User talk:Dominic/2019

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Captions in January

The previous message from today says captions will be released in November in the text. January is the correct month. My apologies for the potential confusion. -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 20:43, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Structured Data - file captions coming this week (January 2019)

My apologies if this is a duplicate message for you, it is being sent to multiple lists which you may be signed up for.

Hi all, following up on last month's announcement...

Multilingual file captions will be released this week, on either Wednesday, 9 January or Thursday, 10 January 2019. Captions are a feature to add short, translatable descriptions to files. Here's some links you might want to look follow before the release, if you haven't already:

  1. Read over the help page for using captions - I wrote the page on mediawiki.org because captions are available for any MediaWiki user, feel free to host/modify a copy of the page here on Commons.
  2. Test out using captions on Beta Commons.
  3. Leave feedback about the test on the captions test talk page, if you have anything you'd like to say prior to release.

Additionally, there will be an IRC office hour on Thursday, 10 January with the Structured Data team to talk about file captions, as well as anything else the community may be interested in. Date/time conversion, as well as a link to join, are on Meta.

Thanks for your time, I look forward to seeing those who can make it to the IRC office hour on Thursday. -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 21:09, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Hi, I don't know what your aim with this bot is, but most NARA files have been uploaded already in TIF-quality. I see no reason to upload the same files in low GIF-quality. I would be glad if you could either upload high-res files or at least exclude low quality duplicates of existing files. Thank you. Cobatfor (talk) 17:43, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

@Cobatfor: I am aware that this is unfortunately an issue. I had access to a small number of high-resolution TIFFs several years ago and uploaded them all. This was maybe 100,000 files. There are currently over 50 million files in the NARA catalog, so it is not the case that most have been uploaded in TIFF already. The current bot is uploading directly from the catalog, unlike the TIFF originals that were stored on a drive. There may be a small number of duplicates resulting from this process, and I would like to clean that up eventually. It is difficult to exclude these beforehand, because Wikimedia Commons does not have structured data (can't easily query on the identifier field to detect if it exists), and it is not really possible to programmatically determine that a version of a file already exists on Commons with the bot we have. I will need to write a different script to flag any items with the same identifier in order to deduplicate. Also, it's hard to tell with your example, but for many of these, the GIF is not just a low-resolution version of the TIFF. The TIFF is the master scan file, while the GIF may have had color levels adjusted, been cropped, or other edits made prior to being made catalog-ready. I have actually had trouble getting them deleted in the past, because Commons admins will not speedy-delete a duplicate if there has been any editing done. I have been required to write a deletion request for each one, which costs me a lot more time, and makes it less of a priority for me. Dominic (talk) 15:24, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for the explanation. It shows one of he difficulties that I see with bot-uploads, another is e.g. categorization. But it also sets a light one the duplication issue, where I had similar experiences. Cheers Cobatfor (talk) 15:52, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

US National Archives bot down? and request

I notice the US National Archives bot hasn't uploaded anything since October, 2018. Has it been deactivated? Also, are there any plans to upload .jpg versions of the many .tiff master files? I know .tiff files are preferred for file fidelity, but .jpg are more convenient for displaying on Wikimedia sites. Also, may I request a bot-assisted upload of the NARA series Gerald R. Ford White House Photographs, compiled 08/09/1974 - 01/20/1977? The corresponding Commons category only has a about 80 images, while the NARA collection appears to have over 1,000. Note that some previously uploaded files uploaded without complete bot-generated meta data, e.g. this one, are more difficult to categorize. Thanks! (Update, I just read your user page, and understand if you can't contribute or respond right now due to the ongoing Federal shutdown. All the best! Take care.)--Animalparty (talk) 00:07, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

@Animalparty: As you guessed, I have been furloughed and I am catching up on my work inbox and other messages now. Thank you for your patience! The NARA upload bot is not really operating continuously; I operate it when I have the time and resources to do so, and sometimes when I do run it, I run into issues that I need to fix. I am trying to upload on a more regular basis, but I it's been a while, between the holidays and the shutdown. I can certainly prioritize that series, and let you know when I get to it. Also, regarding the TIFFs and JPGs, I uploaded a large number of TIFFs early on in our project, because we had them stored on a hard drive in the office. For these, there should usually be a JPG version already, unless there were some that were missed. For all the rest of the uploads, and future ones going forward, all I will be able to upload is the files from the online catalog. There are a very few TIFFs, but most of these are JPGs (or some low-quality GIFs, unfortunately). If you have been working with NARA images, or plan to, I would love to hear more about what you're working on. Thanks! Dominic (talk) 15:00, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
File:"Dance to the Talking Drum", 1963 - NARA - 558973.jpg has been listed at Commons:Deletion requests so that the community can discuss whether it should be kept or not. We would appreciate it if you could go to voice your opinion about this at its entry.

If you created this file, please note that the fact that it has been proposed for deletion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with it, such as a copyright issue. Please see Commons:But it's my own work! for a guide on how to address these issues.

Please remember to respond to and – if appropriate – contradict the arguments supporting deletion. Arguments which focus on the nominator will not affect the result of the nomination. Thank you!

Buckaroo bob 91 (talk) 00:37, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Copyright status: File:Souvenir Bookplate from Visit of the Military Archivist of Brazil - NARA - 122213798.jpg

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Thanks for uploading File:Souvenir Bookplate from Visit of the Military Archivist of Brazil - NARA - 122213798.jpg. I notice that the file page either doesn't contain enough information about the license or it contains contradictory information about the license, so the copyright status is unclear.

If you created this file yourself, then you must provide a valid copyright tag. For example, you can tag it with {{self|GFDL|cc-by-sa-all}} to release it under the multi-license GFDL plus Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike All-version license or you can tag it with {{PD-self}} to release it into the public domain. (See Commons:Copyright tags for the full list of license tags that you can use.)

If you did not create the file yourself or if it is a derivative of another work that is possibly subject to copyright protection, then you must specify where you found it (e.g. usually a link to the web page where you got it), you must provide proof that it has a license that is acceptable for Commons (e.g. usually a link to the terms of use for content from that page), and you must add an appropriate license tag. If you did not create the file yourself and the specific source and license information is not available on the web, you must obtain permission through the VRT system and follow the procedure described there.

Note that any unsourced or improperly licensed files will be deleted one week after they have been marked as lacking proper information, as described in criteria for deletion. If you have uploaded other files, please confirm that you have provided the proper information for those files, too. If you have any questions about licenses please ask at Commons:Village pump/Copyright or see our help pages. Thank you.

And also:

Yours sincerely, Magog the Ogre (talk) (contribs) 02:43, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Error in caption

Hello Dominic. There is an error in the data for a photograph of President Kennedy, which I note on the talk page for the image.

I have emailed the National Archives through the contact form on its webpage.

Best wishes, Kablammo (talk) 14:55, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Copyright status: File:COMPOSITE PANELS FOR NDE - NARA - 17418100.jpg

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Thanks for uploading File:COMPOSITE PANELS FOR NDE - NARA - 17418100.jpg. I notice that the file page either doesn't contain enough information about the license or it contains contradictory information about the license, so the copyright status is unclear.

If you created this file yourself, then you must provide a valid copyright tag. For example, you can tag it with {{self|GFDL|cc-by-sa-all}} to release it under the multi-license GFDL plus Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike All-version license or you can tag it with {{PD-self}} to release it into the public domain. (See Commons:Copyright tags for the full list of license tags that you can use.)

If you did not create the file yourself or if it is a derivative of another work that is possibly subject to copyright protection, then you must specify where you found it (e.g. usually a link to the web page where you got it), you must provide proof that it has a license that is acceptable for Commons (e.g. usually a link to the terms of use for content from that page), and you must add an appropriate license tag. If you did not create the file yourself and the specific source and license information is not available on the web, you must obtain permission through the VRT system and follow the procedure described there.

Note that any unsourced or improperly licensed files will be deleted one week after they have been marked as lacking proper information, as described in criteria for deletion. If you have uploaded other files, please confirm that you have provided the proper information for those files, too. If you have any questions about licenses please ask at Commons:Village pump/Copyright or see our help pages. Thank you.

Magog the Ogre (talk) (contribs) 00:27, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

@Magog the Ogre: I don't understand what happened here. It looks like you created the page with the first edit being the tag. Is that really what it looked like on your end? I am trying to figure out if this is a Commons bug or a bot error, but, as I don't think Commons normally even allows users to upload with no description, it seems like something went wrong on Commons' end and the description was lost during upload. Dominic (talk) 14:11, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
Sure looks like the bot uploaded an image, but there was an error of some sort which prevented the text page from being created, so (obviously) there is no license or description or anything. Could have been a networking glitch at just the wrong moment or something. At any rate, the file description for that item, and the license, needs to be edited in at some point or it would be deleted. Can you have your bot generate the file description wiki text or does it need to be done by hand? Carl Lindberg (talk) 03:33, 26 July 2019 (UTC)
Oh yes, I can definitely add in the metadata. I was just more concerned about understanding what happened and ensuring it doesn't happen again. Right now, I don't think the bot code was at fault here, but it's definitely a mystery to me. Dominic (talk) 13:26, 26 July 2019 (UTC)
If it's just this one image, I doubt it's systematic with your bot code. Anything involving networks can glitch every now and then. There could be a hole in the API code the bots use, which much allow this situation with just the right kind of failure. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:54, 26 July 2019 (UTC)
Possibly doing about 500,000 posts to the API so far this month hasn't helped. :D Dominic (talk) 16:23, 26 July 2019 (UTC)
:-) APIs don't get tired, but if there is a bug, the more often you upload the more likely you are to find the bug which depends on that just-so timing of issues. Carl Lindberg (talk) 21:34, 26 July 2019 (UTC)
I see the issue occasionally (a few times per month), usually with bots and very large uploads. It isn't even worth my time filing a bug with the WMF. They're probably already aware. Magog the Ogre (talk) (contribs) 17:36, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Copyright status: File:A Chart of the Gulf of Florida or New Bahama Channel, commonly called the Gulf Passage, Between Florida, the Isle of Cuba, & the Bahama Islands - NARA - 102278731.jpg

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This media may be deleted.
Thanks for uploading File:A Chart of the Gulf of Florida or New Bahama Channel, commonly called the Gulf Passage, Between Florida, the Isle of Cuba, & the Bahama Islands - NARA - 102278731.jpg. I notice that the file page either doesn't contain enough information about the license or it contains contradictory information about the license, so the copyright status is unclear.

If you created this file yourself, then you must provide a valid copyright tag. For example, you can tag it with {{self|GFDL|cc-by-sa-all}} to release it under the multi-license GFDL plus Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike All-version license or you can tag it with {{PD-self}} to release it into the public domain. (See Commons:Copyright tags for the full list of license tags that you can use.)

If you did not create the file yourself or if it is a derivative of another work that is possibly subject to copyright protection, then you must specify where you found it (e.g. usually a link to the web page where you got it), you must provide proof that it has a license that is acceptable for Commons (e.g. usually a link to the terms of use for content from that page), and you must add an appropriate license tag. If you did not create the file yourself and the specific source and license information is not available on the web, you must obtain permission through the VRT system and follow the procedure described there.

Note that any unsourced or improperly licensed files will be deleted one week after they have been marked as lacking proper information, as described in criteria for deletion. If you have uploaded other files, please confirm that you have provided the proper information for those files, too. If you have any questions about licenses please ask at Commons:Village pump/Copyright or see our help pages. Thank you.

And also:

Yours sincerely, Jcb (talk) 21:44, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

I fixed the top one, but you can't use PD-USGov-NARA as a license -- that was deprecated, since NARA is rarely the actual author of anything it holds. So anything that uses it will effectively not be licensed. Carl Lindberg (talk) 01:46, 18 August 2019 (UTC)
@Jcb and Clindberg: This was a human error on my part. I mapped all works created by NARA to PD-USGov-NARA, even though that template is deprecated. Long-term, it would be nice to allow use of that template again for works where NARA is itself the creator as a federal agency, even though it is deprecated for other holdings. I am going to change these all to the general PD-USGov for now. Dominic (talk) 12:45, 23 August 2019 (UTC)
Yes, the general PD-USGov is probably the easiest solution for now. Please feel free to remove the 'no license since' template when you add the license. Jcb (talk) 13:09, 23 August 2019 (UTC)
@Dominic: It would be nice, but the usual result is that the NARA template was mis-applied, so it was disallowed. We would probably need a new template with a different, longer name which makes clear it was only for works that NARA actually authored themselves, which is tiny in relation to the works it actually holds and makes available. For example, I don't think any of the works above are NARA-authored, so they shouldn't have had that tag anyways. Most of them are really old maps, and are PD-US-expired rather than PD-USGov. For example a Rand-McNally map from 1913 -- no government authorship there (at any level). Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:54, 23 August 2019 (UTC)
@Clindberg: That makes sense to use a different template name.

Whether or not they are NARA-authored, that's a bit of a wider problem. Commons really conflates copyright status with copyright status justification. Using the licensing templates, you cannot state a work is in the public domain separately from rationale. In my case, I have a data source where the files have technically been determined to be in the public domain by an authority, but the dataset does not actually have a field for the rationale for that status. I believe I am justified in uploading NARA records due the copyright being verified by an expert, but the technical reason for the public domain status could really be due to being a government work, or age (or non-renewal, non-registration, etc.). I cannot really represent this fuzziness in the Commons licensing template, though—indeed, Template:PD is considered the same as no license. And I certainly cannot personally determine a public domain rationale for the millions of records I'd like to upload. I find this frustrating, since, for copyrighted works, all you need is a license and a source, but for public domain works, providing a license and a source is considered insufficient. For lack of a better solution, I use PD-USGov as the fallback for all NARA uploads, because that is more commonly the reason than PD-US-expired, and I am glad I have never really gotten a complaint about that approach. Dominic (talk) 15:48, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

Agreed, which is why PD-USGov (the generic template, and the actual reason for the large majority of NARA's holdings) is the best template to use for your bot. Editors can change to other templates as they notice they are more accurate -- this is a collaborative project. By your own statement though, you can't distinguish which ones are actually NARA-authored, so not much reason to ever use PD-USGov-NARA for it :-) Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:57, 23 August 2019 (UTC)
@Clindberg: Well, as I said, I haven't gotten complaints before about using "USGov" as a fallback. However, I have gotten a few complaints over the years about using the general PD-USGov when someone looks at the data and thinks it should have been possible to use a more specific template for the agency listed as the creator. To please people, I have mapped major agencies that have their own PD-USGov sub-templates to their NARA record groups. (Current mapping is User:Dominic/PD-USGov.) So, you're right that a NARA-specific PD-USGov may be unnecessary. But I also believe all of these are unnecessary, since the name of the federal agency creating a work really has no bearing whatsoever on the work's copyright licensing—being a work of the US federal government is the only thing that matters, and that is either true or false, regardless of the specific agency. It seems like template scope creep, and causes unnecessary work. In almost all cases, these agencies should be listed in an author or source field. Honestly, I am pretty much ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ about the whole thing. Dominic (talk) 16:53, 23 August 2019 (UTC)
Yeah, all PD-USGov-* tags are really the same rationale, though it helps a bit in categorization (and some of the agency tags have specific things to watch for, making it more likely to catch certain mistakes). It has evolved to be Commons practice, for better or worse. Using the mapped tags is fine, and is cool. Just avoid mapping to tags which are deprecated :-) Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:09, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

Notification about possible deletion

Some contents have been listed at Commons:Deletion requests so that the community can discuss whether they should be kept or not. We would appreciate it if you could go to voice your opinion about this at their entry.

If you created these pages, please note that the fact that they have been proposed for deletion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with them, such as a copyright issue. Please see Commons:But it's my own work! for a guide on how to address these issues.

Please remember to respond to and – if appropriate – contradict the arguments supporting deletion. Arguments which focus on the nominator will not affect the result of the nomination. Thank you!

Affected:


Yours sincerely, BevinKacon (talk) 19:26, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

Structured Data - blogs posted in Wikimedia Space

There are two separate blog entries for Structured Data on Commons posted to Wikimedia Space that are of interest:

  • Working with Structured Data on Commons: A Status Report, by Lucas Werkmeister, discusses some ways that editors can work with structured data. Topics include tools that have been written or modified for structured data, in addition to future plans for tools and querying services.
  • Structured Data on Commons - A Blog Series, written by me, is a five-part posting that covers the basics of the software and features that were built to make structured data happen. The series is meant to be friendly to those who may have some knowledge of Commons, but may not know much about the structured data project.
I hope these are informative and useful, comments and questions are welcome. All the blogs offer a comment feature, and you can log in with your Wikimedia account using oAuth. I look forward to seeing some posts over there. -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 21:33, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Important message for file movers

A community discussion has been closed where the consensus was to grant all file movers the suppressredirect user right. This will allow file movers to not leave behind a redirect when moving files and instead automatically have the original file name deleted. Policy never requires you to suppress the redirect, suppression of redirects is entirely optional.

Possible acceptable uses of this ability:

  • To move recently uploaded files with an obvious error in the file name where that error would not be a reasonable redirect. For example: moving "Sheep in a tree.jpg" to "Squirrel in a tree.jpg" when the image does in fact depict a squirrel.
  • To perform file name swaps.
  • When the original file name contains vandalism. (File renaming criterion #5)

Please note, this ability should be used only in certain circumstances and only if you are absolutely sure that it is not going to break the display of the file on any project. Redirects should never be suppressed if the file is in use on any project. When in doubt, leave a redirect. If you forget to suppress the redirect in case of file name vandalism or you are not fully certain if the original file name is actually vandalism, leave a redirect and tag the redirect for speedy deletion per G2.

The malicious or reckless breaking of file links via the suppressredirect user right is considered an abuse of the file mover right and is grounds for immediate revocation of that right. This message serves as both a notice that you have this right and as an official warning. Questions regarding this right should be directed to administrators. --Majora (talk) 21:35, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Notification about possible deletion

Some contents have been listed at Commons:Deletion requests so that the community can discuss whether they should be kept or not. We would appreciate it if you could go to voice your opinion about this at their entry.

If you created these pages, please note that the fact that they have been proposed for deletion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with them, such as a copyright issue. Please see Commons:But it's my own work! for a guide on how to address these issues.

Please remember to respond to and – if appropriate – contradict the arguments supporting deletion. Arguments which focus on the nominator will not affect the result of the nomination. Thank you!

Affected:

And also:

Yours sincerely, GMGtalk 19:20, 12 December 2019 (UTC)