Commons:Village pump/Archive/2006/06

Village Pump archives

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1 June

CommonsTicker in earnest

I have set up a CommonsTicker for several projects now:

• de.wikipedia: de:Wikipedia:CommonsTicker
• id.wikipedia: id:Wikipedia:Catatan Commons
• en.wiktionary: wikt:Wiktionary:CommonsTicker
• sk.wikipedia: sk:Wikipédia:CommonsTicker
• it.wikipedia: it:Wikipedia:CommonsTicker
• nl.wikipedia: nl:Wikipedia:CommonsTicker

More will follow soon. I hope this will get people mroe involved with Commons, and resolve problems with images "just disapearing". Please spread the word! -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 11:25, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Have you advertised on foundation-l? pfctdayelise (translate?) 13:16, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

And/or maybe wikitech-l, wikipedia-l, translators-l. pfctdayelise (translate?) 13:18, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

No, I havn't - I would have to subscribe to the lists if I want to post there, and I'm on too many lists already. Please post a message there if you like. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 14:07, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

OK. I posted to foundation-l, translators-l, wikipedia-l, wikinews-l, wikispecies-l, wikisource-l, wiktionary-l and textbook-l. Apparently wikiquote: doesn't have a mailing list. Probably I will wake up tomorrow kicked off all of them for spamming, either that or to an avalanche of Commons criticism on eight different mailing lists. ;) :o --pfctdayelise (translate?) 16:37, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

haha! glad it isn't me :P -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 19:57, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Or, you know... they will all completely ignore me. :) pfctdayelise (translate?) 03:10, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I had promoted it a while back on foundation-ml but given the signal to noise ratio there (strange office debates) it doesn't really hurt repeating some stuff that really matters. ;-) Arnomane 20:09, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Help with technical names?

My photos here on commons are mostly connected to trucks and construction. I know what most of the things are called in danish, but danes just don't seem to be the major population in here :-) - I thought maybe someone who know english (and other) language(s) better would run through Template:By G®iffen to check up on the categories and descpiptions? The missing english names in my vocabulary often gives me troubles categorizing pictures, since most cat's are in english... I'm not on the top-ten upload list, but maybe once in a while someone could check for updates? Thank you who will G®iffen 15:34, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Just an idea - if you can find a Danish article on an object, check what the English interwiki link is, you can use that as a translation. I use this method all the time. :) pfctdayelise (translate?) 16:44, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Nice advice, I'll look around, but unfortunately da:wiki just passed 43,000 articles, not 1,167,000 like en:wiki, so we happen to write brand new texts once in a while, and I'll be one of the guys taking that job. Sometimes I can twist it when I know the swedish, norwegian or even german name, but, as a recent example, I don't the **** know what a da:motorbør is called in any other languages, it doesn't even say on the machine itself! :-) G®iffen 18:36, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I think your translation is ok. Have more confidence! Perhaps you could use the {{Template:Information}} for the image description page and a standard PD-self tag. That would help with a later machine translation, if that should be possible anytime in the future, or other kinds of datamining. I added a German translation. Greetings, Longbow4u 19:14, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

If you want to keep track of your contributions, you can use the handy Gallery tool (Griffen's uploads) Longbow4u 19:22, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

LOL, 1,167,000 articles and not one of them on a motorised wheelbarrow! (Well, that's what I looks like to me. I don't know if it has a special or shorter name.) OK that is a difficult problem then... --pfctdayelise (translate?) 00:58, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Translating is whack

I don't know how all the non-English speakers manage sometimes! I just recently started trying to translate the interface for Vietnamese and Finnish. There seem to be a lot of inconsistencies in "where" translations are pulled from. Sometimes even though no MediaWiki message translation is supplied, the interface still appears translated. WTF...

Anyway I made template:t9n ('translation') but it's not as useful as I thought it might be due to unpredictable MediaWiki "magic". In theory, if you put {{t9n|XX}} it will give you a kind of quick-links summary of the state of XX's translation. But... nyeh. There's some examples in the Commons:Sandbox so you can see what I mean. I also wrote some comments on MediaWiki talk:Sidebar about this recently. --pfctdayelise (translate?) 17:41, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Talk to fi:User:Nikerabbit - he's MediaWiki's internationalization guy, he knows all the black magick... -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 19:46, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Those non translated but translated are in the messages.php file, not in the MediaWiki: namespace. Platonides 18:34, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Is it too much to ask why? pfctdayelise (translate?) 08:02, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

When you're at a language, it tries to show the info from the MediaWiki: namespace. If such page doesn't exxist, it get it from the MessagesXX.php file (the old way) and if it isn't there it falls back to the englsih one. I guess that's what is happening to you... Platonides 21:26, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

But only developers can access the MessagesXX.php files, right?

Is there any thought about whether or not it is better to provide translations through the MessagesXX.php method or the MediaWiki:Foo/XX method? I would have thought the latter because it is more visible and easier to change. pfctdayelise (translate?) 01:21, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

2 June

Vandalism in progress?

Does Commons have a Vandalism in progress page anywhere? I checked around, and also saw no mention of a page like that on Commons:Community portal.

Anyway, User:Black and White seems to have vandalized a Media-wiki image, tagging it with speedy delete; Image:MediaWikiExternalEditorImage.png. --Connel MacKenzie 23:13, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Black and White tagged it with the {{Screenshot}}-Template. Actually, the image IS a screenshot. That is rather ridiculous. Ok, most of the screenshots fill the criteria for speedy deletion, perhaps not all. To say Black and White is a vandal may be a bit exagerated. What now, remove the template? Longbow4u 00:18, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Apparently correct : {{free screenshot|license=GPL}} Longbow4u 00:26, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

@Connel MacKenzie: There is no "vandalism in progress" page. Posting at the VP is fine. pfctdayelise (translate?) 00:45, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

OK, thank you. --Connel MacKenzie 17:47, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

OK, now this is a screen shot that contains a copyrighted Logo. This means GPL can not be the accurate license for this image --Tarawneh 02:49, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

We make an exception for Wikimedia logos (they are copyrighted, non-free, and we host them). This is the only exception. See Template:Copyright by Wikimedia, Commons:Alter Wikimedia Commons policy to allow Wikimedia logos, Commons:Deletion_requests/Archives03#Wikimedia_logos. pfctdayelise (translate?) 03:16, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Best would be to delete this image and upload a screenshot of this programm without the Wikimedia symbols under the free screenshot / GPL-license. The two templates contradict each other a little bit. Could someone perform a checkusage before? Longbow4u 09:40, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, you're into esoteric license conflict issues that I am unclear on, now. I take it that this is not considered a logo, by merit of it being on a MediaWiki help page? If so, and if it really cannot be covered by the exceptions dictated above, what replacement image is being proffered in its stead? Surely we aren't going to start breaking HELP pages now, right? Wouldn't a replacement be required before nominating such an image for deletion? This is the sort of Wikimedia internal sorta thing that Commons itself relies on, no? --Connel MacKenzie 17:47, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Renaming request

(I can't find the right place for this request, sorry) Can somebody please rename the folowing files (my error in naming convention, & I'm stuck in the correction, redirects apparently won't work):

• Image:天-續甲骨文编.gif to Image:續甲骨文编_天.gif
• Image:天-金文编.gif to Image:金文编_天.gif
• Image:天-六書通.gif to Image:六書通_天.gif
• Image:天-說文解字.gif to Image:說文解字_天.gif

... thanks in advance, and sorry for my mistake. Micheletb 04:29, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

You have to reupload the images under the correct name. It's not possible to easily rename files. When you've done that, tag the old ones {{bad name|new file name}} and they will be deleted... eventually. pfctdayelise (translate?) 05:09, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

It would be better using latin script for image names (just that zh-0 people have it easier to remember, type and understand it better) and of course GIF is also not wanted at Wikimedia Commons. Arnomane 11:05, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

One picture to delete

Can anybody delete this picture : Image:Théry-Pere-Lachaise.jpg - It is a double loading and I have the roule of no put 'accent' in image tittle. Thanks - Siren-Com 10:40, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

There is no Image:Théry-Pere-Lachaise.jpg. Please link to the image like this: [[:Image:Example.jpg]] --> Image:Example.jpg --pfctdayelise (translate?) 13:40, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh wait, Sanbec was just very quick ;) pfctdayelise (translate?) 13:41, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Preferred mass upload method?

Oh well, I've been lurking around for a week by now. I have some 200 images for mass upload. What is the preferred option? I finally found out Commons:Tools and tried:

• Commonplace (broken, tried before saw Tools page; Ilya said he can't fix it soon)
• CommonerCommonnist (broken as well)
• Perl script: No thanks, I don't want to install perl, mess with it and find out that it's broken too.
• Pinging a good soul: I wish I could avoided it, but it seems that I couldn't.

Duja 12:27, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Well. You haven't found Commonist yet (I am wondering a bit)? It just works and is everyhwere linked as recommended tool for such tasks. Have a look at Commons:Tools/Commonist. Arnomane 12:38, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Misspelled. No it doesn't work for me; I got "could not login to commons (method failed)". D'oh:

Note: Commonist does not presently work over proxies.

"when everything fails, read the manual" Duja 13:30, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Unused photos policy?

What is the policy on uploading photos to the Commons that I personally have no intention of using in an article anytime soon? I have uploaded several photos I took to Category:University of Oklahoma (and, on an unrelated note, I need to upload higher res versions as soon as I am permitted) that I did use in articles. But I have many other photos of the campus that I may not use, but can be used by others. Should I upload those?--Nik 13:16, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

There is no policy. Just be reasonable. It is perfectly OK to upload images for use on the Commons, where the Commons page is linked to from Wikipedia (or any other project). Of course Wikipedia doesn't want 200 images in one article, but those images can still be useful to people interested in the topic.

For example, I took all but one of the pictures in Newman College, University of Melbourne. The article on this small college doesn't need so many pictures but it is a historically/architecturally interesting building. Maybe when someone writes a more detailed architecture in Australia article they will get a bit more use. But they are still useful here by themselves.

Just try to have a potential aim or focus. Obviously you don't upload every photo you take. :P Completely random shots are not useful. Significant buildings on campus, particularly good crowd/atmosphere shots will be fine. --pfctdayelise (translate?) 13:35, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

ACK --Historiograf 17:03, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for the advice. I went around campus one day over a year ago and took pictures of a lot of buildings on campus. This was before my Wikipedia days. The campus is beautiful architecturally, so they may get used eventually, but at least they are there.--Nik 13:43, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Italian Army

I uploaded 350 photo of italian military units and famous people taken at the Italian Republic parade in Rome of 2 june. They should cover almost all the italian army corps. I know a lot are visually similar, but have different specializations. They need to have a precise description added, I hope to involve experts on this. Not-very-famous people and useless photos will be asked for deletion after most of the other ones will be ok. If you want to check'em out, you can find the photos in http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Italian_army_parade. --Jollyroger 22:45, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

3 June

NowCommons template on arabic wiki

The NowCommons template is being added using the IP 84.189.230.247 into Arabic wiki. It should be done by RCBot, run by Richie. I do not know who is using 84.189.230.247, I could not get any thing using checkuser within Arabic wiki. It would be very helpful if this is done using an arranged user name. Any Ideas? --Tarawneh 00:46, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not certain, but that IP was making a number of edits at English Wikipedia related to edits that user Jed was doing here. Also, it's a German IP address and Jed is a German speaker Cary "Bastique" Bass ^parler _voir 07:14, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

{{Image copyright}} on the lines of {{Image source}} like at en:

IMHO the wording in {{Image source}} is confusing for cases of {{No license}}. At the English Wikipedia we use another template {{Image copyright}} to inform uploaders of images tagged {{No license}}. Can we do the same here?

I found that User:81.214.235.204 has been removing {{No license}} from images uploaded by User:Hasan Sami Bolak, which seems to be why none of the images listed in User talk:Hasan Sami Bolak more than 7 days ago have been removed. Considering this edit, it might be due to confusing "no source" with "no license".

Thanks! -- Paddu 20:15, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I would prefer to reword the existing template rather than create another template. Too many = too hard to keep track of them all. Also, we have to start the translations from scratch again. pfctdayelise (translate?) 08:17, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

the keeping of a photo which can not be used commercially

There has recently been a discussion at COM:DEL about Image:Vigeland stampvoetend jochie.jpg ([1]). This is a photo of a sculpture located in a public park, but the sculpture is not in the public domain as the creator died in 1943. Norwegian copyright law clearly says that such works of art can be depicted, but not when the reproduction is exploited commercially.

The debate at COM:DEL ended with 11 keeps and 3 deletes. The arguments of the people “voting” to keep can be summarized as “Wikipedia should not be commercial”.

As I see it, keeping this image will mean that images with unfree licenses are tolerated at Commons, and thus tolerated in the projects using images from Commons. I have no problems with the use of noncommercial-use only images at the Wikimedia projects, but I guess the board of the Foundation have. Can the de facto toleration of noncommercial images be decided by the twenty users participating in a debate at COM:DEL? This is a implicite change in the licensing policy at the Wikimedia Commons, and a such change can not in my opinion be decided at COM:DEL.

In any case, we should be consistent at Commons. If an image like Image:Vigeland stampvoetend jochie.jpg can be kept, should not photos of objects such as the Atomium of Brussels be allowed as well? Kjetil_r 22:51, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

As I understand it right there is nothing like "Freedom of panorama" in Norway? If so I will delete it or better we have to delete it (deletion requests is no vote place so I count arguments not votes ;). Arnomane 01:11, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I agree; for commons to meet its stated aims it must be the case that all the images are freely reusable, including for commercial purposes. --Delirium 01:46, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

If they are not presenting valid arguments regarding the copyright status of the image then their votes should be disregarded. It's not a popularity contest.

However, could we argue that this is a condition imposed by the external Norgwegian law, not a condition that the photographer made when they licensed it, and therefore it's OK? pfctdayelise (translate?) 08:11, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

It's a condition of Norwegian "Freedom of panorama"; we do have freedom of panorama, but only for non-commercial use. Ignoring it would be to stretch things a bit - we would have to say that under section 24, 2 of the Copyright in Literary, Scientific and Artistic Works Act allowing freedom of panorama the image can be licensed by the photographer (if it weren't for that law, this would be a derivative work and the rights would be reserved), but since that is an external Norwegian law, we can ignore its restrictions. I don't think picking and choosing from a law, let alone from within a single section of a law, is a road we should go down. BONO, the organization that protects the rights of Vigeland's works, has successfully sued in similar cases before, so the law is pretty watertight. If it is kept, there should at least be a very clear warning that commercial use is illegal in Norway and may be prosecuted elsewhere (BONO has also sued in the United States). Cnyborg 15:54, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I have reopened the deletion request. / Fred Chess 16:43, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Just to get things clear. The commercial use is not allowed in and outside Norway? Some tourist goes for a couple of days, WOW nice sculpture, BAAM gets some pics, sells them back in Germany ==> He is a criminal? I Would understand it if there is some kind of a access restriction! But this thing is outside, in the rain, not even a don't-step green-grass warning! Did I miss something--Tarawneh 00:26, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Right, commercial use is not allowed anywhere. Copyright on works displayed in public in Norway are protected, but allowance is made for non-commercial use. This isn't a unique thing for Norway; in France even buildings can be copyrighted (which has led to deletions here in the past) and in Denmark and Finland works of art in public spaces can't even be published non-commercially as long as they are still under copyright. Cnyborg 22:57, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

There is a "Freedom of Copyright Paranoia" not only a "Freedom of Panorama". We should keep artistic works in public places anywhere. Answer some simple questions:

• Is it likely that a copyright owner will sue at a court only at his own country?
• Is it likely that a copyright owner will sue Wikimedia Foundation in the US?
  

It's only a question of probability and statistics. If a Polish artist decides to sue at a French court because a sculpture on a German public place is shown in the internet he can do so successfully (forum shopping). The only consequence would be: No "Panorama Freedom" at Commons at all. It is our decision which degree of risk we accept - this has nothing to do with national laws. If we follow the stupid and silly our-servers-are-in-Florida-argument we have to delete all photographs of artistic works (sculptures) at public places because in the US only photographs of buildings are free. --Historiograf 23:57, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

It may be correct that all photographs of sculptures in the US should be deleted (where the sculpture is still covered by copyright). The City of Chicago recently caused uproar by trying to enforce copyright restrictions on the artworks in w:Millennium Park--the city had paid a lot for exclusive rights to sell photos of the artworks--however, they seem to have backed down a little now. I have uploaded a couple of photos of public artworks in Chicago and I have been wondering whether I should delete them, so I am watching the outcome of this debate with interest. JeremyA 00:35, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

My understanding of copyrighting a sculpture is the right to deny others of a 3D copy, another sculpture. A 2D image is not a modification and not a copy. You can't copy right a 2D projection of a 3d Object; technically speaking a projection (or in our case photo) can result from infinite number of shapes. So copyrighting a 2D projection denies other objects the right to that projection. --Tarawneh 02:54, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

4 June

Against DRM license?

I saw a debate on Commons:Deletion requests that took place awhile ago and wanted to resurrect it, because I don't think the result was correct. The question is whether or not {{ADRM}} is a compatible license with Commons copyright policy. The conclusion people came to is that it is not, since it has some restrictions on distribution ability (you can't distribute anything with any form of Digital Rights Management -- that is, you can't distribute anything that makes it impossible for others to re-distribute it). This is not at all incompatible with the GFDL, which has its own equivalent anti-DRM clause: "You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the copies you make or distribute." (Section 2) Other than that, I see nothing in the license which is not compatible with our other Commons copyright policies -- it is a free license, with the only restriction being one which the GFDL already has. All of the Creative Commons licenses we accept have the same sort of clause: "You may not distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or publicly digitally perform the Derivative Work with any technological measures that control access or use of the Work in a manner inconsistent with the terms of this License Agreement."[2] (Section 4b).

I see absolutely no reason to think this license is not compatible with the GFDL in the same way that our CC licenses are. Are there any real arguments to the contrary? --Fastfission 14:09, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Agree. I don't have time to read the licenses in full, but the license doesn't sound any more unfree than the CC ShareAlike licenses or the GPL. Seahen 16:51, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Please don't cross-post. Several people including me did say everything at Commons talk:Licensing, so if you want to say anything substantial new please post it there. Arnomane 22:54, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

How to load an image and have it come up on a search

Need help. Newby here.

I need to know what text to load with an image so it comes up for other people during a search.

I am a photographer and I want to load lots of images for other people to use. So far I have only loaded one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Crocodylus_acutus_mexico.jpg

So if anyone can show me how to do it by editing the page and letting me know. I will then copy paste the text.

Thank you in advance!!! --Tomascastelazo 16:28, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

You should upload such images to Wikimedia Commons , not to English Wikipedia. Then we will help :-) / Fred Chess 16:45, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I already have loaded it to Commons, so I would appreciate help in showing me how to place it so it comes up in a search.

Thank you again....

My upload can be found at: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Crocodylus_acutus_mexico_01.jpg

--Tomascastelazo 17:13, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Need Help!!!

I want to upload pictures to the Commons, but I need to post them in such a way that they come up on the search for other people to use.

I am new to this... so be patient.

Keep trying.... stilll trying to figure out lots of things here.

--Tomascastelazo 18:14, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

You need to put the image in a gallery page. / Fred Chess 18:43, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Please have a look at Commons:First_steps/Sorting. It explains everything important (have a look at the other first step pages too). Arnomane 23:05, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Also note the search index is not updated all that often, so it might take even a few months for the image page to come up directly in our search results. pfctdayelise (translate?) 01:14, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

In general, Commons is weak in user navigation support- not just via search. It stems from the view of many commoners that Commons is not a first rank wiki, but entirely subservient to other wikis that use its resources. Just to put this statement about month long waits in contect, note that as of this date, Google hits on search ["motorised wheelbarrow" site:commons.wikimedia.org] from a post made just 3 days ago. But Wikimedia's search is not just limited by immense lag times in index regeneration- even when search is not malfunctioning with server errors. The searcher is rudimentary- for example, it's stemming support does not even understand that proper names like Abrams is not the plural of Abram. Take a guess at its ability to deal with inflected terms in other languages (eg- there are generally 6 different endings for nouns in Russian depending on grammatical context). It's not to say that native Wikimedia search should not be worked on, but really we do need Internet searchers spidering Commons. More bacground on why spiders are confused by Commons is found here. By the way, what is the update on this? It's been about a month and a half since attempts to contact Google were made. Has anyone at google responded?

If the only way to get something done means adapting to the spiders, then it wouldn't be the first time. If commons needs to generate special pages so that we are indexed properly, then we should be doing that. This is what various web software programs like vBulletin BBS software does (spider friendly version of web pages- different problem in their case- minus dynamic sidebar advertisements with terms that are not part of the subject matter of the page).

In commons' case, a commons page could have a link to an upload.wikimedia.org full image. The page is there only for the purpose of spidering and the user would be redirected to real image page.

-Mak 16:11, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Need help nominating a picture

Can someone please fic the following page? http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Featured_pictures_candidates I put my contribution as per instructions, but it does not appear at the top as an image, only as a text line.... Thanks --Tomascastelazo 19:25, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, as you have no less than 4 nominations now, I think you've figured it out.

BTW did you know we have a Commons:Help desk? --pfctdayelise (translate?) 01:18, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

5 June

Problems with User:Juan Miguel

This user uploads images without source or without copyright information. He was asked (by me and others, even in spanish by Anna) to add the required info but he refused to do so. He also almost always remove nld/nsd tags. It'll be nice if an Admin looks into his contributions and deletes stuff without source or copyright or with questionable source. --Denniss 02:20, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I blocked this user for 1 day. Please add contributions to Commons:Deletion requests. --EugeneZelenko 02:33, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Calendars/fundraising

While it's a bit early in the year, I think we should think about putting together some calendars to sell as Wikimedia merchandise in November and December. I frequently look at our FPs and think, "This is a completely perfect calendar shot to stare at for a whole month." As well as several generic kind of "beautiful landscapes/animals/portraits/science" calendars, we could also make some specialised by nation for example (different language, different number notations, different holidays).

Aside from the fun of choosing images (the only restriction I can think of is that we should 100% sure on the license, and also favour work created by Wikimedians over random US Govt or whatever photos), the only two things we need to do are:

• create the month (or week, etc - could even have a daily calendar) representations
• find a printer service that suits us (Wikimedia). It would be cool if there was something CafePress except for calendars. I'll look into it.

We could also offer to "sell" computer desktop backgrounds, say a batch of 10 for US$5 or something, pick the very best by theme and offer it as a downloadable ZIP or whatever. And maybe put together screensavers.

I also think it would be cool if we had like Commons:Calendars where we offer generic calendar templates for people to create their own. The idea of "buying" one, though, is really to save you that hassle and also just sweeten your donation, which is the real point. :)

Anyway just thought I'd throw that out there, keep it in the back of your mind as you admire the amazing wonders of the Commons. :) --pfctdayelise (translate?) 06:09, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

OK, actually CafePress already does calendars! :) monthly, yearly (one image). They also do several types of posters/prints, as well as mousepads, journals and greeting cards. This is a good start... pfctdayelise (translate?) 06:17, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

ALSO we could work with wikiquote for one of those inspirational.insipid "quote of the day/week/[etc]" type products :) --pfctdayelise (translate?) 06:38, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

+1 Good idea. Our projects have more possibilites than thoses used. Platonides 20:16, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Uploading Pictures

How do I do it?

First visit Special:Userlogin, then Commons:Licensing and Commons:Project scope, and when you understand the implications of those pages, Special:Upload. pfctdayelise (translate?) 15:04, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Commons:First steps is also a very much recomended tutorial (not just for newcommers only ;-). Arnomane 15:08, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

6 June

HELP!!!

How do you put a helpme banner on your user page? Scotty jasper2000 21:49, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

To get help, you should post at the Commons:Help desk. I fixed the Babel templates on your user page. You're going to have to be slightly more specific for anything else you want help with. :) pfctdayelise (translate?) 00:34, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Bug with picture metadata Image:KikkaNavyBase.JPG

This black and white picture of a world war II aircraft, probably taken in the 1940s has a category listed as "Images created with Canon PowerShot S110. From the caption of the photo, it appears that the canon was used to take a picture of the original US Navy picture

It was a nice idea, but Computers are still to dumb to allow such automatic categorization. Is there a way to turn off these auto added categorizations?

-Mak 01:16, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I have noticed these appearing just recently too. And I agree they're not very useful. Unless anyone thinks it's a great idea to keep them, maybe I will open a bug request to get rid of them again. pfctdayelise (translate?) 01:39, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree. The images I uploaded recently are categorized under Images created with S1. --Tarawneh 03:31, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Hm, see Category talk:Camera type, apparently some people like them :/ --pfctdayelise (translate?) 05:28, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Shutterbugs definately are interested in all sorts of arcane information. If this can't be shut off in situations where it is clearly wrong, then it is not a difference of opinion on the merit of including such obscure info. When the content becomes factually incorrect, then it doesn't belong. Perhaps it should be shut off until such time as it can be selectively turned off in cases where the metadata is wrong. The only way for me to correct the data now is to download the image, nuke the metadata packets, then re- upload the image.

That's a huge waste of time, bandwidth, and storage, to edit out 10 bytes of incorrect information. -Mak 08:14, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

bugzilla:6229 bugzilla:3402, marked "resolved (worksforme)". Apparently resolved due to the presence of MediaWiki:Metadata-help in the metadata box. If you want to take this up further, I suggest you reopen/comment on this bug. pfctdayelise (translate?) 07:55, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Hm I never knew we had Commons:Manipulating meta data... (no easy answer, though) pfctdayelise (translate?)

Yeah, it is real real complicated.

Commons says this picture was taken in 2006 with a Canon Powershot- guess it must be so, because people can easily change things on Wikipedia if they are wrong. And Wikipedia folks make no exceptions or excuses about propagating false information. Right?

-Mak 18:40, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

May it be a photo taken (with Canon etc.) from part of an old poster, photo or book? --Jollyroger 17:26, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I think we figured that much out. The second sentence of this thread reads:

"From the caption of the photo, it appears that the canon was used to take a picture of the original US Navy picture."

-Mak 23:45, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah sorry I lost that passage. --Jollyroger 11:20, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Category:Typeface samples

Many of the samples in this category are proprietary fonts that are covered by copyrights. Is it correct that all of the images are declared as PD? JeremyA 03:09, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

(Not related, but AFAICT Arial is still a copyrighted font. :P) pfctdayelise (translate?) 03:31, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

OK, I did a little more research--it seems that an interpretation of US copyright law is that fonts designed in the US are not subject to copyright (fonts designed elsewhere may be). JeremyA 03:45, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Afaik, fonts as such are not copyrightable in Europe either. While font files may be copryighted (like programs), and you need a license to use them, the result of such use (i.e. a rendered text) is unencumbered by right the font's createor my have. Otherwise, you could not use them for any text you want to publish; that would not make sense, it defeats the purpose of fonts. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 09:37, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Cool new magic word

• {{#language:es}} --> español
• {{#language:zh}} --> 中文
• {{#language:zh-tw}} --> 中文（臺灣）
• {{#language:he}} --> עברית
• {{#language:th}} --> ไทย
• {{#language:vi}} --> Tiếng Việt
• {{#language:en}} --> English
• {{#language:nds}} --> Plattdüütsch

OK, you get the idea. :) I think we will use this a lot! --pfctdayelise (translate?) 03:54, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Yay! They finally implemented that!? Now, all my works go to waste, but I don't mind at all XD —UED77 04:18, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Could you please explain what this is and how it works? Thank you. Longbow4u 09:27, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

It's a new magic word created by the MediaWiki developers. When you put in the language code, it shows the name of that language IN that language. The bit on the left is what you type, and the bit after the arrow is what it produces.

It's useful for providing links to translations. If you have an English page with a Chinese translation, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to link to the Chinese translation by saying "Chinese". They might not well know even what that means. (You can also link to translations by the language code, but this can be quite obscure for monolingual people not familiar with Wikimedia.) Whereas they will instantly be able to recognise the word for their language, IN their language. See: {{#language:de}} --> Deutsch makes more sense than putting "German". pfctdayelise (translate?) 10:12, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Hm but at the language links we already have native names. Where do we use English language terminology much? We just use in some places ISO-Codes in order to have a more lean interface. The only idea coming into my mind would be a replacement of the zillions of language templates expanding not nothing special and a secret CSS-class known to the inner circle (let us say 0.1 % of all users) and some potential machine readability (but the text would have to be sourounded by some kind of start and stop signs). Arnomane 15:49, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I would like it, if the information template would show me a German version, if I have German settings enabled, or a Chinese version, if I have a Chinese setting, for the subject of each line (Description, Source, Date, Author, other version ->Beschreibung, Quelle, Datum, Autor, andere Version etc.). Or if this Template is shown inside the German wikipedia, as imported picture, to show the German version of the template. I understand that this is probably hard to do. This magic word is for other things, apparently. I would like to see an example of use, an implementation in a real image description page or another Commons page, to possibly imitate the use. Anyway, thank you for your reply, pfctdayelise. I am a little concerned about the syntax, which might be a little bit too complicated for average users - so this is probably only for hard core Commoners. Longbow4u 21:40, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I know WE already have native names, but even on the Donations page they are using language codes as links!! (Note: well, now they're not... oh well, I take credit for this since I asked them to update it ;)) To Longbow4u: this magic word really benefits anonymous users, since we can't know what their "language setting" should be. pfctdayelise (translate?) 21:46, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

OK, with the diff-link I see how it works. Perhaps we could use it in {{Template:De}}, too, for example? Longbow4u 22:24, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

That's... actually...a brilliant idea! pfctdayelise (translate?) 04:41, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Done, see {{Description}}. The lang templates (i.e. {{De}}) now show the lang name instead the lang code. Sanbec ✉ 10:09, 8 June 2006 (UTC) Note: You must purge the language template to see the change. I only purged {{De}} and {{Es}} Automatically purged.

Ummmmm, many language templates are no coherents. I'll fix it, no I don't understand the four parameters of {{Description}}. Sanbec ✉ 10:48, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Which ones?? zh-hant and zh-hans won't work because they weren't defined by MediaWiki. MediaWiki uses zh-cn (==zh-hans) and zh-tw (==zh-hant). pfctdayelise (translate?) 15:16, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Those names that displaying are defined in languages/Names.php in Subversion (see [3]). --Shinjiman 05:11, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

No thumbnails?

I uploaded a file Image:TRTS Route Map Future with Taoyuan MRT.png, but the thumbnails does not appear (see Category:Taipei_MRT) , and I cannot insert it correctly in a page (see User:Littleb).

I tried to upload again (Image:TRTS Route Map Future.png) but still failed. What's wrong? --Littleb 12:32, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

The image is very big - since scaling it would take a lot of time and memory, potentially bogging down the servers, it's not thumbnails but transfered "as is" to the browser (in other cases, thumbnailing is tried but fails because it hits a limit - then you see a broken or empty thumbnail). The solution is to upload a smaller version of the image after the original (so the full size is available in the upload history). The rendering limit for PNG is around 12 Megapixels, i think. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 13:48, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I uploaded again with resolution 3480x2560 and it works fine. Thanks :) --Littleb 14:16, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Initiative proposal: collecting scores (music)

Unfortunately very little scores are available on the internet. Even Wikimedia Commons has practically none by yet. To my mind this is an unnecessary deficit. Please correct me if I'm wrong but I imagine the copyright for scores is the same as for literary works. If so, there should be no problem providing self-typed copies of scores on WP, because many famous composers are dead for more than 70 years yet. I do not know the copyright in detail but according to http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/categories/4 and other sites the compositions of Beethoven or Mozart for example are not copyrighted.

Therefore I propose to start an initiative for collecting and reproducing sheet music.

Falk

Before you do this, please check at wikisource: if such material is ultimately not more appropriate there (obviously images can be uploaded here and used there, though). pfctdayelise (translate?) 21:39, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

The music in itself is not copyrighted, but the scores themselves are very much so. Worse, the music industry enforces this copyright very strictly. However, there is the free mutopiaproject, which writes and collects free scores. This is done with the cross platform free w:GNU Lilypond program. Perhaps that should help you. Longbow4u 21:51, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

That's a really cool project. Hm, I wonder if they are interested in collaborating (well, I wonder if there is enough interest in Wikimedia to collaborate). We could allow .ly files I think, if there was demand - they do PDFs as well. And they only license CC-BY, CC-BY-SA and public domain! So in theory we could upload all their material here. ;) Lilypond .ly files can also generate MIDIs! pfctdayelise (translate?) 07:25, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Also, Lilypond outputs SVGs ^_^ pfctdayelise (translate?) 07:38, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Also :) WikiTeX extension supports Lilypond notation, so you can write it directly in wiki pages, see also bugzilla:189. And Category:Mutopia - we already have some of their stuff! pfctdayelise (translate?) 07:43, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

7 June

MediaWiki:Anoneditwarning

If you are an admin, please have a look at my message posted a few days ago on Commons:Bistro#MediaWiki:Anoneditwarning to add French and other languages. Teofilo 06:54, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

The formatting is slightly different (p span and classes and stuff...). Which should we use?

Also, I think we should use our new {{#language}} magic words! (Did you see this, Teofilio? I think you will like it. A few topics up.) pfctdayelise (translate?) 07:11, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I dislike this anon-edit wraning. Better we would simply drop it entirely. It is one of the interface strings we just don't need and that create clutter. Arnomane 08:12, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Isn't it a warning that (A) they're not logged in (if they have an account, it might be by accident) and (B) a piece of information about them is going to be recorded for time immemorial in our wiki? Plus, if it's half a page long, maybe it will encourage people to log in. pfctdayelise (translate?) 08:20, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh no I don't want to convince (anon) IP's by pain. ;-) Yes it gets only shown if you're not logged in. Indeed their IP will be stored for eternity but that's happening almost everywhere. The contrast is: We are so friendly and directly show them that we do so. ;-) Anyways as long it is one line I can live with it but I think we generally should reduce such warnings in size as much as possible (more and more general warnings don't get noticed more often than single precise ones). Arnomane 07:43, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Menu translation for id

Hi. I've put the translation for menu on left. Please update.

• MediaWiki talk:Mainpage/id
• MediaWiki talk:Welcome/id
• MediaWiki talk:Village pump/id
• MediaWiki talk:Participate/id
• MediaWiki talk:Upload/id
• MediaWiki talk:Latestfiles/id
• MediaWiki talk:Randomimage/id
• MediaWiki talk:Contact/id

Done. You're always welcome to translate the content pages too...or even update the main page...or set up a CommonsTicker for id.wp... pfctdayelise (translate?) 08:06, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! I've updated the main page for Indonesian language. We've already setup CommonsTicker on id.wp :) I will try to get people who speaks Indonesian to translate content pages on Commons. -- IvanLanin ♫ 08:17, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

About User:Brya

I donnot know why User:Brya deleted all other languages descriptions in plantae galleries and said "update". Is there a rule of that? I think that descriptions on pages would help google them use other languages better than only links existed. --Fanghong 08:10, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Problem with user Richard Arthur Norton

I have stumbled several times on Richard Arthur Norton's contributions http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=Richard+Arthur+Norton+%281958-+%29 He is, as far I gathered, uploadin in Commons his whole genealogical tree. But for this kind of things already exists http://www.findagrave.com. Yesterday night I stumbled on http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Jarvis_Andrew_Lattin "(1853-1941) Vendor of Fruits and Vegetables on Long Island Railroad"... How encyclopedical!!!! May I create a page about my granny too, then?
As if it were not enough, his pages have all disproportionately long texts (dozens and dozens of lines), which should be placed in Wikipedia proper, not on Commons (provided that anybody be interested in Mr Norton's dad and uncles). Could any adm give a check to the Opera Omnia of this contributor, explain him what Commons is supposed to be, and remove Mr Norton's not-so-encyclopedical relatives?
Best wishes --G.dallorto 10:30, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Note that this user has been blocked indefinitely. pfctdayelise (translate?) 10:37, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

OK. And what about the entries he created? Shall we keep them? --G.dallorto 11:11, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, I have been moving them to User:Richard_Arthur_Norton_(1958-_)/pagename (making them subpages in his userspace) and deleting the main namespace RDR as inappropriate. Just because I am not keen on deleting factual information that is possible useful to someone in some universe. I haven't seen any evidence any 'Wikimorial' or any of the other projects he claims will spring into existence and thus validate these articles, actually will.

He still has another 50 odd articles in the main namespace so if you want to go ahead and move them, feel free. I just do it when I run across them.

Also note the fact that I haven't deleted them should not be seen as condoning continuing editing of them. In fact I expressly don't. If you notice anonymous editing of these articles feel free to semi-protect them.

You could nominate them on COM:DEL if you really wanted, but eh... is it worth the effort, hassle and drama? I figure just get them out of the road (the main namespace), that's good enough. pfctdayelise (translate?) 11:51, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

There is a point when raw historical information is not just family fluff, but meaningful. The UK has archived many audio recordings and letters of soldiers who went off to have their lives thrown away by generals who seemed incapable of learning. They talk about chores they left undone at home, financial affairs- some pretty mundane. The UK government didn't think these scribblings were worthless. I think that if some family archivist has sorted through and presented information that shows some connection to something larger- eg. in this case has some sociological value- like, showing the transition of agrarian to industrial economy in NY state in the early 20th century, then it has value. I agree that commons should not be a dumping ground for family archives, but such "slices of life" are important. -Mak 17:20, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Menu URL for Indonesian language

Hi, please update:

• MediaWiki:Welcome-url/id to "Commons:Selamat datang"
• MediaWiki:Contact-url/id to "Commons:Hubungi kami"
• MediaWiki:Sitesupport-url/id to "Wikimedia:Penggalangan dana"

Thx. -- IvanLanin ♫ 12:14, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Did the first two. The third doesn't exist and shouldn't have a Wikimedia: prefix anyway. Commons:Penggalangan dana? Help:Penggalangan dana? No... pfctdayelise (translate?) 12:32, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Thx. For sitesupport-url, it will be translated by the interwiki parser to [4]. Please see w:id:MediaWiki:Sitesupport-url. -- IvanLanin ♫ 14:57, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Wow, tricky! :) pfctdayelise (translate?) 15:40, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Deletion Guidelines revamp

After I reorganized CAT:SPEEDY a few weeks ago, I was quite tired and neglected to update Commons:Deletion Guidelines. I made up for that yesterday, when I removed all mentions of {{Redundant}} and updated it to reflect {{Duplicate}}. I also added a couple of things about speedy deletion, but I am planning on rewriting the entire speedy delete section in the coming days. Just in case the changes went unnoticed, I would like to call it to your attention, and ask for some peer review, questions, and comments. Thanks :) —UED77 13:28, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm just very confused, so sorry for all my stupid questions.

If redundant and duplicate are not the same, why is {{Deleted duplicate}} mentioned under "Redundancy". Is superseded redundant or duplicate or neither?

{{Duplicate}} says "After replacing all instances with the preferred image, the others should be speedily deleted" (that is, "delete pages, images and other files 'on sight'")." Yet I have been instructed to overwrite the image with a cross (not delete) and use {{Deleted duplicate}}. Deleted duplicate template asks to wait for a month. (And I'm not an admin, I couldn't delete anyway.)

The 4th case mentioned is "duplicate" but detailed guidelines has "redundancy".

-Samulili 08:25, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Tweaking the upload form

I'm sorry if this the wrong place but I did search on Commons but couldn't find the answer. I find the "Description" field in the upload form a bit painful: it's too large (too much cols) and way too small (too few rows) for my taste. Is there any way I could change that, in a monobook.css perhaps? TIA, Jastrow 15:05, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

You mean the actual input box? I guess that would be a MediaWiki setting. You could make a bugzilla request to the developers to change it (or at least suggest that they change it). It does seem quite wide. It is probably so few rows in order to keep the whole page on one screen (no vertical scroll bar). pfctdayelise (translate?) 15:29, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you can configure it in your personal css file, the field's ID is wpUploadDescription. Something like this should do:

      #wpUploadDescription { 
         width: 20ex;
         height: 12ex;
      }

HTH -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 15:48, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Duesentrieb, you're my personal hero! Thanks so much. Jastrow 16:00, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

StringFunctions on Commons

StringFunctions expose PHP functions like strpos, strlen etc. A stable version has been out since last month. What's the timeline for enabling this at Commons? -Mak 17:05, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

What would you use it for? These decisions are typically made by m:User:Brion VIBBER.--Eloquence 18:14, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

There's no timeline; for one thing we've never heard of it. :) --Brion VIBBER 07:24, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Search engines... again

Has any recent progress been made regarding search engines' ability — or rather, the lack thereof — to index images found on Commons? I propose composing an official request by the Commons community as a whole; an approval from the Foundation would greatly be beneficial. It would be better to contact more than one search engine, hoping at least one will implement it, which will hopefully serve to urge all others to do so as well. —UED77 23:01, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Realistically, that's not going to happen; the web is many millions of times larger than just Wiki*edia. At some point in the future we'll need to accomodate this with changes to the system. --Brion VIBBER 05:39, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Wiki*edia is not nothing, though. We surely have some clout. We can surely at least freaking ask. Is there any timeline to "at some point in the future"? In the meantime, Wiki*edia search freaking sucks and Google Images is much poorer without our content. pfctdayelise (translate?) 11:02, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I am bold. I will now write to google, yahoo and msn officials until I get feedback from them. :p Arnomane 11:17, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I asked Google about this last month and, no, it's not feasible for them to change the spidering behavior in this way. On the other hand it is feasible for us to change the way we name image pages, and we'll likely want to do this in the future anyway. --Brion VIBBER 07:19, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, tell them the community stands behind you like one contributor. And thanks again for your intervention in favor of InstantCommons on the foundation mailing list. Longbow4u 11:49, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

NB. previous discussion here: Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2006/04#Googling_Images_revisited pfctdayelise (translate?) 04:51, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I didn't notice this good question:

I assume Google Sitemaps have already been considered and rejected. Just in case, I'm mentioning them. JesseW 06:09, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Has anyone tried a sitemap with a few explicit references to image page urls? -Mak 09:28, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

We already generate Google Sitemaps. --Brion VIBBER 07:19, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

What about a newspaper?

I was watching the RFA page, and saw that just few people vote. I think that's because people don't even know what happens. It happens something that people discuss about a particular template o similar, in the template talking page, and still nobody knows anything, just if people go to watch the RC. Italian, english, german Wikipedias have created a kind of newspaper which reports links to main events happening on Wikipedia. The model I like is the italian one. Look it: it's good. Why don't we create something similar to put in the Main Page? Bye Bye --ßøuñçêY2K 20:34, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

If you are well informed and active on Commons, please use the idea and implement it. It sounds great. Siebrand 16:39, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd be willing to help you, Bouncey. I agree that there should be some way to disseminate information more efficiently. Commons as it is is especially prone to long lapses into inactivity. —UED77 17:21, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Starting with something requiring fairly little maintenance like w:en:Wikipedia:Announcements in a layout like w:nl:Wikipedia:Mededelingen and linking to it from either the main pages and/or recent changes may be a way to get people up to speed with recent events quickly. Siebrand 17:34, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Good idea. I think we should try that each news is explained in 1 o 2 sentences with a relevant link, so that translation is fast and easily made. --Javier Carro 18:08, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Bot for "Category:Deleted duplicates - unknown month"

In Category:Deleted duplicates - unknown month it says

Images in this category don't have the "month" parameter given on {{deleted duplicate}}. Please replace {{deleted duplicate|other image name}} with {{subst:deldup|other image name}}

I was going to start doing that, but then I realized that using a trained monkey for it would be a waste of intellectual capabilities. So this is a request for some nice person to create a bot to go through that category. -Samulili 14:26, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I suggest you make this suggestion on Commons:Bots, it does sound perfect for a bot. pfctdayelise (translate?) 10:13, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. I will. -Samulili 18:49, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Spanish (or whatever) eventhough I don't want it

How did this happen? Is this a known bug? --KAMiKAZOW 17:21, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Purging MediaWiki:Monobook.js, which contains the localized strings, might help. Strange things like this have happened before, and one possible reason can be that the cached copy of the file on one of the squids is incorrectly saved in another language. Or, if this happens, a hard refresh (locally, Ctrl+Shift+R in Firefox) might help. —UED77 17:30, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, they're the spanish ones. But i have seen it (with the spanish interface) in polsky, english... Platonides 21:39, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Congratulations

Congratulations for every members of Commons. I am really annoyed and I communicate to you that the Wikipedia in Catalan has lost its better user due to your continued blockages to Walden69. :´-( Pasqual (ca)

I hope it doesn't sound snotty, but a look at User_talk:Walden69 shows that Walden69 has created a lot of work for people cleaning up after him. I'm sorry to hear he's not working for the Catalan Wikipedia any more, but for the Commons, maybe it is for the better if he doesn't bother to learn some basic rules. --Fb78 18:05, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Agree with Fb78. I hope that you can work things out with Walden69, but we have to follow copyright and other policies around here.--Eloquence 18:13, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

It was my tribute to him. I know the rules, and I think that his behavior isn't logical nor reasonable. Probably he has other questions that he didn't tell, but he accuse (people of) Commons. :´-( Pasqual (ca)

It's always more easy to blame other people then change own behavior... --EugeneZelenko 19:40, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

That talk page is incredible. How more patient can we be? How many times can we say, "If you're not sure, ask first"? How many times can we say, "You have to understand the licensing requirements. No one has a choice about this"? And how many more times will we be attacked by local projects when we are already bending over backwards? Is there some giant disconnect, that local projects don't understand an image copyvio is just as important as a text copyvio? I am sure they would go out of their way to remove text copyvios, so how about a bit of help with the images? pfctdayelise (translate?) 06:15, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Yesterday I found Image:Jumper.jpg, where Walden uploaded a photo of somebody called John Jumper although there was already a photo with that name, a photo of a piece of clothing. I think WikiCommons has been patient enough with this kind of vandalism. Thuresson 09:57, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

The Commons Journal

have a look here :) --ßøuñçêY2K 23:29, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh, wow. It's quite nice, and I especially love the sidebar on the right! May I build upon your design and tweak a few things in my userspace? —UED77 23:33, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

“Text is available under GNU Free Documentation License”. Yes, you may. Btw, nice design Bounce. Kjetil_r 23:44, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Looks great! For i10n purposes I think it would be best if content was seperated from design as much as possible. Could those perfectionising this feature please make some templates for header, (footer), and news item, so that adding messages is as transparant and easy as possible, without having to dig through a lot of wiki code? Siebrand 06:24, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Am I the only one that sees the text heading overlapping itself? Not a good look. (FF 1.5.0.4 on Windows XP) Also it would be good if it could adopt the current colour scheme used in the main page, commons:welcome and help:contents etc. Also I hope you plan to keep it updated :P Ideally I would have thought the Village pump itself has this kind of function... pfctdayelise (translate?) 06:34, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I've just bettered a little bit the page, the colors are the same of those in the Main Page of Commons. I think there are all main news and discussions (adminship, featured pictures). I've also added the "how to use" link in the right, to help people add their announcements. If you have got other ideas.. --ßøuñçêY2K 12:50, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Mailing list discussion - appoint a legal adviser?

Hello. I recently suggested that the Commons should ask the Wikimedia Legal department to appoint a "Commons liaison officer" (CLO) to help us solve the more difficult copyright debates that frequently recur. Because it is very hard when most of us know next to nothing about copyright, and yet we are trying to make these difficult decisions that are not easy even for copyright lawyers. So I think we should ask for some permanent professional help.

First I want to check if the Commons community thinks this is a good idea or not. So please reply either on the mailing list or to this topic. (For long comments please use the mailing list, NOT the village pump.)

I also made a post recently about how the Commons has a backlog of around 12,000 images waiting to be deleted - and this is just the tagged images. If you have some ideas about how we might solve this then you are welcome to comment on that too. (And I don't think "just appoint more admins") is really going to cut it.)

Thanks, pfctdayelise (translate?) 08:23, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you on having an adviser expert on international copyright law. That would solve many headaches to Commons. I think it would be worthy to pay a salary for that. And, about the backlog you mentioned, I think that most of the users in other Wikimedia projects who "throw" their wikimedia content here and go away are not aware of that problem. An easy thing we can do is to write a press release and distribute it in different Wikimedia press websites: Kurier, Wikizine, Wikipedia Signpost, giving short advices on how they can cooperate, avoiding that their images are deleted, encouraging at the same time more active participation on image deletion process. --Javier Carro 12:04, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

It would make sense for a professional or group of professionals who have spent years studying this to come forward and assist. However, whether or not a permanent position can be established would depend on the amount of time any person is willing to donate. It is certainly a good idea, but whether or not it is feasible is another question. --tomf688 (talk - email) 14:26, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I am very sceptical about that idea. At the moment we enjoy almost complete freedom of action. If there is a lawyer, you can expect him to be very sceptical about almost every feature decision we take. That is his job. You can see how m:InstantCommons is not going anywhere at the moment, precisely about (imho unfounded) legal concerns (see mailing list). The responsibility for copyright infringement lies on the people using Commons content, not ours. If we employ a lawyer, his most probable professional opinion would be to shut down operations completely because of possible legal liabilities. Lawyers are notoriously uncreative. So yes, this would be a very bad idea. We should stick to the motto "notice and take down", and make ourselves as an archive imprescindible/indispensable/. That s the best possible defense while maintaining creativity. Greetings, Longbow4u 15:49, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

WMF already has lawyers! It's just that we don't really use them. (And I don't think it's legal concerns holding back InstantCommons, BTW.) The problem is half the time we don't really know if something IS a violation or not. It's not straightforward. Of course, the simple cases we would continue to solve ourselves. (And I don't know what imprescindible is.) pfctdayelise (translate?) 22:29, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

The type lawyer who is versed in "international" (read around the globe) intellectual property law is not available as volunteer for wikipedia. Sorry. You can get some type of lawyers, but what they can do almost anyone can do with a little bit of common sense. If a picture is less than 100 kb ("optimized for websites") and the uploader does not provide source information about author, making of, etc., instead puts it under public domain, then it is with 99,5% probability stolen. There are a lot of images of that type. How can you blame people, e.g. in latin america, for not value-ing Intellectual Property? Some do. But in most cases, they could not afford to buy stuff produced in the West anyway, because it is so expensive. Also, they usually do not suffer from persecution, like filesharers in USA or Germany do. How could they care about copyright? That is a difficult topic even in the West. Of course you can invest big dollars in lawyers, but I cannot imagine a lawyer spending multiple hours in the "Category:Copyright violation" and debating single pictures. He will most probably say: "delete the entire category without further ado, and pay my bill of 2000 $." That is it. I wanted to say "indispensable" instead of inprescindible. Sorry I missed the word. English is not my native language. Of course people say the InstantCommons project is not stalled at all, it just does not go ahead. And it is of course due to myriad of technical/organizational problems. I just don't buy it. There are political concerns, and of course, copyright concerns on the bottom of it. An experienced developer said this could be implemented in short time, so that is not the true reason for not implementing it. Some people on the mailing list explicitly expressed legal doubts. So I do not expect this to go ahead in the near future. That frustrates a little bit. One invests time in the interface, translates, uploads and all that, and than some bureaucrats do not deem it fit to make all this work more useful.

Sorry pfctdayelise, my argument is not directed against you. I respect your work here very much. But I see it that there is a very short window of opportunity here for us to set a global standard, but if we do not act fast, we might miss the opportunity, and then it would be either illegal, or another commercial player, like flickr, has moved before us. We have to act. Greetings, Longbow4u 11:23, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

P.S. Please do not misunderstand me. To clean up our act on copyright violations is also of great concern to me. But I think all the so called "fair use" images on en.wp are far more serious risk for the viability of the entire Wikimedia Foundation and its projects, than any file the Commons hosts. Perhaps we should announce to all the communities that they have 3 months to look for unsourced or improperly licenced images they have imported from the Commons, and if they are not properly licenced then, we purge those images once and for all and move on. Then we could focus on our more valuable 628000 properly licenced files, and do not have to worry about the 12000 critical ("problem tags") one anymore. Like tabula rasa. Longbow4u 11:37, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Can we put this in the Community Portal ? (right side, with Babel)

Graphics abilities Project (or User's Abilities or Abilities Babel)

For categorisation of users in function of their graphical/audio abilities on commons, and then find quickly help need to work more efficiently.

Choise the best title in english, this text is a [good?] translation of the french « Pour categoriser les utilisateurs en fonctions de leurs aptitudes graphiques/audios sur commons, pour ensuite trouver l'aide appropriée », please correct my english if need. Yug (talk) 21:08, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Invisible SVGs

180 pixels wide. Visible.

Same image 300 pixels wide. Invisible.

A PNG that looks silly when 150 pixels wide.

Some SVGs become invisible in the articles if they're displayed at certain resolutions. See the two examples here. Possibly a MediaWiki bug. Any thoughts? --Hautala 12:14, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

<joke> It's a new mediawiki feature. Knowing that wikipedians drink to much coffee mediawiki don't not allow to show too big Coffee pot.

Big Orange juice and multi-vitamines juice pot and bottles are allow. <end of joke> Yug (talk) 14:28, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I think there's maybe having a problem in SVG → PNG renderor, it needs some time to investigate these cases what's components having this problem. --Shinjiman 14:27, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Some time that's a format question (plein SVG , SVG inkscape). The french Atelier graphique already have some trouble like that (black square appeare on the svg, etc). I will ask them. See also the users user:Dake, user:Sting (fr), and User:Piom for help. Yug (talk) 14:35, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Please report back if you know a working format. Meanwhile here's another problem: a PNG that resizes into vertical bars. --Hautala 15:01, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

None of them showed for me. I have seen it several times before. They're made with an adobe program, have <!ENTITYs... and our PNG conversion fails. When i find it i download it, save with Inkscape as Plain SVG (Inkscape SVG works too) and reupload it. You make sure your cache is cleaned... and voilà. Platonides 17:36, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Could someone do a technical check to see if they can isolate the problem as this !ENTITY line? eg make a valid SVG in Inkscape, add an Adobe-style !ENTITY line and see if it works or not? pfctdayelise 05:43, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

That work fine for me today [the both]. But I use the s-link https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/wiki/Commons:Village_pump , and you ? Yug (talk) 20:05, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, yes. In my previous edit i tried to say that i touched them and now show... Platonides 12:38, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

This is in theory now resolved. One last purge may be necessary on images already broken. --brion 05:26, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

GPL question

I recently tagged Image:Pyramide1.jpg for not listing a source. However, I have now found that the French wikipedia lists the source as [www.gnuart.net www.gnuart.net]. I downloaded the file, which comes as an archive, to check the licence, and the readme file states: "In case of a diffusion from you, with or without modifications, you have to keep all these files included in an archive." The licence is GPL--do we fulfill the terms of the GPL without distributing the extra files (there are three text files in the archive)? Thanks, JeremyA 14:29, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Does the README state that as part of the GPL or a separate condition? Either way, it doesn't sound so good... pfctdayelise (translate?) 14:11, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

The Commons Journal has opened!!

Please discuss changings in the relative talk page. --ßøuñçêY2K 17:50, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

See Commons talk:Journal for a Howto on translating it to your language. Siebrand 20:53, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Caricatural vandalism?

Today, I noticed via the CommonsTicker that Image:Felipe Calderon.jpg was overwritten. When I took a look, some Caricature was uploaded over it. Same with Image:Felipe Calderon.jpg, both done by User:Fecal. Could an admin handle this? (I already reverted them, but don't know the policy here about vandalisme) --Tuvic 09:53, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Hm. It might not have been intentional...or is there some special reason you think it was? I can't read the cartoon. (Their username also makes me suspicious...)

Also, you might like to provide a translation for MediaWiki:Fileexists, we can easily install it (another good one is MediaWiki:Filewasdeleted and also MediaWiki:Fileexists-forbidden).

It's good that CommonsTicker is proving useful! Also, is there some reason to have those two images exactly the same? pfctdayelise (translate?) 11:00, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

The two images are the same, because I made a typo: the second one should be Image:Felipe Calderon sin fondo i.jpg. I also think it's definateley on purpose: it were the only uploads of that user, and over that exact 2 images. --Tuvic 15:06, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

The cartoon's text translates (through Google's translator) as, "It is a danger for the companies! It is a danger for the family! It is a danger for the companies of my family!" I would imagine this edits to, "It endangers businesses! It endangers families! It endangers my family's businesses!" Seahen 03:32, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

How to know an Image is used on what wiki project?

Hello, I want to know a certain image is used by what other wiki projects. Where can I get the information?--百楽兎 13:59, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Click on the tab Check usage at the top of the image page. It seems broken for the moment however. Otherwise go directly to the tool: [5] and fill in the name of the image. NielsF 14:04, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you! :-)--百楽兎 04:38, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

One note: this doesn't work for the English project. However, you can either click the tab labeled "en" or click directly into en.wikipedia.org, to find out. Cary "Bastique" Bass ^parler _voir 13:45, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

link in the navigation box

What about adding a link to The Commons Journal in the navigation box under "Village pump"? --ßøuñçêY2K 18:13, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

It's not possible to add a link to only the English menu. The link will also appear in all user settings' menus. So until all those languages have a Journal (or even a dozen or so), I think it's better not to put the link there. pfctdayelise (translate?) 23:51, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

What about the Village pump? Every language has a bar, but in the menu there is only the english one. Haven't we said that the english Journal should be the central project? We can use "Journal", which is similar to many languages. --ßøuñçêY2K 09:27, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

EDIT: Also the Community portal has an english link, so the Main Page. I'm really wondering what the problem is.. [09:55, 12 June 2006 (UTC)]

Yes, each language has versions of those pages with names in their own language. For example Main page with French menu (to view different languages, change the language code in the URL). pfctdayelise (translate?) 09:33, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I know but this kind of link are not well known, there are no link to this kind of pages. When i enter Commons, the main page is in english (the same the navigation box), then I click on "italian", "french", etc and the main page changes, but the navigation box ramains the same. Whatever, we could add the link to the Journal in the navigation box, then every language translates it into their languages. Is this such a big deal? --ßøuñçêY2K 12:40, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

The settings change permanently when you set your language in Special:Preferences. You could set yours in Italian if you wanted. Then the menus would be permanently in Italian.

There are around 20 different language Village pumps set up, and 64 mainpage translations. Adding a new page and expecting all language communities to translate it represents a not-small amount of effort. I am not entirely convinced it is worth it. But I will reserve judgement and see what other people think.

The place to add it, BTW, would be MediaWiki:Sidebar. pfctdayelise (translate?) 12:39, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

We could write "Journal" for all. It is a word similar in different languages --ßøuñçêY2K 19:26, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Please place it in the Commons:Community portal with a teaser to the current news (instead of the old news but move all the old news into the journal first). This is the central place for links to new stuff and there's already an old news section which now has been duplicated by the Journal (why didn't you take the old news page and evolved it into the Journal?). And "Journal" is not "international". Arnomane 11:10, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Thumb mode doesn't work!?

Hi, I uploaded a PNG-Image at Wikipedia Commons but the image didn't appears in the thumb mode. Whats wrong? It didn't appears in the category (Politics_of_Greece) and it didn't appears in der German Wikipedia too.

Please take a look, the file name is GreeceJurisdictionGerman.PNG and GreeceJurisdictionGerman.png --Lemonc 18:24, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

On some days the thumbnail function is broken. Usually it works again the next day. Perhaps this is caused by a delay in the generation of the thumbnails. Another user in the german forum also reports a problem with the thumbnail at the moment. Please consider using our {{information}}-template for the image description page. Longbow4u 19:25, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

13 June

PNG recurrent bug ?

Since yersterday, I see a reccurent png' bug. .png small version don't appear. I use firefox & Suse. User:M4RC0 seen the same bug.

Test by gallery : Gallery doesn't work :

• 
  Doesn't work.
• 
  upload 5 min later by Marco, some time work fine for me (no here)
• 
• File:Coprinus angulatus spore.png
• 
  Doesn't work fine.
• 
  Work fine, same user.
• 
  by Rosenzweig
• 
  by Rosenzweig

Other test : the pic in 30, 70px [at less] doesn't work fine, 100, 150, 200 and 300px, the 5 others on this list work fine.

Png from a same user work sometime fine, some time not. I don't understand. Yug (talk) 01:17, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Tim's investigating this, hopefully we'll get to the bottom of it soon... --Brion VIBBER 07:13, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Brion :] Yug (talk) 11:20, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Tim, lot improvement :] The bug still stay for some , such as the second pic,

I checked some other pics and I seen that -at less- the 70px size doesn't work, but I think several [but not many] other sizes [which are unknow] continue to don't work fine. Yug (talk) 15:27, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I just fixed the remaining ones with action=purge. Thumbnailing errors are continuing to occur randomly, but in most cases they should be fixable with a simple browser refresh rather than action=purge. -- Tim Starling 04:09, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Useful tool for cleaning categories: CoCat

Hello, I recently discovered a very useful tool called CoCat. It can tell you which categories are also being used with a particular category. For example, if I put in "Australia" for Category:Australia, it shows which other categories images in this category use.

This is useful if I want to "clean out" a category and stop images being in the top-level category when they are already in a lower-level one. For example I see there are 4 pages also in Category:Townsville. I know Townsville is a city in Australia, so if an image is in Category:Townsville it doesn't really need to be in Category:Australia too. So I can remove Category:Australia from those images and help make the top-level category smaller.

So, have fun with it, report any bugs or improvements to de:Benutzer Diskussion:JakobVoss/CoCat. pfctdayelise (translate?) 00:08, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Meta:Language select

Meta: is doing something interesting with regards to multilinguality. They are using JavaScript to autodetect browser language settings!!!!!!!!! as well as some other CSS "type in your language code" thing. My impression is that it might not be suitable for here, because meta tends to put all their translations on one page whereas we rarely do that (and I believe we should continue in our approach), plus they don't try to translate nearly as much as us. :P But anyway maybe the gurus here can make something useful of it. pfctdayelise (translate?) 03:04, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Artcyclopedia's hotlinking to Wikimedia

A commercial website stealing bandwidth from a public resource funded by charitable donations is reprehensible.

I discovered that it links to all the Wikimedia images of an artist on a single page:

Find an artist, scroll to the heading "Pictures from Image Archives" and click on "Wikimedia Commons Image Database".

It doesn't offer links to this site, but hotlinks images to a artcyclopedia.com framed page.

Hm. You are right... they are hotlinking our thumbnails (eg http://www.artcyclopedia.com/commons/leonardo-da-vinci.html ). But I found they click through to our image page, so that part is good. The hotlinking is not so good. I'll try to find the right person to let know about this. pfctdayelise (translate?) 09:50, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I posted this on wikitech-l. pfctdayelise (translate?) 10:01, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Recomanded licensing

This cartoon demonstrates the utility of multi-licensing one's own work. Click to view the full-size image.

Hello, today I find this pic (on the right) showing that the best licensing for commons is the double license CC-by-sa + GFDL. Ok, that seem clear, every publication will show : « [AUTOR NAME] + CC-by-sa & GFDL ». One line ! Beautiful.

But where is it clearly show ? Nor in the Main Page neither in the Community Portal.
So, If nobody disagree I will add this following line to the Community Portal and then to the Main page :

« Please, upload your work under CC-by-sa + GFDL licensing »

Please improve this sentense if need, or say me which license is much more recomanded « for most cases ». Yug (talk) 12:10, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I added it to Commons:Licensing. The first option at Special:Upload is almost this: "Own work, copyleft: Multi-license with GFDL and Creative Commons CC-BY-SA-2.5 and older versions (2.0 and 1.0)". The one you mentioned is second.

I don't think people have a problem choosing a license for their own work. I think people choosing this license (and other "self" licenses) for random stuff they get off the internet is a much bigger problem. Possibly you could also add it to Commons:First steps/License selection. pfctdayelise (translate?) 12:44, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I spend the 6 first months on commons using GFDL license almost randomly, just because it's the wikipedia license. Now, I use CC, but It have so many that I never use the same. I think almost 98% of real life people don't know about licensing issue. We have to say clearly to begginer : "This is the best way(license) for begginer.".

Let them choice, it's lets them die in confusion. And that don't help commons. Yug (talk) 13:28, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Please don't single license as GFDL, license under Cc-by-sa too? This only applies for GFDL... Platonides 12:54, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Yug, perhaps we could create a page Commons:Contributing your own work and explain this stuff, what do you think? But I don't want to in general encourage people to choose some particular license. I want to encourage them to choose the accurate license. Too many people still upload random stuff off the internet with no idea about copyright at all. Commons:Licensing is supposed to be the page that explains "the licensing issue". Probably it could be clearer, but it is hard to organise and still keep all the relevant info. pfctdayelise (translate?) 14:08, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I think I will add :

« Own work ? Please, upload it under CC-by-sa + GFDL licensing : {{self2|GFDL|cc-by-sa-2.5}} »

I think this should work fine for most cases, and should be more convenient for everyone (owner , and publishers) Yug (talk) 19:54, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Sometimes I am really asking myself why I do write help pages and why I did clean up the interface. All people want get educated in person. Honestly. Commons:First steps is there to serve for such beginner questions. And Main page is for content presentation (our "show room") in order to attract people and not for license questions relevant to people after they got interested in the project. Arnomane 21:04, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Commons:First steps/License selection does give people a good recommendation according to their liking since ages. Arnomane 21:06, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

And this?>> « Own work ? If so, we encourage you to upload it under CC-by-sa + GFDL licensing : {{self2|GFDL|cc-by-sa-2.5}} because... (1 or 2 explanatory sentences)»

In this way, they get the advise and they know why say this quickly and easy. --Javier Carro 21:17, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

We should entirely ban the self templates. They do help nobody. The reader has no clue who the author is (finding out the uploader is really hard from a usability perspective) and much worse: Imagine an overwrite and a deletion of the old version in cases you wouldn't think it could harm deleting the old versions. Only one example: You upload an image, a vandal replaces it with a vandalism image someone else reverts the image (now you have two identical copies) and now an admin deletes the two old versions (you cannot delete the most recent version without deleting all versions, which is a major flaw in the interface). And there are many more good reasons not to use current self templates. Arnomane 21:29, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Being able to subst the current username into the licensing page would help. Re: the above discussion, the ideal licensing is probably GFDL / CC-BY-SA 2.5+1.0. 2.0 needs not be mentioned since the license includes an upgrade clause. 1.0 does not.--Eloquence 06:53, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Translate a pic : build a rule

Hello, I think it's really need to have a clear rule to translate pics, such as :

• Image_Name.png (former pics)
  • Image_Name-fr.png
  • Image_Name-de.png
  • Image_Name-ja.png
  • Image_Name-es.png
  • Image_Name-....png
• Image_Name-blank.png (texte empty)

All translation should fallow the same naming rule. And a rule like this have to be clearly visible. (Main page or Community portal).

Yug (talk) 13:48, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

See Category:Fuel cells for an alternitive - which is worse :) Samulili 14:04, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

It also have : Image:BD-propagande colour en.jpg / Image:BD-propagande color fr.jpg / Image:BD-propagande color sk.jpg.

I already seen -en.png / -fr.png / -es.png.

Some times that also such as : Fire.png / Feu.png / Fuego.png

All this because we haven't any clear rule. Yug (talk) 14:09, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Yug, I suggest you add this to Commons:First steps. (But people can't follow the rules we already have!! I don't think creating new ones will increase the percentage of people who follow them.) pfctdayelise (translate?) 14:30, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I very much agree with the proposed naming convention. I have uploaded several translated images from nl: following this convention. Siebrand 17:22, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

People, come on, Commons is a not for English speaking users only. Any extension to indicate other languages should be written using these languages. --Tarawneh 17:47, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Hello, I'm not an english speaker, but we all know the iso-code (en/de/fr/ja/pl/zh/ko) of our own language, I think we really need rule for this. In wikipedias articles, the thumb text is here to explain what we are looking. Yug (talk) 19:17, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

No. We generally use english names this is our current policy but almost nobody cares and nobody will take care of your idea as well. And we don't have the time enforcing any naming policy until image move is possible. Arnomane 21:32, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I might agree with Arnomane on the fact that there is no resources to take care of this, but, the idea that every one knows the ISO-code is really a wild one. I lived for a long 20 years in the middle east, and I know for a fact that this is not true. If some thing is to be arranged now or in future it must take into account the background of potential contributors. --Tarawneh 22:12, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Image:San Jacinto Memorial (2001-05).jpg

I mistakingly uploaded the most recent version of a file from Wikipedia at Image:San Jacinto Memorial (2001-05).jpg. I'm not sure of the processes here, but is there a way to delete my mistake so the original can be added first? jareha ^(comments) 14:10, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

You can just upload the original over the top of the one you already uploaded (there is a link at the bottom of the image page - your account has to be > 4 days old to be able to "replace" existing images), and then "rev" revert back to the one you already uploaded, the corrected one. A link will appear in the file history. (PS. We have a Help desk. :)) pfctdayelise (translate?) 14:15, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Okay, so should an administrator now delete the first version? jareha ^(comments) 14:22, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Image:Oriana.jpg

DO anyone cares for speedy delete tags?
Shoud I flag this elsewhere?
How can I have a copyviol removed when found?
Who we are?
Where are we going?
What do we have for dinner?
--Jollyroger 22:07, 13 June 2006 (UTC) and the Great Questions of Life (don't dare to answer 42!)

Take a look at [6] and you will know that we do care a lot and delete as fast as we can. But there are so many idiots that simply don't want to understand our basic license conditions. Of course any help is welcome and you can help us a lot. Just walk through Category:Unknown and google for the sources of these files there. Another big help would be if you can explain to people what they did wrong in case you see that tehy did upload a copyvio. Arnomane 22:23, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

A "one click" delete key might help. The two stages delete procedure takes double the time. The delete key should be able to put a delete summary based on the templates in the image page. --Tarawneh 23:37, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I second the one-click delete suggestion, but something else that would be greatly helpful — and, frankly... insanely cool — would be a dynamic page which would automatically list all images in Category:Against policy and fetch the parameter of the {{Copyvio}} template to display the source right next to the image thumbnail. Each row would also contain a checkbox. The presence of the source link would allow admins to quicky and effortlessly check out the source of the image. If the image is found to be a copyvio, the checkbox would be checked. On the bottom of the page, there would be one delete button, which would ask for confirmation, but given that you could delete up to, say, 50 copyvios with a lot less pageviews and clicks, I think it would be worth it.

Undoubtedly, this would require some serious programming. But even if this never becomes reality, the one-click delete would be nice, and probably easy to implement. —UED77 23:55, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

So what is your policy here? Do you vote before applying a bug report for such ideas? --Tarawneh 02:08, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

We find a sympathetic code monkey to write something for us on the toolserver :) since this is a problem that only really affects Commons I don't think a MediaWiki solution would be appropriate. There have been some useful new tools developed on the commons-l mailing list. pfctdayelise (translate?) 03:30, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

A really insane idea. First, the first parameter is not very used. Explanation appears often after it. Then, you may lose the answering to it saying i am the owner, after or before the template, or even in the discussion! So manual checking would still be neccesary. However, you could autofill the delete field with the template explanation... Platonides 21:30, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

14 June

Category naming conventions

I tried to find naming conventions for categories, but unfortunately all I found was Commons:Naming conventions, which redirects to Commons:Language policy. The problem that prompted the search is the use of "in" and "of" in category names. For example, Category:Lakes by country has three styles - Category:Lakes in Egypt, Category:Lakes of Denmark and Category:Swiss lakes. Is there a convention for this? Should the names of the categories be changed so that they are all the same? Thanks, Kjkolb 05:24, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Hm. Luckily for lakes there is no difference in meaning between "Lakes in X" and "Lakes of X". Sometimes they don't mean the same thing. I think using "in" is clearer when you literally mean "located in". You could change them if you wanted to, but I wouldn't put a priority on it when there's no ambiguity... to 'rename' categories, you can use User:Orgullobot/commands. The adjectival-form ones should be changed IMO (Xian lakes, eg Swiss lakes), because not all countries have sensible adjectival forms (eg United States... United Statesian?).

If you wanted to, you could also write a category scheme, but for one cat, I would just put a note on the talk page about the preferred method. pfctdayelise (translate?) 08:04, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

LOC Geography and Map Division

I recently discovered that the U.S. Library of Congress Geography and Map Division has some *very* high-quality (10-30 megapixel) maps online, a mixture of scanned out-of-copyright maps in their collection and more recent maps created by the US government.

A few things to note:

• Our existing Template:LOC-image used the URL scheme of the Prints and Photographs Division, which is where nearly all (all?) our photos have come from so far, but not the only division. I created a similar Template:LOC-map for images from the Geography and Maps Division, which has the added benefit of subcategorizing Category:Images from the Library of Congress into Category:Maps from the Library of Congress.
• Images they digitized a while ago are in the proprietary MrSID format. More recent images are in the open standard JPEG 2000. Neither is uploadable to Wikipedia, but both can be converted.
  • MrSID: The Library of Congress distributes a viewer for Windows and Mac OS Classic that can export to TIFF. I use Linux so have not tried this, but if it works, those TIFFs can then be compressed to JPG.
  • JPEG 2000: JasPer can be used to convert to JPG.

In both cases the conversion is lossy, but the images are so high-resolution to start that the resulting image should still be crisper than nearly anything else we have on Commons. I've gone through and converted/uploaded a few, but thought I'd let other people know about the resource as well. --Delirium 08:47, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Can anyone translate this?

العربية: حيوان ضخم من فصيلة السنوريات، وهو ذكر. تسمى أنثاه لبؤة ويطلق على أطفاله اسم أشبال. أطلق علية ابتداء من القرن الأول الميلادي لقب ملك الغابة، ومن أسماء الأسد في اللغة العربية السبع والليث والهزبر والورد والضرغام.

These sentences are from the beginning of the arabic wiki article on lions. I think it is correct but who knows- maybe arabic wiki article was incorrect.

Someone with a Kazakhstan IP didn't log in and destroyed all other information except the arabic and so I assume it was intentional vandalism rather than a failed attempt to fix the arabic. Still, the IP might not have been a bogus IP proxy since there are a lot of arabic knowlegable Kazakhs.

If the arabic above is not incorrect intro for lions, then I'd know for sure. Thanks. -Mak 20:58, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

The above Arabic sentence is fine, language and Info. It gives a simple intro about the Lion, and its different Arabic names, for males, females and cups. I can't get your point about the Arabic wiki. There was an Australian IP modification, but only within English wiki en, and a UK IP modification in simple. No other wiki was affected, check it your self:fi af bg co da de fr eo. --Tarawneh 02:05, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks very much. My statement of the problem was not clear because I inadvertently editted out the context. This concerns the indirect vandalism to yesterday's featured picture of the day Image:Lion waiting in Nambia.jpg. The shared information about Lion, eg- links to Lions in art, interwiki links are transcluded from Template:Info-Lions. I was refering to the vandalism by 80.241.0.114 today at 10:18, 14 June 2006 on that page. Only two commons Image pages were affected, not all Lion pictures. The reason for the low exposure is that these "info pages" are highly experimental and not in broad usage. -Mak 02:32, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

A question to the SVG gurus

Hello folks!

I have done self-murder today and tried to convert Image:Wikipedia-logo.png to SVG; success was only with a scan rate of 30 (lower values ruined contrast, higher made the whole image looking green). The result is Image:Wiki2.svg. Can anyone take a look at this image and let it be more looking to the original?

Thanks in advance, HardDisk 19:48, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

The gradient shading on the SVG is shocking. I can't help fix it, but that's my observation. :) pfctdayelise (translate?) 03:32, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not an expert on the technical merits of PNG versus SVG, but I think the original version is (considerably) better. Thanks for the effort! MartinD 08:47, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

You have done quite a good work. Specially as meta:Logo says The image is bitmapped 3-D rendering, so there is no vector format version of the image available. That means that the logo is not available in SVG, EPS, Illustrator, or any other vector formats..

Your background is not white/transparent but light grey. Also take into account that the cyrillic И should have a ~ over it (your original, Image:Wikipedia-logo.png doesn't have it neither, see logo at Wikipedia).

Platonides 21:48, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I really like the SVG myself-- better than the original. Great job! //Ae:æ 16:32, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

This image is barely a SVG. I fully understand the challenges, but it at least needs to represent the characters with a *single* outline. Altough it's a vector image it scales very poorly, because none of the shapes are sharp because they were simply scanned from the orignal image. --Gmaxwell 17:02, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

A much better job could (probably) be done by handdrawing (yes, redrawing...) the image and using a radial gradient. Shinobu 18:31, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

{{BadGIF}}

Our rules say: "GIF should only be used for animated images." The non-animated GIFs must be tagged witk this tamplate. Sanbec ✉ 22:52, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, PNG thumbnailing currently sucks for images of certain types, especially those 8-bit greyscale or palette color images which are not derived from a computer-generated diagrammatic source. For example, Image:1812-neoclassical-Young-Ladies-at-Home.png is 111,929 bytes at its original 943x681 dimensions, while the 800x578 alleged "thumbnail" [7] is actually 1,112,034 bytes long -- or in fact, almost exactly ten times bigger!

I had to go through a whole long rigamarole at English Wikipedia village pump (technical) to get the generation of new PNG thumbnails which were in 48-bit format (i.e. RGB 16-colors per channel) stopped, and it's apparently beyond reasonably hoping for that old 48-bit "thumbnails" (which are often LARGER in size than a completely uncompressed BMP would be!) would be purged, or that thumbnails of PNG images which are in 8-bit greyscale or palette color format could be generated simply according to EXACTLY THE SAME algorithm which is currently used to generate GIF thumbnails. (This GIF thumbnailing algorithm isn't perfect, but it's a lot better than the current PNG thumbnailing algorithm, which has absolutely no special handling of 8-bit greyscale or palette color input PNGs whatever.)

So as long as PNG thumbnailing isn't fixed, people will try to get around the problems by uploading GIFs (especially for large 8-bit greyscale or palette color images which are not derived from a computer-generated diagrammatic source). I've been thinking of re-uploading Image:1812-neoclassical-Young-Ladies-at-Home.png (and a few other of my early greyscale PNG uploads) in GIF format, and requesting that the PNGs be deleted... Churchh 18:17, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Use ?action=purge on the image page to purge the old thumbnails; this system has been in place for at least several weeks.

There are certainly still improvements that can be made to the thumbnailing system; for instance if we can reliably detect opaque files we can output to JPEG, which while lossy will often compress better on images other than extremely simple line art. A quick test with the file you mention above appears to produce acceptable results for inline display while being smaller than the original source file. --brion 20:44, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for telling me about ?action=purge -- that enabled me to get rid of a few of the more annoying cases of the old 48-bit color pseudo-thumbnail nonsense. However, the "thumbnail" of Image:1812-neoclassical-Young-Ladies-at-Home.png is still FIVE times larger than the original "high-resolution" version, so that this is only a very limited partial solution to the long-standing problem.

And unfortunately, when I tried to purge on Image:1742-1794-fashion-silhouette-contrast.png, then the new 800px-wide "thumbnail" was now BIGGER than before -- it went from being a uselessly 24-bit RGB color image (when a GIF thumbnail of this very same picture would probably contain only 64 palette colors, and be a lot smaller) to now being a 32-bit RGBA image -- i.e. not only with useless color, but now also with useless alpha channel(!), for an increase in filesize from 383,215 bytes to 435,031 bytes (when the original large "high-resolution" image is only 265,815 bytes in the first place).

Trying to selectively compress PNGs as JPEGs is a horrendous hack which will involve the software trying to guess which PNGs are diagrammatic or cartoony and which are non-diagrammatic and non-cartoony -- and almost inevitably guessing wrong in some cases, giving rise to a whole new set of problems. I really don't understand why you can't just use the EXACT SAME thumbnailing algorithm which is currently used for GIF images, and also apply it to 8-bit greyscale and pallette color input PNG images. That would be the right thing to do -- as opposed to trying to evade the issue of necessary special treatment for color-reduced images by jumping off into a whole new unexplored area of trying to guess which PNGs are JPEG-able. Churchh 23:12, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

That of course requires being able to find out enough about the image to guess how it should be rendered and whether it might look ok that way. GIF is rather simplified by not having all those extra colors; it's *always* 8-bit. ;) --brion 03:41, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

You only have to look at the first 37 bytes of a PNG file (i.e. the info contained in the IHDR chunk) to see whether it contains 8-bits (or fewer) data per pixel, in a completely deterministic manner. If the "Color Type" byte has the values 0 or 3 (and the "Bit-Depth" byte does not have the value 16), then you know that the image data contained within a PNG can be thumbnailed in the same way that the image data contained within a GIF would be thumbnailed. By contrast, I could easily create a PNG which is guaranteed to look extremely crappy as JPEG thumbnail, and your program would basically need artificial intelligence to tell this PNG apart from other PNGs which would look fine as JPEG thumnails.

I really don't understand this apparent rigid insistence on creating uniformly 24-bit RGB thumbnails (or formerly uniformly 48-bit RGB thumbnails, and recently apparently uniformly 32-bit RGBA thumbnails), when there are a large number of images which could perfectly well be handled with 8-bit PNG thumbnails (i.e. PNG thumbnails where the "Color Type" byte in the IHDR chunk has the values 0 or 3, and the "Bit-Depth" byte does not have the value 16). This would sure save a heck of a lot of bandwidth too -- and avoid the absurdity of "thumbnails" which are five or ten times larger than the original unthumbnailed image (an absurdity which drives some people, including me, to still upload certain types of non-animated images in GIF). Churchh 19:45, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Is there any hope of rendering SVGs with 256 or fewer colors and no alpha-transparency as 8-bit PNGs? That would be a tremendous improvement. —Lifeisunfair 20:51, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Can anybody update Commons:Images for cleanup to explain how to change gif to png or svg format? Sanbec ✉ 22:57, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

15 June

Low sharpness

The thumbnails produced by the Wikimedia have a lack of sharpness. It would be nice if somebody could implement some additional sharpening funktion in the software.

The first thumbnail is produced by Wikimedia and looks really worse. The second thumbnail is produced by PhotoImpact (Bicubic resized & Level 5 sharpened):

Wikimedia

The thumb produced by Wikimedia is useless. How to manage this issue? Well, I can produce thumbnails of the pictures i need but this is may be not the right way. --Lemonc 09:52, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Is this just recent or has it always been like this?

The last few days have had problems producing PNG thumbnails. Maybe this is related. pfctdayelise (translate?) 12:17, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Me too, yeah... —Nightstallion (?) 12:59, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

No, this is not related. Regarding the PNG Files, if you want to make e.g. a 180px thumbnail try 181, 182 or 179, 178 etc. Some sizes are still working and there is no need to wait. Later you can change this to the correct values. --Lemonc 13:20, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

As I already said on the German WP, I believe the JPEG compression level is the cuprit. The automatic thumbnail is about 15 KB, while the manual thumbnail has 60 KB. I have tested it with The GIMP: If I bring down the quality until I reach 15 KB size, the resulting JPEG looks similar to the automatic thumbnail. Maximum quality (less than 30 KB, by the way) looks just like the PhotoImpact version. —da Pete _(ノート) 20:12, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I believe MediaWiki uses ImageMagick's "convert" command-line tool to generate the thumbnails, in which case a "-quality xx" argument can be supplied. Before asking that to be added, though, we should probably experiment a bit and come up with a setting that's a decent compromise. --Delirium 22:45, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I think 30 KB is a good size. The size of a 180px PNG image is 60 KB. Anyhow, if someone make thumbnails of e.g. 300px the lack of sharpeness is not very problematic. At 300px there are still enough details and the impression of the image is adequate. The issue is mainly at small sizes like 180 or 150px. --Lemonc 13:08, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

PLEASE don't increase the file size of thumbnails in general! They are only preview images, click on them and you see a bigger version. Many articles have so many images, that it even now lasts very long until they are loaded. There are a lot of articles at different Wikipedias with more than 30 images. 30 x 15 KB = 450 KB, but 30 x 60 KB = 1,800 KB! This would also slow down the Commons servers significantly. --84.60.235.29 12:45, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

60 KB for a JPEG image are not necessary. da Pete said that the JPEG files he made are at maximum quality less than 30 KB. Thats ok.--Lemonc 10:21, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

This is not a JPEG size issue, although our thumb (and image page!) JPEGs are too small, causing ugly artifacts. This image is the same file size as the crappy looking jpeg and was made with the same software Mediawiki uses for thumbnailing and jpegs. --Gmaxwell 14:28, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I suppose I should explain what IS the problem. The imagemagick defaults for downsampling downsample very much in favor of a smooth image. This is the right solution for many images (and is technically the most accurate!), but not for all images due to quarks in the human visual response. It can be fixed by post downsample sharpening to recover lost w:acutance, or just by selecting a downsampling filter which produces sharper results. There has been some talk on wikitech-l on making this controllable per image, so if anyone feels like coding something... It should also be noted that JPEG quality is indirectly involved with this: Sharper thumbnails are far more likely to cause visable artifacts with our low quality settings. --Gmaxwell 14:57, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

SVG request

Could someone please redo this SVG image with a transparent background and with no margin? I think it's better than the 3D version of the logo which is currently in use, but it can't be used in the current form... Thanks! —Nightstallion (?) 10:06, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I tried. Better now? NielsF 12:01, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Great, thanks! Now let's try to get the 3D thingy replaced by this one. =] —Nightstallion (?) 12:58, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Serbia & Montenegro

Shouldn't the cat Serbia and Montenegro be renamed? --mac 12:37, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

In fact I think we can keep SCG category. Many of images is to move to Serbia or Montenegro category respectively, but there will stay something specfic to SCG, e.g. flag or coat of arms. We only recategorize it under former yugoslavia as dissolved. Of course we do not use the subcategories "Cities in SCG" as they will be moved to Sr and Cg. --Zirland 14:58, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Transparency instead of white?

I've been seeing a lot of transparency on Wikimedia flags that should really be white. Check out Image:Bandera Tàtars de Belarus.svg, a variation on the theme of Image:Flag of Belarus 1991.svg, which has a white background. Generally, it seems to me that the only flags that should have a transparent background are those like Nepal's which are not rectangular. Can anything be done to find and correct flags like this? QuartierLatin1968 21:17, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Done, but... which license has this image? It shows {{PD-self}} and {{cc-by-sa-2.5}} (the cc-by-sa doesn't show in the history, added with the license selector? :s). Platonides 22:08, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Go through Commons:WikiProject Flags/flags by hand? Have fun :P pfctdayelise (translate?) 22:16, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Many Vector-Images.com images have this problem. Sanbec ✉ 23:28, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

16 June

ZOMG IMAGE UNDELETION WORKS

Category:Unknown - Category:Against policy - Template:Deletion requests - admins - get cracking! ;)

PS. Thanks, Brion. pfctdayelise (translate?) 04:27, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Bahamas flag

A bot changed an article in no.wp, and the color of the new one differs significantly from the old one. Which one is correct?

• File:Bahamas flag 300.png
• 

— John Erling Blad (no) 06:17, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

The SVG file was more accurate to official definition. I have cleaned the code and reupload it, so now it is almost perfect. The first, raster image, is not correct. --Zirland 07:30, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Finaly a svg which is better then the png! :D — John Erling Blad (no) 19:51, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

The use of cc-by-sa

From Commons:Manipulating meta data#Purpose for using EXIF at Commons "So EXIF is as well the recommended and even better working alternative to making visible signs inside the image with a personal tag like 'Mr. Foobar, May 2005, CC-BY-SA' that are strongly discouraged at Wikimedia Commons". The statement has some serious implications, and really says "No use of cc-by-sa". Is this official policy? — John Erling Blad (no) 06:37, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

The phrase is not well worded (it confused me too), but is really just saying that "visible signs inside the image [..] are strongly discouraged at Wikimedia Commons". I.e. watermarks. / Fred Chess 07:27, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. CC-BY-SA is in fact one of the recommended licenses. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 11:11, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I guessed so! :D — John Erling Blad (no) 19:58, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Wiki*edia has an image description page which eliminates the need of watermarks. Oh, and also the fact that images are supposed to be freely reproducable. :) --tomf688 (talk - email) 18:37, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Also since all the licenses we accept must allow deriviative works, we can always crop the credit out of the image. pfctdayelise (translate?) 08:15, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I wrote that sentence. Of course it doesn't discourage CC-BY-SA and was never aimed at confusing people. ;-) It was necessary because there was a nasty edit war with that and watermarkls really suck if you print images or want to modify them for something else. Arnomane 20:45, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

P.S.: I have now reworded the sentence in the hope that it avoids any future confusion. Arnomane 20:52, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Morguefile

Morguefile template has been deleted here: Deletion_requests, but its still listed as free source here: Commons:Free media resources/Photography, morguefile also talked: 1, 2. So is it allowed or not? If not then remove it from free source and add to Commons:Bad sources. --Tomia 12:03, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Bulgarian banknotes and coins

Excuse me, I am French and I do not speak very well English. In fact, I seek somebody who could inform me on licences of Bulgarian banknotes and coins. I thank you by advance. Polaert 13:10, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

It is more than likely that reproduction of these images is not allowed. You can visit their website here and see if you can find more information about it. --tomf688 (talk - email) 18:36, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Reproduction in printed or electronic form is subject to approval by Bulgarian National Bank, and a request must be submitted in writing to the bank. Brief text can be found in English, while in Bulgarian there is a complete document. Therefore without prior approval any usage in Wikipedia is illegal. Moreover this approval is only for the sample copy attached to the request and is not applicable to any modified image. Thus the approval cannot be extended through GFDL, and as result is incompatible with Wikipedia's copyleft.

Sorry for the bad news, I would loved to have my country's notes having more publicity. The only legal option we do have is to provide a link to the catalogues for notes (14 MB) and coins (9 MB). -- Zlatko + ^(talk) 11:25, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Credit

Suppose a magazine wants to reproduce an image from Commons, that's GFDL. Do they have to publish the whole license? -- Zanimum 18:04, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes. That's one of the reasons why dual licensing with CC-BY-SA is encouraged. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 18:47, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

And yet another reason why the GFDL is evil. --tomf688 (talk - email) 18:30, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Not as evil as CC-NC. :) pfctdayelise (translate?) 13:20, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

17 June

Redundant categories of international food and cuisine

I try to assort images belonging to Category:Food and drink. By experience I can say, that it's very difficult to find an image for a food-article. Because you can't know in which language the description is written, it seems to be good to try seaching in categories. In case of food of special countries it doesn't make things easier. There are two categories: Category:Food by country and Category:Cuisine. Each contains subcategories by country. Sometimes they link to each other, mostly not. Category:Japanese cuisine is subcategory of Category:Japanese food but Category:Chinese cuisine is supercategory of Category:Chinese food. There is no identical behaviour and there ist no defining description to seperate the categories. Therefore some images belong to both, but most of the images belong to only one category and can't be found . This is redundant and it complicates searching.

I would like to merge these categories and I prefer to collect all images in xxx food categories. What do you think about it and are there any ideas or other suggestions? --Lyzzy 12:12, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Definitely enlist the help of a bot. Doing mass-conversions by hand is unnecessarily tedious. --tomf688 (talk - email) 18:31, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

I think you should try to create a category scheme, even a very simple one. These are important so you have a record of what you are trying to do before you make largescale changes. put notices on talk pages of categories before you make big changes. If no one comments or disagrees, use User:Orgullobot/commands to help merge categories. pfctdayelise (translate?) 08:24, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Warn people about suspicious image?

Hi, the image Image:Logisticpdfunction.png does not depict what its image description says.

What do I do now? Listing the image for deletion seems harsh, I don't have the time right now to replace it with a fixed version, and putting a warning on the description page seems a bit impolite .. or is it okay?

Sorry, haven't ventured out into the commons from en: before, and don't want to break local conventions :-)

RandomP 21:04, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

If you can provide evidence from a reputable web source that this is not accurate, then it should be deleted. However, it may be best to leave a message on the author's talk page to ask them to clarify what it is they are trying to illustrate. --tomf688 (talk - email) 22:31, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

No need to check any website. The standard Logistic Distribution Function is a single-input single-output function, which means there should be one curve inside the figure, not five. --Tarawneh 04:12, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, I uploaded RandomP's replacement image. I guess if the original uploader disagrees, they can revert, and we can discuss it again then. pfctdayelise (translate?) 14:28, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Interwikis on RC

Is there a reason why there aren't any interwikis on the recent changes page? I personally find them very helpful for switching between wikis. Most major wiki's (except en:) have them... So I added the 10 biggest wikipedia's. Good idea or not? NielsF 22:09, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Doesn't seem to do any harm, and may actually be helpful. --tomf688 (talk - email) 22:32, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Exif-model-value and categories

As some of you have undoubtedly noticed, images are starting to feature (mostly red-link) categories based on the camera model in the exif tag. I found the time to track down the edit (diff). However, there has been some discussion on the reliability and correctness of those links, and I object to them on another basis as well: The categories created this way don't work in any way whatsoever and are empty (at least, all of them that have been added to Category:Camera type, the ones prefixed with "taken with", are - in the one exception I found, the category had been added manually). So can we revert the change to MediaWiki:Exif-model-value like, yesterday? Or am I totally missing something here? --^grm_wnr (^home_wiki) 22:52, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

This was discussed earlier on this page at #Bug_with_picture_metadata_Image:KikkaNavyBase.JPG. I didn't realise it was so easy to turn them off! I thought it was a software thing. I strongly support turning them off. pfctdayelise (translate?) 08:31, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the category now. It was a nifty idea, but if it doesn't work in any useful way, it's really more confusing than helpful. --^grm_wnr (^home_wiki) 20:02, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

18 June

copyright question

What about a high resolution screenshot (higher than would be allowed under fair-use) from an American television programme, broadcast in Yemen in early 2003? Are they allowed? Not that I've got any or anything, was just wondering. Bitplane 11:31, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

...Do you have any reason to believe that they would be? This is pretty specific for a random question... pfctdayelise (translate?) 13:18, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Television screenshots are for the most part not allowed, since they are most likely copyrighted w/o allowing free use and reproduction. There may be the rare instance when you can use a TV screenshot, such as one from the Pentagon Channel that is a U.S. Government work. --tomf688 (talk - email) 15:17, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Please also note that even low resolution screenshots would not be allowed here, on Wikimedia Commons -- see Commons:Licensing.--Eloquence 16:00, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

The question was more about the legal standing of such an image, than its suitability for inclusion in the commons. The point is, would the rights holder forfeit their rights to screenshots 3 years after allowing a programme to be broadcast in Yemen, since Yemen law puts screenshots of TV programmes into the public domain after 3 years? Would such a screenshot taken in Yemen 3 years ago, but hosted on an American server still be in the public domain, or would this only count in Yemen? Bitplane 00:51, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

The 3 years protection is for official broadcast; any work produced by the official Yemeni Government (that includes the work produced by Yemeni TV). The copyright law (1994) handles work done by Yemeni people. Article 25 protects Yemeni TV and Cinema works for 25 years. Article 27 states the three years law, but also states that copyrights of the material broadcasted in the public TV are protected, only owners can benefit from the work. So I guess if you have any official work, then it should be ok --Tarawneh 03:24, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Switch images

Can somebody switch Image:Bahia Micro FeiradeSantana.svg and Image:Bahia Micro Jeremoabo.svg. The file labeled Feira de Santana actually contains the map Jeremoabo and vice versa. Thank you. WHB 17:34, 18 June 2006 (UTC).

I've also put this request on Commons:Help desk#Switch images. WHB 21:29, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Done. You could've easily done this yourself by the way; just upload a new version on top of the old one. NielsF 21:39, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the switch and the information. WHB 21:47, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Image:Gnu-fdl.png

Hello, Essjay deleted Image:Gnu-fdl.png today. I have checked and the image is made by User:Brion VIBBER and the licence is {{GPL}}. I hope some one can restore the image, since it is used on many imagepages on the Dutch Wikipedia. Thanks, WebBoy 18:43, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I went through a few of the projects that were heavy users of this image and replaced it with Image:Heckert_GNU_white.svg in the GFDL template. --JeremyA 19:59, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Restored for now, please provide the info you mention above on the image page. NielsF 21:41, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Information added. WebBoy 05:54, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

19 June

template:en and equal sign

Hello,

There is a problem with the equal sign:

{{en|d = 1}} →

English:

(empty line). I used a workaround ("d is 1"), but does anyone know how to solve this?

Cdang 14:53, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

You can use &#61; instead of the equal sign:

{{en|d = 1}} →

English: d = 1

Should work now, when you write {{en|1=d = 1}} (the first one stands for first unnamed parameter). --::Slomox:: >< 15:51, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

thanks for the tips

Cdang 13:22, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Appropriate tag for WikiMedia logo suggestions

Hi - I have uploaded several logo suggestions for WikiMedia projects, but have been unsure how to tag them. I in the end went for cc-by-sa-2.5, but this isn't in fact the correct license for these images (as far as I can see).

What I want is a 'Copyright retained by creator, but will be handed to the WM Foundation upon request'. If there is not a license along these lines then any suggestions for a WikiMedia logo will end up being uncopyrightable by the foundation! However, the closest tags that I have found all include a warning that the file will be deleted, which should not be the case. Please advise. --HappyDog 18:45, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

What about a text as This is a proposed logo for X project. In case it is elected, rights are automatically transfered to Wikimedia Foundation, in case of it being rejected, this image becames under Cc-by-sa-2.5 (or whatever). It'd be some kind of conditional license, being always appropiate for commons, even if you forget about it. Platonides 21:01, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Sounds sensible - however, it does not say under which terms the image can be used before the decision is made. Maybe "Wikimedia use only" until then? Something like that? We probably need some policy for this... or a good alternative place for such images. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 21:11, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Before the decision is made you should abide by both requirements... Or not using it at all. They will likely only be used into polls and gallerys for the new logo... Platonides 21:16, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Google now finds image pages!

As we discussed before, Google did not index image description pages, probably because their "file extension" makes them look like images - see [8] and [9]. The good news: it works now! - google now finds image description pages from Commons, Wikipedia, etc. The bad news: it does not work with image search - apperently, Goolge's image search handles things verry differently. Or maybe the new data has not yet propagated to the database used for image search?

So, a big Thank You to Zoogle, Presroi, Brion and everyone else who made this possible :) Let's hope for more good things to come... -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 21:50, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

One step closer... we really need that image search, though. (I never knew that "inurl" trick, that's nifty.) pfctdayelise (translate?) 03:55, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

20 June

Image:S6-sms-revo.jpg

What you think if a user say No commercial use please, and he tags with {{self|cc-by-sa-2.5}} the photo?. --Lmbuga ^{gl, pt, es: contacta comigo} 23:25, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

A no-commercial use-license is simply not accepted here, so I would ask the user about his intentions, making it clear the image will be deleted if commercial usage isn't possible. NielsF 00:58, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Image:IJssellinie encased tank.jpg

Could anyone suggest a category for this picture? It's a reconstruction of a bunker that is part of an inundation system in the east of the Netherlands (near Olst, between Zwolle and Deventer). I've provisionally put it under Fortress in the Netherlands, but that seems to miss the point. Best regards, MartinD 19:50, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I think Fortress in the Netherlands fits well enough; you can also add Category:Bunkers and Category:Overijssel. Eugene van der Pijll 15:57, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Have done so, thanks for your help, apologies for the delay! MartinD 14:08, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Portal-url/id

Please change MediaWiki:Portal-url/id to Commons:Portal komunitas. The page has been translated. Thx. -- IvanLanin ♫ 06:15, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Done. Would you like to translate Template:Welcome? :D pfctdayelise (translate?) 06:30, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Thx. Translation also done ;) -- IvanLanin ♫ 06:53, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

aw, you're my favourite Indonesian translator ;) --pfctdayelise (translate?) 07:52, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Dubious license

Hi guys.
Browsing the PD category to fix some licenses I found some photos taken from [[10]] (like [[25%27th_April_Bridge_1_by_wax115.jpg]], or [[Image:206959_sauer_p%C3%A5_Runde.jpg]]. They are tagged as PD, but have weird licenses on the original site.
On the website is stated "There are no usage restrictions for this photo.", but the link "image license" has a strange and complex license. Some parts of it:

• All Images on the Website are copyrighted and they are the properties of SXC or its Image providers.
• SELLING AND REDISTRIBUTION OF THE IMAGE (INDIVIDUALLY OR ALONG WITH OTHER IMAGES) IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN! DO NOT SHARE THE IMAGE WITH OTHERS!
• Always ask permission from the photographer if you want to use the Image In website templates that You intend to sell or distribute.
• You acknowledge that by your download the ownership of Image does not get transferred to You and You must not claim that it is yours. Your license is non-transferable, which means that You are not allowed to sell, rent, give, sublicense, or otherwise transfer the Image or the right to use the Image to anyone else.
  

Briefly, this is not PD, this is something more like (C).
On one of the images this fact has been rpeviously declared, but it was reverted [11].
What should be done to fix this spaghetti licensing? --Jollyroger 15:39, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

• We have a policy for this site: COM:SXC. (And it has been discussed a good many times before...) At the moment it states we can use any image where the author has written on the page, "There are no usage restrictions for this photo." That is the only time we can use them. Such images should be tagged {{Copyrighted free use}} not {{PD}}, though. pfctdayelise (translate?) 15:44, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

• • Ok, thanks. I am quite new to Commons. I will fix the tags of the images I find. --Jollyroger 15:55, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
    • That's OK. We appreciate your help :) --pfctdayelise (translate?) 16:02, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Gradiants tool for maps ?

Hello, I need help to continue the right-here (SVG) table showing gradiants of red. The 8 first lines are "mathematic" (I have calculated colors the 1/2 ; the 1/3 and 2/3 ; the 1/4 , 1/2 , 3/4 ; etc.... in hexadecimal !).
Someone can him continue this ? This can become a basic and useful tool for maps. We also can extand this in Blue-to-dark ; Green-to-dark ; or White-to-red, etc.
Help is Welcome. Yug (talk) 17:34, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I've made you the hexadecimal values (i can add more rows if you need them) at User:Platonides/Reds chart 16 colors, but i'm too lazy to insert them manuallly. Maybe with a script... Platonides 20:09, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks ! I will add all this by myself, soon (in the next week). Thanks for this help Yug (talk) 20:17, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Blues to dark; white to red

a gradual wash table:

etc.

{{:User:Makthorpe/Gradient
   |width=30px
   |height=30px
   |steps=14
   |red-start=255
   |red-step=-14
   |green-start=0
   |green-step=19
   |blue-start=0
   |blue-step=18
}}

-Mak 21:39, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

21 June

www.pdb.org

I was about to upload from this site several pictures about proteins, like this one (especially from the section molecule of the month). But previously, I need to be certain that I'm able to do it. That site is owned by a group of USA public laboratories (listed here) working with public funds (the list of all the US Agencies is on the bottom of their homepage)... I think that all their works are released in PD but, speaking with EugeneZelenko, I noted there's this tag © RCSB Protein Data Bank. He told me to contact the owners of the site to have clear infos about the terms of use, but I'm not that expert in writing bureaucratic stuff... Is there some kind of "example" or "help" page in Commons about "how to contact" or "what to write" in such a letter? There's no need that somebody takes this load in spite of me, just tell me how to do it properly... Thanks to everybody! --Giac! - (Tiago is here) 09:33, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

See Commons:Email templates for a boilerplate request for free licensing. Note that this does not apply if the works are PD by law, for example if they where created by employees (not contractees!) of the US federal (not state!) government. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 10:55, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

And, typically, the employee that will process this request does not have the authority to license any intellectual property. David.Monniaux 07:27, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Map help request

Could someone with more map-editting proficiency than I create a version of Image:BlankMap-Europe-v3.png which includes all relevant borders just like Image:Europe blank map.png? (With or without the overseas territories, I can remove them myself later if I don't need them.) Would be greatly appreciated! —Nightstallion (?) 09:54, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

By the way, do we have an SVG map of the world with the country borders? I see so many PNG maps around on commons, which would be so much nicer in SVG. --::Slomox:: >< 13:09, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

As someone who regularily colours in maps to create new member-state-maps, I prefer png versions for that. We can still have svg as well, of course. —Nightstallion (?) 13:25, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

But SVG is more flexible. For example, when there are changes (as with Serbia and Montenegro) you only have to copy and paste the outlines of the two new countries and replace the outline of the old. With PNG this is much more involved. But I don't know how detailed the borders are allowed to be, ere the thumb renderer will give up. --::Slomox:: >< 15:11, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Hello? Map? Anyone? Please? —Nightstallion (?) 20:50, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

You could try asking at talk:Map resources or probably better w:Wikipedia:WikiProject Maps. pfctdayelise (translate?) 05:19, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Problematic user

User:Toti uploaded dosens of images with wrong license. Please help with that: I don't have time now. A.J. 10:01, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

22 June

Google is beginning to work on image pages.

For example, you can now do the following search:

戦艦 image 真珠湾 site:commons.wikimedia.org [12]

This returns a hit on an image page with these terms that have been transcluded via an Info page.

This does, by the way vindicate my position regarding Info Pages. As I stated last month,

"Note also that using this scheme, we can also search on pearl harbor 真珠湾 and bomber 爆撃機 and get a hit on this image...."

For more fun try:

Хрущёв На́сер image site:commons.wikimedia.org [13] {Nasser and Kruschev in russian)

وُلد عبدالناصر نيكيتا سيرغيفيش image site:commons.wikimedia.org [14] (search for "mussolini and hitler" in arabic)

...and so on and so forth.

The situation is no longer theoretical, and those who did not understand the implications perhaps will re-read what I had to say, and realize that Commons is a lot better with Transcluded Info pages.

Not only are our images searchable via full text search from multiple languages, but you can search on images with more than one feature. Article and category groupings is not conducive for that.

Embrace the reality: The armed camps arguing about categories versus articles are both wrong. The fundamental retrieval unit of Commons is an Image page- and these pages need information on them that corresponds to the demands of that reality. -Mak 08:31, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

See duesentriebs comment above. Apart that the best index can be genrated from good image descriptions conatining more than links. Arnomane 22:42, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Arnomane, do you remain opposed to Info pages? -Mak 23:29, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

23 June

Categorization

I've been uploading quite a few images lately, but I'm finding some of the commons categories confusing. For example, trying to find appropriate categories for Image:Romanian Atheneum medal on founding 1.jpg, I've used Category:Medals, but I see that everything else in the category is a military medal; is there a more appropriate place to put this? Or some subcategorization to be done? or what? - en:Jmabel | talk 05:31, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I think Category:Medals is OK. It's only a small category. One good idea to find appropriate categories, is to find the article you intend to use it in, look at its categories, and find appropriate equivalents on Commons. This doesn't always work but it tends to be a useful approach. Also some images just naturally don't need many categories. pfctdayelise (translate?) 09:45, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

In this case, I don't have any particular articles where I'm planning to use these; I'm simply using Commons as a place to make available my photos that relate to potentially encyclopedic topics. In this case, I was at a museum exhibit about Carol I, and took a bunch of pictures. - en:Jmabel | talk 23:59, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Scorpionsflys

Hi I was browsing the pictures for Panorpa communis and realized, that most of these are actually Panorpa vulgaris. They are sibling species and quite similar, but can be distinguished by their wing patterns. So, is it possible to RENAME the picture files and then MOVE them to a new article for Panorpa vulgaris?

Yep. Here's how you can take care of that yourself. Download the file, re-upload with the correct name, then tag the old file for deletion with the "badname" template. EG insert into bad file: {{badname|Image:Panorpa vulgaris with puppies.jpg}}

Be sure to click on the "Check Usage" tab at the top of the page to identify any wikis using the old image. It would be a very neighborly thing to do if you could go to those other wikis and fix their links to point to your new image. Thanks for noting the error. Dems all jes "bugs" to me and I call them that, much to the consternation of my entomologist researcher sister in law. -Mak 16:22, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Hm, quite some work. But thnx anyway for the input. About the other wikis, if they didn't want to link SPECIFICALLY to Panorpa communis, I'll fix the links, but if they were looking for communis and not vulgaris, the pictures are no longer valid, of course.

I just started trying and got a warning to use duplicate instead, since I'm not the original uploader. So I'll just do that.

Hm, either way I have to manually copy the author and other information to the new file. Wouldn't think of taking credit for pictures I didn't take.

Decided finally to use both, duplicate and badname. Could somebody please check if I didn't screw up too hard at Image:Panorpa_vulgaris_female_dorsal.jpg and Image:Panorpa_communis_detail.jpg. Thnx

Looks good, I just added a link to the original file stating that it was reuploaded because of the wrong species ID. Otherwise when the original is deleted people may wonder where it came from, if you didn't create it. Thanks for your attention and help! pfctdayelise (translate?) 05:30, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

m Dispute on Commons:First steps

Hi all. I am having a disagreement with Arnomane over at Commons:First steps/Quality and description. I believe that the template code example in the Good file descriptions section should be aligned on the equals, like this:

{{Information
|    Description = 
|         Source = 
|           Date = 
|         Author = 
|     Permission = 
| other_versions = 
}}

Aligning the parameters on the equals sign is much easier to read, and users copying this code won't have to space it themselves. Arnomane keeps reverting my change because he thinks the spaces make the template more confusing. I have been around for 9 months and I have never come across anyone who would be confused by the spaces.

Where is the proper place to discuss this issue? ~MDD4696 16:26, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

This is the place. This sort of convention is common in computer coding and I happen to agree with you that it is more readable your way. If you picked up this convention from the domain of programming, you also may also be aware that these sorts of disagreements over code formats has persisted since the dawn of time-eg- whether to use 2 or 4 spaces for indent- whether to use tabs, whether close brackets should be used aligned with the logic statement that openned them, or whether it should be aligned with the inner indent.

A lot of time is wasted with such disagreements- probably more time I venture to say than what would be saved by your better formatting idea. I have been here for even less time than you, but my observation is that although this would be a place to discuss it, my take is that because there is no obvious correct answer, it would be difficult to achieve concensus much less anyone who cared much either way about the issue. Without community concensus there is no basis from which to tell one person or the other to stop what they are doing.

Other more experienced folks may wish to correct me on the process- but I think that's the size of the situation for you. I would say you are spinning your wheels and the best thing to do is to put it in 4WD low, and back out of that swamp before you are waste deep with nothing to show for your efforts. Just my 2 cents. -Mak 19:39, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

A couple of points. 1: Why would you bring a dispute to a common board before discussing it on the talk page and/or bringing it up on the person's talk page. To me there is a fairly logical heirarchy of discussion. 2: Yes, this is the place to discuss stuff like this (but see 1). 3: I agree with Mak that this is a pretty trivial point, especially since wouldn't 99% of uploaders copy the box from Special:Upload rather than that page?? 4: As it happens I also see no problem with = alignment and find it more aesthetically pleasing. cheers, pfctdayelise (translate?) 04:12, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

I did give some reasons there why IMHO spaces are not good. Arnomane 22:44, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Copenhagen Metro pictures - third party involvement

The official homepage of the Copenhagen Metro, m.dk, states:

The business marks of the Metro [the elements that are unique for the Copenhagen Metro such as logos, line maps, trains, stations, tunnels, and other marks] may not be used in a commercial connection without prior agreement and written permission from Ørestadsselskabet.
- translated from Metro - Kommerciel

Does that mean that pictures cannot be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons under the CC-BY-SA licence, or does the picture summary just have to state this fact? I have contacted Ørestadsselskabet about pictures of the Metro before, and they were not willing to give any free permission such as required by both Commons and Wikipedia. -Ghent 16:53, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

No, we need a free license, including commercial use. -- Rüdiger Wölk 20:31, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

The problem with obtaining a permission for that, is that Ørestadsselskabet wants to know what their company is used for. Therefore, everyone who wants to use a picture for commercial use will have to ask for permission, and therefore, the pictures will not have a free licence regardless of whom took it. The restriction is kind of unambiguous, so any pictures currently uploaded to Commons will have to be deleted. Ghent 23:27, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

It's not quite that simple. First of all, the idea that trains, stations and tunnels are protectable "business marks" is ludicrous. This is a claim we should simply ignore. As for copyrighted and trademarked logos and maps, if they do not form the center of the image, they should generally be fine -- we haven't been very strict about enforcing removal of small copyrighted/trademarked elements in larger pictures.--Eloquence 23:13, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Note that for some people, apparently, "commercial use" means things such as "advertisements" but not, for instance, encyclopedias, news sources, etc., even if they are sold commercially. Since, by the bylaws of the Wikimedia Foundation, all projects are educational, instructional, or informational, we could legally use images licensed for educational, informational and instructional use on the projects (commons is probably a different issue). This would actually be safer than the extensive use of "fair use" in some projects. David.Monniaux 07:25, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Languages Template:

I have noticed that every page writeen in multiple languages that has, at the, a language box is outlined using tables etc. I have decided to do some tests on a template that allows all of this to be put into one and simply copied on each page. In future a field to enter what the current page is to allow the template to automatically be translated by using if statements could be included. I just wanted to get some feedback and it is still in the development stage. One problem I have thought of is, at the moment, the languages are on a different page to ensure that the same are included on all. This is an issue which cannot be fixed, hut it would not require much work to manually ensure all pages have the same template. Lcarsdata ^{Talk | E-mail | My Contribs} 17:41, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh yeah, the link is User:Lcarsdata/Languages and here is an example:

Lcarsdata ^{Talk | E-mail | My Contribs} 17:42, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Hm... do you think that is less complex than template:Lang-VP-l10n? pfctdayelise (translate?) 04:04, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

No please don't use it. This is far to complicated. I had a very reason when I din't add these boxes into a template: KISS = Keep it simple stupid. Arnomane 21:29, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

GFDL Question

There is an image Image:Polynesia-triangle.png which is a modification of an image I contributed about a year ago. Currently it list the following history in hidden comments

Info from Image:Polynesia.JPG:

Globe showing the Polynesian triangle
Creator: [[:de:Benutzer:Captain Blood]]

Bei der Erstellung der Landkarte wurden die Generic Mapping Tools verwendet: http://gmt.soest.hawaii.edu/

Uploaded to german wp on 19:16, 4. Jan 2005 by [[:de:Benutzer:Captain Blood]].
Uploaded as thumbnail (Image:600px-Tahiti.png) to Commons on 21:00, 4 Apr 2005 by [[User:Mschlindwein]].
Re-uploaded with original size and correct name on 13.06.2005 by [[User:Avatar]].
Re-uploaded with modification to mark Polynesia in English.[[User:BirgitteSB]]

{{GFDL}}
[[Category:Maps of Oceania|!]]
[[Category:Polynesia]]

Is this good enough for GFDL attribution to have this info hidden? I only discovered it because I wanted to copy part of the description to ask a question about the loss of history by deleting the old image. Sould this have been re-uploaded over Image:Polynesia.JPG to keep all the history together? I don't know if what I did a year ago was necessarily correct as I knew very little about these thing back then. But I was just wondering if this is a widespread problem--BirgitteSB 19:44, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually I just noticed the new image is now marked a PD which I do not understand. I worked on a bunch of different maps of Polenysia around July 15, [15] but I do not remember what map exactly was the one deleted. I really think it was very much like the current image. It is hard to remember, but are there not some rights to the people who contributed to the deleted image that was under GFDL? I am not worried about my rights, I will wave them I don't care, but I worry that there may be widespread licensing problems like this out there. Are we really respecting the GFDL?--BirgitteSB 20:06, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I found my local copy of both the German version I downloaded and the version with my modifications (I added triangle, changed german to English very crudely) and they are the basic map that is there now. If anyone thinks uploading these would be worth the look let me know.--BirgitteSB 20:16, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I copied the info to the talk page, I don't know why it would be in a comment. maybe just to avoid clutter since that page has a lot of captions. In general I think it's a bad idea to put image history in comments.

I also changed the license to GFDL. I doubt this was an intentional cover-up but probably just a misunderstanding of the requirements of the GFDL. Or maybe I am wrong, and we will have a revert war over it. ;) Thanks for bringing this to our attention. pfctdayelise (translate?) 05:38, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

__NOGALLERY__

FYI, Putting this keyword on a category page will stop the category gallery from rendering and instead you will get text links to the image description pages. This is very useful for categories of files which do not have thumbnails, such as OGG and PDF. pfctdayelise (translate?) 06:17, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

More information needed on Image pages

When last we left this subject, I made the case that Image pages are improved if they have transcluded background information concerning particular features in the image. Some of the information provided for by Info Pages:

• transwiki links on the sidebar
• Multilingual background text describing the feature. (Usually topic sentences from wiki articles)
• Vernacular names for the feature in each language (eg: Struthio camelus is Ostrich in english, or Autruche in french)
• See Also links (EG. Links to related Wiki articles of interest, and the topmost relevant external sites on a aubject)

Example Info Pages: [16] [17] Technical description: Template_talk:Show-Info

Today, if you search for Mussolini and Hitler in arabic for example[18], the top most hit is our Commons Image page. The feature that made this possible was Info Pages.

That is value. That is improvement for Commons.

I understand how many feel the template code that I wrote to use info pages is complex- but recognize that Info pages are just data and don't depend on any particular template. The display templates I wrote actually can be bypassed completely by anyone wanting to write a template that uses an info page and formats the data in an entirely different way.

I suspect most folks came to Commons not to change formatting or do programming, but to share knowlege and that most will be interested in changing the the wikitext that is transcluded onto Image pages. That is very very easy to change. Just click on any of the edit buttons where an Info page is used and give it a try. The template code is complex for the very goal of making Info Page editing exceptionally simple and code free. Also recognize that the info page templates are doing the several tasks including error checking. I welcome anyone's alternative that achieves the same or similar result. The manual solution for translating descriptions into the 20 major languages the current 600K images is not tractable- not realistic since the rate of desciption writing is far slower than the rate of image uploads. Doing it via a bot is certainly very simple for an very narrow elite who have the ability and interest to do so. It would have been far far more trivial for me to do it that way, and there would be no controversy too because they would be straight edits.

So why did I go the hard road? I chose this way because it is usable for the widest possible audience since the information for several pages may be easily edited by clicking on an edit button on any of the pages. It is not the elitist Bot way, it is the wiki way. Further, the method is tractable and has a good shot at increasing Commons' global exposure in all major languages.

The purpose of Info pages is not to replace unique multilingual descriptions of each Commons page. The ideal is for all of the most useful images on commons to have such unique descriptions. As an observation though, it is useful to note that most of the pictures of the day only have english captions, some have 2, but only those using Info-Pages have more than 3. Because of their usage, they are now visible to the global community via google and other searchers.

I recognize that the info page initiative still immature. My intentions are to rewrite the code as previously agreed- (that they use parser code not qif, and that they use Info: pseudo namespace pages for transclusion, not the Template namespace).

I solicit any additional input whatever on features, formating, or implementation. Thank you for your considering this matter. -Mak 07:03, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Our Picture/Media of the day are already quite well translated. However, such translations don't appear on the description page. I think we should place on its image page a template setting {{Picture of the day}}, and including (via {{#ifexist:s) the language info: '''{{#language:{{lang}}}}''': {{Potd/{{{year}}}-{{{month}}}-{{{day}}}_({{{lang}})}} || {{Motd-en/{{{month}}}-{{{year}}}}} Platonides 09:53, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Yor templates do not improve the situation. I don't need to reiterate this. Arnomane 22:49, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

France unveils national rival to Google Earth

France has put a website online which should have detailed satellite images. It's currently download because of overwhelming popularity. Has anyone been able to look into the license yet? Siebrand 12:35, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

The Géoportail site is completely saturated (they had planned for very limited success and didn't expect the instant rush). As far as I know, they are doing a mass upgrade of server capacities.

In any case, do not expect any "free" licence in our sense. First, there is no reason why the sources of Geoportail should be free. IGN (the administration operating Géoportail) probably hasn't taken all the photos by itself; it probably has licenses to use photos from some other sources, but this does not necessarily translate as an authorization for them to redistribute them under a free licence.

Second, it is not in the habit of French government administration to have clear licensing conditions, even though the decree of December 30, 2005, should force them to. Administrations are encouraged to raise money by means other than taxes, which probably results in them being reluctant to hand out licenses free even for commercial use.

There are probably things to be done in that respect. Wikimédia France is building up files and arguments about copyright issues, and contacting French officials, but this is not an easy or quick task. David.Monniaux 07:22, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your complete answer and good luck on your/Wikimedia's effort in getting clarity on the license(s). Siebrand 17:54, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Better multi-language support

This is true for many pages but I'm going to use Chicago, Illinois as an example. Although this page includes an introductory sentence in many languages, the headings and image captions are all in English. In the last day an anon has added French translations to the headings--on the one hand this is fine, but what about other languages? If we put the headings and captions in the same number of languages that there are for the introductory sentence, pretty soon there will be more text than pictures. So my question is: Is it reasonable to do for image galleries what is done for some other pages on this site and split it into multiple versions e.g. Chicago, Illinois/fr, Chicago, Illinois/es? Thanks, JeremyA 12:45, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

My personal opinion is, that galleries are a complete waste of time and of little use compared to the effort to create and maintain them. But I think this comment won't be really helpful to your question :-| --::Slomox:: >< 15:27, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Slomox, I agree that galleries are overrated by some, but really, you have to be more fair. I think that galleries will emerge as the place where you can get the best of the best. When you have 400 pictures of every possible detail and event that took place on the USS Iowa, some folks will just want to see the coolest pictures- like the broadside, or the bowshots showing its graceful lines, or the kamikaze zero flying up the side (or was that missouri?) We have maybe 30 pictures now, but at the rate images are being added it won't be long before the demand for the "best of..." type galleries becomes very real. Anyhow- I don't think the folks working on galleries should be discouraged in the least, but they should be disabused of any notions that they can take a dominant role in comprehensive solutions to problems such as the challenges posed by multilingualism.

Jeremy, I agree the the problem is a real one, though the chicago page doesn't do a great job of demonstrating the need (Do we really need 7 in this case? how hard is it to figure out that "es" is the same as "is"?) But there are examples where it is difficult to guess the meaning. Category:Georgi Zhukov is one. As representation of all major languages becomes the norm, the big problem is screen clutter. Picture Zhukov in all the major languages. Take a look at the clutter on page Category:Adolf Hitler.

Solutions:

1. Existing: There is an obscure way to hide information from alternate languages, but clearly it is not a solution for casual visitors to Commons. It's a CSS setting for monobook.
2. Existing: Jeremy solution (above). I really don't like the idea of one page for each language because it is a ghetto approach (isolationist) to multiculturalism.
3. Future idea- scroll box. One easy solution would be a wikitext tag that displayed a scroll box for multilingual strings. A javascript would scroll to the language of the browser.
4. Future idea- A less hackish approach would be a similar javascript to switch strings at runtime- basically just an indexed array of strings that are pulled up according to the language preference the browser is set to. Such string substitution is how most applications are localized, although the strings are usually bound at compile time rather than selected at display time as in this approach.

I favour the last approach, and I will put it on my short list if I ever get around to jumping in to wikimedia code development. That is, unless someone has a better solution. My description of implementation was a hand wave, but I am sure this is possible without requiring onerous configuration steps as the CSS approach currently requires. -Mak 19:23, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Making SVG work properly with WikiMedia scripts

I'd like to learn how to make a proper SVG to be resized and shown correctly in thumbnails and previews.

I've made 3 maps in SVG, all funcioning differently on Commons. The first one shows both in thumbnail galleries and at the info page. The second shows in thumbnails, but at the image info page not (at least for me, I've set the size to 640*480). And the third one shows neither in thumbnails, nor in image info. (For thumbnails, see Category:Siberia).

I've made them with online map creation tool and then edited in Adobe Illustrator 10. Of course, I've done some different actions to each version. The question is what should I do to make it work properly with the thumbnail-making scripts.

Another proplem, probably specific only to AI 10, is that no text sign shows when I open it in Opera.

I'd appreciate any advice on the subject. Siberiano 14:30, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Use ?action=purge to clear the old broken thumbnail renderings, then reload / clear your browser cache.

As for Opera, report the bug to Opera. --brion 15:51, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. All the thumbnails work all right now. Except this graph. Is it too complicated for the script? Siberiano 15:55, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

SVG not rendering correctly - Help please

I have been using the latest versions of Dia and Inkscape to make the following files:

• Image:Do-while-loop-diagram.svg
• Image:If-statement-diagram.svg
• Image:While-loop-diagram.svg

They render fine in both, but on the commons in firefox and opera they appear distorted. If I then save them to my computer and reopen in Inkscape they are fine. Any ideas how to fix this, as I want to keep them as SVGs if possible. Thanks Pluke 17:53, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Thumbnails show bad. Firefox is not able to display it, maybe because it has no DOCTYPE. I touched Image:If-statement-diagram.svg and now FF shows it for me, but MW is still bady, (a font problem?) Platonides 18:27, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Changed the font in Inkscape of Image:While-loop-diagram.svg, it seemed to tackle the problem. Though the thumbnails are still not good. Seems that Dia is having a lot of problems exporting text in svg format, hopefully this will be resolved soon. Pluke 18:59, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Images in various languages

I feel, there is no big reason to keep the same images in several different languages at commons. In my opinion, they should be placed in particular wikipedias. This concerns especially schemes and labeled images. I understand that there is no chosen language at commons. Images in any language have rights to be placed here. But not repeatedly.

I prefer only a single version, of the best quality or without labels at all.

What do you think about this issue? Miraceti 19:09, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

If the original historical image had the text on there, it is useful as original source material. Many old postcards, sterograph pictures and some of the Library of congress images are like this- some in handwritten pen across the negative. There have been discussions to delete the cropped version or the version with the label still showing. I prefer cropped, but it is responsible to keep the unalterred original source image, and it is my practice to upload both.

Certainly, I agree that embedding new messages and labels on the image itself should be deprecated if there is not some policy on this already. That is- if that is what you meant by labeled images.

I am not sure what you meant by schemes- but if it has to do with any borders, frames or other decoration then that stuff is to be cropped off. -Mak 19:57, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

I assume you are talking about maps and diagrasms, which often need to be localized. I personally believe that all images that are "free enough" should be on commons. Ideally, there should be no local uploads at otehr projects. Having several localized versions of images is accepted (i have seen talk about it several times), and fits the multilingual nature of commons. We are trying to have everything in multiple languages (policy pages, templates, image descriptions, etc) - so, why not the image itself? -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 20:07, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Sometimes images with text on them can still be used by multiple projects, eg. Wikipedia Wikibooks Wiktionary Wikisource Wikinews. These projects could all conceivably use the same annotated map. pfctdayelise (translate?) 01:22, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Take for example Image:Spain-Ukraine line-up.svg and Image:Spain-Ukraine line-up-nl.svg. What's the problem of hosting multiple language versions? Duesentrieb has a good point here, I think. By putting localized versions on local wikipedias you'll only make it harder for our "customers" to find certain images. Ideally there should be 1 basic version of a map/diagram/schematic drawing, with different labelled versions for different languages, so Map of the world.svg should be available with labeled versions in different languages, for example Map of the world labelled-en.svg, Map of the world labelled-de.svg etc. etc. Just my two cents. NielsF 01:33, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I'll just add a couple (three, as it turned out) more reasons why we should keep several versions here: First, which image should be kept? The one in English since that is the langague the most users will understand (crashes with the policy of Commons as a multilingual project), the first that was uploaded (which might be useless as a source for most users if it's in a language with just a handful of Commons-users) or a language relevant to the image if there is such a thing (again, might be useless to most of us). Second, some images are not only used in several projects with a commons language; they might also be used in projects with mutually intelligable lanaguges (e.g. the Scandinavian Wikipedias, where there will often be no point in making a Norwegian version if a Danish one already exists), so keeping them on Commons prevents us from doing the same job twice. Third, some projects are working to promote the use of Commons, e.g. by adding something along the lines of «Please upload images with this [free] license to Commons». Having to add «unless the image is a version in n language of one that exists on Commons in another language» will weaken that effort to boost Commons. Cnyborg 02:35, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Nobody seems to have mentioned that there is more than Wikipedia: Wikinews, Wikiquote, Wiktionary etc. also use language specific images. Also some projects, e.g. the German Wikinews edition, don't just encourage using Commons for images; they don't allow local uploads at all. —da Pete _(ノート) 11:30, 27 June 2006 (UTC) Sorry, I missed Pyctdayelise's comment... —da Pete (ばか) 12:15, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd just like to add that my comments disfavoring multiple versions had only to do with captioned text that could easily be placed outside of the image. Clearly, there is a great need for multiple versions of images where that is not the case- diagrams, maps, etc. To this end, it would be really nice if the original creator of the image would upload the no text version that could be easily overlain with new information. Also if a reference could be made using the information template to the other versions, that would make it easier for folks to find the localized copies.

It seems to me that everyone here is in violent agreement that we need language specific versions of these images, so let's party on and convert and upload the ones we can. Cheers. -Mak 15:44, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

New Stock.xchng policy

Pictures sourced from Stock.xchng must not be uploaded on Commons. Any images sourced from Stock.xchng that were uploaded since 29 December 2005 should be deleted.

• All images uploaded past 26. June 2006 will be tagged {{subst:nld}} and will be deleted if the uploader didn't provide a written permission of the copyright owner within 7 days.
• Images from SXC uploaded between 29. December 2006 and 26. June 2006 are currently reviewed by User:Gmaxwell (he will contact all copyright owners of these files); see User:Gmaxwell/sxc list for a complete list of affected files.
• Images from SXC prior to 29. December 2005 will be decided upon later.

For details why we are required doing so see Commons:Stock.xchng images. I have updated as well Commons:Bad sources and Commons:Free media resources/Photography. Arnomane 20:44, 26 June 2006 (UTC)‎

So what exactly do you propose is the solution for getting rid of these images? Speedy deletion? pfctdayelise (translate?) 06:33, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Anoneditwarning .

Admins, please add the following to MediaWiki:Anoneditwarning:

<div dir=rtl><p class="description ar"><span class="language" title="العربية">'''{{#language:ar}}:'''</span> <span class="text" lang="ar">دخولك هنا غير <span class="plainlinks">[http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Userlogin&uselang=ar مسجل]</span>. إن [[:ar:آي بي|عنوان الأيبي]] الخاص بك سيتم إدراجه ضمن تاريخ الصفحة مما قد يضر بخصوصيتك</span></p></div>

it should render as:

العربية: دخولك هنا غير مسجل. إن عنوان الأيبي الخاص بك سيتم إدراجه ضمن تاريخ الصفحة مما قد يضر بخصوصيتك

In arabic wiki we have templates within such pages, so anyone can fix or add something. --Tarawneh 21:19, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Done. /Grön 23:38, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Category:Images

Hi, We've got the category:Images. This category has branches like paintings, illustrations and photographs. Roughly this category collects just the kind of an image. e.g: should every photograph put into the category photographs and every painting in the category paintings? For what is this category exactly for? Metoc 15:16, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

If you indicate a photograph as category:Black and white photographic portraits, it is unnecessary to declare it as category black and white photograph, photograph, or images. If someone does a category search and use the category Image not black and white portraits, your picture will still be found because someone made it smart that way (thank Duesentrieb for that). Same system as what biologists use- if you declare something homo saphiens, there is no need to declare it Mammalia. It's redundant. If you are extra categorizations are cluttering an already overcrowded category, then very likely the extra categories will be deleted by someone.

However it is not derivable, you need to declare the others. Sometimes the categories are slightly overlapping, such as if you delared a photo as Category:Images of Edward S. Curtis and Category:Sepia photos. Most, but not all of Curtis's photos were sepia tone, so that extra category is properly added, and is not redundant.

So Images is one of those upper upper categories that has to be there to tie the top of the category tree together- but like designations for plants and animals are not directly used. -Mak 16:19, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Video file OK?

I have converted a NASA video from a simulated meteorite impact from mpeg to ogg and uploaded it as Image:Impact movie.ogg. The conversion with ffmpeg2theora 0.16 worked just fine, but when playing the video, it crashes the Windows Media Player (at least here on my system) towards the end of the film. Does the problem only occur on my system? Maybe someone else can give it a try and let me know what he/she finds out. Thanks. --Vesta 21:28, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

It works fine for me. Do you have the theora codecs installed? --Gmaxwell 22:26, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the codec is installed, and until now I have never had any problems playing ogg audio or video files. The Impact movie plays back fine until ~40 seconds, then a error message appears that "the application has requested the runtime to terminate in a unusual way". Maybe I should update the Media Player. Anyway, it's good to know that the file is not corrupted. Thanks for your feedback, Gmaxwell! --Vesta 07:29, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Animal sounds

I've been thinking about creating a wikiproject with the intent to create a collection of free ogg files of animal sounds, for use on their respective pages and to better utilize Wikipedia's state of not being paper. I know that I've found these on say Encarta and Worldbook articles, and I think it's a good thing for us to do, too. I was looking through the English Wikipedia, and have found that sound files are mostly songs, pronunciations, and spoken articles. So my question is, clearly the files would be uploaded here, but does commons have a wikiproject structure? Could I create a sort of project here, or should I organize it at the English one (which I speak), or even at meta (not sure how active that'd be, or relevant even)?

Thanks for your input! --Keitei 07:23, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Great idea. I assume you mean recordings of actual animal sounds and not just people imitating animals. :P Certainly they belong here. Probably the project would be better at Wikipedia, it would certainly get a much bigger audience if nothing else. I would create a template here for people to use (include things like location, dates, any notes about the animal such as age, sex as well as exact species). See if there's a similar wikiproject already that you might be able to attach yourself to, as a little subproject (there might be one on animals, or is that wikispecies:... )

Probably the hard bit will be finding people with suitable (portable) recording equipment. pfctdayelise (translate?) 07:48, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

We already have a Category:Birdsong you would be interested in. I've been trying to organize something of a "sound community" on the English Wikipedia recently around a Wikipedia:Sound of the day.--Pharos 08:49, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

You know about Commons:Media of the day, right? pfctdayelise (translate?) 13:28, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

But you should create the project on Commons, not on Wikipedia. We have more projects here, there is no problem to create a WikiProject on Commons. And the audience on Commons is even more international than on the English Wikipedia, so you will get a better mixture of animal recordings. --::Slomox:: >< 12:50, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

But how active are our WikiProjects compared to English Wikipedia?? Maybe it should be both, or have it here but just advertise heavily in the Wikipedias. pfctdayelise (translate?) 13:28, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

On the "suitable portable equipment" note- really- I don't think you have to think big dollars here. All you need is a good set of headphones and some patience at the zoo in the opening hours when no one is around to spoil the recordings. This can be done economically- just because they use shotgun mic's on movie sets- they don't have to be super expensive to deliver decent results. If you look at the wiki description of shotgun mics, you will see most of the work is done by the mechanical pattern of baffles, not some expensive high tech electronics in the mic. A $30 mic will probably do just fine, but really the headphones are more important so you can tell when you got something good with no extraneous noises. If recording to a camcorder (why not grab a video ogg file of the animal while you are at it?), there are a variety of free tools. The audio can be ripped to an ogg file by using graphedit (a free tool) if you are using a windows machine. For chopping the audio up you don't have to spend anything either. Audacity is a decent free (I think also open source) tool available on all platforms. This sounds like a lot of fun. -Mak 18:45, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Milano

Milano's page was "vandalized"; it's possible for an admin to reverese the last edit? What is the correct procedure for cases like this? thanks, --mac 14:48, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Anyone can manually revert when they see vandalism. See m:Help:Reverting (basically: go into the History and click on the last OK version, edit it; get a warning about editing an old version, ignore it; save without making any changes). pfctdayelise (translate?) 16:12, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

vandalism

[19] --BerndH 17:44, 28 June 2006 (UTC) it has been dealt with.--BerndH 17:46, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

By country conversions

[This thread shall be copied from Village Pump to Commons talk:By location category scheme after the discussion winds down].

I did a scan on by country categories and found at least 30 not placed in Category:Categories by country. Many of those have been converted from the form [country adjective] [Object] eg: German castles -> Castles in Germany.

However, many categories remain unconverted. EG: Category:Coins If I placed a marker in these cats warning of a switchover, and then did the switchover after a few weeks, would that be acceptable?

Or is it really more proper to publish a category scheme for them? I'm ok with that- but I'm not sure whether observing that process is really not much more than busy work. I did the conversion of Naval ships by country- but really there was not any disagreement about the Ships of country noun switchover- it was other subjects that proved controversial.

Still I don't know- I suppose some folks might get hot and bothered about whether it says American coins versus Coins of the United States. Same thing for aircraft or art.

-Mak 19:43, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you and think that "[thing] of [country]" makes a lot more sense in the majority of cases. Undoubtedly, however, the only field in which I can see objections is anything pertaining to culture (e.g. art, architecture styles, but not individual buildings), which is often not coterminous with political units. Just to be on the safe side, it would be nice to publish a category scheme to enlighten people why, say, it should be "Buildings of [country]", but that, say, "Anglo-Saxon art" would make more sense than "Art of Mercia" or "Art of England" for that matter. However, even though once in a while, you might get people who will fervently complain, the majority will not oppose your recategorization efforts. I think if you'd like to do it, go ahead, in the manner you described: placing a warning for a while, perhaps linking to the category scheme (or this discussion, for that matter), and making the changeover after a while. —UED77 19:56, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

My only comment is to avoid using "of" whenever possible as it can be ambiguous. For physical entities "in" is better. Category RDRs = smart move. pfctdayelise (translate?) 03:08, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Okeydokey. When I change Languages of Country category "French language" to "Languages in France", do you mind if I leave a message requesting all comment be sent to your talk page? ;-)

There are a few others that probably should not be converted. German Law does not really translate to "Law of Germany"- it the sense intended- the vast body of laws- is not assumed if the adjective Law form is not used, and so I will leave that one alone as well.

All "By nationality" will be changed to "by country", so it will follow the same pattern for inanimate objects.

This is getting to be enough I guess to stick in a Scheme. Name suggestions for the scheme? Commons:Category scheme by country or Commons:By country category scheme? -Mak 00:01, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I got a draft out as Commons:By location category scheme. Feel free to hack away at it, or leave comments on the talk page. -Mak 05:15, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Mak's change to Category:Turkish food came up on my watchlist. I had once moved this to Category:Food of Turkey and was quickly rebuked for having made a non-sensicle move. I saw my error immediately. "Food" is another one of those things that seems to belong in Category:Food by culture rather than Category:Food by country and would probably best remain Category:XXXXXish/ese/ian Food. Only an exception...I'm all in favor of this move otherwise. Cary "Bastique" Bass ^parler _voir 11:25, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Ouch! Please don't change Category:Coins of Poland to Category:Coins from Poland, nor should you use "from" in very many cases. The first one not only sounds better makes infinitely more sense in English in such cases. "From" connotes (at least to my ears) that the coins have been removed the country in order to take the photograph. "Of" doesn't carry that connotation. Cary "Bastique" Bass ^parler _voir 11:35, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree about Coins. But really, the warning notice gave the example French coins becomes Coins of France. The wording I put in the scheme was that From should be substituted in place of "of" only when "of" is ambiguous. Perhaps I did not word it well enough since obviously I created some unintended confusion. -Mak 16:29, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

There are distinct purposes for using a Place Name. They are:

• Current Location (Sculptures in London)
• Origin (Dancers from Russia)
• Products of a culture associated with a Geographic entity (Art of the Byzantine Empire).
• Style which originated in a geographic location (Architecture from China)

I think the guiding goal here is to choose what will benefit those using Commons as an information resource, rather to focus on what is convenient for those who classify images. If we think folks will most likely use a noun form in a search and be interested in seeing the items associated with that noun, then we should definately use that noun even if the category name is a little less common than the adjectival form. I think that should be the guiding principle for choosing one pattern or the other.

With that in mind, I'm not willing to punt on the Culture or Style meanings just yet. Certainly not in the case of Byzantine art. I didn't hear that this sort of "Culture" item was being objected to.

But what about the more Narrow Style-originating-in-Location meaning? Again, I don't see the strong case for reaching for the ejection seat button just yet. Consider other styles-originating-from-country categories. Architecture is less ambiguous because it is understood as a style, and it is not difficult to accept the notion that one could label an image of a home in Singapore as clearly displaying Architecture from China. Now, with food, it is less clear for two reasons. Firstly, use of the same term for imported foodstuffs as well as a cuisine style. The second is that there are common noun forms for 3 or 4 of the foods of the world, and those terms seem most natural. "Mexican food", "Italian food" "Chinese food".

For extremely common adjectival forms- ok fine, make an exception for them. But most foods of the world don't have dominant noun phrases associated with them. For everything else, folks are much less likely to use the adjective in a search. If someone uses commons' or googles search and uses the term Kygyzstan, we want the food hits to show up. People won't use, and sometimes won't even know the dominant adjective form for some of these (Kyrgyz or Kyrgish and not Kyrgistani as wrongly guessed in Category:Kyrgyzstani politicians). For the common food styles? Yeah- I can see someone typing in mexican food as a search. If it is excepted, then folks won't find Mexican food if they are searching for pictures of stuff from Mexico. If we want those users to be short changed then fine- I agree it's a judgement call there on which will be more dominant in the requests for information.

Now, excepting those common adjective forms, let's look closer at the objections to calling something "Food from Luxembourg" rather than "Luxembourgish food". Do the objections apply to all foods? What's wrong with Luxembourgish cheese becoming Cheese from Luxembourg, -Or- Wines from Luxembourg? So if it doesn't apply to specific foods, why do folks feel uncomfortable with all foods? It is because in the back of our minds we are aware of the ambiguity of the term food, and this is born out by examining the contents of the food by country categories. Most often, Foods by country is used not in the object sense, and really mean the style meaning but are mistakenly not using the more proper Cuisine by Country categories. For Cuisine from Szechwan, it is very clear that Style is being spoken of, that the style originated in a particular place, just as with Architectural styles. So I don't see the trouble for converting the Cuisine by country categories excepting those common adjectival noun phrases. If they understand and prefer than no search hit show up when people use a country name, then fine- informed consent.

So when you look at food as object, there is no problem (Cheese from Belgium). If you look at food as style, there is no problem (Cuisine from Luxembourg). The two senses have two distinct category trees, so it is not the fault of the trees either, but of misapplication of the food category for Cuisine items. It is not the business of the "By Location" scheme to define what the Cuisine versus Food category scheme should say.

I am ok if the food & cuisine guys make a scheme that addresses their use of by Location in some excepted way. If they don't, I think the sense of Location identifying a Style should be in effect, excepting the cases common noun phrases "Chinese food" or "Mexican food"- that is if people want it that way understanding the consequences.

-Mak 19:59, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

New language selection on login/create account-page

A new feature was enabled this night: "Enable login language selection links on Commons, Meta and MediaWiki.org" (see Bugzilla 6466)

Rob Church at revision 14901: "Introduce optional (off by default) language selector bar for user login and registration. Customisable via the "loginlanguagelinks" message, the links will preserve "returnto" values. If the user creates an account while using such a link, then the language in use will be saved as their language preference."

I have transfered all languages from MediaWiki:Captcha-createaccount/lang to MediaWiki:Loginlanguagelinks, deleted the old message and updated MediaWiki:Captcha-createaccount/xx

Hope thats all. --Raymond de 06:24, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Cool! Looks good, except that on the login (not create account) page, i now see two lists of languages. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 08:32, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Ok, is fixed now. --Raymond ^Disc. 13:57, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

So could someone please explain how we can install new translations? Thanks. pfctdayelise (translate?) 14:37, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

You has to edit MediaWiki:Loginlanguagelinks. --Raymond ^Disc. 15:04, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Please add the arabic login page. Just add th enext line to the top of the page ;-) --Tarawneh 17:14, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

العربية|ar

Added. --Raymond ^Disc. 17:45, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

This is a nice feature. The only problem is that, after clicking "Login" and selecting a language, the language is not preserved when clicking "Create an account" as a next step. The link to Special:Userlogin without a "uselang" parameter seems to be hardcoded in the MediaWiki:Nologin message.--Eloquence 21:33, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I have registered this too. I will open a bugreport for this. --Raymond ^Disc. 22:04, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

The bug is fixed now. Language selection is preserved when switching between login and create account. --Raymond ^Disc.

Request category change

Could someone please change all links to [[Category:Tango project, iPods]] to [[Category:Tango project audio players]] [[Category:iPods]]? Thanks. Seahen 17:07, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I suggest you request this at User talk:Orgullomoore. pfctdayelise (translate?) 02:45, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Arabic MediaWiki

This will need an admin. Please create the following A-words MediaWiki pages. Just copy the text as it is (text is nowiked), and paste it into the links. Each link has its text underneath. I will work on the B-words soon. Thanks --Tarawneh 17:10, 29 June 2006 (UTC) (commented out to save space)

---

Done. --Kjetil_r 17:37, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, that was fast --Tarawneh 17:52, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

New items in the toolbox

I see there are some new links available in the toolbox under the search box (displayed in the Image: namespace): Nominate for deletion, Mark as no source, Mark as no license. Where is it possible to translate them (which are the relevant MediaWiki messages)? --Eleassar ^{my talk} 17:29, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

They are from MediaWiki:Quick-delete.js. You only have them if you installed it (I think??? unless someone made them global). I don't know how to set up translation... but definitely people here do because we set it up for MediaWiki:Extra-tabs.js. pfctdayelise (translate?) 02:33, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Admin and bureaucrat resignation

Short note to let you know I resign from my admin and bureaucrat position. Too busy IRL really, I prefer somebody more active to take the seat. Good luck all. villy ♦✎ 17:45, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I am not familiar with commons policy is such situation, but I do not see any harm in keeping your rights for now. It might encourage you to came back sooner.--Tarawneh 18:50, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Arabic sidemenu (missing items)

More Arabic MediaWikis please --Tarawneh 18:55, 29 June 2006 (UTC) (commented out to save space)

---

All done. --Raymond ^Disc. 19:32, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

27 june

Speedy deletion by date

Hello guys. Since I've been away, I scanned through the current Pump and didn't find a similar topic, but forgive me if another one exists at some obscure talk page somewhere.

Given that speedy deletions are often not so... well, speedy (i.e. uploader notification [recent developement], check usage, unlinking, dispute resolution, rants on talk pages, etc.), could we not consider changing things around a bit? Namely, it would be great if Speedies worked the same way as Category:Unknown does: sorting by date of template application.

Such scheme would prioritize deletions by date, which in itself would be much more navigable than the current category dump method. Admins would know right away which files to focus on deleting, and the choice would be much more logical than, say, deleting them by alphabetical order, as many have done previously. In addition, the official seven days' delay would give ample time for projects to unlink the offending images — escpecially now that the use CommonsTicker is spreading rapidly, I still steadfastly hold that it is not Commons Admins' responsibility to plow through all other projects to remove blantant copyvios. The seven days would also allow for some dialogue should disputes arise.

I recommend implementing this new scheme for (or rather, instead of) CAT:CV (copyvios) only. CAT:D (duplicates) are not that crucial and often problematic, while there are simply not enough CAT:D (incorrectly named) to warrant structure. The copyvio bunch, however, could use an overhaul, and the scheme of Category:Unknown has worked quite well.

I promise, I'm not obsessed with altering every single thing about speedies... I just want to make Commons a better place, even if I seem a bit overorganizational sometimes =) —UED77 04:38, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

User:Angela suggested something to me yesterday so simple and yet so clever that I was completely wowed. I mentioned how people get pissed if we don't remove images from use, because it makes articles ugly, and she said why not just change the way deleted images are displayed? Instead of having a big ugly red link, make it something discreet (or maybe even nothing at all - invisible). Then we can delete without removing and the projects won't have so much to complain about. What do you think? I made it bugzilla:6469. pfctdayelise (translate?) 06:37, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I somehow assumed that was technically infeasible >.>;; If that is indeed possible, changing the display from a red link to a small red "X" would be nice. I initially wondered about making them entirely invisible, but that could possibly make the pages a lot harder to maintain, having elements in the source that just take up space and not show up. —UED77 07:12, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I don't know if it's feasible. I guess we will find out soon on the bug request. Having them invisible is probably too counter-intuitive (if you made a spelling mistake you wouldn't know what had happened). pfctdayelise (translate?) 07:40, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

WONTFIX. :/ So forget that. pfctdayelise (translate?) 14:02, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

*Sigh* Okay... So what about trying out this new scheme instead to help both the admins and decrease the frequency of said rants? :) —UED77 19:24, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Category:Against policy only has about 300 items now, which is fantastic and amazing. It should only take a little work to get it under 200 and then we really have to concentrate on keeping it under that (and ideally as near to 0 as possible of course). I think a date scheme will be too much extra work - changing all the templates, re-educating people AGAIN - for not enough gain. If the problem is images that have been tagged for ages, well, Bad Old Ones can help us there. (You can append an instruction to only show images that haven't been edited for X days.) So, that's my opinion. pfctdayelise (translate?) 03:15, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I have streamlined the current deletion categories a bit but tried to avoid any disruptive change. See [20] for details. Arnomane 09:05, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

29 June

OpenDocument Format

Hi! It has been asked multiple times at Commons talk:File types to enable OpenOffice.org 2.0 formats (=OASIS OpenDocument Format) for file upload. Any objections? Can you please enable it? Filename extensions are .odt (text), .ods (spreadsheet), .odp (presentation), and .odg (graphics), then there is .odc (chart), .odf (formula), .odb (database), .odi (image), and the according templates .ott, .ots, .otp, .otg, .otc, otf, .oti and finally .odm (text-master) (see http://docs.oasis-open.org/office/v1.0/OpenDocument-v1.0-os.pdf appendix C, page 697f.) -- Nichtich 20:02, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I support OpenDocument greatly — just not on Commons. Briefly stated, OpenDocument files are merely zip/JAR files that can hold practically any type of content, which can potentially make them unsafe. Please see others' and my previous explanations in VP archive 25 and VP archive 27 (links go to relevant posts). —UED77 03:29, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I guess it is pretty easy to check the incoming file on it's compliance to OASIS-format given the OASIS XML Catalog Committee Specification. --Chrislb 12:07, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Arabic MediaWiki B

More MediaWiki. This time the B-words. This is not fair; I am losing page counts. I guess this is a bit wiki ;-)

Again as before, copy the text as it is (text is nowiked), and paste it into the links. Each link has its text underneath. --Tarawneh 02:03, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

(commented out to save space)

---

All done. --Raymond ^Disc. 06:16, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I wonder why you didn't update MessagesAr.php. Most of translations are seems not unique for Commons. Updating MessagesAr.php is better way to do such things. At least changes will propagate on all projects automatically. --EugeneZelenko 14:56, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Arabic again

I have just noticed this: When I switched to Arabic language in the Preferences link, I wasn't able to find the Arabic letters in the pop-up menu under the edit box. Well I couldn't find the pop-up menu it self. Can this be fixed?

And if so, then maybe a new language option can be added, actually it is kind of a template option. I can never memorize all the templates you have here; the delete templates, the copyright templates the policies templates , blah blah blah.... why not have them in the pop-up menu. This might make things easier, at least for me. The menu already includes [[Category:]] · [[:Image:]] · [[Media:]] · <gallery></gallery> · #REDIRECT[[]] --Tarawneh 02:39, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Just a quick note on templates - you're more than welcome to make RDR templates with names in Arabic, like badname, duplicate, speedy, superseded, deletionrequest, etc. Template RDRs work without a problem. pfctdayelise (translate?) 02:43, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

It is a good idea, but the the problem stands, I will not be able to remember any of the templates ( well not any, most of ). Arabic or English, that is not my main concern --Tarawneh 04:31, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Of course, you'd have more access if you were a sysop, Taranwneh :) Cary "Bastique" Bass ^parler _voir 14:19, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Clearer vote icons

In {{Vd}}, is unclear. It might mean, "No, no more of this article/image, delete it," or "No, don't delete it." These vote templates need to be readable based on images alone; someone whose language is dissimilar enough to English might have no idea how to translate "delete." According to Category talk:Polling templates, that's why the images are necessary in the first place. I'd therefore recommend the following icon changes:

• A wastebasket for {{Vd}} and {{Remove}} templates.
• A wastebasket with an X or a no-sign superimposed for {{Keep}}.
• A checkmark for {{Support}}. (The + is rather difficult to interpret, but a checkmark clearly means yes.)
• Similarly, an X or no-sign for {{Oppose}}.

This will help our interlanguage-friendliness a lot.

Seahen 03:26, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, if you can find an appropriate icon in a pretty colour, go ahead and change it.

TBH if you don't understand English (or occasionally German, Spanish) you would have trouble following anything on COM:DEL. But for COM:FPC,  Support and  Oppose, you can do that without reading the discussion. I thought green and red also made their meanings pretty clear? pfctdayelise (translate?) 11:57, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with the wastebasket, and I reverted it. I created the delete because it was in line with the other voting template icons, but since we never really "vote" here on those types of things, it was more for a color coordination. Since there has not been an issue of being able to underderstanding things, there's no reason to change it, unless it's to promote one's own work.

In other words, if it's not broken, don't fix it. It's only unclear because you say it's unclear. Cary "Bastique" Bass ^parler _voir 17:11, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Multiwiki bot support

Hello all. As some of you know and most of you don't, I used to have an orphan bot that given an image, checked all the wikis that linked to it using checkusage, and went along delinking them. The problem was that I didn't have support from all the wikis, nor was it reasonable to expect that, since there are so many wikis. I summarized the issue a while ago here. However, the life of an admin in that area has still become no easier. I currently run the same bot only on the Spanish Wikipedia (it checks images marked as unknown, copyvio, etc., and removes them on es:), and it works pretty well, being able to remove some 90% of the to-be-deleted images linked from Commons on es:. I am interested in looking for trustworthy contacts, if you will, who have or are willing to request bot status to run the script on their computer and on their wiki. You don't need to know any programming--I will set that up for you. You do need to be willing to install Python and the pywikipedia framework on your computer, but I can also help with that. What does the community think about this? Is there anyone available? Thanks--Orgullomoore 05:51, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I will try it with ar wiki, I am already runnung a bot there --Tarawneh 06:04, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't know how easy it will be to deal with Arabic characters...I have no experience with that, but I will definitely do some tests and get back to you.--Orgullomoore 19:52, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

IP blocking

Please note that IP range from 212.138.47.0 to 212.138.47.255 is used by Saudi Arabia as Main Traffic Proxy for all Saudi users, there is no other way in or out for any user within Saudi Arabia. Blocking one IP blocks thousands of users. So just take it easy with these IPs :) --Tarawneh 06:12, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

OK, it seems that things are reversed; Commons site was blocked in Saudi Arabia some time ago. It looks that Commons has one too many male organ photo. Commons is being considered as possible free porn material source rather than free photos source. I recall voting sometime ago about a proposal regarding such cases. Personally I believe that commons needs more body parts photos; the other body parts.--Tarawneh 16:59, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

It is impossible to limit ourselves to the tastes of the most restrictive regimes on the planet. If we would do that, we would seriously compromise our mission. Saudi Arabia is one example, another one is China. We should stay our course until we become so important that it will be prohibitively expensive for those regimes to block us, or that it will be impossible because of new technological developments. I personally do not like most of the male organ photos, too. But I like even less to be restricted by undemocratic regimes which mistreat their own citizens. Longbow4u 19:01, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I am not wasting my time here just to have fun. I am really trying to build connections between commons and the Arabic community, and your attitude is not really helping. The most restrictive regimes on the planet !!!!!!, man you have no idea what you are talking about. A few years ago, I really believed that Saudi is the worst place on earth, but three years of actually being there made me realize that image given to us by the media is not real.

I am not calling for censorship. This would be meaningless. Yet things are not black and white as you might think. Saudi Arabia is not blocking commons for any political agendas; They are blocking us because Saudi people browsing our website gave a negative feed back about commons contents. People there believe that this is a religious commitment. Saudi Arabia does not represent it self alone when it comes to religion, soon lots of other Islamic countries will follow its lead in this.

The block was a shock to us in Arabic wiki, since we have been calling to switch to commons for our image usage. I am really doing all I can to make things here more user-friendly to Arab contributors. This block is one destructive disaster to all of my efforts here and my colleges effort back in Arabic wiki.

Lots of sites rank their contents. That should be possible here. And this should help a lot. It is not censorship, it is simply a matter categorizing images. This would even make things easier for lots of other people, even for search engines. Implementing image ranking would make it possible for us to continue our efforts in Arabic wiki. Personally that will make me feel better when I know that my five years old child will not see anything that might be make him confused (he is really hocked to commons and wikipedia).

Some may think that I am being pragmatic, but if people can't accept us (commons) for some reason we must evolve, to comprehend such people, without losing our main tracks. --Tarawneh 01:22, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Teh world wide web consortium <URL:http://www.w3.org/> has a Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS). I don't how it works, and I don't know if any browser supports it (they might if Commons started using it), but it might be a good way to add meta data about images. The problem is, however, that any way to filter content from small children can also be used for filtering content from adults. -Samulili 08:08, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

The thing is, Tarawneh, how many naked pictures are too many? 100? 10? 1? I think censoring any Wikimedia project will not be accepted by any set of contributors. Look at Chinese Wikipedia - they can barely even use it because it's blocked, but no one has ever seriously suggested that they self-censor to get unblocked. It's against the founding principles. The sum of all human knowledge includes both anatomy and frank discussions of the Chinese government and their actions. I think it is sad that some users can't contribute because of government blocks but we can only hope they will become more enlightened because I don't think Wikimedia will budge on this... --pfctdayelise (translate?) 09:48, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Well as I for example am in the OTRS. I ocassionally get emails from people that fear that their small kids could get a moral damage because of article/image $foobar. We will never have the situation that "conservative" people of every nation will be satisfied. They will write emails to everyone existing in order to alert about their moral concerns. So as long as there is a possibility mailing moral concerns to an official Saudi authority that acts according to them people will use it and people will mail them anything about $foobar in Commons. Arnomane 01:36, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

pfctdayelise, No one is talking about censoring Commons. A ranking system should solve these problems. People, Saudis or whoever will be able to block contents as desired, based on its rank. We can't impose standards on others the same way that makes us refuse any thing forced on commons. By ranking things, anyone can customize his profile or proxy to filter the contents. This is not censorship, this is categorizing --Tarawneh 01:07, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Category:Terrorists and NPOV

It is interesting to note that there is no {{npov}}. - Amgine 14:40, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I requested a category move to Category:People alleged to be terrorists. pfctdayelise (translate?) 03:08, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

You may wish to consider that terrorism is a POV term, period. It is used to pejoratively describe actions. For example, by all commonly held definitions of terrorism the US revolutionary war hero George Washington would be an alleged terrorist, and any images related to him could reasonably be added to that category. - Amgine 16:39, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Pfctdayelise's proposal is a reasonable response. Punting controversies is not. This is precisely kind of subject people turn to online references for, and we cannot allow ourselves the luxury of backing away from difficult topics.

Some feel an act is not terrorism if the goal is justified. However, Wikipedia article on terrorism defines it as a strategy and technique. Goals, causes and POV is distinct from it.

"Terrorism refers to a strategy of using violence, or threat of violence to generate fear, cause disruption, and ultimately, to bring about compliance with specific political, religious, ideological, and personal demands. The targets of terrorist attacks typically are not the individuals who are killed, injured, or taken hostage, but rather the societies to which these individuals belong. Terrorism is a type of unconventional warfare designed to weaken or supplant existing political landscapes through capitulation or acquiescence, as opposed to subversion or direct military action. The broader influence of terrorism in the modern world is often attributed to the dramatic focus of mass media in amplifying feelings of intense fear and anger."

I think everyone is in full agreement that the term terrorism is being used for propaganda purposes by all the world's governments, and the meaning has been stretched and purposely distorted, but the definition stated above is pretty crisp. Sure, you can play around with various rebellions in the world's history, and certainly, the threat of violence and acts of war have a similar effect of this definition of terrorism. But look at the key differences.

• Armed conflict- Was direct military action being undertaken by Washington, Spartacus, Viet Cong? You bet.
• Hate Crimes- Terrorist? Not if it is just a supremecist lashing out. If it lacks the complex political or psychological intent of a terrorist.

Probably the best neutral definition of terrorism I've ever heard was this: any violent action which breaches the Geneva convention (which is mainly the deliberate targeting of civilians or prisoners-of-war). As for a solution to this problem, why not dump the word "terrorist" and replace it with "people involved in controversial military action" or somesuch phrase which would factually indicate their status in certain people's eyes without endorsing that status. It's also important to remember that while some conflicts can be rooted in an arguably just war (for example the fight against Hitler) those same conflicts can contain acts of terrorism by both sides (the Nazi bombing of London and the Allied bombing of Dresden were both in breach of the Geneva convention as they were mostly aimed at killing civilians).

Alleged Terrorists? Ok- fine- let righties try and stick Che Guevara in there, and lefties stick Bush in. Hopefully saner folks will be around to revert those changes that only have to do with political sloganeering and not with using the term according to its definition. -Mak 18:57, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

w:Definition of terrorism - NPOV does not mean we have to put "alleged" if there is some minority somewhere that disagrees. The page I have linked to gives several definition of terrorism and people who fit those definitions should be in that category. After all, we don't move Category:Smokers pipes to Category:Alleged smokers pipes just because someone wrote Ceci n'est pas une pipe. -Samulili 19:19, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

No, but it tends to diffuse pointless edit wars on extremely contentious issues. If your hero is there on the terrorist list, the urge to revert is strong. If it merely says "alleged", then most reasonable folks will let that slide... I strongly agree that "Alleged" is not a term to be relied on for matters of any controversy. It should be used rarely, I believe this qualifies and an exceptional case where alleged can be used. -Mak 20:50, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I think we don't need such a category at all. Make categories Category:Al-Qaida or Category:RAF (no, not Royal Air Force for bombing Dresden ;-) Rote Armee Fraktion) and so on and that should be enough. Category:Terrorists ever will be a mere pool of POV. --::Slomox:: >< 13:52, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

30 June

Quality images

At Commons:Quality Images and linked pages is developed a new system of promoting quality on Commons and helping users create better images. It should be complementary to Commons:Featured pictures. As many people are probably familiar with FP, I think ideas of Quality pictures can be best explained in comparison

• Featured pictures are supposed to be somehow extraordinary, outstanding, eye-catching...
  • Quality images don't need to. It would be enough to pass some defined set of quality criteria
• Featured pictures nominations are partialy judged like a contest - if there are there other FP of the same topic, how the candidates competes with other images on Commons, how difficult of hard is the subject in general. Opinions usually differ.
  • Quality images would be judged more like quality check in stock agencies is done - just review if image meets some critera of technical&craft merits. Its easier to create more-or-less unopiniated/objective guideline on whats too much noise or bad focus (QI), than to agree what's impresive or particulary valuable (FP).
• FP is decided by voting of many people over several weeks, votes are often close.
  • QI should be decided by much easier process, for example just one reviewer (any user) should be enoough, and if undisputed, the decision should be pretty fast.
• FP ~ much about art
  • QI ~ should be less esotheric (craft?)
• Even in ideal world, only the best images would be FP
  • In ideal commons, every photograph uploaded by commons user would be QI.

--Wikimol 19:54, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Also, you could require that any FPC candidate has first passed through QI, to stop those "doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell" nominations that occur. pfctdayelise (translate?) 02:54, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I like this idea, since not all quality pictures are featured pictures. Photo portraits of individuals, for example, are not worthy of featured picture status. However, many are of a high-resolution, are crisp, and do a very nice job of portraying the individual. --tomf688 (talk - email) 19:44, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I also like this idea; it's similiar to an idea that Greg Maxwell and I have been talking about for some time. A lot of the pictures on Commons (and on the projects) are of extremely poor documentary quality, and I've long felt that the FP process does not provide enough of an incentive toward encouraging documentary quality. I think it's also important that the QI process be geared toward providing feedback for photographers to improve their work -- which is why I believe it should ONLY be open to self-contributed content -- and that the juries reviewing submissions needs to do more than just vote up or down, but provide reasons for their judgements that will help the submitter and others improve their work. Kelly Martin 19:52, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I think that that restriction would be a very good idea, yes.

James F. (talk) 19:53, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Ad the commons nominations / self nominations I've replied at Commons talk:Quality images candidates.

Ad helpfulness - I think When declining a nomination please leave a message that encourages the photographer and helps them to improve future pictures. Note specific criteria in which image fails. would do it. And one responsible reviewer would be better in this respect than a jury. --Wikimol 21:38, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Please see as well my strong wish at Commons talk:Community Portal why merging/overtaking "featured pictures" is very much required in order to make any laudable and badly needed quality assurance like this a success. Arnomane 01:39, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Unwanted licenses and their automatical tagging

As a recent admin, when trying to do my bit of work for Commons, I've encountered a lot of license templates which redirect immediately to some other template which indicates that they're against policy or just have been replaced with a deletion marker as the content of the template. For example Template:PD-PhilippinesGov redirects to Template:Noncommercial, or Template:Notify which puts an image up for deletion immediately. While I see the sense of doing this it's also quite confusing. Can't we just either retain the template and include the other template (Noncommercial or Deletebecause) in it or just completely delete the unwanted templates? NielsF 01:28, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I think it's good that we have this kind of templates. People are genuinely confused as to what Commons allow, hence they use invalid licenses on images. I think it's good for them and it's good for us that these images are "automatically" marked for deletion. -Samulili 12:00, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

The way we're doing it is a bit confusing though. Although it does save on updating when we reorganise our deletion categories... pfctdayelise (translate?) 09:52, 6 July 2006 (UTC)