Commons:Village pump/Archive/2007Sep

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Village pump (Archives)

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This is an archive. Do NOT post here.
If you want to restart an old topic, copy the entire topic to the Village pump and add your post like you would normally.

Contents


[edit] Interwiki links for categories and galleries

Has there been any consesus on how interwiki links for categories and galleries should be made? If both a category and a gallery exist in Commons for the same topic, should they both have interwiki links to the article pages on the Wikipedias? Or should the category have interwiki links to the Wikipedia categories and the gallery have interwiki links to the Wikipedia articles? What should be done if there is only a category in Commons? I've tried to search for relevant discussion about this, but I can't seem to find any. YooChung 12:49, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

The standard practice seems to be that galleries have interwiki links to galleries and categories have interwiki links to categories. Samulili 14:00, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
There is no such standard practice. The images you can find in Commons categories are there for illustrating Wikipedia articles, not Wikipedia categories. More, in order to properly organize the topics structure in Commons, we need informations which we find in Wikipedia articles first.
You have to understand that Wikimedia Commons is not an encyclopedia project, and therefore many things you have learnt in the Wikipedia projects are irrelevant here. --Juiced lemon 13:46, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
I mustn't have really thought about the whole of what I wrote. Naturally there aren't interwiki links between galleries because other projects don't have galleries as separate pages. D'oh!
@YooChung: There are regular interwiki links between categories. From a Wikipedia article, there are usually links to commons with en:Template:Commons template or similar. Commons galleries, on the other hand, have links to Wikipedia articles at the top of the gallery page. Samulili 15:34, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
... or from Wikipedia articles to commons categories using the en:Template:Commonscat template. --Foroa 16:39, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
and above all Italiano Wikipedia Template:Interprogetto.
The same subject (Interwiki links for categories and galleries) have been previously discussed on June 2007. I apply the only system which was proposed: Commons:Village pump/Archive/2007Jun#Proposals (by myself). --Juiced lemon 18:23, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I had only thought of asking about interwiki links from Commons to Wikipedia (so is it the consesus that Commons categories should be interwiki linked to Wikipedia articles? or is it the other way around? I can't quite tell ...), but the Wikipedia templates above made me wonder about interwiki links from Wikipedia to Commons. I have been interwiki linking categories with categories and articles with galleries (and vice versa) in both Commons and Wikipedia (actually using templates in WP, though), but has this been a good idea? If Commons categories should always be interwiki linked to WIkipedia articles instead of categories, it occurs to me that Wikipedia articles should also be linked to Commons categories instead of galleries ... YooChung 00:30, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

IMO it doesn't make sense for anyone to say "should" or "always" because Wikipedia doesn't always have a category where we have a category, and Commons doesn't always have a gallery where Wikipedia has an article. I think just link to the most useful thing. Sometimes it is a gallery, sometimes it is a category. It's not something I would lose sleep over. :) --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 00:51, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] About derivative works

There are wikipedians from Chinese Wikipedia concern about the copyright of (1) Image:BOCHK passbooks cards.jpg, (2a) Image:Tvb-weekly-special.JPG ver.A, (2b) Image:Tvb-weekly-special.JPG ver.B, (2c) Image:Zeitschriften.JPG and (3) Image:Wii Wiimotea.png. I just take a look on Commons:Derivative works, but still not quite sure about the clear status on each piece of work. Could anyone answer that if they are suitable to be placed on Wikimedia Commons or not?! Stewart~惡龍 06:57, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

(1) yes (2a)(2b) no (2c) yes (3) yes. --Fb78 10:01, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Could you please give reason as well? Many thank. Stewart~惡龍 16:29, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
The reasons are laid out pretty thoroughly on Commons:Derivative works. Photographs on magazine covers are protected, so you can't reproduce them here. Simple designs, such as the credit cards and the Wii console (which basically is just a box at an angle) are not protected by copyright. --Fb78 07:37, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
would you like to further explain why Image:BOCHK passbooks cards.jpg are not copyrighted? Bank notes and Credit cards maybe utilitarian objects, but the logo of BOCHK and the graphic design on the credit card sould be copyrighted. Is "simple design" not an "art"?--Srr 06:17, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
  • The image (1) Image:BOCHK passbooks cards.jpg clearly, in my view, does reach the threshold for copyrightability - indeed, even the pictorial logo down the right side of two of the cards does that. I'm afraid it and the others mentioned cannot remain here. (3) Image:Wii Wiimotea.png is OK, though, as it shows little more than a 3d box which will not attract copyright. I've tagged the problem files on Commons for speedy deletion. --MichaelMaggs 06:28, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
    • I'm sorry but as those images are still in argument. It's not that good to put them in speedy deletion. I'd prefer Commons:Deletion_requests rather than that. And, I'm worried about images like this are deleted without any notice, it's because, some of them probably still can be used on Wikipedia (or other projects) under fairuse.Stewart~惡龍 11:04, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 30 August 2007

[edit] Commons user accounts, by choice of interface language

Some of the folks at Wiktionary asked me to report on the user interface settings used by Wiktionary users. I thought the results might be interesting for commons as well. Enjoy. --Gmaxwell 02:02, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Users Interface language user preference
108864 en
31821 es
12487 fr
11552 de
5367 pt
3655 ja
2664 pl
2423 it
2065 nl
1625 sv
1621 pt-br
1235 no
1223 ar
1012 ru
830 zh
501 ca
488 cs
349 fi
233 zh-tw
231 hu
219 bg
204 zh-cn
174 zh-hk
166 he
165 da
123 tr
101 zh-yue
89 fa
77 id
59 sl
55 ko
54 ro
48 eu
47 vi
44 el
39 lt
38 hr
37 nn
32 th
31 eo
29 uk
23 sr
17 et
11 is
10 ms
8 gu
7 ast
6 gsw
5 be
4 br
3 be-tarask
2 af
1 ab
Cool, thankyou. I copied this table and put some notes about it at Commons:Registered users by language preference. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 09:13, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
Also if you could copy the SQL query on that page, it would be useful for in the future, so we can reproduce the stats consistently.
I wonder what proportion of users in any given non-English wiki use the English interface? pfctdayelise (说什么?) 09:21, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
Most accounts are not used, and I assume that the English interface is the ‘by default’ one. So, in my opinion, these stats are of little interest. The number of edits with a given interface would be more significant. --Juiced lemon 09:42, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
Definitely the English figure will be grossly inflated, but it seems to me that you wouldn't bother registering and changing your language if you weren't going to edit, so I think the non-English numbers must be good. Of course they will be under-represented, because some users will keep using English or won't even realise it's possible to change it, but they are a useful estimate hopefully. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 08:09, 2 September 2007 (UTC)


[edit] 1 September 2007

[edit] some easy use guidelines please

Not all of us are able to understand how we are supposed to go about uploading photos and other things. I've spent most of the morning jumping from here to there looking at various instructions and guidelines and as a newbie what I would really like would be "How to upload your work in X easy steps" or similar. I want to contribute photos, which I have, but I do not want to spend hours trying to find out how to do it. Can someone give me a linear A to F? westvidalWestvidal 10:15, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Hey Westvidal, have you tried to the Commons:First steps? Let us know if there's anything that's not covered in there. cheers --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 10:42, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Advertising in the main page

Some users have decided to advertise in the main page here.

I thing such advertising is against Commons policy (see also Talk:Main Page#Edit by User:Juiced lemon): a minority of users cannot decide to seize the main page for themselves. Therefore, I request the cleaning of the main page. --Juiced lemon 09:57, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I would not characterise "meet our photographers" as advertising anything. Rather, it is showcasing some of our best work. I think we ought to be encouraging good photographers to contribute more, and some recognition is a good way of furthering this. Thanks for bringing this up here to discuss it, but can we please keep the discussion in one place? See also Commons_talk:Meet_our_photographers#Main_Page and Talk:Main_Page#Edit_by_User:Juiced_lemon ++Lar: t/c 10:26, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
I don't criticize Commons:Meet our photographers, but this page is only a Commons project amongst many others. The Community has not decided to promote more particularly this project and the related activities. Therefore, it's fine to link it in Commons:Community Portal and Commons:Featured pictures, but not in the main page, which is intended to the access to Commons database at first. --Juiced lemon 07:23, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
You are the one who says the main page is (only?)/first intended to access the Commons database. This change is not impeding anyone to access the Commons database anyway. Displaying the POTD doesn't exactly "provide access" to the database, but it serves a useful purpose nonetheless. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 07:37, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
I commented on Talk:Main_Page#Edit_by_User:Juiced_lemon, let's keep the discussion there Finn Rindahl 07:41, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Now, the place for accessing the Commons database is only 1/8th of the displayed part of the main page. Any addition above this place obviously impedes access to the media files. Quote (author: Juiced lemon):

Tasks which are useful to Commons project:
* before an upload to Commons:
  * draw an image
  * take a picture
  * record an audio file
  * find an existing media file with a free licence (possibly, negociate for it)
* upload a media file which is:
  1. in the scope of the project (that is with a free licence)
  2. not already in the database
  3. not obviously superseded by another file
* classify media files of the Commons database
* organize the Commons project
* write documents in order to help people to concur to the project goals
* check the compliance of people actions with Commons goals, rules, methods and customs
Perform a particular task, like “upload an media file”, don't grant you any privilege, or any skill you don't already own.

Take a photograph is only a particular task amongst other ones. --Juiced lemon 08:09, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Hm. It would be great to have more users classifying images. What about creaeting Featured Galleries, that show a featured collection of images? This will probably draw more users into organizing media. -- Bryan (talk to me) 20:23, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Necessary to OTRS this info?

The flag and coat of arms of Nova Scotia keeps getting deleted because the government of Nova Scotia website says "use of the Nova Scotia flag in a respectful manner as a symbol of the Province of Nova Scotia is permitted".

I have however contacted the the Canadian Intellectual Property Office and asked them if the flags and coats of arms of the provinces of Canada (and Nova Scotia in particular) are protected by copyright. I got an email back stating that "the arms, crest or flag adopted and used at any time by Canada or by any province or municipal corporation in Canada" are only protected by section 9 of the Trademarks Act.

Can I just add this to the image summary template, or do I need to forward this email to OTRS? Anrie 09:04, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Judging from meta:User_talk:Anthere#Licensing_policy, the question on whether coats of arms are "free cultural works" or not is still an open one. Teofilo 12:11, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
Anrie, please forward the email to OTRS and also mention the template. -- Bryan (talk to me) 20:20, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I give up. Deletion requests much too complicated - so keep the copyvios.

Dear formidable members of this wonderful community. Get real, you can't change the ridiculously complicated procedure for a deletion request all the time. Obviously a degree is not enough anymore to deal with your procedures, one needs a post-graduate program. I'm here to fill out deletion requests for two copyvios (derivative works) and I don't understand the new procedure anymore. You don't want copyvios to get deleted, right? Well, keep them. I don't care anymore. I will remove them from articles on de whenever I find some, but I won't report them here. May they stay forever. --h-stt !? 21:32, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Would you be willing to add MediaWiki:Quick-delete.js to your JavaScript file, which significantly simplifies the deletion process? (Check out the MediaWiki talk:Quick-delete.jsfor how-to instructions.) --Iamunknown 21:38, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
There is a button "Nominate for deletion" in your left sidebar. If you click it everything should go automatically. If it doesn't, we would like to hear your comments. -- Bryan (talk to me) 21:51, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Hey, I'm surprised - and in a good way. Please include a note about this new function in the toolbox into the template {{delete}}, the version shown if one tries to put it into an article by hand. Oh and a short explanation in the popup-window would be nice. Something along the line of: "Your entry will be given as reason in the listing" --h-stt !? 22:11, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, {{delete}} says If this template was added because you clicked "Nominate for deletion" in the left menu, which implies the existence of a "Nominate for deletion" button in the sidebar. But maybe we should make it more clear by bolding it? -- Bryan (talk to me) 09:53, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
Can't we add this function to the standard monobook? --Jollyroger 08:28, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] -Joseph William Burzynski

I am looking for family of Joseph William Burzynski,born 1894 in Sterdyn,Poland. I now vey little about his family. His mothers maiden name was Boltoze. I do not know her given name. I believe he had a brother John and maybe a sister Helen. Joseph left Poland at age 14, landed in the US then later went to Canada. In Canada he married Pauline Winczura, out of that union a family of 6 girls. Joseph lost contact of his family during the second world war. I do not have the knowlege of reading Polish. I would appreciate any knowlege that may be out there about my father.

Louise O Burzynski Gilley loubeanie2@msn.com

This is a site for hosting images and other media for use on WMF projects. It's probably not the best place for your query. There are a lot of resources on the web. Try the Geneology article on Wikipedia for some possible starting points, or you might try asking your question in the right subsection of the Wikipedia:Reference desk. ++Lar: t/c 11:06, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] regrets to excessive policing

What I was given to understand and that what I impression I still hold about various wiki projects is that various projects and pages/gallaries become slowly operational over a period of time .I am a active member from Marathi Language Wikipedia before few months I had created a gallery that would slowly develop in Marathi language main page here in Wikimedia commons along with proper notice for and links for marathi language wikipedians unfortunately some of you came deleted the page afterword some gentleman came deleted talk page of the gallery and both the pages that the prospective gallery and its talk page were extensively linked in various marathi language co-projects like marathi wikipedia wiktionary etc.

I always felt uncomfortable and displeased with excess in policing in the name of clean up.I had invested considerable time to see that good no. of Marathi language people get diverted here . I do regret what happened to my good efforts.

Mahitgar 15:56, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

The contents is still here, and has alwayd been, as Template:Portal notice-mr. But I have restored the deleted page मुखपृष्ठ for you. It was probably deleted because it only contained the template. / Fred J 20:51, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks Fred very nice of you, Just yesterday some of the editors at Marathi Language wikipedia have come up assuring support for Marathi Language main page at commons. Mahitgar 15:50, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:Mr. Krabs

This user keeps vandalizing. Can somebody block him? —Squidward 02:58, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Can somebody block SpongeBob, too? He's getting annoying! —Squidward 03:08, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Annoying vandal indeed! Give him the boot! —Sandy Cheeks 03:17, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The place is here, the time is now...

A strange thing was reported on the French-speaking Bistro concerning Image:Shinhwa07.5B.jpg‎, which appears in Category:Copyright violation. Following the link will get you to Image:Shinhwa07.jpg, which was deleted some time ago and is definitely not the same picture. Yet it's perfectly possible to view diffs, such as this one, or to view this picture from one of the Wikipedias, see for instance en:Image:Shinhwa07.5B.jpg. Any idea what's going on? Jastrow (Λέγετε) 09:03, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

It seems like the “.5B” part of the name is ignored: Image:Shinhwa07.5B.jpg. Possibly a bug. --Juiced lemon 09:33, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Yep, looks like a bug. The software doesn't like multiple dots in the file name. Using "Shinhwa07%2E5B.jpg", I was able to delete it. (It was an album cover. %2E is the encoding for a period.) Lupo 09:41, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
We have a number of pictures with multiple dots in the file name (e.g. pictures from the British Museum with accession number in the file name) and they don't pose any problem for now. I'm not sure I understand how this bug works: why was the ".5B" part was just ignored? Jastrow (Λέγετε) 09:50, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Don't know. "%5B" is "[". File a bug report! Lupo 10:26, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
It's caused by our MediaWiki:Monobook.js. See Commons:Bistro#Bug ?. Do we really need these lines? They unconditionally remove any ".5B" ("[") and ".5D" ("]") from the href, which gives interesting behaviour for .5B: that goes to the main page (open for editing)! At the very least do the removal only after a "#"! Lupo 12:32, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
See also Bug 2831. Lupo 12:33, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
For a fix, see MediaWiki talk:Monobook.js. Lupo 15:27, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] বাংলাদেশ or Bangladesh?

The Bangladesh page has been moved to the বাংলাদেশ page, while a category was named বাংলাদেশ alongside the category named Bangladesh. All very nice. But, isn't Wikimedia a global project? Doesn't the use of vernaculars scripts, especially non-international scripts, make it difficult for most people? Is there a policy on this? If yes, why it is not being applied in this case? If no, why it has not been thought of yet? This particular script is my native script. But, for me a global repository of knowledge sounds bigger than nationalistic fervor and zeal. Cheers. Aditya Kabir 17:17, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

You can see the proposals on titles of articles at Commons:Language policy. I think it's not very clear, and it may deserve some discussion. I don't know what is the best answer, though. If you see that people don't discuss here, you might try at the talk page there. - Keta 18:13, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
I can't support this kidn of move for a second. Being an international project, we mustn't have galleries or categories named in some minor obscure language, eg. w:Finnish. The only reasonable thing to do is to use the lingua franca of the current day. Samulili 14:16, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I support articles being in native language, for consistancy. There is Sverige, so what is wrong with Россия (with a redirect from Russia)? But -- as per our policy -- the categories should be in English. Fred J 14:53, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Create redirect, people! They work for galleries! --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 10:55, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Don't more people speak Chinese than English? Should we change everything to Chinese? --Londoneye 11:44, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wrong image name

Hi, I found an image with a wrong name: Image:Rigugio Bertagnoli.jpg should be renamed as "Rifugio Bertagnoli.jpg" (as you can read in the image itself), "Rigugio" is clearly a mistake. Can anybody do this? Thanks. —the preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.15.251.194 (talk • contribs) 21:33, 26. Aug. 2007

Hi, due to software limitations, images cannot be automatically moved/renamed. The only way to do it is to upload it again with the right name, and mark the bad one for deletion with {{bad name|better name.jpg}}. thanks --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 12:35, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
Unfortunately, I don't know how to upload an image, I never worked on Commons before. Can anybody do it for me, please? —the preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.56.191.161 (talk • contribs) 19:27, 27. Aug. 2007

OK, I've done it.--Londoneye 11:54, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Blurry images

Simple question: is it possible to 'unblurry' images, and if so - how? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 18:57, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Images can be sharpened to some extent, but there is a limit to what extent. See en:Unsharp masking. If this is in relation to a wikipedia image try asking en:User:MIckStephenson

86.145.179.212 21:05, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

why does th e link not work?

86.145.179.212 21:10, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Works OK for me.--Londoneye 11:57, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Favicon for Wikimedia Commons

I've been uploading Favicons from all Wikimedia projects I could think of and Commons is the only one that didn't have one. Anyone up for the task of making one? --Steinninn 02:59, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Er, Commons has a favicon in my browser...? pfctdayelise (说什么?) 11:45, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
And you can see that as easily as all browsers do… [1] --Mormegil 13:20, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Funny. I don't see it. Could you upload it with the rest of the images --Steinninn 14:48, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
I can see it, but it has bugged me for a while that it appears on a white background. A version with a transparent background would be better. Any idea how to change it? the wub "?!" 18:03, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Well, uploading a new version of Wikimedia#Favicon and reporting it at bugzilla should work. The only Wikimedia favicon that looks transparent to me is the Meta on. --Steinninn 05:08, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hogarth on Wheels!

I've turned up a book showing, in extreme detail, all of the works that were ever reliably attributed to Hogarth. I'm going to scan all of them in and claim PD-art/PD-100 (He died in 17something); will anyone upload them for me? 68.39.174.238 01:21, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

That's fantastic, but can't you get an account and upload them yourself? --Fb78 07:48, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Alright look for them this weekend. 68.39.174.238 17:02, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fundraising buttons

Copied from the mailing lists. Those of you with graphic skills should take note:

From Sabine Cretella

Hi, some of you probably already noted that we are starting to work on the fundraiser. Over time you will see some requests for help here and I hope you will do so  :-)

At this stage there are two active tasks and one of it is the creation of the Buttons for the fundraiser.

Description: meta:Fundraising 2007/Buttons and banners to be translated

First examples and translations: meta:Fundraising 2007/web buttons

So if you have ideas to create buttons, banners etc: just do it  :-)

Wishing you a creative and wonderful day!

Sabine

Cary Bass demandez 12:43, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] b u n c h o f p h o t o s a b o u t.com

I just found links to this image site in several Wikipedia articles (and removed them). It calls itself "the Unofficial Pictorial Extension of Wikipedia , the free encyclopedia." I never heard about this site and couldn't find any discussion here or on the English WP. Some pages (like this) just show images hotlinked from all over the net, others are uploaded on that site. And no mentioning of authors, copyright, etc.. Other pages (like this or this) load thumbnails directly from the Wikimedia servers, and again doesn't mention author/source/license. So was this ever discussed with the Wikipedia community? Or should it be blocked because of hotlinking (and possibly because of copyvios)? --91.65.124.74 02:21, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Links to this site should be removed and the site should be blacklisted. Hotlinking is not allowed and should be blocked as well. --Fb78 10:35, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
Think I'll maybe look at a Meta level blacklisting - looks quite extensive across wikis. Did you report it at the en wp spam project? Thanks --Herby talk thyme 10:42, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
That is definitely not an official site. Are we supposed to contact WMF lawyers so they can blast them or something? pfctdayelise (说什么?) 11:00, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
It calls itself "the Unofficial Pictorial Extension of ..."', anyway, what happend to talking? --32X 19:23, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
  • reset

Massive cross wiki spam, blacklisted at Meta - thanks --Herby talk thyme 07:07, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Where can I find a dump of the Wikimedia Commons' database ?

Actually this is not my question but a question asked by someone else on the French Wikipedia's Bistro : fr:Wikipédia:Le_Bistro/2_septembre_2007#Dump_wikimedia_commons. If you know the answer, would you mind answering there ?

Teofilo 10:44, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

The raw text databases are here: http://download.wikipedia.org/backup-index.html. The image database is not publicly available yet. However, the developers are making efforts to run an rsync3 server that will allow the replication of Commons' images. -- Bryan (talk to me) 20:19, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
Are you making that comment on the basis of the wikitech-l discussion a few weeks ago, or do you have some more information since then? pfctdayelise (说什么?) 11:37, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, this was only a few days ago. There is no official information yet though. -- Bryan (talk to me) 13:04, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks Bryan, for your answer. Teofilo 13:53, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] RSS feed

Hi everybody, is it possible to use a RSS feed for images of a special topic? What I need are random images from the plant species 'Solanacea' on my website and there are a lot of nice images available in wikimedia. It would be nice to have these images on my website included through a RSS feed. Does anyone have experience with that?

You can get an RSS feed for a category like this. Or you could, if the toolserver would be working. Should be back in a day or two... Note: This will not show random images, but the last ones uploaded in that category. --Magnus Manske 15:09, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks a lot. Sounds useful in my case. I will try this approach.
We now have Commons:Feeds. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 13:33, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tagging

I have recieved permission to upload images from a website. I got the confimation via email. I would like to find out what tags need to be used before i upload and how do i prove that i have permissionAdam.J.W.C.

  • And how are we supposed to help you if we don't know what that permission says? (Forward your whole E-Mail exchange it to permissions-commons AT wikimedia DOT org and make clear in your E-Mail to which images from which website it applies and also mention that you need help to figure out the right tag.) Lupo 06:48, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Check out Commons:OTRS for some more details about "proving" permissions, and until the images get processed you can tag them with {{otrs pending}}. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 12:32, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the info, I have sent an email to the above address, It contains my request and his reply. I will upload one of the images and tag it as instructed above. The image is of a man inside an operations bunker standing on a ladder in front of a map of the south west pacific theater of war. ThanksAdam.J.W.C. 04:44, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image to rename

The image Image:Catilina lors de la conjuration.jpg should be renamed because it does not depict Catilina but Jugurtha. I've explained in the relevant page what should be done and why. But I don't know how to rename images. If anybody knows how, please do it in my place. Thanks in advance. --Vermondo 00:48, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I noticed that when I'm uploading for example my own work, the side bar is missleading. Where it normally sais Upload file it now sais Upload your own work. That is because the system message MediaWiki:Upload/ownwork has been changed. I see four things we can do.

  1. nothing
    Not my choice, you think you will go to the same form again, but instead you go to Commons:Upload, sure, you are still only one click away from your destination, but we are professionals, we shouldn't have it like this.
  2. delete MediaWiki:Upload/ownwork
    The only thing I know this will change is that the title of my own work will change from Upload your own work into Upload file.
  3. change MediaWiki:Upload-url/ownwork into [2]
    When you are at my own work and click on Upload your own work at the sidebar, then you will actually be taken to that form.
  4. change upload-url|upload at MediaWiki:Sidebar into upload-url|Upload file
    Now the sidebar will still say Upload file no matter what form you are in. The downside is, when you set your language into something els then English, you will still see Upload file. Maybe we could create a new system message.

The same goes for the other fictional languages (fromflickr, fromwikimedia, fromgov, more?). I'll go with number 4, but number 2 is tempting. --Steinninn 03:42, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Hm. I didn't notice that before. It's a side effect of the fact that the label on the sidebar is reused as the heading for the upload form in question. I think the custom headings are useful, so I don't think there's anything we can do about the sidebar links. They are only "wrong" for one page. We can't do option 4 because it will break multilinguality. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 13:31, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
What if we use uploadbtn instead of upload in the sidebar? Do you have any idea what that system message is used for? --Steinninn 15:56, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mayflower

I almost died of old age waiting for a response from Mayflower. I may have a couple keystrokes left... they may be my last... ....gurgle!

The toolserverdatabase has problems. s2 is currently unavailable, see tools.wikimedia.de/status_s2. The database for Commons is on that cluster.--Erwin85 11:43, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Commonswiki appears to be up to date on Yarrow. Maybe we should poke around with Tango. -- Bryan (talk to me) 18:10, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] EXIF problem

Recently, I uploaded my photos to Commons and chose Dual Free License, but in the EXIF showed "Copyright holder" tag with "Copyright 2007" (like this), did this camera "BenQ C1050" has any problem? If this problem still continued, what should I do and did anyone have idea about changing EXIF data? Rico Shen contact... 17:37, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

What's the problem? Your photo is copyrighted, and you licensed it under both the GFDL and CC-BY-SA-2.5. So everything is fine. GFDL/CC-BY-SA-2.5 does not mean you'd give up copyright! You do keep the copyright, but you grant a non-revokeable liberal license to use the image to anyone else. Choosing a license tag on Commons does not change the EXIF data of the image. ... Or wait... is your problem that the EXIF shows "Copyright 2007" instead of your name? I don't know how to fix that on your camera. To fix it in the JPEG, use an EXIF editor. Lupo 19:38, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Rico Shen, have a look at Commons:Manipulating meta data. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 05:43, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
I asked for this question because someone may misunderstand that the picture is "All rights reserved", but the EXIF information of BenQ C1050 shows just "Copyright 2007", not include "All rights reserved", it means that the license of photos is still decided by users freely. If still have the problem, I'll contact BenQ Taiwan for solving this problem. Rico Shen contact... 06:45, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
The default for any picture is "all rights reserved" unless mentioned otherwise. Someone seeing "Copyright 2007" is more likely to assume "all rights reserved" than dream up his own. The type of person who does interpret this too freely is the type who have little regard for licenses anyway and they'll copy the picture no matter what it says.
I don't think you need to worry about this: clearly all rights aren't reserved, as is made clear by the extremely big licenses in the summary section, which people will see long before scrolling down to squint at "Copyright 2007". And as Lupo has said: "Copyright 2007" isn't wrong, that's still the year in which you created a work to which some copyrights belong only to the you.

[edit] Category:It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

I could use some help identifying some of the actors in Category:It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and categorizing them. Would someone like to lend a hand? Thanks!... -- Yekrats 10:58, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

see http://imdb.com/title/tt0057193/
--Juiced lemon 12:42, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Cities by the Oder River

User:Sebastian Wallroth has just created this category, but this name makes me think about floating cities. I should like rather Category:Cities along the Oder River, or something like that.

However, as I am not expert in English language, I ask for other opinions. --Juiced lemon 14:41, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Shouldn't river be with a small r and not a capital? (It's not German ;)) -- Bryan (talk to me) 19:23, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Capital is usual in such case: w Wikipedia Oder River. --Juiced lemon 19:42, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Not sure what is the better name, I'm no native English speaker either ;) Whatever the outcome it would also affect category:Cities by the Rhine and category:Cities by the Vistula, the top category Category:Cities by river I take it is more like Rivers by continent, writers by nationality and so forth. Finn Rindahl 21:31, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Categories “by criterion” are not concerned (see Commons:Naming categories#Categories by CRITERION).
Google test:
  • “cities by the Rhine”: 6 (2 from Wikipedia Commons)
  • “cities on the Rhine”: 3890
  • “cities along the Rhine”: 3990
--Juiced lemon 23:04, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Seems a close call between on the and along the, either is fine with me. The google test should effectively disqualify by the Rhine. But this seem to have been discussed before, with the opposite result: see Category:Cities and villages on the Rhine which has been made a cat redir to category:cities by the Rhine. Anyone remembering this? Finn Rindahl 23:38, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd have thought "by the River" is better; after all, we say "Sussex by the Sea", not on or along the sea!Londoneye 12:03, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Why the Oder River? The Oder is a small important German river- say like the Spee or the Sieg. European convention is to place the word river before the name. With larger rivers- such as the Rhein (Rhine) or Donau (Danube)the word river is often omitted. So we have the River Oder, the River Sieg, the River Spee. I think that this then has a knock on effect with the 'by' and 'along'. To my thinking, a city by a river is one where the river does not pass through or along the borders, where a city is along a river, the river passes through the city. If we group together those cities- then the river almost certainly will pass through a piece if the landmass. Now Brighton is on a sea not a river- but one could have a category: Holiday resorts along the Sussex Coast.ClemRutter 12:57, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image:Mulroney Memoirs.jpg

What is the proper licensing for a book cover ? Canuck 19:41, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

  • {{fair use}}. :-) Since we don't allow fair use, this will be deleted. Lupo 19:47, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Non-photograph images

Could you point me to policies on who holds copyrights to non-photographic images? For example in case of medical x-ray images (for example http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Xray_empty_dental_space.jpg) are they copyrighted and if so who has right to release them to public domain: a patient in the image (most likely), a technician or doctor who pressed the button (less likely), or hardware owner (very unlikely). How about x-ray images of cargo containers (like http://www.cargolaw.com/images/Singles06.Co-Loading2.GIF) who has copyrights to those: owner of the container, person in the image (if any), hardware operator, organization that owns the hardware? Does wikicommons have any guidelines on this type of images? Thanks in advance -- Jarekt

There's nothing special, per se, about non-visible-light photographs. There's no difference of paying a dentist to photograph a tooth vs. paying someone to take a standard 35mm film picture of a whole person. The photographer generally holds the copyright. Cburnett 04:01, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
That's correct. The person who sets up/operates the photomechanical device holds the copyright. In the US, this can also be a corporation or government body. The person who is being depicted never holds the copyright. --Fb78 11:24, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Hm, if you pay the dentist, does that make it a work for hire? :) pfctdayelise (说什么?) 12:33, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Likely not (at least in the US where I know the law). IIRC, health care providers are generally considered the owner of the records. Laws say that you have the right to a copy only if you make a request and you are required to pay a reasonable fee for copying them. FloNight♥♥♥ 16:10, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

If copyrights of medical images are held by technicians that operate the machine than all the medical images donated to wiki commons by patients do not have proper licenses. See http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Chest.png or http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Cdm_hip_fracture_343.jpg or http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:LCA-RX1.jpg as examples. Some uploaders stated that they took the photos of x-ray images so they are the authors. I believe that patients should be able to upload their own medical images, but that does not seem like a proper justification. If they have such legal right than there should be license choice that fits that scenario. If thy have no such right than it should be added to FAQ or some other easy to find place. Jarekt 19:31, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

The radiologist has no rights when he can't prove it:
  • non-digital techniques: either the radiologist don't keep a copy of the images, either he keep them during a short time
  • digital techniques: lenght of storage?
--Juiced lemon 22:09, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
It's simpler than that. The radiologist has no ownership because they are the employee. A creative work done during the course of employment is, by default, ownership of the employer (unless you have specific arrangements to the contrary).
As for ownership by the patient, that has to be evaluated on a per-image basis because you don't know if they were granted copyright ownership. Cburnett 03:08, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
YLMV, your legislation may vary. One shouldn't say that a work done during the course of employment is, by default, ownership of the employer because that is not the case everywhere. Samulili 07:30, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Well, it should be considered the default unless otherwise stated. On the copyright status, I think that most of these images (if not all?) lack originality, so no copyright claim can be made. There are simply the work of a machine, like a scanner. The radiologist is there to interpret the images, not to create artistic content. Yann 14:50, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
Samulili: touche. That is the US's take on the employer/employee-copyright position.
Yann: the originality is there to the same extent of photographing any specific object. Just because I take a long-exposure of a waterfall (hardly original) doesn't mean I don't get a copyright to my photo. And simply because a radiologist has an ancillary job of interpreting doesn't mean the work in making the photo is for naught in terms of copyright. Cburnett 05:06, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 6 September 2007

[edit] Duplication

I found this feature image Image:Along the River 7-119-3.jpg is a duplicate of Image:QingMingShangHeTu Big.jpg. They are both exactly a copy of http://www.npm.gov.tw/masterpiece/enlargement.jsp?pic=K2A001110, but used different compression ratio to reproduce. After some sampling and comparing, I can say the color of Image:QingMingShangHeTu Big.jpg is closer to http://www.npm.gov.tw/masterpiece/enlargement.jsp?pic=K2A001110 than Image:Along the River 7-119-3.jpg. It means Image:QingMingShangHeTu Big.jpg is closer to original version of NPM than Image:Along the River 7-119-3.jpg.--image:百楽兎.png百楽兎 02:26, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

A deletion request of featured picture: Image:Along the River 7-119-3.jpg was made. Please DON'T write your opinion here.--image:百楽兎.png百楽兎 05:38, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hogarth images (Large)

http://68.39.174.238/WH.zip — A load of free engravings of Hogarthery, including the long missing (From WpA) "w:Industry and Idleness", as I promised above that I would scan and make available. Licence should be PD-Art|PD-100, given that he died in the 1700s. 68.39.174.238 17:19, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I will upload them, if you can provide some more information about the book you scanned it. Thank you for the work! -- Bryan (talk to me) 19:56, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
They come from two books, 1st of which was "The genius of William Hogarth", the second, "Hogarth's Graphical Works". 68.39.174.238 01:03, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Ok. Uploading. To everybody: The images are here [3]. Some of them need rotation and or cropping; you're help would be appreciated. -- Bryan (talk to me) 19:30, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Also, all the old uploaded engravings need to be marked as redundant and replaced providing they aren't better (Which isn't likely, all the one's I've checked thus far were all at low enough a resolution you couldn't read the verses at the bottom. 68.39.174.238 01:42, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Google Pdf Scan

I found this at Image:Germania_32_1887.pdf, but should be treated as a general matter. The conflicting page is the first one, which i reproduce below. Warning: It's a big file (16,51 MB), full of embedded images.

[Google logo]

This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project to make the world’s books discoverable online. It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that’s often difficult to discover. Marks, notations and other marginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book’s long journey from the publisher to a library and finally to you.

[edit] Usage guidelines

Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing this resource, we have taken steps to prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying. We also ask that you:

  • Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for personal, non-commercial purposes.
  • Refrain from automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google’s system: If you are conducting research on machine translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help.
  • Maintain attribution The Google “watermark” you see on each file is essential for informing people about this project and helping them find additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it.
  • Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can’t offer guidance on whether any specific use of any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book’s appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liability can be quite severe.

[edit] About Google Book Search

Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers discover the world’s books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web at http://books.google.com/

[edit] Discussion

Now, #1 is against Commons licensing guidelines. #2 not applicable. I'm happy with #3, but we may want to remove the Google logo, as it's copyrighted, to avoid giving it with a PD book. As they're asking us to keep the notice, there wouldn't be any copyright infigement, though. We're already aware of #4.

Due to #1 we would need to reject it. However, it's a scan of PD so we can decide to use it as Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp.. IANAL but i understand #4 as abiding them under US rules. Also, i prefer to read it as kindly asking us to comply with it instead of requiring to do it (and IMHO they can't do otherwise) but i would appreciate the opinion of a native US speaker.

What do we do? Platonides 14:20, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I suggest that we ignore Google's fraudulent claims. The book is in the public domain, and Google's use of a photoscanner does not give them any copyrights. --Kjetil r 18:45, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
"Fraudulent"? That's a bit strong. They're politely asking the user to do certain things and not do others. They don't claim copyright, as they darn well known that they don't have a copyright on it. That's way better than the large majority of other archives, who just slap a copyright notice on everything. I would, like Platonides proposed, ignore #1. If it's not too much work to remove the Google logo from the PDF, then do it, but if it's left in there, I don't think it's a problem. I don't quite understand why de-WS needs to upload these PDFs here (or anywhere else), though. (But I've got nothing against it, either.) Why can't they just link to the Google page instead? Do they fear that it might disappear there? Lupo 07:41, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
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