Commons:Village pump/Archive/2022/11

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Igbo recordings

Could somebody please give a second opinion on these deletion requests from OtuNwachinemere regarding files supposedly spoken in the Igbo language. There is no obvious reason to delete these files. Expert advice is needed, apart from the opinion of OtuNwachinemere. Thanks, Ellywa (talk) 09:26, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Files are deleted by VIGNERON, no need for more answers. Ellywa (talk) 19:51, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Flickr2Commons

Resolvedworking now - Jmabel ! talk 23:01, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Anyone else having problems lately with https://flickr2commons.toolforge.org? I just tried transferring a file and it gave all signs of success, except that the file was not transferred. FWIW, I have used Flickr2Commons successfully thousands of times in the past. - Jmabel ! talk 22:02, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Images uploaded to Wikipedia directly

Seeing that certain images can only be used on Wikipedia articles because they were uploaded to Wikipedia rather than Commons. How possible is it possible for me to download and reupload those images on Commons in order to be able to use them on other places like portals? I find it frustrating that there are several biographies, and articles that we wish to schedule/feature on this portal but they keep getting removed because of WP:NFCC. Danidamiobi (talk) 15:21, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Danidamiobi: in a sense the enwiki is lucky and it is a bonus whereby we have the ability to use non-free images so long as they comply with all 10 of the strict non-free guidelines. Most other language wikis do not allow any non-free image use, so look on the bright side even though it sometimes is frustrating to not allow wider usage. You can try to change the policy there but despite several discussions over the years it has remained very strict. Ww2censor (talk) 23:30, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
A portal on en-wiki definitely cannot use a non-free image. If you need a placeholder, there are certainly plenty of free-licensed or PD images related to African cinema that you could use for that purpose. - Jmabel ! talk 00:45, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Flickr-to-Commons for PD photos?

Is is possible to use Flickr-to-Commons to mass upload photos from Flickr which are PD-old (or similar) but which were tagged by the uploader as ARR…? -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 00:26, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

@Tuvalkin: in my experience it isn't. Manual uploading is still the possible option for now. Unless someone will propose it in a Commons/phabricator forum somewhere else. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 04:26, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Deletion of talk page

Please remove the talk page File talk:Dülmen, Merfeld, Feldweg am Mühlenbach -- 2021 -- 4278-80.jpg. And please block the vandalizing user User:PiruChandani who causes the content of the talk page. Thank you! --XRay 💬 12:50, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

✓ Done and user warned. --Túrelio (talk) 13:27, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Freedom Planet 2

Category: Freedom Planet 2 is not a mass copyvio, the permission to use those pictures were sent to the permissions-commons@wikimedia.org pre-emptively. --Firepande (talk) 16:30, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Proposal to remove duplicate information from file description templates that is already stored in structured data

For several years now bots operated by Multichill (talk · contribs) and myself have been focusing on replicating information from file descriptions in structured data. Since then adoption and template support for structured data has significantly improved. The next step would be to remove the duplicate information from file description and use the information in structured data instead. If the information is only removed from template parameters that are automatically recoved by the corresponding template from associated structured data, there will be no visual change to the file description page. Please share your thoughts on a corresponding proposal at: Commons:Bots/Requests/SchlurcherBot11 --Schlurcher (talk) 22:16, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

No. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 00:22, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
  •  Oppose The action would tickle an enormous number of watchlists for no visual change. Schlurcherbot already pounds my watch list with edits such as hey this .svg file is an SVG file! (Something the MW API already knows.) Furthermore, magic fields confuse users. Say a user wants to edit the text filled in by structured data. The user clicks edit and searches for the text, but the text is nowhere to be found on the page. Glrx (talk) 03:13, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
redundancy (engineering) is good. RZuo (talk) 04:22, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

 Info @Tuvalkin, Glrx, and RZuo: I've copied your responses to Commons:Bots/Requests/SchlurcherBot11 to consolidate the discussion. --Schlurcher (talk) 08:09, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Please don't. I have seen errors, made by myself, reproduced in the structured data. When I corrected the errors on the file page, this was not replicated in the structured data. However, I agree information should only be stored on one place, to keep it correct and up to date. But as Wikimedia consists of all kinds of separate projects, this is difficult to realise. This proposal is imho not a solution for this problem at the current stage. Ellywa (talk) 10:40, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

How should books be organised in cat tree?

right now Category:Books by title by language can only contain categories. how should we put all the books, some of which do not have their own categories, together into one catch-all cat? i suppose there're two approaches to this problem -- either put them into a new cat (or converting the current cat tree to accept files), or create categories for each individual publication (so they can go under the current cat tree).--RZuo (talk) 13:14, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Either a category is created for that language or the file should not be in this tree. Ruslik (talk) 19:22, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

If AjaxQuickDelete allows specifying a target page

it'd be great if using MediaWiki:Gadget-AjaxQuickDelete.js, experienced users can be allowed to designate the deletion request page. instead of creating new "Commons:Deletion requests/File:Example..." for every single file, it's often better to group them to "Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Example..." or whatever. RZuo (talk) 10:27, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Anonymous image uploads?

A while ago, I requested a photo of Northwest High School for use with en:Viking Saga censorship incident. I was recently contacted by a wiki editor who lives in the area and took the requested photos. They would rather not upload the photos themselves because that would leak information about where they live, which they would prefer not to do. They are willing to email me the photos and I'd be happy to upload them, but I'm unsure how to handle the licensing/attribution part. I certainly couldn't tag them as "own work", since they're not. And I can't attribute them to the photographer, since they've requested that I not do that. Any suggestions? — Preceding unsigned comment added by RoySmith (talk • contribs) 02:16, 5 November 2022‎ (UTC)

  • @RoySmith: They could go through the COM:VRT process. Admittedly, the few people with VRT privileges would be able to know who took the photo, but they were approved for that team on the basis that the community trusts them to preserve people's confidentiality. - Jmabel ! talk 02:34, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Where to put certain data in textual form?

technically, anything that can be stored in textual form is discouraged to be uploaded on commons.

however, it's impractical to put all of them on relevant wikipedia pages. for example, if i have very detailed monthly economic data about 100 villages in a district for 100 years, it's obviously not a good idea to stuff articles with that. some data also might not have corresponding wikidata properties, so i cannot put them in wikidata.

as such, is it still ok to upload such data in a picture or pdf onto commons? RZuo (talk) 15:58, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Document viewing helper, gadget or built-in

it'd be nice if on pdf/djvu file pages these functions are built-in or enabled by a gadget:

  1. big buttons at fixed positions for "← previous page" and "next page →"
  2. shortcut keys for "← previous page" and "next page →"

right now the buttons are beneath the thumbnails. when the pdf pages dont have consistent height, thumbnails dont have consistent height, so the buttons shift up and down. it's annoying to have to move cursor to click the tiny button.

these functions are helpful for users who dont want to load the entire file just to preview certain pages, or like me using firefox that doesnt let me view it without first saving it.

does something already exist? RZuo (talk) 10:53, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Wording of redirected category notice

E.g. at Category:Beavers it says:

This category is located at Category:Castor
Note: This category should be empty. Any content should be recategorised.
This tag should be used on existing categories that are likely to be used by others, even though the "real" category is elsewhere. Redirected categories should be empty and not categorised themselves. It should not be used on categories that are misspellings and thus unlikely to be used by other people.
Such categories should be tagged as: "bad name|Category:correct name".

Perhaps I am stupid, but I have wondered in the past what it meant by "this tag", thinking that the "tag" was actually the label (in this case) "Beavers", but I have now just realised that "this tag" probably means the tag "Category redirect". While the meaning of "this tag" may be clear to editors who are adding the redirect, I don't think it is clear to ordinary readers who come across these pages. Perhaps the wording can be clarified here. Also, why is there a paragraph break before the sentence "Such categories ..."? It is confusing and disrupts the flow.

I don't know where this text resides or whether it is user-editable, but, if agreed, perhaps someone would know how to make these changes. ITookSomePhotos (talk) 11:43, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

While "tag" is the most common term for it in the regular editor's vocabulary, I understand this can be confusing to the uninitiated. en:w:Wikipedia:Template_index/Cleanup mentions a couple of alternatives. Or maybe link "tag" to an explanatory page? --HyperGaruda (talk) 12:01, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
For the English text, the source text can be found at Template:Category redirect/en, but you will need an admin's help. --HyperGaruda (talk) 12:05, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
I was originally going to suggest changing "this tag" to "this notice", but then it sounds as if the notice can be placed independently, whereas it is (AFAICT) just a byproduct of the redirect template. It may be better to skirt the issue and explain first that the category is redirected, and then say that redirection should only be used ... blah blah. Anyway, I'll try to come up with a concrete wording proposal and see what others think. ITookSomePhotos (talk) 13:14, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

How does one suppress an automatically generated category for Template:Wikidata Infobox

I would like to suppress the category that is automatically generated by {{Wikidata Infobox}} for surname for Category:Jacqueline Marval. As w:en:Jacqueline Marval#Early life explains, "Marval" being the composite of her first and last name "MARie VALlet" would make it pretty useless as a category since this would be the only occurrence of the surname of Marval.

It appears that setting |autocat=no would disable all automatic categorisation, but I just want to disable the one that would produce Category:Marval (surname). Peaceray (talk) 02:15, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

@Peaceray, there is no way that I'm aware of to selectively suppress individual imported categories, and it's probably best that way since having the first and last names help sorting within other categories. I would suggest simply creating the category, but you could try asking at Template talk:Wikidata Infobox. — Huntster (t @ c) 07:34, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
Agreed. A quick we search for "Marval surname" suggests that the surname Marval does indeed exist. Whether that historic Marvel is the same as this "invented" Marval may matter for anthroponymists, but not for categorization on Commons. Most people looking for her or her works would probably just assume it's her proper surname. They should be able to find her in Category:Marval (surname), together with Rosmeri Marval and Alice Marval. El Grafo (talk) 13:42, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
Fair enough! After writing my request above, I later went to Wikidata & found the item for the surname. I have added {{Wikidata Infobox|qid=Q106020856}} to Category:Jacqueline Marval & added the Commons category to wikidata:Q106020856. Peaceray (talk) 17:07, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Johannesstift

I try to find the location of 'Johannesstift' in Google, but it is not an official place naam. I am buzy moving the Category:2018 in rail transport in Germany files to the lander year categories. Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:09, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Pinging @Leinwand as uploader of File:Ganzzug in Johannesstift.jpg.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 10:42, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
Güterbahnhof Berlin-Spandau Johannesstift [1]. --Raugeier (talk) 11:56, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
You should have searched here on Commons instead of Google [2]. Our search engine is not that bad. --GPSLeo (talk) 17:55, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Invitation to attend “Ask Me Anything about Movement Charter” Sessions

Hello all,

During the 2022 Wikimedia Summit, the Movement Charter Drafting Committee (MCDC) presented the first outline of the Movement Charter, giving a glimpse on the direction of its future work, and the Charter itself. The MCDC then integrated the initial feedback collected during the Summit. Before proceeding with writing the Charter for the whole Movement, the MCDC wants to interact with community members and gather feedback on the drafts of the three sections: Preamble, Values & Principles, and Roles & Responsibilities (intentions statement). The Movement Charter drafts will be available on the Meta page here on November 14, 2022. Community wide consultation period on MC will take place from November 20 to December 18, 2022. Learn more about it here.

With the goal of ensuring that people are well informed to fully participate in the conversations and are empowered to contribute their perspective on the Movement Charter, three “Ask Me Anything about Movement Charter" sessions have been scheduled in different time zones. Everyone in the Wikimedia Movement is invited to attend these conversations. The aim is to learn about Movement Charter - its goal, purpose, why it matters, and how it impacts your community. MCDC members will attend these sessions to answer your questions and hear community feedback.

The “Ask Me Anything” sessions accommodate communities from different time zones. Only the presentation of the session is recorded and shared afterwards, no recording of conversations. Below is the list of planned events:

  • Asia/Pacific: November 4, 2022 at 09:00 UTC (your local time). Interpretation is available in Chinese and Japanese.
  • Europe/MENA/Sub Saharan Africa: November 12, 2022 at 15:00 UTC (your local time). Interpretation is available in Arabic, French and Russian.
  • North and South America/ Western Europe: November 12, 2022 at 15:00 UTC (your local time). Interpretation is available in Spanish and Portuguese.

On the Meta page you will find more details; Zoom links will be shared 48 hours ahead of the call.

Call for Movement Charter Ambassadors

Individuals or groups from all communities who wish to help include and start conversations in their communities on the Movement Charter are encouraged to become Movement Charter Ambassadors (MC Ambassadors). MC Ambassadors will carry out their own activities and get financial support for enabling conversations in their own languages. Regional facilitators from the Movement Strategy and Governance team are available to support applicants with MC Ambassadors grantmaking. If you are interested please sign up here. Should you have specific questions, please reach out to the MSG team via email: strategy2030@wikimedia.org or on the MS forum.

We thank you for your time and participation.

On behalf of the Movement Charter Drafting Committee,

Zuz (WMF) (talk) 10:31, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Categorisation of electric scooters

1
2

Presently both these images are categorised as "Electric motor scooters", but really they depict quite different types of vehicle. Anyone familiar with the terminology here? I have often heard (2) termed an "e-scooter". Although the "e" stands for "electric" anyway, would this be a good enough terminological distinction, if also explained in the category blurb? Any views? ITookSomePhotos (talk) 11:03, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

There has been some discussion about scooter categories here: Commons:Categories for discussion/2022/09/Category:Scooters. Maybe you find an answer or you can make a proposal there. -- Andreas Stiasny (talk) 11:30, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for alerting me to that. I did find out via that discussion that there is already Category:Electric kick scooters for type 2. I have personally never heard of that term, but anyway, it seems images like 2 are just miscategorised so I will fix the ones I see. Also, I will place a note at Category:Electric motor scooters explaining this issue. ITookSomePhotos (talk) 12:29, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Advice on SVG Upload

Hi there! I don't know exactly if this is the place to put this, so correct me if this is in the wrong place.
If you look at my talk-page you'll see that many files I upload are CP struck-down. Now I understand for the music and the jpg/pngs, however when I uploaded an SVG of a political party in Malta (which has no trace of a copyright statement anywhere and there's no way in the world to get it) it got struck down, and I was threatened (for lack of a better term) with a block. I have recently made an SVG Logo of a TVM (Maltese National Station) former logo and I wish to upload it, however I'm not risking seeing the previous experience.
Could I be given advice or at least referred to some material I can read please? Thanks a lot for your patience!! Mtonna257 (talk) 20:29, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Ask at Commons:Village pump/Copyright. Glrx (talk) 21:57, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
@Mtonna257: Under the {{Berne Convention}}, which is now subscribed to by almost every country in the world, works are copyrighted by default at creation. Don't expect that the lack of an explicit copyright notice means that something is in the public domain. - Jmabel ! talk 02:36, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

This banner appeared on this page, but if you click on the banner there is no info page but instead the browser asks "do you want to change and reload this page". I will not do that. C.Suthorn (talk) 10:18, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Category:John A. Collier

I don't think the photographer at Category:John A. Collier ever had a middle initial, in all the references, he is "John Collier Jr. (1913-1992)" I see there is a "John Albert Collier (1913-1992)" https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/G951-J66 who was born and died the same years, but he was born in Tennessee and he died in Florida. Should I fix the category? Can someone confirm before I move. RAN (talk) 16:59, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Duplicates

In the last time a number of duplicates have been uploaded by some users: @DPLA bot (35818), @Orizan (9038), @Tm (7145), @Matlin (6638), @Curlyrnd (5850), @A1Cafel (4381), @Matanya (3724), @Mindmatrix (1951), @Ser Amantio di Nicolao (1735), @Sturm (1316), @Vis M (1221), @Geo Swan (1172), @Askeuhd (1020), @SecretName101 (997), @TaurusEmerald (977), @Sporti (455), @Oxyman (447), @Donald Trung (246), @Davey2010 (244), @Victuallers (210), @1Veertje (184), @Gone Postal(176), @Animalparty (56). I assume that most of this uploads come from upload scripts that do not check for a duplicate before uploading a file. I have created a small java class that can be added to upload scripts and that takes a local file name or an already known message digest of a local file as input and outputs some meta data and a return code of 0 if the file does not exist on Commons or 10 if the file is already on commons, or 20 or higher if some other issue is found. The java class can be downloaded from http://adp.gg/R/P/ONCOMM (it uses the same algorithm as the Offroader upload tool.) C.Suthorn (talk) 16:21, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

I only use Flickr2Commons and rarely Video2Commons so if possible I would support this being added to those 2 and other scripts. –Davey2010Talk 16:29, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
me too. I find it odd that editors with some history here are not allowed to delete their own mistakes. Victuallers (talk) 16:37, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
I also only use Flickr2Commons. Sometimes it fails to detect duplicates. —Vis M (talk) 16:52, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
I use either Flickr2Commons or the Upload Wizard "Share images from Flickr" both sometimes fail to detect duplicate images Oxyman (talk) 17:02, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
I use the Upload Wizard, and it almost always detects duplicates, but if it can be refined further I always welcome that. I wonder...sometimes it doesn't detect a duplicate if the previous file is a different size. Is there a way to check for that as well? (Flickr2Commons has its uses, but this is one of its great failings, to me...it's not very good at detecting duplicates.) --Ser Amantio di Nicolao (talk) 17:07, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
@Ser Amantio di Nicolao, Weirdly I always thought F2C did a fantastic job at detecting duplicates but this year 2 escaped through and then I now find out I have uploaded 244 duplicates here anyway so maybe F2C isn't as great as I thought it was, Up until now I was under the impression it stopped every duplicate here but sadly I guess not, –Davey2010Talk 17:33, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
@Davey2010: I think (and if I'm wrong, please someone correct me - I don't know the first thing about coding) that F2C identifies duplicates by file name. So if the same file has already been uploaded by a different tool then it misses it right off. The Upload Wizard, in my experience, is far better at spotting duplicates - as I say the only thing I've ever seen throw a spanner into its works is if the duplicate is a.) slightly different from the original (i.e. the same image, but with a border), or b.) a different size. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao (talk) 17:44, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
@Ser Amantio di Nicolao: The reason of using Upload Wizard because you have been blocked for using Flickr2Commons. --A1Cafel (talk) 09:11, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
C.Suthorn, that sounds very useful. Flickr2commons's duplicate detection only goes as as far as testing whether the new upload uses the same exact name as an earlier upload. It does not detect when the earlier file has been uploaded under a different name. For this reason, when I use flickr2commons, I let it upload the images under the standard names it chooses, and THEN I move them to a more meaningful name, if I think that is a good idea.
If someone has already uploaded an image, under a nonstandard name, so flickr2commons does not detect it, and I end up uploading a duplicate, I tag my recent upload as the duplicate. I have found at least one administrator, in processing those duplicates, doing something they absolutely should not do. They do not leave the deleted duplicate as a redirect to the one that was kept.
Even if there are no incoming links, from within the WMF-verse, for a duplicate, it should still remain a duplicat to the image that is kept:
  1. Because that name might be used from withing the larger Instant-Commons-verse.
  2. Because, when the version that is kept is the one with the non-standard name, deleting the copy with the name flickr2commons recognizes, without leaving an redirect, makes it likely that a second, third, duplicate will be uploaded.
The names flickrcommons and flinfo use for images are almost identical, differing only in that flickr2commons appends to the filename the image's unique flickr2 image-id, in parentheses. That unique flickr2 image-id is extremely useful. When I crop a headshot from an image, I make sure the headshot's filename also contains the unique image-id. I'd like to request that flinfo be modified, to append that image-id, so it used identical names to flickr2commons. Geo Swan (talk) 20:17, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
Indeed, redirects should almost always be kept! El Grafo (talk) 13:54, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
@C.Suthorn: Thank you for bringing attention to this issue. I will add a hashing check to my own upload script which should be sufficient for my purposes. --Askeuhd (talk) 07:19, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

2000+ more duplicates since I brought this up. --C.Suthorn (talk) 21:49, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Wikistories on Commons conversations with the WikiCommons Community

Greetings, Everyone!

The WMF Inuka team would like to thank everyone who attended the Wikistories office hours, provided feedback, and asked questions about our exploration to incorporate the workflow in Commons. We received valuable input from the office hours participants who attended the different office hours, and we have summarized the discussions here.

Takeaways from the discussions
Most questions asked during office hours were aimed at understanding the tool's features and its moderation in Commons. We answered the questions based on our design thoughts; some other comments were insights for the Inuka team into areas of consideration while working on the initiative to optimize the tool's usage when it is developed. Therefore, the above suggests curiosity from Commons contributors about the Wikistories initiative. The Inuka team sees this as a sign to proceed to the next step of this project unless the community collectively thinks otherwise.

What next?
We are allowing other community members to read the office hours note, ask follow-up questions or provide feedback about the initiative for the Inuka team’s awareness and engagement as we proceed on this project. The Inuka team will post periodic updates to help the WikiCommons community stay aware and involved during the project phases.

Best regards

UOzurumba (WMF) (talk) 15:43, 9 November 2022 (UTC) On behalf of the WMF Inuka team

@UOzurumba (WMF) A word of advice from someone who has been around Commons for quite a while now. Community engagement is key for the success of a project like this. Learn from the somehwat similar attempt to establish Commons:Sequencer about a decade ago. There was a great idea, software was developed and deployed on Commons, and then it just died without ever being used because virtually nobody from the Community was invested in that project. You are on the right track by posting here and promising periodic updates, but that alone is a one-way street that won't be enough to get people involved. Due to how WMF has handled things like MediaViewer, UploadWizard and Flow in the past, people here are very skeptical about features that are being developed outside the community and then forced upon them. It seems like you have gotten a bit of feedback, but looking at the kind of questions that have been asked, it seems like you have been largely ignored by the Commons core community. These questions were mostly asked by people who are interested in using the feature, not so much by the ones who will have to deal with curation, patrolling, and copyright protection. And believe me: those are the ones you need to be on board with this.
So, what can you do? In my experience, if you want the community to back your project you need to make it their project too. And for that you absolutely need to communicate much, much more and you need to do that on-wiki, here, at Commons. Don't hide things on Etherpad (which, by the way, has been vandalized) and in pdf presentations. You have started Commons:Wikistories on Commons - that's where protocols of office hours need to go. That's also where you need to provide up-to-date details about
  • what your project is about
  • how it is going to look like
  • how you are going to implement it
  • how all of this fits with existing policies and guidelines on Commons and where these may have to be adjusted.
  • how all of this fits with existing structures and mechanisms for content curation
  • current status and next steps
  • maybe most importantly, which of the above are not clear yet
  • what kind of feedback you are currently looking for
From a Commons user perspective, the whole thing currently is nothing more than a vague idea of a bunch of people who have no clue about how Commons works. If you want useful feedback, you need to provide details first.
All of this may sound very negative at first, but the mere fact that I'm taking the time to write this shows that I think you can succeed. I think this project is a great opportunity for making Commons more attractive to a new group of users, but to pull that off, you need to get the existing user base involved. The best way to do that is to keep the discussion going. Best of luck, El Grafo (talk) 10:00, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
Hello El Grafo,
Our team appreciates that you see the Wikistories on Commons project as an opportunity to make WikiCommons more attractive to new users. We will do our best to get the existing user base involved and provide up-to-date information about the project on-wiki.
We have moved the office hours notes here and will document our subsequent discussions in Commons to ensure information is not vandalised.
Thank you so much for your valuable feedback, and we look forward to more of them in the course of this project.
Best regards,
UOzurumba (WMF) (talk) 00:17, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Commons:FAQ

The Commons:FAQ is in need of some revision. Most of the FAQs are quite old, and I'm not sure how many are actually frequent concerns anymore. When was the last time ad blockers caused problems on Commons, for example. I'm not really the best person to ask about what newer editors have questions about, so assistance in updating the page would be appreciated. AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 21:04, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. It also lacks information on Wikidata and SDC. El Grafo (talk) 10:04, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

shunting locomotive and location

I suspect this is Aigle station (:Category:Aigle railway station), but I could be wrong. (no bridge) I cant find any information about the small electric shunting locomotive. Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:28, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Hi, the locomotive probably is a SBB & Private Te III. GeorgHH • talk   23:47, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
And after I found File:Trains de lAigle Sepey Diablerets (Suisse) (5774866477).jpg (with the same bridge) and checking the given location information it actually seems you are right with Aigle railway station. GeorgHH • talk   01:08, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

File:A Black Sherlock Holmes (1918).webm

I had nominated this film as MOTD for November 10 in view of its historical interest discussed in particular here and there. Another contributor, considering the film's condition was "terrible", substituted it with something else. Before contemplating nominating it again at a later date, I would be interested to hear other opinions. It is very unlikely anybody will invest in the restoration of this film, the copy has indeed suffered a lot as most nitrate of that age, yet it is available in a decent resolution (1440x1080) and it is a rare document of high cultural interest. Does the latter aspect justify a MOTD nomination or should we rather consider its poor conservation status disqualifies such a nomination ? @Karelj: FYI. — Racconish 💬 22:05, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

IHMO the File:A Black Sherlock Holmes (1918).webm is valuable and fist of all needs complet restauration. But the way to this is not to show this very low quality film on main page of Commons. First of all, because people from all over the word, which are visiting this page want to see something realy interesting and when they will find something like this, they probably will say: Oh, what is this? They realy have nothing better to show us? And people, creating the main Commons page will look like group of exots or something even more worse. And I believe, that we do not want to be in such a situation... -- Karelj (talk) 09:26, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
If the cultural interest is really as high as you claim, then that is not apparent for me at all. Sure, it's old, maybe even rare, but what else? There doesn't seem to be an article about it on Wikipedia, we don't have a category for it, Wikidata has no information about it, and even the file description does not give much information. And it is indeed painful to watch. As it is now, it is nice to have this in the archive in case someone comes along who for some reason is really interested in things like this. But unlike en:View from the Window at Le Gras, it is not something we proudly show off on the main page. Maybe a restored version would be worth watching. Maybe it would be worth enduring the current version if it had better metadata and a Wikipedia article demonstrating the "high cultural interest". El Grafo (talk) 15:01, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
This is a good starting point for further reading. Now I'm staring to interested, but I shouldn't have to do my own websearch to figure out why I should be watching this. El Grafo (talk) 15:09, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback. I agree it would make sense to have an article first. — Racconish 💬 13:46, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

On uploading old books

I have a large Chinese scanned book (1927-1949) database. I want to upload it here for preservation. But I can't verify copyright one by one. I want to copy the book list here and ask users to help to identify books. Should it be positively (i.e., identifying the out-of-copyright book and upload them) or negatively (i.e., identifying those under copyright and upload the rest)?

Please discuss.

Upload for Freedom (talk) 14:39, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

@Upload for Freedom: Hi, and welcome. Have you read COM:CHINA?   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 14:54, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
Of course.--Upload for Freedom (talk) 01:10, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
Commons:Precautionary principle would suggest we want only the ones we are sure are public domain. - Jmabel ! talk 15:47, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
The principle is about the deletion of files. If a copyrighted work were uploaded, one can delete it after. Since they are old books, they will enter PD soon. When they enter, they can be restored. Since the prospect of a global nuclear war looming, preservation (upload to commons, even temporarily delete after that) should be the top priority. --Upload for Freedom (talk) 01:10, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
Upload for Freedom, Uploading large volume of potentially copyrighted material and waiting for others to check the copyrights and nominate for deletion, will not make you popular and could lead to a block. A better way, would be to perform a triage on your end and separate them into: definitely PD, definitely not PD yet, and need more research catogories. Then upload the first category and slowly work on the second. However only upload the books which you know are in PD. --168.245.155.42 20:32, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
Too many to identify. A biography of many authors won't even be found in Google. Upload for Freedom (talk) 04:47, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

If no one else is supporting the schemes, I have to drop the proposal.--Upload for Freedom (talk) 11:18, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Proposal: Tolerate users to upload pre-1949 Chinese books 建议：容忍用户上传1949年以前的中文书籍 --Upload for Freedom (talk) 12:44, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Alan Liefting removed many categories from thousands of files

Yesterday User:Alan Liefting removed many general categories from thousands of files without replacing them by subcategories, see Special:Contributions/Alan Liefting. I think that cannot be good. For me this is violence. What can be done?

  • I think the changes should be reversed, but there are far too many to do that manually. Is there another method?
  • Should he be blocked?

--JopkeB (talk) 03:02, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

I think you meant "vandalism" instead of "violence" ;) Anyway, User talk:Tm#Categories seems to explain Alan Liefting's reasons behind the removal of categories. --HyperGaruda (talk) 07:22, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for the information. Yes indeed, I meant vandalism. I read the explanation, but an explanation means not that his actions are OK. I totally disagree with Alan Liefting. You cannot remove main categories from thousands of files, without replacing them with proper subcategories AND without first discussing it at the Village pump to get permission to do so. Now there is a lot of loss of information. (In the past I quarreled a lot with Tm, but here he is right.) And at least one of the files was not uploaded by Tm, but I guess the majority of the files were uploaded by other people. These actions of Alan Liefting must stop! There is no policy that says that you cannot put files in main categories (though I agree it is better to have them in subcategories, but not everyone is familiar with categorizing and sometimes you just park them there for a while to better categorize them later). And I think it is better having files in a main category than that they have no category at all. How can we stop this and reverse his actions? JopkeB (talk) 09:59, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
Oh I completely agree with you. Sometimes the category is the only meaningful piece of information to identify what is depicted. Remove that and you end up digging through revision histories; not particularly efficient... --HyperGaruda (talk) 10:57, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
I totally agree that it's often better to put a file in a main category than in a wrong subcategory. Optionally, a subcategory of the main category can be created to park all files that need to be placed in a correct subcategory. Files without a category and especially if they have a bad description and file name are untraceable. Wouter (talk) 11:21, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
  • We're not talking about putting files into too-broad main categories. We're talking about files that are already in them, and what to do to fix that situation.
I would support putting them in the corret categories. If that is slower to do, then we work more slowly. That's a reasonable trade-off. There's no rush to take them out of these broad categories. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:29, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
+1 C.Suthorn (talk) 11:32, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
@JopkeB: I sampled a dozen of these at random from the user's contributions. All of the ones I saw were removals of a less specific category where a more specific category was present. Can you give, say, half a dozen examples of what you consider bad/vandalistic edits? - Jmabel ! talk 17:51, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
Ah, it is good to see a rare voice of reason on Commons! Some of my edits resulted in a files being uncategorised but in my opinion that is better than having them cluttering up the high level categories, especially those at Commons:Categories requiring diffusion. User:Tm is blindly reverting my edits even though the files are in a more appropriate subcategory. Violence and vanadlaism! FFS! Talk about overreaction! Alan Liefting (talk) 19:14, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
 Comment How about the mass removal of thousand of files from country categories Category:Malaysia or Category:Zimbabwe or Category:Zambia when they not one more category. Or the removal of thousand of files from time categories like Category:1910s or similars when these are proper categories and\or the single one in this files. Tm (talk) 19:47, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
In the case of, for example, Category:Malaysia move in first instance all the images in Category:Unidentified subjects in Malaysia and then in one of the subcategories of that category. I suggest to create a subcategory Category:Unidentified people in Malaysia to move all people there. Wouter (talk) 21:07, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
@Jmabel: if I may: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. While I would not characterise these as hopelessly lost as they still have enough identifiable information other than categories, it may take a while (days/weeks?) before a bot adds the uncategorised template. In the meantime, the search function would be the only way to find them. --HyperGaruda (talk) 20:37, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
and that template would just put the images in an even larger uncategorised files category. Had I seen those files uncategorised I may well have catted them as South America as I am uninformed about this subject, others that are more informed then me are more likely to see the files in the South America category then the uncategorised files category Oxyman (talk) 20:55, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
@HyperGaruda: yes, I agree that those 6 are all bad edits. - Jmabel ! talk 04:43, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
Thanks HyperGaruda for the examples (a former collegue used to say: "whoever does my work is my friend", I agree), I could not have find better ones. Thanks the rest of you for bringing this discussion further and find solutions for the problem of overcrowded main categories.
  • I support the suggestion of Wouter to move files that are in a main category, where they do not belong, to a subcategory that is specially made for the purpose of further categorization.
  • I agree with Oxyman that (eventually, automatically) moving them to a category like Media needing categories is no solution at all, and that editors who are more familiar with a subject can bring files in a main category to the correct subcategories; they (the informed editors) would not have known about these files when they are in a category like Media needing categories, or are in other categories, while lacking the important one they are specialized in.
And it looks like Alan Liefting has created a mess and leaves it up to us to clean it up; though it is better that he leaves voluntarily than causing more chaos. I still think Commons is a great platform, but it indeed needs a lot of TLC. JopkeB (talk) 07:36, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Fuck all this. I am out of here. You lot can do all the work, of which there is a lot. It is such a shame that an important resource is being fucked up by the editors. Alan Liefting (talk) 19:14, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Can some rename this to "City Walls from Baile Hill to North Street Postern Tower" along with all the related pages, images, labels etc?

  • Baile should only have one "l".
  • Barker Tower is now called North Street Postern Tower

Category:City walls from Baille Hill to Barker Tower

[3]https://her.york.gov.uk/Monument/MYO4234

[4]https://www.british-history.ac.uk/rchme/york/vol2/plate-26 92.21.59.237 09:58, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Broken SVG

File:Verrado High School logo.svg is broken and I don't know how to fix it SyntheticSystems (talk) 18:00, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

@SyntheticSystems:
A comment on the File: page says, "Non-free logo, no free representation". Non-free images are not allowed on Commons; there is no fair use exception. Without a suitable license, the file should be deleted.
SVG fixed. It used href instead of xlink:href.
Furthermore, the file is a PNG within an SVG wrapper.
Glrx (talk) 19:25, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
I can't upload it on Wikipedia though. SyntheticSystems (talk) 19:26, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
How can I make it an SVG? SyntheticSystems (talk) 19:30, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
@SyntheticSystems:
en.Wikipedia allows fair use uploads. I do not know why you cannot upload it there.
It is an SVG file already, it just does not use vector descriptions. That's why the image looks pixelated at modest sizes. A graphics tool/editor is needed to convert the bitmap.
IIRC, en.Wikipedia will take fair use images at low resolutions. Its fair use policy does not allow vectorizing bitmaps because that makes an arbitrary-resolution image that contradicts one of the requirements of fair use. Its policy allows using the same SVG file that the copyright holder used.
Glrx (talk) 19:43, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
I can't upload it because I'm a new user. Could you vectorize it for me and upload it there? SyntheticSystems (talk) 21:02, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
Vectorizing is against the rules. Glrx (talk) 21:55, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
You could extract the embedded PNG and ask at en.wp, if the extracted PNG ist allowed there. C.Suthorn (talk) 10:14, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by SyntheticSystems Glrx (talk) 01:57, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Categories in Commons causing issues with interwiki links

Hi. I just observed that the pages en:El Atazar Dam, and es:Embalse de El Atazar, don't have mutual interlingual links because they use the Commonscat template, yet they use two different categories:

- Category:El Atazar Dam for the English Wikipedia page and all other wikipedias that are interlinked there, i.e., German, Dutch, Norwegian bokmål, Norwegian nynorsk, and Swedish

- Category:Embalse de El Atazar for the Spanish Wikipedia page and all other wikipedias that are interlinked there, i.e., Cebuano, and Farsi

To add complexity to it, Category:El Atazar Dam is a subcategory of Category:Embalse de El Atazar. I have no idea on what to begin with for fixing that. Does anyone have a clue on how to do it? --Diotime (你好) 12:08, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

@Mike Peel?   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 12:24, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
What others already said below. :-) Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 16:29, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
@Diotime: I don't think this is caused by the Commons categories. The categories (quite correctly in my opinion) treat the dam (Category:El Atazar Dam) and the reservoir (Category:Embalse de El Atazar) as different things, with the dam being part of the reservoir. There are similarly separate items for the two on Wikidata, El Atazar Dam (Q43400029) and El Atazar Reservoir (Q513846). If you want to improve the interlanguage linking, I think you either need to do it on Wikidata (by changing sitelinks) or on the various Wikipedias (by adding manual interlanguage links). --bjh21 (talk) 12:47, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
Diotime: This is not a Commons or Wikidata issue. The dam and the reservoir are distinct entities that are related. Separate WD items, separate Commons categories. There is nothing to be done beyond manually adding interlanguage links to the individual wiki articles (not recommended) or, preferably, writing new articles to cover these distinct topics. Sitelinks on Wikidata should not be tampered with as that will mess with the already existing relationships. — Huntster (t @ c) 14:42, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
No need for manual links, there's been a recent game changer: It is now possible on Wikidata to add Sitelinks to redirects on Wikipedia! So one could simply add en:Embalse de El Atazar (a redirect to en:El Atazar Dam) as a sitelink to El Atazar Reservoir (Q513846). Similarly, El Atazar Dam (Q43400029) could have es:Presa del Atazar as a sitelink, which redirects to es:Embalse de El Atazar. See d:Wikidata:Sitelinks to redirects for details. El Grafo (talk) 09:01, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
Excellent! I looked at d:Help:Sitelinks, which implies that sitelinks to redirects are discouraged: "If you really want to connect a redirect page to an item...". But it seems it might be a little out of date. --bjh21 (talk) 16:02, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
Yes, that should probably be updated. I've left a message on the talk page there, don't feel like I'm enough of a wikidata user to do that myself yet ... El Grafo (talk) 08:14, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Unnecessary bot edits

This edit by BadzilBot has the edit summary "Fix usage of {{Taken on}}". I don't see this as a fix. I see it as a totally arbitrary and unnecessary change of capitalization that sticks an unneeded item in the watchlist for anyone watching that file. I am unaware of any consensus that this template name should be capitalized when used. I really hope this (and a dozen or so others I got just now) are not the beginning of 50,000 or so useless notifications that will clog my watchlist over time with false claims of fixing something that wasn't broken. - Jmabel ! talk 02:54, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

@Jmabel You can see here that @Cryptic-waveform was informed. Should we mark this as resolved? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 04:47, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
Hello. Such edits were unintended and will not happen in the future.. I've worked over the past week or so to improve pages where the {{Taken on}} template was badly used. See Template talk:Taken on#Categorize bad uses of this template and the hundreds of edits that actually fixed the template usage: Special:Contributions/BadzilBot. Cryptic-waveform (talk) 13:25, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Misleading gallery label on Commons:Featured pictures for fish.

Cross-posting from Commons talk:Featured pictures#Cartilaginous fishes so more eyes can look at this.

I was looking for featured pictures of cartilaginous fishes. Initially I looked in Commons:Featured pictures/Animals, which has none. I now found out that these pictures are hidden in Commons:Featured pictures/Animals/Fish#Class : Chondrichthyes (Cartilaginous Fishes). I wasn't looking there because Commons:Featured pictures deceptively describes that page as “Actinopterygii (Ray-finned fish)”. See on Commons talk:Featured pictures#Cartilaginous fishes for possibilities on how we could fix this. I'd prefer more feedback before I edit the highly visible page.

– b_jonas 19:48, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Photo challenge September results

Abstract photography: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 3
image
Title Light colors Sand at a beach in the surf zone,
Northern Algarve, Portugal		 Emtpy rooms and hallway in the
Jewish Museum Berlin, Germany
Author Celeda Lusi Lindwurm Mozzihh
Score 11 10 9
Gifts: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 3
image
Title День рождения. Праздничный торт Shoes Filled With Gifts
for Saint Nicholas Day		 Shiny Christmas balls
Author Tiraspolsky Changku88 Sneha G Gupta
Score 15 14 11

Congratulations to Celeda, Lusi Lindwurm, Mozzihh, Tiraspolsky, Changku88 and Sneha G Gupta. -- Jarekt (talk) 02:59, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Higher resolution or not

Am I right in assuming that an original image uploaded to Commons is better/higher resolution than those images that have been taken from other sites and repurposed/uploaded onto Wikipedia directly? Danidamiobi (talk) 10:56, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

@Danidamiobi: Hi, and welcome. Not necessarily. Sometimes, photographers upload their own work to their own websites with high resolution and restrictive licensing, and upload low-resolution versions here or on Flickr with more permissive licensing (or allow others to make such uploads), with the intent of driving traffic to their websites and getting paid. See also COM:HR.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 13:36, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

File:LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-mariner.wav

The uploader, a sock of the vandal Wonderfool whose longtime tactic is to mix some bad edits in with many good ones, isn't saying "mariner" (he's basically saying "marina" although the first vowel is questionable); see wikt:WT:Tea room/2022/November#Audio_at_mariner. I tried to use the "Move"/"Request renaming" function, putting "File:LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-marina.wav" in the "Enter the new name" field and then filling out the rationale fields, but when I hit "Request renaming" it wouldn't go through and kept insisting it didn't think I had really put a new name in. -sche (talk) 06:15, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

@-sche: I agree with you about the pronunciation, so I've renamed the file to File:LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-marina-20210805.wav and corrected the transcription. --bjh21 (talk) 17:11, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

2 Question: How do we replace OUR painting? What is the maximum size of an image?

* 2 Question:

* How do we replace OUR painting

to the new version

that we improved yesterday?

* What is the maximum size of an image

that can be uploaded to:

commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons

?

♥ ❤😀

with love

Simcha & Hila

♥ ❤😀 h4uh Bible Kabbalah Torah Happy Joy love wisdom kindness world peace truth lectures (talk) 08:29, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

  • For reference to everyone, see this discussion which tries to explain the concept of Com:SCOPE to the uploader. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 09:31, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
    @Yann I hate to rope you in but I saw User_talk:שמחה_קבלה#Your_account_has_been_blocked and we have these uploads in September. I don't know what was done before but they couldn't have been more spammy than the newest uploads. Ricky81682 (talk) 09:37, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
    Hey! Thank you very much and all the best! Thanks for the comments. We edited, we made changes, We changed the page according to what you wrote. The role of the page: to concentrate on OUR personal page, in one place, All our CC0 infographics deal with the same topic. * 2 Questions: * We made some small improvements to our painting Art Picture. Question: How can we Replaces the old file with the new file? * What is the maximum file size, and maximum amount of files, that we are allowed to upload? * Please send me 2 how-to articles links: • How to delete a file. • How to replace an existing file with its revised version. Thank you very much and all the best! Sincerely User: Simcha & Hila

Login credentials for Wikimedia and Wikipedia.

My credentials seem to be accepted without issue when I log in to Wikimedia, but very often when I click a link to another page, on the new page it appears that I have been logged out. For example if I am logged in when looking at the page at

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki

and then I click on the link labelled "Wikipedia" which takes me to

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

the newly opened page shows that I am not logged in. If I hit the 'log in' link at the top right of the page I'm presented with a login page, but the credentials fields are both empty. It's very tedious to have to keep filling them in by hand. (This is just and example, it isn't always a Wikipedia page which shows the issue.)

Once or twice I have found a way to get logged in to Wikipedia from a Wikimedia page. The method was to click a link which brings up a browser dialogue asking for username and password, the two items having been helpfully filled in by my browser. But most of the time neither item is populated, and I haven't found a way reliably to ensure that the browser fills in the boxes. I guess it depends on exactly which link it was that I clicked that took me to the login page. I've no idea what the differences are and I can't at the moment give an example of a link which populates the boxes. It's taken me an hour to get this far.

Cookies are allowed and I've tried disabling all blocking for the sites without obvious effect.

What am I missing? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ged Haywood (talk • contribs) 12:53, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

@Ged Haywood: Have you considered trying to check the "Keep me logged in" checkbox to set the cookies? You can logout when you are done.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 15:50, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
If I login to Wikipedia (English) I find that the other Wikipedia sites, particularly other languages, seem to know straight away that I'm logged in, but if I go to Wikimedia Commons, that mostly isn't aware that I'm logged in. However, if I click the 'log in' link in Wikimedia Commons and then do nothing, it seems at that point to notice that I'm already logged in and after a few seconds logs me in (to Wikimedia Commons) with no further action on my part. It just seems to need the 'log in' prod and a little patience for it to pick up that I'm centrally logged in. Philh-591 (talk) 22:16, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
This is because of modern protections by browsers, which block (and isolate) cookies to 3rd party top level domains. When you visit the other domain however, it does know how to reauthenticate (its pretty complicated, and has this downside you describe, which is why it took browsers 15 years to plug this major hole, which was used extensively by Google and Facebook ad tracking, but also by Wikimedia to do their cross domain login). —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:04, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

POTY 2021 Banner

I would like to ask why not adding POTY 2021 Banner for the main page of Commons as it is totally related to it? We are now in the First round of the competition, and with the banner. It will be easier to access and vote for the best featured pictures in 2021. Sandra Hanbo (talk) 08:25, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Elisachan

Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Elisachan

File:唔知得唔得 05.jpg File:唔知得唔得 06.jpg File:唔知得唔得 04.jpg

useful for what? if you wanna show the pots, the glass jars partially block the view. if you wanna show the jars, which seem to contain ginseng liquor, something else blocks the view. there's no location either. uploader wrote "dont know if this works" in filenames and "testing" in descriptions.--RZuo (talk) 20:16, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

User:Kadı care to answer why these low quality photos would be "realistically useful for an educational purpose" instead of plenty of other photos that show an unobstructed view of the subjects? RZuo (talk) 11:18, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

I certainly would not call these "low quality". These are high resolution images taken with a good camera. I rather like the composition actually, not every image needs to be a "catalog picture" of a single subject. Quite well within scope. MKFI (talk) 07:31, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
Fully agree, it is within scope and can illustrate multiple topics suchs as Depth of Field, Kitchen, pots, etc. PierreSelim (talk) 10:04, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
@Kadı, MKFI, and PierreSelim: since you know what these photos can be used for, please resolve their maintenance cats and give them precise filenames that correctly identify depicted subjects. RZuo (talk) 05:37, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

What is Category:Food pictures to move about?

Does anybody knows what Category:Food pictures to move is about? I started a discussion, I left an extra message on talkpage of the initiator (both were moved to the Archive without any reaction), but I did not get an answer yet (only one reaction of Auntof6, who did not know the answer either). So the questions are:

  1. Can this category be deleted/removed?
  2. If no: what is the purpose of this category, why should it exist?

--JopkeB (talk) 12:48, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

Pinging @JuTa as initiator.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 12:56, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
obviously it's a cat only used by JuTa. you'll get the answer only when s/he comes back online, or the cat can be deleted if s/he remains offline for a long time. RZuo (talk) 10:59, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Auntof6, Jeff G., Ricky81682, HyperGaruda and RZuo for your contributions. I closed the discussion on Commons:Categories for discussion/2022/09/Category:Food pictures to move by giving Category:Food pictures to move a redirect to Category:Unidentified food. --JopkeB (talk) 05:50, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Wrong copyright status.

It seems to me that File:1902 - University College, Oxford Rowing VIII - far right (with boater) Henry Dubs Middleton, Chairman of Leeds General Infirmary 1928-1932.jpg has the wrong status. It is clearly not "own work", but I imagine that it is PD because of age. I'm not very familiar with Commons procedures, so I don't know how to handle this. --ColinFine (talk) 21:15, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

I came to the above from the article w:Family of Catherine, Princess of Wales, which was largely written by the assiduous editor @Srbernadette, and I wondered about the status of the photos in it and came looking. The one I mentioned above is probably PD, and so legal even if misdescribed. But I looked at another one, File:Hawkhills, Gledhow - home of William Middleton.jpg, also uploaded by Srbernadette and claimed as "Own work", but stated to be uploaded from http://www.fgvw.co.uk/ . I cannot now find it on that website, but I'm quite ready to believe that it was there once; but I am extremely dubious that it is freely licensed. Looking at User Talk:Srbernadette I see that many pictures uploaded by that user have been challenged or deleted. I'm not sure if there is some general actgion that should be taken about this.
People active on the English Wikipedia Help Desk are familiar with Srbernadette, but people here may not be. She has written a lot of material in English Wikipedia, (sometimes logged in, and sometimes not) particularly about royal and noble houses with connections to Leeds; but she often asks for assistance at the Help desk there, usually to fix errors she has made in referencing; she appears to have difficulty understanding instructions, and relies on people being willing to fix the problems she asks about. ColinFine (talk) 21:48, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

template:tincture new behavior?

Hi everybody,

Some time ago, when I used the {{Tincture}} template via the {{COAInformation}} template, colored rectangles was visible in the definition table and a categorization was automatically done.

Today, I can see that the look and feel changed (why not) but the categoryzation fails. I can only see Tinctures (Undefined) where previously I saw something like azure, or, vert in heraldry.

Someone would know what happened? A bug, perhaps? I tried to find the reason, but I can't.

Jpgibert (talk) 10:50, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Pinging @Sarang, Doc Taxon as editors of {{Tincture}}.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 11:03, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
@Jpgibert and Jeff G.:
Bonjour Jean-Paul,
  1. the mentioned categorizations as e.g. Azure, or, vert in heraldry had been questioned whether it will be for any good. I was maintaining it successfully, I do not know why it got lost — when you like it I can give it a look how it can reestabished.
  2. Yes, there is a new behavior. It was a decision of the German heralders to treat tinctures in another way. To show again the color boxes just add /FR to the tincture list, e.g. | tincture = o/b/v/FR; specifying tinctures without any palette had been changed now to "undefined". Add that national palette tag in future svp; to all your files in CoA Lab-fr:Jpgibert I just added it.
Thank you for your good work, and for always specifying the tinctures. May be helpful when you always start with |tincture=FR/ and add then the colors?
For any further questions, I would like when I can help you. Cdlt -- sarang♥사랑 12:28, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
Hi Sarang, thanks a lot for your answer and your upgrade of my work. I will add the /FR in the future.
For the tincture categories, I don't think that it is necessary to keep them. I just mentioned them because of the Tinctures (undefined) category appears.
If there is a consensus to abandon them, it's ok for me. I don't think that this kind of categories is very relevant for arms research.
Best regards, Jpgibert (talk) 13:21, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Migration scripts

Are there some existing scripts/tools to help with

  • download image from another wiki
  • edit description, validate description
  • upload it to Wikimedia Commons

?

I expect that something like that exists and I cannot really track anything like that down

Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 19:01, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

mw:Help:Extension:FileImporter.--RZuo (talk) 21:02, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Use of word "of" in category names

E.g. Category:Birds of the Isle of Wight. To me, the word "of" suggests native or naturally occurring birds, not e.g. birds kept in captivity, so it seems odd to include e.g. File:Bald Eagle at Appuldurcombe House.jpg. Does anyone agree/disagree? The principle would potentially apply to numerous categories. ITookSomePhotos (talk) 22:38, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Disagree, use of the word "of" in categories means "in some way related to". For instance we have in the category Category:Mayors of London, Category:Boris Johnson. He is in that category despite being born in New York City. Also we have Category:People in Germany which is a subcategry of Category:People of Germany. So in that case people have a relation to Germany by being in Germany. Oxyman (talk) 00:13, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
"Mayor of London" is a title, like "King of England" or "President of the USA". It can hardly be misunderstood. On the other hand, I believe that many people would understand, let's say, a book entitled "Birds of Great Britain" to be concerned with native birds, not any birds that happen to have been brought there in captivity. "People in Germany" versus "People of Germany" is potentially confusing with no further explanation. At minimum, the category pages need to explain the distinction. With no further information, I understand "People of Germany" to mean ethnic or resident Germans, and "People in Germany" to mean people of any ethnicity or nationality who happen to be in Germany, which is logically consistent with my original suggestion. ITookSomePhotos (talk) 00:51, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
I don't understand the mention of Johnson: he was a mayor of London. Regardless of where he was born, he was later in life a certain place's mayor, and that place was London. I think OP is arguing that the Appuldurcombe eagle is more like if former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani moved to London and someone then categorized him in Category:Mayors of London. -sche (talk) 05:59, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
I agree as well: species 'of' a geographic region are understood to to be species that are naturally occurring in that place. In other uses, 'of' would not be so restrictive. For example, "birds of the Metro Toronto Zoo", or "plants of Kew Gardens" would not have the same implication. Adeirf (talk) 22:44, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Are you annoyed by the "by year" and "by decade" cats?

by the differences in the way cat titles are constructed:

Category:January 2022 in France Category:2022 in France Category:3rd millennium in Europe time before place vs Category:France in the 2020s Category:France in the 21st century place before time.

do you think this is a problem? do you think it can be improved?--RZuo (talk) 21:02, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

    • I indeed am often annoyed, as I often sort those categories. I care little which comes first, and agree that the solution, if any, ought to minimize impact. Maybe first, a consensus that date should be first, or a consensus the other way, and then a bot strategy. For example if a bot is running through a category for some other reason and changing every file or almost every file, it could do this job as well, to all of them. Presumably such a solution would take years to reach a position of 90% done, at which point it might finish with a bot job of its own. Jim.henderson (talk) 21:48, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
      i think there're two solutions:
      1. keep the current cat trees, but create redirects from one to other, e.g. France in 2022 redirects to 2022 in France.
      2. overhaul of the cats. choose one style for all, and move the non-compliant cats, keeping the redirects that result from moves. future cats except "YYYY in XX" generally dont need redirects since a consistent system is implemented.
      personally i prefer #2, and a format of "time before place". implementing #2 will cause a lot of moves in the short run, but it will save the effort of making redirects in the long run. RZuo (talk) 20:39, 22 November 2022 (UTC)
lol i just realised enwp has a consistent structure: en:Category:2020s in France en:Category:21st century in France. who came up with this dumb dual system on commons?? RZuo (talk) 20:42, 22 November 2022 (UTC)
  • I am also indeed often annoyed, and would support standardizing either style. Sometimes I create redirects, but it's tedious and their existence is unreliable. There's also, of course, [subject] of [place] / [subject] in [place], [people] from [place] / [people] of [place], etc. but one at a time I suppose. :) — Rhododendrites talk |  21:29, 22 November 2022 (UTC)
    • It seems among our little group we have a consensus for consistency. We have some who prefer "12th century in Johannesburg" or whatever, and none who want vice versa. This doesn't look a very big concensus, so maybe the next step is to go to Commons talk:Categories and repeat that this is our idea. If no serious dissent, then "So shall it be written, so shall it be done". As for how fast and by what means, I normally recategorize a couple dozen files every day. Many have a "when in where" category, which don't need adjustment. Few have "where in when" category but when it arises in the course of other work, I intend to make the new category with the old category as its daughter, and start moving files slowly. After days or months the old cat is empty, and it becomes a redirect. So, overall, we first establish and publish a policy or conventional cat preference or whatever we call it, and then consider what we each or all should do to move stray cats into line. For me, it's not urgent but ought not be completely ignored. Jim.henderson (talk) 23:43, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Join the Movement Charter Regional Conversation Hours

You can find this message translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki.
More languages • Please help translate to your language

Hi all,

As most of you are aware, the Movement Charter Drafting Committee (MCDC) is currently collecting community feedback about three draft sections of the Movement Charter: Preamble, Values & Principles, and Roles & Responsibilities (intentions statement).

How can you participate and share your feedback?

The MCDC is looking forward to receiving all types of feedback in different languages from the community members across the Movement and Affiliates. You can participate in the following ways:

  • Attend the community conversation hours with MCDC members. Details about the regional community conversation hours are published here
  • Fill out a survey (optional and anonymous)
  • Share your thoughts and feedback on the Meta talk page
  • Share your thoughts and feedback on the MS Forum:
  • Send an email to: movementcharterwikimediaorg if you have other feedback to the MCDC.

Community consultation hour for the Sub-Saharan Africa region will take place this Friday, November 25, on Zoom. It will be translated into French language. The conversations will not be recorded, except for the section where participants are invited to share what they discussed in the breakout rooms. We will take notes and produce a summary report afterwards.

If you want to learn more about the Movement Charter, its goals, why it matters and how it impacts your community, please watch the recording of the “Ask Me Anything about Movement Charter” sessions which took place earlier in November 2022.

Thank you for your participation.

On behalf of the Movement Charter Drafting Committee,

Zuz (WMF) (talk) 11:53, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Ernst Haeckel's

There is any issue with ernst haeckels artwork individual names. — Preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.145.173.34 (talk) 11:20, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Canada: The date is out

The date on which Canada switches to a copyright term of 70 years pma (instead of the 50 years pma before) will be December 30, 2022 [5]. So I guess all works of Canadian authors who died in 1972 won't enter the public domain until 2043. --Rosenzweig τ 21:56, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Is this change retroactive? Ruslik (talk) 12:00, 24 November 2022 (UTC)
No. All works that entered the public domain on January 1, 2022 or in the years before stay in the PD. --Rosenzweig τ 14:23, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

New template Rail transport in Bremen-year

For nearly al German states there are year categories for rail transport. Unlike Hamburg where the state is the same as the city, there is a separate city Bremerhaven also belonging to the state. Often pictures of Bremen are dumped in Lower-Saxony categories as it is an enclave within Lower-Saxony. With the the template I have created two categories: 2018 in rail transport Bremen (state) and 2019 in rail transport Bremen (state) Smiley.toerist (talk) 13:35, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

Unfortunately it seems that this template already existed for Bremen (state), but was never used. The template Rail transport in Bremen-year can be modified and reused for the city of Bremen. I wil be concentrating on moving the year in rail transport in Germany files to Bremen state.Smiley.toerist (talk) 13:47, 24 November 2022 (UTC)
@Smiley.toerist It helps to provide links to people. The new template is Template:Rail transport in Bremen (state)-year I think. I fixed Category:2018 in rail transport in Bremen (state) (missing the second 'in'). Shouldn't it be a category of Category:2018 in Bremen (state), not Category:2018 in Bremen (the city)? Ricky81682 (talk) 02:08, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

What is the largest file that can be downloaded from this website

See File:William Craig Brownlee (1783-1860) by Frederick R. Spencer.jpg, can someone doublecheck to see if the largest file has already been uploaded. --RAN (talk) 18:53, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Yes, it seems so. I fixed the date and the license. Yann (talk) 19:43, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
As of now, there is unfortunately now way at all to download files from https://zimmerli.emuseum.com/objects/2416/reverend-william-craig-brownlee-17831860 by a simple right-click. All images on that website have been placed in some sort of container that prevents manual downloading. De728631 (talk) 19:44, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

File:London Cardiff terrain blank.jpg licnese review

Can somebody pls help me to review that file? How can you review mapping data? Pls ping me.--Sanandros (talk) 16:18, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Help needed to communicate with German-speaking user

I've been trying to communicate with User:Tobibln about incorrect use of {{Container category}}, but haven't gotten an answer. It looks like they might speak German. If someone could translate into German my messages at User talk:Tobibln#Use of Template:Container category, I'd appreciate it. Thanks! --Auntof6 (talk) 04:26, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Though Tobibln may be natively German, their "home Wikipedia" seems to be the English one by a large margin. Considering their zero contributions to discussion/talk pages here, I think they just refuse to engage with others. --HyperGaruda (talk) 06:28, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
It would probably also help a lot if all template pages state their purpose more clearly and when to use what in case of similar templates. {{Container category}} in particular is lacking that information. --HyperGaruda (talk) 08:19, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
And {{Container category}} is a redirect anyway. -- Auntof6 (talk) 08:57, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Latest uploads not rendering

Hello, I've been having issues with my latest uploads of File:Petroleum Barnstar.png and File:Norway Barnstar.png. I've been clearing my internet history and cache, yet the older versions are still being previewed rather than their latest uploads. Anyone else have other solutions? Judekkan (talk) 20:09, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Both look fine for me. --Túrelio (talk) 20:32, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
@Judekkan: They look different, but still scale as blurry - please read {{Convert to SVG}}, COM:MFC#PNG photos that require a JPEG version, and COM:PURGE.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 21:14, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Michael Gäbler obituary

Sorry this took so long. Adam Cuerden (talk) 18:46, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Political Graveyard

I loaded one image from the Political Graveyard Flickr account: File:Superintendents of Missouri State Hospitals and Eleemosynary Institutions (25042523121).jpg, I want to load the entire account with Flickr2Commons, any suggestions as to Categories that may be helpful? This will be my first bulk upload. RAN (talk) 00:53, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

I think flickr2commons only allows me to import under the existing Flickr license ASFAICT, I gave them all a unique category, so they can be changed later to PD. The CC license would apply to the derivative copy he made when he scanned the booklet, the source material would be PD. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk • contribs)
  • If you use flickr2commons it's pretty easy to apply one or more categories to a group of successive photos in the stream without applying to every photo in the stream. That is, rather than one big batch upload, you can upload a series of smaller batches of related photos. In many cases, this particular account seems to group together photos that have a common source (and a source more meaningful than the Flickr account, one that will do much more to explain why they are public domain), often by putting them in a particular album. You can create categories for those original sources. Plus, of course, it seems only polite to create a category acknowledging Political Graveyard. - Jmabel ! talk 01:35, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
  • I gave Political Graveyard their own category, I also contacted Lawrence Kestenbaum of Political Graveyard to let him know what I am doing. Flickr2commons was easy to use once the authorization went through. --RAN (talk) 01:49, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

SchlurcherBot

Is it possible, in some way that I cannot figure out, to block SchlurcherBot from my watchlist? "Changed an entity: automatically adding structured data based on file information: meta" is just about all I get nowadays, hundreds of them, and anything that happened before that, as you all know, does not show up without further investigation. Very tiresome. --SergeWoodzing (talk) 18:02, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

@SergeWoodzing Have you checked the "Hide bot edits from the watchlist" option under Watchlist in your preferences? User:SchlurcherBot is flagged as a bot so that's good. Ricky81682 (talk) 09:40, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
@Ricky81682: Two problems with that:
  1. Hides all bots, not one particular bot.
  2. Also, unfortunately, as far as I can tell that whole mechanism is a bit broken, because it leaves out all files where the latest edit is a bot edit, even though there may also have been manual edits to the same file since you last checked your watchlist. - Jmabel ! talk 17:08, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
+1. There is no way to block only SchlurcherBot and Botmultichill SDC edits from the watchlist. It has become a very tiny bit better since the bots only edit 200 files from the same category in one run, I still had 800 edits in my watchlist a few days ago. A year or more ago I found a note that the watchlist would be extended to 2000 edits max, but I cannot find the info again, i has not been implemented and it would not really help. If an edit tag (like "2020-source-edit", "reverted", "changed-from-visual-editor") was added to the SDC edits of bots, it would be really easy to filter SchlurcherBot and BotMultichill. C.Suthorn (talk) 18:14, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
ping @Schlurcher @BotMultichill @BotMultichillT C.Suthorn (talk) 18:16, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
Unfortunately I am not a wmf developer, so I cannot influence that. --Schlurcher (talk) 08:41, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
Second thought: How are Special:Tags defined and set? That would help, correct? --Schlurcher (talk) 09:16, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
Update: So I can fairly easily implement adding a tag to all my edits. I borrowed the ACDC tag for a short test: Special:Contributions/SchlurcherBotT. @C.Suthorn: would this work? As I found out further, apparently any admin can set new tags (it's part of the managechangetags user right that is assigned to admins). So if this works, we can reach out to an admin to make an fairly short and informative tag for this purpose and then I can start it. --Schlurcher (talk) 10:27, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
Update 2: As far as I can tell the edit tag would allow for the option to filter to the edits marked with this tag, but not to filter out the edits marked with this tag. Am I missing something? Please advise if the is indeed a possible solution. --Schlurcher (talk) 18:45, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
It works for me: I can filter the watchlist for all tags BUT the SDC tag. C.Suthorn (talk) 06:32, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
Ok fine then. I've reached out to Multichil to have a coordinated approach on this: User_talk:Multichill#Tag_Bot_SDC_edits Schlurcher (talk) 16:30, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
gówno 83.15.133.193 14:47, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
✓ Done --Schlurcher (talk) 19:21, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
Can you post an explanation on how to exclude edits tagged ACDC from one’s watchlist, the, please? -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 19:46, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
I had the same question, so I'm not the one to provide an explanation. --Schlurcher (talk) 09:39, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
@Tuvalkin: sorry, I have no idea. - Jmabel ! talk 16:52, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
@Schlurcher, C.Suthorn, Jmabel, and SergeWoodzing: please? -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 11:34, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Great to see all this activity here. So tell me what I need to do, please! --SergeWoodzing (talk) 21:17, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Am I to assume that we will continue to have this problem permanently? --SergeWoodzing (talk) 15:09, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Cycle lane versus Bikeway - are they different?

We have a category-tree Category:Cycle lane road markings by country and a category-tree Category:Bikeway road markings by country. What is the difference between a cycle lane and a bikeway? --Túrelio (talk) 20:00, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

A bike lane is lane at a street with many lanes but reserved for bicycles. A bikeway is a separate way for cycles. GPSLeo (talk) 20:10, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
I agree for "bike lane". But I think "bikeway" is the general word for all types of ways reserved for cyclists and should stay the name of the main category. A separate way for cycles on Commons is Category:Physically separated bikeways. For the Netherlands I once checked it all out (because we call them all just "fietspad" = bikepath but without the requirements that apply to the English word), see gallery on Category:Bikeways in the Netherlands (category names are in English but are linking to Categories in the Netherlands, captions in Dutch, hope the photos are clear enough for non Dutch speakers). JopkeB (talk) 09:08, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
I'd say File:Holmevej, Ribe 2022 vestende.jpg shows a cycle/bikeway, while File:Dagmarsgade, Ribe 2022 øst.jpg shows bike/cycle lanes around the roundabout (separated by paint) as well as on both sides of the street on the other side (separated by curbs). Hjart (talk) 20:16, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
Thanks. Nevertheless, is it really useful to have both above mentioned categories? I have the impression that images of both types of bike-ways/lanes are put rather randomly into one or the other cat. Funfact: there is no "Category:Bikeway road markings" for Germany and The Netherlands, both cycling-friendly countries. --Túrelio (talk) 20:39, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
I think a bike/cycle lane is specifically a lane of a street that also carries cars (though I suppose a trail or path could also be split into a pedestrian lane and a bike lane). "Bikeway" strikes me as looser: could include that (or not), but also could mean something specifically built as a bicycle path, or a street which is a recommended bike route but also carries cars. - Jmabel ! talk 03:33, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
Category:Bike paths is an actual category. --HyperGaruda (talk) 14:46, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
@Jmabel bike/cycle lanes as shown in the photos above are exclusively for bicycles (and pedestrians if there's no separate sidewalk). You would get heavily fined if you drove your car on these. Hjart (talk) 12:03, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
But in Seattle, for example, there are several streets with a clear marking that bicycles should use a particular lane, without making that lane exclusive to bicycles. - Jmabel ! talk 16:55, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
You might be right, Túrelio, some images are put randomly in a category. But that is also true for many other categories, outside bikeways. Would that be a reason not to have subcategories? For me it is OK to have subcategories as long as the criteria are clear and they have clear descriptions/definitions.
There might not be a "Category:Bikeway road markings" for the Netherlands because they are on many bikeways, so they are not distinctive enough or we take them for granted. There are a few on Category:Road markings in the Netherlands.
For me the discussion should be about Bikeways versus Bike paths: what is the difference? (Thanks, HyperGaruda, for bringing it into this discussion.) Now in Category:Bike paths are photos of all kind of bikeways. What are the "rigorous standards for width, grade and accessibility" a bike path should meet? And how can you see the difference on a photo in order to categorize it well? JopkeB (talk) 09:49, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
[Reaction to Hjart:]] I think:
JopkeB (talk) 09:19, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
@JopkeB I'm personally quite familiar with the bike/cycle ways/lanes in the above photos. I've also been a quite active OpenStreetMap contributor since 2009, so I dare say that I'm fairly familiar with the terminology around these. Hjart (talk) 12:09, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
Thanks, sorry, I couldn't tell from your contribution. JopkeB (talk) 15:08, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

What is the correct English word for the Dutch "dijkhuis"?

Dijkhuis: Dikehouse, Dike house or Levee house?

A Dutch "dijkhuis" is a house build on or next to a dike or levee. Technically it is almost always a levee, but in Dutch there is no difference between a dike and a levee, we call them both "dijk". Now I would like to make a category for them, but I am struggling finding the correct translation. I would prefer "Dike houses" or "Dikehouses", because that would be most clear for other Dutch speaking people, but on the internet I also found "Levee house". What would you advise? --JopkeB (talk) 15:27, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

It can be called Category:Dike houses (dijk). Ruslik (talk) 20:17, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
Why English and Dutch in one category? You don't even speak English, if I see your User page. - Richardkiwi (talk) (talk) 22:22, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
Dikehouse and as plural diminutive, dike houses. But, why it must be in English? A Dutch name is also possible. Commons is a multilingual project. - Richardkiwi (talk) (talk) 22:04, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
So just Category:Dijkhuis is good enough. - Richardkiwi (talk) (talk) 22:23, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
English "dike-house" may be something different: https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095718609 says, "Shelter for a diker, i.e. one who tends sea walls or dikes, or a structure for the storage of materials needed to repair dikes." Glrx (talk) 22:53, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
So "Dike-house" is out of the question, because it means something else than just a house built on or next to a dike/levee.
The rule is that in general category names are in English, so I try to find an English name first. But of coarse I would be happy with a Dutch category name. It could be Category:Dijkhuizen in Nederland, plural for Dijkhuis, and "in Nederland" (in the Netherlands) because Category:Dijkhuizen is already a disambiguation page. Problem might be that it would be harder to make categories for "Dijkhuizen" in other countries. JopkeB (talk) 07:30, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
I think oxfordreference are describing the same thing, they have used the word shelter as they can hardly re use the word house. The original reason to build a house on or next to a dike/levee would have been to house the one who tends sea walls or dikes. They are probably now not used as originally intended in the same way as Category:Toll houses are now often just used as houses. Oxyman (talk) 11:35, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for the explanation. The "dijkhuizen" in the Netherlands were not specifically built for the ones who tend dikes or levees, but by/for ordinary people/families who needed a house or for farmers who wanted to live close to their farm land. So for that matter they differ from toll houses. --JopkeB (talk) 15:18, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
it seems to me that this concept is specific to dutch, because when i googled dike/dyke house (with or without space), something else that's not a house near a dyke shows up.
if this is indeed a dutch-specific concept, it's ok to use the dutch word, just like cat:sushi, cat:kimchi... no one calls those japanese rice with raw fish, korean preserved cabbages...
afaict, levee and dyke are the same thing.--RZuo (talk) 20:01, 2 December 2022 (UTC)
Yes, I agree, in Dutch we make no distinction between levee and dyke either, it would life make easier on Commons if there was no distinction here also. But alas, alas. --JopkeB (talk) 04:29, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Ruslik, Richardkiwi, Glrx, Oxyman, RZuo for your contributions, thinking along and research. So Category:Dijkhuizen in Nederland it will be. --JopkeB (talk) 04:29, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Checkmark This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. --JopkeB (talk) 05:37, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Wrong orientation

https://flickr.com/photos/36380617@N06/6674221779 loaded to Commons as File:Glotzbach, Rockne, Millett (6674221779).jpg with the wrong orientation, how did that happen? RAN (talk) 05:44, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

@Jmabel: I don't see that as an option at CropTool, do I need to activate something in my preferences? --RAN (talk) 16:07, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
Yes. Preferences > Helferlein (the last third index tab) > 2nd paragraph > CropTool (the last third entry). --Túrelio (talk) 16:16, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
@Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): assuming you are successfully accessing CropTool:
  1. Select "lossless".
  2. Slide the rotation bar to the desired position.
  3. Adjust the borders to include the whole image.
  4. Click "Preview".
  5. Then use the result of that to do an overwrite (vs. uploading as a new file).
Jmabel ! talk 19:14, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
  • Excellent, thank you. I always chose the default settings and never noticed the options under lossless. Now all we need is for CropTool to be able to take oval crops. --RAN (talk) 19:24, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
why not let SteinsplitterBot do it? croptool's lossless mode has been fake (actually precise/lossy) for some time already.--RZuo (talk) 20:01, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

Creator templates deleted

When we delete the only file of a Creator, should we be deleting the Creator template also? See Creator:Hanna Kunsch. RAN (talk) 17:58, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

This should not have been deleted. It seems she died in 1945, so her works are already in the public domain. Yann (talk) 19:13, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
  • What was the image file that was deleted, I don't have access to deleted images. As a general rule, should we keep creator templates even if we have no images that link to them? --RAN (talk) 21:51, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
COM:L still says that "Wikimedia Commons only accepts media ... that are in the public domain in at least the United States and in the source country of the work." And virtually all of her works first published between 1927 and 2002 will be in copyright in the US.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:59, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
There seems to be some confusion about when Hanna Kusch died. Is it 1945, after 1949, after 1960? This needs to be sorted out first, before we can decide whether or not to delete her works and creator template. --HyperGaruda (talk) 05:16, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
It's not 1945, that is an outlier copied from an image catalog without any explanations how they got that year. The German authority file and German biography portal have her as still active as a photographer in 1949, and she is listed as living in Göttingen in the 1960 Göttingen address book (city directory). And that is not "a person with the same name" as claimed elsewhere. The name is not common at all (I couldn't find any other person with the same name using both Ancestry and Google), and she is specifically listed as a photographer in the 1960 address book. --Rosenzweig τ 07:43, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
She died in 1961, see my comment at COM:UNDEL. --Rosenzweig τ 10:29, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
I always appreciate a nice piece of detective work; well done! Guess this is then the end of the story, undeletion in about nine years. An admin should also have a look at the remaining files in Category:Hanna Kunsch. --HyperGaruda (talk) 19:01, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes, excellent detective work, still unanswered: Do we delete the Creator template because we have no images, or do we always make a Creator template for creators? I think we should keep them, eventually all images will be PD, and this way they will already be linked to a creator template when restored. Any one disagree? --RAN (talk) 20:04, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
Commons:Criteria for speedy deletion#Template T2. Unused template is clear about this: “Unused templates (except maintenance/project templates that are substituted), are subjected to speedy deletion.” The text “Unused and unlikely to be needed Creator template (T2)” is even preconfigured among the rationales when deleting a creator template. Similarly, empty categories are deleted as well. Both can be restored as soon as they are needed. --Rosenzweig τ 22:25, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
needless bureaucracy.--RZuo (talk) 08:48, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
  • It says: "Unused templates (except maintenance/project templates that are substituted), are subjected to speedy deletion." But {{Creator:John Smith}} and {{Creator|wikidata=Q}}, are in use at Wikidata and at Commons, even if it is not connected to an image that is currently on displayed for the general viewer. The Utility being that when the images are restored, when they are in the public domain, they are already attached to a creator template with the proper life and death dates. Remember, an image is never deleted, just hidden from view from most viewers. When the suggested restoration date is reached, the editor will want to be looking at the birth and death dates in the Creator template to confirm the restoration date. Doe anyone else agree? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk • contribs) 17:49, 26 November 2022‎ (UTC)
Just why are people so hell-bent on keeping empty categories and unused templates? Restoring them is no problem at all if and when they are actually needed. Or even creating them afresh, creating a creator template when there is a WD entry is only a matter of seconds. All these arguments like "in use at Wikidata" or "in use by deleted files" are simply ludicrous. --Rosenzweig τ 19:24, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
  • Not "ludicrous", just a different opinion than yours. Postponing maintenance work in the hopes that someone in the future will do it, doesn't always work. Our deletion cue is always 6-months behind and some stay in the cue for almost a year. These also, only take seconds, but, seconds add up to minutes, hours, and days of work. that someone has to do. --RAN (talk) 02:49, 2 December 2022 (UTC)
exactly. here's an example, result of bureaucratic deletionists: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=Category%3AMia+Khalifa . how much time, how much "a matter of seconds" was wasted in properly setting up the category over and over?--RZuo (talk) 20:01, 2 December 2022 (UTC)
Quite little. Might have added up to 2 or 3 minutes. Each time appears to have been a simple undelete. I probably spent more time looking through the history to answer your question. - Jmabel ! talk 22:13, 2 December 2022 (UTC)
how simple is the undelete? are you aware how long the bureaucratic sysops sitting at COM:UNDEL would wait until they comply with this simple undelete? here's an example: Commons:Undeletion_requests/Archive/2022-05#Category:Instagram_influencers. from 19:56, 12 May 2022 to 13:54, 13 May 2022, first cat was undeleted after 18 hours! second cat undeletion was never fulfilled to this date!
by the time of 2032, how much time will it take for a future user to check whether the order to undelete in 2032 was correct (that there was no changes to the person's year of death, no changes to the governing laws, etc.)? RZuo (talk) 22:36, 2 December 2022 (UTC)
in the case of Category:Instagram_influencers, to be honest, i'm not gonna fix it until the old versions are undeleted.
i had worked on the category before, including linking it with the same cat on wikipedias Category:Instagram celebrities (Q105702909). then came some joker who emptied the whole cat, and then it was deleted by User:Túrelio along with other plausible cats Category:Relations of the Dominican Republic and Morocco Category:Relations of Cuba and Sweden Category:Ambassadors of France to the Republic of the Congo Category:Relations of Cuba and Kazakhstan (for which i created Category:Ambassadors of Kazakhstan to Cuba to make a point).
i requested undeletion, which is not fulfilled to this date, so i never bothered linking it with wikidata again, and the cat remains disconnected after 7 months. i added Q105702909 to my watchlist, just waiting to see how long it will take until these errors due to bureaucracy and idiocracy are fixed. RZuo (talk) 23:03, 2 December 2022 (UTC)
@RZuo: In case you were wondering why there are no page creations in that log, please see Phab:T288346 and Commons:Village pump/Archive/2021/07#Page creation logs.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 18:55, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Copyright Cannot be Established for United Kingdom images of children in a care home or with complex family relationships

Hello,

I am working with a museum that received a donation of some beautiful images recently, and the museum director would like to upload these to Wikimedia Commons. The images are of mixed race children who were living in an orphanage called Holnicote House during WW2 in the UK. The images were donated to the museum by the widow of one of the children pictured. Her late husband was given the photographic prints by his carer at the orphanage, who he considered a foster parent. The photos passed to his wife when he died.

The donor and her family are also very keen to share these images widely on Commons and improve the Holnicote House Wikipedia article with them.

We cannot establish whether the photos were taken by the Holnicote House employees in the course of their employment (and would therefore be the property of the employer) or if the photographers were not employed by Holnicote House (and therefore copyright would be owned by the photographer or their heir). Either way, because this information cannot be firmly established, these photographs are not able to be uploaded to Commons under existing rules.

I’m very grateful for the advice already given by Michael Maggs on this matter.

What I’m hoping the community will consider is this: An unintended consequence of the Commons rules as they stand is that they exclude these people’s histories because they were put into care. If these children had been photographed by their parents, the copyright would be clear and the images could be uploaded to Commons. Because the children were photographed by carers who were paid or by others with whom there is no family relationship, the copyright is unclear and they are excluded.

Mixed race and Black children in Britain are disproportionately overrepresented in the care system (https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/health/social-care/adopted-and-looked-after-children/latest) and so this issue will impact the family photographs of mixed race and Black people more than others.

Images are a powerful part of telling the stories of mixed race people and there is great excitement about improving the relevant Wikipedia page with these images and making them available for education and research. Is anyone interested in discussing any way that these images could be included on Commons despite the risk involved? Does anyone else have collections of photographs which are impacted in the same way? I believe that the case for inclusion is strong.

This is one example of a wider implication of excluding images where copyright cannot be established. Where family relationships follow a strict norm, copyright of family photographs can be clearly established. But where family relationships are more complicated and, frankly more realistic, with estrangements, adoptions, multiple parental relationships etc., copyright can be impossible to establish. Tenuous tree (talk) 13:03, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

This is one of many problems with our decision not to allow images with orphaned copyrights, but there would be equal problems with going the other way, namely that we'd like reusers of our material to have a reasonable expectation that if they conform to the stated licenses, they will not be breaching copyright law. The problem of orphaned copyrights is more a problem of copyright law than a problem with Commons. - Jmabel ! talk 16:06, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
  • @Tenuous tree: We accept images from Flickr Commons under a "no known copyright restrictions" license, this would require obtaining a Flickr Commons account first and loading them there. We also accept {{PD-UK-unknown}}, which is for images more than 70 years old that have no person's name attached to the image as a known photographer. Images taken "during WW2 in the UK" would fall under "PD-UK-unknown". The cutoff date is 1 January 1952. --RAN (talk) 16:16, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
It isn't Flickr washing if the statement is true. The Library of Congress uses "no known copyright restrictions" on the Bain Collection, they have the negatives; Getty Images licenses the images, because they have prints of the images. Even with that strong counterclaim the LOC uses: "no known copyright restrictions", and we accept it. --RAN (talk) 23:47, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
Ouch. That is not the way forward. You are conflating "no known copyright restrictions" under US law with orphaned works under UK law - which generally are copyright-protected in spite of having no listed photographer's name. MichaelMaggs (talk) 15:19, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
If you have a file where you don't know whether Commons would accept it because of copyright reasons, and you upload it on Flickr as having "no known copyright restrictions", then use your own Flickr upload as your "authority" to upload here, that is absolutely Flickrwashing. This is why the "PD" mark on Flickr is not sufficient for us to accept files without knowing the basis of why they are PD.
Again, in this case {{PD-UK-unknown}} should cover it. - Jmabel ! talk 16:13, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for your replies and for engaging in a conversation that arrived at a measure of consensus about using {{PD-UK-unknown}} - this is an option I'm looking at more closely. It feels good to have a possible way to get these images onto Commons.
I think you hit the nail on the head in your first reply @Jmabel, in that the issue lies with copyright itself. I am hoping the community will bear examples like this in mind both as it comes to decisions about how to apply and interpret copyright law and when it considers which risks Commons and its users can take. Tenuous tree (talk) 16:00, 2 December 2022 (UTC)
why 85.92.185.193 15:11, 16 December 2022 (UTC)
  • All museums should load their "no known copyright restrictions" images to Flickr Commons, which is independent of any decision to upload the images to Wikimedia Commons. There is no legal or moral conflict with "no known copyright restrictions" at Flickr Commons and {{PD-UK-unknown}} or any other public domain tag, here at Wikimedia Commons. As I have said multiple times, it isn't Flickr washing if the statement, "no known copyright restrictions", is legally correct for the images under discussion. The only legal or moral ambiguity would be if they uploaded them to Flickr Commons under a Creative Commons license, which some museums have done for photographs in their collections, where they are not the creator; or if they claim a copyright for images in the public domain, as some museums do; or claim a copyright for themselves, where someone else is the legal owner of the copyright. --RAN (talk) 02:36, 2 December 2022 (UTC)
    It's simply not enough to state "no known copyright restrictions", and to add "{{PD-UK-unknown}} or any other public domain tag". That begs the question - can we be reasonably sure that the images fall outside copyright protection under the specifics of UK law? (And US law as well, but that doesn't seem problematic here). If so, we may be able to add {{PD-UK-unknown}}. But that tag doesn't simply mean that the photographer is unknown or anonymous, as you appear to suggest above. It's more complicated than that. I'm re-reading the legislation and will post more details shortly. MichaelMaggs (talk) 15:40, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
First, we need to establish that the photographs are "works of unknown authorship" for the purposes of UK law. By ss 9(4) and 9(5) that is the case "if it is not possible for a person to ascertain [the photographer's] identity by reasonable inquiry". The legislation does not specify what is meant by "reasonable inquiry", but it's generally understood by copyright lawyers to require some pretty significant research - simply noting that a photo lacks a name is nowhere near enough. Research should be sufficient to show that finding the photographer's identity is 'impossible'. That would include checking with all owners and previous owners of the physical images, trawling extant records of the home, following up anything on the back of the images and, if possibly taken by a professional, checking specialist indexes of photographers working in the area at the time and comparing their work and layouts. This is a lengthy time-consuming operation and is the reason that many UK museums holding orphaned images don't feel able to openly label them as public domain; seeking legal certainty across a whole collection would take far too much time.
Assuming that that could be done for each image, we can then consider the relevant dates. Section 12(3), as amended, specifies that for a work of unknown authorship, copyright expires:
(a) at the end of the period of 70 years from the end of the calendar year in which the work was made, or
(b) if during that period the work is made available to the public, at the end of the period of 70 years from the end of the calendar year in which it is first so made available.
If we know that the images were taken during the war, let's play safe and assume 1945. Then, for any photos that remained unavailable to the public up to the end of 2015, copyright will have expired at the end of that year. Those images will have fallen into in the public domain, and remain PD regardless of any later events such as publications after 2015.
If any of the photos were before the end of 2015 published (eg in a book, a newspaper etc) or were otherwise made available, the clock will have restarted and copyright will continue to subsist for another 70 years from the end of the publication year.
If all that can be established to such a level that there is no "significant doubt" about the PD status of the images under UK law (see Commons:Project_scope#Precautionary_principle), it's perfectly OK to upload to Commons using the {{PD-UK-unknown}} tag. To prevent future problems/arguments, though, I'd strongly suggest documenting in detail exactly what research was done in each case, plus the legal basis for concluding the image is PD, and recording it somewhere against each Commons file, perhaps on the file talk page. MichaelMaggs (talk) 18:07, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
By the initial statement, it is quite clear that the people who own the images don't know who was the photographer. IMO we abuse the "Precautionary principle" if we don't allow {{PD-UK-unknown}} for such images. This principle was established so that we can delete recent images copied from a random source without proving that there is a copyright, but not for old images where the chance of a still existing copyright is very slim. Yann (talk) 19:51, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
{{PD-UK-unknown}} doesn't mean "the owner of the photo doesn't know who the photographer was". It means no more and no less than what I've set out above. And neither is the "Precautionary principle" inapplicable to old images. Fortunately, given the facts as stated above, there seems a good chance that research will show that the template can be correctly used in this case. MichaelMaggs (talk) 22:11, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
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