Commons:Village pump/Archive/2010/12

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Misidentification of image

It has come to my knowledge that "File:Graf-von-mirabeau_1.jpg" has been misidentified as that of André Boniface Louis Riqueti de Mirabeau. It appears the said painting actually depicts Jean Baptiste Kléber. Could this image be renamed to fix the attribution error? Thanks in advance. Président (talk) 04:53, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Can you provide better evidence that the image is not of André Boniface Louis Riquetti de Mirabeau? At the moment, all I see is another editor's opinion on the matter. I note that AllPosters.com identifies the portrait as one of Jean Baptiste Kléber by Jean Guerin, but I don't think this is a terribly reliable source. You can post the information here for further discussion. Once you have found this evidence, please add "{{rename|[evidence for the mistake]}}" to the image and a filemover will rename it for you. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 05:17, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
Fair enough. I just did that. However, for some reason, my grounds for renaming the file fail to display properly. Président (talk) 03:49, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
OK, looks good. Just wanted to check one more thing: is the portrait by Guerin, or is the artist still unknown? Also, do we have a better source than "Web"? — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 08:34, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
That you would have to ask Luestling who did the original upload on the German wikipedia. He appears to have a rather checkered past in terms of providing the sources with his uploads though. I saw the picture on this site but I am told it is a mirror of Wikipedia, in which case it is just compounding the error by duplicating it. Président (talk) 22:08, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

✓ Done. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 08:04, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Images using {{Watermark}} become marked as public domain!

Adding the { {watermark} } template to any image appears to add metadata tags that incorrectly mark the image as public domain! This means anyone wanting to use the image on a web page will be told they do not have to attribute it, regardless of the actual license. I'm not technical enough to establish why. I added full details at Template_talk:Watermark

The template has had one edit in the past year, and that was a minor edit which wouldn't have changed the licencing. The example you gave is not PD licenced. -mattbuck (Talk) 06:40, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
The behaviour the OP suggested on Template talk:Watermark may be due to a bug in the "Use this file on the web" script, but I could not reproduce it. Dcoetzee (talk) 07:13, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
OK, see if you can reproduce it using these steps:
1. Open the image description for the image in a new tab
2. Edit the page and check for license templates in the markup. The only one I see is {{Cc-by-sa-2.0}}. The {{Watermark}} template is present too. The photo is pulled from flickr at [[1]] and is definitely NOT public domain licensed.
3. Cancel editing and click "Use this file on the web". In the "Attribution" field of the popup box I see "CC-BY-SA-2.0 or Public domain" and under it, "Attribution not legally required". Someone relying on this information would actually violate the CC license.
4. View the HTML source of the page and search for "Public domain". I see a machine readable license tag for public domain.
5. Edit the page again, delete the {{Watermark}} template, click show preview, view the HTML source of the preview page, and search for "Public domain" again. I don't find it this time.
My conclusion: the presence of the {{Watermark}} template in the markup is causing a machine readable "public domain" license tag to be added to the image description page. This is confusing at least one tool running on Commons (the one that shows the popup) causing it to give dangerously wrong information, and perhaps any number of other tools, not to mention humans!!
Let me know whether or not this works for you. If it doesn't work I'll have to investigate more.... I wonder if it could be to do with the image embedded in the {{Watermark}} template itself, which is in fact marked as public domain.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.12.172.254 (talk • contribs) 10:07, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Template:Watermark/layout iswas using pd-layout, that shouldnt be. --Martin H. (talk) 10:11, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Changed it, im not an expert so check if I not have broken it. We need a 'maintenance-layout' template or something like that, there are various layouts in Category:Maintenance templates and Category:Marker templates - thats no problem as long as no license template layout (CC, GFDL or PD-layout) is used. --Martin H. (talk) 10:25, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
Wow, very fast work -- the steps above no longer reproduce the problem for me. But I'm definitely not expert enough to say you haven't broken it :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.12.172.254 (talk • contribs) 10:07, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
Template:PD-Layout contains the license information licensetpl_short/long that the MediaWiki:Stockphoto.js - thats the script producing the reuse links - is relying upon. Im however also a User tech-0, so this was just luck. The problem is that the license layout templates are maybe used on other such maintenance templates and can (will) cause the same problem. --Martin H. (talk) 10:44, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Same problem with Template:Convert to SVG (here), Template:Convert to PNG (here), Template:Convert to international (here), and Template:Attribution metadata from licensed image (here). /Ö 10:41, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

We need a uniform layout template for maintenance templates. --Martin H. (talk) 17:31, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
I created {{Restriction-Layout}} back then when standardising restriction tags. Could be renamed to make its scope broader. Jean-Fred (talk) 18:25, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
I removed the PD-Layout from a few other templates and used your replacement for the moment. --Martin H. (talk) 15:19, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Vandal report

I would like to report image vandalism by User:Kissurluckystars. He has uploaded a single image of someone he/she dislikes, given a wrong category Category:Gelechiidae (which I have now removed) and linked it to the article Tila on en:WP. Can he be blocked?

Also, File:Tilaisgreat.jpg needs to be deleted.

AshLin (talk) 15:34, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

You can nominate images for deletion by going to the image page, then clicking the "Nominate for deletion" link in the "Toolbox" section on the left side of the screen. If you are having problems with another editor, leave a message at "Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems". — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 07:32, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Rename...

File:Drawing.svg, clumsy mistake. I'm adding the image to an article and there is a Drawing.svg stored on the wiki locally, so I need it changed now... --Beao 23:52, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

I've changed the proposed rename; we have millions of files here, names like Drawing.svg and Taka.svg are a little terse to be optimal.--Prosfilaes (talk) 02:53, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

December 1

How does one rename a category?

A German-speaking user created a category called Category:Parachute technics containing pictures of parachuting equipment. To be correct in this English language Commons, the category really ought to be renamed Parachuting equipment. I don't know how to perform a renaming page move in the Commons for a Category page. I would appreciate advice, or if someone did it for me. Thank you. Odea (talk) 00:55, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Try attatching"{{move|Parachuting equipment|2=English spelling|3=2010-12-01}}" to the page and eventually the category will be moved by an admin. It takes ages though, which can be annoying as there are several relating to the Isle of Wight I would really like to get re-named properly, it's just taking a very long time to do it. Hope that helps. Editor5807speak 01:02, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
Thank you, I'll try that and see what happens. Odea (talk) 02:35, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
Non-controversial renaming requests (capitalization and spelling errors, and changes for consistency with other categories, for example) can be listed at "User talk:CommonsDelinker/commands". It is not instantaneous, though, because like everything else here at the Commons such requests are managed by volunteers. {{Move}} is only needed if the renaming is likely to be controversial. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 07:29, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
What you say is incorrect Jack. Only very uncontroversial requests like spelling mistakes can be listed at the delinker page. {{Move}} is for normal requests like this one. For controversial requests we have Commons:Categories for discussion. Multichill (talk) 11:55, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
I'm surprised, because that is not my experience concerning the sorts of categories that are listed for renaming at CommonsDelinker/commands. Personally, I consider a request to rename "Category:Parachute technics" to "Category:Parachuting equipment" uncontroversial because there is no such word as technics in English – there is a patent error in the category name. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 14:18, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Heads-up: Upload wizard will go live on Tuesday, November 30th

Greetings. I wanted to let you know the "upload wizard" will be enabled in beta version on Commons next Tuesday (November 30th). I'm still preparing the official announcement and updating the Questions & Answers page to reflect its current state, but I wanted to give you a heads-up first.

A few quick pieces of information:

  • There are bugs and missing features. It's still in beta phase, and far from perfect. But we think it's "good enough" to benefit users who want to use it.
  • We plan to add a link to the wizard from the current upload page (most probably only for own works) offering the beta version as an alternative.
  • The upload wizard will not replace the default upload form until further development is done to provide a satisfying (and hopefully improved) coverage of the current use cases.

My availability will be limited over the next few weeks (Thanksgiving week-end, then I'll move to another country) but I'll do my best to answer the questions and concerns you might have. Guillaume Paumier 23:06, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the info Guillaume! Please stick to "who want to use it" and do not switch it on by default until it's finished software and not early beta. :) Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 15:30, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
FYI, I just prepared the link I was talking about earlier. It will be uncommented tomorrow when the feature is launched (and a link will be added to the announcement blog post). guillom 22:57, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
I'll rather use the the current form then the new beta upload wizard. Will the old one be kept as well? Also will the basic upload page remain? Bidgee (talk) 00:13, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
Right now the wizard is just an option, it still has lots of known issues we're working through. We are hoping to default to it eventually, but even then we'll probably not take away the old forms.--Eloquence (talk) 00:01, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

It has a bug. See the File:RehmanTestUpload.jpg which I uploaded via Special:UploadWizard. Also, please see #Uploading a new file, and proceeding updates below. Thanks! Rehman 13:54, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Robert N. Dennis collection of stereoscopic views again

Resolved

- Jmabel ! talk 17:54, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

I understand that for the images from the Robert N. Dennis collection of stereoscopic views we try to preserve their titles, but should we do so even when they are simply wrong? For example, File:Dr. Tyng's Church, New York, from Robert N. Dennis collection of stereoscopic views 2.jpg is clearly misnamed: it's an image of St. George's Episcopal Church (Manhattan), not Holy Trinity Episcopal (New York City) (Dr. Tyng's Church). Should it be renamed? I've already indicated the discrepancy in the description. - Jmabel ! talk 07:30, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

I'd say rename it for accuracy, and make a note of the original wrongful attribution in the description. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 10:16, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
Ditto.--KTo288 (talk) 12:04, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
Agreed... I've fixed some of these already. Dcoetzee (talk) 08:21, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Are all of these photographs of murals non-free?

Uncle G (talk) 02:37, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

  • This issue has come up before. I think the answer is that the murals are not free (freedom of panorama in the UK does not extend to two-dimensional works), but so far no one feels inclined to initiate a mass deletion of them. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 14:23, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
It was in connection with murals on buildings in Belfast. I'm afraid you'll have to search the archives of this page and possibly of "Commons talk:Licensing" as well. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 12:08, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
I think it's generally considered that murals are copyvios, but graffiti is not, although I find this distinction rather vile as it essentially boils down to "we can get away with graffiti images because the artists will never enforce their copyright". -mattbuck (Talk) 12:52, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

How do I (or should I) notify photographer when I've used his/her photo?

If I use a photo that I found on Wikimedia Commons, should I notify the photographer? If yes, how do I do that?

On Flickr, there's a comment area under every photo where I can write a note of thanks and a link to the web page where I published the picture. But I don't see where I can do that on Wikimedia Commons. Going to the Discussion tab at the top of the page doesn't seem to be the right place to say "thanks, here's a link." Is it not expected (or even possible) to notify the photographer when his/her work has been used?

Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AnotherSource (talk • contribs) 15:37, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

You can thank the uploader by leaving a message on his or her talk page, but of course the uploader may not be the photographer. It really depends on whether the photographer provided any means of contact. Some Commons users who create and upload their own content specifically provide contact information such as e-mail addresses. Also, if the photograph was originally sourced from Flickr, you could visit the original Flickr page and leave a comment there. You can also place a {{Published}} banner on the talk page of the Commons image description page. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 07:54, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
talk page is ok to leave such messages, if you have confirmed your email address ypu can goto the uploaders userpage then the tool box on the left hand side of the screen has an email this user option where you can send a message to uploader by email. Gnangarra 08:37, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
Leaving a message on the uploader's talk page would be sufficient, I think. If applicable, one could ask the uploader to forard the message to the photographer. BTW, I'm sure that people would appreciate such a message very much! Best regards, MartinD (talk) 14:49, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, everyone. ˜˜˜˜

How to notify photographer when using his/her material?

I have used some photos I found on Wikimedia Commons on my website. I'm wondering how I should notify the artist, or even if I should notify the artist? On Flickr, there is the comment section below each photo where you can thank the photographer and post a link to the page his/her photo appears on. But I don't see anything like that on Wikimedia Commons.

Is it common practice, then, to simply use the material found here and not tell the photographer? Seems like the author/artist deserves the courtesy of some kind of notice. But how would I do that? Simply send a private email?

Thank you.

AnotherSource (talk) 04:39, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Many of your questions may be answered at Commons:Reusing content outside Wikimedia. Photographers generally welcome comments. You can leave messages on their talk pages or send E-mail, if enabled, using the link in the left column. Walter Siegmund (talk) 05:37, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
Ummm, AnotherSource, not sure why you have asked the same question twice ... — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 07:29, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

@Walter: Thank you. I read through that page before I posted my question, but I didn't see anything about how (or whether) to notify photographers when using their images. @Jacklee: Oops. Sorry about that. I'm new to all this. I couldn't find my original question this morning, so I thought I had closed my window last night without clicking on the "save page" button. ˜˜˜˜

You're welcome. Also, please remember to sign your posts by typing four tildes ("~~~~") after them, or clicking on the appropriate button in the box under the "Save page" button. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 12:10, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Language updates to "Template:Published"

Editors are invited to add translations of the English text to {{Published}} and {{Published/core}}. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 10:01, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

The template code looks awful, you might want to change that first before you invite users to edit it. Multichill (talk) 11:50, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
I am partly responsible for the code. I split it into two parts, which may not be very clear, but this a it is a bit less lengthy and I think it is quicker to update. Also, I managed to fix layout problems this way while I could not find when all was on one page. There is certainly a cleaner way to do it, but I did not find it.--Zolo (talk) 12:51, 1 December 2010 (UTC) Possibly a {{Published/layout}} would help.--Zolo (talk) 12:55, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
Multichill, perhaps you can be more specific about why you feel the template code looks "awful". I think Zolo has done a pretty good job, and has managed to solve some coding issues that I had problems with. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 14:16, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Pruneau has done the French translations. Thanks! — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 10:47, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Location

Please join the discussion Template talk:Information#Location about relation between {{Location}} and {{Information}} templates. --ŠJů (talk) 23:45, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Template:WSTMtag

Does anyone know anything much about Template:WSTMtag, used in a description field? It seems, among other things, to add categories to an image; in this case it added a now-redundant category. - Jmabel ! talk 09:12, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

It's part of Wikis Takes Manhattan. That project still needs a lot of cleaning up. Multichill (talk) 20:07, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
Is someone working on this? Is there a plan of action? - Jmabel ! talk 02:16, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

November 29

Is this simple enough?

At http://www.houstonisd.org/HISDConnectDS/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=3e5608ae6b8fc010VgnVCM10000052147fa6RCRD

Is the logo of the Houston ISD at the upper left hand corner of the page (with the simple star) simple enough to qualify as a PD image? WhisperToMe (talk) 07:02, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

I'd say yes, definitely. See Threshold of originality for some examples. –Tryphon☂ 07:44, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
Thank you! I will upload both the English and Spanish versions WhisperToMe (talk) 00:04, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
File:HoustonISDEnglishlogo.PNG
File:HoustonISDSpanishlogo.PNG
File:HoustonISDVietnameseLogo.PNG
WhisperToMe (talk) 00:07, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
Note that you do not need to use {{PD-reason}}, we have a specific license template for that: {{PD-textlogo}}. –Tryphon☂ 07:58, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Licensing:

Template:LICENCE

Comments? Rehman 02:16, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Support 100%. It just makes sense, and it gets rather old having to tidy up after the upload form. — Huntster (t @ c) 03:57, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
Yes, yes, yes! I think the aligned equal signs make the template much neater and easier to read (though I'd suggest an additional space between "Other_versions" and the equal sign, and "Other" instead of "other" to match the remaining parameters), and the categories really should be below the licence section. Perhaps we should use "{{int:license-header}}" instead of "{{int:license}}"? Also, it is possible to line up the equal signs in the sample template at {{Information}}? The documentation uses {{TemplateBox}}, which makes it difficult to edit. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 07:36, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
Please see Commons:FAQ#Why_is_the_text_of_my_new_uploads_corrected_soon_after_upload.3F and the one after. Jean-Fred (talk) 09:05, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Anyone knows where to make the change? The change at {{Information}} can be done with the help of any admin, but where to edit to change the default uploading contents? Rehman 09:33, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Judging from the link Jean-Fred provided, it looks like a change to Mediawiki is required so unfortunately it doesn't look like something we can fix at our end. Since the matter has been discussed before, presumably a bug has already been filed on the matter. Does anyone know if the bot that goes around changing "== Summary ==" to "== {{int:filedesc}} ==" and so on is still operating? In any case, in my view we should definitely update {{Information}} to try and align the equal signs. However, I think that this may require a change to {{TemplateBox}}. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 09:38, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
With my very limited knowledge on MediaWiki, I think editing MediaWiki:Filedesc and MediaWiki:License would deal with the headers. As for the {{Information}}, I fully agree with you on the changes that needs to be done there. But no clue on how exactly to "embed" that into the uploader stuff. Or does it simply substitutes the current version? Rehman 10:02, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
Also, considering the age of the previous discussion, I think that attempt to change, has stalled. Rehman 10:06, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
Updating the sample template at {{Information}} would not embed it into the uploading process, but would allow users who copy and paste the template from the template description page to have a version with the equal signs neatly aligned. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 10:35, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
Oh. I've informed here on the {{Information}} changes. Do you know where (or who) exactly to contact regarding the upload form? Rehman 10:47, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
The {{Information}} part is in MediaWiki:UploadForm.js. You can request a change on the talk page. The headings however are hardcoded in the Mediawiki sourcecode. You can try your luck and file a request to change it at Bugzilla:.
I don't know about the new Special:UploadWizard. It may handle things differently and need additional changes. --Slomox (talk) 13:37, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
UploadWizard already uses internationalized strings in its headers. For instance, here's a file someone uploaded with UploadWizard: in English and in in German. (There's an issue that the deployed UploadWizard uses a string which doesn't exist in live Commons, (int:otherinfo) -- already noted as a bug.) NeilK (talk) 19:21, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
Fixed the headers in the normal upload in r77623 Platonides (talk) 00:26, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks! I've commented on the UploadWizard section above, hopefully someone from there will look into this (if not, I'll send someone a message in a day or two). For the current uploader, I have linked this to MediaWiki talk:UploadForm.js. Rehman 14:02, 2 December 2010 (UTC)


I'm a fan of having <!-- Categories --> above the category list (as shown above). Railwayfan2005 (talk) 13:24, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
What's the purpose of that? — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 18:16, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
Indeed, that has always seemed redundant since each line contains "Category:". — Huntster (t @ c) 04:36, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Other changes

I'd like to propose that the licence tag me put inside the Permissions information by default, along with PR if relevant. -mattbuck (Talk) 12:53, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

I'd prefer that to happen only if it is a Public Domain dedication (by the author, due to age etc.) and not if it is a clear license. Kameraad Pjotr 12:57, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
Well, maybe not by default. Permission is basically used for text do describe the permission/licence further; different from the licence section. Rehman 13:04, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
IMHO only OTRS tags should be placed inside the information template, but not license tags. --Leyo 13:38, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
IMHO too. A separated licensing section 1) allows section linking 2) creates a helpful sectionedit 3) disburden the meta information and makes it readable 4) gives people from wikipedia the opportunity to edit the files description without having to think about what this strange templates in the permission field mean 5) similar to 3 - its a layout question, pressing all information boxes in one box does not realy look like an intelligent sollution. This was improved since the /lang templates have vanished, so some license tags are not sooo terrible long anymore, but it still looks unbalanced. This are all very nice thinks the files with both sections have, while an image without sections does not allow for quick editing from Wikipedia in anyway and a file with only one section offers to edit something (the license) that not requires any editing. Out of this considerations I changed my own editing behaviour 180° from what mattbuck may suggest to a structured image description page. --Martin H. (talk) 13:57, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

December 2

Backlog notice at "Category:Media requiring renaming"

Anyone know how {{Backlog}} works? It was recently added to "Category:Media requiring renaming" and the message on it states that it will pop up when there are ten or more images in the category that require processing, but it seems to remain visible even if there are less than ten images (such as now). Clicking the "recount" link seems to make no difference. Is this because subcategories are counted as well? Not a biggie, but perhaps a knowledgeable person would like to have a look at the template. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 18:25, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Subcategories are counted. But is that a bug in the rename template or did realy someone worked through all the renames? Awesome, good work. --Martin H. (talk) 18:46, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
Oh, I see. Thanks. Actually, there hasn't been much of a backlog at "Media requiring renaming" for some weeks now. A bunch of us (myself included) have been popping by from time to time to clear files there. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 06:48, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

December 3

Toolserver down

Resolved

Some tools at Toolserver currently don't work. Please see the mailing list for further information. It should be fixed later today.  Docu  at 04:17, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

It's back (see Template:Toolserver).  Docu  at 09:07, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Alternate storage for file namespace: parsing information templates into separate table?

Reuse and editing might be easier, if MediaWiki would systematically save the contents of file descriptions into an additional database table, with separate columns for each field of {{Information}} or {{Artwork}}.

While it's possible to do this parsing on toolserver, I think it would be preferable if this was done directly in Mediawiki itself.  Docu  at 05:06, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Suggested many times before, but no one seems to want to actually write the code to get it done. As of recently even has a bugticket bugzilla:25624. TheDJ (talk) 18:54, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Weblinks, to shops in particular

Although I am contributing quite a lot and am trying to keep up to date with the policies here, I am not sure how to deal with the following. Two days ago User:Guitarpop added a weblink to the description of File:Jamaaladeen Tacuma Vienna2008.jpg that leads to the producer of the bass guitar visible in the picture - to a page where this instrument can be ordered/bought. I removed the weblink, because it appeared to me to be misusing Commons for marketing purposes.
After adding the weblink once more and me removing it again, now he added it to Category:DiPinto Belvedere Deluxe Bass (commenting the creation of the category with "create category for individual model to avoid claim from some uncooperative user" - which is targeted at me, obviously). I still do not believe that such links to shops are welcome here and descriptions of images or categories should rather link to Wikipedia articles. What is the current policy on this? --Tsui (talk) 15:09, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

The description "using a xy guitar" would be appropriate, a link to some website shop can be seen as spam or unecessary promotion, I assume that the user added it for identification, thats someting he can do in the edit summary. The edit summary in Category:DiPinto Belvedere Deluxe Bass is strange, your photographic work allowed that user to see an image of that guitar on Commons and to categorize it, so without your work his work equals zero. So much for the "uncooperative user". --Martin H. (talk) 15:32, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
Thank you! I do not have a problem with adding the bass guitars name in the image description at all. Guitarpop added it there in the meantime without the weblink and it is a useful bit of information for interested viewers.
But I still doubt that such weblinks are welcome here. So what about the categories description? The only purpose of creating it seems to have been to add a weblink to this shop. --Tsui (talk) 15:41, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
I'd say: a weblink reference is better than none. If I would write an article about a guitar brand, I would start of making a collection of pictures (with a possible link to a webshop), then a category (moving the weblink higher up) and finally writing the article in one or more wikipedia's. --Foroa (talk) 18:05, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
I have to agree. So long as the link isn't blatant advertising, and it doesn't seem to be presented in that way, I don't see much of a difference between that and an "official website" link on any given Wikipedia article. If the link was to some random online retailer I would feel differently, but this seems to be the primary manufacturer, and thus would be a primary, or "official" if you will, source of information. That said, the current description seems excessive, with the link formatted as a reference. Would there be any objection to reformatting it as simply:
  • Media for the DiPinto Belvedere Deluxe Bass model of guitar. See further information at DiPintoGuitars.com.
or
Alternatively, get rid of this daughter category and switch to just the parent Category:DiPinto (which may be more appropriate, since there's only one image). — Huntster (t @ c) 04:47, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Template:Update

I have created a {{Update}} for adding to graphs, diagrams, maps etc. Alan Liefting (talk) 20:17, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Currently it's used on File:NZTerritorialAuthorities.png. In general, one would upload a separate image with the new borders rather than update the original image.  Docu  at 11:35, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Docu. It should maybe be specified in the template. The new file names can contain the year it was updated. ZooFari 17:23, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

December 4

Status

Would you like a feature where you could update your status (Online, Offline, or even Custom) so that other editor may see? And how about doing that without clogging your contributions?

For general comments, you may respond here. For comments that would directly effect the feature's deployment, please join the discussion, or participate directly at Bugzilla:26246. Thanks! Rehman 00:52, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

  • Why ask the question if you dont wait for responses before posting a bugzilla request. I'd be opposed to such a tool as an invasion of my privacy, if I'm online thats my business not everyones elses. What protections will be put in place on how any such information will used. What policies and protection will Commons Admin need to address potential abuses and conflicts arising from editors being hounded when ever they login. Gnangarra 04:12, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
Please see the reply to your comment at Meta. Also, per proposal (b) and (c), users could set whether they are online or not; it is not fully automated. Rehman 04:19, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Invisible subcategories.

I don't like it when subcategories are invisible in cat pages that have more than one page, like here. I would like to have the {{categorytree}} template on every cat page with a subpage, like here. Can this been done automatically?--Wickey-nl (talk) 17:20, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

 Support -mattbuck (Talk) 19:32, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
Should be done with a gadget. Multichill (talk) 12:00, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Problem with link

Please have a look at File:Amper,St. Magdalena (Fürstenfeldbruck).jpg and try to copy the link or to make a tinyurl. Results are defect: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Amper,St._Magdalena_F%C3%BCrstenfeldbruck_.jpg#04128472490163215359 resp. 

"TinyURL was created!
The following URL:
   http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Amper,St._Magdalena_%20F%C3%BCrstenfeldbruck%20.jpg#6401689646405722950
has a length of 110 characters and resulted in the following TinyURL which has a length of 26 characters:
   http://tinyxxx.com/2b27mlz

Noscript console: 

[NoScript XSS] Eine verdächtige Anfrage wurde bereinigt. 
Original-URL http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Amper,St._Magdalena_%28F%C3%BCrstenfeldbruck%29.jpg
angefordert von [chrome://browser/content/browser.xul]. 
Bereinigte URL: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Amper,St._Magdalena_%20F%C3%BCrstenfeldbruck%20.jpg#251606181391230593.

What is happening here? Problem exists with both FireFox 3.5.15 and IE 8. -- smial (talk) 21:17, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

"File:Amper,St. Magdalena (Fürstenfeldbruck).jpg" is not the same as "File:Amper,St. Magdalena Fürstenfeldbruck .jpg". The parentheses are missing in the second filename, and there is a space between "Fürstenfeldbruck" and ".jpg". — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 14:50, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
Yes. But this is not the problem. Please compare a copy&paste with the link of File:Amper,St. Magdalena (Fürstenfeldbruck).jpg and File:Amper,St. Magdalena (Fürstenfeldbruck)a.jpg, which is a derivative work of first. One works, one not. -- smial (talk) 16:51, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, I can't reproduce the error with Firefox 3.6.12. I can access the URLs of both files without any problem. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 17:06, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
XSS protection of noscript sometimes creates false positives. If you copy the broken link to IE it will not work. Try to use IE to go to the commons main page, then search for the file (Amper Magdalena) and click on the file. Should work then. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 16:55, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

December 5

Create a multi-purpose, multilingual people database

It often happens that we need to add the name of a person, a link to Wikipedia and sometimes a short description of the person. Currently, it is not very easy to do it in an internationalized way. We have a {{Creator}} that works fairly well, but is rather limited in scope (its layout make it virtually impossible to use inline).

The potential uses I see for such a database are: category description, file description, and transclusion in other templates. I have created a small template too see what we could have:


Obviously, all this would hardly be doable without bots, but we have exactly what it takes for bots:

  • More than 600.000 en.wikipedia articles have persondata templates that provide basic infos about people and too me a dedicated namespace on commons would be at least as logical a place to hold them.
  • Most Wikipedia articles have reasonably good interwiki links.
  • We have internationalisation templates like {{NationAndOccupation}}

Of course, some things would have to be fixed by hand but I think the benefit/work ratio is fairly good. Would anyone be interested ?--Zolo (talk) 17:09, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I have a slight feeling as if Commons is just establishing itself as the future site of Wikidata ;-)
I'm pro!
We should integrate the Creator templates into it. Perhaps something like {{:Person:Mohandas K. Gandhi|creator info}} could render the data in the form of a current Creator template.
And we should also think about whether we should integrate additional data (that is not rendered by default). E.g. having a "height" parameter that is not rendered in any of the default views, but could be accessed via {{:Person:Michael Jordan|height}} in an infobox on the gallery page Michael Jordan (just an example. whether we want to display data like that is independent from the question of whether we want to store the raw data). --Slomox (talk) 17:41, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I guess we could have many optional fields in the raw data, and create many styles so that choose what we want to display. It seems logical to include creator templates too however creator has some special features:the "option" parameter and hopefully some day the list of works. I am not sure how to include that.
I have already created four styles "infobox", "extended", "wikipedia-linked" and "name" (with no link to wikipedia). It is easy to add more if needed.--Zolo (talk) 16:02, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
An alternate option could be the category descriptions of the subcategories of Category:People by name. We could import elements from Wikipedia there. With interwiki and some of the templates used at Wikipedia, quite a lot of data is already there.  Docu  at 16:10, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
Yes, but to me a people-database could be at least as useful for file descriptions as for categories. Many images used in Wikipedia are not translated, in the local language. And it is fairly long to do it. if we could get people names, wikilinks and multilingual description automatically added that would be a nice first step. For example, if wou want to write "Bust of Aristotle" in many different languages it takes much time, but if we had a template that automatically translated "Aristotle" in the user's language it would be fairly easy to add something like {{Bust of|Aristotle}}--Zolo (talk) 16:26, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
It seems logical to include creator templates too however creator has some special features:the "option" parameter and hopefully some day the list of works. I am not sure how to include that. If rendering as a creator template is integrated in a Person template, using "option" will still be possible. I don't see any problem with that. The lists of works don't belong into Creator namespace nor into Person namespace. To keep a connection to the Person we could add the name of the list of the works as a parameter in the Person entry. --Slomox (talk) 19:12, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
It would be easy to use {{Creator}} template to allow {{Creator:John Doe|Inline}} or {{Creator:John Doe|InlineWithDates}} syntax to create requested functionality, using already mentioned "Option" parameter. I can build a test to show that, but I am not sure how often it will be used on Commons. --Jarekt (talk) 21:07, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
I don't know if InlineWithDates would often be used but beside the current creator template, I see at least two layouts that could really be useful:
  1. What I called "extended", ie the same info as in creator rendered as plain text (random possible usage). We could also use a normal creator template but it would be a bit confusing.
  2. The person's name. Storing it in a template would allow translations and links to be automatically updated. For example {{person:Stalin|name}} {{int:and}} {{person:Mao Zedong|name}} could get translated into Russian, Chinese, etc. The "name" option is simply to avoid "Stalin, Soviet politician and Mao, Chinese politician".
  3. ? Infoboxes perhaps. Actually there are already some on Commons (see Jan Cornelisz. Vermeyen for instance).
It would be reckless to try that if we had to start from scratch, but we can use existing creator templates and wikipedia:persondata.--Zolo (talk) 22:48, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
Another case that I think would be useful, especially for famous people, is a {{person|Gandhi|date and age|1895}} that would render in English as "Gandhi in 1895, at the age of 26". I suppose this is technically possible, but I can't understand the syntax of {{ISOdate}} so I can't do it myself.--Zolo (talk) 16:58, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
I made some quick tests at Person:Albert Einstein and Template:Person2 (not a functional template, just some stuff to convince myself that it is technically possible). It seems it works. "{{:Person:Albert Einstein|birthdate}}" returns "Person:Albert Einstein" and "{{:Person:Albert Einstein|date and age|1923-01-01}}" returns "Person:Albert Einstein" (which is incorrect because he was only 43 at that time, I haven't implemented any more detailed computations, but you get the idea). --Slomox (talk) 18:24, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
I modified {{Creator/test}} and Creator:Ignat Bednarik to use it. As a result "{{Creator:Ignat Bednarik|inline extended}}" gives "{{Creator:Ignat Bednarik|inline extended}}". Similar changes can be done on the layout level (where translations of various labels are available) which would allow alternative layouts like for example vertical layout used at en:Template:Persondata and Jan Cornelisz. Vermeyen. Technically it can all be easily done to display information stored in Category:Creator templates in many different layouts. However I am still not sure how useful it would be, when all this information can only be used at Commons. --Jarekt (talk) 03:47, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
The idea - at least _my_ idea - behind it is to make it possible to facilitate the stored data on other wikis too. There is an extension to make cross-wiki transclusion of data possible but so far the developers have refused to consider it for review. I have thought about ways to circumvent the necessity of a dedicated extension, but I have not yet come to a conclusive solution. It's ironic that the most severe obstacle to Wikimedia development are the Wikimedia developers. --Slomox (talk) 19:17, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
I also be much better if Commons was to become a repository of all kinds of resources that would callable from other projects, just as we can call already call images writing File:XX. However, I think a person namespace with a broader scope than creator could be useful even without that. So, we can develop the project and then lobby the developers by showing how great it would be if it was shared by all Wikis.
I am getting a bit off topic but here, but it has been proposed times and again to create a central Wiki for Interwikis. I think it should be done on Commons. It would go in the same direction.--Zolo (talk) 21:58, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
We could add "people" or "Person" as an alias for "Creator" namespace and template, and use that to store information about people which are not "creators". For example I created {{Person}} which is based on {{Creator}} minus some maintenance tags. It would be also easy to modify {{Creator/layout}} template to allow few dozen other layouts for this same data controlled through "Option" field. --Jarekt (talk) 03:14, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Using Category:People by name

Category:People by name contains now about 83000 entries. In the long run, I believe that it will contain roughly 600000 entries from the en:wikipedia and 600000 entries from other wikipedias. It might be a better idea to populate that category with data from other wikipedias. For categories without media, we could not further categorise them in the first round (a template could signal when they are no longer empty).

Those categories could then contain the needed data structures. That would avoid double work, especially when renaming is to be done. Keeping consistency between creator and caegory names is already a major job. After all, Commons is the central point for all wikipedias, but for maintaining a database of more than a million entries, we better think twice. In addition, past experience shows that images that are uploaded find much easier a category that fits well than that a specific category is created. --Foroa (talk) 06:58, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't know. It is true that naming consistency could be a challenge and I agree we should probably not provide a metadata page for people who do not have a category on Commons, at least not until the system is really well tried. However the metadata should be callable from other pages. If we put them into categories, many categories will probably need a substantial "no include" with the non-meta data. It may be a bit confusing.
If it appears technically manageable, I would think merging creator and person (templates and namespaces) is the most attractive solution. Would it be conceivable to have a bot or anything else to automatically rename the "creator/person" page according to the category-or ther other way round ?--Zolo (talk) 08:21, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
Naming consistency is a big issue many names have multiple commonly used versions, especially for names which in native version do not use English alphabet. For example, German and English languages use very different versions of Russian names. Also if we increase number of names stored we will have issues with disambiguation, since many people share the same name. We probably should use years of birth/death in the category names to make them more language independent. I do not think it would be a good idea for a bot to be renaming categories or creator pages, since it is not clear which is "more correct". However we do not have many mismatches there - Category:Creator templates with non-matching home categories has only 230 pages (out of 5800 creator pages), but those should be synchronized by hand --Jarekt (talk) 19:49, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
Personally, I'm in favor of extending the use of subcategories of Category:People by name. There is already quite an extensive collection and it's already interlinked with the various Wikipedia. To make the description easily transcludable, fixing Bugzilla:26113 might be sufficient.  Docu  at 14:19, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
It may cause some troubles. For example: there should be a noinclude part. If we add categories through hotcat, they may get in the "included" part. ::Could I suggest to use people by name in a somewhat different way ?
To me it is quite confusing that "people by name" is a simple hiddencat. The first time I saw it in a file, I thought it was a mistake, because the category first did not appear to make much sense in the light of what I knew of categorization rules. I am not even sure that I did not remove it. Had it been added through a template, I would not have been so confused. A {{Person by name}} could work this way:
  1. When the person metadata page exists, the template displays it - possibly in the form of an infobox.
  2. When the metadata do not exist, we could have something like "click here to create metadata", and get a prefilled template similar to that in creator:XX
The page with the metadata could be called either "person:XX" or "category:XX/metadata" (XX being the category name)and would be renamed automatically when we change the name of the category. Chances to have a bad category name would stay the same as now. It would take some work to adapt the current creator templates, but when it is done, it should not be complicated.--Zolo (talk) 15:39, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
I (and probably Foroa as well) are referring to the subcategories of Category:People by name, not the category itself.
The subcategories are all named after a specific person. Currently there are about 80,000.
BTW, the bug refers to "<onlyinclude>", not "<includeonly>". Everything that is outside "<onlyinclude></onlyinclude>" has "<noinclude>" status.  Docu  at 16:16, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
I was referring to the subcategories of people by name as well).
Oh yes onlyinclude... It may well work. To me a special namespace would be clearer, but if it is much simpler to use existing categories, I have no definitive argument against it -btw same thing goes for categories for artworks vs artwork namespace. --Zolo (talk) 16:37, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
Actually thinking about it and discovering "includeonly", I tend to think that you were right about putting it in the category. It would probably be simpler and it would avoid to create too many namespaces if we add new type of metadata later. --Zolo (talk) 21:55, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
I'd rather have it only in a template that is used in the category description and it would only activate once the category description is transcluded. This doesn't work yet though.  Docu  at 22:00, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
I am not sure to see what you have in mind. Could we for instance write infos about Einstein in a {{Person info}} in category:Albert Einstein and display them in a "creator" format by writing {{creator2|Albert Einstein}} ?--Zolo (talk) 22:39, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
Something like {{category:Albert Einstein}}, maybe even with Person: as an alias for Category:.  Docu  at 09:54, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
I think it is currently not possible to transclude the <onlyinclude> (and making them trasncladable may cause problems because where would it stop?) However, if we put the template inside "onlyincludes", I it works perfectly well (see category:Cheng Hao and file:Cheng Hao.jpg), and it leaves more flexibility on how to use the template in other pages. If we make the need for "onlyinclude" conspicuous in documentation and in copy paste versions of the template, would that be okay ?
Actually, it took me until now to realize that the main problem with using categories is that it would make it would not be simple to use the content in other templates. For example, I think {{people image|Zhou Enlai|Xiao Jinguang|place=Qingdao|date=1957}} gives a fine result, but try to do it with Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and Barack Obama ! I can't think of any simple way to solve it.--Zolo (talk) 17:53, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
NOTE: As I really think easy transclusion is a major, and the only way to do it for now is using a distinct namespace, I sum up my proposals

at template talk:creator.--Zolo (talk) 23:32, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Cars by license plates

Hello.

I have recently noticed that while there is a Category:Aircraft by registration there doesn't seem to be a Category:Cars by license plates or anything similar.

My question is simple: Is there a reason why such a category doesn't exist? Was it, for example, at some point decided in discussion that such a category should not be created?

Regards. - SuperTank17 (talk) 16:43, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I Have Noticed That To — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sambowiki (talk • contribs) 02:05, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

There are far fewer aircraft than cars in the world, which makes it more feasible to identify aircraft (and ships) than cars according to their registration numbers. What sort of images do you envisage placing in "Category:Cars by license plates"? Why do you think that categorizing cars by their license plate numbers is useful? — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 18:42, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure cars by plate is useful. The broader "motor vehicles by plate" may be. For example a category such as Category:UK vehicle YK05 CDU could replace most of the categories on the images File:Arriva Kent & Sussex YK05 CDU rear.JPG and File:Arriva Kent & Sussex YK05 CDU.JPG.
There are two additional concerns, which relate to cars especially: Firstly, the potential for privacy issues. Secondly, in some jurisdictions (eg the UK) a vehicle will have normally 1 plate number for its lifetime, in some (the US) it can have multiple plates. The fact the same car could have multiple numbers means it may not be useful for identification.--Nilfanion (talk) 18:55, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
Indeed. If this were "Vehicle registration by VIN" it might work, since that is akin to how the ship and aircraft categories work. But license plates in many locales are rather interchangeable, especially personalised plates. I know I've had my vehicle plate for almost a decade, across three vehicles. I would not support this proposal. — Huntster (t @ c) 23:21, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
The reason why I thought about this might be somewhat useful is because recently I have been paying a lot more attention to license plates numbers and I have started adding appropriate categories to some of the pictures that I upload and then I realized that, even if we consider that some people remove the license plates numbers, if we were to put every instance of a license plate to an appropriate category these categories would become huge, even if we do what I did in the Category:License plates of Poland, where I divided the media there depending on the years when the license plates were issued, these categories would still be huge. My first idea was split the categories even further by making categories like "vehicles registered in Kraków" or the like but this still wouldn't solve the problem in the long run because and this is especially true for big cities, the amount of vehicles registered in a single place could still get very big. So by creating a separate category for each vehicle we would be able to split these huge categories into much smaller ones and since each category would be all about a specific license plate number these categories wouldn't get very big.
Regards. - SuperTank17 (talk) 23:28, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
At Category talk:Aircraft by registration, there was some discussion if the category should also be used for military aircraft. Currently, it's primarily being used for civil registrations. --  Docu  at 05:51, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
I'm not convinced that categorizing cars by their licence plate numbers is very useful. It seems far more useful to categorize them by model, year of manufacture and perhaps even colour. Those characteristics are what most users are likely to want to look for. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 07:35, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
There are billions of different license plates. So I don't see the added value of such category while they might create privacy problems. --Foroa (talk) 08:42, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Hidden catalog removes Uncategorized message

I found that when an hidden catalog as Category:Taken with Nikon D100 is added to an image that is marked with the template as {{Uncategorized|year=2010|month=August|day=11}}, the marking is removed. I prefer that this Uncategorized marking stays because the added category is not very relevant for the image in my opinion. The category should at least tell something about WHAT you see or WHERE the image was taken. Is it possible that removing the uncategorized comment does not occur when an hidden category is added? Wouter (talk) 21:35, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Can you point to an example of this? I've never come across such a problem before. — Huntster (t @ c) 23:22, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
Special:RecentChangesLinked/Category:Taken_with_Nikon_D100, he refers to the use of Hotcat. Hotcat removes the uncategorized tag if a category is added, this should not not happen for such meaningless and actually hidden categories. --Martin H. (talk) 01:54, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Eventually, the bot would re-add the uncategorized notice. An alternate solution would be to add topical categories directly. --  Docu  at 05:53, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
I wonder whether the bot will recognize these files with only a hidden category. I came across several times files without a category and without the uncategorized notice. I have now added such an image to my watchlist and will see how long it takes the bot will find it. Wouter (talk) 09:13, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

December 6

Changes in deletion templates

This is to gain a wider audience on the proposed change of the deletion templates. Please post any concerns on the related talkpage. Rehman 14:34, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Abvd54745654

Hello

I have some doubts about this user's contributions [2]. Example: How can the image File:Sunny leone14.jpg be a modification of this image File:Sunny Leone 2009.jpg ?

Greetings 81.220.86.254 14:53, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Known copyvio sockpuppeteer, thanks for the note. See also COM:AN/U for a good place to make such reports. --Martin H. (talk) 14:55, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Localization for anonymous users

Hi everyone, user:mdale and I just hacked up something to show Commons in the local language for anonymous users coming from one of the other projects (like Wikipedia). See http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page?uselang=fr&withJS=MediaWiki:PersistentUselang.js for an example. This will only work on a single page for now. We want to enable it for all anonymous users soon. Multichill (talk) 00:02, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Ok. We enabled it, but only for Dutch and French for now. If the servers don't explode we will enable it for more languages. Feel free to test in Dutch and French. Don't forget to log out first! Multichill (talk) 11:34, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
More a question: This will only work on a single page for now - If I have german interface in german Wikipedia and go to today mainpage picture with my de.wp settings - http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Kai_Kai_Western_Arrernte.jpg?uselang=de - the link "-> Zur Beschreibungsseite auf Commons" has the uselang=de piece. Isnt that the same? --Martin H. (talk) 15:46, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
Update: The "uselang" is now persistent (so once set, it will stick when browsing to other pages at Commons). This will only work for Dutch (nl) and French (fr) for now. Try logging out and open http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hoofdpagina?uselang=nl . Click around at Commons and see what happens. Multichill (talk) 15:52, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
Thats an real improvement. It not works if you use the search function. I however still suggest that the de.projects sollution - which includes templates like de:Template:Commonscat with some uselang={{INT:Lang}} in it - is an alternative without using scripts on Commons. Logged out I will be forced to see dutch interface in nl.wp, spanish interface in es.wp and german interface in de.wp. So it will not matter if the localization comes from a script that afterwards checks from what language version I come or if the interface/templates of the language version of Wikipedia directly point me to the right language on Commons. The script is using resources, the correct link in the template not, or? Thats however my mere question, is it equal or is there a difference. --Martin H. (talk) 17:27, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
If there is a template link to a given uselang the script will use that and keep that language selected as the users clicks around in the commons site. Without the script only the landing page has the uslang parameter. Mdale (talk) 08:42, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
Are you saying that you are setting uselang on all pages for all visitors of Commons? (Not to mention the initial page reload.) Which means the caching goes completely down the toilet? OK, let’s see how long it takes before getting killed by a developer. (Or maybe not, I don’t know; it just does not look like a good idea to me.) --Mormegil (talk) 20:42, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
Yes, something like that. Let's see what happens :-) Multichill (talk) 08:44, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
✓ Done. Multichill (talk) 17:18, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Suggestions

Two questions/ideas:

  • What about localizing according to language preferences set in browser (anonymous and logged in users)?
  • What about presetting the language according to the home wiki instead of English for everyone (SUL users)?

--Leyo 16:04, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Browser preference is used when uselang is not set and there is not suitable referer, see MediaWiki:PersistentUselang.js for the exact code. We probably have a bug open for the second suggestion. If that's not the case, please file one at http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/. Multichill (talk) 16:41, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
I did not find anything and therefore posted it on bugzilla:26221. Matt (talk) 20:23, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
Thank you. --Leyo 20:37, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
Ok. Someone found the original bug: bugzilla:23335. Multichill (talk) 10:53, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

I guess something triggered us both to work on this as last weekend I spend time on a similar thing called AnonymousI18N.js. From what I see this one is a little more developed and cross-browser compatible but I think both of these two should work along side. MediaWiki:AnonymousI18N.js handling the saving, presenting and applying of the language and MediaWiki:PersistentUselang.js to extract the uselang from incoming links. Browse to http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Example.jpg?withJS=MediaWiki:AnymousI18N.js to see what it looks like

Add 

importScript( 'MediaWiki:AnonymousI18N.js' );

to your Special:Mypage/vector.js to try out what it would behave like when navigating from page to page –Krinkletalk 14:58, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

PS: Screenshot over here –Krinkletalk 15:00, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Custom user license tags

In the above discussion concerning GFDL-1.2-only, in the examples I noted of uploaders who used GFDL-1.2-only, they did not use this license alone but added additional wording suggesting further restrictions. The problem of misleading license disclosure is in fact the real problem such that the use of GFDL-1.2-only is typically just such a symptom. To take an example, David Iliff's custom license tag is carefully worded to sound as restrictive as possible while still technically being CC-BY-SA. There is no description of what the terms of a CC-BY license are, and there is not even a link to those terms, despite the license's own demand that "any reproduction of this image, in any medium, must appear with a copy of, or full URL of the license." Readers are told to "review the full license requirement" without being provided any opportunity to do such a review by the custom user template. Readers are told to contact the uploader to "negotiate less restrictive commercial licensing" despite the fact that a CC-BY-SA license does not have commercial restrictions. It exploits reader ignorance of what CC-BY-SA means. And it works: Iliff's English Wikipedia Talk page has all sorts of people asking to "negotiate." I know from my own experience that even when a license is public domain, someone will occasionally contact me and offer money for re-use. I simply repeat what the license says. By deliberately obscuring what the license says and inviting readers to contact the uploader, the number of cash offers is increased. Were it not for their use on Wiki projects, the works would not be as widely seen and there wouldn't be as many of these offers from people who don't know any better. Note that it is not the big corporations who pay (they are sophisticated enough to know what CC-BY-SA means). In my view, using Wiki projects in this way is unfair competition with professional photographers who solicit their offers from sites designed for that purpose (like IStockPhoto, Gettys Images, etc). A commentator above says it is not unreasonable to "expect reusers to stick to the license". Of course. But by the same token people on the other side should also be expected to "stick to the license". That means a policy of reserving "licensing" to explicit, unmanipulated, undistorted generally accepted licenses. If uploaders want more, it should go in "Other" or some place besides "Permission" or "Licensing" so that it is clear that the request is not legally binding and not a further condition on the license. There is lots of scope for custom user widgets without having them substitute for formal licenses.--Bdell555 (talk) 05:35, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

LOL: "unfair competition with professional photographers who solicit their offers from [..] Gettys Images".
You could just invite all those to upload their files here too.
By adding "Use this file" links, recently we tried to remedy the problem that re-use of the images hosted at Commons isn't exactly easy and made sometimes in violation of the license uploaders decided to grant. --  Docu  at 05:49, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
You think it laughable to propose that photographers should not be able to have it both ways: soliciting commercial re-use compensation AND having Wiki projects essentially provide free advertising for their work? I continue to believe that it is fundamentally unfair because payment offers can only be solicited on a Wiki project by misleading people into thinking that such a payment is necessary for attributed works. Photographers who refuse to stoop to this dodgy marketing ploy should not be competitively disadvantaged. In fact photographers CAN have it "both ways" in a fair way by making some of their work free and some not, but this means being keeping it above the table by designating what's free clearly free and what is reserved for profit reserved for profit. Photographers can troll for payments (you excluded "using Wiki projects in this way" in your quote) on the external sites designed for that purpose. If a potential user likes what is free, he or she can take the initiative to look off-Commons for the rest of the artist's portfolio and "negotiate" with the photographer for use of desired works that is not free. That means being clear with potential users by not allowing shell games like custom user license tags.--Bdell555 (talk) 06:19, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
I see nothing really wrong with Diliff's summary. When it appears on an image description page, the applicable licenses follow in the Licensing section below, including a link to the full license wording, so that is not being hidden. CC-BY-SA does impose strong restrictions on re-use; perhaps the most important for commercial re-use is that the resulting work must be offered under the same or similar license. For example, a textbook author would probably find it difficult to charge hundreds of dollars a copy if their textbook was under CC-BY-SA. --Avenue (talk) 06:47, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
A belated clarification: the "same or similar license" restriction applies to derivative works (e.g. a collage) and not to collective works (e.g. an album). A textbook could be either, depending on precisely how the image was used, so that is probably not the best example. --Avenue (talk) 13:54, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
Nothing automatically/necessarily follows (the issue here is permitting custom user license tags in general as opposed to a particular example template). Even in this particular case, the custom user license tag neither incorporates a CC-BY-SA template, links to a CC-BY-SA url, nor directs readers to where else on an image description page they can find the wording of a CC-BY-SA license. The custom tag furthermore appears separately from the "Licensing" area on its own under "Permissions". If the custom license and CC-BY-SA are one and the same, no more and no less, why aren't they presented as such? If there are two different licenses, why aren't readers notified that they can choose either license (such that they can choose CC-BY-SA without any further restrictions)? Most importantly, where does it say in CC-BY-SA that "any reproduction of this image, in any medium, must appear with a copy of, or full URL of the license"? The same language is used in other custom templates like this one where the user evidently assumed the precedent for demanding additional restrictions was permissible. This is the same language used by User:Fir0002 until Fir0002, to his credit, stopped trying to "have it both ways" and elected to not upload to Commons rather than upload non-free images. What is the point of this custom template if not to add a GFDL-1.2-only sort of restriction (even if attributed, one can still only use "with a copy of the license in any medium"?) and invite readers to "negotiate" a "commercial" fee for avoiding this restriction? If it is true that CC-BY-SA imposes "strong restrictions" on "commercial re-use" as you claim here, my response would be in that case CC-BY-SA is not a free license.--Bdell555 (talk) 08:15, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
Inclusion of full copy/URL of the license with any reproduction of the image is a requirement of CC-BY/CC-BY-SA licenses: "You must include a copy of, or the Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) for, this License with every copy of the Work You Distribute or Publicly Perform." (CC-BY 3.0) Trycatch (talk) 08:59, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
It does not say "full copy" in what you link to and even if it did, the legal code is being misrepresented if the terms that may be of utility to the other party are not being acknowledged. It says "reasonable to the medium... to the extent reasonably practicable, the URL..." The "in any medium" requirement in the custom license at hand here is entirely additional. The full legal code also says "[t]he credit required... may be implemented in any reasonable manner..." whereas in this case the custom license declares that attribution "is required in a prominent location near to the image" with no allowance for whether that is reasonable or not. The fact that a consideration of this one example becomes an argument over legalese constitutes a strong argument for prohibiting custom license tags because it implies that potentially every upload to the Commons that adds such a custom license to a generally accepted license has to be reviewed for whether the custom license renders the upload non-free or not. I might add that in cases like those I identified in the discussion concerning GFDL-1.2-old, these custom licenses are not even attached to generally accepted licenses. Even if I can legally repeat parts of the CC-BY-SA legalese without providing the full context or the additional restrictions or expansions, and then boldface or highlight or what have you in order to maximize the impression that the work is not, in fact, free (and then conveniently mention that I can be contacted to "negotiate" a "commercial" contract) the question arises as to whether I should. When the community has decided that GFDL-1.2-old is not really free because of how onerous the requirement to include the copy of the license agreement is, I don't see how it can be said that the case at hand is not an attempt to evade this community decision and turn back the clock to a GFDL-1.2-old license in terms of practical effect. Let's get right to the point: is the custom tag entirely legally redundant with CC-BY-SA? Yes? Then why is it presented as if it has legal force when it has no legal force? Why is it permitted under the title "Licensing" or "Permissions"?--Bdell555 (talk) 09:58, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
You bring up the issue of my requiring attribution "in a prominent location near to the image"... I don't see how that is incompatible with the license. The license says attribution should be "reasonable to the medium or means You are utilizing". Now, of course there will be situations where 'near to the image' is not possible or relevant to the use, but I think my requirement is far more 'down to earth' and intelligible to the average re-user, and not imposing unnecessary restrictions. It seems to me that you just wish the license were less restrictive so you're acting on the gut feeling of the word 'free' rather than with any real respect for the terms of the license. That's your perogative, but I'll keep mine, thank you very much. Diliff (talk) 11:44, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
Your license is not satisfied with just providing attribution in the way you demand, it has further demands that apply "in any medium" without acknowledging any of the exceptions that are in the license. Would you be willing change the 'careful' reading your custom license demands to allow a 'down to earth' reading of "the full license requirements" you choose to demand or is the right to paraphrase and embellish yours alone? What strikes me is the irony of the fact that the same people who demand absolute fidelity to the rigors of a CC-BY-SA license cannot, themselves, leave it unmolested. If you don't have a problem with the CC-BY-SA license then USE THE LICENSE. This discussion is titled CUSTOM license tags NOT CC-BA-SA license tags. "Real respect for the terms of the license" means presenting those terms in whole, not in part, and if presenting in part then either quoting directly or, better, using a presentation of the license that has been acknowledged by the community/policy as a fair representation. This isn't about MY perogative or YOUR perogative it is about the project's perogative. Yes I admit that I do believe that free means unbound. But it is the Wikimedia Foundation and the community that decides what exactly free means in terms of what constitutes permissible licensing, not you or I. If uploaders are entitled to the "perogative" of deciding that the definition of "free" is whatever they happen to think it is, it makes a mockery of the idea of having consensus determined policy.--Bdell555 (talk) 19:38, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
Let's get something straight here. It's not me that's making demands about how to use the images - it's the license that does that. You could possibly argue that 'in any medium' is not explicitly mentioned in the license, and I'd happily look into that, but it's clear that your problem is much greater than minor issues with wording. Like I said, it sounds like you wish the license terms were less restrictive, but they're not. And you're making bad faith claims after bad faith claims. I'm not going to take you seriously unless you get off your high horse. Diliff (talk) 21:17, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
If you'll allow me to move the argument from accusations about which horse I'm riding back to the issue at hand, "commercial" is not "explicitly mentioned in the license" either. One only finds a commercial restriction in a CC-BY-SA license implicitly just as low resolution implies a commercial restriction; if it looks unprofessional it looks unprofessional regardless of the legal status of the looker or the presenter. This is to say, it's not a legal restriction and accordingly such language does not belong in either "Permissions" or "Licensing." If there were a legal restriction, it would contradict explicit, unambiguous, and unqualified Wikimedia policy: "Commercial use of the work must be allowed."--Bdell555 (talk) 21:09, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
Listen, this is a fundamental problem with your line of thinking. You have assumed from word go that my intentions are to trick people into purchasing my photos. This is not the case. If you don't believe me, I'm not going to bother explaining myself again and again. If you can move beyond that base assumption, you might find it easier to understand the reason for using the word commercial in the text. It is because a large number of the requests to use my images are commercial in nature, and those that are commercial in nature are far less likely to want to adhere to the terms of CC-BY-SA. Some non-commercial re-users might also not want to adhere to the terms either, but it's always going to be more likely that a commercial re-user would want to present the image in a professional manner. As such, I've referred to this particular kind of re-use ("less restrictive commercial licensing") by name so that I can then suggest a particular path that may satisfy the re-user - namely to contact to discuss the release of the image under less restrictive conditions. I don't see how this is adding any legal restriction that doesn't already exist in the license. Diliff (talk) 21:29, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
If a legal response to "the requests... that are commercial in nature [being] far less likely to want to adhere to the terms" is necessary then why isn't such a response in the license? I'm not necessarily saying you haven't identified something that needs to be addressed. I'm saying that if there is a problem a multilateral solution is in order not a unilateral or "custom" one.--Bdell555 (talk) 22:15, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
Yes, maybe it is something that does need to be addressed in the license template. But it's not really going to change anything even then. In order to cater for these commercial re-users, the template would still have to suggest that they contact the copyright author to negotiate use outside of the bounds of CC-BY-SA. The template cannot grant any extra permissions that the license itself doesn't provide for. Only the author can do it. Diliff (talk) 00:53, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
Yes, the implications of bad faith are uncalled for. Bdell555, you clearly feel strongly about these issues, and you have every right to express your feelings, as long as you respect the work and feelings of other contributors too. Getting people's backs up does not help your cause. --Avenue (talk) 22:51, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
@Bdell555: "Free" is a word with many meanings. CC-BY-SA is a copyleft-style license, due to the "share-alike" part, much like the GPL in the field of software. Maybe this is not as free as you'd like, but these licenses have laid the foundation for some quite successful projects, Wikipedia among them. (English Wikipedia text is contributed under CC-BY-SA and GFDL.) IANAL, so my views on commercial re-use should be taken with a grain of salt, but I know companies have got into trouble by violating the requirements of the GPL at least. --Avenue (talk) 12:59, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
I take it you agree with me then that CC-BY-SA (or a freer license) should be good enough for uploaders without being manipulated or misrepresented with additional or replacement "custom" licensing.--Bdell555 (talk) 19:38, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
While I do not think the definition of "Free" is an issue here (it's been decided that anything more restrictive than CC-BY-SA is non-free, and accordingly this custom use license issue is a question of enforcement, not a question of re-hashing project policy on what's free) I do confess to having an "ideological" problem if you will with custom license tags that reflects my vision of the project as communal property. Communal property means we can't zone an area for our private use and take offence when somebody tells us to take down our "Private Property! No Trespassing!" signs. Watermarking images is not approved by policy yet these custom license tags are essentially a watermark on the description page. They are arguably even worse, because watermarks are typically just attributions and these custom license tags demand more than just attribution. This means that if all the work here is stripped down to STANDARDIZED CC-BY-CA licenses OR FREER, anyone complaining should reminded this is "the Commons". You want to retain and protect the appearance of your images and image description pages because they are "yours"? Then this is not the place to upload.--Bdell555 (talk) 20:22, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
I do not agree that we should prohibit any summary of the license, details of how the licensor wishes to be credited, or provision of contact details for the licensor. The summary of CC-BY-SA we present in {{Cc-by-sa-3.0}} says "You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor", and adding a statement that specifies how to attribute the work seems completely in accord with this. But nor do I think that anything goes when it comes to such statements. The community has every right to decide what we will accept and host, and to make changes to such statements where this is in accord with the license offered. I think we have some common ground there. Of course, what one person sees as misleading misrepresentation, another may see as helpful clarification, so establishing some consensus is important. Do we need some guidelines on what is acceptable here? For instance, should such statements always include a link to the relevant license(s), or is this redundant? And what sorts of attribution requirements are reasonable? --Avenue (talk) 21:59, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
I'm with Avenue on this. You seem to wish, based on your 'ideological vision', that we relinquish any control of our images once they are submitted to Wikipedia. Your vision is no more valid than mine. But the difference is, I'm not trying to impose my vision on you. In any case, the images are not communal property. They are the property of the copyright holder. The copyright holders choose to release the image under specific conditions (the CC-BY-SA license), and they have every right to enforce those conditions. They don't have the right to create additional restrictions beyond the bounds of the license, but apart from very minor issues of semantics, I don't think you've shown that it's been happening. Diliff (talk) 22:23, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
If the ideological vision of "free" is precisely that then the only acceptable license should be PD, but thats no going to happen is it. Photographs are the property of author/copyright holder they do have the right to choose how they license their images, under cc-by/cc-by-sa they have the right to attribution as specified providing the author imposes no restriction beyond the terms of the license. The author/copyright holder is the only person who can change the license. There is no difference between the photographer having a custom license that specifies attribution requirements to that of a Flickr, Powerhouse museum, Institution:British Museum and host of other templates for works from other sources. If you aim is to stop advertising then these custom templates should be addresssed first, instead we've started creating a whole new class of template just to aid in advertising these places. Gnangarra 14:58, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

To say it simple: Diliff is one of our best photographers and Bdell555 should be able to treat his work respectfully. We need Diliffs pictures not men on missions.... The sentence of Bdell555 "unfair competition with professional photographers who solicit their offers from [..] Gettys Images" is really funny and shows a fundamental lack of knowledge. --Mbdortmund (talk) 13:56, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

So l was lying when I told Dliff that "your work is outstanding" because, according to your "knowledge," I am unable "to treat his work respectfully." If you are going to call me a liar I suggest you provide some supporting evidence instead of just relying on assumptions about me and my intentions. It doesn't matter how good the work is if the creator is not willing to release it under a CC-BY-SA license or freer. re adding to a CC-BY-SA tag "details of how the licensor wishes to be credited, or provision of contact details for the licensor," as suggested by User:Avenue above, I have no objection if the opportunity to make such additions is extended to all uploaders by integrating it into the standard, community developed uploading tools. In other words, I do not see these suggestions as constituting an argument for supporting custom, user developed license tags.--Bdell555 (talk) 20:27, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
Your logic is flawed. Just beacuse you've said one token nice thing about my work, it doesn't mean you've been respectful in your dealings with me and others. Almost every point you have made, you've made as if it is fact rather than your opinion. You've made claims about my intentions as if you know them intimately (you describe my notice as "carefully worded to sound as restrictive as possible"). You've used inflamatory and rude langauge to describe my actions ("exploits reader ignorance"). You've acted as if you're the supreme arbiter of Commons. It must be such a nuisance that your minions aren't toeing your line... Diliff (talk) 21:15, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
Those seeking to undermine a given free use standard get a private benefit that those demanding fidelity to the standard don't. This description of the politics of the debate may construed as disrespectful, inflammatory, rude, arrogant, or an assumption of bad faith but that doesn't change the reality that the fact participants in the "Commons Village" are overwhelmingly contributors as opposed to users means there is no natural constituency for supporting rigorous enforcement of a free use standard. See the Tragedy of the commons.--Bdell555 (talk) 22:39, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps you could explain your first sentence a little better, I can't make heads or tails of it. You're right though, your disrespectful, inflammatory, rude, arrogant etc comments don't change the reality that we're contributors here, but nor does it change the fact that they're still disrespectful, inflammatory, rude and arrogant regardless of who you're aiming them at. The fact that we're more likely to have a particular bias has absolutely nothing to do with the way you approach the issue. Also, I don't see the Tragedy of the Commons theory as analogous to this at all. We're not competing for shared resources here. Diliff (talk) 00:53, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
Restricting the use of the common resources here is analogous to depleting them. If your "custom" license has the stamp of approval, more and more uploaders of their own work who are aware of it will use it such that it will eventually become the new definition of the cut-off point between free and non-free. This process is well underway, in fact. I don't apologize for obstinately standing in the way of this de facto license migration because is not occurring under the full scrutiny of the Foundation or the Wiki and Creative Commons communities. The incentive remains for someone to come up with an even more restrictive "custom" license, which will in turn mean yet another debate unless this innovation is officially discouraged.--Bdell555 (talk) 01:50, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
It sounds like I need to add 'conspiracy theorist' to the charges laid against you! And it's still a poor analogy. I'm not restricting the resources, the license is, and the license is used by everyone equally. Neither am I adding a custom license - I'm adding a custom notice which clarifies some of the terms of the existing CC-BY-SA license in my own words, and suggests that re-users contact me if they don't want to use CC-BY-SA. And you make a really misleading claim when you say that the process of more and more uploaders using a custom template is well underway, and then cite my original custom template. That doesn't prove anything other than that I use it. You provide no evidence that it's 'well underway'. And I still absolutely deny that we're discussing a license migration. My custom notice is fully compatible with CC-BY-SA IMO. Diliff (talk) 12:54, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
I said "more and more uploaders of their own work who are aware of" "your 'custom' license" "will use it" and in support of my claim that this process is underway I linked to where I note at least half a dozen cases where uploaders have created templates that are essentially copies of yours. The more copies that are made and used, the more your custom license becomes the new standard.--Bdell555 (talk) 21:25, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
Ah, I hadn't noticed your reply on the talk page of the template. It gets rather confusing when you split the discussion up into three different locations. Well, I stand corrected on others 'copying' the notice (not that I ever denied it, I just mistakenly denied you'd provided evidence), but it doesn't change the legitimacy of doing so. Diliff (talk) 23:37, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
I'm receiving now and then requests from re-users by email. Most of them, neither privates nor professionals, simply do not understand all this complicated licence foo found at commons. So the notice which I added to the licence templates is a service for re-users, not a restriction. -- smial (talk) 13:39, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
"By deliberately obscuring what the license says and inviting readers to contact the uploader, the number of cash offers is increased."
"using Wiki projects in this way is unfair competition with professional photographers"
"reserving "licensing" to explicit, unmanipulated, undistorted generally accepted licenses"
Unfair, manipulating, distortion of licenses are allegations which stand in contrast to my understanding of respect. You try to imply that the users of GFDL 1.2 are using the commons as a promotion tool to run a dirty and unfair kind of business and that's what I call rude, not fair.
Diliff donated many of our best pictures and invested a lot of time and money for the project. Your engagement for the commons is not comparable, so the way you attack Diliff is not acceptable. If I had the choice to do without your or Diliffs contributions the decision would be very easy... --Mbdortmund (talk) 22:50, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
Your suggestion that the legitimacy of a view expressed here is a function of the uploads of own work by the speaker just proves my point about how creators who do their own uploading receive a fuller hearing here than users. For what it is worth, I have edited Commons pages to give what I thought was better or fuller attribution to the creator when their work was uploaded by others, especially for high demand and hard to get photos like those of celebrities, including adding links to the creator's off-wiki portfolios, encouraged Wikipedia users to write thank you notes to creators, etc. There is a natural incentive for ensuring that uploads of own work are fully attributed that does not exist when uploading third party work.--Bdell555 (talk) 00:44, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
Interesting. But before we keep on discussing complicated license issues, are you really the expert in such questions you pretend to be? You uploaded e.g. the File:Model of proposed development Qidong.JPG as PD-self. Are you really shure this is free material? You present yourself as the author although there must be somebody who built that model. FOP indoor? Interesting. Another example can be found here where you refer to a map as a "a traffic sign" and therfore release it into public domain. Strange idea. Your favourite license seems to be PD, sometimes for material which you did not create yourself.
You are welcome to help us on the commons but stop to annoy some of our best photographers and stop to demand the deletion of hundreds of our QI and FPI pictures! --Mbdortmund (talk) 03:22, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
I'm "demanding" deletion of these "custom" license templates, not "hundreds of our QI and FPI pictures." If these pictures are truly CC-BY-SA then deprecating their licenses down to a community recognized CC-BY-SA license is not going to require the deletion of any of them. Uploaders can already use the Credit line template for specifying how they want to be attributed and the Author or Source line for linking to the rest of their online portfolios and/or providing their contact information. I've been to 76 countries since 2004 and there is a fair chance that some of the photos I've taken in some jurisdictions are panorama violations and/or would be considered derivative under a particular country's rules, especially when, as here, they are uploads I made years ago as a newbie. While I may express an opinion I ultimately defer to the judgment of the community and the great many who are more expert than I. If I'm on some sort of mission to disrespect the rights of content creators why would I call for respecting a restriction request from perhaps the biggest creator of quality free content of all (the United States government)? Why would I be adding "disputed" templates to images that I suspect violate creator rights? In any case, I don't thinking attacking my credibility or contributions advances your argument (or the discussion, for that matter) anyway because poisoning the well is a logical fallacy.--Bdell555 (talk) 06:06, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Seems as if one person gives the ghost driver. :-) If copyright holders specify the main points and their understanding of the licence this might be helpful for re-users (in my experience it is helpful for re-users). If re-users do not want to read these short explanations they can read the full licence text to find out which conditons CC-by-sa has in detail. Btw, whatever is not clearly stated in the licence falls under custom law and current practice. Regarding credit this is in most cases "near at the image". --Martina Nolte (talk) 11:36, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

@Bdell555: Compare your statement: "I'm "demanding" deletion of these "custom" license templates, not "hundreds of our QI and FPI pictures."

with your former statements:

"We need to purge the Commons of these files ..."
attacked photographers: Muhammad Mahdi Karim, Fir0002
You quote consentingly: ""GFDL 1.2 content... we will simply remove"", manipulating the context of the quote.
"all uploads after January 1, 2011 that are GFDL-1.2-only will be automatically ported to CC-BY-3.0 and exercising an "opt out" option with regard to this port means opting out of having the work hosted on the Commons." What means in other words: Don't care to much about the license you give to your pictures, we will change it to CC-0, if Bdell likes it. Do you know the words: "pacta sunt servanda"? Your proposal is exactly the mentality that led me to GFDL 1.2, because some people here believe that they can change contracts without asking the authors.

Disk: Custom user license tags

attacked photographer: Diliff
"photographers should not be able to have it both ways: soliciting commercial re-use compensation AND having Wiki projects essentially provide free advertising for their work"
"Fir0002, to his credit, stopped trying to "have it both ways" and elected to not upload to Commons" (great!)
"Then this is not the place to upload."

My conclusion: Your "vision of the project as communal property" turns into the demand of deletion of hundreds of our best files and into aggressive behaviour against our best photographers. You're not trying to convince them, you are not presenting your opinion as a personal point of view but present it as a decision of the community. It is obvious that you are glad that Fir left the project. Great.

I'm sorry, but I don't like crusades of any kind. --Mbdortmund (talk) 12:17, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

When Fir left the project, this was a real, REAL great loss. And the reason were men on the mission, not any real licencing problem. I do not want to see another campaign oft this kind. -- smial (talk) 13:39, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
Anything that drives people away from commons is a concern, when its result of unnecessary actions its a disaster. Our mission is to build a repository of freely licensed images, nothing in those customs licenses goes against that. We need to respect the rights of all authors, we need to respect the people who make Commons unique, we need to remain civil in the way in which we discuss issues, we dont need to attack individuals nor do we want to have people celebrating the loss of our contributors all of which causes disruption. Bdell555 you made your point in a very pointy way and everyone understands your point of view, the deliverance of the message has been disruptive I suggest that its time you took a step back and accept that the community has a differing perspective on the matter. Gnangarra 14:19, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
Mbdortmund's claim above that I was "glad" or in your words "celebrat[ed]" the departure of a contributor unreasonably presumes bad faith with respect to my intentions. In my view Fir0002 left for the simple reason that the project wouldn't green light NC licenses and he wasn't inclined to continue to upload under his custom license even though he could have done so had he absolutely insisted upon it given that others continue to upload under similar custom licenses. As I've said elsewhere "Fir0002 was a great contributor" and his departure "is unfortunate." When I say Fir0002 deserves credit for respecting both the letter and spirit of the project rules it simply does not follow that it is anything but tragic that he did decided to not upload at all rather than upload under a standard CC-BY-SA license. In any case, I accept the community perspective (even if the "community" here is not representative of all stakeholders as I have explained) and will step away from the discussion. I nonetheless believe that even if there isn't a problem with these custom licenses today, there will be in the future as they continue to proliferate.--Bdell555 (talk) 21:04, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
We don't have anywhere near the opinion of the community here. If you start loudly and aggressively attacking anyone with a certain opinion, it's not surprising that the people who don't want to get attacked don't respond and you get a one-sided result.--Prosfilaes (talk) 17:57, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
It is quite annoying that the parting of one single contributor who uploaded only severely downscaled images of a only a small region of this planet is used in an attempt to silence discussion about licensing and commercial interests. Anyhow, that being said this discussion is going nowhere and contains many misconceptions and misguided attacks. Commercial exploitation of images is completely acceptable. Adding explanatory notes to licenses is completely acceptable as long as they are within the spirit of the license. Offering additional licensing terms is completely acceptable. It seems to me that a few people here do not realize the realities of commercial image use. Contributors here are sometimes contacted by people who would prefer not to abide to the restrictions of free licenses (attribution, share alike, etc). It is up to the photographer whether he allows that. It actually is none of anybody else's business. The photographers still own the rights to their images. Release under a free license does not preclude release under non-free licenses. And if monetary compensation is offered then that is fine as well. What I personally detest (and that is only my very own opinion) are any shenanigans that make free reuse harder than necessary. This includes upload of only downscaled teaser images, using licenses with absurd additional requirements (such as reproduction of the entire license text). It makes me angry when people take advantage of Wikipedia as a promotional tool, when they limit what they contribute because of commercial interests. As long as the commercial side has no negative impact on the contributions nobody loses. The really dumb part about all that is the obsession some photographers have about unauthorized reuse. It will happen. Using GFDL-1.2 licenses or uploading downscaled images will not help. It is useless and stupid. I get plenty of commercial licensing request without doing those things. --Dschwen (talk) 20:54, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
I agree with you. Particularly the last one - initially, my gut feeling was that restricting what I put on Wikipedia might help with minimising unauthorised use, but I've come to realise that it doesn't really make a difference. Those who respect the license do the right thing and either confirm the conditions or contact the author to negotiate less restrictive conditions. Those who don't respect the license will probably use it even if it is 'only' 1000px wide, and if it is too low-res for their needs, they probably won't be interested in paying for the high-res copy elsewhere anyway (assuming they could even find it). I completely agree that it is Commons that suffers as a result. Diliff (talk) 21:21, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Chilean Football Federation Crest

Hi to everyone...I need some help....I don't know how to properly upload the new chilean football federation crest to wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilean_Football_Federation and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chile_national_football_team), i made it to use it in pes 2011 and football manager 2011 and i wanted to put it now on wikipedia....but i don't know how....is there anyone who is willing to help me?

this is the source from where i get the news and the crest:

http://latam.puma.com/posts/revelamos-la-nueva-camiseta-de-la-seleccion-chilena http://content.modyo.com/media/picture_30e8db0428f1bc3e537446889cd256bf34995bd2/large.pic

this is the crest i created using the photos from puma:

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_51HX7oUZT7M/TP0iEWAVrqI/AAAAAAAAAFg/HweRqRvG7Yc/Chilean_Football_Federation.png

thanks in advance! — Preceding unsigned comment added by MaXelo (talk • contribs) 03:54, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Good work, but I have a feeling the logo is not simple enough to be regarded as in the public domain. If it is copyrighted, it would be better to upload it to the English Wikipedia instead and use it under a fair-use justification. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 20:10, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

File:Szent Anna templom, Bácsújlak (Saint Anne Roman Catholic Church, Bačko Novo Selo, Vojvodina, Serbia) - 20070501.jpg

Your input is welcome at "File talk:Szent Anna templom, Bácsújlak (Saint Anne Roman Catholic Church, Bačko Novo Selo, Vojvodina, Serbia) - 20070501.jpg". — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 14:11, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Questions about the user interface

Hello!
Does somebody know a ready-to-use CSS script on Commons for the Monobook(!) skin (I dislike vector, it's not so intuitive for me as advertised) incorporating at least a "markadmin" funktionality and setting the focus not on the search, but on the page button? It's getting on my nerves that I always get the search result page when I'm hitting "Enter" after entering a shortcut like COM:FR and I'm really used to PDD's Monobook on German Wikipedia... Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 14:26, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

List of illustrators c.1810s

In File:Views in Suffolk, Norfolk, and Northamptonshire.djvu the book refers to a couple of English illustrators of the time of the publication (1818) as Cowper and Burns. Anyone aware of any good reference material/sites that may have information to help track down these people? Thanks.  — billinghurst sDrewth 02:45, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Are you sure it isn't referring to the then very-well-known poets William Cowper and Robert Burns? AnonMoos (talk) 02:41, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
I think it is, yes. The book above was originally published in 1806, and the same two authors, according to w:James Sargant Storer, also wrote "Cowper illustrated by a Series of Views" (1803) and "Views in North Britain illustrative of the Works of Burns" (1805), and I think the passage in the above book is in reference to those two works. Carl Lindberg (talk) 02:54, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Category:South West Coast Path

Does this belong in the Coast Path category?

OK, this will probably get confusing very rapidly :) The South West Coast Path roughly parallels the coast of South West England. The question is what is the purpose of Category:South West Coast Path and how should it relate to the categories for coastal images such as Category:Coasts of Cornwall? People using the coast path category will be looking for files that relate to the coast path. This will include both landmarks (such as Anvil Point Lighthouse) on the path and general views of the coast - such as the file to the right.

The coast path and coastal categories are not redundant to each other - as the path category includes non coastal images and the coast categories include things not relevant to the path. As the coast path is an obvious feature of the coast, its category is a logical subcategory of the coastal cats. However, because (practically) all media in the coastal category is of relevance to the coast path - the path's category is also a logical parent of the coastal cats. Such a circular relationship is silly.

I'm genuinely not sure as to the way forward. Should both the coast category and the coast path category be added to images like the one to the right (meaning "pointless" double categorisation of hundreds of images)? Sub-categories may work for some things such as Category:Buildings on the South West Coast Path, but not all things, creating intersection categories like Category:Coastal views from the South West Coast Path in Cornwall results in truly terribly named cats.

The other extreme would be to not categorise coastal images like the one to right in the coast path category at all and instead use a similar approach to road categories - the path category would only contain media of the path, and associated objects like signs. However, people using the category would still want to find images like the example, so would require a hatnote on the category page. That is sub-optimal from a navigational point of view... See why I'm perplexed?--Nilfanion (talk) 22:52, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

  • I don't see the problem. Images can have multiple categories, even if there is some overlap in what the categories cover. The most important thing is that the categories are relevant and relate to the image and are not too vague. Diliff (talk) 20:11, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
My suggestion: when you are thinking of uploading a photo, just thing in which article it would be suitable, and see if there is a category (or categories) for the subject of that article. Use your imagination, but perhaps not too much of it.;) Best regards, MartinD (talk) 22:01, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
OK, I am "overthinking" here I know :) The problem is I am trying to sort out the categorisation for the relevant part of the UK, which means messing with hundreds of files. The bit I'm not sure on is if the "views" images - like the one displayed - are relevant to the path category at all. Its that question I'd like the outside opinion on really. If they are, the sheer quantity means a sub-category is required, and the only name I can think of for that category is awful - a more sensible suggestion would help?--Nilfanion (talk) 22:14, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
I had the same issue with some road categories a few years back, and also railway lines - should the things at the side of the road/rails be in the cat at all. I think I decided yes in the end. -mattbuck (Talk) 22:18, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

December 7

looking for URL parameter

I could swear I have seen this somewhere: an URL parameter that if provided additionally loads the specified Javascript file. So something like http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons:Village_pump&usewithJS=somescript.js would load the page Commons:Village pump and would also call the script MediaWiki:somescript.js. I know I have seen this, but I don't remember the correct name of the parameter. Does anybody know what I mean? --Slomox (talk) 18:06, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Just withJS= --Dschwen (talk) 18:13, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
Oh. Thanks! So close ;-) I was completely unable to find it with Google. Not even documented on mw:Manual:Parameters to index.php. --Slomox (talk) 18:20, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
It is not in the MediaWiki manual because it is done locally at Commons in MediaWiki:Common.js. /Ö 18:41, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
Used for example at {{Check categories}}. Multichill (talk) 20:17, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Template line break help needed

Hi everyone. I use a custom template for images I upload which gets substed in to add basic categories that get carried over from image to image, using User:Mattbuck/FUT. However, there are some parameters for generating categories which get left blank, and these are causing me a few issues with line breaks. I want every category to have its own line, but want blank parameters to not leave an empty line, and my current method apparently doesn't work. Can anyone help? -mattbuck (Talk) 23:19, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

December 8

Uploading a new file, and proceeding updates

Currently, when we upload a new file, the page data shows something like this: 

== Summary ==

{{Information
|Description=
|Source=
|Author=
|Date=
|Permission=
|other_versions=
}}

== Licensing ==

{{LICENCE}}

Many changes are usually done after this (which couldn't be done before), such as internationalization, etc. Could we not change the upload content to reflect this automatically. For example, something like: 

== {{int:filedesc}} ==

{{Information
|Description    = 
|Source         = 
|Date           = 
|Author         = 
|Permission     = 
|Other_versions = 
}}

Rollei 35 s

I came across a rollei 35 s camera still in working order.I was wondering what would be the going price on this camera

CommonSense error

Link http://toolserver.org/~daniel/WikiSense/CommonSense.php?u=en&i=&kw=&p=_20&cl=&uncategorized=Random+Orphan&w=en&v=0 give this error: A database error has occurred Query: SELECT I.page_title as title FROM page AS I USE INDEX(page_random) LEFT JOIN categorylinks AS L ON (I.page_id = L.cl_from AND L.cl_to NOT IN ('GFDL', 'GPL', 'LGPL', 'Public_domain', 'PD', 'PD-self', 'PD-user', 'PD_Old', 'PD_Art', 'PD_US', 'PD_US_Government', 'PD_NASA', 'PD_US_Military', 'Patents', 'Russian_official_symbols', 'PD_Soviet', 'CC-BY-SA-2.5', 'CC-BY-SA-2.1', 'CC-BY-SA-2.0', 'CC-BY-SA-1.0', 'CC-SA-1.0', 'CC-BY-1.0', 'CC-BY-2.0', 'CC-BY-2.5', 'BSD_images', 'Copyrighted_free_use', 'Copyrighted_free_use_provided_that', 'Self-published_work', 'Unknown', 'Own_work', 'Incomplete_license', 'Unknown')) LEFT JOIN ( imagelinks AS P JOIN page as A ON A.page_id = P.il_from AND A.page_namespace = 0 ) ON I.page_title = P.il_to WHERE I.page_namespace = 6 AND L.cl_from IS NULL AND P.il_to IS NULL AND I.page_random > 0.9358626478053 ORDER BY I.page_random LIMIT 1 Function: randomImage Error: 1176 Key 'page_random' doesn't exist in table 'page' (sql-s4) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.93.151.70 (talk • contribs) 11:40, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Changes to UK Crown Copyright

At the GLAM Wiki conference last weekend in London the presentation from Creative Commons mentioned that the terms of Crown Copyright have been ammended so this material is available under the Open Government Licence which is apparently wikimedia compatible. I have added a paragraph about this to Commons:Licensing#Crown_copyright but it should probably be checked by someone else.

Poking round I found this "(The National archive) license a wide range of Crown copyright and Crown database right information through the Open Government Licence and the UK Government Licensing Framework" [3]

Bug in Use this file on the web

The list of available sizes ranges from 0.0625 pixels up to 1 pixel. Not very useful. Btw, would it be possible to get Blogger formatted code as well? // Liftarn (talk)

Seem to work not (the fist anyway). // Liftarn (talk)
Can you link to an example where these low pixel values appear ? On the few random ones that I checked it seems fine. Also please share which browser and version of it you have. –Krinkletalk 17:26, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

10 anos de Wikipedia

A Wikipedia comemora, em 15 de janeiro de 2011, 10 anos de existência! Parabéns a Wikipedia e a todos vocês voluntários. Você pode participar das comemorações de várias formas: desenhando e adaptando logos de aniversário, promovendo e comparecendo a encontros e festas em sua região, dando seu testemunho, etc! Veja na Wiki de Aniversário algumas iniciativas que já estão sendo pensadas por voluntários Brasileiros e crie a sua! E ainda, acompanhe no Projeto Catalisador Brasil a organização da visita de representantes da Wikimedia Foundation ao Brasil! Participe!

--Carolrossiniatwiki (talk) 22:32, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

December 9

Trueknowledge dot com

http://www.trueknowledge.com/q/what_happened_on_4_october_1987 from the en:True Knowledge website displays 0410b50d18ae1329e79c27e0989b6461.jpg, a file with close similarities with File:Shawcross Photo.jpg. And more similarities like that seem to be found there. Teofilo (talk) 13:48, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Yep, that site is obviously engaging in systematic copyright fraud involving files from Wikimedia Commons. They're using File:Petter Solberg 2006 Rally Australia Dwellingup.jpg (which I created) on http://www.trueknowledge.com/q/what_happened_on_18_november_1974 without attributing me or otherwise adhering to the licensing requirements and fraudulently claiming on http://www.trueknowledge.com/legal/ that they hold or licensed the rights to use it. On that note, we don't have anything like en:Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks at Commons, do we? —LX (talk, contribs) 14:44, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
There is Template:Published which can be used with "legal=no" but I have never used it. Note also that they have a "report abuse" button next to the search result on their website. Teofilo (talk) 15:11, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
If evidence shows that the borrowing is massive, they should license their whole website with a Wikimedia compatible free license, because they are located in England, and England recognises en:Database right. Teofilo (talk) 15:19, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
They don't recognize any database right for non-European databases. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:22, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
The Wikimedia projects are European enough. I mean enough European volunteers are contributing on them. Teofilo (talk) 16:44, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Licensing problem

I need an expert in licensing's help. I recently edited this file, by removing a hairliner border, and making the margins fit the file. Since then, I got this warning on my talk page about the file. I've tried editing the licensing every way I can think of, but every time I remove that tag on my talk page, the BOT keeps putting it back, 10 times now. Can an expert please deal with the licensing of that file however neccessary so that that BOT will stop putting this warning tag on my talk page? The file should be PD, since it's just a map with basic colours, idk what the problem is, but clearly I'm missing something. Any assistance is greatly appreciated. Fry1989 (talk) 04:11, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I believe you've figured this out yourself. The file had no license and no source, which is rather surprising since it had been there since 2007. The question is, was the file truly sourced from File:H1N1 Bolivia Map.svg? If so, then everything should be fine now. If not, then we've got a problem, since we don't actually know where it came from, and thus cannot derive a proper license for the new file. — Huntster (t @ c) 04:36, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Well, I don't know where it came from, but I sourced it with an identical SVG map, so the file should have the same licensing as that map I sourced, if not PD. But every time I remove that warning on my talk, that BOT puts it back. Fry1989 (talk) 04:45, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Please, I just want this bot to leave me alone, and IDK what to do. I haven't removed the warning, and I'm still getting "new messages" about it every 20 or so minutes. Driving me bananas, all I did was a file reduction, and I get this nonsense, it wasn't even my file to start with. Fry1989 (talk) 05:15, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
(ec) I've gone ahead and reverted the warning again; we'll see if it continues. Okay, this is very unusual. I can see no obvious reason why this would be happening, unless it is because of the {{Self}} license wrapper, and the "author" not matching the uploader names. Anyone else have an idea?
I'm still not comfortable with the lack of a true source for the image, though I would suggest File:Bolivia departments blank.png is probably the actual source, and thus the license should probably match it. I'll let someone else comment on that. — Huntster (t @ c) 05:22, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
After looking at them closely... yes, I think you are right. The two are definitely very closely related, either coming from the same source, or (more likely) that this SVG is a straight trace of File:Bolivia departments blank.png. The outlines are virtually identical. File:H1N1 Bolivia Map.svg is actually not quite as close, though is still probably an independent trace of the same .png with a little less fidelity to the original, but is definitely not the source of the file in question (different outlines, and uploaded years later anyways). Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:21, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
It's alright now guys, thanks to a suggestion, I was able to block the BOT. Thanks for all your help. Fry1989 (talk) 22:28, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikiproject:Wikipedia saves public art... and ignores US copyright law

The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
This thread was apparently posted to restart an old debate in a new forum. Further, there is no substantively new information or argument. The linked file is correctly nominated for deletion. 99of9 (talk) 02:04, 10 December 2010 (UTC)


Nobody wanted to follow my proposal to close that project. So welcome to the files : File:Engine_Company_No._10.jpg ( was created and installed in 1990 in Milwaukee, says en:User:Rappapo2) . Teofilo (talk) 18:18, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh, come on, not *again*.
For those who miss the previous episodes, see en:Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedia Saves Public Art.
Teofilo, please also propose to close video-game, TV series and cinema related projects. Wwe have too many copyvios in these fields.
Jean-Fred (talk) 18:46, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
If you look at this user's contribs it is obvious that they are new and are unaware of what they did. While the en:WP:WSPA/Image Guide lays out things relatively clearly, some people get confused and overwhelmed. Rather than attacking the entire project, you could do something more productive in pointing this user to the correct methods for uploading such an image. For example, en:User:Ww2censor has been especially helpful for us this year as new users are still ironing out issues. HstryQT (talk) 19:15, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
By your last statement on this subject, Teofilo you suggested we not spend any more time on this discussion. I'm surprised to see you bringing it up again. I think it's absurd to condemn an entire project for the error of one user, particularly when it's an error that happens all the time with images. --Richard McCoy (talk) 19:27, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
What's the point here? So you find a copyvio; mark it for deletion and move on. If you had found a body of evidence, and shown that they were unwilling to work to avoid the issue, then you would have had a chance at the MfD. As it is, one image is hardly a reason to reopen the complaint.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:28, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.


December 10

Redirect for the wrong purpose

I would like the opinion about the changes done by user 23prootie. He in fact deleted the category for an individual (Ashin Mettacara) and put a redirect in the category of Ashin Mettacara to the higher level category Buddhist monks of Myanmar. In that category is both the image of Ashin Mettacara as well as a link to the empty category of Ashin Mettacara (circular reference). See this change and that change. I explained on his talk page why I changed it back. The answer was "Done", which means he reverted all.
The same was done with Category Buzz. Following the Category:People from Myanmar by occupation shows a link to the empty Category:Buzz. So that is again an endless circle. The image of Buzz cannot be found in that way. He changed the links in that image; see here.
In my opinion it is wrong to take people out of their category and put the image in a higher level category. Wouter (talk) 09:12, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree. If there are sufficient files to warrant a separate subcategory being created (or there are likely to be more files placed in the subcategory in the near future), then the files should remain in that subcategory and should not be transferred into a parent category. (Occasionally, it may be appropriate for a file to be in both a parent and a child category, but this does not seem to be one of those instances.) — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 09:33, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
Triggered by a deleted part of his talk page I found this. Wouter (talk) 09:45, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
If you believe the editor is acting in a disruptive manner, make a report at "Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems". — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 10:32, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
There might be troubles in the air: see en:User:Elockid/Long-term abuse/23prootie. I reverted a number of moves, but we have to show that we know what we want. --Foroa (talk) 11:13, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

23prootie has been systematically changing all categories with the word "Burma" in them to "Myanmar": see "Special:Contributions/23prootie". Is there any consensus for such a change? If not, what should be done about the matter? — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 18:32, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Name Change for Attribution

There is a photographer named Curtis Neeley who has contributed some of his work to Commons, who is blocked right now due to potential litigation with the Wikimedia Foundation. I've spoken to Mr. Neeley and we have come to a possible resolution of his issues. He would like to alter his CC-BY-SA license so that attribution goes to the "CN Foundation" rather than to Curtis Neeley. Mr. Neeley is the president of the CN Foundation. He is happy to have his images included in Commons and supports the Wikimedia Foundation, he just doesn't want his photography (many of which are classical nudes) to show up so prominently in search results for his name. This kind of change in attribution is permissible.

I would like to request a bot: (i) to change the source attribution on all the images, (ii) to change the attribution parameter in the licensing tage, and (iii) and to reupload the images under a new username (CN Foundation). Please let me know if there is someone in particular or a different forum I need to address this matter to. Thanks. -Michelle Paulson WMF Legal (talk)

I see three uplaoded contributions by User:CurtisNeeley, only one of which is a (tasteful) nude. Do we really need a bot for this, or what is the username in question? --Dschwen (talk) 20:34, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
Check his contributions instead of his gallery; one of them was cropped after it was uploaded.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:39, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
User:CurtisNeeley is not blocked and in fact has never been blocked here at Commons. A bot? You're talking about 5 uploads! This is a wiki, he can change it himself. Multichill (talk) 20:35, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
He can't delete them himself, if he wants them under a new username.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:39, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
No, but he can reupload them under a new username and mark them as dupe or he can just change his username. Change all references in the 2 images to "CN Foundation". Multichill (talk) 20:51, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
I suggested the bot idea to Michelle since I assumed whoever she was talking about had uploaded numerous files (otherwise why would he be making such a big deal about this). Obviously that isn't needed, so nevermind. Kaldari (talk) 21:36, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

December 11

searching sound files

Hello, is there a way I can search sound files. The search tool seems to search all files, but I'd like to refine my search to only audio files. Is it possible? --Mat200 (talk) 12:18, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

You can use "intitle:.ogg" to restrict the search results to files in .OGG format (works with other formats too, of course). --Slomox (talk) 12:36, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

image upload taking a very long time....

I am trying to upload a tiff file from chemdraw and it has been "getting file information and previews" for over an hour now...This is my first time making an entry or uploading a file so have I done something wrong?

Possibly trying to upload something too big for your connection speed? How big is the TIFF? What is your connection speed? - Jmabel ! talk 02:26, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
I am having the same difficulty. The file in question is 2.8mb and in JPG format. I have uploaded similar files without problem on other sites, but I can't seem to upload anything right now; it just stays in loading indefinitely. Is there a problem with the server rf something?AerobicFox (talk) 23:17, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
Issue has stopped. Server lag I guess.AerobicFox (talk) 23:30, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Reverting does not work always right

A problem that I have experienced several times. I tried to revert (terugdraaien) vandalism on the file Minie1.jpg (see here). I clicked the version of 2010 nov 28 17:56 and 2009 sep 14 05:37. That gave the result as given in 2010 dec 11 19:24. Trying again with the combination of 2010 dec 11 19:24 and 2009 sep 14 05:37 gave again not the desired result. It looks like that reverting covering a range where more that one user is involved does not work. Is that right? Wouter (talk) 18:39, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Rollback reverts all edits made by the last editor. This is the intended behavior. If you wish to undo several edits, use the radio buttons in the history to produce the diff that you would like to undo and use the undo feature instead. Alternatively, if there are no useful subsequent edits, just click edit on the last good revision and save. —LX (talk, contribs) 09:03, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

December 12

Title = filename?

I'm searching answer for my question. In the CCBYSA legal code 4.c we can read:*

  • If You Distribute, or Publicly Perform the Work or any Adaptations or Collections, You must, unless a request has been made pursuant to Section 4(a), keep intact all copyright notices for the Work and provide, reasonable to the medium or means You are utilizing:(...)
(ii) the TITLE of the Work if supplied;

My question: what is the title of a wikimedia picture? The filename?
Goodslarge (talk) 22:39, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Normally, yes, unless another title is explicitly specified. - Jmabel ! talk 01:52, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
My view is: if the title is not explicitly specified, then there's no title supplied. File names are rarely an integral part of the work: we keep changing them. If the image had a genuine title, it'd be probably mentioned in the description.-- Orionist ★ talk 04:02, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
Thats my opinion too. Files are untitled unless a title is specified with the work. The filename does not qualify for a title. --Martin H. (talk) 12:07, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

December 13

Aerial photographs of military installations

In some legislations, aerial photographs of military installations require a permission. (See § 109g StGB in German law, for example.) This is a possible non-copyright restriction which so far has apparently not been considered. As we should at least conform to US law: Is any case law known in this regard that applies to photographs taken by the uploader? --AFBorchert (talk) 15:44, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

If it is illegal to photograph it doesnt necessarily mean it is forbidden to publish or is copyrigthed. There is certainly no restriction outside the country. (The US militairy have no problem with publishing cuban missile bases) There is no limitation if the fotographer has committed trespas. Some railway magazines refuse to publish pictures taken with clear evidence of trespass (on railway property with no public access). I would say it is the problem of the fotographer, not ours. Smiley.toerist (talk) 16:04, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
I believe 18 USC § 795, augmented by Executive Order 10104. It looks to be only certain bases, the "top secret" or "restricted" ones. If it's visible in Google Maps, I probably wouldn't worry about it. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:17, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
Thank you, Carl Lindberg, this is exactly what I was looking for. --AFBorchert (talk) 16:26, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

December 14

GFDL-1.2 only

We need to purge the Commons of these files if the copyright holders continue to refuse to migrate to a free license. GFDL-1.2-only is being used as a loophole to the clearly stated policy that "Commercial use of the work must be allowed." To take an example, an article on the German Wikipedia of current German Minister of Defence uses a photo for which the license explicitly says "You may not use this work for commercial purposes" and "You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work." When I pointed out on this article's Talk page that these restrictions were inconsistent with Wikimedia policy, it was argued that the file also had a GFDL-1.2-only license by the same person who ironically demonstrated how GFDL-1.2-only files are effectively non-free by elsewhere arguing that GFDL-1.2-only files are "ungültig" (invalid) as part of a request to have files so licensed deleted. This issue came up before in a Commons discussion of copyright tags and as part of the discussion concerning the license migration, but I believe the fact that we have these cases where the same person who uses a GFDL_1.2-only license in one case to justify a keep in another circumstance alludes to the same license in order to justify a delete suggests GFDL 1.2-only is being abused as a loophole.

For other examples of the use of GFDL-1.2-only in order to upload non-free imagery:

- User:Muhammad Mahdi Karim uses it in conjunction with the statement "For... a commercial license, contact me", something that the user evidently does not take lightly given that he has asked the English Wikipedia community for advice on how to sue, saying "Having recently invested quite a lot in photographic gear, I am reluctant to give away my images for free." The real truth of the matter is further confirmed by the fact that elsewhere this user has placed restrictions on the same images that leave absolutely no doubt that they are not free (e.g. this Commons image is anything but free on IStockphoto)
- User:Fir0002 used it in conjunction with a license that states that persons desiring "a less restrictive" license should "email me to negotiate terms," and furthermore for "some of my images... I can't give permission to use due to personality and copyrights."

Wikimedia Foundation Deputy Director Erik Möller has said "for all Wikimedia wikis... GFDL 1.2 content that cannot be migrated [to CC-BY-SA]... we will simply remove as we would remove any other problematic copyrighted content." It is time to either get on with this called-for removal of non-migrated material and deprecate this license OR give the green light to files with "no commercial" use restrictions. At present we give lip service to saying we use only free material and so reject such restrictions while in practice we continue to tolerate a loophole. In my view it's a matter of being straightforward versus being dodgy. When a user says, "I am reluctant to give away my images for free," tell that person that that is what is required here instead of continuing to offer a GFDL-1.2-only license.--Bdell555 (talk) 02:25, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps this is off-topic, but your first example (the photo of the German Minister of Defence) is at least also available under the Free Art License, which seems (based on my quick skim through it) to allow commercial use in a freer manner than the GFDL. It requires re-users to link to or otherwise describe how to access the original version of the photo and the license, but does not require that an actual copy of the license be attached (as does the GFDL). --Avenue (talk) 03:27, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
Correct me if I am wrong but this discussion area is for policy on the Commons.--Bdell555 (talk) 03:43, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
  • The quote from Möller seems to refer to GFDL content at Wikipedia rather than GFDL files at Commons. New GFDL content at Wikipedia isn't possible.  Docu  at 04:10, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
"New GFDL content at Wikipedia isn't possible" is meaningless if one can just upload to Commons first and then display on Wikipedia, no? If Commons can host but Wikipedia can't display then why isn't there a disclaimer calling attention to that in the GFDL-1.2-only template that is hosted on Commons?--Bdell555 (talk) 05:56, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
It means that you can't import GFDL texts into Wikipedia any more.  Docu  at 06:03, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
Möller doesn't say "GFDL 1.2 text... we will simply remove" he says "GFDL 1.2 content... we will simply remove"--Bdell555 (talk) 08:56, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
  • I have long said that we should at least disallow future 1.2only uploads. GFDL1.2-only is among the least useful licenses for media files currently allowed on Commons. The license is only used by a few people, mostly to make commercial use as hard as possible while still being able to use them in Wikipedia articles. --Kam Solusar (talk) 03:57, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
  • While I notice that you prefer CC-0, please don't expect everybody else to use that. People who decide to use a free license may expect re-users to stick to that license. I think we should refrain from criticizing uploaders over the fact they actually expect reusers to stick to the license.  Docu  at 04:12, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
In my own mind "free" means "free" but this is not about revisiting the definition of free or where the cut-off point should be drawn betseen free and non-free. It's about enforcing the definition or standard that the Foundation and the community has agreed to. And that agreement is that GFDL-1.2-only is not free. The fact that people who use GFDL-1.2-only complain that using another standard amounts to "giv[ing] away my images for free" just affirms that the correct decision has been made. If the decision is to be respected, then we need a policy like "all uploads after January 1, 2011 that are GFDL-1.2-only will be automatically ported to CC-BY-3.0 and exercising an "opt out" option with regard to this port means opting out of having the work hosted on the Commons."--Bdell555 (talk) 09:08, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
I'd support disallowing future GFDL-only uploads. It's too burdensome for printing, and too easily encumbered by invariant sections, to be suitable here on its own. --Avenue (talk) 13:12, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
(Struck following further discussion below.) --Avenue (talk) 17:04, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
You cannot force a change of licence like that. If we change a GFDL-1.2 licenced image to anything else without their permission, then we are violating the granted licence ourselves. Users would have to opt-in and explicitly accept the change, sending the image to say the no permissions queue would be acceptable.--Nilfanion (talk) 22:08, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

We had this discussion different times, I understand some of the arguments, although I use GFDL and think it is a free license, but I hate to be accused to use the license with commercial ideas. That is nothing but a lie. --Mbdortmund (talk) 15:29, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

GFDL 1.2only und free art licence sind gültige freie Lizenzen auf Commons. Man kann zusätzlich jederzeit auch unfreie Lizenzen hinzufügen (cc-by-nc-nd). Als ich hier angefangen habe, gab es noch kein Commons, da wurde offiziell empfohlen, Bilder mit 800x600 und 100 kB hochzuladen. Das reicht ja vollkommen für die Bebilderung der Enzyklopädie. Wollen wir dahin zurück? Wer schreit hier eigentlich am lautesten nach Freiheit? @Bdell555, wieviele eigene Fotos hast du eigentlich schon zum Projekt beigetragen? --Ralf Roletschek (talk) 21:53, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

I'd point out one change from when users started using {{GFDL-1.2}} is that there is GFDL v 1.3 exists now. At that time, there was also the following (reasonable) justification for using the licence: "I'm only going to agree to licence my work under terms I know, I'm not going to agree to a use a potential future licence I may not agree with." Not all images licensed with 1.2 were done to restrict commercial viability. Users are also always at liberty to invite organisations to contact them for alternative terms, a publisher may prefer explicit permission from a real name to a CC licensed image by a pseudonym, saying "if you want to use this file please contact me" is not necessarily 'malicious' either.--Nilfanion (talk) 22:08, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

The GFDL-1.2-only license is already deprecated on the English and German wikis (due to it's use as a non-free loophole license). I would support it being deprecated on Commons as well. Kaldari (talk) 22:13, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
A major factor in the deprecation on en.wiki was the continued acceptance of it (as a free licence) on Commons, as all GFDL-1.2 content could simply be moved over to here. I would not consider how the local projects act as a precedent for how we go forward, but their views here are informative. I'd personally strongly discourage GFDL-1.2 only too.--Nilfanion (talk) 22:26, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

A much more important point here: The issue is not {{GFDL-1.2}}, the problem is the GFDL itself. Any new uploads that use {{GFDL}} or {{GFDL-1.3}} exclusively have pretty much identical licences, and equivalent restrictions. The migration clause is no longer operative. The question is if we should allow GFDL-only licensing not just GFDL-1.2 only.--Nilfanion (talk) 22:26, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Nilfanion already gave the reason which motivates me to use GFDL: "I'm only going to agree to licence my work under terms I know, I'm not going to agree to a use a potential future licence I may not agree with." For me a contract which can be changed from the other side without asking me as the donator is absolutly untrustworthy and not acceptable. --Mbdortmund (talk) 23:20, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

That's a fair point, and I see how it would lead you to prefer GFDL 1.2 over GFDL 1.3. I don't see why it would lead you to choose GFDL only, though. --Avenue (talk) 23:30, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
Und GFDL 1.4 wird dann CC-0? Nein! ich stimme keiner Lizenz zu, die ich nicht kenne. --Ralf Roletschek (talk) 23:37, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
@avenue The big license migrations interpreted my other licenses as changeable without asking me as the author. If I didn't want to accept this I would have to look over thousands of my pictures. There was not even a simple chance to opt out for all of my pictures. Secondly the whole procedure was not fair concerning authors who do not even know that their pictures are on the commons. Example: Photos from Flickr and other portals, uploaded here, licenses changed, author never informed.
Concerning the financial interests: It is absolutely OK if someone donates a 1024 x 768 version of his photo, which may help wikipedia to illustrate an article, and sells the full size version or the raw on other places. Free software doesn't mean that it is impossible to create ways to earn money with it. Thousands of companies earn money with free software, e.g. by managing linux-installations, by installing CMS-systems or by publishing our free pictures. Nothing speaks against it. (I'm in the comfortable situation to have a good job and never took a cent for my commons-pictures.)
The illusion that all our pictures must be printable: 99% are not, too small, too bad. If somebody for instance like to publish a printed versionof a wikipedia-article has to check the pictures anyway.
Illusions about free licenses: Some people here seem to think that "free" means CC-O, no restrictions at all. For me the purpose of free licenses is not only to distribute free content but to keep this content free. The best way to guarantie this is to force users of free content to publish the license of the files. Some say that this is difficult for printed versions of GFDL 1.2 fotos, but it is not. Many of my pictures here are used in commercial contexts.
Many of the slashers of GFDL work with innuendoes against the users of this licenses. For me wikipedia is a hobby and I bring in a lot of work and a lot of money. The photographers I know like me often drive many miles to take a picture to illustrate articles, buy lenses, cameras and software to ameliorate their contributions here and like me don't earn a cent with this activities. This project is important for me, I like the idea of free software and content, but there are limits: Sentences like "with regard to this port means opting out of having the work hosted on the Commons." by user Bdell555 treat the problem in such an aggressive way that it is not acceptable for me. His statement shows a lack of knowledge, too, because many of our pictures are here without knowledge of the authors and many authors left the project and can not be asked. --Mbdortmund (talk) 13:45, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for the explanation. I'm not familiar with the details of the license migration; sounds like some of it wasn't handled well. Clearly there are still strong feelings about it. I'm not so sure about things now, and have struck my earlier comment. --Avenue (talk) 17:04, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
I totally disagree. I don't take pictures, but I put hours and hours into writing free software and maintaining projects. Do you have any idea how many times free software is being ripped off by commercial services ? You could hire a full time lawyer, that could easily work 40 hours a week on that problem, for my works alone. The thing is, plastering a license all over it, won't change that behavior. It's not why I nor anyone else should ever produce Free works. If I wanted to make money of that software, I wouldn't have released it as Free. As a matter of fact, the software I develop as my day job is actually commercial and non-Free. This GFDL-1.2 interpretation that people have been giving to their images is not compatible with the core idea behind the project. It has become a loophole to protect against commercial usage, and an unintended consequence of our earlier use of GFDL for text and our lack of knowledge about licenses in the early days of the project. Facebook, Amazon, ask.com and PediaPress profit from Wikipedia content, the same concept should apply to the image database. The options for those who want to profit of their photo prints are clear
- Don't upload here, use flickr, stockphoto or gettyimages
- Only upload low res images, unsuited for print and accept the slack you will get from Featured images over it.
- Believe in the kindness of people (someone might hire you after seeing your online portfolio) and ignore (or sue) the people who rip you off.
I say we should no longer allow any new uploads using GFDL. TheDJ (talk) 19:19, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
Es ist auch mit der kompliziertesten freien Lizenz möglich Bilder kommerziell zu nutzen (und in D sehen Gerichte Kommerzialität schnell gegeben), niedrigaufgelöste Bilder schließen sich solche Verwendungen weitgehend aus. Ich stelle mittlerweile fast alle Bilder unter freie Lizenzen und bin auch gewillt die Lizenzbedingungen durchzusetzen. Ob du einen Rechtsanwalt mit der Durchsetzung deiner Rechte beauftragst, ist dein Problem und nicht Thema in dieser Diskussion. Wobei du ja nicht PD verwendest, was nicht auf altruistische Motive hindeutet. Ich verwenden freie Lizenzen nicht um jedem der es will die Gelegenheit zu bieten sich ohne sich auch nur einen Augenblick mit Bild und Lizenz zu beschäftigen, möglichst viel Geld zu verdienen. Mir geht es also keineswegs um die Aufhebung der Urheberrechte, sondern ganz im Gegenteil. Mir geht es darum eben jene zu wahren. In Bilder fließt viel Arbeit und Geld. Die Entfernung von Spandau zu z.B. einem beliebigen Harzteich beträgt mindestens 6 Stunden Fahrzeit und eine Tankfüllung. Es ist nicht einsichtig, daß sich jeder auf möglichst einfache Weise daran bereichert. Wer kommerziell Bilder verwenden möchte, von dem kann verlangt werden sich mit der Lizenz zu beschäftigen und die Bedingungen einzuhalten. Und ja, der Lizenztext gehört zwingend dazu und ist dem Verständnis von freien Lizenzen förderlich. Der Verzicht bedeutet für den Verwender eine Gleichsetzung mit dem Fehlen von Rechten. Daher ist es auch absurd Lizenzen in frei und nicht frei genug zu unterscheiden. Die GFDL ermöglicht jegliche, auch kommerzielle, Verwendung (ja, ich wüßte Beispiele für Verwendung im Printbereich). Wem die Einhaltung der Lizenz zu kompliziert ist, zahlt Geld, sucht was anderes oder hat Glück wenn er nett fragt. Problematisch ist bestenfalls die fehlende Lokalisierung (hat aber eh nur CC und FAL).
Es geht um die Möglichkeit der kommerziellen Verwendung. Ginge es darum es möglichst einfach zu machen, wäre alles außer PD/cc-Zero (vielleicht noch CC-by) zu verbannen. Es ist nicht Ziel jedem, ohne einen Finger krumm zu machen, zu ermöglichen möglichst viel Geld zu verdienen. Deshalb ist die GFDL (auch 1.2 only) völlig korrekt.--Sarkana frag den ℑ Vampir 20:36, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
The proposal "Only upload low res images, unsuited for print" is really destructive. "I don't take pictures" is typical for the slahers of GFDL. You complain about commercial use of your software, we allow it explicitly. --Mbdortmund (talk) 20:02, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
To clarify: I 'complain' about commercial use of my software that doesn't adhere to the licenses under which it is released. 2nd, I don't complain about it, I have accepted it as a fact of life/the free culture and surrendered to the fact that you cannot prevent commercial use that does not want to adhere to licenses. TheDJ (talk) 22:29, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

We use the definition of free from http://freedomdefined.org/Definition . Which one of the 4 freedoms is not possible? Reuse might be a pain, but it's still possible. Multichill (talk) 12:16, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Exactly, GFDL is mainly used, because reuse is a pain. This is contrary to our mission; we encourage reuse and should not make it a pain. Regards, -- ChrisiPK (Talk|Contribs) 23:59, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

That is a very misleading out of context quote. The linked page clearly says, "We _will_ propose to continue to permit GFDL 1.2-only media uploads for the forseeable future, to address concerns regarding strong and weak copyleft, until such concerns are fully resolved to the satisfaction of community members. However, GFDL 1.2-or-later media are expected to be migrated to CC-BY-SA under this proposal." (emphasis added). Nowhere does it say GFDL 1.2 isn't free. It is, whether you find it convenient (this is inherently subjective) or not. Anyone who says GFDL 1.2 doesn't allow commercial use is simply wrong. The part of the email you quote is referring to GFDL text, though it doesn't say so explicitly. Text has always been treated differently (before, text had to be GFDL, while images could be other licenses). You have given no valid justification for removing GFDL 1.2 media from Commons. Superm401 - Talk 01:18, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand why GFDL should be totally prohibited. It does match all the four freedoms, although it is not the best option for reuse, it remains free. I also don't know why the particular revision GFDL-1.2 is prohibited while other deprecated revisions like cc-by-sa-1.0 still remain available. The photographers who make their own photos are not the only problem, there is another problem of uploading photos from other resources. There is a number of resources that have valuable content but license it only under GFDL. It's still free so it can be uploaded here but it is going to be banned... why? Personally I have uploaded dozens of valuable photos from GFDL-only website Maidan, like File:Vera Rich.jpg, which is a photo of now deceased person, and no free alternative exists. If it's going to be banned, what is better for Commons: no free photos or one free photo which is though not very easy to reuse? — NickK (talk) 00:05, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Me neither. There is no need "to purge" Commons from GFDL 1.2-only images. Firstly, GFDL-1.2 is a free license. Even if reuse is somewhat less convenient than in case of CC-BY-SA, it is still possible. GFDL-1.2 is not a loophole. Secondly, there was consensus to continue the acceptance of {{GFDL}} after the migration. Users who upload their photographs under a free license should be able to trust Wikimedia Commons that their images are not "purged" just because the license appears to be politically incorrect at some time. Even if we decide to no longer accept future GFDL-1.2 uploads we should keep the older pictures. Independent from this, I agree that we should encourage the use of the CC-BY-SA licenses as they are far easier to understand for most people. --AFBorchert (talk) 13:26, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Commons:Signatures - Going once, going twice...

Commons:Signatures is a proposed guideline that has been open for a few months now. A few users have supported the guideline and no severe objections have been raised. If there are no objections within 2 days, the proposal will be officially a guideline. Keep in mind that there are some users right now who use signatures not adhering to the guideline so they will be asked to change them once the guideline is in place. ZooFari 03:32, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Commons:Signature is now a guideline. – Kwj2772 (msg) 14:21, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikimedia Commons closed down in Thailand?

I'm now in Thailand and it would seem that the Thai ministry of IT has shut down access to Commons per 6pm local time (11:00 UTC). I now logged in on the secure server but if I try to access http://commons.wikimedia.org/ I get the following message in Thai script:

“ขออภัยในความไม่สะดวก

กระทรวงเทคโนโลยีสารสนเทศและการสื่อสาร ได้มีคำสั่งให้ระงับการเผยแพร่เว็บไซด์ที่ท่านต้องการเข้าชม

เนื่องจากมีรูปภาพ ข้อความ และ เนื้อหาบางส่วนที่ไม่เหมาะสม สอบถามรายละเอียดเพิ่มเติมได้ที่

กระทรวงเทคโนโลยีสารสนเทศและการสื่อสาร โทร 0 2141 6950”

Does anyone know why this happened? - Takeaway (talk) 12:34, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I guess somebody knows why this happened. And this person can be reached under the phone number provided ;-) Sorry, this comment was not that helpful, but have you tried calling them? --Slomox (talk) 12:40, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Yes I did phone the number but of course no one answered as it happened exactly at 6pm and all office was closed. I doubt that I would even get through to anyone at the ministry who could give me a definite answer. - Takeaway (talk) 12:43, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
From autotranslation it seems like the Thai authorities have blocked Commons (I have not edited the autotranslator output):

We apologize for any inconvenience.

Ministry of Information and Communication Technology. Ordered to stop publishing a Web site that you want to visit.

Because the images, text, and some inappropriate content. For more information on.

Ministry of Information and Communication Tel. 0 2141 6950

8-( --Slaunger (talk) 12:49, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
"Inappropriate content"? Come on! Commons?! Rehman 12:51, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
I wonder if their problem is with this or that. It all depends on their definition of "inappropriate". --Morn (talk) 22:45, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
I tried phoning the telephone number during office hours but of course, no one picked up the phone. I wouldn't be surprised if someone at the ministry of IT had the bright idea that Wikimedia Commons is somehow related to Wikileaks and therefore had it all closed down. - Takeaway (talk) 09:34, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikimedia Commons has now been made accessible again in Thailand. - Takeaway (talk) 18:37, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Video on commons?

May I ask that is the video that WMF put on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tMDTVtieSQ is on commons? I want to use it in local wiki. Thanks.--Waihorace (talk) 13:49, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I can't see any indication that the Foundation has licensed the video with a free license, so it cannot be uploaded here.--Chaser (talk) 15:53, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
Some videos are in Category:Wikimedia_Foundation_videos - but apparently not this. It's a pity that there is no link to a Commons version of this video and of course(!) an indication it is CC licensed. At the user name video there is at least a link to the version on Commons. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 20:19, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
Huh, this was uploaded later than the other videos. You might email Jay Walsh, the author of that blog post, about licensing that video freely. press@wikimedia.org will reach him or someone with authority.--Chaser (talk) 21:30, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Common sense and ignore all rules

Arguably most important policy on en.wp is to Ignore all rules. It's worth noting that Wikipedia:Use common sense leads to an essay describing IAR (What "Ignore all rules" means). We do not have Commons:Ignore all rules, but we do have Commons:Use common sense. Our common sense page is more restrictive than the concept of IAR, as it only describes interactions with others.

I think we should either have Commons:Ignore all rules (with the same text as elsewhere ("If a rule prevents you from improving (or maintaining) Wikimedia Commons, ignore it"), or have that page redirect to Use common sense - which should be rephrased to make it clear it applies to everything. This should also be marked as policy, because it is.

I've seen it said that IAR makes no sense on Commons, as many of our rules relate to copyright and therefore cannot be ignored. However, ignoring Commons:Licensing with respect to an image does not help to improve Commons as a free image repository, so an invocation of IAR to upload a non-free image isn't acceptable.--Nilfanion (talk) 10:18, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Specifically, when do you thing (non licensing) IAR would apply? --  Docu  at 11:35, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
Um this is the point: IAR is a catch-all. Given a rule, you can usually find exceptional circumstances, where ignoring that rule can be helpful. IAR states that doing that is not wrong if it helps the project.
As an example, deletion policy does not cover "courtesy" deletions, when we delete imagery at request of creator or subject, even though we have every legal right to host it. Codifying when we should respect the take-down request and when we should not would be tricky and would never cover all eventualities. The fact that it isn't written down doesn't make it wrong and is an application of IAR. It is not possible (by definition) to give a comprehensive list of potential applications of IAR.
IAR is not a carte blanche to ignore rules you don't like. The essay I linked to (Wikipedia:What "Ignore all rules" means) provides detail on this. It also indicates a very important application of IAR - the fact you don't need to know the rules to contribute.--Nilfanion (talk) 11:58, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

meta:Ignore all rules is a Wikimedia-wide guideline, so there is no need for local duplication. —LX (talk, contribs) 14:30, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Maybe, maybe not - but even if its a soft redirect, there's no harm in having a local version. However, a benefit to a local version is that we can then state the principle in multiple languages (which is better for our community than pointing to an English-only page).--Nilfanion (talk) 23:39, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Btw, just "courtesy deletions" by request of the creator or the depicted person should have more exact rules. Especially if a file is used or the file page was edited or categorized by other user, it should be considered as common property according to the license, not as a property of the uploader or the author. --ŠJů (talk) 23:37, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I think many deletions of out-of-scope images currently fall under the purvue of the hypothetical Commons:Ignore all rules. They're out of process but we permit them because usually the images just weren't that useful. Just like IAR at En, the administrator performing such an out of process action is responsible for justifying it if confronted. Dcoetzee (talk) 02:58, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Isn't "Use common(s) sense" sufficient? Seems a bit odd that someone would use IAR to justify a deletion spree in violation of Commons guidelines. If one is too lazy to revise the lightweight Commons guidelines, maybe one lacks common sense to start with .. --  Docu  at 04:06, 16 December 2010

Possible hoax

There is some concern that this is a hoax. It should be needeless to say that if the description is a falsehood, then the copyright licence is suspect too. Uncle G (talk) 21:59, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

December 15

Pécs cathedral

Dear all: Could one of you wizards turn this (File:PécsCathPollack.JPG) poor image into something presentable? Thanks in advance --Robert Schediwy (talk) 17:50, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

You can file a request at "Commons:Graphic Lab/Photography workshop". — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 18:01, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Voluntarie para a Campus Party!

A Fundação Wikimedia (WMF) enviará dois representantes para participar da Campus Party, que acontecerá de 17 a 21 de Janeiro. A WMF terá um espaço no qual pessoas podem aprender mais sobre os projetos Wikimedia, e, inclusive, como tornar-se um editor e contribuir para projetos. Por isso mesmo, precisamos de voluntários para ajudar-nos nesse espaço. Caso você tenha interesse e possa vir a Campus Party durante aquela semana, adorariamos receber a sua ajuda!

Nós conseguimos alguns ingressos para esse evento (os ingressos a venda já estão esgotados!) e vamos dá-los aos voluntários que se candidatarem a ajudar-nos no espaço Wikimedia. Você pode enviar a sua candidatura para o email jwild@wikimedia.org ate 20 de DEZEMBRO DE 2010.

Em seu email coloque o assunto como “Campus Party” e as seguintes informacoes:

  1. Nome
  2. Username
  3. Estatísticas de suas contribuições e há quanto tempo você contribui para algum projeto da WMF
  4. Sua cidade e estado
  5. Quais os horários e dias que você terá disponível para estar no espaço

WMF na Campus Party e oferecer treinamento e informacoes aos participantes da Campus Party. .

Um numero de, pelo menos, 10 voluntários serão selecionados e informados até o final de dezembro.

Caso você more em São Paulo e esteja interessado em receber voluntários que venham de outras cidades, por favor, confirme tal disponibilidade enviando um email para a jwild@wikimedia.org, incluindo quais dias e quantos voluntários você poderá hospedar.

Avisos: Apenas os ingressos para o evento serão disponibilizados pela WMF. A WMF não arcará com custos de viagem ou hospedagem, mas tentará facilitar a hospedagem de voluntários por aqueles que moram em São Paulo.

Para quaisquer informações adicionais ou duvidas escreva para Jessie Wild no jwild@wikimedia.org (você pode escrever em Português caso prefira ou Inglês)

Jwild (talk) 18:41, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Echeveria categories

Hello, I hope this is the right place to ask for help as I am very new to working with Wikis in general and Wikimedia Commons in particular. I have read the FAQs pages, but I think I am missing something. I want to add a new sub-category to Category: Echeveria but I am not quite sure how to do so.

There are a LOT of photos of hybrid plants in Category: Unidentified Crassulaceae. There are also some other cultivars which are selections of a specific plant species and these can obviously be placed in a specific plant species category. However, this will not work for the hybrid taxa involving more than one species (e.g. Echeveria 'Black Prince' - a hybrid of E. affinis and E. shaviana)

It is my thinking that there should be a category structure like this

  • Crassulaceae: Echeveria: Unidentified Echeveria
  • Crassulaceae: Echeveria: Hybrid Echeveria: Cultivar Name 1
  • Crassulaceae: Echeveria: Hybrid Echeveria: Cultivar Name 2 etc..
  • Crassulaceae: Echeveria: Species Echeveria: Species Name 1
  • Crassulaceae: Echeveria: Species Echeveria: Species Name 2 etc..

In other words, the category Echeveria should have three sub-categories Unidentified:, Hybrids:, and Species. I just can't work out how to achieve this in the code. I would think I am NOT the first person to come across this situation, as many horticulturally significant plants fall into the hybrid classification but I have not been able to find any policy on the matter and I do not want to cause any difficulties with the way things are currently done. Could anyone give me some advice on this subject, as I am trying to help clear out any "unidentified" images of those plants which I can recognise.

Ciao, KK. (talk) 01:12, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments, guys:

As I said I am feeling my way a bit with the formatting and such like. Mostly I tend to use copy and paste to get the format of the edit correct, eg I copy and paste {{rename|newname.ext|correcting plant name}} then I put in the words I need to add to replace rename.ext, hopefully that way I don't stuff it up by leaving out a bracket or similar.

re Jmabel, yes I guess I am asking both questions - the first being: How do I make sure that any new category is a SUB-category of another category - also I have noticed that there seem to be two levels of subcategories in the category lists with the ones under the capital letters coming first before the ones under the lowercase letters (or is that just a function of the fact that species names are always lower-case?) Go Here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category%3AEcheveria to see what I mean.

If I do the categorisation the way I have suggested above the first part of that category page would become

Subcategories

This category has the following 26 subcategories, out of 26 total. H 

   *
     [×] Hybrid Echeveria (? F) (names here would be all horticultural hybrids)

U 

   *
     [×] Unidentified Echeveria (32 F)

a (species names appear from here onwards in alphabetical order) 

   *
     [×] Echeveria agavoides (2 F) etc


Using my example from above (Echeveria 'Black Prince' - a hybrid of E. affinis and E. shaviana) would NOT appear under "b" in the species list, but rather under "B" in the sub-category "Hybrid Echeveria" whereas botanically natural (found in habitat) species DO appear in the species list - they are not capitalised, but are distinguished by being preceded by "×" (a multiplication sign). Horticultural hybrids are always capitalised and written in single quotes when accompanied by the genus name. There should be no need to mention E. 'Black Prince' on either the E. affinis NOR the E. shaviana pages, and in some cases the parents of older hybrids are not even known, but of course if the parents are known, it is easy enough to mention them in the media description on the hybrid.

With regard to the other facet of my question. Is the scheme as outlined above the way to go? I have looked here AND in Wikispecies, but I can't seem to find any ruling or prior example to set a precedent I can follow. There are specific rules in botany for different classificatory treatment of the following concepts - species, natural hybrid, horticultural hybrid, horticultural strain etc. and I am assuming that the various Wiki projects would want to follow these precepts.

I want to thank Huntster for offering to help also.. "Let me know if I'm on the right track, and give me an example image with both species names, and I'll set up an example category tree to show you how it works." And I'll gladly say thankyou if you can show me how to go about setting up a new category. I did read all the stuff on the page about choosing a category for your images but I'm still unclear about how you actually MAKE one!

I will keep all the discussion on this topic here - I have bookmarked the page, so I can always come back. I hope I have not been too long winded. PS how do I do the indenting thing? Ciao, KK. (talk) 22:45, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

  1. Don't worry too much about naming categories correctly: the name can rather easily be changed later, as long as the correct images are gathered together in a category. Of course it's good to get it right, but getting it wrong is no more of an issue than any other error.
  2. When in doubt, don't worry about the order in which categories will be listed within a supercategory. Very easily fixed (we call it "category sorting" or "cat sorting" for short). Usually the default will be correct. For what it's worth, the two mechanisms for category sorting are the template-like DEFAULTSORT (if the sort should always or nearly always be the same: e.g. {{DEFAULTSORT:Washington, George}}) or using the construct [[Category:Supercat|Sort as]], as we do for example to sort Category:Stereo cards of churches in Manhattan, New York City in Category:Stereo cards of buildings in Manhattan, New York City as "Churches" rather than "Stereo". Also, in that case we actually use " Churches": the idea is to get it to sort at the front, rather than in with categories that might pertain to individual buildings.
- Jmabel ! talk 02:15, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks Jmabel, I think I'm getting it gradually. However I've come across something I don't understand here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Sansevieria Have a look at Sanseveiria parva - It appears as both a subcategory AND a page AND contains a gallery to boot. Within the category Sansevieria some photos appear under pages and others under subcategories - This seems very messy to me - I put all three pictures (including mine) into the gallery, but I am not sure if this was the right thing to do. Also note that the category for Sansevieria zeylanica seems to be wrong - surely it should be under z and not S? Also, what is the difference beween [[Category:Sansevieria parva]] and [[Category:Sansevieria|parva]] as I am still a bit confused about which one to use Ciao, KK. (talk) 04:40, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
Regarding Category:Sansevieria parva, yes, it is a subcategory of Category:Sansevieria, and it contains a gallery page (Sansevieria parva). Such a setup is perfectly normal. Gallery pages are intended to feature the best of the images of a given category on a single page, supposedly to make them easier to find, but mostly I find them useless and ignore them entirely. If an image appears on a gallery page, it must also appear in the category, but it doesn't have to be vice versa (which is another strong reason to ignore gallery pages, imo).
Regarding Category:Sansevieria zeylanica, that problem was fixed with this edit.
Regarding your third question, [[Category:Sansevieria parva]] is the actual category you would put a specific picture of a Sansevieria parva into, whereas [[Category:Sansevieria|parva]] is how you sort the Sansevieria parva subcategory in the Sansevieria parent category. The "|parva" bit is what's called a sort key. The subcategory (or image, or gallery page) will be sorted into the parent category alphabetically based on what the sort key is. If you look at the main Sansevieria category, you'll notice the subcategories are sorted by the species, rather than just by "S". — Huntster (t @ c) 05:07, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
Personally, I think the gallery Sansevieria cylindrica should be in Category:Sansevieria cylindrica, not in Category:Sansevieria.
In any case, when categorizing images, one generally needn't worry about gallery pages (such Sansevieria cylindrica). These are a distinct feature, allowing to select noteworthy images from related categories. --  Docu  at 05:18, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
Agreed. In this case, the gallery page was created before the subcategory, and I imagine that's a typical scenario. I've made the move. — Huntster (t @ c) 05:26, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Journal de Bruxelles 1799

I managed to get hold of some really old newspapers (1799 and 1800). I scanned one N 83, Journal de Bruxelles (File:Journal de Bruxelles nr 83 1799 (657).jpg) and put them in a separate category "Journal de Bruxelles". This is from the french revolution and uses the French republican kalender. Before I scan the other journals:

  • 76 7-12-1799
  • 83 scanned
  • 90 21-12-1799
  • 100 31-12-1799
  • 131 31-01-1800
  • 136 5-02-1800
  • 142 11-02-1800
  • 179 26-03-1800

I want to know if the categories are useful. This was not the time of instant communications and the news dispatches from several places and dates are put together in one issue. The separate newsitem I put in the local history categories. Maybe some other classification is useful. There are a lot of generals mentioned, but Bonaparte is not yet very prominent. It is of course usefull to extract the text and put it in wikisource, but this can take place later. (It is a lot of work) My priority is to scan and upload the journals. Smiley.toerist (talk) 15:36, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

It's pretty hard to divine your intent from a sample size of 1. Can you explain the scheme that you plan to use, and about which you are asking for comment? - Jmabel ! talk 02:30, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
It is a lot of work and as I have 7 other journals to scan I want to know what the most efficient use of my time is. If I could find a volunteer to extract the texts I would be very happy, but I dont expect it. Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:32, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
Also, whatever your native language may be, it would be useful for you to write file descriptions in that language as well as English. - Jmabel ! talk 02:32, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
I wil make a french version of it.Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:32, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
A djvu or pdf format that contains a complete issue and is searchable might be more efficient and easier to categorise. --Foroa (talk) 06:53, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
Yes, but how do you make them? I extracted the text of File:Baedeker Inleiding 1.jpg and put it in the description, with a nowiki tag. A scan to extract the text is a lot of work as there are many errors and the layout to consider. Whatever format one uses this extraction has to take place. I could only select a few key-words and put them in the description. For example the place names and army-general names mentioned in the text.Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:32, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

De minimis problems

Commons:Deletion requests/File:Lendal Tower, York (21st October 2010) 001.jpg was recently closed as a keep. This surprised me as it seemed (to me and others) that Commons policy would determine it contained copyrighted text. However, I think the image needs at least some tag warning re-users that the text may be copyrighted. I then looked for a suitable tag at Category:Louvre Pyramid and was again surprised to see images that appear to break my understanding of de minimis. Examples: File:Paris 04 07 153 8x6.jpg, and maybe File:LouvreRoofWindow.jpg. So, if Commons wishes to keep similar images, could we add a special template to indicate these are exceptions of some kind? It seems odd that Commons claims a free license in these cases. -84user (talk) 07:44, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I have to say that I'm also surprised at the outcome of that deletion discussion, but I'm not sure it had anything to do with de minimis. The closing admin does not seem to have given any weight to the de minimis arguments put forth. Instead, the argument seems to be that the text might be too old to be protected by copyright or too short and factual to have originality. The age argument seems purely speculative on the wrong side of COM:PRP, and I don't agree that the text lacks originality. The text could just as well have been worded:

Lendal Tower accommodates the Company's Board Rooms since 1932, when it was refurbished. It was initially built as part of York's defences around 1300. A defensive chain spanned the river from this location to the Tower. Forerunners of The York Waterworks rented the building as a water tower for half a century at a rate of one peppercorn per year, starting in 1677. In the 1700s and until 1850, it held a steam pumping engine adapted to Fellow of the Royal Society John Smeaton's design.

Same facts (unless I've misinterpreted something) – different, original wording.
File:LouvreRoofWindow.jpg and File:Paris 04 07 153 8x6.jpg do not seem to have been the subject of a deletion discussion, so I'd chalk it up to en:Wikipedia:Other stuff exists rather than seeing them as examples of what should be considered de minimis. —LX (talk, contribs) 16:51, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
Correct, but it is a sign of a larger picture - the cat-and-mouse game of uploaders and deleters, so far, is won by uploaders. For every FFD that is decided "delete" there are scores of images of the same subject that escape deletion (for a while or for good), not to mention subjects that are below the deleters' radars. Other stuff does not merely exist, it's growing in numbers, outpacing all the administrative resources. They call it "consensus", albeit a silent one.
On the topic: the photograph of the plaque itself carries so little encyclopedic value, it invalidates de minimis arguments. Discussion of fair use makes no sense if the subject is largely useless. A source on Smeaton? books are better! NVO (talk) 17:33, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
Regarding the "uploaders versus deleters race", I specifically intend to use this deletion discussion to inform the development of a new policy for images containing text. It will most likely be called Commons:Images containing text. Hopefully that will facilitate more rapid deletion discussions on this type of image. Dcoetzee (talk) 02:54, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Clearly a bad close. I'm going to re-open it. Powers (talk) 00:14, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Given that there are several hundred, perhaps several thousand, other images of similar plaques, many of which we have hosted for years, this is not a minor issue. - Jmabel ! talk 03:20, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure I consider several hundred files a major problem, given the size of Commons. Plaques don't strike me as particularly useful for articles, either, though I'm sure there's a few exceptions.--Prosfilaes (talk) 04:26, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
This type of thing is not a straightforward problem, in my opinion. That type of plaque can sometimes be interesting (historical markers etc.); the text is what the public is *supposed* to see, and it may be veering into copyright paranoia territory. I guess my basic thrust is, if nobody has ever been convicted of a copyright violation for that type of photo, it's quite possible that it isn't a violation at all. Has anyone ever heard of a case like this? I haven't run across one, though it's possible they may exist. When making deletions that feel that they are on the more extreme edge, I always feel better about pointing to a court decision or something like that which can back up the fact there is a real issue. It is entirely possible that those may be considered "works of artistic craftsmanship", and subject to freedom of panorama -- taking out the text and using it alone in other circumstances would not be OK, but a photo depicting it may well be fine (just like making a sculpture which is copying one seen in a freedom-of-panorama photograph is usually not OK either). Using the text elsewhere is not a derivative work of the photo, but rather a direct violation on the text. Perhaps this type of thing is inherently fair use -- the "fair use" is embedded in the photograph, such that there is no use of the photograph itself (including commercial) which could be a problem. Dunno, but this type of thing just seems like where following what appears to be the letter of the rules starts to defy common sense. As for other situations mentioned above... something like File:Paris 04 07 153 8x6.jpg is quite difficult too. A French court specifically noted that a photograph of the entire Louvre plaza is not a problem, even if the pyramid is a prominent part of the photograph -- they do not gain copyright control over the entire scene. That photo could be argued to be a photo of the plaza, which contain the pyramid as an element but it is not the entire purpose of the photo. The same would be true for a city skyline which includes a copyrighted building -- those photos are fine. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:01, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
My thoughts:
  • It is useful to have photographs of plaques, not so much because they might be used in Wikipedia articles, but more for the purpose of verifying information about related photographs.
  • Having said that, I think we do have to go back to first principles of copyright law. A plaque or sign containing a few words or a short sentence (e.g., "Bedezrim Tower. Built in 1903." or "DANGER. KEEP OUT") would probably be regarded as de minimis and not be subject to copyright. However, a few sentences or a whole paragraph would, in my view, qualify as a copyrightable literary work.
  • If the plaque is made under the direction or control of a government agency, it may be in the public domain if the copyright law of the jurisdiction it is in states that government works are in the public domain.
  • Carl's argument about a plaque being regarded as a work of artistic craftsmanship for the purposes of freedom of panorama is an interesting one. (It is, however, an argument that only applies to jurisdictions with laws similar to the UK.) I would be willing to accept this argument if the plaque is "artistic" in some sense, for instance, it is inscribed or moulded. It is a bit hard to tell, but if the plaque shown in "File:Lendal Tower, York (21st October 2010) 001.jpg" was hand-lettered I would regard that as a work of artistic craftsmanship. However, I do not think a sign with a text and pictures laid out using a computer and printed on to a flat surface would qualify.
  • There may be jurisdictions in which freedom of panorama applies to literary works permanently installed in public places.
  • I'm afraid I don't buy the argument that "the text is what the public is *supposed* to see". Many forms of copyrighted works are intended for the public to see, but copyright law restricts the reuse of the works.
  • I also don't buy the argument that if no one has been prosecuted or sued for copyright infringement in respect of a plaque, it may not amount to copyright infringement. If, say, I went around a sculpture garden, took photographs of all the sculptures and the plaques describing them, and published the photographs in a book, I can well imagine that the owner of the garden who took time and effort to carry out research and write the text for the plaques would have something to say about the use of photographs of the plaques in the book.
— Cheers, JackLee –talk– 18:25, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
Comments on your thoughts ;-)
  • Absolutely useful to have photos of plaques like this; I don't think there are any scope issues.
  • Minimal text like that would be considered not eligible for copyright in the first place, so there is no need to get into de minimis in the first place.
  • The text clearly has a separate, literary copyright. The plaque itself may or may not be a work of artistic craftsmanship (you could also argue a UK typographical arrangement copyright as well, though that has almost certainly expired).
  • There may be jurisdictions which do, yes, though by the letter of the law the UK is not one.
  • By "supposed to see", I'm saying that the text is displayed to the public as it is. A photograph depicting that is showing it to a wider audience, but is precisely the same use of the work, showing it exactly as intended, in its public context. The nature of this is a bit different than your typical literary work. I may have a U.S. bias on this, but I doubt that putting that type of photograph in a book would be an issue either, provided it is just the photograph. If it is a private sculpture garden, I suppose they could argue that seeing and reading those plaques is part of what people pay admission for, and therefore may be prejudicial to show them to a wider audience, but for something on a public street like this? Doubt it, particularly for a single item like this (as opposed to an entire collection of them). Typing up the text on the plaques and putting that text in a book, I'm sure that could be a problem, but that would have nothing to do with the photograph itself anymore. One other thing in the U.S., is that any such plaque put up before March 1, 1989 would have needed a copyright notice on it, which I've hardly ever seen, so most of these things were historically public domain anyways, which may in turn have shaped people's opinions on "right" and "wrong" (including mine). I suppose this could be considered a form of de minimis (i.e., this is a technical violation but still trivial), differentiated from a more normal literary copy, i.e. using the text itself in a different context, as the purpose is mainly to depict whatever text happens to be there, rather than make use of the text itself. Given the small amount of text and its inherently public and educational nature, these just feel a bit different to me. I guess that is more of an "inherent fair use" argument though, similar to something like parody (which although it copies plenty of expression, is considered inherently fair use and thus not an infringement), which can be a complete defense rather than just depending on context. And yes, I do think we can look to court cases. Copyright laws have been around a long time, and people have tested many aspects of them in real life. There are lots of things which are violations by the letter of the law, but courts have come up with with different doctrines to better define the limits than laws themselves do -- "fair use" and "de minimis" are two examples. If people have been doing this thing for a long time (publishing photos like this), and there has never been a successful court case (settled out of court or won), then yes it is fair to question if it is really a violation. There are a lot of fuzzy lines, and it is very easy to extrapolate the literal law to situations which go beyond what copyright controls in practice. If we are deleting people's work because we think they are copyright violations, we should have some justification for that. Carl Lindberg (talk) 04:48, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Multiple category search

My original question would've been "how to search images which are in multiple categories together?", but after some search (before asking) revealed this extension:

Is there a reason it's not enabled on Commons? For example it'd been extremely useful to find pages which are in "1939 deaths" and "painters", to find painters whose works just went into public domain this year. Since Commons relies on categorisation this seems to be a very useful one to have. --grin ✎ 12:56, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

A problem is that Category:Painters (and many other categories at Commons) have most content in different subcategories by country, genre, style, or period, so you would not be able to find anything that is both in "1939 deaths" and "Painters". The search at commons is can already do this, for example here (without any results). To find something you need to search in subcategories like here. /Ö 14:51, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
Cat Scan can do what you want to do, and you can specify how many levels of subcategories of the two categories should be traversed, for example 1939 deaths (depth 0) and Painters (depth 3). —LX (talk, contribs) 17:00, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
CetScan2 can also be used. However they only work if the categories are not too big. en:Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser' can also be used with its list comparer. --Jarekt (talk) 13:05, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Beautiful. Thanks, fellas! Nice tool to get all the PD by 1st january people. :-) --grin ✎ 19:20, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

  • As people prefer to use different tools and categories are key to navigate Commons, maybe we could activate Extension:Multi-Category_Search here. --  Docu  at 03:36, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Image upload "Internal error"

Any ideas? Tomruen (talk) 20:27, 14 December 2010 (UTC) 

Internal error
From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository
Jump to: navigation, search 
key 'ir1kgbmfbaidxrbohxiwk4xzxujbgr1.' is not in a proper format

Backtrace:

#0 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/upload/UploadBase.php(557): UploadStash->stashFile('/tmp/phpFmyoTY', Array, NULL)
#1 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/upload/UploadBase.php(569): UploadBase->stashSessionFile(NULL)
#2 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/specials/SpecialUpload.php(322): UploadBase->stashSession()
#3 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/specials/SpecialUpload.php(413): SpecialUpload->showUploadWarning(Array)
#4 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/specials/SpecialUpload.php(167): SpecialUpload->processUpload()
#5 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/SpecialPage.php(561): SpecialUpload->execute(NULL)
#6 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/Wiki.php(254): SpecialPage::executePath(Object(Title))
#7 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/Wiki.php(64): MediaWiki->handleSpecialCases(Object(Title), Object(OutputPage), Object(WebRequest))
#8 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/index.php(117): MediaWiki->performRequestForTitle(Object(Title), NULL, Object(OutputPage), Object(User), Object(WebRequest))
#9 /usr/local/apache/common-local/live-1.5/index.php(3): require('/usr/local/apac...')
#10 {main}

Retrieved from "http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Upload"
The same yesterday, another try worked. --Perhelion (talk) 20:49, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
It appears that this error occurs quite frequently (too frequently for my taste). :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 20:55, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
I added it to bugzilla as Bugzilla:26347. --  Docu  at 03:42, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

New template for a specific public domain license

Hello,

I have uploaded some pictures from the french exams, which are public domain; they are in the Category:French examination. I used the template:PD-because as sufggested by someone here.

There are now 49 media in this category and maybe it would be worth to create a specific template, which would make the maintenance easier (e.g. supposing an error in the text of the license).

What do you think about it?

Cdang (talk) 15:23, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Personally, I think using template:PD-because is fine in this case. Kaldari (talk) 21:20, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Image with a copyright statement in its filename

File:JerichoHealthCentre20050326 CopyrightKaihsuTai.jpg - is this acceptable as a filename? The description also repeats the copyright statement, while also saying that it's published under a GNU licence. --Ross Burgess (talk) 17:23, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Don't see why it's a problem. The copyright still exists... it is just being licensed under particular terms. Using the image without following those terms is every bit as much a copyright violation as using an unlicensed image. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:58, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
It's not formally a violation of Commons rules, but I do find it stretching the bounds of acceptability to stick a copyright notice in the filename.--Prosfilaes (talk) 18:23, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
Some users routinely add the name of the photographer to uploads. It's not my personal preference, but I don't think it's a problem. --  Docu  at 04:01, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Anyone good with djvu files?

Does anyone know what's wrong with File:Gallipoli, Masefield, 1916.djvu? (Also check the message on the file's talk page). Thanks in advance! -- Orionist ★ talk 19:51, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Fixed by downloading the file from the Internet Archive and re-uploading. It looks like the file was corrupted, or if the download was incomplete before the upload to Commons started. Whatever happened, it looks fine now. Inductiveload (talk) 22:39, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for sorting that out! -- Orionist ★ talk 07:43, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

December 16

Searchbox preference

Hi. Is there any way to change the searchbox default back to "go" from "search" in my user settings? It's getting a bit annoying. -mattbuck (Talk) 05:23, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Me too. I know what pages I want to visit - e.g. COM:L - or I use the autocomplete to find it and go there, my intention is not search it again. And if I make an error and the page did not exist the go will lead me to the search automatically. --Martin H. (talk) 15:02, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Double pictures

When I sort the castles I discover the same images. File:Aalst kasteel.jpg and File:Kasteel Regelsbrugge.JPG. The first picture is problably a flicker version of the second. Doesnt the software give a warning when the same image is uploaded? What is the procedure in case of double images? Smiley.toerist (talk) 16:43, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Software could warn if the binaries are identical, but in this case they aren't. When you see this, use {{Duplicate}}. Use it on the lower-resolution image if there is any difference. - Jmabel ! talk 16:56, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
(ec) It will catch the exact same image, but scaled or retouched versions are difficult. Looks like a lower-resolution version was uploaded to Flickr as well back in 2006, and that was what the more recent upload here was copying. Proper procedure is to add a {{Duplicate}} tag to the one we don't want to keep (preferring higher-resolution and older ones, but be sure to copy across any information or categories if the preferred version doesn't have them already). I just did that for this image. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:00, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
I switched the pictures where the "Aalst kasteel" was used. Smiley.toerist (talk) 17:44, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

3D images

Is there a "common way" of handling 3D animations or images on Wikimedia? I ask because I was having a discussion about how Wikimedia could be used to store anatomical models in 3D. I guess a 3D rotating image can be added, but are there other commonly accepted solutions? I think a generic Java applet would be an overkill, but I have not played with Wikimedia so I am not sure what the standard policies are. The idea is that if anonymous patient images are added, in time Wikimedia will become a very useful medical image repository. Given that lots of images of minerals were donated, perhaps anatomical images will be a good step too. Suggestions will be appreciated. History2007 (talk) 14:02, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

This is a cool proposal. I wonder what would be the "common format" for 3D files... Rehman 14:46, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
That would be COLLADA I guess. For related talsk, see Commons:Restricted uploads and commons-l and wikitech-l mailing-lists.
I may add that such a feature was also asked by the Museum of Toulouse as part of our partnership with them (see Commons:Projet Phoebus for the current project). Jean-Fred (talk) 15:16, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
Unfortunately even Chemical Mark-Up Language still not supported (with existing but not perfect MediaWiki extension and Java-based Jmol viewer). --EugeneZelenko (talk) 15:54, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
Jean-Fred & Eugene, if you had to make a guess as to where the future is, what would that guess be? And can we then try to influence said future somehow, so whatever gets loaded will survive and prosper? I think the use of medical images within Wikimedia will eventually arrive, and some hospital will eventually donate many of them. So how does one facilitate it? History2007 (talk) 20:56, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
I too think, that it is inevitable that in the future Commons will host 3D models and be able to render them. The question is only how far away this future is. I guess the first step is to support uploading models without actually being able to render them. We started the same way with some other formats (I think we did it with PDF, DjVu and TIFF).
If you file a bug at Bugzilla: and tell the developers what format they should support (and if you have a good rationale why that format is the best to support) and if you can convince them that files in that format do not pose any security risk (scripting etc.), then there's a fair chance that they will enable it. --Slomox (talk) 12:52, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
See bugzilla:16491 for Chemical Mark-Up Language as example. Please note that 3D format should be open and not patented (to allow free re-use of media what is Commons goal).
However, I think will be good idea to consider to find financing and developers for implementing software part. This is how TIFF support did happens here.
EugeneZelenko (talk) 16:19, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
I hope there will be an initial route with "minimal financing", because getting major funding usually means a long wait, and a long debate. Now, given that Erik Möller was involved in the initial discussion on that thread, I think we should somehow get him to read this page. I do not see a Wikimedia page for him. Does he have one? If you guys know him, could you please leave a message of some type to see what he thinks, or give me the page address so I can leave the message? I will appreciate it. History2007 (talk) 17:05, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
See User:Eloquence. --EugeneZelenko (talk) 16:14, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, I left a message there. History2007 (talk) 17:30, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
So what do you guys think of this? Was the discussion overcome by events, and also here? History2007 (talk) 21:03, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Category rename

Please change Category:Plug-in electric hybrid-powered vehicles to Category:Plug-in hybrid vehicles. Longstanding English abbreviation is PHEV for w:Plug-in hybrid which probably needs a photo of the Chevy Volt since those are rolling off the assembly line. Speaking of which, I would like to take this opportunity to w00t. 71.198.176.22 16:55, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I suspect this is not an uncontroversial change (leaving out electric entirely) and should go to Commons:Categories for discussion (if you do that, use {{Category for discussion}}. Alternatively, you could use {{Move}}. Or you could request the less controversial change to Category:Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles at User talk:CommonsDelinker/commands. - Jmabel ! talk 17:01, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
I'm certain Category:Plug-in hybrids would be even less controversial, come to think of it, based on Google hits and usage at the enwiki article. It's also the shortest and thus easiest to type of all the permutations. And there aren't any ambiguities at all, i.e., there are no plug-in hybrids which are not also electric powered vehicles. So I've boldly tried the delinker commands. Sorry for the earlier groggy confusion. 71.198.176.22 23:02, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

PD licence

Hi Commonadians!
Somwhen I found a licence which is actually not very well known (maybe as well known as {{Beerware}}). I'm not sure about the exact word but I think it was like this You can do whatever you want with that image as long as you change the source. If I'm not mistaken the licence as such was called do whatever you want I searched on Commons and on Commons with Google but I did not find anything. As far as I remember it was a licence created by a user. May somebody knbows about which licence I'm talking about and can help me find it.
thanks for your help --D-Kuru (talk) 04:13, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Well somehow I found it... like two minutes after I posted the edit above ^^'
The answer was/is Template:WTFPL
thx to all who would have helped and would have known and told me :-)
--D-Kuru (talk) 04:16, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Checkered background for file history

I have a topic on MediaWiki talk:Common.css about adding the checkered background for transparent images in the history table, but that talk page seems inactive. Can someone take a look? — Edokter • Talk • 11:04, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

"Place categories above content, but below image on file description pages" layout

Currently, there is a gadget that allows to modify the layout of categories on Commons pages and move categories further up on pages, away from the notice at the bottom of pages that reads

"This page was last modified on 04:54, 16 December 2010 (UTC).
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of Use for details.".

Needless to say, categories aren't of much use down there.

  • To try the gadget, go to Special:Preferences and in the "gadgets" tab, you find it in the "Tools for categories" section. It works with Monobook and Vector skins.

I'd like to suggest to change the default layout of pages on Commons and use the layout currently done by the gadget as default for all users. Gadgets could still place categories next to or below "This page was last modified ..". --  Docu  at 04:54, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Um, please don't. For the many of us that came from other wiki projects, such a layout can be confusing. I tried using the new functionality, but didn't like it at all. Let this simply be an opt-in thing rather than an opt-out thing. — Huntster (t @ c) 05:13, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
The problem is that the use of categories at Commons is different from other sites. While elsewhere categories are largely ignored, they are crucial at Commons. I agree that it takes some time to get used to it, but it's definitely worth it. --  Docu  at 05:21, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
I disagree that other projects ignore categorization. Swedish Wikipedia has made and is making ongoing significant efforts to have no uncategorized articles, while Commons has many thousand uncategorized files.
I work a lot with categories here, I've tried the widget, and I have also decided that it was not for me. Because images come in different sizes, the position of the categories varies when using the gadget. Without it, I can press the "End" key and get right to them. Not only is this more usable to users familiar with other projects – it is also more usable because it exploits Fitts's law. —LX (talk, contribs) 11:32, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
Few thoughts here:
  • I believe Docu meant that categories are ignored by readers on other projects, as they do not need those to navigate (as there are also wikilinks and navigation templates) − I do not know if that is true or not, but that sounds to me a reasonable assumption. On Commons, the only way to navigate through images is categories. (By the way, mentionning how many uncategorised files we have was rather a low blow ;-) ;
  • As for fluctuant position, this does not happen using the gadget "Categories above all contents" (which I use) ;
That said, I am not saying that we should enable this for all users. Nonetheless, we should really think about making categories more proeminent.
Jean-Fred (talk) 13:11, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
I also prefer "Place categories above content, but below image on file description pages" layout but I think it should be an opt-in rather than opt-out option. I also have some issues with this layout since all categories start at the bottom and "jump" to the top only after rest of the page is loaded. On some days page loading is slow so I would start working with the categories on the bottom, but if I am not fast enough then they would jump to the top of the page in the middle of typing new category name. It is very confusing and probably not for everybody. --Jarekt (talk) 14:07, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
My 2 cents (disclaimer: I'm one of the authors of the above mentioned gadgets): I don't know if displaying categories on the top of pages for unlogged users is the right thing to do, but I'm sure that displaying them at the bottom is the best way to keep them invisible for all pratical purposes. I'd say that categories on Commons are on the same level of importance as the search bar, at least when it comes to searching for content on the same subject (note also that the search bar is at the top). Categories on Wikipedia (or other wikis which contain mostly textual articles) are of secondary importance, since the focus on that wikis is on single articles (and not collections of media). I know that the gadgets mentioned above are less than perfect (I'm no real expert here, but I doubt there's something that can be done about the "jump", save for patching MediaWiki on the server so it outputs categories directly on top), but I also know that a way to make sure that something is never done is to make it so big that nobody'll have any will to deal with it. --Ianezz (talk) 10:04, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Redirect page deletion....?

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Figurenude_%2826%29_by_Curtis_Neeley.jpg&redirect=no can somebody please remove this redirect page so that my name is not referenced in any way. I donated the image with attribution to the CN Foundation and do not wish my daughter or her classmates to see the image in a Google Inc safe image search at school for my personal name. We are almost clear...CurtisNeeley (talk)

Sorry, but that redirect is on en.wp. I suggest you ask there to make sure to find an administrator that can process your request. I only have admin rights on commons. --Dschwen (talk) 17:49, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
If one clicks on the link, one can see that it doesn't exist on en.wikipedia. What is displayed there is the Wikimedia Commons redirect. Athaenara (talk) 20:34, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
Indeed. Dschwen, or another admin, would you please take care of this? Delete File:Figurenude (26) by Curtis Neeley.jpg and its talk page. — Huntster (t @ c) 03:44, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the information. How do I locate an administrator there? can you post a link please. Thanks CurtisNeeley (talk) 19:39, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

A list of active administrators can be found here. Hazard-SJ (talk) 03:19, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
They were on commons. I deleted them. – Kwj2772 (msg) 03:56, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

THANK you so much. This section can be deleted but it shows how collaborative peer review works best.

A search of your name still brings up the images though, and a look at the history still shows you uploaded them. If anyone with power can wist his name away from the page history or search bar then that could help a little. In the future you may want to consider a different user name if you want to upload images anonymously. Although it's incredibly unlikely your daughter or friends will ever see these images or any connection to you.AerobicFox (talk) 04:20, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Romanian edit

Can someone speaking romanian confirm if this edit [4] is legit or not? Esby (talk) 21:30, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Judging from the placement of the word, probably not, so I reverted. — Edokter • Talk • 22:52, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
Garbage, but nothing particularly malicious. Roughly "had to" as in "he had to do that." - Jmabel ! talk 02:08, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

December 17

Possible size limitation for videos

I talked to a professor of neurology in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem about collaborating with Wikipedia. Many lectures in his department are filmed and he may be willing to share them here, but he was concerned about quality and size: They are filmed in high definition and he doesn't want to compress them.

Every file will probably be over 100MB and there are going to be many files: there are about 14 lectures in every course and there are many courses.

Is it possible to upload files over 100MB at all? Can Commons handle so many big files? --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 15:50, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

This type of stuff I'd upload to the Internet Archive. It's a perfectly reliable archive and much better suited to large files then us. Looking at Avril Lavigne's Official Alice Underground music video[5], decent quality hi-def film in a modern codec will run you 25 MB per minute; recordable Blu-Ray can get up to 270 MB per minute. Even normal definition film encoded in at good quality will run you 6 MB per minute; in DVD formats it can easily run 40 MB per minute. In any of these formats, an hour lecture is going to go well over 100 MB.
I would point out to him that the Internet Archive is going to produce lower-quality copies of files uploaded to them, and as well most anyone else. And by uploading them under a free license, or even CC-BY-NC, he's permitting anyone to do so. On the upside, I'd point out that's a good thing; I'm sitting on the most awesome residential internet I've seen, in the US, and under optimal conditions, it would take me almost three times as long to download a HD video (at 25 MB per minutes) then to watch. If someone on dialup wanted to watch the same video, it would take them 60 times as long to download as to watch, assume they were getting the theoretical max of 56 kilobits per second--several 24-hour days for each lecture. Less than 1/8th India's Internet users have broadband, so all but the most patient or fortunate Indian would be locked out of downloading those lectures in HD. (Even if they do, Indian broadband starts 256 kilobits / second, so that's 13 times as long to download as to watch.)
Back to Commons: I understand there are ways to get files over 100 MB uploaded, but they are dark and secretive and rarely used. I doubt you could get many files over 100 MB uploaded here. And downgrading them to fit in 100 MB is going to make them very low quality, approaching the point where you would almost be better off throwing away the video and just keeping the audio. As of today and the near future, you're going to have to find someplace else.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:04, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
I don't understand why we would need such high quality videos as hi-def soaks up a lot of bandwidth for little gain except in certain movies. If he wont be willing to compress them, doesn't that mean that they aren't licensed properly as we require a license allowing others to freely edit the material? (i.e. I'm agreeing with Prosfilaes's point on the altering of material). Ottava Rima (talk) 22:08, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
If that were true, we would shrink most of our images down to 720x576, because that's the highest resolution standard-def can show. It's just not enough to pick up on fine detail on images, and it's hopeless for all but the largest writing. There's good reason to want hi-def to be available, just not as the only format.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:17, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
My point was of medium - images are singular and are based on a visual impression - educational movies don't need to be large enough to count zits on one's nose. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:10, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
I don't buy this. We do want high-quality videos, as high as we can get. Besides the ability to see details clearly, such as markings on a board or slides, or gestures and expressions of the speaker, they also facilitate derivative works such as using single high-resolution frames as photos. I would not hesitate myself to download a 1080p resolution video of a lecture for personal viewing. However, we are indeed very poorly set up for it, thanks to the file size limitation, among others. High def video is something important to address going forward. Dcoetzee (talk) 00:08, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
Well, as someone who doesn't have amazingly awesome internet, "high quality" is another word for "will not work". So, which is it - super amazing quality or allowing the rest of the world the chance to experience an item? Ottava Rima (talk) 05:07, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
The right answer is both - super amazing quality and automatically generated videos of lower quality. That's how YouTube works, after all, it'd work just as well for us. Dcoetzee (talk) 05:23, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
But we don't have youtube's wonderful set up with imbeded options, ability to put the items anywhere in the world, etc. I think we need some software changes if there wont be possible accessibility issues. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:31, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
To somewhat echo the others, I do not think HD video best suits the professor's purpose. Unless those lectures contain illustrations, etc., that would not otherwise be visible and the loss of which would impact the usefulness of the video, I see no need for such high quality. In terms of where to put it, I agree with Prosfilaes that the Internet Archive would be the best option if the professor doesn't want to apply a free license. If he does want release them under a free license, they could be uploaded here in full HD if they were broken into parts (and then establish a sort of playlist?), which could then be reassembled in a more usable (lower res) format later on. There are options, it just depends on what limitations the professor wants to impose. — Huntster (t @ c) 00:39, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
Actually I think the Internet Archive would be the best option period right now. It's not exclusive with us uploading it here, but the Internet Archive is the best place in the world to make large video files openly available from right now.--Prosfilaes (talk) 02:05, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
I readily agree that for now the best option is to upload to the Internet Archive, and import (downscaled if necessary) any parts that are needed for embedding in WMF projects. I'd prefer Commons accepted large media, but I don't think we're set up for it right now. Dcoetzee (talk) 02:41, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

What about seeking some moments in the video where he makes a pause, and using them to cut the video in two or more parts that, individually, fit in our size limits? The quality would remain the same and, if the point if chosen well, the usefulness of the files would not be affected. Belgrano (talk) 02:09, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

December 18

A case of Bipolar License Syndrome?

Can anyone make sense of the licensing of GeoEye.com? They're saying that if you attribute the site you can publish their images electronically, in print or in broadcast, but you can't sell, distribute or reproduce them! Does anyone have an idea about their reuse policy? -- Orionist ★ talk 02:25, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

It looks pretty much like any reuse statements, as I see it...basically confirming allowance of fair use. They are allowing any entity to use their satellite images so long as the reuse is not being directly sold (aka, use in a newscast is fine, but use in a book is not...without express permission). If you're asking if we can use their images here, then definitely not. — Huntster (t @ c) 02:34, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
The license covers much more than fair use, as it doesn't limit the purpose nor the portion used. It doesn't seem to limit the media either, so maybe use in books is allowed. The problem is that it contradicts itself, since publishing = distribution and reproduction, and even re-selling in the case of print media and subscribed web content. The license is certainly not good for Commons, I'm trying to find out if we can upload their images to Wikipedia at full resolution. -- Orionist ★ talk 04:58, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
As I recall Wikipedia rules, if it's not Free Content, it must be used under free use, even if we have permission to use it.--Prosfilaes (talk) 05:34, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
If you mean "fair use", then correct. Doesn't matter how permissive the license is, if it isn't free (by our standards), then, at least on en.wiki, it's mandated that only a minimal resolution be used, permission given or not. So, no full resolution. I also kind of see what Orionist is getting at, though in practice, I believe using such an image in a newspaper or TV broadcast would not be considered reselling, but in a book or calendar or other such item, it would be. Yeah, the license is murky at best, but it's enough for us. — Huntster (t @ c) 07:24, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Poll to make Commons:File naming a policy

Commons:File naming describes our current practice of naming files, but it's still a proposed policy. I started a poll to make it a policy. Multichill (talk) 09:57, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

On a existing deletion Request

On the 25th of november I made a deletion request for all the images (over 80!!!) from a web tutorial which were in most cases tagged as NASA while they are not, and in most cases they would be copyrighted (see here). Getting that list was quite a lot of work, and copyright infrigement is IMO quite clear (probably almost enough for a speedy deletion). However after 3 weeks only a person has commented and no action has been taken. Since it is quite an important request and most probably a copyright vio I wanted to draw some more people to comment. Thanks in advance.--Garrondo (talk) 20:30, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

More specifically, for those trying to find this, it would be Commons:Deletion requests/All images from the Remote Sensing Tutorial from NASA Goddard Space Center. - Jmabel ! talk 02:13, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
I hate to say it, and I'm sure you put in a lot of work, but it appears to be an incomplete deletion request. There is no notice on the individual picture pages, and you don't seem to have informed the uploader. If these were obviously not public domain, that would be no problem, but given that it is not obvious, you need to give the uploader at least a chance to weigh in. - Jmabel ! talk 02:18, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
Ok. I will try to add those notes. It seems really odd not to have a bot for that. Thanks.--Garrondo (talk) 08:37, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Problems with viewing pictures on Commons.

Hello.

Since yesterday I am having strange difficulties with viewing pictures on Commons. It seems that almost every time I go to a picture's page the picture does not show but instead in the area where the picture is supposed to be is a black rectangle. This does not however influence the thumbnails in categories or the ability to view the full resolution version of the picture but it is still very unusual I have not seen anything like this before. The strangest thing is that sometimes for a second that a picture takes to load I can see it clearly but as soon as it stops the entire picture turns into a black rectangle. Also it only happens when viewing commons using Mozilla Firefox. I tried viewing commons with the new Opera 11.00 and it worked fine. I am using Mozilla Firefox 3.6.13 (the latest version).

Regards. - SuperTank17 (talk) 20:25, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

December 19

Converting PDF to DjVU

Can someone try converting this PDF into DjVU? Strangely none of the text or graphics show up in the Commons thumbnails, but you can see it all if you load the actual PDF. The text is already OCRed and added into a text layer in the PDF. Let me know if I need to change anything about how the PDF is saved. Kaldari (talk) 05:48, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

delete photo

i have unloaded a wrong personal photo on Wikimedia commons. How can i completely delete the photo and the history?Mkckim (talk) 07:01, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

You'll need to nominate it for deletion or ask an administrator to delete it. Kaldari (talk) 07:30, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
✓ Done. Bidgee (talk) 07:42, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
That might be enough, but it does not completely delete the photo. It can still be seen and undeleted by administrators (but probably will not be). --LPfi (talk) 14:54, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
Yes but it is no longer visible to the public, Admins would need to view the logs before seeing the deleted image. It could be oversighted but I think that is going over the top and I highly doubt any Admins would undelete the photo. Bidgee (talk) 15:25, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

translate {{Cite book}}

Jacklee has recently created an new version of {{Cite book}} at template:cite book/sandbox. Since the template is protected, it would simpler to add translations now. If you wish to help, I think the only thing to do is to add languages in the "langSwitches" (except if some languages have very different citing style, in which case, we would need to create another version of the template.)--Zolo (talk) 10:36, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Norges Bank (the central bank of Norway) agrees to licence historical governor pictures as CC-BY-SA 3.0

I sent an email to Norges Bank, requesting that their pictures of their hostorical central bank governors being licenced as CC-BY-SA 3.0 (also, I explained this licence in brief), so that we can use them on Wikipedia/Wikimedia. Already the next day I received a positive response from them! The pictures are now uploaded, see Category:Norges Bank. This was very encouraging, and I hope this inspires others to contact other insitutions, requesting for (re)licencing of pictures! ChickenFalls (talk) 08:57, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

It is nice to have those photos, but do they not have them in a much larger format then just these thumbnails? Wouter (talk) 10:09, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
No, they didn't have that. ChickenFalls (talk) 13:13, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
Can you ensure that a copy of the correspondence goes to the OTRS team (COM:OTRS), so that we can keep a record of the permission you received? TheFeds 17:28, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
I have forwarded the mail to 'permissions-commons@wikimedia.org'. I hope this is correct address? ChickenFalls (talk) 18:48, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Image edit warring

Commons could do without this kind of useless edit warring: File:KhitanAD1000.png history. -84user (talk) 05:41, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

So many edit warriors: [6]. The more I click on the contribution histories the more I find. -84user (talk) 05:49, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Image protected for a week, the two editors have been warned. Also you should raise issues like this at the Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems or Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/Blocks and protections rather then the Village pump. Bidgee (talk) 06:21, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
That's the same case as "Edit warring over maps of medieval Mongolia (and a little bit ancient China)" directly above... AnonMoos (talk) 12:22, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Bidgee, I have raised similar edit warring at Commons:Administrators' noticeboard before, but I was reluctant to do so here because I recognised warriors that had been warned and blocked before, and really do not wish to see more blocks. Most of them are otherwise probably useful contributors. Instead I suppose I am trying to get them to change behaviour and simply create separate files. The problem is greater than just this image (and other Korean maps).

AnonMoos, indeed it is the same case as above, I did not notice that.

After some attempts at discussion with similar warriors I now doubt they actually comprehend what they are reading, so maybe a technical solution is required (such as blocking the upload new file revision link)? Or re-code that link to go to a new upload page with a "version" number appended to the original filename? -84user (talk) 03:12, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Need Help! I am trying to upload a picture of my father, who was a movie actor in Japan.

Hello,

I am trying to correct misinformation about my father on wikipedia that someone wrote, a while back. I am also trying to upload a picture of my father. But I keep getting an error message. Can someone provide me a step-by-step instruction on how to upload a pic? Also, one of the pics was given to me by someone, which is a studio shot. I don't know where he got it from but I had wanted to use that photo. It may have been from the movie company, in Japan. IDK. So, am I allowed to use that pic or any pics I have from his movies? My father had an album of his studio pics. If you could email me at NFrost79@comcast.net, I would appreciate it. I am new to wikipedia. Thank you very much for your help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JadeHunter11 (talk • contribs) 12:40 (UTC)

Hello and welcome aboard! For Commons, please consider reading this: Commons:First steps. About your upload questions: it is really likely that these images aren't allowed on Commons, because it has to be proven that you own the right of licensing them to re-users, cf. Commons:Licensing. Unless you could provide a release by the right owner(s), for photographs most likely the photographer, for movies a great bunch of people (director, camera man, producer...), a hosting on Commons for Wikipedian use is not allowed. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 11:55, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

If you have any personal photos of your fathers, any photos you took of him, a college graduation photo, etc, then those would all be accepted. AerobicFox (talk) 21:17, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Commons:Polling policy

Smething I noticed during the recent sexual content poll that there was the number of very low/single edit count users who participated, presumably responding to notices place in other Wiki's. Yet this is Commons and while there are flow on effects to other projects Commons community should be the ones deciding on Commons policies and practices. In many of our process where there is a vote the Commons community has started setting minimum standards both in account age and participation requirements, given this shift in the communities values any future polls on deciding policy should also have a minimum standard for participation. My thought is the accounts should be created at least 30 days prior to a poll commencing and have a minimum participation of 100 actions. Gnangarra 13:46, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Welcome to the club. --Yikrazuul (talk) 14:02, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

We are strongly connected to the other Wikipedia projects so that we should not exclude them from our decisions. --Mbdortmund (talk) 20:23, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

If we are so connected then they would obviously have accounts which should be m:SUL accounts and have already made edits here, the issue is people who have no association with the operating of Commons should not be able to vote in Commons Community decisions about its policies. Yes they can express comments about the policy and its possible effects, but many of the accounts who were single/low edit accounts only expressed the opinion that they hate US laws/commons doesnt need to follow US law these people adequately demonstrated their complete lack of understanding about Wikimedia Commons and The Wikimedia Foundation in general. Gnangarra 13:00, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Internal error uploading old revision of file

I tried to re-upload this old revision of file File:Treaty of Lisbon ratification.svg at Wikinews, but the upload returned an internal error (key 'q4ity0gtwuqpoh8wldyfq2087s7apxb.' is not in a proper format). See Wikinews:Wikinews:Water cooler/technical#Internal error for details. Repeating the same re-upload here at Commons gives the same error. -84user (talk) 02:05, 20 December 2010 (UTC) -84user (talk) 02:05, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Possible hoax

There is some concern at the English Wikipedia that there's no such place. If there's no such place, the source information originally provided here is suspect. Uncle G (talk) 02:09, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

See http://www.panamatravelexperts.com/pkbaru.aspx (Note: (C) 2006/2007, so possible older than the en.wp upload). The generic "beach1.jgg" filename at possible source supports my impression that the uploader just searched for a random "beach" image on Google. Given that the image use in an article about "Bunaka" is already nonsense the source will be nonsense too or is at least not verifiable. IMO we can save time with deleting the image right away, in any case {{subst:nsd}} would be appropriate. --Martin H. (talk) 02:35, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
It's a nice picture of a beach, but I see no evidence that it is the work of a US Federal Government employee and so in the public domain. Delete. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 11:09, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Since en:Bunaka was deleted I'll delete the image here too. --Martin H. (talk) 12:52, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

CommonsDelinker seems to have stopped

Nothing at User:CommonsDelinker/commands seems to have been processed the last few hours. Anyone know what to do? - Jmabel ! talk 08:00, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Kick it? --AerobicFox (talk) 08:34, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
I've always been rather curious about how CommonsDelinker actually works. Is it done manually or by a bot? I notice that there is a rather long backlog at "User talk:CommonsDelinker/commands#Image replace requests". — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 08:38, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Looks like it's still stuck 9 hours later. - Jmabel ! talk 17:09, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

User:CommonsDelinker is operated by Bryan, Siebrand and me. The three of as are rather busy doing other things so it might be a good idea to add more maintainers. Requirements: We have to know and trust you, you have a toolserver account (or willing to request one), you have some understanding of python and bots (like pywikipedia) and your not a total idiot (hehe). Being an admin is a pro. Who is willing to help? Multichill (talk) 17:54, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
I mentioned another fault (on Siebrands talk, not replied), I would help, if I had time and I do not speak Dutch. :P --Perhelion (talk) 22:33, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

The "Works" of User:Toilet.

The discussion about sexual content has shown that there are problems with some materials. Many pictures of User:Toiler are a part of this problem. User Toilet uses to upload hand-drawn pictures of defecating women. Hand-drawn pictures of defecating women. A result of the discussion about sexual content has been the call for better reviews of suspicous material. Uploads from Toilet have already been deleted, the fact that he is still uploading his stuff illustrates the problem. The pictures of this user should be reviewed and - if necessary deleted as I do not think that Commons should be used for distributing strange pictures. --Liberaler Humanist (talk) 20:01, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

- Most of his pictures and strange drawings are not pornographic.
- He contributes useful pictures, too.
- Perhaps you could go through his pictures and put the strange drawings in a DR.
- Did you already try to comunicate with him?
--Mbdortmund (talk) 20:22, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
Some of the earlier photographs are of questionable copyright. What are the chances of finding that many people shitting on the beach, etc.? And some with EXIF, some not, different cameras, etc. Wknight94 talk 20:29, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Go ahead and nominate the ones you feel should be deleted for deletion. What exactly are ou looking for by posting here? It's not really the place. See ANI and deletion reviews(sorry no links).AerobicFox (talk) 21:19, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, if this user had shown a behaviour like this on german Wikipedia, he would have been banned as "Klovandale"... Anyway, I went through his contributions, nominating several of his drawings for deletion and changing some faeces related filenames to neutral ones. Grand-Duc (talk) 21:43, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
It strikes me that the German Wikipedia has tighter rules then many other Wikimedia projects, and that Commons in particular has by necessity the most open media uploading policy.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:22, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
I started also a mass deletion request. This "user" should go to FlickR...--Yikrazuul (talk) 21:58, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
@Grand-Duc: Please us mass-deletion requests, not single ones.
Why? If he doesn't feel they should be deleted in mass, then he should use single deletion requests. Mass deletion requests don't work real well when each image has to be considered individually.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:22, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

A majority of his images seem to have nothing to do with toilets. Some are even being used on Wikipedia. You can find the deletion request here where it seems to have been framed as only deleting his toilet related images, despite everything being marked for deletion. --AerobicFox (talk) 04:38, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, Yikrazuul was right, I was not so used to the deletion procedures, so that mas DR would have been appropriated. See also Commons:Deletion requests/Photogaphic images by user:Toilet, it was started by me after Yikrazuul's remark. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 07:28, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Upload of images

This appears to be a government database of mosquitoes? If so can we upload all their images? [7] --James Heilman, MD (talk) 13:19, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Si.edu, i.e. the Smithsonian Institution is always a problematic source of images, since the Smithsonian Institution makes widespread copyright claims and at the least leaves vague the distinction between work done by their employees and copyrights either transferred to them or held by others.--Prosfilaes (talk) 19:58, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
Okay I have emailed them to ask for clarification. Maybe they will be willing to collaborate. --James Heilman, MD (talk) 01:59, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
I agree that its best just to ask them. If you have trouble getting ahold of them let me know I work down the street from SI and can stop by and talk to them if needed. --Kumioko (talk) 03:27, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
There's regular contact with the Smithsonian, I will bring it up. Multichill (talk) 09:14, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks that would be great. This might lead to an expansion in mosquito / disease vector related coverage.--James Heilman, MD (talk) 11:42, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

December 21

Votes of socket puppets?

In the last big poll about adopting Commons:Sexual content I noticed that plenty of "new", single purpose accounts participiated. E. g.

Needless to mention that (1) those accounts can be found exclusively in the "contra" section, and (2) some of those account are not even contributing to any other Wiki-project, e. g. Cgtdk making the probability of sock puppetry very likely.

What I would like to know is whether or not those polls make any sense if they do not have constraints like e. g. the amount of edits (less then 500 edits here on commons makes them entitled to vote) or sth. like this. --Yikrazuul (talk) 17:11, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Polls on Commons are always just straw polls. They should never be evaluated solely based on the vote count. Instead, evaluators need to read the arguments (and of course also take into account the number of votes) and see whether a consensus can be detected. Even if there were quite a few sock puppets voting in the poll you mentioned (which I am sure, there were), this IMHO does not change the outcome of the poll a lot. I'd say, that less than 10% of voters are sock puppets, so for a poll of this size they are IMHO negligible. On a related note: IP adresses are also allowed (and encouraged) to vote, so there is no sense in banning puppets from votes. IIRC, there was a poll about suffrage on Commons about 2 years (?) ago. I cannot find it right now, though. Regards, -- ChrisiPK (Talk|Contribs) 17:24, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
Found it: Commons:2008 Election suffrage poll. -- ChrisiPK (Talk|Contribs) 17:55, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
I just want to make clear that it is "needless to mention" that the ones listed above is only on the "oppose" list, because the OP deliberately chose the single purpose accounts on the oppose list and left out the multiple ones on the "support" list. Also, for this particular purpose, and as has been stated again and again in the discussion, the prevalence of IPs and single purpose accounts for this poll is not that strange, since it will attract voters from all the international Wikipedias, who would have been effected by the policy even if they have never uploaded images to commons before. So please OP, try to assume good faith (and a little sense) before crying wolf. --Saddhiyama (talk) 17:41, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
This is all interesting but kind of irrelevant. There was considerable lack of agreement on several substantive points. Consensus was not achieved regardless of numbers. The next draft will come closer. Ocaasi (talk) 19:51, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
That is true, on all points. I just wanted to prevent sanctions being laid on unsuspecting editors that voted in good faith. But I see now from ChrisiPKs outstanding detective work in digging up that old poll, that the whole question was moot to begin with. --Saddhiyama (talk) 20:51, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
While you are busy trying to cross-wiki smear people who disagree with you, can you at least provide substance to you claims above about such matters. You claimed supporters did such and such without any proof. Your political bias seems to get in the way of following our standards of evidence and behavior. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:44, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
Smearing is unsubstantiated allegations. My claims about you were perfectly true and documented, unlike yours above about my acting on "political bias" (which political bias would that be?). But I am not surprised, this seems to be in complete accord with your general tone and behaviour. Regarding my claims about the support votes it is just a matter of doing the same as the OP did, listing all the voters who have made little or no edits outside voting in the poll. A quick browse turned up several. --Saddhiyama (talk) 16:58, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
You pointed to one thread with a guy making blatantly exaggerated claims. It was a smear and highly incivil. You have abused everyone who disagrees with you politically and now you are defending voter fraud. Our rules should come before politics, not after. Stop. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:17, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
@Saddhiyama: because the OP deliberately chose the single purpose accounts on the oppose list and left out the multiple ones on the "support" list
Bull, I tried to find also single purpose accounts on the support list, but I failed. But maybe you can give us some examples. --Yikrazuul (talk) 16:55, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
Bakerboy448, Creation7689, Sjones23, Lovetinkle, etc. Perhaps you should try harder next time. Kameraad Pjotr 17:29, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
Wiki user, Wiki user, German Wiki user, and Wiki user. Let's limit claims of SPI to actual SPIs and not long term Wiki users who are directly affected by Commons policy. This user had no real background on the WMF. There are others who resemble him - possible real SPI accounts. IPs are also problematic. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:30, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
So far I have found User:Mingomongo, User:Cadetmcguire, User:Punched Cards and User:TechsMechs4 from the support list. A systematic search might likely turn up more. --Saddhiyama (talk) 00:32, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
And as Ottava has also shown, of the users listed by the OP, only User:Cgtdk qualifies as a single purpose account. --Saddhiyama (talk) 13:09, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
Chris, your link does not suggest IP voting is acceptable, and practice has always been to not count IP votes. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:48, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
I was always under the impression, that we do not have strict suffrage requirements, which means, that everyone can "vote". As I have outlined above, most polls on Commons are not about the number of votes, but rather about forming consensus among editors. As you are certainly not suggesting banning IPs from talk pages, I don't see why they should not be allowed to vote. Do we have any policy on IP voting? Regards, -- ChrisiPK (Talk|Contribs) 16:37, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
We are not a Democracy so there is no such thing as suffrage here. Ottava Rima (talk) 01:47, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose:"(less then 500 edits here on commons)". What? You want to disqualify almost everyone from Wikipedia who isn't active of commons from voting? Placing restrictions and tests to be allowed to vote has historically always been abused(no link, but see the literacy test and voting fee in the post-Civil war South). Being a relatively new account(although I was active a few years back on another account[now retired]) I would have felt jipped being excluded by an arbitrary rule like that. --AerobicFox (talk) 04:09, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
To expand on your point - Commons is a hub for other projects. The material here is directly used elsewhere, so you have the right to opine here for the benefit of another project because of the special nature of this project. I am all for limiting IPs and checking single purpose accounts with no other background at the WMF, but I am opposed to restricting those who are connected to Commons more than just directly editing here (after all, there is little to really "edit" - uploading isn't like writing lots of text where you can go through thousands of little edits without any problem). Ottava Rima (talk) 05:11, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
@AerobicFox: 500 edits is an example, and per year not a such impossibilty. But to be honest: Why should single purpose accoutns have the same voting rights than users who are contributing a lot for commons and hence for all other projects? In all other wikis you have limitations in polls, why not also here on commons? Normally socket puppets neutralize for each other, but especially in that poll it is evident that just one side benefits from abusing our poll-system.
If we donna have any new rules about voting, only polls without any "public interest" will be fair and to a certain degree reasonable. --Yikrazuul (talk) 12:22, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Strong support - Current system absurd and corrupt. This change is far from ideal, but the best we have for now. The sooner Wikipedia moves to registration and single sign-on, the better. Peter Damian (talk) 22:18, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
  • I don't believe making local limit is a correct step forward. Matters on Commons are important to the global community, just as they are on Meta-Wiki. It is a global project, and matters such as these are relevant to the global community. Any restrictions should be global (for example, with the Steward elections earlier this year, the requirements were 600 [global] edits before 01 November 2009, and 50 edits between 01 August 2009 and 31 January 2010). Personally I think that is a little high for discussions such as this (maybe halving the limit would be more appropriate). But regardless, if we are thinking of a fixed number, they should be global edits as opposed to local. PeterSymonds (talk) 13:36, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
I agree with PeterSymonds on both counts. It should be global, because as has been stated again and again, an editor who have done any edits on Commons, but have been active on another project, would still be effected by policy changes on Commons. And it should dfinitely be less edits. 500 seems way too much. --Saddhiyama (talk) 13:42, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Problematic images of infants with at least a sexual conotation

I have just discoverde the galery: Martin van Maële. It is describes as "erotic literature", however, it shows many pictures of children performing sexual actions or getting abused. Some pictures do clearly show children, as there are no signs of adultness, others show sexual actions in a school without clear indications, however, this material is probably very illegal, I have nominated some obvious pictures for deletion but I think it would be better to delete all the pictures as long as the situation is not completely clear. --Liberaler Humanist (talk) 23:04, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh yes, let's delete all works of art on Commons… but first you have to explain based on which law the material is “very illegal”. --Leyo 23:54, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
It is generally considered that artistic works from the past are not subject to modern child pornography laws - as a more recent example, the album Virgin Killer is still on sale in many places, even with its rather inappropriate cover. -mattbuck (Talk) 00:12, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
And what even Category:Sculptures of putti. --ŠJů (talk) 04:09, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
Your argument ist just off topic. Puti do not depict sexual acts. --Liberaler Humanist (talk) 10:55, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
May I ask in what country you think these are illegal? Because to the best of my knowledge, such works have not been successfully prosecuted in the U.S. since the general liberalization of pornography jurisprudence in the 1960s. And, as far as I know, for something like this, U.S. law (and that of the state of Florida, in particular) is what would concern us on a legal level. - Jmabel ! talk 05:16, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
The Austrian criminal laws, which are typical for the european laws prevents the pornographic depiction of minors Minors are defined as persons younger than 18 years. The definition for "pornographic depiction" is: realistic depictions of a sexual act or pictorial representations, whose observation (...) gives the impression that it was a (realistic) figure. Source: §207a STGB. This law does include drawings.
The legal situation in the united states seems to be similar. I have also found notices about the illegal status of some sexual education books and I do not see any reasons for thinking, that drawings of sexual acts between/against Infants were legal. --Liberaler Humanist (talk) 10:55, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
I suppose also Finnish laws are quite typical. About distributing "sexually obscene images depicting children" (sections 17 and 18 in chapter 17 of the criminal code, links in English, translation, pp. 84-85 and Swedish, the law itself):
"The provision [...] does not apply if the depiction [...] is to be deemed justifiable because of the informative nature or manifest artistic value of [the picture]".
The former exception is probably true for anything we deem is in scope and the latter is clear in these cases. I am not even sure these images are to be regarded as obscene (the word used is "sedlighetssårande"). In aggravated cases the exceptions do not apply, but publishing in scope images on Commons is not aggravated "when assessed as whole". --LPfi (talk) 13:09, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
Section 17/2 describes, what we call educational purpose. This would describe serios anatomical pictures or similar things. No one has called this material "educational". The description calls this image "erotic art", I would call it "pornography", whats the educational part? --Liberaler Humanist (talk) 16:39, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
They are regarded as art, so no problem. Your (or any users) thinking they are porn does not change that. (And educational purposes is a wider concept than "serious anatomical pictures", but that is irrelevant for our being able to host these images.) --LPfi (talk) 11.42, 21 december 2010 (UTC)
I call it "art history". --Carnildo (talk) 01:43, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
These are openly sold on Amazon, so they're not very likely to be illegal under US law. Legally speaking, for drawings to be legally obscene in the US, they have to lack "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value"; given the stature of the artist and the fact that there hasn't been one successful obscenity case against in the last forty years against anything with a shred of literary value, and given w:Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, I see no reason to worry about the legality of this images in the US. And the exact same thing that makes them legal makes them in scope; they are the works of a notable artist, and thus important as part of an artistic education.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:14, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
The deletion discussions referred to above by the OP are:
Such images are, of course, explicitly permitted under U.S. law regarding simulated child pornography (section 1466A), which makes an exception for works of "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value"[8] such as these established artistic works. Dcoetzee (talk) 12:28, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

"Problematic images of infants with at least a sexual conotation" Where I am from infants usually only refers to babies and extremely young children(just learning to walk), and there is nothing like that here. Does it mean something else where you are from? --AerobicFox (talk) 21:40, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Legally, an infant is anyone who is not a person of full age: see the last sentence of the lead section of "Infant". However, this is a rather old-fashioned usage. Minor is more often used for this purpose these days. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 13:07, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

December 20

Transcriptions

Following a discussion on IRC, it was suggested I start a thread here. I'm trying to write transcriptions for some of the talks from Wikimania and other stuff about Wikipedia and history. For Wikimania talks, I'm adding them to the wiki page on wikimedia.org. But I was wondering whether there is any agreed way of adding a transcription to the page on Commons for audio and video?

Also, plenty of Wikimania talks (from 2006) are on Internet Archive. Should those be ported over to Commons? (I can't actually log into the 2006 Wikimania wiki as it isn't using SUL.) —Tom Morris (talk) 20:54, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

You must be refering to http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proceedings:336 where you have transcribed the first 35 minutes or so. Well, I would just copy the transcription directly to the image description page, but if it is long, maybe wrap it in a template that hides or scrolls it. If you are feeling adventurous another way is to write a Commons:Timed Text file, see TimedText:051118-WSIS.2005-Richard.Stallman.ogg.en.srt (discussion at TimedText talk:051118-WSIS.2005-Richard.Stallman.ogg.en.srt) as an example. -84user (talk) 21:32, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
Many images on Commons contain text, and the text is generally transcribed and included in the image description, e.g. this recent one I did. The same thing makes sense for transcription, although perhaps we could be more structured about it. Dcoetzee (talk) 00:46, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

December 23

Edit warring over maps of medieval Mongolia (and a little bit ancient China)

I don't particularly understand the point of contention, but it seems to be very important to User:Historiographer and User:Tm -- some of the images involved now have more than 50 versions uploaded (something I've never seen before, not even in the Morocco / Western Sahara upload wars...). AnonMoos (talk) 01:42, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Just ridiculous. If they each have their own version, we should have both versions as separate files. - Jmabel ! talk 02:20, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
From my brief glace at several of the images, it seems Historiographer the the main warrior here. See, for example, File:Mongolia 1500 AD.jpg. In every case I've looked at, Historiographer has modified someone else's work to his preferred version, and then edit warred with multiple editors to keep it that way. Tm is certainly not in the right to edit war, but it appears they are trying to preserve the original version that was uploaded, as, in many cases, multiple other editors have also done. Just my take on this. — Huntster (t @ c) 02:29, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

To clarify what is going on here for those confused User:Historiographer(a native Korean) is editing out Korea from territory conquerored by the Mongolian Empire. Compare the original version with User:Historiographer's edited version From what I know of the Mongol Empire, they were the largest continuous empire in the World's history and extended well into even North Africa, so it seems unlikely they didn't conquer Korea. AerobicFox (talk) 04:31, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

That may well be the case, but I think any changes should be based on reliable third-party sources. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 07:50, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
I was stating that I think the status-quo is correct, and that the changes are unsubstantiated. Until RS's can be found supporting his case the images should remain the same. AerobicFox (talk) 08:34, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
Yes, that's what I meant. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 08:35, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

I've protected the images for a week and given three editors (Idh0854, Tm and Historiographer) a three day block over the edit warring which has gotten out of control. Bidgee (talk) 03:58, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Suspect contributions

Hi all,
It would be good to have a look at the contributions of Abdelfattahe. I have seen several problems:

  • Duplicated images (two or three times)
  • One of these has clearly been taken from a website (identified)
  • Some are very small, so does not look to have been taken by the user but on the web (or elsewhere).

Thanks Moumou82 (talk) 17:39, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Best practices for text within an image

Take File:B-58_Escape_Capsule.jpg for example; it's a picture of a museum piece, photographed alongside the display sign that describes the object. The sign contains informative text which would be of benefit to users who can't view the picture, but who have access to the text on the image page (for whatever reason—screen reader accessibility is the obvious one). The museum is a USAF facility, so there is little chance the text imposes additional copyright restrictions (as could be the case if it was a photo from an ordinary museum)—this should imply PD-USGov. What's the best practice for incorporating that into the image page, and perhaps enclosing it within a template that can handle translations?

For example, what possible problems would there be in incorporating it into a new parameter for {{Information}}? There's also the essentially-unused {{Caption}} that could be adapted for the purpose, if a standalone template were desirable. If a template is the solution, there should probably eventually be a flag to indicate which of the language-versions is the original text, and which are translations. (Searches for related issues turns up mostly discussions of images with captions in the border (like old prints). In this case, the caption is integral to the composition of the photo, so there's no practical way to separate it, and for that matter, no reason to do so.) TheFeds 05:41, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

I see nothing wrong with incorporating the text in the Information template's description field. Just encapsulate it within {{En}} or {{Fr}} or whatever language you're using. I do this all the time for NASA images, which typically contain lengthy description text, which is then translated or paraphrased into other languages. Not a perfect example, but see the multilanguage descriptors at File:Fleet 5 nations.jpg. — Huntster (t @ c) 07:39, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
I suggest to take a separate photo of the display sign with text so that the text can be read properly. Link that text to the subject similar to what I for example did with File:Hydrocotyle_leucocephala_B.jpg or with File:Chania_monument_shipwreck_B.jpg. Wouter (talk) 08:22, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
Yes, but bear in mind that signs with long pieces of text may be subject to copyright. See the discussion at "De minimis problems" above. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 08:41, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
Considering it's the National Museum of the Air Force, I don't think copyright is a problem. The text can be found here as well, and there's no indication of separate copyright. Also, I've gone ahead and added the text to the description field. Play with it if you like. — Huntster (t @ c) 08:50, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I meant in general, not in this particular case. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 08:52, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
That's a similar solution to the one I'd employed with some NASA photos and PD-USGov text from an accompanying page (though I'd excerpted those instead of copying the whole thing). I've tweaked the text to indent it, and identified the source of the caption (the sign in the image). (Wouter's plan may work in the long term, when someone happens to visit Wright-Patterson AFB and photograph the sign itself, we can add it as an auxiliary image. Just cropping and enlarging won't really help in this case.) Thanks for the consultation. TheFeds 17:23, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
See Commons:Images containing text for a proposal regarding this. Dcoetzee (talk) 01:09, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

uploading a new version...

The button for uploading a new version of an existing file keeps failing.

Formerly one would be presented with a button that let you browse on your computer for the image to upload, and a single large box where you typed the edit summary.

Today one is presented with the full stupid upload kit of almost a dozen boxes -- presumably most of which will be thrown away, an enormous waste of effort, which I refuse to fill in, since most of the fields will/should be thrown away.

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 14:09, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Umm that's odd. I'm not seeing that when I click on the link. What image are you trying to upload a new version of? J.smith (talk) 17:38, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
It happened with several images... It was intermittent. Here is one where it happened when I tried again with the large version of the image... Geo Swan (talk) 12:56, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
I get something that might be what you describe if I have javascript enabled, while I get the one big box when it is disabled. The fields correspond to the parameters of the info template. You can also choose the big box version by parameters in the URL (you probably used a link with different parameters, somebody might have changed the default).
The problem I have with the javascript version is that it blanks certain fields when it feels they are not current. E.g. when I use the browser's back button and chose a new source file I loose the target file name, which I was going to edit for the new (similar) file. It also clears the file descrition if the upload did not succeed (e.g. when I take my time to write a good description). With the one box it is easier to paste the description back from a saved away copy.
--LPfi (talk) 00:18, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Deletion requests listing broken

Can someone explain to me what broke Commons:Deletion requests/2010/12, so I can fix it myself next time? Thanks.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:35, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

There's a limit to the number or size of things that can be included onto one page. It can be "fixed" by subst'ing templates, but I personally think that's too intrusive to get the one page working. It goes away once DRs get closed and removed.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:42, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
Yes substing is a really bad idea. Just cleanup the DR's :-) --MGA73 (talk) 11:38, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
I've seen it done before, where all the  Delete's and friends were expanded.--Prosfilaes (talk) 17:52, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

File:Salad of mollusks on baccala' mantecato alla messinese, salt cod cream Messin43a style.jpg

Hi, when I open this page I see a b&w photo of a building, but in the thumbnails (both in the file history section and in Category:Media needing categories as of 5 September 2008) I see a salad of mollusks as per filename. Could someone take a look at this image and check what's happening there? Cheers --Santosga (talk) 20:57, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Looks like the original uploader proceeded to upload an unrelated image over his own image. I'll revert. - Jmabel ! talk 05:07, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

December 24

Policy proposal: Images containing text

Hi all, in the wake of several deletion discussions concerning images containing substantial text, I'm seeking feedback on a draft of a proposed policy at Commons:Images containing text. Please direct comments to the talk page there. Dcoetzee (talk) 03:54, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

December 25

Large "Unidentified plants" upload

Hi, I just got an email suggesting I post here. I have uploaded approaching 10,000 of (my personal) photos of unidentified plants. Some may still be in that category, some are in the Category:Unidentified plants from Gardenology.org category, and some older ones in the Category:Unidentified plants at Huntington Gardens folder. They all need to be labeled with the plant names! It's a massive undertaking, which is simply not something I cannot do right now, but I'm hoping as this is a wiki many people can help out. I've taken a lot of time to take, process and upload these photos. There is a link on each photo page to a tip on how you might find the name of unlabeled plants. It has to do with the plant labels I photographed to help name many of them. Once the plants are labeled, the photos of the labels (which don't show an important part of the plant) can be deleted. I hope folks will help with this undertaking! There are thousands of very good quality photos of plants, many with the names showing in the photo that just need to be categorized so they can be used on Wikipedia and other projects. Many of the plants do not have a photo or often a page on Wikipedia at all yet. I have more still to upload, and continue to take more photos, but will add sporadically as always :-) Thanks a lot for any help... --RaffiKojian (talk) 20:55, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

"There are thousands of very good quality photos of plants" - very good quality? Sorry RaffiKojian, but you are kidding. --91.89.58.204 21:04, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
Okay, then thousands of decent/usable quality photos, and a handful of very good ones :-) Thanks for your anonymous input. --RaffiKojian (talk) 04:16, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
Yes, from just a quick look it seems that many of these are useful and of at least decent quality. Thanks for uploading them. --Avenue (talk) 08:54, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Internal Error

Today accessing File:Caudrong4.jpg gave me this: 

PPFrame_DOM::expand: Invalid parameter type

Backtrace:

#0 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/parser/Parser.php(2733): PPFrame_DOM->expand(Object(PPNode_DOM), 0)
#1 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/parser/Parser.php(518): Parser->replaceVariables('{{Exif-make-val...')
#2 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/parser/Parser.php(4194): Parser->preprocess('{{Exif-make-val...', Object(Title), Object(ParserOptions))
#3 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/MessageCache.php(674): Parser->transformMsg('{{Exif-make-val...', Object(ParserOptions))
#4 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/GlobalFunctions.php(744): MessageCache->transform('{{Exif-make-val...')
#5 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/GlobalFunctions.php(707): wfMsgGetKey('exif-make-value', true, false, true)
#6 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/GlobalFunctions.php(613): wfMsgReal('exif-make-value', Array, true)
#7 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/Exif.php(1078): wfMsg('exif-make-value', 'Canon')
#8 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/Exif.php(1027): FormatExif->msg('Make', '', 'Canon')
#9 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/media/Bitmap.php(425): FormatExif->getFormattedData()
#10 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/filerepo/File.php(910): BitmapHandler->formatMetadata(Object(LocalFile), 'a:32:{s:4:"Make...')
#11 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/ImagePage.php(92): File->formatMetadata()
#12 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/Wiki.php(493): ImagePage->view()
#13 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/Wiki.php(70): MediaWiki->performAction(Object(OutputPage), Object(ImagePage), Object(Title), Object(User), Object(WebRequest))
#14 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/index.php(117): MediaWiki->performRequestForTitle(Object(Title), Object(ImagePage), Object(OutputPage), Object(User), Object(WebRequest))
#15 /usr/local/apache/common-local/live-1.5/index.php(3): require('/usr/local/apac...')
#16 {main}

Then reloading the page fixed the problem. --Jarekt (talk) 21:49, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Seen it. Figured we'd let the hackers out of their cage for one day a year before brandishing the whips and Mountain Dew to get them back to their computers.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:43, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
Happend few times. And much cerious problems in he.wikipedia and others. Geagea (talk) 22:47, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
Also keep an eye on en:Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Weird error on loading WP:VPT... Rehman 00:39, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
This has been filed in the bug tracker under Bugzilla: 26429. –Krinkletalk 02:15, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

December 26

CC PD mark

Hi everyone, I did a first implementation of the Creative Commons Public Domain Mark 1.0 here at Commons. Some templates now contain this line: "This file has been identified as being free of known restrictions under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights.". Only English now, but I expect translations later this week. The marked files can be found in Category:CC-PD-Mark, not complete yet, but already well over a million files. Multichill (talk) 13:55, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

That's great; it'd be good to point the link at http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/ instead of http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/deed.en. We're working on enabling language negotiation for the main deed views (without deed.xx), and http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/ is the canonical URL for the legal tool. Is it possible to add rel="license" as an attribute on the link to the PD Mark? That would allow tools that understand CC legal tools discover content on Commons. --Nathan Yergler (talk) 19:22, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
If possible, it'd be great to have something on the tag emphasizing that it should not be applied by authors to works that they are releasing (that being what {{Cc-zero}} is for). Dcoetzee (talk) 03:02, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
Why CC-PD mark is needed? It is not a legal instrument. I don't see any purposes to implement this. Regards. – Kwj2772 (msg) 10:13, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
Because it adds additional compatibility with people set up to use data organized by CC licenses.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:24, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
Nathan Yergler: We link to the deed.<language code> becuse if you're browsing Commons in Dutch (nl) you probably also want to see the Creative Commons site in Dutch too. For rel="license" we have to do some software modifications or enable some extension.
Dcoetzee: It would be good if Creative Commons did this at their site. Multichill (talk) 14:11, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Incorrectly named file

Hi

Any chance someone could rename this file?

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:World_Blank_Map_(Mercator_projection).svg

It is not a Mercator projection, and calling it so is profoundly confusing. I'm not 100% certain what type of projection it is. If no one knows I'd just omit that information. Thanks! 86.161.80.172 03:37, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Please tag it with {{Rename}}. Thanks. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 06:08, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
This is w:Miller cylindrical projection. -- Orionist ★ talk 13:28, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
I have renamed the file "File:World map (Miller cylindrical projection, blank).svg". — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 14:55, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
Sorry if I sound too nitpicky, but "blank" should be outside the parentheses. The way it is now seems to imply that the projection is "blank" (which is meaningless). Maybe "Blank World map" is better? Regards, -- Orionist ★ talk 20:57, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
I don't think the placement of blank within the parentheses leads to the implication you suggest. "Blank world map" is certainly possible, but I was trying to get the important phrase "World map" at the front of the file name. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 21:07, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
For reasons unrelated to this project I am trying to establish whether this actually is a Miller cylindrical projection, and I'm not convinced it is. According to my caculations based on the formula at the Wikipedia article, the distance from the Equator to the northernmost point of Greenland (82.6 deg. N) should be almost exactly twice the distance from the Equator to London (51.5 deg. N). On this map the ratio is about 1.87, which is not a tolerable error IMO. That's if my calculations are correct. 86.174.166.150 21:31, 23 December 2010 (UTC).
I don't know how to use the formula, but I know how to compare the distortion it creates. I superimposed the above map on other maps found at the w:Miller cylindrical projection article, and sources here and here, and they were a perfect match. -- Orionist ★ talk 09:21, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
Hmm. That's not what I see. I've just checked again and the map at the w:Miller cylindrical projection article has the two distances I described exactly in the expected 1:2 ratio, as close as I can measure it. The map here has a signficant discrepancy, as I mentioned. I notice you do say "perfect" match, but how accurately and carefully are you comparing them? Thanks for your interest. 81.151.35.199 12:48, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
Many map projections have very distinct distortion patterns. Sometimes there are differences because of the choice of different standard parallels, variations in drawing, or even botched-up projection by an amateur. However, the intent of the mapmaker is usually obvious, and here it's Miller's. So I fired up Photoshop to do an accurate comparison for you, and I found that there's indeed some discrepancy in the tropical latitudes, which seem to be elongated, while the high latitudes match perfectly. See this image for northern lats and this image for overall difference between the map in Miller's article and the one we're discussing, fringing is where the difference lies.
Just to be sure I compared it to every other projection that looks distantly similar, including Miller's equidistant and Gall's and Brown's stereographic cylindrical, and none of them came close. Now elongated low lats seem to be a feature of taking two standard parallels, Maybe you can factor that in and try different values for the lats. If that doesn't work then maybe it's a hybrid. Otherwise, consider that this file was adapted from this one which was refactored using this script from this one adapted from this one adapted from this one adapted from this one. Something, somewhere along the way might've got broken. I hope this helps. -- Orionist ★ talk 14:30, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
Hi, thanks for checking again. Yes, I think you're probably right. It may have been meant as a Miller cylindrical projection, but was poorly executed. Other aspects of the map are poor too, such as the outline of Great Britain. (Though I'm sure it serves the purpose for which it was intended; I'm judging it by fairly demanding standards.) 86.184.232.12 13:52, 27 December 2010 (UTC).

Category:Views of Rousse

What's the purpose of such a cat ??! --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 08:57, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

To group together generic photos of en:Ruse, Bulgaria, just like Category:Views of Paris, Category:Views of Toledo, etc.? --Ianezz (talk) 09:37, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
But is that really useful ? I mean, do we really need a subcat within Category:Rousse (or Category:Paris...) ? I suppose we do but I think the title isn't well chosen : the term "view" seems a bit too vague to me. Anyway... --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 16:41, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
Are these not, in reality, Category:Cityscapes? Or if they aren't, shouldn't they be? Man vyi (talk) 17:24, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
Could be both; my opinion is that views of a small town like Ruse aren't really cityscapes like the views of Manhattan or Paris. Cityscape is quite awkward for encyclopedic use: is implies some grand scope, but just how grand? there's no bright line. And if you see the example below, the view of Donau in Ruse is a view of Ruse, but there's not a bit of a city in the pic. NVO (talk) 19:13, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
It could be, had it indeed contained views. It doesn't, it's just streets and buildings. Views are something more than that. The category is correct, but categorization of (most of) the images is incorrect. NVO (talk) 19:02, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
I agree. And I think it's because the term "view" is too ambiguous. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 16:32, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Not really.
    Not really.
"Views" might helpful to hold subcategories of more specific types of views ("Views of the seafront of Rousse") or views by location ("Views of Rousse from the tower of St Mary's church"), but rarely a good category in itself. --  Docu  at 12:52, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Conflicting author claims

What do we generally do when there a file has been uploaded in more than one wiki with a different user marked as the author? Our file Rvr 1994 x3.jpg is only a slightly cropped version of en:File:Rvr 1994 x3.jpg. The former is from de.wikipedia from April 2007 and attributed to de:User:MiriamP86, while the latter is from February 2007 and attributed to Aidan Wojtas (en:User:Awojtas), who I presume is a different person. Both users released the photo into the public domain, but surely only one can properly claim authorship to the image? I'll try to contact the users on this, but MiriamP86 made their last edit in 2008 and Awojtas hasn't edited for over half a year, so I'm not holding my breath for a response. Jafeluv (talk) 20:45, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't think we have an actual policy on this. Obviously, the first step is to contact the two uploaders and try to sort out what is going on, as you intend to do. If this proves unfruitful, in the absence of further information (you might want to check one or two popular file-sharing sites like Flickr, in the off-chance that it provides clues) I would suggest identifying the better image and tagging the other one with {{Duplicate}}. For record purposes, you may want to add a note to the image you are keeping, stating it was also uploaded by another editor on a specified date. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 03:42, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
The simple logic says that if the first uploaded by en.wikipedia user 28 February 2007, and the second from de.wikipedia in 25 April 2007, then the first one is the author.Geagea (talk) 04:20, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
I was wondering about that. It's likely, especially since the earlier image is also the larger one (and therefore the one we should keep), but strictly speaking we have no evidence that this is actually the case. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 07:17, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
We have upload dates. It is not possible for a second, non-author user to upload the image before the first one :-) Most likely, the image was uploaded and used on en-wiki, a user on another wiki saw the picture, cropped and uploaded it locally (some think that making a crop makes it a derivative work and will put their own name on it, or think the act of uploading is enough to be the author, and some probably just don't bother with retaining all the provenance and just use the easy option from the upload screen). The only concern is if this image was taken from elsewhere on the web, such that neither is the true author, but we have no evidence for that. Carl Lindberg (talk) 13:48, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
FWIW, Tineye had a cached version formerly here, but the page no longer exists (Text is a 404 notice) Since neither upload has metadata, I don't share the view that either of these is genuinely self-made Jimfbleak (talk) 16:09, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
This image was originally uploaded in February 2007, so we would need to see evidence that usages elsewhere predate that. The website you mention seems to indicate it started in 2007, so even more likely they just pulled the photograph from Wikipedia. The Wayback Machine does have some archived versions of that page, but none earlier than December 2007, and I'm not sure this image was on that page then. There will always be suspicions with smaller-resolution images like this, but unless that author had a history of uploading copyvios, not sure we can assume much else. Tineye also found another page where this photo was used in a car ad, but again, it dates from later in 2007. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:25, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
It looks like the car has New Zealand license plates. That is consistent with the uploader saying he lives in New Zealand. /Ö 17:36, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
No. There are two choices. Or the first uploader is the creator or both copyvio from the same source (or they are the same person). No chance the the second uploader is the owner because he have to explain how the firs uploader get the photo. The second uploader can only doubting the first uploader being the owner. Only logic her and common sense, no ruls. Geagea (talk) 23:34, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
The first uploader is the copyright holder, the second de.wp uploader catched the image from google or en.wp. The image on en.wikipedia.org, log, was larger, 500x375 while File:Rvr 1994 x3.jpg is smaler now. 500x375px is the typical thumbnail size for flickr images. A google search for the name of the person and flickr brings a flickr account with a lot of photos of exactly (license plate) this car with the same username. So the remaining question is: Is en:Awojtas the photographer and the owner of the flickr account? I have no reason to not believe that he is. Suggestion: Delete Commons File:Rvr_1994_x3.jpg, delete de:Datei:Rvr_1994_x3.jpg, restore en:File:Rvr_1994_x3.jpg, transfer it again. This would be the cleanest sollution and it would erase the copyvioupload. --Martin H. (talk) 00:38, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Nice sleuthing. Here is the Flickr source; I have no doubt that the Flickr user is the copyright holder. The photo was uploaded to Commons within two days of the upload there I think, which also indicates it is likely the same person. Good solution too; we now have the correct provenance. Carl Lindberg (talk) 02:23, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

en:Wikipedia:Requests_for_undeletion#File:Rvr_1994_x3.jpg, 'll correct this. See also Commons:Deletion requests/Files by MiriamP86. --Martin H. (talk) 00:44, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable. Thanks for sorting this out. Jafeluv (talk) 12:02, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Is this building too simple to be protected by French law?

I photographed the Regional airline head office in France, fr:Fichier:RegionalHQNantes.JPG - I put it on the English and French Wikipedias because in France there is no freedom of panorama. However simple, non-distinctive architecture is not protected by French law, and photos of those buildings are not protected by copyright. Is this building too simple to be protected by architect copyright? WhisperToMe (talk) 19:51, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

December 27

Commons:Deletion requests/File:Oelsnitz Schloss Voigtsberg Tafel Geschichte.jpg

This DR was opened on December 26th and was closed on December 26th. What about the 7 day role? After 7 days a DR can be closed and I think that this issue isn't this obvious. Different opinions on this issue do exist. --Helper 93.196.45.30 00:11, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Apparently those who are most confident in knowing something about German law didn't think there was a real issue... AnonMoos (talk) 03:44, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
COM:FOP#Germany could be of some interest, Commons accepts this kinds of works. Grand-Duc (talk) 04:19, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
The relevant law reads "Zulässig ist, Werke, die sich bleibend an öffentlichen Wegen, Straßen oder Plätzen befinden, mit Mitteln der Malerei oder Graphik, durch Lichtbild oder durch Film zu vervielfältigen, zu verbreiten und öffentlich wiederzugeben." ("It shall be permissible to reproduce, by painting, drawing, photography or cinematography, works which are permanently located on public ways, streets or places and to distribute and publicly communicate such copies."). Unlike other nations like the UK, there is apparently no limitation to just sculptures and buildings. Dcoetzee (talk) 08:48, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
The speedy closure was ok accordingly to our interpretation on Commons and previous deletion discussions. If there is a problem to discuss the place to do this would be the talkpage of COM:FOP rather than an example deletion request. --Martin H. (talk) 10:38, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

My post was deleted when it was detected to have "copyrighted" material when I have the permission to reprint such material. How do I ensure this right?

I posted an article with the history of an organization that was copied from the organization's website. I am part of the organization and have the authority to reprint such material. The article was taken down due to this copyright. How do I ensure that when I repost the article, it's online presence is maintained with the ownership of the copyright clearly maintained? -- 03:25, 27 December 2010 User:Matt.Doug

First of all, articles (as opposed to images, images galleries, and image descriptions) belong on Wikipedia, not on Commons. However, the nature of Wikipedia is such that text cut-and-pasted from an external website will only rather infrequently be directly useful as a self-complete Wikipedia article. The matter can be further discussed on a Wikipedia help board (which this is not). AnonMoos (talk) 03:41, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

SVGEdit

Mediawiki has just implemented the SVGEdit extension for on-wiki editing of SVGs; see bug 5899. I don't know if or when this will be rolled out to Commons, but it could be an exciting way to increase participation in image editing. Dcoetzee (talk) 08:56, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Could be a way for vandals to quickly and easily make images non-functional, too. Since this is actually an "uploading over previously-existing image version" function, I hope that anonymous IPs and users registered for less than 4 days will be restricted from using it... AnonMoos (talk) 12:16, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Discussions concerning Category:Textlogos and Template:Convert to PNG

May I ask for some input to those two discussions?

Thank you. --Leyo 14:05, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Uploading SVGs

Resolved

I have 128 SVGs to upload. All the batch upload scripts I can find either a) don't work; b) only work on JPEGs; c) are Commonist, which requires Java. Installing Java is going to take hours. Is Commonist really the only option, or am I missing something? Marnanel (talk) 19:54, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Commons:Batch uploading? Multichill (talk) 20:11, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Wonderful. Thank you. Marnanel (talk) 23:17, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

December 28

File:Irl Pfund.1.jpg

Are Commons admins beeing scrared stiff to delete this file which I nominated a month ago for speedy deletion because it is a copyright violation? --Eva K. is evil 13:29, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

So ist das kein Fall für eine Schnelllöschung - wie du weißt, sollten jene ja klare Fälle sein. Wenn du vielleicht noch einen Link zu der entsprechenden Commonsrichtlinie angeben würdest, sähe das wohl anders aus. Viele Grüße --Saibo (Δ) 17:14, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Have you ever read my deletion request? There you will find a link, follow it! None so blind as those who will not see. --Eva K. is evil 21:28, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Habe ich tatsächlich übersehen, weil der Link sich so nahtlos blau mit deiner Signatur zusammentut - geht vielleicht noch anderen so. Oder es findet wohl keiner den Sachverhalt so sehr klar und es sollte ein regulärer Löschantrag werden. Wobei ich es eigentlich recht klar finde ... Viele Grüße --Saibo (Δ) 03:15, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Latin translation

Any Latin speakers out there? I am wondering whether I translated the Latin inscription on the tomb of Spinoza into English correctly (see "File:Graf Baruch Spinoza, Nieuwe Kerk, Den Haag, Nederland - 20080906.jpg"). Does "Terra hic Benedicti de Spinoza in Ecclesia Nova olim sepulti ossa tegit" mean "In times past, the earth here covered the buried bones of Benedict de Spinoza in the New Church"? — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 05:50, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Did you try Google translate? Geagea (talk) 06:55, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
Yes, but the results were not very helpful: "Here in the land of Spinoza of Benedict, of King James in the Church in times past cover my bones buried". (No idea where the King James bit comes from ...) — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 09:03, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
You could try the language ref desk, they would be glad to help with a correct translation. --Saddhiyama (talk) 09:32, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll try that. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 10:40, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
Alternatively, try the Latin Wikipedia's equivalent of the Village pump. —  Tivedshambo  (t/c) 16:37, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Category:Groups of people on stamps

Just a comment. I have seen that Category:Groups of people on stamps has been created by [Siebot]. In for example File:Postzegel 1934 emmazegel.jpg the category People on stamps] has been changed to Groups of people on stamps. In the example I gave there is only one person. In the Category:Groups of people on stamps is mentioned in red "For individual people see: Category:Persons on stamps". However "Persons on stamps on stamps" is also not possible anymore. That has changed to People on stamps and that to Groups of people on stamps. Wouter (talk) 08:51, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

I listed "Category:People on stamps" for renaming to "Category:Groups of people on stamps", because it is not obvious that "People on stamps" is only for stamps featuring more than one person. (Many editors do not actually visit category pages and read the usage notes there.) I also requested for "Category:Persons on stamps" to be renamed "Category:People on stamps" in line with the parent category "Category:People by topic". I do not know why "People on stamps" has not yet been created, even though "Persons on stamps" has already been deleted. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 09:03, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
I have seen that in the mean time things have changed. Category:People on stamps exists again and contains 22 images that are not in other subcategories. A number of them because a user reverted the actions of Siebot. The Category:Groups of people on stamps contains thanks to the activities of Siebot 537 images of which most of them are no groups of persons. I suggest that Siebot reverts all the transfers from "People on stamps" to "Groups of people on stamps". The stamps with groups of people can then be transferred manually. Wouter (talk) 14:35, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
I asked Foroa to recreate "Category:People on stamps" which is supposed to contain stamps with individual people on them. I have started moving such stamps that were accidentally transferred to "Category:Groups of people on stamps", but this is going quite slowly as I am trying to categorize them into subcategories of "People on stamps" rather than just dumping them in the main category. However, if you prefer that all the stamps be moved back to "People on stamps" first, you can leave a request on Foroa's talk page. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 15:31, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks. I have done that. Wouter (talk) 22:34, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Weekly 'The Signpost' notification on village pump?

Should we have the bot add a weekly update on the village pump, e.g. as done on User talk:Kwj2772? --  Docu  at 12:44, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Please no. Multichill (talk) 18:52, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, not here, it'll be too spammy and it's mainly an English Wikipedia thing. Dcoetzee (talk) 11:23, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

J. Palmer Clarke

J. Palmer Clarke was a Cambridge photographer. I found a 1907 photo by him I'd like to upload, but I can't figure out when he died. [9] has some information about him, but neither his birth nor death date--just that he took over his Cambridge offices in 1894. [10] says "He (or a son of the same name?) continued at Post Office Terrace, Cambridge, until 1933." [11] has a number of photos by him, but no matter how much I'd love to make the claim, I believe that the 1870 photo attributed to him at Cambridge is misattributed, since everything I have says he wasn't in Cambridge there. Can someone offer up a death date, so I can figure out whether I can upload the image or not?--Prosfilaes (talk) 05:50, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Hrrm. Apparently he was John Palmer Clarke, son of J W Clarke, another photographer, if you believe the caption on this Flickr image. Apprenticed to his father starting in 1868. Apparently worked at Bury St. Edmunds. Some confirmation of the Bury St. Edmunds part here and here. Ah yes, this page says John William Clarke was the father, and they worked in Bury St. Edmunds. This entry has a John Palmer Clarke being born in Bury St. Edmunds in December 1853; that fits pretty well. I have not yet found a death date, but Google Books has a possible hit on this book, if you can get access to a copy, which may have further info. Carl Lindberg (talk) 07:17, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Reuploading window now graphics

If I am uploading a new version of file, there is probably a window, but with no graphics, because I can just see the text and move it. I am using Monobook.--Juan de Vojníkov (talk) 05:40, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

That is really unclear. If you can reword it (or possibly write it in some language where you can express yourself more clearly?) that would help. - Jmabel ! talk 01:58, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Does this screenshot help you understand what I am talking about?--Juan de Vojníkov (talk) 13:12, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

This happens is jquery ui is not loaded for some reason. TheDJ (talk) 13:50, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Font licensing

Resolved
The Shavian letter "kick".

I am hoping to upload 128 glyphs from spelling-reform alphabets in SVG form. All the images were produced by vectorising bitmaps produced from TTF fonts. I am hoping to mark all images as public domain. In the case of the Shavian glyphs, the original font was public domain, so there's no issue there. In the case of the Deseret glyphs, the source font ("Analecta") contains the licence:

In lieu of a licence: Fonts in this site are offered free for any use; they may be opened, edited, modified, regenerated, posted, packaged and redistributed.[12]

I seem to remember reading that the letterforms of a font, as opposed to the font itself, are not copyrightable. If this is so, am I justified in marking the SVGs so generated as {{PD-ineligible}}? If not, what sort of a licence would the statement above require the derived works to have on Commons? Thanks for any light you can shed on the matter. Marnanel (talk) 17:38, 29 December 2010 (UTC)


Under United States copyright law, the abstract shapes of font characters which are used to write text in some language are considered "utilitarian" or "functional", and cannot be copyrighted in themselves (though the underlying font computer code can be copyrighted as computer code). This principle seems to be sometimes extended a little too far on Commons to allow highly-customized calligraphic corporate logos (which is somewhat dubious), but there's no problem with basic graphics like File:Initial Teaching Alphabet ITA chart.svg... AnonMoos (talk) 20:41, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
Thank you! Marnanel (talk) 21:25, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

December 30

Upload wizard

Upload wizard steps are good. I feel still something is pending. It will be good if it have back button and will be helpful if the Next button is placed in the top too in the first page. -- Mahir78 (talk) 08:21, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Also, the next link should be clickable, as an alternavive to the next button. For example, if you are on the first page, "Upload" should be clickable. Also, don't know if its fixed, but uploads for the Wizard contain errors. Rehman 09:13, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
Please see bugzilla:26176. guillom 09:16, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Upload protocol disagreement

Hello, upload is quite stupid. If I am adding a licence temple directly to an imput box, because it is not in the list it tells me:


You must give the original source of the file, the author of the work, and a license.

But, I have chosen the option:

None selected (add a license tag in the permission field above, or this file will be deleted)

What it what I did, but it still deny me from uploding such file.--Juan de Vojníkov (talk) 13:10, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Was the license you added a template (as against just the name of a license, which won't do)? Were you also specific about source and author? Because I do this all the time, and I've never had any trouble. You might bring this over to Commons:Help, with a more specific description of what you did, and someone will try to help you work out exactly what's going on. - Jmabel ! talk 16:35, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Flickr upload bot (~Bryan) makes trouble

The flickr upload bot (~Bryan) replaces parentheses, brackets, some periods (e.g., in "flickr.com") and probably some other more or less special characters with "pound signs" (= "#"). I've been uploading several images, and I think in the beginning the bot was still working properly, but now it isn't anymore. Just wanted to report it. If you should want a further comment or reply from me, please contact me by e-mail as I'm not a frequent Commons user, so I won't watch this or my discussion page. Thanks, Ibn Battuta (talk) 17:04, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

I have notified User:Bryan, the bot's owner. Thanks for the notice. Happy holidays. Rehman 01:19, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

December 31

Can't upload over a redirect?

After uploading File:Jonathan Park House.jpg, I realised that I'd misidentified the building in the picture, so I moved it to its proper name of File:Richard W. Evans House.jpg. I simultaneously realised that the building I thought was the Evans House was actually the Park House; since it was next in line for upload, I prepared the description page and attempted to upload it as "File:Jonathan Park House.jpg". Of course, this brought up a "this-page-already-exists" warning, so I told it to ignore all warnings; however, multiple attempts failed to enable it to upload over a redirect, so I was forced to upload my new image as File:Jonathan Park House in Worthington.jpg. Is there any way to upload over a redirect, aside from deleting the redirect before uploading? I'm not an admin, so this option isn't available for me. Nyttend (talk) 05:33, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't think there should be a way to upload over a redirect in general. This could lead to another image being displayed than the one originally linked.
For your upload, it should be sufficient if you use a slightly different filename, e.g. File:Jonathan Park House (Worthington OH).jpg. --  Docu  at 05:48, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
I ended up going with that idea, appending "in Worthington" to my desired file name. Nyttend (talk) 05:58, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
I deleted the redirect so name is now free if you have more files. --MGA73 (talk) 12:45, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

8M milestone

We broke the eight million files milestone. Is there an identified milestone file somewhere? Yes, I know it is not that simple, but it is always nice to have something that we can use for "PR purposes" ;-) Jean-Fred (talk) 12:42, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Hey, and it's new years' eve! We've got to celebrate this ;) The 8 millionth file is about 20,000 files back, wonder if it'll be possible to spot? Rehman 12:44, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
It is hard to tell because it depends. Lets say we have 7.999.999 files and file A and B is uploaded. Then file A would be # 8 M but if someone delets a copyvio ½ second after file B is uploaded then file B would suddenly be # 8 M. So two users can have a screendump with different files as "the # 8 M file". Multichill located this File:De.wikipedia 2010 - Artikel pro Fläche.png shortly after we reached 8 M. But it could also be a one of the Geograph images depending on when you updated your screen. --MGA73 (talk) 13:30, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
Yes, that is what I meant by « I know it is not that simple » ; but we often stated "This is the one" (cf. {{Milestone}}), regardless of whether it is one of many truths. :-) (thing is, I'd like to write a chapter PR for this milestone and a one image would be handy ;-) Jean-Fred (talk) 16:26, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
A great milestone! Although, perhaps, not each upload is equally essential, useful or even usable ;) this does mean that we do have created an excellent repository of multimedia stuff. I'll include it in my New Year's toasts. Best regards, MartinD (talk) 14:23, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
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