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Welcome to the Village pump

This Wikimedia Commons page is used for discussions of the operations, technical issues, and policies of Wikimedia Commons. For old discussions, see the Archive. Recent sections with no replies for 3 days may be archived.

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Contents





March 21 [edit]

Making it easier for problematic files to be brought to our attention [edit]

After recent events on Jimmy Wales' English Wikipedia talk page, one of our Commons Oversighters tweeted a blog post he has published addressing many "facts" which are in the public domain regarding what is a serious issue that affects all sites on the internet which rely on user provided content; whether that be WMF projects, Facebook, Flickr, etc. User:Odder should be commended for providing information on the issue as it affects Wikimedia Commons, and how this project handles the issue.

Long-term editors on WMF projects should be aware that sensitive information/images should be referred to oversighters on the applicable projects (or stewards if that project does not have local oversighters), or via normal deletion processes for copyright issues, etc. However, in his blog post, Odder states (and I hope he does not mind me posting it in its entirety here):

"There’s nothing secret about how we deal with potential child pornography, and in my opinion it’s quite a good and scalable solution to a very delicate problem — though I do see a lot of space for improvement; for instance, adding a simple abuse link to every Commons page might be a good first step, so that we don’t require people to actually e-mail us to report content that they find illegal."

I think that this is something that we as a community should explore. Commons:Contact us is available on the side bar of all pages on Commons, and Commons:Contact us/Problems is another click away from that; reporting copyright violations and other inappropriate content requires a person to email OTRS and/or the WMF. We should probably be providing a one-click reporting method on all images so that issues can be brought to our attention quickly, and without the submitter requiring to be familiar with our processes. Other websites have this feature, and so probably should we.

Commons:Contact us/Problems currently has copyright violations being sent to info-en-c@wikimedia.org, which I believe is an English Wikipedia queue, that people with permission for permissions-commons likely do not have access to. Files hosted on Commons should likely be dealt with by OTRS agents with access to Commons-related queues. So I would like to propose that a dedicate Commons queue is created with all OTRS agents with permissions-commons to be given access to.

In relation to "Inappropriate images of children" an alert could be sent to both legal@wikimedia.org and our team of oversighters, to ensure that any offending material is removed as a matter of urgency from the site. As Odder notes, the legal team is not available 24/7 but our oversighters technically are.

Thoughts/ideas/comments on how such a process for any problematic files could be introduced would be great. russavia (talk) 09:25, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Support that idea, as I found it always a bit needlessly onerous to jump from the browser to my email program, search for the recent WMF-legal address, then copy and paste all necessary information into the email program. This could really be made easier to handle.
However, what I find unfortunate is that the blog-post in its reporting section again associates the name of one of our admin-colleagues with the term CP, as was done in the original blog-post and on Jimbos talkpage. Such an association is unjustified and should be avoided due to its deleterious potential for real-life. --Túrelio (talk) 09:40, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
This is now fixed, thanks. odder (talk) 11:57, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. --Túrelio (talk) 12:32, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
I agree with Túrelio's concern for how this was handled (not a comment directed at Odder, the relevant blog post was helpfully factual and just needed to avoid accidentally propagating deliberately disruptive and apparently criminal allegations against one of our volunteers). I would support future proposals for an immediate indef Commons block or ban for anyone that appears to be deliberately causing disruption by soapboxing criminal claims of this type, whether on Commons, en.wp or off-wiki, against Commons contributors, without following the well understood proper process. The process exists for good reason, and should anyone not wish to follow it, they are free to contact local police with their reports about any suspected criminal activity; as indeed I have done in the past. The police will doubtless advise them to follow the complaints procedure, or will contact WMF legal themselves.
I would hope that WMF legal are paying close attention to this case and the way that Wikimedia projects are now being actively used to make public criminal claims against our volunteers. On behalf of our volunteers, the WMF should be prepared to mount a public civil case for significant damages against anyone who persists with blatant attempts to cause real-life harm, targeted against Wikimedia project volunteers with a history of correctly following project policies for creating content on our projects for the public benefit. --Fæ (talk) 10:54, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
Fæ, I also hope that the WMF legal department are paying close attention to this case and to admins whose actions would seem to violate the terms of use. Although I have been in touch with the WMF, I have heard nothing from their legal department as yet. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:17, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
Commons affects all Wikis, so you cannot create such a policy. Images can and will be discussed where they are used. As for the second half, being in compliance with "Commons policy" does not mean you are in compliance with the WMF or with a law of a nation. After all, policies have no legal binding and cannot be taken as in compliance with the law. That is a legal disclosure that is made very clear. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:08, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
Symbol support vote.svg Support temporary block, perhaps a month, for the first violation. This block should be appealable via the user's talk page. A person may just not notice the policy or the link. I noticed "Nominate for deletion" only after a couple of weeks of using Commons, if the "Abuse" link is placed there it is possible that a person will see something that they think is abusive before noticing the way to report it. The second violation, or in cases where it is clear that the intention of the individual is to disrupt and not to help, indef can be in order. That can also be appealed by a user who will have to in his/her own words describe the policy and state that he/she understands it and will follow it. Sinnamon Girl (talk) 02:57, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Commons:Contact us and Commons:Contact us/Problems are no good. There should be a link to AN at least, so that the image can be deleted immediately, the person who does the deletion will know how to contact oversight. Email to the wmf never gets answered by anyone prompt or sober, better to simply short out the link to the admins who are most actively checking their watchlist.

A link that chooses where to go using switches would be better though. If the image has been nominated before, then taking them to the talkpage where they can see the responses would handle a lot of it. Example FAQ #11. No this is not child pornography, it's just a belly-button, get over it, see a psychiatrist, check with your therapist first. Across the known world this image is OK, just calm yourself down, use medication as directed." and so on. Talkpages already have notes about previous deletion discussions, so adding the typical automatic responses to most frequently asked questions without workload for others would help a great deal I expect. (though you need to have the people smart enough to implement such things) (mental note, add this to the replacement project, MwaHAhHhah, etc.) Penyulap ☏ 10:28, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

  • Oppose any solution that puts more strain on our OTRS volunteers. I agree that child porn can be a problem but a faster and better solution would be to tag them with a template that activates a bot. The bot hides the image from public view and then emails the WMF. Adding more workload to OTRS would be a big mistake when a bot can have more effect and respond much faster.--Canoe1967 (talk) 10:56, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
    • @Canoe1967 IMO making it easier to tag the files and letting a bot to hide/delete them is just a potential recipe for disaster, what could stop vandals from tagging and hiding other images? files should be reviewed by authorized users and then they can delete/report any illegal content.
Besides the Commons:Contact us, we also have a link on the sidebar for unregistered users to nominate files for deletion, although the wording may not be the best, maybe something like "Report this file" would be easier to understand. I agree with Penyulap, I think we could add an option to Stockphoto gadget where registered and unregistered users could report the files for different reason by choosing different options from a dialog box, it could also point users to AN or the file talk page.  ■ MMXX talk 12:02, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
We could probably have the bot only work on newer files and the template only usable by registered users. For IPs we could just have an email button to WMF but not the OTRS who are far too busy as it is.--Canoe1967 (talk) 12:38, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

This issue that I highlighted in my blog post was not really about the difficulties in reporting child pornography on Commons, it was about child pornography on Commons not being reported. Changing the reporting mechanism does not address this problem at all. Having said that, this is an issue which affects all projects, not just Commons. I suggest that the sensible way to handle this is for the WMF to have an email address that is monitored 24/7, rather than relying on the judgment of untrained volunteers across a large number of projects. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:28, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

24/7 coverage for less than 100 images a year? We should just give admin to the FBI. They can afford 24/7 coverage far more than we can. If you force volunteers to cover email 24/7 then they may respond slow out of spite or keep images that would normally be deleted then put them in DR and create a huge Striesand Effect on them. Our uploaders are traceable unlike other sites so only the really stupid ones upload to here anyway. Our projects are part of the solution not part of the problem. I can see a faster access to existing WMF email than the existing two clicks now but not increasing workloads of volunteers or staff budgets for a very small problem.--Canoe1967 (talk) 14:51, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
Canoe1967, I'm not suggesting that untrained volunteers do this. I'm suggesting that the WMF have paid and trained employees who do this. I would rather not have volunteers involved in this at all, but if they are involved, I expect them to be trained in the applicable laws. Where does this number of "less than 100" incidents come from? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 19:50, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
"less than 100"? - from an oversighter[1]. --Túrelio (talk) 20:35, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
That figure refers to the number of images that were "suppressed ... as potentially abusive", not the number of images that were suspected child pornography. I have no way of verifying this or knowing if "double digits" means 11 or 99 - is there a way for anyone without oversight privileges to see how many images have been suppressed? That number fails to account for images that were simply deleted (as so many uploads are). It may also fail to account for images deleted by the WMF if they use a different set of tools. In any case, how many images of child pornography on Commons is an acceptable number? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 22:02, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
Even if it is 99, are you suggesting having a paid staff member on call 24/7 (in reality 4 for 8-hour shifts and weekends) solely for something which will happen to them, on average, once every 4 days? -mattbuck (Talk) 23:16, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
I don't think that anyone here is competent enough to judge whether all images that were suppressed could be considered child pornography or not, especially as our general policy is better be safe than sorry — which is related to the fact that, as DC correctly points out, none of Commons oversighters are trained in fighting this kind of illegal content. This policy means that there might have been some borderline cases of suppressed images that specialised lawyers could argue against (even though our usage of the tools is rather conservative).

As I wrote in my blog post — and as anyone who read the RevisionDelete help page and the general oversight policy can tell — there is currently no possibility for users without the suppressrevision user right to review the suppressions (with the possible exception of Wikimedia developers). As far as I am aware, the WMF does not use any other tools than suppression and then server-side deletion to remove illegal content (probably because things would break pretty badly), but you'll need to confirm that with them to be completely sure. odder (talk) 14:32, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Agreed Canoe1967. We should be paying attention closely to what Odder has written in his blog post, as it objectively presents cold-hard facts. For a number of CP uploads in the double digit realm over the period of an entire year, it is totally unfeasible to have a WMF legal representative available 24/7 in order to attend to (working on numbers) a single report every several days. That is why, as Odder mentions, our oversighters are spread over multiple timezones and are essentially available 24/7. At the very least we should be changing Commons:Contact us/Problems to something more inline with what Odder raises in his blog post. Other solutions are obviously a matter for community discussion, and I have alerted our OS, legal and Philippe to this post in order to get their opinions too. russavia (talk) 16:10, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
I don't think we need much consensus, if any, to add convenience links to file pages. We could even add one to http://www.missingkids.com/cybertipline . I could be wrong when converting 'double digits' to less than 100. If it were binary it would be 3 images or less and if it were hex it would be 271 images or less. We may even ask the foundation if they wish to create a rare 'shared account' for use by the FBI or the cybertipline. This account would have strict limits about users who upload regular images but full checkuser powers, etc. for any uploads of legitimate CP. They would be able to locate and identify uploaders very quickly with such powers.--Canoe1967 (talk) 21:08, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
Russavia, just to be clear, I am not suggesting that the WMF employ full-time staff to deal with this issue exclusively. I am suggesting that there is an email which is monitored 24/7 so that action can be taken by someone who is trained in the law and able to respond quickly with appropriate action. The WMF is a worldwide organization and may already have people who could perform this function in their normal workday timezone. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 22:10, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
@Delicious carbuncle why don't you contact http://www.missingkids.com/HowYouCanHelp and see if they are willing to contact WMF and tailor a plan for the projects? They are experienced professionals and not amateur volunteers like us. As far as I know images can be uploaded to most of the 900(?) projects easily so the issue may be larger than just commons. Seeking any consensus at commons for a WMF decision would take far longer. Bring it up on meta and see if any there want to move forward with 24/7 service for all projects. We may be able to give a few of our members paid jobs to monitor emails using funding from the above project that is already in place.--Canoe1967 (talk) 00:10, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
Canoe, a worldwide list or an international organisation is an appropriate proposal for you to make, rather than a USA-only site. Penyulap ☏ 03:35, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Feel free to edit Template:ReportAbuse (mainly Template:ReportAbuse/layout) and view the result e.g. here. If something useful comes out, I will spend more time with it. -- Rillke(q?) 22:26, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

  • No
Canoe1967, to be honest, I have decided that any participation in Meta is an absolute waste of time. I'm not looking to make jobs for people, I'm hoping that this can be handled with the WMF's existing staff. I do not know if that is possible, but as you note, this is an issue that affects all projects which is why I may not sound supportive for the Commons-specific suggestions made here. I have been on touch with one WMF employee and I know that Russavia has as well, but I have not heard anything back or seen any comments from them here. I may get in touch with the group you mention to see if perhaps they can help the WMF think about solutions. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 18:50, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
Commons "problems" are Commons' problems. Email to OTRS is not legal service to the Wikimedia Foundation and does not provide security or any backing in any way, shape or form, of its projects or its volunteers as a whole. Bringing them to OTRS does not remove the issue, but instead sends it to a separate pool of volunteers to decide on project policy. This is not the remit of OTRS. Using our email system to verify permission or submit files securely, with reference, is fine, but it is not going to be a place where agents are authority on what may or may not be inappropriate images nor having any governance on Commons policy. Commons has plenty of place for that.
with a firm OTRS admin hat, Keegan (talk) 08:19, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
Keegan, this is an OTRS issue. You will notice that our contact page (as noted in my opener) states that copyright violations should be sent to info-en-c@wikimedia.org and we are not only talking about the issue of CP here, but a general approach to allow anyone to report issues with files to us. I asked on IRC about "info-en-c" -- is this a Commons queue? Do people with permissions-commons have access to this queue? Can we bring files hosted on Commons back under the Commons umbrella in terms of OTRS? russavia (talk) 09:49, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
If Commons believes that there is a neccessity for contact in reporting alleged child pornography, OTRS is not the place for it. OTRS is a courtesy project that we supply to fill the information gap that email can provide in a different manner than on-wiki. OTRS is not for abuse or misuse management on a project-wide scale that does not exist other than its scalability with oversight requests. A general subqueue for reporting child pornography will not happen on OTRS, because its volunteers are in no way, shape or form equipped to handle, nor should it. This is a Commons matter. Keegan (talk) 03:49, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
Keegan, please go and read everything that I have written again; I believe I've been pretty clear thus far. We are not talking about reporting of CP via OTRS in this matter. We are talking the reporting of copyright violations to info-en-c. Could you please re-read what's been written and the few questions which have been asked, and get back to us. Cheers, russavia (talk) 03:59, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
I read what you wrote, Russavia, and I'm happy to clear up my interpretation.
You are raising a discussion of "problematic images" and how to best streamline reporting and dealing with such cases. This, as you outline it, is two-fold: the matter of copyright violations, and the matter of "problematic images," which you quote Odder in direct relation to such problems relate to child pornography. In either case, OTRS is not your answer.
  1. Copyright violations: info-c does exist, but it does not get many notifications. Copyright violations on the English Wikipedia, which that is primarily used for, is largely handled by the on-wiki process. This is a best practice, because it is open for review of what are essentially deletion requests. Commons does have an OTRS email queue, and we could theoretically set it up for such requests. However, the queue is not properly staffed considering the size of requests that this could generate, and again best practice across WMF wikis is to keep this process on-wiki. Commons has the stability, administrative core, and userbase to execute this successfully.
  2. Problematic images: reporting this to OTRS is entirely outside of our remit for reasons previously mentioned. If there is an issue of reporting things like child pornography to Commons, I absolutely leave that issue to be addressed on Commons. Do not drag these problems over to another project with a different userbase, solve it locally or by stewards. OTRS is not going to be a reference repository for these sorts of takedown requests.
These Commons problems can only be solved here using this wiki. Keegan (talk) 07:36, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
A different idea is to create a specialised OTRS queue that oversighters and WMF legal staff would have access to, and create an e-mail form that people could use to send messages directly to that queue. Using OTRS would have the advantage of being able to respond to false reports with predefined messages, easily mark messages as spam (something that isn't easy with mailman, especially as the oversight mailing list isn't moderated), and archive all reports. This wouldn't be anything new, since there are already a few oversight addresses that are in fact OTRS queues, though I think this something that the WMF LCA team would want to have a say in. odder (talk) 16:05, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
Oppose There is a perfectly functional solution that doesn't involve OTRS or paid staff members, and works on every project: email the stewards. Child pornography unquestionably raises to the level of 'emergency that allows Stewards to act on projects that have local oversighters', and there are 40 stewards in a variety of time zones. If too many emails come in and it becomes too much work for the stewards, they could either delegate a small number of stewards to moderate the mailing list, create a clerk system, or push for an increase in numbers during the next election. Sven Manguard Wha? 15:12, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
Well, I don't think that this is a perfectly functional idea, Sven. The whole point of my suggestion was to make it easier for people to report images, and not requiring them to e-mail us (or making it easier to do so) is the crux of it. Wikimedia stewards have never been responsible for suppressing potential child pornography on Commons because of the existence of local oversighters; as a sidenote, it should be mentioned that we do not have problems with reaction time, as all reports of potentially illegal content are responded to within a few hours (sometimes even minutes), which is much better than the 12 hours than Flickr takes pride in. odder (talk) 15:53, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
If you want to create a button "Click to report" that sends an email to the stewards, that would get at what you're trying for. I don't care about the how, I care about the who, and in this case, OTRS is the wrong who because you want to minimize the people who are exposed to the content. As to the people commenting above on how copyright infringement is handled, there's a huge difference between dealing with copyright infringement and dealing with child porn, in that the latter is illegal to view and the former isn't. Sven Manguard Wha? 16:05, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
So how in your opinion does sending an e-mail to 46 people instead of 5 (five) limit the number of people exposed to the content? The current ways of dealing with potential child pornography are to either (1) e-mail the WMF or (2) contact local oversighters via e-mail, or sometimes via IRC, and you're suggesting to include even more people in the process. As for your other argument, as far as I am aware, viewing potential child pornography is legal, at least under the US federal law; if it weren't, then people who report such content to proper authorities could be prosecuted (and none of the people who are in regular touch with the NCMEC that I know are currently in jail). odder (talk) 16:13, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
I was under the impression that a solution was being looked for for all projects. On projects with local oversighters, the email can go to the local oversighter mailing list. For other projects, it can go to the Stewards. Sven Manguard Wha? 16:37, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
Any solution that relies on untrained volunteers is a less than adequate solution, in my opinion. I am comfortable asking WMF employees to view and assess possible child porn if that is understood to be part of their job. I am not comfortable asking an unknown group of volunteer oversighters or stewards to do that for a number of reasons. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 18:24, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure OTRS has the bandwidth to deal with this. Stifle (talk) 21:53, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Reusers [edit]

Am I the only individual who notices that there is a huge pink elephant in the room? The image that is available on Commons is available for the whole world, and we say to everybody "Come and use our images, it is not only legal, but we want you to do so" (we even go to great length to disallow NC licenced, and some even take it to discourage GFDL because it makes it "impractical" for printed media). And then the files get deleted, suppressed, wiped, shredded, etc; and the only thing that is given to "the rest of the world" is "Write to legal@..." How is this helpful? Please keep in mind that we are not simply an image repository, we are a repository of freely distributable educational content.

What happens when stuff is already republished on other sites? And (even harder question) what happens if somebody has printed 10000000000 copies of a book in 500 languages that uses an image from Commons that we suppress as child pornography? Sinnamon Girl (talk) 03:19, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, but that aspect is rather irrelevant for the current discussion, in addition to the fact that CP images are often deleted shortly after upload. Besides, this "problem" does not differ between images deleted for suspected of being a CP (<100/year) and images deleted for suspected of being a copyvio (approx. 2000/day). --Túrelio (talk) 14:33, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Technical feature [edit]

Just to make sure this doesn't get lost: Rillke has done some good initial prototyping work with Template:ReportAbuse and MediaWiki:Gadget-AbuseLink.trial.js (see demo). I think this merits further discussion and also have invited WMF legal to comment on workflows as time allows. I've started Commons:Reporting abuse as a draft space for further discussion, and will leave some notes on the talk page there as well.--Eloquence (talk) 08:20, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

I think this is great, Eloquence, and it is nice to see someone from the WMF participating in this discussion. Good work, Rilke. The same problems of training and responsibility, however, still exist. Where do the complaints about possible child porn go? Are the recipients trained to assess whether or not this the image is illegal? What happens if someone complains about an image and it is not deleted (for whatever reason) - does the complainant get notified? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 16:50, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
Rillke: a nice demo. The problems of training exist no matter what tools are used; this seems to simplify one step in the process. --SJ+

The full thread above was too long for me right now, but hopefully my request will be slightly relevant. Please can we have a toolbox button that adds {{consent|query}} to a filepage, and notifies the uploader? Thanks. --99of9 (talk) 12:04, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

+10 --SJ+ 00:08, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
Symbol support vote.svg Support This would be pragmatic and would be easy to pull quick reports and longer term analysis from. I suggest the same button gives some of the other {{consent}} underused options that I find highly useful, such as "appearspublic" and "published". --Fæ (talk) 05:19, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

JP2 files of maps from Library of Congress [edit]

The Library of Congress has scans of Ivan Petroff's 1882 Alaska census maps. We have a low-resolution version of one of these which is unsatisfactory for most purposes. LOC's high-resolution files are in .JP2 format (JPEG2000), which I can download but which my software won't open. Is there a way I can get these uploaded here in readable format? Dankarl (talk) 22:00, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

There's a list of applications supporting the JPEG 2000 format on Englisch Wikipedia, see en:JPEG 2000. An easy and free image viewer I can recommend for such tasks is en:Irfan View (make sure to also download the official plugin pack which adds support for most image formats). --Patrick87 (talk) 23:34, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks Dankarl (talk) 14:14, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
Are there a lot of these maps? You can request a batch upload instead upload all manually. --Slick (talk) 14:36, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
I'm only after 4 in this instance. Dankarl (talk) 23:24, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

May 11 [edit]

Hattin or Cresson [edit]

We got a message on OTRS about this picture : http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hattin.jpg I left a message about it to Adam who uploaded it.

Whilst it is called "Hattin", the legend seems to refer to the battle of Cresson. Even if they occurred the same year, these are two different battles. Perhaps because of the confusion due to the title, this image is now largely used to illustrate both Hattin and Cresson battle. Is there an historian around who would know for sure if it were Hattin or Cresson ? I think this needs to be fixed (both for the title and for the reuse in wikipedias). Thanks Anthere (talk)

No idea, but may I point out that Gallica has the whole of this work online, with this particular folio here. The text may help identify which battle this exactly shows. And may I suggest that someone upload the much better Gallica image? (Or images... it's a beautiful illustrated manuscript.) Lupo 16:34, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
Je n'ai pas de réponse, mais je me suis permis de transmettre la question à l'Oracle pour augmenter les chances d'obtenir une réponse. -- Asclepias (talk) 16:45, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
A Flickr-User identifies it as the battle of Cresson.[2] Presumably the "fountain" in the center is supposed to be the springs. Lupo 16:47, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
Hm. File:Français 5594, fol. 197 haut, Bataille de Kefar Kanna (1187).jpeg claims it was the battle of Kefr Kana. No idea where that is. Lupo 16:51, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
Hm... the uploader of that changed the category from the Battle of Hattin to the Battle of Cresson shortly after uploading. w:Kafr Kanna is a town in the general vicinity so it may just be an alternate name... but no idea of which battle. This page shows all the illustrations from the source book; this one appears more in the middle with what appears to be another battle towards the end, which might suggest that this one is Cresson, though I really can't read the text. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:18, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
I came here at Asclepias's request ... I uploaded the better-quality File:Français 5594, fol. 197 haut, Bataille de Kefar Kanna (1187).jpeg. My title "Bataille de Kefar Kanna" is copied directly from the caption on Mandragore site of the Bibliothèque Nationale (at that time I don't believe the manuscript was on Gallica, where the quality might indeed be better). I have never heard either of those battles called by this name before, but, after checking maps as well as I could, this place seemed to be closer to Cresson than to Hattin: also, as Carl Lindberg says, the sequence in the manuscript suggests this is the earlier battle of the two. Both clues pointed to Cresson, and this is why I changed the category. I didn't want to interfere with the description of the other version because I don't really know :) I was hoping someone would show up who knows better than I do. Andrew Dalby (talk) 19:06, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
The illustration of the battle towards the end of that manuscript is labeled by File:Bataille de Nicopolis (Archives B.N.) 1.jpg and File:NikopolisSchlacht.jpg as the w:Battle of Nicopolis. Carl Lindberg (talk) 19:58, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
So it's still open. The two hills shown in the Hattin/Cresson one in the background left and right may just as well point to the en:Horns of Hattin... Lupo 20:14, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
Trying to read the text on this and the following pages, I don't see any mention of a battle of Cresson. The writer introduced each section with a brief summary (or a longish title) in red of what is described subsequently. If I read the red text below the image right, it says "Et la prise en bataille du Roy Guy de Jhzlm [Jérusalem] par Salladin", i.e., the capture of Guy of Lusignan, king of Jerusalem, by Saladin, which occurred in the battle of Hattin. (I guess that the word that looks like "Jhzlm" means "Jerusalem" from folio 187v, where it says "Comment Guy de Lezignen, Conte de Jaffes, fut fait gouverneur du Royaume de Jhzlm".) I also don't see any mention of Cresson on the preceding or following pages. On folio 200v we're already after the battle of Hattin, the subtitle there reads "Comment Salladin print plusieurs Cités et Châteaux en suite...".
Looking at the image itself, there's the two hills background left and right (Horns of Hattin?), and that fortress (Tiberias?) with Lake Galilee in the background. Comparing with e.g. this map, that would fit Hattin pretty well, as the springs of Cresson seem to be farther away (and Tiberias is probably not visible from there, as there appears to be a mountain range in between). Now I have no idea how well informed about the geography the 15th century authors of the Passages d'Outremer were, but I find it remarkable that it might match so well. Just that fountain on center stage bothers me. In the battle of Hattin, the crusader forces were cut off from the nearest springs... Perhaps the artist mixed elements from both battles, and our using the image in both articles is not that incorrect after all. But if I had to decide between Hattin or Cresson, my personal feeling is that this is supposed to show the battle of Hattin, which was the much larger and more decisive event. Lupo 12:12, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
The battle at the fountain of Cresson ("la fontaine de Cresson'") is (rather quickly) narrated near the beginning of the chapter, at f. 197 (recto verso, second column). The red title for the chapter begins at the bottom of f. 196 (verso) and refers to the events of the chapter from f. 197 to f. 200. I guess the part of that title that refers to the battle at the fountain of Cresson is "(...) Et la déconfiture des maîtres du temple et de l'hôpital. (...)". Of course, we should not expect this type of illustration to actually depict an actual landscape, the task being more to try to decipher what the elements are meant to symbolize. I agree that if Colombe wanted to represent only one of the two battles, normally one would think that he should have chosen to represent the decisive one at Hattin, but the thing in the center of the illustration suggests that the illustration is supposed to represent a battle fought at a fountain. That could likely symbolize the battle at the fountain at Cresson, unless it's supposed to symbolize the fountain at Seraphie, where the Franks gathered and from where they left to go to the battle at Hattin, at many kilometers of distance. I like the idea that Colombe may have wanted to insert symbols representing both battles in one illustration for the chapter. -- Asclepias (talk) 15:55, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
Yes, you're right, Cresson is mentioned on 197v, 2nd column, middle. Had missed that (spent too much time figuring out what Jhzlm was supposed to mean :-). I agree we can't expect the illustration to be faithful to the actual landscape; even the text itself may be more or less accurate in the big lines, but I wouldn't rely on it for details. After all, the work was created 300 years after that battle took place, and the artist in all likelihood never visited the place. That's why I do find the congruences remarkable. The Horns of Hattin (Cornes de Hattin) at least might have been known by name to him. I'd really love to know what a specialist on this period or on this manuscript might have to say on this. Lupo 18:22, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
Another point is that the image seems to match the description of the Cresson battle (130ish knights possibly attacking a larger force without foot soldier support), rather than Hattin which was much larger numbers on both sides. Additionally, Hattin is described as being fought on an arid plateau in the en-wiki article with the lack of water being an issue, which is definitely not the case in this depiction. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:00, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Global usage for articles [edit]

Hi all, is there a way to determine the global usage of articles in the same way it is possible for files? Special:GlobalUsage only works for files as far as I can tell and Special:WhatLinksHere only lists local usage. --Patrick87 (talk) 15:30, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

What do you mean by 'global'? Ruslik (talk) 16:21, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
Not sure what you mean either. Files may be transcluded in other projects − hence the need for a "global what links here". Articles/templates cannot, so a global usage does not make sense. Jean-Fred (talk) 16:41, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
Well, you can put an Interwikilink to a Commons article or a Commons category on other Wikimedia projects. The question is if there's a functionality like Special:WhatLinksHere that also shows links from other WMF projects. --Patrick87 (talk) 16:51, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
Anyone? It would be really helpful to decide whether deleting some "gallery" pages (which only contain 2 or three images, not even representing the topic well, e.g. HVD) was acceptable. In such cases just giving the Commons category is much more useful (In case of the example even the category only includes 6 files). --Patrick87 (talk) 16:14, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
Did you try GLAMorous : settings in my preferences - gadgets - Tools for categories - GLAMorous file usage analysis tool, works on user contributions too. But that is not a valid reason to delete galleries, galleries are per definition always on-going works. sample --Foroa (talk) 17:27, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
If a gallery is small and unrepresentative, you could consider adding some of the best images from the category and removing any dross. Or, if it is of good quality but represents only a particular subset of the category or a particular POV, you could nominate it for renaming so it will not show up ahead of the category in searches (reason:misleading name). Dankarl (talk) 17:48, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
GLAMorous still doesn't allow me to find Wikis linking to the article HVD itself. It only shows me usage statistics for files which are on that page.
I see your point that when possible galleries should be improved. But as for the example it's obvious that the gallery isn't any longer "on-going work" (it was not changed since 2007 [sic!] and it won't possibly change in future since HVD is essentially dead). Furthermore if I actually started expanding the gallery, I'd end up having most of the images of the corresponding category in the gallery (so there's no real use for a separate gallery either). And in the end a category is always up to date regarding it's contents, whereas a gallery will eventually be outdated for subjects of low interest where no one cares to manually update galleries. --Patrick87 (talk) 19:57, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

May 14 [edit]

Wiki Loves Monuments 2013 in the United Kingdom is ready to go! [edit]

For the very first time, the UK community will be competing in the annual Wiki Loves Monuments competition in September. This is a community-led effort, with support from the UK chapter, Wikimedia UK. A number of volunteers have already expressed interest in helping to organize the contest, but there is much to be done and many more volunteers are needed, both now and over the coming few months.

If you would like to contribute towards making our first ever competition the great success we expect it to be, please visit Commons:Wiki Loves Monuments 2013 in the United Kingdom and leave your name there. Even if you are only able to offer us moral support, or want to take part as photographer in September, please leave your details anyway. You need not be based in the UK to help. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 15:30, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Can you add the Academy Award to someone's list? I am still not sure what the WMF opinion would be but it would be nice to have FOP images of it to replace our fair use one on en:wp. w:List of Academy Award trophies on public display has the four a in countries with FOP. If the other two countries are in the monuments project you may wish to let them know and get images as well.--Canoe1967 (talk) 15:46, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Bizarre search result [edit]

Why does File:Black genitalia.jpg (caution: explicit) appear as the first search result for "purpose" (note, contains same image)? The file description page does not contain the word purpose. — Scott • talk 17:31, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Indeed a mystery as even the search results do not show an occurence of "purpose" for that image, as opposed to the subsequent results. --Túrelio (talk) 18:07, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
I know little of programming could it be a hidden code somewhere?--Canoe1967 (talk) 18:15, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
At least not in the image-page or talkpage. Interestingly, when you search for "purpos" (e omitted), it's not shown. --Túrelio (talk) 18:18, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
I stripped all the exif and re-uploaded but that didn't fix.--Canoe1967 (talk) 18:30, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
Funny, a GoogleImages-search for "purpose site:commons.wikimedia.org" did not yield this image, though images of Sue and Erik. --Túrelio (talk) 18:35, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
I have restored the EXIF, this was a bit of a random experiment in my view, you are likely to find that the search function does not ferret through the EXIF, and a d/b lag is likely to invalidate such a test. You can read all the EXIF data by examining this API call which does not appear to contain anything strange, or with a match for "purpose". I suggest isolating the problem before changing the file or making other 'fixes'. --Fæ (talk) 18:42, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
 Sorry. I guess a rename wouldn't fix it either then?--Canoe1967 (talk) 18:46, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

I wouldn't touch it yet, let's give some people time to diagnose it. It could be an oddity of the search set-up, a hang-over from being a FP on this or another project, something tucked in the file history, a complex joke, or some other weirdness I have yet to dream of. Worst case, an admin deletes the file and tries re-uploading from scratch and possibly dropping the file history. Not a good practice for several reasons. --Fæ (talk) 18:51, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
When I search "result" I get File:PieCrust masked.jpg at the top with no text to match in the image page. I will try a few more.--Canoe1967 (talk) 18:58, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
Continuing Túrelio's experiment, I see that the file also shows first in a search on "purposes" but it does not show in a search on "purposed" or "purposely". Also, it might have something to do (although I have no idea of the connection, technically) with the fact that other Klashorst files are titled with the word "pose". For example, a search on "pose" shows as the first result File:Pose.jpg, possibly from the same series of photographs. -- Asclepias (talk) 19:17, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
Oddly, searching for the endlessly soapboxed "toothbrush", "cucumber" and "zuccini" show me nothing with nudity or sex at all, just toothbrushes and penises vegetables. I guess search has improved a bit. --Fæ (talk) 19:31, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Asclepias: I was looking for something like that. Commons uses a search algorithm based on Lucene:

"Lucene-search extends the Apache Lucene search API to rank pages based on number of backlinks, distributed searching and indexing, parsing of wiki text, incremental updates..."

There is more going on here than just looking for text in a page. Something about the structure of Commons is probably causing it to favour a certain kind of page. That is, the search is functioning as its supposed to, but it's not doing what we want it to in this instance –⁠moogsi (talk) 19:39, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes plural is the same and produces the above pie image when I search "results". Can we remove all the backlinks from the NSFW image and see if that fixes?--Canoe1967 (talk) 19:51, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

If we can't really investigate this much further, should I bring it up at Bugzilla? — Scott • talk 07:51, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

I think you should. That 'purpose' image is rather shocking. I tried a few more simple words that didn't err so 'result' must have been a total fluke when I tried it. Are purpose and result the only two we found?--Canoe1967 (talk) 08:06, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
The pie image has the French word "résulte" in its description so I would imagine that's why it's coming up - Lucene does stemming. "Purpose" remains a mystery, though, so I've filed this bug. — Scott • talk 10:33, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
I overwrote the vulgar one with mellow kitty image and it does the same thing. If it takes too long to fix we may have to remove it from the three articles it is in.--Canoe1967 (talk) 11:07, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

I have a question about licensing [edit]

http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~gakai/sozai/SO_kiyaku.html

Does this mean that I can assign licenses to pictures I created using materials provided by him? if yes, then I hope to assign the license of two of the pictures I created using materials provided by him to cc-zero or PD-self.--K1234567890y (talk) 18:56, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Licensing status of Defense Distributed software products [edit]

This is confirmed as per source:

Just putting here as an FYI. I believe this conforms to Wikimedia Commons licensing requirements.

Posting here, for further discussion.

Any thoughts?

Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 19:57, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

The Atlantic Wire article you point follows that with "with minor caveats." We need to know what the minor caveats are. (Then they follow it with the bizarre sentence "Had the group tried to copyright its design", as if that wasn't a copyright license they just showed there.)--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:27, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
I was thinking of uploading the obviously unquestionably legal CAD design files, such as the one that lets you print out a practice plastic toy gun for use in self-defense martial arts classes, etc. It's a solid block of plastic, not a real gun, but a toy and model prop. -- Cirt (talk) 20:31, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
?? Not an allowed file type, as far as I'm aware... AnonMoos (talk) 20:59, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
Well, an image of the design, or of the object itself, would be an allowed file type. -- Cirt (talk) 21:30, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
Updated with text below of the Readme file with the actual licensing statements

There is a file inside Liberator.zip, named "License.txt" with the following text:

/* DD-Liberator
  version 1.0, May 2013

  (zlib.h -- license)
This software is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied
warranty.  In no event will the authors be held liable for any damages
arising from the use of this software.

  Permission is granted to anyone to use this software for any purpose,
  including commercial applications, and to alter it and redistribute it
  freely, subject to the following restrictions:

  1. The origin of this software must not be misrepresented; you must
not claim that you wrote the original software. If you use this
software in a product, an acknowledgment in the product documentation
would be appreciated but is not required.

  2. Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and must
not be misrepresented as being the original software.

  3. This notice may not be removed or altered from any source distribution.

Copyright is still theft.

This licensing does seem to conform almost exactly to {{CC-BY-SA-3.0}}.

Again, at the moment I'm mulling over any potential issues with uploading the practice gun.

And also maybe images, but not plans or coding, of the other stuff, in finalized FreeCAD 3D rendering.

Thoughts?

-- Cirt (talk) 23:04, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

May 15 [edit]

Nature in New York City [edit]

I am categorizing a set of photos made by Suzanne Szasz for DOCUMERICA in 1973. Most of them are concerned with nature, particularly flowers, in New York City. Right now they are categorized under Category:Suzanne Szasz. I would like to provide a link to this set for people who visit Category:Nature in New York City. Do you think putting a link on that page to Category:Suzanne Szasz is appropriate? To a subcategory of her page (which I would have to batch make - and define 'nature')? Or text at the top of the page, such as "Also see 1973 DOCUMERICA photos by Category:Suzanne Szasz". Any other ideas? Downtowngal (talk) 02:36, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

It looks like 90% of her works are Category:Nature of New York City so there is probably no harm in adding her whole category as a sub-cat of that one.--Canoe1967 (talk) 03:02, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. One reason I asked is that it's possible other pictures by her will be added later and 'dilute' her category. I guess I can just put this category on personal watch... Downtowngal (talk) 03:17, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
By the way, the DOCUMERICA photographers seem to be using similar themes that crosscut Commons's usual categories, like "A day in the life of Fountain Square, Cincinnati" or "Trash, sewage, pollution in X area". I think there's a lot of value to pointing people to the sets rather than making them figure out on their own when they find one image that there's a lot more on the same theme under different categories. So I expect to be doing the same thing with other DOCUMERICA photographers. Downtowngal (talk) 03:21, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
You could add a note to her category like "Although all the images may not fit it was an simpler way to..." type thing.--Canoe1967 (talk) 03:54, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
Would a subcat of Category:Flora of New York be appropriate? Jim.henderson (talk) 22:43, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
No, that' much too high-level. Seriously, this is an issue that needs to be addressed in Commons. The category system was made for analytic categories like "by year" or "by country" or "name of building in X city". Synthetic categories like "suburbanization" or ones the DOCUMERICA people were using - another example is "Life in X neighborhood about to be demolished for a highway" - don't fit. Yet there is great value in pointing users to them as a whole. We have to think about WHY users want images. I think the way is to accept that the DOCUMERICA sets will be subcategories that don't quite fit their master categories (e.g., "Suzanne Szasz" as a subcat of "Nature of New York City" with an explanation as Canoe 1967 suggested), and are provided with short text explanations at the top of the page. Downtowngal (talk) 23:04, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
I would see nothing wrong with making a subcategory of Category:Nature in New York City of the form Category:Nature in New York City - 1973 photographs by Suzanne Szasz which would then also be a subcategory of Category:Suzanne Szasz. This is the more versatile or general approach and can be used in a lot of cases where we have a large number of images from a particular source or period that threaten to swamp a category. It would also provide an objective categorization criterion to avoid dilution.
The problem with this approach is that not all of the photos in the set are concerned with "Nature in New York City" and I am reluctant to label the set as the photographer's label, if it existed, would be preferable. The theme of this set seems to be "How New York City residents bring nature, particularly flowers, into their lives and the urban environment - with a few other cool pics." Perhaps integrating DOCUMERICA galleries into the existing categories will work. Downtowngal (talk) 15:29, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
To clarify - I would envision a Category:Suzanne Szazz which would contain several subcategories by topic. The individual images would mostly be in only one but some might fit more than one. Only the subcategories that fit within Category:Nature in New York would be put there. The categories you chose to create would be chosen according to what is present and photographs that did not fit the subcategories would be categorized under Category:Suzanne Szazz and whatever other individual categories they fit. The category system is ideally a net rather than just a tree. This is potentially a lot of work and the gallery approach may be quicker and more direct. However ultimately we would like to make these available and findable outside the context of Documerica and the particular photographer.
Alternatively or in addition, since the Documerica images are a set of finite sets, they would be a good candidate for specialized galleries which could correspond to the original Documerica organizational system. Categories are made to be readily extensible but that is not needed here. Dankarl (talk) 15:05, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
Can you direct me to one example of a specialized gallery already existing that I can use to see if this approach can be integrated into the presentation of DOCUMERICA materials? Thanks. Downtowngal (talk) 15:29, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
Here are two examples of galleries I made to re-unify sets of images scattered within a large block of NARA images (the Wellcome Collection). Not exactly the same situation as Documerica but a closely related purpose. Most important thing to remember about galleries is to hold explanatory text to the minimum needed. O.B. Kent album, 1916 A trip (or two) through Alaska 1897-1901. You would be grouping based on data of photographer, date and original title that are clearly represented in teh NARA records and so would need minimal description. Dankarl (talk) 02:08, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

upgrade COM:OVERCAT to policy [edit]

I am thinking that COM:OVERCAT needs to be labelled as either help page, guideline, or policy. However, just how much support does it have in the community as a policy ? should it be one ?

Personally, I think it is something of a nuisance, I find that it is faster and easier to use external search engines to look back into commons to find what I want rather than use the cat system, which often puts what too many clicks away. For example, a silly example, smilies, if you search externally, you're there in a click. If use the category it gives you the cream of the crap Halloween sort of smilies first and then you have to go looking through the sub categories.

I would think that having the epitome of the pictures in the top category is often helpful, as well as at the end of the long branches through sub-cats. I'd like to know if anyone else has an opinion on it. Penyulap ☏ 04:26, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

I think the name is a bit confusing the same way people use the term 'over-acting'. Think about it, there is no such thing as over-acting, you wouldn't call Vincent Van Gough an 'over-painter' would you ? there is simply good acting and bad acting, and over-acting and over-catting is simply bad acting and bad catting.
The ability of an image to appear in a parent and child category, because it belongs there, should be pointed out, so that people don't threaten each other with blocks and penalties and so on. Penyulap ☏ 08:57, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
I am not quite sure where you want to go with this? :) For cream o' crap you can always put in a DR. What you (seem) to want is more like a gallery? The cat system is to, well, categorize media so it can be found when looking for something specific. True, sometimes it takes a few too many clicks to find stuff. And right with your last statement, it should be clear that in some cases double categories for a file are useful. The policy/guideline should reflect that. --Hedwig in Washington (mail?) 15:25, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
Sorry I'm not clear, I need input to get direction sometimes, but you've zoomed right in on what I mean with your comment "it should be clear that in some cases double categories for a file are useful" that is what I mean, and I can't see it mentioned on the help page.
I think it is very important that it IS spelled out by the people who know, so that the rest of us know, when we should have the double categories, like an example of how a double category makes the category system more useful. (It was today that I had to find a Soyuz launch video by using an external search engine after giving up on the internal category system, seriously, try to find them!) Penyulap ☏ 07:05, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
OVERCAT is basically already a de facto policy - people routinely (and semiautomatically) remove files from parent cats when they are already in subcats, and have done so for years. Marking it as such might clarify this. I was confused at first though, because I also hear the term "overcategorization" used to refer to excessively specific categories. Dcoetzee (talk) 18:34, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

our template PD-Sri Lanka may be very wrong (is not) [edit]

When checking a number of historical images of the bloody anti-Tamil pogroms in 1983 in Sri Lanka, requested by User:Australian_Sun for speedy deletion due to alleged copyvio, I read in the current {{PD-Sri Lanka}} "Photographic works or applied art: During the life of the author and 70 years after his death.". Thereby these images from 1983 seemed to be clear copyvios. However, when I checked Sri Lanka's current intellectual property law (pdf), I read in section 19 (5) "Duration of Economic Rights" on page 13: "In the case of a photographic work or a work of applied art, the rights referred to in section 10 shall be protected until the expiration of twenty-five years from the making of the work." Section 10 (page 9) is about "Economic Rights". The 25-year protection as I read from the law-text seem to be in conflict with the 70 years pma in our template. What's true? --Túrelio (talk) 15:17, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

w:Wikipedia:Non-U.S. copyrights also tells that photos are subject to a 25-year term, but seems to tell that this only applies to photos taken before 1978. Also, for Commons, they must have been taken before 1971 due to COM:URAA. --Stefan4 (talk) 15:31, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
The first interwiki doesn't work. --Túrelio (talk) 15:38, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
Link now corrected. -- Asclepias (talk) 16:50, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
The description of the File:Sri Lanka's intellectual property law.pdf mentions that it is not the current version of the law and that it was superseded by this version. -- Asclepias (talk) 16:58, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. The new law is "bad" news, as it extended the former 25-year protection for photographic works to full 70 pma. I was mislead by the outdated version of Sri Lanka copyright law hosted on Commons. --Túrelio (talk) 19:36, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
However, it does mean that photos taken before 1971 are URAA-safe as long as they were published without US copyright formalities, which is at least better than nothing. --Stefan4 (talk) 19:45, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Some preference settings are not applied [edit]

I just logged in and noticed that some of my preferences are not applied even though I reloaded the page I was on after logging in.

The preferences that are not applied include "Place categories above all other content." and "UTCLiveClock". I also noticed that I am not getting search suggestions when typing in the search bar (I expect to see suggestions like "Category:?" when I type "Category:" but the list of suggestions never appears).

Also gone are the Cat-a-lot and HotCat tools.

I am using Mozilla Firefox 21. I haven't changed my preferences for years and they always worked. I checked to make sure that I had Javascript enabled and I have also disabled Adblock on Wikimedia Commons ańd allowed all scripts on the site in NoScript but the problem is still present.

Regards. - SuperTank17 (talk) 19:42, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

HotCat also does not work. --Herzi Pinki (talk) 19:45, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
A new version of MediaWiki was deployed. See wikitech:Server admin log. We are now running version 1.22wmf4. If you didn't already, please try

Please purge your browser’s cache . (You only need to do it once.)

Internet Explorer: press Ctrl+F5, Firefox: hold down ⇧ Shift while clicking Reload (or press STRG+⇧ Shift+R), Opera/Konqueror: press F5, Safari: hold down ⇧ Shift+alt while clicking Reload, Chrome: hold down ⇧ Shift while clicking Reload

-- Rillke(q?) 20:46, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
I tried your solution and the problem is still present. Also, I have my browser cache disabled so I don't think it's cause of the problem.
Regards. - SuperTank17 (talk) 21:01, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
I see:
Zeitstempel: 15.05.2013 23:06:01
Fehler: TypeError: mw.hook is not a function
Quelldatei: http://bits.wikimedia.org/commons.wikimedia.org/load.php?debug=false&lang=en&modules=ext.centralNotice.bannerController%7Cext.postEdit%7Cjquery.client%2Ccookie%2CmwExtension%7Cmediawiki.action.view.postEdit%7Cmediawiki.cldr%2CjqueryMsg%2Clanguage%2Cnotify%2Cutil%7Cmediawiki.language.data%2Cinit%7Cmediawiki.legacy.ajax%2Cwikibits%7Cmediawiki.libs.pluralruleparser%7Cmediawiki.page.startup&skin=vector&version=20130515T210342Z&*
Zeile: 37
in my error console after I resetted all my settings. -- Rillke(q?) (talk) 21:07, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
And it stops at mw.hook('wikipage.content').fire(util.$content); of mediawiki.util -- Rillke(q?) (talk) 21:32, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
The problem spears to be fixed now.
Regards. - SuperTank17 (talk) 22:36, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Bah, I reset my preferences to the default hoping to isolate the one that was causing problems. Now I have to work out what they all were. --99of9 (talk) 00:00, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
    • I used my bot account for that reason. -- Rillke(q?) 06:05, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
If this is still a problem, it would be nice if somebody who has this issue could send the software bug to the 'Bugzilla' bug tracker by following the instructions How to report a bug. This is to make developers of the software aware of the issue. If you have done so, please paste the number of the bug report (or the link) here, so others can also inform themselves about the bug's status. Thanks in advance! --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 12:36, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
It was working again by the time SuperTank17 posted that it was fixed. --99of9 (talk) 21:40, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Gadgets and tools have disappeared, and other problems [edit]

Tracked in Bugzilla (?)
Bug 48515

Resolved fixed

All my gadgets and tools have disappeared, I no longer see the toolbar at the top of editing box, and when I click "Preferences" all the menus now appear on one page instead of in separate tabs. What's happened? Is anyone else encountering this problem? — SMUconlaw (talk) 19:45, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Looks like this is related to the problem raised in the previous section. Also, forgot to mention that I can't expand any categories as the [+] symbols have all disappeared. — SMUconlaw (talk) 19:47, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Just logged in to upload some photos. I'm also noticing all of the above problems. Plus the EXIF data section on file pages is fully expanded by default, with no option to collapse. I'm also currently noticing that there's no auto-completion in the search field. It's almost as if the usual javascript code isn't functioning. Also, the upload wizard is just hanging on my system, stuck on the rotating circle. Same in Firefox and Opera. I could probably use Commonist instead to upload, but I'll be back tomorrow to try the upload wizard again. Regards, Rept0n1x (talk) 20:34, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
Also, if it's any help, I can report that none of these problems are occurring on the English Wikipedia which continues to function fine. The problems appear to be confined solely to Commons, at least from my PC. Rept0n1x (talk) 20:42, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
Please see #Some preference settings are not applied the section directly above. EnWikipedia will get the new version on Monday, May 20. -- Rillke(q?) 20:50, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for the help. In Firefox, I've just purged the browser cache as per your instructions above, and I still appear to be experiencing the problems. Also, in the case of Opera, I don't think I've ever visited Commons using that browser before this evening, so nothing really to purge. Although I purged the Opera cache anyway just in case, but the problem appears to persist. Also, I've just tested it in Chrome and likewise purged the browser cache, with the same result - the problem persists on my system. It's quite possible I'm doing something wrong or missing some critical step, but I thought I'd report my findings in case anyone else experiences the same behaviour. Thanks again, Rept0n1x (talk) 21:05, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

There appears to be some broken javascript which is causing all (or at least most javascript) to fail. This is what I get from the Chrome debugger: Uncaught TypeError: Object #<Object> has no method 'hook' . I don't know where to report this, and clearing the cache does not resolve the issue. Mackensen (talk) 21:07, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply (and to RillkeBot above), indeed it seems that the mw.hook error that you've found in the Javascript would certainly explain the problems. Rept0n1x (talk) 21:14, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
Also can confirm that all problems are resolved now. Thanks very much to the fixers for sorting it out! Rept0n1x (talk) 06:07, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Metadata won't collapse? [edit]

Commons just broke, but fortunately there's a conversation about it above. But at File:Ane Brun, Le Cargo interview, 2008.jpg, the metadata doesn't collapse ("show extended dtls" "hide extended dtls"). Is this also a part of today's Commons breakdown? None of my images are collapsing their metadata, so I'm going to assume yes. Anyway, huge relief this isn't just me. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 21:20, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

This is mentioned at Commons:Village_pump#Gadgets_and_tools_have_disappeared.2C_and_other_problems above. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 21:22, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
Everything working for me, thanks mysterious person! – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 22:36, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
Yes check.svg Resolved– Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 22:36, 15 May 2013 (UTC)


May 16 [edit]

Rapla [edit]

No chance for IPs to create Rapla. In Germany they have a sad phrase for things like these: Warum einfach wenn es auch ümständlich geht?/Why simple......? 91.66.249.106 07:17, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

✓ Done. Unfortunately, 99.9% of the new galleries created by IPs were trash of spam. -- Rillke(q?) 08:17, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Is it possible to sort images by a key whithin a Category instead by the imagename [edit]

How can I give a order to images stored in a category, but without giving sub-categories?. I would like to order Category:Tropas chilenas de la Guerra del Pacifico according to Regiments something like in Regimientos de Chile (without so much text). Can I add to a image a key, e.g. for image123.jpg 
[[Category:Tropas chilenas de la Guerra del Pacifico|Reg. Buin]]
to obtain the images of the category ordered by key (Regiments) but not by the name of the image, as usual. This is the usual method by subcategories. Is there a method for the simple images?. (To rename 176 images is excluded as solution). --Createaccount 16:02, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
I´m not an expert, but in my experience the pipe (|) function works for single images as well as for (sub-)categories. And I think it even overrides the DEFAULTSORT-entry. The only problem is that the sorting criteria is not obvious to the visitors of the page, so you might have to explain it in the category description. --Rudolph Buch (talk) 18:47, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
Rudolph is right – you can use the pipe function, and if used it overrides any {{DEFAULTSORT}} setting. However, I'm not sure what you are proposing to do is a good idea. I agree with Rudolph that it will not be obvious to other editors what you are trying to achieve, and when editors add new files to the category they may not add the sorting keys which will lead to these files being out of order. I would suggest that you create a gallery like "Regimientos de Chile" to display selected images in a particular order, with captions if required. There is no need to include a lot of text if you don't want to do that. — SMUconlaw (talk) 19:11, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
That key is often used to have some pictures on the top of the list, such of the most significant picture(s) of an artist or other person. In some locations in Spain, they have some keying convention to ensure that coats of arms, banners, symbols appears always in some top order. It is sometimes abused by people that find their picture the most important of the bunch. --Foroa (talk) 16:15, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I should have known the answer, you see I also am not an expert. Allow me a second question: is there a template that shows the key in the category page? I mean, normally the photographs will be shown all together. Can I show the key in the category page?. That is:

== key1 ==

(all photos with key1)
== key2 ==

(all photos with key2) ...
--Createaccount 08:13, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
Not as far as I'm aware. — SMUconlaw (talk) 08:47, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, anyway. --Createaccount 13:50, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Main Page issues [edit]

Hi. The main page looks awful today.

  1. The fire picture is huge and takes up most of the page width. (Is this just me? Running iOS using FF)
  2. The mobile app section has rather large text that doesn't really seem appropriately tied in to the theme of the rest of the page. (Is this just me? Running iOS using FF)
  3. The mobile app section doesn't appropriately attribute the author(s) by linking to the file page (File:Download on iTunes.svg and File:Get it on Google play.svg).

With regards, Killiondude (talk) 18:33, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree, the picture and media of the day seems a little too large. Same thing about mobile app section. Due to size of those 3 elements the main page takes 2-3 pages and I have large high-res screen. I also agree about lack of image attribution for files on the main page, like File:Double-alaskan-rainbow.jpg, File:Visegradski-most10.jpg or File:WMCommonsAPP upload2.png. We need to link to those files somehow. --Jarekt (talk) 12:15, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

"Official page" of aircraft manufacturer [edit]

I have just spotted a copyvio file, and when I headed to the userpage of the uploader, I found it says "This is the official page of Dassault Aviation." (en:Dassault Aviation is a major French aircraft manufacturer). Can anyone help verify the authenticity of this account, or point me to someone who can? --Ariadacapo (talk) 19:12, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Good catch and good reaction. It may actually be possible that Dassault wants to share some images under a free license. Fellow French sysop Léna is sending them an email. let us wait for their answers. In the meantime, I replaced the speedy to no permission to give us some time to process this. Cheers, Jean-Fred (talk) 19:43, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
Thank you! I’m very curious to see how this turns out =) --Ariadacapo (talk) 20:12, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
At en:wp, we softblock such accounts and immediately unblock them if they provide proof via OTRS or other official means. Do we do that here at all? Nyttend (talk) 21:02, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Category:数 [edit]

Anyone know what this category is about? The name translates as 'number', but I don't see how that matches the category contents. Kaldari (talk) 23:39, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

The character means "number" and "count". I don't see what it has to do with the contents of the category, so I'm removing it from many images. --Stefan4 (talk) 23:56, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

May 17 [edit]

Wayside shrines, Oratories, Wayside chapels [edit]

Category:Wayside shrines, Category:Oratories, Category:Wayside chapels, Category:Christian aediculae are overlapping categories, but the denominations are not univoque. And Category:Devotion in Italy by city seems to concern mainly Category:Christian aediculae. Suggestions for improvements? --Havang(nl) (talk) 11:46, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

AS has been suggested to me, I have opened Commons:Categories for discussion/2013/05/Category:Christian aediculae. --Havang(nl) (talk) 14:00, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

May 18 [edit]

Involved [edit]

Category:Andy Mabbett has just been protected - and reverted to his preferred version - by the same editor with whom I have a dispute over its categorisation. Does Commons have a policy similar to en.Wikipedia's en:WP:INVOLVED? Andy Mabbett (talk) 18:35, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

yes it does, you can also bring it up on Commons:AN/U Penyulap ☏ 18:55, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
Done, thank you. Andy Mabbett (talk) 20:27, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

May 19 [edit]

Licence information in public domain images [edit]

Last time the U.S. Capital add the following comment on some (flickr) images, published as public domain, quote: This official Architect of the Capitol photograph is being made available for educational, scholarly, news or personal purposes (not advertising or any other commercial use). (i.E. see here). What about this statement? Can we use this images as public domain or must not import because of this statement? --Slick (talk) 14:31, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

I think they are all still public domain by law. They can't change that law at Flickr.--Canoe1967 (talk) 14:58, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
The first thing is to know if the person who created the work was an employee of the U.S. governement in the course of his duties. The answer is given by the use of the license tag "U.S. government work", which can be taken as a clear statement, by the flickr account owner, to the effect that the answer is yes and that the work is in the public domain in the U.S. and freely usable in the U.S. The additional notice on the flickr image page includes: 1. A non-commercial restriction, which might be enforced outside of the U.S. if the U.S. government ever felt inclined to do so; 2. A credit line, obligatory outside the U.S. and a useful suggestion in the U.S.; and 3. A reminder of the fact that a reuse should not be presented as an endorsement, which is a fine reminder. -- Asclepias (talk) 16:20, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
That site seems to be run by Template:PD-USGov-Congress-AOC. Should we modify a new licence to cover their Fickr account restrictions?--Canoe1967 (talk) 18:32, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
I don't know what to do, but I like to get a clear statement (i.E. which template to use) for images from the U.S. Capital, because there have a great stream and a lot of images are imported already. --Slick (talk) 19:16, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
You could probably just tag them with Template:PD-USGov-Congress-AOC, Template:PD-USGov, and Template:Flickrreview. The third one is a bot that checks licenses but I don't know if it will choke on the first two. We can then add any qualifiers or remove any uneeded licenses once we decide how to deal with the wording on the Flickr site. I doubt they can ever be deleted. We just need to tweak wording to keep them. --Canoe1967 (talk) 21:09, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
As Canoe1967 said, the flickr account named "USCapitol" appears to be he account of the Architect of the Capitol. Thus, when an image is identified on that flickr account with the tag "United States government work" and when there is no reason to think that this tag was used by mistake or that the image was not created by an employee of the AOC, then on Commons you can use the tag "PD-USGov-Congress-AOC". If you find an image that fits the definition of U.S. government work but is not from the AOC, then you can use the tag that seems to best fit the case among those in the Category:PD-USGov license tags. -- Asclepias (talk) 21:22, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
Do we know if the Flickrreview bot can detect either license?--Canoe1967 (talk) 21:27, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
Giving a licence and then contradicting it in the photo text - it's just weird. I'd suggest asking them what they mean. What is the legal grounds for their restriction in the text? ghouston (talk) 22:50, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
By licence I should have said public domain statement, since it's not a licence in that case. ghouston (talk) 22:53, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
Their grounds are likely publicity rights or trademark, i.e. rights not related to copyright. "public domain" can have a different meaning in the real world than just "no copyright", even though that is the definition typically meant here. PD-USGov-Congress-AOC is the correct license tag. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:14, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
Publicity rights / trademark of their building, is that's even possible? If it is, wouldn't it apply to every photo of the US Capitol building? ghouston (talk) 09:03, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

New project [edit]

Do we have anything like User:Canoe1967/Sculptors yet? Feel free to edit it or discuss on the talk page. Another user has an account at http://www.sculpture.net/community/ and we are wondering how to approach them. Once we get a nice page for them to contribute to we can work out approaches to their forum and others.--Canoe1967 (talk) 18:26, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

May 20 [edit]

Princess Olga Orlova [edit]

According to this site http://www.gogmsite.net/the-belle-epoque-1890-1914/1911-princess-olga-orlova-b.html (and some others) is this woman File:Portrait_of_Izabella_Grunberg.jpg NOT Miss Grunberg but in fact Category:Olga Konstantinovna Orlova. Regards 91.66.56.55 09:53, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out. I renamed the file and fixed the descriptions. --Jarekt (talk) 12:15, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Photograph or Artwork template [edit]

Hello, while reviewing Artworks with implicit creator, I stumbled upon Category:Photographs by William Thompson Freeland

My question is : which is the best template to use on that kind of file : {{Artwork}} or rather {{Photograph}}, which has more technical data fields ?

Is Artwork OK ? is it "wrong" ? should it be replaced ?

Thanx for your answers, as I'm not really used to dealing with such images… --Hsarrazin (talk) 12:17, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

{{Photograph}} would have been better as some fields in {{Artwork}} might be confusing when applied to the photographs. --Jarekt (talk) 12:29, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

User:Receptie123 [edit]

Can someone please fix the error on my userpage?--Receptie123 (talk) 14:13, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

  • I've fixed the formatting error, but I don't know how you can list your English language level as en-2 in one place and en-5 in another. - Jmabel ! talk 15:11, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Flickr2commons [edit]

Hi All

I've just finished filling in a 550 file transfer on Flickr2Commons, some have been successful, others (around 100) have failed, I think some of them are my fault with descriptions being too long or file names using unsuitable characters with the error Transfer failed : API Error... Code: verification-error Text: This file did not pass file verification Upload error...

Others have just not worked, not sure why, the error is Transfer failed : 502 Proxy Error

Question: Is there a way to retry these failed uploads? I have tried clicking the "Transfer selected files to Commons" button but nothing seems to happen.

The successful images are in Category:Images_from_the_National_Media_Museum_collection

Many thanks

--Mrjohncummings (talk) 16:41, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Illegal bytes in lots of pages due to file history comments being trimmed mid-byte [edit]

Has anyone noticed that a lot of pages on commons have illegal utf8 byte sequences in the file histories? I'm pretty sure this is down to the algorithm used to trim long comments in the file history using byte semantics rather than character: some 2+ byte characters have been trimmed in the middle.

There's lots of examples but here's three:

On all three the first comment has been trimmed and lots pretty ugly but the main issue is that the page is no longer valid utf-8.

Translate is now enabled on Commons [edit]

The Translate extension has just been enabled on Wikimedia Commons, together with Universal Language Selector (ULS), which everyone should now be seeing next to their username on top of every page. This lets us translate pages the proper way, without the hassle of template tricks, and with additional features (details).

For now, only bureucrats are able to add (and remove) users to the 'translationadmin' group, so if anyone feel like managing translations, please request the rights at the buraucrats' noticeboard. Of course, shall the community decide so, we can enable administrators to add and remove themselves from that group. odder (talk) 20:03, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Allow admins to assign this right [edit]

RFC An editor has requested comment from other editors for this discussion.

Can we allow administrators to assign this right to themselves? It works well on Meta... —Mono 22:38, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Pictogram voting info.svg Info See Commons:Translation administrators (already translated in a couple languages with the new system ;-) Jean-Fred (talk) 00:00, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Symbol support vote.svg Support I believe that is how they do it on Wikidata. I would also propose to speedy approve non-admins who already have those rights on Wikidata or other projects. A lot of names on d:Wikidata:Translation administrators sound very familiar. --Jarekt (talk) 02:29, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Symbol oppose vote.svg Oppose allow admins to assign themself to the user group. Instead, I Symbol support vote.svg Support that the user rights associated with the tranlsateadmin user group being (also) added to the sysop group (=administrator group). Reason: It is really weird seeing admins adding themselves to a user group. Instead, they should have the rights by default. It's a different discusion whether we want administrators to be able to give this right to other people. -- Rillke(q?) 10:49, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Enable TranslationNotifications [edit]

I think we should also use this opportunity to enable the TranslationNotifications extension (it's on use on Meta and Wikidata already). odder (talk) 10:00, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Note on ULS [edit]

In case anyone wonders, it appears the language detection for anonymous users of Universal Language Selector is not enabled − (Niklas hinted so on the RFC). Jean-Fred (talk) 08:13, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Don't fix it [edit]

I just fixed two typos and then noticed a template that said I shouldn't. File:Tule Lake Relocation Center, Newell, California. (L to R) Frank Vail, newsreel cameraman for Pathe, . . . - NARA - 537142.tif and File:Tule Lake Relocation Center, Newell, California. (L to R) Frank Vail, newsreel cameraman for Pathe, . . . - NARA - 537142.jpg are the two files and Template:NARA-image-full is the template. The 'do not edit description' is in the yellow bar at the bottom.--Canoe1967 (talk) 20:18, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure what you're trying to tell us, but at least personally I don't find it easy to understand the message you're talking about. This should probably be communicated clearer and in an easier way. --Patrick87 (talk) 10:08, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
It's probably the same intention as the Bundesarchiv template - no change to text archived by NARA but add corrections inside a description field. Sadly this description field is missing in the NARA templete while it's present (or had been added) to the BA template. We should probably get someone adding a description field to the NARA template which is shown as "Wiki description" if something is present there and a Bot run to implement this. --Denniss (talk) 14:51, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
Currently, Template:NARA-image-full "Description" field is described as "Other notes by and description by Wikimedians can go here." so this is where wikimedian's descriptions should go. We could have separate "Archive Description" and "Wiki description" fields if that is desirable. --Jarekt (talk) 15:47, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Tech newsletter: Subscribe to receive the next editions [edit]

Latest Tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes.
Recent software changes
(Not all changes will affect you.)
  • The latest version of MediaWiki (version 1.22/wmf4) was added to non-Wikipedia wikis on May 13, and to the English Wikipedia (with a Wikidata software update) on May 20. It will be updated on all other Wikipedia sites on May 22. [3] [4]
  • A software update will perhaps result in temporary issues with images. Please report any problems you notice. [5]
  • MediaWiki recognizes links in twelve new schemes. Users can now link to SSH, XMPP and Bitcoin directly from wikicode. [6]
  • VisualEditor was added to all content namespaces on mediawiki.org on May 20. [7]
  • A new extension ("TemplateData") was added to all Wikipedia sites on May 20. It will allow a future version of VisualEditor to edit templates. [8]
  • New sites: Greek Wikivoyage and Venetian Wiktionary joined the Wikimedia family last week; the total number of project wikis is now 794. [9] [10]
  • The logo of 18 Wikipedias was changed to version 2.0 in a third group of updates. [11]
  • The UploadWizard on Commons now shows links to the old upload form in 55 languages (bug 33513). [12]
Future software changes
  • The next version of MediaWiki (version 1.22/wmf5) will be added to Wikimedia sites starting on May 27. [13]
  • An updated version of Notifications, with new features and fewer bugs, will be added to the English Wikipedia on May 23. [14]
  • The final version of the "single user login" (which allows people to use the same username on different Wikimedia wikis) is moved to August 2013. The software will automatically rename some usernames. [15]
  • A new discussion system for MediaWiki, called "Flow", is under development. Wikimedia designers need your help to inform other users, test the prototype and discuss the interface. [16].
  • The Wikimedia Foundation is hiring people to act as links between software developers and users for VisualEditor. [17]
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Unsubscribe • 20:21, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
Important note: This is the first edition of the Tech News weekly summaries, which help you monitor recent software changes likely to impact you and your fellow Wikimedians.

If you want to continue to receive the next issues every week, please subscribe to the newsletter. You can subscribe your personal talk page and a community page like this one. The newsletter can be translated into your language.

You can also become a tech ambassador, help us write the next newsletter and tell us what to improve. Your feedback is greatly appreciated. guillom 20:21, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

May 21 [edit]

File moves and inactive Commons Delinker [edit]

Commons Delinker is out-of-action since May 10 so it can't replace moved files. This generates problems on multiple Wikis as the thumb generation may file from the original filename. I strongly suggest to restrict file moves to the bare minimum, to image without use or images where you change usage to the new name (either manually or via move + replace). Please do not rename high-use images until Delinker is working again !! --Denniss (talk) 04:28, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Also note that there are some projects, such as voy:, where Commons Delinker never has been active. Shouldn't the delinker be enabled on every Wikimedia project? --Stefan4 (talk) 10:14, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
Yes but first we have to get it back to work but this seems to depend on Toolserver ressources which may still have problems. --Denniss (talk) 14:23, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

navigation boxes moved to bottom of watchlist page [edit]

The 4 boxes "search", "navigation", "participate" and "toolbox" at the left side of the watchlist-page have since yesterday been moved from the top of the page to its bottom, which makes them nearly unusable if you have a long watchlist. It is specific for the watchlist-page, whereas contributions-page is unchanged. As I observed this problem in Chrome, Opera and IE 8, it is obviously not a local, but a site-problem. It's also independent of language-preference (switch from de to en didn't change it) and of whether "Exclude me from feature experiments" (preferences) is on or off. Any ideas/solution? --Túrelio (talk) 08:04, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, it's a bug somewhere; the whole sidebar (except for the Commons logo) is shifted down below the end of the content. Appears to affect monobook only. The DOM structure is all wrong. Normally, div#column-content, div#column-one, and div#footer are siblings, but on Special:Watchlist in monobook, #column-one and #footer are children of #column-content, which breaks monobook formatting. Highly annoying. Lupo 08:21, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
All right. It was User:Mono who left an unclosed <div> in MediaWiki:Watchlist-summary. I've fixed that, so the layout is OK again, but actually I think his edits to MediaWiki:WatchlistNotice.js should also be summarily reverted. Lupo 08:57, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for your fast analysis and the fix. So we can't burden it on the MW-update as the usual suspect ;-). --Túrelio (talk) 09:01, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
  • I'm sorry - that would be my fault. It looks like Vector has an extra closing div (I checked Vector in Chrome and IE and then missed Monobook). Either way, I've turned off the geolocation so everyone in the world can see the message. It will only be up for a few hours - thanks for catching it. I'll be more careful in the future. —Mono 14:33, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

PDF-versions of Wikipedia articles [edit]

Hello,

are PDF-versions of Wikipedia articles like File:TEORIA ATOMICA.pdf or File:EL ATOMO.pdf within our scope? Per Commons:Project_scope#Allowable_reasons_for_PDF_and_DjVu_formats I'd say no, or are there exceptions I'm not aware of? I there are, what would be the appropriate category for those files and how should the author= and source= parameters be set? The uploading user is clearly not the only contributor to es:Átomo and es:Teoria atomica - the real authors are mentioned in the pdf itself, but just putting {{own}} there is misleading at least. The same question arises for the various figures in the article and their licenses. --El Grafo (talk) 10:12, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

I would say no. It is better to generate a new PDF file whenever you need one as these soon will be outdated. --Stefan4 (talk) 10:16, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the input and the DRs. --El Grafo (talk) 14:39, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
Retrieved from "http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons:Village_pump&oldid=96666811"