This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
There were two image deletion requests filed against images I uploaded to the en:Wingspan (board game) page on the 22 August 2021. Commons:Deletion_requests/2021/08/22 I have tried to respond with constructive comments but nobody has got back to me. I can see that these things take a long time, but surely there must be something I can do to move it forward to resolution faster.Slimy asparagus (talk) 20:14, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
@Slimy asparagus: , I'm sorry to say I had to delete these images:
These are photos of a game. The copyright of the game is probably owned by the manufacturer, and it is not Okay to publish them, please read Commons:Copyright_rules_by_subject_matter#Board_games. You might try to contact the manufacturer and ask for permission to publish the photo's with one of the licenses used on Commons. Please consider the procedure outlined on COM:VRT, so the VRT-team can check the permission and keep the record for future inquiries. Elly (talk) 20:29, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
Lack of deletion notifications
A vandalistic troll just tagged a number of my uploads for deletion but because they did so manually didn't notify me (which knowing their decades long experience with this website is purely intentional), last year I remember coming across a Thai user that used to mark all images he came across with "Unsourced" even if literally the source was in the description and all author information was provided, because of the way they did it the images would get automatically deleted by bot after a few days and unless the uploader was still active and managed to be notified about it (something which the notification system only occasionally does) the image would get deleted unchallenged.
I only found out about this user's conduct after a Wikipedia talk page notification 🔔 brought me to the file being tagged with a lack of source, going over their contributions I found that they tagged one of my book uploads from the 19th (century) where the author was dead for over a century as "Unsourced", this book came from the now-defunct Han-Nom.org website and if deleted from Wikimedia Commons is lost from the internet since the source website is now defunct. I only found the one tagging but can't check if they actually also managed to delete other public domain books from this website. I'm deliberately avoiding (user)names in order not to start a crusade here since it's not the individual users here to blame but a system that is designed more for mass-deletions and unquestionable deletion templates rather than categorisation, organisation, notification, Etc.
The English-language Wikipedia actually has public logs for deletions that are easily to navigate because of organisation and when a user tags something a bot will always make sure that affected users are notified on their talk pages. Why can't we have such a system here? Why can't Wikimedia Commons have some of these basic things? If a user tags an image for speedy deletion no logs of this exists other than the original upload log but if a vandal were to actually systematically tag images for deletion then only admins can view their deleted contributions and due to the small number of admins and general disinterest in undeletions I highly doubt that such vandalism could be fought by a community more focused on deletion. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 06:54, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
Just to be clear here, when a user writes a comment but doesn't sign sometimes a bot will then sign it for them, this is a bot that Wikimedia Commons has, yet it doesn't have a bot that detects deletion taggings and notices that the user hasn't been notified by the tagger and will do it (which is already a thing on Wikipedia). It just surprises me for how little deletions Wikipedia has compared to Wikimedia Commons it is infinitely better organised there. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 07:00, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
Deletion Notification Bot Should have notified you but I don't know why it did not. I believe the bot is not notifying for regular DRs and files deleted by admins without notifying the uploader. I can't fix it now but I certainly will before 2022, if someone else wants to run a different bot please go ahead. -- Eatcha (talk) 06:13, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
"The making of this file was supported by Wikimedia UK" template
I noticed that BotMultichill has added a template stating that some images from the National Library of Ireland is on Commons due to "The making of this file was supported by Wikimedia UK." (example image here) I think it might be a mistake based on the fact that it was imported from Flickr by @Fæ: while they were receiving a grant from WMUK? Smirkybec (talk) 10:32, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
I don't know why that bot has started to add that particular message. But I understand many of Fae's uploads during that period were made using a piece of hardware which was supplied by a Wikimedia UK grant which can be detailed here. One of the conditions of the grant was that images imported using the equipment were applied with a template, and Fae did not consistently comply with that condition. Maybe Multichill's bot is attempting to fix that omission for some reason? The Land (talk) 21:38, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
After further clicking I can see that the template the grant conditions required is in fact the template that is being added (though I see here there is an alternative that doesn't involve the language 'making of', although I can't track down the actual template. Maybe @Multichill: can confirm whether this is indeed the explanation. The Land (talk) 08:59, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
@The Land: you're right, apologies, I didn't dig into the edit history enough. Looking at the category for images, a good few NLI images are tagged in this way, which regardless of when the template was added it feels quite inappropriate. Smirkybec (talk) 10:05, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
@Smirkybec: in Dutch we call this "looking at something with your nose" :-)
@Multichill: I think the issue here is the use of the word "made" as no WMUK resources or volunteer hours went into making any of these. Facilitating their import and curation, yes, but that is not the same thing at all. From the point of view of how this looks, for the NLI to have done the "hard" digitising work, providing that content under and open licence and on a platform that allows for relatively easy import onto Commons for then this template to be used - could make it harder for me to make the case for more Irish GLAMs to follow suit. Smirkybec (talk) 11:23, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
Asking people to help outside of Wikimedia
I was wondering if it would be wise to go to specialised forums (for example photographers' forums, software developers' forums, Etc.) and ask them if contributing to the Wikimedia Commons is a wise idea, not in a "spammy" way but in places where requests for help or such things can be discussed. Would such a thing be wise or would it cause the Wikimedia Commons to gain a more negative reputation for "panhandling" and "spamming"? I have heard of people giving communities bad reputations by promoting them, so would such a thing cause more harm than good? --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 20:47, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
Hi, Commons will be laughed at on photographers' forums, given the comments here about image quality... Regards, Yann (talk) 21:01, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
Good. There’s enough photographic snobbery here as it is, with calls for deletion on esthetic quality grounds trumping educational value concerns in DRs all the time — we don’t need more of that. -- Tuválkin✉✇11:57, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
Donald, that depends on each forum and the way it’s done. I’d say it’s only a good idea if done by someone who knows the terrain there, as some places are more receptive and more suitable than others, and such a call when made by an established member is much more effective than by a random passer-by. -- Tuválkin✉✇11:57, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
Understandable, my experience with some forums is that nothing evokes more hostility than a Newby asking people to join projects, even on the forum itself, but that those same questions by more experienced users are seen as "fun" so for most people it's all about "the community" of such forums. Likewise, if an experienced user and admin on the Wikimedia Commons gives an opinion about something it is more likely to be well-received than by a new person.
Anyhow, I hope to primarily find people that can help on the technical side of the MediaWiki software as I think that one of the largest reasons that the Wikimedia Commons hasn't been able to generate a lot of museums donating images and / or scans of their collections is because of the fact that a lot of the software isn't as user-friendly as can be. Having more and better tools ⚙ would greatly help, especially tools specifically designed for GLAM's and I think that once a few big names join everyone else in the industry will follow. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 12:43, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
I think that having accredited photographers might make the Wikimedia Commons more of a trusted name, although I am not sure if this had a positive effect or not on Wikinews.
My impression is that the Wikimedia Commons does too little to market itself outside of the Wikimedia Commons itself. Imagine if a museum or archive has a large proud button "Official partner of the Wikimedia Commons" or something similar. This button can then just direct people to "Category:Media contributed by the Hamletville Museum of Fine Arts" (as an example). The Wikimedia Commons isn't really doing enough to get to have a better reputation, I think that our current categorisation system and / or Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons (SDC) are probably superior tools to what most other websites have to offer, especially places like Twitter and Instagram (or is it called "Insta" these days???). The problem is that most people still view the Wikimedia Commons as an extension of Wikipedia and a lot of people (including myself) try to market the Wikimedia Commons as "a way to have images on Wikipedia" rather than an educational website onto itself.
This perception can only change if people start to value the Wikimedia Commons for its own educational value (and potential) which I think can only happen if and when the Wikimedia Commons tries to have more of an outreach itself. A good example of a successful model is that of Wikidata, in no small part due to investments by both the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) and Wikimedia Deutschland (WMDE), I think that the Wikimedia Commons will probably be forced to be more "community-driven" and this might have to happen by trying to get new talent to join, but I agree that we probably shouldn't be looking for snobberish talent that might end up working against the educational mission of the Wikimedia Commons. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 12:57, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
@Donald Trung: Commons is pretty disappointing for reusers that don't come from Wikipedia to just download a specific file in my opinion. The one time I wanted to use it myself a while ago my experience wasn't very smooth. Say you want a pretty picture of a lake. Any lake. Or a certain scene, like "looking over a meadow at a forest" and you don't care where it is, when it was taken or if it's a protected area. Categories are useless, galleries are in general underutilized and often only exist for specific instances of an object not a class. Valuable editors are against using depicts as Flickr tags (or scoff at using it at all) to the detriment of outsiders. The new media search function is much better at least.--TFerenczy (talk) 11:27, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
@TFerenczy: , the problem with the current "categories" system is that it doesn't allow for filters, you don't have a "view all" option and you can't click on a general topic and then ask for only quality images, Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons (SDC) will likely solve a lot of these issues but its still in its early stages, I tried kickstarting it further by lowering Wikidata's mobility to 0 (zero), well basically to accept any category from the Wikimedia Commons, but that didn't reach consensus due to various reasons. I also asked for the feature to have the ability to view all media files in a category tree but that still isn't a thing. At this point I just hope that Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons (SDC) will solve a lot of user-friendliness issues but its still in its early stages.
I think that more people will join the Wikimedia Commons if it had better technical features, most MediaWiki software is designed with Wikipedia's in mind and the Wikimedia Commons is an afterthought that is only occasionally developed for. "Valuable editors are against using depicts as Flickr tags (or scoff at using it at all) to the detriment of outsiders.", well as new users join they will adapt to the new tools, for me the old upload form is not something I use at all but a lot of older users ("older" as in their time on the Wikimedia Commons and not their physical ages) still swear by the old upload form and always complain about the MediaWiki Upload Wizard and have a million and one bad things to say about it. As new users will join they will adapt to the new capabilities. Also, some users like categorising images despite never uploading themselves, I wouldn't be surprised if we would find users that only add file depicts and do nothing else simply because it's their hobby and they have fun doing it. I believe that a lot will improve in the future eventually, but we still need to try to make the Wikimedia Commons the best it could be today. An important part of this is feedback from people that essentially never use the Wikimedia Commons and ask them for feedback, perhaps the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) can organise "a reader's survey" for Wikimedia content consumers (not sure how to call people that never edit) and then we can learn from how they look at this website and implement improvements based on that. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 22:03, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
Semi-automated upload from Geograph
Does anyone know if there is an issue with the semi-automated Upload facility from Geograph? It's not working as it usually does. Many thanks. KJP1 (talk) 07:54, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
Bjh21 - Thanks very much for taking a look. It is now working fine for me to. I must have been doing something wrong yesterday. All the best. KJP1 (talk) 05:50, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
Political sensitive subject on home page
Why do we show a politically motivated film on the homepage of commons today? The quality is not particularly good. We are not a news website.. How are these films selected? Elly (talk) 15:59, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
(after edit conflict) This looks a bit like Thomas Bresson made the video and set it as MOTD. Setting your own recently uploaded video as a motd is a bit of a red flag. Thomas, can you please explain your motivation to do this? This could be perceived as you using Commons to push a political agenda. Multichill (talk) 20:34, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
To be fair to ComputerHotline, if MOTD works like POTD, it is generally accepted that people will nominate things themselves, and judging by his userpage, he nominates a wide range of topics. Self-selection is mainly to ensure the job gets done, I think. But with POTD, the files themselves have already undergone some sort of review via COM:FPC and have been checked against the FP criteria. While I think anyone should be confident self-nominating a video that went through COM:FMC, which has its own criteria, very little is actually promoted there so most self-nominated MOTD would not undergo much, if any, review. In both cases, I don't know how much scrutiny the captions receive. — Rhododendritestalk | 20:56, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
You understand that we're not stopping anyone from demonstrating right? We're not saying you can't upload pictures or videos of demonstrations. We're determining what we should be celebrating on our main page. All demonstrations are by definition politically sensitive, otherwise they wouldn't be necessary. But some demonstrations would be perfectly fine to put on the main page. But no, we should not be showcasing a video of people spreading vaccine misinformation during a pandemic. — Rhododendritestalk | 14:25, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
nothing is being celebrated on the main page - of course it is. We select one from all of the videos we have to put in our daily showcase. It's not a random selection but the one we want to show to the most people possible.
commons does not censor - a relevant argument if I suggested we delete it. That we don't censor the files we host doesn't mean we're obliged to actively promote absolutely anything someone wants to promote. — Rhododendritestalk | 21:49, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
my last response:
to celebrate by definition is to "honour or praise publicly". showing ≠ honouring or praising.
showing ≠ promoting. are the news media reporting antivax demos promoting them?
This is about whether Commons should celebrate anti-vaccination demonstrations framed as "freedom of vaccination" on our main page during a pandemic
This isn't a matter of "politically sensitive." The problem is using Commons' main page to celebrate/showcase an anti-vaccine demonstration while we're still in a pandemic, and using the anti-vax slogan "freedom of vaccination" to do so. Commons is not censored as such, but would we also showcase a video telling people that covid-19 isn't real, or to drink bleach to cure it, or that it's a bioweapon spread by some politician or something? I would hope not. If the replies to this could just as easily be a reply to any of those, I'd urge you to reconsider. — Rhododendritestalk | 19:18, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
While we don't censor our uploads, the Media of the Day is a prominent feature with high visibility representing the portfolio of Commons. Therefore we should avoid creating the impression that we endorse the speech or topics that occur in such footage of political events. The Commons front page should be neutral. I wen ahead and changed the English description of this video to Demonstration against mandatory vaccinations and the "sanitary pass" in Belfort, France, August 14th, 2021. The Ukrainian version was already much stricter referencing only "A demonstration" in Belfort. Now there are the French, Czech and some other caption left which may just be a direct translation of the original description at the file page. De728631 (talk) 20:54, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
I would have if I saw it in advance. I don't blame Yann, who just pulled the translation from the description, but we need some standards for both videos and captions, and more oversight. You can be sure I'm going to peek in at upcoming MOTDs in the future, though. We just have no criteria for inclusion, it seems. — Rhododendritestalk | 14:28, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
Hi, I did proposed videos made and/or uploaded by me (about various subjects), and I have never seen any objection about that. I don't see any issue showing such a video, even if I don't support these demonstrations myself. But they are quite popular events in France for about 50 days now, and that's a sufficient criteria to show this video. I would even not oppose videos of events I would be completely against, if there is a balance with other videos. If we start nitpicking about "sensitive" subjects, I would mention US military people in another country (before yesterday), eating raw animals (after tomorrow), US president speech (in 5 days), etc. You see my point... Regards, Yann (talk) 20:12, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
Added categories, but I don't know how these have been added
In File:Chania Catholic Church C.jpg is given for the categories: "Catholic church of Chania - Interior (−) (±) (↓) (↑)" but also |Chania|Churches in Greece|(+).
How have these |Chania|Churches in Greece| been added? The image is not in these categories and it is not possible to delete them. What is the purpose of adding these? Wouter (talk) 19:59, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
I've tried to find out where these come from but I am at a loss, too. I suspect though that it has something to do with geocoding at OpenStreetMap and the coordinates in the EXIF. De728631 (talk) 20:57, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
And if you go to edit, they don't show up in preview. This looks like someone has implemented something they should not, because it creates un-asked-for OVERCATS. - Jmabel ! talk20:58, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
De728631 was correct - the title field in the metadata was Inside the Catholic Church of Chania
{{Location|35|30|55.3|N|24|1|2.5|E|scale:3000}}
[[Category:Chania]]
[[Category:Churches in Greece]]. Somehow, this was interpreted as wikitext rather than plaintext. I've filed a Phabricator report. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 01:31, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
Question: Do we not have enough good media content to supply MOTD?
Note: "MOTD" stands for "Commons:Media of the day"
Today's anti-vaccine video was a reminder that COM:MOTD has little oversight. Whereas POTD must go through the FPC process first, the only requirement for MOTD is that it exists with a free license (we have COM:FMC, but it doesn't have the source material nor the participation to generate one promotion per day). I looked at some of the videos we have coming up or which recently appeared, and while some are interesting, many are truly terrible. We should not be putting low-quality (and even harmful) material on our main page. Right now it appears that, if you take any random cell phone video of any subject that could conceivably be considered in scope, you may place it on our main page. That's .... not ideal.
To commemorate 9/11, we have File:911 Memorial - NYC.ogv, which is mostly a slideshow of snapshots, including several selfies!, followed by shaky low-quality cellphone video, and then more snapshots.
Several short, low-quality cell phone videos of animals.
Perhaps the problem is that too few people participate at MOTD, so rather than high-quality content we have people just adding their own? I don't know whom we are serving by having a showcase for this material. — Rhododendritestalk | 20:10, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
At this point I suspect our best option is either to kill it or find at least one person prepared to commit to a quality review and dropping it down to one or a week or so.Geni (talk) 22:48, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
Suggestion: Make it mandatory for files to be nominated on COM:FMC and if any files get at least one support from a user with the privilege not less than that of an auto-patrolled user excluding the nominator and the uploader, a bot(User:FeaturedMediaBot?) should automatically set the file as MOTD for the closest available slot. Files that receive oppose vote must pass the FMC criteria. IMO, there are better files on commons but lack of review is the main issue and also non-admins can't replace files once it's on the main page because of transclusion protection. -- Eatcha (talk) 05:35, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
anyone is free to object to a motd pending, then it can be replaced. or it could be replaced even without discussion if anyone feels that's the right thing to do. nothing stops you.
the video shows chopped octopus moving wildly. that itself is interesting enough imo. and the video is mostly in focus and not too small to see.
the video shows a latvian town in 2010. what do you expect from a 2010 video? do you also expect a 1930s silent film to be 4K?
i've mostly avoided adding a video of my own. sometimes i stumble upon a nice and interesting video in a category and put it up.
i've always tried to choose videos that are neither too short (like <20s) nor too long (like >20min).
the process is good and running. you have your opinions? add COM:MOTD to your watchlist and check it once in a while, and give your opinions on the talk page. for the past few years i'm the only one who has made a complaint against a particular motd on that talk page.--RZuo (talk) 08:19, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
1 We have what? Enough video? Great! See below.
2 Yes, we need more people involved. But we also need some clearer standards.
3 It is interesting, and hence in-scope for Commons. The quality is just not good.
4 2010 ... was not long ago. But yes, it is standard for a low quality video from that time, just as a low quality video today is slightly better, I guess?
7 Well, it's running. I wouldn't say the process is good, as we don't even have a clear process, and whatever we do have is resulting in poor results (again, at least lately). But there is a good point here about "so do something about it." I want to be clear I'm not trying to blame anyone currently involved with MOTD, who are just trying to keep it running. Like anything else in the wikiworld, if one doesn't like the quality of something, one should fix it. I opened this thread both to draw attention to the issue, but also because the quality of MOTD right now makes me wonder if there's enough (a) good video, and (b) people interested in MOTD.
As for enough good video, I don't know if it's that or just that we don't have enough people digging through the video we do have. If the latter is the case, perhaps instead of people finding videos and adding them we need a clear pathway/venue for people to recommend videos. It could also function as a way of screening, whereby it has to be added to that page first, anyone can comment, and then a different person (not the person who suggested it) takes it and adds it to MOTD if there are no objections. We would then try to share widely the location of that page for people to post any good video they come across. Might be worth a shot. — Rhododendritestalk | 14:42, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
that page for the last decade and for now is called COM:MOTD and its talk page.
unless the talk page is overwhelmed, i dont see a need to create a new process that does the same thing as the current process.--RZuo (talk) 21:26, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
There's only any point in publishing something on the main page if people look at it and it serves some purpose. Bad content has only negative consequences. There was a discussion a while back about the Picture of the Day, and how a small group were just using it to promote their own pictures, and there seemed to be no attempt to demonstrate our portfolio as a community. I don't know if the practice changed there: I've never had Commons main page as a bookmark. Like many regulars, I just have my watchlist instead. So I personally don't care beyond the effect on others who use it or come across it. Is the main page attractive so that people want to contribute to Commons or to browse our Content, and are aware of what community forums and events are occurring? If we take the effort to regularly update the images on the page, is it good enough that people want to drop by regularly?
My feeling about MOTD, is that it certainly doesn't warrant daily featuring. Could we include the winners of the Photo Challenge? Or perhaps two featured pictures? -- Colin (talk) 15:04, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
@Colin: In my opinion, we could make POTD continue to be for single FPs, updated daily, while MOTW [sic] can be any featured media which is not a single image, updated weekly. We don't even have enough FMCs to supply weekly updates, but FMC + FPC sets should be enough to cut it. If that's not enough, we could construct sets after the fact, with perhaps looser set criteria (e.g. a slideshow of several FPs of the Golden Gate Bridge, rotating which one gets top billing).
This is about a current situation, but I do aim at the general problem.
A user with >30000 uploads of own media has been banned for sockpuppery in connection with paid editing from WM forever. (This user is the founder of the german national deity articles project, has created >20000 articles, many about MPs and contributed the photo of this MPs). Now 2 of his fotos got a DR (@Indeedous: ) and he cannot take part in the DR discussion.
I think it was wrong to ban this user (or any other user in a similar situation) at commons. Instead his rights to upload files should have been revoked and a topic ban for all pages except the description and talk pages of his own uploads and the com:DR/... name space. For exactly the reason, that users are expected to look after their uploads. While it is the case that the user broke WM rules, the uploads are genuine. What should happen to this uploads? Will there be more DRs? Among the uploads are fotos of many importent german politicians and often the only free fotos available. --C.Suthorn (talk) 20:15, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
I presume you're talking about Olaf Kosinsky (talk·contribs)? In which case they're not blocked here because of any WMF ban, but because of a discussion on Commons specifically: Commons:Administrators' noticeboard#Case Olaf Kosinsky. So the block would stand, and it would have an effect here, even to the point of excluding them from DRs.
We should not DR anything because they're blocked (although this is widespread), but if things warrant DRs (you didn't give any links), then they're going to get DRs. Andy Dingley (talk) 21:36, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
There are two images with DRs, both DRs are linked on the users talk page. After looking more closely at the matter, I now think that in both case an additional DR would be needed: Mr Knüppel has been fotographed twice by the same fotographer, Mrs Knüppel once by the same fotographer and once by herself (according to info template). The uploader may be able to clear this up (but cannot) otherwise all four files should be deleted. --C.Suthorn (talk) 21:52, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
Those two DRs are 1 and 2. I just came across that topic because a new user (User:KaKaulla) opened a DR on one of my pictures and so I had a look at his contributions. He tagged those 2 images uploaded by Olaf Kosinksy as no permission. Im not a big fan of that workaround, especially if there could be any doubts and a discussion would be helpful. So I generally prefer regular DRs and that's why I converted them to DRs. To be honest in this case it looks like the DR is correct, as there is no permission given and Olaf Kosinksy did upload many photos of politicians but those 2 are obviously not his own. But there could be some OTRS-Tickets with permissions, which the uploader maybe remembers. So yes, I would prefer if banned users, especially those with thousands of uploads, could be given the opportunity to take part in DRs or similar discussions. --Indeedous (talk) 09:55, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
The 2022 Community Wishlist Survey will happen in January
Hello everyone,
We hope all of you are as well and safe as possible during these trying times! We wanted to share some news about a change to the Community Wishlist Survey 2022. We would like to hear your opinions as well.
Proposing and wish-fulfillment will happen during the same year
In the past, the Community Tech team has run the Community Wishlist Survey for the following year in November of the prior year. For example, we ran the Wishlist for 2021 in November 2020. That worked well a few years ago. At that time, we used to start working on the Wishlist soon after the results of the voting were published.
However, in 2021, there was a delay between the voting and the time when we could start working on the new wishes. Until July 2021, we were working on wishes from the Wishlist for 2020.
We hope having the Wishlist 2022 in January 2022 will be more intuitive. This will also give us time to fulfill more wishes from the 2021 Wishlist.
Encouraging wider participation from historically excluded communities
We are thinking how to make the Wishlist easier to participate in. We want to support more translations, and encourage under-resourced communities to be more active. We would like to have some time to make these changes.
A new space to talk to us about priorities and wishes not granted yet
We will have gone 365 days without a Wishlist. We encourage you to approach us. We hope to hear from you in the talk page, but we also hope to see you at our bi-monthly Talk to Us meetings! These will be hosted at two different times friendly to time zones around the globe.
We will begin our first meeting September 15th at 23:00 UTC. More details about the agenda and format coming soon!
Brainstorm and draft proposals before the proposal phase
If you have early ideas for wishes, you can use the new Community Wishlist Survey sandbox. This way, you will not forget about these before January 2022. You will be able to come back and refine your ideas. Remember, edits in the sandbox don't count as wishes!
@Jeff G.: , you can't propose new technical features at the Proposals Village Pump as "voting" doesn't magically make tech developers appear, the external links archiving proposal proved that, the bot now operates on the Wikimedia Commons but this was because of its operators, not the "vote". At most people can propose for existing software to be implemented differently or for community-based limitations on software to be removed (see the discussion about the MP4 format above), but it cannot actually create for example a "General purpose import tool" that I wish to propose (a proposal I am working on now). Personally I would like to see either Wikimedia Deutschland (WMDE) or the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) create such surveys for large wikis and then add like three (3) or something features (per large Wikimedia wiki) for lets say the English-language Wikipedia, Wikidata, the Wikimedia Commons and a few other large projects, and then have a "small wiki's community tech wishlist" so large wiki's won't be prioritised like they are in the current system. The German-language Wikipedia already has its own tech wishlist supported by Wikimedia Deutschland (WMDE) and several of its features went on to help all Wikimedia websites. Of course, the largest issue here being time and resources (money 💵), which is why I proposed finding tech talent on other websites and forums above. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 11:03, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
Deletion request of December 2020
I relocated this to the copyright Village pump, because my question was not answered, apart from remark below. Elly (talk) 21:01, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
Thanks. My personal opinion is that possible copyright violations are much more urgent then cleaning of categories. My question is related to the File: namespace. When applying for adminship I promised the community to work on those issues, as I think it is important. Elly (talk) 07:08, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
The problem with "categories for discussion" is that more often than not it is "Categories for deletion", I think that splitting it into one for actual discussion and one for deletion would be better, but then again sometimes discussed categories would have to be deleted too. The backlog is so large simply because it is way more complicated to solve. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 14:50, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
I believe it was once "Categories for deletion". We changed it because deletion was not always the best outcome, even for a problematic category. Less of a binary than whether to keep an image. - Jmabel ! talk16:06, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
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Hi. Our community (wi.wp) discussed about the status of this file. I think this image is lower than threshold of originality and it should be moved to Commons, but some users weren't sure about this so I open this discussion to consult the community. Thanks! ⁂๖ۣۜJon♥๖ۣۜDaenerys໖16:03, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
This file has some categories on it that don't seem to be in the code, and also some duplicate categories. If I edit it and do a preview, they don't show up, but they're there when just viewing the file. What's going on? --Auntof6 (talk) 21:39, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
@Auntof6: sorry not to have left this link last time; it appears that that bug has been closed as a duplicate of this one from 2015, so you may want to change your subscription.—Odysseus1479 (talk) 06:59, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
These shouldn't be "merged" as they are different images from different sources. One has the picture frame and the other is cropped. The "other versions" field should be completed to point to the other image but both should be retained. For your higher resolution version, you should only overwrite one of the existing files if you are sure that it is only the file resolution that is improved. If there are any other differences in the image (including crops or edits) you should upload the new file as a third version. From Hill To Shore (talk) 15:39, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
From Hill To Shore Fair enough. However, I don't understand why this should be the case when they're photographs of the same object from the same perspective in the same conditions (within the museum). One source is the Spanish Cultural Ministry and the other one is the museum itself, which the Ministry points to. Wouldn't this be considered a redundant "other version"? I hope this doesn't sound passive agressive I just don't understand the point of (from my perspective) a ship of theseus type situation. Warm regards A. C. Santacruz (talk) 17:47, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
It is fine to have multiple versions of an image. The only thing that normally calls for deletion is an exact (or scaled-down) duplicate. - Jmabel ! talk20:23, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
@A. C. Santacruz: One of the key considerations is that we provide images for other projects. If someone from the German Wikipedia wanted to use the version without the frame, they can use it. Likewise, if someone from the Japanese Wikipedia wanted to use the version with the frame, then they can use the other version. Deleting one of the images creates more work for the administrators and a future user is bound to upload either a cropped or uncropped version later if that is what they want to use. From Hill To Shore (talk) 20:41, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
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As I've said in the discussion, I see no reason to block downloads of the original MP4 file; in that case Commons is simply acting as a file-sharing service, and there's no way that generic file-sharing services would obtain or need to obtain a patent license for each one of its supported formats. Just avoid playback of or transcription into MP4 until the patent expires. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠05:13, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
I've just done some fixes to the Wikidata game to match Wikidata items with Commons categories, and add the sitelinks here (and later, Wikidata infoboxes will be auto-added to the categories!). It should be faster than before, and not give error messages any more. There's currently plenty of tiles queued up and waiting for decisions! Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 18:39, 10 September 2021 (UTC)
A sequence of photos of the mollusk Aliger gigas species on Flickr
Hello Wikimedia Commons, I noticed that this author of the images (Rüdiger Stehn) has posted a sequence of trade photographs of this edible shellfish in the Bahamas in the year 1988 (under CC BY-SA 2.0 license). Would it be interesting to put it on Wikimedia Commons, with subtitles in German and English? I thought someone familiar with the German would describe what is noted in the images better than I would.
I also noticed that two photos from this sequence (where people hold shells in their hands) are already on Wikimedia Commons. Mário NET (talk) 13:55, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
"Instance of" is the most basic statement of a Wikidata item. For items about people, we'd expect to see "Instance of human" and for items about ships, we'd expect to see "Instance of ship." If we have images related to a Wikidata Item, we should be able to see what is being described. Someone can check the Commons maintenance category, find a picture of a car and update the Wikidata item with "Instance of car." From Hill To Shore (talk) 20:57, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
For the example above, I have added a couple of instances to try to describe the item.[1] A future editor may find additional or better alternatives for the "instance of." It may take some hours or days for the Commons page to stop showing up in the maintenance category; the information can take a while to update across the different systems. From Hill To Shore (talk) 21:58, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
Yup, it's when the related Wikidata item doesn't have a value of instance of (P31) or subclass of (P279). It can also be added if there is no related Wikidata item for the category. It's hopefully something that's relatively easy to correct - and you can purge the cache by making a null edit to the page (open it in edit view, then click save without changing anything). It's one of a series of similar categories (e.g., no image, no family name, etc.), see subcategories of Category:Wikidata infobox maintenance. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 08:05, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
Is there a directory of past UK press photographers
I was looking at some 1930s/1940s press photos by Harry Shepherd and wondering when he died. It occurred to me that it would be useful if there were a directory of UK press photographers, with dates and the publications they most often worked for. Does anyone know of such a thing? Obviously some are in Wikipedia or at least Wikidata, but I am thinking of those not yet included, or not fully described. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits13:36, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
I'm not aware of any directories for the UK, at least. There are many press photographers from the 1930s who went on to be war photographers. I have created several Wikidata entries for them with the sparse details I have found. Sometimes they can be expanded with information from family history sources (acceptable for Wikidata but not for English Wikipedia). Hopefully additional sources can be found. From Hill To Shore (talk) 14:29, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
i feel that such changes are not necessary for files (but yes for categories and galleries), because (1) the old name was indeed used in history, (2) mandating such changes might require thousands of files to be renamed when some popular places change their names. -- RZuo (talk) 19:29, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
I agree. Indeed if it was not the correct name at the time the photo was taken, I’d consider such a move to be downright misleading, a form of revisionism. The name of the parent cat should be kept current; old names can be either sub-cats (possibly under History of [place/building]) or redirects. Even when a filename reflects a name that was already obsolete at the time, or for that matter a popular nickname that has never had official standing, the author’s choice should be respected. And it’s easy to edit the description or caption to add “[Now/Officially] known as ___.”—Odysseus1479 (talk) 19:45, 11 September 2021 (UTC)P.S. I just declined that request. Not having looked at the example when I commented, I thought it was the building’s name that had changed—sorry. Renaming all the related files when countries change their names would be beyond absurd.—19:56, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
I dont think it is necessary to rename the file, and you should not do it. The right thing to do is however to update the description and mention the name change there. This gives the possibility to find something under the new and the old name.--Giftzwerg 88 (talk) 09:56, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
Visibility of unimportant things (e.g. code golfing templates, hidden categories)
Code golfing templates on a vector file, telling the user how efficient this hand written code is, and not to overwrite it with a mere Inkscape SVG
There are many templates and categories, that serve the special interests of a small number of SVG enthusiasts - mostly @Sarang. The quest of these users is, to improve the code of SVG files - which does not correspond to any improvement of general interest. There is nothing wrong with that, but it should happen under the radar of everyone who does not care. Commons is a repository for media files, and not for code. Nothing should be demanded from users, to achieve aims that are not the aims of the project. Demanding too much attention is bad enough. But I find it even worse to discourage actual improvements using Inkscape. (If File:Wappen Leinfelden-Echterdingen.svg can be improved, than it should be improved - no matter if that increases the file size.)
In May I have brought up a similar topic: LOUD TEMPLATES (red, bold, big, warning symbols) (archived) --Watchduck (quack) 19:01, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
There are also categories for these special interests. (E.g. Valid SVG created with Inkscape-hand:Flags and SVG simplified flags in the normal category SVG flags.) They are a distraction from the normal subcategories. That is a general design fault of hidden categories. They appear separate and small on the categorized page (e.g. an image), but not in the list of subcategories. I suggest to fix that, so that all hidden subcategories appear small at the end of the list. They are hidden for a reason, after all. --Watchduck (quack) 19:57, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
License changes
I've been in the habit of writing licences as PD-Art|PD-old-70-1923|deathyear= , someone is rewriting these as auto rather than 70. What are the ramifications of that? Broichmore (talk) 14:40, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
The "deathyear" parameter is used by by the {{PD-old-auto}} / {{PD-old-auto-expired}} tags; it will use that year to choose the PD-old-70, PD-old-80, or PD-old-100 tags as appropriate (or PD-old-70-expired, etc.). PD-Art forwards that parameter through. (The -1923 tags have been renamed -expired, because 1923 is no longer the U.S. line.) Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:01, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
Ongoing Issues Uploading A Video
I seem unable to upload a video. Everytime I try it goes through fine up to the "publishing" stage when it takes an age then gives "Internal error: Server failed to publish temporary file.". I've repeatedly tried the "Retry" button as well as starting again from scratch re-uploading but always exactly the same. Tried repeatedly yesterday and today. Uploading a webm file through the standard "Upload file" system (which has always worked in the past. It might be a bit larger than previous videos (runs longer time). It uploads fine (so not a "chunking" issue. I'm put the webm file on my website, link to the file [https://psamathe.net/temp_images/sept_2021/02-Grey_Squirrel_2021-09-13_nX1.webm] (the viewable mp4 files on my web site accessed through web pages are already reduced quality and the webm is generated from a high quality original). I'd appreciate any thoughts as I think it would be a useful video (not much like it available). Sound arrogant but I'm quite proud of my amateur efforts and keen to have the attribution set to me). Thanks PsamatheM (talk) 17:29, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
Seems like a bug with the rotation bot, though I can't say why exactly that happened. I know the crop tool can be finicky about dimensions when you choose lossless mode, so maybe this is a similar problem. You'll probably need to talk to Steinsplitter directly, since it's their bot. In the meantime, I've uploaded a version I rotated manually with ImageMagick that preserved the content and quality. clpo13(talk)18:00, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
Chinese state media propaganda on Wikimedia commons
As many of you already know about the recent action by WMF to ban and de-sysop many Chinese Wikipedia mods. Some of the banned users uploaded many propaganda files sourced from Chinese state media. Are we not gonna delete those files? Example : Check uploads by User:Walter Grassroot -- Chen Quanguo (talk) 12:18, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) I would very much be against deleting such content, perhaps add a note about it being uploaded by Wumao's but not outright delete them. Why censor such things? Interestingly enough, I've talked about Chinese Communist Party infiltration on Wikimedia to people off-wiki for years, I'm surprised that it took this long for the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) to actually act. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 15:47, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
@Chen Quanguo: @Jmabel: @Donald Trung: Much of these early uploads are historical, including many scarce images. I oppose any mass deletion(s) of these files. Deletion requests should only be on an individual file with full justification(s). "Propaganda" efforts on Commons can also include targeted deletion of truthful historic files that conflict with current propaganda and efforts to re-cast Chinese history with a "correct view." --Ooligan (talk) 06:45, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
@Pigsonthewing: No, we are not. Every experienced user who has chimed in here has agreed that at most this calls for changing a description. The OP is someone with literally no prior edits on Commons, at least not from this account. - Jmabel ! talk17:57, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
Women of the Day "from en:wiki screenshots"
A WIR Woman of the Day "from en:wiki screenshots" in 2018 and 2021
I wonder if a third party can offer some advice to try and resolve a dispute. I have created banners for en:Women in Red which feature a "Woman of the Day". They were created by taking en:wiki screen shots of en:wiki pages and that is how the source is recorded - about 3 years ago the first set were available. They were used on the @wikiwomeninred Twitter page, Wikidata and now on the Wikiproject page for Women in Red. There were 365 of them but there are probably maybe 600 or so as variations of jpg /png and improved subjects have come along. In the last few months the set have been changing to a 500 x 1500 format. Occasionally I have incorporated a Wikipedia page that includes a "fair use" image. As this derivative image has no license on commons then this has been pointed out to me and the image was replaced with an alternative. In this case the matter was resolved to everyone's satisfaction. This, to my mind, demonstrates consensus as the images have been widely seen by hundreds of Wikimedians and the sourcing was not challenged in all of the cases where a "fair use" image was not used. In the last couple of weeks templates have been added to about twenty of so images and this has lead to some debate. There has been a discussion where it has been requested that the sourcing should be improved. I have no objection to improving the sourcing in future although I dispute @Andel: that the current images are infringing commons policies and/or copyright. The damage that would be done by the proposed deletion would not be trivial and is (IMO) a disproportionate and unnecessary (mis)use of power. Would someone care to offer a resolution? Victuallers (talk) 11:33, 16 September 2021 (UTC) N.B. I have proposed a sample image for deletion here. Victuallers (talk) 12:43, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
Andel is correct that you can't claim the image as your own work without citing the source works of the deivative images. In other situations we would call that license laundering and the images would be deleted. For the article text included in the images, I would suggest saying, "This image includes text published in the English Wikipedia article [insert article name and link] as it appeared at [isert date and time] (UTC). A permanent link to the version of the article included in the image is provided here [insert permanent link to version of the article]." For any article images contained within your image, use {{Derived from}}. That will allow you to comply with your legal obligations. Please note that there is no intention to be awkward here; there are plenty of examples of people being sued for breach of copyright where the source was not attributed correctly. From Hill To Shore (talk) 13:24, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
Also Woman of the day screenshots are also a great way to show how the crediting should be done. In any case, I think that the Woman of the day screenshots are great and I have actually used them couple of times when I have needed women themed Wikimedia screenshots. Thank you for your work. --Zache (talk) 13:34, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
I agree that the current attribution is inadequate, but I think it will be fairly easy to fix. Based on en:Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia, I think the minimum requirement for attributing the text is a link to the source Wikipedia article. For images, a link probably isn't enough and we should name the author on the derivative file page. The same format can be used for most of the pictures, so I think it's worth getting it right. I've made a rough attempt at adding proper attribution to the first of the files: File:Apr01 Wangari Muta Maathai.png. If others agree that that's sufficient, or improve it so that it is, it can form a basis for fixing the others. --bjh21 (talk) 20:46, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
That is a good starting point; there are several ways we can do this and that seems as good as any. However, there also needs to be some attribution to the authors of the other articles used in the image, not just the one in front.
In addition, I have spotted a second issue at File:Apr5 Woman of the Day.png that we need to consider. The file originally created in 2019 has been overwritten with a 2021 version. I think the new version should be uploaded as a separate file as that is going to make a mess of the attribution and licensing very quickly. Any user who reuses the file externally would have to hunt back through the file history to locate the correct attribution that applied to the previous version. It is much cleaner to keep each version under a separate file name. From Hill To Shore (talk) 22:16, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
@From Hill To Shore: I disagree about the pages behind the front one. We get at most scattered words from them, which I think destroys any creative content they may have. If that's not de minimis, it's something very similar. Regarding old versions, Commons:Overwriting files says that a new version shouldn't change the licence, and I think that extends to not changing the required attribution precisely because it make proper attribution of old versions hard. I don't think there's a problem where both versions are based on the same Wikipedia article and picture (like File:Oct5 Woman of the Day.png above), but for File:Apr5 Woman of the Day.png either the two versions should be split or the first one should be revdel'ed. --bjh21 (talk) 22:54, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
@Bjh21: The amount of text visible in the background varies between images. For example, File:Oct5 Woman of the Day.png shows more background text than File:Apr5 Woman of the Day.png. The de minimis test includes an element of subjectivity, so we can't expect to have a catch-all format for all of the images unless we plan for images that pass de minimis. However, rather than a single format, we could instead phrase it as a set of requirements. First a link to the source article, then a link to the original image; editors then have to consider de minimis and use their judgement on whether a second set of links is appropriate. Naming the authors in the new file page is a nice step but not always a requirement; so long as the new work is clearly labelled as a derivative and the source works are linked, that covers most situations. For your next point, you summarise what I was trying to say; where there is no change in the source works, the attribution remains constant even if a new version of the image is uploaded. I'd be a little wary about using revdelete after replacing versions based on different source works though; if these have been used externally (as mentioned with Twitter in the first comment) we should preserve the original version and licensing so that someone who has reused the file can check the original release licence and terms. Splitting/uploading new works under new file names would be my preference. From Hill To Shore (talk) 21:32, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
Thank you for your views and @Zache: in particular. I have added extra words to the images (under immediate threat) but I suspect these may not satisfy those who want everything as they want it. These images are/were a donation to the project, but they don't seem to regarded as such. It has been alleged that these images "just create work for other volunteers" which seems unfair but I suppose it could be true. I have offered to help, in time ,to improve the sourcing, but if that proves insufficient then I propose that we delete all the images in this category as they are ~useless if there is not one for every day. @From Hill To Shore: proposes that someone (and I think s/he means the person who donated the images) should add "First a link to the source article, then a link to the original image" - this is not stuff I have the time/skills/priority to do as other issues like gender bias on Wikimedia are much more important IMO. I would be willing to help, but as that has proven unconvincing then can someone tell me how to donate the deletion of all the images in that category as I want to leave this tidy. Another solution would be to move the images to the en:wiki but that would prevent them being used easily on the wiki projects where they are used. If anyone has a tool for copying them to a safe place where they can be held for archiving reasons (eg on Flickr) then that would be useful. It is important to keep the original release license for historical reasons as they are mentioned on several other wiki projects. Victuallers (talk) 13:58, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
@Victuallers: Can you explain why these are "useless if there is not one for every day"? That is not our approach to (for example) scans of a run of a magazine. - Jmabel ! talk15:37, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
Hi @Jmabel: , thanks for the interest - they were created to be used everyday. To be Woman of the Day when there has only been one last Tuesday is hardly an accolade, moreover its like a jigsaw or a set of playing cards that are incomplete. As it is, you name the day, and there is an image. To illustrate this I have automated this, for example on my talk page and these would just be trash if there was the occasional missing image. I had plans to develop them further, hence my recent release of updated images, but I wasn't aware that they were used by anyone else, so its nice to know that they are. However dealing with requests/demands/threats for additional sourcing as the rules are refined creates an overhead that I'm not sure is worth it, given that I thought their primary use (on Twitter) was in the past. Victuallers (talk) 16:34, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
General purpose import tool
Wikimedia Commons hosts a lot of content imported from other websites that have ascended into the public domain, many museums actually post images of their collections with licenses compatible with Wikimedia Commons online. Other websites contain thousands of scans of public domain literary works that have to be manually downloaded one-by-one in order to be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, this situation isn't really desirable and batch requests go unanswered for years.
The best solution for this would be to have a general purpose import tool that can choose to indiscriminately import files from any website. The tool should by default only select images and could be tweaked to select non-image media files, files from or until certain file sizes (for websites that have a lot of small non-educational images or large background images), among others.
I have been thinking about this for a while now (probably years), there are multiple ways to implement this, what I think might be the best way to do so would be to have "a button" in the MediaWiki Upload Wizard where one can add any URL and it would then give a selection of media files which users can then manually (de-)select (it might be better to have everything de-selected by default or have such a thing be an option before inserting the URL).
Personally I would prefer such a tool to be accessible to all users but it would make a lot of sense to limit it only to certain user groups or a user could have it enabled after a certain number of uploads / edits. Although in general I would say that the benefits outweigh the negatives if implemented well, I am just posting this here for feedback as I regularly encounter websites with free content but because no such tool exists it always requires the user to first manually download and then upload everys image, for websites with multiple free images or even hundreds on a single page this is tedious. In fact such a tool would make batch requests obsolete like how thế Flickr2Commons tool made the Flickr batch requests obsolete. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 23:26, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
@Donald Trung: The problem here would be that there in no generic way to bring in even such basic metadata as date and description, let alone having a situation where, as on Flickr, a bot can validate the stated license. @Fæ: would I be right that you already have a tool that amounts to this technically, but which you have to "tune" with info on how to get relevant metadata from each source you access? - Jmabel ! talk01:24, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
Any archive worthy of the name exposes its metadata pretty clearly through some obviously embedded flavour of Dublin Core / or (at worst) MARC. That's an easy part of the problem. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:16, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
@Howdy.carabao: , wow, I wasn't aware of this tool, I tried to run a simulation with the Rijksmuseum and it doesn't seem to work for me at all, my suggestion is basically this, but more user-friendly, perhaps URL2Commons + the MediaWiki upload wizard, it currently already supports Flickr so I can see it supporting generic URL's, but I don't seem to be able to run anything with the URL2Commons tool. I will try it with a number of other URL's. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 20:13, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
This should be a sub-category, not a redirect to a incorrect name. The "Louisville, St. Louis and Texas Railway" currently has two files with that exact name. If this railway corporation was purchased by or merged with another railway/ railroad, then it should be a sub-category of that successor corporation. If it went out of business, then it should be sub-category of defunct railways of xxxx state or country.
File:Journal de l'Empire, NG-NM-11649-X-1.jpg I want to create a new category: Journal de l'Empire. Wich uppercategory should I put it in? For a newspaper after the French revolution, Publications of the French Revolution, does not seem appropiate. It seems to be published in Paris. I suppose there where also local 'imperial' newspapers in countries annexed by France. The distribution in the whole of Europe would not be technicaly posible at that time. A have the 9 july 1809 issue I want to scan and publish in the Commons. I am surprised there are no other issues in the Commons.Smiley.toerist (talk) 08:55, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
If no DjVu exists, it has to be created. Unfortunately the text is of low grafic quality and OCR does not work relialably. Most letters would have to be manualy inputted. This is very labour intensive. I have done this for three Journal de Bruxelles issues (example: https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Journal_de_Bruxelles_(1790-1800)/76-1799) Each issue took me several weeks (working several hours a day. This has to be worth the investment.Smiley.toerist (talk) 19:46, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
Chris Farley imitates Newt Gingrich at the House Republican Conference
It looks like it is because it was taken during a House Republican Conference at the House of Representatives, and the PD-CSPAN tag says "This file is in the public domain in the United States because it is a video… from the chambers of the US House or US Senate as published by C-SPAN." JamesTheLaptop (talk) 10:16, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
Anti-Vaccine protest selected for main page - MOTD (again)
I agree with this user, as far as this film should not feature on the main page (I am against censoring). Perhaps this is somebody who doesn't dare to speak out loudly with their usual username. There are now three video's planned with ani-vacc demonstrations. Is it true these can simply be replaced with alternatives? This has been discussed before, see archive. Elly (talk) 20:14, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
I had no objection to one such file being used as MOTD, but we should not be coming back to the same controversial theme over and over. No problem with the media being on Commons.- Jmabel ! talk02:49, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
@Coagulans: InstantCommons is a way for non-Wikimedia wikis to use Commons images easily, but that kind of file usage is not shown in file information. I guess the original commenter was concerned that the images were in use in some external wiki and opposed the deletion due to this. MKFI (talk) 06:45, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
@RZuo: Thanks! Is there any way you can add the link from one page to the other in Commons:Deletion_requests template, so it appears there each day? --RAN (talk) 02:03, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
On a busy server day it can sometimes take up to 30 minutes for the thumbnails to be created and indexed and displayed, even when you clear the cache. Especially when a bot is uploading a large batch of images from Flickr or another source. --RAN (talk) 02:07, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
Is this file ok from a copyright aspect?
Jobs-pic at exhibition in US embassy
I want to add this pic of an exhibition in the US embassy in Geneva to the German and English article on Steve Jobs, because there are no other pics available showing him at this age (probably early eighties). I doubt the legal status, though, as the Jobs portrait itself is most likely copyrighted. Any help/comments? Pittigrilli (talk) 10:24, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
I did thoroughly. To be honest, I still don't have the solution. Is it allowed on Commons or not? (Just to be clear: This was NOT uploaded by me). Pittigrilli (talk) 15:35, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
Aha! The photo of Jobs *IS* free licensed! Reverse image search found that the photographer was by Bernard Gotfryd, who donated his photographs to the LOC and PD. [3]. Version on LOC: [4]. The point remaining, license status of derivative work needs to be established if it is a significant part in another photo. -- Infrogmation of New Orleans (talk) 16:13, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
{{Roads are for cars}} is warning template for photos taken on the roads.
The contents are as follows.
Roads are for cars: please take your photos where it is safe
Walking or passing over roads is dangerous. Cars can travel at high speeds and often cannot stop upon seeing you.
Take caution when photographing near roads, and only cross when it is safe to do so. If you use this image, consider including it alongside a similar warning message to inform others.
Not really a fan of the "Tracks are for trains" template. Photographers need to use their common sense (I know what an outdated concept). Don't really see it as commons responsibility to police photographer's actions Oxyman (talk) 15:57, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
@Jmabel and Oxyman: I'm proposing a template that can be used for photos taken on roads where sidewalks and roadways are not distinct, on crosswalks, etc.
I'm not particularly objecting to your suggestion, can't see how we can object as "Tracks are for trains" exists. Now presumably we need "Runways are for airplanes", "Launchpads are for spaceships", "Volcanoes can be rather hot" and "Lions can bite" Oxyman (talk) 16:37, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
There are probably several hundred photos here on Commons I have taken while standing in streets, possibly over 1000. (Oh, and a few dozen on train tracks, but mostly on disused or little-used lines.) But really? Streets are note necessarily just for cars, and cars brake a lot more easily than trains. In my neighborhood, for example, probably more pedestrians walk on the little-used side streets than their narrow sidewalks. As I was writing this, a woman went by with a toddler in a stroller and a car slowed down from 20 or so miles an hour to maybe 10 as it passed her. I know there are places where streets aren't used this way -- there are places in this city where streets aren't used this way -- and if I'm photographing from the street in those, I've got a spotter.
With many shots where the point of view is an street, we have no way to know whether the photographer was on foot, in a car, or on a bicycle; in a parking lane or a traffic lane; etc.
@Jmabel and Oxyman: However, in the case of an airplane runway or a rocket launcher, it seems difficult to make a template because it is a place that is difficult for the general public to access. Ox1997cow (talk) 12:03, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
{{Tracks are for trains}} as a template seems a bit odd to me as it implies that the photographer was doing something wrong. There are plenty of reasons why photography on or close to train tracks may be safe and appropriate (official photographs by the railway operator being a prime example). {{Roads are for cars}} is even worse as the core premise is wrong; only a small minority of roads are only "for cars." In many places bicycles or pedestrians have priority over motor vehicles. We should not be implying that the photographer was doing something wrong based on the unsound opinion of a Wikimedia editor. Nor should we be discouraging people from taking photographs in roads when we have no knowledge of the circumstances. From Hill To Shore (talk) 12:24, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
Roads aren't just for cars. Cyclists, horseback riders and pedestrians (even entire armies of foot soldiers) are als known to use them. In fact, roads existed long before the invention of the automobile. Maybe {{Roads are for roadkill}} conveys the sentiment? Guido den Broeder (talk) 12:40, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
I would like to discourage the use of all templates with general life-advice. {{Tracks are for trains}} should be deleted. Relevant information about files should not be hidden between useless clutter. We could just a well tell people about the health hazards of drug use, to be careful with firearms, or that some harmless looking plants and animals are actually poisonous. (The latter might actually not be completely stupid. But even that should not be bigger than an icon.) --Watchduck (quack) 20:15, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
"Can I make" and "Should I make" are different questions. IMO, the answer to the second is No. The "Tracks are for trains" template is dubious and up for deletion discussion. "Roads are for cars" is even more dubious, since cars are not the only authorized users of roads - and indeed many roads were originally built for foot, animal, or bicycle traffic rather than for automobiles. -- Infrogmation of New Orleans (talk) 18:08, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
There are any number of situations where photography is dangerous or illegal. For example, you should not take photos while driving (in a car on a road), and it is illegal to do so in some jurisdictions. Warnings of dangerous photography situations are probably still more helpful than hurtful though. If thinking twice before taking a photo on a train track saves a single life, it's worth it. That being said, I think the danger from train tracks might be less evident than that of a vehicular road. People are often taught from a young age to "look before you cross" (and you can safely take photos from a crosswalk). Nicole Sharp (talk) 22:48, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
incorrect filenames and attribution for Flickr images
The photos uploaded from my Flickr account by "@Ser Amantio di Nicolao: " are using incorrect filenames and incorrect attribution. Can these files either A) have the attribution changed from "NicoleSharp" to "user:Nicole Sharp" and renamed using the original file names, e.g. as "AuthorName-AlbumName-OriginalFileName" or "OriginalFileName (FlickrImageID)", or B) deleted so that I can upload them myself with the correct filenames and attribution. I cannot currently upload the images myself using the Upload Wizard unless the copies uploaded by Ser Amantio di Nicolao are deleted first. Please see "user talk:Ser Amantio di Nicolao#Flickr wiki authorship" for the full discussion. Nicole Sharp (talk) 08:44, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
The images are listed at: [5]. The title sequences are:
As far as I know the limit in UploadWizard is 150 (500 images for experienced users) images in one Upload. It may be different for flickr imports. I have never been able to upload more than about 200 images in on upload: Either the browser tab or the whole browser crashes with larger uploads. --C.Suthorn (talk) 17:07, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
That could be a RAM issue. With 32 GB of RAM, I have no problems batch-uploading hundreds of photos to Flickr Pro on the web browser. Nicole Sharp (talk) 22:19, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
The Wikimedia Commons Upload Wizard specifically says "You can only upload 50 files at once." If there is a way to elevate my upload privileges to batch-upload 500 images at a time, that would be much easier. Nicole Sharp (talk) 22:19, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
As suggested by "@Ser Amantio di Nicolao: " (who originally uploaded the photos), I think the simplest solution here is to delete all of the uploads, and then I can re-upload them myself using the correct file names and attribution. I don't see the original filenames anywhere on the wiki pages for the uploaded images, so they would have to be recovered from the source. I cannot upload the images to Wikimedia Commons with the correct file names until the renamed copies uploaded by Ser Amantio di Nicolao are deleted. Nicole Sharp (talk) 22:11, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
"Section 59(1) does not permit the use of modifications of the depicted work. Therefore, when the photographer of a horse sculpture digitally changed the colour of the horse and digitally added a Santa hat to it, a regional court found that he could no longer use the resulting picture under the freedom of panorama. The same conclusion was reached by a higher regional court when a photographer digitally altered the colour of a protected sign ("Liebe deine Stadt", pictured) and the colour of the sky visible in the background of his photograph. Modifications that directly result from the chosen method of reproduction are permitted. Partial reproductions are generally allowed, even if essential parts of the work are left out and even if it would be possible to reproduce the work as whole."
There are typically restrictions on how "freedom of panorama" images can be used. E.g., a 3D copy of a sculpture derived from photographs would probably be a copyright violation of the original sculpture. Commons permits the photos anyway. --ghouston (talk) 05:26, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
Disclaimer: IANAL, so this is all just my non-professional opinion. @Donald Trung: Strictly speaking, yes, that's a no derivatives clause applying to the original artwork. I think this is somewhat equivalent to how we handle cases of de minimis. File:GT2 - Flickr - CarSpotter.jpg is not 100% free in the sense that you can not just crop it down to show only the movie poster. We wouldn't allow that to be uploaded to Commons for obvious reasons, but if someone wants to do that elsewhere, that's on them. We have {{Deminimis}} to give a warning about that. Another example would be (simple or out-of copyright) company logos, where derivative works may be unproblematic from a copyright POV, but still not advisable due to non-copyright restrictions such as trademarks → {{Trademarked}} takes care of that (kind of). It's a bit of a trade-off between hosting as much useful stuff as legally possible and making sure re-users are on the safe side with whatever they want to do with the files they get from here. It might be a good idea to add some kind of disclaimer to {{FOP-Germany}}, but that discussion should probably be held at /copyright. --El Grafo (talk) 08:40, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
When I search for "ggbain.34249" here at Commons, I only come up with the image I just loaded. But looking through the category, the image already existed as File:A. Santos Dumont LCCN2014714401.jpg with "ggbain.34249" in the text. Why didn't I find it? Is my search only returning the string when found in the title? --RAN (talk) 18:21, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
You are correct! Special search looks at all the text, while the default search appears to limit the search. There does not appear to be any way to change the settings in preferences. I imagine this has been why every once in a while I cannot find a Bain image searching for the ggbain number, despite User:Fae saying they should all be loaded. I will use special search. It also appears that Google Search misses the images too. --RAN (talk) 18:08, 23 September 2021 (UTC)ggg
Having added my own pictures from yesterday to this category I realise that everything in is it probably a copyvio because GB FoP doesn't include 2d artworks. Is this the correct position and should the whole category be deleted? Railwayfan2005 (talk) 22:17, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
Verified accounts
SCNAT (talk·contribs) is verified on de:User:SCNAT. i think the verification could also be applied to the account on other wikis. would it be a good idea if the verification is added to the local user page here, or to its meta user page so it's visible on all wikis? (@Olaf Kosinsky: ).--RZuo (talk) 10:00, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
I would like to understand why I am standing here, I am currently not (very) active and I can no longer read the ticket. What do I have to do? Thanks very much
ich würde gerne verstehen warum ich hier stehe, bin momentan zwar nicht (sehr) aktiv und ich das Ticket nicht mehr lesen kann was muss ich tun? vielen Dank Tschüß -- Ra Boewatt??11:43, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
How to make sure that the image isn't already here
I searched for this World War II (two) era image on the Wikimedia Commons as using multiple keywords but couldn't find it, I know that The MediaWiki Upload Wizard doesn't recognise duplicates if there are only minor differences in metadata.
there's a problem with the spbot that performs auto archiving: User talk:Euku, so i think a good solution to pre-empt this failure, is to arrange the parameters shown in the examplar in Template:Autoarchive resolved section/doc such that "timeout" appears first, but i cant figure out how to edit that doc with the TemplateBox. 😡
File:Punt-construction.png which I imported from the English wikipedia yesterday is not displayed properly on wikipedia pages, the commons file page, and the commons category page. Instead there is an image icon along with a link in case of commons. Clicking on where the image should be displayed does show what should be shown i.e, an enlarged view, so its not that commons failed tp receive the file data itself. Does anyone have an idea what's happening or what should be done? Thank you.--YTRK (talk) 00:30, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
I now starting to doubt the date. Only File:Budapest HÉV stations in 1979 5.jpg has a Kodachrome frame marked OCT 1979. The other slide frames are unmarked and could be much later. The HÉV network was a discovery for me in 1979 and I would decide to explore the HÉV network more fully in a later trip. In 1979 I only spend few days in Budapest (my first communist country visit), before I continued to Istanbul, Athens and back trough Italy (those where my wild Interrail years). I uncertainly did not visit Hungary again until after the fall of the wall (1989). The other images could be the 1990's. There is the same problem with File:Budapest rail 1979 3.jpg.Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:54, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
Update
Only one files remain with a unidentified HÉV station:
I've never added an image to a Wikipedia article. I understand that the process starts here at Wikimedia Commons. The image I'm looking to add is an Internet Archive copy from a volume of work produced by an organization that is over 100 years old. Would this image meet the 'public domain' standard for images? Thank you --Tchula65 (talk) 16:02, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
This volume was published in 1905, so PD-old-assumed wouldn't apply yet. You're going to have to try and figure out the author, or figure out if it is truly anonymous.-- Prosfilaes (talk) 23:51, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
Pack My BoxJmabelProsfilaes Additional research determined that the photo is a product of M'Lagan (McLagan) and Cumming, Edinburgh. The business was formed in 1872 and was closed between 1960 and 1965. The proprietors, M'Lagan (no first name determined, so far) and Mr David Cummings died in 1895 and 1922, respectively. The business did pass along to a son of Mr Cumming and an associate but that's as far into the succession that I've researched. It is not known yet if the business shuttered or was sold. That leads me to more questions. 1) Would the copyright of the image cease along with the original business entity or does it continue on, in the case that the business was sold or 2) does copyright end with the death of the last remaining proprietor and not to the business? Thanks. Tchula65 (talk) 15:41, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
For your first question: end of a business never destroys copyright. Typically there is a successor organization; sometimes copyright is orphaned. In no case does copyright go away.
For your second: not sure, but in most jurisdictions where a death is relevant, copyright ends 70 years after the death. SO... if the copyright was really associated with an individual who died in 1922, it should now have expired. - Jmabel ! talk16:09, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
Flicker uploads with pointless file names and categories
I'm sure this question must have been asked here before but I'm struggling to find an answer as to what the point of some of the bulk uploads from Flicker is and whether these meet the Commons:Project scope. I have come across them time and again without quite getting it. The latest of many examples is the 50-odd ones (quite a small number in comparison to the previous time, when somebody dumped almost 1400 images into Category:Australia) that were dumped into Category:Australia by User:Matlin. The file names are all structure like File:Australia-105 (47825679281).jpg, the files lack all description, lack structured data and are only categorised under Australia. Now, to take that file as an example, would anybody really look for an image of a Red Panda under the category Australia and, if searching for a Red panda image, would File:Australia-105 (47825679281).jpg show up? Now, its a great image and potentially quite useful if categorised and named correctly. In there current form however, I just can't see how Commons benefits from these uploads and I can't say I have come across any such bulk uploader who is willing to categotrise and name their uploads correctly (also, I do hope some are out there). I would be grateful if somebody point out to me what the benefit of this uploads for Commons is and whether these really meet Project scope. Calistemon (talk) 08:04, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
Some of the animal photos, such as the Red Panda, seem to be from a zoo in Arizona. I assume they are in scope, but lacking decent descriptions or categories. --ghouston (talk) 08:32, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
I've changed categories of Australia-105 (47825679281).jpg to "Red pandas". It is not clear at all if the picture was taken in Australia, Arizona (hint: it's in a list called "Arizona") or Armenia. We just don't know. The bicho looks like a red panda, so I put it into that category (BEWARE: I'm no zoologist and I can be wrong). Dumping stuff by the truckload and giving no information about what it is -or even worse, giving just random (?) names- does not help anybody. B25es (talk) 10:35, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
Yes, you are right, having a look at the album on Flicker, quite a lot of these images from the Australia category are in the Arizona album. In my opinion, it is up to the uploader, in this case @Matlin: , to use the Flicker upload function responsibly and name and categorise the images correctly, rather then dumping the load in Commons and walk away, expecting somebody else to do it. Calistemon (talk) 13:37, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
In principle, that is what the automated artificial intellegence google automated desccription structued data commons suggestions are for. At least it is the idea of the MW devbelopers to fill SDC with information from image recognition suggestions by google. So the flickr immages should be enriched with meta data really soon now... --C.Suthorn (talk) 13:43, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
We've kept badly named uncategorised files on the Wikimedia Commons for years and more often than not another user comes along and adds more appropriate categories or requests renaming to make it more descriptive. Educational media files should be judged on them being that, educational media files. Categories are important but they exist to organise educational images, not as a part of their Educational value itself. File names should preferably be descriptive but it's better to have a non-sensical file name than one that is actively misinforming. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 15:19, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
Fantasy Vs. Disputed symbols
This is just a general request for clarification regarding the status of disputed symbols (flags, coats of arms, emblems, Etc.) in which the status of a symbol is disputed (as in it's not clear if it's a fantasy or factual). Current practice (as far as I can tell) favours deletion meaning that any discussion on authenticity has to take place elsewhere.
As an example I would note "Commons:Deletion requests/File:Drapeau de la République Autonome de la Cochinchine.png" this flag has been claimed to be a fantasy by multiple reliable sources, this flag has been deleted through DR once and speedily deleted outside of DR multiple times as "a fantasy", I managed to get it undeleted through the undeletion requests in March 2021 because at the time the culture wasn't as hostile to the mere assertion of a file being fake, or well, fantasies weren't automatically "out of scope". Note that I got the flag undeleted because constantly I kept finding sources claiming that it was accurate, later while doing research I found a lot of contemporary photographs displaying the flag, so not only did this disputed flag not turn out to have been a later made fabrication, it turned out to have been an official national flag for years.
Relying on external sources that claim that there was "never" a coat of arms for something is faulty, plenty of flag charts show variation between flags, should we delete one flag of China because another flag chart depicted it differently? The categories mentioned by the closing admin were literally created in response to the UnDR and the original DR because the assertions made by the original nominator were simply not true and multiple sources described a coat of arms, insignia, or emblem. Defaulting to "delete" simply means that nobody can discuss the files because nobody (other than Commonswiki admins, who specifically want discussions to take place on other websites) can see the things being discussed.
Another example here would be that in the realm of Vietnamese heraldry and vexillology things aren't always documented for the simple reason that it makes no political sense for the Communists to accurately document their ideological allies, so very little pre-Communist symbols are ever discussed in Viet Nam, and Overseas Vietnamese anti-Communist organisations are known to spread misinformation that even gets quoted in academic papers, such as a number of fantasy flags being cited in academic papers or or Vietnamese nationalists reporting other historical Vietnamese flags in actual trustworthy museums. The issue of fantasies in Vietnamese symbolism is multilateral and systemic. I created a list of fantasy and misattributed flags specifically to debunk these myths, but you can't debunk myths about fantasy flags if fantasy flags aren't even allowed to he hosted. On multiple Vietnamese educational websites there are claims of supposed "Vietnamese National flags" centuries before such a concept even existed, free versions of these flags existed on the Wikimedia Commons but were deleted for being fantasies, how can I debunk what I cannot illustrate, how will the readers know what is being debunked?
I would say that defaulting to "delete" on the basis of fantasies being "out of scope" is a major fallacy, it doesn't help to spread misinformation, it only facilitates it. If a reader goes to Wikipedia and doesn't see a coat of arms but then goes to another website and does see it then they will simply think that "Wikipedia doesn't have all the information" but if the fantasy is listed on Wikipedia with the origin of the fantasy to debunk it then the readers have just been educated on the subject.
As an example of how obscure Vietnamese historical symbols from this period can be, no coat of arms for Vietnam in 1948 was reported by any book on coats of arms, but I found a French website that digitised old documents from this period that prominently displayed a coat of arms. Just because no European book has reported on it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. A large number of Vietnamese historians, such as Liam C. Kelley, also say that a lot of Vietnamese history is "just hiding away in archives" and nobody is looking at it. So unless content could be specifically debunked I would argue that deleting does more harm than good, but that we shouldn't allow them on Wikipedia's without sufficient evidence. In fact the template "{{Disputed coat of arms}}" literally exists for this.
Note that while I am in favour of undeleting this sockmaster's uploads I'm not a fan of them as they are constantly telling me to go "fuck my mother" and vandalising a number of Wikipedia articles I contributed to with insults, so I have no positive relationship with the person that uploaded most of these files. However, in a fairly large number of cases they turned out to be accurate, this is because their strategy is essentially "Upload everything I find and see what sticks", but I haven't found a single instance where one of their uploads was a fantasy specifically created by them (as in invented by them), they just never provide sources. My bad, that was a completely different user, they just added the image to different Wikipedia's. My criticism on the original nominator still stands, as they filed DR's based on sources that have been proven to be wrong in multiple cases.
My opinion on flags also applies for symbols. If there is no external source preceding the creation of the historical symbols to support it, then it should be deleted. One must keep in mind that what is put on WCommons is often taken uncritically, at face value by readers, hence why I feel fantasy or unsourced images should be removed. Also, one must always be afraid of creating a en:WP:CITOGENESIS. Veverve (talk) 09:54, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
@Veverve: , the problem with such deletions is that it essentially means that nobody can research anything, note that admins are unwilling provide any basic descriptions so nobody can actually research if a work is fantasy or not. For example, the same user that uploaded this particular image didn't provide a source for "File:Emblem of the Republic of South Vietnam.svg" either but later through his own research he found the image to be "largely" accurate, but because he (successfully) nominated the Autonomous Republic of Cochinchina COA for deletion I don't have the luxury of merely looking at the image to determine what it was. Again, this image may simply be a misnomer, it could have been a military crest or insignia that was badly named, defaulting to deletion doesn't leave space for any corrections. The Wikimedia Commons community is notorious for being difficult to work with. Meanwhile, "providing sources" isn't always evidence, for example user "Trương guy" uploaded "File:Standard flag of Lê dynasty (1428-1788).png" with the source stated as being "Extracted from Lam Kinh royal dish, Own work drawing." but no evidence of either this dish nor this flag exists. I would say that deleting it would be a major disservice as if it would ever prove to have been accurate would mean that someone would have to start drawing this flag from scratch (which is a complicated flag, like how almost all coat of arms tend to be very complicated), but if it's allowed to stay up and is properly tagged then if it later turns out to be true we don't need to re-create it.
The "en:WP:CITOGENESIS" argument fails because unlike most websites, things on Wikimedia websites are properly dated, we know when things were first created and/or added here, if a fantasy flag was created here in 2010 for a historical country, then deleted (with ALL admins refusing to give even a basic written description anywhere on the Wikimedia Commons), and someone who saw it on Wikipedia years ago having saved it publishes it in an otherwise reliable source in 2015 then someone will re-create the flag in 2018 and the flag will appear to be properly sourced in a badly researched academic paper (which exists, or could be otherwise correct with minor errors) and nobody will be able to point the WP:CITOGENESIS because as far as anyone can tell, the oldest online version of the flag is from 2015 and it didn't appear on Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Commons until 2018. Keeping such files and tagging them as fantasies would be the best way of fighting WP:CITOGENESIS.
Note that the user likely used offline sources which aren't available online, anyone can claim this, did "Trương guy" mean these "royal dishes"? Deleting files doesn't fight misinformation, it just means that it's harder for researchers to find information about possible origins. This is also exactly why I am documenting widespread circulating fantasy flags of Viet Nam and explaining where the origins of the misinformation lie, simply saying "it's fake" and then deleting a file does as much to stop misinformation as covering one's ears when one hears misinformation, it doesn't do anything to convince people that believe it that they're wrong, it simply shows that the person covering their ears is unwilling to discuss it. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 11:09, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
2) The citogenesis argument still holds. Imagine someone copy-pasted false information from a a website to put in a WP article without crediting or changing anything, thus committing copyright violation. Imagine those information stay on the WP article for a few years. At one points, an admin en:WP:REVDEL the revisions which contain the copyright violation and no archive is made of the website, or the service hosting the archive is dead. By that time, the information are floating on the internet everywhere and can even be found on some reliable sources. This means that there is no way to know where this information came from, and the information may still be part of the citogenesis cycle. The only way to know if the information is true would be for experts in the field to do their work properly and for users to consult those experts; but, this is the way all expert work is supposed to be conducted, and how information are supposed to be gathered on WP and more or less on WC since the beginning!
As a sidenote, the proper dating does not prevent people - even the creator of the image on WC! - from making claims using citogenesis. Moreover, if one does not have an archive of the source for the image from before the image was uploaded on WC, it is not enough to conclude citogenesis.
3) I do not feel the benefits from keeping wrong information outweights the benefits of removing them. WCommons is widely use and will spread more misinformation than correcting it, as most users never go past the image to see if there is a {{Fictitious flag}} or any other template present on the image's page. Also, I feel that if there is no source publicly available or readable to support the alleged digital recreation of a historical image, then this recreation should not be on WCommons. Veverve (talk) 06:43, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
@Veverve: , regarding "The only way to know if the information is true would be for experts in the field to do their work properly and for users to consult those experts; but, this is the way all expert work is supposed to be conducted, and how information are supposed to be gathered on WP and more or less on WC since the beginning!" the problem is that this is not how Vietnamese academics work, Vietnamese academics basically work like "Did a trusted name say this? Yes, then it must be true" and that "trusted name" doesn't even have to be consistently right, just someone who is (politically) influential. For example a false flag of the Nguyễn Dynasty was attributed in a 2005 by an Overseas Vietnamese who likely invented it for political reasons, this flag was repeated in a number of academic theses and now flies at the tomb of the Emperor that supposedly invented it. A number of flags were invented for Vietnamese dynasties going back a thousand (1000) years and a number of them hang in prestigious museums and are used at festivals related to them. In some cases these flags were invented during the 1970's and in some cases they were "born on the internet" but enough reliable sources have cited them that in Vietnam and among Overseas Vietnamese they have become "acceptable". While Wikipedians did question the validity of these flags and they were ultimately deleted here (not all though), but these still keep circulating on the internet and many websites think that their exclusion from Wikipedia means that they have "a scoop" (they don't). Debunking false information is better than ignoring it and regarding citogenesis investigators and researchers require access to information, today we might not look at it like this, but many researchers in the future will try to investigate where something comes from, if a lie is born on an unarchived website then it's difficult to track down and the main reason I even filed this undeletion request is primarily because I couldn't find any preserved copy of it in the Internet Archive (despite being heavily reliant on the Internet Archive Wikipedia's notoriously don't like to archive there).
The question to me has always been about research, because no admin is willing to give a description if I actually do happen to come across a coat of arms of the Autonomous Republic of Cochinchina and it's identical to the deleted file I won't be able to know, I can neither verify the original nor verify that a copy of it is "stolen" from the Wikimedia Commons. They uploaded a total of three (3) South(ern) Vietnamese emblems of which only one (1) was deleted based on perceived factual inaccuracies, they didn't provide a source for any of them and the others were later verified through independent research by other contributors.
Many fantasy symbols actually find their origins in very real historical sources that simply misinterpret information. Basically any world flag chart published before the year 1900 (nineteen-hundred) contains a lot of fantasy flags, yet we don't delete those, I would argue that alleged symbols are a different category from pure user fiction, though the line is blurry. In case of the above invented flag the uploader claims that the flag is based on a real offline work, as he provides no image I cannot verify it and the flag is not unrealistic, very few users would actually be able to point out that it's a fantasy but those who researched it more could. As the flag was essentially "made for Wikipedia" and I have already seen it circulate on the Facebook and YouTube (in one instance by an otherwise reliable channel) deleting it here wouldn't really benefit any future researchers into the origins of the flag. In fact it is precisely because archives from the University of Washington exist that we could find the origin of a number of fantasy flags.
Regarding "Also, I feel that if there is no source publicly available or readable to support the alleged digital recreation of a historical image, then this recreation should not be on WCommons" most sources are copyrighted and not everything gets published online, most of Wikipedia is built on books that aren't online and one can't verify without first purchasing it oneself. As we've established that actual photographs aren't sources and copyrighted heraldric encyclopedias that aren't online cần't be used it leaves little room for the uploading of symbols based on reliable sources that aren't online. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 09:10, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
@Donald Trung: Again, I agree that WCommons admins should be more collaborative on those points if possible.
If the Vietnamese media or academic institutions do not take into account the existence of internet hoaxes and do not properly check their sources, it is not up to WCommons to adapt to those problems, since most academics throughout the world take more care when looking at sources. Maybe a kind of en:RIGHTGREATWRONGS applies her, but I am not sure.
I would keep for example a version of the CoA of the Byzantine empire (or is it of the city of Constantinople?) as found here or here; I would do so, because while disputed, those symbols are historically sourced. They are not a fantasy symbols made by the user for reasons such as "Would it not be cool if the flag of Canada had a big purple square instead of the red leaf?"
"Publicly" does not always mean online. You raise an interesting point concerning private sources. My opinion is: if your source is not a publicly available document which one could find in a library or online, then the historical image should not be allowed. For example, to state "I have copied this coat of arms from a plate I have in my attic" and not provide any image of said plate could be used to propagade hoaxes. It would be the same as saying "I have historical documents no one has ever heard of or ever found, I will reveal only some parts and not hand them to a museum", which is how most forgeries start. I am being very generous there by allowing the symbol to stay if we have pictures of the private source, as the private source could very well be fake, as we have seen recently with User:Sibinia (see the discussion here).
I think in cases where the copyright of the original symbol has expired (COM:ART), heraldry in recent heraldic encyclopedia can perfectly be used either a) scanned if the images in the encyclopedia are scans of old manuscripts, or b) as models for others to very faithfully remake if the images in the encyclopedia have been made by an artist, as I feel a scan would be copyright infringment in this case. Veverve (talk) 11:04, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
@Veverve: , I very much agree that we should be fighting hoaxes but I simply don't think that blanket deletions of this sort of content is the answer. Namely in the above example of the fantasy Vietnamese flag it is sourced to a royal dish, now I have seen a number of these royal dishes and while some look similar to the flag I haven't seen the flag, the user likely can't upload the example here because the photograph of it is copyrighted, or..... They just invented it, this is simply difficult. Also proving a negative is difficult and hoaxes usually aren't spread about big things, but small things. Someone could have sneaked in a hoax historical coat of arms of a village into a public library and people can start believing it, in my time in the Netherlands I traveled from village-to-village and have come across an enormous amount of "hoax etymologies", in one instance a man from Heiligerlee (Holy Lee) told me (in all seriousness) that the town thanks its name to a Chinese man that caught a spear or arrow for Count Adolf and that Adolf said "you are holy, Lee" (which makes no sense due to "Lee" being an anglicised spelling and it actually being old Germanic) and many people in Winschoten believe that the village's old name was "Vinschotte" due to an old map, but a local historian told me that that map was likely made up by the owner of a bar. Stuff like that, my impression is that if something isn't properly sourced that we can't verify it. But folk etymologies and non-sense still find their ways into books. "If the Vietnamese media or academic institutions do not take into account the existence of internet hoaxes and do not properly check their sources, it is not up to WCommons to adapt to those problems, since most academics throughout the world take more care when looking at sources." Many Western academics just "trust" Vietnamese academics on their assertions, Professor Liam C. Kelley literally built his career on challenging those assertions and as such many hoax flags from Việt-Nam are circulating in Western circles. The story behind the Dai-Nam Quoc-ky for example was fabricated by Nguyễn Đình Sài, a former member of the anti-Communist organization Việt Tân, who wrote the article "Quốc Kỳ Việt Nam: Nguồn Gốc và Lẽ Chính Thống” (The National Flag of Viet Nam: Its Origin and Legitimacy) in September 2004. To back up his claim, Nguyền Đình Sài cited a webpage from Worldstatesmen website by Ben Cahoon, an American researcher affiliated with University of Connecticut. This webpage was poorly sourced, but Sài's paper was later quoted by people both at the University of Washington and the University of California.
"My opinion is: if your source is not a publicly available document which one could find in a library or online, then the historical image should not be allowed." the problem is that this wouldn't actually stop hoaxes, a dedicated hoaxster could craft false sources that are impossible to verify. Note that every library is unique and some libraries and archives that contain certain documents contain unique documents that (unfortunately) have no online copy. I know for a fact that a lot of Vietnamese government documents with Vietnamese government symbols were published in the Bulletin du Colonies Française, but I can't find a single copy of this bulletin online, not even in Gallica. If someone claims "I found this in this bulletin" then I cannot personally confirm its authenticity and a clever hoaxster can lie by using realistic sources. My guess is that both Wikipedia's and the Wikimedia Commons are full of hoaxes nobody is pointing out because they appear to be well-sourced. Again, the above fantasy flag of the Later Lê Dynasty.
My problem is that it took three (3) months just to get a dismissive closure and absolutely minimal interaction nor any hint of the image that was deleted, if I would find another coat of arms of this Republic I would be forced to go to the Graphics Lab and have a WikiGraphist spend time on making what is possibly a duplicate (something which has already happened several times with these types of deletion requests). In fact in all these three (3) months an admin could've chosen to simply spend five (5) minutes of their time to write a simple description of the image, but "Wikimedia Commons is not a source" so I should "stop asking how the image looked like", which says volumes about the admin class, almost as much as "Commons:Deletion requests/File:VPP-flag.png", "Commons:Deletion requests/File:Flag of Vietnam Reform Party.png", and "Commons:Deletion requests/File:VRP flying-flag.gif" where user "AnonMoos" brought up actual photographs of flags which the nominator claimed were "unsourced fantasies" and said that photographs of of an event organised by those political parties weren't sources.
It isn't uncommon for images to be deleted as "Unsourced" for other users years later to have to re-create these same images. This just wastes volunteer time by an apathetic admin class that can't spare a few minutes of their time to actually describe things, users who claimed to be elected to fight backlog but can only create it by not actively collaborating with others. In multiple instances I showed possible candidates for what the deleted image could have been including other claimed coats of arms of the Autonomous Republic of Cochinchina or the insignia of its military, not in one instance did any admin confirm or deny it. Why is it so difficult to just take a few minutes to describe what an image looks like? --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 16:21, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
Also, did anyone other than user "Antemister" even see the claimed West-German source that specifically stated that the coat of arms never existed? I can't find ít anywhere online, how can we trust the word of a user that thinks that actual photographs "aren't sources"? This basically means that anyone can say "Well, this one source says that this is fake" and things should be deleted with no chance of undeletion on sight. "File:Flag of the Provisional People's Committee for North Korea.svg" also has no source in sight, what if the original user used a source they used for Wikipedia and simply took it for granted that people knew the authenticity? Most widely used images of symbols have no sources because it's taken for granted." File:Flag of Poland (1919–1928).svg" is equally unsourced. Why are these files allowed for inclusion but not others? --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 16:47, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
Comment Donald Trung appears to be arguing that the mere fact that people abuse Commons by uploading all sorts of made-up rubbish should be grounds to simply allow all such material because it's all too difficult not to remove the abusive material. This seems like the opposite of a good argument. If local Wikipedias want to upload made-up images to suit their own predilections, let them. There is no excuse for such time-wasting fantasy on Commons, it only perpetuates and facilitates cross-pollination of fake images across languages. Invented flags, coats of arms, maps, micronations, and anything else similarly bogus and unusable should not be kept on the off-chance that somehow somewhere an accurate image exists in the morass of disinformation. GPinkerton (talk) 18:18, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
I am already very tired of your combative and pejorative dismissal of any content that you personally disagree with. You refuse to accept that there is any intermediate state for content between "flying over the UN" and "terrible fantasies that must be deleted with prejudice". Your attitude makes it impossible for anyone else to work when you persist in describing others as a "morass of disinformation." Andy Dingley (talk) 18:33, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
@Andy Dingley: Please do learn to read sentences before vituperatively responding to what you imagine they have said. The lie that I have somehow been "describing others as a "morass of disinformation"" is characteristic of the failures in logic commonly applied by users such as yourself in discussions such as this. Your tiredness is no concern of mine, and if you repeatedly make personal attacks such as you have frequently done in expressing your view that policy should be changed or ignored or doesn't apply to fake symbols such as you have been defending then I shall have no choice but to ignore you. GPinkerton (talk) 08:15, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
You make numerous (separate) DRs as "COM:SELFIE", which is nonsensical. You nominate the same content over and over, because you know that simple dumb persistence is likely to win out over the patience of others. Your actions here are themselves disruptive, whatever the merits of the flag arguments might have been. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:19, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
@Andy Dingley: Your claim "You make numerous (separate) DRs as "COM:SELFIE", which is nonsensical is an absolute lie. Retract it at once or furnish some kind of justification for your claims. Once could more logically say that your own blanket and policy-free opposition to deletion faked and hoax images is the real disruption at hand, leaving aside the repeated personal attacks and denigrations on your part. GPinkerton (talk) 09:38, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
More lies! Many of these are nothing to do with me, and none of those that has to do with me is nonsensical. Your issue is with application of COM:SELFIE, a policy, which, like many of these deletion requests, I didn't write. GPinkerton (talk) 13:32, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
@Andy Dingley: I see you have decided to reiterate your false accuastions ... and then add more! You have 1.) failed to indicate how and why your claim that these are nonsensical is correct and not a mere personal attack, and 2.) added to your bungled list dozens of deletion request that have nothing whatever to do with me! This incompetent harassment has to stop! GPinkerton (talk) 13:27, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
That's not what I've been arguing at all, there should be a difference between uncontroversial fantasies made up by users and possibly authentic content. A lot of historical sources from the 19th (nineteenth) century and earlier provide wrong information about flags and have been used countless of times as sources of information that later turn out to be false, tagging them as fantasies saves everyone time as it's very likely that people think that they have "a scoop" and will re-upload wrong depictions from old sources. Likewise, old sources that claim that no flag existed should be treated with the same level of skepticism. We shouldn't treat content disputes like user-invented fantasies. The "flag of Fascist Maurya India" is not the same as the "Coat of arms of the Mughal Empire" (which could potentially be taken from a bad source and used to illustrate historical misinformation). --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 14:12, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
And who is saying 19th century images should be deleted? Anyone suggesting the Mughal Empire had a coat of arms may be dismissed, such claims are not to be treated a content dispute, but as disinformation. What is the purpose of thse far-fetched hypotheticals? GPinkerton (talk) 14:18, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
@Donald Trung: Where have I indicated any such thing? My comment immediately above this strawman argument (another one!) states exactly the opposite of the argument you're trying to pin on me ("who is saying 19th century images should be deleted?"). GPinkerton (talk) 15:17, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
Again, any user could base a fictitious coat of arms on it, this is a fantasy and should be attributed as such. If a user doesn't provide a source then it is impossible to tell what source they based it on, if nobody even gets a basic description of what the coat of arms looked like then nobody can judge where it came from. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 17:46, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
I am sorry for all the trouble that this has caused you. On Commons, we should adopt a philosophy similar to the English Wikipedia's: "just because you can't find a source online doesn't mean it doesn't exist". Flags are not hoaxes just because Google can't find them for you. Mysterymanblue 09:15, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
@Mysterymanblue: Your "Flags are not hoaxes just because Google can't find them for you2 is a particularly saucy strawman argument. No-one has suggested anything of this kind, and yet you are suggesting that spurious reasoning like this is being applied in entirely valid deletion requests which you appear to oppose on principles not grounded in policy. For instance in this edit here, you appear to demanding an impossibly high standard of proof that a flag is a hoax (literally demanding a logically impossible proof of a negative) when the uploader has all but admitted it is exactly that. GPinkerton (talk) 09:35, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
I'm sitting here expressing my sympathy toward another contributor and you come and start accusing me of this and that. Not everything is an argument to be bludgeoned. Mysterymanblue 09:42, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
@Mysterymanblue: Oh I'm sorry I thought 80% of your comment was nothing to do with expressing sympathy and was more about making grand claims like "Flags are not hoaxes just because Google can't find them for you" which a curious way of expressing sympathy. To me it reads more like contempt. GPinkerton (talk) 09:45, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
To be fair, a lot of information is "hiding" in offline sources and other information that isn't (currently) available online, as I noted above a number of high profile flags don't have sources because they are already familiar to everyone working with them such as the flag of the Second Polish Republic. The issue is that content disputes are a lot more complicated than mere user-generated fantasies and treating them indiscriminately makes research more difficult. While researching Vietnamese flags I found multitudes of dozens that were deleted that shouldn't have and have uploaded multitudes of dozens with correct sources, but simply because they weren't properly sourced didn't mean that they were false, had I come across these flags while researching and they were still online I could add sources. Another thing is that misattributed flags can also be a form of a content dispute and renaming them is a better option than deleting them. If a file is named "Flag of Germany (1930-1945)" but should be called "Flag of Germany (1936-1945)" it is easy to rename it. In the case of coats of arms many family arms are often misattributed as national coats of arms and military coats of arms may be misattributed as arms of military junta's. Deletion for content disputes should be a last resort not a first one. Especially not if one wants to claim that "local projects should discuss content" but then literally deprive them of the content they should be able to discuss. The Wikimedia Commons should not act as "content police" in non-obvious cases where it is not immediately clear if it's a fantasy or not. For clear fantasies deletion should be preferred, where controversy exists tagging should be preferred. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 13:48, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
No-one is depriving anyone of anything. If flags and emblems exist in the real world, as flags, as photographs of flags, or on paper, or online, then no-one is deprived of anything if a file is deleted on Commons. The image will still exists and can be undeletd or recreated. The problem comes with the hundreds of images that never existed anywhere except Commons, such as File:AflagforIraq.svg. The problem with such files is that people come along and get the impression that the image was something other than an idle doodle created by a Wikimedian, and then oppose deletion requests based on on-wiki hearsay alone. As a result disinformation is perpetuated. A lack of information is better than wrong information; an absent file is better than a wrong file. Unless someone can allege a source, online or otherwise, for an image, it should really be deleted. File are no supposed to be uploaded without sources anyway. If flags and emblems do not exist in the real world, then there no harm in Commons purging such harmful trivia. GPinkerton (talk) 13:57, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
"The image will still exists and can be undeletd or recreated." Admins don't undelete things for inspection, otherwise this thread wouldn't exist. "No-one is depriving anyone of anything." possibly valuable information for research is being deprived, I talk to a lot of people with offline works I don't own that might be able to verify things if I can give them basic information, which I can't if I don't have any descriptions. "Unless someone can allege a source, online or otherwise, for an image, it should really be deleted." So "File:Flag of the Provisional People's Committee for North Korea.svg" and " File:Flag of Poland (1919–1928).svg" should be deleted? Sources can also be provided on local Wikipedia's and not in the included file, nobody can look up a source if one cannot see a file, deletion prevents a file from ever being seen by anyone that actually can research it. "A lack of information is better than wrong information" How is a flag tagged with "{{Fictitious flag}}" and clearly described as not being a real flag and categorised as such "wrong information", do you assume that re-users can't read? The Wikimedia Commons should not hampering information in content disputes by always taking the side of exclusion. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 14:55, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
Admins don't need to undelete anything if we can learn what the image is like in the real world. If the only evidence of an image is on Commons, then its deletion will not only not harm anyone, it is actively required by policy. Faked images are not instance of a "content dispute" as you keep claiming, but are flagrant violations of policy. And yes, the template does abolutely nothing whatsoever to prevent people thinking the flag is omsthing other than a private fantasy uploaded by an abuser of Commons. If the fictitious flag template worked at all, one wouldn't find thousands of hoax images in use in various Wikiepdias. Abusive images should be deleted. Hosting hoaxes in perpetuity is not within Commons scope. See COM:NOTHOST. Commons is not a permanent repository for hoax images for the convenience of those interested in the history of flag hoaxes on Commons. No-one needs to see a file if the flag does not exist outside Commons. If it does, then there is no impediment to its recreation. Just as Imaginarydinosaurus drawings can all be deleted; if an Imaginarydinosaurus fossil comes to light in future, there will be no need to consult a fake image to know what the taxon looked like because the fossil will exist. Deleting such images will not affect palaeontologists. Illustrations of undiscovered creatures, illustrations of unattested flags, user-generated coast of arms, are all pointless policy violations and all such material is out of COM:SCOPE. GPinkerton (talk) 15:27, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
In response to "No-one needs to see a file if the flag does not exist outside Commons." people do if they wish to verify its information or what it was, if someone claims that something is "The flag of the 4th (fourth) division of the Navy" but turns out to be "The flag of the 4th (fourth) division of the Army" then a very basic description of what the file look(s/ed) like is important in any undeletion request, if admins fail to gave any description it likely is a sign that the image was something that can be proved to have been in scope but that they have ideological reasons to deny this (the ideology that deletion is preferable over all else or that all admin actions are infallible and should never be questioned). "If the fictitious flag template worked at all, one wouldn't find thousands of hoax images in use in various Wikiepdias." templates could be added later and the validity of sources require discussion, not blanket deletion. Per "COM:SCOPE" "It should be stressed that Commons does not overrule other projects about what is in scope. If an image is in use on another project (aside from use on talk pages or user pages), that is enough for it to be within scope." the file was in use on other Wikimedia websites and nobody there even had a chance to take place in any discussions (as it was nominated before the Community Tech Bot left talk page messages, something people voted on specifically because deletion requests like these), while I agree that preferably all symbols are properly sourced the Wikimedia Commons should not dictate what content other Wikimedia websites can or can't use based on content assertions. In fact, that is already against policy. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 17:43, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
While looking for ancient Vietnamese texts to import to the Wikimedia Commons I came across this page from the National Museum of Vietnamese History in Hanoi, it contains scans of the official history of the Nguyễn Dynasty with huge ass watermarks, now if this was an extremely common thing like a banknote I would understand, but this is a rare book.
Who benefits from these huge watermarks? Because it is not a simple design it can't be imported. If people were to discuss it most people would find that one of the copies copies are in the hands of this archive. What I find odd is how common this practice is, are museums so afraid that their scans of rare public domain images get "stolen"? --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 06:39, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
Well, many museums sell high-quality versions of their images so yes, they do worry. It may be worth sending an email requesting a copy and asking about them accepting it in return for a link back. Obscurity is the greater problem for them than copyright to me but it's not my time and money that was spent collecting and digitizing these images. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 08:01, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
These institutions all operate using tax payer money, none of them are private institutions yet they all act as if their first and foremost loyalty is to their own wallets. They are not selling these images either. It just seems to me that these public institutions look into the private sphere and emulate private behaviour, or they hire people with "private experience" that are simply unable to switch their mentality to serve the public. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 13:00, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
All the digitized manuscripts from the Vatican Library have giant papal watermarks all over them; perhaps someone should write to his holiness and ask him to unclutch his hands from the filthy lucre such manuscripts apparently engender for the Holy See and to spend less time worshipping Mammon and more time helping out Wikimedia. Presumably the profits from licensing public domain manuscripts for the production of astronomically expensive facsimiles outstrips even the sale of indulgences ... GPinkerton (talk) 09:01, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
The Vatican City is a sovereign state which purports to exist representing over a billion Roman Catholics globally, yet it (as a profitable endeavour) can't make public domain information readily accessible to their billion+ adherents. How many people actually buy digital copies of those manuscripts to justify such watermarks? (assuming that they even are for sale). Many people are unpaid volunteers for the Roman Catholic church, if money is so important to them why not pay them? Small grassroots projects and small archives are often more likely to share scans of public domain books and documents without giant watermarks than large companies (regardless of how many they publish online). I wonder why that is... --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 14:01, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
Should these be merged? The categories have different descriptions but I don't think that has governed their contents over the years. Having separate categories make it harder to see all the maps available. GPinkerton (talk) 18:10, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
@GPinkerton: i suppose Historical Atlas was the title of a book by him, so the cats are not similar. one is a general container of all his maps. the other is a specific book.--RZuo (talk) 23:06, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
@RZuo: While that might have been the idea originally, it's certainly not the case today. Images from one of many editions of Shepherd's atlases appear in both, and there does not appear to be any way of determining which images are taken from which book. More useful would be to have all the man's maps in one category. Additionally, the main difference in the way the categories are described is that one's images are said to be taken from one website, while the other's are described as coming from a different one. Some different scans of the same maps appear in both categories. GPinkerton (talk) 08:03, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
The confusion might be resolved by renaming one category to "Historical Atlas (1911) by William R. Shepherd", making it a subcategory of the other and sorting images accordingly. The sources should probably be on file pages, not categories Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits12:57, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
@Pigsonthewing: that would probably require determination of which images came from which book/edition of which book. There is often little to indicate this and what information is available is not necessarily reliable. GPinkerton (talk) 15:30, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
merge duplicate categories
I really tried but somehow I couldn’t find a FAQ entry for the following problem: Category:Gyula Donáth and Category:Julius Donáth are about the same person, with Julius being the German equivalent of Gyula. They should be merged (we can’t merge them at Wikidata with two Commons categories). What should I do? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Emu (talk • contribs) 20:40, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
@Emu: Here's what I would do. Pick which of the categories you want to keep. Choose the one with the more appropriate name, or the older one if they're equally good. I'll call the category to be kept "K" and the other one "O". Copy any useful information and parent categories from O's category page to K's. Then replace O's category page with a category redirect to K: {{Category redirect|K}}. Finally, move all the files and subcategories from O to K. If there are a lot the Cat-a-lot might help. --bjh21 (talk) 20:55, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
Currently, there is a {{BSD}} license tag used for the BSD licenses. It does not include BSD Zero Clause License. Would it make more sense to create a new template for the BSD Zero Clause License or to add it on to the existing template? I'll note that the structure of the 0-clause is significantly different compared to the other three. Mysterymanblue 09:32, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
Well, we usually do use separate tags for different licenses... I guess the question would be why this license would be any different. I believe that the answer is that the 2-clause, 3-clause, and 4-clause BSD licenses have the same wording, verbatim; the only difference is that certain clauses are excepted from each one. Combining the three into one template is very easy because of this structure, and it roughly halves the translation work to do. With the exception of the copyright notice, the wording of the 0-clause BSD is different enough from the wording of the other BSD notices that completely new translations would be required. So there is really not much of a point in merging the two. I have gone ahead and created {{0BSD}}, which should work as soon as a translation administrator gets around to marking it so that Template:0BSD/i18n/en exists. I plan to then add a conditional to Template:BSD so that setting version = 0 will give {{0BSD}}.
@Derpdart56: Assuming this relates to your stated interest in reverting vandalism, probably the two key pages to look at are Special:NewFiles and Special:RecentChanges. On the latter, you'll probably want to do some filtering, like hiding bots. I see you have not made a ton of edits on any of our wikis; my strong suggestion is that you start with pretty blatant vandalism and leave the controversial matters alone until you've got a good feel for the terrain. - Jmabel ! talk19:27, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
I think Andy's point is that the mural itself is a derivative work of an album cover and thus a copyright violation. A photograph of the mural is covered by FOP, but the resulting photo is a derivative-work-of-derivative work. Andy: it would really help if you mentioned what the mural is a derivative work of. MKFI (talk) 17:42, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
I haven't been able to find much in this respect, I found this FOP review. I don't think that this is something that is explicitly covered, generally speaking I would go with the PCP but if FOP laws are so vaguely worded that it doesn't differentiate between "original artwork" and "derived artwork" it might be something that we won't know the answer to until we see a lawsuit in this direction (which further strengthens the PCP argument in this favour). Again, not legal advice. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 21:20, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
The Wall. A featured picture and ... copyright violation?@Pigsonthewing: Is every graffito with such imagery copyright? What about the featured picture of the actual wall with presumably-somehow-copyrighted marching hammers? GPinkerton (talk) 13:02, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
Not sure whether this has bearing but: if, for example, a record store in Berlin had a copy of Pink Floyd's The Wall in the window, I'm pretty sure that would be OK to photograph under the German approach to FOP. Certainly would be if there was some context in the photo, not just the artwork itself. - Jmabel ! talk17:09, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
A copy of Pink Floyd's The Wall in a window store wouldn't be OK, because it is not permanent. A graffiti is permanent: it is displayed until it is overpainted or the wall is destroyed. Regards, Yann (talk) 20:33, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
"resulting photo is a derivative-work-of-derivative work" but - as far as I know - this does not really matter, and is overriden by FoP (at least in some places! Note that 2D artworks are exempt in some countries and this loophole is closed there) Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 12:42, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
"So if we wish to display copyright artworks or characters in future, all we need to do is paint them on wall, somewhere with FoP?" - note that FoP in at least some cases applies to "works on permanent public display". So it would be also necessary to keep this mural for quite long time. Note that someone who made such mural may be committing a copyright violation, but it seems a viable and interesting loophole. Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 12:39, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
I have been noticing a trend here that official policy like "COM:INUSE" is repeatedly being ignored for the Wikimedia Commons to become some sort of "Content police" that censors what other Wikimedia websites are allowed to see, a good recent example would be "Commons:Deletion requests/File:Hot sex barnstar.png" this barnstar had been in use for years and earlier widely discussed deletion requests ruled in favour of its inclusion but all of the sudden "Barnstars are not educational".
From the contents of that deletion discussion, the barnstar alluded to included nude or lewd photographs and, despite the claims made above, was not in use. Extrapolating from this one discussion that something is "repeatedly being ignored" seems wholly specious and wrong. "So should we just start deleting all "wiki-files" like barnstars, template images, Etc. and tell local projects to upload them locally now?" is a straw-man argument that veers onto ridiculous pearly-clutching. If you are concerned about files being deleted, then you should make you concerns known during the deletion discussion; I don't see any reason to overturn such a discussion simply because you are applying a "slippery slope" logical fallacy. GPinkerton (talk) 08:10, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
The Barnstar was in-use and two (2) previous deletion nominations ended with it being kept, how is "Barnstars are not educational" not a slippery slope? The nomination claimed that the barnstar wasn't in use in an educational way (as in it was only used on user talk pages) "the barnstar alluded to included nude or lewd photographs and, despite the claims made above, was not in use" including nude material doesn't automatically make it less educational. Also, it was transcluded per this page here:
User talk:Paddy (transclusion) (← links | edit)
User talk:Niabot (transclusion) (← links | edit)
User talk:Spermasklave (transclusion) (← links | edit)
Template:The Hot sex barnstar (redirect page) (← links | edit)
User talk:Paddy (transclusion) (← links | edit)
User talk:Niabot (transclusion) (← links | edit)
User talk:Sinnamon (← links | edit)
User:Sinnamon (← links | edit)
Commons:Deletion requests/Template:The Hot sex barnstar (← links | edit)
@Donald Trung: You say "including nude material doesn't automatically make it less educational" but that's not the point. Barnstars are not educational anyway; there are other reasons for them to exist, but they are not to be treated as though they have off-wiki educational value. According to COM:INUSE: "An otherwise non-educational file does not acquire educational purpose solely because it is in use on a gallery page or in a category on Commons, nor solely because it is in use on a user page (the "User:" namespace)". According to COM:SELFIE: "images that are being used on a talk page just to make a point can be discounted". Whatever the rights and wrongs of this particular deletion (the discussion was not broad-based in this instance), it can't be argued that files are educational because they are barnstars or that files are "in use" simply because they appear on talk pages or user pages. GPinkerton (talk) 08:56, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
Indeed, but your assertions appear to consist, in essence, of statements like "I don't like the policy to be applied" or "I don't like the policy at all" or "I don't like in this case the consequences of applying policy". My "examples" are merely quotations from the policy. If such reasoning is being used to delete files, then the policy is working properly, I don't see a problem. GPinkerton (talk) 09:28, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
Under current policy the Wikipedia Teahouse logo should not be hosted on the Wikimedia Commons. Using the same rationale as the deletion request in question this logo can also be deleted. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』
You're missing the point entirely, why do we have barnstars here at all then, and this also goes for any local WikiProject files and other "Metapedian" content like files related to the presentation of wiki-specific pages. These policies essentially means that the Wikimedia Commons cannot host any files to be used outside of article space of other Wikimedia websites. Arguably, the logos of Wikisource, the Meta-Wiki, Wikinews, the Wikimedia Commons itself, among others would also fall under this (well, now they have their own Wikipedia articles, but these files were first invented here). For example the logo of the WP Teahouse has the same level of educational value as any barnstar. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 13:35, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
No, you're missing the point. The point is that the file was deleted because of gratuitous nudity not excused by any educational use. What have any of the other files got to do with anything? I explained before that a slippery slope argument is a logical fallacy. Bringing up the Treehouse emblem is completely irrelevant; no-one is suggesting deleting anything of the kind except you. If you want the file to be undeleted, request that. If you don't, don't. Its deletion has no bearing on any other file, why should it? GPinkerton (talk) 13:40, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
Again, according to COM:INUSE: "An otherwise non-educational file does not acquire educational purpose solely because it is in use on a gallery page or in a category on Commons, nor solely because it is in use on a user page (the "User:" namespace)". According to COM:SELFIE: "images that are being used on a talk page just to make a point can be discounted" (to quote your quotes), the deletion rationale was that barnstars in themselves aren't educational, these policies reinforce this. The nudity depicted on the barnstar is irrelevant to its deletion. Everyone that has spent a day at "COM:UDR" knows that it doesn't exist to actually undelete files but to reassert deletions. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 14:06, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
It may have been discussed but it wasn't the cited reason for deletion, "Files relating to projects or events of the Wikimedia community, such as user meetings, are also allowed." barnstars are such things as they relate to Wikimedia contributions, users who upload a lot of sexual content sometimes received this barnstar. None of the people in the Hot Sex barnstar looked like they were "non-professionals" so such a derivative use wasn't violating their personality rights. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 17:33, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
I am in agreement with Donald Trung. Wikimedia projects have long had a history of using barnstars. Wikimedia Commons absolutely should not be deleting barnstars and other images that are in general use in other Wikimedia communities because we deem them to be uneducational. The implications of this reasoning are problematic. Mysterymanblue 09:11, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
Of course, it will be recognized that "barnstars and other images that are in general use in other Wikimedia communities" does not apply in this case, since the image was not COM:INUSE. GPinkerton (talk) 09:14, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
I am using the commonly understood definition of "in use", not the narrow meaning outlined in COM:INUSE. Clearly files that are in use on many user/discussion pages have more of a community endorsement than a single file used on a single user page. Policy should either be interpreted or changed to make this differentiation clear. Mysterymanblue 20:15, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
I have undeleted the image, as it met the literal definition of COM:INUSE on Template:Sexuality barnstar as of the time of DR closure; there is no exception for templates perceived to be "frivolous", but rather one should attempt to get such templates deleted before any images used on them can be deleted. Additionally, agree with the above that use on multiple unrelated user pages or talk pages meets the spirit of COM:INUSE as well. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠05:00, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
I just found out that this barnstar was mentioned in an older post by The Daily Dot, someone on the Dutch Wikisage quoted it here on the talk page about their article aboutRussavia, namely "To understand just how inseparable pornography is from Commons culture, look no further than the “Erotica Barnstar,” formerly the “Hot Sex Barnstar,” an award given to Commons users who “tirelessly upload good sexual, nude, and erotic content to Commons. The star is adorned with three illustrations: a woman sodomizing a man with a dildo (otherwise known as pegging), an erect penis, and a spread vulva. All the source files are available on Wikimedia Commons, of course. The star was nominated for deletion in May, but the Commons community decided to keep it. There is a lot of porn out there to upload, and Commons users want to reward each other for their hard work: At one time, porn or explicit content account for 60 of the Commons 100 most-visited pages, including entire categories like “Autofellatio, “Facial cumshot,” and “Female genital piercing.” The exhibition culture is dominated by men, much like the rest of Wikimedia. There are so many dick pics uploaded to Commons every year, in fact, that the site actually calls out the practice in its community guidelines. “Commons does not need you to drop your pants and grab a camera,” it reads. “If you want to, try to fill a real gap in our collection.”" which specifically talks about this barnstar and the common nature of pornography on this website. This is not to say that the deletion didn't have any merit if it was based on the stated nomination that the nudity itself has been superseded by a more abstract barnstar, but since this barnstar has been mentioned in external media in a way to discuss the prevalence of "porn culture" on the Wikimedia Commons I'd say that its educational value has been extended to include discussions of this topic, note that it has existed since 2012 and in those years had been awarded without any issues until a more recent (perhaps dare I say "pornphobic" "pornophobic") change in the culture. Unfortunately I can't find the original Daily Dot article but I would highly doubt that this barnstar no longer has any educational value outside of the Wikimedia websites. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 09:41, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
First you say: "The nudity depicted on the barnstar is irrelevant to its deletion" and now you're claiming "a more recent (perhaps dare I say "pornphobic" "pornophobic") change in the culture is behind it. Make up your mind! GPinkerton (talk) 11:34, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
Did you even read what I wrote? "This is not to say that the deletion didn't have any merit if it was based on the stated nomination that the nudity itself has been superseded by a more abstract barnstar" The deletion reason what not the nomination reason, the reason for deletion was "Barnstars are not educational" so my earlier comments still stand. If you want to be contrarian just for the sake of being contrarian you're free to do so, but but your comment should have substance rather than just another strawman argument by taking a quote out of context. Plus with this barnstar being discussed in Wikipedia-notable external websites it has gained more educational value for it, overriding the exceptions at "COM:CENSOR". --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 12:04, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
Trying to argue the nomination and the deletion are somehow unrelated is tendentious as. Deletions take place after the discussion and the nomination and in all cases the latter are affected by the former. That this obvious fact was not noted in the deletion summary is irrelevant. taking a quote out of context is what one is doing by trying to claim the deletion was not affected by the nomination, a claim you reiterate above. GPinkerton (talk) 13:24, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
Note that this barnstar is no longer "a Commonswiki exclusive", I found a lot of mentions about this particular barnstar on other websites and while the Wikimedia Commons doesn't have any "notability" standards if it had then this barnstar would be "notable" (well, notorious). From the page "Topless image retention -don't give up" from the Narkive (Mailinglist Archive): "To give an example, Commons has a "hot sex barnstar", present on a number of user talk pages, which does not appear to have violated any Wikimedia policy, judging by its existence for more than a year now. The imagery is grossly pornographic, and would be unacceptable in almost any workplace outside of the adult entertainment industry" & "This allows editors to introduce everything to the work environment that is allowed in a porn shop. Hence the "hot sex barnstar" in Commons, which if challenged would no doubt be defended with gleeful jeers of NOTCENSORED.", (note while the Hot Sex Barnstar here is blamed for being one of the factors that contribute to the Wikimedian gender gap, these people are Sex Negative Feminists, for Sex Positve Feminists "Pornagraphy and sexuality are liberating for women" so they would likely argue the opposite, while Conservative Christian women, yes those apparently exist, would likely agree with the Sex Negative Feminists that such depictions of pornography are "gynophobic" or discourage women from participating, this advocacy for the exclusion / inclusion of pornography is more ideological), it was also discussed at Larrysanger.org at "Other weird stuff" (note that Larry Sanger is the co-founder of Wikipedia): "Consider also (as was recently pointed out to me) that the activists-for-free-porn on Commons have been awarding each other the new, outrageously gross, "Hot Sex Barnstar" (NSFW!) for their efforts. There are clearly some (to me) extremely unsavory characters involved who have made it their mission to make Commons, and Wikipedia as well, as free as possible to host the most explicit sorts of imagery on this tax-exempt, non-profit 501(c)(3) website.". It has also been mentioned on a number of websites and blogs critical of Wikimedia websites such as the article "Boycott Wikipedia - Monday, February 23, 2015 - Examples of Bias in Wikipedia" from the website boycott-wikipedia.blogspot.com the author wrote "Wikipedia Commons, which collects public domain images, has drawn extensive criticism for sexually explicit material, including nude photos and photos of various acts. The editors of Wikipedia Commons have created a "Hot Sex Barnstar" to reward those people who upload particularly explicit images. When a former member of Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee asked to have it removed, many people opposed his suggestion.", on the website "Wikipedia Sucks! (And So Do Its Critics.)" in the article "Thursday, February 4, 2016 - Vladimir Mozhenkov: an Overview" where the author wrote: "There was a lot of drama that spring, in the middle of which Vova created the "Hot sex barnstar" (NSFW) for his friends who supported his pornification of Commons, along with asking if Wikpedia could expand it's BDSM coverage. I kid you not." So this barnstar has been mentioned by multiple outside parties for a number of years now.
"The other day e.g. I noticed that Wikimedia Commons administrators
prominently involved in the curation of adult materials were giving or being given something called the "Hot Sex Barnstar" (NSFW) for their efforts:"
Pretty much anything discussed by Larry Sanger is worthy of deletion, although of course that's not policy (yet). Everything he writes to denigrate Wikimedia is wrong-headed and inspired by envy and his politics. What is this information-gathering supposed to achieve? There are doubtless dozens of files whose existence has been noticed outside Wikimedia, I don't think that gives them permanent immunity from deletion. Why would it? Hoax articles are not kept on Wikipedia just because they've been noticed by non-Wikipedians. GPinkerton (talk) 13:24, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
"Pretty much anything discussed by Larry Sanger is worthy of deletion, although of course that's not policy (yet). Everything he writes to denigrate Wikimedia is wrong-headed and inspired by envy and his politics." Wow, that is extremely denigrating to the co-founder of Wikipedia who has plenty of well-thought criticisms of Wikimedia websites, a reason why these websites are slow to improve is because of such inarticulate dismissals of their critics. "There are doubtless dozens of files whose existence has been noticed outside Wikimedia, I don't think that gives them permanent immunity from deletion. Why would it? Hoax articles are not kept on Wikipedia just because they've been noticed by non-Wikipedians." Completely unrelated things, the educational value of this particular barnstar is unrelated to hoax articles (which obviously should be deleted). This barnstar is commonly used as an illustration of a pornographic voyeuristic culture that exists on the Wikimedia Commons. Barnstars are associated with Wikimedia websites as a form of reward editors receive, to quote "Some Wiki-based communities give their users an award called a "barnstar", as a continuation of the "barn raising" metaphor. The practice originated on MeatballWiki and was adopted by Wikipedia in 2003." - The English-language Wikipedia's "Barnstar" article sourced at "Zhu, Haiyi; Kraut, Robert E.; Kittur, Aniket (2016). "A Contingency View of Transferring and Adapting Best Practices Within Online Communities". Proceedings of the 19th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing. CSCW '16. New York, NY, USA: ACM. pp. 729–743." So this means that this practice is well-known among wiki-communities, what makes this barnstar unique is just how absurd it is and what an absurd culture must have produced it, such a barnstar would be considered "pure vandalism" and "a denigration of barnstars" on literally any other website, but on the Wikimedia Commons administrators give them to each other for uploading pictures of their dicks, this is just such an absurd concept that to illustrate how such a culture can exist (and to be fair, a lot of users from the period when the Hot Sex Barnstar reigned supreme have since retired, think Russavia (WMF banned / SanFran Banned), Fæ, Saibo, among others are no longer among us). While I do think that this barnstar is "a relic of another time" it is an often discussed point in the history of the Wikimedia Commons that other websites have often discussed (namely that this is "just another free porn website") and while the community has changed, this image would still serve an educational purpose to discuss this culture. The idea is that this particular image has no educational value which is inherently false, in fact this is probably the only Wikimedia barnstar I've ever seen being discussed or even mentioned outside of Wikimedia websites. I don't think that any barnstar has more of an educational value than this one. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 18:46, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
Just repeating "the co-founder of Wikipedia" doesn't make Larry Sanger less reprehensible. In any case, you've confused a handful of trivial mentions with "an often discussed point in the history of the Wikimedia Commons that other websites have often discussed" and then added a whole load of irrelevant material about barnstars and further exaggerations of this very niche file's importance "the period when the Hot Sex Barnstar reigned supreme". Your claim that "this is probably the only Wikimedia barnstar I've ever seen being discussed or even mentioned outside of Wikimedia websites" is hardly surprising, but I bet if you had looked specifically for trivial passing mentions of other wiki-trivia as you have apparently been doing for this thing, then I suspect more could be unearthed, though I say again, that wouldn't mean such items are to be permanently hosted forever. I ask again though, what is this supposed to achieve? GPinkerton (talk) 00:34, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
Larry Sanger is a freakin' God, I am getting pretty sick of you blaspheming him and taking his name in vain. Wikimedians don't give that awesome and amazing genius the recognition he deserves, everything he says should be written down in a book made of gold. Again, I am demonstrating that this is a controversial image associated with "the pornographic side of the Wikimedia Commons" being the face of an image of Commonswiki administrators awarding it to each other for taking their trousers and taking pictures of what's between their legs (as the numerous mentions above prove), it is "the face" of this "boy's club porn culture" and has been frequently seen as something that should be deleted in order to make this website more welcoming to women and basically anyone that isn't a voyeuristic pervert. Yes, this doesn't sound like a case for its inclusion but it's a controversial part of the Wikimedia Commons and this gives it educational value. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 19:16, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
Larry Sanger is a jaded extremist and ideologue and his diatribes are not to be taken seriously. The embarrassing outpouring of adulation just above is best ignored. Quoting trivia about trivia does not make anything more than trivia. I won't bother asking a third time what you're trying to achieve with this discussion, it clearly has no purpose. GPinkerton (talk) 01:24, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
When you can't formulate a proper argument and have to resort to ad hominems tells me that you don't have an argument and as for your opinion about Larry Sanger goes, the bitter tone and unsubstantiated dismissive comments about him are seem utterly foundationless as he did more for Wikimedia websites than almost anyone here. "Quoting trivia about trivia does not make anything more than trivia." Of course one can dismiss any information as "trivia", for a Pakistani that 1776 is the foundational year of the United States of America 🇺🇸 is "trivia", while for an American knowing who Muhammad Ali Jinnah is is trivial, "trivia" is always relative and one can define "trivia" as "any knowledge without any direct practical implementation". "I won't bother asking a third time what you're trying to achieve with this discussion, it clearly has no purpose." If you can't deduce that from the rest of this thread then you clearly haven't been reading it. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 15:51, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
At Wikimedia Commons, a website owned by the Wikimedia Foundation, a controversial sex-themed structural anchor plate "barnstar", known as the Erotica Barnstar (which is formerly known as the Hot Sex Barnstar), is typically awarded to contributors who “tirelessly upload good sexual, nude, and erotic content to Commons.”[1] The award is shaped as a structural anchor plate adorned with an erect human penis, a spread out vulva, and a woman pegging a man using a dildo.[1] In May 2013 this controversial "barnstar" was nominated to be deleted, but the community of the website decided against it.[1]
In other words, it is now educational for other Wikimedia websites as I had already noted that "The Daily Dot" is a reliable source. Yes, I know that linking it here will get some anti-porn warriors to immediately undo my edits, but it's fully within the scope of that article, it is in a section about internet "barnstars" and it's listed as a controversial one. In fact, I haven't been able to find that many reliable sources that talk about
the normal barnstar. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 19:16, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
@Donald Trung: "Consider whether content from this publication constitutes due weight before citing it in an article.". 80% of section on this one trivial barnstar is not due weight! A mountain out of a molehill. GPinkerton (talk) 10:43, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
Something tells me that this is also how you judge the sources of what you perceive as "fantasy" or "trivial flags" the article is about how the Wikimedia Commons had an entrenched amateur pornographic culture and uses the "Erotica Barnstar" / "Hot Sex Barnstar" as a prime example of how deep this culture existed (in 2013) at the Wikimedia Commons, as the article is about barnstars and not about pornography ảnything else from that article would have been out of place. As the section is about internet "barnstars" and this being an internet "barnstar" its inclusion is wholly appropriate. Most articles about history quote sections from an entire history book about "minor events" in those articles about "minor events". The article discussed the Hot Sex Barnstar and I included it. This is appropriate weight for the topic discussed. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 15:55, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
Comment, I didn't notice it before, but user "Multichill" wrote "Deleted: no, this file was correctly deleted by Ellin Beltz . A bunch of trolling users and a stupid admin falling for that are not going to change it.", which is quite an uncivil statement assuming bad faith of Mysterymanblue, King of Hearts, and myself. Not sure how questioning why a file that has been nominated for deletion several times and kept is suddenly deleted is "trolling" or how an admin is "stupid" for following the "COM:INUSE" policy, but such comments aren't very collegial. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 12:41, 3 October 2021 (UTC)
Some additional context, the original deletion nomination from 2013 referred to above is "Commons:Deletion requests/Template:The Hot sex barnstar", there was no consensus for deletion after widespread discussion and the main argument of the deletion request that ended in its deletion was based on the fact that a more abstract barnstar was created and if one looks at the original (2013) arguments along the line of "I don't like it" were commonly expressed (note that Wikipedia literally has a policy named "WP:IDONTLIKEIT" that essentially tells reviewing admins to ignore such "votes" as they are not real arguments), I must confess that I do understand such arguments. Personally whenever I see pornographic material or human bodily fluids I feel a sense of disgust 🤢 and the feeling one gets when one has to vomit, but I never saw my own feelings as a reason to censor content, likewise I am deadly afraid of arachnids but still wrote a couple of Wikipedia articles about spiders. The idea of replacing the barnstar was discussed at "Template talk:Sexuality barnstar#Proposal to change the image in the barnstar" and a number of users noted that multiple templates could be created. Quite a number of users received this barnstar and if they found it "an unwelcome barnstar" I am sure that they would have removed it from their talk pages, yet as the delinker log shows many users didn't have any issue with it. Note that the nominator later cited "COM:NOTUSED" as a claim that the image should be deleted as "Barnstars are not educational" but this is a fallacy as that policy itself states "legitimately in use as discussed above" and "COM:INUSE" notes "Files relating to projects or events of the Wikimedia community, such as user meetings, are also allowed." and this barnstar was specifically used for users who uploaded sexual content.
The issue I have with a lot of this is that the nominator wanted to see a different barnstar used for the template and thus nominated this barnstar because they personally didn't like it and deliberately misinterpreted policy in their nomination, in almost a decade that this barnstar has been around users who upload in this category have used it and now a choice is being made for them that another barnstar is better despite the nominator being able to create a new barnstar template themselves. When someone points out that this deletion goes in contrast to established policy it is either "trolling" or "stupid" despite years of discussions around this image resulting in it remaining kept.
Also note that Beta M's status as a banned user was brought up by the deleters. It is quite funny how if a user gets banned all their creations are suddenly devalued and called into question, but when another user like "INeverCry" gets banned their deletions (many of which were against policy) never get questioned at all, but that's a whole different discussion for another time.
Note that I am not saying that this is the best barnstar for sexual content and I have always found it to be a somewhat absurd barnstar myself, I just don't see how either the nomination nor the deletion of this image hold up as they don't seem to conform with the cited policies. Had this barnstar been a new creation I would have understood the decision, but a barnstar used on dozens of pages? Of course this sets precedent, if someone wants to replace another Wiki-specific image they don't like they can always nominate it for deletion citing this one, this has nothing to do with the image itself and everything to do with selective application of policies whenever users see fit. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 16:44, 3 October 2021 (UTC)
When I use Special:MediaSearch and search for "mestgoot" I get two results. But when I use Special:Search with the same search term I get five results. All of them are images and one of them even contains the word in the title. To me it seems obvious that Special:MediaSearch should find all five of them.
Such a tool would be great. I can't stress enough what a benefit such a tool would bring to users, and in facilitating the in discovery of media. Commons tends to be good at segregating media into tiny isolated boxes: what is needed is a way to dump out all those boxes on the floor at once and visualize/sort/compare them in an intuitive fashion to find suitable images for a purpose at hand, and inspire new uses. Maybe some additional keyword searches can help in narrowing down especially large category trees. Humans are really good at visual comparison, while machines suck at it, and categories and structured data will always be lagging, incomplete, and inconsistent. Special:MediaSearch can do a pretty good job of showing lots of related images at once (e.g. 'Barack Obama speech'), but might overlook images lacking detailed descriptions, and precludes the serendipitous discovery of unexpected media deep within subcategories that might be perfect for a certain purpose (or lead to more discovery): a previously uncatalogued but noteworthy person in the background of a crowd, a flock of birds flying in a particularly aesthetic formation, or a particular expression on a face that can convey more nuance than a thousand categories and keywords. --Animalparty (talk) 06:25, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
Hi, Would there be a consensus to move User talk:Fæ/IA books to Commons namespace? This project needs a lot of work, and it would help to be taken over by the community. Fæ is not active for nearly a month, and hasn't answered to my request. Regards, Yann (talk) 21:21, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
Obviously, if Fæ objects, then we should abide by his wishes, but otherwise no objection. @Yann: Is there any indication that Fæ objected to a similar move in the past? - Jmabel ! talk21:33, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
Of course. I would not move the page if Fæ objects, but since he is not currently active, I think it can be moved if there is a consensus for that. Yann (talk) 18:05, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
If moving it into the "Commons:" namespace isn't possible then copying might have the same effect, right? Copyright issues can just be solved through attribution per "By saving changes, you agree to the Terms of Use, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license and the GFDL. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license." (although I'm pretty sure that Alexis Jazz is screaming somewhere because someone just saved another edit with the GFDL license, a joke, obviously). I wonder what could have happened to poor user "Fæ" that they decided to suddenly quit, I really hope that they are both mentally and physically fine, and if people are willing they should be able to continue Fæ's wonderful work, so I would support any initiative that would help in this. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 09:05, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
The page history won't be lost, nobody is advocating for the deletion of Fæ's user page, the first edit is already a redirect to their user page and the copying would directly link to it, so the page history would be preserved at Fæ's IA Books, while a separate page would exist that links to it for attribution. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 19:13, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
I think that for the project responsibility to be taken over by the community, it should be in Commons namespace. Fæ did a great work, but the review and corrections are really too much work to be done by one person alone. Regards, Yann (talk) 18:02, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
I don't really see the problem here. This is a wiki, nobody owns anything here. Be bold, leave Fæ a friendly message and then move it to where ever it's most useful. If Fæ returns and for some reason wants it back in their user name space, just move it back. --El Grafo (talk) 14:53, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
Is there some way to allow excluding cases like File:Henderson raised zebra.JPG - there is a speed table and a traffic sign. The problem is that Category:Bump warning road signs in New Zealand can be present without actual speed bump (as it is used also for speed tables, the same category would be used when both speed bump and its warning sign are on a photo).
Is there a viable, Commons-compatible way of categorizing images that would allow following search
find images of speed bumps
limiting to ones where speed bump is the main focus would be fine
exclude photos where there is a bump road sign, without bump being visible on a photo
include ones where there is both bump road sign and a speed bump itself
@Mateusz Konieczny: Our category system is a pretty loose "folksonomy" and I doubt anyone has particularly thought through this part of it; I'm sure you'd be welcome to improve it if you have the tenacity to go through and re-categorize. Just make sure your re-categorizations don't lose any information that is already there (i.e., you'll need to follow it through to the "by country" subcats, etc.). Do I understand correctly that the problem is that the way things stand, Category:Speed bump signs is a subcat of Category:Speed bumps, so once an image is in Category:Speed bump signs we don't have a category to show that it also contains the "bump" itself, and adding Category:Speed bumps would be over-catting? - Jmabel ! talk17:44, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
I don't think either of those is a great idea. We just have to use our common sense and accept that exceptions to COM:OVERCAT will occur from time to time. The German politicians example in "Exception for images with more categorized subjects" is relevant here. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠22:43, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
Yup. This probably just calls for ignoring COM:OVERCAT. It's also a case where Commons:Depicts might be genuinely useful, since you could distinguish images that actually depict a speed bump from ones that are related to a speed bump in some other manner such as depicting a speed-bump sign. - Jmabel ! talk01:39, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
The category suits the content of the image admirably. The man is clearly bathing with regular clothes; there's nothing unusual about the clothes (for Sikhs anyway) and the temple tank is used for bathing. What other activities might be accomplished while bathing in with regular clothes (cleaning, etc.) is not really pertinent. The category's name could be improved or simplified, but the category itself is clearly the right one: all the other images show people in water with clothes on doing whatever. GPinkerton (talk) 16:02, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
I suspect this might be solved by having cats (either subcats or linked by see also) that more precisely describe the nature of the activity, if "bathing" is not entirely appropriate. And I agree that as an involved party, A.Savin should not have done this this way. Protection like that might be appropriate in dealing with a vandal, but clearly this is a legitimate dispute in good faith. FWIW, unless it is absolutely blatant vandalism, if I'm an involved party and want protection I go to Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/Blocks and protections even though I'm an admin myself. Here's a recent example. - Jmabel ! talk17:52, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
@GPinkerton: Perhaps this is a language issue, American vs. British English. To me "bathing" means washing oneself, as in taking a bath while "ablution" would be the word for religious washing. The image of the man in question is described as working, and so is not "bathing" to me. He is not doing anything recreational, such as "bathing" in an ocean or a fountain as are the images of other people in that category. So should all the people in Category:People at the Harmandir Sahib who are in water also be in Category:Bathing with regular clothes"? And images of people in water in other temples also? Why only this particular image? Krok6kola (talk) 20:18, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
@Krok6kola: I would say that anyone bathed in water with regular clothes (rather than a wearing a bathing suit) is bathing with regular clothes. "Ablution" is simply Latin for washing. As for the all the people in Category:People at the Harmandir Sahib who are in water I would say not, because all the pictures I could find of that description show men and boys with their shirts off, or just wearing lungi, or in some other way prepared for bathing and not "in regular clothes". GPinkerton (talk) 22:50, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
If he's there as a worker, I'm not sure "ablution" is the right term either, but I wouldn't call it "bathing". I don't really have an overall answer here, but I do have a few thoughts:
Sometimes two categories that are similar but distinct should be linked by {{See also}} rather than one being a subcat of the other.
Bathing as a subset of body washing is not appropriate; body washing is not the reason one wears a bathing costume or goes to the public baths. Sun-bathing is also not any kind of washing. Ablution, on the other hand, is a kind of washing but I agree clearly not what is going in that picture. GPinkerton (talk) 22:49, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
@Krok6kola: how the work is considered in religion is not an essential part of the photograph's contents. How are users wanting to find an image of a man fully clothed in water going to find this file? "People in water" is too general. GPinkerton (talk) 23:12, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
+1. People in water in general are commonly photographed, but seldom people standing in water with regular clothes on. Regards --A.Savin23:42, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
for those who say it is, just because the man is partially submerged in water, here is a question: are those people trapped in floods also "bathing with regular clothes"? 🤣 --RZuo (talk) 07:26, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
@RZuo: The issue is that "bathing" does not mean "the act of washing one's body". This is wrong. Bathing also includes activities such as can be seen in File:Bathing in the sea (20966569733).jpg. The dictionary defines the verb "to bathe" as follows:
I. transitive. (Now mostly reflexive or passive.)
1. To immerse, as in a bath:
a. literal. To immerse (the body, or any part of it) in water or other liquid, for the sake of some effect (e.g. health, warmth, cleansing) promoted by the action of the liquid.
b. To immerse in other elements or substances, e.g. sand, fire.
c. To plunge, or dip, without reference to the action of the liquid.
2. To apply water or other liquid to anything so as to wet it all over, or moisten it copiously; to lave, perfuse, suffuse, wet, moisten:
a. literally.
b. said of the action of a river or the sea upon the adjacent banks or land.
c. said of the action of tears, perspiration, or any secretion, in flowing over and wetting the body or its parts.
3. The phrase ‘ to bathe in blood’ includes and often blends 1 and 2, and is generally used figuratively to express the great quantity of blood shed.
4.
a. To suffuse, envelope, or encompass, like the air or the sunshine.
b. said of mental influences.
II. intransitive (from reflexive use of 1.)
5.
a. literal. To take a bath, to plunge or immerse oneself in water or other liquid, so as to enjoy its influence; in earlier usage also, to lie or remain so immersed, to bask.
b. in various transferred and figurative senses: see the transitive uses above, 3-4.
In other words, "washing one's body" is no part of the meaning of the verb "to bathe", and consequently, "bathing in regular clothes" is category which does not need to have anything to do with washing, either wahsing onself or any other thing. GPinkerton (talk) 10:53, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
this man photographed is not doing any of these definitions.
clearly voluntarily going swimming/bathing
just your everyday regular clothes, which obviously include a helmet and a life vest.
and by your words you would agree that "people trapped in floods are bathing with regular clothes"? you would agree that people in these two photos are all bathing? -- RZuo (talk) 12:49, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
@RZuo: Your claim that "this man photographed is not doing any of these definitions" is clearly diverging from reality. The man is immersed in water, as in a bath. Bathing is defined (primary defination) as: "To immerse, as in a bath". It is more than obvious that the man clearly perfectly suits the dictionary definition. Your list of irrelevant pictures (none of the people shown is wearing "regular clothes") is unhelpful: despite your claims, nothing I have said indicates I believe "voluntarily going swimming/bathing" is in any way connected with the general meaning of "bathing". GPinkerton (talk) 23:31, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
There's no such thing as the dictionary. Our dictionary, wikt:bathe, offers as definition 1 "(intransitive) To clean oneself by immersion in water or using water; to take a bath, have a bath." The dictionary you've copied from without citation mentions "cleansing" in 1.a., in more general "for the sake of some effect (e.g. health, warmth, cleansing) promoted by the action of the liquid", which would exclude people trapped in floods.--Prosfilaes (talk) 15:52, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
@Prosfilaes: There's no such thing as Our dictionary. Don't you try and associate me with that mass of opinions and misconceptions! I have never suggested anyone trapped in floods should be described as "bathing". Where did you get that strawman? 1.a. is only one instance of use 1: "To immerse, as in a bath". The "for the sake of some effect (e.g. health, warmth, cleansing) promoted by the action of the liquid" is not a necessary part of the definition of 1., only of 1.a. The inapplicability of one specific definition does not invalidate the applicability of the verb "to bathe" to anyone "immersed in water, as in a bath". This definition applies to anyone in your photos, but none of those has anything to do with the subject at hand, which is "bathing in regular clothes". GPinkerton (talk) 23:31, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
There most certainly is such a thing as our dictionary. You may exclude yourself from the WMF community, but we have our dictionary.
A word used in a category doesn't stand for every definition; it has a specific meaning. This category doesn't include people walking around in air in daylight, despite sense 4 including that. Even sense 1 "immersed in water, as in a bath" is not "immersed in water"; it includes that unclear specifier "as in a bath". It then specifies 1.a as literal, which probably means this is the definition we should be using for a category name. Moreover, let us take "immersed in water" as the definition; why then are people in floods not properly described as bathing?--Prosfilaes (talk) 04:03, 7 October 2021 (UTC)
@Prosfilaes: "why then are people in floods not properly described as bathing?" this is the same strawman as you used before. I don't see what's unclear about "as in a bath". 1.a. is an example of the literal use of 1. It is not the only possible meaning. People going to the swimming baths, for example, for their bathing, are not doing so for any "for the sake of some effect (e.g. health, warmth, cleansing) promoted by the action of the liquid" (quite the opposite in chlorinated water) but it would be quite obviously wrong to argue that that activity is not included in the verb "to bathe". GPinkerton (talk) 13:10, 7 October 2021 (UTC)
Actually, in contemporary U.S. usage it would be very unusual to call that "bathing". The word is hardly used here except for specifically cleaning yourself by immersing in water (or in compound constructions like "sunbathing"). - Jmabel ! talk14:05, 7 October 2021 (UTC)
It is not a strawman, it is a question. If you are in the middle of a flood, you are immersed in water. Why then is it not bathing? I do not understand your definition.
We don't have swimming baths in the US. We have swimming pools. It is quite obviously correct to me to say that activity is not included in the verb "to bathe", which sounds like the problem is we're using different dialects which define this word differently.--Prosfilaes (talk) 14:21, 7 October 2021 (UTC)
@Prosfilaes: We don't have swimming baths in the US. The w:Asser Levy Public Baths is the first one Google came up with. @Jmabel: Meriam-Webster (an American dictionary, I've heard) has for the verb bathe: "intransitive verb:
1: to take a bath
2: to go swimming
3: to become immersed or absorbed
Even the Wikipedia article on w:Public bathing (written, apparently, in American English) has the short description: "Buildings with swimming pools or other facilities for bathing", while the article w:Sea bathing rather speaks for itself but specifies still further that the purported health effects make it "Unlike bathing in a swimming pool". I don't think this "different dialects" stuff is going to wash ... but that's beside the point because the category's name should be altered anyway precisely because "bathing" is such a wide sematic field, not because certain of its meanings are disavowed by speakers of some regional dialect. GPinkerton (talk) 16:13, 7 October 2021 (UTC)
@GPinkerton: We use "bathing beach" and certainly used to use the increasingly archaic "bathing beauties" (now typically "beauty queens", insofar as it's used), but I literally do not thing I've once in my 66-years-and-counting life heard an American say something like "I'm going bathing" or "I bathed" (or "I went bathing") today meaning they went into the water at the shore or a pond, unless it was specifically to wash in a pond. If the topic is just about being "immersed in water" it should use the wording "immersed in water," which is a lot more dialect-neutral. People are not setting up straw men here: they are saying that you seem to be drawing the line in a place that does not fit their understanding of the word. - Jmabel ! talk01:29, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
@Jmabel: I completely agree. Aside from the "bathing" issue, the "regular clothes" might also be improved. The women in their wedding dresses in the category at present are not exactly in "regular" clothes. GPinkerton (talk) 01:52, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
The category name does seem problematic as it requires some interpretation, and I think the point has been made that it has been added to multiple images where people are clearly not "bathing" in the normally understood sense of the word. What this really is is "people in water with clothes other than bathing attire on." Beeblebrox (talk) 18:04, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
Bathing? no. Regular clothes? also no.
@Beeblebrox: I agree, as apparent in my first comment. Disagree that your image should be characterized as "Bathing? no.". I would say that's a classic illustration of bathing costumes (if that's what they've got on) being used for their stated purpose. GPinkerton (talk) 23:31, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
CropTool on Wikimedia Commons gives the error message Curl error: SSL certificate problem: certificate has expired Is this a lasting problem? /Yvwv (talk) 20:28, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
I just notified the Commons:Village pump/Technical page. I got the same error message. This tool cannot be used. Thanks --Ooligan (talk) 00:36, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. File successfully imported: File:German State Theatre in Timișoara - the entrance.jpg --bjh21 (talk) 10:21, 7 September 2021 (UTC) 
wikimedia.org with questions.
... could this be the start of a category? Lotje (talk) 14:48, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
Done Would be nice if COM:VFC could operate on non-file pages. I wrote a custom script and did it. – BMacZero (🗩) 16:41, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
Comment, until today I thought that the uploader was Musée Annam, apparently it is @Shibo77: . Please comment on the source of the original image as you didn't comment during the DR. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 09:04, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
Resolvedit works intermittently - and thumbnails work for me Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 10:15, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
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