Commons:Deletion requests/File:Seal of duke Skirgaila -1386.svg

This deletion discussion is now closed. Please do not make any edits to this archive. You can read the deletion policy or ask a question at the Village pump. If the circumstances surrounding this file have changed in a notable manner, you may re-nominate this file or ask for it to be undeleted.

File:Seal of duke Skirgaila -1386.svg

This image is absolutely fake and is not based on any historical depictions and was created and uploaded by a user who was indefinitely blocked for trolling/long-term abuse and such creations with aim to distort symbols of other countries was one of his malicious activities. It is a violation of COM:NOTHOST, WP:OR, WP:HOAX and must be deleted in order to not confuse other users. -- Pofka (talk) 21:06, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

 Keep As I assume the nominator is aware, there's no rule against people uploading their own creations to commons. In this specific case, the uploader makes it clear in the "source" field that it is their own work. So there's zero claim on the uploaders part that it is a 1/1, authentic reproduction of the original seal. Maybe the claim that they uploaded it to distort national symbols or confuse people would hold some water if they did, but there's nothing malicious or miss-leading about a drawing that is clearly labeled as the uploaders own work. Even WP:HOAX says "A hoax is an attempt to trick an audience into believing that something false is real." How exactly is the uploader attempting to trick the audience into believing it's the real seal if they are being upfront about the fact that it's their own work and not an original image?

In the meantime something isn't automatically a hoax just because it's not an original. As the guideline says, the image has to clearly be meant to trick people. Even if the uploader hadn't of said it's their own work, no one is going to be tricked into thinking the image is a 1/1 exact recreation of the original seal anyway. It's obviously an amateurish reproduction, no one is claiming otherwise, and Commons hosts plenty of inexact reproductions of originals. So there clearly isn't a valid reason to delete the image. --Adamant1 (talk) 01:53, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Per COM:NOTHOST "Although we do host media and images on Wikimedia Commons, all content must be within our project's scope, which requires, among other things, that all media must be realistically useful for an educational purpose.". Since this image is a completely own work without any historical (educational) value it violates COM:NOTHOST. Such file can only be used for trolling purposes (the reason creator of this file was blocked in Commons) and that is not compatible with the Commons:Assume good faith. Per these rules it is clearly not allowed to create a stickman and claim that it is Julius Caesar, etc. -- Pofka (talk) 21:19, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

•  Comment It is currently in use, so the nominator's rationale is not sufficient for deletion. However a warning template can be added to the file description. Yann (talk) 13:13, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

@Yann: Permanently blocked user Лобачев Владимир is inserting this false seal in multiple Wiki projects to crash the nomination. This is what aggressive trolling is about. There should be some kind of preventive tools against such trolling. Even the Russian Wikipedia permanently blocked this troll for destructive actions. -- Pofka (talk) 20:24, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

I mostly agree, but then it should be easy to remove the images from the pages it is used. Yann (talk) 20:32, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

@Yann: It is impossible because user Лобачев Владимир then causes endless edit (revert) warring (from Chinese to German Wiki projects, etc.). I'm not capable to discuss with administrators from different countries projects in languages I don't know (and creating hundreds of reports to various wiki projects administrators noticeboards would not be an effective way to combat a troll). The most effective way would be to delete such files so that he could not abuse these files any longer as he would not be able to upload them again due to blocking in Commons. This file has as much "educational purpose" (required per COM:NOTHOST) as Stick Man would have in articles about the Great Seal of the United States. -- Pofka (talk) 21:06, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

 Delete OK, then. Yann (talk) 21:11, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

IMO it's sufficiently close enough to the originals to serve an educational purpose. That's just me though, but I've looked through various coins and other objects with seal and they are pretty similar. No drawing of physical object is a 1/1 recreation, obviously. I don't find the "it's not educational" justification to be compelling either since I didn't know the seal of duke Skirgaila had a knight riding a horse on it before I saw the image and now I do. So it's educational in that regard, which should be enough to make it in scope for educational purposes.

Just like a lot of postcards of historical locations are still in scope and serve an educational purpose even though they aren't 100% accurate of the time periods or locations, obviously. No one being half good faithed about this is going to argue that say the images in Category:Postcards published by Curt Teich & Company should be deleted as WP:OR, WP:HOAX just because Curt Teich & Company often embellished the colors, used fake skies, or inserted objects into the images that didn't exist in real life. All of which they did BTW. There is no mandate that something be a 1/1 recreation of the original historical object for it to be hosted on Commons, obviously.

The question should be, what's unique about this case, and I don't see anything unique about it that warrants making a possibly precedent setting exception. What I do see though is a lot of claims being made by Pofka about the uploaders behavior on other projects, which has nothing to do with the educational merits of the image. Obviously Лобачев Владимир can troll on other projects and the image can serve an educational purpose. They aren't mutually exclusive. So what exactly makes this specific image not educational or uniquely worthy of deletion compared to other artistic recreations that are perfectly fine? --Adamant1 (talk) 22:17, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

BTW, here's a link to the original that Лобачев Владимир based his image on. Like I said in my last message, it's perfectly fine for Commons to host artistic recreations of physical objects and that's literally all the image is. No one expects a recreation to be 100% accurate though. IMO in this case it's close enough to the original to say it's a none issue. Also, it's pretty weak sauce that you both copied and pasted the same comments into both nominations. You could at least have the scruples to be honest about the fact that you could care less about this if that's the case instead of wasting everyone's time with the fake, spam discussion. --Adamant1 (talk) 22:24, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

•  Delete of course, per nom rationale Marcelus (talk) 23:47, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

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 Kept, mostly per Adamant. Every file in Commons must have a source. Adamant found a source. The file is even used and so in scope. Taivo (talk) 20:52, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Taivo can you link Adamant source because his link doesn't work for me? The only possible source of the picture can be actual seal of Skirgaila, which is this: File:Seal of duke Skirgaila with Vytis (Waykimas), 1382.jpg, there is no double-barred cross on it. So the picture we talk about should be removed, because it's misleading. Also Adamant argument is fundamentally wrong, because we are talking about sigillography, where such small elements are very important Marcelus (talk) 22:58, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for showing another source. Correct links are on file infobox. It does not matter, how bad, erroneous or misleading the file is: if it is used, then per COM:INUSE it is in our scope. Taivo (talk) 10:48, 17 January 2023 (UTC)