Commons:Village pump/Archive/2007/07

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Change to Upload behavior considered harmful

Previously, after I uploaded a new image, the image would load and I would check it. Now, I get a "special" page that simply contains a link to the image and asks me to check it. The new page adds nothing; it makes me click through an extra time; the result is that I am much less likely to check the page.

FWIW, my mode when uploading is usually to pingpong between two Firefox tabs. Previously, around when I was done with writing a description in one tab, the other would typically be ready for checking. Now, at that point, if I click to that tab, I'm facing a screen that would makes me start a download of that page if I want to check it. But, given the inevitable time this involves, I don't. I hit "go" and start uploading the next image.

As far as I can tell, there is no advantage (at least to me) in the new arrangement. If someone else finds this "reminder" desirable, can we please at least arrange for it to be a user preference? - Jmabel | talk 00:15, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Hm. It used to be that you only got that page if you were overwriting a file.

I am pretty sure we admins can't change that behaviour, so it might have been a developer (software) change. I wrote a message to wikitech-l asking them to revert it. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 03:20, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Full ACK. The page is pretty useless at normal uploads. --AndreasPraefcke 11:53, 28 June 2007 (UTC) (now what really would be great to have is a preview of the image description page that is submitted by an upload. Linkfixing and category checking are difficult without preview.)

Please do see this relevant thread. AmiDaniel 17:16, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Appears to be back to old behavior now. Thanks. - Jmabel | talk 05:05, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Limit of file size?

What's the limit exactly (please in Byte)? -- Simplicius 13:33, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

The biggest file you can upload is 20MB I believe due to a PHP or Apache setting. Kotepho 14:06, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Question on new template

I added a new image template (Template:FAME) which is copy of Croatian Wikipedia's template [1]. Author gave premission for use of images and I linked the template to Croatian Wiki explanation. Is this ok?

Secondly, what code do I add to the template to make all the images marked by it part of the same category?

Thnx.The Dark Master 08:33, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

At the moment that template looks like "Wikipedia permission" which is not strong enough. A literal and then fluent translation of the original permission email would be useful. It really should go through OTRS too. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 08:43, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

This is permission for Wikipedia, not for commons, and all picture should be deleted --Suradnik13 14:55, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

This template is propose for deletion, like all images with this template ––Suradnik13 20:16, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Please note that this template is creating incomplete deletion requests, so any pictures nominated are not showing up in the deletion log. Deadstar 15:36, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

This is now fixed. Deadstar 08:00, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Fix for colorblindness

As a partially red/green colorblind person, I was somewhat confused when I came across Image:US Secession map 1865.svg. I know my US states, but if I didn't, I'd have no way of knowing which state Kansas was. Could someone please modify this image by making Kansas a different color, say grey perhaps? I'd do it, but my computer doesn't have software for modifying SVGs. Nyttend 18:45, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

 Done via this edit.   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 20:23, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

That's an interesting point. Perhaps we should start encouraging our map makers to use patterns (dots, stripes) in addition to colours? pfctdayelise (说什么?) 07:57, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that would also help with colorblind printers (printers that print in black and white). Yes, there still are many of these, especially in businesses and attached to older computers.  :)   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 15:47, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

First thought: provide graphic-drawers with a colourblind-safe colour palette to choose from. But then there are several types of colour-partial-sightedness, so I am thinking about a tool that generates colourblindish and greyscale thumbnails from an input image, something to invoke from the lefthand menu. If originally different colours appear the same, then the choice was not good. -- Klaus with K 16:20, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Maybe this is helpful: how to make pictures more friendly for colourblind people (it's for scientific images but the rationale is the same) and a web-based tool to check if images are ok for several types of colourblindness. PatríciaR ^msg 16:35, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

A page for future discussion: Commons:Creating accessible illustrations. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 06:13, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Let's avoid hatchures, etc. I have no trouble with selecting colors for both aesthetics and colorblindness, but different "symbols" are less helpful then colors and can cause trouble that colors can't. 68.39.174.238 22:20, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Announcements page

Discussions in Commons are spread between the village pump and other similar pages (other languages), so it's very difficult to initiate extended debates about subjects which concern the whole community.

As Commons:Administrators' noticeboard is unsuitable for that, I'd like to create a new page in order to announce general discussions (and votings).

What do you think about Commons:Schedule board? --Juiced lemon 17:54, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Personaly, I am lost in the tens of discussion places and their archives. Anyway, this schedule board might be interesting (I would rather call it current Agenda, but that's only a detail), I would like to see the conclusions of important debates somewhere grouped so that I don't have to read through this massive amount of discussions. --Foroa 21:49, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

There used to be Commons:Journal but it has not been used recently. --Matt314 10:16, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the information. Some advertising about this page would be welcomed. --Juiced lemon 12:13, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Ick...

The new Image:Copyright.svg is awful in that now everything else based on it (Copyright) is different looking and out of whack. I also suspect that this has caused annoyance on all similar WMF wikis where this is used and how the Dickens is such a massively used licensing image unprotected. I have an urge to overwrite it with a pirate flag... 68.39.174.238 02:21, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Why pirate flag? Wooyi 23:52, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Are you serious? 68.39.174.238 22:12, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Assistance needed

User User:David.Monniaux uploaded a bunch of images copyrighted by another photographer http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=Mai-Linh+Doan&fulltext=Search honestly marking them as "Copyright © 2006 Mai-Linh Doan". When I marked for deletion one of them asking for the waiver by the copyright owner, he objected in my discussion page he got a verbal permission from her to publish the images under a GNU license. I already answered him about the fact that we need a written statement about it, but I would not be able to assist him in the process of the donation. Could some adm or someone else with some experience in the "donation by a third person" process help him? Thank you --User:G.dallorto 15:45, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

You may use {{Npd}} (No Permission since <Date>) for cases like this instead of filing a deletion request, using {{Image permission}} to notify the uploader. That template also contains the necessary instructions as well as a link to Commons:OTRS. Also see Commons:Email templates. —LX (talk, contribs) 23:03, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Nowhere do the rules on Wikimedia Commons say that we in general need an email from the photographer if the photographer is not the uploader (that would actually pose a problem for photographers with no email access). OTRS is a means for storing permission emails if we get them, not a general obligation. We only request permission emails when the case is dubious (obviously "pro" work, uploader with a weird upload history, photograph lifted from a third party site).

I contend that if I say that I have permission from a personal acquaintance to do such or such with some photographs, then it should be good enough for commons. Let's see. I'm an administrator since about the beginning of Commons, I've written part of the copyright policies. I'm an m:OTRS operator. If I wanted to upload copyright violations, it would be terrifically easy, I could even create OTRS references from thin air.

Since we in general do not request email confirmation, and we only do so with respect to dubious cases, then I conclude that G.dallorto suggests that I am somewhat suspicious or unreliable. In this case, I wonder why I should still spend time as an admin on that site.

One additional point: email authorizations are not worth much, legally speaking, at least in general. "Written permission" in the normal sense of the term means a sheet of paper with a signature, sent from an identifiable person with a legal name who certifies in writing the authenticity of the work. This is what professional publishers require (at least those in developed countries that do non-trivial amounts of publishing), and this is a far cry from an authorization email. Authorization emails are mostly useful when they come from people with FlickR etc. accounts, in order to prevent our users from uploading copyvios. David.Monniaux 06:00, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Please make your position clear on the deletion request which you blanked. Also, using your administrative privileges to remove the delete tag from the image[2] and then protect the image from editing with hostile and personal edit comments is not a very appropriate use of said administrative privileges. Arguments put forth in the deletion request will be duly considered, and there is no urgency in this process, so please be patient and civil, and let the processes apply to you just as they do to everyone else. —LX (talk, contribs) 06:56, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm using personal edit comments because it is the second time that I see this particular user deliberately listing for deletion images that pose no particular problem just to make some kind of point, or as a kind of retribution. Were you there when he listed all images of street protests containing flags that he could find?

I'm not putting up with people who invent rules, then threaten others with deletion for not respecting them. They waste my time and other admins'.

As for my administrative privileges, feel free to ask a steward to remove them. I'm not spending any more time doing that if the inmates run the asylum. David.Monniaux 07:11, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Contrary to the statemen saying "Nowhere do the rules on Wikimedia Commons say that we in general need an email from the photographer if the photographer is not the uploader", I recall the uploader about the fact that when you upload a file in WikiCommons which is not yours, you are warned in the uploading process: (quote) "if you're not the author: Permission of author (quote) - please also forward it to permissions@wikimedia.org; you still have to select the appropriate license in the dropdown box or add one below the summary." I won't comment here about personal attacks and abuses of privileges. Let's simply try and solve the problem, ok? --User:G.dallorto 13:02, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

"if you're not the author: Permission of author" -- When was that message added? Who added it? Under which authority? It was not a Foundation decision, I've just checked with the board. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by David.Monniaux (talk • contribs) at 20:47, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Anyway, you've won, I've put my adminship on hiatus. I have no time to spare with that kind of bureaucracy, I already have too much of it at work. Go on inventing new "rules" that do not advance the legal safety of Wikimedia one bit and just annoy users. Bureaucrat! David.Monniaux 17:49, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

what happened to the choral public domain library site?

Does anybody know? I'm lost without it... —the preceding unsigned comment is by Ccstrott (talk • contribs) 03:42, 1 July 2007 (eUTC)

No, we don't. We get tons of messages on m:OTRS about it. David.Monniaux 06:00, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

You could try posting about it here based on this edit by a Comcast Communications cable modem customer in the San Francisco Bay Area or use a contact method from its WHOIS record. You could also visit its latest archive. The website used to run on "cpdl.org", one name for the machine at IP Address "171.64.196.13" that is also named "ccarh-adm-3.Stanford.EDU", which machine is not responding at present, so you could also contact the IT folks at Stanford University. See also: m:WikiScores Music Merger.   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 02:44, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Respect of "Orientation" Metadata

It appears that the display capabilities of Commons (or maybe of MediaWiki in general) do not respect the "Orientation" Metadata when thumbnailing, and when given images taken with an orientation different from the normal one, display those images using the camera's perspective, rather than the photographer's perspective (Flickr and various software for Windows all use the photographer's perspective for all but the raw view of the image). For example, please see Image:Tackle.jpg as compared to Tackle. What can be done about this? Thanks!   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 23:07, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

bugzilla:6672: "EXIF orientation not used". --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 03:11, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Naming categories

A new guideline Commons:Naming categories is in progress. Your comments and proposals will be welcomed in the talk page. You'll find this link again in an announce of the Commons:Journal. --Juiced lemon 14:09, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Adopting fan art guideline

Would there be any objection to putting Commons:Fan art in Category:Commons guidelines? Is some sort of broad approval need for this? Thanks.--Pharos 00:19, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable to me. Michelet-密是力 05:15, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I disagree, because I disapprove any use of “post-it notes” in Commons guidelines. --Juiced lemon 21:13, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "post-it notes". This idea, which was discussed fairly fully on the VP earlier in the year, seems of a similar nature to the other members of Category:Commons guidelines. Remember, the "guidelines" are more suggestive and informal than the pages in Category:Commons policies.--Pharos 22:10, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I did not see what was meant by "post-it notes" in this context either, and the guideline seems reasonable to me, at first read anyway, so once it's vetted I would support including it in the category. ++Lar: t/c 22:18, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I meant I disapprove the increase of guidelines regarding tiny subjects. More, I would like to understand the difference between guidelines and policies in Commons (on fact, not in wording). --Juiced lemon 08:50, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea to have a small number of broad policies and a larger number of more specific guidelines. The difference is more or less about consensus, community acceptance. Policies should be adopted and followed by all community members (in theory, and practice). There is also maybe a difference in how acceptable it is to break a guideline as opposed to a policy.

For example, our policy is: we don't allow copyvios or unfree licenses (i.e. COM:L). But that is a very painful document to read, and it needs different interpretation in different domains. I think it's a great idea to make domain-specific guidelines about licensing. We can have one for fan art, one for deriv works of statues/buildings, etc etc. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 09:25, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

OK, I've added it as a guideline as it's been over a week, and the only opposition seems to be against the idea of guidelines in general, something that's not really actionable.--Pharos 21:13, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Can someone dig out the OTRS permission for this image?

Image:HowardDeanDNC.jpg

The author sent in an email to Wikipedia permissions releasing the image under the GDFL.

Thanks. Bbsrock 01:42, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

 Done See image description page. Cheers! Siebrand 07:16, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Is the "successful upload" page ever useful?

Hi,

Some people uploading recently may have noticed the "Successful upload" page on Special:Upload currently shows after all uploads, not just overwriting uploads (re-uploads). The behaviour is being changed back so that "Successful upload" only shows on overwriting uploads. But is it useful at all? We could ask the developers to remove the "Successful upload" page altogether, so that if you are doing a normal upload or a re-upload, you are always taken directly to the image page.

I had a feeling the "Successful upload" page was useful as a reminder that a file had been overwritten, in case this wasn't intentional. But what do other people think? Should we just do away with the "Successful upload" page altogether? --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 04:25, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I think a reminder might be in order, but I'd rather see it in the form of a one-time notice at the top of the image description page. —LX (talk, contribs) 12:51, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

To me it was but a nuisance, one further step in the process of uploading. I'd rather stay without it. --User:G.dallorto 15:37, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Agree, we should get rid of it. Wooyi 23:54, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Agree as well. -- Infrogmation 00:46, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

A message at the top of the page like when you watch/unwatch could be used, but a separate page is not needed. Richard001 01:09, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Matters that honestly I need to make

I have one extra account, in which, by my deliberate action, I have broke the rule of sockpuppetry, my extra account is User:Aeonimitz on this wiki commons. If possible, can any admins here, block these extra account that I have. Thank you. — Imran Al-Sahih 08:15, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

As far as I know there isn't much against sockpuppetry as long as you do not use your sockpuppets to deliberately mislead anyone, heat a debate, or vote with multiple accounts. From the edits of your second account, I can see no such thing. You might want to redirect the user page and talk page to yours. We do not have to block the second account, IMO. Cheers! Siebrand 08:38, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

We don't need to block the other account but we may do so if you really want to. I have added this to your user page so that no one can blame you of sockpuppetry. Samulili 09:01, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Multiple accounts are okay, as long as they aren't used for sockpuppetry. Richard001 00:59, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Briefmarks -> Stamps

Because of a problem we had on nl-wikipedia with a user who uploaded several briefmarks to illustrate biographies, I looked up the dutch laws and rights about this. I can't seem to find annything on this subject on Commons though: would it me interesting to make an information page to collect the information about different countries (like we did with COM:FOP)? Ciell 13:01, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

You are talking of stamps, I presume? --Rimshot 13:14, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

While I was checking my contribution I was wondering if "Briefmarke" wasn't just the German word... Yes, I did mean stamp and found Commons:Stamps/Public domain, but that one only states the public domain country's? Anyone any ideas? Ciell 20:17, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Featured content

We have featured media each day of a picture and media file. But could we not expand this to include a featured page as well? Pages, categories, or both, could be candidates. This could be daily or weekly. I think we need to set a good example for how an ideal page or category should be, and they would also be nice to look at. Richard001 01:17, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

You can see some discussion about this at Commons:Featured galleries, but so far it hasn't been launched. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 03:08, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up, hadn't heard about it. Richard001 10:44, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Commons:Discussion index

Hello. Because the discussions on Commons are spread across all kind of places, I have created Commons:Discussion index. This is a three hourly updated page, which will contain the latest topics, sorted by date. Similarly there is Commons:Administrators' discussion index. You can also set up your own discussion index, using User:BryanBot/DiscussionIndex. -- Bryan (talk to me) 10:13, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Categorizing Difficulties

I'm having some problems putting tags and categorizing my single picture, "The_Neon_Arch_on_Galena_Avenue_in_Dixon,_IL.jpg" and I am getting errors that go along the lines of, 'Database Error: Access denied for user 'daniel_www'@'hemlock.ts-local' to database 'u_daniel_cache' (zedler.ts-local) - failed to connect to log database - failed to log script start! I also get these errors when trying to check usage of my image. It links fine, as it's currently being used in Wikipedia for Dixon, IL, but that link doesn't show up in my gallery. I've received this error on 2 different IPs, and I'm not sure why. Can anybody point me in the right direction? Thanks! Framerotblues 14:17, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

There is problems with Toolserver which hosts many scripts used in Commons. See Template:Toolserver for status. --EugeneZelenko 14:39, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Logo?

... a logo? BMW kidney

I'm surprised that my uploaded image Image:BMW 330 kidney.JPG showing the BMW kidney has been deleted by Admin User:Szczepan1990 giving the following reason: logo (log). Isn't a logo something else? According to this reason, several hundred pictures are to be deleted here, soon. I would like to have a clear regulation.

See de:BMW-Niere -- Mattes 13:09, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Restored. This logo-paranoia is getting out of hand here. --Fb78 13:25, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

You're absolutely right. Thanks a lot! -- Mattes 13:45, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

The deletion of this photo was nonsense --ALE! ¿…? 12:41, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Commonist again

Since nobody answered my question as to the Commonist tool here or at Commons talk:Tools/Commonist, let me rephrase it: Is anybody working with Commonist right now? I. e.: is it really only me that cannot log in to Commons via this tool? --AndreasPraefcke 12:44, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I made some uploads using Commonist yesterday. I used commonist-0.2.10 without any trouble. Cheers! Siebrand 15:20, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. That's kind of disturbing... do you get the dreaded captcha form when loggin on to Commons? I do (maybe that's due to my internet provider, i. e. IP number?). --AndreasPraefcke 10:17, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Nothing of the sort... Siebrand 10:35, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Hm. Miraculously (or not: i finally was able to download the long-broken latest zip archive and re-install), it works again. Thanks to everybody who tried to help. --AndreasPraefcke 11:06, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Notification on deletions?

Hi, I've never paid very much attention to commons, I have to admit that, but occasionally I, and others on sv:wiktionary do link to images hosted here. Now, twice during the last couple of days I've suddenly found dead links to images I'm positive were here earlier (Image:Black coffee in cup.jpg, Image:Cat2.jpg: the latter deleted June 4, and replaced with a new image *after* I replaced or removed all links to it from sv:wiktionary). And yes, by some link-chasing, I see they were deleted due to insufficient license information(?). My question thus, is "where do we see or where do we get notified, if an image we are using in the Swedish Wiktionary is going to be deleted from here"? Because, I know of no comprehensive software-generated list of *all* images used on sv:wikt to work from, in order to regularly check for possible deletions here, and I further wouldn't want to spend all the time needed to keep track of that. Alternatively, is there any single page, here or elsewhere, where I should know about, which lists all images to-be-deleted and which are in use on sv-wiktionary? Also, is there any page where I may see if there are other dead image links present on sv:wiktionary at the moment? I've looked through sv:wikt's "specialpages" to no avail.

Thanks in advance, \Mike 20:03, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Theoretically, if somebody tags an image missing license information, they should inform the uploader. Feel free to slap them if they didn't. Furthermore, there is a bot called Commons:CommonsTicker, which will inform local wikis about pending deletions. It has unfortunately been down lately, because of downage of the Toolserver it depends on. If your wiki doesn't have a CommonsTicker yet, please contact User:Duesentrieb to set one up. -- Bryan (talk to me) 20:17, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the info - as I understand it, without that we might be trying in vain to keep up with the deletions and changes around here... I'll ask Deusentrieb pronto. However, the notifications to the *uploader* doesn't help us much - we didn't upload the stuff, only link to it... Question remains however, how we're going to find all (any additional?) links broken during the toolserver downtime, or any already broken links... \Mike 20:45, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

It will be very hard to do so, I'm afraid. There is a big backlog of images to be deleted and I think it's mostly because admins can't check whether they are being used somewhere, so they avoid deleting. But we really can't wait forever. In the meanwhile, let's just keep an open eye to images newly linked to wiki projects and follow their history in Commons if they are tagged somehow for deletion. PatríciaR ^msg 21:24, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

To find possibly deleted images you can check your sandbox, I have put a list of the images you use there. /90.229.135.239 23:28, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Technical Userpage issue

Hi, I'm sort of a new user, been here about a month or so, and I wanted to pretty-up my userpage instead of having just a gallery to show, so I created a template (see it here) to make my image-viewing a bit more aesthetically pleasing and more creative. In doing so, I found out that no text could be displayed to the right of the template, which was what I originally planned to do. Instead, the text you type after the {{User:Scrumshus/Photoreel}} code line shows up inside the template, inside the scrolling bar (to understand this, you must see the template and you need to edit it to visually see this). I would like to write about myself on ym userpage, but the template isn't being cooperative. Can anyone help?

Thanx for readin, Ṣ₡ЯՄՊՏɧѱᎦ ^☎/ _∑ 20:16, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Registers of historic places

The plaque

The U.S. has something called the National Register of Historic Places. We have a corresponding category. Subordinate to that category are per-state categories with names like Category:Registered Historic Places in Washington. I think something slightly different needs to be done; I noticed this when I added some images of the Beckstrom Cabin in Bothell, Washington. The plaque pictured here says that the cabin is in a Local Register of Historic Places, so it would naturally be in Category:Registered Historic Places in Washington, but it is presumably not in the National Register of Historic Places.

Any suggestions for category names and hierarchy to fix this? Presumably we should handle it the same way for all states, so I don't just want to wing it unilaterally. - Jmabel | talk 04:46, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

There should probably be a totally separate hierarchy for each "register", with the sub cats being just more specific for our own use.

Is the image description page the "title page" for GFDLed files?

Opinions welcome at Template_talk:GFDL#this_document. In the addendum of the GFDL, it says

To use this License in a document you have written [sic], include a copy of
the License in the document and put the following copyright and
license notices just after the title page: 

In our template:GFDL, we say

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify __this document__ under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License...

and "this document" links to the raw file (via a Media:) link. Should "this document" be changed to link to the image page itself?

Given that the GFDL is imperfectly worded for media "documents" anyway, I'm inclined to think the media link is more direct and accurate, but given how widespread this template is I thought it deserved some wider input. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 07:54, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Newly uploaded files won't play when expected

Newly uploaded files won't play from the "uploaded" page (e.g. ), when the obvious "Play" triangle is clicked. The recent changes that added the cute clapper icon cause an inset screen to open when it is clicked, but this does not play the audio files I uploaded. I have to click the underlined name of the file or the speaker icon. So, what then is the purpose of the huge clapper icon with the blue "Play" triangle on it? It seems only to confuse the person trying to access an audio file. --EncycloPetey 18:44, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I would guess it indicates that the media might be video as well as audio. /Lokal_Profil 20:04, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Are .ogg files ever video? --EncycloPetey 20:45, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes. — Timichal 23:01, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Yes. See Media:DuckandC1951.ogg for instance. /Lokal_Profil 23:02, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Commons:Categories for discussion

It is active, please add it to your watchlist. -- Bryan (talk to me) 08:49, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I've taken the freedom of adding it to Category:Commons maintenance, so that it can be found more easily. Would anyone be opposed to having a shortcut COM:CFD as well? --Rimshot 11:15, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Please go for it. - Jmabel | talk 20:06, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

 Done --Rimshot 16:26, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Star Wars stuff

• Image:At-at.png
• Image:B-wing starfighter.png

These two files (and others) are listed as "public domain" because they were made by the US government, apparently. But, if they are part of the Star Wars universe, aren't they copyrighted by Lucas? Raffaello9 22:36, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

They're not labeled as they were made by the US Government. They're labeled patents registered in the US and were registered in 1981 by Lucas, Jr. et al. The tag says that patent drawings are free in most countries. MECU≈talk 22:49, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Hmm.. Wikipedia:Copyright on the content of patents says:

In the United States, a patent applicant may obtain copyright protection or mask work protection for the content of their patent application if they include the following authorization notice in their application:

A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to (copyright or mask work) protection. The (copyright or mask work) owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all (copyright or mask work) rights whatsoever.

Otherwise, however, "the text and drawings of a patent are typically not subject to copyright restrictions."

So the question is: is that authorization notice included in the Star Wars patents? --88.134.44.255 02:31, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

leitmotif not updating

I've asked this question at the Help Desk, but got no response.

I can't get the corrected pronunciation of Image:En-us-leitmotif.ogg to load properly. Each time I upload, the audio file plays the same as the original, both from here and from Wiktionary. However, each time I upload the corrected file, the older versions have the corrected audio file which they didn't before. What is going on?

At the very least, could someone delete the current file so I can upload the corrected verion? It would be nice if I could do this myself. --EncycloPetey 18:56, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Have you tried to purge? I've done it now and I hear.. something. Not sure what I'm expecting to hear anyway =)/Lokal_Profil 00:08, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

What I seem to be hearing is only the last part. I.e. not the same as [3]. /Lokal_Profil 00:11, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm getting the exact opposite (only the first part) when playing it in Kaffeine (the actual length seems to vary each time). I guess the problem might be the very short duration of the clip, which might confuse some audio players. —LX (talk, contribs) 16:02, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm hearing the entire audio file in my player, but it's still the wrong version. Yes, I purged. I rebooted the computer. I've even come back more than a day later after shutting down my computer. It's still the wrong audio file. Can someone please help me load the corrected version? --EncycloPetey 02:48, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Can't convert video

Dear all, I can't convert the video file of singing Zoothera dohertyi. Both ffmpeg2theora and VLC media player don't work. Can somebody help me? You can download *.avi file from here (6Mb); please, convert it to appropriate format and upload to commons with {{self|GFDL}} template and my wikipedia nick. Thanks in advance! --Shao 13:49, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I've converted it and will upload in the next few minutes. (Just noting here to avoid duplicated work.) —LX (talk, contribs) 16:09, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

 Done. Your video is available at Image:Zoothera dohertyi.ogg. Please add the date when you created the video and any other information you think might be appropriate. —LX (talk, contribs) 16:26, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

How direct should a valid source URL be?

I'm originally from the Afrikaans Wikipedia, where I've been having a bit of trouble from users who only provide the main URL (for instance http://commons.wikimedia.org) instead of a direct link like http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:JAM009.JPG). I'm having trouble convincing him that this is required, seeing as how the English Wikipedia and the Commons only states If you copied it from another web site, provide a URL. (from Commons:First steps/Upload form). Am I in the wrong, or is it implied that a direct link is required? Often these sites are in languages other than English (of Afrikaans) and I've had trouble finding the pictures that have been uploaded to our servers on the listed source site. Anrie 17:59, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

• Preferably you should give 3 urls: The page the image appears on, the image, and a link to the site's terms of service with copyright info. Just giving a general link to the site is not sufficient sourcing. -N 18:06, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

• • I agree with N. Usually the URL of the page that the image appears on is the most important one, since from that we can easily get the image's direct URL, and the site's general URL. The page the image appears on sometimes provides important contextual information like author credits. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 03:10, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you both - let's just hope I can convince him to see it my way... Anrie 14:57, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

As I expected, he claims that that is just my interpretation of the rules, seeing as how it doesn't explicitly state that the url should link to the page where the image is published. Is there anywhere where this is explicitly stated? Anrie 16:49, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like you need to work on your local image policies to explicitly state an image source is required. Just giving a link to the domain is not giving a source for the image...definitely not one that is verifiable. Since you are an admin and the user (presumably) is not, I would just delete the image, regardless of what he says. ISome people are unreasonable and you have to assert your authority. I'm sure no other admin would be willing to undelete an unsourced image. -N 18:19, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Given the extremely polite culture of the Afrikaners, just deleting the images (there are close to 200 of them) would be considered extreme, even if it is justified. I have contacted another admin to repeat to the user what I have already told him. If the user doesn't respond within a week I will indeed tag the images as "No valid source given", which gives another two weeks before it qualifies for speedy deletion. I'll change the policy to state explicitly that the url should lead to the page on which the image is displayed. Anrie 09:20, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Requested media

We have a page for image requests, but where would I go to request an audio or video media file? In this case I'd like to request a video of a person moving their ears for w:vestigial structure (that one might take a few years to be fulfilled, I know...) I can't see how this could be shown without a video, but I also can't find any request page besides images (and pronunciation requests). A combined video and audio request page would be good, which could then be split into sections such as nature sounds, music, pronunciation, etc. Once again, I have a feeling I may have missed the page, so if I have just point me to it.

Edit:I've created Category:Commons requests as a central request category, which I felt we were lacking. There's a matching Wikipedia category which may help with future expansion. Richard001 05:57, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I've created a page for audio and video requests at Commons:Audio and video requests. Richard001 03:45, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Images from International Crisis group

Here's there copyright policy. I don't think anyone would argue that their images could be uploaded here however the question is what licence should be used. They say Unless otherwise specifically stated, no claim to copyright is being asserted by Crisis Group and material on this website may be freely used as in the public domain but also In that regard, so long as you credit Crisis Group as the source and so long as you comply with the other terms and conditions in this notice, no permission is required to use, reproduce, copy, modify or download any of the Crisis Group Materials. How would you suggest to mark these images? Alaexis 10:52, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, while I believe the policy is written to read like a free, possibly copyleft license, it is vague and contradictory enough on several points to the degree that I'm not at all sure works covered by it could be uploaded here until those discrepancies are corrected, preferably by replacing the statement with an established license which has been reviewed by legal professionals. Two points in particular stand out:

• The claim that "no claim to copyright is being asserted by Crisis Group and material on this website may be freely used as in the public domain" is clearly contradicted by the requirement to "credit Crisis Group as the source and ... comply with the other terms and conditions in this notice". Use of works in the public domain does not entail compliance with such terms and conditions, so the images obviously may not be "freely used as in the public domain".
• The provision stating that "each time you redistribute the Crisis Group Materials or any modification thereof, the recipient automatically receives a license from Crisis Group to use, reproduce, copy and modify the Crisis Group Materials..." is quite vague. Is someone who distributes modified works merely required to inform all recipients of the licensing of the original work? Is he required to include the unmodified work? Is he required to license his modifications under the same license?

The organisation appears intent to allow the public to benefit from their works, so hopefully, they would welcome suggestions to place their works under a well-established license to improve the odds of this and to better secures the legal status of the images.

—LX (talk, contribs) 16:27, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I have written an email to Crisis Group informing them of this discussion and asking if they would be willing to license under CC-BY-SA 2.5. Hopefully we'll get a response. - BanyanTree 08:01, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

free photo's

I've got a lot of photo's I want to publish as Cc-by-2.5. The photo's are here: [4] (+subfolders). It are all photo's of fishes I caught (the subfolders/albums = the Dutch name of the kind.). What can I do to let the Commons users know they can pick a photo over there? There are to much photo's over there to upload them all to commons. - Warddr 18:16, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

First I think you should edit the folder on Photobucket to include a note to say "All these images are licensed under CC-BY-2.5 license" or similar text.

Then I guess I would leave a notice at Commons talk:WikiProject Tree of Life, hopefully someone interested will take up the work of transferring the files. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 03:36, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Re-naming an Image

I recently accidentally uploaded an image (Image:IMG 0890.JPG) without naming it properly. How do I re name an image? Ṣ₡ЯՄՊՏɧѱᎦ ^☎/ _∑ 03:30, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Re-upload under a better name, then put {{badname|Image:new name.jpeg}} on the old one, and it will soon be deleted. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 03:38, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Also {{Please link images}} by using categories and/or galleries! --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 03:38, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Italy - no panoramic freedom

Now, could anyone tell me what this means in the end? Is this Image:Populonia Necropoli di San Cerbone Plan.jpg a copyvio?? I already asked a similar question here, but nobody answered. --AM 16:51, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

It is a copyvio, and it has nothing to do with freedom of panorama. A map or plan is of course copyrighted by its designers. David.Monniaux 19:08, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

You're kidding. --AM 21:00, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

David is right. Even if Italy had freedom of panorama (which it doesn't), this would only apply to photographs of three-dimensional public works.--Pharos 21:24, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

No, David is not right. In Germany, there's no indication in the panoramic freedom law that there is any exception for two-dimensional works. --AndreasPraefcke 12:45, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

It's not directly in the wording, but I'm under the strong impression that the whole point of "freedom of panorama" everywhere is for dealing with three-dimensional works. Can you point to any evidence that Germany really does apply FOP to two-dimensional works?--Pharos 21:37, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

The relevant German law says nothing about the form of the work. It can be anything that is 1. viewable from a public venue and 2. permanent. Two-dimensionality is not a problem. --Rimshot 21:48, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I am aware that the wording of the law does not specifically mention the form of the work. However, my general impression is that the whole point of freedom of panorama is just to protect the right to photograph solid objects that are a part of the public landscape, so I wonder if the solid form of the work is implied. I noticed when researching the laws of a couple of other countries for COM:FOP that they also do not explicitly mention dimensionality, but I eventually reverted myself on including them, concerned that I was going too far in legal intrerpretation. What I want to know is, do we have confirmation of how FOP in Germany may apply to 2-D images outside of that one clause in the law (which may be ambiguous), for example: court rulings, writings by lawyers, government guideboks etc. Thanks.--Pharos 16:45, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I have not found any particular source for that, but the law is quite obvious: it says "Werke", which means works. Works are defined as pretty much any creative works, by "§ 2 Geschützte Werke". The only problem you can run into is the part about "bleibend". Bleibend means permanent. Something like the veiling of the Reichstag is not permanent, for example[5]. Permanent is usually taken to mean "staying in place for the natural lifespan of the work", however short that may be. This has been taken to include ice sculptures and street painting (same source). Finally, the German wikipedia names FOP as a way of legally photographing coats of arms (here). These last two are about as close as I could get to two-dimensional works. --rimshot^talk 11:58, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Copyvios??.... Image:Italian trattoria sign.jpg, Image:Friuli-venezia giulia1.jpg, Image:FanSennPrags.JPG, Image:Viaenricofermi.jpg, Image:Zuccarello-IMG 0370.JPG, Image:Monti - via leonina - insegna 051218-01.JPG, Image:Graffiti Ospedaletti.jpg, Image:Graffiti - Rimini - Foto Giovanni Dall'Orto, aprile 2004 01.jpg and many more others. --AM 16:48, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Simple lettering signs are probably not copyrighted, a few others look too old to be under copyright, and a few look like they might be deletable. -N 22:33, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

And as for Image:Graffiti Ospedaletti.jpg, I confirm that the photo is mine, taken during a short stay in Italy. It would be nice if you contacted the uploaders whenever you suspect their images are copyvios instead of doing nothing. ^^ I had forgotten I hadn't filled out the form completely. Arria Belli | parlami 13:16, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

My question(!) was rhetorical. My pic (see above) was deleted as a copyvio, because it is a "work of art", I copied by taking a photo of it. I think, all the mentioned pics are no copyvios. Soon it will be imposible to upload any photos out of Italy, I fear. By the way - your argument, that the photo is yours is not relevant. --AM 17:15, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Is this image PD?

It appears to me that [6] is really {{PD-textlogo}} because it merely consists of wording. Is that accurate? -N 00:06, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Unlikely. {{PD-textlogo}} applies to logotypes consisting of text in a general typeface. This logotype goes beyond that in the placement and distortion of each individual letter. —LX (talk, contribs) 00:40, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, is Image:IBM logo.svg also written in a general typeface? --ALE! ¿…? 13:56, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

It may be (I don't know which typeface that would be, tho). But it also goes beyond that with the distortion of each letter. --Iamunknown 19:15, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Problem with {{PD-AR-Photo}}

Hi. I've recently stumbled upon some images which have the {{PD-AR-Photo}} license, and I have wondered why are we allowing them. I mean, according to Commons:Licensing#Interaction of United States copyright law and foreign copyright law "the copyright laws of both that country and of the United States apply to the upload", so while these photos are in the public domain according to the Argentinian laws, they are not in the public domain according to the United States laws when they are not old enough, and such. Do we have a little big problem here or am I wrong? Regards. --Dodo 09:48, 9 July 2007 (UTC) PS. Besides that, can this template be applied to a drawing or only to photos?

Yes, we have a problem, and it's not limited to this Argentinian tag. This aspect of COM:L is very frequently ignored, and country-specific tags typically do not give any indication under which conditions images would also be PD in the U.S. Even when a tag does give such indications, they're often ignored. (Witness {{PD-Russia}}: people typically go by the 1954 date, not by 1946. And very rarely do people consider the 1950/1942 dates.)

One way to resolve this is to require that {{PD-1996}} (or some variant thereof, see Commons:Deletion requests/Template:PD-1996) be a mandatory part of any country-specific PD tag, and, of course, to actually enforce the rule from COM:L.

This, however, will surely meet public outrage... there are two issues here:

1. Is there a legal reason anything we host and publish on our U.S. servers must be legal to publish in the U.S.? AFAIK, this was the assumption behind that rule at COM:L, but it has been questioned recently by one user. The issue has been escalated to board level, and Anthere has promised a board resolution about it (though without a fixed due date).
2. Even if there was no legal requirement, would it still be a good idea to require PD in both the source country and in the U.S. here at the Commons as a matter of policy? One argument might be that it still helps reduce potentially negative exposure in the U.S., and that furthermore our largest client is the English Wikipedia, which operates under U.S. law exclusively. AFAIK, this aspect of policy (as opposed to a legal requirement) has not been discussed here at all. And, of course, if the board resolution would confirm the legal requirement, any such discussion would be moot.

There are interesting times ahead :-) Lupo 10:23, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm hoping the Foundation's newly-appointed legal counsel will help the Board come to a speedy conclusion on this. --MichaelMaggs 17:03, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I think it is nonsense to require the image to be in the PD in Argentina and the US. If the image is in the public domain in the country of its origin. Who will then enforce the copyright? On what grounds exactly?

With regards to the question whether PD-AR-Photo is only applicable for photos: Yes, only for photos. --ALE! ¿…? 20:32, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

"Who will then enforce the copyright? On what grounds exactly?" — The copyright holder, of course. Assume the non-U.S. work originally is copyrighted in its non-U.S. source country X. So there is a copyright owner. Now, after some time, his copyrights in X expire. But his copyrights in the U.S. may not yet have expired. If so, the author (or his heirs) is still the copyright owner and has standing to sue in the U.S. And of course, the author doesn't need to enforce his U.S. copyright himself: his rights could be managed by a collecting society acting on his behalf. Lupo 21:49, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

But why limit the issue to country X and the US? Some cases:

• It could also be that the image is in the public domain in country X and in the US but NOT in country Y.
• The photo is in the public domain in country X and in the US but is downloaded in country Y where it is used and where someone get sued for using it.
• The image is in the public domain in country X but not in the US and is used in the German speaking Wikipedia. Let's assume that the image is also in the public domain in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Should we delete the image because it hosted in the US? Should we also delete it in these cases? I do not think so. I think we should stick to the rules of the country of origin or we can delete an estimated 30-50% of all older images. --ALE! ¿…? 13:53, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

We limit ourselves to X and the U.S. because our servers are in the U.S., and it is believed that U.S. law is relevant for the U.S.-based WikiMedia Foundation, who runs the whole show. See point 1 I mentioned above. Re-users, whether in the U.S. or in some other country Y, are responsible for their own actions. Lupo 14:13, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Botany

Dear all, if there is somebody who has botanical knowledges, could she/he go to Category:Unknown_flowers_from_Vitosha and take a look at the plants I photographed in Vitosha mountain in Bulgaria? I would appreciate very much if you put the Latin name in the description, I will finish the rest (change the cat and rename the pic). Thank you in advance! --Neva 18:29, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

You'd get more help at w:Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Plants. Users are Wikipedia are much more helpful than here. --EncycloPetey 05:15, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Can I upload this on Commons?

Can I upload this poster, which I found on Flickr: Prison Break Poster. It may be used for commercial work. But, aren't the Prison Break producer the owners this poster? Afhaalchinees 09:28, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

That's a pretty obvious copyright violation, so please don't upload it here. --88.134.44.255 09:31, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Not everyone on Flickr really understands the implication of derivative works.Please use common sense when looking at a license that is given without reference to a source. I think this cannot be used and will be speedy deleted as a derivative work. Siebrand 09:32, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Handling duplicate images in use

I'm looking at two images that are the same, specifically Image:CAMap-doton-Burbank.PNG and Image:LA County Incorporated Areas Burbank highlighted.svg, and both are being used. I cannot fix the articles to refer solely to one image as they are all in foreign-language versions of wikipedia. I think this problem might also stretch across hundreds of images as well, but I haven't looked closely.

How do I work on fixing this ? -- Mrrxx 17:52, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Make a request on User talk:CommonsDelinker/commands to replace one to the preferred one. Be sure to follow the instructions. (→O - v d e) 18:23, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Those images are not exact duplicates. Therefor both images should be kept so each project can decide which image they want to use. If all projects decides to to use the same image, the unused image can be nominated for deletion here. But I can't see that keeping it does any harm to Commons, so I think it is better to keep them both. /90.229.135.239 18:32, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Captchas/Login

I was just rather baffled by the new captchas. Assuming they were only necessary for new account creation (yeah, my fault), I ignored them, and got an error message about my password being wrong. However, the password was ok. Someone with access to special pages should fix at least the error message. --Stephan Schulz 11:59, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

They should be for login as well, it was a measure to prevent brute force cracking. -- ReyBrujo 12:28, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, they do. But the error message if you don't solve it is misleading, as it does not specify that the captcha is the problem, but rather states that the password is wrong.--Stephan Schulz 13:26, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I changed MediaWiki:Wrongpassword to add the captcha notice. I am however not sure that this is clear to all users. Anybody has a better suggestion for the message? -- Bryan (talk to me) 13:38, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Shouldn't "CAPTCHA" link to the Wikipedia articel on it? It's meaning may not be immediately obvious, unlike "Password". 68.39.174.238 07:16, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

The wikilink doesn't show up for me it says [[w:captcha|captcha]] when it should say captcha. The code looks alright but it's stuffed up when I get the actual message. --WikiSlasher 11:40, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Date-stamped images

I have some images from 2000ish which were all date-stamped by my digicam. Should I upload them ? Or are they considered watermarked and therefore not wanted? Mrrxx 06:59, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I think yes, if the Images are useful for Wikipedia. Date-stamps are just a stupid preference of the Digital Camera... no Watermarks. On the other Hand the Watermarks could be deleted... --Stefan-Xp 07:54, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I suppose they could be considered watermarks, and I'd encourage you to retouch or crop the images if possible to remove the date stamps before uploading. However, while watermarks are discouraged, they're not strictly prohibited, and an image with a watermark that's not excessively prominent is usually better than no image at all. —LX (talk, contribs) 18:38, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I've uploaded one file Image:2000_0820_TowncenterDrive2.jpg with the date. I didn't want to crop it out, it loses too much in my opinion. Is this good ? Maybe I'm overstressing but I have hundreds of potential uploads with these dates on them. -- Mrrxx 02:57, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Removing the timestamp could be done with http://www.greyc.ensicaen.fr/~dtschump/greycstoration/demonstration.html (section "Image Inpainting"), it is quite efficient if you are not afraid of the command line based tool (iirc, there are some plugins for the Gimp). For the tech oriented people here, you should check this : http://graphics.cs.cmu.edu/projects/scene-completion/ Dake

Why not html?

Hullo, everyone. I have a question for you (if this is the wrong place redirect me please). Drawings made with Geogebra (see site) can be saved as html very small interactive files. Why doesn't Commons allow the uploading of such files? --Fracqua 06:14, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

They don't exactly do HTML, they do it by Java applets. We don't allow that for several reasons, including:

1. Active content (like applets) opens the door to misuses.
2. Java is not "free", AFAIK.

Does that answer your question? Lupo 10:27, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Java is GPL'd for a few months now. But anyway, Java would indeed open doors to misuses. -- Bryan (talk to me) 14:18, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm clearly not up to date anymore. :-) Lupo 14:27, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I see, though I find it's a pity. Thanks for telling me. --Fracqua 07:35, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Categorisation trouble....

Forgive me, this is a difficult image to properly categorise, and I could use some advice. How would all of you categorise Image:Divers_-_Illustrated_London_News_Feb_6_1873.PNG? Adam Cuerden 23:47, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Category:Divers and Category:Culture of London should help. Cheers, (→O - v d e) 00:18, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! I got confused figuring out where to start on the trees. Adam Cuerden 22:44, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Some new help pages

• Commons:Own work
• Commons:Choosing a license
• Commons:Contributing your own work

Please edit, comment, fix, prettify, etc. The last one is especially important. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 06:27, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Shouldn't all these be in the Help: namespace? (→O - v d e) 16:38, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

If that's the only suggestion anyone has then I must have done pretty well. :P --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 05:54, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Multilingual introductions

Is this a nice solution to the problem of big introductions? {{StartT}}and {{EndT}}. Example of use in Spain. Regards --Emijrp 08:34, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Not bad! Siebrand 09:07, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

The language code templates looks good. But I think the scrollbars are annoying. It would be better to remove them, or maybe use a css class should be used so that those who wants scrollbars can add them in their user css. /90.229.135.239 11:12, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think having opening tags in one template and closing tags in another is really a great idea -- unless they're always used with subst:ing. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 05:55, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Subject to disclaimers

We need to change the en GFDL templates in some way so new pictures moved from en will not have the subject to disclaimers bit (as the upload form was recently changed, and the templates were changed, etc.). CommonsHelper, Template:GFDL-en and Template:GFDL-user-en probably all need to be updated\changed in some way. Yonatan ^talk 15:57, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

• We cannot remove disclaimers from images that have them. Unless the software gets smarter, people are going to have to double-check which license the image had when it is brought over. -N 19:09, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I dug this up from the archives as it's still relevant, new images moved over which are using the normal GFDL template on en as of now should not say subject to disclaimers, only images with {{GFDL-with-disclaimers}} should. 84.108.245.222 20:47, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

OTRS permission needed for image

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:MooreKucinich.jpg

The author emailed permission to release the image under the GDFL. Original image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/demcomm/581721912/in/set-72157600419852789/

Bbsrock 22:44, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Please forward that permission to permissions-commons at wikimedia dot org. An OTRS member will take of it there. (→O - v d e) 03:05, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

• • An email was already sent to permissions-en@wikimedia.org. Bbsrock 03:22, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Your help is needed with translations

Hi there! Yes, you!

Thank you for giving my message your attention. You have probably found out by now that Wikimedia Commons is a Wikimedia Foundation multi language meta project. We post a lot of messages on talk pages, usually in English, that the other users may not be able to understand. The solution is providing versions of the same message in as many languages as possible. For this we have contributors that translate all those message from the original English source text to a local language, aka internationalisation or i18n. Especially if your project is considering moving to Commons completely, having messages in your local language is crucial.

I would like to request any interested parties to participate in translating Commons:Message templates, about 30 messages in total, that we would like to get available in as many languages as possible. Please check the TODO list if all messages are available in your language. Another activity could be to compare the current version of the message to the current version of the original version in English. The source message may have changed.

Please remember that no one expects you to take care of the complete range of messages for your language (although highly appreciated!). Translating those 50 words in one message is also a valuable addition already. If you are prepared to put in a considerable amount of time into keeping the Commons documentation up to date for your language, please take a look at Commons:Help page maintenance. I'll declare you my personal hero. ;) Cheers! Siebrand 12:36, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

What about messages where the English text does not make a lot of sense in the first place? I was starting to translate {{Attackpage}}, when I came across the line Please remove it or request that it be removed. Apart from the fact that, hopefully, the perpetrator isn't an admin and cannot remove the page, why ask to add a deletion request? Shouldn't whoever warns the user already have put a {{Speedydelete}} on the page? And, secondly, can an (in most cases) anonymous user be expected to know how to request deletion? I would certainly prefer something like It has been, or will soon be, deleted. --rimshot^talk 13:52, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Best discuss individual message change proposals on the talk page of the message. Siebrand 13:55, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I'll do that. Let's see whether someone has it on their watchlist. --rimshot^talk 14:01, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

PD in US

(Separated from Commons:Village pump#Problem with {{tl|PD-AR-Photo}})

In US works made by employees of the Federal Government are exempt from copyright. What about works made by an employee of a Government of a foreign state—are they copyrighted in the US? Samulili 17:24, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, so long as they are images that would be copyrightable in the United States and that foreign state has not released them into the public domain. Same goes for images created by empolyees of U.S. states. - Jmabel | talk 20:13, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm a bit uncertain about your answer so let me discuss this further.

You say that images made by an employee of a Government of a foreign state is PD in the US only if was released into the public domain by the foreign state.

5th article of the Berne Convention:

"(1) Authors shall enjoy, in respect of works for which they are protected under this Convention, in countries of the Union other than the country of origin, the rights which their respective laws do now or may hereafter grant to their nationals, as well as the rights specially granted by this Convention."

This means that works created by me (a non-US citizen, a Finn) will be protected in the US as if I were a citizen of the USA. However, in Finland, in my (imaginary) position as civil servant, I will not have copyright to the public statements I prepare at work—these works are PD in Finland.

To rephrase my question: which part of the w:United States copyright law makes my work exempt from copyright in the US? I could not find anything in sections 102, 104, nor 105. Samulili 16:22, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

There isn't one. Works you create are subject to copyright in the U.S.; "edicts of government" are not. See en:Wikipedia:Public domain#_note-compendium206_01. Lupo 13:55, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

template:SVG

This template is currently a redirection to {{Convert to SVG}}. A best use would be to tag SVG files. So, I request to replace (with a bot) each occurence of {{SVG}} (or {{template:SVG}}) with {{Convert to SVG}}. --Juiced lemon 08:35, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

What is the point of tagging SVG files? Isn't the file extension enough?

Although the default search is incredibly poor, it actually is already possible to search by file type -- MediaWiki records that info already, even though we can't search on it. But MediaSearch uses that info. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 09:03, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

CatScan ignores file extensions, but finds templates. --Juiced lemon 13:09, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Er, MediaSearch also allows search by category (combined with file type). What kind of search do you want to do but can't? pfctdayelise (说什么?) 04:54, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

This issue regards to the intrusive category structure for SVG files. As you have outlined it, SVG files have a .svg extension, so they can be easily found. I have recently discovered Category:SVG Trigonometry, which contents is not categorized in other categories. Such category is nonsense: there is an unique discipline of mathematics named Trigonometry, and no special one for SVG files. So, I plan to dismantle this category.

I also question the pertinence of any “SVG” category, since categorization is used instead of a “SVG” keyword. --Juiced lemon 10:29, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Convert XML

PNG example of output

Current SVG map

Hello,

I'm trying to get a map of the world made in SVG (in the Lambert conformal conic projection, or the Mercator projection) in great detail, based on the world borders shape file, which could then be used to create maps of every location on earth. The problem is that the data can be converted to xml, but how to convert this to SVG? I only know the very basics of Inkscape, so can somebody help me out here? Thanks! BoH 21:47, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

For an example of the detail of the maps that can be generated see right top. As most SVG maps of Europe, see example to the right, are actually quite crappy in detail, this would be a most welcome addition. NielsF ^{? (en, nl, fr, it)} 22:07, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

A technical problem with a deletion request

No, I am not going to bicker about a deletion request. But apparently, this deletion request somehow got lost without anybody taking care of it. I did everything that was necessary: tag on the image page (it is still there), notification of the uploader, log amended.

I am willing to revive the request, but I was wondering whether there had been a technical glitch or whether this is just a human issue. Bradipus 18:05, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

H.F. Helmolt

Continuing the earlier discussion about images from H.F. Helmolt's History of the World (Dodd Mead 1901-1902). I'm resuming trying to upload these; I'm aware that the scans my equipment can do on a bound book like this are not great, and I'm not really well set up to do any cleanup on such massive files myself. I've now uploaded three of these large scans:

• 
  Extent of the Hansa
• 
  Current coins of West Europe XIIIth-XVIth Centuries
• 
  Hansa ships of the XIVth and XVth centuries

As you can see if you click through on these, the book has great public domain pictures, and there are some technological limitations here. For some of these, it might be most useful for someone to take individual smaller images of parts of these scans; for others, cleanup might help.

I'm drawing attention to these for three reasons:

1. I'd welcome any suggestions for doing the scans differently; I think I've been picking resolution, etc., well, but I'm open to suggestions.
2. I'd love to see someone who has a clue do some cleanup on these: I suspect that they could be greatly improved.
3. Someone may want to "clip out" some smaller images (e.g. I can easily imagine one of those boats or coins being a useful illustration)

- Jmabel | talk 20:18, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Also, I notice that some of our existing scans from Helmolt were pretty low-res. For example:

• Older scan of an image of Turgot
  Older scan of an image of Turgot
• 
  My scan of an image of Turgot

I may be overdoing the attempt at resolution; I'd be interested in comments on how much effort this may or may not deserve. - Jmabel | talk 09:06, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Looks like someone now killed the older scan (which I'm not sure is good policy: someone might have linked to that someplace). Also, I was looking for a discussion of general principles & how to proceed here, not just to remove a particular image. Mightn't someone want the smaller, lower-res image? I see nothing in the deletion log, so I'm particularly confused. - Jmabel | talk 18:21, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Donation

The following images of works of art of living artists were reportedly "donated" to the uploader, User:Lupo rosso:

• Image:Costa 1.jpg
• Image:Costa 2.jpg
• Image:Asfodele.jpg

, but no donation ticket / mail is present. Since last time I asked about donation of works by third parties I only got a personal nasty attack from an adm, I would like someone else to settle the question. Thank you. --User:G.dallorto 15:00, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

• That user does seem to have an awful lot of pictures of art he claims to own. It raises a bit of a red flag in my mind as well. -N 17:20, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Well, in the rest of the pictures he states he IS the sculptor. The text, albeit rather verbose, appears only in Italian, but having read it (I am Italian too) I am inclined to believe him, since his uploads are a bit of a self-promotion. Yet I think it is nice he donated the images anyway: there is almost nothing by contemporary Italian artists on Commons... What I say is that we need to solve the question of the donation procedure from someone who states s/he is not the author of the picture, but that the author gave hime/her permission to upload the image on Commons. --User:G.dallorto 21:23, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

1000FP coming up, reminder

Hi,

At the moment we have just over 900FP. To celebrate 1000FP we would like to publish a coffee table book with the featured pictures. See Commons talk:Coffee table book to get involved. We will likely do the usual press release as well. Any other ideas for promoting this event are welcome too. It will be an important milestone for Commons and a good opportunity to promote our wealth of content. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 13:31, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Some license tags: can a bot do this?

Most of the images in Category:Das Ständebuch (1568) seem to be marked with {{GFDL}}, which is ridiculous for material published in 1568. Presumably they should be {{PD-Old}} or some such. Can a bot fix this? Or does someone need to go through tediously by hand? - Jmabel | talk 05:33, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I think a bot can do it. Try posting a request at Commons:Bots/Requests. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 09:07, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Done. -- Bryan (talk to me) 19:07, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I didn't know about that page. - Jmabel | talk 05:07, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

July 14

Problem with an image

I seem to be consistently unable to view Image:Cal Anderson Park.jpg, including on the relevant category page (this was true before I refined the category, too). Does anyone know, or can anyone determine, is there a problem with the image itself, or is the problem at my end? - Jmabel | talk 05:09, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I seem to have a similar problem with Image:CalAndersonPark.jpg. - Jmabel | talk 05:46, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

It might be with the image - I am also unable to view it (Firefox user). Anrie 07:09, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

thumb.php reports: Error creating thumbnail: convert: Corrupt JPEG data: 7078 extraneous bytes before marker 0xd8 `/mnt/upload3/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Cal_Anderson_Park.jpg'.

convert: Invalid JPEG file structure: two SOI markers `/mnt/upload3/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Cal_Anderson_Park.jpg'. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 07:40, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

After duplicating the problems described above, I copied with Firefox, pasted to Paint.NET, saved to disk, was able to view in both Paint.NET and Microsoft Paint, uploaded as Image:Cal Anderson Park.jpg, tested, and marked Image:CalAndersonPark.jpg as a duplicate.   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 09:24, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Second Class Citizens: Drawings and Sketches

Modern drawings and sketches designed for reproduction on the Internet are as much of an interpretation as written information. However, posting drawings to Wikipedia or to the Wikimedia Commons top level pages more often than not leads to hasty deletion with a single user deeming themselves the judge and jury of good taste. Although any number of photographs will be included, drawings and sketches are removed quicker than pornography. This is of course reflected on the Internet in general where pen and ink have been replaced by ambiguous and faceless images generated on computer or with photographs, with no regard for the skill involved in drawing. Surely as a place of knowledge and an appreciation of cultural forms such suppression should not be taking place. Have a look for modern drawings across the Wikimedia/Wikipedia sites - how many can you find that have been tailored for specific articles with the exception of "diagrams"? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Drantler (talk • contribs) at 15:29, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I would agree that there is a general consensus in favor of photos over drawings, where available. However, Commons should have room for both, as long as the drawings are of adequate quality (comparable to what we would accept from the pre-photographic era). The various encyclopedias will probably continue to prefer photographs as primary illustrations in their articles, but that's not a Commons issue.

No one individual can effectively function as judge and jury: there is always a channel to open discussion if you think that an image had been inappropriately deleted. If someone has removed a particular image and you have not complained, then your silence has probably been interpreted as consent. Not that you'd necessarily win the dispute, but nothing in your note here indicates that you have contested any specific case. - Jmabel | talk 17:53, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

{{self}} license dropin via "Upload Your Own Work"

I recently uploaded my first Wikimedia image (hooray) and discovered that the "own work" template process dropped in the {{self}} template as {{self|GFDL|cc-by-sa-2.5|author=I, [[User:Ogre lawless|Ogre lawless]]}}. This creates the rather awkward grammatical construct "I...has published or hereby publishes it under the following license". It seems like this process should instead use the template without the author parameter.Ogre lawless 21:39, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Allert! Heavy porn spam on commons

See here what I've found today, I suddenly remove the links, but maybe other image are "infected". --Skyluke 09:59, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your report; the user has been blocked by Herbythyme. -- Bryan (talk to me) 11:46, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I guess it was your IP edit that drew attention to it so thanks. For what it's worth that IP has a real track record across wikis (5 at least) placing porn spam but with a month or more gap on each occasion. I'm guessing it is an open proxy but can't confirm it for now. Cheers --Herby ^{talk thyme} 11:51, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I saw too late I wasn't logged in... --Skyluke 18:13, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Sounds silly but because it was an IP edit I looked at it harder anyway! As I said - that IP is a "regular" contributor. Thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 18:22, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Iolo Morgannwg

Sorry for asking this, because I think it should have an obvious answer, but I can't figure one out.

I want to add a picture of Iolo Morganwg (sometimes spelt Iolo Morgannwg), 1747-1826, otherwise known as Edward Williams, to the article about him on Wikipedia. Now, there was a print made of him at some point, which is currently in the National Library of Wales (JTH03446); there is a photograph of it here which was taken in 1875. If you do a Google image search you see this print being used all over the place. Clearly something which was photographed in 1875 is well out of copyright everywhere now (even if you consider the photograph the original work and not the print), but the copyright on, say, the gtj.org.uk page claims the content can only be used under a noncommercial licence. Is this something where I can just say, oh, it's out of copyright, and take the jpeg from gtj.org.uk and upload it, or would I have to have an original photo of the print? Marnanel 13:42, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

(Update: I'm aware of the discussion at Commons:Deletion_requests/Image:Missouri_Botanical_Garden_-_Seiwa-en.JPG etc., but this photograph was taken in 1875, never mind being a modern photograph of a nineteenth-century print. What's the proper way forward here?) Marnanel 13:55, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

If it was of USian origin, things would be simple: such a reproduction does not constitute originality, see the Bridgeman vs. Corel case. Therefore, the copyright of the original image holds. As that one is certainly old enough, {{Pd-old}} is called for. I don't know to which extent this applies to images of british origin uploaded on American servers ... --rimshot^talk 14:10, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Public_domain and tag {{PD-old}} or {{PD-Art}}, whichever applies. Walter Siegmund (talk) 15:39, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

17 July

Culture A in country B

Do we have a convention in our categorization to deal with matters that basically relate to the culture of one country, but occur in another country? I'm looking right now at Category:Seattle Cherry Blossom Festival. Clearly, the current category hierarchy appropriately places it within the culture of Washington State, where it takes place. But there seems no obvious way to tie it to Category:Culture of Japan. It doesn't take place in Japan, but it has an obvious — a primary — relation to Japanese culture. (Similar issues exist for many other ethnic festivals, as well as for no small number of artifacts. In some specific cases there are categories that cover this, such as Category:Japanese gardens, which has to do with the type of garden rather than its location, but I see no comprehensive scheme.)

I'm inclined to create a Category:Japanese culture in the United States (and similarly for a number of other cultures), but there isn't any obvious supercategory for this, except Category:Culture of the United States, which does nothing to solve the original problem.

Is this already covered in some way that I don't see? And, if not, suggestions? - Jmabel | talk 05:16, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Among other transcultural phenomena requiring consideration are: Category:Chinoiserie, Category:Orientalism and Category:Japonism. Man vyi 14:26, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I see no reason not to put this cherry blossom festival in "Culture of Japan" actually... may be missing something. Or maybe a new "Japanese Culture" is needed??? (Which Culture of Japan would be a subcat of?) ++Lar: t/c 16:47, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Lar's suggestion is interesting; if we can get consensus on doing something like that, I'm all for it.

Man vyi: Chinoiserie, Orientalism and Japonism are a different matter. They suggest cultural appropriation by Western culture of surface visual elements of Asian cultures, and precisely not genuine continuity with those cultures. Seattle's Cherry Blossom Festival (and the other Festál festivals) are, for the most part, genuine cultural expressions of ethnic communities in Seattle (although a few, such as the Irish Festival, are pushing it, because so many Americans have some Irish ancestry and they are, for the most part, so assimilated that their connection to Irish culture does end up having some aspect of appropriation rather than continuity). - Jmabel | talk 17:30, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Seems to me that the logical way to do it is to categorize it as Category:Japanese culture, Category:Culture in the United States, and beat the developers over the head until they implement category intersections. --Carnildo 18:59, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

That's in essence my suggestion as well, except for the beating the developers over the head part. :) ++Lar: t/c 21:44, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Carnildo, may I presume you mean Category:Culture of the United States, rather than a newly introduced category? - Jmabel | talk 22:18, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

The hierarchy under Category:Culture is quite a mess. Incorporating the ideas here, here's what I propose. (BTW, if there is somewhere else I should be taking this discussion, let me know. I don't really know my way well around the "project space" of Commons.)

• Category:Cultures, which now contains only Category:Popular culture, would be a container for things like Category:Japanese culture, Category:Jewish culture (the latter is now weirdly under Category:Culture by region), etc. I will do this unless there are objections in the next day or so.
• Things like Category:Seattle Cherry Blossom Festival, Category:Japanese gardens (a type of garden, not a geographical designation), etc., would go under Category:Japanese culture, as would Category:Culture of Japan; Category:Culture of Japan would also remain under Category:Japan and Category:Culture by country. I will do this unless there are objections in the next day or so.

While we are at it:

• Category:Culture of Asia belongs under Category:Culture by region, not at the same level. I will do this unless there are objections in the next day or so.
• Possibly things like Category:Culture of Japan belong under Category:Culture of Asia as well as their current categorizations. I'd appreciate comment on this.
• Category:Pop culture should be merged into Category:Popular culture. I will do this unless there are objections in the next day or so.
• Surely Category:Nikki Tyler does not belong in Category:Subcultures. It may be news to her fans, but she is not singlehandedly a culture. I will do this without waiting but it was so weird I couldn't resist pointing it out.
• There are many other messes in this area; I'm not going to try to sort them all out; attention to it by someone who has been more actively involved in categorization would be good.

- Jmabel | talk 00:10, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not a big category expert by any means but I support the changes you've outlined. Except for the Nikki Tyler one man, don't do it! She's bigger than Cheeses! :) ++Lar: t/c 03:28, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I've been bold and recatted Category:Culture of Asia. Currently Category:Americanization is in Category:Culture of the United States - another case of culture of one country in another. My point about Japonism etc. is precisely that we don't have a simple scheme for "cross-cultural/multicultural" cat:s. Man vyi 03:52, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Would someone take a look at what I've now done with Category:Japanese culture and Category:Culture of Japan and see if they agree that this is the way to go? Also, is there more that should be moved from Category:Culture of Japan to Category:Japanese culture? (I suspect so.) Further, I notice that there was a move six months back from Category:Japanese gardens to Category:Japanese garden. This is just the opposite way than I would have gone; am I missing something, or was this wrong? - Jmabel | talk 03:25, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's good for me. Using Category:Cultures will be useful in that way. Thanks. Man vyi 05:17, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Upload an official flag and coat of arms

Hi everybody, I want to move [7] and [8] to the Wikimedia Commons to be able to use them in other wikis. Both logos are copyrighted but according to the policy, they can be used as "Fair Use" since the aim is to represent the city, in this case Tel Aviv. I have tried to upload them but I don't seem to find an appropriate way since there is no license tag for Logos -or I don't see it. Can you help me please? thanks! --Jewbask 20:17, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

We don't want a "Fair Use"! If they aren't themselves copyrighted then you can create SVG's of them (See "Graphics Lab") and upload THEM here, but copyright fair user-ery has been outlawed on Commons. 68.39.174.238 20:42, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Default use of ResizeGalleries

Currently, all galleries and categories display a fixed number (4 by default) of thumbnails per row. That looks strange and "unprofessional" on larger monitors/screen resolutions. Now, Platonides and myself have written a JavaScript tool that rearranges thumbnails on page load/resize to use the whole width of your browser window. You can test it on this page (vs. original layout).

During discussion on the mailing list, we tested it in many browsers (Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari, Konqueror), and it seems to work all right. I propose to include it into the default commons JavaScript, that is, it will become standard for everyone. IMHO, this is how galleries should have worked from the beginning, but it was far too obvious to implement it ;-) Some of us (programmers:-) work on a JavaScript framework for user options, so if you don't like it, you'll (soon) be able to turn it off.

Please check the above page and report if you like it or not, or if it doesn't work in your browser. Thanks, --Magnus Manske 08:08, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

What happens to people who don't have Javascript enabled?

They see what is currently the default. Serves 'em right ;-)

What happens to users who aren't logged in (i.e. IPs)? --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 09:30, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

They should see the full JavaScript beauty of it, unless I prevent that (don't see a reason for that, though). --Magnus Manske 10:03, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I like this script. But before it is included in the default Commons Javascript, I'd personally prefer the problem of hard-coded thumbnail size be fixed. — Xavier, 12:11, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

This bug (and the other minor things on the talk page) are now fixed. --Magnus Manske 20:00, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I love the idea, I always thought 4 was stupid. It worked but me, but it only put 7 accross when I think it could have put 8. I'm using WinXP and Firefox 2.0.0.4. My monitor resolution is 1600x1200 and I have my taskbar on the left of the screen, about 100-150px wide. I can send a screenshot to show you what I mean if you'd like. MECU≈talk 22:54, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Some users have complained about a horizontal scrollbar appearing because the last thumbnail in a row almost, but not quite, fits the window. As a result, the script is now a little more "conservative" than before, resulting in the effect you described. This is a "border case", an issue of a few pixels. I'm not sure how to resolve the one without the other, though. This might be fixed in the future, and should not seen as a reason to not set this up for everyone by default, IMHO. --Magnus Manske 09:15, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I would also like the thumbnails to "fill the screen" as they do with this script, but wouldn't it be easier to do this using float:left as the Mayflower tool does? Väsk 17:57, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Nice idea, but then we'd have to convert the TDs to DIVs, which is apparently not wanted. Also, it would mean to write a script to do that. Why write a new script when this one works fine? --Magnus Manske 22:50, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

• It has been suggested that a problem that I've seeing on the QI candidates pages for at least the last 5 days, may be caused by this change. The problem is that templates that render the descriptions for the gallery images are now 'randomly' just leaving tiny square coloured boxes (the color of the border that normally surrounds the text) - maybe the template is 'seeing' a very narrow width or something in which to render itself? Experimentation shows the effect is not dependant upon the individual image description (ie the content of the template) but on it's position across the page. This effect can also be seen in the archives for QI candidates (which all previously rendered ok). --Tony Wills 13:16, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Renders properly with Javascript turned off. I'm using Firefox 1.5. --Tony Wills 13:23, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

If you have problems with the gallery resize you can disable it at Special:Preferences in the Files section. Just uncheck Resize gallery- and categorywidths to fit screen and click Save. --Dschwen 08:01, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes that fixes it too, so that confirms the problem is caused by the gallery resize code --Tony Wills 09:20, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I fixed the code, it didn't handle tables in captions well, it basically deleted them but due to a race condition some survived. Please make sure your browser cache gets refreshed, turn the Gallery resizing back on and test! I currently have no IE, Safari, or Opera to test. --Dschwen 13:07, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

So, you fixed the code? Maybe that is the reason why the "captions" do no longer show in my Galleries on my Commons User Page...
--L.Willms 07:09, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Flickr: giving permission

My friend and sometime colleague Peter Hahndorf would like to give permission to use his Flickr photos under GFDL, but is not interested in releasing the under something quite as generous as CC-By-Attribution. As far as I can tell, Flickr does not give him any explicit way to say that. Unsurprisingly, he is unwilling to go through and make an explicit comment to this effect on each of his hundreds of photos (637 at last count).

Is there something in particular that he can send to permissions AT wikimedia DOT org to clarify this? And is there anything further that he should do (and/or that anyone who uploads these photos should do?) - Jmabel | talk 22:18, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes. He can send a mail to permissions AT wikimedia DOT org stating that all images published on a particular Flickr account have a particular free license, like GFDL. Once the images have been copied to Commons, they should source to Flickr and have an {{PermissionOTRS-ID}} in the permission section of {{Information}}, with the license as given in the email to permissions@. Clear enough? Cheers! Siebrand 22:27, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Mostly clear. How will I find out what OTRS-ID is associated with his particular permission email? - Jmabel | talk 23:42, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Bug one of the users of Commons:OTRS once the mail has been sent for the ID. Cheers! Siebrand 00:03, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Uploading new versions

There are some differences between uploading new files and uploading new versions of old files. So if it is possible, it would be good to have special instructions on the upload page when uploading new versions of old files. Some useful instructions would be:

• Only upload a new version if it is an improved version of the same image
• Editing the summary field will not change the image description page, it is used as a summary in the file history, so use it to briefly describe what changes are done to the file
• The license selector will not change the license (and it is often preferrable to use the same license for the new version)
• If the image description needs to be changed, it has to be edited after the upload

And maybe other instructions? /Ö 22:22, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree it would be very useful... hmmm...

There are two ways of overwriting tiles. One way, which I guess is the explicit way, is if you go to the file, and follow the link that says 'upload a new version of this file'. then you go to a page like special:upload?wpDestFile=foo.jpg. The other way, the implicit way, is if you (accidentally or intentionally) fill in the destination filename to be the same as an existing file. Then you will get a warning about file overwriting, unless you ticked 'ignore all warnings' of course (which I suspect many people do).

If people overwrite implicitly, I don't think we can do much about it. I'm not sure if this is a common problem or not.

For when people overwrite explicitly, maybe we can use some Javascript trick to see if wpDestFile is in the URL and if so, use some different content for the upload form. Let's see if any of our javascript whizzes chime in here with a prototype. ;) --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 23:10, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Uploading images in Commons

Uploading unacceptable images (or other unacceptable media files) in Commons leads to important work for experienced users, then discontent for these new users which don't understand (or don't apply) our rules.

Grounds to the Commons rules are not intuitive, but have to be learnt, I think that new users would not be allowed to upload files, unless they could demonstrate to have some basic knowledge about copyrights and authorized licences in Commons.

This could be checked with a short quiz (about 10 questions). Beforehands, the user would be asked to study a lecture, where he (or her) could find the correct answers (general cases). If an user fails to pass the test, he would wait some period of time before to be allowed to redo it (however, it will not be the same quiz, because each question would be choosed amonst a set of questions about the same theme).

What do you think about the idea? --Juiced lemon 09:12, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I believe that such extreme measure would discourage people from uploading images in the first place, which is a Bad Thing. The ground rules may not be intuitive, but they are very clearly laid out in the extended "upload file" wizard. Anyone bothering to read them will have no trouble in correctly uploading a file. Anrie 12:29, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

The goal is definitely to discourage people to upload images which will be deleted later. However, your remarks are pertinent, so we could affect to each user a quota of uploaded images by day, and the success to pass the quiz would allow to upload an unlimited amount of images (or media files). --Juiced lemon 13:07, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. I think we can save a lot of time by better identifying those who simply don't care enough to read two paragraphs before they begin uploading copyvios, and I think we can go a long way without hindering responsible newbies who do read the instructions. A large number of the copyright violations we see every day are "fair use" images copied from English Wikipedia. If we can identify these and prevent them from being uploaded, we should see a significant reduction in the number of copyright violations. This could be done by checking if the file being uploaded is identical to an identically named fair use-tagged file on English Wikipedia (or other projects which allow fair use) or to a file linked to in the image description. —LX (talk, contribs) 20:23, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

It smacks of elitism.   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs|Flickr review status nom) 07:25, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Protected pages do that, too. I think that we must not let a new user uploading tenths of images without control. --Juiced lemon 07:43, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I support making new users pass a quiz before receiving upload rights, but I would make the quiz even simpler in that they only have to complete it, and it doesn't matter if they actually choose the right answer or not (either way they would read an explanation). See my draft. The idea of having a daily quota is a very good one.

A wiki should be a community of users with a common goal or understanding about the project. The way it is now, we have no way of making sure new users have been "socialised" into understanding the community goals before they upload. Both the new user and the admin's time gets wasted as inappropriate material has to be removed.

Another problem is the technical one of actually implementing such an idea. I fear that even if we could demonstrate solid community support for the proposal, it would still likely be months--years before we saw it in action. But that's no reason not to try, of course. We could get lucky. :) --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 08:56, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

• How about a more lateral approach. Many sites and software licenses have an "I agree to the above terms" type button thats has to be clicked to proceed - BUT we have a twist, we present the uploader with a single multi choice question eg:
  

Commons requires free licenses because:
a)We have vested interests in protecting lucrative copyrights
b)We want to make your life difficult
c)We want users of our images to know they'll never receive an unwelcome bill or court case from using our images

(we have a large rotating bank of questions). They can try as many times as it takes to get a correct answer (so a room full of monkeys will succeed), but it could be educational and give the uploader pause for thought :-) --Tony Wills 12:08, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I think that a lot of people click on the button “I agree to the above terms”, without reading the terms. Here, the quiz would be intended to make people read the “Commons lecture” in order to find the correct answers. It will be educational for the users who will prepare the test, too. --Juiced lemon 18:45, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

If people keep uploading eN fairuse images, why do you even allow people to select "Fair use" in the licence selector? Can't that redirect to a (sub)page somewhere that says "We don't take fair use here!" rather then uploading it and simultaneously sticking a "copyrightviolation" tag on it so someone has to come along and delete it? (My understanding may be out of date) 68.39.174.238 20:39, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Um... we don't have a "fair use" option in the license selector. We have some "I don't know" options which stick on no-license warnings. We don't have the technical possibility to stop an upload from happening once someone clicks 'upload'; we can just mark that upload based on what options they choose.

And the problem of people thinking Commons accepts fair use is a very small one. In general the problem is people not caring about copyright at all. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 23:45, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Alright I'm thinking of something else. I guess the question is if stopping people uploading under "Don't know" will do any good or just cause people to make up nonsense. 68.39.174.238 19:05, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Did I license this right?

Hi, I just uploaded Image:Cody Caves.jpg and have three more images like that to upload. I was given permission to upload them into public domain by the owner of the Cody Caves website who emailed me these four pictures with an accompanying note. Did I attach the right license for that situation?CindyBo 19:29, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Please use {{PD-author|Cody Caves}} for this situation, and to confirm that the website owner did give permission, please forward that email to permissions-commons at wikimedia dot org. Cheers, (→O - RLY?) 19:35, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Wow! You guys are fast. I'll go do all that now, and thanks!CindyBo 19:37, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

21 July

problems with monobooks an IE 6 / Win 2K

Since some days my IE 6 collapses, when I try to load pages with large galleries, e.g. Dortmund. Perhaps that is caused by a change to the CSS-Files, because it doesn't happen with other Layouts. Excuse my Beckenbauer-English ;-{ -- Mbdortmund 11:06, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Same problems here using IE6 on XP. I tried disabling resizeGalleries, but that wasn't the problem... -- Bryan (talk to me) 13:12, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

By collapse do you mean "crash" ? 68.39.174.238 18:42, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes -- Mbdortmund 08:59, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

If you mean the gallery at Dortmund, it does not crash the following for me on WinXP SP2:

• Microsoft Windows Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) version "7.0.5730.11"
• Mozilla Firefox version "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.12) Gecko/20070508 Firefox/1.5.0.12"

  — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 11:38, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank You

I just wanted to express my thanks. I have been wanting to discuss wici with someone. And maybe I can get some help here. I have been very interrested for some time now and I can't believe I ran across this site.--72.190.100.130 14:56, 19 July 2007 (UTC)Geri Stracener

You're welcome, Geri. What would you like some help with?   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 11:43, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

How simple does something have to be to be ineligible for copyright?

Is Image:Pennsylvania Turnpike logo.svg, a copy of the logo used on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, ineligible? For that matter, there are a number of things in Category:PD ineligible that look very eligible; is there any guidance on this issue? --NE2 23:52, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

The turnpike logo is ineligible because it is just a few simple words written in a generic font, and it has been redrawn by a Wikipedian so no material copyrighted by the state of Pennsylvania is actually used. -N 00:03, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

How much is needed to be eligible? Is en:Image:New Jersey Turnpike Shield.svg or en:Image:OhioTurnpike.svg complicated enough? I assume en:Image:Garden State Parkway shield.png and en:Image:NYS Thruway Sign.png are; how about en:Image:Chicago Skyway logo.svg? And (this will open a can of worms...) how about Image:Colorado 470.svg, Image:N-2.svg, Image:North Dakota 23.svg, and Image:Toll Texas 121.svg? --NE2 00:43, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

The NJTP and OH Turnpike shields are copyrighted because (1) the NJTP, GSP, NYST, and the Chicago Skyway ones is creative enough to warrant copyright, and (2) the OH Turnpike one's outline of the Ohio state border is slightly different from the MUTCD-covered one. The state highway shields, no matter how different they are, are covered under the MUTCD, which screams "public domain" to all U.S. Route and State Highway shields. (→O - RLY?) 01:34, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Do the states release their MUTCDs into the public domain? --NE2 02:51, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

They're supplements of the National MUTCD - which makes them automatically public domain master son^{T - C} 03:10, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit conflict] That doesn't matter. All state route shields are classified as Sign M1-5 in the federal MUTCD, which means that any and all state route shields are in the public domain as well as the U.S. Route shields and practically everything else there except for the Interstate shield. Interstate shields are {{PD-ineligible}} because they are trademarked without any restrictions of use. (→O - RLY?) 03:11, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

The MUTCD includes the Alabama shield, but I can't find any others. Certainly the FHWA can't make copyrighted designs enter the public domain; the question is whether the states claim any copyright. --NE2 03:39, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

You expect them to show every shield in that doc? They (USDOT, FWHA) require states to follow it loosely - and have final say over design of shields. master son^{T - C} 03:48, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

And if a state decides to copyright its design? I don't see anything in the MUTCD stating that a state must release its work into the public domain, and, even if it does say that, states don't always follow the MUTCD. --NE2 04:43, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Who let the road geeks in here? (grins, ducks runs) ++Lar: t/c 03:30, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

It would be good if we had an actual policy on this delicate question; as far as I can tell there are no guidelines whatsoever.--Pharos 07:37, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I would say that it's next to impossible to write a clear guideline on the threshold of originality. It's something mostly intuitive, and can be easily recognized most of the time. But it's hard to spell it out. Samulili 08:54, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. "I know it when I see it" doesn't always work well. I wonder if there is any case law to be had that could give us guidance? ++Lar: t/c 12:21, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

@NE2: The states cannot claim any copyright, since their MUTCDs can only supplement, not replace, the federal MUTCD. (→O - RLY?) 13:35, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

That doesn't make any sense; it says "Traffic control devices contained in this Manual shall not be protected by a patent, trademark, or copyright, except for the Interstate Shield and any other items owned by FHWA.", not "Traffic control devices contained in this Manual or which states may create as replacements...". --NE2 13:37, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Anyway, for most states we can be reasonably sure that the designs are not copyrighted, since a copyright notice was required before 1989, and I'm pretty sure no state placed a copyright notice on their state highway signs. (I would appreciate if someone knowledgeable in copyright law can comment on whether this is a valid argument.) (On the other hand, Image:Wfm x51 extraterrestrial highway.jpg probably is a copyvio, though it probably would be anyway even without the notice since it's from 1996.) So only the states that changed their design after 1989 are "at risk", judging by the photos on [9]:

• Oklahoma (2006)
• Texas Toll (recent)
• Vermont state-maintained (1995)

Oklahoma might be simple enough to be ineligible (take a standard sign blank with border, place a state outline on, add the route number, and white out areas so it can be read). Texas Toll and Vermont are possibly complicated enough to be eligible for copyright. --NE2 13:58, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Please do not jump the MUTCD's gun. Any and all state route shields are Sign M1-5, regardless of what state it comes from. State Route shields (it is ambiguous) are contained in the Manual, which means they are public domain regardless of what state designs it. (→O - RLY?) 17:04, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

They are contained in the states' standard drawings, certainly not in the federal MUTCD. --NE2 17:58, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

23 Code of Federal Regulations 655 - Acc to this states must adopt the standards set by the MUTCD even if they make their own drawings. As such the general design made is subject to being a part of the MUTCD and hence as federal govt property - is public domain. master son^{T - C} 19:26, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

You seem to be on to something there; thank you. I'm going to try to puzzle out a solid argument, and we should, if possible, run it past someone knowledgable on these matters. Then we should write it up and make a special template for state highway shields that either includes the argument or links to it. --NE2 20:45, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

A modification of {{PD-USGov-MUTCD}} should be enough when the parameter has a field of M1-5. (→O - RLY?) 20:50, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, no. It doesn't come from the federal MUTCD; it comes from the state supplements. The keystone is the federal law that requires the states to be in "substantial conformance" with the federal MUTCD. We should write this up nicely so we don't end up having this argument again and again. --NE2 21:07, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

State supplements are still the MUTCD though. If the law says that the states have to be in "substantial conformance" with the federal MUTCD, then the modification makes sense, rather than creating a new redundant tag. I also suggest creating a subpage of Commons:Licensing to expand on this. (→O - RLY?) 21:29, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I've created a draft of this at User:O/SHS. Feel free to comment and modify. (→O - RLY?) 03:17, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Good stuff. I commented on the talk page there... I agree that getting this nailed down would be helpful. Consensus is good but we may need (I hope not!) a legal opinion... those are hard to come by. ++Lar: t/c 13:06, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

The argument

• The FHWA creates the MUTCD, which includes Figure 2D-3 on page 2D-5 of Chapter 2D. This figure includes "State Route Sign M1-5", with an Alabama marker for the sake of choosing one to show. Below it states that "State Route signs shall be designed by the individual State highway agencies."
• By federal law, specifically Title 23, Chapter I, Part 655, states shall adopt their own MUTCDs "in substantial conformance with the national MUTCD", which shall be used in the design of traffic control devices - including signs - on any public road.
• The introduction to the MUTCD states that "Any traffic control device design or application provision contained in this Manual shall be considered to be in the public domain. Traffic control devices contained in this Manual shall not be protected by a patent, trademark, or copyright, except for the Interstate Shield and any other items owned by FHWA." The state highway shields are designed by the state highway agencies, not the FHWA.
• The states which adopt the federal MUTCD wholesale with their own shield drawings, and those which have their own MUTCD, are shown on the MUTCD site. [Someone should verify that none of them decided to repeal the section about the public domain. Would that still be "substantial conformance"? Only a lawyer could possibly tell, so we should check individually.]
• Every state is thus bound, by federal law, to release their state highway shields into the public domain.

20 July

Oh my! My photo is suddenly a negative!!

Anybody know what could have caused my panorama to spontaneously turn negative on its page? http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Panorama_of_Mt_Roberts.jpg If I use the image code to make it show up elsewhere (i.e. an article or my userpage), it looks fine. The problem is solely on the image's specific page. Should I re-upload and nominate the old one for deletion? FireFly5 09:38, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Strike that... it goes negative on my user page when I try to post a thumbnail the same size as that of the preview on the home page... FireFly5 09:46, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Didn't even display on Firefox. Fixed, file was broken. — Xavier, 21:29, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Ah! Thanks so much and merci beaucoup pour votre aide! FireFly5 00:58, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Could I request...

That these images be uploaded so they may be used on Wikisource?

• http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11703/11703-h/Images/fly4.jpg
• http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11703/11703-h/Images/24b.jpg
• http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11703/11703-h/Images/80a.jpg
• http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11703/11703-h/Images/114b.jpg
• http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11703/11703-h/Images/168a.jpg
• http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11703/11703-h/Images/236b.jpg
• http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11703/11703-h/Images/282b.jpg
• http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11703/11703-h/Images/342b.jpg
• http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11703/11703-h/Images/394a.jpg

They're all from http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11703/11703-h/11703-h.htm and should be {{PD-Gutenberg}}. 68.39.174.238 20:46, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Why don't you upload them yourself? BTW: PD-Gutenberg is a ridiculous template. Use {{PD-old}} for all of them. --Fb78 07:21, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Easy way of doing it is to use commonist. It allows you to put same description/license/etc on all images --Robek _{(talk|contribs)} 09:12, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I can't and PD-Gutenberg is a more accurate description of their origin, hence I gravitate towards it. 68.39.174.238 10:42, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

You can't? If you're not a banned user just start an account. -N 00:05, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Yea, it's not hard to start an account. If you have troubles, you are more than welcome to ask for an account creation. Regards. Wooyi 04:16, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Geh, I'll have to find someone else who can upload these and maybe my old PD-scans as well. 68.39.174.238 19:03, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

 Done, please see User:Jeff G./gallery#Illustrations by John Gilbert from The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island, by Johann David Wyss. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11703/11703-h/Images/fly4.jpg did not work, so I had to use http://fulltext10.fcla.edu/DLData/UF/UF00001866/fly4.jpg (as displayed by http://fulltext10.fcla.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=juv;cc=juv;sid=b7c3b67caf6a5189b9273b5a231dc239;rgn=full%20text;idno=UF00001866;a=48;view=jpg;node=UF00001866%3A2;seq=3, Frontispiece for The Swiss family Robinson, or Adventures in a desert island, and renamed Image:Frontispiece fly4.jpg) instead.   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 11:12, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you!! Now I'll be able to start adding the work to WikiSource68.39.174.238 23:31, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

19 July

Portrait of George Harrison deleted

Some time ago I made a artwork of George Harrison, since there are a lack of pictures to illustrate his articles. I spent some time doing it. I went to great length making sure sure the no copyright violation excisted, but that was all i vain. I have now noticed that it is gone. Great! One thing that somebody here don't like amatour artwork, but it is surely no motivation to contribute when it is later just deleted for no reason, and surely no legal reason. I also made several maps here - will these also be deleted? --FinnWikiNo 07:29, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Can you give us an image name - I can't see anything in your "deleted" contributions? Thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 07:34, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Here is the deletion discussion page, and the image locally uploaded is here. — H92 (t · c · no) 10:13, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

•  Comment this was deleted as a derivative work, but of what? -N 10:29, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
  • H92's link directs to no:Bilde:Johnlennon_head-portrait.jpg, not George Harrison. But the Lennon photo for example is a clear derivate of the famous John Lennon photo. / Fred J 11:25, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

    I think I misunderstood. At our local VP, FinnWikiNo told us about his John Lennon picture. He also said that it had happened before too. — H92 (t · c · no) 14:12, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, can someone show us the original picture and the picture "before derivative" (in math, it's called the "differential":-) )? —the preceding unsigned comment is by Wooyi (talk • contribs)

Thumbnail-Rendering-problem

For Image:Meissen-pano-markt3.jpg I try all hints from FAQ to get a thumbnail, but it doesn't help. --Kolossos 11:58, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, using the "thumb"-function produces this: [10], while defining it more precisely (here, 250px), produces this [11]. (In the first instance I do net get an image, although I am able to see on in the second instance.) I'm a Firefox-user, for what it's worth. Anrie 12:30, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Of course, now that I read my own post and follow the links, both instances suddenly display images. Anrie 12:31, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

In the meantime I reduce the resolution of the image, so I believe thats the reason why it is now ok. --Kolossos 14:09, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Uploaders removing descriptions of their uploaded images

I have seen some images now uncategorized because the uploaders removed the contents of the descriptions of their uploaded images, including self-made licenses, like Image:Yasmin.jpg. Should we revert the image descriptions or tag the images for deletions?--Jusjih 12:42, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I think it is better to ask the uploader why the image descriptions should be deleted, there maybe have several reasons which we may not know such as the uploader want to delete the image. It should be reverted if the uploader wants to keep the image. --Shinjiman 13:33, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Contributions are under the GFDL: it means in particular that an author has not the right to destroy his work. Empty a page without reasons is vandalism: such edits have to be reverted before any explanation. --Juiced lemon 14:43, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

As above. It seems that the image was taken by the uploader and he/she wanted to delete it. Therefore there is no reason to delete it. I have also an offtopic question related with the example above (Image:Yasmin.jpg): I heard that images with date stamps are allowed on commons but I'm not sure if it is a good idea to use them for example in articles on WP. Somebody said you have the possibility to cut out the date stamp but I think it would be much work with it. How does the commons policy about images with date stamps look like ? Pimke 08:45, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

On that turtle image it wouldn't be much of a problem to remove the date stamp - just crop the image so that the turtle fills the frame a bit more. The image isn't of much value without being categorized with the correct species, though. In general, I think, date stamps are acceptable only when there is no alternative photo without a date stamp. --rimshot^talk 11:19, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you all for your useful advices. If I have time I will ask the uploaders why remove their own descriptions. I am bringing this issue as some images with uploaders' content removals led to no-source speedy deletions after 7 days when whoever tagged them did not check the page history, but I forget which ones, though I do check page history before tagging nsd, nld, npd, ..., as sometimes IP vandals removed the contents.--Jusjih 15:21, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

What's wrong with date stamps? I've contributed an original image using one, and it certainly doesn't detract from it. And don't say "because policy says so". Policy prohibits watermarking images, because that takes away from their freedom. Date stamps are not watermarks. -N 22:08, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Have you ever seen date stamps on any published photo? They look unprofessional, and (that's my personal opinion) quite ugly. In the best case, they do not detract from the image, but they never add anything to it - you cannot read them in thumbnail view anyway, and in the detailed view of the picture you will be given the date and time of the photo shooting under the heading metadata. Big yellow date stamps like the one on the turtle picture not only add nothing of value, but greatly diminish the image's quality.--rimshot^talk 08:38, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Grr

I hate it when people don't properly attribute their uploads. Like Image:Stalin_1945.jpg, which was attributed as PD-Russia with no source, when in fact it's from the Library of Congress and is actually a "US Signal Corps" (PD-USGov) photo. -N 16:21, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

• Although it looks like they got it from a different print of the same image, as the LOC one is horribly oversaturated. -N 16:27, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
  • The pose is also different - although it was obviously taken at the same event, it's not the same photo. It could easily be from a Russian photographer standing next to the US photographer. --Davepape 17:46, 24 July 2007 (UTC) (So to be technically correct, the present image ought to be deleted and replaced by the one with a known source. --Davepape 17:48, 24 July 2007 (UTC))

Uploaders removing descriptions of their uploaded images

I have seen some images now uncategorized because the uploaders removed the contents of the descriptions of their uploaded images, including self-made licenses, like Image:Yasmin.jpg. Should we revert the image descriptions or tag the images for deletions?--Jusjih 12:42, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I think it is better to ask the uploader why the image descriptions should be deleted, there maybe have several reasons which we may not know such as the uploader want to delete the image. It should be reverted if the uploader wants to keep the image. --Shinjiman 13:33, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Contributions are under the GFDL: it means in particular that an author has not the right to destroy his work. Empty a page without reasons is vandalism: such edits have to be reverted before any explanation. --Juiced lemon 14:43, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

As above. It seems that the image was taken by the uploader and he/she wanted to delete it. Therefore there is no reason to delete it. I have also an offtopic question related with the example above (Image:Yasmin.jpg): I heard that images with date stamps are allowed on commons but I'm not sure if it is a good idea to use them for example in articles on WP. Somebody said you have the possibility to cut out the date stamp but I think it would be much work with it. How does the commons policy about images with date stamps look like ? Pimke 08:45, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

On that turtle image it wouldn't be much of a problem to remove the date stamp - just crop the image so that the turtle fills the frame a bit more. The image isn't of much value without being categorized with the correct species, though. In general, I think, date stamps are acceptable only when there is no alternative photo without a date stamp. --rimshot^talk 11:19, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you all for your useful advices. If I have time I will ask the uploaders why remove their own descriptions. I am bringing this issue as some images with uploaders' content removals led to no-source speedy deletions after 7 days when whoever tagged them did not check the page history, but I forget which ones, though I do check page history before tagging nsd, nld, npd, ..., as sometimes IP vandals removed the contents.--Jusjih 15:21, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

What's wrong with date stamps? I've contributed an original image using one, and it certainly doesn't detract from it. And don't say "because policy says so". Policy prohibits watermarking images, because that takes away from their freedom. Date stamps are not watermarks. -N 22:08, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Have you ever seen date stamps on any published photo? They look unprofessional, and (that's my personal opinion) quite ugly. In the best case, they do not detract from the image, but they never add anything to it - you cannot read them in thumbnail view anyway, and in the detailed view of the picture you will be given the date and time of the photo shooting under the heading metadata. Big yellow date stamps like the one on the turtle picture not only add nothing of value, but greatly diminish the image's quality.--rimshot^talk 08:38, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Grr

I hate it when people don't properly attribute their uploads. Like Image:Stalin_1945.jpg, which was attributed as PD-Russia with no source, when in fact it's from the Library of Congress and is actually a "US Signal Corps" (PD-USGov) photo. -N 16:21, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

• Although it looks like they got it from a different print of the same image, as the LOC one is horribly oversaturated. -N 16:27, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
  • The pose is also different - although it was obviously taken at the same event, it's not the same photo. It could easily be from a Russian photographer standing next to the US photographer. --Davepape 17:46, 24 July 2007 (UTC) (So to be technically correct, the present image ought to be deleted and replaced by the one with a known source. --Davepape 17:48, 24 July 2007 (UTC))

Technical question

This image seems to have uploaded correctly, but the thumbnail is a mess. Is this a defect in the original or can it be fixed? Thank you for any advice you may have. - Mu 10:23, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

A reason could be that it's a gif. The image on enWP, which is a jpg, doesn't have the problem. --rimshot^talk 11:19, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks - I hadn't noticed the image on enWP. I guess the one should be replaced by the other. - Mu 12:11, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Images from w:Heinrich Hoffmann

I have started a discussion at Commons talk:Licensing regarding images taken by Heinrich Hoffmann that were seized by the US government after WWII. I would appreciate some comments (or I might even move it here). To summarize the reasons I believe they should be considered PD: Germany signed a treaty with the US relinquishing all legal claims to the images. Mr. Hoffmann's German heirs later sold whatever claim they had to his photos to an American. The American sued the US government. The courts ruled the government properly owned the images. In short, nobody in either Germany or the US has a cognizable legal claim to them. -N 00:25, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

You're probably right. As I recall, the only seized works that are public domain in the US, are those that would otherwise have devolved to the property of the German government. So if the US considers these works public domain, then it it recognizing the German government I think (not private persons) as the erstwhile heir. And if the German government has given this up completely by treaty (as you say, I'm not familiar with that aspect), well that's it, they're PD everywhere.-Pharos 04:50, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Toronto, Canada gig need photog, any know who?

Seeing how sparse Category:Users by country is, thought I'd ask here. Are there any active and competent, or at least just competent, Wikimedia Commoners from Toronto? I need someone to photograph the stars of Bratz at the movie's Canadian premiere. I can provide date and times to anyone interested. -- Zanimum 15:20, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

LOGO's

In the Dutch pub someone pointed out Category:Logos. Many logo's in this category go beyond text in a general typeface. Aside from this, most of them will be trademarked, and as such do not comply with the principles as outlined in http://freedomdefined.org. Teun Spaans 22:00, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

• Trademark is not copyright. Trademark restricts use of the mark for certain commercial purposes and must be registered for each use. For example, there is a school named McDonald's that does not infringe McDonald's trademark because McDonald's is a restaurant. Trademarks do not affect Commons' ability to host the files, which is mostly governed by copyright. Re-users are the ones who must worry about whether they violate non-copyright laws. Some images are free software logos, others belong to the US government, and yes I do see some unfree logos in there. Please nominate any suspicious ones for deletion and man I wish I had some Wikipedia drinking buddies like you have. -N 01:51, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Note also that the Foundation's licensing policy resolution says,

"Free Content License

"a license which meets the terms of the Definition of Free Cultural Works specific to licenses, as can be found at http://freedomdefined.org/Definition version 1.0."

Additionally, Eloquence, one of the principal drafters of both the Definition and the Resolution (I think; don't quote me on that), offered clarification in the recent Board election (see this link), saying, in response to Lupo's question,

"Trick question: would you consider Image:Empire State Building3 Dec.2005.jpg or Image:HH Polizeihauptmeister MZ.jpg "free" works? They are properly licensed CC-BY-2.0 and CC-BY-SA-2.5, respectively",

the following:

"3) The licensing policy only makes reference to the licenses section of the Definition of Free Cultural Works. The definition of individual "works" is more strict, and I think it's acceptable that we cannot ensure that all media in Wikimedia projects are free of any legal restrictions whatsoever. However, when a work can reasonably be completely free without reducing the information value, we should strive to make it so".

So I think that it is safe to say that images, if they are free of copyright restrictions, but have other restrictions (in Lupo's examples, the two images have trademark and personality rights restrictions, respectively), are okay for Commons. --Iamunknown 04:53, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I think we should worried about possible misuse too. I remember one image (combination of McDonalds logo and trash) was deleted due trademark misuse. Also too much subjectivity involved in definitions such "simple logo". Also potential clashes between country/international laws are possible.

I think taking in account trademark restrictions is good idea too (and assume such images not free). See Commons:Trademarks.

EugeneZelenko 14:26, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Why take into account trademark restrictions and not for example personality rights or coat of arms related restrictions? -- Bryan (talk to me) 20:56, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually will be good idea to account these restrictions too. --EugeneZelenko 14:48, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Ideally we would host only works that are totally free of restrictions; reastically, however, almost no work is totally free of restrictions, as every work is subject to moral rights. Additionally, if we forbid works restricted by personality rights, every photograph of a person would either be forbidden or would be censored so the person was not identifiable. I think it is best to keep the cut-off at copyrights, and to add disclaimer templates (i.e. {{Personality rights}} and {{Trademark}}) where appropriate to let reusers know that they probably want to consult an intellectual property lawyer before formally publishing content. --Iamunknown 20:39, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

As more such restrictions allowed on Commons, so far away we are moving from can be used by anyone, for any purpose. --EugeneZelenko 15:41, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Can be used by anyone, for any purpose is nice as an ideal, but not practically applicable. This means that we will have to delete all logos, living persons, images from users that have moral rights in their home country's copyright law, coat of arms, etc. I believe we should interpret can be used by anyone, for any purpose as freely as possible. -- Bryan (talk to me) 16:45, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Aside from the trademarks, I also asked about the copyrights. As many of these logo's go beyond text in a general typeface, many of them will be copyrighted. I'll het back on the trademark issue later, after the holidays. Teun Spaans 07:58, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for not archiving this thread. :-)
As for the copyright : i listed one of these logo's for deletion, when i get back from my second holiday i'll have a look at the rest: Coca Cola, IBM, and a few others.
And as for the trademarked logos: I think the mentioning of Personality rights by EugeneZeleko is a valid point. Coats of arms also have restrictions. The difference is of course that we adopted a policy against trademarked images and are now throwing it out of the window.
It seems to me that commons contains more and more images that have additional restrictions. One solution would be to ban these images from commons and leave them to the wikis which use them. They can create an EDP and have this approved by the wikimedia foundation. Another solution is to go with the suggestion of Iamunknown and have a warning in each image with additional restrictions to consult a lawyer before using the image. Generally speaking, I regret the inclusion of more and more images here with additional udage limitations. Teun Spaans 18:35, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Museum photography policies that aim to prevent commercial use

Many museums have photography policies that aim to prevent commercial use of photographs of items in their collections even when those works are in the public domain. Most of the time, a photographer has to sign a pledge to only use photographs taken in a museum for personal and non-commercial use. I understand that a museum could ban that person from reentering the museum if he/she subsequently publishes images without copyright or under a free license that allows commercial use (and the photographer could be arrested for trespass if he/she renters the museum after being asked to stay away). However, is the act of publishing those images without copyright or under a free license illegal in itself? In other words, was a contract created when the photographer signed the pledge, thus invalidating any license that allows for commercial or public use? --Maveric149 02:17, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

This was discussed fairly extensively recently at Commons:Deletion requests/Image:Missouri Botanical Garden - Seiwa-en.JPG. The conclusion mostly seems to be that the museum case is analagous to the sports venue case, and if the individual photographer chooses to break the contract it doesn't affect their ownership of the image's copyright. cheers --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 08:47, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I think the pledges are more like bargaining chips to hold over the heads of commercial/stock photographers, who don't want to risk losing access. It would be interesting for Wikipedians to schedule meetings with curators, I suspect that most museums will consider our free-license images to be perfectly acceptable, and even desirable, once they realize they can use the images for free themselves. Rephrasing the pledges so as to allow free-license pictures is a little messy wordingwise, perhaps we should craft an example that museums can use. Stan Shebs 17:35, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

That's a nice idea. If we were ever able to get anyone to adopt it it would be a fantastic precedent. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 23:02, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps start with the Holocaust Museum, who supposedly were going to make their entire image collection available? They might have some sympathy to the cause... ++Lar: t/c 23:24, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

There are a lot of small museums around... I'm sure we have several Wikipedians/Wikimedians with close connections to such community-oriented institutions, where it might be easiest to set such a precedent.--Pharos 23:41, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

We would really want to make sure they understood what they were agreeing to. A misunderstanding could backfire very messily. (What ever did happen with the Holocaust Museum agreement?) pfctdayelise (说什么?) 23:47, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Another likely motivation for museums is a fear that high quality reproductions of works in their collection may reduce public demand to see those works (and pay an entrance fee). I think this is an unfounded fear, but we should consider it. --Maveric149 02:44, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

In an entirely different field, i got permission from a nursery and two botanical gardens to photograph their collections if i listed the location on upload. I tried to make it plain that i could not guarantee that the location would be listed here for ever, but it offers them some compensation as free publicity. And for our photos, I think it is a good think if we document the location where we took our pix. I can imagine that the same holds tree for musea. Teun Spaans 18:46, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

substing {{Unsigned2}}

O (bot) (talk · contributions · Move log · Statistics · logs · block log) as one of the tasks that O has set to it, has been substing the unsigned2 template where it is used. While this is a common practice on Wikipedia, I don't actually think it's that good an idea here... this template is not exactly a signature, and substing it means that future changes (if any) would not be picked up. Am I the only one that feels this way, and I'm all wet, or are there others that think that substing may not be needed in this case... Thanks. ++Lar: t/c 19:58, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Now that this discussion has been moved here (thanks lar), I would like to leave my two cents here. Though transcluding the template provides updates to the usage when it's changed, the problem is that it puts strain on the servers whenever somebody changes the template. The strain comes from re-caching all of the pages after the change. Substing the template not only reduces the strain on the servers, but also complements a concept about signatures across all wikis—no templates are to be transcluded as per the devs. In addition, the unsigned templates are also targets of vandalism, and they will always forever be. (→O - RLY?) 20:14, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

The fix for server strain of something that might need to be changed is to protect it, and put noinclude text in saying not to change it needlessly. Remember that BRION has been repeatedly quoted as saying not to worry about doing things to avoid server loads, that the software will be changed to handle it... more generally, Computer Science has a saying from many years back... "don't try to outsmart the compiler". I'd support protecting unsigned2 if it isn't already (it wasn't so I did). Right now, with very few usages (unless something undid all the bot changes, there are few usages left) would be a good time to make changes to it to prevent needless changing. The real reason to subst something is not server strain, it is because you want the something (whatever it is) as it is at that time, and not to change as it is improved. Sometimes that is legit but in this case I'm not convinced. Still, the thoughts of others would be good. ++Lar: t/c 20:30, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd favour substituting, which fixes the slight server strain without restricting edits to the template, and makes the instance permanent as part of the discussion archive of that date. —Pathoschild 05:40:47, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I favour subst:, too. Updating unsiged signatures (?) is really low in my priority... Samulili 08:16, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I strongly oppose substing. How could hunderds or even thousands of edits put less strain on the servers than some possible future template change? Also they clog history pages and show up in a lot of watchlists. Also, last time I checked, substing {{Unsigned2}} was "under debate" in en:WP:SUBST, it's not common practice, and as far as I know it's simply one "I-know-better" bot owner. Last thing: the bot is not smart enouth to get rid of the useless {{{3|}}} part ∴ Alex Smotrov 21:31, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

To answer the server question, a heavily-used template puts strain on the server whenever it's changed because all of the pages using it need to be re-cached. The is not useless; it's used to put the timestamp where it belongs. If there is a blank parameter lying around, then just ignore it. (→O - RLY?) 19:21, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I know about re-caching, but do you regularly check Special:Statistics and does the job queue goes as high as on en.wp? A strain on the server is a temporary thing and does not affect regular users. On the other hand, hundreds of edits distracts users, forever stay in history pages and take additional space on servers (that's the real strain).

And the {{{3|}}} part on the page IS useless; also I don't see why you added another invisible {{{3|}}} inside your message above ∴ Alex Smotrov 13:58, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. {{Unsigned2}} has changed five times in 18 months and {{Unsigned}} has changed eight times in 20 months. Seriously: don't worry about the servers. Considering our resources as a whole (software, hardware and–most importantly–wetware), the substing process is a much bigger strain. In addition to the problems already mentioned by others, substing also bogs down pages with lots of ugly markup in edit mode and makes it more difficult for new users to see how to add the boilerplate snippet since the template name is obscured. Don't forget that templates are as much about readability as they are about writability. —LX (talk, contribs) 15:40, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Deleted image description page holds necessary info

On former image page Image:CropCircleSwirl.jpeg , I had the correct tagging and source info for current images Image:CropCircleSwirl.jpg and Image:Crop circles Swirl.jpg , which I can't now find again... AnonMoos 09:01, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Last version:

A crop circle in the form of a [[Triskelion]] composed of Circles:

{{PD-author|Unknown}} 

This image had been uploaded to the English wikipedia on 04:36, 5 Aug 2004 by [[:en:User:Chris 73]] (28516 bytes) (Crop circle).  The original description is: 

:Source: []: ''Though the original prototype has been patented, the material on the FuturePropulsion web site is not copyrighted.  Please feel free to use any or all of it in any way you see fit.'' ().

Last archive.org version of this declaration page is: http://web.archive.org/web/20040920093803/

EugeneZelenko 14:15, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, but that's not what I wrote -- I originally had the exact author and the exact archive.org URL linking to the original copyright-free declaration... AnonMoos 15:50, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

You mean this? Version of AnonMoos, 13th may 2006 12:27:

A crop circle in the form of a [[Triskelion]] composed of Circles:

{{PD-author|Alan L. Baughman}} 

This image had been uploaded to the English wikipedia on 04:36, 5 Aug 2004 by [[:en:User:Chris 73]] (28516 bytes) (Crop circle).  The original description is: 

:Source: [http://futurepropulsion.members.easyspace.com/crop_circle_message.html FuturePropulsion]: ''Though the original prototype has been patented, the material on the FuturePropulsion web site is not copyrighted.  Please feel free to use any or all of it in any way you see fit.'' ([http://futurepropulsion.members.easyspace.com/ Copyright notice]).

Last archive.org version of this declaration page is: http://web.archive.org/web/20040920093803/http://futurepropulsion.members.easyspace.com/

NielsF ^{? (en, nl, fr, it)} 15:56, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Yep, that's it! Though as I now reflect, it may not apply to Image:Crop circles Swirl.jpg at all... AnonMoos 17:14, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Looks like someone has misunderstood PD-US

Someone marked Image:Mucha-Maud Adams as Joan of Arc-1909.jpg and Image:Mucha-Exhibition Brooklyn Museum-1921.jpg as copyvios, because their maker was not a US citizen. However they were works for hire in the United States and first published in the US. Am I correct that these are actually PD-US? -N 16:14, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

They certainly are public domain in the US; the only determinant there is that they were published in the country before 1923.--Pharos 20:57, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I hadn't noticed that the other one had been deleted. You'd think I would have at least gotten a notification about the images being deleted, especially as I don't have a long history of uploading copyvios (at which point an argument might be made that there's no point in leaving a notification), but Polarlys doesn't appear to be very good about doing that. See the undeletion request. grendel|khan 15:07, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

On Wiki Logos

While there might be other places within the project, all over Wikicommons, indeed, at the top of this page, I see "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."

IT was brought to my attention that Wikipedia logo and other Wikimedia project logos are not free. There is likely another place/project where they can go, but they do not belong on Wikimedia Commons, and indeed, by allowing them to stay you're creating a disappointing schism between what you expect of others, and what you do yourself. --Thespian 19:43, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Images tagged with {{CopyrightByWikimedia}} are not free, however they are allowed to be here because they are excepted from fair use, as the Wikimedia Foundation owns the copyright. Because of this, plus the fact that this is the Wikimedia Foundation's image repository, there is nowhere else for these images to go besides here. (→O - RLY?) 20:06, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Except that does conflict with the repeated 'Only free content is allowed.' Why are The Wikimedia Foundation's images allowed to be licensed differently from all other content on Commons? There are other places/projects to put it that allow for more restrictive licensing (and http://wikimediafoundation.org/ for exclusive, foundation-use content), but the Commons should not contain them; the definition of Wikimedia Commons excludes them, regardless of exceptions that have been added for their exclusive use. --Thespian 20:18, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if you've looked at the deletion debate in Commons:Deletion_requests/Archive/2005/09 and also Commons:Alter_Wikimedia_Commons_policy_to_allow_Wikimedia_logos and its talk page. It was decided not to delete them, but no formal exception seems to have been made in Commons policy. William Avery 20:14, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

and there shouldn't be. Really, making an exception seems to be a problem when there *are* other places that they can go, and indeed, moving to Foundation or Meta would actually make more sense for location. --Thespian 20:21, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

After 2+ years of asking the WMF to license their logos more liberally, I am inclined to agree. This is especially true of things like Image:10Mar2005-01-34-21.jpg that are not used anywhere in any project, and Image:Bouncywikilogo.gif which exist purely to be entertaining. I would advocate expunging the ones that aren't used and moving the purely decorative ones to Meta. Anthere has made it bluntly clear that they the logos will never be copyright free in a way that is compatible with the mission of Commons, and so it misleading to keep large numbers of such logos here. Dragons flight 20:19, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't see much reason to oppose exceptions when a) the exceptions are few, b) they are clearly defined, c) and exceptions make it easier for Wikimedian's to operate. Samulili 20:48, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Nothing justifies the big lie in the basic principles. Any downloader can expect to use Commons pictures freely (above all scalable pictures can be downloaded without reading the copyright licence). --Juiced lemon 20:52, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Is ~1600 images, a few? Category:CopyrightByWikimedia. Many are user creations that bear little connection to Wikimedia's official activities. Dragons flight 21:26, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

The reason why there are ~1600 images in there is because of other images that contain any Wikimedia aspect, like software screenshots for example. If they contain any Wikimedia logo in them, they also have a license of {{CopyrightByWikimedia}} along with the GNU FDL, etc. (→O - RLY?) 23:01, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I know. My point is that for many of those cases their actual usefulness is too low, in my opinion, to justify bending the rules and allowing such non-free content on Commons. Hence I would argue that a large fraction should be deleted or migrated elsewhere. Dragons flight 23:23, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

If some are determined to be not useful with a check using CheckUsage, then possibly delete them. If they are even used in Wikimedia projects, then don't. Wikimedia logos (i.e. Wikipedia, Commons, etc.) stay how they are. (→O - RLY?) 00:12, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

There are dozens, if not hundreds that are entirely unused. (Including for example, 2 of the first 5 in the category.) Then there are also many more like Image:394px-Wikipedia-support-Wercules.jpg that are single use on a single project (in this case as a user page decoration), and in my opinion don't deserve an exemption either. If this place is truly about free content, then it shouldn't allow unfree content here without significant justification. Unfree images used only on a single project should be returned there. Dragons flight 00:41, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

• The Foundation promised in February to update the policy[12]. -N 00:25, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Anthere, April 2007: "The only certainty I can give is that the logos will not be transfered in the public domain nor under a cc-by-sa nor under gfdl. So, they will stay 'unfree'." Following enquiries about this very issue. Dragons flight 00:41, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

If you want this policy to change you need to take it up with the Foundation, not the Commons community. Even if Commons had a vote and decided the logos should be deleted, I feel quite certain the Board would quickly override us. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 10:45, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the Board has no objection to deleting the decorative gimmicks and the like. Except for a limited population official logos, most uses of the WMF logos are unathorized copyright/trademark violations that are against policy as it currently exists, if that policy is taken literally. We could easily remove ~95% of what now exists in Category:CopyrightByWikimedia without bothering anything official. Dragons flight 14:10, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

AFAIK recent versions of MediaWiki could support several shared file servers like Commons. So Wikimedia logos could be moved to dedicated server. --EugeneZelenko 14:18, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

They do. The problem is, what to do with images containing logos? Platonides 20:26, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Either the inclusions of the proprietary logotypes are de minimis in which case the resulting images may be free, or it's not, and the resulting image cannot be freely licensed. The perfect-copy nature of screenshots means that de minimis is generally not accepted for such images. For example, we don't accept screenshots containing Microsoft Windows widgets. In this sense, the WMF logos are really no different from proprietary Windows widgets. —LX (talk, contribs) 00:42, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

If the WMF logos aren't moved to a separate, shared server (like commons is) then they should be deleted from commons and added to all the other servers (the former sounds easiest). You know: just like any and every other logo in the world. Making WMF an exception is hypocritical on several levels. Notably commons policy and WMF's mission to "collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain." Cburnett 04:08, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

WMF logos aren't educational content, so there is nothing hypocritic there. Samulili 09:01, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Image:Benkovac (grb).gif

Image:Benkovac (grb).gif has GFDL license and says its from English wikipedia, i didn't find source there. There is similar (same?) image with better resolution in hr wikipedia hr:Image:Benkovac (grb).gif. License there seems not free enough to commons? --Tomia 21:57, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

28 July

Date & time-stamp for geo-coded pictures

Please see Commons talk:Geocoding#Date & time-stamp for geo-coded pictures for a proposal which may involve editing {{Information}} (perhaps by making {{Location}} a component of that template; and by adding some HTML classes and a date-time field). I suggest we keep discussion on the above page; or direct it to a new sub-page. Andy Mabbett 10:31, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Errors with Image:Charlie Gonzalez, official Congressional photo portrait.jpg

I've been trying to get this image to display correctly. It came from here, where I get an error message, but I assumed I could just open it in Photoshop, re-save it, and then upload it here to fix the problems. The image displays fine in Photoshop, but I still get an error when trying to load it here, and thumbnails won't appear either. I tried saving the image as a .tif file, then saving the .tif file as a .jpg to see if that would resolve it, but it didn't. Is anyone else having problems with this image? Any recommendations? Thanks. --Tom (talk - email) 17:54, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I saved it in Gimp and Mediawiki seems able to resize it now. William Avery 18:38, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, works for me now too. --Tom (talk - email) 03:21, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Question regarding publicity rights

I contacted the author of this photo enquiring whether she may be interested in releasing it - with the intention of it being used to illustrate a recent Miss Tennessee. Her reply brought up an issue I have never encountered before. Can anyone give any suggestions as to what I should tell her? Do we in fact need the photo subject to sign off?

"Hi thank you for inquring about the photo of Blair Pancake. I would be interested in allowing it to be used however wouldn't I need to get a model release form signed by Blair to allow anyone to use her photograph?"

Thanks for any advice... PageantUpdater 23:30, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

• It depends on the agreement he has with her. His license is probably restrictive, ie. he's not allowed to sublicense it to others. Without that information I don't think anybody could really say. -N 01:32, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
  • The thing is that her (author's) use of the word "model" is strange... this wasn't taken at a modelling shoot or anything... it was taken at a funeral (which I would assume to be a public event). I can imagine that if it were a photo shoot things would be different but this was a public appearance... PageantUpdater 01:41, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Currency

I must apologyse for my English, but I think it will be better to post this here. Copyright status of currency depends on the country. In Commons:Currency we have information about USA, Canada and Switzerland, but there is no information about other countries. However, we have some images, like Image:PH Peso 500.jpg for example, licensed under public domain or similar despite unknowing whether it is legal or not. Can anybody check Philippine law about currency?--FAR 13:56, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Drawings, paintings and engravings are protected by copyright in the Philippines. Works other than official texts published by the government of the Philippines can be used pretty freely, but you need pre-approval from the government before any commercial use. Hence they are strictly speaking not public domain. See en:Template talk:PhilippinesGov. Thuresson 00:43, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Deletion summaries

I think that deletion summaries should be mentioned in the Deletion guidelines. Recently I have seen summaries like "duplicate", "per deletion request" or "in category other speedy deletions, not edited for X days". Those are not really useful comments. When deleting duplicates or superseded images it should be required to link to (or at least mention the name of) the version that is kept, so that non-admins can find the image they are supposed to use. When images are deleted after deletion requests (or other discussions) it is useful to link to that specific request to see the actual delete reason. For other speedy deletions a more useful delete summary would be the reason that was used when the image was put in that deletion category. /90.229.135.239 12:12, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

We already do link to deletion requests when we delete per that. For speedy deletions, one can always look at the deletion guidelines to find out why it was deleted, though admins should give a summary. (→O - RLY?) 16:51, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Maybe you are correct about deletion request, I see that most such deletions have links, so the summaries I saw were probably exceptions. Other speedy deletions I think is also not a big problem, I trust that the admins check that there is a valid deletion reason. But with the delete summary example from my previous message, it is not obvious if the file was deleted for a valid reason or only because it was in that delete category. Since the speedy delete tag contains a delete reason ({{speedydelete|Reason}}), it should not be difficult to copy that reason to the delete comment when deleting (maybe someone can write javascript to do that).

The delete summaries I think are most important is for deletions of duplicates. If the deleted files are linked to or used at other websites, people following those links should be able to easily find the kept file versions. Therefor a link in the delete summary should be required for all such deletions. (As an example, suppose an on Commons that was copied from another wiki and then the other wiki deleted that file with the comment "duplicate". If someone from commons wanted to check that the license and source is correct, they will have to ask an admin at that wiki either to check the license of the deleted file or to give the name of the kept file. That be more work both for the admin at that wiki and for the person who wants to check the file. It would have been much easier if the delete summary had included a link.)/90.229.135.239 17:03, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Copyright question on an en image

en's got a great photo of the iPhone at en:Image:IPhone-docked-WP.jpg. However, it can't currently be uploaded here because it's being treated as a Fair Use image due to the phone's interface. Is that a valid concern over fair use? I'd like to go ahead and copy it over (it's an excellent language-neutral image; I've already gone through all the other iPhone articles to make sure they all have images, but that one would be ideal) but want to double-check first. EVula // talk // 04:19, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

• I think the utilitarian object exemption should apply. The icons on the buttons are not for looks, they are for visual identification. The phone has no physical buttons, the interface is entirely electronic. The only way to show how to operate the thing is using the interface (unless the interface is changeable, in which case a freely licensed version should be substituted...anybody know if user-created interfaces can be made?) -N 18:51, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
  • No, user-created themes aren't supported (currently, at any rate). EVula // talk // 19:05, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
    • Well supported is not the same as possible. Users are creative and come out with hacks all the time. Unfortunately my Google-fu is failing me, all my searches for 'iphone + interface' and 'iphone + theme' are giving results for iphone themes for other devices. Apparently hacking the phone IS possible though (see [13] and [14]). Since using a freely licensed screen configuration IS possible, I'm not sure Commons would allow a copyrighted interface image. -N 19:17, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Question about the copyright status of a document (PD-GermanGov?)

I asked this at Template talk:PD-GermanGov, in the vain hope that an expert will notice it in time. I didn't get an answer, so I'm asking here:

Please, can someone have a look at this document and tell me if it is in the PD? If it is so, I will upload it here. --Daggerstab 11:45, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

First of all, I doubt that the degree of originality is high enough to make this document even copyrightable. I think that it is an official work, but I am not sure. If this gets decided, Image:Besitzzeugnis EK1-1914.JPG should probably get the same license, as GFDL is certainly not correct. --rimshot^talk 13:58, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

The degree of originality is too low. There would be little risk to tag it as official work --Historiograf 21:32, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, thank you guys, I've uploaded it here. --Daggerstab 20:33, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

OTRS

Could someone with access to OTRS please see if they can find the permission mentioned in Commons:Deletion requests/Template:Ashipilin. Thanks/Lokal_Profil 07:50, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

It is ticket number 2007060810006009. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return fire)} 07:57, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Many thanks/Lokal_Profil 15:44, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Creative Commons Logo image

User:ChongDae asked me on Korean Wikipedia, and he said that CC logo image had licenced under Creative Commons attribution 2.5 on Wikimedia Commons but this image had been limited the derivative works. I checked the website article, and they seem to say that CC logo image is limited to using the mark to point to Creatice Commons official site. So must we delete their logo images on Wikimedia Commons? LERK (Talk / Contributions) 10:20, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

In a previous discussion, it was decided that we keep CC logos because we need them and other wikimedia projects need them. See also discussion above about Wikimedia logos. Samulili 11:06, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

SVG with raster image embedded : display problem

Good day.
I've created a map (Image:Zambezi_river_basin-fr.svg) under Inkscape with an embedded JPG background image and I've got problems to display the raster image. The worse is that the problem depends on which navigator and on which WP I display the map. When the display is ok on Firefox under Commons and WP-fr, it doesn't work on WP-en neither with IE6, and if it works, after modifications and a new upload, with these last, it doesn't display fine in Commons or WP-fr.
I've tried several types of JPG compression (Standard, Standard optimized and Progressive) but it doesn't help.
With the last version (13:04, 31 July 2007), I was able to make it work under Firefox and IE6, on Commons, WP-fr and WP-en but… now, when I insert the map in an article page on WP-fr (for example fr:Zambèze), the raster image, again isn't displayed, neither with Firefox, nor with IE (it seems to work fine on WP-en).
Can somebody help me ? Thanks. Sting 13:22, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Javascript?

Does anyone know why the JavaScript does not hide the section and show button does not appear here on the commons? It works just fine in wikipedia (look on the left for the show button) and has the exact same wording, but it does not work how it is suppose to here. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks. --Digon3 ^talk 15:35, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

HELP!

Sorry for asking in the wrong place, but it has been a while since I posted a call for help in the Help Desk and I could really do with a straight answer, since I need to get on with some work. If you can help me, the title in the Help Desk in "HELP!" --Harris Morgan

Lokal_Profil has already answered your question at Commons:Help desk#HELP!. EVula // talk // 17:31, 31 July 2007 (UTC)