting anything I was simply create factual information on myself as an singer songwriter. Could someone please lmk how to set up a space that won’t be deleted please and thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Realahve (talk • contribs) 06:33, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Please read w:en:Wikipedia:Notability, d:Wikidata:Notability and Commons:Project scope carefully. --EugeneZelenko (talk) 14:09, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
Let me add w:en:Wikipedia:Autobiography to this list. Writing Wikipedia articles about yourself is strongly discouraged. De728631 (talk) 13:55, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Questionnaire invitation (a new tool to be developed, to verify media data)

Here's how the tool looks like (for now during development)

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScbNdJdQYN1yBvEeKne48eWDU6SBsdlUfNBAmZyvUEBkCR1Gg/viewform?usp=sf_link

Hi all. As part of the GSoC 2020 program, a new tool (Media Data Verification Tool, MDVT) will be developed. It is a micro-contribution tool which enables volunteers to verify (structured) data on media on Wikimedia Commons.

For the tool to be developed with the community's need in mind, I made a ~2 mins questionnaire to gather your opinion and requests on the tool.

I would like to invite all of you to participate in the study. And please allow me the thank you for your time in advance.

Please note that submission entries of the questionnaire WILL be published, but with all personal data (username if you chose to provide one) removed.

Thank you all. -- Gabrielchl (talk) 00:47, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

OTRS release generator produces text not understood by OTRS admins

Hello, my colleague released his picture https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pitín,_aerial_photography.jpg and sent the OTRS release e-mail generated by the OTRS release generator:

I hereby affirm that I, Jakub Viktora, am the creator and/or sole owner of the exclusive copyright of the following media work: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pitín,_aerial_photography.jpg I agree to publish the above-mentioned work under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International. I acknowledge that by doing so I grant anyone the right to use the work, even in a commercial product or otherwise, and to modify it according to their needs, provided that they abide by the terms of the license and any other applicable laws. I am aware that this agreement is not limited to Wikipedia or related sites. I am aware that the copyright holder always retains ownership of the copyright as well as the right to be attributed in accordance with the license chosen. Modifications others make to the work will not be claimed to have been made by the copyright holder. I acknowledge that I cannot withdraw this agreement, and that the content may or may not be kept permanently on a Wikimedia project. Jakub Viktora 2020-05-11

However, the reply from OTRS team was "Please advise who is the creator (photographer) of the image(s), and by which reason you became holder of the full and exclusive copyright.".

What did we do wrong? How can we make sure the OTRS e-mail is more clear? Thank you, --Vojtěch Dostál (talk) 11:02, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Hello, Most users here don't have access to OTRS. For information about the status of a case, you can ask the volunteer who placed the acknowledgement of reception on the file page or you can post the question at Commons:OTRS/Noticeboard. As a general observation, this is a recent upload. Usually, it takes months before an OTRS permission is processed, because of the backlog. Maybe what you thought was a reply was a question sent before the answer was processed. If it was a reply, a good thing would be to continue the email conversation with OTRS. Anyway, for information, you can contact OTRS volunteers, with the methods mentioned above. -- Asclepias (talk) 13:31, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
Probably (my guess) the problem was that you left the phrase "creator and/or sole owner" intact. It should presumably in this case be "creator and sole owner". If you are not the creator, then you'd need to say who is, and explain how you came to be the sole owner. - Jmabel ! talk 14:37, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
@Jmabel I don't think that's the problem. The release generator does not say that I should choose one of these two options. It seems it is OK to just send it as it is.--Vojtěch Dostál (talk) 19:00, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Also @Hamish: who seems to be the OTRS admin in question. Thanks in advance. --Vojtěch Dostál (talk) 19:02, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

I am the OTRS agent handling the ticket. The inquiry is standard and procedural. Please have Jakub Viktora respond to the email, so that we can continue to process the ticket. --Ìch heiss Nat ùn ìch redd e wenig Elsässisch!Talk to me in EN, FR, PL, GSW-FR(ALS). 20:14, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
@Nat: Hello. Can you elaborate? Why do you need Jakub Viktora to write another e-mail? The OTRS release generator is meant to simplify the process. --Vojtěch Dostál (talk) 20:25, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
@Vojtěch Dostál: I need them to respond to the email. The release generator simplifies the process by providing a legally sound statement to ensure that the sender understands the basic points of the licence they are agreeing to. The initial email (the release) is only the beginning of the process, not the end. --Ìch heiss Nat ùn ìch redd e wenig Elsässisch!Talk to me in EN, FR, PL, GSW-FR(ALS). 20:40, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
@Nat: Just a thought: Is it really necessary to investigate it as if we were police or is that up to personal decision of each OTRS volunteer? In an extreme case, will you ask for eye witnesses who can confirm that person XY is really the photographer? When someone *claims* to be the owner of the rights and there is no reasonable evidence to point otherwise, I think it should be enough. This really complicates life to anyone who wishes to release their media work to Wikimedia Commons. And to me who tries to assist them in that. --Vojtěch Dostál (talk) 08:54, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
@Vojtěch Dostál: But it appears that OTRS has not yet exchanged any email with the person you say is the photographer, just with you. Or am I misunderstanding? - Jmabel ! talk 11:02, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
@Jmabel You seem to misunderstand; Mr Viktora has already sent the e-mail above to OTRS and he received the reply from Nat. What @Nat and Josve05a: are saying is that we should investigate even in clear cases like this. I am asking why they want to investigate but I did not receive any explanation. --Vojtěch Dostál (talk) 13:42, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
I'm commenting here as I recrived a ping. My opinion is sort of similar to these already posted here. In this case, I recommend sending the original file with EXIF to our OTRS team, this is the fastet way to complete the authorization. --Hamish (talk) 23:30, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

VRT agent (verify): All files are different and all situations are handled in different ways. The release statement is part one of the release and in many cases the only necessary step (e.g. if a company releases a file, and sent the email from a company domain), but if the OTRS agent feels that more clarification surrounding sourcing circumstances, validity, etc. is needed in order for them to "rubber stamp" the file, then please respond to the OTRS agent's questions. The "release generator" only help to formulate a legally sounding first email, but it is not the entire actual OTRS process. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 11:28, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Why was the clarification required here? I am asking to prevent long OTRS conversations in future. I.e. how to change my OTRS guidelines for authors/copyright owners so that they don't look suspicious.--Vojtěch Dostál (talk) 13:45, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
I'm no OTRS member but from what I have read here so far, I think the confusion ensued when you declared the municipality of Pitín to be the author while |author = Jakub Viktoria should have been stated on the file page from the beginning. The fact that you received the file by email from the municipality is irrelevant when a human author who owns the copyright can be named. De728631 (talk) 16:22, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
While not commenting on this file specifically (due to non-disclosure agreements etc.) it is common that follow-up questions are asked (and to be expected) when contacting OTRS, especially when permission comes from previously "unknown" authors to OTRS (no previous permissions been sent in) or if suspect sourcing circumstances (found elsewhere online etc.). This to ensure that all images kept on Commons are ok since normal users and re-users can't check the email threads themselves to confirm. Simple thing to "fix this" permission is to answer OTRS's replies/emails. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 16:27, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
@De728631 Actually no, it has always said author = Jakub Viktora. --Vojtěch Dostál (talk) 15:10, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
@Josve05a As I say above, I find this "detective activity" troubling in cases as clear as this one. --Vojtěch Dostál (talk) 15:10, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
If cases are clear or not is up to the individual agent to decide, and extra checks are always encouraged to ensure validity. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 15:40, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: --Ìch heiss Nat ùn ìch redd e wenig Elsässisch!Talk to me in EN, FR, PL, GSW-FR(ALS). 19:02, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Unidentified vs Unidentifiable...

Hi there.

We have many [Cat:Unidentified things] containing many things that no one may identify...

For Unidentified trucks, I'd like to know if I can create Unidentifiable trucks (good term?) or if is it better to remove them from the cat'?

Thanks for advices. Stay home. lol LW² \m/ (Lie ² me...) 23:09, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

  • How can anyone know something cannot be identified by someone else? It seems to me that a maintenance category would be fine, but not a regular category. - Jmabel ! talk 01:53, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
JMabel is right. Such regular categories are not needed. If something is really unidentifiable, then question of scope is rising. I remember: once an arachnologist (scientist of spiders) went through categories of unidentified spiders and nominated a lot of them for deletion with reason "unidentifiable spider". They got deleted. Taivo (talk) 10:22, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
To me is deleting bizarre, because something can not be identifiable but interesting for other reasons such as color or shape. For a truck that has been hit by a bomb, it is less important to know what the brand, year and type it is than what the truck looks like after the attack. Wouter (talk) 19:59, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
Of course. And if the photo depicts general street view, then the photo has educational value even if nobody can identify one of trucks on street. Taivo (talk) 10:53, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
  • @Taivo: Those spiders should be undeleted, fast, and the responsible admin should be trouted, at least (keeping in the zoological theme) — I cannot fault the expert, who might have been wrongly informed on the goals of Commons. In genereal, thank you all in this thread for speaking sense. -- Tuválkin 14:48, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
If said images are of low quality in addition to unidentifiable (a blurry cell phone shot of a spider taken from 6 feet away), and thus unlikely to be used by anyone (besides maybe to demonstrate "how not to photograph spiders"), then they are out of scope and should be deleted or stay deleted. Even a blurry, poor-quality image of an easily identified object may be out-of-scope. But high quality images that may be identifiable only to genus or family, or even used to simply illustrate the concept of "spider" or "beetle", still have plausible educational use. Indeed, textbooks often include photographs which are not identified in caption, or simply described as "unidentified X", but which still convey the necessary visual information appropriate for the context. As to the main comment in this thread, I don't think there's a need or benefit to create the rather subjective category tree of "Unidentifiable X". --Animalparty (talk) 20:03, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
Look at Category:Unidentified Lepidoptera and Category:Species of Lepidoptera. There are 18,000 categories of species, virtually all of which have at least a handful of images. With tens of thousands of images of categorized butterflies, you're telling me that thousands of unclassified photos have some sort of educational use? Theoretically, maybe, but when you're talking tens of thousands of images, or even just hundreds, nobody is going to be digging through all of them for the best. I stand by what I've said in previous discussions; they might not justify taking the time for deletion, but they aren't actively doing us any good.--Prosfilaes (talk) 09:26, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
Commons is ever a work in progress, and curation will always be needed. The current state of categorization has no bearing on the potential for the image. Some images are unidentified/uncategorized simply because no one has bothered to categorize them yet. Looking at Unidentified Lepidoptera, the first image is already identified in description as family Peleopodidae, genus Acria, which currently has no files. The second file is likely identifiable to genus if not species, but even if not, could easily be used to illustrate "pollination" or "butterfly diets" or "plant-insect interactions" (and note that images with sufficient descriptive text or tags can still be located by simple search, regardless of categorization). The fact that Unidentified Lepidoptera has dozens of Unidentified family categories means that the images are identifiable at least to family, which may be sufficient for a user depending on context and usage. --Animalparty (talk) 19:55, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
You talk about the first and second images. There's thousands of images there; who is going to take the time to classify them? You didn't even bother putting the image you said was of Acria in any categories. That file could easily be used to illustration "pollination", but Category:Pollination has 153 images directly in the category, and several subcategories; are you saying that it's better than anything in that category, or even in the top 100? What's worse, if there's a thousand images to look through, no one is going to do that; they're just going to copy what's ever at the top of the category or what's used on Wikipedia. That's even with completely classified images. Curation may always be needed, but part of that curation would optimally be realizing that a pretty good image of something we have thousand images of, some great, is not worth keeping.--Prosfilaes (talk) 14:32, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Some files don't have any description or title that can help to sort them somewhere, kind of "DSC000876543" or "truck in the desert" where the truck is only a rear view of semi smaller than a stamp on Trump tower, a 500px unzoomable, useless for éducation, IMAO. lol LW² \m/ (Lie ² me...) 02:12, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

An unknown ceramic object of unknown date catalogued in the Portable Antiquities Scheme that may still be identifiable.

Many archives have unidentified objects or specimens, some are actually famous for not being identified. Even after the curators and researchers have failed to work out exactly what something is, does not mean it is ever unidentifiable and the fact that the object is in an archive or collection gives the oddities educational value. The public process of an object being on Commons has in the past resulted in someone with lateral knowledge or a fresh perspective will see the image and give it a better identification than it ever had before, sometimes just because the archives had always miscategorized an object. Generally using "unidentified" is fine. -- (talk) 11:38, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

One objective approach would be to add subcats of the form "xxxxx unidentified after one year". This would avoid making a judgement about identifiability. Dankarl (talk) 01:24, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Also, consider a category like Category:Unidentified locations in Seattle, Washington. Plenty of these are perfectly usable pictures even if we don't know exactly where they were taken. A few examples:

Jmabel ! talk 00:30, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

OK, so I keep going on like I did before without asking myself these kind of questions. Thanks. lol LW² \m/ (Lie ² me...) 22:12, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Images licenced under GFDL-1.2 and CC-BY-NC-(SA/ND)

While looking at images at QIC from the 5th of May I discovered a few decent images by Ralf Roletschek. One example would be File:20-04-23-Fotoflug-Ostbrandenburg-RalfR- DSF6692.jpg. The file itself is licenced under GFDL-1.2-only and CC-BY-NC-ND-3.0. Per Template:GFDL-1.2 you can not use this licence for new uploads any longer since October 2018. Asking if the third box (above the GFDL licence) actually is a licence he replied that The Images have a CC-licence as required ("Die Bilder haben eine CC-Lizenz wie gefordert").
In my opinion the community agreed to ban the GFDL for new uploads because the GFDL licence actualy hinders reusing the file which is contrary to what Wikipedia is supposed to be: Providing free knowledge for everyone at anytime with easy access. I argued that there is one CC-licence availabe is may not enough for Commons he stated that per Commons:List of primary license tags it is a valid licence.
For me using GFDL-1.2-only was always an accepted workaround to make the file very impractical for any commercial use. This is further fueld by CC-BY-NC licence tags and texts about options to "negotiate less restrictive commercial licensing" (which sounds like if you pay we can talk about it).
Here I am asking for your opinion. Mine is that Wikimedia projects were and still are a non-profit thing and if you want to sell your work, Wikipedia/Commons should not be used for that. Good photography takes a huuuge ammount of time and money and I would not (and can understand that other people would also not) turn down donations for better equipment, yet files on Commons should not be hidden behind a paywall.
Since Commons:List of primary license tags says "List as of 2016-09-06" and it was created two years before the GFDL was banned the list should be updated or deleted.
--D-Kuru (talk) 17:08, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

According to COM:L, Non-permitted licenses may only be used on Commons if the work is multi-licensed under at least one permitted license. NonCommercial and NoDerivatives Creative Commons licenses are not permitted and neither is GFDL for certain types of media licensed on or after October 15, 2018, so that file does not have a permitted license. It's not a requirement for files to have a Creative Commons license, though it is extremely common. clpo13(talk) 17:26, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
Ralf pointed out at the DR linked by Nat that the files use {{Resolution restricted-by-sa}}, which is essentially the simplified summary of a CC BY-SA license with a restriction on higher resolution versions. It does appear to be in line with COM:L and has survived a DR. The custom license seems unnecessary, though, since the practice of applying different licensing terms to higher-resolution versions is something Creative Commons itself supports. clpo13(talk) 18:03, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
I have so many questions regarding {{Resolution restricted-by-sa}}
  • Is it really a valid licence?
  • It states that it's similar to CC-BY-SA, but which version?
  • And what about the fact that {{Cc-by-sa}}, a "licence" it quotes, is a warning tag?
While multiple licencing is allowed, having two invalid licences, one questionable one, and a plethora of tags that set off a whole host of "red alert" reactions is somewhat problematic. --Ìch heiss Nat ùn ìch redd e wenig Elsässisch!Talk to me in EN, FR, PL, GSW-FR(ALS). 18:23, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
Thank you Mike Peel for point out this FAQ. The question asked was Can I apply a CC license to low-resolution copies of a licensed work and reserve more rights in high-resolution copies?. CC's answer: in short, no. As low-resolution and high-resolution copies are the same work under applicable copyright law, {{Resolution restricted-by-sa}} cannot be considered a valid licence. --Ìch heiss Nat ùn ìch redd e wenig Elsässisch!Talk to me in EN, FR, PL, GSW-FR(ALS). 19:09, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
It would be nice to get a WMF lawyer non-legal-advice-non-opinion opinion to clarify this. --Ìch heiss Nat ùn ìch redd e wenig Elsässisch!Talk to me in EN, FR, PL, GSW-FR(ALS). 18:30, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
To the first question: As Clpo13 mentioned, it has been considered to meet the requirements of the licensing policy. This had been the general understanding of the licensing policy and also of the CC licenses before CC changed their FAQ, at about the same time they issued the terms of their version 4.0, which caused lengthy discussion on Commons about what to do about it. I think most people on Commons favored to continue to respect the will of the authors and to stick to the principle that a license applies to the resolution offered by the author. I don't remember the exact dates, but the template "Resolution restricted-by-sa" was probably created at about the same time, as a way for users who wanted to tag their files with a clear statement of the principle, to be safer and to avoid potential divergences of interpretation about the CC licenses introduced by the changes to the CC FAQ.
To the second question: In this particular context, this sentence in the documentation, which is not part of the text of the license, is just an unofficial comparison with some very general simplified principles at the basis of all the CC-BY-SA licenses in general. For this purpose, referring to a particular version of a CC license is not useful, because it is not a CC license and it does not use the exact terms of any version of a CC license.
To the third question: The template "Cc-by-sa" is a warning tag because if someone uses it, it is likely with the intention of offering an actual CC-BY-SA license and in that case a version should be specified to avoid confusion.
-- Asclepias (talk) 19:05, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
  • {{GFDL-1.2}}, as you've stated is an invalid licence post 2018, and the -nd- -nc- designations are completely not permitted on Commons as they contradict Commons Licencing policy in which the four freedoms (the freedom to use the work and enjoy the benefits of using it; the freedom to study the work and to apply knowledge acquired from it; the freedom to make and redistribute copies, in whole or in part, of the information or expression; the freedom to make changes and improvements, and to distribute derivative works) are the basic threshold for an image or media file to be hosted on Commons. I've nominated the images in question for a deletion discussion. --Ìch heiss Nat ùn ìch redd e wenig Elsässisch!Talk to me in EN, FR, PL, GSW-FR(ALS). 17:45, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
  • I'd like to propose the following: ban ShareAlike provisions in custom licenses. Just as GFDL-1.2 makes reuse in offline settings effectively impossible, ShareAlike provisions in licenses that have not gained significant currency make remixing effectively impossible, because there are almost no other works to remix them with. -- King of ♥ 18:33, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
  • (en-0) Aktuell gibt es sieben Bilder von mir, die von mir völlig fremden Leuten auf regulären Büchern verwendet werden. Alle mit echtem Verlag, kein print-on-demand. Diese sind auf User:Ralf Roletschek/Bücher/Einbandfotos sichtbar. Über 100 Fotos werden in Publikationen in 10 Ländern verwendet User:Ralf Roletschek/Bücher. Ganz so schwierig wie immer beschworen, ist die Verwendung der GFDL offenbar nicht. Die Beschränkung auf eine bestimmte Auflösung besteht auch bei den Bildern von Bundesarchiv (84.000 Bilder) und Fotothek (auch tausende Bilder). Mein Englisch ist so schlecht, daß ich nicht in der Sprache diskutieren kann. --Ralf Roletschek 18:43, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
Google translate: (en-0) There are currently seven pictures of me that are used by completely foreign people on regular books. All with real publisher, no print-on-demand. These are visible on User: Ralf Roletschek / Books / Cover Photos. Over 100 photos are used in publications in 10 countries User: Ralf Roletschek / Bücher. Apparently, the use of the GFDL is not as difficult as ever conjured up. The limitation to a certain resolution also applies to images from the Federal Archives (84,000 images) and photo library (including thousands of images). My English is so bad that I can't argue in the language. -- Ralf Roletschek
Ralf, I was just looking at random Bundesarchiv image and there is a sentence that the archive guarantees content of only images uploaded by them, but I do not see anything about that the license only applies to their original low-res uploads. I thought we did have such a restriction in the past, but I can not find it now. --Jarekt (talk) 19:36, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
It's irrelevant if the use of the GFDL is difficult; the decision has been made that it's not acceptable as the only free license.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:41, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
Anyway I agree we should not delete old GFDL files.
If someone wants to upload the one perfect historic moment of biggest event in 100 years as GFDL we could discuss an exception for that photo. Or if some museum wants to offer us 10 million photos as GFDL. But apart from that I agree we should not use GFDL. --MGA73 (talk) 21:14, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
User:Nat If there are GFDL files uploded after 15 October 2018 then they should be deleted per Commons:Licensing#GNU_Free_Documentation_License. GFDL, -nc- -nd- licenses are allowed as a secondary license. We can decide not to allow them for new uploads, but at the moment they are allowed. --Jarekt (talk) 22:58, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
I don't dispute that could be used as secondary licences, but the question in this case is whether the primary licence {{Resolution restricted-by-sa}} is a valid licence. As Stefan2 stated on Commons:Deletion requests/Template:Resolution restricted-by-sa, there are numerous issues and it's a Poorly written licence. It's a little moot now as the author of the images in question has placed a {{FAL}} on all the pages (but certainly, clean-up is necessary, and perhaps some clarification regarding the problematic tags). Ìch heiss Nat ùn ìch redd e wenig Elsässisch!Talk to me in EN, FR, PL, GSW-FR(ALS). 23:07, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
That being said, the more I look at the Licence Art Libre, the more questions I have about it. For instance, is it revocable? Their FAQ states that, in short, one shouldn't revoke, but it isn't explicit, and mostly depends on contract law per the FAQ. --Ìch heiss Nat ùn ìch redd e wenig Elsässisch!Talk to me in EN, FR, PL, GSW-FR(ALS). 23:16, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
Nat I do not have a problem with old GFDL files. I have a problem that Commons RECOMMEND that users use GFDL. When we recommend a license that is to me an indication that we think that it is a good license. We do NOT think that GFDL is a good license so I do not think that we should make it a recommended choise. --MGA73 (talk) 09:08, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
@MGA73: I think we have a wee misunderstanding here. My issue here isn't with old GFDL files. It's with files that use the R-R-BY-SA tag, which is, IMO, invalid and, because of the unclear language and poorly defined terms, a void license. And its use in conjunction with a -nc- -nd- licence, and also post-2018 uploads using GFDL when it is not permitted. Secondary use of -nc- -nd- licence is fine, but not when the primary (R-R-BY-SA) is not valid. --Ìch heiss Nat ùn ìch redd e wenig Elsässisch!Talk to me in EN, FR, PL, GSW-FR(ALS). 20:29, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

The underlying problem is if we want to facilitate license trolls, like Ralf, who use the bare minimum free license like {{GFDL-1.2}} and now {{FAL}}. For the license trolls who don't agree that I call them license trolls, just add {{Cc-by-sa-4.0}} to your uploads. Multichill (talk) 20:48, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

For the page Commons:List of primary license tags, it might be useful to have asterisks by the GFDL entries and a footnote that explains the GFDL policy.
@Jarekt: Is there any possibility of rerunning the query for the page Commons:List of primary license tags so that the page contents can be more up-to-date? Thanks. --Gazebo (talk) 06:43, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
Sure five years ago I did a lot of work on ensuring that every image on commons has at least one acceptable license and Commons:List of primary license tags was part of that effort. I will update it. --Jarekt (talk) 12:57, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
@Jarekt: Thank you for all your hard work and effort! Ìch heiss Nat ùn ìch redd e wenig Elsässisch!Talk to me in EN, FR, PL, GSW-FR(ALS). 20:33, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
Lizenztroll? Als ich hier angefangen habe, gab es die GFDL, keine CC. Es hieß damals: Wikipedia steht unter GFDL und dies wird immer so sein. Was für ein Witz! Heute wird GFDL wie ein böses Geschwür behandelt und wenn ich das mache, was damals allen empfohlen wurde, bin ich ein Troll. "Alle folgenden Versionen" ist aber keine Option für mich und das ist auch (zumindest in Deutschland) ungültig. Nachträgliche Lizenzänderungen (wie hier bereits geschehen) sind ohne Zustimmung des Urhebers ungültig. Ich würde CC-3 ohne Weiteres benutzen, wenn sicher wäre, daß die Datei immer diese Lizenz behält. Aber das ist nicht gewährleistet. Nennt mir eine CC-BY-SA-3.0-only und ich benutze sie. Aber das ist ja nicht gewollt. --Ralf Roletschek 21:13, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
Then why do you use the FAL? It also gives users the choice to use any subsequent version of that license:

You will always have the choice of accepting the terms contained in the version under which the copy of the work was distributed to you, or alternatively, to use the provisions of one of the subsequent versions.

--Sense Amid Madness, Wit Amidst Folly (talk) 22:15, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
Warum schreibst du nicht deutsch? Ich spreche kein Englisch. Es gibt aktuell keine Lizenz auf Commons, die ich akzeptiere, deshalb gibt es keine Bilder mehr von mir. --Ralf Roletschek 22:23, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break

@Ralf Roletschek: (Ich spreche kein Hochdeutsch) Can you tell us why you consider CC-BY-SA (e.g. 3.0-de or 4.0, etc) is an unacceptable licence for your work? --Ìch heiss Nat ùn ìch redd e wenig Elsässisch!Talk to me in EN, FR, PL, GSW-FR(ALS). 23:24, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Weil auf Commons Lizenzen nachträglich geändert werden. --Ralf Roletschek 21:46, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
@Ralf Roletschek: That is not a reason not to use a standard licence. Also, once a work is licensed with an acceptable licence, the work is released under that licence. If a previously accepted standard licence is no longer accepted, files licensed under that licence are typically grandfathered and allowed to remain.
For example, if File A was uploaded in 2017 and licenced under GFDL, the licence is valid for works uploaded prior to 2018 and remains so even if GFDL is no longer an acceptable licence. Now, if File B was licenced under GFDL and uploaded in 2019, the file will need to be re-licensed to remain on Wikimedia Commons.
In short, I do not see the problem of why you chose not to license your work on Commons under a standard acceptable licence. --Ìch heiss Nat ùn ìch redd e wenig Elsässisch!Talk to me in EN, FR, PL, GSW-FR(ALS). 01:12, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Defaultsort for UK buildings RFC

There has been some debate about how to sort churches and other buildings in the UK. The original consensus was at Commons:Village pump/Proposals/Archive/2018/09# for UK churches and pubs but there has since been more disputes on this with the proposer of the last discussion and the user who was doing it differently, see User talk:Motacilla and Category talk:Church of St Mary the Virgin, Stone. How should churches (and other buildings) be sorted? @Motacilla, Rodhullandemu, RexxS, Acabashi, Dave.Dunford, Judithcomm, Saga City, Storye book, WereSpielChequers, NeverDoING, and Tine: who have been mentioned or otherwise been involved in churches on Commons.

A, by dedication, for example Category:St Peter's Church, Weston, Suffolk is defaultsorted "Peter, Weston" except for the category for "Saint Peter churches in Suffolk" in which the location is used, which is in accordance with the previous consensus.
B, by location, for example Category:St Peter's Church, Roydon is defaultsorted "Roydon, Peter" except for the category for the location itself. When there is a category for churches in location such as Category:Churches in Cambridge then dedication is used anyway.
C, no defaultsort meaning it appears in non-church categories under "S" for "St" except for church specific categories, where the dedication is used and the dedication specific category where location is used. This is in accordance with the statement "In a non-church-related category for the parent place (i.e. Category:Anytown or Category:Buildings in Anytown) I would expect to find "St Mary's Church" under "S", not "M"." here.

How should this apply to pubs? Should the name or location be used? Should "The King's Arms, Anytown" be sorted under "King's Arms" or "Anytown"?

How should this apply to other buildings? Should English Farm, Nuffield be sorted under "English Farm" or "Nuffield"? Should New Wolsey Theatre be sorted under "Ipswich" for the categories not specific to Ipswich, namely the "Theatres in Suffolk" category?

Arguments in favour of sorting by dedication are that its the name of the church and this is consistent with other subjects across Commons to sort by name. Complication over location, for churches in suburbs would the town/city be used or the suburb? such as would St Clement's Church, Chorlton-cum-Hardy go under "Chorlton-cum-Hardy" or Manchester. Arguments against are that few people know the dedication of a church but will almost certainly know the location. Arguments in favour of no defaultsort are that "St" is generally included in the building's name. Arguments against are that the dedication is somewhat redundant even outside church categories.

When there is consensus on this we should probably get a user script so that the changes can be done more efficently.

Survey

Please use "A", "B" or "C" in you'r !vote. If you support dedication but think "St" should be used you can use "A, St" (meaning sorting as "Peter, St") in you're !vote and if you support location but think "St" should be used you can use "B, St" (meaning sorting as Roydon, St Peter") in you're !vote. For pubs and other buildings you can just use "A" (for name) and "B" (for location).

  •  Neutral for all 3 options for churches since while location would bring them out of line with other topics, as noted most people won't know the dedication which can make it a bit redundant and therefore on average seems more useful for users.  Weak support A for pubs since although I agree with Motacilla that pubs might change name it seems reasonable for many people to know the name unlike churches.  Support A for other buildings since most people will know the name of the building and might not always know the location. Crouch, Swale (talk) 12:13, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Neutral on pubs, A for generally everything else, for churches, a mix of B&C: no defaultsort, sorted by location for church related cats, i.e. Category:Grade I listed churches in Wiltshire, and under S for other categories (although I couldn't find many where this would apply - most settlements have a churches in x cat.) This is mostly per Dave.Dunford's comments at special:diff/382728948.
Dedications aren't unique enough (25% of Category:Grade I listed churches in Wiltshire are dedicated to St. Mary), or well known enough, to the primary method of finding individual churches. Our categories are here to help users find images, and our sorting should reflect that. For other buildings, names are more individual and well known, so makes sense to use them. ~~ Alex Noble - talk 13:00, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
  • The sortkey should depend upon the category. If a given category has certain rules or conventions for sorting, imposing those rules or conventions on all other categories is not necessarily a good idea. Generally, the DEFAULTSORT should be close to the actual page name, in line with the principle of least astonishment; individual categories may be given a special sortkey which does not affect other categories. So in the case of Category:St Peter's Church, Weston, Suffolk I would use:
    {{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Peters Church, Weston, Suffolk}}
    [[Category:Saint Peter churches in Suffolk|Weston]]
    [[Category:Grade I listed churches in Suffolk|Peter, Weston]]
    [[Category:Weston, Suffolk]]
    
    and in the case of Category:St Peter's Church, Roydon I would use:
    {{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Peters Church, Roydon}}
    [[Category:Roydon, Essex]]
    [[Category:Saint Peter churches in Essex|Roydon]]
    [[Category:Grade I listed churches in Essex|Peter, Roydon]]
    [[Category:Anglican churches in Essex|Peter, Roydon]]
    
    notice that in both cases, the DEFAULTSORT is simply the page name with the contraction written out in full, and the apostrophe removed. --Redrose64 (talk; at English Wikipedia) 21:47, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
  • No reason for UK churches etc to be treated differently from those in other countries. Any rule should be general. PamD (talk) 06:02, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
  • What is this? Is it, as it claims, a Request for comment or is it that part of the Dispute Resolution that refers to the Village Pump, in which case we've been here before. Not sure what the survey is intended to achieve. A straw poll before a more formal and full discussion, or a vote? How is anyone closing this to determine consensus, assuming one emerges? Already we have one contribution showing a fundamental lack of understanding of how DEFAULTSORT is intended to work, so we already have woolly thinking. The fact that you have to override a DEFSORT more than once should be telling you that the DEFSORT is suboptimal. However, option C is unworkable for churches because they'd mostly get sorted under 'S', B is insane because nobody does that in the real world, and neither should we- I don't buy the proposition that someone who knows that a church is in X but not its name isn't first going to look at Category:X. A is the only option to make any sense because the English language is written, and read, from left to right, and all churches that I have seen name their websites as "dedication, location". As an example, compare Category:Anglican churches in Cheshire (defsorted by dedication) with Category:Anglican churches in Worcestershire (defsorted by location). Pubs, the same and for the same reasons; they may change names, but that's what redirects are for. Other buildings ion a case by case basis.Rodhullandemu (talk) 10:28, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
    An RFC to try to sort out the dispute between you and Motacilla. Motacilla seemed to want a new RFC so I have started one for them and also notified then on Wikipedia but they have edited there since receiving the message. Crouch, Swale (talk) 08:54, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
    Then why is it not set up as an RFC? Hasn't anyone read the proper procedures? There's too much woolly thinking going on here. Rodhullandemu (talk) 09:03, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
    I've listed it at {{Centralized discussion}} though its not clear based on the "Procedure" if I'm supposed to do that? Crouch, Swale (talk) 09:16, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
    "RfCs may be either: A section on a talk page, for example, the talk page of a policy. A subpage of this page, for example, Commons:Requests for comment/a very important issue." Halfway there. Rodhullandemu (talk) 10:05, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose The sort should follow the principle of least astonishment, so generally the actual page name. B just does not work. Would you really sort St Paul's Cathedral under London? How is "location" to be decided? Village? Parish? Town or suburb? And how is the user supposed to guess which "location". And as has been said, if a user knows the location but not the dedication or name, the user will look first in the category for the location. A seems to me unnecessary and potentially messy. The letter P would include both St Peter's and churches with names beginning P but not dedicated to a saint (e.g. non-conformist churches) mixed up. Is it really that hard to find the church you want within the letter S? So I would go for C - except that for churches the sort key should spell out Saint, and Church of St Peter should be sorted as Saint Peter's Church.
And I agree that there is really no reason why UK buildings should be sorted differently from buildings elsewhere.--Mhockey (talk) 14:31, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose all three options - I'm with MHockey here, inasmuch as the sort key should spell out the name of the building. Spelling out "Saint" might be a good idea as one can find all of "St", "St.", and "Saint" in the names of churches here on Commons. Regarding pub names, sometimes they are written with an article, sometimes without - this also calls for some sort of harmonization. --Schlosser67 (talk) 19:40, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
  • B as a personal preference. I think that any editor's choice will be determined by the use they are likely to make of the categorisation. In my case, I'm probably most likely to be looking for something useful to photograph near where I live, or when I go to a Wiki-meetup. If I'm going to Halesowen, I would like to be looking for churches sorted by H, regardless of their dedication, to see where the coverage may be light. I know the names of a few churches in my vicinity, but virtually none for any given destination where I might visit farther afield. The same situation applies for pubs with the added complication of name changes for them. I can't envisage ever planning a trip to photograph a bunch of churches dedicated to St. Peter in quite the same way. --RexxS (talk) 00:15, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
    You will only find images of churches in Halesowen if we have any. There's one church listed in Category:Buildings in Halesowen but we have no images of Category:Our Lady and St Kenelm, Halesowen. So B may solve problems of light coverage, but not missing coverage. Rodhullandemu (talk) 07:32, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose - per Mhockey, et al. Don't really see why it's a problem to just look under S for Saint, H for Holy, O for Our, etc. There are plenty of topics which have a concentration of names in one letter; that alone isn't a great reason to change how we organize them. — Rhododendrites talk03:50, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment - My personal preference for church naming is "Church of XYZ, Location", which handily groups everything together under C. Cathedrals generally have a more common name. Pubs are tricky, as they do change names a lot. Perhaps the solution here is to make the category their street address (123 XYZ Lane, City) and have category redirects. -mattbuck (Talk) 20:47, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
    •  Comment Most churches do not call themselves "Church of X". Everything under "C"? Seriously? That's just as unusable as everything sorted by "Saint..". Let's just delete DEFAULTSORT and in that way, nobody will be able to find anything. ever. again. And this project will become a laughing stock, as if we are boiling a hyena. Rodhullandemu (talk) 20:57, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Cleaning Category “Images from Panoramio with bad file names”

Hello, The following category showns the images coming from Panoramio but with a bad file name: Images from Panoramio with bad file names.
However, I see that some of these images have been modified but Category:Images from Panoramio with bad file names has not been removed.
Is there a way to clean this category ? Why not with a bot because “one by one” would be boring…
Indeed , command would be like « remove category for images already renamed  »
Regards Methos31 (talk) 13:52, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

I don't know if deploying unthinking bots is the best way to fix this. There are a couple gadgets: Cat-a-lot, or VisualFileChange (both can be found in Preferences--> Gadgets), with which you can visually select the files with improved names and remove the category. --Animalparty (talk) 02:33, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Derivative Geograph image as PD

File:StainedGlass 1562 WalsinghamImpalingDenny MereworthChurch Kent.png is a derivative of File:HeraldicEastWindow StLawrence'sChurch Mereworth Kent.jpg which is from Geograph. The derivative has been licensed as PD. That's not right is it? Smalljim (talk) 09:29, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

The window itself is in public domain but the photo, which shows it with surroundings, is not. However after the photo was cropped in such a way that it now shows only a mosaic, it will be in public domain as {{Pd-art}}. Ruslik (talk) 13:55, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
Has there been discussion on whether {{PD-Art}} applies to stained glass? There may be creativity in the choice of time of day and weather, which could affect the appearance of the stained glass. -- King of ♥ 14:21, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
When in doubt, use {{Licensed-PD-Art}}. Multichill (talk) 18:20, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
So there is an exception to the SA part of CC licences: share alike – If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar licence to this one. I never knew that - thanks all. Smalljim (talk) 09:16, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
This is not an exception. Under the copyright law it is not possible to licence something that is already in public domain. Ruslik (talk) 13:52, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
Ah, I'd missed the Notices, which start with: You do not have to comply with the license for elements of the material in the public domain... [1]. Smalljim (talk) 22:18, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

POTD captioning guidelines

The caption at Template:Potd/2020-05-04_(en) is the first one I can remember seeing that advertises the photographer's gallery. I think the caption should be a straight description of what is in the photo, and potentially why it is relevant to the day it was chosen for. This seems to have been the norm so far. Any other opinions? Asking here for a wider variety of relevant views, since the caption is transcluded onto the Main page. I have linked this discussion, however, from Commons talk:Picture_of_the_day where those who have a special interest in POTD norms are more likely to see it Storkk (talk) 12:07, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Agreed, not appropriate. -- King of ♥ 12:25, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
+1. --A.Savin 13:44, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
@GerifalteDelSabana: Any statement? --A.Savin 13:44, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
@A.Savin: Point 5 on Commons:Picture of the day/Instructions, section 'Steps to add a picture'. I was under the impression that the adding of gallery links, thereby including user galleries, is encouraged. ― Gerifalte Del Sabana 01:12, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
Also, Storkk, the main reason I reverted the edit was due to a grammatical error in your sentence regarding the American population of Passer montanus. ― Gerifalte Del Sabana 01:14, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
Looks like the statement had some ambiguity. I've taken the liberty to modify it in line with how I think most people would have interpreted it. -- King of ♥ 01:29, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
However, I do think a credit line (e.g. enwiki) would make sense. Thoughts everyone? -- King of ♥ 01:33, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
@GerifalteDelSabana: I have a bit of a hard time understanding your reversion as fixing a grammatical error. Most of my copyedit was addressing what I thought was non-idiomatic English and excessive verbosity. For example, "the National Bird Day", is to me not idiomatic. Storkk (talk) 07:17, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Possible photo of a Califone record player

I am considering uploading a photo I took that shows a Califone model 1435C record player. A low-resolution version of the photo is temporarily available for download here. The question I have is whether there would be copyright issues in uploading a high-resolution version of the photo to Commons. I am guessing that the player itself would be a useful article, though there are textual labels for the controls and there are also textual notices in the upper-right corner of the player near the tonearm. There is also the record label, though that might be incidental to the photo itself. Also, my understanding is that the player was made in the US, so it may well be of US origin. --Gazebo (talk) 06:33, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

@Gazebo: It looks fine to me, the device labels and description card are simple uncopyrightable text and also de minimis, and anything on the record label would also be de minimis. --ghouston (talk) 11:01, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
@Ghouston: Thanks for the feedback. I have uploaded a high-resolution version of the photo as File:Califone-1435C-record-player.jpg. --Gazebo (talk) 06:07, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Ponies breed

Hi, Could you please help identify the breed of these ponies? Thanks in advance. Yann (talk) 12:22, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Accepting hq.eso.org for source URL uploader

I was trying the old uploader. And I tried source URL. From hq.eso.org. But I get an error saying "Copy uploads are not available for this domain", though eso.org has no issues. I was told to post a request here first. Is there a good reason not to allow hq.eso.org. If not, can anyone whitelist it?
acagastya 16:26, 13 May 2020 (UTC)\

  • There are very few domains where our usual upload tools will upload directly from the domain (Flickr; I can't even think of any others, though they may exist). Basically, we can't do this that way if we don't have an automated way to determine the licenses on that domain, and that is only worth engineering if we expect to get thousands of images from the domain. Uploading a file from elsewhere online almost always requires first downloading to your computer. - Jmabel ! talk 18:22, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
  • The domain needs to be whitelisted at Phabricator so the uploader's code gets updated to accept hq.eso.org. Please follow the "request" link at Commons:Upload tools/wgCopyUploadsDomains. De728631 (talk) 18:26, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
@Jmabel: they eso files are under cc by 4.0 (we also have the template {{Eso}}). @De728631: Yes. I have filed it on phab. Thank you for your inputs!
acagastya 23:54, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Speravir 23:45, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

What is a plaque?

Hi there. I think it's all about my misunderstanding of english term of "plaque". But are Plaques always memorial signs? If so, what the difference between Plaques and Commemorative plaques? Is this tablet a plaque? It tells the story how the street got it's name. Or this? There are the name of Moscow Metro station and its' architects names on it, nothing memorial. Or this? It is a standard sign of cultural heritage monument in Moscow with a name of a monument and date when it was built. --Stolbovsky (talk) 22:48, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

@Stolbovsky: An acceptable online definition of plaque is "an ornamental tablet, typically of metal, porcelain, or wood, that is fixed to a wall or other surface in commemoration of a person or event". So all plaques are commemorative and Category:Commemorative plaques‎ is redundant to Category:Plaques, and the two should be merged. All plaques should be in subcategories of a "monuments and memorials" category. All the examples you cite are validly plaques. Rodhullandemu (talk) 23:16, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
That definition, from the Oxford Dictionary, only allows for commemorative objects to be plaques, but Merriam-Webster's does not limit plaques to commemoration, defining them as "a commemorative or identifying inscribed tablet". I think this needs further discussion before anyone makes any drastic changes. – BMacZero (🗩) 02:19, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
A plaque can certainly identify something rather than commemorate it. For example, a plaque on a registered building identifies the building rather than commemorate it. Similarly a plaque may identify a donor. Also, a small unornamented unpainted metal sign affixed to a wall is liable to be considered a plaque almost regardless of its specific content: e.g. a plaque pointing the direction to a particular chapel in a church. - Jmabel ! talk 03:32, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
By this interpretation, Category:Plaques shouldn't be linked to en:Commemorative plaque, but the link moved down to Category:Commemorative plaques, and quite a bit of stuff in Category:Plaques by country should be in Category:Commemorative plaques by country instead. Wikidata has d:Q721747 as a subclass of d:Q4364339. --ghouston (talk) 03:51, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
Yes, IMO a plaque is more than commemorative. Regards, Yann (talk) 11:47, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Reusing Commons-Content for Online-Lessons

I am writing online lessons and I'd like to use images found on Wikimedia to illustrate some points. I won't be altering the images in any way. I think I read somewhere in Wikimedia copyright info that such a group of images is called something like a collection and is treated a little differently in the attributions needed. I can't find that info again now. If I don't alter the images at all do I say 'no change" in the attribution info? Can I sell the lessons that contain the images under any of the 4 common licenses? And if it's an SA license do I need to make the images available for sharing from my work, or just assume the person wanting the image can use the attribution to get it from Wikimedia, like I did? Thanks for any clarification you can give me. I love Wikimedia for making such an assortment of talented work available and I need to understand how to use it correctly. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vgrlamb (talk • contribs) 02:56, 14. Mai 2020‎ (UTC)

Hi @Vgrlamb: have you read Commons:Reusing content outside Wikimedia? Every File can have a different licence, so it's not possible to answer your question generally. If you want to re-use content you have to do what the single given licence says. If you want to sell your material, it has to be clear where you have your content from (unless it's a CC-Zero-Licence) and what the author wants to be attributed. BR, --Emha (talk) 11:23, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
@Vgrlamb: This is essentially the same question you asked at Commons:Help desk#Reusing a group of images without alteration. Please do not waste volunteers' time by asking the same question in multiple venues. - Jmabel ! talk 15:45, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Rearranging deletereason dropdown

Hello. I'd like to propose a change to the deletereason dropdown. Please see Commons:Administrators' noticeboard#Rearranging deletereason dropdown. Thank you. Rehman 11:03, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Overuse of gender in categories

I know I've brought this up before, twice, and neither time did we really get to any resolution, but this keeps sticking in my craw.

Categories keep being split and diffused by gender where gender has nothing to do with the matter. It's not like diffusion by country, where we might usefully break up a big category into dozens of smaller categories: at least one of the resulting categories will always be at least half as large as the parent category. I came across this again recently when Category:Richard Goldstein (writer born 1944) was moved from Category:Non-fiction writers from the United States to Category:Male non-fiction writers from the United States. What possible purpose does it serve to split writers by gender? How is this any more valuable than splitting them by, say, height or hair-color? What on earth are we then supposed to do with transgender or non-binary people in this respect? I continue to believe that categories where gender is not directly relevant should not be split by gender. - Jmabel ! talk 15:58, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Popping in unexpectedly :-) @Jmabel: you might be right, someone can be male and change to female, or the other way around, only complicating the categorization. Lotje (talk) 16:24, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
Please start a new Commons:Village pump/Proposals or CfC. I would be in favor of scrapping gendered categories (except perhaps "Men/females by name" top categories). --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 17:29, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
Completely agree. There are good reasons to distinguish by activity, century, country, field etc. But the current practice puts a useless, problematic (and outdated) emphasis on gender. This has bothered me for quite a while. -- B2Belgium (talk) 17:51, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
My proposal: Subcategories based on personal characteristics such as race or gender are permitted for a profession if and only if physical appearance is important to that profession (e.g. acting) or the personal characteristic is highly relevant to that profession for some other reason. Nationality (or if necessary, subregional classification) is the only personal characteristic exempt from this rule. Probably needs to be refined to take care of a few edge cases I didn't think of but that's the general gist of my idea. -- King of ♥ 18:25, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Or just make gender a tag/SDC instead of recategorizing up to 50 million files. --C.Suthorn (talk) 18:37, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Proposal now at Commons:Village pump/Proposals#Proposal: avoid excessive use of gender in diffusing categories. - Jmabel ! talk 01:13, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Discussion at the COVID-19 WikiProject on standardizing various aspects of maps

 You are invited to join the discussion at w:Wikipedia talk:WikiProject COVID-19#Best universal colors for maps and graphs?. Sdkb (talk) 21:45, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Say NO to Fair Use history

does someone know the history of files like File:Say NO to Fair Use.svg? Did Spanish Wikipedia made a campaign about? Some useful links? Thanks a lot. Regards--Pierpao.lo (listening) 08:35, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Many uses of the file on user pages include a reference to a 2006 essay about fair use on a user page of es.wikipedia. I suppose the context might have been discussions in different projects about policies about allowing fair use or not. On 2 June 2006, the page was moved from the user space to the page es:Wikipedia:Sobre el uso legítimo. -- Asclepias (talk) 11:38, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Old Renault automobile

Someone identified als a Renault automobile, but I have not found the type in the Wikimedia documentation. Is it a Renault automobile?Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:11, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Hi to you too... The someone was me, as you can see in history/watchlist...

I moved that file because it's a Renault and was in category:Unidentified automobiles in France so I thought it was better to change; and/but, as I said a few before, many unidentified vehicles... So it's no more an unidentified auto.

[Many, many pics so alone]... Many US cars too. Thanks. lol LW² \m/ (Lie ² me...) 23:18, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

I not an expert, but I think we can safely move to Category:Renault Type DM. I looked in the French Wikipedia and could not find a Renault automobile type wich looked similar. The German Wikipedia is more complete. For the dating this means the picture would be taken in 1913-1914. I dont expect the street to be this buzy during the first world war and it certainly does not look like after the first world war.Smiley.toerist (talk) 08:56, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Can someone help me with an apparently non-English speaking Japanese editor? Thanks. Rodhullandemu (talk) 11:42, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Upload wizard and Pixabay date.

Suggest that when upload wizard detects the user is uploading an image from Pixay, filter if it is from 9 January 2019 onwards. If yes, if it is newer, would appear a message and do not allow uploading. This is very very important to help newbies (at Commons or at Pixabay).--BoldLuis (talk) 15:36, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

That's going to be hard. We definitely can't retrieve the content of external websites in the AbuseFilter, not sure if the Upload Wizard itself is able to do anything like that. -- King of ♥ 19:05, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Naming convention for life photographies ?

Hello, I'am creating a gallery of birds and I can't avoid to notice that there is no naming convention on those photographs. French wikipedia has some little known recommendation in fr:Projet:Identification > fr:Wikipédia:Atelier_identification/Nommage_des_photos_d'animaux. Is there any naming guideline on commons ? And if not, shouldn't we push for it in order to slowly get files with better names. Yug (talk) 19:13, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

@Yug: Hi, if you want to find out which species the birds are, then give the photos, I will identify them. If you want to do it yourself use Google Lens. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Red-back spider (talk • contribs) 21:53, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
The answer to your question is no, there is not a taxonomic naming convention on Commons for Galleries or elsewhere. For file names themselves, we have the guideline Commons:File renaming (which includes misidentified organisms) and the proposed guideline Commons:File naming. The text in the file descriptions, or on galleries, is not standardized, as different usages may demand different captions. --Animalparty (talk) 23:16, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
Basically, the guidelines here amount to "be accurate, be reasonably specific if you can, and verbose filenames are fine." - Jmabel ! talk 23:32, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
@Red-back spider, Animalparty, and Jmabel: thank for the feedback.
As for "be accurate, be reasonably specific if you can, and verbose filenames are fine"... this is no filing system, this is internet chaos .
I made one more push on the French Identification naming convention fr:Wikipédia:Atelier_identification/Nommage_des_photos_d'animaux, so anyone can adopt it. Yug (talk) 15:41, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
The categories are the "filing system". The file names are basically arbitrary, but hopefully mnemonic, identifiers. But of course they are only mnemonic for those who can read the language in question. - Jmabel ! talk
@Jmabel: yes, categories (and sometimes template with filled fields) are our local filing system. But it's 100% Wikimedia dependent. Must do better if possible. Yug (talk) 12:53, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

only_selected="false"

Trying to upload a SVG file, appeared this error:

Setting event-handler attributes only_selected="false" is not allowed in SVG files.

How can I solve it?. --BoldLuis (talk) 14:49, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

@BoldLuis: I would try opening the SVG in an editing program such as Inkscape and resaving it. Alternatively, you might try opening the SVG file in a text editor and finding that text and deleting it. – BMacZero (🗩) 16:20, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
@BMacZero: . Thank you a lot. I do not understand the error message. I tried to change it in Inkscape, but couldn´t. So, I am going to try in a text editor. BoldLuis (talk) 22:44, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
@BoldLuis: If you can't get it to work and you have some other way to share the file, I can take a look at it. – BMacZero (🗩) 06:13, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
Thank you a lot. BoldLuis (talk) 13:39, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Incidental, not prominent, partially occluded

I have two questions: (1) Is it an infringement of copyright if the spine of a book is identifiable from an image which is primarily a photograph of a person but incidentally shows a bookshelf behind that person? The book is out of focus and partially occluded, but can still be made out. (2) Much the same question as above, but concerning a theater poster incidentally captured in an image that is primarily of a person. The title of the play is out of focus but is discernible. The date and venue of the production are not visible at all. The graphic artwork is out of focus and partially occluded. Grandmotherfrompeoria (talk) 17:09, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

@Grandmotherfrompeoria: I think that Commons:De minimis could be applied in these cases. There are some examples on the linked page. — Draceane talkcontrib. 17:25, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

New hotkey for Wikidata Infobox template

Today, Kwj2772 on my request added a hotkey on Category edit pages for the easy insertion of the {{Wikidata Infobox}} template. Eissink (talk) 10:47, 16 May 2020 (UTC).

@Eissink and Kwj2772: What is the hotkey? I looked through the Edittools but didn't see it. – BMacZero (🗩) 16:28, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
I call it hotkeys, but it's the buttons between the window where you enter your edit and the field for the edit summary. Also the buttons can be shown by toggling 'Edittools' directly above the edit window (many buttons for characters and commands like DEFAULTSORT, NAMEPACE, etc.). Hope I made it clear enough to find it. As said, the Infobox button is only visible on category pages (when editing). Eissink (talk) 16:37, 16 May 2020 (UTC).
Thanks, I found it. – BMacZero (🗩) 17:28, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Computer-aided tagging removed from Android app depicts

Hey folks, just a short notice. The beta version of the Android app used computer-aided tagging for depicts. Because of community feedback about this leading to too generic tagging, the computer-aided tagging is not making it into the actual release of the app – we’ve removed it until further notice to steer users towards being satisfyingly conservative and specific.

The computer-aided tagging part is also removed from the beta version of the app, but you might still see some of it if users have an old version of the beta app.

If you see any issues around this that you think we need to work on, please let us know at mw:Talk:Wikimedia Apps/Team/Android/AppEditorTasks. /Johan (WMF) (talk) 16:10, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Deleted photo of Laurence Gavron

I have seen Commons:Deletion requests/File:Laurence Gavron.jpg with the text "Out of scope: Apparent unused personal photo and unlikely to be used in a project." As there is an article on fr:Laurence Gavron and a Commons category I like to see whether that photo is still out of scope. How can I see that photo and if relevant how to have it undeleted? Wouter (talk) 13:01, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

 Comment It appears likely to be the same person, although it does not seem like a self-portrait, so the outcome of a Undeletion request will probably be that the photographer would have to confirm the license via OTRS. Storkk (talk) 13:57, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) @Wouterhagens and Storkk: I have filed an undeletion request on your behalf. Please add any further comments there. Brianjd (talk) 13:59, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
Checkmark This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Brianjd (talk) 14:22, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Can someone help me to write the words from this Wikipedia logo?

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia-logo-ru-sib.png

It is Википеддя - Вольгомна всезнайка?

Thanks!!!

--151.49.116.197 20:14, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Google translate detects the Kyrgyz language and gives for Википедия - Волгомама всезнайка in English "Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia". Wouter (talk) 20:19, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
it is not Kyrgyz, but Siberian. Check the language code in the file name! --151.49.116.197 20:28, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
That is what Google gave. More important: has your question been answered? Wouter (talk) 20:33, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
It seems that the IP user identified the text correctly. So let's compare the italic version of "ВИКИПЕДДЯ - Вольгомна всезнайка" with the logo: ВИКИПЕДДЯ - Вольгомна всезнайка. Note that "WIKIPEDIA" is always capitalised, and it appears that "ВИКИПЕДДЯ - Вольгомна всезнайка" is in fact the original claim. De728631 (talk) 13:50, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
Note that ru-sib / Siberian is not a real language (see w:en:Siberian language and w:en:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Siberian language), and that the Siberian Wikipedia was closed and deleted; see meta:Proposals for closing projects/Closure of Siberian Wikipedia.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:20, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
  • "Вольготна всезнайка", from russian word "вольготный" (Not constrained by anything; free) and "всезнайка" (know-it-all, wisenheimer). --DS28 (talk) 04:00, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
… or in italics:
Вольготна всезнайка
. How the Cyrillic т exactly is displayed in italics depends on the font used for Cyrillic letters. Confer this note in en:Cyrillic script: “[…] cursive types of many Cyrillic letters (typically lowercase […]) are very different from their upright roman types. In certain cases, the correspondence between uppercase and lowercase glyphs does not coincide in […] Cyrillic fonts: for example, italic Cyrillic ⟨т⟩ is the lowercase counterpart of ⟨Т⟩ not of ⟨М⟩.” — Speravir – 23:37, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

wikilovesearth.org is down 2020-05-16 18:00 UTC

Can someone please help me alert the right people? As of 2020-05-16 18:00 UTC, wikilovesearth.org is down. I am seeing a "Apache 2 Test Page powered by CentOS" message indicating that the site "is either experiencing problems or is undergoing routine maintenance." Peaceray (talk) 18:14, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

@Peaceray: If you google 'Wikilovesearth'. If it is the first link, it works. --Red-back spider (talk) 00:19, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
Ah, okay got it. http://wikilovesearth.org/ works, but https://wikilovesearth.org/ does not. I have a browser extension that defaults everything to https instead of http. This still should be fixed so it works for both http://wikilovesearth.org/ or https://wikilovesearth.org/. Who can I contact about this? Peaceray (talk) 01:07, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
@Peaceray: I have emailed the owner of wikilovesearth to fix the URL. If you want to email the owner of wikilovesearth, here is their email:
wikilovesearth-owner@lists.wikimedia.org
--Red-back spider (talk) 09:54, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
That's just the owner of the mailman list. If you're lucky, that's the same person, but probably not.
@AnastasiaPetrova (WMUA) and Ilya: can you help out here? Multichill (talk) 12:02, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
I sent Anastasia Petrova an email just a little while ago. I previously tried sending email to webmaster@wikilovesearth.org, but that just got me an "The recipient server did not accept our requests to connect." message. Peaceray (talk) 00:48, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

I got an email back from Anastasia Petrova indicating that they will look into the problem. I think we can consider this issue closed. Peaceray (talk) 16:35, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Peaceray, “Anastasia Petrova” is clearly a female name. — Speravir – 00:04, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
Speravir ...so...? - Jmabel ! talk 01:05, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
“… she will …”? — Speravir – 01:18, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
Anastasia wrote that "We will look into this problem." I presume she meant the operators of Wiki Loves Earth, & I did not anticipate the need for explication. I don't think she was using the royal we. Peaceray (talk) 01:57, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
Ah, OK. Sorry then, Peaceray. — Speravir – 01:41, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Category creation request

Can anyone request category creation? SpinnerLaserz (talk) 02:28, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Wikidata Wochenende taking place online

Hello all,

In March, I wrote you about the Wikidata Wochenende (de), a week-end dedicated to working on Wikidata-related projects, where we would love to have Commons editors, for example working on Wikidata-powered templates or Structured Data. The event, initially planned in Ulm, will take place entirely remote on June 12-14. It's going to be a mix of hackathon and workshops, where people can connect, work on their projects, and learn more from others.

If you're speaking German and interested in attending, please register in the next few weeks. Cheers, Lea Lacroix (WMDE) (talk) 08:37, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Patrol reform

See Commons talk:Patrol#Patrol reform. pandakekok9 10:51, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Hedwig in Washington

Hi. See User talk: Hedwig in Washington. Anyone who knows how he/she is doing? Trijnsteltalk 18:34, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

@Trijnstel: I have no idea. You might want to send her an email though. De728631 (talk) 18:39, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, I began with a notice on their user talk. Let's hope that helps. Trijnsteltalk 18:56, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
Yup, I saw that. Bedankt! De728631 (talk) 18:58, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
[2] shows this is not abnormal. They sometimes take a break for several months in a row. 4nn1l2 (talk) 09:07, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
Checkmark This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. --Roy17 (talk) 16:55, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Public domain paintings

Hello everyone, I would like to ask if there is any project that aims to digitize the public domain paintings. For example I noticed Georgiana Houghton died in 1884, so her works should be in public domain, this page for example contains some of her works. — Preceding unsigned comment was added by 91.242.155.147 (talk) 20:24, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

@91.242.155.147: If she died in 1884, her painting are in public domain. --Red-back spider (talk) 03:32, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
We have Category:Georgiana Houghton, and this contains 1 (yes, only one) painting of her, it’s File:Houghton-The-Portrait-of-the-Lord-Jesus-Christ Page 1-web-1-714x1024.jpg which is used in the Enwiki article, as well. So, regarding the question Wikimedia Commons is such a project by volunteers for collection of (amongst other stuff) public domain paintings as long they are in project scope. — Speravir – 00:03, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
Side Remark: Pinging and not Pinging (replying and not replying)
Side remark @Red-back spider: You can’t ping IPs. In many cases this doesn’t make sense anyway. — Speravir – 00:06, 20 May 2020 (UTC) @Speravir: Well, still... (Also, I was replying not pinging...)--Red-back spider (talk) 08:38, 20 May 2020 (UTC) (Deletion of Pinging and not Pinging (replying and not replying) will happen on the 26th of May)

No reliable sources for COVID-19 UK map

I was about to tag File:COVID-19 outbreak UK per capita cases map.svg with a delete tag, but decided to ask here for your thoughts. The image contains confirmed cases of COVID-19 per 10,000 residents in the United Kingdom, by county. The stats for COVID-19 are produced on a country level, independent of each other. Any map depicting this data should contain direct links to all 4 sets of data. I've asked the image editor, User:Ythlev to add these sources / links to this image on his Talkpage. He has but one link, and that goes to the number of cases of COVID-19, rather than per capita. If he uses the population of that area, then this should also be referenced, and if the user has a formula, then that should be published in the description. The user also states that I don't care about the map or the article anymore. So, the image will not be updated daily, as I do with a similar Wales map. Hence my thoughts that it should be deleted, or reverted to the previous version (not per capita) as long as the sources are reliable and referenced. John Jones (talk) 12:04, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

I have no opinion on the map itself, but if you're going to nominate this file for deletion, note that this file is in use in 9 wikis, and that's a major roadblock to deletion. We have a COM:NPOV policy stating that Commons may not dictate what is correct or not, and gives the decision to the wikis using the file. So you would have to convince all those 9 wikis to stop using this map, which is probably unlikely for enwiki as it is used in a discussion archive (deleting the file will break the history of discussion). pandakekok9 12:25, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
It is not a deletion candidate due to widespread use. The best way to handle this would be to recommend a verifiable alternative in an image page notification. -- (talk) 12:29, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
Thanks both. I doubt, however, if the 9 wikis have checked the sources used, or in this case not used. Don't we have a responsibility in ensuring this map has good, solid, reliable sources? John Jones (talk) 12:43, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
Commons is not Wikipedia, and we don't guarantee that all files here are accurate per the general disclaimer. As long as the file is within our project scope and doesn't have any copyright problems, it stays here. As Fae says above, the best solution would be to suggest a more accurate alternative on those wikis. Better if you could do the map yourself, as this is a wiki after all; anyone can contribute. pandakekok9 12:47, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
I don't have Python, or the skills needed; just a deep sense of what's good and what's not, what's right and what's wrong, what's neutral and.... Is there a list of users who have Python abilities anywhere, please? Otherwise I'll just revert to the older version, as User:Ythlev suggests. John Jones (talk) 13:05, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
It may be more effective to raise your question at Wikipedia:WikiProject COVID-19. Though the file is hosted on Commons, the WikiProject volunteers have a lot of experience and would be welcome to update the map or create a fork of it unless an obvious alternate exists. The fact that it will not be deleted is a technical matter and a good policy for Commons' continuity but obviously may be confusing in this instance where folks expect recent or live data and the best possible sources. -- (talk) 13:18, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
Exactly! Thank you for your advise; I'll do that. John Jones (talk) 13:24, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

What to do with a discussion without any reactions?

What can I do to close a discussion that had zero reactions? It is about Categories_for_discussion/2020/03/Category:Decorated_tiles. Could one of you please look into it and give an opinion (about this question and/or about my question in the discussion page)? JopkeB (talk) 13:17, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Wikimedia 2030 recommendations have been published

Wikimedia 2030 recommendations guide how the Wikimedia movement should change to meet the Wikimedia vision in the upcoming decade. They are at a high level so that the ideas are flexible enough to be adapted to different global and local settings. The final set clarifies and refines the previous version, which was published in January. The team that finalized the content reviewed and integrated feedback and made the language as clear as possible.

The result is a 40-page document that outlines 10 recommendations, along with 10 underlying principles, a narrative of change, and a glossary. We encourage you to read the recommendations.

There are a couple of other formats for you to take a deeper dive if you wish, such as:

If you would like to comment, you are welcome to do so on the Meta-Wiki talk pages. However please note that these are the final version of the recommendations. No further edits will be made.

The focus of the movement strategy process will shift toward implementation. The Wikimedia Foundation is intending to host a series of virtual events. The goal will be to produce a plan to begin the implementation — to identify what initiatives must come first, and in what sequence, and with what resources and support. This series will have a wide scope to ensure various parts of the movement are engaged. We expect to share more details this month, and begin this work together through the summer and into the fall.

SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 14:50, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

This file was just deleted. A different version of it was promptly reuploaded.

Before this happened, I managed to see, but not save, the now-deleted version. The footer did contain a copyright notice, but also clearly said that the article is under CC BY 4.0 (and data is under CC0 1.0).

The new version appears to have a problem with the footer and it is not clear what the copyright status is.

Meanwhile the information template says “Own work”.

I don’t know what to do about this. Request undeletion? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brianjd (talk • contribs) 13:26, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

The username matches the author name, and PDFs are notoriously difficult to modify so I have no worries about an impersonation attempt here. I see that the file description is still tagged CC-BY-SA-4.0, so it may help to clarify with them what their intent was in removing it from the PDF text. As a courtesy, especially for newbies, we often allow uploaders to retract their CC licenses within a short period of time (e.g. a week) if they didn't actually intend to release it under a free license; we should check with them to see what they were trying to do here. -- King of ♥ 13:46, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
From User talk:Rsudireddy#File:Viruses in Humans and Animals.pdf:
This file is a copyright violation for the following reason: Copyright at bottom of page
This might explain why the uploader attempted to remove the notice. Brianjd (talk) 14:37, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
Upon further investigation, it looks like an attempt at self-promotion per [3]. While the original paper is CC-licensed, the uploaded version fails to attribute the authors as required by the license, and as an authorship hoax it constitutes vandalism. I have deleted the file. -- King of ♥ 15:08, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
@King of Hearts: Apparently Rsudireddy reuploaded, again, quite disruptive. I wonder, too, whether this PDF is in project scope: "Excluded educational content […] Files that contain nothing educational other than raw text." On the other hand this follows: "However, Commons can be used to host such material if included in a shareable media file that is of use to one of the other Wikimedia Foundation-hosted (WMF) projects, so scanned copies of existing texts that are useful to other WMF projects (e.g. to serve as the basis of a reliable, verifiable source) are in scope." So, if you, Rsudireddy, want to use is at source, please enter the page here where the PDF is used. — Speravir – 22:31, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
@Speravir: Actually, "peer-reviewed academic papers" are explicitly permitted per COM:SCOPE. However, a paper which falsely states its authorship is of no educational use. -- King of ♥ 22:45, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification. — Speravir – 22:58, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Notification of DMCA takedown demand - Peter and Paul

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#Peter and Paul. Thank you! Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 19:04, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Seems to have been a false "own work" claim. The uploader's other uploads have been nominated for deletion. Kaldari (talk) 01:26, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Centralized discussion on standardizing format of COVID-19 maps

 You are invited to join the discussion at w:Wikipedia talk:WikiProject COVID-19#Continued discussion on standardizing map format. Sdkb (talk) 21:23, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Please feel free to issue invites anywhere else on commons this notice might be useful. Sdkb (talk) 21:34, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Main page full of links

Hello, maybe this has been discussed earlier, but allow me to question why we have so many links on the main page. I have counted all links and clickable tings on the English main page of Wikimedia Commons. I may have missed something, but my result was 291!

My question to you dear colleagues: couldn't we have a main page that is much more simple? My ideal would be a clean page

  • with a short explanation what the site Wikimedia Commons is or does,
  • and then three, four or five big items to click on: for example, "search content", "contribute content", "learn more".

Kind regards, Ziko (talk) 09:35, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

What could be more simple than, picture and media of the day, photo challenges, highlights, "Participating" template and the sidebar with loads of links and other things. I think it should stay how it is, but remove all the different language Wikimedia-Commons from the bottom of the page.(not the footer) --Red-back spider (talk) 10:13, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
Hello, the current main page might be "simple" to people who already know Wikimedia Commons well. For new people, it must be difficult to find the useful information among all those links. Ziko (talk) 11:59, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
I also think the page should become redesigned with a responsive layout and with content that promotes our project. I think everyone with an idea should create a page and then propose this as the new main page. --GPSLeo (talk) 14:40, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
I would oppose removing the different language Wikimedia-Commons from the bottom of the page. It is at the bottom and generally out of the way for English-speakers but can be very useful for non-English-speakers who land on the page. And I would say that, considering the very different reasons someone might be coming to the page, it would be hard to make it a lot simpler.
FWIW, I always access the page on a PC. It wouldn't surprise me if it could be made much more responsive for viewing on the very small screen of a phone. - Jmabel ! talk 15:49, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
I looked again at the main page, and I think it is fine. I like the combination of thinks that change: daily (photo and video of the day), seasonally (photo of the year, etc.) and sections that are always there: Link to monthly photo challenge, highlights with links to Featured pictures, Quality images, etc., and links to images organized by content , and links to potential activities. I think it is a good and simple jumping of page. --Jarekt (talk) 18:48, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
Maybe current is overloaded, but complete content removal and leaving only text description seems to be a terrible idea Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 12:42, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Creative Commons

Hello, I have been considering contributing photos here to this site but am looking for a more detailed description of the creative commons deal. If I upload using say a V 3.0 CC Atrib. Share and share alike release, does that require anything that uses that image has to be released under share and share alike yet still apply a copyright to the entire product/book etc? Thank you for any insight on this topic. — Preceding unsigned comment was added by 2600:8802:2200:1430:9921:1125:1817:9B4B (talk) 15:59, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

@2600:8802:2200:1430:9921:1125:1817:9B4B: The CC-BY-SA-3.0 legal text says "This Section 4(a) applies to the Work as incorporated in a Collection, but this does not require the Collection apart from the Work itself to be made subject to the terms of this License." So the Share-Alike provision would apply to alterations of the image itself, but not to a larger work that contains the image, such as a book. The book's author would not be required to apply the CC-BY-SA license to their entire book. I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice - do I need to say that around here? – BMacZero (🗩) 19:34, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
This seems also to be the position of Creative Commons themselves. See the post by Ondřej Filip here. De728631 (talk) 15:41, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

How can I get rid of "File information" box?

It looks like Wikidata integration and I will certainly not use it. How can I hide it? I tried adblock, what made it mostly hidden but its non-descriptive name (###ooui-php-6) makes me worried that blocking it will block actually useful things.

How can I fully hide unwanted "File information" box? Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 12:06, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

@Mateusz Konieczny: It can be done by setting your user preferences: Preferences > Gadgets > Files & Categories: checking Hide Captions/Collapse Captions and Hide Structured Data Tab should help. --— Draceane talkcontrib. 12:28, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
@Draceane: Caption hiding is sadly broken, and not just for me - see MediaWiki talk:Gadget-Hide-Captions.css Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 12:39, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
@Mateusz Konieczny: You might not want to use "File information" box, and that is fine, but when others use it, that might be the place where the metadata about the image lives. You might be able to hide it but than you will only have partial info about the file. --Jarekt (talk) 14:31, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
I am perfectly fine with complete hiding it. If in year or two it will become (unfortunately) actually used then I will reconsider my decision. Currently it is basically never adding any useful info Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 00:54, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Category display issue

Category:Toki Pona in sitelen sitelen has two subcategories. When I move up one category to Category:Toki pona sitelen they are in the category tree but when I move up yet another category to Category:Non-Latin Toki Pona they aren't. What's going on here? And why? Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 06:27, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

This problem no longer persists. I still don't know why, though. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 04:45, 28 May 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 04:45, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Images

Can somebody delete:

1) the first two versions my file from May 14

2) the last two versions File:Jehovahs Witnesses Warwick.jpg

LibreOffice User (talk) 13:45, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

@LibreOffice User: We don't normally revert past versions unless there are issues like copyright violations. Is there something in particular going on here? - Jmabel ! talk 17:38, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
@Jmabel and Red-back spider: in this file File:Jehovahs Witnesses Warwick.jpg author make mistake. The file that he uploaded in by mistake exists separately: File:Jw headquart.jpg. In my file I made a mistake in the first two versions. Therefore, I ask you to delete the first two versions in my file, and the last two versions in this file - LibreOffice User (talk) 09:31, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
@LibreOffice User: As I said, we don't normally revert past versions unless there are issues like copyright violations. No such issue exists here. And, as far as I can tell, no such issue exists at File:Jehovahs Witnesses Warwick.jpg. The current version of that appears to be identical to the original; there is one differing version in between. As far as I an tell, you had nothing to do with that latter file, right? If you want something deleted there, I suppose you can start a Deletion review, but I can't see why it would result in a decision to delete, unless that differing version is a copyright violation.
I feel like this has taken up a lot of my time to tell you things that amount to what I said in the first place -- we don't normally revert past versions unless there are issues like copyright violations -- and I won't be replying further on this matter, though of course anyone else is free to do so. - Jmabel ! talk 17:43, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

@LibreOffice User: Correct advice given at Special:PermanentLink/422450781#Deletion file versions. Brianjd (talk) 14:41, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Checkmark This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Brianjd (talk) 14:41, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Idea of a video contest on Wikimedia Commons

Hello everybody.

In few years, on FMA website (archived page here and actually page visible here), there was a video contest aimed, in particular, at promoting the public domain and works under free license.

Question : couldn't we do a similar thing on Wikimedia Commons ? It would be great I think in terms of the attractiveness of the site.

Regards.

--ComputerHotline (talk) 06:28, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea, especially since the ability to upload videos to Wikimedia Commons has been expanded in the last few years, so this would be a great idea. In fact, Wikimedia Commons can use a lot more educational videos that aren't "just from Google's YouTube website". --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 22:25, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

SignBot has no operator?

I wanted to leave a message for SignBot’s operator, but didn’t get very far. User talk:SignBot redirects to User talk:Zhuyifei1999, where it appears all messages are promptly archived without being resolved. User:SignBot claims that the bot is operated by User:Zhuyifei1999, which says that this user is no longer active.

How can we have a bot regularly editing pages all over the site without an operator being responsible for it?

Anyway, my message was that the bot reminded me twice in twelve minutes, with exactly the same reminder, to sign my posts. I haven’t edited for a while, so it might take a while to re-establish the habit; repeating the exact same reminder is not necessary. Brianjd (talk) 14:25, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Sounds like an easy fix, don't forget to sign your posts and the bot will never bother you again. Multichill (talk) 15:36, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Sounds a bit insulting, but maybe that’s just my opinion.
Also fails to address the main point, that this bot appears to have no operator. Also, I found another issue with the bot that can’t be brushed aside so easily: Special:Diff/421081613. Brianjd (talk) 04:10, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
  • The user went to 'retired' in March 2020 but still seems to edit a bit. User talk:Zhuyifei1999 is not encouraging either way but I wouldn't say there's no operator. So it's the problem is bad enough, an administrator should block it as it's clear the operator isn't going to help. If the operator wants to retire and leave the project, then they can have an active user take operator status for them or not be surprised if people block their bots if they break. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 04:37, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
    • That active user might be me, one day. I can code, but I would have to learn Python and Toolforge. Is it worth it? Brianjd (talk) 14:14, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
      • Up to Zhuyifei1999 really. Send a message (perhaps email) and if you can, take it over. Else, if it acts up, it'll be blocked and someone will port it into Signbot2. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 19:42, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

The "Welcome!" bot is unnecessary

I think that the "welcome" bot should be deactivated on Commons, it serves no purpose at all to long-term abusers than just feeding the trolls. 183.96.249.237 01:00, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

The Welcome message is not designed to discourage LTA socks, which (I imagine) are a small minority of new user registrations, but to help and encourage new good-faith users. I also fail to see how it "feeds the trolls". – BMacZero (🗩) 17:53, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Emergency read-only Friday 29 May (UTC)

Hi everyone, because of hardware failure affecting the Commons primary database that has to be fixed as soon as possible, there will be a window starting at or slightly later than 05:00 UTC tomorrow (Friday 29 May, still 28 May in some areas of the world) when the wiki will be read-only, that is, no edits or uploads will work. This window is scheduled for up to 30 minutes, but will hopefully only take a couple minutes, which is shorter than the eight-minute unintentional read-only period the hardware failure caused in the first place. See phab:T253808 and phab:T253825. You can also read the technical incident report and conclusions on how to avoid this particular error in the future. /Johan (WMF) (talk) 12:14, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

We (Trizek (WMF)) are setting up banners to warn people, so uploaders have a chance of understanding what's happening. /Johan (WMF) (talk) 12:47, 28 May 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for this VP notice and links to the detailed reports. Great transparency for an urgent fix. -- (talk) 13:11, 28 May 2020 (UTC)
This is now done. No more read only time is scheduled. RO started at 05:01:54 RO stopped at 05:02:25 Total RO time: 31 seconds --JCrespo (WMF) (talk) 05:16, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
That's quick! Greatly appreciated. --El Grafo (talk) 08:30, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Speravir 03:53, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

User:Copyfraud

User:Copyfraud has been blocked (by User:Morgankevinj; notified); the reason given on their user page is "Your account has been blocked because the username does not meet our username policy" yet the reason in the block log is "Inappropriate username: and uploading unfree files after warnings".

For background: User:Copyfraud's uploads - over 50,000 - consist entirely (apart from a tiny minority of accidental uploads, which are being dealt with by routine deletion nominations; several of which I recently initiated; AFAICT, no-one else has nominated any of Copyfraud's other uploads for deletion; I've made inadvertent uploads of more non-free content than that, as part of batch uploads, with no drama) of PD content from the British Museum, over which that institution controversially claims copyright.

I have some concerns:

  • the username does not seem contrary to policy
  • the discrepancy between the reason given on the talk page and in the block log
  • there have been no such warnings
  • there is no evidence of any uploads of non-free content, apart from the tiny minority referenced above
  • a block on the basis of "uploading unfree files" in this case is likely to deter others from making similar mass uploads of PD content, which Commons has previously - by policy, precedent and consensus - accepted.

For the latter reason especially, I think this deserves wider discussion. I hope to see a prompt unblock. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:34, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Clearly a sock, but there are no edits outside uploaded files, their personal user page and some light categorizing, so not problematic. The name is initially concerning, but at a second glance seems to be fine. The freedom of the files seems fine.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:00, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
I have unblocked the user MorganKevinJ(talk) 23:24, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
Currently problematic or not, socking to escape a block (which is what I assume this is) is not acceptable. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 00:06, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
Why do you think that the user is socking to circumvent a block? Another possibility is that the uploader is scared by the legal issues with the {{PD-Art}} tag and therefore prefers to use a different account to upload these files so that the British Museum won't know whom to potentially sue for copyvio. This would explain the username, "Copyfraud".
I'm concerned about the names of some of the files. Many files have very generic names like File:Print (BM 1943,0410.493).jpg and File:Print, book-illustration (BM 1879,1011.1027).jpg. --Stefan2 (talk) 00:39, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
@Stefan2: Then rename them, or discuss on their user talk page, but that is not a reason to block someone. - Jmabel ! talk 03:29, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
There are very good reasons why one of our colleagues may wish to make such uploads anonymously. There is no Commons policy that says they may not operate a second, pseudonymous account. For all we know the uploader could be a member of BM staff who is outraged with the institution's attempt to usurp our right to use this material. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 08:18, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
Andy, you're not usually so disingenuous. You know that Copyfraud isn't a member of BM staff. You know exactly who Copyfraud is because you have been involved with this from day one. Here you are leaving a note on their talk page the very same day the account was created. You suggested a set of images from the British Museum to upload and then Copyfraud uploaded them. Bitter Oil (talk) 16:48, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
@Bitter Oil: I have reviewed the user history and Copyfraud uploaded a few hundred files labeled as British Museum documents prior to Andy's message about the British Museum. Timing isn't evidence of a connection as it could instead demonstrate an existing editor seeing sudden activity on one subject and making a comment to the user responsible for the activity on that same subject. From Hill To Shore (talk) 17:17, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
Even if this account is a sock of an established user, I would consider this a valid application of COM:IAR with respect to our multiple account policy (which, apparently, we have yet to write). The purpose of the socking (if true) is to prove a point (in a non-disruptive way) and to evade legal trouble under an interpretation of the law that courts in many countries, the WMF, and Commons community have rejected. As the spirit of our socking policy is ensure the enforcement of our internal policies and guidelines, it is not against the spirit of the project. -- King of ♥ 17:53, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
'Bitter Oil' is globally blocked as a sock. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:24, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
Based on the pattern it looks quite obvious who is operating the User:Copyfraud account (no, I'm not going to mention them). Not sure how much protection it will offer. Multichill (talk) 16:00, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
I do think this username is not appropriate and must be changed. Imagine if you are users who want to reuse the files, you scroll to the file info and find that the uploader is called Copyfraud. What would you think? Most users unfamiliar with Commons would not understand that the username is irrelevant and that PD images do not require attribution.
Stewards should force a name change, even unilaterally, because it uploaded 50k+ images.--Roy17 (talk) 16:55, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

This file is currently nominated for deletion. The uploader wants to delete it; it’s eligible for CSD G7. But the only reason for this is that the species is wrong. Is there an expert in this area who can help save this file? Brianjd (talk) 07:44, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

RFC: Supreme Federal Court of Brazil

Hi all!

I would like to ask about the possibility of using images published on the site of Supreme Federal Court of Brazil. On the website, there is the following statement:

In Portuguese: "Todas as fotografias oferecidas no Banco de Imagens do Supremo Tribunal Federal são protegidas pelas leis brasileiras de direitos autorais e podem ser utilizadas, de forma livre e gratuita, desde que sejam atribuídos os créditos, no formato “Nome do Fotógrafo/STF”"
In English: "All photographs offered in the gallery of the Supreme Federal Court are protected by Brazilian copyright laws and can be used, freely and free of charge, as long as credits are attributed, in the format "Name of Photographer / STF""
Source: Reprodução de Conteúdo, STF

Érico (talk) 04:57, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

It looks good. However, note that a template called STFBr was deleted in 2018, on the basis of a previous version of the website. The current license on the website apparently appeared near June 2019. wait for more people to look at it before you start uploading. -- Asclepias (talk) 16:38, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
 Support Looks good to me. This is a sort of {{Attribution}}. Maybe we should have a dedicated template. De728631 (talk) 16:43, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
I speak no Portuguese, but it seems reasonable to consider this a free licence.--Roy17 (talk) 16:55, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Structured Search

Hey everyone, i've released a tool that some of you might find of use. It's called Structured Search and provides another user interface to the Commons search engine. I developed this tool for two reasons:

  • To provide a friendlier user interface to show the richness and beauty of all the wonderful free content that is available here.
  • To showcase the possibilities of Structured Data on Commons.

I've made it so that it's easy to search for other images that have structured data: try clicking on any image on the first page that you get, then look for ‘depicts’ statements in the image detail pane. There are also options to search for categories and exporting queries to PetScan. For those of you who want to access the tool from a regular Commons search results page i've made a little userscript.

Check it out here. Husky (talk to me) 20:51, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

@Husky: Thanks. It's pretty cool. IMHO it would be nice having more results per page. Cheers. Strakhov (talk) 21:56, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
@Strakhov: , thanks! I would definitely like to have more results as well. Unfortunately, i'm getting lots of HTTP 429 'Too many requests' errors when i have a list of 40 results from the Commons API, so i've limited it to 20 now. Husky (talk to me) 22:26, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
@Husky: it stopped working for me about an hour ago ("Loading..."). :( Strakhov (talk) 00:40, 25 May 2020 (UTC)
@Husky: Same, getting
Uncaught (in promise) SyntaxError: Unexpected end of JSON input at bundle.js:18 at /hay/sdsearch/async https:/tools.wmflabs.org/hay/sdsearch/bundle.js:18
. – BMacZero (🗩) 04:38, 25 May 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for reporting. This has been fixed. Husky (talk to me) 07:59, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

"Add links" button missing from sidebar

FYI: Since a couple of days the "Add links" button is missing in the sidebar on Commons. But interwiki links and "Edit links" buttons are still available once the page on Commons has been linked from Wikidata. Feature or bug? --MB-one (talk) 13:00, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Translating for zh variant

Hello. I am wondering how to translate for zh variant (zh-hans, zh-hant, zh-CN, and so on) in the {{YouTube CC-BY}} or other similar templates. When I trying to translate it, I get a error: Translation to Chinese (China) is disabled: Translate in zh please. However, the translation does not fall back to zh when the display language is set to zh variant. It falls back to English now.--Njzjz (talk) 00:05, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

British Museum images

The British Museum are making the majority of the 1.9 million images they hold available under Creative Commons 4.0 license. Is there any plans to upload these images to Commons? You can see details here. Thougn may be the non-comercial use will be a problem. Keith D (talk) 23:14, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

@Keith D: The announcement names a "Creative Commons 4.0 license", but unfortunately that links to CC-BY-NC-SA-4.0, which as you say does not allow commercial use. Commerical use must be allowed for files on Commons, so these files are a no-go. – BMacZero (🗩) 23:51, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
This assumes that the BM own copyright in reproduction of the works concerned, and are thus in a position to issue such licences. As the works are all long-since copyright expired, they do not seem to be in any such position. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:56, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
Over 71K of them are already in Category:Uploads by copyfraud. You can help by categorising them, and adding structured data. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 08:14, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
We can upload any 2D reproductions of 2D art under {{PD-Art}}. Other images are not under a compatible license. -- King of ♥ 13:47, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
I have created this template for their 2D reproductions: {{Licensed-PD-Art-cc-by-nc-sa-4.0}}. This will allow noncommercial reusers in countries with a lower COM:TOO than the US to use the images. -- King of ♥ 14:11, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
Does that template actually reflect the WMF position? I don't recall that I've ever seen the statement "The Wikimedia Foundation's position is that these works are not copyrightable in the United States" (i.e. with the country-specific qualifier) used before; only "The official position taken by the Wikimedia Foundation is that 'faithful reproductions of two-dimensional public domain works of art are public domain'". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:52, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
No, not really. {{Licensed-PD-Art-cc-by-nc-sa-4.0}} seems to contain an altered text compared to {{Licensed-PD-Art}}.
I use {{Licensed-PD-Art}} quite a lot combined with a valid Commons license as an extra safeguard to prevent images from getting deleted because someone thinks the image is not covered by PD-art. For example when a frame is included in an image of a painting.
I'm not sure if we should keep {{Licensed-PD-Art-cc-by-nc-sa-4.0}}. It seems to imply that cc-by-nc-sa-4.0 is a valid license for Commons, which of course it isn't. Multichill (talk) 15:51, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
The purpose of {{Licensed-PD-Art}} is not just a safeguard in case courts and/or the WMF change their ruling, but has value to current reusers who live in a jurisdiction where "sweat of the brow" is copyrightable. {{Licensed-PD-Art-cc-by-nc-sa-4.0}} just gives them an additional option to use these images for noncommercial purposes, as opposed to not being able to use them at all. We have long accepted noncommercial licenses so long as they accompany another license which meets Commons' minimum requirements. -- King of ♥ 21:18, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Uploaded images are not showing on Wikipedias, and Wikidata

I noticed that a couple of images, that have been uplaoded recently, are not showing on DE-WP, EN-WP, and Wikidata, even though their links in articles appear to be correct.
Example images: c:File:Fiona Fiedler.jpg, c:File:Lucille-Mareen Mayr (2018).jpg.
Images produce Redlinks in articles. Affected articles can be found from de:Kategorie:Wikipedia:Defekter Dateilink, and its EN-counterpart.
The problem appear to have started on Friday, 22-May-2020, with c:File:Dieter Buchhart.jpg - resp. the article on DE-WP where it is shown to be used in - being the first one I noticed (the pending deletion request should play no role here to my understanding and experience).
Do we have a technical issue of some sort ?
Thanks, and Best regards, --Archie02 (talk) 16:39, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

I think it's best to start a phabricator ticket on this, I also do not see anything wrong with the link in the article or the item. Ciell (talk) 17:54, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
How do I do this ? --Archie02 (talk) 18:05, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
(And why is she called 'Fioan' in the file-name? Ciell (talk) 17:57, 22 May 2020 (UTC))
Typo by the file uploader, but should be of no relevance in respect to this problem, as the same behaviour is shown by other image-files, too. --Archie02 (talk) 18:05, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
I've filed a bug report on Phabricator at phab:T253405. For instructions on filing a bug report, see mw:How to report a bug. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 18:10, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
The bug has been fixed now. – BMacZero (🗩) 22:59, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

I have the same issue with the image I uploaded today: c:File:S. S. Arunagirinathar.jpg. Please look into this. Thanks.--Kanags (talk) 07:19, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Image of Rodolfo Guevara Dato not shown in page

Comment moved from Talk:Main page (via VPT, I didn't see that this discussion existed). Storkk (talk) 10:07, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Hello, i recently created the Rodolfo Dato wikipedia page. I uploaded an image of him and placed it on the page. When viewing the page, the image is not shown, just the filename. Thanks. Stephentalla (talk) 08:00, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Courtesy links: en:Rodolfo Dato, File:Rodolfo Guevara Dato.jpg. Confirming that for me, attempting to use the file on a Wikipedia (tried a couple) fails. Storkk (talk) 10:10, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
And en:File:Rodolfo Guevara Dato.jpg, which would normally show the Commons image with "This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons. Information from its description page there is shown below." instead shows "No file by this name exists, but you can upload it." Storkk (talk) 10:26, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
...I see this was already reported above. Consolidating the discussion... Storkk (talk) 12:40, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

This issue is not resolved. See Commons:Deletion requests/File:Amplitude problem ytcracker defcon27.jpg. I just checked in the last couple of minutes and this file, at least, still has the problem. Brianjd (talk) 15:27, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Further fixes were pushed, I checked a few of the images in this discussion and they seem to be working now. – BMacZero (🗩) 01:08, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

What should we do about files with non-malicious inclusions?

A few years ago, we had a problem with people distributing movies by appending a rar or zip to a jpeg. This prompted some searching around to see what other files might be problematic. The problem was eventually fixed mostly through the use of ann AbuseFilter. A few files didn't appear to be malicious, but seemed extremely strange. I just got around to asking about one of them on StackExchange, and it led to the solution of quite a few puzzles: weird editing software. The question is now what we do about them. For example:

To me, the only really clear case to strip the file is the last one. The second one is pretty close, but Embedded Image 2 is arguably at least as good a photo... but was it knowingly licensed by the uploader as well? For crops that contain their own originals, should these originals be systematically extracted? Any thoughts welcome. Pinging @Dispenser, Ninjastrikers, Jdx, and Srittau: who contributed to the discussion last time Storkk (talk) 14:42, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

I'd say we should opt on the safe side and remove the cropped images in all cases, due to the unclear licensing. Sebari – aka Srittau (talk) 16:26, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
Non-sRGB color profiles are retained in thumbnails, and the Commons community has historically not been in favor of automatically removing or adjusting custom color profiles. As for the RussianPolish nesting dollsimages, I'd agree that saying they were knowingly released under a free license is a bit of a stretch. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 16:45, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
I'm all for keeping reasonable color profiles, but you could use 40 bytes (e.g. a succinct but full English sentence) describing the color of each individual pixel and still have enough room for a regular ICC profile in the ridiculous color profile of the last one. Storkk (talk) 18:31, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
Korzoneczek was only every active on Wikimedia for a short burst in 2016, but it would be super interesting to find out if they knew why their pigeon photos were so enormous. Storkk (talk) 14:00, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
To me whatever we find in file metadata would be OK to keep, if it was worth keeping. In the 3 examples above I would clean them and reupload, following the Principle of least astonishment. --Jarekt (talk) 13:33, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

English names of categories

After this edition; should we not give English names of categories? Tournasol7 (talk) 09:44, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

There are a number of exemptions in Commons:Naming_categories. Ruslik (talk) 09:51, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
Perhaps you will want to start with the official policy, which describes Commons:Naming categories as a “failed proposal”. Brianjd (talk) 10:57, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
It’s not clear that Capela de Santa Catarina has an established English name. I searched the web for “Saint Catherine chapel Viana do Castelo” and the top result was a YouTube video with the name “Saint Catherine’s Chapel”. If there is no established English name, the policy is to use the original name. Brianjd (talk) 11:01, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

New categories

I created Category:Beach access points. In the Netherlands the access points are numbered and often used as postal adres, as there are often beach houses close to the access point. An example is Category:Strandslag 1 of The Hague. See website: Strandslagen Den Haag wih a nummering from South to North. I have no knowledge how this is organized in other countries and beaches.Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:37, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation – we try hard to make vandals' life easier!

First I have noticed this topic and then this brilliant proposal: m:IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation… --jdx Re: 16:47, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

FWIW, I don't think the WMF has much leeway as far as the IP masking aspect of the proposal. This is as much a legal issue as a policy issue, as jurisdictions across the world (including in the U.S.) are taking Europe's lead on internet privacy law. Regarding IPCheck specifically, it sounds like the WMF is intending to build tools that will eventually make IPCheck obsolete in order to mitigate the effects of IP masking. While I'm sure that's disappointing to the author of IPCheck, the alternative would be to leave the community stranded with no way to effectively fight anonymous vandals and open proxies. If you look at the entire thread, MusikAnimal makes some cogent points in response to SQL's concerns. Kaldari (talk) 20:32, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
This is mainly due to an externally changing landscape around IPs, yes, and not that someone one day decided that this would be a fun exercise to do.
For what it's worth, the vast majority of the time spent on this project is around building new tools for fighting vandals to offset problems masking IPs will bring. First out has been a new checkuser tool. There are some other suggestions on m:IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation/Improving tools. We really appreciate all feedback on these tools, or other ideas. /Johan (WMF) (talk) 21:24, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Most IP edits I see are good edits, yes there is room for abuse, but in general most IP edits I see on any Wikimedia website tend to be good faith edits. I'm not really a privacy advocate, but I find this move understandable, plus Checkusers and other privileged users will still have access to IP addresses so this doesn't create that much more issues. Vandalism rarely stands for long and I don't think that this change would really make it that much easier for vandals to attack educational content. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 23:13, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

requesting some thought and discussion of an issue of ontology facing several categories

My comment is here: category talk:individual verbs#ontology_and_grammar_and_the_implications_of_their_intersection_for_the_needs_of_Commons. Uncertain of next steps if any. Arlo James Barnes 23:17, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Male cameltoe categories

Category:Male cameltoes redirects to Category:Mooseknuckles with slits, which is in Category:Mooseknuckles, but Category talk:Mooseknuckles redirects to Category talk:Male cameltoes (which, of course, contains a question about merging these categories). What the heck is going on? And why are we using what the English Wiktionary describes as a slang term to begin with? Brianjd (talk) 13:59, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Checkmark This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Brianjd (talk) 07:20, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Protocol for uploading a cropped image from a PD Flickr image?

Occasionally I find it necessary to crop an existing Commons image to the part relevant to illustrate a particular Wikipedia article (e.g. File:Convent, LA Jefferson College (Manresa House of Retreats) 1937s.jpg; File:Les Docks - Cité de la Mode et du Design crop.jpg ). When the image is from Flickr, which I note in the "source" parameter when uploading the file, this always triggers a manual review, because the file I am uploading will not match the original file on Flickr. When so doing, should I indicate the original Flickr image as the source, or indicate the Commons image as the source? Can something perhaps be added to the upload protocol to indicate that the image is a cropped version of the Commons file, and skip all the duplication of inputs? BD2412 T 16:37, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

The review is triggered by the insertion of the template flickrreview. When your source is a Commons file that is already positively reviewed, you don't really need to request a second review for your crop, unless there is something wrong with the first review. You may request a review if you want, knowing it will add to the backlog. The immediate source actually used (Commons) should be indicated. It's good to mention also the original source (flickr), but it is already indicated in the Commons source. -- Asclepias (talk) 17:30, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
It's best to only use the "{{Extracted from}}" template and just use the exact same copyright © license and properly fill in the source, author, and what it is. There is no need for a derivative file to be reviewed as it is licensed the same way as the original. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 23:15, 27 May 2020 (UTC)
Try using the COM:CROPT tool, it would have done all this for you, including adding (cropped) as a suffix to the file name. You should always use the upload as a new image option. Broichmore (talk) 15:10, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

infobox changes depending on the viewer

In Template_talk:Artwork#errors_? User:Oursana run into bizarre case of File:Pieter Jansz. Saenredam 005.jpg that sometimes show 2 identical creator templates and sometimes one. It makes no sense to me but I am trying to collect the facts. So fat I know that if:

  • I open the file logged as User:Jarekt I see a single creator. Changing languages does not change things, nor changing the browsers
  • I open the file as IP or as User:JarektBot I see 2 creators.

What do other people see. Does anybody have any idea what is going on? --Jarekt (talk) 03:30, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Same behaviour here. In Firefox the second creator box disappeared after null edit. But in SRWare Iron (page opened only as IP) neither purging nor null edit worked, (edit:) but after a restart. — Speravir – 04:31, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Copyright question

I am looking at this page, and it claims that this video is Public Domain. I intend to spend my own money to purchase this video and upload it to Commons (which, given that it's allegedly Public Domain, should be fine). Please tell me why I cannot do that. ;) -- Wesha (talk) 00:54, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

  • Anyone can say a video is in the public domain. Do you trust them? I’m not convinced. Brianjd (talk) 01:29, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
    • And that's why I'm talking to you guys here. I want assertion that my purchase will be accepted on Wikipedia as PD before I spend my money buying it. As such, please specify what sort of evidence will convince you, and I will demand that evidence from the company along with my purchase. ("none" is not an acceptable answer). -- Wesha (talk) 01:44, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
      • @Wesha: I am not a lawyer, and I don' think anyone here is operating as one. Personally, I would not recommend spending your money on this. If it is public domain, there is probably somewhere to obtain it without that sort of expenditure. If you want more expertise on copyright information (but it will still be short of being advised by an attorney), Village pump/Copyright is a better place to ask than this page. - Jmabel ! talk 02:31, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
        • You see, the film reel itself may be public domain, but the high-res scan of it may be not readily available (As in, if I was to buy an expensive film scanner, go to a library that stores that reel, and convince them to feed that film reel through it, it will be "free" - but I will still spending money. So if somebody has already done it, why not just pay them?) -- Wesha (talk) 02:41, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
      • @Wesha: Before you try to convince us, convince yourself. Are you convinced? If so, tell us why and we might be able to work from there. Note that, under the relevant Commons policy, the burden is on the uploader to demonstrate that the work is in the public domain or under a free licence.
      Also note that this is not Wikipedia. Not that there is a single Wikipedia to begin with – there are many Wikipedias, one for each language. This is the Wikimedia Commons. All these projects are run by the same organisation but all have their own rules, sometimes very different rules. Brianjd (talk) 08:18, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
      The problem is, I have convinced myself many times before, but the deletionists always win so I'm tired of wasting effort. These cases are crystal clear to me, but one copyright troll is pretty adept of convincing others (especially about the Russian copyright law s/he has no understanding of), refusing my offers to hire a professional lawyer -- with my money -- so it hurts me deeply when I see items in my possession get lost for humanity forever (I'm not immortal, you know), but when it's my effort spent that is wasted, it's fine - humanity's loss not mine, but here we are talking my money. -- Wesha (talk) 12:08, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
      • All the deletion requests you linked to are still open, so the “deletionists” haven’t “won” (yet). Also none of them has a coherent argument for keeping the files. Brianjd (talk) 12:15, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
      • Wesha has since converted “offers to hire a professional lawyer” into a link to a DR as well. At least this one is closed and has some attempt to argue this issue, although the arguments offered there seem ridiculous, as does this discussion. I expect that this will be my last comment. Brianjd (talk) 12:36, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
        1) Discussion of that DR is where I for the first time offer to hire the professional IP lawyer; anybody who cares can find my exact words there. 2) You are saying that as if the copyright law in its current form (completely ignoring the concept of "abandoned IP", like the proverbial "dog on a pile of hay") isn't ridiculous. -- Wesha (talk) 16:24, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
The footage is credited to U-I News, I can't find any renewal notices for them, does anyone have information on the company? I see them credited here. I can find nothing at the LOC, they must have a longer name. Can Anyone help? I am assuming that the company selling the footage has done their due diligence. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 18:17, 27 May 2020 (UTC)
According to Wikipedia Universal-International's owner MCA, made the decision In 1974, to donate all its edited newsreels and outtakes collection of the era in question to the National Archives, without copyright restrictions... Broichmore (talk) 14:44, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Maps of Georgia (Country)

Hello. The parliament of Georgia has just passed an amendment to the Criminal Code of Georgia. According to the amendment, [translation is done by me, I will post the official translation when availiable]. Digital maps or printed maps, violating the principle of Georgia's territorial integrity, also creation, advertising [...] of goods with this image, as well as misinfromation regarding Georgia's territorial integrity will be punished by a penalty or improsonment up to two years. [...] the fine is 1000 usd for a physical person, and 50*1000 for legal entities." Is there anything that should be done on commons in this regard?--Melberg (talk) 10:09, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

No. This is a non-copyright restriction we ignore. There is no way we can keep all sides happy on maps, and it would be a violation of our responsibility to the truth if we were to seriously try. I realize I'm a privileged westerner in a country that recognizes the right to free speech, but that is the way Commons has worked and works.--Prosfilaes (talk) 10:29, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
@Prosfilaes: well, the idea of this question was to protect Wikimedia Foundation and users from possible legal charges. I don't think there is a necessity to bring the idea of White privilege or Freedom of speech into the conversation, since it is utterly irrelevant to the purely legal issue. --Melberg (talk) 11:02, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
It is not a purely legal issue; Freedom of Speech is the motivating factor for ignoring such laws, as is Commons' practice.--Prosfilaes (talk) 11:55, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
@Prosfilaes: - again - I am not here to discuss moral grounds of the law or the Commons' practice. As the users below have fairly indicated, there is a {{Nazi symbol}} used on commons, and I assume that my message was both communicated and received proper reaction. It would also be nicer to have a constructive approach instead of this privileged westerner attitude perceiving everyone else as freedom fighters with misjudged perception of another user's motivation. --Melberg (talk) 19:27, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
@Melberg: You asked a question "Is there anything that should be done on commons in this regard?" that is both a question about morality (you should not do immoral things, by definition) and about Commons' practice. I'm sorry if I misjudged your motivations, but that's on the speaker as well as the listener, and it's always a risk. It was a constructive answer; the answer was that we do not insist that maps match any local law.--Prosfilaes (talk) 06:06, 30 May 2020 (UTC)
@Prosfilaes: - it would be even more constructive without an orientalist bite that was entirely misplaced and a bit offensive. Anyway, the users below have indicated proper course of action, and I consider my job of informing the community of possible legal unpleasantries done.--Melberg (talk) 06:17, 30 May 2020 (UTC)
Is there anything that should be done on commons in this regard? Yes, encourage Georgia citizen not to update maps, and alert Wikimedia Foundation people not to travel to Georgia. --Jarekt (talk) 15:00, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
See meta:Talk:Legal#Heads_up:_New_Law_in_country_of_Georgia_might_make_some_files_illegal --Jarekt (talk) 15:19, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
Also, we should probably create a tag along the same technical lines as {{Nazi symbol}} (not that the two case are otherwise comparable). - Jmabel ! talk 15:38, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
Yes that is a good idea. --Jarekt (talk) 15:56, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
 Support, especially when there are other countries (notably China) punish mapmakers not following their territorial claims.廣九直通車 (talk) 03:28, 30 May 2020 (UTC)
@Jarekt: - I don't think that WMF people will have any trouble in Georgia, just as they don't have trouble in Austria or France or Israel. @Jmabel: - thank you, since I have not been very active on commons for a while, I am not that much familiar with current practices - this is the main reason why I decided to post.--Melberg (talk) 19:27, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
Melberg, you are probably right but if organization is breaking a law, than they should be aware of it. Just in case someone actually decides to enforce the law. --Jarekt (talk) 19:51, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
@Jarekt: - I do not consider myself an expert of legal interpretation, but as far as I can predict the law (even if properly implemented) will target not the WMF, but specifically the image uploader. Also, there is a law banning usage of totalitarian (nazi and soviet) symbols in Georgia, but this usage is permitted for academic purposes (I didn't bring examples of France, Israel or Germany by chance - each of them is banning usage of Nazi/Soviet symbols). That's what my assumption that WMF has nothing to fear in Georgia is based on - just as it has nothing to fear in Germany or Israel for using totalitarian symbols in corresponding articles. Anyway, I consider my job done, since I communicated the changes and now I will let more experienced users to deal with it. --Melberg (talk) 19:58, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Unable to upload taken by phone camera

Unable to upload images taken from my phone camera and says "error" after prolonged time. The Supermind (talk) 08:01, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Category:Draughtsmen by country

I see that the category Draughtsmen by country contains many subcategories which should be re-classified in Drawers (artists) by country, which I just created. Following English Wiktionary, a draughtman is "a person skilled at drawing engineering or architectural plans" and the persons classified there seem to be "drawers" = artists who primarily make drawings. --Lucyin (talk) 15:35, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

@Lucyin: Instead, we could make a redirect from Category:Drawers (artists) by country to Category:Draughtsmen by country. --Red-back spider (talk) 22:34, 30 May 2020 (UTC)
"Drawers" in this sense barely exists as a word in English. Perhaps you wanted "Illustrators"? Category:Illustrators. - Jmabel ! talk 23:46, 30 May 2020 (UTC)
Yes, however please note Draughtsmen and Illustrators are two different distinct vocations. Drawers are something you find in furniture. A draughtman delivers ale? Seriously. I agree best to split between Draughtsmen and and Illustrators. As for drafters of technical or Engineering drawings in the modern sense; I very much doubt as individuals, CAD operators or the like that they are notable or even known, they get filed under Draughtsmen of whom they are the modern equivalent. These drawers cats should be deleted. Broichmore (talk) 11:45, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
In Wikidata we have drafter (Q683754) for people drawing technical drawings, illustrator (Q644687) for book illustrators and drawer (Q15296811) for person doing artistic drawings. In Polish language those terms do not overlap much, but in English: drafter, illustrator, draftsman, draftsperson, draughtsperson, and draughtsman are some of the English aliases of drawer (Q15296811). I think "illustrators" should be kept separate and the terms draftsman/draftsperson/draughtsperson/draughtsman is more associated with technical drawings, So the only thing left is "drawer", which I agree that it "barely exists as a word in English". --Jarekt (talk) 12:54, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
If that's the case then Wikidata is plain wrong. Drafts by drafters (sic) are rough sketches made as a basis for finished art work, underlying paint. Superior drawers (as you like to put it ) are draughtsmen. Leonardo was a draughtsman, in part; as are Category:Thomas Badeslade and Category:Augustus Hageboeck or virtually most architects. Part of the problem is exemplified by this man (for example en:Jan van der Vaardt) who is not a draughtsman; he's only that in a fit of enthusiasm by a fan who wrote a book, he is not even an illustrator. An illustrator strictly speaking is a commercial artist who illustrates books etc. Artistic drawings is something all artists do, as do they also breathe. We don't categorize them as breathers. The dictionaries are clear it is exceptional line drawing talent capable of selling finished drawings as work that are draughtsmen. If it "barely exists as a word in English" there's a reason for it, it doesn't exist. For the umpteenth time it is not within our remit to invent terms. drawer (Q15296811) should not include illustrators, it should be separate. Again An artist who practices or works in technical drawing may be called a draftsman or a draughtsman. Effectively thats drawings of record employing in the main straight lines and regular shapes in practise. Broichmore (talk) 13:23, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
Broichmore I agree with most of your statements. Drawing is something most painters and other artists do, and we do not need to add them to specialized categories, unless that is what they are most famous for. And the word drawer as someone who is doing artistic drawing is problematic. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary it is one of the meaning of the word but according to Cambridge dictionary it is not. We still need the agree if we should have Draughtsmen by country or Drawers (artists) by country category and it seems like your vote is for the first one or none. I think we need it, but I am not sure which term is less confusing. --Jarekt (talk) 14:22, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
Jarekt Your right I would prefer Draughtsmen by country. Rather than drawers, or are you meaning sketchers? Nevertheless all artists draw sketches. Their finished compositions would normally be filed under "artist" in categories such as "Drawings by ..." and or '"Sketches by ..." Drawers as a term is best left without mention IMO, otherwise they are draughtsmen by any definition. Broichmore (talk) 15:33, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
You have me thinking. Gainsborough, for example, is often described as being an excellent draughtsmen, but you wont find him in such a category because all his drawing work were preparatory studies for painting in the main. Drawing is on of those ancient fuzzy terms like ships, best left sleeping. Like I said all artists draw. Broichmore (talk) 15:43, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

{{PD-MacaoGov}} marks media files which are released into public domain by the Macau government, in which its scope is defined in {{PD-MacaoGov/detail}}. Meanwhile, {{PD-MacaoGov-text}} marks text files that are in Macau governmental public domain, and almost contain the same scope of PD-MacaoGov.

As both {{PD-MacaoGov/detail}} and {{PD-MacaoGov-text}} stated that only official texts are in public domain, this means that only media files that are included in these official documents benefits from such public domain (such as this map, as an appendix of a legislation). Therefore, I believe {{PD-MacaoGov-text}} is redundant.

I propose to have the following modifications:

  1. Delete {{PD-MacaoGov-text}}, and change all files licensed under {{PD-MacaoGov-text}} to {{PD-MacaoGov}}.
  2. Insert {{PD-MacaoGov/detail}} into {{PD-MacaoGov}}. (So that people won't simply tag normal images from the government of Macau and upload to here, we've already get two bunches of "public domain" images deleted at here.)
  3. After 2, delete {{PD-MacaoGov/detail}}.

廣九直通車 (talk) 03:00, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

 Comment I cannot not estimate this, though it sounds sensible, but in case of merging: Better first convert {{PD-MacaoGov-text}} into a redirect to {{PD-MacaoGov}} (and maybe do not even delete it later; but the several subpages could be deleted). Then check for usage (apparently only 38: all: hastemplate:"PD-MacaoGov-text"). Then check and edit other pages that link to this template: Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:PD-MacaoGov-text. Similar approach for {{PD-MacaoGov/detail}}; there is no use as template, but Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:PD-MacaoGov/detail shows linking. — Speravir – 02:27, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
Well, as both templates are fully protected, so I can't directly make any edits. That's the reason why I made a proposal here, in order to seek for other comments and get a consensus.廣九直通車 (talk) 08:37, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
 Support We just need one Macao Govt's Public Domain template, as their criterias are too simple to allow multiple templates for me. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 03:55, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Help - did I just overwrite this file with my translation from SVGTranslate? Please revert? --Andreas (talk) 23:41, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

hmm... interesting. Do you (or anyone) have any idea where my translated captions ended up? --Andreas (talk) 00:46, 30 May 2020 (UTC)
Nothing to see at [4]. --Achim (talk) 09:46, 30 May 2020 (UTC)
Each of them are identical...interesting!. --Red-back spider (talk) 22:39, 30 May 2020 (UTC)
Andreas, FYI, Read Commons:Translation_possible/Learn_more, or did you apply the translation extention as indicated, or other external tool? Translated with the suggested extention will save your translation in the section _other languages_ but will not overwrite the original, in this case /fr File. Omotecho (talk) 22:24, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
The new file does contain new text. For example, where the old one ends with:
Village pump/Archive/2020/05
<text
     x="179.91827"
     y="506.89032"
     style="font-size:medium;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;font-stretch:normal;text-indent:0;text-align:start;text-decoration:none;line-height:125%;letter-spacing:normal;word-spacing:normal;text-transform:none;direction:ltr;block-progression:tb;writing-mode:lr-tb;text-anchor:start;opacity:1;color:#000000;fill:#5f6061;fill-opacity:1;fill-rule:nonzero;stroke:none;stroke-width:1;stroke-linecap:butt;stroke-linejoin:miter;marker:none;marker-start:none;marker-mid:none;marker-end:none;stroke-miterlimit:4;stroke-dasharray:none;stroke-dashoffset:0;stroke-opacity:1;visibility:visible;display:inline;overflow:visible;enable-background:accumulate;font-family:Bitstream Vera Sans"
     id="text4182">
<tspan
       x="179.91827"
       y="506.89032"
       id="tspan4186">France</tspan>
</text>

the new one has

Village pump/Archive/2020/05
<switch style="font-size:medium;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;font-stretch:normal;text-indent:0;text-align:start;text-decoration:none;line-height:125%;letter-spacing:normal;word-spacing:normal;text-transform:none;direction:ltr;block-progression:tb;writing-mode:lr-tb;text-anchor:start;opacity:1;color:#000000;fill:#5f6061;fill-opacity:1;fill-rule:nonzero;stroke:none;stroke-width:1;stroke-linecap:butt;stroke-linejoin:miter;marker:none;marker-start:none;marker-mid:none;marker-end:none;stroke-miterlimit:4;stroke-dasharray:none;stroke-dashoffset:0;stroke-opacity:1;visibility:visible;display:inline;overflow:visible;enable-background:accumulate;font-family:Bitstream Vera Sans">
<text x="179.91827" y="506.89032" style="font-size:medium;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;font-stretch:normal;text-indent:0;text-align:start;text-decoration:none;line-height:125%;letter-spacing:normal;word-spacing:normal;text-transform:none;direction:ltr;block-progression:tb;writing-mode:lr-tb;text-anchor:start;opacity:1;color:#000000;fill:#5f6061;fill-opacity:1;fill-rule:nonzero;stroke:none;stroke-width:1;stroke-linecap:butt;stroke-linejoin:miter;marker:none;marker-start:none;marker-mid:none;marker-end:none;stroke-miterlimit:4;stroke-dasharray:none;stroke-dashoffset:0;stroke-opacity:1;visibility:visible;display:inline;overflow:visible;enable-background:accumulate;font-family:Bitstream Vera Sans" id="text4182-rm" systemLanguage="rm">
<tspan x="179.91827" y="506.89032" id="tspan4186-rm">Frantscha</tspan>
</text>
<text x="179.91827" y="506.89032" style="font-size:medium;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;font-stretch:normal;text-indent:0;text-align:start;text-decoration:none;line-height:125%;letter-spacing:normal;word-spacing:normal;text-transform:none;direction:ltr;block-progression:tb;writing-mode:lr-tb;text-anchor:start;opacity:1;color:#000000;fill:#5f6061;fill-opacity:1;fill-rule:nonzero;stroke:none;stroke-width:1;stroke-linecap:butt;stroke-linejoin:miter;marker:none;marker-start:none;marker-mid:none;marker-end:none;stroke-miterlimit:4;stroke-dasharray:none;stroke-dashoffset:0;stroke-opacity:1;visibility:visible;display:inline;overflow:visible;enable-background:accumulate;font-family:Bitstream Vera Sans" id="text4182">
<tspan x="179.91827" y="506.89032" id="tspan4186">France</tspan>
</text>
</switch>

So this [switch https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/SVG/Element/switch will show Frantscha instead of France iif [one of the language tags indicated by user preferences is a case-insensitive match https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/SVG/Attribute/systemLanguage] of "rm".

The WMF renderer will just be using the default alternative, thus still showing it in English.

Platonides (talk) 02:23, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Categorisation loop related to movies

There are two kinds of cats that will lead to loops—filmography of XYZ and actors of movie ABC. Example: cat:Ewan McGregor → Ewan McGregor filmography → Beauty and the Beast (2017 film) → Beauty and the Beast (Disney) actors → Ewan McGregor.

How should this be avoided? Which one of these two kinds of cats should be banned, or both, maybe?--Roy17 (talk) 16:55, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

After some pondering, I think it makes more sense to have filmography of XYZ rather than actors/cast/crew of movie. Each film/TV series/play is a work of the artist. Person -> Person's artistic creation. This flow seems to obey the hierarchic principle better.--Roy17 (talk) 17:11, 25 May 2020 (UTC)
Loops are a problem when categories have a diffusing relationship, meaning that if category A is in category B, then all files from category A also could be considered part of category B. Here Ewan McGregor → Ewan McGregor filmography and Beauty and the Beast (2017 film) → Beauty and the Beast (Disney) actors are non-diffusing relationships, while Ewan McGregor filmography → Beauty and the Beast (2017 film) and Beauty and the Beast (Disney) actors → Ewan McGregor are diffusing relationships. Unfortunately, it seems like Commons does not have a good way of distinguishing between them. I've started a thread a few days ago on this topic: Commons:Village pump/Technical#Mark subcategorization as non-diffusing. -- King of ♥ 14:14, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
loops are forbidden. the cat tree is to put things in a hierarchic or causal order, not to link/tag things to any related topics.--Roy17 (talk) 23:16, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
  • @Roy17, Tuvalkin, and King of Hearts: Well, this is interesting. I turns out that the relevant policy actually supports what Roy17 said:
    There should be no cycles (i.e. a category should not contain itself, directly or indirectly).
I’d like to think that Tuválkin, King of Hearts and I are all reasonably experienced users (one of us is even an admin), yet we all failed to pick up on this. Does anyone know the origin of this policy and if there are recent discussions to support it? Brianjd (talk) 07:07, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
    • Brianjd There are exceptions to every rule. Why did you delete Emma from the 2017 film only. She was in that particular movie. The studio system is dead, she is not under contract by Disney in a larger way. There will be other trees that the 2017 film features in. I would say that Beauty and the Beast (Disney) actors is limiting if not superflous or in fact separate.Broichmore (talk) 15:02, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
      • @Broichmore: I did point out that one category says “Disney”, one category says “2017 film”, and that both categories should use the same term. I thought they were both ways of saying “the Disney film, as opposed to the fairy tale”. But since then, I found out that there was a series of films.
      Why didn’t I realise this to start with? We have Beauty and the Beast (Disney) actors inside Beauty and the Beast (2017 film). Basically, we have a more general category inside a more specific one. That’s what led to my confusion. We shouldn’t nest categories this way. Brianjd (talk) 06:19, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
  • The only loops that should be avoided are those of first order (parent cat is also child cat and vice versa), as the implied nexus is already bijective; all other loops are theoretically possible. Yes, the relevant policy is wrong and should be changed. It stems from a over-strict view of categories as a means to indicate hierarchical nexi only (inspired by its use in Wikipedia, where it makes sense), but that notion was abandoned (or: expanded) long ago, if it was ever observed strictly. -- Tuválkin 01:25, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

United Kingdom General Register Office certificates

Are these certificates okay for Commons?

Are GRO certificates of birth, marriage, and death okay to be uploaded to Commons (from a copyright perspective)? An example of a GRO birth certificate is at right: it was issued in 2007, but the actual content of it dates from 1868. I'm assuming it's covered by crown copyright, and the UK government advice used to be that "copyright in the layout of certificates is owned by the Crown. The Crown does not assert any rights of ownership in the contents of the forms." and that users "are authorised to reproduce the layout of the form in any format including on the web, in films and in print." But I haven't been able to find the same information in a non-archived web page. Can anyone help me? — Sam Wilson ( TalkContribs ) … 07:30, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Crown copyright does not apply to works that were published before 1970. So, if the design of this form hasn't changed since 1969 or earlier, then these certificates would be ok. Otherwise I'm afraid they're still copyrighted and non-free. There is a chance though that the meta:Open Government Licence would apply, but I'm not certain about this. De728631 (talk) 16:33, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
@De728631: Hmm, interesting, thanks! I'll see if I can dig up some examples from pre-1970 then. — Sam Wilson ( TalkContribs ) … 05:07, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
@Samwilson: That would be great. On another note, would you mind uploading File:Birth Certificate - George Edward Meek 1868.jpg with a higher resolution? In its current state it is almost not readable and so the file is hardly useful for our purposes. De728631 (talk) 13:49, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
@De728631: no can do, I'm afraid: I didn't upload it. I was just using it as an example (found in Category:Birth certificates of the United Kingdom) because I have a dozen of these certificates that I'd like to upload (mine are all high-res). I'll do some more research first. — Sam Wilson ( TalkContribs ) … 00:12, 25 May 2020 (UTC)
@Samwilson: Oops, my bad. It was in fact uploaded by one Ggbarber and not by you. De728631 (talk) 16:41, 25 May 2020 (UTC)
the design should be either pd or not original enough for copyright. birth certs from Hong Kong from early 20th century look the same.--Roy17 (talk) 23:16, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
@De728631: Are you sure that the current formatting of this document is not within copyright, with it's government seals and symbols, one of each on the certificate? In priciple are we allowed to upload government collection records of personal data?
There is a larger question here. What is Commons supposed to be? How big is it supposed to get. Are we going to upload every birth certificate in the planet?
We are already competing with pinterest in the art field by uploading artwork with no educational content. Facebook with stuff like this, are we now going to upload every photo taken of every person, going onto every ghost train, at every carnival in the world?
When are we going to pilfer the entire contents of PD global newspaper archives of the world. Do we have no limits?
I have no objection to competing with Getty, Alamy etc. for images with educational content, bu we are also now trespassing into other domains in a big way.
In short why are we not concentrating on educational material, but instead expanding into other areas in this particular case governmental collection records of personal data. Which I would have thought is outside of our remit. Broichmore (talk) 12:26, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
  • @Brianjd: Good point. The collection of Victor Albert Grigas teeters between the sublime and the ridiculous. Some of it is exceptionally good and rare, and a lot of it rubbish. Clearly it was uploaded by by someone who used no discretion or common sense in the process. Is this guy a Turkish Picasso or my Uncle Bill? Goodbye, common sense. This sort of thing has a veritable army of defenders here.
Nevertheless on the subject of the certificate. That would be handled on Wikipedia with a linked reference, which is appropriate. The only certificate I think worthy of uploading is Obama's.
The thing is we are supposed to be uploading stuff with educational content, that's an elastic definition for sure. If we are not going to police ourselves with common sense then by definition were going to host every image ever made including the stuff that came off the cutting room floor of Victor Albert Grigas.
Back to the graduation class, All of these near identical people, none of them named. I might as well go out and take a photo of everyone on the high street. Broichmore (talk) 16:13, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
You mean like the first six here? (I was amazed: there were only six.) - Jmabel ! talk 02:42, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I really didn't mean to start a discussion about the scope of Commons here! :-) This is purely a copyright question. Firstly, there's no doubt that the old parts of them (dating from 1868 in the above example) are public domain; the question is in a) the other text and graphics; and b) the arrangement and layout of the certificates. TNA used to say that the layout was Crown copyright and that "you are authorised to reproduce the layout of the form in any format including on the web". But that guidance document seems to have been removed from their website. My feeling is that that's due to a site reorganisation rather than a policy change, because I can't find anything gainsaying that advice either. One good way forward here might be to just crop out the old text portion of the certificate, and present it here in a way that makes it clear what the column names are etc.
    On the other matter of whether Commons should host this sort of thing at all: personally I really think it should! I don't mean "every birth certificate ever", but certainly every one that a Wikimedian can upload and that can be used as a reference on Wikipedia or Wikidata. If they're well-scanned and have good metadata, then they should be here.
    Old things do get given more value here, both because we're allowed to upload them (copyright-wise) and they're rare. Certainly, if we were to upload every photo ever taken in the 1920s we'd end up with a large indiscriminate collection — but we're never going to be able to do that, because they are not all extant. So if we only upload every photo taken in the 1920s that we can get our hands on, we're looking at a much smaller pile, and I don't think it's too many (especially if they are from collections, where some will be good and some will not be, but having the whole collection is important). The unique thing about Commons is that different people can bring different metadata to files here, some that the original uploader never would have considered; I don't know where else that happens.
    Anyway, I didn't mean to write so much. I'll keep trying to figure out the GRO certificate copyright thing.
    Sam Wilson ( TalkContribs ) … 03:19, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

RFC: Acceptance of the Brazilian Flickr photostream mturdestinos (163189519@N03)

For the sake of settling this problem once and for all, I request comments from the community to decide

Are photos from https://www.flickr.com/people/163189519@N03 accepted or rejected on Commons?

Fact: https://www.flickr.com/people/163189519@N03 is operated by the Brazilian Ministério do Turismo (Ministry of Tourism).

I believe they are acceptable on Commons for the following reasons:

  1. Todas as fotos com a tag MTurDestinos são de domínio público e tem permissão de uso livre e por tempo indeterminado para uso total e irrestrito e gratuito em praça nacional e internacional, exceto as imagens com a tag “fotos humanizadas 2018” que possuem pessoas onde o direito de uso é pelo período de 05 (cinco) anos a contar do dia 03 de Abril de 2018.
  2. Ministério do Turismo released a statement, which confirmed the authenticity of this Flickr account and its licences.

If the decision is accept, then this section will be a useful reference whenever someone DR such files.
If the decision is reject, then please list 163189519@N03 at COM:QFI so no future import is possible.--Roy17 (talk) 11:20, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

I would like to invite @Érico and Marcos Elias de Oliveira Júnior: because they had dealt with photos from this account.--Roy17 (talk) 11:20, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
My English is not the best, so I am using the translator. As mentioned, MTur images are in the public domain and can be used freely without any restrictions. Based on that, I uploaded these images to Commons. Soon after, I received a warning from user @Ronhjones: on my discussion page that the images could be deleted, thus questioning the veracity of the license. As @Érico: is a Commons administrator and I have a certain affinity with him on Wikipedia in Portuguese, I decided to ask him about this question and suggested using {{Attribution}}. The suggestion was accepted, so I asked him to restore the images to include the respective tag. Marquinhos talk 14:15, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
Clearly we'd have to stay away from the “fotos humanizadas 2018” since those have rights that expire (I've never heard of such a thing, bizarre: if you use it in a book is the book supposed to vanish in 2023?). I think probably we should make up a special template for the uploads from this account, much as we do for particular open-ended OTRS tags. - Jmabel ! talk 17:37, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Jmabel. The statement of Brazilian Ministry of Tourism clearly allows the use of these files under our licence. Érico (talk) 13:09, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

It seems that the Brazilian Ministry of Tourism legitimately wants to share these images freely. The only thing they have done wrong is they have mistakenly tagged their images with the CC Public Domain mark rather than a CC license. Since it looks like they are at least requesting attribution ("Crédito obrigatório"), using the {{Attribution}} tag seems appropriate. They definitely shouldn't be deleted. Kaldari (talk) 00:07, 21 May 2020 (UTC)


I made {{Flickrstream MTur Destinos}}. Please feel free to improve.--Roy17 (talk) 21:07, 15 June 2020 (UTC)