Commons:Village pump/Archive/2012/05

Wikipedia no longer trusts Commons

There is a proposal at en:Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion#Retire F8 to retire WP's F8 criteria because "the community no longer automatically trusts Wikimedia Commons". This was apparently sparked by a discussion on WP's Administrator's Noticeboard. I thought people here might want to take a look. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja (talk / en) 22:04, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

I may be reading it wrong, but it seems they only want to remove F8 from speedy deletion, not normal deletion processes?--Canoe1967 (talk) 22:27, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

F8 is a criteria for speedy deletion, it does not cover other deletion processes. The RFC is suggesting that duplicated images that would have been subject to F8 be handled through a deletion discussion (I think that's what you're saying). The suggestion is that we should dismantle our process because some entitled WP editors don't trust Commons editors with "their" pictures. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja (talk / en) 00:45, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

So they be acting like trolls? Should we all pop over and kick some trollish butt with a logical boot?--Canoe1967 (talk) 00:53, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I doubt it will go further, but it may be indicative of a larger problem. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja (talk / en) 02:02, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Hm, I assumed it would be the think of the children crowd, but apparently not. Well, the ANI discussion has one of them, but not the whole crowd. I don't think this is anything we need to worry about, or even care about. There has always been a bit of friction between en.wp and Commons, recently due to en.wp trolls being upset that we have nudity and sexuality images, but more generally because people see things removed from en.wp and put here without their consent, or without their realising it. That has always been a problem - I got some flak for it a few years back when I transwikied all photos of the Ffestiniog Railway, but you just have to ignore the vehemence and respond calmly about what Commons is for. -mattbuck (Talk) 02:14, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

So anyone who distrusts commons is a troll? --Guerillero 17:57, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

That is not what I said at all. There are certainly trolls who distrust commons, but some people are just misinformed. -mattbuck (Talk) 18:14, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

If you're inherently distrusting the entire project and everyone who works on it, yes I'd say so. Mistakes can be made by anyone though, so there may certainly be valid reasons for specific complaints. Deletion of in-use works should never be done unless there is a copyright issue, so any mistakes along those lines should be brought up at Commons:Undeletion requests. But do keep in mind that Commons does look at the copyright status in the country of origin more closely than does Wikipedia, and there can be lots of uncertainty which goes with that, so under-documented images are going to be subject to a lot more judgement calls, and such decisions by their nature can vary a fair amount. Most everyone here is working in good faith towards the project goals; if there are any systemic mistakes being made though, it should be brought up as a topic of discussion, so that it can be corrected (or if it turns out to not be a mistake, explained better). Keeping files on en-wiki just to avoid copyright scrutiny is not really a good idea though; it's a better idea to switch to using tags like en:Template:PD-US-1923-abroad to indicate that something is OK in the U.S. due to being published before 1923 but not in the country of origin -- that should also prevent files from being transferred. If a file is deleted here for copyright reasons, *usually* that means it should be deleted from en-wiki as well, though not always. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:34, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I have looked at some of the comments on the AN/I thread, and the negative comments seem to be misinformed, or misconstrued in their makeup. Take for example, User:Carrite comments on his uploads. File:Cannon-James-Nov1922.jpg was deleted as it was made out to be {{PD-Soviet}}. Unfortunately, the description didn't state that this was a work of the Soviet government; even then without date and place of first publication, the old PD-Soviet tag doesn't necessarily apply, and it definitely doesn't apply when that copyright tag is no longer valid -- so much so, I have been going thru such files in the last few weeks, fixing copyrights when it is an easy process, and nominating others which are either iffy, or outright false to begin with. Carrite then changed the licence tag to {{PD-RU-exempt}}, which is obviously not correct, as anyone who has dealt with Kremlin.ru images knows about. Now it is possible that the image is public domain, but we need to know things such as authorship, date and place of first publication, etc, in order to ascertain whether this status is correct. Our precautionary principle is of utmost importance here, as this protects the WMF and our content re-users, and it is a policy that Commons will NOT waiver on to suit the sensibilities of some. If Carrite would like to come back to Commons and discuss this image, they are welcome to, but so long as they continue to act as nothing but a troll ("Fuck commons" indeed), I don't see anyone going out of their way to help them. russavia (talk) 02:59, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

This brings a question to mind about legality. If an image is illegal in commons isn't the 1st legal step to ask for removal? If this is carried out, then the plaintiff can not really sue for damages because we did remove the image in good faith and speedily?--Canoe1967 (talk) 16:43, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Nope that's not true, although that is the route most authors would take to avoid the cost of litigation. It limits damages but does not remove them. The DMCA does provide that route to protect the *Wikimedia Foundation* itself, as an online host of the material, but that does not protect anyone making direct use of the work -- they would be guilty for any actual damages, and if the work had been registered in the U.S., statutory damages as well. Secondly, we aim to only host free works; we don't wait for complaints if something is obviously still under copyright and not licensed. This is a philosophical position, and as such we will delete works even if it perfectly legal to host works (via fair use, explicit permission for Wikipedia, general educational-use permission, or other exceptions) since the goal is to host works that *anyone* can use in almost any context. Having a work here increases the likelihood of people elsewhere using it, so we do want to be rather sure that the copyright status is OK. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:34, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the response. I can assume that WP is protected by DCMA from damages if we speedily delete upon reasonable requests then?--Canoe1967 (talk) 18:47, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Or DMCA takedowns requests, yes. That would not necessarily protect the uploader though. Carl Lindberg (talk) 19:44, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

From those discussions, and this one, it seems that the biggest issue is that Commons seems to enforce guidelines that Wikipedia does not. The question is, is a matter of Commons having different guidelines, or that Commons is more strict in enforcing them? Ideally, Commons and WP should both enforce the same rules the same way, right? So that editors don't feel confused when "totally legit" WP files are deleted here. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja (talk / en) 21:31, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Commons obviously does have different guidelines. Free vs. fair-use being one, the licensing of images "for use on Wikipedia" being another. There's a potentially huge DR (albeit mostly ignored) open at the moment Commons:Deletion requests/File:Crusader1117.jpg about a major magazine archive having granted "the reuse on Wikipedia of any material", yet this having been assumed (IMHO poorly) to mean Commons too and never cleared up with the rights holder. There are differences, and at times we've been careless about following them.

There are also cases (and this is one) where media should rightly be removed from Commons, but could easily be retained at WP. However practice seems to be that it gets uploaded to WP, moved (wrongly) to Commons, deleted F8 from WP and eventually deleted from Commons too. It's thus lost unnecessarily to both projects. We seem poor at supporting any "Move back to WP" process for such necessary Commons deletions. Andy Dingley (talk) 21:51, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

According to the English Wikipedia's guidelines and policies, images licensed "for use on Wikipedia" are not considered free. That particular image should have been marked as non-free content on Wikipedia and given a non-free use rationale for each article. It seems to me that in most cases, files that are moved from Wikipedia to Commons and subsequently deleted from Commons were inadequately or incorrectly described on their Wikipedia page, such that if they had been correctly described they never would have been moved, and possibly might have been deleted from Wikipedia. I can really only think of two situations where a file can properly exist on Wikipedia but not Commons: fair use, and free in the US but not the source country. In both cases, if the file is correctly described on its Wikipedia page, it will never make it to Commons. cmadler (talk) 10:14, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia-only permission is not allowed on either en-wiki or Commons. That particular case you cite is problematic... the statement was the result of a longer discussion which did seem to contemplate commercial use by others, so the "on Wikipedia" part may well just be acknowledging the need for "free" licensing to use them here, and the copyright owner was looking for a compromise to allow it. But, it is a bit ambiguous when reading just the statement, as usually that wording is interpreted to mean Wikipedia-only permission. Those images are still under copyright, though they may start lapsing in the UK (70 years from publication for unknown authors), but the U.S. term would be 95 years from publication. Images from their magazine from before 1926 where the photographer is not named would be OK as {{PD-UK-unknown}} and either {{PD-1923}} or {{PD-1996}} for the U.S. side of things. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:16, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Closure

It's obvious the community doesn't agree with me. Leaving the RFC up for a secondary discussion, but if you disagree, feel free to pull it.

— NYKevin @879, i.e. 20:05, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Thankfully, the proposer has withdrawn the proposal, even though the normal time limit for such proposals wouldn't end for a few days yet, having realised that there is strong consensus for keeping things as they are. The only live discussion on the subject is considering the idea of requiring a waiting period before deleting an image, and that (1) is unrelated to us, since it would still permit deletion; and (2) has gotten opposes from everyone who voted so far, including the person put together the original proposal. Nyttend (talk) 20:34, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

April 30

Hide own edits in Watchlist

On Wikipedia, if I click 'Hide my edits' in the My Watchlist interface, when I come back later it remembers that I want my own edits hidden. On Commons, I apparently have to click 'Hide my edits' every time; it dosen't seem to remember that I want them hidden.

Is there a fix? Is this just me? Sven Manguard Wha? 15:43, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

I can at least tell you that my edits are still hidden in my watchlist. -- RE rillke questions? 15:48, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-watchlist has an option to "Hide my edits from the watchlist". /Ö 16:40, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

You need to set it in commons 'My preferences' (at the top of the page) as well as WP. I am not sure how many preferences are cross wiki.--Canoe1967 (talk) 16:52, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

@Canoe1967: It's not a cross-wiki thing, I mentioned Wikipedia because on Wikipedia when I change a setting on My Watchlist it stayes changed, and on Commons when I change a setting on My Watchlist it dosen't.

@Ö: I did, and it still forgets. Sven Manguard Wha? 18:28, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

@Sven: Did you change the default setting in preferences on a main commons page at the top (beside My talk); then save changes with the save button; or just in an edit page?--Canoe1967 (talk) 20:06, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Sandbox to visible article

How do I convert a Sandbox article to a live visible article?

This isn't Wikipedia. We don't have articles here. — SMUconlaw (talk) 08:54, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

What we do have are galleries-which work in much the same way as an article. This will work bothe here and at wikipedia, check the namespace you want for your article/gallery is free by putting it into the serch box, if there is already an article/gallery of that name you'll need to think of another, if its free you'll see a redlink. Click on the redlink to get an empty page. Open up your sandbox, click on edit to get to the base markup-and click and clone its contents, paste said contents onto the empty page-preview and if you are happy click save to create the page.--KTo288 (talk) 10:33, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

If what you want to create is a page (or gallery) rather than an article, and no one else has created a page with the name that you want to give it yet, you can also use the "Move" command which appears in one of the menus near the top of the screen. — SMUconlaw (talk) 17:01, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Ctrl-Click bug while editing

If I am previewing an edit, and I click a link to open another page, I get a Javascript popup warning me that I might lose my changes and asking if I am sure I want to leave this page. That works fine. However, the same prompt also pops up even if I Ctrl-click a link (which should open the link in a new tab). Ctrl-click works as expected elsewhere on the site, and I can open a link in a new tab by right-clicking and select "Open in new tab", or by clicking with the middle mouse button (the mouse wheel in my case). I can reproduce this on Firefox 13 and Chrome 18, but I can't quite reproduce it consistently on IE 9. Also, it doesn't seem to be a problem on any other WMF site, just Commons. Can anyone confirm if they can see the same problem? 81.142.107.230 08:35, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I do not reproduce with Firefox 12.0. Dankarl (talk) 11:57, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Hmm. I've managed to reproduce on Firefox 11 and 12 (on a different PC, with no Firefox addons etc.), but on another machine (on a completely different network), it works fine on both Firefox 10 and 12. Glancing at the code, it seems to be a jQuery thing, so I wonder if there are different versions of jQuery being loaded? 81.142.107.230 13:38, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

100k additional templates?

Experienced editors might have some comments about the discussion at Commons_talk:WikiProject_Tree_of_Life#Kersti_Nebelsiek idea 2: template for langage, where we have a discussion about creating a template for each species (I think). At the moment this is being implimented for birds only. Input about the implications of so many templates, and suggestions for alternative ideas would be welcome. --Tony Wills (talk) 13:18, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Project to commission CC-BY fantasy art

Commons editors may be interested in a Kickstarter project to commission "a free library of art representing heroes of all backgrounds" from professional artists, to be made available under the CC-BY license. I suppose this could be useful here for illustrating articles about the standard fantasy tropes. The project's URL is http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sarahdarkmagic/prismatic-art-collection. (I note in passing that our Category:Fantasy art is a rather mixed bag in terms of quality or usefulness.) Sandstein (talk) 16:43, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Sounds great, please keep us updated! I could do a bot transfer once it's out; however, there might be some problem with Commons:Fan art, if these are copyrighted characters. InverseHypercube 16:54, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

As per InverseHypercube, if they are copyrighted characters there will be obvious issues, but all in all, as a Commons inclusionist, this looks like a good project for that category in the future. However, on the obverse, there are some who feel that art by non-notable individuals isn't worthy for inclusion on Commons. russavia (talk) 16:07, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Can we manually force re-rasterization of File:Quebec MRC Minganie location map.svg @ 250px ?

Is it possible to manually re-rasterize File:Quebec MRC Minganie location map.svg to a 250px PNG file? Right now http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d3/Quebec_MRC_Minganie_location_map.svg/250px-Quebec_MRC_Minganie_location_map.svg.png is a "404 not found", so using [[File:Quebec_MRC_Minganie_location_map.svg|250px]] in Wikipedia shows a broken image.

Background details can be viewed here. -- P.T. Aufrette (talk) 23:08, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

It works fine for me. --Leyo 23:22, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, now it does. The problem went away, whether through human, machine or divine intervention... -- P.T. Aufrette (talk) 03:25, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

May 3

Wrong EXIF dates

Is there a category for collecting images where the EXIF Date and time of data generation is obviously wrong? I couldn't find one. If there isn't, maybe one should be created? Often the date setting in digital cameras is wrong, people forget to set it correctly (e.g. after a battery change). E.g. File:Siggern unterlauf flumenthal.jpg - uploader's description says it was taken 30 April 2011, which looks plausible; the EXIF date says 05:25, 17 November 2007 which of course can't be correct (the trees would be bare and anyway it would be pitch-dark at 05:25 in November, in Switzerland). Collecting such images could be helpful for re-users who extract EXIF data, I think. Gestumblindi (talk) 18:41, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

May be adding something like {{Watermark}} as a warning is sufficient. Wouter (talk) 20:36, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

You could also do as I did here: File:Heron and small trout crop.jpg?--Canoe1967 (talk) 21:49, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

What you can also do is use {{Upload date}}, using the date it was uploaded to Commons (or Flickr, etc.) instead of the date of creation, if it is not known. InverseHypercube 00:06, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Upload date is already in the upload history on the file page, so there is no need to also put in other places. If the creation date is not known {{Other date|unknown}} can be used. /Ö 21:58, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, adding "(EXIF data is incorrect)" to the date in the description, as you did, is certainly better than nothing and I have done so for my example for now. Maybe it's sufficient. Gestumblindi (talk) 00:20, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Why not just upload a new version with correct EXIF data? /Esquilo (talk) 14:51, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

 Done Date corrected. The original time is unknown and 05:25:43 is unlikely to be correct, so I reset the time to 00:00:00. --Stefan4 (talk) 16:19, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Stefan4. In this case, we were lucky to have the correct date provided in the uploader's file description. But of course there may be other cases with obviously wrong EXIF dates where we don't know the correct one. Gestumblindi (talk) 15:31, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

"Photographs by" category moves

Three of us have had a recent disagreement that we are unlikely to resolve on our own. I'll try to be as neutral in stating the matter as I can.

User:Howcheng recently moved a number of "Photographs by" categories to simply the name of the photographer. For example, Category:Photographs by Frank H. Nowell was moved to Category:Frank H. Nowell. User:Dankarl and I think that goes precisely the wrong direction. For the discussion to date, please see User_talk:Howcheng#"Photographs by" category moves.

I'll lay aside some issues about the process by which the moves were made (which is water under the bridge). At this point, Howcheng's argument seem to be mainly that children of Category:Photographers from the United States should be people, not their photographs, and that the more common way we handle photographs by a particular person on Commons is to place the photos in a category whose name is the photographer's name. (Howcheng, if you think I've paraphrased you wrong, please take your own shot at stating your position.) Dankarl and I say that the first point could be easily resolved by having, for example, both a Category:Frank H. Nowell and a Category:Photographs by Frank H. Nowell, with the latter as a subset of the former, and that one problem with Howcheng's approach is that if we have other materials on the person (for example, photographs of them) they are very hard to find under Howcheng's approach.

I'd greatly appreciate comment from other experienced contributors. Certainly we all want to avoid a wheel war. - Jmabel ! talk 15:53, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm interested in hearing from Howcheng, but at first glance I must say that the Category:Frank H. Nowell and Category:Photographs by Frank H. Nowell scheme, as you described it, was always what I thought to be the proper categorization in cases such as these. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 16:15, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Ditto Skeezix1000. See also Category:Vincent van Gogh and subcategories (for example). cmadler (talk) 16:24, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Mhmm, the Category:Frank H. Nowell and subcategory Category:Photographs by Frank H. Nowell system makes the most sense. Sven Manguard Wha? 18:30, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Recommended categorization schema of categories related to Creator templates.

The approach I usually take, which also seems to be shared by other editors working on categorizing art images and maintaining categories related to Category:Creator template home categories, is to always have categories like Category:Frank H. Nowell (subcategory of Category:People by name), and if the category has enough files than split it into Category:Photographs by Frank H. Nowell, Category:Paintings by ...., Category:Engravings by ... categories (see graphics). This way we can separate images where someone is an artist from images where someone is a subject. For example Category:Images of Albrecht Dürer (Dürer is a subject) and Category:Works by Albrecht Dürer (Dürer is an artist) are kept separate and are both subcategories of Category:Albrecht Dürer. So in case of Frank H. Nowell I would have kept both categories. --Jarekt (talk) 18:51, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree that the moves were retrograde. The regular categorization scheme should be as Jmabel and others describe and want. However, there is a question of cases where we have still only one type of files related to certain author - and the two-level categorization can seem untimely, not necessary, overly complicated. In such cases when a simplified solution is chosen, I prefer the former organization that some categories "Images by..." or "Paintings by..." or "Photographs by..." are categorized also as category of people - rather than the second variant that the images disappear from category tree of images, paintings or photographs. Thus, the situtation before Howcheng's changes was better then the situtation past them. --ŠJů (talk) 22:56, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Great schematic diagram Jarekt! That says it all. --99of9 (talk) 00:15, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Fantastic, brilliant, marvelous... (What else?) scheme. This is our standard.--Pierpao.lo (listening) 02:53, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

To fix the problem of "Category:Photographs by Frank H. Nowell" not having a parent category named "Category:Frank H. Nowell", the standard fix would have been to create "Category:Frank H. Nowell" and add "Category:Photographs by Frank H. Nowell" in there. No need to move "Category:Photographs by Frank H. Nowell" to "Category:Frank H. Nowell". --  Docu  at 04:53, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

This is beginning to feel close to consensus, but I would be a lot more comfortable if User:Howcheng would weigh in. I was accidentally a bit late in notifying him that I had followed up on our agreement to take this to the Village pump, so I'd like to give him another day or so to reply here. - Jmabel ! talk 05:59, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Although I tend to agree with the global category structure, I think that there are thousands of photographers (and some bloggers and other artists, ...) out there from which we really don't know anything, often even not the first name nor nationality (and probably will never see an article on them), except that they made photographs. So creating such "photographs by xxx" makes not a lot of sense then. A series of examples can be found in Category:Authors of the Travelers in the Middle East Archive. Another example of "by photographer" categories without almost any photographer cat in Category:Images from the German Federal Archive by photographer. Many of those categories are template generated, so there is not always a choice à posteriori. --Foroa (talk) 09:57, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

• I just came across someone else doing the same type of move. I think the confusion is because initially people create the category Fred Bloggs and populate it with works by that person, and only later when someone comes across images of "Fred Bloggs" or other material relating to them (like their family, the house they lived in etc) do they realise there should be a separate category. But for many the split never gets made. But definitely we do not want to move files from "Photogaphs by xxx" to "xxx". --Tony Wills (talk) 12:56, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks for bringing this up. I noticed about a week ago that a bot had collapsed several subcategories under Category:Photographs by Todd Huffman to Category:Todd Huffman. Huffman is a talented photographer who published hundreds of photographs, some of them both unique and of exceptional quality.

  I looked for, couldn't find, a specific discussion, anywhere, where this particular change, was discussed. I looked for, couldn't find, a general discussion, anywhere, where this kind of change was discussed.

  I uploaded many of Huffman's photos. Someone else did the hard work of splitting them into subcategories. It may have taken them a whole day, or longer. I sure hope another bot can roll back the collapsing of those subcategories.

  Unfortunately, empty categories are often deleted. I have been told that the contribution history of categories can't be restored for some technical reason. Geo Swan (talk) 06:09, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Given that Howcheng still has not posted here, I guess he is not going to. Is someone interested in taking on reversing the ill-advised edits? It will take careful work, because he also made some perfectly good edits in the same period. Some bot requests can be found at [1], [2], [3]; that may not be comprehensive, I didn't spend a ton of time investigating. The rest appears to have been manually done around that same time. - Jmabel ! talk 15:11, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

And, no, there was no discussion before he did this. - Jmabel ! talk 15:11, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I moved the ones for Category:Frank H. Nowell back to a subcategory. --  Docu  at 19:16, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I think this is a fairly complete list of the moves in question. I think a lot are basically category renames (ie everything was moved to a new category). Probably easiest to just use catalot to select the contents and make the moves, you can probably visually select which are about the author and which are his/her works without reference to this list anyway. --Tony Wills (talk) 12:48, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Old feautred templates for deletion

I want to propose {{Featured picture on}} and {{Featured picture}} for deletion but both seems to be used on a number of non-file namespaces (such as Commons:Templates). Suggestions? -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 13:33, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Furthermore future of {{WideCommonsWallpaper}}, {{CommonsWallpaper}} (redirect to {{Wallpaper}}), {{Wallpaper}} can also be considered. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 13:40, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Just leave them be, or mark them as deprecated? Seems more useful to preserve history for templates which were once widely used rather than delete them. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:12, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

They can remain and be marked with deprecated. That is a fine alternative. The issue is I want to update its remaining uses and remove them from documentation replacing with {{Assessments}} which is used in its place. I would actually prefer if someone else carries out these edits. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 15:16, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Also {{Featured picture on}} is protected so I cannot touch it. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 16:03, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I've unprotected. --99of9 (talk) 13:36, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

I have deprecated {{Featured picture on}} and {{Featured picture}} completely. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 14:56, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

May 4

Village Pump image

Per talk page I have modified the image and made it so that it alternated. It currently has only 7 possibilities which probably isn't random enough. The count perhaps should be increased. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 09:57, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Category:Journal de Bruxelles nr 131

I uploaded a 1800 newspaper. Category:Journal de Bruxelles nr 131. I have added newspaper category, but the content stil has to be categorised. (also places mentioned). Have fun. I already found naval commissions given bij Bonaparte Napoleon.Smiley.toerist (talk) 15:47, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

May 5

1.20wmf2 deployed

Hi all, we've deployed mw:MediaWiki 1.20/wmf2 to this wiki a few minutes ago (as part of our new bi-weekly deployments). See the release notes to see what changed. -- RobLa-WMF (talk) 19:53, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T38460
RESOLVED

Do you know if the chunked uploads feature for UploadWizard has been enabled?

Support is now fully deployed, but we've not flipped the switch yet. We'll enable it as an opt-in preference soon to do some testing in production. If you want to help, you can set up a wiki page documenting why we're doing it, instructing users how to enable the preference, and explain how to best get test/broken files deleted for users who don't have admin rights. Then we can broadly advertise that page and invite users to test the feature once it's available as an opt-in preference.

The user preference will be called "Chunked uploads for files over 1MB in Upload Wizard" and will be listed at the bottom of the "Uploads" section in Special:Preferences, under a heading called "Experimental features".--Eloquence (talk) 20:17, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

There you go: Commons:Chunked uploads. Jean-Fred (talk) 20:53, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

That's great news. Do you know if there are plans to change the file size limit after this is implemented? Because according to NeilK from the WMF, this was one of the prerequisites. InverseHypercube 23:03, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

It's one, but not the only one. Through May we're going to work on the migration of all files to the SwiftCloudFiles infrastructure which will triple our storage capacity. That should finally allow us to up the limit for all users.--Eloquence (talk) 00:00, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

OK, try it now per the earlier instructions. This actually will allow you to upload files up to 500MB in size, if I read the limits correctly. I just uploaded a 128MB file through Upload Wizard with the preference enabled. However, I got an error message at the end, indicating that there might still be some hiccups for large files.

I can't guarantee that we'll keep the higher size limit until we have more storage in place, but give it a try and see how it works for you. Please report issues at Commons:Chunked uploads.--Eloquence (talk) 21:09, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

That's incredible, many (including me) have been waiting for this for a long time! I uploaded File:Le Voyage dans la lune colour.ogv (just barely over 100 MB) with no issues. InverseHypercube 22:36, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

While it's nice to see continuous development of the mediawiki software, it would be more important to actually fix bugs which plagued us for several months now. The most important would be the lost/corrupt image bug, affecting previously working images like File:Lencana SMA Trinitas.JPG and many, many more. --Denniss (talk) 17:04, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Just if you wonder why the buttons in JS-tools in Vector are exchanged now, it's related to bugzilla:35046. Didn't change anything ;-) -- RE rillke questions? 21:22, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Possible bug

What happened with the image page File:Karmin grup.png? Log shows image uploaded, history shows nothing and a text The database did not find the text of a page that it should have found, named "File:Karmin grup.png" is visible. --Denniss (talk) 00:09, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

See also the #Corrupted files after upload report below -- same thing happened to a series of uploads. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:05, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

This also happened on other projects. See Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files/2012 May 3#File:CCN1 Staining.jpg for example. --Stefan4 (talk) 15:08, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Compliment

The new feature of a download re-starting at the point where a previous failed download attempt left off is great! AnonMoos (talk) 08:10, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Bradley Manning

Can anyone give me a quick rundown on the use of Military personnel portraits. Are these copyright protected or public domain? Is the image File:Bradley Manning US Army.jpg OK and if so can the date be secured?--Amadscientist (talk) 06:30, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

If taken by the military, yes they are PD. I uploaded the full version from the named source; the title of the document at Google Docs is "MANNING, BRADLEY PFC HEAD AND SHOULDERS 4-26-2012.jpg" and the EXIF date matches that. Either that date has been altered, or maybe it's a photo taken by the defense team (presumably still military though). Carl Lindberg (talk) 13:09, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks!--Amadscientist (talk) 06:49, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Corrupted files after upload

I encountered a problem after an upload of 20+ files yesterday 3 mai 23:00 UTC. The files are loaded without any text and cannot be modified. It seems that there is a technical problem in the database concerning these files. For example : File:Eglise d'Escolives Ste Camille DSC 0059.JPG The files concerned : Special:ListFiles/Pline between 3 mai 2012 à 23:05 and 23:07. --Pline (talk) 10:08, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Our apologies. I'm assuming you're referring to the files that were uploaded between 21:05 and 21:07 UTC. That correlates with a transient outage caused (and quickly repaired) by this set of changes reflected in our server admin log. We made a change to external storage on May 3 (yesterday) that didn't go well at first, starting 21:05 UTC. Reverted those changes 21:09 UTC, and then reapplied the correct version 21:14 UTC. We had many reports of problems during that first 4 minute window over IRC. Sorry for the inconvenience. -- RobLa-WMF (talk) 17:09, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes this is it, sorry for the hour. The (?repaired) files are there but when I try to modify their description (add description, category, ...) i have the famous wikimedia "blue screen" "Our servers are currently experiencing a technical problem.. etc". What shall I do ? Upload the pictures with an other name ? Pline (talk) 17:37, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Comme le disait l'employé qui a effacé sa réponse, il semble que la solution serait de demander à un sysop de supprimer les fichiers, puis de les téléverser de nouveau. Mais, tant qu'à faire, à mon avis ce serait mieux de changer les noms des fichiers de toutes façons, car les portions de type «DSC 0000» sont plus irritantes qu'autre chose dans les titres, à moins que tu tiennes à les inclure pour quelque raison. Pour faire d'une pierre deux coups, la typographie de quelques titres pourrait être ajustée, par exemple «Pres de l etang de Baye DSC 0687.JPG» pourrait devenir «Près de l'étang de Baye.jpg». -- Asclepias (talk) 20:01, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Etant un peu de la partie ma demande a pour objectif de laisser une situation propre dans la base de données Commons (suppression ou remettre les fichiers d'aplomb). Les terminaisons en DSCnnnn me permettent de faire le lien avec mes fichiers et de m'assurer que je ne vais pas me heurter à une problématique de doublon. Pour les memes raisons (faire le lien avec la source), j'insère l'identifiant de la NASA dans les noms des fichiers chargés depuis leurs serveurs. Pline (talk) 22:05, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

We had this multiple times before. After deleting the image one can create a file description page. I would be grateful if the techs would block new uploads when making changes that could lead to those problems. But at least this time someone admitted that we are not talking about ghosts. It's getting better. Thank you.

Pline, could you please tell me which license to use. I will use a batch-tool to replace the no-license tag with the right license. Thank you. -- RE rillke questions? 20:51, 4 May 2012 (UTC).

I use cc-by-sa-3.0. Thank you. Pline (talk) 22:05, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Lester Piggott

Hi,

Please could you give me some information as how to get in touch with Lester Piggott as he is my fathers cousin (Tom Cannon)and I do not know the first place to look , I hope you can give me a lead on this. My e mail address is <redacted> Regards

Sandra Cannon-Donowa

Hi there. We do not hold email addresses here, so cannot help you. All I can suggest is that you see if he has a website and contact him through that. I have also removed your own email address to prevent it being abused by spammers. Cheers. Rodhullandemu (talk) 12:58, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Just a long shot, but you could try emailing the pub near the stables that I think he owned.

• http://www.whitelionnewmarket.co.uk/index.htm is their website with email. I can't find a website for Lestor or the stables.--Canoe1967 (talk) 19:19, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

May 6

Site-wide layout issue

Layout is an important way of notifying users. Just bu looking at the style people should be able to identify the message. {{Style formatting template list}} displays a list of them, each a separate template.

We currently have License templates and other templates sharing the identical layout. For instance {{PD-Layout}} and {{Restriction-Layout}} displays an identical scheme. This is not a good idea as one is meant to be used on issues where there are "restrictions" and perhaps should have a color with a red-tint in essence saying "watch out!", conversely PD scheme means "Hey you can go nuts with this" which is why users may dismiss the restriction template after seeing the PD colors.

Also, having so many templates for layout with near identical code is difficult to maintain. License and warning templates should in general look identical with style differences. For instance we probably want a standard in terms of cellspacing and cellpadding. We lack this. For this reason I have unified more common styles under {{Layout}}.

{{Layout}} can be used to discuss and develop different schemes. Also some style values (such as cellspacing and cellpadding) can be standardized. I haven't attempted this prior to a discussion.

-- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 18:12, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Layout templates have two purposes:

• provide uniform look to children templates
• allow you to track different types of templates and files using them.

For example if you want to find PD files in some category all you have to do is to use CatScan2 to find files transcluding {{PD-Layout}} which are in that category. That is also the reason some of the layout templates are identical - they started as a single template, but were split for tracking purposes. That is also why I do not like {{Layout}}, since it does not allow easy tracking through CatScan or toolserver queries. The number of different layout templates should not be large, I think we have about 10 of them, and I agree with you that they should be producing different looking styles for each type of message. --Jarekt (talk) 12:09, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

It is possible to leave a signature translclusion for that purpose. Also, categories can be used. We have far more than 10 layouts actually. For instance deletion templates have their own custom style. I feel all file templates (License, Warnings, Deletion notices and etc) should have the same width, padding, spacing etc. The only difference should be borders and backgrounds in terms of style. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 13:03, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Notice for countries without copyright agreements with the United States

• Afghanistan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iran, Iraq, Kiribati, Nauru, Palau, San Marino, São Tomé and Príncipe, the Seychelles, Somalia, Turkmenistan and Tuvalu

{{Non-Berne Signatory}} Per this discussion I invite anyone who knows anything about the copyright status of these countries to add the relevant notes to the relevant line. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 20:56, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

May 7

Cookie checking during login

Recently when I've tried logging in from my mobile, I've received an error message saying that I haven't got cookies enabled. The problem is, I do, and have checked this. I've tried turning them off and on, clearing cache, cookie and all browser history. Anyone else having similar problems? --99of9 (talk) 11:25, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

In Bosnian and Serbocroatian, Dobrodosli is written as one word, while in other Balkan languages as two words

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T38541

The requested change is to make this "Dobro došli" -- ☠MarkAHershberger☢(talk)☣ 17:21, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

POTD for Bosanski and Hrvatski points to the same page

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T38547

I don't know anything about either language, but the bug reporter says this is wrong. -- ☠MarkAHershberger☢(talk)☣ 18:40, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Site-wide layout issue

Layout is an important way of notifying users. Just bu looking at the style people should be able to identify the message. {{Style formatting template list}} displays a list of them, each a separate template.

We currently have License templates and other templates sharing the identical layout. For instance {{PD-Layout}} and {{Restriction-Layout}} displays an identical scheme. This is not a good idea as one is meant to be used on issues where there are "restrictions" and perhaps should have a color with a red-tint in essence saying "watch out!", conversely PD scheme means "Hey you can go nuts with this" which is why users may dismiss the restriction template after seeing the PD colors.

Also, having so many templates for layout with near identical code is difficult to maintain. License and warning templates should in general look identical with style differences. For instance we probably want a standard in terms of cellspacing and cellpadding. We lack this. For this reason I have unified more common styles under {{Layout}}.

{{Layout}} can be used to discuss and develop different schemes. Also some style values (such as cellspacing and cellpadding) can be standardized. I haven't attempted this prior to a discussion.

-- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 18:12, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Layout templates have two purposes:

• provide uniform look to children templates
• allow you to track different types of templates and files using them.

For example if you want to find PD files in some category all you have to do is to use CatScan2 to find files transcluding {{PD-Layout}} which are in that category. That is also the reason some of the layout templates are identical - they started as a single template, but were split for tracking purposes. That is also why I do not like {{Layout}}, since it does not allow easy tracking through CatScan or toolserver queries. The number of different layout templates should not be large, I think we have about 10 of them, and I agree with you that they should be producing different looking styles for each type of message. --Jarekt (talk) 12:09, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

It is possible to leave a signature translclusion for that purpose. Also, categories can be used. We have far more than 10 layouts actually. For instance deletion templates have their own custom style. I feel all file templates (License, Warnings, Deletion notices and etc) should have the same width, padding, spacing etc. The only difference should be borders and backgrounds in terms of style. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 13:03, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Notice for countries without copyright agreements with the United States

• Afghanistan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iran, Iraq, Kiribati, Nauru, Palau, San Marino, São Tomé and Príncipe, the Seychelles, Somalia, Turkmenistan and Tuvalu

{{Non-Berne Signatory}} Per this discussion I invite anyone who knows anything about the copyright status of these countries to add the relevant notes to the relevant line. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 20:56, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

May 7

Cookie checking during login

Recently when I've tried logging in from my mobile, I've received an error message saying that I haven't got cookies enabled. The problem is, I do, and have checked this. I've tried turning them off and on, clearing cache, cookie and all browser history. Anyone else having similar problems? --99of9 (talk) 11:25, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

In Bosnian and Serbocroatian, Dobrodosli is written as one word, while in other Balkan languages as two words

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T38541

The requested change is to make this "Dobro došli" -- ☠MarkAHershberger☢(talk)☣ 17:21, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

POTD for Bosanski and Hrvatski points to the same page

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T38547

I don't know anything about either language, but the bug reporter says this is wrong. -- ☠MarkAHershberger☢(talk)☣ 18:40, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Inconsistency between Balkan languages

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T38551

From the bug:

Go to the main page http://commons.wikimedia.org/ and open it in following languages: Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian and Serbian-Croatian.

To the right, for all but Bosnian it says "izabranim slikama" while in Bosnian it says "odabranim".

I don't know any of these languages, so I'll leave it to someone here to fix. -- ☠MarkAHershberger☢(talk)☣ 19:54, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

These languages are not 100% the same, therefor they exist as different languages. Besides that, there are often cultural differences too, that require an "own" wiki, lets blame their rural recent history for that. Edoderoo (talk) 20:48, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

May 8

Meta:Requests for comment/Disable uploads on smaller wikis

Please join the discussion. I think that turning off local uploads is now easier because Commons is able to give a very good service to all users, much more than their local wikis. --Nemo 14:36, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Slow uploads

I haven't been able to upload large files to the Commons for months. Even small files (2-3M) can take an hour or more. The larger ones take many hours, sometimes overnight, then crash in the end. Are other people having this problem or is it just me? Dovi (talk) 15:34, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

• I had a similar problem, and on two occasions even got an error in the end and had to restart the process.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:54, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
• Have you tried this:Commons:Tools/Commonist?--Canoe1967 (talk) 16:20, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

I've commented on Bugzilla: 31610. Please try Commons:Chunked uploads specifically for large file uploads; we're not aware of any general upload performance issues (in testing, I can easily get 400KB/s upload performance on my local network).--Eloquence (talk) 19:41, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

If chunked uploads don't work for you, I can arrange an alternate means of uploading via an intermediary - for example you could upload to my EC2 server via resumable SFTP and I could upload quickly from there. Let me know if needed. Dcoetzee (talk) 12:26, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks everyone. I tried chunked uploads and it didn't work. But today I tried uploaded from someone else's computer with a different internet provider and it worked fine: A large file uploaded in just a few minutes. So I'm beginning to think it might have something to do with my own internet. Downloads work fine, though. Dovi (talk) 19:58, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Two questions

1. I uploaded a new version of a picture today but the new version does not appear in the image that is displayed to you when you visit the page in question. Nor is the new version shown in the new thumbnail at the bottom of the page, nor is the new version shown within articles that refer to the picture. However, if you click on the picture, or on the new thumbnail at the bottom of the page, the new version is shown to you.

When I noticed this after uploading, I assumed that the Commons administration software routines needed a little time to refresh the old with the new image, but hours have passed without a change. How can this be rectified?

2. When I upload a picture I shot myself, an "own work", is there a licence I can specify which allows anyone to use the picture, except for commercial or promotional applications? I would prefer if I could prevent my work being exploited for commercial profit or political or other gainful reasons, just because I am idealistic enough to give it away free to a laudable project like Wikimedia/Wikipedia.

Thank you. O'Dea (talk) 10:56, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

The answer to question 2 is no. Commons files must be free to use for all purposes, including commercial and promotional purposes. If you wish to place "non-commercial" restrictions on your files, you will have to upload them to other sites like Flickr that allow such licences. — SMUconlaw (talk) 10:59, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

I expected that disappointing reply. It gives me an opportunity to practice my French: Fuck it! But thank you for answering. O'Dea (talk) 11:08, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

There are licenses making commercial use more difficult (those enforcing copyleft or attaching the whole license text or that the original has to be available) but don't prohibit commercial use. -- RE rillke questions? 16:40, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

User:Rillke, do you know the names of those licences so I can identify them and read about them? O'Dea (talk) 20:44, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

The license I'd recommend is the "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike" license: the main impediment to commercial use is that anyone who gets their hands on something with that license can give it away for free, which makes commercial competition hard. --Carnildo (talk) 01:00, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

the 617px thumb looks fine but the existing wrong ones are not removed when purging. -- RE rillke questions? 16:40, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

User:Rillke, do you know what can be done to correct the problem? O'Dea (talk) 20:44, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

No, unfortunately. You have to report this on bugzilla:. -- RE rillke questions? 08:18, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Wrong title for upload to the commons

I uploaded a picture to the commons, and gave it the wrong title. I can see how to edit anything but the title, I guess editing the title affects the name of the link and that would break things. I just uploaded it a few days ago, I doubt if anyone has linked to it yet, is there any way I can fix it?

If this is an administrator thing, here is the picture: Grumman E2 Greyhound and "Greyhound" should be changed to "Hawkeye"

Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alexgriz (talk • contribs) 2012-05-08T12:13:07 (UTC)

Renaming files is limited to certain users. Here are the instructions, but the tl;dr version is to use {{Rename}}. Note that the template has two required and two optional parameters. cmadler (talk) 12:51, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Moved to File:Grumman E2 Hawkeye.JPG. MKFI (talk) 15:39, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll use the template next time. Alexgriz (talk) 01:06, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

What's the matter with video downloads?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T38577
RESOLVED

Here's the second thread on the Computing Refdesk about this in the past few days. Presuming the problem is unfixable (like the U.S. in general, WMF seems to be losing the ability to innovate things other than new ways to track, control, and punish people), can we arrange to put instructions about how to use a download manager to power through the lost connections into the general display for any image, or any large image? Wnt (talk) 15:35, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

This is likely related to the recent switch of Squid to Varnish, which has poorer streaming support for large files in its latest release. You should generally be able to obtain these files by means of a direct download, although your attempt may time out and you may need to try again. See Bugzilla: 36577 for progress on this issue.--Eloquence (talk) 21:17, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Resolved by reverting to Squid for now.--Eloquence (talk) 23:14, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

I really wasn't expecting this - thanks! Wnt (talk) 22:16, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Remedy for wrongful use of the spam blacklist

Since it has been about three weeks since a couple of sites were wrongfully added to the spam blacklist, and that general consensus showed that the sites should not appear on that list, when will someone actually remove the sites from the spam blacklist? -- Thekohser (talk) 15:37, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

I was starting to wonder the same thing. cmadler (talk) 16:45, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Usually there is a place where you can propose a new site for the list... On the same list you can propose removal. Edoderoo (talk) 20:50, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

It needs someone uninvolved closing the RfC before. -- RE rillke questions? 21:40, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Wow thanks I had participated in the COM:AN discussion but overlooked the RfC... Dcoetzee (talk) 21:58, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

I suppose I am now prompted to ask when a brave, uninvolved person will close the long overdue-for-closure RfC, at which point I can again ask when the long overdue-for-overturn Spam blacklist action will be finally rectified. This really is disturbing, the length of time the brand name and reputation of a website can be deliberately damaged by a malicious few, while the vocal majority add their opposition to the wrongful action, but nothing is actually accomplished, and the wrongful action perpetuates. -- Thekohser (talk) 17:03, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

If these sites would simply stop throwing dirt on Commons, it could be very helpful. Thekohser, you are the webmaster, right?

Also, if Commons is that bad like claimed (e.g. on Jimmy's talk page on en.wikipedia), why is its spam blacklist important. Sorry I don't understand your logic.

"damaged by a malicious few" — You managed to damage the "reputation" yourself by the constant attacks.

Perhaps you could get Rd232, who started the RfC to close it. I don't think someone will revert again and call him a "novice admin" which was certainly inappropriate. -- RE rillke questions? 22:37, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Just a few things. No, Greg is not the webmaster/owner of the site. It was set up by about a dozen 'trustees' (myself included). He just happened to be the person who paid for the domain - someone else paid for hosting and they're not the owner either. As a Commons admin myself, I'd rather hear about the "dirt", to be honest, otherwise how can we deal with it? Not everything can be posted on-site and indeed, some of those posting may be unwelcome here. That doesn't mean they have nothing valuable to say. Given the site has only been around less than two months, adding it to the spam blacklist seems to be more than a tad excessive, no? - Alison ^❤ 23:28, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

With the "dirt", I actually mean a) the awful headings on Jimmy's talk page (that are ways too general and harm more then use) b) that some people prefer to use each possibility to mention “and it is no secret that User:F** is *” and all the comments in this way just to provoke because if it would be no secret there would be no need to state this. That's completely illogical. Alison you are sysop and free to close the RfC and to perform the required changes. But don't forget, we don't simply counting heads (Emphasise NOTAVOTE (or does this not apply to RfCs?)) but a good summary and comparison of arguments. -- RE rillke questions? 00:04, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm deliberately not closing this one as I've a potential conflict of interests being a mod there and I'm certain that would be challenges to my decision - Alison ^❤ 00:35, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

<---outdent ...Rillke, even if all of your complaints about Wikipediocracy.com were true (which they are not, in my opinion), none of the complaints fall under the category of "therefore, we should use the Spam blacklist to retaliate". I think you would even have to admit that. As for the characterization of Wikipediocracy.com dumping "dirt" on Commons, we have taken these various concerns into account, and we are endeavoring to sanitize (at least to a degree) the amount of foaming-at-the-mouth that occasionally takes place at Wikipediocracy.com -- myself included. Now, that being said, has any similar concession even been broached over here at Commons? -- Thekohser (talk) 16:30, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Is there easy way to find images from category that are used?

Is there easy way to find images from category that are used? For example - lets say that I want to find all images from [[:Category: Wikiekspedycja 2011]] that are used on any wikipedia project in mainspace Bulwersator (talk) 07:40, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, tools:~magnus/glamorous.php. If requested by the community, I could add a link to this tool to the tabs-menu (p-cactions) in categories like it is done for catscan. -- RE rillke questions? 08:22, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

We already ahve MediaWiki:Gadget-Glamorous.js, which adds the link to the Toolbox. Jean-Fred (talk) 09:04, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Should we simple merge it into MediaWiki:Gadget-ExtraTabs2.js (it's default)? It's not heavy. There is a little chance that Monobook users could get annoyed. -- RE rillke questions? 09:29, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like a plan. Jean-Fred (talk) 22:39, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Regularly updated images vs stable images

Hi everybody. I imagine this subject is not new...

I just uploaded under File:Web browser usage share v2 - june 2011.svg an old version of File:Web browser usage share v2.svg, because some of the usage of the second was explicitly about the old version.

I understand the need of such diagrams being automatically updated on sister project through Commons, when needed. But I think it would be very useful to have sthng on the description page of such images saying "be careful, this image will be updated as time passes and new data is available", with some links to stable older versions.

May be it already exists ? If no, I propose to create it, and to create sthg like a Category:Updated when time passes.

Thank you in advance for your answers. --Aʁsenjyʁdəgaljɔm¹¹⁶⁷¹ 18:25, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Description / scope / definition is very important for diagrams / maps, indeed (missing definitions on map file pages often result in upload wars in case of political disputes). That is an example where I explicitly stated that it will be updated in the description: File:Unter Uns - Beziehungen.PNG. Another option to update files is to point to a redirect for any usage which should be updated. If a new version is done it is uploaded under a new name and the redirect (File:foobar diagram, current.svg) is updated. Cheers --Saibo (Δ∇) 18:52, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

What about something like :

This diagram is subject to regular updates, as soon as new data is available.

This is a desirable feature of this media. But if you need a permanent link to a specific version of this diagram, please use one of the following oldest version :

• Brontosaurus.svg
• Very old.svg

(the pink is of course not required)--Aʁsenjyʁdəgaljɔm¹¹⁶⁷¹ 19:18, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, you can make such a template - but I would not suggest such a big big thingy (you have noticed that already). Maybe not even a own "box". Don't shout for something not that much important. ;-)

{{updated file|filenames=

*[[:File:Example 2010.svg]]

*[[:File:Example 2011.svg]]

}}

It may have an Icon like that: de:Template:Laufendes Ereignis. A stop hand has the wrong meaning. Cheers --Saibo (Δ∇) 21:56, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

File:Berliner Siegessäule 2012-04.jpg

Broken thumbnails (file?). Error message: Error creating thumbnail: convert: Insufficient memory (case 4) `/mnt/upload6/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Berliner_Siegessäule_2012-04.jpg' @ error/jpeg.c/EmitMessage/235. convert: missing an image filename `/tmp/transform_3a49774-1.jpg' @ error/convert.c/ConvertImageCommand/2970. Yann (talk) 10:11, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

See also https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=36733 Yann (talk) 10:16, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Probably a large progressive JPG; convert it to non progressive... AnonMoos (talk) 11:35, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Correct guess - fixed: File:Berliner_Siegessäule_2012-04.jpg#filehistory. Cheers --Saibo (Δ∇) 12:42, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Idem here: File:12-05-01-eberswalde-by-RalfR-02.jpg. Yann (talk) 13:27, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Maximum unfree <add>free</add> license - I will not touch that. --Saibo (Δ∇) 14:40, 10 May 2012 (UTC) add: 17:02, 10 May 2012 (UTC) In fact the licensing of the previous case also has serious problems... have left the author a notice, again. --Saibo (Δ∇) 15:06, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

GFDL or CC-BY-NC-ND is not good, but the Free Art License is fine for me. Yann (talk) 15:43, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Free Art License is free. Not that different than CC-BY-SA, really. Nothing wrong with their licensing. I'm not sure that is a progressive JPEG though. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:22, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

"Free", yes, but confusing and unclear. As the file page is. --Saibo (Δ∇) 17:02, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, I guess I disagree. It's perfectly fine for a user to add a CC-BY-NC-ND license provided there is one free one; users should be able to figure that out. The instructions are pretty explicit, and are not confusing. The mere presence of a non-free license should not be confusing. Nothing says you have to work on the file, of course, but I don't agree with the licensing complaint, especially as it has been brought up before and resolved. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:45, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

It is a prog. JPEG (exiftool's output: "Encoding Process → Progressive DCT, Huffman coding"). --Saibo (Δ∇) 17:08, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Ah, OK. That would be the issue then. Forgot that ImageMagick doesn't use "Progressive" but rather "Interlace: JPEG". Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:45, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

WWII historic maps

The website www.dean.usma.edu with historic public domain maps of the second world war has dramatically changed so all source paths to these maps are now incorrect eg the map to the left. I have sent a message to the webmaster for clarification Hans Erren (talk) 20:37, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

 Done new external link to historic maps: http://www.westpoint.edu/history/SitePages/Our%20Atlases.aspx, wikimedialinks however still need to be repaired! Hans Erren (talk) 20:44, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Minecraft licence question

Currently there is a template (Template:Minecraft) that indicates screenshots from the video game w:Minecraft are free because the website states that "You're free to do whatever you want with screenshots and videos of the game" ([5]). This would seem to be fine except later the page states "We reserve the right to change this agreement at any time with or without notice, with immediate and/or retroactive effect."

Is this acceptable for Commons? Could I for example upload an image that I own the copyright for under an agreement that I can withdraw all rights to use it at any point? The archived version of the page that is linked in the template from the 2nd of March 2011 ([6]) does not have this additional notice so this wouldn't effect images uploaded before then. However the next archive version 24th May 2011 ([7]) does.

Sorry if this has come up before. Regards, Guest9999 (talk) 21:00, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

I think that the law in many countries states that if you have a version from a no copyright period, it stays that way forever. If they change the rules, then any future images are covered by the new rules. "Retroactive effect" would be a violation of the laws then.--Canoe1967 (talk) 22:17, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

I would agree for images created before the change in policy but what I am asking is if images made after the change would be considered "free". I would say no as the terms effectively now state "images can be used for anything by anyone until we state otherwise". Is this acceptable? Guest9999 (talk) 01:06, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

I'd say you are fine with any images until they change the terms. If they restrict the images in the future, images made before that are ok. -Nard (Hablemonos)(Let's talk) 01:13, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Another thing: I would interpret it to mean that just {{Minecraft}} isn't enough. Mojäng seems to give the rights to the person taking the screenshot whereas other people would have to ask that person for permission in order to use the screenshot. I would say that a condition for using {{Minecraft}} is that it is combined with some free licence template such as {{Cc-zero}}, {{GFDL}} or anything else where the person taking the screenshot gives away his rights. --Stefan4 (talk) 01:20, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

The cited text explicitly says "or retroactively". Unless such a licence or agreement is illegal in the specific jurisdiction concerned I wouldn't recommend ignoring it. Making a derivative work seems to be allowed and licensing that derivative work might also be allowed. Of course you cannot change what you already did (and was allowed to do at that time), such as giving copies away, but I am not sure you are allowed to grant yourself or others perpetual rights that are immune to retroactive changes, such as licensing the screenshots themselves with a free licence. --LPfi (talk) 09:13, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

There is an open discussion regarding the multiple problems with this template at Commons:Deletion requests/File:Minecraft 1.1 Title.png. —LX (talk, contribs) 12:24, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

A license is permitted under the law to be revocable - that is, the author can state that they can alter the terms of the license in the future and subsequently do so. Any use made of the work under the license is at that point no longer permitted, which may include derivative works. Revocable licenses are not permitted at Wikimedia Commons, for obvious reasons. Dcoetzee (talk) 15:51, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

CommonsHelper 2

So, I tried to copy an image to Commons from Wikipedia using CommonsHelper 2. It returned an error saying that the upload bot was blocked. I tried another image and got that same return. I can't seem to find this bot anywhere. As well, wmflabs CommonsHelper is having trouble. The only working service is the original CommonsHelper on Toolserver. Can anyone help? Thanks, Nathan2055^talk 20:00, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Creative Commons 4.0 draft--please help answer questions about attribution!

CC is working on version 4.0 of their licenses--in case you haven't seen it, the public draft is up in several different formats at their Drafts page.

Right now their focus is on attribution, and they are asking several specific questions about things to change in the new version. (A few of the open questions: Is there too much flexibility in "reasonable manner"? Or not enough? Is there any information people should be required to provide that they aren't providing? Should you be able to use a shortcut by just providing a link, and if so, what should you have to include?)

The questions and space for comment is on the CC wiki here.

(Ultimately, we hope to be able to use the 4.0 license version as the default license version for Wikimedia projects--either BY-SA or BY, depending on which project you are using. Several Wikimedians are already participating in these discussions, as well as the legal staff and myself, but your input on things that have and haven't worked well in 3.0 would really help the process, especially if you have good examples.)

I will be posting this message around to some of the wikis as well, but please pass this message around where it is relevant, especially if you are active on non-English projects! Kat Walsh (spill your mind?) 22:07, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

JPEG2000 supported?

Hi folks, On the French-speaking VP, M0tty asked if JPEG2000 was supported here (both upload allowed and thumbnailing supported); I have not been able to find any information on this (COM:FT, COM:UNSUPPORTED, VP archives, Bugzilla, wikitech-l). Would anyone know more on this? Jean-Fred (talk) 22:22, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

A past answer by me at Commons_talk:File_types#JPEG_2000_.3F... AnonMoos (talk) 23:34, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. I updated COM:UNSUPPORTED, and told M0tty to followup on your discussion. Jean-Fred (talk) 12:34, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

information

How do I find out information on a Peter Dickman who married Anna Wolfarts on May 3 1667 - unsigned

• You might try asking this at en:Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities. (This page where you've asked is for general discussions about Wikimedia Commons, the media repository of the Wikimedia Foundation. It's not terribly likely that someone who knows the answer will be looking here.) - Jmabel ! talk 04:51, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
• This sounds like an ancestry question, do you know where they were married at that time it was most probably a church, ask to have a look at the parish records of that time, and track forward and backwards to look at births, baptisms and deaths, if your local library service has a local history section its worth giving them a visit, even if they don't hold any information themselves, they will have people who will be able to tell you how to go about looking for this information. Also try a site like ancestry.com which frankly are a better bet than something like commons or wikipedia.--KTo288 (talk) 09:25, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

EmilGH on Flickr

I was going to upload this picture, but Flinfo gave me an unwelcome response: "Blacklisted user; images from that user's pages must not be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons." I cannot see why this is the case - I am happy to bow to evidence, but would like to know where and how to find out why EmilGH is become photographer non grata here? His photostream seems authentic enough to me. Best, mr.choppers (talk)^-en- 06:52, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

See the discussion at Commons:Deletion requests/Images from Emil Rensing on Flickr. The user seems to have a history of suspected copyright violations. --rimshot^talk 08:42, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

More pumps for village pump

Feel free to add more files to {{Village pump image}}. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 15:43, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Wisconsin Army National Guard Flickr stream

• http://www.flickr.com/photos/wiguardpics/

If this is the official Wisconsin Army National Guard Flickr stream all of those photos should be in the public domain as employees of w:National Guard of the United States are Federal employees. The stream has tagged files as CC-BY-NC 2.0 but that is bogus since they are PD-US-Gov. What should be done? -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 23:06, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

ToAru asked for my opinion on IRC and I feel for right now, we should not use the photos until we know for sure the status of members of a state national guard. http://dma.wi.gov/dma/dma/default.asp states that they are under state command (so the governor and a adjunct general appointed by the governor) unless a National Emergency takes place or are placed under direct command of the President. It seems to me they are state employees (from reading this and knowing people in the Arkansas NG), so it would not be under a US Federal copyright. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return fire)} 23:26, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Hmmm..... the state national guard offices are not necessarily federal employees, I don't think. The public relations arm in particular is almost certainly all state employees. I think they are supposed to be under the control of the state governors, unless called up by the federal government, and are mostly funded by the states. If some photos are taken by someone who has been called up, and is thus on the U.S. federal payroll, it may be different. Also, sometimes these pages do get photos from Air Force or Army personnel on assignment and put them up locally, so see who the photographer actually is. This has come up before; there is some discussion at Commons:Village_pump/Copyright/Archive/2012/01#Can_I_use_this_photo.3F, and I did have some comments there. Carl Lindberg (talk) 23:52, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

I raised this issue with White Cat first in regards to a photo I found on the w:CBS website taken by a Tech. Sgt. Jon LaDue of the Wisconsin National Guard (this one in particular).—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 00:50, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

My question is since they get federal benefits they may actually be "federal employees" currently under the command of the local state. The real question is weather or not Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the US Code applies to national guard units. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 09:56, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Here is a bit from a Texas website: State National Guard: A state’s National Guard has both full-time federal employees and full-time state employees assigned to that state’s National Guard. Full-time federal employees include federal civil service technicians and Active Guard/Reserve employed in their respective National Guard status. Federal employees receive federal pay and benefits according to rank. Full-time state employees of the National Guard are paid by the state, except when called to federal active duty, when they are then paid by the United States. I think that's typical -- there are a number of federal employees, but also a lot of state employees. It sounds like w:Active Guard Reserve troops -- who are by definition called to federal active duty -- are federal employees at that point, plus of course anyone who is an employee of the National Guard Bureau (the federal agency), but the state agency is likely mostly state employees, since there is joint federal and state funding. You'd need to know the status of the individual in question, it sounds like. They get some federal benefits, but I think they would only be federal employees if that is where their primary paycheck comes from. Carl Lindberg (talk) 13:00, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

That's awfully obscure. Certainly the civilian staff are state employees. It is unclear how national guard is classified. The best I see out of this is "it depends" - we probably want something more... specific. In the case of http://www.flickr.com/photos/wiguardpics/ we may kindly request they release their content without the NC clause. Any volunteers for this? -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 21:55, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

May 12

Automatic language select with relevant templates

I've been adding language select markup more or less haphazardly to try to make file pages with descriptions in many different languages more easily navigable ([8], [9], [10]). However, I feel it would be far easier if templates like {{Fr}} (etc.) and {{Legend-table}} would incorporate this feature automatically. It is, after all, presumably unusual that someone would need/want to read exactly the same text in English, French and Japanese at the same time; and even if they did, there is an option to do that in the drop down-menu. What do peole think of including this code by default in the templates themselves? It Is Me Here ^{t / c} 22:38, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

We have {{Mld}} and if there are >=4 of {{En}}, {{Fr}}, ... directly behind each other, a language select is created automatically without the need for doing anything.

{{Fr}} ships with the required code. Therefore I removed the (duplicate) divs.

Now MediaWiki:Multilingual description.js is also able to handle tables and therefore I removed the extra-markup. Delete all files in your browser's cache to see the effect. -- RE rillke questions? 23:48, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Please don't use {{LangSwitch}} in descriptions, if that is what you are suggesting. That way, it would be necessary to add "?uselang=xx" at the end of the URL in order to see a description in another language, which is annoying. Besides, it hides the descriptions so that you might not be aware that a description is available in another language. --Stefan4 (talk) 00:59, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Agree with Stefan4 -- see past discussions at Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2011/02#Multilingual_descriptions_not_displaying, Template_talk:LangSwitch#Multiple_languages, User_talk:Ophelia2#File:Mosaic amb la representació d'una vella.JPG, Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2012/03#Template:LangSwitch_vs._Templates_like_Template:en_and_Template:de_in_image_descriptions etc. AnonMoos (talk) 06:44, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

That's not what the user intended. The user was wondering why 3 or 2 languages and tables were not collapsed and no select was created and whether one could solve this by adding some markup to the specified template. Just to repeat, {{Legend-table}} (table) and {{Fr}} (etc.) (div) already contain the required markup; collapsing is done if there are >=4 languages by default and now also for tables (table after table) like {{Legend-table}}. -- RE rillke questions? 07:37, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Careful: the "language select" as described on meta is "our" client-side JS {{Mld}} ("You can view the JavaScript code at Commons:MediaWiki:Multilingual description.js."). It also happened to me in the past that I thought someone means {{LangSwitch}} by saying "language select" - but that is wrong. Quite stupid that we have two names for the same thing. Cheers --Saibo (Δ∇) 12:03, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Any chance of getting that ≥ 4 changed to ≥ 2? It Is Me Here ^{t / c} 21:34, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Please don't. I usually write descriptions in three languages (my own, the local language and English) and I do not see that as "many languages". There is often some variation in how the file is described (so showing only one language is hiding information) and there may be translation mistakes where the descriptions are meant to be identical.

In fact I would prefer the mechanism to show at least two languages, as that would make improvements propagate (selfishly I also enjoy the language lesson involved), but I understand there is no easy way to indicate which language to choose as the second one, with present mediawiki implementations.

--LPfi (talk) 10:08, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

May 10

Copyright of animals

Does the owner of animals have any copyrigths? A interesting discussion is going on in Commons:Categories for discussion/2011/09/Category:Diergaarde Blijdorp. There clearly a difference between the rigths of an artist in a show or a museum protecting its artwork (as long as it is not PD work). But can a trainer in a animal circus act claim copyrigth and forbit pictures of the animals doing the act? It could be called a creative work.Smiley.toerist (talk) 23:05, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

I strongly doubt it, but you could raise the issue at Commons:Village pump/Copyright. Of course, if there's controlled admission, then it could be made a condition of admission that no photographs be taken, but that's a contract issue (or implied contract), and not copyright at all... AnonMoos (talk) 05:40, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't think dancers and performers are generally protected; w:Zacchini v. Scripps-Howard Broadcasting Co. follow state law and seems to rest it on a right of publicity. Of course, they mention common-law copyright, and other countries could have run with that idea. Berne Convention protects "dramatic or dramaticomusical works; choreographic works and entertainments in dumb show;" but says "It shall, however, be a matter for legislation in the countries of the Union to prescribe that works in general or any specified categories of works shall not be protected unless they have been fixed in some material form." In any case, I'd like a performer with animals would be like a performer with bowling pins or flaming arrows.

Even if the performance as a whole is protected, I don't think pictures of the animals would necessarily be protected. It would have to be copies of the performance, which a single photograph is unlikely to infringe upon.

I'm going with not protected under Federal Law in the US; no requirements to be protected under Berne; you may run into copyright laws outside the US; and there's a mess of laws of privacy and publicity that you may run into both inside and outside the US.--Prosfilaes (talk) 11:21, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

The question here is similar to the question of whether a photo of a man giving a speech or a performer at a concert is copyrighted. Of course the speech/song is based on a document which is already in a fixed form and copyrighted, and so an audio or video recording of the speech would be a derivative work of that document. The speech/performance is typically simultaneously recorded and placed in a fixed form by agents of the speaker, in an attempt to further solidify a copyright claim over audio/video of the speech (whether this actually helps I have no idea). But a mere photo of the speaker/performer is not - even if a similar picture appears in the "official" video, it would be from a different angle using different equipment, etc. (in other words, the creative elements added by the creators of the video are entirely absent). It would only become problematic if the photographer were trying deliberately to duplicate the creative choices of another photographer.

I get very confused when considering whether a performance is derivative of the choreography, in whatever fixed form a choreography is typically documented - and whether such a document could influence a single still image to the point of making it a derivative work. I just don't know. Dcoetzee (talk) 16:02, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Actually... You can't copyright non-intellectual property. Animals do not count as intellectual property. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 21:43, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

? Monsanto would like to remind you that animals can be intellectual property, very tasty and entirely without health concerns. (Actually, I think Monsanto only does plants, but the joke wouldn't work as well with Aqua Bounty in there.) I have no clue what you mean by that except you can't copyright things that aren't copyright, which is something of a circular argument.

In any case, a performance is "intellectual property" of the performer in many jurisdictions. I think it's primarily musicians who have international protection, but again, as per w:Zacchini v. Scripps-Howard Broadcasting Co., there are and can be rights of publicity that may be violated if a performance was copied (thought as Dcoetzee says, a photo is less likely to do that then the video that was at issue in the court case.) I see no reason to think that just because animals were used in an act that it would negate the protection of right of publicity to the animal handler.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:11, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Is the performer a human or an animal? Is the subject preforming on the files in question? If it is a zoo there is no performance to worry about as claiming copyright over animals is akin to museums claiming copyright of historic artifacts. If it is a circus you may have a point mid-act but you cannot make the same argument when animals are not actually preforming (such as backstage). Same goes for human performers. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 09:18, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

On a related note, what about that elephant which paints? -mattbuck (Talk) 22:35, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

According to en:Wikipedia:PD#Non-creative works, "Common to all these cases is that only works created by a human are eligible to copyright. Works created by animals (such as a painting produced by a chimpanzee) or machines (such as illegal spam) are not copyrightable, although in the case of drawings produced by a computer program, the program itself of course may be copyrighted." cmadler (talk) 16:52, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Which in such a case the computer is merely a tool. All works created by digital cameras are constructed by a computer in essence. I think {{PD-Monkey}} be expanded to include all animals and be renamed to something like {{PD-Ineligible-Animal}}. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 09:18, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

May 11

Is it possible to move a category?

Hi,

I notice that on en:wp the name is Howrah Bridge but on the commons the category Category:Howrah Bridge is empty and all the images are in Category:Howrah bridge. Is it possible to "move" a category, the way an article can be "moved" in en:wp so that the images will be in the right place? (On en:wp the commonscat links to Category:Howrah Bridge Thanks, MathewTownsend (talk) 01:02, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

About moving categories, please see Commons:Rename a category. The en:wp article links to the current Commons category. You added a second Commons link, to a non-existent page. -- Asclepias (talk) 01:34, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

ok, thanks! Stupid mistake I made. I fixed the link on en:wp so that it goes to the current, existing category. Don't know if I should create a category with the correct spelling (ie Howrah Bridge), or if it's ok the way it is. Thanks, MathewTownsend (talk) 15:09, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the capitalization should be corrected. Since this is an uncontroversial change, I've listed it at "User talk:CommonsDelinker/commands" for speedy renaming. (You can do so yourself in the future.) — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 06:45, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

File revert not working

File:World_Inflation_rate_2007.PNG is an image of 2007 inflation rates, and some editors have added later data. I've tried restoring the 2007 file but the image for some reason is not changing i.e. the revert button simply isn't working. The file needs to return to the last January 2009 version. Betty Logan (talk) 11:24, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

There was some strange stuff with reversions to wrong versions recently on File:Flag of Turkey.svg; not sure if it's the same thing... AnonMoos (talk) 15:31, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Purge function broken on .png/.svg files? Seems to work on .jpg files. --Denniss (talk) 10:58, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Hide autopatrolled in patrol log

Propose to add a "Hide auto-patrolled" link in Special:Patrol log. Will help in finding revisions manually marked as auto-patrolled edits are in bulk.--Gauravjuvekar (talk) 15:42, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand. You want to only look through the pages and edits that people mark specifically as patrolled? Like, to double check what they are doing? I don't think this is currently able to be done via MediaWiki (a bug would need to be filed), but someone might be able to write a Toolserver tool for this. Killiondude (talk) 22:31, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, only look through the pages and edits that people mark specifically as patrolled. Not to double check, to find out which patrollers/admins are currently active (and I mean like right now, not 1 edit in past month) so I can ask about a particularly tricky edit and get quick answers rather than posting at COM:AN. Also helpful for real-time collaboration in eliminating unpatrolled backlogs.--Gauravjuvekar (talk) 16:20, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Blue background?

Why has the background gone blue? It's really hard to see. - — Preceding unsigned comment added by ‎Tetrisforaliens (talk • contribs)

• Possibly because you highlighted something? If not, could you be more specific: the background of what, and also, if you know, what skin you are using. - Jmabel ! talk 21:41, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

  It's a Chrome issue. See the bug report. It affects Chrome users who are using Vector skin and have a zoom level of something other than 100%. If you reset the zoom (wrench icon > zoom) it will fix the appearance. Killiondude (talk) 22:23, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

3D photography - categories

I noticed that Category:3D photography had two subcategories: Category:Anaglyphs as well as Category:3D photographs. The latter was created in September 2011 and contained only two anaglyphs. It seems that the only 3D photographs we currently have on Commons are anaglyphs and stereo images (Category:Stereo images), I think? For the time being, I re-categorized the two anaglyph photos from Category:3D photographs into Category:Anaglyphs and made a category redirect from "3D photographs" to Category:3D photography, although this probably isn't the best solution. The category "3D photography" could, I think, also contain images which are about 3D photography and not 3D photographs themselves; however, such images are currently rather contained in Category:3D and its subcategory Category:3D imaging. The structure could be clearer... another possibilty would be to have Category:3D photographs remain as a proper category which would contain Category:Anaglyphs as its (currently) only subcategory (or maybe the stereo images category as well? do they count as 3D photographs at all?) and could be used for possible images in other 3D formats than anaglyphs. Gestumblindi (talk) 23:17, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

May 14

Problem with thumbnail preview

Hi. I have problem with this image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kalmykia03.png The last thumbnail shows the old image version from 2006 instead the latest one, and old version could be also seen in the articles which using this image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalmykia#History I tried to purge the page (in accordance with this guideline: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Purge ), but it does not work. I had similar problems with some other images over a year ago and I think that these images fixed themselves in few weeks after the upload. However, is there some faster way of updating last image thumbnail? PANONIAN (talk) 09:57, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Patience often works, multiple reverts or uploads seldom helps. Probably best to upload a substantially different version as a seperate file, and let the different wikipedias choose which they prefer for their article. But anyway I think it is ok now. If other methooods fail, what I usually do (with Firefox) is right click on the thumbnail and choose "view image", then add "&action=purge" onto the end of the URL. Then do a shift-refresh of the page. Usually works, but might need to do it for each different sized thumbnail. It would probably come right soon anyway :-). --Tony Wills (talk) 11:50, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

OK. Problem was solved somehow (although, I have no idea how). By the way, one or two image reverts actually worked in some other images with which I had similar problem. Anyway, I think that older version of this map (although created by myself) is very bad, so improving this work with new image version is the best possible option here - my drawing skills improved much since 2006, so I cannot watch this example of my "early work" to remain like that. :) PANONIAN (talk) 12:33, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Bot task

Where can I ask about some bot task? Thanks.--PereslavlFoto (talk) 11:58, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Try COM:BR. --Stefan4 (talk) 12:24, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Copyrights on MIDI?

Are there copyrights in MIDI arrangments of public domain sheet music that was written in the early 20th century and earlier? Is a MIDI file legally considered a 'recorded' version of a song? The reason being is that I have a CGI video that I wish to upload to commons, but would like to know the commons legal policy is on the 1882 midi soundtrack I used for it.--Canoe1967 (talk) 15:20, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

A MIDI file itself is not a recording but an encoding, and if the MIDI file simply represents encoding of a public domain work with little or no new creative content, I would guess that would not establish a new copyright in the US or other countries with a similar threshold of originality. However, it's possible -- perhaps even likely -- that in countries with a lower standard based on the "sweat of the brow" doctrine (e.g. UK and Australia) such a MIDI file would get a new copyright. cmadler (talk) 16:51, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

There are no copyrights marked anywhere in the original midi files I found on the net. I have mixed up different tracks from different midi files as well. I can't see the bass and rhythm tracks having issues, they seem like common cadences that are probably available all over. I didn't use the solo improvistation track from one, just in case it has issues. Most of the other tracks I had to clean up quite a bit. I think they were recorded from a midi input instruments and the musicians' timing and notes were off quite a bit. To get tones I just adjusted the notes by ear. I adusted the note timing, spacing, and length with the numbers so all notes match. The result is quite different from the original four midi files I found. I wrote at least four more tracks, and only used one lead, one rhythm, and one bass track from the others. I had to do major corrections to the lead I used as well. I may upload my tracks as a midi file incase others want to further my work.--Canoe1967 (talk) 17:52, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

A MIDI is not a recording, so the issues with sound recording copyrights would not come up. It would be a derivative work of the musical composition, but if that is PD, then that is not an issue. At that point, it comes down to if the act of making a MIDI from a composition involves its own creativity -- I'm not familiar enough with the process to really know. If it does (and things like making an engraving from a drawing, or making a mezzotint from a painting, have been ruled as having their own creativity in the U.S.) then there may be a copyright on the MIDI files, and your work would be derivative of theirs. That's for U.S. law... the UK has more of a "sweat of the brow" approach which makes something like a MIDI more likely to be copyrightable, and Canadian law is somewhere in between I think. If making a MIDI is pretty much rote without any originality (e.g. different people would come up with basically the exact same file given the same source, i.e. the entries in the MIDI file are completely determined by the notes in the composition) then the MIDI may count as a "copy" rather than a derivative work having its own copyright. I really don't know. Copyright notices have not been required in the U.S. since 1989, so lack of notice on MIDIs distributed since then doesn't really mean anything. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:06, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

I have since found 10-15 compositions/arrangements all over the net. The creator of the best one seems to have disappeared. More than one site ask if anyone knows how to contact him to use his version on their site and/or copyright status of it. One site that is adamant about only having PD midis has it listed as PD. I sent that site an email to confirm the status. I will give her a while to email back before I edit much further.--Canoe1967 (talk) 18:39, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

There is no case law on whether a MIDI has any copyrightability above that of the original work, but in my opinion its creation inevitably involves creative choices such as the selection of the MIDI instruments to use for each track, changes due to limitations in the format such as the number of instruments to include/changes to rhythm, etc. There are many distinct-sounding MIDI instruments that can be reasonably applied to a part written for a single classical instrument. I would much rather see us accept only MIDIs where the MIDI author released all their original contributions under a free license (ideally CC0, to match the public domain status of the underlying work). Dcoetzee (talk) 08:44, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Is there a legal department of commons that I could have review and make a decision? I read through all the American copyright laws from the .gov site and found no specific reference to MIDI files. It would be nice if this were true. I could upload all the versions I found of the 1882 work as well as mine under CC0 in that case.--Canoe1967 (talk) 17:52, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

WMF has a legal department. I'll ask them to look at this. -- ☠MarkAHershberger☢(talk)☣ 18:45, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. I couldn't find an email for WMF legal. I left more details on your two talk pages.--Canoe1967 (talk) 20:40, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

It's worth pointing out that MIDI files can capture elements of a performance -- nearly all of it, in fact, if the performance was created on something like a MIDI electronic keyboard. All of the subtle changes of timing and expression that make for a unique recording can be reproduced in MIDI. But likewise, one could simply enter the notes as written on the page, which would not seem to add significant creative content to the underlying work. Powers (talk) 14:41, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Problems uploading

Hi, I'm currently having trouble uploading an new version of File:Liniengleichnis.svg. After upload, instead of the new version, a copy of the old Version appears. As this is clogging up version history, I'd like to ask around if there's any possible explanation except my own stupidity before trying again. Any ideas -- 21:59, 9 May 2012‎ User:Leif Czerny

I had that happen with an image of the James Dean memorial. I kept uploading without hitting the 'refresh' button on my browser. Is this the same issue?--Canoe1967 (talk) 22:10, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like a simple caching problem; the failure to update the cache can take place on the Wikimedia servers, in your web-browser running on your own computer, or someplace located between the two... AnonMoos (talk) 06:52, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

But why is is so persistant? It shouldn't be the browser, as he cleans cache when hes restarted. Now i noticed that the peviwe in the version-history appears to be the correct image when it is moved form current and last to second last. This is really inconveniend, and I'd pleas like some help. Leif Czerny (talk) 06:59, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Solved by manual Purge using the browser adress line. Thanks. Leif Czerny (talk) 19:42, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

problem with uploaded file

Hi,

I uploaded File:DirtyDevilRiver1954.jpg from en:wp which was labelled {{PD-USGov-USGS}}. It was tagged on en:wp by a bot for upload to the Commons. I uploaded it twice, trying to fix the mistake. But it won't take and I don't know how to get the right information about listening in there. Appreciate any help. Thanks, MathewTownsend (talk) 19:06, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

What's the issue? The image looks fine to me... Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:17, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Great! I guess it resolved itself once I stopped watching it. Thanks for the reply. MathewTownsend (talk) 22:24, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

May 15

Delinking question

Hi. I deleted File:Mitt Romney.jpg a few days ago because it was found to be non-free. I notice that CommonsDelinker has not removed its uses. [11] but the bot has done newer deletions. Anyone know why? (Note that some of the articles on enwiki that used this file were fixed manually.) Killiondude (talk) 06:49, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

• It looks like that is now a redirect to File:Mitt Romney by Gage Skidmore 4 (x).jpg, which seems fine to me. - Jmabel ! talk 15:41, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

  That's fine. I was just wondering if it was a bug in the bot. Killiondude (talk) 16:33, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Wrong image loaded

I have just managed to load a watermarked image by mistake, can this be taken down again? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Triplemanr (talk • contribs) 2012-05-15T12:16:38 (UTC)

Just mark it {{speedydelete|<Reason>}} noting "Uploader request" and the reason Dankarl (talk) 12:51, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Sunrise photos

These following images can be used for relevant articles.. --எஸ்ஸார் (talk) 16:44, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

• File:A tourist enjoy the sunrise, Tiruchendur, India.jpg, File:Sunrise - Tiruchendur, India.jpg, File:Dawn at Tiruchendur, India.jpg

Those are gorgeous. Thank you for contributing them. I have added Category:Beaches of Tamil Nadu and changed to the more specific Category:Sunrises of India. I took off the redlink Category:Tiruchendur which is a redirect anyway, and also the temple category since the temple is not shown. If you have a reason why the temple category really should be there please explain in the description.

I switched the gallery you posted to links. If everybody posted their new images in Village Pump we would be swamped. Thanks again Dankarl (talk) 18:51, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

May 16

Hierarchical category system

• Split off discussion from "Photographs by" category moves

I would also like to suggest that structurally "Category:Photographs by Fred Bloggs" should not be a sub-category of Category:Fred Bloggs but should be a see-also relationship. Otherwise all the works of Fred Bloggs logically now lie in the trees containing people (regardless of the contents of the work). This detail is seldom addressed, and is part of a much larger problem ... but then generally the category tree is pretty mutilated anyway ;-)

• Not every subcategory is an is-a relationship. That's fine. For example:
  • We have categories for museums, with subcategories for artworks in that museum. That doesn't suggest that the artworks are museums.
  • We have categories for countries, with subcategories for cities (and people, and lakes, and lots of other things) in that country. That doesn't suggest that the cities, etc., are countries.
• - Jmabel ! talk 15:40, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorry but that is the exactly same mis-use of our hierarchical category system. The category structure should reflect a hierarchy of concepts, from the most generic one down to the very specific. It is as "is a" relationship all the way down. The leaves at the end of the "museums as buildings" branch are pictures/videos etc of museums. Another branch will end in "Artworks in Musuem xyz" and its leaves will be pictures/videos of artworks contained there. There is a relationship between the "Musuem xyz (building)" and the "Artworks in Museum xyz" categories, but it is not a hierarchical one. The problem is that we have categories like "Museum xyz" whose function and structural location is amibiguous and tangle two seperate tree branches. This sort of confusion occurs all over the Commons tree structure because very few people understand what they are doing when they create, categorize or populate a category. And many people will tell me I am wrong because no one else is complaining ... these days I don't spend a lot of time tilting at this windmill (the category structure needs serious pruning, but until there is some automated way to maintain the structure, eg a bot, it can't be kept in shape) --Tony Wills (talk) 21:13, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

You forgot that Commons (as well as wikipedias) is not a collection of words (concepts) but collection of media files (themes) and the categorization should organize media by theme. Contrary to the biological taxnnomy, the hierarchy here is based not only on the relation hypernym-hyponym but also on the relation complex-parts, producer-product (more generally: treating-treated), main-subsidiary, subject-representation and many other types of hierarchic relations. Interconnectedness of all these relations (netting, modular categorization) is a big advantage of electronic wiki-categorization over a simple tree system used in physical paper card index.

Besides it, the category "Albert Einstein" doesn't contain this person (dead or alive) personally but media related to him. Naturally, many themes have more aspects - a museum or school can be categorized as buildings as well as organizations – and eventually, a category of images by some person can be categorized as a category of this person until he/she have his own parent category. --ŠJů (talk) 22:33, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

This is not René Magritte. :-) cmadler (talk) 13:28, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

I do not forget anything of the sort ;-). Multi-purposing categories, eg using a category like Category:Joe Bloggs to contain two entirerly different sets of images (eg works about the person and works by the person) and sticking it in two otherwise separate hierarchical trees, just creates a mess. That approach is akin to using the category as a tag rather than a structural element. If you want to have Category:Joe Bloggs containing lots of stuff 'relating to' Joe Bloggs, then don't put that category in either the 'people' tree nor the 'artworks' tree. Put it in some new tree that starts from the root category with something like 'images related to things', with subcategories 'images related to people', 'images related to buildings', then under each person have 'images of xyz' and 'works by xyz' etc - the later two can then be added to the 'people' tree and the 'artworks tree' as well (actually I am not really asking you to create this structure, in fact don't do this :-), but that is the structure that you seem to be implying). --Tony Wills (talk) 13:08, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Implicitly, you are requiring that the categories be arranged literally in a tree, but the relevant specification at Commons:Categories#Category structure in Wikimedia Commons is a multi-heirarchy, with the link directed to en:Directed acyclic graph. The latter does a much better job of mapping objects which may each display multiple interesting aspects. Having categories have multiple parents is fundamentally no different than having images fall into multiple categories. Dankarl (talk) 20:11, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

The Commons tree structure is indeed a multi-heirarchy, but with each tree starting at the common root. --Tony Wills (talk) 10:06, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

This would be very useful! MIAdams LCAU (talk) 20:05, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

I should have my head read, getting into this, but I can't help it. OCD or ritualistic masochism or something... Pity me! Why are the data design practitioners among us so shy? Surely there must be some of them among us? The whole category system currently is flawed from cellar to cupola. Some person in this talk page mentioned directed acyclic graphs, and that is getting close, but even that is too much and too little; personally I prefer to think of a sixth-normal form relational structure. But whatever anyone thinks of whichever system they prefer, the point is that hierarchical won't cut it, and if it could, single root hierarchical won't even nibble at it. And yet I have had people reducing multiple categories for a single photo to just one. The frustration is maddening. Attributes are only trivially and exceptionally hierarchically structurable without doing violence. Even the poor man's spreadsheet data base does better, in associating an element with as many attributes (categories) as you like, and letting whoever is interested search on as many of those as he pleases. This idea seems to horrify people who think that thus we would burden the system with categories, but it is exponentially (or factorially if you like) effective at narrowing a search path. Why is there no body concerned with the professional design of such a structure; or if there is such a body, why are they so shy? Folks,this is about the emasculation or even the evisceration of our system. Now, before I am tempted to go into the matter, will someone cool my fevered brow? JonRichfield (talk) 13:54, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

If I understand what you are suggesting (some version of tagging by attributes(?)), there are an number of practical constraints:

• First of all, the basic search function does not implement an AND function; without this, we cannot look for category intersections. Advanced tools requiring finding and learning curves are not very useful for casual users.
• Secondly there is the whole "Nude people with toothbrushes" / Principle of Least Surprise issue.
• Thirdly, we have no way of ensuring tagging consistency: Flickr has tagging by attributes but undisciplined tagging has made it almost useless; conversely here casual uploaders often add no categories at all.
• Fourth, (but higher in importance) any system needs to support efficient browsing as well as specific finding, and
• Finally, grand schemes may not really be needed: My impression is that most users start with a search and then move up or down the category tree a couple of steps to broaden or narrow their search. It is an adaptive process (for that matter, so is categorization). Local consistency is highly useful but global consistency is not needed and attempts to achieve it might be counterproductive.

Please explain or link "sixth-normal form relational structure". Dankarl (talk) 14:28, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

OK, for starters, let's dispose of 6NF. It is powerful, but we could do all we need in less advanced ways. In fact, I would hate to have to educate the typical user (whether seeker or maintenance staff) in its facilities. Hope I haven't started a hare with that one. Now...

Please don't bite me for talking down to anyone; that is not the intention.

The AND and OR and NOT functions are the kind of thing that in my day no one bothered to specify; if you needed them you programmed them on the fly. In many applications all you needed was AND for category intersection. I like to have NOT as well, which is hugely functional for this sort of thing. OR is less frequently necessary, but if one has bothered with the other two, it is easy to include. In short, if our basic search function excludes the most important pair, the 1) Why? and 2) What can we do about it?

Nude...? people...? with...? errrr...? I tried looking it up, but you lost me there somewhere, I probably should be sorry to say... Is this something to do with unexpected category (or attribute) intersections?

Tagging consistency is a rainbow's end and a duplicated cube. We won't get it nohow. Aint got it now neither. I already have renamed dozens of pic files, including <blush!> some of my own. Trying to get accuracy is bad enough; trying for consistency... Gotta be joking! But it helps. Most of my material is biological. A lot of it is taxonomic, and of course it is possible to demand that we use the lowest practical taxon, always with a hidden structure of the underlying (overlying?) higher taxons to support finding less specific targets. But things change all the time in biology; lately I have begun to develop taxonomists schizophrenia towards Nucleic acid research; it is an incredible blessing and a fear-and-loathing ogre. I have quite recently several times (till I grew gun-shy) jumped in to edit some idiot's articles full of elementary mistakes, only to find that there had been major re-organizations clandestinely introduced by people that I had never heard of, but that hated me personally and were out to get me. Trying to find material in such an environment is a counsel of despair. However, there is the alternative. Have lots of attributes, and let seekers select their own and let the chips where they may. They will miss some? Sure. They will get multiple hits? Sure. And?

And oh yes. Undisciplined tagging? After the toothbrushes I will not challenge you to surprise me, but this one certainly did not. Most (I bet) of our pics are either untagged or insanely tagged. By all means let those who wish go tag-hunting (the passion has hit me intermittently too, usually after finding say, that everyone knows what fits into a given family or suborder of insects, and sticks everything with saltatorial legs into the Ensifera, say. Amateur botanists are not a lot better. The first two hundred pics on any hunt for items needing correction are the worst. We simply never will have enough experts with the time to prevent that, no matter which tagging discipline we use, simple or complex, forgiving or power-hog.

As for tagging discipline, the current one that warns you that your tag is not recognised and-are-you-bloody-sure, because that one isn't going in till someone has OKed it, should be fine. Mot of the way-out, humorous, or plain stupid stuff will fall out at the first hurdle. Because people will quickly get tired of arguing with bots, it will seldom happen that they will insist on adding new tags unless it really is necessary (like a new species or a new place name etc). The main difference would be that there would be a lot of tags, such like "New Caledonia" "parasitoid" ""arboreal" "Crustacea" "Nickel-tolerant" or something.

I am not sure what you mean when you say: "...any system needs to support efficient browsing as well as specific finding...". Are you speaking of machine performance or human interface? Lat I heard we were sitting with a few million items. Suppose that they were to average ten tags each. Suppose that there were say, 100000 distinct tags. I haven't kept tabs with modern software, but if you landed me with a reasonable procedural language and a direct access system with plenty of server memory, I bet I could produce sub-second response time on that with my eyes shut, even after all the parameters had increased by an order of magnitude. (OK, OK, open; I am no touch typist, but with one hand behind my back anyway). Now, I am not sure that that would be a good idea, unless it turns out that current commercial DB applications couldn't manage that and would cost the Earth plus just as much programming, but the point is that hardware and programming should not be limiting factors. After all, Google and Alta Vista work, don't they? And they have some serious capacity challenges! What then? User interface a challenge? Hardly! Just let everyone insert as many keywords as he likes for an AND relationship, and 90% of your problem is gone. Stick in brackets, NOTs and ORs, and it would be a slap-up system for anyone.

Come to that, can't we get into bed with Google and tickle them into lending us a toy system? I have Google Desktop an my machine as I sit here. Useful it is too.

Grand schemes? Wellll... depends what you mean. I reckon that a competent, but very bread-and-butter, design and implementation should give powerful performance and facilities. It is the bells-and-whistles that sink most systems, not grandeur as i see it.

Must run. Back soon to talk to LP. JonRichfield (talk) 14:03, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi Jon. I'm having trouble with "Attributes are only trivially and exceptionally hierarchically structurable without doing violence." I have some familiarity with data structures but I'm no expert (and I suspect, in general, that's the main source of inaction on this topic). What we need is someone to propose a better idea than what we got. Powers (talk) 14:32, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi LP. I see your point, but first think about the kind of stuff we deal with. Most of my contributions so far have been photos of animals and plants. Usually I can specify a taxon, say for a wasp dragging a spider in the Huisrivier pass, up the stem of an Acacia. Zimple, no? And yet, already, Which of the four attributes gets to dictate the choice of hierarchy? How about a male Thomisid spider sitting on the female he had mated with, on a Lavandula inflorescence, eating one of the Millichiid flies that had been sharing her catch of an Anthophorid bee? Does it go on one of the categories of kleptoparasitism, mating strategies, ... You get the picture?

You think THAT is messy? Try categorising some of the city or factory scenes we have!

Of course, we could simply post the same picture half a dozen times under different names, once for each distinct tag, hm? (Joke... JOKE....! Hm... Or was it a joke...?)

OK, lets stop flogging that hoss.

Now, better scheme? There are dozens. The catch is to convince the people that are expert on such things that some particular scheme is the best. (Convincing the not-so-expert is a lot harder.) Part of the trouble is that the "best is the enemy of the good". There is no best, but some will insist on the best. My thinking is that we need some of the following attributes (and I am open to a lot of additions to the shopping list.)

Low software and maintenance costs

Loose structure so that the user can select the desired attributes on a repeated heuristic basis.

Current interface could be worse, apart from a rather niggardly search language. Just a small window into which users could enter search terms ad lib, plus perhaps later, search functions.

It would be nice to discipline the addition of unrecognised tags and to have a few bots permanently maintaining a list of vacuous tags (those that apply to too high a proportion of pictures) so that we either could ban and remove them, or do something about limiting their use.

We must of course be cautious about vacuous tags, because I could perform quite a useful search with just a few highly independent tags, even if they applied to a ridiculous number of pics. But still...

Well, that is just for starters of course. But at the risk of sounding obsessional, the principle does work for the search engines, right?

Feel welcome to nail me to the wall for providing such a simplistic list, but on due discussion I can do better, and I am sure, so can you folks.

Ciao for niao. JonRichfield (talk) 14:03, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Dating pictures

I bought 3 large prints and scanned them. (File:Nice paardentram.jpg, File:Havre binnenkomst driemaster.jpg, File:Brest sortie Cuirassé.jpg) There is no clue as to the date, so I have to guess with the content. With the Nice picture I know that the trams where not electrified until 1900. The type of warschip looks around 1900s. And tugboats with sailing mast must be early. (They didnt trust the engines). Bye the way does anyone know the current name of "avenue de la gare"? It is not on google earth.Smiley.toerist (talk) 18:33, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

• Avenue Jean-Médecin, renamed in 1918--Ymblanter (talk) 18:53, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Ok  Done. There a similar picture File:Nice - Avenue de la Gare.jpg Smiley.toerist (talk) 22:27, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

• The battleship in File:Brest sortie Cuirassé.jpg appears to be the French ironclad Hoche, based on photos on this page (towards the bottom). It was apparently launched in 1889 or 1890, and was modified a number of times. Based on the photos, it appears to be more the early 1890s, as it looks like one of the masts was modified during the 1890s and it got a big makeover in 1902. Carl Lindberg (talk) 19:56, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Ok,I wil accept 1892 and the name. Done Smiley.toerist (talk) 22:55, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

I added another link below after finding a source from 1890. -- Asclepias (talk) 05:33, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

• The image of File:Brest sortie Cuirassé.jpg can be found on the internet in different variants that were published on postcards, etc. It is generally identified as "Port militaire de Brest. - Sortie du cuirassé « Le Hoche »". Some postcards with this photograph are identified as published by "ND phot.", which was the mark of the photographers Neurdein. Examples: [12], [13], [14]. The articles fr:Neurdein and de:Neurdein are unfortunately still stubs. The years of the death of the Neurdein brothers seems somewhat uncertain, but it seems that they died circa 1913-1918. We have a category on Commons for their photographs: Category:Neurdein. Variants of the same photo (or similar photos) are also on postcards without a Neurdein mark, examples: [15], [16]. There are also postcards with other similar photographs of the same event that seem part of the same series by Neurdein, taken at a few minutes of interval: example. For the date of creation of the photograph, the early 1890s, as said above, seems a good guess. There is this reproduction of a page of a newspaper said to be from 1892, showing a different photo but, judging from the position of the other boats, it looks like it was taken on the same occasion. So the photograph would be from no later than 1892. There is this other newspaper with the same photo published on 26 July 1890: Le Monde illustré. At the bottom of that webpage, we see the description "Sortie du Hoche du port de Brest par Neurdein", probably recopied from the description in the newspaper. It is plausible that that publication was soon after the event. So, both photographs were likely created in 1890, or at least they were created no later than the date of publication of that newspaper in 1890. -- Asclepias (talk) 21:40, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
• Thanks for the info. I suspect the "port militaire" is not the presentday militairy port. Does anyone know wich swing bridge this is? I suspect the presentday "pont de Recouvrance", now a lift bridge. Intriging are all the smal boats attached to the ship. I suspect the ship was not going out to sea but being displaced from the dry dock to an mooring in the port.Smiley.toerist (talk) 08:24, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
  • File:29-Brest-Port militaire-Arrivée du Croiseur Duguay-Trouin-1901.jpg speaks of "Pont Nationale". Probably the same bridge in File:GBNG 184 - BREST - Sur le Grand Pont -Tram du Conquet-.JPG. Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:26, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
    • fr:Pont National (Brest). Looks like it was named the "Grand Pont" on opening, sometimes called "pont Impérial", and renamed "pont National" in the early 1870s. en:Pont National (Brest) is a stub article too. Detroyed during World War II and replaced with the Category:Pont de Recouvrance. We should probably make a category for that bridge. Carl Lindberg (talk) 01:50, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
      • Category:Pont National (Brest) Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:54, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

• • Another bridge question in Brest: I notice that the categories "Pont de l'Iroise" and "Pont Albert Louppe" look very similar. Another bridge rename? Smiley.toerist (talk) 23:15, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
    • Solved: The two bridges are very close to each other so dat most views include both bridges.Smiley.toerist (talk) 23:27, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

• Wich vlag is the square rig schip using? Smiley.toerist (talk) 22:55, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Oh, in File:Havre binnenkomst driemaster.jpg? Norway I guess, unless it's Iceland (though Iceland's modern flag did not exist until 1915ish per its article). Carl Lindberg (talk) 05:28, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

    And if I believe English Wikipedia, Norwegian flag was only used since 1899. About Icelandic flag, I still need to write the article myself, but it was in use since the beginning of the 19th century (not sure about the vessels though, they might all formally be Danish).--Ymblanter (talk) 05:35, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

    It could be File:Norge-Unionsflagg-1844.svg; hard to tell. Carl Lindberg (talk) 06:03, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

    That looks to be the only candidate I could see at quick glance from the 1899 Flags of Maritime Nations. Carl Lindberg (talk) 01:50, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

May 9

What is computer wallpaper?

Dumb question huh? Please comment at Category talk:Computer wallpaper. I am especially interested in hearing from anyone who has ever tagged an image as "wallpaper" on Commons. Thanks :-) --Tony Wills (talk) 06:30, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I find it odd that this issue is being discussed in three parallel treads at once currently:

1. Template talk:Assessments#Consensus needed
2. Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems#User:Shizhao
3. And now on Category talk:Computer wallpaper#What_is_computer_wallpaper.3F

I do not understand why a decision on perhaps a trivial matter needs to be conducted right-away before giving each discussion a chance to come to a close. I am not trying to negate the third discussion, I just feel it is rushed.

-- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 10:51, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

This is an independant question, and is not even about "featured wallpapers" which are related to those other discussions. It is about whether we can actually make this category useful. At the moment it is little more than "I like this one, and think someone might want to use it as a desktop wallpaper", certainly not an objective classification.

I think few people give any weight to this category, and there is little interest. But some people do take the time to classify images in this category, are they just looking at the aspect ratio "criteria" or is there more to their decision?

I have looked at this on an off over a couple of weeks, and wondered if we should start a wee project and create an RSS feed as you suggested at one point, but first steps first ... --Tony Wills (talk) 11:33, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Regardless there are multiple related discussions and it is quite overwhelming to pay attention to them all.

To be honest, I am not too happy with the non-assessed wallpapers - not that I object them. It would make more sense to have QI, VI variants of the FP wallpapers but I am satisfied with FP only wallpapers.

RSS feed would require additional software. I was thinking of revealing that in about 6 months. The issue is rushed too much and I am curious why this new discussion couldn't wait for example 15 days.

-- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 16:46, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

All "wallpapers" are not assessed as to their usability as "wallpapers" in any sense that I can see. I don't have a clue about what you mean by rushed and reference to 15 days, please explain? --Tony Wills (talk) 20:36, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I guess en:computer wallpaper explains it as well as can be. There are websites that specialize in it; given all the images you can find out there, what is "good" is probably completely subjective. What is distracting and noisy to one person may be the ideal background for another. Mostly though I'm guessing they are images of at least a particular size, and ones sized to match common computer screen resolutions, or at least the aspect ratios. I can't say I've ever tagged a file that way, but {{Wallpaper}} has been around for a long time. It seems the category is mostly based on the image size and dimensions, and not any other criteria. I don't see the harm, really. There is {{WideCommonsWallpaper}} as well for a different ratio, though marked as deprecated recently (is there a replacement?). Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:12, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I am merely saying that if I were in your shoes I would have given the parallel discussions a week or two to conclude before starting a new one. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 22:13, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

{{WideCommonsWallpaper}} was deprecated and {{Assessments}} is used in its place. {{Wallpaper}}] is used on very few files as it too is deprecated for {{Assessments}} aside from those remaining files. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 14:40, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

• Tangentially related... do we have any categories like Category:Photographs by aspect ratio? I couldn't find them at first glance. --99of9 (talk) 00:25, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
  • We don't and perhaps we shouldn't as exotic aspect ratios aren't that interesting. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 00:55, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
    • Lots of our categories aren't that interesting to most people :). But I guess I was thinking about less exotic ratios. Where do I find all the 16:9 (0.5625) images? (and I don't mean somewhere between 0.53 and 0.66) --99of9 (talk) 04:22, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
      • Non-exotic ratios would indeed be worth the while and perhaps exotic ratios can be bulked into one or two categories. This can be implemented into the {{Information}} template. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 11:00, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Requested template edit

{{VN}} For some reason, this template results in text like the following from Homo sapiens: "...ไทย: มนุษย์/คน · Tiếng Việt: Loài người · Türkçe: İnsan · 中文: 人 ·" And it has a hanging interpunct at the end of it for no reason. Can someone amend it such that it won't have a final interpunct? Thanks. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:34, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Template talk:VN would be a better place to ask, but from what I have seen that would require a major rewrite of the template, because the way it is currently written, each language is done independently and it ends with interpunct, and languages have no way of knowing that they are the last. I do not see any simple way to fix it. --Jarekt (talk) 12:03, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

file use

How it is possible, that this site shows those file usage, while all of them are no longer exists (there were deleted after being reduntant)? - — Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.156.172.74 (talk • contribs)

• Probably just a matter of not being fully up to date. - Jmabel ! talk 15:03, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Map update

This map needs to be updated. It says that brothels are illegal in tehe UK but i know for a fact that several brotherls operate in the UK, such as Soho which is known for its many brothels. Pass a Method (talk) 20:55, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Just because they exist doesn't mean that they are legal.--KTo288 (talk) 21:20, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

May 17

NASA animation

Could someone familiar with {{NASA-image}} please have a look at Commons:Deletion requests/File:Brommonoxid.gif? --Leyo 12:00, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Use of term "Location" in the file descriptions

We have a little bit of a problem with too many different things called "location" in image descriptions. We have:

• {{Location}} template storing latitude and longitude of the camera location. Displays field name Camera location. Used since 2006.
• {{Object location}} template storing latitude and longitude of the depicted object. Displays field name Object location.

• {{Institution}} template displays field name Coordinates for the same content, since field name Location was already used by a text description of the location.

• Location parameter in the {{Institution}}, {{Information2}}, {{Fossil}}, and similar templates stores subject locations. Displays field name Location. Used since 2006. Other templates use different parameters for the same thing:

• Place parameter in the {{Bus-Information}}, {{Rolling Stock-Information}}. Displays field name Place.
• imageloc parameter in the {{Infobox aircraft image}}. Displays field name Location.

• Location parameter in the {{Artwork}} template for stores artwork's location within the museum (like "Room 13" or "Renaissance Art Collection"). Used since 2005. Displays field name Current location. Field value displays Institution template or name above the location. Other templates use different parameters for the same thing:

• loc parameter in the {{British-Museum-object}}. Displays field name Location.

• Templates like {{Walters Art Museum artwork}} mimicking metadata of the artworks stored by the museum distinguish between 4 different types of location related to objects:

• Place of origin
• Place of discovery
• Depicted place
• Location within the museum

As one can see we have a lot of same names used for different things and different names used for the same thing. I feel like we could use some unification of parameters and displayed field names, at least moving forward. Lately when designing a new {{Photograph}} template (very similar as {{Artwork}} but a better fit for historical photographs) we run into a problem of what would be the most intuitive names for some of the parameters and displayed fields. We are planning to have 3 types of location:

• Text description of depicted place will use Depicted place parameter and field name
• Camera coordinates will use Camera coord parameter. Displays field name might be Camera location or Camera coordinates
• Location within the institution (see "current location" here). Field name Department, Something else? Displays field Institution.

Sorry for the long-winded post, and any suggestions and thoughts would be appreciated. --Jarekt (talk) 13:52, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

This is fine with me, but can the conversion be automated? I uploaded several thousand files and most of them use either {{Location}} or {{Camera location}}, it would be a bit inconvenient to convert all of them manually.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:38, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Renaming of {{Location}} template might not be realistic we have 2,743,275 of them. I am mostly concerned about unification and standartization which can be done without changes to any files. But if any changes to the files are needed than they will be done by a bot. --Jarekt (talk) 14:47, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

MediaWiki 1.20wmf3 deployment underway

Hi everyone! Yet another deployment in our bi-weekly deployment cycle is underway. See mw:MediaWiki 1.20/wmf3 for release notes. Let us know if you encounter problems caused by this deployment. Thanks! -- RobLa-WMF (talk) 18:19, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Problems

When using the "move files" tool, the moves work but I'm encountering intermittent timeouts. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 18:42, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

When making edits, I have started encountering error messages of the following type: "[7299ab2b] 2012-05-17 08:51:48: Fatal exception of type MWException". Looks like things are back to normal, though. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 09:05, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi JackLee, thanks for the report! It looks like we had a brief partial outage between 08:41 UTC and 09:04 UTC due to a site configuration change. Looks pretty likely to be the cause of what you were seeing. In case you're curious, here's the server admin log which gives a fairly detailed view of site changes that may affect site functionality. -- RobLa-WMF (talk) 19:48, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Change to the way thumbnails are stored

Today Aaron Schulz and I deployed a change to the way thumbnails are stored within Wikimedia's infrastructure. Previously, the image scaling cluster would write thumbnails no an NFS server and Swift (as part of processing the request) would store the image as well. We have changed both Mediawiki and Swift so that Mediawiki writes both copies (to NFS as well as to Swift) and Swift doesn't write at all. If you're interested in the actual changes, see Gerrit changes 7890, 7891, 7900, and 7901. This is a step along the migration path to eliminating NFS from the image-handling infrastructure.

There should be no user-visible effects of this change. All the same, if you do see something odd (images substantially and persistently slower, broken images, etc.) that started today, please let us know, either by email, on-wiki notes, or in IRC.

Thanks! Bhartshorne (talk) 21:48, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Slovakian railway lines

There seem to be no overview map with the railway line numbers. I have pictures of the regional line (Spišské Vlachy - Spišské Podhradie) number 21 on map File:Trat Regionalna draha.PNG. Should I add a category: Spišské Vlachy - Spišské Podhradie railway? Or is there a railway line number I can use? Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:56, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

These are the pictures: File:Katúň halte.jpg, File:Vlachy - Podhradie railway I.jpg, File:Vlachy - Podhradie railway II.jpg. The type of railcar I cant determine. File:Spiš kasteel.jpg is special case as this was taken from a great distance with a 500mm mirror lens. Do we have any category of pictures taken with mirror lenses?Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:13, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

I have added one.Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:54, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

I cant remember wich stations and stops these where in 1993. (File:Slovakije spoorlijn 173 II.jpg and File:Slovakije spoorlijn 173 I.jpg) I was with a hiking group. For the last one I am not certain if it belongs to the Classes 850 and 851. It has two small windows in front. Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:54, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Templates (?) spammed with File:ProphetOfPeace.jpg

Hi, could someone please have an urgent look at this: On many files such as these:

• File:Leon Metz cropped.JPG
• File:Vue op Alschent.JPG
• File:Kierch Munzen-004.JPG

a file: has been added by some vandal. --Jwh (talk) 10:38, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Also see File:Football at Milan.jpg – JBarta (talk) 10:50, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Update: Issue has been resolved. – JBarta (talk) 19:54, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Jmabel ! talk 00:06, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Shouldn't we keep both pictures ?

Hi everyone. I noticed that this picture had been uploaded over another picture (of the same person). Shouldn't we keep both pictures with two different names ? --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 21:26, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Probably. Strange: same uploader in both cases, no difference in description, same OTRS. We might want to contact uploader & ask what's going on. - Jmabel ! talk 00:08, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Could someone please check the OTRS ticket to see what it says? InverseHypercube 18:56, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

May 19

Sound problem

This file was mentioned and fixed in another help section. File:Alexander Misharin resignation address.ogv. I am wondering why the sound fails on some browser plugins. If a tech would like to look at it we may learn for future video uploads.--Canoe1967 (talk) 16:11, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Resolved

--Canoe1967 (talk) 20:13, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

List of unlinked categories

Is there a tool or a list which shows all the red categories. For example, Category:Languages of Mozambique has a subcategory, but it not itself linked to a larger category... I just spent time cleaning up after a user who did a mass recategorization where many of the new cats didn't exist. Some of the his new categories already had a number of images already in it so I'm curious as to what else needs linking into the cat tree... Tabercil (talk) 23:28, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Special:WantedCategories. MKFI (talk) 05:55, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Added Category:Ethnic groups in Mozambique and Category:Bantu languages to Category:Languages of Mozambique, if you want to populate it w:Languages of Mozambique has a list. Though some of those on the list are not exclusive to Mozambique.--KTo288 (talk) 10:05, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

May 18

Deletion of all remaining PD-Russia files

Just a quick pointer to Template_talk:PD-Russia#Deletion_of_all_files_that_continue_to_use_this_template.3F. My understanding is that these files were PD in both Russia and the USA when they were uploaded (before 2008), but then Russian law changed so that they are now no longer PD in Russia. So the legal/policy types amongst us might have an opinion. --99of9 (talk) 11:12, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

• Most of these files have been nominated for deletion individually, and this is fine. I known that Russavia made efforts to recategorize the files with the old template, either moving them to {{PD-Russia}} or to {{PD-RusEmpire}}, and he asked me to look at the rest. Since now most of them are nominated, it was difficult to me to find the files which still have the old template and are not nominated for deletion. I found about a dozen which I re-categorized as {{PD-RusEmpire}}. Generally, I do not see any issues: Indeed, Russian government adopted a law which retroactively made many of these files non-free, and there is nothing we can do about this. May be we could be lenient about files whose creators died in 1942 (to become free on January 1) to save the work on first removing them from the articles, and then reinserting them to the articles, but this is about it.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:02, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Who is responsible for the Russian-language MediaWiki interface of Commons?

Hello, as there is a gramatically bad expression in every difflink view since some time ("Разница между пересмотров"), I would like to know who is responsible for programming the Russian-language interface, hoping that he/she can correct it. Thx - A.Savin 21:55, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Unless it is changed here, it is done in the MediaWiki translation at translatewiki.net. If you can find the English equivalent (change language preferences for a moment) finding the item to correct is probably easier. I cannot find the string, neither here, nor on translatewiki. Has it been corrected? --LPfi (talk) 08:56, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, it's been corrected meanwhile. - A.Savin 16:41, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Other languages of Template:Personality rights

Template:personality rights/en has changed. Therefore, many non-English languages of this template must be translated to current English version of this template. Any helpers, such as of Japanese and Chinese? --George Ho (talk) 03:43, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Just make sure you use this edit for the translations since there has been editing by IPs and what not. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return fire)} 03:46, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

It is indefinitely protected at the moment, so one should be able to trust the current version. --LPfi (talk) 09:54, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

PD-anon-Canada

Canada has a different copyright law for anonymous works than what is covered by, say, {{PD-anon-70}} (50 after publication or 75 after creation). Would the proper name for a new template be {{PD-anon-Canada}}?

Thank you. InverseHypercube 04:03, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

PD-Canada-anon? Carl Lindberg (talk) 04:10, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Template:PD-in/North America?--Canoe1967 (talk) 04:24, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps Template:Anonymous-CAN ? User:Zscout370 ^{(Return fire)} 04:26, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Template:PD-in/North America works, but can it be used as the sole license on files? InverseHypercube 06:44, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't think so. Probably best to have its own template, as that looks to be a bit different law than most. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:46, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I created {{PD-Canada-anon}}. Thank you! InverseHypercube 19:32, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

why picture name can't be Scandianavian Hunks

I try to upload picture but I can't use picture name Scandianavian Hunks, I must use some other file:Suomalainen tanssiryhmä.jpg name.--Motopark (talk) 14:51, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

File:Scandinavian Hunks looks free to me. You could try template:rename?--Canoe1967 (talk) 17:05, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

• I added a rename request to the file.--Canoe1967 (talk) 17:12, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
• Rename  Done russavia (talk) 17:42, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. --Canoe1967 (talk) 18:00, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Rename request

Hi! Could anyone please rename the file Solomon James Owello vs Kyle Helton IMG 6851.jpg, and instead call it Ernest Asante vs Kyle Helton IMG 6851.jpg ??? Kind regards, Bjoertvedt (talk) 23:06, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

I added a rename tag to it. You may wish to check my spelling.--Canoe1967 (talk) 01:00, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

 Done. Rename looks complete.--Canoe1967 (talk) 15:09, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Jmabel ! talk 15:42, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

May 22

File:Heusden schandpaal.jpg.jpg

I would like some advice on this file (File:Heusden schandpaal.jpg.jpg). The filename says it's a schandpaal (pillory), but the fact that it is a pillory is extremely unlikely as I tried to explain on the talkpage of the file. Two other users however keep ignoring my arguments, and now one of them (User:Foroa) has changed and secured the file to force his or her own opinion obout this file upon the commons community. This seems to me as not the way to solve a difference of opinions. LeeGer (talk) 16:07, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

• The ring would be typical of a hitching post, not a pillory! - Jmabel ! talk 16:23, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
  • After looking up what a hitching post is, I have to agree that a hitching post is more likely, but not certain either of course. LeeGer (talk) 16:34, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Would you need a lock on the ring itself though? Its presence implies that the ring needs to be closed around something which then can't get out, and locked shut. A hitching post wouldn't need a lock in that position, nor would the ring need to be opened in the first place. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:36, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
    • If you would hitch an animal to such a borderstone and leave it there to graze for a while (not uncommon around here), then it might be wise to have a lock yes. Otherwise the animal might get stolen. LeeGer (talk) 16:54, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
      • Stealing a horse would be dependent on how well the rope was secured, not the ring. Hitching post rings were solid metal; you didn't need to open them. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:04, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
        • Present time (the ring was added in 1992) horses or any other type of cattle are usually hitched by chains around here. So a metal ring which can be opened could be very useful for hitching the horse I think. But now were just simply guessing, just like guessing if it could be a pillory. LeeGer (talk) 17:51, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
          • If the ring was added in 1992, it's definitely not a pillory. But it seems very odd to have added something like that at the time, unless it was a signature of sorts for the restoring group or something. And unless the key was also present, the lock would still be strange -- you can have a simpler latching mechanism if you just needed to keep animals there. How do you know it was added in 1992? Is that documented somewhere, or is that just your speculation? Carl Lindberg (talk) 19:09, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

The proper way would be to discuss it on the talk page, and not make page moves or edits to the description (beyond adding the {{Fact disputed}} tag as a pointer). We do want to keep reverted edits etc. to a minimum, and in particular renames. I'm not sure indefinite protection is appropriate there, but a temporary one may be OK. Most editors are not going to be experts in this type of subject matter; the uploader usually knows more, and the filename and description are usually best left alone unless it can be shown that it is incorrect. You may well have a case, but... you say the ring was added in 1992. Is there a reference for that? Why was the ring added then? It sure looks older. As for the height, is it possible the ring was meant to go around the neck, and force the person to be sitting down? It seems odd, but not impossible, for something like that to be used as a pillory even if not originally designed as such. Really, we'd need to know when the ring was added. If it was only done in 1992, then sure you're correct, but offhand I don't see any definitive evidence of that. On the other hand, the ring is in the middle of a circle which has "Renovatum MCMLXXXXII" on it, which is marked as 1992. So maybe it was newer, or maybe the ring had been there, and they just had to rebuild that portion of the pole, and just put their renovation note around the ring. Without knowing what the pole was like prior to 1992, it may be hard to say. It seems very odd that someone would add an element like that in a restoration without reason, though perhaps it was there originally but had some other purpose. In short though... while it's fine to add the "fact disputed" tag and discuss on the talk page, don't participate in a revert or move war on the main page while the discussion is still going on. It should be possible to convince others you're right with enough evidence. And if there is a legitimate dispute, leave the tag there so interested editors can make note of it (the disputed tag should also not be removed unless most editors can be convinced the pillory ring is authentic, and not used for some other purpose). Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:36, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Remains the fact that someone called the borderstone a pillory while there is no evidence to be found it was ever used as a pillory, or even intended as an example of a pillory. My opinion is that it should not be called a pillory, and certainly not be added to a category of pillories, before there is any reliable source that it might have been a pillory. And at the moment there is no such source. LeeGer (talk) 16:51, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

I have to admit, I can't figure any other logical reason for the ring to be there. It's definitely a cuff of some sort, and you wouldn't need the lock for any non-human, and while dimensions are tough to judge, it sure doesn't look like a handcuff or ankle cuff (and the position would be odd for that), meaning it would have to be for the neck. Its position seems consistent with a sitting prisoner. Hitching post rings would be higher up at the top of the post, and would not need to be openable anyways (just a solid ring to tie a rope to). If the ring was there originally, it sure looks like that the only logical purpose would be for a pillory. It's obviously not the original purpose of the marker, but it could have been used for that -- it is right in front of a river, so the purpose may be have been as a warning for other river travelers (pretty common means of transportation back then I'm sure). A couple of other photos of its context here. The description could certainly be changed to note the uncertainty, or just say that it appears the marker served double-duty as a pillory, but as a gut feeling, I would not remove all mention of a pillory unless it can be shown the ring is a bogus newer addition. Otherwise, the clear assumption is that the ring was in fact there for a long time, and is a reliable visual reference unto itself -- it served some purpose, as most other similar marker stones (from a quick image search) have no such rings. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:03, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

The position for the ring makes it very unlikely it was used as a pillory as it is too low for the neck of a standing prisoner, and too high for a sitting prisoner. Metal rings for pillories would usually be placed much higher. Asl you can see on File:Appingedam 11.JPG. The fact that one can't think of any other logical use for the ring (allthough I think a hitchingpost is much more logical), doesn't mean one should simply state on Wikipedia that it is a pillory. Especially as there are more reasons to assume it isn't one. We should be careful in describing history. There should not be any room for assumptions on Wikipedia without any reliable sources. LeeGer (talk) 17:51, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Not having a good idea of exactly how far it is off the ground I can't be sure, but it seems like it could be a reasonable height for a sitting prisoner. Secondly, if the base was rebuilt, it's possible that it is no longer precisely at its former height. I can agree that we probably shouldn't definitively state it was a pillory, but use some sort of hedging on the words -- appears, or best guess or something like that. The lack of knowledge of when the ring was added should be pointed out, absolutely. But if use as a pillory is the best guess anyone has, I can certainly see keeping that speculation in the image description -- labeled as speculation, fine, but not removed altogether. Carl Lindberg (talk) 19:09, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

It may be relevant to note that this object is a national monument (rijksmonumenten), and according to this website it is a grensafbakening (border demarcation). However, I am not a Dutch speaker, so someone conversant with the language should confirm this. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 09:53, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Actually that description in the national monumentregister is about this borderstone. Which is, as you can see, similar to the borderstone under debate here. LeeGer (talk) 16:24, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Grensafbakening means indeed a border demarcation, but such stones could be on the border or (main) entrance of a fiefdom or manor too. For information: "The word is documented in English since 1274 (attested in Anglo-Latin from c. 1189), and stems from Old French pellori (1168; modern French pilori, see below), itself from medieval Latin pilloria, of uncertain origin, perhaps a diminutive of Latin pila "pillar, stone barrier.", and personally, I think that pillories have been used as border stones too as deterrent for visitors. Anyway, my position is that we should only change the file name, description or categories when we have evidence, not hypothesises or speculation. --Foroa (talk) 10:50, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

You know perfectly well this borderstone is the borderstone of a waterboard, and was never on the border or main entrance of a fiefdom or manor. LeeGer (talk) 16:18, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps we can rename the file grensafbakening since (1) it is used by a government website to identify the object; and (2) it is a neutral name that does not try to identify the object as either a hitching post or pillory. Oh, and let's remove the double extension (".jpg.jpg"). — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 11:10, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Another [blog] I found states that the post is outside of the town defences but next to one of the main entrances, so although pillories may normally be situated in the centre of town, having one outside of the main gate would just have been as visible, especially for those living outside the walls. However the second blog references the blog linked to on the file talk page when it talks about this post having been used as a pillory so can't really be considered independent. I've had a look at the tourist office websitwe for Heusden (http://www.hbtheusden.nl/) but they don't seem to have anything on pillories in their town, maybe someone who can speak Dutch could send them an e-mail?--KTo288 (talk) 11:28, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

You may send them an email in English too. Can't imagine that they don't have people there who can speak and write in english. And you are right that there is no reference anywhere that describes a pillory in or close to the city. And a city so famous for it's history as a fortified city, and because of that, so dependend on tourism, would certainly mention the presence of a pillory. Just like a pillory would certainly be mentioned in the national monumentregister. LeeGer (talk) 16:18, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Is is possible the ring is there because it was at some point a traditional accoutrement for such stones, even if they were no longer actually used as pillories? Then practicality would not matter. Dankarl (talk) 22:18, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

No, it is a traditional waterboard borderstone. They weren't used as pillories. They were used to mark the border of the area where that waterboard was responsible for the quality of the water, and the waterlevel. LeeGer (talk) 19:03, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

User:Flickr upload bot

Who is responsible for User:Flickr upload bot? It uploaded File:Marlon Brando The Wild one.jpg which is an obviously copyrighted image, Flickrwashed by someone who's not the copyright owner. The bot owner User:Bryan is inactive? So who controls this thing? --Dennis Bratland (talk) 18:26, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

It cannot detect Flickrwashing, unless the uploader on Flickr is placed on a blocklist from having their files uploaded. It is something humans can only catch, since the main thing it looks for is if the user is in good standing on Flickr (so not on the block list) and also for the license. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return fire)} 18:51, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

It can be used by any user through [17], so there isn't any single user responsible for its uploads. However, you can see who initiated the upload by looking at the revision history; in the case of the file you mention, it is User:Peprovira. InverseHypercube 19:16, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

May 23

Mediawiki:difference-title

This message currently contains the text Difference between revisions of "$1". I'm not sure when this changed, why, or what it used to say, but I'm pretty sure diff pages used to have better titles than this until very recently.

A lot of my work here starts with my watchlist. I typically open a bunch of diffs in tabs and go through them one by one. That becomes a lot trickier if the visible part of all tabs contains the same text. It would be much better if the unique part of the title were presented first: $1: difference between revisions. Is this a change we can make ourselves, or do we need to file a Bugzilla report and wait two years or involve non-Wikimedia projects to get it changed? —LX (talk, contribs) 10:14, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Changing it at translatewiki:MediaWiki:Difference-title/en would probably work, but when would the change be applied? Some time ago, I corrected a mixup between Chile and Switzerland on Translatewiki,[18] but the relevant template still tells that it is a Chilean licence. In fact, the earlier change by User:Lokal Profil hasn't been applied on Commons either. --Stefan4 (talk) 13:07, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

As bugzilla:36349. has been resolved, you can see that MediaWiki:Wm-license-cc-by-sa-2.5-ch-text/sv is just fine. Your issue must have another origin. I'd assume a "purge" would suffice -- and it did. --Siebrand 18:09, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

The idea of the change was to show in the title that it's a diff. It used to be just the name, which was also confusing. LX's suggestion to put the title first is good, however, so I committed a patch for this. It still needs to be reviewed. If all goes well, it should go live in a few days (but there may be surprises, too).

In general, changing English messages in translatewiki.net won't do anything. Only changing messages in other languages will have an effect. However, the Support page in translatewiki.net is a very good place to report issues like this one. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 18:28, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. I am also glad that someone cares for this support page now. -- RE rillke questions? 15:24, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Personality rights, et al

The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Conversation has been relocated - lock, stock and barrel - to Commons talk:Photographs of identifiable people. I've marked this archived to avoid forking the talk. Please feel free to implement another method if it suits better. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:52, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

---

Hi everyone, While reviewing past board resolutions (don't ask, I'm a geek, I know), I came across the resolution on Images of Identifiable People. After I re-read it, I admit to being a little surprised because I don't recall there being a ton of discussion about it here. It's possible that I've missed something, but I wonder if Commons has made any progress toward the parts of this that are directly pointed at this project, namely:

• Strengthen and enforce the current Commons guideline on photographs of identifiable people with the goal of requiring evidence of consent from the subject of media, including photographs and videos, when so required under the guideline. The evidence of consent would usually consist of an affirmation from the uploader of the media, and such consent would usually be required from identifiable subjects in a photograph or video taken in a private place. This guideline has been longstanding, though it has not been applied consistently.
• Ensure that all projects that host media have policies in place regarding the treatment of images of identifiable living people in private situations.
• Treat any person who has a complaint about images of themselves hosted on our projects with patience, kindness, and respect, and encourage others to do the same.

An (admittedly superficial) review didn't seem to show a lot of movement on the policy question in the first bullet point, so I'm wonder if there's some way that my team or the Foundation can support the commons community in this. Would it be helpful if we were to get some suggested draft language from Legal/Community Advocacy? I'm not saying we should, it's just one idea for how the WMF could support the commons community in fulfilling this Board resolution that's nearly a year old. If there are other ways that we could be helpful, I'm happy to listen here and try to find the ones that make sense for this community.

I'm not here with any predefined outcome in mind: really, I'd like to open a discussion about how the WMF (and specifically the Legal and Community Advocacy Department) can be helpful in working toward the position laid out in the Board resolution. Thanks! Philippe (WMF) (talk) 01:10, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

I may be confused. I think the consent would have a clash with legal issues on privacy. If I take a picture of a friend in my house, he may allow it placed in commons but not wish to have his name known to WMF. WMF would have to go on my word that I have his permission. Anyone that sees an image of themselves could add a speedy delete tag and/or email the adresses that cover that?--Canoe1967 (talk) 01:25, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

I know OTRS is backlogged, but this is what I imagined the service to be when it comes to issues like this. I know this will also run into some of the issues we have now over the PORN that we got, but as far as I am aware, I am not sure a lot of things were done. We just tag an image and call it a day. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return fire)} 03:04, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Could we just create a policy that simply states that WMF is CYA and any uploader can have his butt sued for images? I removed a statement in an en:WP BLP article after the the BLP asked in help desk. I did this without question, speedily, and in good faith. We had a discussion on the talk page as to wording and reliable sources and the statement was replaced with a more accurate one that I think the BLP had to accept legally.--Canoe1967 (talk) 03:42, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

It seems to me that would not comply with the Board resolution, which was not to CYA, but was directed to the community. So it's not a matter of the WMF covering, but rather of the commons community coming into agreement with the resolution passed by the Board, as I read it. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 13:16, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

• I don't have time to answer properly just now, but two things that I'm aware of were done: COM:PEOPLE now includes the clause expecting evidence (at least uploader assertion) when consent is required, and {{Consent}} was created and discussed. The latter has not gone into widespread use yet - I would suggest that anyone who uploads photographs of people tries it out on their own uploads to see if it needs any other parameter options. --99of9 (talk) 04:47, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
  • I note that while you're obviously correct about the statement above, it's also important to say that COM:PEOPLE includes this statement:

If you would like to proactively assert compliance with these guidelines for a particular photograph or video, you can add the {{consent}} template to the file's description page. Please refer to the template documentation for further instructions. Use of this template is not required for compliance with these guidelines or other Commons policies.

A template without policy enforcement behind it does not satisfy my reading of the Board resolution. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 18:12, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

• I think the intent of that sentence is to say that there are other ways to assert consent, not just that one particular template. But I agree a bit of clarification could help. --99of9 (talk) 22:31, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

• I put all versions of {{Consent}} on a file of mine that isn't used much yet: File:Watermark sample.jpg. Feel free to use it as a sandbox file. Should we put a link to the template on the upload page, or possible have a bot add it to all files in category:people to get uploaders to notice it? It seems good enough to be policy to me.--Canoe1967 (talk) 05:18, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

• The upload wizard will need a dropdown menu with each of the possible consent|parameters. --99of9 (talk) 11:38, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

• Note: this was discussed at VP (archive) last month. The issue hasn't gone away. For instance, we could more explicitly address privacy as a reason for deletion (see Commons_talk:Deletion_policy#Privacy). Rd232 (talk) 13:46, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

• The issue is serious and should be discussed. I am a bit worried though, that such resolutions are approved without as much scrutiny as changes in our guidelines. It is unclear how the resolution is supposed to affect existing images taken with undocumented consent. I suppose those should be kept, unless deemed very problematic. There is also the problem about declared consent being contested - by the subject, by somebody claiming to be the subject or a third party. The second is a serious threat to some classes of images (I remember a case about dead soldiers). The consent template would satisfy the resolution, but not these other problems. It was also introduced as a suggestion and should get more eyes before made official or put in wide use. --LPfi (talk) 09:33, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
• At this point should we decide where to actually discuss it. This thread may be buried in time soon, as it seems others have been. On the matter of the consent templates, they could be added to all the images in category people to draw attention to the issue. Changes to all the upload pages including ones like Commonist, Android, etc. may have to be made as well. A statement such as: 'If this image has living people then one of the consent templates MUST be used?'--Canoe1967 (talk) 16:28, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

I like that. Does it have teeth? Is the policy sufficiently strong to back it up? Philippe (WMF) (talk) 17:42, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

I think if a bot master had a bot add:

A query has been raised regarding consent of identifiable persons: It is not clear whether all identifiable subjects have consented to the publication of this image or video. If you created this media, and it was taken in public or you have the consent of the subjects (or parental consent for minors), please replace the template parameter 'query' with a more appropriate one from Template:Consent. If this is not rectified, the media may be discussed for deletion as a violation of Commons:Photos of identifiable people.

...to every image in category people it would bring the issue forward to scrutiny. Just a thought though. Does present policy actually require some type of consent tag now with all images containing people?--Canoe1967 (talk) 17:51, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

My read is that the Board left some wiggle room. I think any attempt at proactively updating policy and strengthening it would be a welcome sign. I tend to think that mass-using a bot to drop a massive number of templates is likely to have a flashback effect that would be unwelcome. In that case, I think what we would see is a hardening of resolve by those opposed (who would also, quite rightly, point out that the time requirements needed to satisfy those would be extreme). I would suggest, instead, some sort of triage system that begins with higher-risk images (if such a thing can be identified) and works toward some threshold. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 18:17, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

• Could we create a category 'images of people lacking consent templates' type thing? A bot could add all the people images to this new category. I don't think there is a way to add all images of people robotically unless they are in the people category now. Then editors could go through all the files in the new category manually and add approriate tags to the obviuos ones?--Canoe1967 (talk) 18:31, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

  I think Canoe1967 is absolutely right that this discussion should be taken to a good place. One cannot be supposed to watch this page as it is busy and more or less English only. And any decision will affect a huge amount of images.

  On the subject matter: The change should be about new uploads. There the key things is having the templates and making the upload forms handle them smoothly.

  The policy has required consent, not documentation of consent. That could be read as uploading an image means implicitly assuring consent. Deleting perfectly good images because of changes in policy should be the last alternative (I have supposed Commons is a stable image repository in that sense). I think we should delete old files only if there is a clear violation of privacy (handling of complaints should probably continue as now).

  --LPfi (talk) 18:57, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

• I agree that we shouldn't just bomb consent|query on every pre-existing image of a face, but I would point out that pre-existing policy reads "...the subject's consent may be required as described at Commons:Photographs of identifiable people. In all cases, the burden of proof lies on the uploader or other person arguing for the file to be retained to demonstrate that as far as can reasonably be determined... that any required consent has been obtained." I'd say that past uploads should be given good faith, but if there are red flags flying, they should go to DR. --99of9 (talk) 11:38, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

The policy is just rubbish made during the Jimbo pron witch hunt and will get abused by the haters to get rid of images they don't like. Trick question: Find the board member who was an active Commons community member around the time of that resolution.

We don't need a board that sends commandments from their ivory tower, we need a board that actually helps us to improve things here. Now they're only making things worse: Rubbish policy, we don't abide to it and yet more material for the haters to dump on Jimbo's talk page. Good job board! Multichill (talk) 22:13, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

I can see your points. Until this thread was started I assumed that WMF was CYA and uploaders are to be responsible for permission under threat of legal action. I also mention that I read somewhere that WMF can dictate policy unilaterly because they control the servers type thing.--Canoe1967 (talk) 22:22, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Move discussion to:

Commons talk:Privacy policy? We could still have a bot tag all images in Category:Unidentified people? There are only around 10,000 images there, so that may not irk too many people, justify the tags, and create more notice of the issue?--Canoe1967 (talk) 20:04, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

If that is the destination, I would suggest moving the whole discussion there to provide context and prevent forking. Dankarl (talk) 21:25, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Oops. Should it be Commons talk:Photographs of identifiable people instead? That other section is for how commons handles our user data, I think.--Canoe1967 (talk) 21:51, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea. If there are no objections, I'll move the discussion there so that it can be more easily carried forward. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 11:09, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Sure, go ahead. There is also some related discussion happening at Template talk:Consent. --99of9 (talk) 11:28, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Private place

What is a private place, speaking of what I know, sport photographies can be done in privately owned stadium. I'm really not against enforcing a stricter policy on personality rights, but we have to consider all the pros and cons, and tune the policy. --PierreSelim (talk) 22:10, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

See Commons:Photographs_of_identifiable_people#Normally_OK. It seems that each country has different laws though.--Canoe1967 (talk) 22:25, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Are people talking about privacy rights or personality rights? They are not remotely the same thing. Personality rights have never been cause for deletion -- they are analogous to trademark, using someone's name or likeness for advertising and things like that, and are sometimes known as publicity rights. As far as the U.S., privacy rights happen when there is an "expectation of privacy". That is definitely not the case for sports photography. Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:27, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

I think the OP meant privacy rights. I think most courts would find that if an image from commons is used for financial gain of personality rights it wouldn't matter if the image was even considered public domain and is covered by other laws?--Canoe1967 (talk) 22:33, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

• Please see Commons talk:Photographs of identifiable people to continue this discussion. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:52, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Suppressing the license field in upload form

Is there a way to suppress the license field in the form at Special:Upload? Like with GET/POST data. What's happening is a lot of users are coming over via CommonsHelper, which already provides the license, but then the form is asking them to provide another license, which is causing it to duplicate (or, if the uploader is sloppy and/or uninformed, causing an incorrect license to be added). Magog the Ogre (talk) 00:06, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

May be the easiest is to use Basic upload form. I find it the most intuitive. --Jarekt (talk) 03:28, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

OK, I wasn't very clear: I meant with the basic upload form, a way to suppress the license field. If it's not possible, I'll be glad to write the code to do so, if it's something that's handled locally. Magog the Ogre (talk) 06:31, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

I did some investigation at MediaWiki:UploadForm.js, and there is a way to suppress the license field: setting &uselang=fromwikimedia. You might want to create a new "hack" (see var hacks in the JS file) based on that one, that uses different descriptions. InverseHypercube 19:44, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Not sure how you found that, but thank you. I've filed a bug which he'll hopefully address, as it's painfully simple to correct: [19]. Magog the Ogre (talk) 20:38, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

I found it just by looking around in the code. While it is simple to correct it the way you mention, my concern was that the text claiming the file is from Wikimedia might confuse users. InverseHypercube 23:41, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

The License field in Basic upload form can be ignored, if the license is provided in the text. But I guess, it is still confusing for those that notice it. --Jarekt (talk) 02:10, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Is there a way to provide this functionality of omitting a license without using the uselang parameter? Because this parameter automatically means the page will display in English, no matter the user's preference. Magog the Ogre (talk) 02:34, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

looking for poster papa1234

hello,

I'm looking for the person who posts as papa1234. I have a question about this file.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:J%C3%BCdischer_Friedhof_Frauenberger_Stra%C3%9Fe_Euskirchen_13.JPG#filehistory

Are you a relative of the Benders or marxs?

Please respond in English to 1clemkadiddlehoppergmail.com

Thank you

Hello. This is not the place to contact specific users, so I have copied your message to papa1234's talk page here.

Thanks! InverseHypercube 06:08, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Jmabel ! talk 15:47, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Self-categorizing image templates not updating

Does anyone here know how or when categories get purged if they're added inside a template? For example File:ABS-9314.0-SalesNewMotorVehiclesAustralia-NewMotorVehiclesSalesByTypeAllSeries-Aust-TotalVehicles-A367304A.svg is categorized by Template:AustralianBureauStatistics that uses #ifexist to drill down to narrower and narrower categories as they are created. In this case, Category:Images using data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics table 931401 does exist, so it has been categorized as such on the file description page. However, the file doesn't appear in that category, and having tried to purge a bunch of pages, I can't seem to make it appear. Any tips would be much appreciated, because I plan to use this system on around 50,000 files. --99of9 (talk) 01:27, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Changes in a template roll out after a short while. But this can be a few hours. To force it for one or two articles, edit+save the article that contains the template will help, but for 50.000 files just waiting a day should do the trick. Edoderoo (talk) 06:37, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Is there some problem with category updates? If you tag a file with {{subst:OP}}, the file is supposed to appear in Category:Media missing permission after a month. However, Category:OTRS pending as of 16 February 2012, which contains files tagged with {{subst:OP}} three months ago, contains a lot of files, but none of those are listed at Category:Media missing permission. Sure, the category is listed on the file information page, but the files are not listed on the category page. There are also many other ancient OTRS categories which don't appear in the "no permission" category. --Stefan4 (talk) 13:31, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

• I've waited a day now, and there's no change for the case I reported above. --99of9 (talk) 01:35, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

AFAIR it has never worked properly with the OTRS pending template to auto-change into a properly working no permission tag. I remember to have seen a bot doing this work after a user-defined delay (based on OTRS workload) but this bot must have stopped working. We even have a lot of images with undated OTRS pending tags which the bot was supposed to fix/update. --01:57, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

It turns out I can make a small edit to the template, and that seems to push files to correctly categorize themselves. --99of9 (talk) 02:14, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Edit protect page

Is Commons:Upload/es. It says:

<div style="background-color:#ffee99; border: 1px #ffe795 solid; padding:0.1em 0.8em; margin-bottom:1em; font-size:110%;">
¡Ayúdanos a probar el nuevo [[Special:UploadWizard|asistente de subidas]]!
</div>

But can be used: {{UploadWizard}} (now supports Spanish). In addition Template:UploadWizard/ml should be delete. Thanks, --Metrónomo (talk) 05:25, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks for letting us know about that, Metrónomo! I have just replaced the template at Commons:Upload/es and deleted Template:UploadWizard/ml. Regards, odder (talk) 21:06, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. odder (talk) 21:29, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

My pictures do not apear in categories they are in

Hello

Recently I've stumbled upon something very weird. Since a few months ago pictures I have uploaded do not apear in categories they are in. I know they are in those categories because I have checked the pages of the respective files.

Here's what I discovered through testing:

1. This does not happen for pictures I have uploaded before this started happening.

2. The missing pictures appear as soon as Wikimedia Commons sets a cookie. I've tested this and all one has to do is visit the login page. Even if this person does not login or register Wikimedia Commons sets a cookie in the browser and missing pictures are back. Removing Wikimedia Commons cookies causes the pictures to once again disappear.

3. This is not an isolated issue as I have tested this on two computers I have direct access to as well as one completely different computer. On the first two computers I connected via HTTPS and on the third one I connected without encryption. I have confirmed this behavior in all three cases.

Here are some facts that may be helpful in solving this issue: I connect to Wikimedia Commons using Mozilla Firefox 12.0 and I upload my pictures using Commonist 0.4.28.

As an example I present two pictures I have uploaded yesterday: File:Beige FSO Polonez MR'83 1.5 L with rectangular headlights in Kraków.jpg, File:Beige FSO Polonez MR'83 1.5 L with rectangular headlights in Kraków (1).jpg

Regards. - SuperTank17 (talk) 16:27, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

• I see File:Beige FSO Polonez MR'83 1.5 L with rectangular headlights in Kraków.jpg in Category:Beige hatchbacks in Kraków. Or are you saying that having accessed my watchlist, which brought me to the VP already invalidated me as an observer? If so, can you spell out some steps you think someone could follow to reproduce the problem? I assume you know that the cat page does not update dynamically, and would have to be reloaded to see a new upload. - Jmabel ! talk 00:07, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

This is not a problem with not reloading the category pages. This is a problem with pictures uploaded weeks or even months ago not showing in categories even though the respective file pages list these categories.

Since you came here via your watchlist you were likely logged in at the time and thus already had Wikimedia Commons cookies in your browser.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Log off from Wikimedia Commons (and from other Wikimedia websites)

2. Delete any and all Wikimedia Commons cookies (and possibly cookies from other Wikimedia pages) you have in your browser.

3. Look at Category:FSO Polonez MR'83 and tell me if you can see any of the two pictures I have mentioned.

Regards. - SuperTank17 (talk) 00:17, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

If you purge the file while logged out (go to edit the file and replace "edit" in the URL with "purge"), does it solve the problem? I don't know if it applies to Commons or not, but for some wikis logged-out users see an older (cached?) version of the page unless they purge it. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 00:36, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

This can't be a problem with catching because I have it turned off in my browser.

I have discovered something interesting: It apears that only some pictures disappear. For instance I know that this, this, this and this disappears but not the pictures of other vehicles I have uploaded in between the ones I have mentioned.

Regards. - SuperTank17 (talk) 00:46, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

That’s about Wikimedia cache, not your browser’s. --AVRS (talk) 13:08, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Just so we're clear: I did try it and it did not work.

Regards. - SuperTank17 (talk) 13:51, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

UPDATE: I have discovered that purging the Wikimedia Commons cache does work but it has to be done to categories, not to pages of individual files as Philosopher suggested. I have already purged the Wikimedia Commons cache of Category:FSO Polonez MR'83 and Category:TAKRAF ADK 125 and started seeing the missing pictures.

Regards. - SuperTank17 (talk) 18:40, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Ah, that would make sense. Good to see you figured it out! --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 19:06, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

May 24

EXIF wikilinks

I noticed that EXIF wikilinks to the camera model articles. This is very handy to find out if an image has been cropped or not. It seems that the link on this image's camera goes to a dab page though: File:Ramphastos toco Whipsnade Zoo.jpg. Click the camera model (E-3) in the EXIF to see what I mean. Is there a way to have them go directly to the camera model article?--Canoe1967 (talk) 22:10, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

It seems you're asking if a redirect on the English Wikipedia can point to a different article. Your best bet is investigating (or really just performing the edit) yourself on that wiki. Killiondude (talk) 17:47, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

No. I don't want E-3 to go to the camera article. What would be nice is if the wikilink in the EXIF would go to en:Olympus E-3 instead of en:E-3. Where is this modified?--Canoe1967 (talk) 18:32, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

I see. Well, it's handled by MediaWiki:Exif-model-value which in turn calls upon {{Exif-model-value}}. Right now it just wraps whatever value is processed in that field of the metadata with a link to enwiki. I'm not a big template person but perhaps some sort of #if statement could be written into the template to make instances of E-3 point to the appropriate article. Killiondude (talk) 18:40, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

It is no big deal to me. It is very easy to find the camera article from the dab page. I don't want to burden volunteers with template mods when they probably have far better things to do with their time. I could paste this whole section to the template talk page, but it seems they may not be watched, meaning no recent edits.--Canoe1967 (talk) 19:13, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

UploadWizard changes live today

We've pushed some updates to UploadWizard, most notably:

• disabled multiple-file selection in browsers where it didn't work
• files now start uploading immediately when selected (this can be disabled server-side if there are problems with it)
• improved category input fields
• 'skip tutorial' step is now saved as a pref instead of a cookie -- so the tutorial won't come back every time you switch computers anymore!
• fixes for when pre-upload thumbnails do and don't get drawn
• initial API for fetching upload campaign metadata ('action=uploadcampaign'), to be used by Wiki Loves Monuments mobile app

Don't be shy about giving feedback if anything has gone awry! --brion (talk) 22:18, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Also,

• fix license links on the license page
• fix the "Upload more files" functionality which would break multiple-file selection previously
• multiple improvements to batch uploads

Hot off the presses, be sure to file bugs if you find problems! MarkTraceur (talk) 22:27, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

May 25

Special events are held at Graffiti Universe during the year.

Graffiti Universe is seen all around the world and in nearly every country. This is an art form that we here at Graffiti Universe want to share with the world to love and enjoy because it calms and soothes the soul. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Graffiti-Universe/180322838678262

Your site has some nice images. Is it possible for the creators to upload some of the better ones to commons?--Canoe1967 (talk) 01:12, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

System update when uploading new version of images

Sometimes there is a time lag, when loading a new version of an image, before seeing the effects. The lag affects in different ways the different images pertaining to the file:

• A) the main image on the file page
• B) the full image, obtained by clicking "Full resolution"
• C) the thumbnails present in the bottom part of the page
• D) the images on the wikipedia pages that recall the file

Usually B) is updated first of all. But the other images behave in a bizarre way, different from case to case.
Sometimes (see, e.g. File:Cavour engraving-detail.jpg, updated two days ago) the lag concerns A and C.
Sometimes, instead ((see, e.g. File:Abbaye royale de Hautecombe II - 200501.JPG, updated today) the lag is in C and D.
In other cases (e.g. File:Duda musik.jpg), A and B are correctly updated, but the thumbnails and, worst of all, the images on the wikipedia pages that links to the file represent the old version. And this occurs two weeks after the updating date (May 11th)!
I have tried the "Purge" command (in the menu at right of the star, in the top of the page), with no effect. So, what can be done to update the images? --GianniG46 (talk) 13:31, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

With respect to the WP display, the brute force approach is to change the image size in the article to force generation of a new thumbnail. Dankarl (talk) 14:10, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

You might also try a Wikipedia page w:Wikipedia:Purge or a w:WP:NULLEDIT on the article to see if that helps things. In certain cases that can help, but I'm not sure it would in this type of case, since the image URLs would not change. Usually a purge here should do it, or (as Dankarl says) using a slightly-differently-sized thumbnail can force it too. I wonder if recent changes have made the "purge" functionality not work completely. It is also sometimes possible that web caches are causing an older version to be shown, when the copy actually at Wikipedia is fine, although multiple refreshes usually cause those to be updated. In the case of File:Abbaye royale de Hautecombe II - 200501.JPG, the thumbnails are *not* being updated, even after a purge -- I still see older server dates for them. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:06, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

I am seeing the same issue on an image I updated yesterday with a higher resolution copy. File:MOS 6501 6502 Ad Sept 1975.jpg The new higher resolution images are OK but the existing low resolution copies did not update. -- Swtpc6800 (talk) 17:11, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

SVG rendered incorrectly

In this image some lines are not visible in the PNG version. In Inkspace and Firefox they are visible. What can I do? --Trustable (talk) 13:04, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Save it as "Normal" SVG. CSS attributes in the main svg tag are not interpreted, put it in the main group tag (g). -- πϵρήλιο ℗ 14:48, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

They actually were interpreted before a change in the SVG rendering engine here in 2010 or 2011; I would regard this as a bug... AnonMoos (talk) 15:58, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Next time I'll know how to save. --Trustable (talk) 22:26, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Answer to Copyright on MIDI question

In response to a previous question, the WMF has gotten one of their legal interns to do some research and write up what they found about copyright and MIDI files. If you have questions, please ask on the talk page on meta. -- ☠MarkAHershberger☢(talk)☣ 22:13, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Mark and to all the others that researched and created the page. I have already made the soup a little thicker on the talk page there. I think I was the OP that brought up the original question. You may also wish to post this in Village pump/copyright.--Canoe1967 (talk) 23:18, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't quite understand what the conclusion was. Are MIDI recordings of public domain music acceptable or not? InverseHypercube 23:34, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't think so. I just re-read the page. It seems that any midi version has copyright protection of public domain music. Even the simpler tracks that can be found in the public domain. If I combine two PD tracks, no one can even extract one track. They have to find a PD version of that track on their own and can't use the one I found.--Canoe1967 (talk) 23:46, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

As I see it, it sees the use of a MIDI device as another instrument which needs the conscious input of an individual to create music from a score, if someone plays a PD work on a violin or other traditional instrument we would not think that a recording of their work was also PD.--KTo288 (talk) 07:21, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

It seems the WMF legal advisor just added a note to the talk page that he will be updating the guideline. There are a few questions on the talk page over there that wish some clarification.--Canoe1967 (talk) 19:44, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Old bus in Bordeaux

During a trip in 2004 I discovered this ancient bus. (File:Bordeaux bus ancien I.jpg, File:Bordeaux bus ancien II.jpg, File:Bordeaux bus ancien III.jpg, File:Bordeaux bus ancien IV.jpg) Does anyone know anything more? Wich city? Wich preservation organisation or where the bus is now?Smiley.toerist (talk) 08:46, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

You could try emailing the Bordeaux museum or tourist office. I could google an email for you if you wish?--Canoe1967 (talk) 19:49, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Found the museum email mailto:musees@aquitaine.fr --Canoe1967 (talk) 19:59, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Found some information with help from the french wiki community: [véhicules/l'omnibus La Belle Epoque] (It is a converted 1935 Parisian bus used by a excursion touroperator)Smiley.toerist (talk) 08:08, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Request for correction

Hello,

Many pages have a local menu in French who says :

“Sélecteur de langue:”

This is incorrect. Please correct that into :

“Sélecteur de langue :”

With a non-breaking space ( ).

I found that the correction is needed in the page commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Multilingual_description.js.

I was going to correct that, but it's locked.

Thanks,

--Nnemo (talk) 08:18, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

 Done since 2012-05-26, 08:28:33 by Rillke. Please do not crosspost (MediaWiki_talk:Multilingual_description.js#Request_for_correction) next time! That wastes time. --Saibo (Δ∇) 13:18, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Replace duplicate files

Can any admin to use User:CommonsDelinker to replace File:Orion Nebula - Hubble 2006 mosaic 18000.jpg by File:Orion Nebula - Hubble 2006 mosaic.jpg? These are duplicates. Thank you, --Metrónomo (talk) 04:52, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Why replace an image with a similar one with lower resolution? /Esquilo (talk) 08:15, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

It seems someone changed and it was reverted. They want both copies because some old XT computers can't load the hi rez one.--Canoe1967 (talk) 11:43, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Esquilo: because I wrote them in the wrong order.

Canoe1967: that can not be loaded is true, so by default it displays the image in a lower resolution and see a warning when you want to load an high resolution image in full size. That happened in 2006, 5 ​​years ago it was common practice upload multiple versions of a high size image. But now the browser downloads the image just resized, so wouldn't be necessary to have two versions of the same image. And if I'm wrong we would have to resize all images in Category:Large images.

I didn't know that the images could be redirected. I think this case is of type Commons:Deletion_policy#Redundant/bad quality. --Metrónomo (talk) 05:13, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Oops, sorry. I removed the done tag above.--Canoe1967 (talk) 17:44, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Other duplicates

Here is another example of duplicate image with many links, what to do in these cases? File:Antennae, Hubble images.jpg = File:Antennae galaxies xl.jpg --Metrónomo (talk) 10:39, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Other: File:Star cluster in the Small Magellanic Cloud.jpg = File:Small magellanic cloud.jpg + 90 ° in the direction of clockwise. --Metrónomo (talk) 11:41, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Coordination of Categories.

Hallo. I am relatively new on Commons and do uploads of pictures I took in Udaipur. Then I categories them under Udaipur. There are several subcategories. One is City Palace. I put the file via edit manually in that category. When I search for Udaipur by method containing I found, there is allready another Category City Palace (Udaipur) But this is not linked to Udaipur as a kind of subcategory, what would be logical. What can I do to better the state of affairs? ArishG (talk) 18:40, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

I think perhaps that you have only been adding pictures to the gallery Udaipur. Galleries normally contain only a selection of all the photographs we have in a particular category, see Commons:Galleries#Galleries_vs._categories. The category for Udaipur is Category:Udaipur which does contain the sub-category Category:City Palace (Udaipur). To add your photographs to a category as well, you need to edit the individual photograph pages and add the line [[Category:City Palace (Udaipur)]] at the bottom. Or you can use the "Hotcat" links at the bottom of the photographs description page to do the same thing - Look for the line beginning with "Categories:", and click on the "+" sign at the end of that line. I hope that addresses your problem. :-) --Tony Wills (talk) 20:37, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

nominate for del/spdel/any type of del for any reason whatsoever

While nominating any image for deletion/speedy deletion/other variants of deletion, should the information template(and the licensing sections) be removed i.e. replaced by the deletion tag or not. Only, that's the case with most revisions auto-tagged with this tag.--Gauravjuvekar (talk) 19:10, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

No. The deletion tag should be added, preferably before information. -mattbuck (Talk) 19:30, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, just wanted to confirm.--Gauravjuvekar (talk) 06:22, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

May 27

Photographer's Signature

I have a photographer friend who is considering uploading content to commons. She has a signature that she places on the corner of the photos she takes. Is it permissible to upload a file to commons with the stipulation that the signature cannot be removed? Some type of creative commons, attribution, no alterations license?Ryan Vesey (talk) 07:53, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

I doubt it. That would fall under 'watermarks' I think. Any graphics editor can remove them and re-upload. Attribution is very common but watermarks are frowned upon.--Canoe1967 (talk) 08:01, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

No, not on commons. The ccbysa-license implies an attribution that should manage this signature, but a watermark can always be taken off the image. Edoderoo (talk) 10:07, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

That would be CC BY-ND (or CC BY-NC-ND, which has the added problem of the non-commercial restriction), which is not considered "free" for Commons purposes. According to Commons:Project scope, "To be considered freely licensed, the copyright owner has to release the file under an irrevocable licence which...[p]ermits the creation of derivative works." cmadler (talk) 12:54, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Although she could allow derivatives iff they retain the signature, this is hardly what she wants (and not allowed here). The signature would attach her authorship also to versions she might not like. With the attribution on the info page one can explain what is hers and what isn't. --LPfi (talk) 20:32, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

You might want to tell her that if she licenses it under CC BY or CC BY-SA attribution is required by law, so it is a sort of permanent signature. People can always use it illegally, of course, but that is a danger even if she includes the signature, since it's probably not hard to remove. InverseHypercube 08:35, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Auto-landing of the cursor in the search box on the main page : help requested, please !

Hello,

I want the auto-landing of the cursor in the search box on the main page. I have put this code in my page User:Nnemo/common.js. It works on fr.wikipedia.org and on en.wikipedia.org, but it does not work here on commons.wikipedia.org. Can anyone tell me why ?

Thanks for your help !

--Nnemo (talk) 16:30, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

I guess it is because there is more than one Main Page on Commons.

mw.config.get('wgMainPageTitle') depends on your currently chosen language (the one in your settings, not the one with &uselang=). But why are you using namespace+wgTitle and not wgPageName?

If you want to know which the script "thinks" is the main page, add alert(mw.config.get('wgMainPageTitle')) to your common.js and press preview.

-- RE rillke questions? 18:16, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

In the alert I get “Main Page”. --Nnemo (talk) 21:46, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

You are right, there is another problem. The .focus() - method seems to do nothing. -- RE rillke questions? 15:57, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Victory, I have succeeded ! :-) Ah, so capricious, JavaScript… --Nnemo (talk) 11:42, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

User with tons of copyvio uploads

Hello, I have noticed that user:Danel_torres has uploaded a large number of copyvio files. I’ve done my best to tag those files I can identify; there are others that I highly suspect are copyvios too, but I cannot check.

How do we get about to warn the user and possibly sweep out all his/her uploads in a a single move? Ariadacapo (talk) 07:12, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Done. --Martin H. (talk) 09:37, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, Martin H.. If this is not the proper way to request such things, don’t hesitate to educate me. Ariadacapo (talk) 13:00, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

User Messages gadgets could be used to leave standard messages on talk pages. You could also include MediaWiki:VisualFileChange.js into your JavaScript to nominate for deletion or mark as copyrights violation multiple files. --EugeneZelenko (talk) 14:55, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Aha! Thank you EgeneZelenko. Ariadacapo (talk) 06:46, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

This user uploaded two new apparent copyvios today, after the final warning given to him by Martin H. Suggest a block. (I've actually blocked him on en-wp.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:58, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

May 28

Changing map used in many wikis

Not quite sure where to raise this - I tried a couple of en:WikiProject pages but so far without response.

Two new provinces of Papua New Guinea were established on 17th May 2012, Hela and Jiwaka. I have modified the numbered province map to show the location of these: at present the revised version is on en:wikipedia at Papua new guinea provinces (numbers) 2012.png. I was wondering what would be the best way to put this into commons - overwriting the existing Papua new guinea provinces (numbers).png, or with a different name? About 51 pages across 39 wikis have tables naming the provinces by reference to the map. I have left the numbers of the existing provinces unchanged, so if I did overwrite the existing map these pages would be right as far as they went, just have two unexplained numbers. I'm hesitant to launch into modifying all these pages myself - admittedly for most of them Hela & Jiwaka would be the correct entries, but there are 5 pages in Cyrillic (Хела & Дживака?), 1 in Greek (Έλα & Τζιβάκα?), and I wouldn't know where to start with Armenian, Chinese, Farsi, Hebrew, Japanese & Korean. Advice please.--Keith Edkins (talk) 07:33, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

I think it would be best to upload the new map under a different name, and explain on the file description pages of both the old and new maps what the differences are. The old map is probably still useful to illustrate the historical provinces. Replacement of the old image with the new one should probably be done by hand, to ensure that the new map is appropriate to the articles. (You could leave messages on the talk pages of the articles to alert editors to the existence of the new map and leave it to them to decide whether to use it.) — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 07:45, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

2011 POTY

Just to let everyone know that the Commons:Picture of the Year/2011 competition has started.--Gauravjuvekar (talk) 10:36, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

a request

I just uploaded File:Larisa Latynina.jpg from flickr.com

The upload wizard warned me an image with that name had already been deleted. Could someone with the right permissions compare the deleted image with the current one?

Thanks! Geo Swan (talk) 19:47, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

The deletion is too long time ago, the file is not longer on the server. But it is obvious that the flickr user is not the photographer, right? --Martin H. (talk) 19:52, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

May 29

categorizing

I have put a new picture into commons, but now I cannot categorize it. It is found under: 8907-03-02 mukkert.jpg and cat should be tools.

• The image has been categorized by Man vyi--Ymblanter (talk) 05:27, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
• I suggest you use Hotcat gadget (you can add it from your user preferences page) with which you can very easily add categories to any file. It’s only a single click operation, and it has auto-complete suggestions.

By the way, you can link to files using the [[:File:8907-03-02 mukkert.jpg]] syntax. Ariadacapo (talk) 07:05, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Suggested edit to a template

Technical expertise requested Can someone edit Template:SVG so that if it is transcluded onto a file page which is itself an SVG file, it will generate an error message and be added to a tracking category like Category:SVG images incorrectly tagged as needing conversion? Thanks. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:30, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

What the ?

What is this hidden category made for ?! I just don't understand how useful that thing could be... --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 17:38, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

I would presume it relates to en:MediaWiki:Bad image list. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:45, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

WARNING: the category linked by TwoWings is very much NSFW. - Jmabel ! talk 00:00, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

These are images that can't be added by anons/new users to English Wikipedia articles (because they're often used for vandalism). This seems like a useful thing to know... Dcoetzee (talk) 02:09, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

WARNING: the category linked by TwoWings may contain FILES. --Saibo (Δ∇) 02:15, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

I clicked the category link earlier not thinking it would have quite that... "array" of photos. A NSFW tag is always appreciated on the internet; let's not be dickish and assume everyone should treat every file or category in equal appropriateness. Killiondude (talk) 05:45, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

"NSFW" brings some issues to my mind: what does this person do during work usually? Why is it a problem to have this category gallery on screen during work (assuming the Commons search is really for work purposes). Tagging imposes that the content is apparently something bad - is that content bad? Regarding "appreciated on the internet": Well, it is also well known that people in some countries need to be warned that freshly brewed coffee may be indeed hot. ;-) --Saibo (Δ∇) 13:12, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Saibo, are you entirely serious here? Plenty of people work on Commons or Wikipedia during breaks at their workplace, and plenty of them have workspaces that are in full view of other people. There are many, many companies that have rather strict policies about what may and may not appropriately be on people's computers at work. Similarly for schools and, in some places, libraries. And somewhat similarly even for someone in a coffeehouse who doesn't want to offend random passersby. If this situation doesn't apply to you, fine. It doesn't apply to me at the moment (I'm working from home and lately I rarely work on Commons during the workday), but it has in the past. People should not find themselves surprised by clicking on an apparently innocuous link in the Village Pump that can take them to a page that might get them fired. - Jmabel ! talk 16:21, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Interesting. Be sure to also tag images of Mohammed and other stuff which may offend people. Be sure to do it in caps and bold formatting. And don't forget to add warnings to images of microwaves ovens that they should not be used to dry your pet. Being a bit more serious: Since you care about offending people, ever thought about that your "NSFW" tag may offend people by just looking at this page/section (no need to switch brain 1.0 off and click some link already entitled "bad image list"?). We could directly migrate this OT discussion to a discussion about WMF's image filter, btw. Quite similar. Tip: The article To NSFW or not to NSFW? (now SFW) by Roger Ebert is interesting (found via en:NSFW). Cheers --Saibo (Δ∇) 16:39, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Laws may be relevant here, e.g. otillåtet förfarande med pornografisk bild. Similarly, I assume that other images may be problematic in other countries. What is NSFW depends entirely on which country you are in. Sometimes, it may be a bad idea to view an image in a public place. --Stefan4 (talk) 17:25, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

FWIW, I had clicked on this myself with no idea of the sense in which the images were "bad". I wondered whether they were out of focus, too large for some OSs, or what. I found, to my surprise, that I was looking at images which, in another physical situation, it would have been problematic to have on my screen. Hence the warning. Certainly, now that I understand what is meant by "bad", "bad" is much more judgmental than "NSFW", but without context it doesn't give anyone a clue why they might not want to click through. - Jmabel ! talk 04:40, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Saibo, you're out of line. NSFW isn't censorship, it's a warning, and one that the vast majority of people appreciate. XKCD uses an NSFW note when it's promoting another webcomic, so you know that the context isn't purely negative... because... well... it's XKCD. Also other less awesome websites also use it for websites. Seriously, chill. Sven Manguard Wha? 03:53, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. I don't support censorship (as is clear from my uploads), but a NSFW warning is entirely appropriate. Handcuffed (talk) 19:42, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks to Carl Lindberg and Dcoetzee, I understand that it can be useful... but I strongly disagree with the term "bad" ! It's not neutral and it could lead people thinking these files are out of scope. This cat has to be renamed ! --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 19:59, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

• There is now a discussion about this category ongoing at Commons:Categories for discussion/2012/05/Category:Images on English Wikipedia's bad image list. Apparently there seem to be some vague maintenance reason that seems to require that we permanently display them around here. It's not really clear why though. --  Docu  at 04:04, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

April AFDs not showing on the April page

A lot of the later April AFDs are not showing on the April page: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/2012/04 (see bottom)

I am wondering why the AFD for the Nafion picture has not closed yet: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nafion_Water_Channel_Model.png

TCO (talk) 06:27, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

DR pages by month frequently reach the transclusion limit (someone helpful might have a good link for a tech page explaining this). And some DRs take a while. It's a volunteer project ;) Killiondude (talk) 20:42, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Maybe (an adapted version of) the script used on Portuguese Wikipedia could be useful here on Commons. Take a look on this list of articles for deletion on ptwiki. Helder 23:31, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

exists-normalized

"Exists-normalized" error

Hello, anyone can tell me what "exists-normalized" error means? We tried to upload an image using upload wizard, and this appeared. Thanks in advance. Benoit Rochon (talk) 10:51, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

It probably means that there is a file with nearly the same name, perhaps with different capitalisation (JPG vs jpg) or without accents (Quebec). That is what "normalized" usually means in this context, and there are in fact files with this and similar names. Such differences are not big enough for human editors to pick the right file (and may even create problems locally if two such files are downloaded). --LPfi (talk) 16:11, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

And infact, there are two files with the same "normalized" name as the file tried by Benoit Rochon (Drapeau du Québec.JPG), in the sense explained by LPfi: File:Drapeau du Québec.jpg (jpg in small letters) and File:Drapeau du Quebec.JPG (no accent). --GianniG46 (talk) 20:44, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

• I have seen some bad error messages, but that one is so meaningless to the average uploader that it needs to be reworded or a least linked to an explaination! :-( . How about "Filename conflict, please upload under a different filename". "Exists-normalized" sounds like the name of an internal error flag, rather than a human-readable message. --Tony Wills (talk) 12:11, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
  • It would be nice if admins could adjust the system messages in the Upload Wizard like the other parts of the site. I looked through Special:AllMessages and "exists-normalized" wasn't in there. Killiondude (talk) 17:11, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
    • It does have the look of an untranslated system message, or some sort of bug with the upload wizard which does not deal with this case correctly. I do see that Bugzilla: 36342 was entered which looks like this same issue. Carl Lindberg (talk) 21:13, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
      • As there is MediaWiki:Fileexists, one could try to make MediaWiki:Fileexists-normalized. Maybe it will get displayed. --  Docu  at 04:07, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

UW didn't know about this error condition at all. This should be fixed once this changeset is merged -- it'll just show the same message it already displays for titles that already exist.--Eloquence (talk) 04:51, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, it had been reported before. Jean-Fred (talk) 06:54, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, sure -- it's been in the backlog since then. There are tons of edge cases like that, and it just takes a while to cover them all. Many of them are not recognized or surfaced correctly in the old form, and/or are just handled with the blanket "ignore warnings" checkbox as if that was somehow an understandable interface ("This didn't work, so I'll click this checkbox and see if it works now").-Eloquence (talk) 11:03, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

I have to add on this subject: I have done this with my girlfriend who is new to Commons to test the upload Wizard. Not only the error message is bad (as someone pointed out) but the Wizard does not allow to go back and change the chosen name. This is one of the really big issues there are with this tool. Once something is done or chosen, it cannot be changed. Imagine I'm new to Commons and I try to upload images. I choose to upload 50 images at the same time as the Wizard lets me do. I name every image, describe all of them, categorize them and when I hit "done", it gives me a message error and I can't go back to change what went wrong. I can garantee that I won't never use Commons again if I have to do everything all over again. Something as vital as the Upload wizard should be: 1. friendly to use and accessible to anyone; 2. Dummyproof: never bugs (or at least not badly and very rarely) and gives you the possibility to change whatever you might have not done right 3. Have more options for advanced users (such as myself). As I am not a programmer, I cannot work on this but I have to insist on the fact that the Wizard is the one piece of software that needs to be very good and easy to use because it is what people first use to contribute to Commons. Thanks to anyone who can fix this bug and improve the tool. Have a nice day, Letartean (talk) 15:23, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

May 30

pencemaran alam sekitar folio geografi 2011

dost ke room par le ja ke choda maa ko
delete plz -- 04:32, 30 May 2012‎ 95.135.40.230

This particular page is mainly for English-language discussions... AnonMoos (talk) 19:48, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

• Looks like some mixture of Malayan/Indonesian and IM-speak. I have no idea what he/she wants deleted, though. - Jmabel ! talk 01:23, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

I was assuming some form of Hindi/Urdu, or related... AnonMoos (talk) 03:49, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

It is a highly objectionable Hindi slang! Purpose and target is unknown from the unsigned user. -- Biswarup Ganguly (talk) 07:50, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Sedimentation

I took this picture File:Afzetting slib.JPG in the Zandmotor lagune. The back stuf is sedimentation in stil waters. Do we have any categories about sedimentation and the black stuf? Marches are full of the stuf.Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:28, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

I added category:Sediments (category lacks subcats by type) and Category:Mudflats in the Netherlands (category structure needs work) and a Google translation which could use improvement. Dankarl (talk) 10:48, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Category for living photographer

Could I have an opinion here. Many images of the UK have been uploaded through the geograph.co.uk initiative. All geotagged and have correct copyright. Most stll need to have their cats checked (an excellent virtual alternative to physical vacation- I digress). One photographer Chris Allen has uploaded 5900 useful images of industrial archaelogy to geograph.co.uk and we have at least 3500 of them. Would it be acceptable if I tagged these Category:Photographs by Chris Allen under Category:Photographs by author? It would be enormously helpful for future catting. Or is it presumptious to add him to a list of luminaries like Lewis Hine and Ansel Adams. --ClemRutter (talk) 12:00, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

• It would be appropriate to add a hidden category, as some uploaders have chosen to do for themselves, but I don't think it would be appropriate to add a visible category. I've uploaded tens of thousands of images to Commons. There is no category for me, hidden or visible. - Jmabel ! talk 15:09, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
  • What's the syntax for a hidden cat- can I cat-a-lot it? I wouldn't ask for myself- but Chris Allen himself doesn't upload work to Commons and most of his work is related to the field of mills and engines, and it is all useful stuff.--ClemRutter (talk) 17:46, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
    • There is nothing really "hidden" about it except that you have to add __HIDDENCAT__ on its category description to enable it. The category remains visible on files and can be used with Cat-a-lot etc. It simply moves the category to the 2nd line of categories on file description pages. This also avoids breaking checks if a given image is in a topical category. --  Docu  at 18:23, 31 May 2012 (UTC) (edited)

UK Home Office Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/49956354@N04/ Is this valid? It looks legit, and if so, there are some good images for the taking, like a man with 11 packages of heroin taped to his torso. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja (talk / en) 18:40, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

For some reason the images don't all show up in the photostream, but you can see them with an image search. Here's another good one to illustrate drug smuggling. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja (talk / en) 18:45, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

The second one you mention is marked as All rights reserved. --Rosenzweig τ 19:48, 31 May 2012 (UTC)