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Cancelling my request. I manually fixed that malformed DR. :This section was archived on a request by: -- 03:00, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
Art in Transit photographs
Hello. It came to my attention that my photograph of this 2D artowork may violate copyright laws in my country. So do I put this up for deletion?
I may also request a look through for other related photographs, photographs of artworks in the Singapore MRT network:
These seem to be images that you know are copyright problems. You can add {{copyvio}} to any of them for an admin to delete them. If any are doubtful, for example if someone might justify the copyrighted images being sufficiently small or not the 'focus' of the photograph, then they should be raised for deletion discussion by using the toolbar deletion request link to the left of your screen. Refer to derivative works. --Fæ (talk) 09:08, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
I have identified that this user has uploaded a large number of pictures of celebrities. The pictures are indeed very interesting, but they include systematically a logo of his / her studio. Do we really want to authorize not-so-hidden advertising on Commons ? Thanks for your opinion. Poppy (talk) 21:54, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
The image at File:Gynecomastia001.jpg is highly unlikely to be what the filename implies it is, that is, enlarged breast tissue in a male. (Actual gynecomastia doesn't look like that; web search will provide plenty of images.) Just the filename itslef was enough for it to be used on an article at en-wiki (w:Cleavage (breasts)), but I've removed it from the article. Imho, the image should simply be deleted from Commons, as there's no sourcing to verify that it is what it claims to be; although the tricky part is, it doesn't actually claim to be anything, since there is no description. I'd delete it as misleading, if there is such a category. Mathglot (talk) 08:00, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
Don't use the image to illustrate a male in the encyclopaedia, as there is nothing gender specific visible except the breasts, but before you nominate for deletion read this en:Sexual_dimorphism#Humans, and maybe watch this ->[1]. ~ R.T.G11:21, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
FYI on the page of nomination for deletion I added "Indeed the filename is misleading, but the Chinese description says "Feminine breasts" (Google translate), which fits with what the image shows. The English translation is wrong. The problem can be solved by deleting that English word and renaming the file to for example 女性化乳房.jpg" Wouter (talk) 13:24, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
These "good people" are offensively using Nazi salutes and waiving nationalist flags at an LGBT event. They chose to do this in public while standing in front of a huge number of riot police and press photographers. There's no chance that the photograph or its accurate description (that has no names in it) will cause them any damage or distress considering they wanted to be photographed and published. --Fæ (talk) 06:06, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
How can I find out who blanked my user page?
And how can I have them disciplined?
I worked on that page for years, even though I haven't updated it in recent years.
FYI, if your user page is set up on meta, then that page gets used on every other project where you do not have a specific existing page. That may be a better option than creating a separate page on Commons. Refer to m:Global user pages. --Fæ (talk) 11:01, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
To rename or not to rename?
In the past I've uploaded a lot of photos of bugs to WikiMedia Commons. I am getting ready to update and correct the identifications of about 1,100 of these. About half are more specific identifications, and the others are taxonomy changes and mistakes. The taxon is typically used in the titles of these photos. I was planning to add a rename request with corrected titles, but it looks like this has to be handled manually by others. Is it a problem to add rename requests for 1,100 photo files? Xpda (talk) 17:01, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
I just run into File:2011-05-18-landtagsprojekt-erfurt-071.jpg by User:Ralf Roletschek which has 17 visible license related templates, warnings, instructions, etc. There are 1.6k words there but no info who is the subject of the photo. The file has {{Cc-by-sa-3.0}} license and all the CC-BY-NC-ND and GFDL 1.2 templates just seem pointless. Wikipedia Media viewer is totally defeated by this image [2] showing Over 500 words and almost 4k characters in the author field. Among them there is "Ralf Roletschek" what is the only info we were looking for. I do not know how should we fix this and possibly many other files like this. User:Ralf Roletschek is a longtime contributor providing great photos but something went wrong with this image. --Jarekt (talk) 02:23, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
There are a few uploaders that engage in that sort of abuse of templates, but that's got to be the worst example I've seen so far. There are:
3 CC-BY-SA 3.0 boxes, including a custom one
4 GFDL boxes
3 CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0 boxes, which are useless (CC-BY-SA is less restrictive than CC-BY-NC-ND)
Some sort of limited public domain grant that's probably not legally valid (the Google Translate from German is poor)
Two more boxes to remind people that this work is under the previously stated licenses
A reminder about COM:OVERWRITE and COM:FR that is not completely consistent with those guidelines
Meh. So long as folks know they can pick the weakest license this is not 'technically' wrong. The attribution requirements need to be clear, but as the standard CC-BY-SA is used, it's still up to the reuser to decide what is reasonable which 'technically' does not have to include Ralf's recommended web link if the reuser doesn't feel like doing attribution that way. The only "fix" here would be to put the weakest license at the top. BTW this is the VP, but it reads as a user complaint, so the user should be pinged. @Ralf Roletschek: --Fæ (talk) 09:18, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
I did use Ralf's username in the original post, which is equivalent to pinging. I agree that the page is not technically wrong it is just impossible to find a basic info on that page. --Jarekt (talk) 04:12, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
Ich weiß nicht, was mir Google so übersetzt hat aber es ist auch nicht wichtig. Genau solche Aktionen wie von Jarekt (den ich bisher nur als Bot wahrgenommen habe) sind der Grund, daß ich vor 2 Jahren hier weitgehend aufgehört habe. Wie sich zeigt, war die Entscheidung richtig. Die Bilder sind in Ordnung, die Lizenzen ebenfalls. Also möge man mich nicht damit stören. Wenn sich Bots, Programme oder der Medienbetrachter beschweren, dann interessiert mich das nicht. Offenbar gab es 9 Jahre lang keinen Grund, sich über die Datei zu beschweren. Sollen doch die Programme repariert werden, die nicht damit klarkommen. Menschen haben offensichtlich kein Problem, wie die ~zigfache Weiterverwendung außerhalb von Wikimedia gerade dieses Fotos zeigt. --Ralf Roletschek13:11, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
@Ralf Roletschek: Ich glaube nicht, dass die Leute sagen, dass Sie nicht in Ihren Rechten sind. Sie sagen, dass die liberalste Lizenz wahrscheinlich zuerst aufgeführt werden sollte. - Jmabel ! talk17:25, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
Das ist sicher Auslegungssache. Schüler, Studenten, Dozenten usw. nutzen am liebsten und fast ausschließlich NC-ND. Ich kenne nirgendwo eine Reihenfolge, was mehr oder weniger liberal ist. Und es ist nirgendwo eine bestimmte Reihenfolge gefordert. --Ralf Roletschek17:39, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
Rangfolge CC-Lizenzen nach FreiheitsgradHier ist die entsprechende Rangfolge, von Creative Commons selbst definiert. Wenn du willst, dass deine Dateien problemlos mit NC-ND kombiniert werden können, dann nimm CC-BY ohne SA, dann ist das kein Problem. So viel zum politische Streit, dass andere ist die Falschbenutzung des Informationstemplates. Das die Templates zu großen Teilen in den völlig falschen Stellen eingeordnet sind solltest du doch Wissen. Bei Beschreibung kommt nur die Bildbeschreibung rein und sonst nichts. Unter Urheber kommt nur dein Name und sonst nichts. Unter Genehmigung kann das OTRS Template, alles andere passt dort nicht. Darunter kommen dann außerhalb der Informationsbox die weiteren Templates. Ob deine Persönliche Box und die vom Projekt über der Lizenzüberschrift und der Lizenz oder danach stehen ist dann tatsächlich Geschmackssache. --GPSLeo (talk) 19:47, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
Ich sehe keinen Grund, irgendwas zu ändern. Das Foto hat jahrelang anstandslos funktioniert. Wenn jetzt irgendeine Software Probleme hat, ist das das Problem der Software. Die Bilder sind für Menschen und die verstehen auch, was da steht. Genau das ist es, was mich hier vertrieben hat: immer wieder nachträgliche Veranderungen, Forderungen, Umlizenzierungen und Verbot ewig gültiger Sachen. Es war die richtige Entscheidung, hier nichts mehr hochzuladen. --Ralf Roletschek16:30, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
Du hast selbst dort eingetragen "Urheber: Dieses Bild steht der Wikimedia- Foundation, dem Wikimedia e. V. sowie den anderen nationalen Vereinen als gemeinfrei zur Verfügung. Für...". Das ist nicht dein Name. Für die Lizenz gibt es ein anderes Feld. Das ist keine besondere Software, dass ist ganz klassischer Wikitext. --GPSLeo (talk) 18:43, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
Es geht nicht um Softwareprobleme. Das Problem ist ein fast unlesbarer Morast. Die wichtigsten Informationen (liberalste Lizenz) sollten an erster Stelle stehen. - Jmabel ! talk17:56, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
To me the problem is less the number of templates or the number of applied licenses in the file mentioned by Jarekt, it's that the licenses are scattered all over the page, obfuscating what is what. I'm sorely tempted to re-arrange them myself into something more logical. — Huntster (t@c)18:57, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
To me the issue is that we have a description field and it should have mostly description. In the author field we should have only author name, in the date field only date, etc. Adding other information in those fields break a lot of tools which try to display author, description or date, greatly diminishing usability of the file metadata. Also we do not need 17 license (and license related) templates, some of them in duplicate, we need the most permissive one, as having cc-by-sa and CC-by-nc-nd in the same file is supper confusing, since as all it says that you are allowed to choose between a license that allows derivatives and commercial use and a license that do not allow it. Since there are no other differences between those licenses it is just easier to only provide the first one. --Jarekt (talk) 16:51, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
Sounds counterintuitive for an international platform, since many things are allowed in on place, that are forbidden in another. Alexpl (talk) 15:05, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
The text doesn't provide an explanation: I think you'd have to look up the original newspaper article to find out what was going on. Without context, I don't know if they are doing anything illegal. I have the impression the gates have been closed for some reason other than a train going past. --ghouston (talk) 01:01, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
I'd guess the crossing was closed, perhaps permanently, although the railway line was still in use, but cyclists wanted to carry on using their traditional route. --ghouston (talk) 01:04, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
Judging from the crowd and what seems to be some kind of a banner in the left background, there seems to be more going on than just a couple of annoyed cyclists refusing to wait for the gates to open. Joostik (talk) 18:11, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
If it's the Schrans (a street in Leeuwarden) then it wasn't closed permanently, since the level crossing is still there to this day, despite local complaints [3]. I can't verify that it's the same spot on Google Streetview though, maybe the building in the background has changed [4], or maybe it's a different crossing. --ghouston (talk) 02:14, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
@E4024: please leave this user alone, doing so will cost you nothing. Your national culture related views may be fine free speech elsewhere, but it comes off as weird when posting pointy looking criticism on a contributor's talk page because you think they fail to meet your personal standards about interpreting "respect" based on the country a photograph was taken in. It is not unreasonable for someone targeted with these lengthy personal opinions aimed at criticising them, to see that as harassment. If you have a specific policy related issue with their photographs, it's easy enough to raise a deletion request for wider comment. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 01:40, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
Hello. Apologies for cross-posting, and that you may not be reading this message in your native language: translations of the following announcement may be available on Meta. Please help translate to your language. Thank you!
We are excited to share a draft of the Universal Code of Conduct, which the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees called for earlier this year, for your review and feedback. The discussion will be open until October 6, 2020.
The UCoC Drafting Committee wants to learn which parts of the draft would present challenges for you or your work. What is missing from this draft? What do you like, and what could be improved?
Please join the conversation and share this invitation with others who may be interested to join, too.
To reduce language barriers during the process, you are welcomed to translate this message and the Universal Code of Conduct/Draft review. You and your community may choose to provide your opinions/feedback using your local languages.
I had missed this anniversary. Congratulations to every one! May I offer you a tompouce, even if it's only a digital one? MartinD (talk) 13:44, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
Hi, you really should explain what you mean. Is the deletion request racist? Is the discussion racist? I think that you mean that there is an accusation of racism within that discussion request. In fact it does appear that the user is admitting to using the word "Nigger" in a sentence as a joke. It was not on this project, so, while it does not add credibility to that user, I would not support penalising a person for their actions on other fora. This does, however, warrant a closer look at this individual's edits, to see if they are engaging in a racist harassment on this project, and if that is the case, they should be brought to COM:ANU. As for the file in question, it is used on many articles, but I do not know anything about this subject to vote. ℺ Gone Postal (〠✉ • ✍⏿) 09:07, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
Hi, anonymous Wikipædian! The link is quite self-explaining: the matter is just the edition: OK, UeArtemis made a racist "joke" at the other site and we may not consider it, but what he has said on wikiis racism, because he hasn't said "Sorry: I was an idiot that time but I don't think so and don't make so idiotic 'jokes' now!". He even doesn't understand what is the problem!!!! <<As for the file in question, it is used on many articles, but I do not know anything about this subject to vote.>> What do you know about FIAS and Maxime Seveleu-Dubrovnik? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.114.146.150 (talk • contribs)
Does anybody know why four hyphens (----) are not rendered as a horizontal line anymore? Without it e.g. closed deletion requests are less readable. It is likely an effect of MediaWiki update on 9th Sept. --jdxRe:09:28, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
Ehhh, it is an issue partially on my side. <hr> in not rendered on my ancient desktop PC with WinXP and Firefox 52.9. Everything is fine on my laptop running Win10/Firefox 80.0.1. Anyway, I am pretty sure that the issue has been introduced with the latest MediaWiki update. --jdxRe:11:11, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
Removing reference and identification numbers from file names set by their uploader
There is an obvious consensus that identification in original filenames should not be removed without discussion or when there are not necessary corrections. This was an informal thread, however we will be looking at a minor amendment to COM:FR to make this normal reading to be spelt out more clearly. Proposer closure, based on supermajority and that this was to gauge community views on how COM:FR is currently understood to apply, not a literal proposal vote to change anything. --Fæ (talk) 07:24, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
If you wish to !vote, the proposition here is that verifiable references or unique identification numbers in file names created at the time of original upload, should never be removed without a consensus, and if part of a batch upload project, or part of standard naming using an upload tool, the entire project should retain its "harmonious" naming standard to enable easier searching, verification and necessary housekeeping.
It has recently be argued that the official guideline of COM:File renaming does not discourage anyone from systematically removing references from file names that the uploader has originally chosen. As a contributor that has run a significant number of different projects, this argument seems demonstrably incorrect to me, based on the plain English reading of the table in the guideline of "Criteria to decline": Files should NOT be renamed only because the new name looks a bit better. and the associated "undisputed uses for rename requests" To harmonize the names of a set of images so that only one part of all names differs.
This reading indicates that based on the current guideline, a reference number should not be removed from the original uploaded filename just because another user thinks the name looks better without it, and that it would be perfectly normal to use renames to add standard references or identification numbers if the upload is part of a large collection with a naming convention.
Real examples from my own projects of standard references and naming include:
File:A baby being baptised (15909273062).jpg upload project for a specific photographer, including the standard Flickr Photo ID reference which can be used to back-track to the source even if the rest of the information is changed or lost.
In all of these projects, the reference number in the filename is unique, easy to verify and makes automatic double-checking for possible duplicates very low processing demand for API requests, or similar access times, for future "refreshes" or new upload projects. Were the information removed and buried in the image page wikitext or (worse) hidden in structured data, then the complexity of queries, the lags for data exchanges, and most importantly human programming time goes up significantly.
Support Such metadata should not be removed from file names. I note that the example names given above, like those of images I upload which include IDs, also include perfectly adequate, human-readable labels. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits10:41, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
Support I'm a bit familiar with batch uploading, the harmonization and logic of the filenames is very important, both for the consistency of certain image sets, for potential maintenance, and very important for potentially being able to complete uploads when the external sources are updated or when the upload is done in several part for various reasons, e.g. this file upladed in october 2019 and this one uploaded recently, the files names are working toguever and it's very fine like that. I would even go a bit further and prevent almost renaming of files that have been batchuploaded unless strong mistake or strong consensus. Christian Ferrer(talk)11:04, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
Support This comes up a lot on the photos User:BMacZero has uploaded from the University of Washington Libraries and which I've been involved in categorizing. About one in 15 needs renaming; we never mess with this part. - Jmabel ! talk15:40, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
Strong support the main atribute of a file name is that it needs to be unique foreign identifiers added to filenames accomplish that with added bonus for the collection maintainer to allow better tracking. Files should not be renamed to make them more pretty especially if we sacrifice uniqueness. --Jarekt (talk) 16:29, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
Oppose Flickr ID number is absolutely unnecessary in the file name, because it is already in the source field. Even if it is not in the file name, in commons one could search an image by Flickr ID. Renaming it with another file name with more meaningful factors, such as the date of photography and location, can be encouraged. However, I agree with the point that US Armed Forces ID should not be deleted from a file name. --トトト (talk) 18:40, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
Support as a default position for batch uploads. I like how I can tell by a glance at the filename that a cluster of files is part of the same upload project. I think for certain projects it may be somewhat less important, such as Category:Images from NPGallery, where the collection is wildly varied and the identifiers are full GUIDs that do start to get a bit obnoxious. CommentI don't think consensus should be necessary to waive the rule for an upload project, just consultation with the upload's operator(s).
These also do have practical uses. I have occasionally had my local record of which files I'd uploaded from a batch project get lost or corrupted, so I have code that reassembles it from the filenames on Commons if necessary. I could get it from the page text but then I'd have to download the full info for every page instead of just a category contents list. – BMacZero (🗩) 20:10, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
Support Dateinamen sollten tabu sein.Informationen über das Abgebildete können in der Beschreibung und in Kategorien untergebracht werden. Google Translation: File names should be taboo; information about what is shown can be placed in the description and in categories. --Ralf Roletschek21:45, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
Support per many above. Also, it can be helpful to have the ID in the filename when curious non-Admins are discussing a deleted file at COM:UDR or elsewhere, or just looking at deletion logs or redlinks in upload logs, so they can see the original for themselves. — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me22:37, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
Support Sometimes it is the only way I can connect an image back to the original source to get more details. Ideally that information would be somewhere in the Commons file, but that is not always the case. --RAN (talk) 04:38, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
Support I think there are better places to store such IDs. But there is nothing wrong with (also) using them in the file name. As long as the file name still has a descriptive component (like the examples above), I would consider removing an ID as a violation of COM:FNC and COM:FRNOT. --El Grafo (talk) 08:50, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Exceptions for discussion: Situations were reference and identification numbers became meaningless or ambiguous or if they contain errors
My personal understanding is that the general rule of not removing reference or identification numbers from files is already sufficiently covered in our current renaming guidance. The proposal above originated from a discussion at Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard#Independent_opinions_requested_for_the_removal_of_FR_rights_for_Tm and the proposal above is imho currently neutral on the actual topic discussed there. Namely which of the rules currently included in the current renaming guidance should take preference if there are conflicting situations. So, the question I have is if the above proposal is meant to imply that the references or unique identification numbers in file names created at the time of original upload, should be kept, even if they became meaningless or ambiguous or contain errors.
If you wish to !vote, the sub-proposal here, it is to restrict the above proposal by unless they became meaningless or ambiguous or unless they contained errors, as all of which are currently valid reasons for file renaming.
Hypothetical examples from the list above include:
In case the Auckland Museum corrects an error with regard to their original catalogue number at their homepage which is the source of the file, the proposal is to allow the correction of the error in the filename in Commons as well, as the original catalogue number used by the uploader became meaningless
If a toolset systematically imports incorrect catalogue numbers due to a software error, the proposal is to allow the correction of the error in the filename as the original numbers contained errors
File:A baby being baptised (15909273062).jpg upload project for a specific photographer, including the standard Flickr Photo ID reference which can be used to back-track to the source even if the rest of the information is changed or lost.
In case the file does not originate from Flickr but the file is just re-published on Flicker as a secondary source with an incorrect license, the proposal is to allow the update of the reference to the correct source and license as the original identifier is ambiguous
This is fine as a qualification. However it's not always obvious which is the "better" identity to apply. The IA books project has been done consistently using Internet Archive identities and it's now reached over 630,000 books uploaded. Clearly, though many of the books may have OCLC numbers available and OCLC is a great standard to use normally, because of the very large number of files in the one project, it would not be helpful to start changing IA identities in filenames to OCLCs. However as many most have the OCLC already in the book template on the image page, it's already standard to include OCLCs or other external standard book identifiers within the wikitext rather than the filename.
By the way, this thread was not intended as a proposal to amend COM:FR. However it may be sensible to add a very brief qualification to the when not to rename section, so there is no doubt in future disputes. --Fæ (talk) 11:04, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
I am not really sure about it, but I hope that both templates and structured data statements will support each other. I'll try to use structured data statements. --ChristianSW (talk) 17:37, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
Request for "censored versions" of PHL landmarks' photos in light with no FOP
Landmarks to be "censored" due to "no Wiki-acceptable freedom of panorama in the Philippines", with their photo references or suggested photo to be used
You can be bold, it would be useful if you went ahead and created the category and put some sample editing photos in it. --Fæ (talk) 06:53, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
@Fæ: I'm not good at editing by blacking out, and have no good tools and resources (on my mobile phone) that could help me. That's why I'm seeking the help of most experienced photo editors here, before the feared deletion of most of these photos comes. JWilz12345(Talk|Contrib's.)07:30, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
You know, I'm really wondering what is the point of these "blacked-out" images? Do they fulfil our requirement of having an educational purpose or do they just look extremely foolish because the outlines are left intact, and anyone can tell what's not there? They should be deleted without delay and we should learn to live without images in places that do not have FOP. Their loss, not ours. Rodhullandemu (talk) 13:32, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
Having recently suffered a second monstrous injustice on Wikimedia projects, I'm really not in a competent mental state to deal with complexities of Phillippines law right now, in fact I'm barely ticking over. My concern is only for the blacked-out images. Even with the offending items blacked out, their outlines remain, which to me clearly makes them derived images of the buildings in question. Rather than admitting to fakery in a back-door attempt to make images usable, perhaps it would be better to delete the originals and place them in Category:Images to be restored when FOP becomes available. Ad of course, the blacked out versions must go too, because they are out of scope as having no educational purpose. Rodhullandemu (talk) 13:59, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
Dear fellow Wikipedians, I want to have the logo of "Wiki Loves Monuments" in my user page... How to use the template / userbox ? Cheers.... Anupam Dutta 07:56, 13 September 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Anupamdutta73 (talk • contribs)
OTRS is under maintenance until at least Wednesday
Just a heads up to everyone. OTRS is under maintenance from an upgrade to major version 6 until 2020-09-16 08:00 UTC at the earliest. No emails will be received, read, or responded until this is over. All emails sent until then will be stored and delivered to OTRS after the maintenance window is over. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 16:55, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
Probably for no reason in particular. Most likely scenario: Somebody made a template way back in the 2000's and just thought it looked good. People copied the code when they made new templates and just kept the italics. Nobody noticed that most other templates don't use italics (or nobody cared enough) so nobody unified the design. --El Grafo (talk) 09:57, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
Would it make more sense to undo the italics for consistency? For me, it just looks... off, probably because I see long strings of italics and think that something is being quoted. -BRAINULATOR9 (TALK)01:13, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
Search function
We do have a file .
However, when I directly enter the file name "ScottishCeltic.ogg" into the searchbox wikimedia answers we do not have that.
Is there a way to work around this?
shouldn't the software be altered so that filenames are found?
I have 200+ renaming following a known patern. Following mw:API:Move I try to build convenient "Rename" url with prefilled parameters from, to, reason. I get an error message :
{
"error": {
"code": "mustpostparams",
"info": "The following parameter was found in the query string, but must be in the POST body: token.",
"*": "See https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/api.php for API usage. Subscribe to the mediawiki-api-announce mailing list at <https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-api-announce> for notice of API deprecations and breaking changes."
},
"servedby": "mw2362"
}
OK, got it. The URL is to be used by serverside POST requests, not via clientside url bar. It also requires to first login, via a similar approach (see mw:API:Login#Example). I store this and will handle it later on. Yug(talk)12:05, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
@Lord Belbury: Commons does not have a policy against original research (after all, almost every original photograph is original research!) but if you think the information is inaccurate, you can use {{Fact}} and cite your source that contradicts it. - Jmabel ! talk15:33, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
If Commons is fine with original research and not particularly alarmed at original research offering medical tips, fair enough. I'm not going to check 13 different fields of mental health research to decide whether these are all reasonable summaries of each condition, I'll just go with {{References missing}} and check the images aren't being used on Wikipedia. Thanks for the clarification. --Lord Belbury (talk) 15:55, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
Rectifying my mistakes and instead report here phil bldg and sculpture photos
Hello everyone. Its my biggest mistake to have made mass deletions. I sincerely appologise most esp to the moderator @Mutichill: . I will not do those deletions by myself again. Instaed i will forward here some violations on phil photos of bldgs and sculotures.
Even in your wiki entry it says it underwent extensive renovations, and under the Marcos admin "The old Palace was gutted almost entirely, not only to meet the needs of the Presidential Family, but also because the buildings had been weakened by patch up renovations over a century that had resulted in unstable floors and leaking roofs. The building is now made of poured concrete, concrete slabs, steel girders and trusses, all concealed under elegant hardwood floors, panels and ceilings. It is fully bullet-proofed, cooled by central air-conditioning with filters, and has an independent power supply. Architect Jorge Ramos oversaw the reconstruction, which was closely supervised by Mrs. Marcos. The refurbished Palace was inaugurated on May 1, 1979–the Marcos' silver wedding anniversary." It indicates it is not the same bldg as the spanish or american era which was mainly made of wood. I couldnt found a source for the death date of Jorge Ramos. - Mrcel Lxmna
Am I missing something about why this is a VP topic? Why isn't this going through more usual channels for requested deletions? - Jmabel ! talk23:41, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
It doesn't makes sense to allow such an override. Perhaps it should be replaced with a namespace for Commons' files. Anyways, it just blocks the access to the local wiki's file. There should be a solution when moving a file from a local wiki to Commons. Galzigler (talk) 12:24, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
@Galzigler: Can you give an example of this happening? My understanding is that where a wiki has a local file, the Commons file with the same name is unusable on that wiki. For instance, en:File:Example.jpg is different from File:Example.jpg, so where en:Help:Edit toolbar uses [[File:Example.jpg|thumbnail]] it gets the Wikipedia version and not the Commons version. I suspect there's something more subtle that you're talking about though. --bjh21 (talk) 12:53, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
The MetaWiki page was heavily revised in August. Previously, the advice was that you could not share CC BY-SA licensed material from a third-party on Facebook without violating the terms of the license [6]. clpo13(talk)17:41, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
So what to do with this template? Deprecate it entirely (i.e. removing usages of it from file descriptions), or replace it with a statement that the uploader prefers that reusers don't upload it to Facebook but can't legally stop them from doing so? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠17:55, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
The text says: "where the user provides attribution for a work and complies with the other terms". It is near impossible to do that on social media. Most people do not even try. And even if they try, they mostly get something wrong. The situation (in EU) will probably change significantly with the digital copyright directive coming into effect soon. --C.Suthorn (talk) 18:52, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
There are also some recommendations by Creative Commons here. Users may have personal reasons to not want their work on sites like Facebook (such as not trusting them to actually abide by the terms of a license), but if both Creative Commons and the Wikimedia Foundation believe there is no conflict between CC licenses and social media terms of service, then this template has no weight behind it. Non-compliance with the terms of a license, such as missing attribution, can be handled like any other copyright infringement, and social media sites usually have an easy form for reporting it (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram). clpo13(talk)18:30, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
On april 13th Julia Reda (@senficon) made a tweet on Twitter. Reda was a member of EU parliament and worked 4 years on digital copyright. Today she leads the project #ControlC that is all about copyright and using free content on social media. In the april tweet she presents this very project with a video. The end title of the video has this attribution: "(cc) by 3.0 Music: BigAlBeatz Translation: Videezy". No links to the license text, the used works or their authors. The main author - Reda herself - is not even mentioned, neither are other people who may have contributed to the video. If one of the most skilled experts on digital copyright in a tweet about copyright, promoting legal use of free media still doesn't get it fully right, then how could a random user of social media get it right? --C.Suthorn (talk) 21:36, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
Sorry for writing german. Siehe Wiki Love Monuments Deutschland, klickt man auf das Foto, erscheint [7], dort sind die Wikipedia:Fototips verlinkt, da erscheint das Bild aber nicht. Erst wenn man das Foto direkt in die Google-Suche eingibt [8], erfährt man, daß das File:Wikimania 2014 by Dschwen 3293.jpg von @Dschwen: ist. Kein Wort zur Lizenz, kein Wort zum Urheber. Der dargestellte Fotograf verwendet das Bild vorbildlich: https://matthias-suessen.de/en/fotografie/ Es kann ja theoretisch sein, daß man beim Fratzenbuch & Co. Bilder lizenzkonform verwenden kann, in der Praxis geschieht das jedoch nicht. Der Warnbaustein sollte unter jedem Bild auf Commons stehen. --Ralf Roletschek23:45, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
@C.Suthorn: I don’t know which tweet or which video you are referring to (nor am I going to scroll back months of Julia Reda’s timeline to find it), so it’s a bit hard to judge that particular case. I’ll take your word for it that the attribution in that video was lacking.
One thing to keep in mind: authors can always waive any license requirement for a particular usage − so Reda certainly does not need to attribute herself for her own work if she wishes so.
In the case of pictures used by the Wiki Loves Monuments international team (for use on the Twitter and Instagram I linked above), the consent of the authors is explicitly sought and obtained − see Commons:Wiki Loves Monuments/Photo Sharing Permission & phab:L36).
So I’ll stand by my point that it’s not impossible to abide by free license terms on social media. Sure, it’s not easy − neither is it easy to do it in print or in audio, or anywhere really. Do we need a banner disclaimer for print reusers as well?
(That it’s so hard to comply with license terms perhaps says less about reusers and more about licenses. For example, while I agree it’s not perfect because it’s not hyperlinked, I personally think a plain “CC-BY-SA 4.0” without hyperlink is “good enough” [Creative Commons seem to think so] − and I’ll never understand the whole debate on linking to license deed vs. legal text − I mean, I’m sure the lawyers are right or whatever ; but what actual difference does it make? But then again, I CC-Zero my own work so I’m probably not the right audience :-) )
Instead of consulting twitter, you could read wikipedias article about Reda (available in 24 languages): "In November 2014, Reda was named rapporteur of the Parliament's review of 2001's Copyright Directive.". And yes, it is possible to comply with copyright on social media, it is also possible to fly to the moon, but only 12 men (and no woman) have ever done that. You think we could waive the need to hyperlink to the license text in a very specific and limited way? Reda has done so, not with her own part in the video, but with respect to the soundtrack. --C.Suthorn (talk) 14:33, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
I generally like uniform treatment of all the content without great many personal templates and instructions. {{Nofacebook}} should be either added to all files for which it applies or to none. However I understand that a lot of photographers do like to control reuse of their contributions and are frustrated with people using their files without proper attribution (I share this frustration). To me adding templates like {{Nofacebook}} is not going to resolve the issue, but I am OK with modifying templates like {{Nofacebook}} to convey that the photographer's preference is that the file is not being used on facebook, as it is hard to fulfill the attribution requirements of the license. However that preference is not binding. --Jarekt (talk) 15:42, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
A template like no facebook is basically a service to people. 99% of world population do post media files on social platforms or not at all. And this social platforms are facebook, facebook, facebook, facebook and twitter (instagram, tiktok, snapchat do exist, but are for original content). Poeple do not understand licenses and they do not understand that a generic "not public domain" does apply to them: They are not Warner, Bertelsmann, Sony. They do not post media for money. They only share something they themselves found on the internet with their less than 10000 friends. Copyright does not apply to this sharing. And wikipedia is for free. you can copy anything from wikipedia and it is not piracy... An image like the "no facebook" with a red cross over it, may actually be something that people will notice and maybe understand: Oh, that is me. I have to obey copyright. --C.Suthorn (talk) 21:19, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
IMO, {{Not public domain}} is a better option to emphasize the need for attribution. People reusing CC licensed material without even the barest attempt at attribution is not a problem unique to social media, so a template specific to social media (or indeed a single site) seems unnecessary. clpo13(talk)16:13, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
Comment IMO, as the statement on the template is false, the text should be either modified or the template deleted. Also agreed with Jarekt about the need of uniform treatment, so if an additional statement is really needed then maybe it is better to target the wanted license templates and to add there the statement needed. Christian Ferrer(talk)17:22, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
Comment Aside from attribution, another possible issue that comes to mind with social media and Creative Commons licenses is that of additional restrictions. From what I understand, CC licenses do not allow reusers to apply additional legal restrictions and/or technological measures (i.e., DRM) that restrict or prevent recipients of the licensed work from exercising the rights granted under the CC license. If a social media site has a terms of use provision along the lines of "You may not download or save any content that you did not create, except for personal usage" and a CC-licensed work is uploaded to the site by someone who is not the work's copyright holder, the question comes up as to whether the site's terms of use provision would be an additional restriction on the reuse of the CC-licensed work and whether the uploader has violated the terms of the CC license. This CC FAQ entry is relevant but it may not fully cover the issue. (To be sure, there is the question as to how many users actually read through the terms of use for each and every Web site...) --Gazebo (talk) 05:39, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
Of course, these are just the ones they say they stole. There may be others. Now, I don't mind people using my work. But this feels... scummy. Adam Cuerden (talk) 08:35, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
I recently heard that this file that I uploaded had been copied to Alamy and was being offered for sale. It certainly felt pretty scummy, but in that case, it wasn't illegal (it's a PD file). Nevertheless, my friend contacted them and they took it down. The user who uploaded it there was Matteo Omied (I'm only saying that in case they're running a bot or something here; it looked like they had tens of thousands of images for sale on Alamy, I don't know how many come from Commons). — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 09:15, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
It is encouraging to hear the case from Sam, so it actually may be worth emailing Alamy and politely ask for it to be removed; presuming a black mark of some sort on the uploader. Unfortunately these type of companies that rely on profiting from copyfraud, are likely to be comfortable with scummy behaviour, and mostly require a take-down notice before doing anything. If this does not go anywhere, have the satisfaction that we agree with you that only unethical arseholes knowingly profit from copyfraud. Were there a CC-BY-SA license here, a take-down would have legal weight, and meaningful consequences if ignored. --Fæ (talk) 09:21, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
[12] and [13] are both File:Charlotte Perkins Gilman c. 1900.jpg - you can tell from the edges; there was major damages to the edges on this photo, and it's unlikely someone would make exactly the same decisions.
I will use my common.js to rename 200 files from a project I'am working on. The renaming have been calmly discussed by the project's contributors for 3 years. The lights are green. Should I declare my "mass"-rename action somewhere ? slow down my script ? There should be some best practices but I saw nothing on mw:API:Move. Yug(talk)16:06, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
This is a small rename task. To worry about a more formal consensus or even requesting bot permission, this would mean something like a regular housekeeping task, or one that might mean something like 100x the changes you are planning.
Suggest that you throttle the changes to 4/min or fewer, just so that nobody worries about recent changes being overwhelmed. --Fæ (talk) 12:06, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
How can we classify this photographic effect? We have a categories for 'Contre-jour photography', but movement effects. I searched the metacategories: 'Photographic techniques', 'Photography by style' and 'Photographic effects', but could not find anything.Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:14, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
Oh, thanks but actually I mean this: {{Potd description|1=Alaskantuulenkala (''Ammodytes hexapterus'') kaivautuneena hiekkaan.|2=fi|3=2020|4=09|5=27}}Jnovikov (talk) 11:30, 19 September 2020 (UTC)
The artist with Nicholas Lanier (left) and Sir Charles Cottrell (right), circa 1645.
According to the Wikimedia Commons title of the painting at right, "William_Dobson_-_The_Painter_with_Sir_Charles_Cottrell_and_Sir_Balthasar_Gerbier_-_WGA06361.jpg", in addtion to William Dobson the other two are Sir Charles Cottrell and Sir Balthasar Gerbier. However, copied from the William Dobson Wikipedia article, the descriptions states that it is "The artist with Nicholas Lanier (left) and Sir Charles Cottrell (right), circa 1645."
In addition to that image description, Waldemar Janusczak also claims the figure at left is Nicholas Lanier, starting from 39 minutes onward in his BBC4 documentary, "The Lost Genius Of Baroque: William Dobson (Art History Documentary) | Perspective" Perspective, Jul 25, 2020 YouTube.com/watch?v=F3vnzNfWWI0?t=2340s. Waldemar also verifies that the figure at right is Sir Charles Cottrell.
Is there a way to add the same tag to several images at the same time within a category? For example, if "Churches in Austin, Texas" is a category (I'm just making that up, but maybe it is), could someone go though and easily select 50 of the images and add "Methodist churches in Texas" or something to all of them at the same time? Or do you have to actually go through the process of individually opening each one, typing the new category, adding it, and the backing up to the category before repeating that fifty times?--ProfReader (talk) 00:45, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
There is a tool called Visual File Change, which allows for batch tasks on categories. Unfortunately it is quite counter-intuitive and it takes a long time to actually click on all files in the category and the potential to mess something up is quite high, thus I did not give it a try to the fullest extent. ℺ Gone Postal (〠✉ • ✍⏿) 01:20, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
I use Visual File Change constantly, and find it useful but, yes, there is a bit of a learning curve. Making a change to all of the files in a category is actually pretty simple, and the select mechanism isn't too bad (you can use CTRL-shift to select a range, and you can select multiple ranges for the same operation). Basically, it works by text substitution; it's most powerful if you understand regexes, but it is pretty powerful even without that. So, for the example given, you could replace [[Category:Churches in Austin, Texas]] with [[Category:Churches in Austin, Texas]]\n[[Category:Methodist churches in Texas]] for the selected files, effectively adding the category. (That "\n" is a newline). - Jmabel ! talk01:35, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
to select all files you do not need Ctrl-whatever. There is a checkbox at the top "(un)select all files". However all is only all files already loaded to the vfc page. Therefore first scroll down and possibly also click the load more button for a number of times. Then: is this about categories or tags ("a way to add the same tag"). Then it would be QuickStatements, not vfc? --C.Suthorn (talk) 07:30, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
IIIF developments -- office hours *today* (21st) and tomorrow (22nd)
A few weeks ago, ticket phab:T261621 quietly got opened on Phabricator, "Support the addition of the IIIF API for Wikimedia projects regarding content partnerships"
"The WMF platform team is working on implementation of a IIIF API (International Image Interoperability Framework) for the Wikimedia projects and WMSE will provide support around the needs from our content partners."
The first office hour is *today* (Monday 21st Sept) at 3.30-4.30 pm UTC (4.30 pm UK time).
"We will be joined by staff and members of the IIIF consortium and Evan Prodromou, Product Manager in the Foundation's Platform team. Evan is scoping a potential implementation of International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) on Wikimedia Commons and he is very interested in potential GLAM use cases."
The meeting will then be run again tomorrow (Tuesday 22nd Sept) at 11.30am-12.30pm UTC (12.30 pm UK time):
"We will be joined by staff and members of the IIIF consortium and Jason Evans will share his experience with IIIF at The National Library of Wales."
The WMSE team are particularly interested to hear about GLAMs' experiences with IIIF; what IIIF capabilities on Commons could be most useful to them; and, therefore, what capabilities and use-cases it would be most useful to prioritise development around.
Do you remember that the COM:VP/T was hotly debated, but in the end the 'technology' village pump was created? This looks like a topic that would be of interest there, but of not much wide interest here. --Fæ (talk) 10:11, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
Template:Pixabay isn't clear on this, though some past VP discussions appear to suggest that Pixabay images with upload dates prior to their licence change on 9 January 2019 can be considered to have been licensed under CC-0 and are okay. Is this correct? How should one list the original upload date? --Paul_012 (talk) 13:36, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
I want to export this and that file to Commons. I get the message ".. importing files from the source wiki (sq.wikipedia.org) is not yet possible because there is no configuration for the wiki in the configuration file list ..". I looked at the documentation page, but for me it is not clear what I should do to make this possible. What to do? Wouter (talk) 18:26, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
@Wouterhagens: Since they are public domain images with no metadata anyway (except for one Armenian-language description that is easily copied), I'd suggest just downloading to your computer and uploading fresh on Commons. - Jmabel ! talk23:28, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, that was an easy solution. The images are now also available for the other Wikipedias via a Commons category. Wouter (talk) 10:36, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
Thanks. I will not edit the sq.wiki page before I know that the image now on Commons has not been deleted. Then I will transfer the better image on the English WP to Commons and change the image on sq.wiki by the better image. I want to avoid that the image from Commons once used on sq.wiki will disappear when it is deleted in Commons. Wouter (talk) 13:07, 23 September 2020 (UTC)
Legality of posting photoes
I've very rare photoes which were given to me. They are of the Niihau incident and taken by a deceased friend of mine who was on the naval investigation team that was sent to the island. He smuggled a camera to the site, developed the photoes in the early 1990s, and gave them to me. They were taken in December 1941, possibly January 1942. Am I able to upload them? If so, how do I attribute them? Kind regards,Hu Nhu (talk) 02:37, 23 September 2020 (UTC)
The license would be {{Cc-by-sa-4.0-heirs}} and you will need to complete what we call an OTRS, a document attesting to what you state above, that they were legally gifted to you, including the copyright. You list the author=insert friend's name when you upload them. We usually accept a person's statement of transfer of copyright unless we find someone else claiming the copyright. For instance both the Library of Congress and Corbis both make claims on the Bain Collection, here in the United States. --RAN (talk) 03:09, 23 September 2020 (UTC)
I have been advising 5snake5 about copyright on German coins. I was using the English language pages and 5snake5 was using the German language equivalents, and there appears to be a problem with transcluding German language text between pages.
I noticed the Category:Nurses by country had subcategories named "Nurses from X" (except Belize). Why? The Category:Nurses of Belize makes much more sense. Normally you would like an image of a nurse working in the country in question, regardless of nationality or immigration history – and when taking such photos you usually do not ask about those latter (so they are known for few photos).
For some occupations the "from" might make sense, i.e. where people work globally but are from a specific country – is the "from" because of such standardisation? If so, I think there was a mistake of thought, as the standardisation of names should not confuse different content in the categories. While "from" categories make sense for some occupations, "in" categories make more sense for other ones, and for some you might want both, such as for a Finnish violinist playing in a Canadian orchestra.
It's all pretty complicated, I once noticed that my country of birth, country on my passport, country of residence, and country of current location were all different. Commons categories can't really capture these kinds of details. I never really know what "from" or "of" are supposed to mean, or if there's any difference between them. I suppose "Nurses in Belize" would refer to current location. --ghouston (talk) 13:29, 23 September 2020 (UTC)
Generally all those categories have a mix of "from" and "in" and "of" and we try to harmonize on one, but it is a lot of work. When a new category is created, "Occupation from/of/in X", it is almost random which one the editor chooses, and we start all over again. --RAN (talk) 01:11, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
Does this mean that the category should contains nurses from as well as in and of the country? I'd prefer that to be stated explicitly in a category description – preferably in all those categories but at least in a root category at suitable level. –LPfi (talk) 09:55, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
Some developed countries seem to import a large fraction of their nurses from poorer countries. I suppose they can apply for citizenship eventually, depending on the country. The problem with citizenship is that the information isn't always publicly available, and guessing is a common practice. --ghouston (talk) 22:10, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
'Nurses of' seems preferable, as the location is usually more significant and easier to determine than current or original nationality. 'Of' is preferable to 'in' as it allows for nurses working in military units or in disaster relief to be categorised under the nationality of their organisation, irrespective of the location. Verbcatcher (talk) 22:50, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
The New Library of Congress image search of historic newspapers
Six-fingered glove and prop sword from The Princess Bride
I formatted something wrong and now User:FlickreviewR 2 has gone away without OKing the cropped derivative image I uploaded. I think I fixed the problem with the Flickr link, but I do not know how to get the Flickr robot to return. The original Flickr image was uploaded years ago, with its cc-by-sa-2.0 permissions okayed, as File:Fantasy_Worlds_of_Myth_and_Magic,_EMP,_Seattle_-_The_Princess_Bride_(10562104496).jpg. How can I get the bot to come back and look at the Flickr permissions again? Thanks! HouseOfChange (talk) 00:18, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
Can anyone work out how to download this image (at the foot of the page; also others from the same book) to add to Commons, please? It is from 1876, so safely out of copyright. Right-click to save is disabled. Thanks! - MPF (talk) 16:13, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
It looks like they use composite images created on the fly from tiles, so unless you can somehow get access to the tiles I think the only hope is a screen grab using PrtSc, or some programmed equivalent of that in a screenscraper. - Jmabel ! talk16:32, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
@Fæ: - many thanks! I tried it, but it didn't work for me; it's too complex for me to understand the workings to get round the problems. Would you be willing to give it a try, please? It is plates 15 (the one linked above), 16 and 17 that are of the most interest. Thanks! - MPF (talk) 20:02, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
This is what I do. Go to the view page in Chrome, toggle on the inspector option, go to the Network tab in the inspector, tap on the "+" on the image view to zoom in, instantly the URLs for tiles appear in the Network tab (starting "iipsrv.fcgi?"), right click on one to see the menu option to copy the URL, open another browser tab and go to the Dezoomify page, paste in the tile URL, click the button.
The image dezooms like magic, and I can "save image as..." locally and upload to Commons as normal.
But as these take about 5 mins or longer each time depending on my connection, and there are valuable large content projects in my backlog, no, I'm not going to do these. Please follow the instructions and keep trying, it will work. --Fæ (talk) 10:46, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
@Fæ: do we have strategies like that documented somewhere they could sanely be looked up, rather than people having to find them in archives of general discussion pages? - Jmabel ! talk14:36, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
Hello @So9q: . Thanks for clarifying that you were referring to the confirmation window that appears after you have selected tags. When we were first designing this feature, we got feedback that people wanted that additional step to be sure of their selections. Since then, we've had some other users like yourself say they don't like/need it. There's currently not a way to turn it off, but we're considering ways to make the experience better for everyone. RIsler (WMF) (talk) 21:27, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
Looking at images of people at Bagram air base, Afghanistan, many people are identified by name. Seems a dubious practice to me. Should we preserve anonymity of individuals, especially people who are potentially unpopular, like American soldiers? Any guidelines? Sardaka (talk) 08:01, 28 September 2020 (UTC)
There are no guidelines that directly address this. Instead courtesy removals of information have been done when requested. It is likely that most veterans are comfortable with photographs of them in service being a matter of public record, and in the sense of COM:IDENT, the photographs are often published by the military as public domain and at the time of publication there was no expectation of privacy.
Photographs which may (even retrospectively) demean identifiable people, may be anonymized or removed, depending on context. A deletion request should be avoided if by creating it, unnecessary attention is drawn to the information or nature of photograph. Alternative processes like email correspondence with trusted administrators, the Oversight email list, or confidential emails to OTRS, might be more suitable to assess what action is appropriate. Files which are in use on other projects are unlikely to be removed, even at the request of the subjects, unless the case is exceptional.
My experience of these actions is as an uploader of hundreds of thousands of DOD public domain photographs, a very small number of which were both later withdrawn by the DOD and had requested courtesy removals or anonymizing actions on Commons. We could refine IDENT, but it probably would not improve the current process.
Addendum With regard to Afghanistan specifically, refer to Commons:Country_specific_consent_requirements#Afghanistan. Depending on the context, photographs might be challenged on that country's more complex consent requirement, however this would not apply if the photographer was "authorized by the public authorities", as would be the case for DOD publication. --Fæ (talk) 10:01, 28 September 2020 (UTC)
Don't forget to turn the unused one into a redirect for the populated one. That way a bot will move images if they are placed in the wrong category. --RAN (talk) 02:12, 23 September 2020 (UTC)
Hello. Please help pick a name for the new Wikimedia wiki project. This project will be a wiki where the community can work together on a library of functions. The community can create new functions, read about them, discuss them, and share them. Some of these functions will be used to help create language-independent Wikipedia articles that can be displayed in any language, as part of the Abstract Wikipedia project. But functions will also be usable in many other situations.
There will be two rounds of voting, each followed by legal review of candidates, with voting beginning on 29 September and 27 October. Our goal is to have a final project name selected on 8 December. If you would like to participate, then please learn more and vote now at meta-wiki. Thank you! --Quiddity (WMF)
20:53, 29 September 2020 (UTC)
Rivers in Madagascar
I created Category:Tsaranoro reserve / Tsaranoro valley. This is a high valley just to the east of the Andringitra National Park. It is called the Tsaranoro valley. I suppose the river is called the 'Tsaranoro' river. But I cannot get any comfirmation on the maps for this or any source mentioning the local river name. The river flows into the Zomandao river a tributairy of the Mangoky river.Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:10, 30 September 2020 (UTC)
Tourist website: Tsara Camp lies in the Tsaranoro Valley with the Tsaranoro Mountain (800m) on one side and the giant mountain chains of Andringitra National Park on the other side.Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:19, 30 September 2020 (UTC)
Example live trends for Tyne and Wear region in lockdown.
Because it was difficult to see the latest COVID case data locally, some code to query the live UK Government data (data.gov.uk) and put the 7-day cumulative trend in charts has been put together. Some selected charts at Category:COVID-19 testing in the United Kingdom.
Interestingly, doing this has highlighted that other sources like the excellent NYTimes maps, lag the data releases at data.gov.uk by over 12 hours. Consequently, these trend charts are significantly ahead of most national publications. It also turns out that numbers being used by some of the press are relying on ONS population stats from the 2011 census, rather than using the most recent 2019 estimated populations of UK regions, which is what UK Gov (and hence SAGE) uses in their figures to determine political decisions like COVID lockdowns. This is not significant in terms of trend, but does matter when comparing an area at "90 cases / 100,000" against "120 cases / 100,000" in the light that the Government appears to be judging anywhere over 100 cases per 100,000 in the last 7 days may need emergency measures.
It's relatively straight forward to add more regions to the script, it's a question of looking up the population estimates for each one, then revising the script. Once set up, it can refresh daily as long as it's of interest, without any more volunteer time invested. Ping me if these would be valuable, such as adding some more England regions officially entering lockdown. --Fæ (talk) 13:45, 30 September 2020 (UTC)
Import new 1 mil. photographs from British Library
I have the same problem on Commons. The equivalent links on enwiki and wikidata work fine for me though, so it is something wrong with the implementation on Commons. From Hill To Shore (talk) 20:37, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
Thank you, so this appears to be a bug specific to Commons. Does anyone know who is in charge of a possible bugfix or where the bug should be reported? Thanks again, --Robert Flogaus-Faust (talk) 12:48, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
A quick review of the archives (Commons talk:AutoWikiBrowser), does not provide a discussion showing that needing authorization to use AWB was a matter of formal consensus. This seems to have been established back in the early days, so the decision was probably down to a couple of power users thinking it was sensible. Considering the speeds possible with VFC and cat-a-lot, it's not clear why non-bot operators need authorization just for this, and whether it's worth discussing a new consensus about it. Could someone explain the history? Thanks --Fæ (talk) 13:35, 30 September 2020 (UTC)
AutoWikiBrowser is a general purpose high speed editing tool, which can be used to make different types of changes, whereas VFC and cat-a-lot have more limited functions. Ruslik0 (talk) 09:02, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
VFC uses regular expressions. Regular expressions are Turing complete. That is an unusual type of "limited functions". --C.Suthorn (talk) 10:25, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
Nice AI reference, though even Pywikibot command line instructions can be said to be Turing complete. However the question was about whether the existing consensus actually exists, or whether we might usefully revisit the difference.
One possible benefit of tidying this area up, would be refining our general tool & bot policies about the level or type of "authorization" needed for sophisticated mass edit or other mass change tools. For example, right now today, an editor with, say, a one month history, could freely make 1,000,000 wikidata related edits using tools recently made available, and they would not need any approvals and are not actually advised by any Commons policies.
Are we happy with AWB needing a special type of approval on its own, or should we have a more abstracted general set of rules that make it clearer that any tool like F2C that can upload 20,000 files in a day, or cat-a-lot that with slight browser macro jiggery-pokery could make 100,000 edits in a day, also need authorization if the size of changes are over an agreed limit?
What about QuickStatements (SDC)? This tool flooded my watchlist a number of times with more than 2000 edits within hours (+email notifications). Is there a consensus on that? --C.Suthorn (talk) 16:21, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
@Jim Evans: When you say "thrown away" do you mean "deleted" or something else? I'm unaware of any circumstances where a bot may delete an image. - Jmabel ! talk00:44, 3 October 2020 (UTC)
Change license on logo
File:Allen Matkins Logo.png looks like it should be {{PD-textlogo}}. Currently it's marked as CC-BY-SA 3.0, but without other evidence that the original author wanted to give it that license, making me think the CC license was added in confusion. Could the current license template be removed and replaced, or is that bad practice? Thanks! Goldenshimmer (talk) 04:55, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
It is an interesting thing, when a potentially public domain file is distributed under a free licence. Normally I leave the licence be. The point is that in some countries there are laws like "sweat of the brow", which protect the work based on the difficulty that the person went through when creating it and not based on creativity of the outcome. Let's say that in order to make Allen Matkins logo somebody has sat there and edited the image pixel by pixel, that might qualify the work for copyright protection in those jurisdictions. We currently do not have "fall back" system in place, which would allow to say something like "This work is in public domain, but if that fails it is also released under a free licence". However, in this particular case it is even more difficult, since in order to accept CC-BY-SA 3.0 we need evidence that the original author really did mean to place it under that licence. And in this case I would remove the said licence, and replace the licence template with {{PD-textlogo}}, since that is actually a safer option. ℺ Gone Postal (〠✉ • ✍⏿) 11:29, 28 September 2020 (UTC)
The Movement Strategy Design Group and Support Team are inviting you to organize virtual meetings with the Commons community before the end of October. The aim is for you to decide what ideas from the Movement Strategy recommendations respond to your needs and will have an impact in the movement. The recommendations are available in different formats and in many languages. There are 10 recommendations and close to 50 recommended changes and actions or initiatives. Not everything will be implemented. The aim of prioritization is to create an 18-month implementation plan to take some of the initiatives forward starting in 2021.
Prioritization is at the level of your community. Afterwards, we will come together in November to co-create the implementation plan. More information about November’s global events will be shared soon. For now and until the end of October, organize locally and share your priorities with us.
You can find guidance for the events, the simple reporting template, and other supporting materials here on Meta. You can share your results directly on Meta, by email, or by filling out this survey. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us if you have any questions or comments, strategy2030wikimedia.org
We would love to hear from you and will be hosting office hours to answer any questions you might have, Thursday October 1 at 14.00 UTC (Google Meet).
MPourzaki (WMF), the proposed discussion formats are the formats of the corporate world, not the native formats of Wikimedia editors. Specifically: It seems like a bad time for a call to to hold workshops. Yes, we can do it virtually. But it raises the barrier to participation. The survey and the office hours are on Google. Doing this on Google extra attack surface for those with security concerns, it's worse privacy for everyone, and it's a conflict of interest for the WMF (since Google funds the WMF) and a loss of independence for the Wikimedia community. If some editors, like me, do not wish to participate via Google, it also biasses results. I note that sharing views from workshop groups is an on-wiki thing, while sharing views from individuals seems to be on-Google only. To use the language of the recommendations, the structure of this consultation seems not to provide for safety or inclusion. I think it would have been better to postpone any workshop-based consultation, and move all consultation off platforms provided by data brokers. HLHJ (talk) 04:36, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
* Hi HLHJ, I come from a volunteer movement background from the HIV world, so I don't know that much about corporate formats of things. Participation was discussed extensively by the movement-led design group and these workshops are supposed to be not complicated; casual conversations about what people want to work on next year, rather than a consultation on the recommendations. Workshop is just a name. They could be called events or calls. Many communities meet regularly, so incorporating a discussion item into an upcoming virtual meeting to discuss the recommendations wasn't imagined to be difficult. We shared weekly updates from the Design Group discussions and received great input on wiki that led to the creation of the events outline. There are many suggestions to address barriers to virtual participation that made their way into our guidance for getting prepared and for the global events - like making materials available after calls, immediately uploading minutes, leaving 48 hours for people to provide input, etc. Please take a look and let me know if we missed anything. This process is fully open and remains flexible. Google Forms is one of 3 options for providing priority preferences - along with on Wiki and email, no difference for individual and group views. Some people have specifically asked for a simple-to-follow survey to submit their priorities. We would prefer on wiki participation actually so everyone can see, but we have to make sure other options are provided. Whether on-wiki or Google, we are asking people to meet up however they like, discuss their priorities for implementation - what should we work on in 2021 - and to let us know the results of their discussions however they like: email, Wiki, or survey. Thank you so much for your interest and for providing the space and guidance below. MPourzaki (WMF) (talk) 16:29, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
For those wishing to discuss Wikimedia's future plan on-wiki
I think this is a call to discuss the prioritization of ten recommendations/goals, which have previously been critiqued. Doing this on the talk pages of the recommendation pages seems reasonable. So here they are:
I don't recall seeing the consultation on the recommendations, so they are new to me. The future of the community is an important question, and I share some of the concerns raised in the consultation about the sustainability and cost/benefit of funding trends, centralization of power, increases in bureaucracy, and paywalling enterprise-level access. There are some excellent ideas in the recommendations, but implementation is important. We need to get this right. If we get this wrong, then, in the worst-case scenario, the editing community may fork, with part of it setting up separately from the WMF; this would be seriously disruptive. I strongly encourage editors reading this to go comment.HLHJ (talk) 04:36, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for this initiative HLHJ. You are spot on - there are many great ideas (close to 50) in the recommendations and implementing them can make a huge difference: with regards to policies, decision-making, funding for groups, movement growth, and better connectivity. That's why we really need input from as many communities and editors as possible. That is also why we are not thinking to review everything there is in the recommendations again, rather hear from people what they think we should all work on for 12-18 months starting January, 2021. Then reflect and re-evaluate. Not all ideas from the recommendations can be implemented, and definitely not in the first year, so please join the discussions. Information about the global events coming soon. Here are reports from our January 2020 consultation that helped finalize the recommendations. MPourzaki (WMF) (talk) 16:43, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
Preserved in a museum
Good morning, dear all. I have a question whether I can upload an image of a book cover that is preserved in a museum (means uploading an image of a preserved book; however it was first published in 1967). The book is historically valuable as it first described a copper-plate inscription (inscripted between 905-935 CE). And thus a copy of it's "first edition" is kept in the museum along with the copper-plate. — Meghmollar2017 (talk) 03:41, 28 September 2020 (UTC)
I don't see it eligible for copyright, the right side is text, the left is a rubbing of a copper plate from the 900s. I do not see the rubbing as eligible for a new copyright. I do not see it as a derivative work of art that would reset the copyright clock to 1967. --RAN (talk) 17:27, 30 September 2020 (UTC)
@Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): "There was something wrong" while importing the file to Commons. Though I removed all the tags and added pd license, a message was shown that this non-free file (I don't know how it remained non-free after adding pd) could not be exported. I may have to upload it manually. Meghmollar2017 (talk) 02:39, 3 October 2020 (UTC)
I would import the file into a photo editor like GIMP and change it to a *.png file and then upload it at Wikimedia Commons. It may compare the license to the existing copy. --RAN (talk) 03:08, 3 October 2020 (UTC)