Commons:Village pump/Archive/2015/08

From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Misdated images from The American journal of science

Example book plate with generic title from IA batch upload project

If you run the following search:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=Identifier%3A+americanjourn&title=Special%3ASearch&fulltext=Search

You get over 500 images with names that begin with

File:The American journal of science (1880), such as
File:The American journal of science (1880) (18146271942).jpg
File:The American journal of science (1880) (18125035866).jpg

In numerous cases, these images are misdated. The actual date appears to be available from its Identifier.

For example:

File:The American journal of science (1880) (18146271942).jpg

has an Identifier of americanjourn3461893newh 1893

To verify this, find the illustration in context:

Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book

These files were downloaded by a Fae script. I suggest the files be re-downloaded

Thanks 68.165.77.209 01:16, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

  • Why re-download rather than parse it out of the ID, which is always in the Source area? For that matter, for 500 or so images it might be quickest to go through by hand. - Jmabel ! talk 03:50, 29 July 2015 (UTC)


Many of the journals are bound as a single book, so IA has taken the earliest as the first year of publication for the Flickr date. I can mass rename, I even have a housekeeping script to reuse from a past project, it may take a few days to get to it and I would like to ponder if it is worth querying the IA data at source rather than parsing the Flickr description.
PS while I think about a fix, readers may want to add User:Fæ/Project list/Internet Archive/improvement to their watchlists, for smart reuse suggestions. --Fæ (talk) 05:45, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
I suggested re-download assuming that that would be the easier approach since it was loaded by a Fae script. I defer to Fae as to the best fix, but I hope that something is done about this. The file names for this group of images are currently both generic and inaccurate; if there's a bulk fix for the images' date, we can over the long haul fix the other parts of the filenames via Rename or other approach.—68.165.77.111 10:01, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
Housekeeping for dates might be automated, but as the only reliable metadata is at the book level, making more accurate filenames will probably have to remain a human and collegiate activity. Please be bold and propose new names, keeping the Flickr photo ID where appropriate for traceability. --Fæ (talk) 10:24, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

I have investigated and created a housekeeping script which I'm testing out today. This:

  1. examines the Flickr upload image page text,
  2. works out the Internet Archive catalogue page,
  3. pulls the metadata using IA's API,
  4. if there is a related volume number (the majority are single books rather than volumes and this metadata is not on the Flickrstream), adds that to the image page, like this,
  5. checks the volume field to see if there is a year, if there is a mis-match with the current presumed year then the filename is changed and the year-book category is fixed if relevant. Like this.

Hopefully this will pick up these changes, it's slowly churning through the entire batch from the start. If the routine seems robust, I'll pull it in to the upload process rather than relying on housekeeping, so you would never know all this checking and validation is going on. :-)

Update American journal of science now all renamed/redirected so that the filename uses the year from the volume number, rather than the earliest year for the entire journal run.

--Fæ (talk) 05:31, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Image metadata, here v. en:wp

Images at en:wp are able to display far fewer metadata fields than they do here. If you're familiar with how/why this is, and how/whether to adjust the number of displayed fields, it would help if you'd chime in at en:WP:VPT#Image metadata, here v. Commons, where I'm asking whether it's possible (and if so, whether it's advisable) to increase the number of fields currently being displayed over there. Nyttend (talk) 21:35, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

August 02

Email adresses for volunteers

Dear all,

A proposal to create Wikimedia email adresses for volunteers can be found at meta:Wikimedia Forum#Wikimedia volunteer email adresses. Your input would be very welcome.

Sincerely, Taketa (talk) 07:11, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Category:The Merchant of Venice --> Shylock

Hi all, would it make sense to create a Category:Shylock? Thank you for your time. Lotje (talk) 13:59, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

August 03

This is why we need to be skeptical of unproven allegations of socking on Wikipedia

Complaints of en.wiki belong on en.wiki.
I know that this particular site is not well liked among some people on the projects and for good reason but every once in a while they do hit the nail on the head. this topic outlines precisely why we should be skeptical of decisions on Wikipedia from Checkusers who base their decisions solely on their "experience" and gut instincts when there is no actual proof. This topic is particularly striking given the recent discussion about EChastain who was also banned on ENWP and accused not once but twice of being a sock of a banned editor. Reguyla (talk) 17:02, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
But here's what the blocking CU actually said:

Sorry for any delay in a response. Just to make everything clear, when I made the block I was very confident with my findings. The technical data was nearly the exact same thing, save for one understandably different component. To boot, the behavioral evidence appeared quite strong. I discussed my findings on the checkuser mailing list and my conclusion was endorsed by Risker and Euryalus. I strongly stand by the block that was made.

Mike V ([1]). Rationalobserver (talk) 18:55, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
This is just useless trolling. Yann (talk) 18:57, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
I'm sorry you think its useless trolling to discuss a serious matter that occurred regarding gross incompetence of a group of admins on ENWP that spilled over here. Yes Rationalobserver, we all know what he said and there was no chance they were going to come here and say yeah you might be right, it was a weak decision and there was no evidence. It doesn't make the decision right and it doesn't mean it should be implemented here. I still find it to be a major disappointment that we banned an editor who did 50, 000 edits here for a minor incident that wasn't worth more than a block. It just goes to show why there are so few people editing on this project and why commons has such a bad reputation. Reguyla (talk) 19:31, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
Please, stop forum shopping, drop the stick and back away slowly from the horse carcass. —LX (talk, contribs) 19:54, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
 Comment I blocked Reguyla 3 days after he reverted a last warning. We don't need Reguyla's conspirations theories here. Regards, Yann (talk) 19:56, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
Collapsed discussion. It does not belong here. OP has been warned. --Pitke (talk) 20:35, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

August 04

What does a Healthy Community look like to you?

Hi,
The Community Engagement department at the Wikimedia Foundation has launched a new learning campaign. The WMF wants to record community impressions about what makes a healthy online community. Share your views and/or create a drawing and take a chance to win a Wikimania 2016 scholarship! Join the WMF as we begin a conversation about Community Health. Contribute a drawing or answer the questions on the campaign's page.

Why get involved?

The world is changing. The way we relate to knowledge is transforming. As the next billion people come online, the Wikimedia movement is working to bring more users on the wiki projects. The way we interact and collaborate online are key to building sustainable projects. How accessible are Wikimedia projects to newcomers today? Are we helping each other learn?
Share your views on this matter that affects us all!
We invite everyone to take part in this learning campaign. Wikimedia Foundation will distribute one Wikimania Scholarship 2016 among those participants who are eligible.

More information


Happy editing!

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:43, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Very telling… -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 21:53, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
The phrase "Share your views and/or create a drawing and take a chance to win a Wikimania 2016 scholarship!" does make me cringe a little bit. Bawolff (talk) 20:20, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

August 01

Recent slowdown on Commons

There was a recent temporarely slowdown on Commons from 10:10 UTC today due to the roll in of an important security software update. This update worked successfully on all wikis except Commons, due to its content particularities. This was detected immediately and reverted, but some connections took some time to be 100% healthy. My most sincere apologies for any disturbance this could have cause. We will try to figure a way to apply this update in a different way, without causing so much performance drop. Regards, --JCrespo (WMF) (talk) 10:47, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for the update. I noticed the slowdown and was wondering about it. --Jarekt (talk) 01:18, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

August 05

500px.com licenses no longer visible on image pages

Looks like the popular image sharing website 500px.com has stopped displaying image licenses on image pages. For example, go to https://500px.com/creativecommons to see all the images licensed with creative commons licenses (just like Flickr). But click on the first one, currently https://500px.com/photo/116713709/gdynia-by-mirek- and you can't see the CC-BY license anywhere on the page. This is a problem because easily 100 or more CC-BY and CC-BY-SA licensed images from there have been uploaded to commons, and are now in license review or being deleted. Just look at most of https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:License_review_needed&filefrom=%D0%91%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%BA%D0%B8%D1%80%D1%8B.jpg#mw-category-media - they're all 500px.com files. Anything we can do? --GRuban (talk) 13:16, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Contact 500px.com? Thibaut120094 (talk) 13:26, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
Yes, I wrote them. But they're going to take a while to do anything, and meanwhile that isn't going to have effect on our images here. Do we need to conduct mass deletions unless 500px.com fixes its bug? --GRuban (talk) 14:04, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
Use archive.org or some such to check the license as displayed upon/before transfer to Commons? -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 21:25, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
See Commons:Deletion requests/File:West 23rd Street, Manhattan.jpg how to actually retrieve license infos of 500px.com files. Related: Category:500px.com related deletion requests. Gunnex (talk) 21:06, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

EXIF does not recognize my camera type

I noticed that in all my new uploads, in the "Camera model" section of the EXIF data, it only says "CORPORATION", rather than the actual camera model. However, when I upload the exact same picture on Flickr, it correctly recognizes the camera model as the Nikon D3300, so the metadata is indeed in the file. I checked recent uploads of other users, particularly of people who also use Nikon, and it seems to be working properly for them. Thanks!. --Xicotencatl (talk) 14:42, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T97253
Yes, that's a known problem since LR 6 in combination with Mediawiki's PHP. --Magnus (talk) 14:47, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
OK, thanks. --Xicotencatl (talk) 15:35, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
Xicotencatl, I see that your images uploaded today are correct. Did you change something? I know that using Jeffrey Friedl's Metadata Wrangler resolves the problem. -- Colin (talk) 08:52, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
Colin, I did not even noticed they were correct. The only thing I can think of is that I upgraded to Lightroom version 6.1.1. I was previously using version 6.0. This new version came on July 31, but I upgraded it just before working on these files. --Xicotencatl (talk) 15:50, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
The update from LR 6.1 to 6.1.1 fixed the problem. --Magnus (talk) 19:13, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Tools for adding images to Wikipedia articles

While at Wikimania I heard about several interesting tools for adding images to articles, which could be of useful to others:

  • Wikidata Images project creates and maintains a system of categories on each participating Wiki listing all the articles without images which are linked with wikidata record that includes an image. See d:Q16742293 and follow the links to your favorite wiki.
  • Magnus Manske's FIST a tool which allows to search a category of articles for articles without images. Than FIST uses article names to search a dozen image repositories like Flickr for images with license compatible to Commons and provide tools for easy transfer to Commons.
  • GLAMify tool for identifying images in a Commons category which are used in articles in one wiki and could be reused in same articles in other wikis.

If there are other similar tools, please share. --Jarekt (talk) 01:16, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Hi Jarekt, awsome to look at the Village pump and see my Wikidata Images project mentioned :). Did anyone mention it to you during Wikimania, or during a presentation? Anyways, everyone is welcome to join! With the category, adding images becomes less searching and more adding. The search is already done. All you have to do is add images to Wikipedia. No need to even remove it from the category, it is automated. Let me know if you lend a hand so I can add your edits with the rest :). PS: We just added images to 100.000 pages :D (32.000 Wikipedia articles and 68.000 Wikidata items). All the best, Taketa (talk) 19:03, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
Taketa, Thank you for a great tool. Me and possibly many others on Commons spend a lot of time at adding and maintaining the current image collection and less time on adding them to Wikipedia articles. It is great to see tools that make this task easier. I learned about the FIST and GLAMify tools during Wikimania, and found out about your Wikidata Images in a rather indirect way (as it often happens) by following the links from m:User:Ijon/GLAMify. --Jarekt (talk) 20:12, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
Everyone who see new tools is invited to add the tools to Commons:Tools. :-) --Steinsplitter (talk) 19:12, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
Steinsplitter, you are right. I copied the above entries. --Jarekt (talk) 20:12, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

YaCBot consensus

Any objections to the test run? See Commons:Bots/Requests/YaCBot_(confirmation). --McZusatz (talk) 12:59, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Categories "by name" in addition to Category:People by name

Sorry for bothering the village pump, but as it concerns a large number of categories, this seems better than starting specific CfDs:

  • With more than 270,000 entries, Category:People by name is our largest category and has its merits as a tag-like marker for individual persons´ categories, making maintenance easier (e.g. searching for people cats without "births by year" entry). This has lead to the creation of additional tag-like categories "by name", marking vital status (Category:Living persons by name), citizenship (Category:People of the Netherlands by name‎), occupation (Category:Athletes by name‎) gender (Category:Men by name) or a combination of that (Category:Women of France by name‎ or Category:Politicians of Belgium by name‎). While some of these categories seem to be well-maintained (Category:People of Luxembourg by name has 500 entries), most of them are extremely underpopulated: I´m quite sure that we have more than the 2 Russians that are in Category:People of Russia by name‎ or the 27 Germans of Category:People of Germany by name.
  • All of those categories could be filled quite easily - but is there a consensus to do that? As the main justification of cats "by name" is that they are non-hierarchical ("flat"), filling and expanding them means a significant increase of the number of categories in each individual´s cat: Besides the usual categories and the well-established "People by name", a person could be tagged with "People of Germany by name" / "Men by name" / "Men of Germany by name" / "Living people by name" / "Male politicians by name" / "Male politicians of Germany by name" / "Politicians by name" / "Politicians of Germany by name" / "Politicians of Bavaria by name" / "People of Bavaria by name" / "Women of Bavaria by name" and so on... This seems a bit overdone.
  • Does anybody have a clue what to do? The sad half-life of most of the categories by name - not enough support to live, but not empty enough to be deleted - and the lack of consistency behind them is somehow dissatisfying. --Rudolph Buch (talk) 16:05, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
I am a big fan of few large "flat" categories like Category:People by name. They are useful if someone is planning to be doing maintenance based on such category. I do not think we need any other "flat" people categories, one is enough and if you need Category:People of Russia by name‎ than you should generate it on the fly with CatScan or other category intersection tools. --Jarekt (talk) 20:01, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Lost connection to MySQL

I just got this message when refreshing my watchlist page. Is there a known current bug? 

Database error

A database query error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the software.

    Function: SpecialWatchlist::countItems
    Error: 2013 Lost connection to MySQL server during query (10.64.16.8)

--Fæ (talk) 18:57, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Hi, I've checked and this error has only been detected once in the last week. This kind of errors can sometimes happen if you have the bad luck to read a "complex" Special page, (and you probably have lots of pages watched, thank you for your contributions!) and you happen to be on a server with momentarily high load (as I mentioned before, we are doing some updates during these week, and that may have been a factor). In most cases, reloading the page will solve your problem and it won't happen ever again. If it does not, and you can reproduce it every time please tell us on phabricator. We monitor the most common errors already, but feel free to give us a heads up at any time. We are aware of some issues on other special pages, like "what links here" on templates with lots of transclusions, and fixes are in the way, but it takes some time to perform testing and proper QA. Thank you! --JCrespo (WMF) (talk) 07:39, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
Fair enough, thanks for looking into it. This is the first time I recall this happening for my watchlist and, though I have methods of mass unwatching pages, my large upload projects mean that additions always seem to outstrip unwatches. At the moment I have 797,095 pages watched which must make my account an outlier case. --Fæ (talk) 07:47, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Severe MonoBook glitch

[actually a JavaScript glitch, apparently] —David Levy 04:15, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

With my skin set to MonoBook (as it normally is), almost every page load results in a split-second appearance of the expected content, followed by a blank screen. Fortunately, Special:Preferences appears to be unaffected, so I was able to access it directly and switch to Vector (enabling me to post this message while logged in).
This is occurring at Commons, but not at the English Wikipedia. The browser used doesn't appear to matter. (I tried Chrome, a Firefox fork and Internet Explorer.) —David Levy 00:42, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm not experiencing this, although I'm using Monobook in IE11. Perhaps your computer's interacting badly with the CSS or something of the sort? Nyttend (talk)
I had the same issue earlier, had to switch from monobook and remove en:User:Lupin/popups.js from my user: /monobook.js to fix it. Also, someone has been messing with Template:Border-radius and possibly those interacted. Please someone block the vandal and indef protect Template:Border-radius. --Dual Freq (talk) 02:00, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for the tip! The template's reversion had no effect, but removing a custom script (not the one that you mentioned) from my monobook.js page appears to have done the trick. I wonder what change triggered the problem and whether it can be addressed. —David Levy 02:40, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
It appears that Commons was updated to MediaWiki 1.26/wmf17 on 5 August at 15:06 (UTC). —David Levy 02:48, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
If I'm not mistaken, this is the relevant bug. Evidently, the issue isn't confined to MonoBook; logging out or selecting a different skin sidestepped the problem by removing monobook.js (where the incompatible scripts were stored) from the equation. —David Levy 04:10/04:15, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
I had the same issue and no clue as to how to proceed (except for posting here unlogged). Thanks for the explanation. Jastrow (Λέγετε) 06:03, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

ogv.js soft launch - media playback for Safari, IE, Edge

Technical update: audio and video playback on Wikimedia sites will soon start working in Safari (6.1 or later on Mac OS X), Internet Explorer 10/11 and Microsoft Edge (Windows 10), using the ogv.js JavaScript Ogg Vorbis/Theora decoder.

Since the deployment is still ongoing, it will be another day or two before all the Wikipedia sites pick up this ability -- and we may have to roll it back if it breaks under load -- but it's active here on Commons now and I would appreciate additional testing and feedback.

The JavaScript player runs within the same interface as Firefox/Chrome/Opera/etc use with their native HTML5 video playback, so for most users playback should "just work" regardless of browser. (Note that IE and Edge can also make use of native WebM components for better performance and high-definition video; if installed, native WebM playback will be used for video, but JavaScript will still be used for audio.)

Current limitations:

  • subtitles are not yet enabled in the ogv.js mode; hope to have that fixed next week
  • the current Ogg video transcodes are not always good quality; these will soon be re-run with better settings
  • detection of slow CPU via benchmark sometimes picks too high or too low video resolution
  • direct links to media will download and do not go through the player -- this includes [[Media:foo.ogg]] links

Please file bugs in Phabricator, or directly in the ogv.js github issue tracker.

I'll do a more thorough announcement and documentation update about ogv.js once we've confirmed nothing explodes with it deployed. :) Once it's done, I've got lots more fixes for media playback and transcode management in the works...

-- brion (talk) 03:16, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

How to get translations of section headings to show up according to user preference?

At Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 I am using langswitch but I heard that it doesn't work so well with section headings. How do you get translations of section headings to show up according to use preference?

Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 03:07, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Unfortunately, "langswitch" seems to be greatly overused on Commons. It's really only useful without qualifications for auto-translation of text relating to the general operation of the Wikimedia software (and its enhancements). If it's used for translation of information about the content of specific images, then it immediately causes a number of problems, such as that people can't see multiple language versions (in order to check the translations, or to see what the untranslated original-language caption was, etc. etc.) without editing the page source code. If I had my way, I would rip all langswitch nonsense from the {{Title}} template, since it's quite inappropriate there... AnonMoos (talk) 09:30, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Commons:Café

Can we declare Commons:Café as dead as nobody is answering anything on that page, like my question?--Sanandros (talk) 10:39, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

  • I'd say that if it is effectively dead, it should be made to redirect here. Estoy seguro que tenemos bastantes participantes aquí que podemos leer y escribir el español a un nivel suficiente para responder a cualquier pregunta, y sospecho que unos son hispanohablantes nativos. ¿Hay un(os) asiduo(s) de esta página que quiere identificar su(s) mismo(s) como hispanohablante(s) nativo(s)? - Jmabel ! talk 16:55, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
I'd say at least 90% of these are dead (most containing only (English) MediaWiki message delivery content, some not even that), still they IMO do have some use since we can "archive" non-English posts from this VP there.    FDMS  4    18:29, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
BTW there is a need of input from Spanish and Portuguese speakers on COM:UDR. Thanks, Yann (talk) 18:33, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
  • I would rather see it redirected to Commons:Help_desk. This page (VP) is okay, but not always easy to understand for new contributors, whereas the help desk has sufficient critical mass of helpers to be useful and friendly. --Fæ (talk) 18:40, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
    • I'd be equally OK with that. But I'd definitely like to know that there is at least one native or effectively native Spanish-speaker monitoring the page in question. I monitor both Help & VP, and I have good foreigner's Spanish, but I'm certainly not a a native level of proficiency. - Jmabel ! talk 19:22, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
      Perhaps what would be more helpful/effective would be a simple template along the lines of {{help language | es}} or {{help language | zh}} which a bot can flag on, say, IRC or users with these skills can subscribe to for alerts by email? This way, a user could ask their question anywhere relevant, including user talk pages, and this tag can be added. --Fæ (talk) 08:30, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
But users have to know that {{help language | es}} or {{help language | zh}} they can get help- But especally new users are fearing any code.--Sanandros (talk) 14:04, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
I was suggesting that others wanting to help might use a template like this, rather than the questioner. :-) --Fæ (talk) 20:36, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
Do I understand it right, that this template should be used outside the Cafe but the Cafe it self should become a redirect?-Sanandros (talk) 21:10, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
@Fae: --Sanandros (talk) 22:56, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
I was never a user of the Cafe, so don't feel my view is key, however I would have thought the Cafe ought to become a redirect, so that users are channelled to a place where they are more likely to find active help. --Fæ (talk) 23:13, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
OK you want to force them to redirect here or any other page or will it be a soft redirect? And also think about the other 90% that we have a bunch of German Dialects where it's better to redirect them to COM:Forum.--Sanandros (talk) 21:44, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Hot Cat seems to be down

Due to an easily fixed problem, I hope? -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 05:15, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

And Cat-a-Lot, too. Maybe it’s only me? Hopefully is is. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 05:32, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
Both Hot Cat and Cat-a-Lot work for me. MKFI (talk) 06:32, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
Whatever it was, it’s gone: All good now! -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 12:57, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
There was some change in the js around 05:00 6 August. --Steinsplitter (talk) 13:03, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
Good to know it's up then. Had some "issues" yesterday. CFCF (talk) 16:43, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

August 07

Generic release for CC-BY images from the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance

Example photograph: Waterless toilets, Valley View University, Ghana

Background discussion: User_talk:JuTa#Please_stop_with_removing_images

Over the past year I have uploaded over 10,000 photographs on behalf of the charitable organization SuSanA, from their official Flickrstream. Their purpose is to promote education materials globally for sustainable sanitation (low-water use toilets and access to unpolluted water)—it's a great match for the mission of Commons :-). The Flickr profile states:

The photos have been contributed by various people, and all the photographers' names are given with the photos or the respective photo sets. The photos are all available under Creative Commons Licence (Attribution) and you are free to use them.

A repeated issue has been photographs being taken to deletion request, however there has been no case so far when a SuSanA representative has not arranged a confirming email from donating partners (the partnerships is the point of the Flickrstream anyway). Unfortunately arranging emails and going back and for does eat up volunteer and charity staff time, something to be avoided whereever possible.

I'm looking for feedback from the community and positive suggestions as to what must be added to the Flickr profile for us to avoid more extended deletion discussions and emails for individual photographs to OTRS, where the only question is effectively "has the partnering organization released copyright correctly?" Thanks --Fæ (talk) 13:10, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Fae, this is first I've run across the SuSanA photos or any discussion regarding them, but I agree, it would be great for Commons to be able to host these photos. I've read the discussion at the link you provided, and I found two DRs, one kept and one unclosed (waiting to hear back from SuSanA). Since I'm missing a lot of the background, I'm likely to make one or more incorrect assumptions in my following comments, so please feel free to correct me.

It's not clear to me how SuSanA arranged for these photos to licensed with a CC-BY-2.0 license. Presumably when assembling their photo archive they did one of two things: either (a) they asked their contributors to sign copyright assignments (this would transfer the copyright to SuSanA, giving them the right to license these photos however they please), or (b) they asked each contributor to agree to license their contributions under a CC-BY-2.0 license. Do you know which they did?

If they asked each contributor to agree to license their contributions under a CC-BY-2.0 license rather than obtaining copyright assignments then files like your example photo above need to be updated. It attributes the photo to "SuSanA Secretariat", but to comply with the CC license it should be attributed to "Wolfgang Berger".

Unfortunately I think there is a worse problem. It sounds like they did not obtain copyright assignments or CC-BY-2.0 license agreements from their contributors. It's really great that, when Commons volunteers have questioned the license on some of the photos in this archive, that SuSanA has been able to go back to the original contributors and secure the necessary release required by OTRS. However, the fact that they actually have to contact their contributors to do this rather than producing something from their own records is a problem. It sounds like their contributors are fully on board with SuSanA's mission, but SuSanA has accidentally failed to secure the necessary rights to actually release these photos with a CC license.

I've actually seen this kind of copyright problem before. I assisted an open source project that had gotten themselves into a similiar copyright pickle of lacking the necessary legal instruments from their contributors to actually legally release the project under an open source license. They had hundreds of contributors to their project, each of which had to be tracked down and asked to retroactively agree to a compatible license (and, in a few cases where this failed their contributions had to be removed or rewritten by another contributor). I'm not saying that SuSanA is necessarily in a similiar situation, just that this might be the case given the facts that you've described and what I read.

So, I guess what I'm saying is that as it stands right now, I am not sure that there is necessarily anything that can be added to the Flickr profile that would cleanly rectify this issue. —RP88 (talk) 15:30, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

I would expect something more along the lines that partnering organizations were invited to put their photographs forward for inclusion. The fact that they made the active choice to join in, meant they were agreeing to the standard Flickr release and that SuSanA were acting as their copyright agent (though I doubt SuSanA would use this legalistic language). Legally, to act as someone's chosen copyright agent does not always mean you have complex paperwork, it may be as simple as saying yes in a meeting, pressing a button on a web page, or emailing photographs in reply. I'll ping our SuSanA contact and see if she can add any general explanation about the workflow they used.
Update in reply to an email ping, they are on holiday until the end of the week. I have passed on a link. --Fæ (talk) 16:14, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
From my understanding SuSanA a collaboration of sanitation related charities. They have all agreed to use this open license. I will have Elisabeth clarify. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 11:56, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
I am the one responsible for the SuSanA flickr account (from where the photos were moved to Wikimedia Commons). The suggestion to have a generic release for CC-BY images from the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance is fully supported by me (and the assumed workflow by Fæ as described above is correct). The images that have been uploaded to the SuSanA flickr account (and from there to Wikimedia Commons using the bot by Fæ are all CC-BY SA. See the profile description of the flickr account here. I hope it is worded sufficiently clearly? All the people who have contributed their photos have been asked by e-mail if they wish to share their photos on flickr for the whole world to see and use. If anyone didn't want that, they didn't upload their photos (or didn't send them to us for uploading). SuSanA is a loose network of organisations, mainly NGOs (I prefer NGOs to "charities"! :-) ). There are in the meantime about 100 or more people who have uploaded their photos. It would be possible (but incredibly cumbersome) to track each one down and get another e-mail from each of them re-affirming the licence. I hope you are not going to send me down that route as that would be very cumbersome and time consuming. Each of the photos on flickr already has the licence type "attribution" which - as far as I know - is the same as CC-BY SA; there is no option to tick in flickr which says CC-BY SA but "attribution" is the most open one! EvM-Susana (talk) 22:20, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
Are all the photos uploaded here [2] also within the flicker account User:EvM-Susana? If so hopefully we can get them deleted. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:29, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
EvM-Susana, are the images in your photo archive CC-BY-SA or CC-BY? The CC-BY-SA license (also called Createive Commons Attribution Share-Alike) and the CC-BY license (also called Creative Commons Attribution) are not the same license. Since the CC-BY-SA license is more restrictive, if your contributors agreed to CC-BY-SA, you can't distribute them with a CC-BY license. All of the files in SuSanA's Flickr account are currently marked as CC BY, but SuSanA's Flickr profile confusingly mentions both CC BY SA and CC BY. EvM-Susana, for consistency sake, can you update the Flickr profile to say "under the CC-BY-2.0 license" instead of "under the licence of CC-BY SA"?

Assuming we can straighten out the CC-BY-SA or CC-BY issue, it sounds like all we need to do is get a statement from SuSanA archived in OTRS documenting that the collective contributors to SuSanA's photo archive have all agreed to a CC BY 2.0 license. I've created a custom {{SuSanA}} license template (with a placeholder for OTRS permission) and applied it to the example photo above so you can see how it looks. Using a custom license template should strongly discourage further deletion nominations. Maybe Fæ can have his bot update the licenses on the existing files if this works out. —RP88 (talk) 15:56, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Fortunately there is already a credit template on the batch upload, see Commons:Batch uploading/Sustainable Sanitation Alliance/credit. It can be tweaked easily enough. --Fæ (talk) 22:07, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for the advice, User:RP88, I have changed the profile text as you suggested and it is now like this. Sorry, I thought the CC-BY SA was the most open type but I understand now that it's not. The SuSanA photos on flickr are meant to have the most open licence as possible! This is the understanding when I invite people to have their photos uploaded and this is what they agree to by sending photos for upload. The sanitation community is a strange one: we all want our toilet photos to be as widely seen and used as possible! :-) Is there anything else I need to do now? As for the other images, User:Doc_James, which were added by my colleague User:Mll_mitch, they are a little different, as she took them straight from the eCompendium (which is also open access, and we had an e-mail from the owners to confirm this) - it would be neater, however, if they are first added to the SuSanA flickr account and from there to Commons. I will get her to do that, and/or we are awaiting the eCompendium website people to update their licence statement to clarify the situation. Then they can be un-deleted and re-inserted in the articles. EvM-Susana (talk) 21:40, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

PD Lowry

Is this "[UK] War Artists Advisory Committee commission": [3] PD? Lowry died in 1976, so it's not PD-70, but may be crown copyright. Andy Mabbett (talk) 21:51, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

I have not looked in detail, however the WAAC commissioned artworks for the war effort on contract. My understanding is that all WAAC commissions are Crown Copyright and consequently are all expired Crown Copyright. --Fæ (talk) 05:47, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
My understanding would be the same as Fae's. It's true of the full timers, obviously and the paperwork scarcely exists to distinguish. If it seems a particularly well balanced case I can glance at INF 1/638 and see if it sheds any light but in general the Archives have taken the view that the works of these staff members is Crown Copyright whether they were on full time or temporary contracts. I see for example that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Artists%27_Advisory_Committee lists Grace Golden as an artist whose work was acquired. She has a number of works in INF 3 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Golden#/media/File:Victory_Regent_Street.jpg) and TNA regards those as crown copyright. (Expired crown copyright, I should say. PD-UKGov) --Mr impossible (talk) 12:28, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

@Fæ and Mr impossible: Thank you, both. Now uploaded, as you an see above. I wonder of he did any other WAAC work? Andy Mabbett (talk) 13:38, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

August 06

Very large PNG thumbnails getting black lines in them

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T108494
The image causing the issue at reso 1000px

I don't know why this is happening, but see the second image on my user page. (Not linking image here because of the size needed to replicate the issue). CFCF (talk) 16:45, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

  • Looks fine to me, so if there is still a problem then it is probably client side. Caching? Problem with the particular browser's rendering? Overwhelming the video card? - Jmabel ! talk 17:18, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
The second file on your user page looks fine to me as well. —RP88 (talk) 17:20, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
I can see it very faintly on the second image. We've had issues like that with VIPs on tiff files when scaling by non-integral factors previously, but I thought it all worked fine for pngs... Bawolff (talk) 22:05, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
Work around can be to adjust the size slightly. I don't see the lines when using the size 1001px on the second image. I have no idea why other people can't see it (Unless they have High-DPI displays, in which case a different resolution would be displayed to them) Bawolff (talk) 22:19, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

another cropped image that won't display

Hi. Uploaded another cropped image, file:Dantu crater (cropped).jpg, that won't display. I don't understand what I'm doing wrong. All I did was crop it with jpegcrop, which has never been a problem until recently. Kwamikagami (talk) 20:49, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Looks perfectly fine to me... AnonMoos (talk) 04:59, 9 August 2015 (UTC)
The thumbnails work, but the full-res image is broken for me. It looks like the actual image is fine, but it uses extended sequential DCT encoding instead of baseline DCT. Firefox and Opera both choked on the image, as did Windows picture viewer, but GIMP opens it fine. I guess jpegcrop creates an image which is standards compliant but not supported by many image viewer programs. Mediawiki image scaler does accept it however. MKFI (talk) 07:46, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

August 08

Best approach to suggested categories

Hey everyone. I'm working on a bot for a batch upload. The images I'm uploading have useful tags in the associated metadata, and I can easily map many of them to commons categories, but of course, there are also many that don't map easily. Is there a good/accepted method to indicate to human editors that these tags specifically should be mapped to an appropriate category? Template:Check categories seems to indicate generally that the categories on the image need to be checked, but I'd like to identify specific tags that should be checked. For example, I could add them as redlinked categories so people can replace them with Hotcat, but I wasn't sure if creating so many redlinks was the way to go. BMacZero (talk) 18:40, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Please do not create redlinked categories, because that means that manually one has to check whether there are more images in that red category and then to think about a good category. It is better to have them in in the category “Media needing categories as of...”. How large is the batch? If it is less than about 3000, I suggest to add yourself as good as possible a category. This does not have to be a detailed category. A higher level is better than nothing. I work a lot on the “Media needing categories as of...” and 3000 images can be done in a few days. Wouter (talk) 21:18, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for your insight! The batch is about 21000, unfortunately. I've been mapping some of the categories manually but it's pretty daunting even to map them to very general categories. I suppose I should just ignore unmapped tags for categorization, then. I put all the tags in the descriptions of the files, so they should be readily available to editors who are going through "Media needing categories" anyway. BMacZero (talk) 00:14, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

5.60.27.239 (talk · contribs)

5.60.27.239 (talk · contribs) seems to be an earlier incarnation of 46.76.30.119 (talk · contribs) who was blocked about a week ago for creating categories with numeric names for German trains and units, most of which contained only one image. I have been reverting those edits manually but some automation would help. Is there a friendly bot operator who can rollback all the movements into useless categories, then I can mass-delete all the (now empty) useless ones? There are 1760 file movements and over 1000 useless categories. Cheers. Rodhullandemu (talk) 20:26, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

It's actually much worse- 31.1.80.89 (talk · contribs) and 5.60.27.239 (talk · contribs) have also been doing much the same kind of thing, and they are not very happy with this at de:WP. This is too much work for one person to manage effectively, so I'm again asking for automated help to revert/rollback these useless edits. Rodhullandemu (talk) 19:39, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Species Identification

Is there a place in the forum where we can request the identification of an animal species? Thanks. --Xicotencatl (talk) 21:11, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Not sure there is. I normally add to one of the many similar categories like Unidentified birds or Unidentified trees, or as a default for non-obvious you can try Unidentified organisms. Eventually an experienced taxonomist seems to pop up. --Fæ (talk) 10:37, 9 August 2015 (UTC)
We're in a discussion about it. Jee 11:43, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

August 09

Denmark pictures

I have added some railway pictures. What type of railcar are these File:Århus station 2011 7.jpg and File:Århus station 2011 5.jpg. I have not managed to classify some types of train. (some railcar types are confusingly classified by line and not the compagny such as Arriva) Type of ticket machine? File:Århus station 2011 6.jpg. And there must be some classification for the lamps seen in

. These complicated decorative clusters of lamps? How are they called in english?Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:11, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

The railcars are the type known as Y-tog (Y-train). They were earlier used on all Danish private railways, in this case Odderbanen between Aarhus and Odder. Earlier most private railways were owned and operated individually, so it make more sense to divide the trains by line, since most of them were only used on their own lines anyway.
The ticket machine is for Rejsekort (travel card). The passengers can put money on their card to travel for at the machines. --Dannebrog Spy (talk) 11:09, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

I have added other pictures (including an museum train).Smiley.toerist (talk) 20:57, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

By the way: I made two (Trains in ...) categories to reduce the big station categories. Most viewers are mostly interested in the station architecture and station sfeer and those who are interested in trains is the location only incidental.Smiley.toerist (talk) 08:38, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Category:Scholen

There is a serious problem with Category:Scholen. Most of the images are not of the town of Scholen, Lower Saxony, Germany, but various educational establishments in the Netherlands. I'm currently busy elswhere on en-Wiki. Could someone take a look and do some re-categorization please? Mjroots (talk) 11:37, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Scholen is Dutch for schools. I would prefer to change the Locations Category. There could be other places called Scholen.Smiley.toerist (talk) 14:07, 9 August 2015 (UTC)
Moved to Category:Schools in the Netherlands. Only two images left so it's worth a visit, if you're nearby. B25es (talk) 14:34, 9 August 2015 (UTC)
I checked for the theoretical posibility for Flemish schools in Belgium. Is not the case as this is a massive download of a Dutch archive.Smiley.toerist (talk) 22:06, 9 August 2015 (UTC)
@Smiley.toerist: Thank you for the clean-up. Mjroots (talk) 17:54, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
Same thing happens with Category:Piscina, a town in Italy, but also the word for "swimming pool" in Portuguese and Spanish. The only serious way to fix this is to avoid stupid categorization. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 19:09, 9 August 2015 (UTC)
This happens sometimes because a word that is a geographical name somewhere can also mean something entirely different in another language. Blue Elf (talk) 12:39, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Category:Piscina fixed. B25es (talk) 14:36, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Seeking categorization help from a bot

How do I find a bot to do me a favor? I would like all the individual subcats for people within Category:Composers to say at the bottom: "Category: Composers by name". Can a bot do that for me? Note that there is a Wikipedia article titled Wikipedia:List of composers by name. Thanks.

Something that would actually be preferable would be if I could instead install a more specific meta category, to distinguish the first letter of last name, like this: Category: Composers whose surname begins with A, and so on through the alphabet. I would be willing to do that by hand if need be. Would it be okay?Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:35, 9 August 2015 (UTC) I'll just take care of this by hand, as I have already done for the letter "A". Cheers.Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:37, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Is it really helpful to subcategorize people by the first letter of their surname? {{CatAZ}} gives quick access to any letter you want in any category. --Rudolph Buch (talk) 09:10, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
Yes, I think it is very helpful. If you take a look at the Wikipedia sound list, it's broken up alphabetically, because the list as a whole would take forever to load and it would be unwieldy. Therefore, each list will grow separately. The primary way that a list grows is to use the AutoWikiBrowser (AWB) to compare what's in a segment of the sound list with the files that are in a corresponding alphabetical category at commons. So that's why the latter files are very helpful.Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:24, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
P.S. Pinging User:Rudolph Buch.Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:25, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
Another discussion is on-going at Commons:Categories for discussion/2015/08/Category:Composers by name. ––Apalsola t • c 20:08, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

August 10

Sharing a million photographs

One millionth image - head of a Dodo. Illustration from "Atlas de Zoologie" (1844) by Paul Gervais.

A Wikimedia blog post highlighting some of my batch upload projects over the last 3 years is at http://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/08/10/sharing-a-million-photographs/. Please retweet! It's nice to have a good news story about Commons doing the rounds. :-) --Fæ (talk) 09:50, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Get the download link to the uploaded file

Hi all, is there any easy way to determine the download link of a file uploaded to Commons? I would expect that it can be easily determined by knowing the filename but its not. Instead the link contain two non-deterministic numbers before the name, e. g. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/014034_Ibrahim_UrduScript.jpg. Thanks for hints, --Arnd (talk) 15:48, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

They are the first and the first two letters of the MD5 hash of the filename. See also: mw:Manual:$wgHashedUploadDirectory —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:07, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
Thanks TheDJ. Although i understand the reasoning behind it i wounder why there is no redirect from a more easy url without these hashes. --Arnd (talk) 12:49, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
There is: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Redirect/file/014034_Ibrahim_UrduScript.jpg --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 13:03, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
Thanks. --Arnd (talk) 17:55, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

✓ --Arnd (talk) 17:55, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Change default preference on Cat-a-lot gadget

Please see: MediaWiki_talk:Gadget-Cat-a-lot.js#Change_default_preference.--Syum90 (talk) 10:58, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Number of images ported from Flickr to Commons

Hi all

Is there an easy way to measure how many images have been ported from Flickr to Commons? I'm guessing the number of uploads from User:Flickr_upload would give an idea? Or possibly the number of files in Category:Flickr_images_reviewed_by_FlickreviewR

Thanks

Mrjohncummings (talk) 12:50, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

https://tools.wmflabs.org/templatecount/?lang=commons&name=flickrreview&namespace=10 should give you the number of files tagged with {{flickrreview}}. —LX (talk, contribs) 07:54, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
Thanks very much
Mrjohncummings (talk) 09:47, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Code of conduct for technical spaces applies to Wikimedia Commons

mw:Code of conduct for technical spaces/Draft

Please be aware that the proposed Code of Conduct on MediaWiki, with potential global bans outside of any local project policies should anyone escalate a dispute by using it, can apply to "technical" discussions on Commons and any IRC channels where technical discussions may occur such as #wikimedia-commons. The Code is drafted in an open ended and unlimited form, so discussion on this Village Pump, say about implementing Flow for Commons discussions, may result in having a Commons contributor banned under the Code, based on unpublished emailed complaints, without the chance of future appeal.

Suggestions for changes have been raised at the MediaWiki talk page, however there is no plan for a Wikimedia Commons proposal for the Wikimedia Commons community to approve this dispute escalation route which bypasses the authority of Wikimedia Commons policies to handle disputes on Wikimedia Commons discussion spaces.

Thanks --Fæ (talk) 06:25, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Hi, This closes a major loophole in which Wikimedia IRC channels, notably #wikimedia-commons were used in most inappropriate ways. Fae is very well aware of that, if not part if the issue, so it is not surprising that he opposes this policy. Regards, Yann (talk) 22:02, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
The proposed policy is currently in flux, however I am pretty sure that the proposers have no intention of the policy applying to commons or the #wikimedia-commons irc channel. Bawolff (talk) 07:54, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

For the casual reader, I find Yann's comment here, and reposted on meta, incomprehensible. If I were "part of the issue", which seems to have been something to do with Russavia's WMF office lock, then I would know about it and I would expect to be presented with evidence. There is none, because the allegation is false and the forum shopping appears intended to create a hostile environment. --Fæ (talk) 00:33, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Language for category names

I am aware of, and agree with, the oficial policy that generic category names should be in English. For example: Category:Bridges in Russia. Commons:Categories states:

"Category names should generally be in English (see Commons:Language policy). However, there are exceptions such as some proper names, biological taxa and names for which the non-English name is most commonly used in the English language (or there is no evidence of usage of an English-language version)."

As such, most specific category names for things like churches, cemeteries, bridges, tunnels etc. in Germany are in German, those in France are in French and so on. (Example: Category:Floridsdorfer Brücke in Austria.) The practice varies, but in general, this is the most common policy for many kinds of categories of Germany, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Denmark, Sweden and Norway. Categories for Spain seem to be very mixed, while categories for many other countries stick to English. As a whole we have two more or less parallel practices, where some names are translated to English and others are not.

Some 90 % of category names for specific churches in Norway are in Norwegian, the others are in English. The only slight disagreement I had been aware of until fairly recently, were whether the names should be in bokmål (kirke) or nynorsk (kyrkje), but that disagreement had been more or less solved. To make the category names as predictable as possible, I set about changing some of those few English category names to Norwegian as and when I bumped into them. Then suddenly a user more or less threatened to block me if I kept doing that. In his opinion what I did was violating the language policy.

Is there a need to change the policy to having all such category names in English? Or should we continue with a mixed practice where some names are translated to English and others are not? I do think we need to find some kind of agreement on this, if nothing else just to agree to disagree. Threatening to block people because they try to make a group of category names predictable by being the same language, certainly can't be the right way to go about it. Blue Elf (talk) 22:34, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Good question! There is the same problem in Portuguese categories (namely churches, bridges). Unfortunately I am not a native English speaker, so I can not participate much in this topic, but I hope it could lead to a definitive conclusion. --JotaCartas (talk) 23:03, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
Ideally it would be consistent. We have categories like Category:Nagara Bridge. It seems this is known as "長良橋" in Japanese, which transliterates to "Nagara Hashi" and translates to "Nagara Bridge". So there are actually three options for the category name. --ghouston (talk) 01:34, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
Names like 長良橋 are a misery to use or remember for most people who don't speak Chinese or Japanese. The policy seems to say that they should be mixed, that places with English names should use English names. I don't know if parts of names like "Bridge" or "Church" should be translated, but I think you're going to find those names translated frequently in English writings, making that more of the English name.
There does to be a rule of thumb in Wikis that if it's controversial and doesn't matter, don't change it.--Prosfilaes (talk) 03:28, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
If my native language wasn't Germanic, "kirke" wouldn't be significantly more useful than "長良橋" for me, hence I disagree that implementing our language policy in this area is "controversial [(churches usually don't have proper names)] and doesn't matter". @Blue Elf: For the sake of transparency, could you provide a link to what exactly you perceived as a block threat?    FDMS  4    08:53, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
I suppose the difficulty is that English usage varies. You could refer to Pont de Normandie in English as either "Pont de Normandie" or "Normandy Bridge". I suppose since the 2nd option exists, the category policy would seem to prefer it. One consistent option would be to translate all names as much as convention allows, e.g., the names of people are generally only transliterated, not translated, but the "bridge" part of the name of a bridge can be translated. --ghouston (talk) 10:19, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
Mixed practice, as opposed to using solely local or solely English, is awkward. However, it correctly reflects English-language usage. In English, some are known as a translated name (eg Cologne Cathedral), and others by the local language (eg Frauenkirche). In both cases, the Commons category is at the English name, but only one of those names is English language. The real problems are with less significant structures, as its hard to establish the name used in English and we need a default choice in absence of guidance from a source.
IMO both "translate by default, and use local name if English-language sources use it too" and "use local name by default, and translate if English-language sources use a translation" are viable options. These reflect English-language usage if it can be established, and give us a working default if English usage isn't known.
However in cases like Category:St. Pius (Köln), we should probably use "Cologne" instead. Its not part of the name of the church (in either German or English), but a disambiguator and should be consistent with the city's category (Cologne). The language policy doesn't distinguish between the name of the subject and the category name as a whole (including disambiguating elements).
"Kirke" is still more useful to me than "長良橋", in the sense I am able to type it; and that's true even if I could understand Japanese and not German.--Nilfanion (talk) 10:25, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
Hopefully categories will be translatable some day (replaced with Wikidata-like properties perhaps.) So I think what we are picking now are the names that we would want in future for the English version. I think it's obvious that we'd want the English version to at least be transliterated to the Latin alphabet, which rejects the likes of 長良橋. --ghouston (talk) 10:37, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
I don't think categories will ever be fully translatable since there are no exact translations for many terms and even if there were, Commons would simply lack the human resources or external sources for translations of the millions of categories into the hundreds of languages MediaWiki supports (self-quote). Unless all categories would be translated into all languages, out of habit users would place files in nonexistant local-language categories instead of the actual categories.    FDMS  4    21:41, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
You argue (wrongly, i.m.o.) that categories will never be (fully) translated, for lack of manpower, but that doesn’t mean they categories will never be translatable, which is a mere technical matter. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 20:00, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
Another potential policy is that if the English language Wikipedia already has an article under that name, then pick the same name for its category in Commons. Then we don't need to repeat all the arguments that have already taken place over there (en:Talk:Río_de_la_Plata/name comes to mind.) --ghouston (talk) 10:44, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
Wikipedia article names can be helpful, but often they follow different conventions than the ones on Commons (e.g. […] railway station instead of […] train station) and tend to translate proper names (e.g. Freedom Party of Austria, which translates back to German as something nobody would associate with the party).    FDMS  4    21:41, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
"By default", you'd normally always use English object type names (you wouldn't ask for directions to Bahnhof Hintertupfingen but to the Hintertupfingen train station, unless the train station is so special you've read its German name in a tourist guide) and not translate the given name (rearward-speckling train station). I guess the vast majority of churches, bridges or train stations doesn't get mentioned in English-language sources often enough for thereon-based conclusions.    FDMS  4    21:41, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
I think the policy above is sufficient and pretty clear: Use the most-commonly used proper name in the English language, if there is one, otherwise use the local name. en Wikipedia or travel guides can be used as a guide here. The only question that remains is whether to use non-latin scripts or transcriptions into latin script. --Sebari (talk) 16:12, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

With some help from native English speakers, things could be improved. For instance, I opened the category Category:Lavadero de Plou. It's written in Spanish and lavaderos are so old fashioned that nobody cares to explain how to name that correctly in English. Some native English speaker could open a category with the adequate English name, move the files with catalot and then leaves Lavadero de Plou as a {{category redirect|Wash house in Plou}}. Or s/he could tell me the correct way to name the category in English and I will do the changes. What many non-native-English-speakers like me cannot do is speaking English as natives do. On the other hand, do not expect everything in Norway, Teruel or Copiapó to be easily comparable to Liverpool, Perth or Boise. But I think we could improve the situation. B25es (talk) 15:58, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm not a native English speaker, but if it's the wash house of Plou, I guess it could be called Plou wash house.    FDMS  4    16:03, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
Thanks. Good hint! es:Lavadero leads to en:Lavoir, which is mainly about French stuff. It contains a link to Category:Wash houses in France. So my vote goes for c:Category:Wash house in Plou. B25es (talk) 16:17, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

This discussion has been mostly about places. I'd like to throw in that book titles need to be considered, too. I once nominated a category for discussion, because its name was the name of a book in a language that uses a non-Latin script. That discussion is still open. I'll let you all look at that discussion to see what arguments were made. --Auntof6 (talk) 05:45, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

August 12

File usage on other wikis does not work for dewikisource

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T108799

Hello Village pump, usually the usage of a Commons file in Wikisource is displayed in the section "File usage on other wikis" of the file description, e. g. for File:LA2-NSRW-3-0368.jpg which is used on English Wikisource. However, for files that are used on German Wikisource this seems not to work, e. g. for File:Die Gartenlaube (1887) 894.jpg which is used by s:de:Seite:Die_Gartenlaube_(1887)_894.jpg. Could anyone help to improve this? Thanks in advance, --Arnd (talk) 07:46, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Is that true for all files used on de.wikisource or just for some of them? In any case, it would probably be better to file a bug at phabricator (you can use your Wikim/pedia account to log in here, using the small button with the mediawiki logo below that "LDAP" stuff). --El Grafo (talk) 08:41, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
Hi El Grafo, i cannot prove if it is true for all but it is at least for many. Thus, it seems to be a systematic error. I created the ticket: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T108799. Hopefully, it is lost in the backlog for ever as some of my previously created ones. --Arnd (talk) 09:00, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
I know, I know :-/ But unless someone happens to find a quick solution, it'd probably even more lost in the VP archive … --El Grafo (talk) 09:20, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
Works for me: File:Gartenlaube Screenshot Temp.png Vector, Google Chrome. --Hedwig in Washington (mail?) 21:15, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Altering fair use logos

If a user alters fair use logo to remove the features that make it above the threshold of originality, is it proper to upload the user creation on here and claim it is the logo?--William S. Saturn (talk) 17:57, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

  • I'm not sure what you mean by a "fair use logo," but I'm guessing from context that you mean a logo that exceeds the threshold of originality for copyright. (Not sure what that has to do with "fair use", which would be a matter of where and how something copyrighted is used, but that's neither here nor there.)
  • Whether I've understood you correctly or not, clearly an altered logo should be described as such, e.g. "Partial logo of such-and-such organization, with copyrighted elements removed." - Jmabel ! talk 00:50, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
For example, removing the eagle from [4] to turn it into File:Santorum 2k16 text.png. Is it appropriate to claim this is the logo for the organization?--William S. Saturn (talk) 07:34, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
It shouldn't be claimed to be the logo for the organization, but it could be useful in representing the organization in certain places on Wikimedia projects.--Prosfilaes (talk) 07:48, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
  • Sometimes, such simplifications are made, on two twin rationales:
    • they do remove any copyrighteability thus enabling their hosting in Commons,
    • and they do allow their use as inline icons, where all detail, if there were any, would be lost
See some of these in Category:Icons for railway descriptions/legende/logos. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 18:17, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Featured picture w/ standard YouTube license

I just noticed File:Caminandes - Gran Dillama - Blender Foundation's new Open Movie.webm uploaded in 2014 by ProfesorFavalli and tagged this July for lic review. I hate to just CSD tag a featured pic... INeverCry 18:03, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

CC-BY 3.0 accd. to this. --Rosenzweig τ 18:17, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
Thanks Rosenzweig. License is also in the closing credits, at 2:24 min. Regards --· Favalli ⟡ 00:09, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
It might be a good idea to mention not immediately obvious places where the CC license is mentioned, like this one, in the file description (permission field). In practice, noone will watch whole video files to look for CC licenses in the vague hope to actually find one. --Rosenzweig τ 19:12, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

August 13

Help request: remove category-space templates from files

As of right now, Category:World Heritage Sites by name contains 723 files. It shouldn't contain any files, because it is a metacategory. The reason for a lot of the files being there seems to be that the files are using Template:World Heritage Site. That template is intended for use in categories, not on files, and it is this template that is adding the metacategory to the files.

I see the same issues with Template:Mérimée and Template:Palissy, which are also intended for use on categories. These add Category:Monuments historiques in France by name, which currently has 75,577 files. That category is not currently tagged as a metacategory, but I believe it should be.

There could be similar issues with other templates, but these are the only ones I've seen so far.

Is there any objection to removing these templates from the files? If not, is there someone with a bot that could do it? I could try doing it with AWB, but that could be tedious. Another option could be to change the templates so that they don't add the category when they're used anywhere other than category-space.

Comments? --Auntof6 (talk) 06:14, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Whoops, never noticed that this was not intended for files. I find it quite useful on file pages as well, because it gives you a link to the UNESCO website entry about the site. It should be possible to tweak the template and turn off categorization for images. --El Grafo (talk) 07:58, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
Is there another template that can give the link to the UNESCO site? I guess the question is, how much of what the templates do is appropriate for files, and is that amount worth trying to fix the templates for use on files? --Auntof6 (talk) 08:06, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
This could be fixed easily by making categorisation dependent on the namespace. --Pitke (talk) 10:39, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
I've updated {{World Heritage Site}} to only categorize into Category:World Heritage Sites by name if it is placed on a Category. —RP88 (talk) 11:28, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, RP88, that seems to have cleared out the files from that category. Could you do the same for the other two templates I mentioned? --Auntof6 (talk) 18:30, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
Oh, I'm sorry Auntof6, when I checked Category:Monuments historiques in France by name still wasn't a meta category and I'm not familiar enough with that part of the Category hierarchy or the volunteers who work it to take it upon myself to make it one. So I didn't change the other two templates. I'd be happy to do so If you or someone else familiar with that part of the Category hierarchy will change Category:Monuments historiques in France by name to a meta category like Category:World Heritage Sites by name. —RP88 (talk) 21:16, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
Done, RP88. --Auntof6 (talk) 23:04, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
OK Auntof6, I've updated {{Palissy}} to only categorize into Category:Monuments historiques in France by name if it is placed on a category. It will still categorize files into Category:Monuments historiques inscrits, Category:Monuments historiques classés, and Category:Cultural heritage monuments in France with known IDs since those categories are not meta categories. It will take some time, but this will remove about 18,000 files from the "by name" category. Since {{Mérimée}} is protected such that only admins can edit it, I've placed a protected edit request for this template at Template talk:Mérimée. It looks like the backlog for protected edit requests is about 3 months, so it may take awhile for this later fix to be applied. —RP88 (talk) 00:05, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Does openly declaring your gender change the probability of having an upload overwritten?

I have been tracking image "revert wars" at User:Fæ/SignificantReverts, and recently a correspondent asked if there was any significance to the sex of a person being related to the chances of them getting reverted. I have pulled together the following table together for the past 360 days, counting whenever an image was reverted by someone who was not the last uploader, and then attempting to find any declared gender ("none" means not set in user preferences, "female-male" means a woman has overwritten a man's file and "male-none" means a declared male has overwritten an account with no gender set):

2014-2015 file overwrite stats compared to gender 
+---------------+----------+
| sex           | count(*) |
+---------------+----------+
| female-female |        1 |
| female-male   |      110 |
| female-none   |      426 |
| male-female   |      139 |
| male-male     |     1376 |
| male-none     |     5711 |
| none-female   |      479 |
| none-male     |     5289 |
| none-none     |    15716 |
+---------------+----------+

Can we say anything of statistical significance, or is there nothing to be deduced apart from there are apparently at least ten times more men than women contributors to the project by these measures?

I have included the SQL below, in case anyone wants to check it for bugs, such as possible double counting, or work on making it more robust/extensive:

SQL for Commons file overwrites & gender

If you want to play with this query, I strongly suggest avoiding the temptation to publish lists of names of accounts with gender. Please stick to anonymous summary statistics. 

SELECT DISTINCT CONCAT(IFNULL(up1.up_value,'none'), "-", IFNULL(up2.up_value,'none')) AS sex,
count(*)
FROM image
INNER JOIN oldimage_userindex oi1 ON oi1.oi_name=img_name AND oi1.oi_sha1!=img_sha1 AND oi1.oi_user!=img_user
JOIN page ON page_title = img_name AND page_namespace = 6
JOIN user u1 ON u1.user_id = img_user
JOIN user u2 ON u2.user_id = oi1.oi_user
LEFT JOIN user_properties up1 ON up1.up_user = u1.user_id AND up1.up_property = 'gender'
LEFT JOIN user_properties up2 ON up2.up_user = u2.user_id AND up2.up_property = 'gender'
WHERE
        img_name NOT LIKE "%Test%"
        AND     img_timestamp> DATE_FORMAT(DATE_ADD(NOW(), INTERVAL -360 DAY), "%Y%m%d%H%i%s")
        AND oi1.oi_timestamp> DATE_FORMAT(DATE_ADD(NOW(), INTERVAL -365 DAY), "%Y%m%d%H%i%s")
        AND img_user_text NOT REGEXP "review|Bot|bot"
        AND oi1.oi_user_text NOT REGEXP "review|bot|Bot"
GROUP BY sex;

Thanks --Fæ (talk) 00:06, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

I suppose I could run some statistical tests, but doing that with these bare numbers wouldn't really tell us anything because we have so many more male contributors. There'd probably have to be some kind of weighting based on the overall per-gender-numbers of users and/or uploads and/or contributions. Possibly double-weighted for both uploader and reverter? Don't have the time to really think this through atm, but this could turn out to be quite tricky … --El Grafo (talk) 07:51, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
To have a real answer, you should do a statistical test (after thinking carefully about what you are measuring) (and even if it was statistically relevant the meaning wouldn't be obvious). However, from a rough look at these numbers, it looks unlikely to be meaningful. From summing the rows and the columns, you can see that the difference between the distribution of declared sexes among reverters is more or less the same than among the reverted (2% difference):
  female male none (sum)
female 1 110 426 537 (2%)
male 139 1376 5711 7226 (25%)
none 479 5289 15719 21487 (73%)
(sum) 619 (2%) 6775 (23%) 21856 (75%) 29250 (100%)
Considering that declared females are much fewer than declared males that are much fewer than not declared, and that reverters and reverted are not homogeneous, my rough guess is that 2% is below the relevance threshold. - Laurentius (talk) 10:33, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
I think that "null" conclusions here are good to highlight. My impression is that Wikimedia Commons has no special problem with women being targeted for disputes, or that women are any more or less likely to create disputes compared to men. I suspect that for this project a user's gender is almost completely irrelevant. Though this is a contentious issue for some Wikipedias, and we should not fall into complacency—after all having 90% of contributors being men looks terrible—I think the mission and international/multilingual nature of Commons means that open declarations of gender as a magnet for disputes is less likely to ever become so significant. --Fæ (talk) 10:47, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
Yes, in general the "no relevant difference" conclusion can be a meaningful information, as much as finding a statistical difference. - Laurentius (talk) 11:25, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Comparisons of male-female/female-male overwrites

I'm just thinking this through again, as there is a logical flaw in presuming the numbers have to be compensated for the high ratio of male:female contributors. If we take a ​random ​sample limited to just overwrites where men are overwriting women or women are overwriting men, then the ratio of men:women is irrelevant, given a large sample... It's like going to a party where 9/10 people are men, but we count who instigates conversations between mixed-sex couples; even though 90% are men, the results when measured this way are irrelevant as we are only measuring that type of conversation. If the figures are not similar, then other factors are at play, such as men being more confident than women at doing overwrites, for whatever reason.

Testing this theory, I went to the English Wikipedia database and checking over all time, found: 

+-------------+----------+
| sex         | count(*) |
+-------------+----------+
| female-male |       63 |
| male-female |      127 |
+-------------+----------+

Checking the all time figures for Wikimedia Commons shows: 

+-------------+----------+
| sex         | count(*) |
+-------------+----------+
| female-male |     1309 |
| male-female |     2220 |
+-------------+----------+

Quickly going to the French Wikipedia (far less statistically significant): 

+-------------+----------+
| sex         | count(*) |
+-------------+----------+
| female-male |        1 |
| male-female |       12 |
+-------------+----------+

German Wikipedia:​ 

+-------------+----------+
| sex         | count(*) |
+-------------+----------+
| female-male |        6 |
| male-female |       39 |
+-------------+----------+

The conclusion has to be that women are ​at least twice as likely to have an image overwritten by a man on our projects than the reverse happing. The numbers are sufficiently large for it to appear a meaningful result. --Fæ (talk) 13:52, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Since you're leaving out the female-male image upload ratio, and the female-female, male-male, X-none and none-X overwriting entries, we can't conclude much of anything from your results (except that there are probably more male editors, so therefore more overwriters). For example, consider a Wikipedia where there are 9 times as many images uploaded by men as women, but only one editor that is an overwriter, and a male. He overwrites 100 images, proportionately. So you'd get a box that says
+-------------+----------+
| sex         | count(*) |
+-------------+----------+
| female-male |        0 |
| male-female |       10 |
+-------------+----------+
Does that prove that Wikipedia's overwriters are 100% sexist? Surely not. If you included the female-female numbers, that would make it more clear that females just didn't overwrite anything; and if you also included the male-male and female-male image ratios, that would make it clear that the overwrite was in proportion to gender. But you don't. Without them, those tables prove nothing.
Also, to be frank, with sample sizes like this, we can spin nearly any story we care to. For example, let's see the first entry in the green box - which does give some of those numbers - for a different conclusion. Out of 537 files overwritten by women, only 1 belonged to a woman. So the women overwriters on Wikimedia Commons are clearly the most sexist. :-P. --GRuban (talk) 15:02, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
See en:Sample space and take a moment to consider the party analogy I gave. Combinatorics is not always intuitive, and constraining sample spaces is tricky, but the conclusion appears reasonable. --Fæ (talk) 17:30, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
Nope. At your party, only one man walks around to talk to people. We end up with more men talking to women than women talking to men, whether or not that man talks to men more, less, or not at all. --GRuban (talk) 18:16, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
What is being counted is who instigates each mixed couple conversation. Even in your extreme case, this works, as the intent is to work out whether man instigated conversations are comparable to women instigated conversations. The fact that there is only one man instigating, does not change the validity of the behavioural statistic unless that man can change the behaviour of all women and men in the room. --Fæ (talk) 20:14, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
Then you're clearly counting the wrong thing, aren't you? If completely gender neutral behaviour by overwriters can give what seems meangiful results of bias? --GRuban (talk) 20:36, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
I no longer understand your objections. I never presumed that actions by anyone were "gender neutral behaviour", nor have I presumed that the result demonstrates bias of a person or group. --Fæ (talk) 10:41, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

I'll try rephrasing the outcome once more. The measurement is a count of image overwrites where the uploader and the overwriter are different declared genders. Given this sample space, for any given mixed-sex overwrite action, the probability that the overwriter is a man or a woman should be similar, if men and women behave identically on Wikimedia projects when it comes to overwriting image files. This choice of sample space means that the overall ratio of men to women is irrelevant to the probability of either type of overwrite occurring. The measured numbers show that the probability of either option is significantly different, with women being twice as likely to have their uploaded images overwritten by a man. (As a thought experiment/test, if the ratio of women to men (currently 1:9 on Commons), was roughly correlated to the probability that a woman would overwrite a man, then the outcome of ~1:2 would seem much more bizarre as it would indicate that as a group, women image overwriters were four times more active than you would expect...) --Fæ (talk) 10:41, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

The prohibition of taking pictures inside the Metro de Santiago stations and Wikimedia Commons

This decree is not a Law, and even, is not related with the Ley de Propiedad Intelectual (Chile Copyright Law) in any way. Therefore, I open this thread to ask if that decree concerns the dozens of pictures of Metro de Santiago hosted in Wikimedia Commons (for educational purposes) and several of them used in Wikipedia (for encyclopedic purposes). Regarding the Commons policies (specially Commons is not censored) and the Laws that it is subject (the Florida Laws and the Chile Copyright Law and the Freedom of Panorama):
  • Are these pictures actually illegal to be hosted in Commons?
  • Then, Should be these dozens of pictures removed?
The above questions may be stupid, but more stupid are the people (some Carabineros officiers) that applies this absurd Decree, clearly non-sense for the current days, and the spirit of Metro de Santiago in current days, that incentivates te taking of pictures for security purposes (to tell problems to Metro de Santiago in private or public like in their Twitter account),a nd also for general purposes (like educational and encyclopedic purposes).
Considering several precedents, and considerin that Commons Community refused to delete files that may be considered illegal in some countries (rather than Florida) and aren't copyright violation, I start this discussion as a place for the Community and the Authorities of Chile to decide the future of the current and future pictures hosted here.
  • Español: Después tarduciré esto. Me harían un gran favor al traducirlo (no sé por qué lo escribí en inglés primero).

Be free to discuss in the language of your prefference, but is important to be discussed by Chilean users, if possible, Chile Copyright experts. --Amitie 10g (talk) 08:13, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Isn´t Commons:Image casebook#Museum and interior photography quite clear about such cases? As it is not a copyright restriction, we don´t honour it. --Rudolph Buch (talk) 09:00, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
Yep, I know that, but keep in mind, but this prohibition exist as a Decree (that is almost a Law, but is not that) and not just an internament. Here is about applying the local legislation and how dangerous may be that. --Amitie 10g (talk) 14:55, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
"Internament" is not an English word, and I can't think of any particular Spanish cognate. Also, I don't understand what you mean by "Here is about applying the local legislation and how dangerous may be that." Where do you mean by "Here"? "Dangerous" to whom? It's fine to write in Spanish, plenty of us read it; it would probably be a lot simpler than deciphering what you've written. - Jmabel ! talk 18:25, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Clearly such pictures do not violate any Commons policy, and I doubt you will get the Chilean authorities to discuss their views here. - Jmabel ! talk 18:25, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

No, there is no violation of Commons policies. However, Chilean authorities might enforce this law (though I've no idea how likely it is); so Chilean users who wish to be entirely safe from any punishment, may consider uploading such images only as anonymous (single-use) accounts. --A.Savin 22:53, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
Español: La idea es que las fotos no incumplen el copyright, pero que las personas que las saquen pueden sufrir consecuencias legales por la norma arcaica de 1975. Por eso recomienda que las fotos se suban procurando ocultar quién las tomó.
B25es (talk) 17:33, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
Español: La prohibición de tomar fotos en el Metro es un volador de luces, nada más. Si hasta uno puede inferir, del comunicado que sacaron luego del incidente, que revocarán esta estupidísima regla. En todo caso, en Chile hay libertad de panorama, el Metro es un lugar público, por lo que no deberían haber problemas de derechos de autor.
--Diego Grez return fire 18:02, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

August 17

Windows 10 corrupting WAV files

Reported at: http://www.sounddevices.com/news/sound-devices-news/sound-devices-technical-alert Andy Mabbett (talk) 12:00, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

yikes ! data loss is never funny. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:19, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

August 18

Improper moves to Commons

Hi! I suppose everybody has noticed, that sometimes files aren't properly moved to Commons from some other language Wikipedia (lower resolution image, improper licence etc.). Maybe somebody could give a hint, how to find such files? And some alternatives to commonshelper? Because commonshelper only accepts CC licences. It would be nice to have some tool, that just generates wikitext, leaving licence choosement to user. --Edgars2007 (talk) 09:50, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Asking for endorsement for “Wikipedia Treks Kalindi Khal”

Dear my fellow Wikipedians,
Greetings from Kolkata, India.
I am pleased to inform you that we are going to organize a expedition project “Wikipedia Treks Kalindi Khal” under “Wikipedia Treks Mountain “in September 2015.
This is a high-altitude trekking expedition from Gangotri to Badrinath in the Garhwal Himalayan region of India, targeting all language editions of Wikipedia, Commons, Wikspecies, Wikivoyage and other WMF projects. The overall purpose of Wikipedia Treks Kalindi Khal is to increase the material related to Himalayan Range with a free license in Wikimedia Commons and improve the quality and increase the amount of articles about diversifying Himalayan mountain range and other respective variety in different languages in Wikipedia. Reaching out to the majority of Himalayan mountain range during this trekking program will not only raise awareness among various community chapters, but also motivate them to contribute to the Wikimedia projects and organize this kind of trekking expedition in future.
I just need an endorsement from all of you for this unique project https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:PEG/Sujay25/Wikipedia_Treks_Kalindi_Khal
Feel free to discuss about the project in the discussion page.
Thanks in advance,
With warm regards,
Schwiki (talk) 19:40, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Flow

Hello, if you are an user of some of the other Wikimedia projects, you may have noticed that a new discussion system called Flow is currently being deployed to replace the current one. It is still in beta and, while not yet ready for full scale deployment, it is currently possible to activate it on specific pages, provided that the project is okay with it as a global principle, and that the users of the page are ok too.

I think it would be a good idea that we authorize the following on Commons:

  • a user would be able to request the activation of Flow on their own talk page
  • we activate a it on a generic talk page like Commons:Flow where users can test if it suits them.

That way, some voluntary testers would be able to get over any teething troubles that could arise with Flow, including the ones that could be specific to Commons, with minimal impact on users that are not eager to try it. What do you think of it? -Ash_Crow (talk) 20:31, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I think we should go forward with this. A gradual introduction will be way better than suddenly switching all of commons because of some external deadline. Flow will come sooner or later and in my opinion it does have advantages over the current talk page system. More importantly it is a technological way forward (while flat wiki talk pages are pretty much a dead end). Please, let's allow per user talkpage opt-in and let's enable it on a few project wider talk pages. --Dschwen (talk) 21:24, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
I predict this will have to be superprotected upon the said deadline as those horrible, horrible!, power users, those who dare to question that handheld devices are more than mere toys, opt out en masse from this shiny Visual Editor MediaViewer Flow thingy… (Anyway, where/how does one opt out?) -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 22:31, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
Doubt it. For the simple reason, unlike media viewer, its not something you can opt out of with javascript, or super protect into continued existence. For that matter, you can't really personally opt out once a page is converted - In the same way as if you really liked hand written letters, you can't opt out of a telephone call, and still at the same time communicate with the people in the telephone call. Bawolff (talk) 02:18, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
Very funny. You imply that Flow is an undoubtable progress over the current system. Well, frankly, it looks pretty much like a web forum, which stopped being the the new best thing long before Wikipedia even existed. But good luck with that. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 22:29, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
Yes, agreed with Dschwen above. I have had several questions, but I didn't see the answers. Regards, Yann (talk) 22:46, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
  1. If a page is moved to Flow, can it be moved back to plain wiki?
  2. What's the process for moving a page? Can it be done by local users (admins, bureaucrats, etc.) or is it done by developers only?
I can answer those questions -- I'm Danny, the product manager at WMF who's working on Flow. The feature's in active development, so there's no deadline or opt-out. We're at the "opt-in" stage right now -- deploying on a per-page basis on pages where people find it interesting and helpful, on wikis where the community is okay with people trying it out.
Right now, I can create a Flow board on any page, existing or not. If the page already has wikitext on it, then that page is automatically moved to an archive subpage -- e.g. the text on User_talk:ABC is moved to User_talk:ABC/Archive 1, and User_talk:ABC becomes a Flow board. There's a template on the Flow board that links to the archive wikitext page. (If there's already a subpage called /Archive 1, then it goes to the next free number.) There's no conversion between wikitext and Flow -- the original page just moves. If you want to switch back, then we just move the Flow board to an archive subpage, and move the original wikitext page back.
It's a totally unscaleable system -- I am actually the only person who has the user right to enable or move a Flow board. We're building an opt-in feature so that people will be able to switch their own user talk pages to Flow, on communities that are okay with it. While we're working on that, I'm happy to switch people's user talk by request. Let me know if you have other questions... DannyH (WMF) (talk) 00:15, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
Also, if you'd like to be amongst the initial bunch of editors using Flow, at mediawiki.org or other specific wikis, please add your name to the list at mw:Flow/Request Flow on a page.
Following that process, if there's consensus in this discussion, then the team will enable Flow at a test page here, and then work with everyone here to determine necessary Flow features for further rollouts on the wiki. HTH. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 01:34, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
I think it's very strange that pages have to be "converted" to a flow "board". Why can't I just embed a flow board on an existing page, with normal Wiki text before and after it? That sounds much more flexible and Wiki-like and would it would be much simpler to enable it on specific pages, without having to remove all existing content. The way it's implemented now is very disruptive. --Sebari (talk) 21:07, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
Well, lets convert the talk page of the newly created Commons:Flow page then. Does this really need a consensus? We are not converting an existing page here, but just creating a new playground page to play with it. --Dschwen (talk) 21:41, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
Any changes to the mediawiki configuration (unless trivial) requires a consensus, AFAIK. — regards, Revi 11:28, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
Yeah, so that would be trivial. And it is not really a "change to the mediawiki configuration". Setting one talk page of one newly created page to flow will exactly affect no user, unless they choose to visit the page. Sorry, but uttering such common places is really counterproductive. What happened to be bold?! --Dschwen (talk) 04:46, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
Quiddity (WMF), OK it works. ;o) Personally I think this is an improvement to our current talk pages: no need to sign, automatic following of the started topic, possibility to follow only specific topics on a page, just to name a few. I would suggest to convert Commons:Help desk after a few days. Regards, Yann (talk) 21:53, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
DannyH (WMF), unless there is a local group of people able to change a page, you will be quickly overflowed (pun intended ;o) ). Regards, Yann (talk) 22:09, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
Yeah, we're working on an opt-in feature for enabling Flow on your own user talk page, on wikis where there's consensus to allow it. Deploying artisanal hand-crafted Flow pages is a short-term workaround. :) DannyH (WMF) (talk) 22:47, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Concerns

  1. This is the first I have heard about this system. That is my first concern. Why wasn't more effort made at consultation, from the user community?
  2. Someone should have written a clear simple justification for why the current talk pages should be deprecated, and replaced with something new and shiny.

    So, where is it?

  3. Someone should have written a clear simple description giving a hint as to what it would be like to use this new Flow system.

    So, where is it?

  4. The FAQ leaves many important questions unanswered, including:
    1. Is this replacing talk pages? If a topic comes up, after a talk page has been flow-i-fied, am I still able to go back to the revisions of the original talk page, and get the url to a diff? Can I paste that diff into my Flow editor? When I click "save", or whatever I have to do to post my Flow comment, will that diff be rendered as a clickable link to the place in the original pre-FLow discussion I want my readers to read?

      If it can't do this I will regard this project as a failure.

    2. What will happen to current talk page discussions? says: "When Flow is enabled on an active wiki talk page, the existing dicussions will be moved to an archive page. There will be a clear link from the Flow board to the archive page. Old discussions will not be "thrown away"; we know how important discussions are to understanding the collaborative history of a wiki page or project."

      Woah Cowboy! This sounds like the plan is to convert the existing talk pages to a flat file, throwing away the revision history. As above, any approach that throws away the revision history of the pre-Flow discussions is already a complete failure. Geo Swan (talk) 19:54, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Facepalm. -- Colin (talk) 20:04, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Hi, I can answer a few of these questions.
  1. Communicating development work happens in a large number of places, which makes the torrent of updates hard (nigh impossible!) for everyone to stay uptodate on. Additionally, based mostly on my own experience over the years, most editors don't want to know about alpha/beta quality software - they just want to work on improving the contents of our projects, and learn about new software when it is 'close to ready' or better. However, many editors who are interested in helping discuss and test out early versions of software, have been giving feedback on Flow (onwiki, on mailing lists, etc) since mid 2013. It has been mentioned in many places, but not everywhere. The purpose of the current slow community-decision-driven rollouts, is to get feedback from editors who previously hadn't had time or interest or awareness of the extension.
  2. There are explanatory materials at mw:Flow (the first link in Ash_Crow's post)
  3. You can try it out for yourself, at mw:Talk:Sandbox
  4. Old diffs will still work, even after a page has been moved and the original location is converted to use Flow, yes. The history is intact. (I.e. The title of a page, in a diff-link, is irrelevant. It only cares about the revision ids. E.g. [5]).
  5. To use Flow at an existing location, the current page is first "moved" to a subpage, following the local archive-name convention, and standard page-move archiving (versus the other standard of cut&paste archiving).
(Sidenote: The best place to ask extensive questions, or engage in broad discussion about Flow itself, is mw:Talk:Flow - because a central location allows editors from all wikis to collectively participate, and share feedback.) Hope that helps. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 00:27, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks to everyone who gave feedback here. Based on the discussion, and the minimal ramifications from enabling two testing pages, the pages Commons_talk:Flow/tests and Commons_talk:Flow will be converted to Flow, for your testing purposes, and for further feedback on feature-requests and bug-discovery (as an alternative to mw:Talk:Flow, the main feedback location). However, there is not sufficient consensus at this time for a voluntary usertalkpage opt-in (as is currently ongoing at Mediawikiwiki, Fr.wp, Ca.wp, He.wp, and Wikidata - add your name at mw:Flow/Request Flow on a page if you're interested in this feature), so that possibility will have to be re-discussed, whenever the community is ready. Thanks again. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 21:21, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Allowing commons users to opt in

I think we should allow Commons users to volunteer for their talk pages to be converted to flow if they so wish. Does anyone disagree? WJBscribe (talk) 22:44, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

 Support. Opt-in is absolutely to be prefered over opt-out here. --Túrelio (talk) 16:11, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 Support I don't think there is a question of imposing Flow, we are in a testing stage. Do we need a vote to allow opt-in? --Yann (talk) 18:22, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
I think we need to make sure it won't break some Commons systems first, e.g. the automatic notifications of deletions and such. If it's genuinely neutral, that's one thing, but if it's going to need a lot of reworking things - particularly if the way for making things work with it is subject to change - I think we need to reject it in the short term. Adam Cuerden (talk) 23:04, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 Oppose Does not currently parse Wikitext. I tried it out over on Media Wiki. This means that talk page templates, bots, the nomination for deletion and the like will apparenly break, and will likely not be fixable. Adam Cuerden (talk) 23:10, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 Comment @Adam Cuerden: Not sure what you're talking about? Just tried templates over at Commons talk:Flow (Topic:Sn6grtdjn70cisb7) and it seems to work in general … --El Grafo (talk) 15:25, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
I tried a simple list using *'s. I see now that a </> button needed pressed - though god knows why such an unintuitive button was chosen. Anyway, we do need to test this out a bit, and check functionality and get any fixes in place first. Having some Flow is fine, but talk pages... we need to get right from the start, as there simply isn't an alternative if Flow breaks something. Is there any way to get a hybrid page? Old-style at the top, Flow below? It would certainly help ease migration. Adam Cuerden (talk) 23:49, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 Oppose This would need a more meaningful proposal that a village pump thread, and credible relevant tests, if necessary on Commons Beta. --Fæ (talk) 16:00, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
 Comment I think as long as we don't know if all our different types of (semi-) automated message delivery will work, we shouldn't allow normal users to opt-in as they might not get important messages. Can we replicate all of this at beta? Probably not, so why not try this: Someone creates a test account which gets Flow enabled. Upload some test images through that account and use them to try everything out: Deletion requests, speedy/copyvio/no source (manual, quick-delete, VisualFileChange), FP/QI/VI, other message-templates (some won't work as expected …), anything else I've missed? --El Grafo (talk) 08:51, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

More questions

A couple questions. I haven't followed Flow in a bit; I remember these being issues last time:

  1. Can we do everything we normally do with normal talk pages. E.g. if I want to pull some wikitext from the main page the talk page is connected to, and put it on a Flow talk page for collaborative editing, will it break?
  2. Will this screw up our bots? If a user with a Flow talk page has a featured picture pass, will the notification work?
  3. Likewise, if I want to nominate an image for deletion, I can do so using the commons script - click a button, fill out some information, it sets up the deletion discussion and notifies the person who uploaded it. Will that break for Flow users?
  4. Someone puts a message on my personal talk page that is somewhat harassing. Can I delete it?

If there's not good answers to these, Flow is simply not ready. Adam Cuerden (talk) 15:45, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

  1. Wikitext all essentially works. Click the "</>" icon in the bottom corner of the editing window, to switch between VE-mode and wikitext-mode (it will save a sticky-preference serverside, for whichever mode you last use to make changes, prior to saving (ie. previewing with VE, and making no changes, will not override the sticky-preference)). All autoconfirmed+ accounts can edit any post. So yes, collaborative editing of wikitext works.
  2. There is ongoing work with a GSoC student, on pywikibot integration (phab:T67119) - FPCBot uses this framework, and the "create a new section" functionality is already implemented (phab:T105129) - more advanced features will be fully supported once that is complete (scheduled to end at the end of August). Beyond that... MassMessage already works; Bots that do tasks more complicated that "post a new topic/section" will need further work - any assistance adding details to mw:Flow/Bots#Commons Talkpage bots would be greatly appreciated (but see also, the next item...)
  3. The current gadgets will need to be updated, but there's now a plugin to do so fairly easily. There are instructions, at mw:Flow/Architecture/API#Posting a new topic from on-wiki JavaScript.
  4. Yes, click the "..." menu and choose "Hide" - this is equivalent to "revert". (And admins have a separate option for "delete")
HTH. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 21:08, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

(The) Maldives

Any chance we can make up our minds as to what to call categories related to this country? Apart from the outliers Category:Stilt houses in the Maldive Islands, Category:Thatched roofs in the Maldive Islands, Category:Islamic Republic of Maldives and Category:Videos from the Republic of Maldives, category names are pretty evenly divided between "Maldives" and "the Maldives" with no apparent pattern:


The Maldives (93)

Category:Actors from the Maldives Category:Administrative atolls of the Maldives Category:Aerial photographs of the Maldives Category:Aircraft of the Maldives Category:Aircraft registered in the Maldives Category:Airlines of the Maldives Category:Airports in the Maldives Category:Ambassadors of the Maldives Category:Animals of the Maldives Category:Architecture of the Maldives Category:Arthropods of the Maldives Category:Art of the Maldives Category:Association football in the Maldives Category:Association football players from the Maldives Category:Association football venues in the Maldives Category:Atolls of the Maldives Category:Aviation in the Maldives Category:Aviation photographers from the Maldives Category:Bays of the Maldives Category:Beaches of the Maldives Category:Bilateral maps of the Maldives Category:Bilateral relations of the Maldives Category:Birds of the Maldives Category:Boats in the Maldives Category:Boys of the Maldives Category:Bridges in the Maldives Category:Children of the Maldives Category:Coats of arms of the Maldives Category:Coconut trees in the Maldives Category:Culture of the Maldives Category:Dance of the Maldives Category:Defunct airlines of the Maldives Category:Economy of the Maldives Category:Fireboats in the Maldives Category:Fishing boats of the Maldives Category:Fishing in the Maldives Category:Fish of the Maldives Category:Flag maps of the Maldives Category:Geography of the Maldives Category:Girls of the Maldives Category:Historical coats of arms of the Maldives Category:History of the Maldives Category:Hotels in the Maldives Category:International relations of the Maldives Category:Islands of the Maldives Category:Lagoons of the Maldives Category:Languages of the Maldives Category:Linguistic maps of the Maldives Category:Locator maps of the Maldives Category:Maps of administrative divisions of the Maldives Category:Maps of the Maldives Category:Marine life of the Maldives Category:Mosques in the Maldives Category:Nature of the Maldives Category:Panoramics in the Maldives Category:Passports of the Maldives Category:Passport stamps of the Maldives Category:People of the Maldives Category:People of the Maldives by occupation Category:Photographers from the Maldives Category:Politicians of the Maldives Category:Politics of the Maldives Category:Ports and harbours in the Maldives Category:Post of the Maldives Category:Presidential standards of the Maldives Category:Presidents of the Maldives Category:Quality images of the Maldives Category:Reefs of the Maldives Category:Relations of the Maldives and the United States Category:Reptiles of the Maldives Category:Resort islands of the Maldives Category:Resorts in the Maldives Category:Ships of the Maldives Category:Sports in the Maldives Category:Sportspeople from the Maldives Category:Stamps of the Maldives Category:Structures in the Maldives Category:Subdivisions of the Maldives Category:Sunrises of the Maldives Category:Sunsets of the Maldives Category:SVG flags - historical of the Maldives Category:SVG flags of the Maldives Category:Templates related to the Maldives Category:Uninhabited islands of the Maldives Category:Tourism in the Maldives Category:Transport in the Maldives Category:Travel maps of the Maldives Category:Underwater diving in the Maldives Category:Unidentified locations in the Maldives Category:Unidentified plants in the Maldives Category:Vehicles in the Maldives Category:Water transport in the Maldives Category:Women of the Maldives


Maldives (82)

Category:1987 in aviation in Maldives Category:1987 in Maldives Category:2004 in aviation in Maldives Category:2004 in Maldives Category:2006 in aviation in Maldives Category:2006 in Maldives Category:2007 in aviation in Maldives Category:2007 in Maldives Category:2008 in aviation in Maldives Category:2008 in Maldives Category:2009 in aviation in Maldives Category:2009 in Maldives Category:2010 in aviation in Maldives Category:2010 in Maldives Category:2011 in aviation in Maldives Category:2011 in Maldives Category:2012 in aviation in Maldives Category:2012 in Maldives Category:2014 in aviation in Maldives Category:2014 in Maldives Category:2015 in aviation in Maldives Category:2015 in Maldives Category:Aircraft at airports in Maldives Category:Aviation in Maldives by year Category:Banknotes of Maldives Category:Buddhism in Maldives Category:Buildings in Maldives Category:Coast guard of Maldives Category:Coast guard ships of Maldives Category:Coins of Maldives Category:Commerce in Maldives Category:Companies of Maldives Category:Coral reefs of Maldives Category:Countryballs (Maldives) Category:Cuisine of Maldives Category:Diagrams of road signs of Maldives Category:Economy of Maldives Category:Featured pictures of Maldives Category:Flag construction sheets of Maldives Category:Flags of Maldives Category:Flora of Maldives Category:Historical flags of Maldives Category:Hydrology in Maldives Category:Images from US Navy, location Isdhoo Kalaidhoo, Maldives Category:Images from US Navy, location MALE, Maldives Category:Images from US Navy, location VILLINGILI, Maldives Category:Islamic Centre (Maldives) Category:License plates of Maldives Category:Lighthouses in Maldives Category:Location maps of Maldives Category:Maldives Category:Maldives by decade Category:Maldives by year Category:Maldives in the 1980s Category:Maldives in the 2000s Category:Maldives in the 20th century Category:Maldives in the 21st century Category:Maldives National Defense Force Category:Maldives national football team Category:Maldives national football team kits Category:Maps of the Dutch East India Company - Maldives Category:Military flags of Maldives Category:Military of Maldives Category:Military symbols of Maldives Category:Money of Maldives Category:Photographs of flags of Maldives Category:Piers in Maldives Category:Police of Maldives Category:Police patches of Maldives Category:Pronunciation of Maldives Category:Relations of India and Maldives Category:Relations of Maldives and South Korea Category:Relations of Maldives and the United States Category:Restaurants in Maldives Category:Ribbon bars of Maldives Category:Road signs in Maldives Category:Road transport infrastructure in Maldives Category:Road transport in Maldives Category:Roundels of Maldives Category:Satellite pictures of Maldives Category:Stupas in Maldives Category:SVG labeled maps of administrative divisions of Maldives (location map scheme) Category:SVG locator maps of Atolls in Maldives (location map scheme) Category:SVG locator maps of Maldives (location map scheme) Category:Symbols of Maldives Category:Tourism in Maldives Category:Ukulhas Island, Maldives Category:Wikivoyage banners of Maldives

—LX (talk, contribs) 19:44, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

"Maldives" seems to be more common than "The Maldives". Ruslik (talk) 20:04, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
What do you base that assertion on? As shown above, technically "The Maldives" has a slight statistical advantage with 93 uses versus 82. —LX (talk, contribs) 08:34, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
Constitution Of Maldives (page 1) uses "the Maldives". Jee 09:08, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
I did not mean the Commons. I meant the general use worldwide. Ruslik (talk) 20:12, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
  • The root of this matter is one of grammar — ellision of a proper noun, "Islands", retaining its definite article "the", unlike, say, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, or the United States (in which there is no ellision and the role of the article is clear). In this regard, the cases of the Philippines and the Bahamas should also be considered. (Not to mention non-country toponyms of the same nature, mostly island groups, also relevant for category nomenclature.)
The official English name should inform the discussion, but not be followed blindly, as it is a way to allow an assymetry in our (supposedly neutral and “transparent”) use of English in Commons: Countries whose official language is not English would be treated in an inherently different way, their official names not being taken in consideration the same way.
Of course, the least of these cases the better (thankfully we got rid of “the” Ukraine, whose official language even lacks a definite article, by the way!), as the unexpected "the" moves the subject off the alphasorted order. This reduces the easiness of things like HotCat. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 10:55, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
So, no clear conclusion so far, but I think there is a slight advantage in favour of "the Maldives" except for Category:Maldives itself and other categories where "Maldives" is the first word in the category name – to follow the pattern of other countries with definite articles. Any strong arguments against this? —LX (talk, contribs) 16:44, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

August 11

Duplicate categories

I'm unsure if this is the proper place to post this, but having poked around a bit on Commons, I can see no better spot.

There are two overlapping categories on Commons, one named Category:The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge and the other Category:Battle of the Bulge. This redundancy may confuse users who are trying to avoid uploading duplicate images but can't find them. It also leaves users unsure how to categorize new images, and it will likely cause users to miss related images when they are unaware of the duplicate category. I suggest they be merged into the latter category, Battle of the Bulge, as this is how the event is most commonly known. -- btphelps (talk) (contribs) 02:03, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

  • While the special category for the book may make sense to those "in the know", it doesn't resolve the problems I identified before. I don't see any justification for a category for the book itself, and apparently others don't understand this hidden distinction, because a casual look at what's assigned to either category will show many overlaps. -- btphelps (talk) (contribs) 00:51, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Upload wizard image sequence annoyance

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T109589

I've recently been uploading some series of images, using the upload wizard. They are numbered sequentially (with gaps) by the camera, (e.g. DSC_0123) and I am careful to select them in the correct order - but the wizard still randomises the order, meaning that if I rename the first, with a name ending "01", and use the tool "Copy title (with automatic numbering)", they are no longer in the correct sequence. Can this be fixed? Andy Mabbett (talk) 11:29, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

We thought that we were doing something wrong. It happens to me and my wife too. B25es (talk) 15:26, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
The problem you are reporting sounds like a potential issue in the code of UploadWizard. If the problem is reproducible, it would be nice if somebody who has this issue could send the software bug to the 'Phabricator' bug tracker by following the instructions How to report a bug, in this case under the project 'MediaWiki-Extensions-UploadWizard' (direct link; see the Phabricator help for account information). This is to make developers of the software aware of the issue. Thanks in advance! --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 10:35, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
This happens every time and has been going on for months now. There were also discussions here or in the german forum about that issue. I'm astonished that this hasn't been picked up yet. --Magnus (talk) 11:51, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Reported; see https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T109589 Andy Mabbett (talk) 15:11, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

How can we improve Wikimedia grants to support you better?

Hello,

The Wikimedia Foundation would like your feedback about how we can reimagine Wikimedia Foundation grants, to better support people and ideas in your Wikimedia project. Ways to participate:

Feedback is welcome in any language.

With thanks,

I JethroBT (WMF), Community Resources, Wikimedia Foundation. 00:03, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Six redlinks in one message, plus one blue one… You guys make it really easy for us to spot the rottenness, don’t you? Look, right now it looks like that the only sensible thing to do in order to improve Commons, the Wikipedias, and all the other projects, is to campaign worldwide against any kind of money donations, thus starving the WMF budget — so that the incompetent leeches who installed themselves therein will drop it for a juicer carcass, allowing their place to be filled by people free from financial and career goals who really want to, and know how to, work for the dissimination of free knowledge. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 23:20, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
(*) Not to mention messed up datestamp, with 60 extra minutes off the server — if it were a made up caricature of a clueless, unwelcome, tone-deaf, oblivious, smarmy message from the WMF it would not be much different. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 00:48, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
Messed up timestape was hardcoded later, after all. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 00:53, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
After each messages from WMF, an useless message from Tuválkin! Pyb (talk) 00:22, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
Yeah, pretty much, and sadly so, on several levels. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 00:48, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

@I JethroBT (WMF): I raised a procedural question at m:Grants talk:IdeaLab/Reimagining WMF grants/UserTargets. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 16:18, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

August 19

deletions

if i post pictures of my own property which i took myself & i indicate that, wiki users accuse me of lying & nominate it for deletion. can someone help me here? i understand photos I didn't take being restricted but not ones i took. how do i correct this? i emailed this question to commons-copyvio@wikimedia.org but did not receive a response. Cubgirl4444 (talk) 11:51, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Hi
See Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Cubgirl4444. May be OK for the NC37905 plane, but most files you have uploaded do not have a proper license, or have a wrong one (i.e. File:NC37931.png which is copied from the Internet, and claimed as your own). It doesn't help the reliability of your claim. Regards, Yann (talk) 12:10, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Cheerleader uniform decision in appeals court - how bad is this for Commons?

From [6] it sounds like copyrighting simple geometric designs is back on - and a quote from that story seems to draw little distinction between the clothing and an image of it. Here's the decision itself (I haven't read it yet - but a quick skim suggests they are finding that an artistic element separable from the functional role of something can be subject to this...). I think this may have to go to WMF lawyers, but how bad is this for Wikimedia Commons? Should WMF file a "friend of the court" brief on the appeal? Wnt (talk) 21:57, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

As far as I can see, the Appeal Court decision was solely on whether the function of the garments precluded copyrightability (decision: no, it didn't). The question of originality was not argued before the Appeal Court, nor ruled on by the judges, and (as I understand it) has now been remitted back to the district court to consider. So (again, as I understand it), the question of whether the designs were too simple and geometric to exhibit sufficient originality to be copyrightable, while raised by the defendants, has not yet been considered by any court at any level; so it is entirely possible that the District Court may still hold that there was no content in the design of sufficient artistic originality to be infringeable. Jheald (talk) 22:38, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
Wnt -- I would really not advise deleting any files on Commons based on such a non-Supreme-Court decision. If and when there's a court ruling that ready-to-wear knockoffs of couture designs are copyright-infringing, that will be the moment to start panicking. -- AnonMoos (talk) 03:56, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
They seem to have copyright registrations, so the Copyright Office said they are copyrightable.--Prosfilaes (talk) 05:53, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
Prosfilaes Having a copyright registration is not a judgment or assessment by the copyright office. In almost all circumstances, a copyright registration is a timestamp for a public claim to copyright by a person claiming to have copyright. Copyright offices do not check what the register, and do not assert that their registering anything makes it copyrightable. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:36, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
This is not true, as evidenced by files like File:Best Western logo.svg. Overworked, underpaid, etc. etc., yes, but if these are not copyrightable, it was the job of the person in the Copyright Office to reject them. It's not like the issue is hard to detect; someone in the office looked at these and said these were copyrightable.--Prosfilaes (talk) 15:09, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
@Prosfilaes: I'm not sure what you mean to assert here. That is a registered trademark, but that has nothing to do with whether it can be copyrighted, except in the very broad sense that trademarks and copyright are both part of intellectual property law. - Jmabel ! talk 16:22, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
Try the part that says "This logo was submitted for copyright registration at the U.S. Copyright Office, appealed twice, and was denied all three times on grounds that there was not sufficient artistic creativity in the design. See File:Best Western Logo.pdf." (And yes, guys, I do read this page, especially threads I've been discussing on.)--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:46, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Image rename required

Kampfgruppe Peiper's Knittel's Troops on the road To Malmedy

The image Peiper's Troops on the road To Malmedy.jpg is wrongly named and perpetuates a common mistake originally created by the British War Museum. The image, found on captured German film, was mistakenly thought to have been taken on 17 December 1944 but the soldiers depicted are not from Kampfgruppe Peiper. On 17 December Kampfgruppe Pieper passed through Honsfield, Bullingen, Malmedy, and Ligneuville. On 18 December, Peiper spent all morning capturing Stavelot, 17KM to the northeast of the Kaiserbaracke Crossroads, where this film was made. The image was taken on 18 December and the troops shown are part of Kampfgruppe Knittel.

The correct unit is also identified in the German military film showing Knittel's advance through that crossoads; on the 30th Infantry Division's web site where the film is carefully analysed; on this recent battlefield tour. Peiper was so upset by the ongoing mistake that he wrote a letter to a newspaper, as documented here. Peiper's rank was Obersturmbannfurher, and the two officers in the image are a Oberscharführer and Unterscharfurhers. Peiper didn't use a Schwimmwagen (the vehicle shown in the image), but was reported to have been in a SPW the day before.

The image ought to be renamed "Kampfgruppe Knittel's troops on the road to Stavelot". -- btphelps (talk) (contribs) 22:27, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

I submitted a move request today. -- btphelps (talk) (contribs) 15:57, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

August 21

POSSIBILITY OF PHOTOS BEING TAKEN AND UPLOADED FRO THE 1913 ISSUE OF IN THE MAINE WOODS

I WILL ATTEMPT TO SEND SOME PHOTOS FROM THE 1913 IN THE MAINE WOODS ISSUED BY THE BANGOR AND AROOSTOOK RAILROAD , THERE ARE PHOTOS OF SUCCESSFUL HUNTING AND FISHING EXPEDITIONS WHEN FAMILIES AND INDIVIDUALS WOULD GO ON VACATION FROM 4 TO 8 WEEKS , THEY WOULD COME BY RAIL FROM ALL OVER THE COUNTRY , MANY FROM NEW YORK. I HOPE I AM ABLE TO BEAR FRUIT ON THIS PROPOSAL , I DONT KNOW WHAT MY BROWNIE HAWKEYE IS CAPABLE OF! SINCERELY DAVE KERNS / KERNSIE. AGAIN I DONT KNOW WHEN I WILL HAVE THE TIME , AND WHEN MY ARMS AND LEGS WILL ALLOW ME THIS MANUEVER — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kernsie45 (talk • contribs)

  • I'm not sure where a Brownie Hawkeye plays a part in this. If these images are already published, wouldn't you just scan them? It wouldn't be any easier to photograph them with a film camera and then scan the results.
  • For what it's worth, any images that were first published in the U.S. in 1913 would now be public domain.
  • This "village pump" page is mainly for discussions of broad interest to Commons users. I don't really see why you've posted this here. Am I missing something? Also, is there any particular reason you wrote this in all-caps? - Jmabel ! talk 05:48, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

New feature "Watch changes in category membership"

recent changes page view with categorization

Hi, coming with this week’s software changes, it will be possible to watch when a page is added to or removed from a category (T9148). The feature has been requested by the German Community and is part of the Top 20 technical wishlist. The feature was already deployed to Mediawiki.org on August 18 and it will be rolled out on Commons between 6-8 pm UTC today. It will be available on all Wikipedias from Thursday 20 on, likewise between 6-8 pm UTC. In this RFC-Proposal, you can find the details of the technical implementation. The feature was implemented via a new "recent changes" type for categorization. Through this, categorization will be logged and shown on the recent changes page. The categorization logg in "recent changes" is the data base for the watchlist: When you watch a category, added or removed pages from that category will be shown on the watchlist. The categorization of pages can be turned off in the watchlist preferences as well as recent changes preferences. If you have any questions or remarks about the feature or if you find a bug, please get in touch! Bugs can also be reported directly in Phabricator, just add the project “TCB-Team” to the respective task. Cheers, Birgit Müller (WMDE) (talk) 14:14, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Sounds absolutely great, thank you.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:57, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
It is possible to opt out? My watchlist is getting flooded :-(. --Steinsplitter (talk) 18:08, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
Hide categorization of pages in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-watchlist --Steinsplitter (talk) 18:10, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
It's already working, and has shown directly usefull. Thanks. But why does it give two watchlist lines for one edit? --Havang(nl) (talk) 18:28, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
Are you moving a file from one category to another? If so, it will flag changes to both categories. Rodhullandemu (talk) 19:52, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
Already saw it in the weekly tech updates, sounds like an enormous improvement. However, it seems that at the moment it's all or nothing, enable it or disable it. Since we have huge amounts of Category operations at Commons, it would be even better if you could enable it for individual Categories. For some Categories, I would like to be notified when new media is added to them, others are just too large and busy and watching them would swamp my watchlist (while I'd still like to monitor if someone changes those Categories themselves). Another option would be to have a separate Watchlist for those Category operations or at least a filter switch on the Watchlist itself (like the "Hide minor edits | Hide bots | Hide anonymous users | …" links. Anyway, thanks to everyone involved in this! --El Grafo (talk) 20:12, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
Seconding everything El Grafo said here. Much needed. The simplest I suppose and probably most pressing would be a filter switch. --Pitke (talk) 20:26, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
All I want now is a way to list pages separately to opt in for categorization views just for them, on a separate page from the Watchlist. Says one whose watchlist totals 32K+ entries even after dedicated efforts to reduce. --Pitke (talk) 20:24, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
In principle, the tool is very nice. I was however forced to remove several high-traffic categories from my watchlist to keep it from being flooded. --Rosenzweig τ 20:27, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
This is a great new feature, a long due improvement, the kind of thing that should be funded and prioritized! (Although is didn’t kick in for me yet, even after checking my prefs.) -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 21:28, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
  • Can you please make it work right before releasing it?
I have Category:The Iron Bridge watchlisted. This change was made, affecting categorization on a file already within that category. The categorization into the watched category is unchanged. However my watchlist is now flooded with doubled entries for files like this, showing it being first removed from, then re-added to, the watched category (when neither of these has actually happened). Andy Dingley (talk) 21:51, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
This seems to be a bug in the MediaWiki parser that is passing added and removed categories to an updater (which is then also writing the change entries). We need to investigate this and file a bug report. Thank you for this example! Kai Nissen (WMDE) (talk) 14:00, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

I would like to have a feature to opt out for individual (high-traffic) categories. My watchlist is currently flooded --Leyo 22:08, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

I filed a feature request for a whitelist/blacklist feature. --Pitke (talk) 20:10, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

This seems like a useful feature, thanks to those developing it and responding to user feature requests. As with other users with large current watchlists, I've had to disable it due to flooding. I'm not sure how there could be a work-around to avoid this. --Fæ (talk) 09:08, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Let's try a little FAQ:

Uh, nooo - how can i opt-out?
(User:Pitke points out that such an option is no longer visible in the section. --Pitke (talk) 06:08, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
(User:Pitke points out that such an option is no longer visible in the section. --Pitke (talk) 06:08, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
I want to watch more subcats! How can i easily add categories and subcategories?
Use Catscan (https://tools.wmflabs.org/catscan2/catscan2.php) to get a list of subcategories and import/paste into your watchlist (Special:EditWatchlist/raw).
Also http://tools.wmflabs.org/catscan2/reverse_tree.php
Are there alternative tools to watch category changes?
How can i report a bug?
If you have any questions or remarks about the feature or if you find a bug, please get in touch! Bugs can also be reported directly in Phabricator, just add the project “TCB-Team” to the respective task.

Anything else? --Atlasowa (talk) 12:14, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Hmm, looks like there was a recent software update with left this "feature" activated but removed the options to disable it. --Denniss (talk) 18:44, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Yeah for me too, it's really annoying. Thibaut120094 (talk) 19:43, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
phab:T109638, apparently. Helder 20:54, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
The feature change got reverted on August 20th. After it got deployed to the production systems it became apparent that under some special circumstances entries in the watchlist and recent changes were showing the IP address instead of the user name.
It's good that this came to our attention as the developer team can start to work on a solution for this now. Thanks to all who already tested the new feature and gave valuable comments. It is a big help for the next version of this feature.
@Denniss and Thibaut120094: As far as I know both the change was reverted and the entries it stored as recent changes were deleted. Maybe you were seeing this while the revert was already carried out but the entries were still in the database. Kai Nissen (WMDE) (talk) 10:56, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
Well, that's too bad that it had to be reverted - it looks like a really useful tool. Is this likely to be an easily fixed issue with the feature back soon, or might it be a while? Pi.1415926535 (talk) 13:59, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

What to do with images with home-brewed licenses

I was helping User:RP88 lately with files in Category:Files with no machine-readable license, which we managed to shrink from 200k to just over 1k. Along the way we found many strange custom licenses which needed some work in order to be machine-readable.

We are a little stumped by 2 home-brewed licenses by User:Chriusha and User:Saffron Blaze: User:Chriusha/License and User:Saffron Blaze/license. Those licenses sound like generic CC-BY-SA with whole sentences lifted from by-sa/3.0 deed the only deviation from CC-BY-SA is the "Licensee may not use higher resolution versions of this work" restriction. I do not understand the meaning of this restriction: it sounds like conditions used by some users who distribute thumbnails of their images under some license and would like to use different license for full resolution images. However for all the files I check the image was distributed at the full camera resolution (I think) so "higher resolution versions of this work" does not exist. I asked both users if they would consider relicensing the images under some CC license, but so far did not hear back from them.

What shall we do with such files, those and the ones that might show up in the future? At the moment files using those 2 licenses are lacking machine-readable licenses and I do not think we should be adding machine-readable metadata to custom templates in user-namespace. Any ideas?--Jarekt (talk) 20:19, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure we should, as a matter of policy, permit Commons volunteers to contribute files of their own creation using custom-drafted unique-to-Commons licenses; we should ask them to select one or more of the many approved licenses. Part of the problem with these two custom licenses is that they're not based on the actual CC-BY-SA license terms with an added restriction on regarding larger files; their licenses are actually based on the "human-readable summary" of the CC-BY-SA license (CC says the summaries are "not a substitute for" the actual license). However, I suspect if a third-party wrote a license like CC-BY-SA with a "only this file" size restriction it would likely be accepted by the Commons community as meeting licensing policy. At the absolute minimum, custom licenses used by Commons media should have license templates in Template namespace, not User namespace. —RP88 (talk) 20:37, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
Life sure would be easier if no images with homebrewed licenses existed... --Dschwen (talk) 20:43, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
"Licensee may not use higher resolution versions of this work" means that not all derivatives are allowed. Therefore not compatible with Commons license requirements. Whether a higher resolution version exists or not is not relevant. --Hedwig in Washington (mail?) 20:56, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
You can not create derivative image with higher image resolution than the original. You can resize it to larger size but that does not change the resolution, so I do not think it conflicts with derivative work requirement. But that is the problem with badly written licenses: they are ambiguous. --Jarekt (talk) 21:08, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
The noted restriction means higher resolution images may be found in the web but those are not available under the license given for lower res variants. License sounds like a mix of attribution + share-alike part of CC. Not easy for re-users to identify how to correctly use the images. Non-standard, self-made licenses should not be permitted at Commons unless they are mixed with a standard license.--Denniss (talk) 21:18, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
@Jarekt, the background of the cited "home-brewed" licenses is the mess which CC created by themselves, when in 2013 they suddenly came to the sort of conclusion that the term "work" (as used in the legal code of their licenses) may not refer to the image of the resolution which the licensor actually had released under the CC license, but to the image/photo itself, independent of resolution, which completely contradicted statements in their own FAQs about the same issue.[7] This mess is still unsolved, as it would require court decisions. There was some preliminary consensus among the participants in the 2013 and in later discussions, that on Commons we should voluntarily respect the presumed will of the licensor, instead of taking advantage of CC's home-grown legal loophole.
So, the cited "restriction" is a sort of self-defense against users who would not respect respect the will of the licensor. --Túrelio (talk) 21:14, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
I am familiar with this dispute but I do not think it applies here since as far as I can tell the images licensed by those 2 licenses are distributed at the original camera resolution. They look sharp and the image size is similar to image sizes taken with the same camera. Which just adds to my confusion. --Jarekt (talk) 21:28, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
Thanks Denniss for clarifying. Same pic on the web in higher resolution is what I meant. :-) Both licenses have to be adapted for that. Or better scrapped voluntarily, avoiding week-long discussions like the ones we had with the copyheart license. --Hedwig in Washington (mail?) 22:00, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
Both User:Chriusha and User:Saffron Blaze are still active and I was hoping they would agree to relicense the images or be able to explain the rationale of their licenses. This would be the best solution to our problem. --Jarekt (talk) 23:01, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
Although Saffron Blaze may choose to submit his images at their original resolution, that doesn't mean he can't reserve the right to not license a hypothetical 'original' image which may or may not exist. Obviously the stipulations about high resolutions exist as part of a template and may not apply properly to each and every file he uploads. It's simply a reservation of the right to not license any and all copies of the photo, only the one that was actually published under the license. I don't see the problem here. Yes, I understand that Creative Commons have stated that they believe a CC license applies to not only the one published under CC-BY-SA but also any hypothetical image that it was derived from, but I don't think they are the ultimate arbiter of truth, even if indeed they did create the license. Only a court will determine whether that actually stands up, legally. It wouldn't be the first time that a contract was written that was (at least partially) unenforceable. The way I see it, Saffron Blaze has chosen to clarify the terms that he believes exist under the CC license. I do the same on my image uploads. Not because I want to impose additional restrictions, but because I believe the Creative Commons are not clear enough. Even with my additional clarification on my image pages, I still continue to get a large number of re-users wishing to make sure they understand the license correctly. The fact is, it is not easy for laymen to understand. IMO, trying to clarify the existing terms of the license is not imposing additional terms. Diliff (talk) 15:08, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
I just realised that I've misunderstood. I wasn't aware that Saffron had actually licensed the image under a 'custom' license instead of the Creative Commons license. I thought it was a clarification in addition to the CC license. It sounds like he's tried to be in keeping with the license but I can see how this is going to cause trouble, particularly in terms of keeping track of it and its legality. Diliff (talk) 15:16, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
Diliff, one of the problems with the so-called home-made licence, is that it only deals with the resolution issue, and not with another image made from the same source raw file (i.e. the same negative). It's a half-backed attempt to make a point (as Saffron admits). Btw, there are important differences between a licence and a contract. With a contract, if the terms are unfair or unclear, the writer of the contract generally loses in court. But with a licence, you are completely relying on a good understanding of the rights granted -- and without it you fall back on copyright law. A licence does not impose a contract between the artist and the re-user. As CC make clear, anyone in any doubt that their license is appropriate should (a) get legal advice and (b) contact the copyright owner. This is why non-standard licences adapted from the deed (not the real licence text) of another licence are really bad news. -- Colin (talk) 20:51, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
Diliff I remember the incident when Saffron created this license tag. It was based on the point that CC discourage calling a license as a CC license when any new term is added. I too think it is better to stick with a CC license and explain as you did unless it is proved otherwise in court. :) Jee 15:30, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
  •  Comment I can understand the argument for discouraging non-standard DIY licenses. But we can't neglect the "original issue" behind this "protest". Personally I'm a fan of "free-knowledge-culture". But, at the same time, I believe the decision to donate something from the heart of the contributor. We should not make benefit from the errors or omissions that happened consciously or accidentally in the underlying concept. It first happened in the license migration move. It must be "opt-in" than "opt-out". That may be the bold protest from many users, including some admins, against that move.
In the above quoted incident, I had contacted CC and they responded in a timely manner. They updated their FAQ to reflect this risk. But unfortunately this is a complicated matter as the basis of this confusion is what we are licensing. If it is the actual work which is eligible for a copyright, then there is no question like which version. But if individual versions are eligible for separate copyright, and it is possible to license an intermediate version without licensing the original, this "issue" kick in. This is not tested in court so far; so we or CC can't comment on. So reusers are under the risk if they find a higher resolution file from somewhere else to use with the license available here. Contributors are also under the risk, if they want to contribute still prefer to keep original.
We can't say something is from a camera's native resolution, especially about works of people like Saffron Blaze or Diliff. They are mostly made form several shots (exposure/focus bracketing, stitching, etc.). In such works, the originals are several files and if somebody access/hack their backup believing the free license is applicable to them too, I have no idea where it ends.
The time exceeded to clarify this point. If CC or GNU can't do it (out of interest or any other reason); I think Commons community can think about a home made "Wikimedia Commons Community License". Jee 02:41, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
The discussion here seems to assume there are a set of "official" licences that Commons accepts. But our Licensing policy makes no restriction, provided the licence meets the Definition of Free Cultural Works. If the community believes that using "official" licences is a requirement, we should seek to change policy. As for the "home-brewed licences" here, I have some doubt they meet the definition.
  • As noted, they are modifications of the CC deed. That deed explicitly states "This deed highlights only some of the key features and terms of the actual license. It is not a license and has no legal value. You should carefully review all of the terms and conditions of the actual license before using the licensed material". So if the CC deed is not a licence and has no legal value, why should these modifications of such be of any use to us.
  • The so-called licence is defined on a wiki in user-space, which is shifting-sand. Even if this text was a proper legal document (for example, if it was a personal modification of the full CC licence itself -- something that I'm sure is not legally permitted), it has no version number or publication date, making it hard to express what text was agreed to (a permanent link is a fairly obscure mechanism).
  • The world really does not need personal "share-alike" "licences". It is good that FAL, CC and GNU have worked together to seek compatibility in their licences. But these personal "licences" cannot be combined with other freely licensed material.
I sympathise with the problem where the CC (and all other well-known free licences) cover the work of art rather than a specific digital file. I see no reason why a file-based licence scheme is infeasible, combined with digital signatures, and a repository (such as Commons or another) that acted as a record of file-license association. But it really does require proper legal and commercial backing for it to get off the ground and be respected by a court.
I would be sympathetic with a proposal to change our licence policy to limit the number of free licenses that are permitted here. Either by naming approved licences, or at least ensuring they are well-known published licences that have been designed by a legal team. Our value as an image repository for free re-use is increased by making it simpler for re-users to be assured of their rights. However, the last time I tried that (to remove GFDL as a sole-licence option), people chanted "A free licence is a free licence", as though that meant anything useful, and I got the impression that quite a lot of people on Commons view this project like a stamp collection hobby whose purpose is merely to collect "permitted" images for the sake of it, and are thus opposed to anything that might restrict what is "permitted". A fair number of folk on Commons have no interest in participating in a "free content project" and see no purpose beyond illustrating Wikipedia (conveniently ignoring that Wikipedia is itself a free content project).
For previous discussions with Saffron, see Commons talk:Featured picture candidates/Archive 14#Your license may be applicable to your original work and Saffron's archived talk page (section You come back?). -- Colin (talk) 10:22, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
Good question. A good example of a widely used license tag lacking good legal text is {{Attribution}}. During the Media Viewer scandal, we noticed that many people misunderstand this as an "attribution template" and used to specify attribution parameter with other license tags.
There are so many software related tags like {{BSD}}, {{Apache}} exist here. Some funny tags like WTFPL, Beerware too. Jee 11:17, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
I too would be sympathetic to a proposal to change our licence policy to limit the number of free licenses that are permitted here. I don't think that anyone participating in this discussion is under the impression that there is an "official list" of Commons licenses. At best the list of licenses are those with license templates in Template namespace, and even then I wouldn't want to count on a recent addition as being acceptable to the Commons community. The closest we have to a set of "official" licenses that Commons accepts are those that by virtue of WMF's licensing policy are the pre-qualified licenses on the Definition of Free Cultural Works list. For example, GFDL is officially a free cultural work license. —RP88 (talk) 12:53, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
RP88, without wishing to re-open that can-of-worms, the GFDL is a perfectly good free culture licence for large software documents, and GPL is perfectly good for software programs, but GNU do not actually recommend either of these for images/video/audio -- they recommend CC instead. So the "definition" isn't imo an adequate description of a suitable licence for audio-visual media that Commons hosts. The "definition" website is of historical interest, but isn't maintained by the Commons community. -- Colin (talk) 20:51, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
See Definition "additional conditions in order for a work to be considered free: Availability of source data: Where a final work has been obtained through the compilation or processing of a source file or multiple source files, all underlying source data should be available alongside the work itself under the same conditions." So to call a photograph as "free" we need all RAW files too. :) Jee 13:10, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
The "definition" doesn't require raw files: images can be manipulated and adapted from their JPG/PNG/TIFF. The same is not (generally) true of executable software. -- Colin (talk) 20:51, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
Support changing Commons:Licensing to only allow the most popular licenses If the Commons community is ready to have a vote to disallow homebrew copyright licenses and only allow a limited few licenses, specifically those provided by Creative Commons and the GFDL, then I am ready to advocate for a change.
The advantages of homebrew licenses are ideological - promoting freedom of speech and personal expression. The disadvantages are practical - they might not be legally valid, they certainly would not be legally defended by Creative Commons/Gnu if challenged, they confuse people who would reuse files, and they harm the overall reputation of Wikimedia Commons at a time when we are seeking more institutional partnerships with archives that want Wikimedia Commons to be orderly and maintain quality. I would say more if someone made a proposal for change and brought this to a vote, or even if someone wanted to start drafting a proposal to introduce in the future. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:26, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
I can understand that homebrew licenses might need to be regulated if there are indeed legal issues (other than misusing the name Creative Commons), but restricting licenses to simply the limited "Copyleft" Creative Commons and GFDL licenses is something I would personally be very uncomfortable with. CC-0 has no restrictions, and CC-BY is quite restrictive. There isn't a step between them that fulfils my need, which is why I dual license under Template:Beerware. Tom-L (talk) 20:10, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
Bluerasberry -- "only allowing the most popular licenses" is a very different thing from cracking down on two or three unauthorized "homebrew" modifications of CC. I would strongly oppose the former (which would require deleting tens of thousands of files). AnonMoos (talk) 01:20, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
What about considering a proposal for future uploads? It can be something like "For all future uploads to Commons with Copyleft licenses, one license must be CC BY-SA or a compatible license. This is not applicable to Public domain works and Copyfree licensed works." This will not affect {{Attribution}}, {{Beerware}} etc. as they are Copyfree. This will eliminate GFDL only uploads too. I don't thing it is a problem as even FSF doesn't recommend GFDL for media files. Jee 05:20, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
I wouldn't recommend combining the anti-GFDL issue with wanting people to use official licences. They are different arguments, and despite the illogic of it, a lot of people voted to keep GFDL as a sole licence. Personally, I think most of them were not thinking straight, and I reckon practically nobody uses it now, but I have no stomach to re-open that one. I think Commons would probably not be happy to have just a few named licences, mainly because so many of us are unhappy with the current set in some way. One possible tactic is to define the minimum characteristic of a good copyleft licence. Such as:
  • Published on a non-editable website (i.e. not an open wiki like this)
  • A publication date and version.
  • Having a review process that led to publication that includes recognised community leaders and lawyers.
  • Recognised by the free culture community.
Other desirable characteristics may be:
  • Being compatible with CC, FAL and GFDL.
  • Imposing minimal overhead for use with audio-visual media.
Of the first of these, I don't think the free culture community would be keen on any new copyleft licence that wasn't compatible with the existing ones. The copyleft aspect only provides any freedom if one is free to mix with other licensed works. Of the second, that would rule-out GFDL (since it has ridiculous requirements for embedding a huge multi-page licence text alongside the work, and that is precisely why some people used to use it -- to stop their work being reused). I'm pessimistic, though, that Commons is mature enough to accept such a restriction that is in the interests of our re-users but not obviously in the interest of the image-collectors and Wikipedia-illustrators. -- Colin (talk) 07:01, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
I don't want to dig deeply into the discussion here, but from my understanding, adding additional restricting terms to CC licenses while still calling them CC licenses is illegal, per Modifying the CC licenses. — Julian H.✈ 19:19, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
Julian, you are right that one can't have "CC + my own bits". The so-called licences that started this don't claim "CC" by are more-or-less a copy/paste of the CC deed. That in itself is a copyright issue. I would think CC would be legally uncomfortable if people started creating their own licences using most of the their text -- mainly out of the risk of potential confusion. -- Colin (talk) 07:01, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
Just a comment: CC is llegally comfortable with people using their text to create other licenses or anything else. "CC does not assert copyright in the text of its licenses, so you are permitted to modify the text as long as you do not use the CC marks to describe it." [8] --Pere prlpz (talk) 12:59, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
Oh, sorry, I had assumed the licenses are just abbreviations linking to the complete CC license somewhere. My bad. Yes, CC is not happy about derivatives because the whole point of CC is to use the benefits of unified widespread licenses. After all, it's pretty much impossible to remix these images because no other content has the same or a compatible license. But in this case, I'm not sure CC can do anything about it. - - — Julian H.✈ 07:20, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
I think we should try to have better control over license templates used, but I also do not want to limit ourselves to only "most popular licenses" and definitely do not want to be deleting images because of this. I would like to:
  • have all the license templates in the template namespace not in the user-namespace
  • custom templates created for a single institution or user are OK as long as they include or are accompanied by a "official" license template.
  • license templates should not be transcluded into user-namespace templates and those transcluded into files. With such arrangement one can change image license without leaving any record in file history or showing up in watchlists.
  • I think we should create a flat category for all the "first generation" official license templates, witch do not transclude other license templates. All licenses in that category should have machine readable metadata.
  • We should have a page listing all the licenses in that category. COM:CT was such a page (I think). Than it would be easy to compare category and the list for discrepancies.
  • New licenses should go through an approval process or discussion in widely followed forum before they are added to the list.
--Jarekt (talk) 01:47, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
Those proposals make sense. AnonMoos (talk) 05:20, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
License and Copyright templates/tags are different. So I think Commons:Licensing/Acceptable licenses is a better place than COM:CT. If you want to monitor Copyright tags too, then COM:CT is a good place for it.
"License templates should not be transcluded into user-namespace templates and those transcluded into files" will affect my uploads. I'm using custom tags for easier management of my uploads. Anyone can watch my templates which is easier than watching all my files. But I've no plan to oppose this proposal. If passed, I will prefer to add a generic license tag outside the information template using VFC. It may make my file pages looks more ugly; but I can live with it. :) Jee 06:07, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
I personally did use my template to change the license, though I changed it to a less restrictive license, which I cannot imagine being problematic. Most, probably all, of the transclusions of that template are from after the license change, though. But yeah, I could do without it, I guess, since I don't add any special markup. Tom-L (talk) 23:09, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
Support Jarekt's proposals. If homebrew licenses are in a user's space, then they could be deleted by user request anytime, which is not fair to Commons. I also requiring that all licenses be templates to track their history and development. From that, saying that all licenses have to be categorized as either first generation / standard or derivative and less legally scrutinized would be useful. The approval process is a great idea to definitively say that all licenses in Commons are Commons-compatible. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:51, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
Just to make it clear: the templates that appear on image description pages are not "licences" but "licence tags": summaries of proper licences that are fully described in legal language elsewhere. That those full licence texts are permanent and version-controlled, and widely respected, is absolutely critical for copyleft licences. Let's not start pretending that the handful of sentences in the templates constitute a proper licence that our re-users could comfortably use -- no matter what Saffron or others may think. -- Colin (talk) 20:50, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
Except for our "home-brewed" {{Attribution}} and some Copyleft tags like {{Nagi Attribution Share Alike}}. So Saffron's tag is just a generic Copyleft tag like the Nagi tag. So it can be considered as a valid tag if moved to template space. Saffron can easily mention his license in his Flickr profile or personal website (like Nagi did) if defining license in a wiki is the problem. (I'm not supporting/encouraging "home-brewed" licenses; but we need to maintain neutrality and uniformity in handling cases. It should not be an emotional move as in case of custom tags. As far as I know, the only reason for hate against custom tags is Fir's attempt to protest against forced migration of GFDL only to CC BY-SA. But it is just one incident. There are lot of people prefer custom tags to describe copyright terms better than our useless outdated tags; but still prefer to contribute a lot of free contents. I had made an attempt to improve our tags; but made no results. The reason is simple; most maintenance volunteers/wmf are in a greed to grab as much as content, have no respect to copyright holders. They (both wmf and some volunteers) prefer to bully our photographers too, whenever get a chance. No wonder if more photographers agree with Alex Wild.) Jee 03:27, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
I have to agree that the CC interpretation of releasing a "work" to mean "releasing anything you made that is similar to but better than the work you released" is odd. I mean, I don't believe in copyright but apart from that I don't have an excuse for it; it seems like a legal Trojan horse more than anything. However, the question is whether this interpretation has managed to hold with the courts -- and if it has held with the courts, is that a feature of CC or a feature of how courts define any "work"? The question I have is whether the same legal arguments that created this issue would invalidate Saffron's restriction, or alternatively, whether they would invalidate his license altogether.
Anyway, the obvious solution is to have the WMF lawyers sit down and think hard over a license to match Saffron's intent. In theory this shouldn't be altogether incompatible with CC because if you splice in one piece from one of these to a CC image it's a different 'work' and the restriction becomes unnecessary ......... or so I would speculate vacuously. Wnt (talk) 22:13, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

August 14

IC3 like trains

Category:IC3 shows that this type of train also exist outside of Denmark. I come acros Category:RENFE Class 594 also of Danisch origin (there is also a renovated version where the rubber is removed). How can al these train types be linked? Is there a common train builder? Could the Spanisch train be a version of the Danisch IC2? By the way I have added a lot of pictures from Ferrol. Some other picture from the Northwest corner of Spain wil be coming.Smiley.toerist (talk) 16:07, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

IC3 was created for Denmark and was also exported to Sweden (Category:Y2) and Israel (Category:IC3 in Israel). The concept with rubber front however was also used for the Danish IR4 and IC2, the Danish/Swedish Öresundståg and various Spanish and Belgian trains. So yes, the fronts comes from the same builder, ABB Scandia (now Bombardier Transportation Denmark), but not the rest of the trains. --Dannebrog Spy (talk) 19:10, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Uploaded image not displaying?

Hi, I don't know if it is just me or not (although other wiki images are displaying fine). The following image is displaying just as a blue link: File:Cornwall County Division Insignia vector.svg. Any advise? — Preceding unsigned comment added by EnigmaMcmxc (talk • contribs)

OK for me. Yann (talk) 14:21, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
Now it is displaying for me too! I don't know what occurred, but it seems to have sorted itself out.EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 14:28, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Public domain?

[9] Are these public domain and what banners are needed if they're downloaded, please.Keith-264 (talk) 15:02, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

August 25

Mantainance template transcluding only 2 of 4 images from i18n content subtemplates

There’s a problem with {{DistortedAspectRatio}}. While the subtemplates with the text in several languages show 2 examples of 2 images each:

→
This media item presents an aspect ratio that is distorted with relation to the original subject or the intended layout — either squeezed (◄) or stretched (►). It should be replaced by an improved version with the realistic​/​intended aspect ratio.
 →
→
Tiu ĉi bildo/filmo montriĝas kun misa format­kvoto kompare kun la originala objekto aŭ la planita aspekto — aŭ premita (◄) aŭ streĉita (►). Ĝin anstataŭu versio plibonigita laŭ realisma​/​laŭplana formatkvoto.
 →
→
Este ficheiro apresenta uma proporção distorcida em relação ao sujeito ou ao esquema original — ou espremido (◄) ou esticado (►). É necessário trocá-lo por uma versão melhor, com a proporção desejada​/​real.
 →

, when transcluded directly the right-side example is gone: {{Template:DistortedAspectRatio}} Any ideas on how to fix this? -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 21:22, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

The reason is because there are two templates {{DistortedAspectRatio/layout}} and {{DistordedAspectRatio/layout}} (DistortedApectRatio versus DistordedApectRatio).
I fixed {{DistortedAspectRatio}}, but did not cleanup the (unused) duplicates. HenkvD (talk) 16:58, 30 August 2015 (UTC)
Yay, thanks so much! I had made the typo, corrected it, and then kept using the subpage with the typo, which was (of course) unsynched. Should have “checked the cables first”. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 15:26, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 22:57, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Image preload fails

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T109952

In the last one or two weeks, preload function of the Special:Upload form fails. The preloading get stuck (loading of the file itself is OK). Maybe, some problem detection and warnings (duplicate, overwriting existing file etc.) can be also affected. Do you know about it? --ŠJů (talk) 17:16, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

I just noticed this too. I filed a bug at the Phabricator. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 19:26, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
Same, also cannot add the copyright information. Banak (talk) 02:28, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
It was an accident while consolidating code related to spinners in order to reduce page load time. There's a patch pending review, and it should be fixed soon. (Banak: I'm not sure what you mean by not adding copyright info. That could potentially be a separate issue). Bawolff (talk) 07:00, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

This should be fixed now.

Resolved

Bawolff (talk) 07:15, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

August 23

Revert et attribution

Hi, I think in case a revert, MediaWiki doesn't attribute the file correctly. I.e. if I revert a file because of vandalism or any other reason, the file should be attributed to the original uploader, not to me. However it appears in my list of uploads, and as my own upload in the "File history". Do you think we could ask that to be fixed? Beside the risk of confusion for reusers, in some cases, I absolutely don't want that the file I revert is attributed to me (e.g. vandalism on a nudity image). Regards, Yann (talk) 22:01, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Seconded. I actually had this example case twice recently. --Sebari (talk) 22:26, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
Not a big deal in most cases, but if you absolutely don't want that the file you revert is attributed to you, couldn't you just delete the page and restore the pre-vandalism edits? And if you're not an admin, couldn't you explain the situation at talk and then tag the image with {{speedy|See talk page}}? Obviously not an ideal situation, but until MediaWiki is improved, it would fix the immediate problem. Nyttend (talk) 12:31, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

August 24

Script errors on every page

Did somebody just make a configuration change of some kind? I'm getting a red "Script error: The module returned a value. It is supposed to return an export table." on almost every page on Commons (some pages with multiple errors). —RP88 (talk) 00:26, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Category:Pages with script errors is expanding rapidly, 1500+ pages and growing. Pretty much any page that is edited now gets added to this category. —RP88 (talk) 00:29, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
Never mind, whatever change was made has apparently been corrected — errors are gone and Category:Pages with script errors has stopped growing in size. Performing a null edit on the recently added files in Category:Pages with script errors removes them from the error category. —RP88 (talk) 00:34, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
I imagine (based on timestamps), that the issue was fixed by [10]. Bawolff (talk) 04:53, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
I just started using Cat-a-lot a few hours ago for the first time, and immediately I began noticing these errors. Good to know that they're not something I did wrongly :-) Nyttend (talk) 12:27, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Basque identity

I get confused with the Navarre province. As I understand it is part of the Basque Country, but not part of the Basque Autonomous Community. I created a subcategory: 2015 in rail transport in Navarre. However the Regions of Spain script does not work there. Is Navarre not a region of Spain? I did this because Pamplona pictures do not belong to 2015 in rail transport in the Basque Autonomous Community. Can someone help me?Smiley.toerist (talk) 08:19, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

In administrative terms, Navarre is not a part of the Basque Autonomous Community. Navarre is an Autonomous Community on its own, like La Rioja, Cantabria, Murcia, Asturias or Madrid.
Pamplona does not belong to the Basque Autonomous Community.
However many Navarrese people consider themselves Basque, while many others oppose that idea completely. I very much recommend you to read a variety of diferent sources to get to understand the situation in Navarre. B25es (talk) 14:21, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
Anyway, both Basque Country and Spain are useful areas for categorisation, as many reliable sources use them. If regions of Spain scripts and templates don't work for a given Navarrese category, it's just a technical problem to be fixed.--Pere prlpz (talk) 17:57, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
@Smiley.toerist: ✓ Done The template {{Regions of Spain|prefix=:Category:2015 in rail transport in|suffix=}} works as far I can see. I think it didn't work because nobody had put it in the category page.--Pere prlpz (talk) 18:49, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Location on the North Spanisch coast

Where?

I took a train all the way from Ferrol to Oviedo. Most stations and names I can place. For the other pictures I have to use the timing.

The route of the train is on google maps.

Thanks, Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:30, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

La Concha de Artedo, a beach near Lamuño in Asturias, seen from La Magdalena train station. Very easy to find in Google Earth with railroad layer activated. --Sitacuisses (talk) 10:25, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
Camera location43° 33′ 34.61″ N, 6° 11′ 05.13″ W  Heading=337.5° Kartographer map based on OpenStreetMap.View all coordinates using: OpenStreetMapinfo

New type of train in France

I havent seen this type before. New category? Other examples are File:Dax station 2015 II.jpg and File:Dax station 2015 III.jpg.Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:18, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Looks like Category:Alstom Régiolis. --Sitacuisses (talk) 13:00, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
I agree, only there is a totaly different number series: 51519 and 51525 do not connect with the 83500 and 84500 series. And I cant find a 51xxxx serie. Only SNCF Class Z 5100 but thats old.Smiley.toerist (talk) 13:09, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
The Régiolis train presented to the press in Bordeaux in 2013 had a 515.. number as well: [11] --Sitacuisses (talk) 13:18, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
According to fr:Régiolis, the 515 numbers are electric only, the 835 and 845 are "bi-mode" (electro-diesel). --Sitacuisses (talk) 13:26, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
Created Category:SNCF Class Z 51500. Smiley.toerist (talk) 14:08, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Notification of DMCA takedown demand - A Group Of Ants

In compliance with the provisions of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and at the instruction of the Wikimedia Foundation's legal counsel, one or more files have been deleted from Commons. Please note that this is an official action of the WMF office which should not be undone. If you have valid grounds for a counter-claim under the DMCA, please contact me.The takedown can be read here.

Affected file(s):

To discuss this DMCA takedown, please go to COM:DMCA#A Group Of Ants Thank you! Jalexander--WMF 19:28, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

August 28

Multiple gauge trains in Spain

Train types in Spain are now categorized as either normal gauge or Spanish broad gauge trains. This can be confusing as some train types can change gauge and are found on both types of railway lines. Maybe useful to split into three categories: only broad gauge, only normal gauge or both gauges. By the way: Is the high speed line between Ourense and Santiago broad gauge? My train from Madrid didnt change gauge at Ourense.Smiley.toerist (talk) 07:49, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

I created Category:Standard/broad gauge electric multiple units of Spain and split up Category:Electric multiple units of SpainSmiley.toerist (talk) 13:45, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

IP 77.56.53.183

Please can somebody control the contributions of IP 77.56.53.183. I have the impression that many of his contributions are imperfect, or not useful, or just vandalism. Thank you all, --DenghiùComm (talk) 09:53, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

I had a look at the latest ten edits and can´t see any vandalism. To remove Interwiki links to Wikipedia articles where Wikidata provides the links to Wikipedia categories may be controversial but is not against the rules. --Rudolph Buch (talk) 10:33, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
What I have seen on other occasions is that interwiki links were removed for replacing them by the same by Wikidata, not to let nothing, or to replace 3 or 4 where before were 20. It's controversial? Strange: for me simply it's not useful. IMO it's better to leave something which is imperfect but useful, rather than delete useful things simply because they are out of date. Or we replace Interwikis thoroughly and completely, otherwise it is better to leave everything as it was before. This is my opinion. Best regards, --DenghiùComm (talk) 11:02, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
Specific objects (people, buildings and such) often have articles in many Wikipedias but only a few Wikipedias also have categories for them. So if you change the Interwiki link from article to category (and this is what happens if you use the Wikidata entry) you loose a lot of the Interwikis because they now point to the related categories instead of the related articles - this is why it´s "3 or 4 where before were 20". Personally, I consider this to be a negative effect and still use the manually inserted Interwiki links whenever I create a category for a specific object, thus overriding Wikidata and connecting the Commons category with the Wikipedia articles. But this is surely as controversial as doing it the other way. So I think what the IP does is not his fault but a consequence of the sad lack of a clear consensus and directions about interlinking categories at Commons. Please neither blame him (or me) nor call him a vandal :-) --Rudolph Buch (talk) 11:41, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
Ok. I did not know these details. Thank you for your explanations and clarifications. Cheers, --DenghiùComm (talk) 11:56, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
Have restored the wikipedia links on a number of Categories where the were deleted by IP 77.56.53.183. In practice, it is good to have these links, wikidata is largely unknown and click(s) away, so why take the links out? Damaging, sort of vandalism. Regards, Hansmuller (talk) 13:07, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

August 26

Can't upload over a bad svg

Over at en:Wikipedia:Graphics Lab/Map workshop, I yesterday asked for someone to upload a new map on top of File:Adams County Washington Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Washtucna Highlighted.svg, which was corrupt. After the mapmaking person reported an error, I deleted the corrupt image, and everything went fine, but the error report surprised and confused me. I quote it: I can't upload the file with the correct "Washtucna" name, because such a file already exists (and is unusable, because it contains invalid SVG). And I can't replace the current invalid "Washtucna" file, when I try I get the message "Please modify the file description below and try again", but there is no "description" field to modify. Can anyone understand why uploading over the bad image didn't work? Nyttend (talk) 12:40, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

PS, at the time of attempted upload, the corrupt file's description page was as follows: 

{{Information
|Description=This map shows the [[:en:Municipality|incorporated]] and unincorporated areas in [[:en:Adams County, Washington|Adams County]], [[:en:Washington|Washington]], highlighting [[:w:Washtucna, Washington|Washtucna]] in red.  It was created with a custom script with US Census Bureau data and modified with Inkscape.
|Source=My own work, based on public domain information.  Based on similar map concepts by [[:en:User:Ixnayonthetimmay|Ixnayonthetimmay]]
|Date=26 Oct 2007
|Author=[[:en:User:Arkyan|Arkyan]]
}}
{{self2|GFDL|cc-by-sa-2.5,2.0,1.0|migration=relicense}}
[[Category:Maps of Adams County, Washington]]

Nyttend (talk) 12:42, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

I is not possible to upload invalid svg files. The old file was from 2007 (this is explaining a lot). But it shouldn't be a problem to re upload a valid one. You can try to report it at phabricator:, but i am not sure if this will help. The problem is hard to reproduce now because you deleted the file. All database entry has been likely overwritten. --Steinsplitter (talk) 17:18, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
Usually the "Please modify the file description below and try again" error (Which from a ux prespective is pretty horrid), is paired with a second error message, explaining what the real issue is. Usually that error message is only a warning, and you can click ignore to it, and upload the file anyways. Hard to know for certain though without seeing the issue myself. Bawolff (talk) 08:51, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

August 27

Fotoğraf yüklerken.

Fotoğraf yüklerken şöyle bir yazı var. Düzenlenmesi lazım. Kolay gelsin. --KediÇobanıİleti 09:30, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Kırmızı ile işaretli yazı.

m:Requests for comment/Global ban for Tobias Conradi

Per m:Global bans, I am notifying the project of this proposal. Everyone is welcome to go and voice their opinion of the proposal and about the user in general.--GZWDer (talk) 09:40, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Gender of musicians

I see that someone is diffusing Category:Drummers from the United States into Category:Male drummers from the United States and Category:Female drummers from the United States. Is that really desirable? What does gender really have to do with being a drummer? It seems to me that the effect is to "ghettoize" the female drummers, who are the minority. - Jmabel ! talk 16:33, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Maybe this is a discussion we should have, but looking at Special:Prefixindex/Category:Female and Special:Prefixindex/Category:Male, it kind of feels like this train has left the station quite some time ago. What is a bit concerning from a gender neutrality perspective is that male often seems to be the implied default; there's no Category:Male politicians of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) to match Category:Female politicians of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or Category:Male guards in Nazi concentration camps to match Category:Female guards in Nazi concentration camps (to pick some oddly specific random categories at random). —LX (talk, contribs) 18:36, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
The Wikipedia article about w:Female guards in Nazi concentration camps says that under one tenth of the guards in Nazi concentration camps were female. Being purely historical, there is no chance that will change or that we are reinforcing current trends; we're reflecting the reality that male was the default for the guards in a Nazi concentration camp.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:14, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

August 29

Template does not work

Hello.This template is not working.Please fix it.thanks --ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2 (talk) 07:58, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Another Upload wizard annoyance: dates

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T110028
Tracked in Phabricator
Task T109953

A recent change to the upload wizard seems to require users to enter an exact, day-precise date. This is of no use for artworks dated to, say "1883" or ""before 1932", or any value including "circa". My workaround is to enter a random date and manually fix after upload; my worry is that novice editors will take the former step but not the latter. Where was this change discussed? Andy Mabbett (talk) 12:21, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

I think Upload Wizard should provide some kind of a front-end for {{Other date}}, so I've created phab:T110028. --El Grafo (talk) 12:38, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
On the other hand, I was rather disappointed to find that the Upload Wizard no longer takes the full date and time from the EXIF data of photographs, only the date. Shouldn't the time be extracted if it is present? (I have filed a bug at Phabricator about this.) — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 19:27, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
The time should be taken with caution. A lot of photographers dont pay attention to the precise time, certainly when they travel across timezones. Only when I came back from Taiwan did I notice a 6,5 hours time difference. Luckily there was one picture with a station clock.Smiley.toerist (talk) 15:57, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
It was due to concerns over time zones not being taken into account, and lack of consistency in how times were imported [12]. Bawolff (talk) 06:58, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
Well, if that is the justification, then the date could be wrong too. The solution, in my view, is to give uploaders the option of whether to use the date and time in the EXIF data or not. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 12:44, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
Wherever I am in the world, my camera is set to UTC. Since there is no timezone parameter when uploading here, I've always assumed that to be correct. To repeat my unanswered question: Where was this change discussed? Andy Mabbett (talk) 14:16, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
yeah, wow, while i had liked the "improvement" support of wizard, this is an awful gated way of compelling data input, with an opaque gear bypass. need to help uploaders to input dates, not turn them away if they can't. time to go back to old uploader. Slowking4♡Farmbrough's revenge 14:31, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
@Pigsonthewing: Like all changes to MediaWiki, it first appears here as a proposed change. While its a proposed change, you or anyone else can oppose the change by logging into gerrit (It uses accounts from https://wikitech.wikimedia.org, which is kind of annoying, but that's life) and marking the change as -1 and explaining why. Changes are not votes, whether or not anyone listens to you depends on how good you argue you point, however code reviewers (Generally people listed here + most WMF staff. Some extensions have additional reviewers) will take your point into consideration. Once a code reviewer has approved it (+2 it in gerrit speak), the change appears on the test commons site and it is listed in the merged section of gerrit [which is similar to Special:Recentchanges ], but you still have a couple days to object before it appears on real commons. Generally objections after +2 need to be argued more forcefully (Since instead of just convincing someone to not do something, you have to convince them to revert the change), but they will still be taken into account. Usually, all recent changes to MediaWiki and extensions are gathered up at around 18:00 UTC Tuesday, and deployed to https://test.wikipedia.org and https://mediawiki.org. Then the following day, if there are no major problems they are put on commons (and other non-wikipedia sites). Of course, even after this fact you can object, as was done here (The change we're all talking about is scheduled to be reverted on sept 2)
In this particular case the patch was reviewed really quickly, but there was still 5 days between it being submitted and it appearing on commons for people to object. We know that most users won't want to be looking at gerrit all the time, and we do try to bring up controversial changes on wiki, but there are lots of changes happening, and we can't always predict what will be controversial. If you want to be apprised of every changes, you will have to be reading the gerrit site, just like if you want the option to object to every change on wiki, you have to read Special:Recentchanges (If you're only interested in only some types of changes, you can filter by project on gerrit, which is much like filtering by namespace on RC.). Bawolff (talk) 01:02, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
here's the problem with this process. where's the UX review? there is a marked lack of new user empathy or testing. talking among the choir, and then breaking stuff until people complain, is a real bad process. i thought we were going to improve our open source feedback, given the history. Slowking4♡Farmbrough's revenge 02:06, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
So what would you rather we do instead? I doubt any sort of usability review would have had an effect on this change, there wasn't really any change in how the user interacts with the website to actually measure, no new buttons, etc. But lets take a step back. Concretely, what sort of process would you like us to follow instead? Bawolff (talk) 08:45, 28 August 2015 (UTC) [edit: I just realized you were talking about the adding non-precise date issue, not the issue surrounding timezones in camera exif. I guess I'm following too many similar conversations at once. Your comment about usability review makes more sense now]
i dunno, better UX? better programming not coding? i know its tedious to newbie check all interface changes, or code changes, but this is the default process for all newbie uploaders. a little workshopping would go a long way. there seems to be a propensity to "solve problems" by coding, rather than system improvement. also for the exif, i understand it's problematic, but some data is better than none. it's invisible, maybe conscious-raising is in order; some faq's for the newbie to set their camera, i know some have asked for exif supression, maybe a setting. when you are building open tools for newbies, feedback is critical. saying come to our separate venue is inadequate. make a party out of it: "come celebrate our continuous improvement of upload wizard !" Slowking4♡Farmbrough's revenge 12:30, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
Where it's buried among items with titles like "Make onEchoGetDefaultNotifiedUsers hook use DB class" and "WIP de-centralize mustache js"? It's ludicrous to expect most editors - even most regulars - to be able to participate meaningfully in such an environment. Andy Mabbett (talk) 18:46, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
yes, i see there is some beginning of friendly feedback at m:VisualEditor & Talk:Reading/Strategy/Kickoff, so there could be be a button and a dashboard or wizard. i should think it would be standard procedure for continuous improvement. Slowking4♡Farmbrough's revenge 00:46, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

August 22

tool to review uploads in a grid

I saw someone mention it online and it got me thinking; there used to be a tool that you could click on to see all your image uploads in a grid that also showed how many other language Wikis were using it and other stats on the image, all in an easy to read format. That was pretty cool. Is it gone? Why? If so, any way to resurrect it? Cheers, Nesnad (talk) 04:28, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes, Commons:MyGallery is a great tool (and as such ignored by the powers that rule us, unlike the crap not-so-great stuff they keep pushing):
Have fun! -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 13:37, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
Oh Thank you!! You have made my wiki-Month, maybe my wiki-Year! That is a tool I've missed subconsciously for so long. Thank you for bringing it back into my life. Have a great day, cheers, Nesnad (talk) 14:24, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
It's a nice tool, but it seems to show only about 2500 uploads.--Pere prlpz (talk) 17:54, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Could someone look into the uploads from User:Arbiben

I'm positive User:Arbiben does not hold the rights to the pictures they uploaded. Large disparity in quality- some look professional, some are copyrighted and others are hard shots to get. I could go and nominate each one for deletion, but I know there's someway to nominate them together. However, I don't know how to do this. So I wanted to bring this blatant violation to someone else's attention. Xochiztli (talk) 09:12, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

✓ Done Right. Deleted or DRs created. Yann (talk) 09:46, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Fundraising banner or Wiki Loves Monuments banner?

Hi, Just FYI (for users which are not reading mailing lists), because commons is involved in WLM: meta:Requests for comment/Fundraising banner or Wiki Loves Monuments banner --Steinsplitter (talk) 18:56, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

August 31

Undeletion request + a general point

Please will someone resurrect File talk:DSC09873.JPG, which is referred to in Commons:Deletion requests/Image:DSC09873.JPG. Generally, populated talk pages like this should not be deleted. Andy Mabbett (talk) 10:49, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

 Oppose We don't need to keep such talk pages. Regards, Yann (talk) 11:01, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
Orphaned talkpages will be deleted on sight. It is standard practice here on commons. --Steinsplitter (talk) 12:31, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

I've never before been refused access to a deleted discussion on any Wikipedia project. Is there some private information or derogatory information on that page, that would cause an admin to refuse such a request? Andy Mabbett (talk) 14:12, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Access is a different question to page undeletion. If there is something you want to check, or maybe paste a relevant part of elsewhere, then I suggest you ask a specific admin to email it to you. So long as it's not private information being posted by accident, or otherwise harmful to an individual, there shouldn't be a problem. --Fæ (talk) 14:16, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
In the interests of openness, everyone, not just me and not just admins, should have access to discussions (subject to the caveats alluded to in my previous post, or blatant vandalism or spamming). Andy Mabbett (talk) 14:28, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
In this case, at least, I don't see any reason not to post the content publicly. Here it is:

Possible copyvio?

The tagline "5th September 2005 to 25th November 2005" is ambiguous; does it refer to the period this sculpture was installed at Canary Wharf?

If so then this picture is a copyright violation (albeit an unwitting good-faith one), as in this case this was a temporary installation so FoP does not apply. -- 217.171.129.68 14:46, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

The above dates do indeed refer to the time this sculpture was installed at Canary Wharf, as part of an exhibition called Sophie Ryder: The Minotaur, Hare and Other Animals (one of a series of exhibitions collectively called "Sculpture in the Workplace"). It is thus indeed a derivative work and copyvio, as FoP applies only to permanent installations, which this is not.
A pity, as this is an attractive and potentially useful picture. -- Korax1214 10:32, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

[END copied content]

i've seen a propensity of deleting deletion discussions, rather than link to image talk page. the community needs to rethink this. deleting discussion history certainly looks bad; if an image was deleted, you need a process trail for uploaders to follow; and how would anyone learn from past history, where there is none? Slowking4♡Farmbrough's revenge 15:53, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
It's a good point. Perhaps Andy would like to raise it on Commons talk:Deletion requests, suggesting good practices for where potentially useful discussion and information should go when the related image page is due for deletion? Note that the vast majority of deleted images will have no created discussion page. --Fæ (talk) 18:03, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
Hi, I copied the content of the talk page to the DR for reference: Commons:Deletion requests/Image:DSC09873.JPG. Yann (talk) 16:40, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
i would suggest linking to deletion discussion on the talk page of the deleted image or kept image using the Template:Kept. this could be automated, and then there would be a trail for the history of deletion discussion. Slowking4♡Farmbrough's revenge 22:59, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Misplaced file

On és això?

This picture was miscategorized in a Line 1 station of the Barcelona metro. But wich station of metroline 7 is this? By the way we need to give to rename the picture to something meaningful.Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:16, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Meanwhile, User:Lotje renamed this file as "Tren 213 de los ferrocarriles de la generalitat de catalunya.jpg", going against COM:FR and even altering the text (not a link!) in my reply above, which is also against the guidelines. But do not worry, User:Lotje: When a short and usable filename is changed to a multi-line monstrosity with whitespace in it and likely to be mangled by reusers, it is as if COM:FR meant that changing filenames willy-nilly is a good thing. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 12:11, 30 August 2015 (UTC)
@Tuvalkin: , I thought: If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it.... sometimes monstrosities get attention. Lotje (talk) 12:17, 30 August 2015 (UTC)
The original question is not answered, that’s why this is threaded as an aside; the original question is not answered, but this is responding to your comment in the OP wrongly claiming that the original filename was not meaningful (it took me a few seconds to find its meaning). The original question is not answered, maybe because you posted it in Common’s (English language) Village Pump, instead of, say, at ca:Discussió:Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya (where I meanwhile echoed this request). -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 14:37, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
  • @Lotje: , “Ignore all rules” is an wp:en document discussing wp:en rules — very meta, and scarcely related; maybe you should check Commons:Be bold instead. To deal with file renamings we have COM:FR, which is both mandatory in Commons (in a way English Wikipedia policies, guidelines, and essays are not) and addressing this specific matter, not just some generic ideas. And why was it wrong to rename "Trn213dlfgc.jpg" to "Tren 213 de los ferrocarriles de la generalitat de catalunya.jpg"? This is actually a good example of the snowball effect of “improvement renaming” COM:FR tries to prevent in the first place. Because you ignored case in the new filename, next up someone wants to rename it "Tren 213 de los Ferrocarriles de la Generalitat de Catalunya.jpg"; we could even argue whether "Ferrocarriles" should be capitalized or not, and that could mean well meaning users renaming it back and forth, not to mention some would argue that this filename should be fully in Spanish ("Tren 213 de los Ferrocarriles de la Generalidad de Cataluña.jpg") or fully in Catalan ("Tren 213 dels Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya.jpg"), and keep renaming this file back and forth. So much for filename stability; the original "Trn213dlfgc.jpg" was immune to this kind of concerns — inherently stable and fully understandable. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 14:37, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
No, I’m not joking, User:Yann. Please be polite, and read the discussion if it actually interests you. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 22:40, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
If the said acronym is understandable (and it is — if you know one thing about Iberian railways, you recognize "fgc"), and if its expansion is problematic and prone to cause a cascading of further renamings, then it is good idea to leave it alone. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 22:40, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
User:Pere prlpz confirms this is at the L’Hospitalet - Av. Carrilet station. Maybe the "S7" indication on the train was either a mistake, an exceptional operaion, or a former route, thus disagreeing with the routes listed at ca:Estació d'Avinguda Carrilet? -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 22:40, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
Please notice that I don't "confirm" the station. I just say that I can't see any reason to doubt of the location stated in the description.
According to http://www.trenscat.com/metrobaix/s7_ct.html line S7 used to exist in the 2000s, and trains stopped an Avinguda del Carrilet station. Therefore, the train doesn't cast any doubt in this 2006 photograph.
Furthermore, I can't see any contradiction with images and description in http://www.trenscat.com/metrobaix/hospitalet_ct.html . In the image the station can barely be seen, but I think an extra track can be seen behind the train, and l'Hospitalet - Av. del Carrilet is one of the very few underground stations in this line with more than 2 tracks.--Pere prlpz (talk) 22:51, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Maybe it is a good idea to copy the discussion above to File talk:Trn213dlfgc.jpg once this matter is closed and achived. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 22:40, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Another iffy train photo in northern Spain

This Flicker image certainly has the wrong date 19?? and has nothing to do with Donostia city itself but the between Hendaya and Donostia (if I read the text correctly).Smiley.toerist (talk) 19:23, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Added subsection header and echoed it in a better place. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 14:37, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
Retrieved from "https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2015/08&oldid=389272768"