Talk:Wikimedia Commons

Curious about Commons?

This is probably not fit for the article proper, so I'll put it here. If you're a Wikipedian who's interested in getting to know the Commons, have a read of Wikipedia:Commons, which provides some guidelines and comparisons with Wikipedia. pfctdayelise 11:55, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Patent images and copyright

I found a patent that describes a piece of equipment I'm doing an article for. The patent has an image that would be good for illustrating the article, and it's from 1876 (very old). Would that image be acceptable to upload? I don't know if being more than 100 years old means the picture is copyright free. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sociotard (talk • contribs) 17:52, 21 January 2006

I think so. Appropriate tags might be commons:Template:Patent or if it's a US patent, commons:Template:PD-US-patent. or maybe just plain old commons:Template:PD-old. Whichever tag you use, be sure to explain your reasoning for choosing it. pfctdayelise 22:27, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Commons CD is a VERY VERY VERY bad idea

I see that an initiative is in place to create a CD from commons graphics. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Commons&direction=next&oldid=55199121

This is a very, very, very bad idea. It defies everything wiki. It's one thing to see your work transformed before your eyes. It's quite another to privatize it. Further there is arrogance in its implementation by hijacking wikipedia commons.

I no longer trust Wikipedia Commons and will no longer post pictures to it and may even withdraw pictures I have posted to it. The damage has been done.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia-CD/Download

Americasroof 13:10, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I think you quite misunderstand. The proposal was to put this article onto a CD version of Wikipedia. That's all. As it is, I suggested they remove it, because this is not a very vital article. At any rate I don't know what your opposition to the CD format is. They don't make it CD-only, they simply sell a CD to anyone who wants to buy one (without hiding the fact that it's still available freely). In many parts of the world bandwidth makes viewing Wikipedia (and definitely the Commons) a nightmare. For these people a CD format is a trillion times more convenient and useful. pfctdayelise (translate?) 13:13, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't think you understand the slippery slope that occurs when you start selling Wiki. Lots of people donate vast amounts of time working on the project with no hope of compensation. Part of the addiction is seeing your work evolve. You do not get that feedback if its on CD. Further, while folks are giving away material to the commons there's some feeling of control that the work is mostly going to be applied to wiki articles only. Once you start selling Wiki even if it's for a trivial price you're down the slippery slope. There's a perception that graphics given away as free could be turned into for profit projects. As we've seen with other nonprofit projects such as skype and flickr, wikipedia is probably worth billions of dollars if it were sold. The CD -- even if its intention was purely honorable -- would appear to be the first marketing move. To me the damage is done.Americasroof 13:42, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Well indeed the damage is done because the German Wikipedia has been selling a CD for donkey's years, and apparently the sky hasn't fallen in over there. We're just catching up!!

Allowing commercial use is an extremely strong part of the Wikimedia licensing philosophy. The GFDL and all licenses that commons: accept explicitly allow commercial use, i.e. you can sell it.

You might be interested in this post from Jimbo: [1] --pfctdayelise (translate?) 13:50, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

The points are now made. Americasroof 14:09, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Stupid question

I admit to being new at dealing with commons, but find several good and useful images, including featured images, in other languages are not available for the English wikipedia. How would I go about copying an image from a foreign language wikipedia or commons for use on the English language side? Badbilltucker 16:37, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Firstly, the only stupid question is the one that goes unasked. In other words, none of us were born knowing this stuff; if you don't ask, you can't learn. I'm no expert here, either, but in looking around you might find Template:Information helpful. It seems to me that all that is necessary is that the image(s) you want to upload here be properly licensed. They may be used on the other wikis under licenses that wouldn't qualify them for inclusion in the Commons. Information about licenses that are used in the Commons are at [][Commons:Licensing]].—Chidom ^talk  18:49, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

If the image is uploaded at the Commons, you can use it here already as if it was uploaded here! So you don't need to do anything at all. pfctdayelise (translate?) 02:28, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes 86.154.147.145 (talk) 13:04, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Want to contribute

I'm an amateur photographer and I have taken some interesting pictures (all from Cuba, where I live), I want to contribute with some photos that could be useful to wikipedians, I'm a complete newb in Wikipedia, so how can I help? (I can make logos too). KatKiller 06:19, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

That's fantastic! I recommend registering an account at Wikimedia Commons (at commons:Special:Userlogin). Then I strongly recommend reading through the commons:Commons:First steps guide. If you have any questions, you can ask at the commons:Commons:Help desk or on my talk page. cheers, pfctdayelise (talk) 14:20, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Trying to Understand Rights in Wikimedia Commons

I often browse the wikicommons to see all the wonderful stuff that's been put in here. I am interested in using a few images in commercial endeavors but don't want to step on any toes by violating any rights.

So, my question:

If an image exists at all in the wikimedia commons does that mean that it is available to use in any commercial venture? A couple of images I looked at carry ONLY the GNU license which I tried to figure out, it stated that anything with the GNU license is free for use in any TEXT BASED work. Does that mean that if the item is not text based (say for example a postcard or a t-shirt) that it is NOT okay to use that image on that item?

I apologize if this is a dumb question that should be so blatantly obvious but I do want to be absolutely sure I don't violate any rights with any images I find in the commons.

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

- AM —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.17.195.167 (talk) 06:55, 25 February 2007 (UTC).

In principal all work on Commons is free for commercial use. With text is meant work in the GFDL. Bryan 21:00, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

US National Archives

US National Archives To Upload All Holdings To Wikimedia Commons - anyone interested in writing this into the article somehow? G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 13:36, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Porn

The article says (with sources) that «The site has been criticized for hosting large amounts of amateur pornography, often uploaded by exhibitionists who exploit the site for personal gratification, and who are enabled by sympathetic administrators. In 2012, BuzzFeed described Wikimedia Commons as "littered with dicks".» We know this is plainly false (we have more photos of trams, locator maps, and shoelace tiying diagrams than any kind of porn, even when you include the raphaëlites in it) — could this fact be independently sourced? Tuvalkin (talk) 16:54, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

yea Milatha (talk) 12:19, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

Statistics

So there are about 5 million files uploaded every year. How many of them are videos and sounds? —  Ark25  (talk) 20:48, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Question

Hi everyone! I am in a course about Wikipedia and for our final project, we were challenged to address a problem in Wikipedia, conduct research on it and then report our findings with a suggestion for improvement. For the project, my partner and I decided to address the issue of Wikimedia Commons and how the discoverability and searchability need to improve. I am not sure if this is the best place to ask this question, so if you have a better place, please let me know!! Please go to my talk page if you would be willing to chat with me about your problems with Wikimedia Commons and how we can address those. Thanks in advance! (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:38, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

How to concentrate when u are feeling anxious

First: You clearly your head from what you are thinking Second: You open to the page you want to read, then u focus

   That's how u concentrate  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 105.112.183.215 (talk) 08:38, 11 October 2020 (UTC) 

K thanks for the help most appreciated Darelle Meyer (talk) 10:59, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

Number of geolocated images in Wikimedia Commons outdated since=2021-01-26

As of January 2015, there are well over 5.2M geolocated images in Wikimedia Commons. Mapping these shows significant variance in image numbers over the globe.

Mateus2019 (talk) 13:03, 26 January 2021 (UTC)