Commons:Village pump

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Village pump
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 7 days may be archived.

Please note:
  1. If you want to ask why unfree/non-commercial material is not allowed at Wikimedia Commons or if you want to suggest that allowing it would be a good thing please do not comment here. It is a waste of your time. One of Wikimedia Commons' basic principles is: "Only free content is allowed." This is just a basic rule of the place, as inherent as the NPOV requirement on all Wikipedias.
  2. Have you read the FAQ?
  3. Any answers you receive here are not legal advice and the responder cannot be held liable for them. If you have legal questions, we can try to help but our answers cannot replace those of a qualified professional (i.e. a lawyer).
Purposes which do not meet the scope of this page:
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Contents



[edit] November 10

[edit] "Lithographies" vs. "Lithographs"

Is there any reason we have some categories with names that begin with "Lithographies" and others that begin with "Lithographs"? I'm guessing that the former were just someone's poor English, and they should all be renamed "Lithographs…" but thought I'd check here first in case I'm missing something.

For examples, see Category:Lithographies, Category:Lithographs. The latter is currently a subcat of the former. - Jmabel ! talk 22:34, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

It's been a few days, no one has commented, I'll put in the request. - Jmabel ! talk 17:05, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
The histories of these category pages indicate they've been around for a while. You might see whether the early editors are still active on Commons. The first contributor to the Category:Lithographies page was an IP address. I guess that was back when unregistered users could still create pages. It would probably be difficult to identify that person and ask him or her to explain the naming choice. --Teratornis (talk) 21:44, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

RESOLVED. Undoubtedly happened because Lithographies is correct in French. - Jmabel ! talk 21:58, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] November 11

[edit] Category:Historism

Does anyone understand the intent of Category:Historism and its subcategories? Some of these seem to relate to various types of revivalist architecture, but I can't even say that is a theme running through them all. en:Historism is not particularly helpful in elucidating the matter; I suspect it is not the meaning of the word intended here. In any case, whoever created the subcategories clearly has ignored the supercategories (and/or vice versa). Something needs to be sorted out here. -- Jmabel ! talk 23:02, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

One thing useful in en:Historism, though: it is quite specific that historism is not a synonym for the more common English word historicism. Historicism would have an plausible relationship to revivalist architectural styles. - Jmabel ! talk 23:13, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I've done my best to notify everyone who has done closely related categorization, hoping someone can provide some insight. I notice it's mostly Germans, so it may be a problem of a false cognate. - Jmabel ! talk 23:14, 16 November 2009 (UTC)</ref>

en:Historicism (art) is probably what is meant, of which a subcat would be en:Architectural revivalism. Jim.henderson (talk) 00:08, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Historism (or historicism or revivalism sometimes eclecticism) in architecture of the 19th century is a well-defined concept. However, this definition is simple for any given culture, but not so simple for the whole world. The boundaries between preceding neoclassicism and historism, and between historism and modernity are different in each culture. I am not sure that all national varieties (en:Victorian architecture and its subgenres, en:Beaux-Arts architecture, etc...) deserve being piled up into one catch-all category. NVO (talk) 03:44, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
just have a look at de:Historismus and see, you dont have to read German...--Kresspahl (talk) 03:45, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Ich kann ganz gut Deutsch lesen. Aber… "Historism" is not a term I have ever heard a native English speaker use in this sense. "Historicism"? Sure. But look at how this thing is fit into the category hierarchy:
Supercategories Paintings, Art by subject
Category Historism
Subcategories Academic dress (Historism), Historism architecture, Exterior views of the Altes Museum Berlin, Historicist architects

… and as an aid in looking at the most important part down the hierarchy from there:

To display all subcategories, click on the "+".
Historism architecture

No matter how you slice it, this makes no sense, and can't be solved just by turning "Historism" to "Historicism". For example, academic dress is not a subcat of paintings. - Jmabel ! talk 04:31, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

  • Agreed in general... take out dresses and inkpots, leave architecture - what is the proper, uncontroversial name for it ? Category:Eclectic architecture is fairly well filled, its parent Category:Eclectic art is not, but I suspect this concept is narrower than historicism in general. NVO (talk) 05:37, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Recently there was somewhat related, though far more narrow discussion on Forum (german language only) about subgroups/cats of Historism architecture. --Túrelio (talk) 07:14, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I created this during the import of the Yorck Project where some of the paintings were labeled as this genre (probably in German) and I did my best at categorization and translation. My guess is a bad translation of Historismus into Historism is why I created this. Some of the files have "Historienmalerei" on them and maybe I turned that into Historism instead of "history painting". I'm not fully sure, but I think the root of this is the translation from German to English. Feel free to change as makes sense--that's just the history of it. gren (talk) 12:51, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
You find the translation "Historismus-historism" in online-dictionaries like leo.org.--Kresspahl (talk) 13:50, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
I say that just goes to show how far you should trust an online dictionary. - Jmabel ! talk 23:25, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] November 17

[edit] FOP in Philippines?

Does anybody know whether there is a freedom of panorama law in the Philippines? Our FOP page has nil information about that. The immediate cause for this question is whether File:Combat de la Hoya Pacquiao.jpg might be covered by FOP. --Túrelio (talk) 07:28, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Much of Philippine copyright law is based off US law (since the country was a US territory for a good part of the 20th century), even their fair use clauses are the same as ours. ViperSnake151 (talk) 23:28, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Probs with purging

I would like to purge the cache on that file using ?action=purge. But if I am doing that, the system claims: "No file by this name exists, but you can upload it."

Do you have any suggestions? Cheers, --Yikrazuul (talk) 13:04, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I just used the "Purge" button in the upper bar, and the system didn't complain at all. Firefox 3.5.5 here. -- IANEZZ  (talk) 13:10, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Just for reference, the link was http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Aminolevulinic_synthesis.png&action=purge -- IANEZZ  (talk) 13:12, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aminolevulinic_synthesis.png?action=purge works fine as well. Perhaps you made a typo when adding ?action=purge to the URL? -- IANEZZ  (talk) 13:17, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Thx Ianezz! You made it! Could have been an typo, though I used c&p....Cheers, --Yikrazuul (talk) 14:15, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Wrong plates

File:Koeh-250.jpg originally was a scan of a botanical plate showing a kind of almond; in 2007 it was replaced with a different plate of another kind of plant. The second editor's other work may need to be checked and fixed. What is the best way to do this? --Una Smith (talk) 15:49, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

The real problem may be that on Köhler 1887 alphabetical english the replacement plate is still identified as an almond. --Una Smith (talk) 15:51, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
It looks like someone uploaded the wrong replacement images for File:Koeh-249.jpg, File:Koeh-250.jpg, and File:Koeh-251.jpg. I think I've fixed them all. Kaldari (talk) 20:03, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Scope? : Team and Logo of "Cook Ross", Washington DC

The user "Interncookross" unloaded several files and logos with portraits from people from a consulting firm in the US, named Cook Ross, see http://toolserver.org/~daniel/WikiSense/Gallery.php?wikifam=commons.wikimedia.org&img_user_text=Interncookross - all of them are without categories, one category is wrong. Are these files in the scope of the commons?? - they will be perfect for a homepage of the company, but I personally think they can hardly be used here. Two of them look like portraits from a studio, not self taken. Cholo Aleman (talk) 19:04, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Hi,
I agree with you, I deleted the files as out of scope, none of them where in use.
Best regards,
Huib talk 19:12, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Thanks! - next case: see below Cholo Aleman (talk) 18:59, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Internationalization of categories?

Hello, I haven't found this topic in the archives, so I place it here. At the moment Commons very english language centric. This limits commons for a wider audience. Are there some change requests for the software which will allow internationalization of categories?--Avron (talk) 20:30, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes (sorry, can't find a link), but until then use sum-it-up to at least add descriptions in multiple languages. Multichill (talk) 10:07, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
I'd love to have them in multiple languages, but the main reasons for opposition of this is that category redirects don't yet work. --The Evil IP address (talk) 16:37, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Information Request

Can anyone tell me where I can find information on the average of Iowan's by county or city. I have printed out the pyramid with ages for Sioux County and see that we have quite a few young people, but I would like to know how that compares to other counties in Iowa. I believe I heard once that we have the 5th average youngest age in the state, but I would like to verify that. Any help would be appreciated. Bonnie Meier bmeier@orangecitycomm.net

Hi! This is Wikimedia Commons, which is the image repository for a lot of wikis on the internet. Your question might best be suited for Wikipedia's Reference Desk at w:WP:RDM. :-) Killiondude (talk) 23:21, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] November 18

[edit] Template:Ngw2

Am I correct in thinking that files with {{Ngw2}} need another tag on them for a license...? I came across it on File:Countymonaghanarms.jpg. Killiondude (talk) 06:34, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I think you're right. And I don't think this tag should be made to look like a license, either. Its appearance is in complete contradiction with its content (it looks like free license, but is in fact a strange warning — BTW, do we really need it? A tag saying this image has nothing to do with this website?) –Tryphon☂ 09:00, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
You are right, this tag does not show a source (I mean the real source) or copyright status, therefore it is misleading. Would you please file a deletion request? Sv1xv (talk) 09:59, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
Done, here it is. –Tryphon☂ 10:13, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
(I realized you probably meant the file, not the tag. But I think the tag is questionable at best, and I'd like to hear more opinions, so anyway...) –Tryphon☂ 10:15, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
No, I do mean the tag, it is useless and potentially misleading. Sv1xv (talk) 10:18, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
I see... Please disregard my last comment then :-) –Tryphon☂ 10:21, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
On a side note: is the information in {{ngw}} correct? The disclaimer at the bottom of http://www.ngw.nl apparently says something quite different. -- IANEZZ  (talk) 16:48, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] .svg-image with an unwanted black line

I uploaded Oslo Metro map.svg, and discovered a black, horizontal line in the image. I noticed a similar, vertical line has been made in a previous upload, Copenhagen Metro with City Circle Line map.svg, but has not bee uploaded with the diagram Copenhagen Metro map.svg. These lines do not show up in Inkscape, so I am uncertain how to remove them. Arsenikk (talk) 10:54, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Help:SVG#Fonts possibly. --Martin H. (talk) 11:11, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
I've fixed it. You need to remove flowed text elements, because they're not properly supported by Common's SVG rendering software. –Tryphon☂ 11:15, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
Thanks a lot :) Arsenikk (talk) 11:36, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] London categories

Can editors who live in the London area and who are thus already familiar with London place names and nuances of usage, please cast an eye over the work I am doing to enable easier diffusion of the huge image backlog in Category:London. There currently appears not to be enough knowledgeable editors reading the Categories for Discussion pages who appreciate the the need for these amendments and the advantages to doing it in such a way that is both coherent in its local context and remains consistent with the rest of the UK categories. So I appeal to you here to provide the necessary support to vote the right changes through. This “should” be easy, but between the limited times I have available each day to edit WC, other well meaning editors are making changes which confuse issues, so I find my limited time has been spent on trying to sort that out instead.

The background for these improvements are:
The old borough category names were too ambiguous or unclear for many up-loaders to Wikimedia Commons to know which was the proper “place” category to put an image in, so we have amassed a truly huge backlog. Whereas, a clear category system has already been worked out and adopted by [[1]]. Also, as up-loaders appear to consult en:WP before uploading it seams sensible and in keeping with Wiki policy to adopt the existing en:WP names as well, rather than invent something new.

The “London Boroughs” nearly got done by giving them their proper names but some of the possibilities for confusion has survived due to the way they were initially renamed. Example: Category:Haringey got renamed >Category:Haringey, Borough of London<. This cat then got redirected to the correct form of “London Borough of Haringey. This means that ambiguity has now been shifted to confuse editors using the hotcats tool where >Category:Haringay, Borough of London< can still be seen. What this means means in practice is, that it still stays the easiest choice for hotcat users, to place an image in too high a parent cat (where there are too many already) instead of lower down -bad practice. Because of the way humans recognize things in groups, it is obviously better to have the error going the other way; as should the image get placed too low down in the hierarchy it becomes easier to spot and correct by other editors, such occurrences tend to jump out at you. This needs to be fixed by deleting all occurrences of this bad formate ( >Category:X, Borough of London<) . The ‘WikiProject London’ way of arranging things appears to work quite well and is simple and clear.

Most of the images waiting diffusion, will also need to be added to their appropriate and currently underused Category:Districts_of_London (it is almost empty of existing entries to show up when cat searching, so it’s a chicken and egg problem). This cat is best thought of as a gazetteer type (the boroughs being local government groups). The efficient and most helpful way I can see is: if I was to create them ‘en masse’ using the same name as used on en:WP. Then add some gazetteer text so that uploaders know for sure that they have found the right (or wrong) category. This will take me some time as there is bound to be ‘districts’ added during the school holidays that are miss-categorised, so will have to check all those I don’t recognise. Problem: It is normally WC practice to delete empty categories, and the empty categories that appeared during the last change have already been deleted before anyone has had the opportunity them to use them. Also some ad hoc entries seem to have appeared in their place which perhaps ought not be there. Because this approach would initially mean a large number of empty categories, I was wondering if a template would stop them getting deleted by passing editors doing their normal tidy-up exercises. I am thinking of something along the line:

Administrators: Do not delete this category because it is empty!
This new category is waiting for images of  London by district  to be diffused into it.

This would also save uploaders from having to learn how to create the ‘district’ category themselves, what name they ought to give it (this will also avoid poor names getting created by them which will require further debate to correct). It will save them the inclination and effort to actually do it – which time has proven they don’t have in ample measure. Lastly: by adding these missing categories, they will from thereon, show up for use during category searches. It would also really be a great help to have someone who can both operate the bot to make these changes and understands the nuances so to avoid getting distracted by tangential augments. It then may become a much smoother and rapid process.--P.g.champion (talk) 18:59, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Empty categories shouldn't be that big of a problem. As you might have noticed I created a whole category structure for towns and villages at the British Isles and that still has to be filled up too.
Don't forget to add commonscat links at Wikipedia, this way users can easily navigate to the categories here and my bots will start putting images in these new categories.
And please do use sum-it-up to generate descriptions and backlinks. Multichill (talk) 22:02, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
Problem is some of our present Boroughs are not historic but political creations to make administration easier, historical districts were stuck together regardless of where people thought (and think) they lived/live, this identification with a historic district is reflected in the Districts of London category, and the category should not be seen as mutually exclusive of the Borough of London categories.KTo288 (talk) 10:12, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for underlining that KTo288. However, that’s now become a bit of a moot point, because I have been forced to abandon this project by a single editor who continuously churns theses groups of images up, even as I and a friend are working through them. Also, I don’t see how anybody else in the right minds will want to help check for overlaps or gaps, because to join in this game of silly monkeys makes any further work futile. So it has became, sort of, stone dead.--P.g.champion (talk) 12:22, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] scope? - bacardi-party

Similar (a bit) like the files above: here http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Domzki are the contributions from Domzki, about 5 pictures from a party, one has Categories (Leapfrog), but what is with the others? Useable? I doubt it... Cholo Aleman (talk) 19:02, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

thanks! there were some reactions. for me this case is closed. Cholo Aleman (talk) 20:02, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] November 19

[edit] Nominate for Deletion button broken

Just a note that the "Nominate for deletion" button in the left toolbox appears non-functional. Searched around to see if this has already been reported but came up empty. — Huntster (t @ c) 05:42, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Does your browser block pop-ups? --MGA73 (talk) 22:44, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
No. To be precise, the button does function, but it simply went to a page that showed some broken code. I just tried the function again, and it did not do this (obviously I didn't try submitting a nomination on any random image!), so the problem may have been temporary. — Huntster (t @ c) 01:08, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Permission Requests Taskforce?

Last week, in the course of this FP nomination, there was talk of an awesome, 24 403 x 13 973 pixel mosaic image showing the same part of space as the candidate but available only by requesting permission from the author. This is not the first time this has happened - a superior image being available in theory, with the only obstacle being that we would have to talk to the author to acquire it (with Flickr images this is particularly common). As on previous occasions, no one proved up to the task (myself included).

I see a strong need for a small group of people on Commons dedicating themselves to the task of requesting permission/relicensing for exceptional images from the copyright holders. Often, when hearing about our project and what CC is, they are very much willing to do so. How about establishing a "Permissions Request Taskforce"? We already have the Graphic Lab, where users can request image improvement, Commons:Requests_for_translation, Durova's Encyclopedic image restoration page, where image restoration can be requested, and probably a few more that I'm not aware of. What I envision is a single place (like Commons:Requests_for_translation) where users, after finding that there is some exceptional image available through the author, can post a request for the author to be contacted that is then picked up by volunteers who will quickly gain experience on how to properly do this (en:Wikipedia:Example_requests_for_permission might provide a few ideas).

While of course not every request will be successful, this should greatly increase the number of requests sent and consequentially also the number of requests that are actually granted, making some of those fantastic images a part of Commons that we now only stare at with envy. -- JovanCormac 07:48, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Seems too formal. Is there any compelling reason as to why our current practice isn't working? –blurpeace (talk) 08:24, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
What is "our current practice"? From the example I gave it appears that it is "well, someone may do it, or someone may not, and in the end it doesn't get done", which is exactly the problem. -- JovanCormac 17:10, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
I think a page on commons that guides users on how to best ask for permission would be very useful. This should also include cooperation projects with image databases.--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 07:07, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
That's what we need at the very least, yes. -- JovanCormac 07:32, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
I like this idea too. We could also have a place where names of people contacting other parties are kept. It might be confusing to other websites and database administrators to be contacted repeatedly by people representing Wiki[mp]edia that do not know about each other, or about the last exchange. --Jarekt (talk) 13:31, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
I do think a taskforce could be a nice idea, I think I would even join it :) Huib talk 14:02, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
This could be very useful. I have a bit of experience in getting people to release images under a free licence, but I often encounter situations where I don't speak the language of the copyright holder. Having a centralized place (ordered by language) to ask for help would be great. Pruneautalk 14:27, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
I cannot see why a "small group of people on Commons" is necessary. Needless formalities. I'd support an information page or task force though. –blurpeace (talk) 20:46, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Of course, the more people join, the better! "Small group" was not a reference to restrictions of any kind. -- JovanCormac 21:00, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Misinterpretation on my part. Commons:WikiProject Permission requests could be a start. –blurpeace (talk) 21:07, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
I set up the page, and the first two ideas for permission requests. Who's with me? -- JovanCormac 10:58, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
Great work. Maybe a participants list? I'll set one up. –blurpeace (talk) 19:42, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] November 20

[edit] Best way to upload source files?

I would like to upload the source files used to create an image, but the files are in the GGB (GeoGebra) format. What is the best way to upload this type of file? SharkD (talk) 00:44, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't know whether Commons is set up to do that. See Commons:File types for what is allowed here. Is the GeoGebra format text or binary? If it is text, an ugly way would be to paste the content of a source file into a section on the talk page of the image you generated from the source. If the format is binary, that would be even uglier. The GeoGebra article links to GeoGebraWiki which runs on the MediaWiki software like Commons. You might explore GeoGebraWiki to see how they handle uploading. If the site administrators there have worked out something nice, you could propose something similar for Commons. Or maybe you could upload your source files to GeoGebraWiki and link to the source files from here. I see we have a Category:Created with GeoGebra, a GeoGebra gallery, a {{Created with GeoGebra}} template, etc. You could look at the history of those pages to find other Commons users who know about GeoGebra. Maybe some of them have figured out a way to handle source files. --Teratornis (talk) 05:54, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
  • The Upload Materials page appears to document how you can upload .ggb files to GeoGebraWiki. It looks like you can create an account there, upload your .ggb files, and then add links in your image descriptions on Commons to the corresponding .ggb files over there.
  • The GeoGebra XML Format describes the .ggb format as a zip archive containing an XML file and some other stuff. That format is probably not suitable for Commons.
--Teratornis (talk) 06:10, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
You are correct that the GGB format is a binary ZIP file containing one or more XML files as well as other files. I'm not sure whether it would be appropriate to upload my files to the GeoGebra site as the finished illustration utilizes other source files that are of a different format. Here is a page describing a MediaWiki extension. I don't know anything in detail about it. Thanks the help anyway. SharkD (talk) 06:56, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
I tried to check whether GeoGebraWiki is running mw:Extension:GeoGebra, but it appears that GeoGebraWiki is running a very old version of MediaWiki (1.6.1) which doesn't list the installed extensions on its Special:Version page. You might ask on mw:Extension talk:GeoGebra if anyone knows of a MediaWiki wiki that runs the GeoGebra extension where you could upload your files. I searched for GeoGebra on WikiIndex but found nothing. --Teratornis (talk) 19:00, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Google copyright?

Google digitalized a XVII century edition of the classical work Satyricon, Petronius, for Google Book. Can I upload an image of this? --Fiertel91 (talk) 12:24, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I believe so, see {{PD-scan}}. You might have to remove google watermarks from the document. --Jarekt (talk) 13:25, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] No refresh

I uploaded a new version yesterday of File:Buurtspoorwegen Namen.png but it still shows the old image after 24 hours and repeated use of the refresh button. And of course I logged on and off in that time. Normaly when I update an old picture it is refreshed immediatly. Is the some technical problem?

Smiley.toerist (talk) 19:53, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I can see the difference. You might have to purge your browser's cache (refreshing the page will still show the old version that is cached in your browser, most of the time). Most browsers use ctrl+F5 as the shortcut to purging. Killiondude (talk) 20:03, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
I have linked the picture in NL wikipedia (Lijst van NMVB-tramlijnen in België#Kaarten) The map in the article is OK. When I double click I get the old picture. When I double click again I get the correct full size picture. On the commons I get the wrong down sized picture. Only after I double click do I get the correct full size picture. I think the problem is that the tumbnails bigg and small are not updated. The refresh button doesnt affect the tumbnails. The tumbnails are made on the server. Smiley.toerist (talk) 20:41, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

There are 3 images involved, only the first and last one are updated:

Smiley.toerist (talk) 20:47, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Problem is now solved. Thanks. Smiley.toerist (talk) 23:55, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] November 21

[edit] Superresolution for low-res images

For whatever reason, many images at Commons are not available in high resolution. Modern sophisticated single-image superresolution algorithms can produce zoomed versions of images far superior to those available from standard tools like Photoshop (see e.g. [2]). In light of this, it might be useful to implement a modern algorithm and run an offline batch job to perform superresolution on all low-res images (say, any image below 800 pixels wide). I can think of two main problems with this:

  1. Some users license only low-resolution versions of their images - if a higher resolution version is distributed they may falsely conclude that it is an illegally distributed unlicensed version, rather than derived legally from a licensed version, leading to confusion.
They'd be wrong, then, wouldn't they? Nothing that cannot be cleared up. -- JovanCormac 13:17, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
  1. Superresolution algorithms may introduce artifacts or inaccuracies in images; if such an image is interpreted as authoritative it could lead to false conclusions.

An alternative is to run the superresolution on the server side when producing image thumbnails/downloads. I consider this untenable because I suspect the algorithms involved are computationally expensive.

Thoughts? Dcoetzee (talk) 01:17, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd have to see some examples of up-scaled images, but it seems to me any algorithm, no matter how good, would be making assumptions about the image. Doing so would therefore lower the educational value of the images, as it moves the image from the realm of fact to the realm of supposition. Powers (talk) 01:40, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
There are some good demonstration images on the page I linked. You might take this with a grain of salt though, since they deliberately chose images containing patterns (which for technical reasons their method performs better on). Dcoetzee (talk) 01:57, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
Okay, but whenever an image is displayed on a screen of a different resolution, there's a scaling algorithm involved. Most of our data is stored as JPEG files, where a bunch of information has been dropped on the assumption that it was irrelevant, and the small images get scaled up anyway, by algorithms that make assumptions, sometimes blatantly wrong ones. (Nearest neighbor, for example, assumes that pixelization is a fundamental property of the image.) Yes, we should preserve as close to the original files as possible, but I don't see the clear line between realm of fact and realm of supposition here. If we can find an algorithm we can run cheaply, I wouldn't mind up-scaled images, provided the original files were still available.--Prosfilaes (talk) 02:23, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
If we could find a cheap algorithm to upscale and use it in MediaWiki I think that would be a good thing. If MediaWiki could generate both 100px and 200px versions of File:Nuvola_apps_important.png it would be useful. Nearest neighbour would be better than nothing, provided it was handled in an equivalent manner to the current thumbnail generation.--Nilfanion (talk) 02:41, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
Isn't that what we have the svg version for...? Regards, —Ed (talk • contribs) 03:17, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
Yeah sorry (poor example), but might be useful if same principle would work with photographic images too.--Nilfanion (talk) 12:08, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
I don't think a batch run is a good idea. The primary purpose of Commons is to provide hosting for WM project imagery. Actual usage on projects is primarily at thumbnail resolutions, how many readers click through to see the larger images? That makes me concerned about the effects of stacking: if you upscale a 200x160 image to 800x640, MediaWiki will downsample back to 200px for use in articles - with the potential to reduce quality. Increasing the resolution cannot provide additional information, and ultimately if downstream users need a higher resolution image they can upscale it themselves (with the algorithm of their choice).
If an image has its resolution increased in this manner, IMO it should be uploaded to a new location not over the original. That addresses the problems you raised, but also restricts the utility. The higher resolution image could then be linked to through other versions. Any such process should be carefully implemented - there is no point to increasing the resolution of these images, whilst there may be a benefit to doing so with many of these.--Nilfanion (talk) 02:13, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
  • I think its a path we dont want to follow because the potential gain for us doesnt out weigh the probable loss, its not providing anything to Wikimedia Commons or associated Foundation projects. Many of us work with institutions to get improvements in the number of quality of images that are released under free licenses this sometimes means that the images we get are of lower resolutions, but these are large enough for the various project. If our policies are seen as actively targeting these instutions potential income streams(providing Hi-res, print versions) using the images they provide they wont be willing to work with us and they'll more readily resort to Nation Portrait Gallery type methods when a user upload images here. We already have problems with with institutions claiming copyright over effort to reproduce works(in some cases the work itself) the more we provide reasons for them to challenge the notion of this in courts the more likely that the effort will be recognised. We only need a local court finding against a local editor to eliminate all images from that region, irregardless of the current US laws. As an active contributor of photographs I upload downsized images because of the costs and volume restrictions that are a part of the service my ISP supplies, I will if asked provide the original file for any photograph. If I was to start seeing my images upsized with all the problems about quality and detail I would reconsider providing photographs. Gnangarra 03:16, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
It might be a viable option in some cases, but in most of those examples something just seems very wrong to my eye and they are even making me feel a bit nauseous for some reason, it looks unreal. Maybe it's better if you don't upscale so much though. Njaelkies Lea (talk) 03:47, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
I'm very queasy about providing worse service to our users because some institutions want to make money off the public domain, no matter what the cultural costs are. We should do what we should do, and if they want to go into saber-rattling, like the NPG did, then let them. If they want to sue, and take the massive publicity hit, well, it's possible they could twist the Wikimedia Foundation's arm into deleting the files; at which point the w:Streisand effect takes hold, for one, and they have to deal with the consequences of being widely known for forcing Wikipedia to delete pictures of 300-year-old paintings.--Prosfilaes (talk) 14:12, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
I agree 100% here. I never understand discussions of that type. Wikimedia is already bigger than any other repository. I don't see why we should try and please the guardians of artworks whose duty it is to preserve them for the public. Just wait, in a few years' time those very institutions will be coming to Wikimedia, requesting that we host their images. -- JovanCormac 13:11, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

An aside: this topic prompted me to examine the upscaling that various browsers apply to images. I compared this eye-test chart (108 x 135 pixels) from the original post against 3 times upscaling in browsers and IrfanView (324 x 405 pixels). I used Vista with a modern widescreen HP LCD monitor. Best quality at the top, all my own opinion. Size is bytes from upscaled file or cropped browser screencap, all after PNGOUT optimising.

Viewing program how upscaled rank notes size
Super-Resolution website click Our SR Result 1 noticeably sharper than Chrome and Lanczos 41,652
Google Chrome press Ctrl-+ 6 times 2 better than IE; like Lanczos;
upscale limited at 322 x 403		 41,528
IrfanView 4.23 300% Lanczos 2 like Chrome; 52,148
Internet Explorer 7.0.6000.16916 Zoom 300% 3 better than: Firefox and B-Spline + sharpen ;
less sharp than: Chrome		 40,071
IrfanView 4.23 300% B-Spline + sharpen 4 - 46,092
Firefox 3.5.5 press Ctrl-+ 8 times 5 better than Opera; like Triangle;
sharper than B-Spline + sharpen but aliased		 37,846
IrfanView 4.23 300% Triangle 5 better than Opera 39,870
IrfanView 4.23 300% Hermite 6 better than Opera 38,517
Opera 10.01 press Ctrl-+ 2 times 7 identical to plain resize
IrfanView 4.23 300% resize 7 identical to Opera 9,920
Original image 8 - 6,643

-84user (talk) 15:14, 22 November 2009 (UTC) I added size in bytes and more examples. -84user (talk) 16:00, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

It is obvious from the test page that the SR method creates better, in some cases much better, results than any other commonly used method. I think this would be a great feature for Commons/MediaWiki to have. Implementing this could make a wonderful Summer of Code project... -- JovanCormac 13:17, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
That's amazing. I don't know about automatically upscaling en masse, but having it as an option would be great. Is this Super-Resolution implemented in any program? mahanga (talk) 17:19, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] "Greetings from the user "Appleworm"" see [3]

User:Appleworm has loaded up several self-designed greeting cards, some of them are used in discussions of the english Wikipedia. All of them have no categories. Speaking clearly i cannot imagine that there is any use of these cards for the commons, but they can be appropriate for the english wikipedia. What to do with these files? Export to the english WP? (no idea, if this can be done). Or assign categories? Cholo Aleman (talk) 08:50, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

If they're useful for the English Wikipedia (or any other Wikimedia project), then they're ok for Commons and should only be categorized. --The Evil IP address (talk) 09:02, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

OK, but I did only check the use of one of them - and what category? its not clear for me Cholo Aleman (talk) 09:06, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

How about category:Wikimedia-specific media? Paradoctor (talk) 10:53, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

... OK, thanks, the case is closed, we have about 10 new Greeting cards Cholo Aleman (talk) 18:01, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Unusual Category

Here Category:2006 photos of Japan is a category, that is very unusual compared to all other categories, isnt it? Comments and ideas about it? Cholo Aleman (talk) 09:54, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

  • It is unusual, but what I like about it is that it describes its scope better than Category:2006 in Japan would. -- User:Docu at 14:49, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
    • Well, at the moment it does, but if (for example) someone had a ticket stub from Japan in 2006, would you really want them to have to make a different category? - Jmabel ! talk 21:23, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Bundesarchiv Categorization status

Was just wondering...after the conversation here: which is now archived has anything actively been decided or will actually occur? 68.144.162.78 14:31, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

People are still actively categorizing these images. Multichill (talk) 16:59, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
I don't understand how that is an answer to my question. We were discussing the "by year" categories; the link you provided shows nothing like that.68.144.162.78 01:08, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
I proposed recreation of the Category:Images from the German Federal Archive by year category but this time using categories added to the images instead of autocatgorization through templates. Although there was a lot of support for it, it was unclear to me if the resulting categories would be considered to be temporary or permanent. I am hesitant to put much effort into a temporary structure to be deleted latter. Also, at the moment I am in the middle of some other tasks on Commons which I would like to finish before starting a new task. But I assume that it will (eventually) happen. --Jarekt (talk) 14:17, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
I would definitely support them being permanent categories. Before the categories were deleted I was using the Bundesarchiv year categories to find photographs of various European cars. I would find a car article that needed an image, look up the model years for car, look through those years in the Bundesarchiv categories and quite often I would find a free license image of the car I was looking for. Once the year categories were deleted, I gave up on my little project, to the detriment of both Wikipedia and the Bundesarchiv. Kaldari (talk) 17:31, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] SVG converting?

Can someone help me to convert Image:Modern Talking.png to a SVG file. Thanks, and please contact me if you can... --MisterWiki (talk) 22:17, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Oversight nomination

The admin Abigor has nominated himself for the oversight rights. Your opinion is appreciated at Commons:Oversighters/Requests/Abigor. --The Evil IP address (talk) 22:33, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] November 22

[edit] File:Heckert GNU white.svg

Something is wrong with that image. It seems that all File versions are deleted but the description file is still there. Somebody uploaded several new versions tonight; perhaps they messing it up. It is used in {{GFDL}}. Therefore its used within thousends or millions of image description files. Can somebody (an Admin?) fix this? Thx. --Jutta234 (talk) 10:51, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

please see Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard#FIle:Heckert_GNU_white.svg Huib talk 10:57, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
Ahh, thx :) --Jutta234 (talk) 11:00, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
Why is the protection on that image downgraded to autoconfirmed?? -Nard the Bard 21:28, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
Because someone wanted to upload a cleanup of the image. I've reprotected it to sysop. --The Evil IP address (talk) 22:00, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Not existing Heckert_GNU_white.svg in Licensing

I have uploaded several images but there is mentioned in the Licensing block "File:Heckert GNU white.svg" in red. See for example File:Tenerife Adeje beach D.jpg. What is the cause? Thanks, Wouter (talk) 10:55, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

please see Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard#FIle:Heckert_GNU_white.svg Huib talk 10:56, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Flickr2Commons & GIFs

First, let me say Flickr2Commons is a great tool. It saves enormous grief in the process of transferring images from Commons.

Now, a question/problem. Commons apparently allows GIF images. If the underlying image is a GIF, Flickr2Commons blithely transfers it to a filename with a JPG extension and (at least in Firefox) it displays just fine (including when you put it in a Wikipedia article), so you don't know you've uploaded in a format that is not permitted. This happened to me, for example, at File:Seattle Mayor Braman greeting President Johnson at Sea-Tac Airport, 1966.jpg. Once I saw the problem, I downloaded to my computer, made a JPG, and uploaded that (but of course that leaves the GIF in the version history). And I'm sure this has happened to me and others many times without our noticing.

Any suggestion how to proceed? - Jmabel ! talk 21:28, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

  • Have the bot check for file type? -Nard the Bard 21:45, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
    • Well, for the future, and if someone wants to implement it, that's obviously desirable, but meanwhile we doubtless have a bunch of GIFs on the Commons. Should we be combing all files uploaded by Flickr2Commons to find them? Once we identify them, is there some bot-based way to turn them into PNGs or JPGs? - Jmabel ! talk 22:00, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
    • Ah, I see from Commons:File types that GIFs are allowed (they didn't used to be, right?). So the problem is just one of an inappropriate suffix that might confuse some software. - Jmabel ! talk 22:12, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
I uploaded File:Seattle Mayor Braman greeting President Johnson at Sea-Tac Airport, 1966.png converted from the original GIF because I noticed crops of the JPEG show compression artefacts when examined closely. From what you say the simplest solution would be to just rename those .jpg files which are really GIFs to end in .gif. Any bot conversions should be towards the lossless PNG format, though. -84user (talk) 23:43, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

In general GIF files are allowed, but the format is mostly meant for animated GIF files. Most non-animated GIF files should be converted to PNG format (prior to upload if possible). For about a year now Commons software has a problem with all GIF files and no longer produces thumbnails for them, as a result most of large GIF files do not look right on Commons and if you look at a page with namy large GIF files your browser might run out of memory. The problem with software was supposedly fixed, but so far nobody figured out how to turn-on the thumbnailer, see here for details. --Jarekt (talk) 13:57, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] November 23

[edit] Bundesarchiv images

There seems to be an edit war going on with some people cropping the captions off these images and generally tidying them up, while others are reverting the changes. Whats going on? I regard the images as unacceptable for use on wikipedia while carrying a white stripe down one side and advertising the people who supplied them.Sandpiper (talk) 00:14, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Why would your personal opinion be of importance in a matter of community standards?68.144.162.78 01:10, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
Who is that? that's not the sort of comment an anon contributor makes. Advertising on wiki is absolutely not acceptable. White stripes down images we use isn't either. They have to be cleaned up somehow and also for spots and blemishes on the pictures. I will take a picture like that off any page I am working on. Sandpiper (talk) 07:57, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
I don't know what's going on, but I would urge people to take care when cropping and otherwise tidying up images. Image information will be lost unless lossless cropping or lossless rotation is used. Also image sharpening will probably create artefacts. As to cropping captions and reverting, I would urge people to instead create and upload a derivative image (retouched if necessary) of the original and link them together with {{Extracted from}}, {{Image extracted}} and {{RetouchedPicture}}. Should this guidance be in Category:Bundesarchiv? That way all parties should be happy and the database and external commons users should be happier too. -84user (talk) 01:19, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
There certainly needs to be a definitive explanation of what to do clearly available. There are an awful lot of these so that means creating 80,000 derivative versions or something. I think I noticed a bot at work for cropping them and a bot for restoring them? This is a general issue aside from this set: There are very many old images which need cleaning up in some way to make them look good. I assume myself that the reason the old versions of files are still available on the page is so anyone can use those instead if they want, but the tidied versions are automatically used by wiki. I have never seen instructions about what to do. Sandpiper (talk) 07:45, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I think that watermarks on bundersarchive images should be dealt with the same way we deal with all other watermarked images, see Category:Images with watermarks and Template:Watermark. We do have a policy about this issue. I do not like the idea of making copies of those images it is hard enough to keep 84k images categorized and with image descriptions. 168k would be even harder. I agree with 84user about need for lossless cropping.--Jarekt (talk) 13:36, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Thing is, I don't know that watermarking is even an issue. How do I preserve a watermark? There is nothing on the page to say they should not be altered, nor that there is any special requirement about keeping the captions, etc. People are doing the apparently sensible thing and cropping the rubbish, but also touching up faults on the images. Sandpiper (talk) 14:43, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
Ok, read the policy. I thought you were talking about invisible watermarks. For my vote, the captions have to go. The current version of an image ought to be the most presentable one. Sandpiper (talk) 14:47, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Living people

I've started a discussion on this category over at CfD: Commons:Categories for discussion/2009/11/Category:Living people. As this is an important category on the Wikipedias it is used on notifying community here. Any comments there would be appreciated.--Nilfanion (talk) 13:01, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] External use

Came across this earlier [4]. Appears all the images are from here. Haven't checked the sources images to see if the license terms are met although each image is attributed. Nil Einne (talk) 13:15, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Whoever takes care of that, it would be nice to put on the talkpage of each re-used image our published-template {{published| author= |date= |url= |title= |org= |legal= }}. (Or if that is asked to much, at least put the link to the respective article on the re-used image's talkpage.) Thanks. --Túrelio (talk) 13:20, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Should we trust Shavedangie's uploads?

Hi everyone. Should we trust Shavedangie's uploads? (women naked, women peeing... and I'm not sure it's always the same one...) What do you think? --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 17:56, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Model is hardly identifiable. Is the images useful ? I don't know... - Zil (d) 08:46, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
Quick googling showed that those pictures are available under the same nickname on few other websites, so probably authorship is OK. Question is, is this in scope? --Leafnode✉ 16:23, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
Well yeah it is in the scope, why wouldn't it be? Peeing is life, Commons can show illustrations of it. And it can illustrate urolagnia too. As for the other pictures, well, it's no less in the scope than most of the nudes we already have so there's no good reason to delete them instead than other similar pics. It just participate to the diversity of choice about related subjects... --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 18:33, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Feedback on Commons:Video

I created this page because I felt Commons needed a starting point for video-related information. The only article that existed before this one was Help:Converting video. Other video-related information was scattered on other pages. I gathered much of the information from meta:Video policy, w:Wikipedia:Creation and usage of media files#Video, and some other pages and condensed it and simplified it for for users unfamiliar with the Theora format. Edit away as you like. mahanga (talk) 17:13, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Great job. --Jarekt (talk) 21:33, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Little icon has changed?

Just today, I've noticed a change in the little icon that appears next to "Wikimedia Commons" in any tab in my IE browser that's displaying a Commons page: it's gone from the Commons logo to a white "M" in a blue square with rounded corners. Why was this done? Sorry for the potentially confusing explanation of which icon I mean: I don't know what it's called. Nyttend (talk) 18:44, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

You probably mean the favicon, http://commons.wikimedia.org/favicon.ico. But i don't notice a change in that, same Commons logo as usual. --Rosenzweig δ 19:31, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
Yes, that's what I mean; thanks for the link. When I click on the link that you gave, it gave me the same Commons logo as usual, too. However, I'm continuing to get the M favicon in the tabs. Commons appears to be the only website that's doing this; and it's not a WMF thing, since I continue to get a big "W" at Wikipedia. Nyttend (talk) 21:33, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] November 25

[edit] Toolserver

Database lag is increasing. It's currently 1 day and 21 hours. Is this likely to increase further or can this be fixed shortly? I couldn't find anything on the mailing list. Some tools work much better with up-to-date data. -- User:Docu at 05:55, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

I tried to ask in #wikimedia-tech, but the people who were around at the time weren't the friendliest, and almost seemed upset that I was asking. :-/ Killiondude (talk) 07:36, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
So I guess it's "likely to increase further". Thanks for checking. It helps deciding if I should switch tools or just wait a moment. -- User:Docu at 07:42, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Killiondude I guess thats because you are in the wrong channel, you should #wikimedia-toolserver instead. Huib talk 14:39, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Based on this, it looks like it's improving: lag still increases, but the rate of increase reduces slightly. -- User:Docu at 14:55, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
River did a fix this morning, but they still don't know why its lagging so they don't know how to fix it. Huib talk 15:01, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
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