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.

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  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 the 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?
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Contents



[edit] June 18

[edit] Submit your (good) images to the Ubuntu Free Culture Showcase!

Ubuntu Linux distributes a few images and audio/video files with each release to highlight the things the Free Culture movement can produce:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuFreeCultureShowcase

The submissions page has always been a bit barren, and it would be really great if some content creators from Commons submitted their quality photos/diagrams/video/audio to the Ubuntu contest for consideration there.

If you win, your work will be installed by default on millions of computers in the Examples folder, which is clearly visible on each user's Desktop.  ;)

Make sure you read the terms at the bottom of the page (they're more restrictive of content and license than Commons), and submit your work by July 16th (one month!)

(Also, remember that they do this every six months, so you don't need to inundate them.)

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.224.66.218 (talk • contribs) 02:50, 18 June 2009 (UTC) - 02:50, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] June 29

[edit] How do we handle books?

For example: Category:Insectenfressende Pflanzen (Darwin). Should all the pages be merged into a djvu file and then deleted? With of course all images as standalone files? And is PDF better in this case?--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 07:16, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

I would imagine djvu is the preferred format for future uploads of this sort, but I'm not really a wikisource participant. We will host any media which wikisource needs though. As for existing ones, I'd just leave them alone (this one seems to be from 2006), unless de-wikisource wants to change things. They are all in use (see s:de:Index:Insectenfressende Pflanzen), so there should be no deletion or altering while that usage is in place. Uploading a separate .djvu should be no problem though. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:30, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
Generally, if a page contains illustrations that may have some independent usage, I upload those as separate image files. Often {{extract}} tags are appropriate for these. Things like covers or frontispieces may also be uploaded separately, as they're often used to illustrate articles on the book. Most pages - especially text-only pages - should only be uploaded as part of a DJVU. Dcoetzee (talk) 23:31, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Technical suggestion to developers: large GIF files should have small thumbnails

Category:Stratz - Die Körperpflege der Frau used an extremely large amount of memory and crashed Firefox on my computer.

Category:Female anatomy used more than 600 MB of memory and caused Windows to resize my page file, but did not crash Firefox.

The thumbnails of the GIF files on these pages are not actual thumbnails but the original files (which are unusually large; perhaps the uploader should have used PNG instead), scaled to a small size by the browser.

I was running Firefox with 256 MB of RAM, with no extensions, and with plugins disabled. You can check the memory cache device by typing about:cache in the location bar. IE6 fared better but still the pages were fairly slow to load and used a lot of memory. --Keith111 (talk) 07:26, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

I have Firefox and have no problem with them (although I have 6GB of RAM too). May someone can write a bot to convert and upload PNGs of all these. This category is even worse. Rocket000 (talk) 07:51, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
I think this is often discussed long standing problem with no easy solution. In general most or all non-animated GIF's should be converted to PNG's or SVG's. --Jarekt (talk) 15:15, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
Unfortunately, there have been long-standing issues with PNG thumbnailing, which is not really very good, and often creates PNG thumbnails with file sizes which are much larger than they should be. Back when GIF thumbnailing was supprted, it actually typically gave better results than PNG thumbnailing does for greyscales and images with 256 colors or fewer, which encouraged some people to upload GIFs instead of PNGs. The way to really encourage a switch from GIF to PNG (without resorting to crude compulsion) is to finally improve the quality of PNG thumbnailing (as some people have been requesting for years). AnonMoos (talk) 17:37, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
I actually got a nasty message from the Bugzzilla develpment team saying they had no intention of applying sharpening, and what was this restoration stuff you refer to? In short, total stonewall. Adam Cuerden (talk) 19:02, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
I'm not all that sure what "sharpening" has to do with it, but there are some measures which would improve PNG thumbnailing (such as not including an alpha channel in the thumbnail if the original PNG has no alpha or transparency, generating a grayscale thumbnail of if the original PNG is grayscale, etc.) which have been extremely s-l-o-w to be implemented, if at all, despite the fact that the lack of these features contributes to inefficency and bloated bandwidth... 01:50, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
Server side GIF thumbnailing was disabled due to a problem with certain animated GIFs crashing the server when the thumbnailer tried to process them. This is a known issue and people intend to fix it, but it hasn't been gotten to yet. Dragons flight (talk) 02:53, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
I assume that there is nothing wrong with the GIFs, just the thumbnailer? Otherwise it seems irresponsible to dump them on unsuspecting users.
Isn't there any way to run the thumbnailer in a separate process, so even if it does crash, the only problem will be the lack of a thumbnail? Brian Jason Drake 03:54, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
Well, there's nothing wrong with the GIF itself (in terms of quality, PNG or JPEG may be better, but that's a different issue). The problem is that's it's just a lot of stuff to load because they're the full size images, not thumbnails.
What I meant was: Is there anything wrong with the GIF that's causing the thumbnailer to crash, or is it just a bug in the thumbnailer? If there's something wrong with the GIFs, then it's irresponsible to let users download them without a warning, but if it's just a bug, then no urgent action needs to be taken. (Your comment makes it sound like the second option is the correct one.) Brian Jason Drake 11:10, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
No, GIFs are perfectly fine to download (that's outside of MediaWiki and no different that getting GIFs from anywhere else). The server just couldn't handle generating animations for some reason. And like many issues in MediaWiki we sometimes have to work with what we got instead waiting around for the software to improve. Rocket000 (talk) 18:57, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
We can add a template to these problem categories which produces a javascript button to switch __NOGALLERY__ on and off. Rocket000 (talk) 01:58, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
How exactly would this work? JavaScript works on the client side, but surely works on the server side? Brian Jason Drake 11:10, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
It would have to be done via MediaWiki:Common.js. Instead of a template, it could be a preference/gadget (something like User:Rocket000/togglegallery.js). Rocket000 (talk) 18:45, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Undo edits

Is it possible to undo/revert edits (change of categories)? The problem in questions is explained here. bamse (talk) 08:26, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Do I need to manually enter the categories back in after another editor messed up the categories? bamse (talk) 18:28, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Merge two stereoscopes to generate higher res

  • Is it possible to merge the two images to generate one high res image?
    • No, they are taken at slightly different angles. Kaldari (talk) 23:19, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
  • The short answer is no, not using existing technology. The long answer is that doing cleaning and/or superresolution on stereogram images might be an exciting direction for future research, and is something I've considered working on. Dcoetzee (talk) 23:52, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
      • Is it possible to create a 3D image by merging them, cut the two halves and put say a red tint on one and a green on the other before the merge, would that work with the traditional 3d glasses on a computer?KTo288 (talk) 10:16, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
        • In these images, there is hardly any stereo effect - except for the position of the lantarn post in the foreground. But if you want to use such 3D glasses, you can just put a green transparent candy wrapper on the left one, and a red one on the right image. Or you can use polarisers, or just stare at them. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 10:36, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
        • Yes, there is existing technology to convert left-right image pairs into red-blue images, or indeed any other of the numerous formats for viewing 3D images. For these images, the main challenge would be automatically extracting the two images, which wouldn't be too big of a deal. One obstacle is that many of the stereograms are old and dirty, which really screws with the effect. Dcoetzee (talk) 19:01, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
          • They're also bastards to clean up, because, of course, you're trying to clean up a stereograph without the ability to look through a stereographic viewer and make sure your restoration isn't causing new, interesting stereographic effects. Adam Cuerden (talk) 19:05, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
  • Given how little difference there was between the frames, I decided to try and see if I could align them in hugin. As it turns out, they match pretty well. I've uploaded the result in GIMP .xcf format here. (I couldn't save a layered TIFF file, and I don't think Commons accepts any other layered formats than TIFF and XCF.) I've set the upper layer to 50% transparency, to show that just averaging the frames gives a noticeable improvement, but of course what it really needs is for someone to go over the image in detail and tweak the transparency to combine the best parts of each frame. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 10:42, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
    • For future reference, what I did was crop out the two frames, load them in hugin, add lots of control points to various parts of the building, optimize positions, view and x shift, repeat until the match looked reasonably good, optimize exposure (but not vignetting or camera response) and stitch into separate remapped images with a rectilinear projection. I then loaded these into GIMP and realigned them there (using the "grain extract" mode to detect alignment), since the version of hugin I use can't stitch directly into layers. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 10:48, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
      • I'm honestly amazed that this worked, considering that panorama stitchers generally assume that all images are taken from the same point. I guess they're close enough together. There are far too many of these to clean them all up by hand, but it would be intriguing to automate this process. Dcoetzee (talk) 23:54, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
        • I was interested in viewing it but my GIMP wouldn't open it. Said "failed: GIMP XCF image plug-In could not open image". - ALLST✰R▼echo wuz here @ 01:47, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
          • Which version of GIMP are you using? Mine is 2.6.6. I just downloaded the file back and it opened just fine, so a version incompatibility is the only explanation I can immediately think of. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 02:22, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
            • I'm also using 2.6.6. - ALLST✰R▼echo wuz here @ 03:01, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
              • Oh well. Dunno what the problem is, then. Anyway, I uploaded the two frames in PNG format here and here (as I probably should've done in the first place). —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 23:16, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Contributors to WC can forget about having their work credited

Based on the response to Jan513’s question on 19 May 2009 [1] and other comments I have read else where,suggests that there is (at present), an un-bridgeable gulf between the belief and reality, that any of the works here on WC will be credited -in the UK at least. The only exceptions I am aware of to this are the BBC and the Guardian newspaper, both of which appear to be very good at crediting WC. This same omittance may also, (in practice) apply in many other countries too ( although adding some Exif and IPTC data I think would be very helpful in mitigating this). A step in the right direction would be to redesign the ambiguous and thus misleading images file page. It needs to be made intelligible to potential second users who are quickly flitting through WC plus a lot of other photo sources at the same time.

The strong impression I have gained from listening to people talking about WP & WC is that summary box below the image is “just some notes that the author of the WP article (sic) has put down. These can be ignored (sic) because as my children's teachers says: WC & WP is ALL FREE CONTENT (sic) . Thus no ‘credit line’ is necessary (sic). If a credit line was needed, then it would ‘clearly’ say so; like on ALL the other picture libraries.”

So I say: Our summary box really needs a redesign. To expect someone, who is hunting down a suitable photo for the Picture Desk, to suddenly be psychic and change gear on reaching WC and start hunting around to understand how to use WC images, is wishful thinking. Busy people work on auto-pilot – “this image on WC looks OK! No credit-line: even better! well use this!” Period.

Here is another (and current) example of the confusion the Summary Box creates:
A new contributor has been uploading his really informative images of some surgical procedures.
Example: File:Abdominoplasty umbilicus (belly button) reconstruction.jpg
He has gone to a lot of effort to get a OTRS from the surgeon to allow the images to be released on CC licencee's and to have this reflected on the licences website.

All electronic video, imagery, and text contributed to Wikimedia Commons and/or Wikipedia is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License and is free to copy, distribute, and transmit, or to adapt the work under the conditions that: a) the work must be attributed by specifying the licensor as Michael S. Schwartz, M.D., with a link to the Website (http://www.drmichaelschwartz.com/); and b) if the work is altered, transformed, or built upon, the resulting work may only be distributed under the same, similar, or a compatible license. Please review the terms and conditions of this license at the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License webpage. (emphasis added) http://www.drmichaelschwartz.com/terms.html

Now the way I would 'like to' credit that is:

Michael S. Schwartz / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-3.0

but according to the CC conditions above, it appears to require:

Michael S. Schwartz M.D. / http://www.drmichaelschwartz.com/  /CC-BY-3.0

You’ll notice that the second version does not comply with the WC credit line requirements either. Don't even look right. So what does it mean? Also, whilst I think it is right and proper to place a URL address in the meta-data, to do so as above is like creating a new CC licence. I.e., one that come with free advertising ( not forgetting that domain names can and have been sold on for profit to gambling and porno sites). Moreover, one has some protection from problems any future owner of the URL creates if it resides in the meta-data only, as the month and year will be recorded along with it. Also, it is a legal offence in many countries to remove credit and rights information from meta data.

These surgical images plus the contributors early attempts at writing articles has caused some debate on WP Project Spam: [2] I think all this could have be made a lot easier, if there were clear examples for new contributor to follow, using unambiguous and reader friendly summary boxes providing image information in a form that is familiar. --P.g.champion (talk) 15:04, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Part of this is just the pervasive issue of people thinking all images on the web are free, and nothing we can do will prevent a certain amount of noncompliance. On the other hand, it's not very clear just looking at an image description page what needs to be done for compliant reuse. There is a usability problem here and one that may be resolved by more prominently featuring an example of how it ought to be done. Dcoetzee (talk) 23:56, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Further comments:
I think it would be fair to say that most commercial users have had minimum training and are only likely to be getting the minimum wage, so they have little motivation to think any harder about what they are doing than they have to. Here are some examples of photo libraries which I think are clear and easy to understand at a glance. You’ll notice that they leave no doubt as to what the credit line should be. On images which are photographs they leave no room for doubt by referring to the creator a ‘photographer’ on painting and sketches they use the term ‘Artist’.

http://pro.corbis.com/Enlargement/Enlargement.aspx?id=42-22753430&caller=search

[3]

[4]

In this example the image page explicitly states in capitals that:CREDIT MUST BE GIVEN IN FULL [5]

We can encourage greater use of WC by showing at a glance whether the Picture Editor will likely accept or reject it because of any ‘Restrictions’. This should be easy to do because we can default a summary box to the most restrictive norm. Such information is important to the would be user, as people wont keep looking through a library if they constantly feel too uncertain about every image they inspect – that’s down to human psychology. They also know the will get the Picture Editor p***** off if they keep placing too many unsuitable images in his/her in tray. We can use to advantage their tendency to work on auto-pilot. We can use it to educate them by including a line titled something like ‘Fee for use: free BUT THE LEGAL COPYRIGHT REQUIRMENTS FOR THIS IMAGE REQUIRES CREDIT TO .... etc., etc. If it’s spelt out here, then there can be no excuse on behalf of the user for leaving these things out. Some photo libraries plaster the credit line in several place on the image page just to make it easier to see. We could at the very least have it first appear above the image and again in the ‘Fee for use’ line and again in the ‘Credit Line:’. I am not being pedantic for the sake of it, rather that WC and most other open source enterprises tend to be driven by people who’s main talents are geeky rather than sales and marketing orientated (which is why I suppose Microsoft is always playing catch up on the technology side of things, yet have the major share of the market). To some long established companies that often need images for publication, WC looks too amateurish and therefore likely too be too problem prone to even consider using any hosted images. They direct their staff to use the sites that are easiest to use because their employee get more work done that way – why is WC being so off putting now that it now has such very large stock of images? Finally: As very young people can also use WC and if we are truly claiming to be ‘educational’ don’t we owe it to them to provide a clear and informative layout which assist learning about how to use copyrighted images. At the moment, it is almost as though we are encouraging them to ignore copyright issues by making it too difficult to know how to comply!--P.g.champion (talk) 10:53, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree that it should be easier to figure out required credit line. As a test I added a credit line field to one of my images. Can / should we write a bot to do the same to all the other images on Commons? If the answer is yes one could add an permanent optional field to {{Information}} instead of temporary field I used and have different style of credit line for every license. I think that would be the clearest solution. --Jarekt (talk) 18:50, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
Your test credit line field is a very interesting/good idea. --Túrelio (talk) 19:11, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
I hope I fixed now. In general I have no idea what a proper credit line should look like, but I am sure someone does, and we can probably write a bot to do it automatically for most of the images. --Jarekt (talk) 21:01, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
Here is a proposal or sort of instruction for re-user how to credit an image; however, as of yet it's only in German language. --Túrelio (talk) 21:06, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
I too welcome the idea of a credit line warmly. The CC license leaves the author quite many possibilities. The credit line is the right place to show what he/she wants. We just have to be careful not to undermine the text in the license though. It reads "The credit required by this Section 4(c) may be implemented in any reasonable manner". We have to think it well through so we don't imply any unneccesary restrictions!Nillerdk (talk) 21:04, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
I totally agree. We should make the reuse requirements as clear as possible, and a “credit line” field that can be copied more or less verbatim is clearly a good idea. --Kjetil_r 21:45, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
I'd support modifying the Information template to include a credit line field - however, because many images specify their license outside of the information template, and because many specify "own work" rather than the author's actual name (or even username), it may be problematic to update them all to display this field correctly. Dcoetzee (talk) 02:05, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
For those cases there would be possibility to write (see below), as we also do with the permission field. --Túrelio (talk) 06:10, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
Actually, after thinking about it some more, it'd be great if we could get the credit line to go right below the image, where everybody expects it to be. Is there some way we can do that? Dcoetzee (talk) 02:14, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
It seems to me we will need to decide a some issues:
  • What to write - the precise format of credit line. We could start a page (maybe at Commons:Credit Line ?) which would have tables of examples for different licenses, and sources.
  • Were to write - I envisioned modifying the Information template, but if possible I like Dcoetzee idea of placing credit line directly under an image even better.
  • How to write in case of old and new images. I suggested a bot that would alter descriptions of images. That can be done in batches for each license type. Other possibility is to write a template which can handle most of the cases based on passed parameters.
--Jarekt (talk) 11:15, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
That I agree that immediately under the image would be an ideal place for the credit line to appear. An ideal solution but one that might be difficult to accomplish, is to have a wizard that places the credit line into the image’s EXIF meta data and then have the image page display that line of meta data. I don’t think this would be practical though without a wizard, since hardly anyone uploads images with the credit line filled in. It was suggest a short while back that maybe Phil Harvey’s ExifTool could be adapted to do this but it all comes down to priorities. Also, we must not forget to run these proposed changes past those folks that have done a brilliant job of making the upload page more user friendly. Commons:Redesigning_the_upload_form A project page sounds like a good idea but I also think that the line "Original source: Own work by uploader” is a ambiguous mystery to new users. Some take to mean mean “Yes, I scanned in this picture that daddy took all by myself!” But dad’s name does not get a mention. Or “I am not up-loading this on behalf of anyone else, so it is all my work.” I think it would be better if the ‘source’ were defined by the common usage of the term where it means the copyright owner. For images from government libraries and the like, having an additional line “Image obtained from:” would also be of help to make the image's provenance clearer. Its meaning is clear. It makes it easier for other editors checking the image. It also prompts the upload to add this this information.Having the one line to do two jobs makes for confusion. --P.g.champion (talk) 12:02, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
I'm reading. Once you guys know where that credit info is to go, the upload form script can be adapted to deal with it. If it's an addition parameter to {{information}}, all the better. But keep in mind that people might multi-license, and a particular credit might apply only to a particular license, or that people might want to specify different credit lines depending on the medium or kind of re-use. The upload script cannot add parameters to licenses; that might require a somewhat more elaborate setup.
As to splitting the source field into copyright owner and source (where the image was obtained from): I'm not sure that'd help much. We already have the author field. Someone who argues "Yes, I scanned this picture, so it's my own work" would just fill out "Copyright owner: myself", "Source: Own scan" (or "Image obtained from: my scanner"—I've seen enough uploads with "Source: my computer"...). Possibly it might help not to auto-fill the "Author" field on the ownwork upload forms, but do so only if the user configured that explicitly. By the time a new user has figured out how to do that, I guess he's also learned that scanning something doesn't make it his own work. :-) Lupo 14:56, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
I created a stub for Commons:Credit Line and also discovered Commons:Reusing content outside Wikimedia page. Help would be needed at writing Commons:Credit Line page. --Jarekt (talk) 14:02, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Ok, while we're talking about this, we seriously need to get away from that "own work" stuff. What the hell does that mean on a public page (a public page "that anyone can edit" nonetheless)? Sure, we know it means the uploader(s) but it's so unprofessional. Don't even get me started on that useless {{self}} template... It normally goes like "I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following license: This file is licensed under the Creative Commons..." Wow, we sound smart. Not only does it make inappropriate use of "I" (which is also wrong in many cases), but it's continuously used as counting as a valid source (then users tag it with {{nsd}} or delete it because the source field is blank). I still am waiting to here the purpose of it. Rocket000 (talk) 03:56, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

The first point could be fixed easily by making {{own}} evaluate to a more reasonable string:
I have never understood why the people who set up this {{own}}-template did not take the lead already set by MediaWiki:UploadFormOwnWorkLabel (which already existed and already had lots of translations at the time {{own}} was created) and just used these already existing texts. (Or were you objecting to the use of "own work" in general? In that case, we could change it to "Work created by the uploader" or some such.)
The second point about {{self}} could be fixed easily enough by making the template not use "I" but "The uploader".
Your third point about {{self}} (use of "I" not only inappropriate but also wrong in many cases) seems to refer to the case when the template is used for works that are, in fact, not the uploader's own works. I'm afraid there's nothing we can do about that by template magic. This can only be rectified by checking new uploads and educating uploaders who use it wrongly. Lupo 06:13, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
I purposed changing {{own}} to "Created by uploader" (right before reading this actually). The self template would be much better that way but I still don't see the point. It's just clutter. It's redundant with the the source field (the "I" part) and whatever license it contains (the "released under" part). The "hereby" part is and unnecessary and sometimes incorrect. When I said the "I" part is many times wrong, I was referring to the collaboration nature of wikis where many images have multiple authors and the "I" is grammatically incorrect. Rocket000 (talk) 06:56, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
Because of this problem, I've started to add the following text in the permission field, using User:Samulili/Credit:
English: You can use this image if you credit it like this:
© Samuli Lintula / Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0
Suomi: Voit käyttää tätä kuvaa, jos lisäät kuvan yhteyteen seuraavat tiedot:
© Samuli Lintula / Creative Commons Nimi mainittava-Sama lisenssi 3.0
Samulili (talk) 17:21, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
Please note that it isn't enough to mention the CC-license. You have to put a link on it --Historiograf (talk) 21:33, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
If that's true, then our own re-user instructions are partly wrong (and should be corrected accordingly). --Túrelio (talk) 21:52, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
Yes, they can add a link, if they want to strictly follow cc-by-sa. However, If I'm not mistaken, I can give permission not to add the link, can't I? Samulili (talk) 06:55, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
What I think the CC is saying is that they consider it ‘good practice’ to have a link back to the licence template and to your website (if you have one) or email but it is not obligatory.
I very much like Samulili's suggestion to use {{subst:User:User Name/Credit}} to insert one’s preferred copyright formate into the permission field. However, I would rather have the summary box modified to show a credit line field as the first line and put the subst: there; because ‘Credit Line’ is a keyword that many media users are looking out for and understand. Having sub-pages would be especially useful for uploaders who would like to use many different formates to suit different types of media files and to suit different publication media. Maybe the project financed by the Ford Foundation award can be persuaded to automate this to include generating html code, so that the user can cut and past when the image is destined for a website. Picture researchers tend to return to site they find easy to use, so there is a good reason I think to go to this extra trouble.--P.g.champion (talk) 09:46, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] June 30

[edit] {{own}}

Could the upload form embed the template {{own}} for own works and in this way enable automatic translations of the indication? --Petrus Adamus (talk) 08:20, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

It could, but especially on the default upload form (the one with the many input fields that automatically constructs a {{information}} template), I wonder if users would not be confused by having something in squiggly braces in the "author" field. But if people want that, it's a simple configuration change. See MediaWiki talk:UploadForm.js/Archive01#Own work by uploader. Lupo 08:26, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
Leastways for the form Upload your own work. Nevertheless, is there a problem to write something human-readable in the form but embed the template, so as the license field does (one elects Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 but {{cc-by-sa-3.0}} is embedded.) --Petrus Adamus (talk) 08:50, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
Of course only on the ownwork upload forms. To do this reliably: yes, there is a problem. Consider the basic upload form (single large input textarea prefilled with an {{information}} template). First, the script would have to extract the "|Author=" line. Then it would have to understand what's written there. It may prefill it with sensible text, but the user can change it in any way he or she likes: "me", "Me", "{{User:Foo/Me}}", "[[User:Foo|Foo]]", "[[User:SomeoneElse]]" (if the uploader just chose the wrong form and then realizes it's not his or her own picture), "own work", "self-made work", or whatever. And that's just considering English... One can make the upload script replace the field by "{{own}}" if it is left unmodified, but that's rather hacky. Instead of adding all this complexity, I'd rather try putting "{{own}}" there in the first place, despite the squiggly braces. And that can be done without code changes; it's a simple matter of configuration. If there's consensus for it, any admin can do it. Lupo 09:00, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
I have to confess I only use basic form but I assumed that {{own}} template was written for Upload your own work form, and Own work by uploader is automatically replaced by {{own}}. I Agree that Upload your own work form should use {{own}} template. --Jarekt (talk) 12:21, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
At the moment the template {{Parse source}} is used in {{Information}} to look for the strings inserted by the upload form for own works and calls {{own}} if that's the case.
We could save this extra template call if the upload form would insert {{own}} instead of the content of "MediaWiki:UploadFormOwnWorkLabel/xx" by default. Changing the default should be enough. I don't think it's necessary to cover cases like human-inserted "me". That can be done by bots afterwards (just like User:Slobot is doing right at the moment).
Whether we show the content of "MediaWiki:UploadFormOwnWorkLabel/xx" to the user in the upload form and change it to {{own}} on submit or whether we directly show the user "{{own}}", it's both fine with me. Although I'd prefer the first, the latter is good enough.
(I too only use basic upload form.) --Slomox (talk) 12:36, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
Is there any voting needed to introduce such change, or who decides about these affairs? --Petrus Adamus (talk) 15:39, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps we should transfer all the above comments over to Commons:Requests for comment/Template:Own and follow Wikipedia:Requests for comment. Then formaly ask see how many support the proposal. We will also have a permanent record of this debate too.--P.g.champion (talk) 11:07, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Exif data not grabbed from flickr

The file File:2009 Viareggio train explosion 01.jpg contains on Flickr exif data which isn't now available on commons.--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 13:19, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

The EXIF data is available in the metadata section at Flickr, but not stored in the actual image. Is this the normal behaviour of Flickr? --Slomox (talk) 14:57, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
Does flickr allow to set the maximum available photo size? Looks like he uploàded the full size but only thumbnails are provided.
The image is now CC-by-nc-sa, since it was uploaded here yesterday and to flickr just two days ago. The cc-by-sa licenseing was probably a mistake from the author and we should delete it (or Flickr2Commons license checking is broken). It's quite used, though. Can someone ask rabendeviaregia for permission?
Platonides (talk) 11:52, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
I asked him to send a permission to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org It was cc-by-sa when I uploaded it.--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 14:19, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
He relicensed the images as cc-by-sa.--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 22:30, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] unusable images

Do we have some kind of warning template that says something like "Do not use this file. The file is valid to be hosted on Commons, but it cannot be used for official Wikimedia content in a meaningful way."?

To give an example, where this would be needed: File:Heelnederland.png shows a map of a potential union of the three countries Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. But the subdivisions of that new country seem to be based on the uploader's personal fantasy. And the subdivions are not even documented in the image description. In this form the file cannot be used in Wikipedia articles (or any other Wikimedia content that is bound to policies like NPOV, no original research etc.). But the image still has survived a deletion request. So there should be a warning not to include the image in articles. That a warning like that is necessary is shown by the fact, that I found the image used in three different Wikipedia articles, from which I removed it. --Slomox (talk) 15:35, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

The statement "The file is valid to be hosted on Commons, but it cannot be used for official Wikimedia content ..." should be a Contradictio in terminis, but then there's reality ...
In addition, I am too missing a problem-tag "unsourced", not in our regular copyright-focused meaning (no source of the file provided), but in the wikipedia-meaning, i.e. no source provided for the statements or data contained or expressed in the image. --Túrelio (talk) 15:44, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
What articles did you remove it from? /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 15:46, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
en:Greater Netherlands and the Portuguese and Russian equivalents, which seem to be translations (or partial translations) of the English one. --Slomox (talk) 19:59, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

We have a Template:Fictitious flag for "special or fictional flag" images, but not a fictitious map template, as far as I know... AnonMoos (talk) 17:57, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I think {{Disputed diagram}}, {{Doubt}} or {{Fact disputed}} problem-tags should be used. --Jarekt (talk) 18:25, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
These are not specific in regard to "missing source" (as explained above), but already assume that the image is wrong. --Túrelio (talk) 18:54, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
Read the deletion review. One person says, "it has it uses illustrating the pan-dutch movement, whatever you might think of it." So all it needs is an accurate description of what it represents. The description may contain any suitable warning. Images that have no conceivable use would not be kept. Dcoetzee (talk) 18:57, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
I'm Dutch, and I can assure the reader that this is completely the product of fantasy of a handful of people. This map incorporates the Grand-Duchy of Luxemburg and a chunck of France, but I really don't think that the Luxemburg and French armed forces need to mobilise. An invasion led by the proponents of this idea could easily be stoppped by the local brigade of the Gendarmerie. As to a merger of Belgium and the Netherlands: we've been on peaceful terms since 1839, and we'd like to keep it that way. MartinD (talk) 10:12, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
I'm Flemish, and I wholeheartedly agree with my Dutch colleague MartinD. Lycaon (talk) 22:00, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
In light of the above opinions I move that the image be renominated for deletion, so you can all have a voice in it. Dcoetzee (talk) 00:06, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Before doing that, I'd recommend making sure that the image really is unused and appears to be staying so; that way the nomination will be much more likely to pass. As of this writing, for example, the image seems to have been reinstated to ru:Великие Нидерланды. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 09:24, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] July 1

[edit] Flickr cc-by-sa

User werkunz1 has uploaded many cc-by-sa images that are all of very high quality and would be a wonderful addition to commons. Do we already have a bot that grabs descriptions and author names (by batch) off Flickr? His photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/werkunz/ . --Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 10:16, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Categories "by country" vs. "by continent"

There occurs a problem about relation between "by country" and "by continent" categories. Foroa and Ingolfson promote that category "by country" should be primary and that category "by continent" can be tolerated as an additional overcategorization only. E. g. Ingolfson created and filled the category "Floods by country" although the category "by continent" with sorted categories by country had be existing.

I think category "by continent" is more useful alternative of mixed-category "by country" and that ther is a overcategorization to keep the mixed category "by country" when category "by continent" exists, because category "by country" is full functionally replaced by a category "by continent".

Moved from User_talk:Foroa#Models_from_Asia:

Greetings. I was wondering why you deleted this category. You stated "incorrectly named", but it doesn't look like you recreated it under a better name. What name do you think would be better? All the best, Quadell (talk) 16:15, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, on Commons, all major worldwide topics are created in the first place on a per country level. The categorisation per continent is some side categorisation which happens occasionally later on some topics (and which is some form of overcategorisation) and which I would certainly not encourage as it pushes some people of emptying the per country category. As you started creating Models of Asia, so on the continent level, I know that some people would follow the example and fill up the continent category without filling up the country level as you did. I have to admit that the "incorrectly named" deletion reason was not very clear but I was hoping that my other corrections on your models of Pakistan would make it clear. We have around 2000 per country categories and adding an intermediate per continent category would make the structure much more complex and require the addition of more than 14000 categories. --Foroa (talk) 16:35, 30 June 2009 (UTC)


Moved from User talk:ŠJů#by continent categories:

Hi. As far as I know, so far the by country category is the most important categorisation as explained in User_talk:Foroa#Models_from_Asia. Because the by continent category is an overcategorisation, the first by continent category I encounter that has not a proper by country categorisation, I will botmove them all into the proper by country categtory. --Foroa (talk) 13:37, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi. As I see, User_talk:Foroa#Models_from_Asia represented that two wikipedians has two different opinions (and that you has acted incorrect when you deleted some category as "incorrectly named", but you don't recreated it under a better name). You didn't state some reference to any discussion which evidences that your opinion has consensus of the community (as I see, only Ingolfson made some similar edits). I'm sure, sorted content is more useful than unsorted content. Sorted countries are more useful than unsorted mixture of countries. Harldy there exists some theme which wouldn't be better to be worldwide-unsorted than be sorted by continent. Overcategorisation is to keep the mixed category "by country" when category "by continent" exists. Category "by country" is full functionally replaced by a category "by continent". For example, in the case of floods is absurd to give priority to mixed-category "by country" against coutries grouped "by continent". Same goes for all themes. --ŠJů (talk) 14:01, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

I think the image should be in the category of the person's name, the person-category should be in the country category, and the country category should be in the continent category. Quadell (talk) 14:34, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

As an additional remark. The most important aspect of a worldwide categorisation system is that it is simple and uniform. So far, 98 % or more of the worldwide categories (between 2600 and 2800) are "on a per country" basis, a couple of percents "on a per continent basis" (80 to 90). While I see no interest in complicating matters by inserting and maintaining an additional 15.000 or so intermediate categories, I agree that for some topics, such as floods, mountain ranges, rivers, ...an additional per continent categorisation scheme can be interesting.
Nevertheless, I find it important that the current simple de facto standard, on "a per country basis" is maintained in a systematic way as to simplify creation and maintenance. It is possible that one day, the Commons community decides to swith to a per continent system, but in the mean time, I suggest that the current de facto standard "per country" is maintained as a minimum baseline.
In the mean time, considering the many variations in the continent lists, it would be useful to agree upon a complete list of the used continents (For example, separate South and Nord America) and to decide what to do with countries that are in more than one continent. --Foroa (talk) 14:43, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
See en:Template:Continents of the world for all "continents" used in the English-speaking word.. Rocket000 (talk) 07:59, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
When there exist only some few categories of particular countries about any theme, then suffices olny one mixed category "by country". As soon as the country-categories are tens or more of any theme, it is time to found suitable subcategories. This is one of most essential and well-known principles of categorization. Categorization by continent is absolute naturally following development stage, no any anomaly. Nearly every country belongs to some specific continent, so that it is obvious choice. Continental connections relate not only to rivers and mountains, but as well to architecture, people, culture, politics etc. Core of the matter is a system of the umbrella categories: every category "XXX by continent" should be considered to be category "XXX by country by continent", i. e. it is category of countries, which are within it sorted by continent into the bargain. Such categories should not create some duplicite and paralel structure, but they are more structured realisation of the category "XXX by country". --ŠJů (talk) 18:50, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
To clarify my point (which in much part matches Foroa's) is
  • a) the "by country" is the de facto standard. That was my basis for populating / repopulating some "by country" cats where there were "by continent" systems already set up. Note that I did not delete or call for deletion of the "by continent" system. However, "by continent" is NOT de facto standard, so "by country" should stay directly under the appropriate category and be populated with all country cats available until / unless we decide otherwise.
  • b) I agree that a categorisation "by continent" makes sense. However, there are also many situations where a list of ALL country categories is useful, and the intervening "by continent" cat only makes for a barrier. We should therefore find a way to have both coexist in a way that is logical. 06:54, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Sometimes "by region" is the best (which can include countries, continents, states, geographically defined areas, etc.). For example, when talking about species distributions, you can't go by just countries or continents. The boundaries aren't as useful there and it doesn't limit you if you want to add a state or something else. Countries vary greatly in size and make unbalanced category divisions (unless it's of something political). "By Region" is also less problematic when you get arguments over what is "official". Rocket000 (talk) 07:10, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

If you can categorise by country, you can categorise by continent - very few countries are in two continents, the only one I can think of offhand is Russia. So put continents as a parent category to the country ones. -mattbuck (Talk) 11:03, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
Turkey. --Eusebius (talk) 11:20, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
Obviously an underestimated problem. See w:List of countries spanning more than one continent and how to deal with the many countries (claiming) a part of Antarctica ? (w:Antarctic Treaty System). One might have a look to w:List of historical countries and empires spanning more than one continent to allow for a coherent classification. --Foroa (talk) 22:16, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
Mattbuck, your suggestion does not adress part of the problem - "by country" includes ALL countries by definition. If you have by continent above, you cannot have a "by country below" - you would need a "by country in africa" type cat (which would be redundant, unless the "africa" category had subcategories like "subsaharan" and "mediterranean" cats.
I really feel there is no urgent need for action here. For the time being, the two "by continent" and "by country" can coexist, with "by country" the defacto. Where an editor feels he can spare the time, he can create a parallel (NOT a replacement) structure "by continent".
In the long run (i.e. in a few years, or whenever the software development gets around to it), bots will be able to automatically sort all "by country" subcategories in the appropriate "by continent" categories. All the bot needs to be told at that stage is that all "Turkey" categories go into both Europe and Asia for example. Ingolfson (talk) 22:37, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] July 2

[edit] File:Couplesg.jpg

Is there any way to verify everything on the description for File:Couplesg.jpg? The original version has no categories, so all the categories seem to be assumptions (reasonable assumptions, but still assumptions). Are we assuming that the scene is a school (hence student/school uniform)? Is it OK to publish pictures within a school? Regarding licensing, the page implies that the uploader is the newsreader, and that they don't need STOMP's permission to publish the image. Do we trust that?

I have not been able to find this image, or any reference to it, anywhere else (except at User talk:The Toad#File:Couplesg.jpg, where I recently asked the user to fill in the rest of the {{Information}} template). Brian Jason Drake 11:20, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

For presumably copyrighted images which exist elsewhere, we need an email sent to COM:OTRS by the copyright owner, verifying the copyright status (or a pointer to a web page controlled by the copyright owner, which makes the status explicit). The description seems to imply the photographer is someone other than the uploader, so it would seem to be copyrighted unless the paper requires such submitted photos to be placed in the public domain (in which case we would need documentation to that effect). The privacy concerns are likely eliminated by the blurring of faces (no idea what the law is there though to be honest), but the license seems highly dubious at best. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:37, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
According to the caption, this shows "the teen scene in Singapore to its extremities". To my mind -but I live quite close to Amsterdam- it looks fairly innocent, to the extent that I don't really see what the purpose of this picture would be. MartinD (talk) 10:01, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
To illustrate teen culture in Singapore and the erosion of the touch taboo and the public showing of affection prevalent in older generations?KTo288 (talk) 08:43, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
This is a low quality out-of-scope image. I nominated it for deletion. --Jarekt (talk) 02:21, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
For convenience, here is a link to the deletion discussion. Brian Jason Drake 07:16, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
Is there anyone still here? The nomination has been open for a little over 6 days and no one has commented. Brian Jason Drake 05:49, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] User:Lifeboatsrule

Most of these appear to be copyright images from http://www.catchyourbus.co.uk/

Noted and nuked. -mattbuck (Talk) 21:52, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] July 3

[edit] Merging accounts

I have the account User:AeronPrometheus here and on en.wikipedia.org. I changed my username on en to AeronPeryton and turned it into a global acocunt. However it did not merge my account here into the global account, it simply created a new one. Can the user history and contribs of User:AeronPrometheus be merged into User:AeronPeryton here? AeronPeryton (talk) 04:54, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

You need a bureaucrat to do that, not just an admin. OhanaUnitedTalk page 05:26, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
Are you a bureaucrat? :3 AeronPeryton (talk) 09:05, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
For a list of our crats see: Commons:Bureaucrats. --Túrelio (talk) 09:12, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] GLAM -Challenge

On August 6 & 7 Wikimedia Australia is hosting GLAM-Wiki at the supported by the

In lead up to the event some of the GLAM institutions(Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums) have donated items to be given away, Wikimedia Australia has organised the GLAM Challenge which will run from 13th July until 23:59UTC on the 19th July. This is open to all registered editors in any Wikimedia project, you dont need to be in Australia to win as prizes will be posted to anywhere in the world. Nominate yourself by the 13th July, see GLAM Challenge for more details. Gnangarra 12:01, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Le voyage dans la lune (1902)

Can someone from the States upload this movie to the commons (ogg on archive.org) I don't know how the Dutch copyright laws work exactly. It's a short film in the public domain, and it would make the articles about it better. It's only 49 MB. The author information is on the english wiki. Richardprins (talk) 13:26, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

I am made the upload of this film, but now i am in doubt if the audio part needs to be stripped as it may be copyrighted. Tm (talk) 16:13, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't know about the audio, but the version i linked, ogg on archive.org, has better image quality and an english voiceover.

[edit] Commons:Upload revamp!

I think it's time the Commons:Upload page gets revamped. The current one has too many options which confuses the uploader and makes him hostile towards commons. We should have a much simpler upload page. There are mainly in the world of commons two options: "Own work" "From somewhere else". These two should be displayed very big maybe as two images next to each other, one with an image of a photographer and the other of the web. Clicking on these gives more options which we can think about later. The current main issue is, who thinks the Commons:Upload needs a revamp??

We just had a major revamp less than six months ago. Unfortunately, many people seem to think that if they happen to possess a copy of a recent book or magazine, then that gives them the right to label scans from that source as their "own work"... AnonMoos (talk) 01:56, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps on the upload page we should add the wording: “The legal onus is on YOU the uploader not to claim false copyright.” AND We know where YOU live ;-) newbies could well imagine that it is WC who has the legal responsibility on this issue --P.g.champion (talk) 11:13, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
One thing it should allow is the uploading of Multiple files if not in the same page then a separate batch uploader is needed. --JIrate (talk) 11:20, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
Commons:Tools/Commonist is one option for batch uploads. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:42, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
I, for one, have found Commonist unusable. - Jmabel ! talk 15:55, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

I think the upload form is better the way it is now. In fact, it has been simple some time ago (there was only the options to select and name the file, and a pre-designed informatio template to fill), and that option wasn't good either: novice uploaders usually had no idea as to what to fill in each file. Now at least they have brief explanations for each point, and the template is designed by software with the provided information.

By the way, hostile interfaces or procedures with new users should be reduced or removed whenever possible, but there is a limit for that: we can't, we mustn't, keep around copyright violations or images without clear authorship information and licence status just because the uploader may be turned down if we delete them. Of course that this means that only a small fraction of the images a user may want to upload would be acceptable, but that's something we have to live with. Belgrano (talk) 15:55, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

The user interface reflects the underlying complexity of the upload problem: there are many conditional branches in the procedure. One's own work? The work of someone else? Who owns the copyright of the image itself, and of the object(s) in the image? Where was it published? Was it published? When? Is the creator still alive? Etc. Read through the links under COM:EIC#Copyright and try to imagine a way to make all that stuff simple. Many first-time Commons users have never heard of "free content" and all the licensing stuff. Instead they exist in a Web full of mostly un-free images but which the users tend to see as free - they can download any copyrighted image they want, violate copyright law with it in all sorts of ways, and the Internet police usually do not kick the door down. Most new users have never really thought in terms of what is actually legal. If the new user manages to get through the copyright labyrinth, the next hurdle is figuring out our categories, with the first question being "What is a category?". The only way I can imagine simplifying the process for the full range of users and all their different combinations of image types and copyright gotchas is to hire human experts to evaluate the images and determine how to handle them. Simplifying our image upload process might be like simplifying the tax code - something everybody wants, but which nobody can quite do because of all the underlying complexity, and the only real way to simplify it is to hire an accountant or tax attorney. (Maybe someday when we have artificially intelligent computers, we can put real expertise into the software.) --Teratornis (talk) 23:17, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
It might help to have screencasts which walk through complete examples of different kinds of uploads. We could also make videos or find existing videos that explain basic concepts such as free content and what is suitable for Commons. It can be distressing for a new user to try a procedure for the first time without having seen a walk-through yet. The user can get halfway in and get stuck on some unfamiliar concept, or realize he or she doesn't have all the necessary puzzle pieces. It's nice to have some confidence going in that the process won't hit a snag in the middle. --Teratornis (talk) 23:17, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
Those things are explained at the welcome section, and in the welcome template each new user gets in his/her talk page after registering; but we're open to hear new ideas of how to provide this information in a way easy to find and understand, or to reformulate the existing things to be more user-friendly while keeping all the important technical information.
As for the upload form, both interfaces are available, the complex one and the simple one. However, the simple one is really useful for advanced users, when we want to work with the template itself directly (for example, if there's a complex set of explanations, authorship information and licence combos that apply for a number of closely related images, it may be easier to copy the whole template and it with the minor modifications needed, rather than rewrite everything again). Novice users need a tutorial, a step-by-step guide, and the current upload form is more like that. Once they get used to the way Commons work, they may switch to the basic upload form if desired. Belgrano (talk) 01:20, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] writing article for a corporation

I am writing an article for a corporation and they want me to put several pictures of their product in the article. All the pictures are from their website and covered by their copyright. What is the easiest (for both of us) way, and most efficient way, to get their articles properly here? I had sent them a consent form for the first two pics they wanted, then they wanted a couple more.... There must be an easier way than to have them sign forms for each and every picture. Suggestions welcome. Hbmallin (talk) 00:12, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

They must release the pictures under a free license, like Creative Commons CC-BY. They can either put a note that they are free on their web site or they can follow the procedure in Commons:OTRS and Commons:Email templates. Sv1xv (talk) 05:01, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
You are talking about an article for Wikipedia, right? --Túrelio (talk) 08:03, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
Obviously, but the images should be uploaded on Commons. I don't think uploading images on en-wiki under fair use is appropriate when he is in contact with that corporation. Except perhaps for their logo. Sv1xv (talk) 16:02, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
Hi Hbmallin,
If you wont to save effort, you may benefit from becoming acquainted with Wikipedia policies:
WP:COI, WP:NPOV, WP:RS, WP:V,
I guesstimate the the article User:Hbmallin/Example/Draft of article as it stands now, may only last 15-20 minutes once posted, before it gets speedily deleted under clause 11: Unambiguous advertising or promotion. See Speedy Delete. It may require a complete rewrite to avoid getting labelled as spam under Advertisements masquerading as articles. Many editors support Wikipedia out of their own pockets; they don’t always take kindly to finding out that their contributions are being abused by commercial companies using WP as a free advertising hoarding or billboard.--P.g.champion (talk) 09:14, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
I don't think it would qualify for speedy delete. It has many references and is well written. We shouldn't discourage users from creating valuable articles. Plus this is commons please address such issues on his talk page on Wikipedia.--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 09:33, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
I wasn’t discouraging him, I was forewarning him, so that he can avoid wasting his time by writing inappropriate copy. Just letting his article get deleted would have been a discouragement. It just ain't encyclopaedic as it stands. And why should we run around, following uploaders and end-users, on to whatever other site they’re using the image on, just in order to comment; be it WP, Flickr, Вікіпедії, Facebook, personal blogs, etc., etc.? What did your last slave die of – exhaustion? ;-) --P.g.champion (talk) 11:53, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
I think the article is pretty well put-together, and if I were King of Wikipedia I would not delete it, but some deletionists tend to get excited by a sentence such as "I am writing an article for a corporation". The original poster should read w:WP:BFAQ carefully, along with w:WP:COI and w:WP:OWN. In particular, be sure the corporation one is writing for understands that nobody will own the resulting article, so the corporation cannot control what the article might evolve into. The article will exist to benefit Wikipedia, not the subject of the article. I agree that article authors have to write defensively, by learning to think like a deletionist and making sure not to leave any red flags for them. Warning people about the risks of deletion can never be as harsh as what the deletionists may do to them. I have seen a tendency for some Wikipedia users (and Wikipedia itself, through its user interface) to be somewhat overly-encouraging to new users. Be bold! What's the worst that can happen? Well, the worst is that you can sink in hours and hours of your time and it ends up on Deletionpedia. Actually it can be worse than that, as Deletionpedia does not republish all of Wikipedia's deleted articles. I think it is instructive to browse through the tens of thousands of deleted articles on Deletionpedia and see what optimism did for all those users. --Teratornis (talk) 23:39, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
To correct any misunderstanding. I was not doubting Hbmallin’s ability to right good ‘copy’, but pointing out that a ‘good article’ is not the same thing as an 'encyclopaedic' article. So for that reason I was guiding him to WP ‘house style’ info so that Hbmallin could discover how to adapt his copy accordingly. Being a professional writer, Hbmallin grasped this immediately it was pointed out to him. Also, one can not justly accuse the general editors of all being deletionists if they simply remove ‘editorial articles’ that have no place on WP. Spamming by commercial concerns is a big problem on WP and it would be swamped if PR companies were allowed to upload what editorial material they wished without constant challenges by editors that would rather be doing something else. As for “get excited by a sentence such as "I am writing an article for a corporation" I’d like to bring peoples attention to:

Statement by Jimbo Wales

" Some things are not policy simply because it's never been necessary to make it policy. It is not ok with me that anyone ever set up a service selling their services
as a Wikipedia editor, administrator, bureaucrat, etc. I will personally block any cases that I am shown. There are of course some possibly interesting alternatives,
not particularly relevant here, but the idea that we should ever accept paid advocates directly editing Wikipedia is not ever going to be ok.
Consider this to be policy as of right now.[6] "

--P.g.champion (talk) 10:56, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

That's interesting. (I put the quote into a {{quote}} template, I hope you don't mind.) I wonder what Jimbo thinks of:
Both pages, as far as I can see, exist to facilitate the selling of Wikipedia editorial services. And what about the m:Philip Greenspun illustration project and the m:Wikipedia Usability Initiative? In both cases outside donors contributed money to the Wikimedia Foundation to pay for specific services. I can understand Jimbo's slippery slope argument, but if we tried to eliminate all editing by people who have strong interests in what they edit, how much of an encyclopedia would remain? For example, should no one who actually believes in a particular religion write about that religion? (Religious devotion can be considerably more intense than an employee's devotion to a company - would anyone commit suicide for their employer?) I think we should avoid the Genetic fallacy and judge individual edits on their merits. It doesn't matter whether a writer is personally neutral about something, it only matters if he or she manages to write neutrally in a particular edit. Just my opinion. As I wrote, I am not King of Wikipedia - that would be Jimbo. And yes, there are deletionists who will cite conflict of interest as a pretext to delete, without regard to the actual merit of an article. --Teratornis (talk) 19:42, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
En has been arguing about this for weeks. Let's not spread this here. The use of images owned by your employer is, as far as Commons is concerned, a simple matter of supplying permission through OTRS. If this exercise proves futile, that is no concern of ours. Dcoetzee (talk) 00:04, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Writing this has been an eye-opening experience in so many ways. Having used Wikipedia related sites for years, so much of the creation part of it is invisible. I hope to write/edit other articles in the years to come. Also, thank you to the folks who complimented the writing. As far as getting paid for writing, it was definitely an afterthought in the whole transaction between the company and me. As I said over on my user page (and on a COI comment on the article's talk page, I emailed the company and noted the outdated info on the various pages. They contacted me with the suggestion to write, which I started to do. What I didn't mention in the COI disclosure is the timing: I started writing prior to the company's suggestion (because of the time involved in research and writing), that I be compensated for my time. I accepted but clarified that the article would be neutral. If parts must be deleted or edited for whatever reason, I understand and expect that. I hope that most of it is allowed to remain. I did not write it for the purpose of advertising or marketing. I wrote it because this company and its products are newsworthy. Please check the references and I think you would be inclined to agree. Thank you for the comments. Hbmallin (talk) 11:13, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] July 4

[edit] Commons Sumitup

Commons Sumitup is a great tool that should be used on every category page we have. It automatically adds descriptions and interwiki links to the specified Category. The problem is that I didn't know at all about this tool until I saw on one of the images (Descriptions added through Commons Sumitup). There are some bugs in the tool that I posted on Magnus Manske talk page. Anyway I wanted to suggest using this tool more and letting people know about it. So how about we create a template for Categories that don't have any descriptions or interwiki language links, that says "Please add a description to this Category to help Users understand what its about. You can also use Commons Sumitup which automatically adds descriptions from the lead of Wikipedia articles. This would automatically add the name of the page to the Commons Sumitup page which would be processed and a new description suggested. I think this would help everyone who goes to google and desperately searches google to find the appropriate article in any available language.--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 09:50, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I do not like to have to browse past long translation tables to every conceivable language before getting to the images. Sometimes it is usefull, but generally this is just in the way. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 10:55, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
This would be another issue that should be solved with an auto translate function. We have this on templates with autolang, I think there is already a way to change the description according to users preferred settings. I saw it before where one could specify on the right of the description the language, don't remember where I saw this. Anyway, Commons is multilingual and should have descriptions in as many languages as possible. The issue with scrolling is already available in main Categories like Category:Germany.--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 11:44, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Very high high res images available and on the verge of extinction

This is a call of duty to anyone who cares about the digitization of the world paintings treasures. There is a torrent floating on the web (http://www.mininova.org/det/1199752) containing 118 files, 14.85 GB of very high res images. Some of the images have already been uploaded: Category:Hermitage hi-res from a .torrent (only 22). The torrent has only 7 seeders which make it very unstable and could become inaccessible at some point. Please anyone with a fast connection or has some way of making these available on the net, help!--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 15:10, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Some of those look like they're actually from a different torrent (there's [7] but that can't be the original since they're all JPEGs). For example, I don't see File:Owl-Flying-against-a-Moonlit-Sky.jpg in the list. Anyway, I'll help seed at least. Rocket000 (talk) 05:38, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

The files are mostly over 100MB which poses a problem to our limit. Is it possible that a dev would import the files? The seeds are very good and downloading is very fast.--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 09:44, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

JPEGs over 100MB? Seriously? Those much be high-resolution scans of full-size paintings, or something. If they're TIFFs try re-encoding as PNG. If they're really JPEGs, then I must agree regarding uploading the full-size images, and hopefully we can get help. Dcoetzee (talk) 11:41, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
  • All of the torrent files are TIFFs.
  • I have now one of the seeders, so they are not on the verge of extinction anymore.
  • At least some of the files at Category:Hermitage_hi-res_from_a_.torrent are not in the 25C90FC3 7BA4EAF5 4184BCCC 2E1EE5F5 43C8FE6B .torrent
Platonides (talk) 15:12, 7 July 2009 (UTC)


They're TIFFs, ranging in size from 13.8 to 432 MiB. I'll have to wait for the download to complete to say anything more about them. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 15:56, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
  • Well I already downloaded the first five files but can't upload them because I have a really slow connection with only 10 kilo bytes upload rate. The files range from 4,000 to 10,000 pixels on the short side (at least for the largest I have (170MB)). I converted that one to jpg and it became 80MB which shows that the larger files wouldn't be possible to upload even as jpgs. These are files that aren't to be found anywhere else. Maybe the Wikimedia blog can write an article on how they saved the masterpieces :) .--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 16:13, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
    • If they're TIFFs take a close look at them and see if they have JPEG artifacts (sometimes TIFFs are converted from JPEGs - dumb but true!) If they do not have artifacts, we want the full resolution images, but please convert them to PNG - it's unlikely they contain enough useful metadata to justify the extra bytes. Also, it will be very important to carefully identify the pieces and their provenance - the last thing we want to do is pass off a copy as the original piece. Dcoetzee (talk) 01:27, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Ford Foundation Awards $300K Grant for Wikimedia Commons

As you must all know by now, just a couple of days ago, the Ford Foundation graciously awarded WMF a grant to develop a less ‘geeky’ upload method. [8]

Page 14 of the Ford Foundation Multimedia Participation Project Proposal, explains the scope, how improvements can be developed, overseen and implemented etc.
6. Project Proposal
6.1. Scope
 The objective of this project is to increase participation in and contributions to Wikimedia Commons by implementing a 13month software development, usability testing and documentation project to improve the interface for uploading multimedia files to Wikimedia Commons. [9].

For those that want to join, then reading the proposal through might be a good place to start.

Some of us, have already been thinking about how to make the image page more newbie friendly [10] It may not look as neat, to have very wordy field names but it might help new users to understand the pages and what is expected of them. And of course, it is always easier if there are examples to follow. The main priority we have agreed upon, is the need to provide the Credit Line for the benefit of people wishing to use WC images. However, the overriding goal for this new project is that the improvements embrace all the Wikimedia Foundation Projects.--P.g.champion (talk) 15:19, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

With $300K, I hope we'll hire usability experts and pursue serious usability testing. This isn't something to be left to volunteers unless lack of resources compels it. Dcoetzee (talk) 04:00, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I think many of the problems are already known and a usability testing could be advanced without an actual survey. The survey is said to take one month and take over 33,000 $. I find this rather avoidable or at least decreasable. We could create a project Commons:Usability where we can list all the already known problems and Usability killers. There are enough known problems to be fixed without the need for such an expensive and avoidable survey. IMHO. --Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 11:18, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] CommonSense

What happened with this tool? :( After the request it says:

Notice: Undefined index: 29 in /home/daniel/MediaWiki-live/phase3/includes/HistoryBlob.php on line 346
Database Error: Unknown database 'u_multichill_commons_categories_p' (sql) on sql/u_multichill_commons_categories_p
Fatal error: Call to a member function addQuotes() on a non-object in /home/daniel/public_html/WikiSense-live/common/FilterCats.php on line 48

Does anybody know what happened and when will it be repaired ? Spectorman (talk) 15:22, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Miscommunication. Some db's got moved around. I'll generate a new copy of the database to get this tool working again. Multichill (talk) 23:44, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
Should be fixed now, I hope... -- Duesentrieb ⇌ 12:37, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Ancient Greek and Roman sculpture recatagorization help

I am an art history professor who teaches introductory courses. I am new to commons. As I have tried to upload images of Greek and Roman statues that I have taken, I have found that the commons sub-categories have problems. For example, under Athena, Commons has a request that all Athena uploads be post-classical, but of course the site is still full of sub-categories with Ancient Greek and Roman statues. It is the way non-art-history majors think. I checked and there is no Athena in Ancient Greek and Roman Statues, nor would a non-specialist think this way. I am hesitant to create new sub-categories myself. But since Wikipedia Commons thinks it should be set up for readers convenience, I think there should be a category Athena, with links to sub-categories, Athena in Ancient Greek and Roman art (I need to set this up) and one for Post-Classical Athena.

I don't want to mess anything up. I need a more experienced Commons user to work with me, so that it works with the system and minimizes the changes. Do you have anyone who can do that?

Thanks Zoe Morgan —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zmorgan (talk • contribs) 16:57, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi Zoe,
You flatter us un-deservingly, when you suggest we organize categories for the convenience of readers. Categories tend to get created piecemeal; as and when a parent category gets over crowded and usually by those of us, who don’t have the foggiest idea of what we are pointing and shooting our cameras at. Therefore, looking at it just from a purely taxonomical point of view, I would say that whilst these goddesses may posses the same natures, and other similarities, they are not the same individuals. So, the categories obviously have a problem - now that they have grown to have a plenty of images of both. How does this sound to you: The statues/images are categorised from now, under their respective names. The confusing text in the two existing cats ( Athena & Minerva) are corrected to suit the new arrangement.
Then you may find that there are enough sub categories in the parent cats of:
Category:Sculpture
Category:Ancient Roman art
Category:Ancient Greek art
Category:Art of Greece
Category:Art of Italy
If not, then perhaps this is where a new sub-cat ought to be created. Does this help? Have a click through and see what is available. This will leave some images in the wrong cats and some sub cats in the wrong parent cat but they can be sorted out latter. Does the overall suggestion seem to make sense to you?
By the way: If you click on the little blue square button on top of the edit window, 3rd from the right. It will add some tildy symbols (- - ~ ~ ~ ~). This is a code which will automatically insert you name and the date/time stamp. Do it ‘after’ you have finished entering the text.--P.g.champion (talk) 18:51, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
After quickly looking though, it does seem sensible to separate the two goddess and create Category:Athena in Ancient Greek and Roman art and Category:Post-Classical Athena or perhaps Category:Athena in the art of the post-classical period. What about the respective cats of Category:Minerva in Ancient Greek and Roman art? I am not happy yet with the names.--P.g.champion (talk) 20:02, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
Categories do not have to be strictly tree-structured; the MediaWiki software that powers Commons allows for multiple independent categorization schemes. Therefore in principle, you could create an academically valid categorization scheme and add categories to images alongside the categories created by non-specialists. However, that could get ugly fast. If you have never used a wiki like Commons before, you will probably find categories to be one of the most confusing features at first. I suggest reading w:Help:Category several times over several days, then read the links under COM:EIC#Cat.
For perhaps a better way to start, we have gallery pages which allow for arbitrary organization and annotation. The logical name for a gallery page would be Athena which already exists as a redirect page to Category:Athena but that is easy to fix (and Commons:Galleries#Redirects says we should not have that redirect anyway).
It would probably be easier to start by creating a user subpage by clicking this: Zmorgan/Athena, and you can make your own gallery page for the Athena images and group them any way you like. Once you have a presentable gallery page, we can move it to the article (gallery) space. Once the structure you want is tangible, other users can more easily make sense of how the corresponding categories might need to change.
Some people focus more on galleries for organizing files, and some people focus more on categories. Galleries are less abstract for someone new to Commons, since you can see the structure directly in the page wikitext markup. Categories are harder to grasp, because the category page itself does not contain the category tags - those are distributed among the individual files that are in the category, and among the category pages that are subcategories (whee!).
To see the difference between categories and galleries, compare some corresponding examples, for example:
--Teratornis (talk) 22:54, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
It occurs to me that if Athena is any sort of goddess at all, she ought to be able to fix her own categories. --Teratornis (talk) 22:56, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
Tut tut tut, is that really the way to talk of the grey-eyed lady, if the wiki-projects were to adopt a Greek god as a patron I guess it would be her.KTo288 (talk) 08:30, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
If Athena is any sort of goddess at all, then I suppose she'll just have to strike me ... KABOOM! All seriousness aside, isn't it rather odd that transcendent beings allegedly crave adoration as much as humans do? --Teratornis (talk) 19:23, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Wow. First, on sub-categories the word Athena should definitely come first. (Athena in the art of the post-classical period.) This will enable users without a lot of experience to find the the site. The same thing applies to Under the sub-category "sculpture by title," where the Lemina Athena and Parthenon Athena sub-categories should be Athena Lemina and Athena Parthenose because most users won't know the titles off the top of their heads. Aphrodite is listed twice: in the section above that and then again under titles...but only two of them. Those should be moved to be with the other Aphrodites.

Do I just keep telling you this stuff? I know what to change and how to change it. Zmorgan (talk) 04:05, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

I just re-read your reply and have some more advice. I would put Athena/Minerva rather than separate the two. The Greeks called her Athena and (very) basically the Romans just changed the name to make it more acceptable. So the Romans would call a Greek statue of Athena, Minerva. Usually if it is a Roman copy of a Greek, the museums seem to refer to the statue by the Greek name (Athena rather than Minerva.) Even Venus de Milo is now being called Aphrodite de Milos. But I would not expect readers to know that.

A little more explanation. Most of the God statues in museums (not the portrait busts and emperor statues) are actually a Roman copy of a Greek statue (almost all those marble Greek statues you see are actually Roman copies ...the original Greek statues were usually in bronze.) Museums seem to put the Roman copies in the Greek room and provide the legend on the statue like "Roman statue of 1st century AD from Rome after a Greek original from the 4th century BC from Athens." Then the museums have a separate room for original Roman works. Since museums do not normally label these rooms (Louvre, Hermitage & British Museums don't...at least not clearly), the normal reader is confused. Is the statue Greek or Roman? And of course there are the portrait busts and the emperor statues, and a few others, which really are Roman. I would like some input on the easiest way to arrange this without getting into too much trouble. If we split into Greek and Roman statues before the gods, then we have problems, unless we want to cross link everything. Who are our expert people in this area for Wikipedia and how do I get in touch with them? Zmorgan (talk) 04:29, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Taking your last question first. You might try these three projects:
Keep in mind that many editors may currently be on vacation and so a quick response may not be forth coming. For the very same reason, you might as well get on with some of the less contentious improvements, rather than wait for any wide spread agreement here. Maybe you could also work with User talk:Shakko who added the text stating that request that all Athena uploads be post-classical.--P.g.champion (talk) 12:42, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Let us have a look at a few examples images.
There might not be any perfect solution to this Athena/Miniver problem; so don’t fret if perfection stubbornly remains elusive.However, when you say:”If we split into Greek and Roman statues before the gods, then we have problems,..” then I wonder if you’re looking at it too hard and still see just a single TREE type category system. Do you also recognise this operating here Category diagram.
Just as the Greek philosopher taught their pupils not to argue from different premises, so we must not mix taxonomies ― and we don’t have to.
Statues start off and continue to remain in the ‘class’ of physical objects. A Roman sculptor may take his inspiration from a Greek bronze statue but it is still a ‘physical representation’ of a ‘non-physical’ mental construct. Ie., still Roman, still Athena. That part is simple: The sculpture may have (say) ‘three’ or more categories. Category:Roman copies after Greek originals in Italy, Category:Ancient Roman sculptures in Italy and Category:Statues of Greek mythology, Category:Athena, Category:Marble sculptures in Italy. Plus, add a explanation on the image page to make the clear the context (as the uploader should always do).
Let us now consider the less simple examples:
If I understand the problem correctly ( in its practical sense) then: just as a photographer, who did not take note of whom the statue depicted when he shot it, he will have an impossible job later, when trying to decide between the two names based on looking at the shape, form and apparel. So too the museum curator, who finds that for some of his exhibits there was insufficient contextual information recorded when they were found, for him to unequivocally attribute them to either goddess nor nationality.
I don’t see this above problem as a reason to lump the two major categories of Athena and Miniver together. And it is just asking for someone to come along later and do the obvious thing of separating them again. The ‘class’ linking the metamorphosis from the original goddess into Athena and then Miniver is one of cultural history and so we should not, in my opinion reflect this here on WC. However, if this ‘uncertainty’ is only going to apply to some images of statues, then it might be pragmatic to create a Category:Uncertain representation of either Athena or Miniver ( hate the name) and have this appear as a sub-cat in both the major Athena and the Miniver cats.
Their origin (Category:Ancient Roman sculptures in Italy, Category:Uncertain representation of either Athena or Miniver or wherever) can then be added to the image page. If they are of statues only, then they could be sub-cats of the appropriate major Statue cat as well. Off the top of my head, I can’t see this calls for a lot of cross linking.
So, lets have some examples to look at.--P.g.champion (talk) 16:58, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

One good place to discuss these problems and how to solve them is the project Museum. Even if it isn't our primary goal, the contributors are probably the most active in the Greek and Roman art domain, so we should have some ideas. Bibi Saint-Pol (sprechen) 19:54, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

P.g.champion - thanks. Bibi St Pol hooked me up with the project Museum, which had a well-thought the way to sort the Museum statues and that will create cross links with this project well. Also, he came up with a good division plan that answers my questions above. (See Jastrow's page.) It was nice of you to take the time to walk back through the cataloging system. I do understand category systems from my job, but my work experience may be creating problems for me in Wiki. I do want to do it right the first time!

[edit] What's our position on the URAA law?

The title says it. I have images published in Egypt which are in the public domain but only published 25 years prior to 2002 (When a new copyright law was created). Does the URAA law take effect or not?--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 17:01, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

If they first published in Egypt, and were still copyrighted there on January 1, 1996, then their U.S. copyright was restored by the URAA. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:24, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
URAA restoration is pretty shaky at this point. I don't think we need to enforce a law which was deemed unconstitutional by the court. Yann (talk) 10:50, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Please see Template talk:Not-PD-US-URAA. Golan v. Holder is unlikely to change anything for us since (a) the case isn't over yet, and (b) we're not "reliance parties". Lupo 11:04, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Yes, unfortunately we must continue to observe the URAA until such time as it is struck down in its entirety. There are still a lot of images with {{Not-PD-US-URAA}} tags, though, which seems to reflect a disagreement at Commons about what to do with them. Dcoetzee (talk) 23:23, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] July 5

[edit] IJA maps posted online

Tohoku University has posted about 6,000 old Imperial Japanese Army topographic maps of east and south Asia on line here. I thought that pre-WWII images in Japan were public domain, but the site states that the University retains the copyrights. The university says, however, that the maps may be used for educational purposes. I'm not sure if these are of interest, but wanted to bring it to the project's attention just in case. Cla68 (talk) 08:37, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Hmm copyfraud? ViperSnake151 (talk) 23:55, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
These aren't really 6,000 years old - based on the date on the map most of them date back to about 1923. Unfortunately, these works were probably restored by the URAA. That doesn't mean the University is the copyright holder (they probably aren't) but somebody is. Dcoetzee (talk) 23:51, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
The word "year" did not appear between 6000 and old in his message -- AnonMoos (talk) 06:35, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Oh, I see what he meant now. :-) Dcoetzee (talk) 11:37, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Corporate works are protected for 50 years from creation/publication in Japan... if they really are from the 1920s, then copyright had probably long expired by the URAA date and thus they would not have been restored. Carl Lindberg (talk) 13:09, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
These are Dutch maps, not Japanese. They were drawn in the 1920s by the Topografische Dienst, and the copyright on the map is 70 years from creation, not 50 (IIRC).
The maps were republished in Japanese, probably in the 1940s during the Japanese occupation of the Dutch Indies, (a copyright violation), and Japanese copyright law applies only to the legend and the other Japanese text. I think. -- Eugene van der Pijll (talk) 13:53, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
Ah OK. It might be interesting if the country of origin is considered to be Indonesia (which has similar 50-year terms) instead of the Netherlands. Even if the Netherlands, they may have been PD there by the URAA date if they were created/published before 1926. The U.S. URAA rules for determining the "source country" may also come into play... if it gets to "country which has the most significant contacts with the work" then Dutch East Indies/Indonesia could still be considered the "source country" for URAA purposes. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:41, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
Topographical maps of Indonesia can also be found at the Dutch Royal Tropical Institute. Not the exact series that was used by the Japanese army, but similar maps from the 1910s and 1940s. Those may be worth looking at as well. -- Eugene van der Pijll (talk) 15:27, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] July 6

[edit] MIME type statistics

Logarithmic plot by number of files
Logarithmic plot by total size in bytes

I've been collecting statistics about the number of files on Commons with different MIME types at Commons:MIME type statistics since last November. When I started, I was asked if I could make some plots of the data, and I figured that I should now have enough data collected to do so. So, here they are. I would've really liked to make some area plots, but it turns out that all you can see from an area plot is that we have a lot of JPEG files, a few PNG, SVG, Vorbis and GIF files, and so little of anything else that it's barely visible. So I went with a logarithmic line plot instead, allowing the rarer types to be visible too.

I've also included the raw numbers on the description pages, as well as a link to the really raw data on the toolserver, in case anyone else would like to do something with it.

Some notable features visible on the graphs include the enabling of TIFF uploads in March, the gradual decrease in the "other" column (which I suspect I can take some credit for, as I've been going over the list of files with odd types regularly, trying to fix as many of the misformatted files as I can), and a strange (to me, anyway; I'm sure there's an explanation) spike in PDF uploads in early December which caused the number of PDF files on Commons to double during that month. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 00:40, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

This is lovely - thank you for making these graphs. :-) I'd love to see that video line grow a bit more quickly over the coming months ...--Eloquence (talk) 08:04, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, Ilmari! Interesting graphs. What are those 100 zip files? (One of them is File:WikEd icons.zip.ogg, which is fine, I guess.) Special:MIMESearch returns nothing for "application/zip". Lupo 08:26, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
According to this list they seem to be mostly OpenOffice documents, which use a zip-based format. Uploading them is currently disabled due to security concerns, but we still have a bunch from back when they were allowed (and we might allow them again eventually, if the security issues can be resolved). —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 08:33, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Does your statistics include deleted images? Does total size in bytes include older versions of a single reloaded file? --Jarekt (talk) 14:15, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Deleted files and old revisions are not included. (You can tell from the fact that some of the lines go down sometimes. :) The toolserver, which my bot runs on, doesn't have access to deleted content anyway. I did run some queries on old file revisions when I was writing the bot, and found that they only amount to a fairly small fraction of the total bytes used, even when counting reverts and duplicates as separate files. (See this old thread for details.) It turns out that, in fact, the overwhelming majority of files on Commons have only one revision. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 19:08, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Rename request from the Swiss Berne to Bern

Please note that in [[11]], a rename request has been issued from Bern to Berne. --Foroa (talk) 14:35, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

  • I believe that's backward. The next posting, from the same user, seems to clarify. - Jmabel ! talk 16:35, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Please note that in Commons:Categories_for_discussion/Current_requests/2009/07/Category:Berne, a rename request has been issued from the Swiss Berne to Bern. Reactions are welcome. --Foroa (talk) 14:36, 6 July 2009 (UTC)


[edit] Images of toys are derivative work copyvio?

After the discussion about costumes I started to think toys are'nt copyvio either. That images like that would fell under non-copyright restrictions, so I brought this image from Wiki-en. The image were maked do DR and the discussion goens on. Still having doubts I sent an email to Mike Godwin about this.

" Hi Mike. Sorry for bothering you, but there are somethings on the Commons that let me intrigated. It's about fan arts and pictures from toys. I know these works are derivative, but I fail to understand there any copyright infringiment doing that.I believe that the copyright holders from toys are aware people are going to take photos from their children and use as they want. Of course if they claim the character/toy copyriht for themselves is a differente thing. The same for fan-art, is so easy to find original fan-arts being selled, and the author only holding the photo concert not the character/thing. I think these kind of work sometimes can be Non copyright restrictions . I'f you can, I'd like you let a reply on this Deletion Request.

Thanks for the attention and best Regards

User:Mizunoryu "
(Mizunoryu)
" Dear Mizunoryu,

I believe very strongly that there is no copyright problem with taking a picture of child in a Spider-Man costume, for example.

The copyright companies tend to be more upset about original artwork. I'm not sure why this is a problem for them, but copyright law tends to be more protective in areas like fan art (Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, etc.) than in other areas.

I can't explain this in a way that makes any logical sense.


--Mike "
(Mike Godwin)
" Thanks for the quick reply and attention. Boy... is easier to do or ask someone to do a fan art than too get some reply from the original owners. That's ok. I already how hard is to explain these things.

And what do you think about toys like Tickle Me Almo and other products like Brasso. A self taken pic of this kind of product would be a copyright infringiment?

Mizunoryu "
(Mizunoryu)
" I don't see any copyright problems with freely licensed photographs of toys.


--Mike "
(Mike Godwin)

I sent the emails to OTRS. What do you guys think we start thinkingabout chang this policy? Mizunoryu 大熊猫❤小熊猫 (talk) 17:35, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

They're works of art. ViperSnake151 (talk) 23:12, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Mike Godwin has traditionally taken a very permissive stance regarding copyright - pretty much if it's not likely to cause a copyright problem for the Wikimedia Foundation in the near future, it's none of his concern, even if it's technically infringement or couldn't be used in a commercial context, as is likely the case with photos of toys. Dcoetzee (talk) 23:19, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes they are. We didn't say they aren't. I thi it is because his the attorny here not us. He's the interested part and the professional here. If would have some problems he will say as he did with not original fan arts as you can see above. he wouldn't put the project in troubles , don't you think? I fail to see why we should not list him. Mizunoryu 大熊猫❤小熊猫 (talk) 01:59, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Because he's talking about their use here on Wikimedia projects, not their potential use anywhere in any context. Rocket000 (talk) 04:35, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
People who want to teach Mike Godwin lessons on copyright are really a laughing lot... It would be much better for Commons and all Wikimedia projects, if self-made copyright gurus would not try to enforce their opinion against a famous lawyer specialized in copyright issues. A more rationale stand on copyright ought to be used here, but that seems only a wishful thinking... :'( Yann (talk) 10:04, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
I'd be also for a policy change. Commons is a free media repository (as in the images are free to the maximum extent possible), not a church for free software fans. ;) I know what I'm talking about, the French Wikipedia doesn't allow fair use simply because a majority don't like it. I'm not saying we should allow any derivative work in Commons, but I'm for a little brainstorming. →Diti the penguin — 11:07, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Speaking of which, if we want Commons' files to be “100% free” with almost no exception, then it's totally wrong: a lot of files here are not free to use because of personality rights, not in public domain outside their source country, etc. →Diti the penguin — 11:10, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Why don't you just go create your own repository for non-free files? Commons should stay a repository of free files, please. Nillerdk (talk) 11:27, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
I'm not dumb enough to do that, sorry. :) I prefer discussion, and I know I'm not talking about copyright but other restrictions. I just overreacted a little bit. →Diti the penguin — 16:22, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
This is completely beside the point. Yann (talk) 14:37, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Sorry, but in such cases it's copyrights restrictions. Just in case what we'll do if Mike Godwin will write that photos of CD/DVD covers will not harm copyrights holders. Will such images still be Commons:Derivative works? --EugeneZelenko (talk) 14:46, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Don't be ironic. Mike would never say this. He's responsible. If you read the emials you'll see that I ask about Fan Art and he said that we would have a problem to upload such kind of files here. He wasn't hired to be a joker or to lie. The person would have to do deal with the trial would be him. He is not dumb to lure us. Who would be screwed up is he. Mizunoryu 大熊猫❤小熊猫 (talk) 15:28, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Mike Godwin does his job very well, but trying to base policy around his word has always been a frustrating exercise. On several occasions he's offered specific legal opinions that are simply impossible to reconcile with any kind of generally applicable principle, like with the de minimis thing and the cosplay thing, and he will never offer an explanation - he says as little as possible. Unless we plan to go running back to him with every new image we encounter, we need to form a set of rules, and his vague guidance isn't really helpful with that. To be completely honest with you, I would much rather a lawyer write our policies and take accountability for them, but no one is about to do that. Dcoetzee (talk) 11:34, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Well, I have always said that a more formal approval of our copyright policies need to be reviewed by a professional lawyer. There was not enough funds at the start of the project to pay a professional for that, but that's not the case anymore. For a start, we should get an estimate to know much that could cost, then we can discuss if that is worth the price. Or there might be lawyers who are willing to offer a bit of their time as a support to the project. Yann (talk) 14:37, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Actually I think this is a great idea - I would support a review of our policies by an intellectual property lawyer. Many lawyers will give free consultations and quotes, maybe this would be a place to start? Dcoetzee (talk) 01:20, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Hey guys, let's calm down. I thnk we are all here to improve the project and gre up together. First of all for the jokers I'm not Elmo's fan. I'm already 24 an Sesame Street is not broadcasted in Brazil. And I didn't make contact with Mike to prove a POV. I had this doubt a long time ago and nobody here could help me solve it. I just use the opportunity to ask him something and I don't want to convert Commons to a repository for all kinf of media files. Commons is a repository o free media files and will alway be. Fair use is a problem of the other projects, so let´s forget it here. I don't upload copyvios here and I myself mark my own images to be deleted when I make a mistake. Im just trying to discuss the freedom of such files. I think toys or other products like brasso, Toothpaste and the like, fall under Commons:Non-copyright restrictions following the reasoning that is expected the consumers use this product however they like and they have the rights to do so after they bought them. But still they are trademarked and would have some problems using them in some ways. Like Personality Rights. I may take a photo of Beyoncé, sell it, put it in a magazine and sell it. But I'd have some problems if I made a product and sell the photo in it as a Beyncé product. If I put a comic balloon saying nasty things I'l get another problem. The same Thing if I use L'oreal's logo to sell something and use would be another problem. So, what you guys think? And I must agree with Dcoetzee. Mike's too vague and we have a bad time trying to undertsnad the laws and creating policies. Would be nce if we have someone to guides us. Until there... Mizunoryu 大熊猫❤小熊猫 (talk) 14:29, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately the argument you present - that "consumers use this product however they like and they have the rights to do so after they bought them" - is inconsistent with the law. A great example of this is CDs. You don't really "buy" music - the record company licenses you a recording for personal use, and you would be in trouble if you played it at a public event or on your college radio station, or sold copies to your friends. Likewise, if you buy a painting, that does not automatically make you the copyright holder, and you could not (say) sell copies of it without permission. The essential question is whether the product's appearance is primarily subservient to its function (as in the vodka bottle case), or whether it incorporates significant original elements not dictated by its function. Dcoetzee (talk) 01:14, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
I'm just curious, when you say toys are subject to non-copyright restrictions, what laws are we talking about here? Rocket000 (talk) 01:32, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for my poor explanation. I'm really bad to exprss myself in another language. I meant that the consumers owns some rights when they bought a product. Theses rights are minimum, just to llustrate something or give an idea of what it is. I found this on United Staes paten Office page

904.04 Material Not Appropriate as Specimens for Trademarks 904.04(a) Drawing or “Picture” of the Mark

A photocopy of the drawing required by 37 C.F.R. §2.51 is not a proper specimen. 37 C.F.R. §2.56(c). Similarly, the specimen may not be a “picture” of the mark, such as an artist’s drawing or a printer’s proof that merely illustrates what the mark looks like and is not actually used on or in connection with the goods in commerce. 904.04(b) Advertising Material

Advertising material is generally not acceptable as a specimen for goods. Any material whose function is merely to tell the prospective purchaser about the goods, or to promote the sale of the goods, is unacceptable to support trademark use. Similarly, informational inserts are generally not acceptable to show trademark use. In re MediaShare Corp., 43 USPQ2d 1304 (TTAB 1997); In re Schiapparelli Searle, 26 USPQ2d 1520 (TTAB 1993); In re Drilco Industrial Inc., 15 USPQ2d 1671 (TTAB 1990); In re ITT Rayonier Inc., 208 USPQ 86 (TTAB 1980); In re Bright of America, Inc., 205 USPQ 63 (TTAB 1979). However, an instruction sheet may be an acceptable specimen. In re Ultraflight Inc., 221 USPQ 903 (TTAB 1984). See TMEP §904.03(j) regarding manuals and TMEP §904.04(c) regarding package inserts.

The following types of items are generally considered advertising, and unless they comprise point-of-sale material, are not acceptable as specimens of use on goods: advertising circulars and brochures; price lists; announcements; publicity releases; listings in trade directories; and business cards. Moreover, material used by the applicant to conduct its internal business is unacceptable as a specimen of use on goods. These materials include all papers whose sole function is to carry out the applicant’s business dealings, such as invoices, bill heads, waybills, warranties and business stationery. See In re Chicago Rawhide Mfg. Co., 455 F.2d 563, 173 USPQ 8 (C.C.P.A. 1972); In re Bright of America, supra; Varian Associates v. IMAC Corp., 160 USPQ 283 (N.D. Ill. 1968); Upco Co. v. Speed Crete of La., Inc., 154 USPQ 555 (TTAB 1967); Dynacolor Corp. v. Beckman & Whitley, Inc., 134 USPQ 410 (TTAB 1962); Pendleton Woolen Mills v. Eloesser-Heynemann Co., 133 USPQ 211 (TTAB 1962); Boss Co. v. Homemaker Rugs, Inc., 117 USPQ 255 (N.D. Ill. 1958).

As to display of trademarks on company uniforms, see In re McDonald’s Corp., 199 USPQ 702 (TTAB 1978); Toro Manufacturing Corp. v. John B. Stetson Co., 161 USPQ 749 (TTAB 1969).

Bags and other packaging materials bearing the name of a retail store and used by the store merely for packaging items of sold merchandise are not acceptable to show trademark use of the store name for the products sold by the store (e.g., bags at cash register). When used in this manner, the name merely identifies the store. See In re The Pennsylvania Fashion Factory, Inc., 198 USPQ 568 (TTAB 1978), aff’d, 588 F.2d 1343, 200 USPQ 140 (C.C.P.A. 1978). 904.04(c) Package Inserts

If material inserted in a package with the goods is merely advertising material, then it is not acceptable as a specimen of use on or in connection with the goods. Material that is only advertising does not necessarily cease to be advertising because it is placed inside a package.

Package inserts such as invoices, announcements, order forms, bills of lading, leaflets, brochures, printed advertising material, circulars, publicity releases, and the like are not acceptable specimens to show use on goods. See In re Bright of America, Inc., 205 USPQ 63 (TTAB 1979).

I'll keep looking for more informations. I'm not in a good mood now Mizunoryu 大熊猫❤小熊猫 (talk) 18:10, 8 July 2009 (UTC)


There have been several cases which have determined that toys are copyrightable as sculpture and photographs are derivative works of them (and a few court cases which seem to rule in other directions). I'm sure fair use in these cases would make it OK for a wide range of uses of such photographs, but declaring them "free" is unfortunately pretty unlikely. On the other hand I would agree with Mike Godwin on the photographs of costumes thing -- other than masks, costumes are usually not copyrightable, and I've never found (online) any case which claims that photographs of costumes are derivative works of the costume design. I really can't see any good reason to delete that type of thing. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:19, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
“I'm sure fair use in these cases would make it OK for a wide range of uses of such photographs, but declaring them "free" is unfortunately pretty unlikely.” → How do you know? Wikipedia (and even more, I think all the projects as well) accept small citations for text, it means that we can take a small part of a big text, include it on-wiki, and the licensing terms do not change, the page is still under GFDL. Same for images here, per Commons:De minimis or other rules. →Diti the penguin — 13:21, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
For the U.S. anyways... it is somewhat cloudy. But there have been many court cases which have determined that toys were usually copyrightable works of art. The question is if photographs are derivative works... to the best of my knowledge, there are several contradictory court cases, but there is enough reason to believe they are. Using them on Wikipedia is almost certainly fair use, but declaring them "free" (and thus usable in all circumstances, including commercial) I sort of doubt. I can't find the reference now, but there was one court case that ruled that photos of figurines used in a collector's price catalog were fair use, but selling the photographs directly would not be. Mattel Inc. v. Walking Mountain Productions declared particular photos of Barbie dolls as non-infringing because they were a parody, which would be a complete defense (and OK here), but that still implies they are derivative works and therefore straight-up non-parody photographs would not get the same protection. s:Ets-Hokin v. Skyy Spirits Inc. was a 9th Circuit case which strongly implied that such photographs would be derivative works, though SHL Imaging, Inc. v. Artisan House, Inc. (a New York district court decision the same year) went completely the other way. See here. More recently, Schrock v. Learning Curve Intern., Inc. in 2008, which was about photographs of toys, followed the Ets-Hokin v. Skyy Spirits reasoning -- the photographer had permission to take the photos even, but the court ruled that since permission to copyright the photos had not been explicitly given by the copyright owner of the toys, the photographer's copyright registration was invalid. That ruling was criticized (see here (and I think is under appeal). Just a month later, there was a Latimer v. Roaring Toyz, Inc. decision which explicitly rejected the reasoning in Ets-Hokin v. Skyy and Schrock. William Patry covered those cases here. He believes that such photographs are not derivative works (on grounds of the technical definition that derivative works must transform the work in some way) but that they would still be subject to the reproductive right of the photographed work, which amounts to the same thing. Obviously it is confusing rulings like these which give rise to heated discussions here, as there is tons of gray area, but I still don't see how photos of toys can be considered fully copyrightable by the photographer (unless de minimis, or parody, or some other case where fair use would be a complete defense). Costumes on the other hand are generally not copyrightable (they are more a trademark issue) and I don't think photographs of costumes should be deleted. I've never found a court case concerning that. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:09, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] July 7

[edit] Is Original Research permitted for files on Commons?

Commons:Deletion requests/File:Beerpong shots.png - Am I confused about OR for files? Obviously OR is not permitted for articles, I would assume that the images used in articles must also be verifiable. Is the fact the an image is free and used in an article the only criteria, even if it is BS? ▫ JohnnyMrNinja (talk / en) 00:59, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

The Commons is not Wikipedia, and does not have an explicit prohibition on original research, see COM:NPOV. While you may have a good argument for not including the image in the English Wikipedia article, I don't see any reason to delete the image from the Commons off hand.-Andrew c (talk) 01:03, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Images don't even have to be used in articles - most aren't. Such an image should only be deleted if it's out of scope. As the project scope page explains, NOR and NPOV do not apply here. Dcoetzee (talk) 01:06, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Which I guess makes sense, it just seems like a breakdown in the system. Obviously there is no OR on WP, but it would be too much to try and police this here. These images are automagically usable for WP. But when OR is made into file and uploaded specifically to use in an article, that is a problem. At the least, it appears to be WP's problem. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja (talk / en) 01:29, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
I guess the idea is the project scope of the Commons is larger than just Wikipedia. This image may be usable in another Wikimedia project, such as Wiktionary, Wikiversity, or Wikibooks. Or it may serve some sort of usable purpose to someone, still within the project scope of the Commons, even if it isn't good for Wikipedia.-Andrew c (talk) 03:28, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Yes, and for images that require sources, those sources should be referenced in the Wikipedia article (or wherever it's used). An image by itself is just an image. Including it in some context which presents it as unbiased and correct is where you need citations. (Of course it helps other projects when the creator includes that info on the Commons page itself but that's not a requirement). Rocket000 (talk) 03:49, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Closed DR: Kept Sv1xv (talk) 03:52, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Without some relaxation of "OR" policies, it would actually be extremely difficult to use any diagrams, graphs, charts, or customized maps at all in a large number of Wikipedia articles -- since the relevant previously-existing graphics are generally copyrighted, while making new graphics from scratch necessarily involves some degree of "original synthesis"... AnonMoos (talk) 06:25, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] spam filter

I am wondering why www.deathcamps.org is blacklisted. It is info about Nazi capms. Are they really spamming? Altenmann (talk) 03:47, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

That's not coming off the blacklist for a long time. Heavily abused over a long period by numerous accounts and IPs.  — Mike.lifeguard 03:48, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
meta:Spam blacklist/Recurring requests#deathcamps.org.2Fdeath-camps.org. Rocket000 (talk) 04:10, 7 July 2009 (UTC)


[edit] William James Mildenhall

At Template talk:Mildenhall, someone started a project to import some his photographs to commons. I think it would be worth reviewing it, and, if possible, import more of them. -- User:Docu at 10:18, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Asmahan (singer) PD songs

Asmahan, a singer in Egypt, died in 1947. Egyptian copyright law states that any type of work whose author died 50 years ago is PD. There is however the {{PD-Egypt-1996}} template which states that it should have been prior to 1946 due to the "legally binding" URAA law. Should I also consider the author of the songs? The question in general is can I upload those songs?--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 11:49, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

We didn't refuse this kind of files upto now. Why should we change that now when the URAA is even more shaky than before? Yann (talk) 14:27, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Because we didn't notice the problem until now, that's why. We've been through this before, we respect the URAA. If they were already uploaded, I would say to mark them with {{Not-PD-US-URAA}}, since they are PD in Egypt but not in the United States, and we would decide what we want to do with them later. As it stands... you can either upload them or not, but be sure to include the {{Not-PD-US-URAA}} tag if you do. Dcoetzee (talk) 01:22, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] User:SieBot review?

Could someone (not me) look into how bot User:SieBot operates here on Commons and whether it needs improving? I'm sure it does useful work, but I just noticed that it has moved files from Category:Tarantula Nebula to Category:NGC 2070 (example diff) , but has thereby left several wikiprojects linking to a now-blank category. Shouldn't the bot first add something like a seecat template to the source category? Shouldn't the bot also update each sister project's Commons link? Finally, shouldn't the bot's edit summary include a link to where the move was requested? As I said I'm sure most of the moves are correct, but if I had seen a request for this particular set of moves I would have opposed but as it is now a fait accompli, at least the broken incoming links should be fixed. 84user (talk) 16:18, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

It's a move done by User:Tryphon through User:CommonsDelinker/commands, check with him/her. -- User:Docu at 16:38, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Yes, I initiated the move, simply because Tarantula Nebula is NGC 2070, so there is really no sense having two different categories duplicating the same content. I sincerely thought this wouldn't be controversial, and I wasn't aware that it could break things on sister projects. I added the {{seecat}} template; as for the now outdated inter-wiki links, I don't know if there is a bot around to take care of it. –Tryphon☂ 16:45, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
The problem don't consist in rename request of one category but in imperfect and ill-conceived system of category renaming. This problem is long-continuing and was many times criticised, but it seems to be too little desire to solution. It will be difficult to repair all thousands of disrupted links. --ŠJů (talk) 21:04, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
A start could be that the person renameing a category manually changed commonscat at en-wiki. Then the bots would fix the link next time the run at a wiki. --MGA73 (talk) 21:14, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Using commonscat to link many different category systems (>300) that each evolve their own way, own speed and own structure, is asking for troubles. See discussion on Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard#Cross-namespace_redirections. Multichill plans to extend his bot to pickup the category deletion summaries and adapt the interwiki and commonscat links accordingly. If the commons category would have a backlink to the referencing wikipedia articles, it should be not impossible for the moving bot to adapt the references to commons. --Foroa (talk) 06:21, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
I know that Multichill has some very interesting plans but until they come true we have to maintain commonscat the old way. Normally a category on a wiki will only point to one category on Commons. --MGA73 (talk) 17:52, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
This exact problem was discussed before, the problem is lack of tools to detect who might be linking to just about to be deleted categories something like check usage for categories or What links here that works across different wikis. One of the time this come up it was suggested to write bug report or request for code change, which I did about 2 years ago. But I do not think anything happen to it. --Jarekt (talk) 13:15, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
An alternative is to use {{Category redirect}} at the incorrect or outdated category. The media is somewhere else, but the user that appears there can know what has happened and where to go. And editor that followed an inter-project link and ended there, knows it's a mistake that should be corrected, pointing the link into the modern location of the category. Belgrano (talk) 14:45, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
Commons:Category redirects suck --Foroa (talk) 14:58, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] July 8

[edit] Aligning rtl langugaes in Preferences

There is currently a problem with the aligning of the Preference boxes in the User preferences for the Arabic language. Change your language setting to Arabic and you'll find left alignment instead of right in the different boxes for the preference. This needs to change to be like on the Arabic Wikipedia. Could this be fixed?--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 10:25, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

The links in the "toolbox" in the sidebar are missing their bullets, too (aligned too far right, I presume?). For the other sidebar boxes, alignment is inconsistent (in the "participate" box, the indent is greater than in the "navigation" box). And the user links at the top of the page (talk/prefs/watchlist/contribs/log out) also appear ltr. These are general problems, not just on the preferences page. Also, looking at my own user page, I notice that the page title (firstHeading) is right-aligned, but all the rest isn't. Is that intentional? Corrections would probably need to go in MediaWiki:Rtl.css, but don't ask me how exactly this could be fixed. Rtl languages confuse me. Lupo 11:06, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
BTW, since you speak Arabic, could you please help out here and here? Lupo 11:14, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Adding dates from files metadata

I just finished writing a script which fills "Date" field in {{Information}} from file's metadata. I think it worked well and I suggest running it on all, say, Self-published work (as many of them are either not in a standard form or empty) if they have taken date info in their metadata, otherwise it'll skip. The script has been tested, and AFAIK it doesn't have any bugs right now. I want simply to know community thoughts about such bot before proposing a bot flag.--OsamaK 10:34, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Sounds nice. I'd suggest not overriding existing data information (as you did here), though, except in cases where the existing "date" is clearly either autogenerated or not an actual date at all (e.g. "see EXIF"). I suspect it might be safe to assume that anything with no numbers in it is probably not a date (but remember to check for all Unicode numerals (\p{N} in PCRE), not just 0–9). Also, including the date you're adding (and what, if anything, you're replacing with it) in the edit summary would make reviewing the edits easier. Also, you may want to check for {{PD-old}} and related tags — I'm sure there are a few files tagged with both {{PD-old}} and {{self}}, e.g. because they're self-made photos of old artworks. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 23:30, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
The problem is the metadata data may be set by a camera, regardless of whether the camera operator actually set the date/time. Many people don't think about the date/time setting, or forget to reset it when necessary. So, you would be importing dates, that appear plausible, but are not correct. It would be neat if we could let users run such a tool on their own images, when they know the metadata is correct. But, running it on another person's images, is a bad idea. --Rob (talk) 05:04, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
I think it is OK provided that no existing dates are modified (date format can be normalized, see User:Slobot/date) and "(according to EXIF data)" is added after the date. --Apalsola t • c 09:31, 9 July 2009 (UTC) -- (typofix) Apalsola t • c 09:37, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
Your bot sounds like a very useful addition. I second Ilmari Karonen suggestion to not overwrite dates specified by users, since it is not unusual for cameras to have wrong dates. I think you should work closely with Slomox the operator of Slobot in Template_talk:ISOdate#Ymd template he was explaining yesterday how his bot works and he has a problem with ambiguous dates (e.g. date=4/7/2009 - which could mean 4 July or 7 April), where he was hoping to use EXIF data to resolve them. Here are cases where your bot would be very useful:
  1. No dates or see exif data dates
  2. pages where date is (original upload date) filled by transfer bot (ex. File:Picture 131a.jpg).
  3. Above mentioned ambiguous dates
I think your dates should be marked with (according to EXIF data). --Jarekt (talk) 13:00, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
If you wanted to be really fancy, you could create a custom template that used {{date}} to format the date and {{LangSwitch}} to autotranslate the "according to EXIF data" part. Also, BTW, one more possible sanity check would be to ignore dates that are unlikely to be valid, such as those before October 1995 (publication of the EXIF 1.0 standard) or after the last upload date of the file. Unfortunately, I believe most digital cameras default to a date somewhere around the time the camera model was released, unlike most computers which tend to conveniently fall back to 1970 or so. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 19:44, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] July 9

[edit] Proprietary rendering programs

If web pages rendered using proprietary layout engines such as Trident or Presto can not be used on commons, what happens with web pages that are shot in browsers using Gecko or Webkit/KHTML, but include elements handled by proprietary pulgins such as Adobe Flash, Windows Media Player or Quicktime? Samuell (talk) 15:45, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure the premise of your question is correct -- certainly screenshots of Wikipedia pages as rendered in MSIE etc. have traditionally been allowed, as long as the interface elements (i.e. title bar, menu bar, etc.) are excluded, and only the rendering of the freely-licensed web-page content is shown... AnonMoos (talk) 18:33, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. I believe the generally agreed-upon principle is that the output of a computer program will not automatically be a derivative work of the program unless it incorporates recognizable pieces (e.g. icons, background images, boilerplate text, 3D character design) of the program and unless these pieces are distinctive enough to pass the threshold of originality. Also, even if a work does contain pieces derived from non-free software, such as icons in a screenshot, which do pass the threshold of originality, they might still be de minimis in the context of the entire work if their inclusion in the work is clearly minimal and incidental. It's worth noting here that the occasionally quoted hard and fast rule to "never include non-free icons in screenshots uploaded to Commons" (as one might summarize the rules listed at Commons:Screenshots) dates from a time before Commons:De minimis became policy. Of course, it still remains a good goal to strive for, whenever possible. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 19:24, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
Fully agree with Ilmari on this one. The rough analogy is, if I follow the instructions in a copyrighted cookbook and then take a picture of the cake, is that copyright infringement? Not even remotely. Dcoetzee (talk) 22:20, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Interlanguage order in templates

I was told here that in Commons interlanguage links are ordered alphabetically after language codes. So I wonder, it's perehaps a bit odd compared to native name alpabetical order in Wikipedia where it's so important to have interviki links in right order? Wikipedia's way makes it probably easier to find your language without knowing language codes. Though it's usually not hard to find certain language here as most of templates aren't in too many languages (yet) and easier to order after codes, I'd still prefer to see interlanguage links ordered after native names. 195.50.204.207 19:24, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Those are links to different translations of a template, not "inter-language links" in the usual sense. However, the common practice for actual interwiki links (at the bottom of a category or gallery/article page) is the same both here and at en.wikipedia, as far as I'm aware -- by default, they're sorted by ISO-639 code. On Hebrew wikipedia, there's a practice of placing the link to English Wikipedia first, and then the other interwikis sorted alphabetically by ISO-639 code... AnonMoos (talk) 05:44, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
On the English Wikipedia they aren't sorted by language code (not all are ISO-639). They are sorted by language name. On Commons, we use both since we never really addressed it. Rocket000 (talk) 08:13, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Indefinite blocks

Sometimes, when a user uploads several copyright violations, or several images under the same rationale and many of them are found to be copyright violations, the whole lot of images are deleted for precaution. Sometimes it's a case of misunderstandings of what is or isn't acceptable, sometimes it's a case of intencional lies, but in any case, if images are not free are deleted. Those are called mass deletions.

But what happens when a user is indefinitely blocked for reasons other than copyright violations, such as vandalism, attacks, sock-pupettry or other such things? Is a mass deletion of his contributions justified, or not? Belgrano (talk) 20:41, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Not necessarily. Of course, any situation severe enough to justify an indefinite block probably also merits at least a glance at the user's contributions, but if the block was for reasons not directly related to the user's uploads, there may be no particular reason to even consider deleting them. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 21:25, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Cross-wiki blocks

Are there circumstances where a user can be blocked on commons because of actions done at other wikimedia projects? Belgrano (talk) 20:47, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

My gut reaction is that a blockable offence on one WMF project is an offence against the whole WMF shebang. However, the editor under fire may have run into some wayward admins (and I have doubts about several). Therefore, I would say take each case on its (their) merit. ‘Law’ has found there is an advantage in the adage of ‘innocent until proven guilty’.--P.g.champion (talk) 21:23, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
The usual tradition seems to be that we won't pre-emptively block users on Commons for their actions elsewhere, unless they've actually misbehaved here too. Indeed, it has been observed that quite a few users who may have ended up blocked on other projects for things like interpersonal conflicts or tendentious editing may still manage to contribute productively to Commons, simply because the users or issues that push their "hot buttons" are not present here. That said, I would also say that a user's history on other projects is certainly a valid aspect to consider when deciding how to respond to problematic behavior here on Commons. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 21:34, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
In at least one case I've seen a user who was blocked on En continue to contribute productively here. On the other hand, some users, such as persistent vandals, will try to play the same game on every wiki they visit anew. Once they've made their wiki-jumping habits clear there's no point in wasting every wiki's time independently. Dcoetzee (talk) 22:17, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] July 10

[edit] "Author Flickr" template

I created a "Author Flickr" template to use in the Author line of the {{Information}} template on files like File:Two little girls.jpg (the discussion at File talk:Two little girls.jpg#Author was what motivated this idea). What do you think of it? Feel free to move it to template space and use it if you like it. (Also, could someone more familiar with Commons templates do some documentation and error handling, and a protection request/protection if you think it appropriate?) Brian Jason Drake 05:39, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

It seems the same as Template:Flickr author. If it is different than I would work with authors of existing template to fix it instead of starting a new one. I also fixed File:Two little girls.jpg author line. --Jarekt (talk) 13:03, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Mayflower search

The Version 2.01 which is currently used states: "Index last updated October 24 2007". That is really bad, see also talk page. We should find someone who takes take about it, this is not the way to run a search engine for content which is dynamical (added media, deleted media, renames). --77.4.64.249 08:38, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I think we should disable Mayflower search in favor of default supported MediaWiki one. --EugeneZelenko (talk) 15:58, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] templated calls for help

As {{help}} and {{helpme}} are a feature of en:wp we have a regular, but very small, stream of users calling for help via these templates (Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Help, Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Helpme). It only seems polite to give some response rather than just ignoring these calls for help. It is not a hugh number so a simple mechanism to catch these calls would seem appropriate. If there is a bunch of people willing to monitor a category then it is trivial to throw these requests into a category that people can monitor, presumably the responder can remove the entries once addressed. Otherwise we could just have these templates direct people to the helpdesk, which might suffice, but I see quite a few requests just left on an image to request someone fix something so probably they wouldn't follow up at helpdesk. Thoughts? --Tony Wills (talk) 10:24, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] American or British English?

Just a question, but which language version of English is preferred here on Commons? American or British English? --The Evil IP address (talk) 10:31, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I can't imagine somebody being criticized for using either. If the subject is specific to UK or US, choose accordingly, otherwise, I think both are equally acceptable. --Eusebius (talk) 10:50, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
Whichever you prefer really. For pages like COM:L it should be consistent, but otherwise anything goes. -mattbuck (Talk) 10:51, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
I think the tradition is to use whatever an existing article already uses. For new pages, whichever you like. If you want to make an existing article consistent, you could probably either use what the article started with, or if a rather long history, whichever is predominant (but don't edit war about it :-). --Tony Wills (talk) 11:04, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
Australian English. You'll get banned for anything else. Rocket000 (talk) 13:10, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
Australian is English? I've always used tlh_AU... --Eusebius (talk) 13:15, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
That or use tlhIngan Hol. -mattbuck (Talk) 13:57, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Issue raised at Wikisource about image tagging

[Wikisource admin here] The following conversation was raised at WikiSource (full detail) and it is about images used at WikiSource that are slowly showing up on a list for deletion. That Commons is starting to tag long-held images used at other Wikimedia sites in such a manner is going to problematic, especially when the encouragement has always been, where possible, to load files at a central site, rather than at individual wikis. There needs to be a better methodology for tagging files at Commons that are considered in need of further information, especially where the files are in use in other wikis. The current schema does not allow for an extended grace period, or reasonable latitude to get more detailed information fitted. Suggestions most welcome. -- billinghurst (talk) 10:55, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

There real problem is this: When an image, which was transferred to Commons from another project, is tagged for deletion, the original uploaders or other editors using it are not notified. Sv1xv (talk) 11:05, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
What we need is some bot like Commonsdelinker to provide messages on wikipiediae when commons images are nsded or the like. I wouldn't have thought it would be overly difficult. -mattbuck (Talk) 11:07, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
It is my understanding that the images have been loaded directly to Commons. At this point in time, I use CommonsHelper to move media from either WS or WP to here with as full a description as possible. billinghurst (talk) 11:58, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
There are two options in Special:Preferences for "E-mail me when a page on my watchlist is changed" and "E-mail me when my user talk page is changed". In general, uploaders are notified on their talk page when an image is tagged, so if they enable these options, they should get a notification and can act on it. If a bot can be written to mirror such notifications also on the uploader's talk pages at other projects (Which ones? All SUL accounts that have contribs? Or only on the home wiki?), fine. But if they had enabled these options there, too, they might get a whole slew of e-mails for a single notification. Lupo 11:14, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
Very frequently an image is transferred to Commons not by the original uploader but by some other user (or a bot) and then it is deleted locally. Sv1xv (talk) 11:21, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
Then make the transferrers notify the original uploaders at the other wiki. Happens at en-WP, I got several notifications about images I had uploaded there locally having been transferred to the Commons. And if the original uploaders place the images they upload locally on their local watchlist, they'll even notice their local deletion if there is no such notification. Lupo 11:27, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
I think what Mattbuck is suggesting (or if he doesn't, I do) is putting a notification to the talk pages of the articles where the image is reused, so that reusers, who would be concerned about image deletion, could be warned and maybe do something about it. --Eusebius (talk) 11:58, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
Billinghurst, could you provide us with some examples? Are we talking about images uploaded directly here or transfered from Wikisource to Commons by a bot? Multichill (talk) 11:29, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
I have asked the user who raised the issue with me to bring forward some examples. billinghurst (talk) 11:58, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Is it enough ?

The page [12] has the notice "Content from these pages can be used without a prior consent by the author under the condition that the source of information is quoted." Is it enough for uploading some of its images in Commons ? Tieum512 (talk) 11:23, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Sounde like {{attribution}} to me, but I'd be a bit leery of it as it doesn't state for any purpose, including commercial and derivatives. -mattbuck (Talk) 12:22, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
Yes, per Commons:Copyright tags#Other free tags it would be the best if someone with good wording and knowledge asks the press office of the kroatian government. --Martin H. (talk) 14:05, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
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