Commons:Village pump/Archive/2020/08

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Does anyone mind me joining these two categories?

We have Category:Jerusalem on photochrome prints and Category:Photochrom prints collection (Jerusalem), which, AFAIK; cover the exact same photos. Will anyone object if I join them? Preferably in Category:Jerusalem on photochrome prints, as that is in line with Category:Photochrome prints by country. Huldra (talk) 23:23, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

It looks like there are two concepts, Category:Photochrom pictures which is a technique, and Category:Holy Land in the Photochrom print collection (Photoglob Co.) which is an image source. Maybe Category:Photochrom prints collection (Jerusalem) could be made a subcategory of Category:Jerusalem on photochrome prints, in case another photochrom print of Jerusalem from a different source turns up some day. --ghouston (talk) 01:28, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
Well, the problem is that images that are in Category:Photochrom prints collection (Jerusalem), are also in Category:Jerusalem on photochrome prints, so why have a subcategory at all? If people want to see what comes from Category:Holy Land in the Photochrom print collection (Photoglob Co.), then they can go to that category?
Also, there is a somewhat similar problem with Category:Photochrom prints collection (Lebanon and Syria), it is a subcat of Category:Lebanon on photochrome prints and Category:Syria on photochrome prints.
But all pictures in Category:Photochrom prints collection (Lebanon and Syria) belongs either in Category:Lebanon on photochrome prints or Category:Syria on photochrome prints. So why do we have a Category:Photochrom prints collection (Lebanon and Syria), when we know which of the two countries they belong in?
There are too many (confusing) categories here, it is quite difficult to navigate. I would like to make it more simple and logical to find the pictures. And that means focusing what(where) the images depict, ie country, city, etc.. What collection the image comes from simply isn't that interesting (except for the very few involved with any particular collection) Huldra (talk) 20:27, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
What Category:Photochrom prints collection (Jerusalem) needs is a few sentences explaining the origin of the collection and where they are archived. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 21:30, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
@Huldra: You may not find the origin "interesting," but we do normally use as "source" category to track when a GLAM is the source. But recognize that a "source" category should be more or less independent of categorization for other purposes. You should be able to navigate down the category tree in a reasonable way & find something appropriately categorized without ever taking the branch for a "source" category. - Jmabel ! talk 02:53, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Alternate accounts policy

Hallo, everyone,

Does Commons have a policy on valid uses of alternat accounts, required declarations, etc.? (I am planning to donate some photos that aren't consistent with the persona of my main account and I don't want to out myself by revealing too much. „On the Internet nobody knows I'm a dog”, as the cartoon goes. But I don't want to break any rules.) I tried searching on phrases like „sock puppet” and „alternate account” with no success.

45.133.192.124 14:16, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Hi, you can take a look at Commons:Username policy and maybe ask a stewart if you wish. :-) Lotje (talk) 14:39, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
Hello. As far as I know, the only local policy page concerning this is COM:BP; it states "Abusing multiple accounts to mislead, deceive, disrupt, distort consensus or to evade blocks or other sanctions" is grounds for a block. Commons:Sockpuppetry is a redirect to w:en:WP:SOCK. If you generally adhere to local policies and don't "mislead, deceive, disrupt, distort consensus or to evade blocks or other sanctions" with the alternative account, which isn't the case here, you can create and use an alternative account, I believe. Creating an alternative account for privacy reasons is legit, provided that it isn't used for disrupting Commons. You may want to inform a CheckUser, but that isn't required by the policy. Ahmadtalk 16:14, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
I'm an admin here, and I totally concur with the above (except that it's steward, not stewart). Just as long as you can be confident that the materials you want to upload separately are appropriately licensed & in scope, no issue in doing so from a distinct account. - Jmabel ! talk 18:55, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

GPS data are no longer automatically taken over by the Upload Wizard in certain cases?

The problem seems to depend on the version of the EXIF data. Example:

  • does not work: EXIF data - Panasonic - DMC-TZ61 Version ID: 2.3.0.0
  • works: EXIF data - Pixel 4 XL - Version ID: 2.2.0.0

A detailed description in German can be found here. Until some time ago it also worked for EXIF data - Panasonic - DMC-TZ61 Version ID: 2.3.0.0 without problems.

Could this be corrected? --Molgreen (talk) 17:17, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

There is already a task on this. The problem is not in the UploadWizard it is directly in MediaWiki itself. --GPSLeo (talk) 20:46, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
Tracked in Phabricator
Task T223051
Hallo GPSLeo, thanks for the reference to "phab T223051". I have pointed out my details there. --Molgreen (talk) 17:54, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
Sorry, the commonist works fine. => File:Schleswig-Holstein, Nutteln, Mitfahrbank NIK 0600.jpg Gruss --Nightflyer (talk) 20:56, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
Hallo Nightflyer, thanks also for your reference to commonist. If there is no improvement in the foreseeable future, I will probably have to install Java . . . I wanted to avoid that. --Molgreen (talk) 17:54, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Skipping pages

If a category of images has a BUNCH of images, there seems to be no way to advance through them other than page by page by page. Is there any way to advance faster? It certainly seems like you should be able to leap to page 10 of 50 or something like that. I do NOT want to find a specific image. I want to be able to skip through the images and then look at each image from some midway point. --ProfReader (talk) 04:57, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

For very large categories, it is usually a good idea to add {{CategoryTOC}}. You can then skip to the page containing files starting with a particular letter of the alphabet. From Hill To Shore (talk) 06:17, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
It is possible to manually advance to a page by mimicking the urls created by categoryTOC. However there is no way to leap to a specific number of files (if all files use a consistent numberring scheme it is possible, but you cannot know that). --C.Suthorn (talk) 06:44, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Huggle issue

Hi greetings, I would like to share some issues regarding huggle in Commons. The page Commons:Huggle/Config.yaml doesn't compatible with Commons. The links and procedures are of English Wikipedia. Reverts do not work properly due to these issues. Would you mind fixing these bugs by changing relevant links, other things, etc according to Commons? It shall be a great help, if huggle become functional in Wikimedia Commons. Thank you.--Path slopu (Talk) 07:57, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

From the main Huggle page: "Huggle doesn't currently work on this project at the moment and there is no schedule for a fix." Ruslik (talk) 20:16, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Collective work

Hi to all,

I'm looking for helping about copyright expiry of collective works in Italy. I'm talking about newspapers and comics after the Second World War.

QUESTION: it is possible publish scansions of collective works, where the original are in library or mine?

If yes, which template I have to use for this upload?

Thank you and bye, --Galessandroni (talk) 09:34, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

The copyright law is the same for all kinds of works. Ruslik (talk) 20:15, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Reuploading

There’s file File:Python's IDLE.png which originally was uploaded by Максим Пе as screenshot of IDLE in Ubuntu, after another file was uploaded by Maćko as new version of this file and it’s screenshot of macOS but in local descriptions still say that it’s Ubnutu (i. e. here). (You can answer me in Russian, English or Polish.) 217.117.125.72 10:26, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Free images from needpix...

Recently google image search has been reporting freely reusable images from some sites that are new to me... including needpix.com

I recently uploaded an image from needpix.

The image itself said the image was public domain

And the FAQ says all the images on the site are "Creative Commons Zero License for Public Domain".

Is there any reason not to take the FAQ at face value? Geo Swan (talk) 07:53, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Example of a file hosted on needpix, with no attribution, no source.
Yes.
On the 'about us' page: All photos hosted here are collected only from public domain sources such as: pixabay.com, pond5.com, picjumbo.com, publicdomainpictures.net, and others.
I have added a thumb of needpix file which happens to be the Commons logo (TM). The only attribution is to the WikimediaImages pixabay account which is in no way 'official' and is certainly not the creator of this image, nor the thousands of other Commons images hosted at that pixabay account without any source links back to the Wikimedia Commons project. It perfectly illustrates the problem with public domain harvesting websites that somewhat carelessly auto-harvest millions of files, and in the process lose EXIF data, attribution statements, or even preservation of titles because they take no responsibility for 'mining' the image back to a true source site. Consequently there is no way of credibly checking whether a good quality photograph from this site really is public domain, or whether somewhere along the chain of bot harvesters, they have mistakenly taken CC-BY files, or CC-NC, or even all rights reserved photographs that have been Flickrwashed, potentially deliberately, at other sites.
The only easy way to use sites like this is to limit uploads to images where the stated source author has been demonstrated as being reliable, then ensure that original attribution is preserved during upload to Commons. Preferably, the 'image mining' should be done at the same time to find and quote an original source site link, rather than leaving it deliberately obscured so that "needpix" can continue making advertising revenue every time someone is forced to visit their website to attempt a source verification. --Fæ (talk) 09:13, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
BTW, with regard to the specific upload already done, it's better to link to the source at "publicdomainpictures.net" because it's clear in their profile there that they take PayPal payments for their stock photography, include a link to their own photography website (which would be a perfect verifiable source) and even include a PayPal button for modest payments. Just having their name in text on a Commons image page is not especially fair to this professional photographer. --Fæ (talk) 09:24, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Notification about a proposed global ban of User:Eric abiog

Please help translate to your language

Dear community,

pursuant to the global ban policy, I would like to notify your community I have proposed that User:Eric abiog to be globally banned by the global Wikimedia Community.

You are invited to discuss the case in a request for comment that is running at the Meta-Wiki.

Best regards,
Martin Urbanec (talk)

Delivered by --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:11, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Flat lists of creative works?

I was trying to find proper parents for Category:Maau Daan Ting Ging Mung, so I looked to Italian operas like Category:Turandot (Puccini) for inspiration. It turns out operas are not put into a single cat but segregated by composer, language or year. I cant do the same for Cantonese operas because, for a lot of these, authorship is not well documented. A user created a handful of categories in the format of Repertoires of ... opera as catch-all, though.

So this makes me wonder, should creative works be put into flat lists like people into people by name? I can find two: Category:Books by title Category:Films by title. Is it a good idea for other kind of works?--RZuo (talk) 18:55, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

@RZuo: There's broad consensus for "by name" categories. If you think one would be useful, then I'd recommend just creating it yourself. By the way, two more pre-existing ones are Newspapers by name and Podcasts by name, and you can find lots of them in Categories by name. –IagoQnsi (talk) 00:56, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

About copyright status of "Sansho_Dayu_poster.jpg"

File:Sansho_Dayu_poster.jpg

As for the File:Sansho_Dayu_poster.jpg, there is surely a definite question in copyright status. I doubt its illegal usage against a relative copyright law: it says materials will be protected for 70 years after public release. The poster in question was published in 1954, therefore this is surely protected until 2024, I guess. --Green (talk) 02:09, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

  • @Green: The PD tag on the page says "the work is now in the public domain in Japan because the copyrights of the works in names of organizations, in Japan expire in 50 years after the publication". Is that not true? - Jmabel ! talk 16:52, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
    • @Snek01: You reverted the image with a resolution of 580×763 back to the low resolution of 180×258. Does that change have something to do with the copyright? The source

http://homepage2.nifty.com/e-tedukuri/sansyoudayuu.htm does not exist anymore. Wouter (talk) 19:45, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

@Jmabel: Japanese copyright law had been revised in 2004, so it extended from 50 to 70 years.
The Supreme Court ruled that "the amended law that came into effect on January 1, 2004 does not apply to works whose copyright ended on December 31, 2003" (that is, they do not extend to 70 years after publication). It has been finalized (the Supreme Court's third small court ruling on December 18, 2007).
The movie poster shows "copyrighted (C)1954". The term "movie work" as used in this Act shall include works that are expressed in a manner that produces a visual or audiovisual effect similar to that of a movie and that are fixed to the thing. This is my point of view. --Green (talk) 02:05, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

@Green: I'm totally out of my depth here. I suggest closing this here and opening it at Commons:Village pump/Copyright where there will be a lot more expertise. - Jmabel ! talk 03:12, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Photo challenge June results

Do it yourself: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 3 3
image
Title Home-made redcurrant jam - DIY - jars
between pulp residue and stalks		 Dice made of polymer
clay (handmade).		 Three stages of shed construction Drawings made with
twigs and self-made
natural inks.
Author Franz van Duns Annatsach Jarekt Matylda Florén
Score 9 8 6 6
Rainwater drainage: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 3
image
Title Gargoyle at the Giechburg near
Scheßlitz in Upper Franconia		 Central gutter in the
village of Dawanshiju, China		 Kumpulanpuro culvert,
Helsinki
Author Ermell Mx. Granger Kriomet
Score 22 13 13

Congratulations to Franz van Duns, Annatsach, Matylda Florén, Jarekt, Ermell, Mx. Granger and Kriomet. -- Jarekt (talk) 03:39, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Stop sign

Wich category can I use for this stop sig button?Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:23, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

May be Category:Request stop push buttons Wouter (talk) 12:26, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Strange WD link below the edit window of a file

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T250611

Hi, does anyone know what the strange Wikidata link at the bottom of e. g. [1] means? 

Wikidata entities used in this page
M84213045: Title

It points to an non-existing entity. With other M-IDs the same happens with all files.

Thank you in advance, --Arnd (talk) 12:58, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

84213045 is that page's page ID.
if you try editing File:FICO logo.svg, you'll see two lines:
M7464032: Title
FICO: Sitelink, Some labels
because this page used {{Depicted logo}} and {{Label}} which used data from wikidata.
i dont know enough about this, what purposes they serve, etc.--RZuo (talk) 13:16, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
It's a bug, see phab:T250611. Multichill (talk) 13:55, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Name in original language?

Pardon me, but I am a newbie w.r.t. policies here on commons.

The situation is this: Back in 2007, eneditor moved the category "Damascus" to its Arab name with the edit-line: "move to native name according to policy on articles".(link)

Is this still policy? I find "دمشق" quite a bit more cumbersome than "Damascus", Huldra (talk) 20:12, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

@Huldra: It is not. In fact, we have two complementary policies saying to use English for category names: Commons:Language policy and Commons:Categories#Category names. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 21:09, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, @AntiCompositeNumber: I have moved it to "Damascus", thanks again, Huldra (talk) 21:15, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
@Huldra and AntiCompositeNumber: That is not a category page, it is a gallery page. There is no policy for gallery pages to be specifically in English.
As it happens, the captions on that page are almost exclusively in English or proper nouns in Arabic transliterated to Latin script, so I think the English title is more appropriate, but someone could certainly create a gallery page "دمشق" with Arabic captions. - Jmabel ! talk 02:55, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
I suppose I should have looked at that link then. In that case, Commons:Galleries#Naming_conventions says that the local language would probably be better there, though I think either would be permissible. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 19:07, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
Time to move it back.--RZuo (talk) 12:13, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Category for recipe tutorial videos?

What should be the name of this category for this kind of videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlomKt5faIE ? There're lots on the Internet. I suppose some must have been uploaded. They're like recipes, but they are no longer paper based but actual footage teaching the audience. An analogous example I thought of is cooking shows on TV.--RZuo (talk) 16:13, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

I will create Category:Recipe videos.--RZuo (talk) 00:36, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Despair

Has anybody thought that for images like this, with the "information" provided, there might never be an answer to where the location is? 1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 15:34, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

@1234qwer1234qwer4: Yes. We have 12 photos from photographer Nicole Vanlimbeek uploaded to 500px with bad names, good luck finding location info for any of them.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 16:18, 8 August 2020 (UTC)
Probably in or near Category:Edmonton given their userpage. You could always ask them on Twitter or instagram. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 17:09, 8 August 2020 (UTC)
It's probably somewhere around Victoria, British Columbia, as you can see from her IG posts https://www.instagram.com/p/nuGcX8p8xS/ https://www.instagram.com/p/s75QVVJ84W/ (Esquimalt Lagoon). Edmonton doesnt have seas.
Indeed, it's so easy to dig up this set of photographs' locations. All you need to do is go back to the original 500px page and then google the photographer.
If you want to be sure, message her on IG, or ask Vancouver Islanders to pinpoint it.--RZuo (talk) 12:13, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
  • @1234qwer1234qwer4: That happens a lot of in these “artsy” album websites, as “excessive information” might be deterimental to the enjoyment of photography as art (they say). I had the same problem with Fotopedia and Unsplash in the past — many of my uploads from those sources remain unidentified (example). However some times it is possible to sleuth out the location, either by just asking the author (example) or by guess-working from details of the image and eventually confirm by comparing with known, similar photos and/or other date (example). -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 20:31, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Manpower enough but tossed aside

I put a video about opposition candiate in yesterday's Belarusian presidential election as today's MOTD, because it's quite symbolic. A bureaucratic admin messed with it. I've been waiting for autopatrol for 10 days. And I posted a reminder on COM:AN yesterday. After all that, still no one did anything about it, so today's MOTD went live without an English caption.

Some people were complaining about lack of manpower, which is obviously not true. On the contrary, neglect and bureaucracy are letting everything down.--RZuo (talk) 00:36, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Requesting feedback for {{According to external metadata}}

I've just made {{According to external metadata}}, a file page template similar to {{According to Exif data}}. When uploading files, I often want to include the date from the Last-Modified HTTP header at the URL where I found it. The Last-Modified header is valuable because it often reflects the exact time that the file was first published. However, it's a machine-generated timestamp, so really it could mean anything (hence the need for this template).

Feedback would be appreciated, especially on the template's wording. I didn't want to use any obscure jargon, nor did I want to make this specific to the Last-Modified header, as there are many other sources of date metadata (e.g. HTML meta tags, cache-busting query strings, site-specific APIs, etc). However, I wonder if I made the wording too generic... Anyway, I would also greatly appreciate help from anyone who can add more translations. Thanks, IagoQnsi (talk) 19:00, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

how does one check whether that data is correct? i mean, when a user uses this template, how does another verify the parameters defined?--RZuo (talk) 13:16, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
@RZuo: In general, the metadata can be found somewhere at the source link. The exact location at the source will vary from case to case, as there are innumerable different ways that websites might show this sort of metadata. As I mentioned before, the Last-Modified header was the impetus for making this template, so here's a screenshot demonstrating how to find that using Chrome's developer tools: File:How to find the Last-Modified header in Blink.png. But that's just one of many possible ways it could be stored, and this is all assuming that the source URL still works (the metadata is not stored anywhere in the file itself). In general, I see {{According to external metadata}} as a huge disclaimer, i.e. "I dug up this date somewhere; it may not be accurate or reproducible, but it's all we have". –IagoQnsi (talk) 14:41, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
How about adding another parameter that lets you enter a free-form description of where exactly you found that information and how reliable you think it is? --El Grafo (talk) 12:21, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

PDF to images

I've been looking at File:Birds of the British Isles (IA birdsofbritishis00dunc).pdf, from which I was able to download the page-image:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c8/Birds_of_the_British_Isles_%28IA_birdsofbritishis00dunc%29.pdf/page8-633px-Birds_of_the_British_Isles_%28IA_birdsofbritishis00dunc%29.pdf.jpg

and upload it as the above image.

Almost all of the other pages in the work have a unique illustration, but alongside text.

Is there a tool or script which will upload all of the page images (or a selected subset) from a PDF that is already on Commons, into a chosen category, so that I can then work through them with the crop tool? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:57, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

If its an embedded illustration its probably best to use pdfimages[2] command line tool. Mediawiki's jpg conversion will probably not be at ideal resolution, and will recompress the image which will mildly reduce quality. Bawolff (talk) 06:30, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Technical Wishes: FileExporter and FileImporter become default features on all Wikis

The FileExporter and FileImporter will become a default features on all wikis until August 7, 2020. They are planned to help you to move files from your local wiki to Wikimedia Commons easier while keeping all original file information (Description, Source, Date, Author, View History) intact. Additionally, the move is documented in the files view history. How does it work?

Step 1: If you are an auto-confirmed user, you will see a link "Move file to Wikimedia Commons" on the local file page.

Step 2: When you click on this link, the FileImporter checks if the file can in fact be moved to Wikimedia Commons. These checks are performed based on the wiki's configuration file which is created and maintained by each local wiki community.

Step 3: If the file is compatible with Wikimedia Commons, you will be taken to an import page, at which you can update or add information regarding the file, such as the description. You can also add the 'Now Commons' template to the file on the local wiki by clicking the corresponding check box in the import form. Admins can delete the file from the local wiki by enabling the corresponding checkbox. By clicking on the 'Import' button at the end of the page, the file is imported to Wikimedia Commons.

If you want to know more about the FileImporter extension or the Technical Wishes Project, follow the links. --For the Technical Wishes Team:

Max Klemm (WMDE) 09:13, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

@Max Klemm (WMDE): all wiki's you say? Seems a bit pointless on wiki's that don't use local upload or only for non-free files. Multichill (talk) 19:35, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
@Multichill: Yes if they have 0 files. Ms.wiki have closed for uploads years ago but have many freely licensed files that could be moved once they are checked. But if they don't have files then noone will ever even notice that FileImporter excist. --MGA73 (talk) 20:12, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
@Multichill and MGA73: , thanks for your remark. Yes, it was activated for all wikis. You are right, it does not make a difference for wikis that do not use local upload, but it was less work to activate it for all wikis. And, it does not do any harm if it is activated, but not used, right? -- For the Technical Wishes Team: Max Klemm (WMDE) (talk) 11:49, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
@Max Klemm (WMDE): "until", you wrote? How about "starting"?   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 06:40, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
@Jeff G.: Originally it was supposed to start on August 5. I think what is meant that it is delayed and it will not start until August 7. :-) --MGA73 (talk) 10:56, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
Hi @Jeff G. and MGA73: , thanks for your question. @MGA73: is right, it got activated on August 5, 2020. When we drafted this announcement, we were not sure if the feature would be activated at the same time for all wikis or at different points in time during the first week of August. We knew for sure that it would be released on all wikis on August 7. That is why we decided to use the "until August 7" formulation. I hope this answers your question. -- For the Technical Wishes Team: Max Klemm (WMDE) (talk) 11:49, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Anyway I love FileImporter and if anyone need help setting it up feel free to ping me. --MGA73 (talk) 11:34, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

@MGA73: Great to hear that you like the feature and thanks for offering support to other users. -- For the Technical Wishes Team: Max Klemm (WMDE) (talk) 11:49, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Category:View(s) to

Special:Categories/View to

Special:Categories/Views to

By naming convention Category:Views by country they should be views of. However, it seems this topic was not discussed in a CfD before, so it's now brought up here. In particular, views to are mostly related to German places.

I propose moving all to views of XX to harmonise the names.--RZuo (talk) 20:49, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Strategy transition design draft

I have been working for more than a month in the Strategy transition design group - a body of about 20 people who were working together to establish the principles to be used to design the events to implement the strategy recommendations. (Do not even ask me how I ended up to be part of the group). Anyway, now we have produced the draft: meta:Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2018-20/Transition/Events Outline/Draft. It is written for the whole movement, not just for the projects, and certainly not just for Commons, so the language from our perspective can look a bit bureaucratic, and the text a bit (or sometimes too) unspecific. However, I would encourage all the users interested in the relation between projects and WMF, and generally in the development of the Wikimedia movement, to have a look, and, specifically, to look at whether the communities (in the language of the document, online communities) will be involved enough, how they will be involved, and how this involvement can be stimulated and improved. Whereas obviously there were many people involved in the creation of the draft, and these people have very different interests, the importance of involving the projects has been recognized by everybody as a crucial issue. What we are trying to avoid is the (unfortunately, common) situation when the projects are completely decoupled from the process, the process runs on, and at some point some decision taken without even thinking about the projects comes out of the blue and gets a (predictable) very negative reaction.

The draft has been posted on Thursday 6 August and will be open for comments until 20 August (my apologies for posting here only now, I was on holidays this week and just returned home). You are welcome to leave the comments on the talk page of the draft on Meta (where it will be directly read by the WMF people running the process), or here. I will be watching both pages anyway, and will somehow make sure that useful comments do not get lost. I can probably clarify things if needed. There is also some discussion ongoing on the English Wikipedia, w:en:Wikipedia:Village pump (WMF)#Strategy transition design draft, which might (or might not) clarify some issues.

For the full disclosure, whereas the process has been run by the WMF, I was never paid by the WMF, nor ever been a member of any affiliate. I participate in the group solely in my volunteer capacity.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:51, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

  • Thanks for reporting this here, Ymblanter, and for your candor. However, as stressed in the en.wp discussion, this is past the discussion phase and counter-arguments presented back then were apparently ignored (in what concerns Commons, the push for allowing NC/ND licensing from selected sources). What happens next? That’s what left to be said concerning “implementation”. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 22:51, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
    Yes, but, as I said there, this is presumably a result of advocacy of some groups. Clearly there are different groups in the movement which have different, sometimes polar interests. If we ignore the process, we miss a chance to influence it. Whereas at this stage it is too early to discuss notability of license issues, if the process is not organized in the optimum way, we may have our opinions not heard again.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:23, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Hi Tuválkin, what happens next is very much up to communities during Transition events as Ymblanter points out. On our end, we have to do a much better job to make sure the events are explicit and very clear regarding the topic and outcome, so people can choose which event(s) to join. Given current financial constraints in the world, only a limited number of global and local priorities as identified by communities in the Transition events can be implemented in the first 18 months. Movement Strategy is a 10-year document with over 50 recommended actions and changes. Many ideas may lay dormant for the time being, many will require further discussions. Movement Strategy will not be implemented in a top-down or imposing way. Implementation will be collaborative and movement-wide involving different stakeholders to take it forward, including communities, affiliates and the Wikimedia Foundation. That is why Transition is happening in the first place and why a Design Group was convened to make sure Transition can involve the diversity of our movement, including our major projects. Notability is one example of one change and action under Innovating in Free Knowledge and it states, consult with communities and experts to identify policies in Wikimedia projects that act as barriers of access to content related to underrepresented communities (e.g. Notability). It could be that notability is not identified as a priority for implementation in the first batch at all. Such a significant change would never happen without consulting with communities. Thank you so much for your input and concern and I hope we can benefit from your experience and expertise in the Transition events. MPourzaki (WMF) (talk) 21:11, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
  • @MPourzaki (WMF): Did I mention notability? I didn’t: That’s the carmudgeons’ next door shtick (and rightly so). I think it’s funny how you guys talk about «communities» and «stakeholders», while in this game there’s only two types of players: Editors who contribute to the projects and, with that, cause the donations go on flowing in, and people who apparently have no idea about what we are doing here but who, mainly through personal or national priviledge that gets them to attend meatspace events, captured the reins of decision and do whatever they please. I would presume that those two group overlap, or even that the latter is a subset of the former, but these decisions show that’s not so, sadly. Now, joining discussions to get repeatedly ignored is to give credance to that whole process, and it’s simpler and less stressful to just refuse to play it: Ten years of being ignored or overruled in everything that matters — from VE through MV and WD then KE to AW — shows also that the implicit threat isn’t working anymore: If we don’t join your discussions we’ll be overruled? Well, we’ll be overruled all the same if we do — rather not to waste one’s time and serenity, and keep on editing instead: After all, someone has to keep the donations flowing in. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 00:35, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Hi Tuválkin, I don't know where notability crept in from . My mind must've strayed from one conversation to the other. Similar worries from next door neighbours ... and rightly so indeed. On a somewhat similar trajectory to notability, changes to NC/ND licensing were discussed among some of the working groups in the initial drafting phase of the recommendations, but after community feedback last August, they no longer featured as a priority in the recommendations to address content gaps globally and rather something to leave to discussions at project and community level. Although, I see it pop up from time to time in other conversations and email lists. I really hope we can move away from individual editors and communities feeling ignored and overruled. The Transition events are very much being design to counter this. I hope we can have representatives from the Commons community join the events and share expertise around topics of interest / relevance or as peers for others. -- MPourzaki (WMF) (talk) 16:45, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Change default search button from "Search" to "Go"

How do I do this? It's so annoying to have "Search" as default, since it adds an unnecessary step when I type "Special:Log/upload" or something. –User456541 14:14, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

CC BY-ND

Hi all. I've been asked by one of our main partners in Wales whether I could upload around 120 of their videos onto Commons on a CC BY-ND licence, as they don't want mashups etc of the (very) notable people in the videos. However, Template:Cc-by-nd redirects to a speedy deletion template. As CC BY-ND allows commercial use, isn't it an acceptable licence on Commons? Thanks for any help on this. Llywelyn2000 (talk) 10:37, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Llywelyn2000, Cc-by-nd is not permitted because it restricts end-user's ability to make derivative copies (hence "no-derivative", "ND"). So it's not a truly free license. See Commons:Licensing#Forbidden licenses for more. — Huntster (t @ c) 11:09, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
Damn! I doubt if they'll allow the upload! Is there another way of disallowing mashups? Fair use on individual wikis or on Wikisource? Llywelyn2000 (talk) 11:43, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
Recent court ruling state that in the USA Fair Use is not a mandatory licence and is not just a defence to copyright infrigment case, but a right. And the funny thing is that mashup may actually be more in accordance with fair use in most cases than verbatum copying (because it is easier to make the work transformative, which is one of four parts of a fair use text). Having said that, I doublt that Wikipedia would welcome large videos uploaded as fair use without an article about that specific video, it would probably be deleted from there. I am unsure about Wikisource. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ • ✍ ⏿) 12:35, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
Yes, projects differ on their applications of fair use. I don't know about the Welsh Wikipedia, where OP is most active, but for English, a video would almost never be allowed under fair use unless the video itself was somehow notable. Even then, after looking, I can't provide any specific examples. Simply put, a still image from the video is pretty much always going to be less use of non-free content as opposed to the full video itself, and non-free content policies on individual projects are pretty much always going to be more restrictive than the strict legal limits of fair use itself.
If it helps to address any of their concerns @Llywelyn2000: , if someone is going to make a mashup using content they've already posted online, then... they're probably just going to to it anyway, and they're mostly going to have a pretty good fair use defense, more-or-less depending on jurisdiction. Also in some ways, a license like CCBYSA can be beneficial to the creator. It requires attribution, and they can specify the nature of that attribution within reason, like "If you wish to reuse this video you must include the following attribution: 'Video by such-and-such org.' You must also include a link to the original website at www.website.org" GMGtalk 12:59, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
Hey, thanks both for your comprehensive answers! Really useful. Wikisource takes its images from Commons, so there's no hope there either? I understand your last parag. GreenManGo, and will forward these arguments. Thanks again! Llywelyn2000 (talk) 13:33, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Interwiki links still not migrated

I stumbled upon Category:Serangoon Secondary School. There's only one link, and the item is not linked to any wikidata item yet, so there's no conflict links. Why is it not migrated then? How many are out there like this?--RZuo (talk) 22:44, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

This is odd - I thought most of the old interwiki links were migrated where possible. I've tried modifying an old query to get lists of categories with interwikis, see [3], and it returns 1772 rows - which doesn't include this category. Searching for insource:/"[[en"/ does return 25k results, though - including this case. Maybe @Jheald and Matěj Suchánek: might have ideas of what's happened here? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 10:26, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
OK, I coded up a new way to find these, using the search API, pi bot is running through them now. Thanks @RZuo: for pointing this out! Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 11:12, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Keyword based upload ban

Hello! Every week, it seems, I get a notification to say that one more photo that I took and uploaded to Commons is up for deletion. Slowly but surely, my photo stories about comic conventions for Wikinews (that are translated also for Dutch Wikinews) get chipped away.

If cosplay photos are really horrendous copyright violations, then why not automatically block uploads of new media with the word cosplay? Why not block new uploads with the word Disney? Why let people waste time, if the content is never going to be kept in the first place? -- Nick Moreau (talk) 12:04, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Not all cosplay photos are copyright violations, it is a really complex. Many things with the word Disney may be acceptable, let's say somebody creates a graph of income of Walt Disney Corp, that graph would be ok. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ • ✍ ⏿) 12:09, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
Also, since people seem to have retroactively decided that the term cosplay applies (for example) to many people in parades dating from before the term even existed, and because it seems to be applied to most of what anyone wears to a science fiction convention other than their mundane clothing, I would not presume that all that depictions of "cosplay" in general are copyright violations. - Jmabel ! talk 20:55, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Discussion at COM:AN#Possibly wrong inactivity desysops

 You are invited to join the discussion at COM:AN#Possibly wrong inactivity desysops. —Mdaniels5757 (talk) 18:34, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Wrong file name

The name of the file Micrososft 365 logo.png is wrong. It should be Microsoft 365 logo.png . Is there someone that can fix this? --5.169.189.90 19:16, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

✓ Done Rodhullandemu (talk) 19:20, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Requesting page move of File:COVID-19 case rates in Boston by neighborhood.png to File:COVID-19 Prevalence in Boston by neighborhood.png

I have requested page move of File:COVID-19 case rates in Boston by neighborhood.png to File:COVID-19 Prevalence in Boston by neighborhood.png to provide consistency with other COVID-19 pandemic in the United States by location articles. Will a request be sent to a filemover or will one just have to come across the image randomly? Qwerty325 (talk) 22:44, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Never mind, it's already been done. Qwerty325 (talk) 22:45, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
But should this page move request ever have been granted? I am not aware that "conistency to a naming scheme of other files" is a valid reason for renaming a file? Is "case rate" less valid than "prevalence"? If different files on the same topic need to have a consistent naming scheme there would be hundreds of thousends of files in thousends of categories that could and should be renamed. --C.Suthorn (talk) 18:12, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
@C.Suthorn: Please see File renaming criterion #4: "To harmonize the file names of a set of images: so that only one part of all names differs."   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 04:53, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
Is there a formal definition of "set" (set of images on commons)? The File:COVID-19 Prevalence in Boston by neighborhood.png is the only member of the "File:COVID-19 Prevalence in ... by neighborhood.png"-set. There is a "File:COVID-19 Prevalence in ... by county.svg"-set with a number of members, but this set consists of SVGs for counties, not neighbourhoods. Still the same set? They do not share a category (Category:Prevalences by county? Category:SVGs of Prevalence?) [Actually, I do not know, if county is the same as neighbourhood and if case rate is the same as prevalence] (and with SDC: how does a naming scheme matter at all?)--C.Suthorn (talk) 08:12, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
@Qwerty325: When you add {{Move}} to a file page, it will be put in Category:Requested moves where filemovers can find it easily. – BMacZero (🗩) 05:50, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Getting full res image from BnF Gallica (National Library of France)

I found a 1908 map of en:Guangzhouwan (made by the French Indochinese government) at https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b53019716c/f1.item.r=Kouang-Tch%C3%A9ou-Wan.zoom. One can download a PDF or JPG of the whole map but this is of low quality. The system will let one download a high resolution page of only part of the image.

This map should be PD now (I believe a colonial government map from 1908 should be PD) but I'm wondering if the BnF will allow the downloading of a whole high res map. WhisperToMe (talk) 07:10, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

French copyright neither has exemptions for government works, nor is the protection term based on the creation or publication date. Instead, a work is protected for the lifetime of the author(s) plus 70 years. The author's names can be found in the upper left corner, but we don't know when the last of them died. Theoretically it is possible that any of them lived past 1950, so we can't upload this map anyway. Per {{PD-old-assumed}} it will be possible to upload the map in 2029 though. De728631 (talk) 18:27, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
Apart from that I just found that you can only order a full copy in HD or "premium" resolution for a charge of 5 or 10 Euro respectively. De728631 (talk) 18:41, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
@De728631: Thank you for the reply! The stated author is Mr. Bonnin Capne. Infie. de Mne., Chef de Brigade. BnF refers to a Laurent Bonnin https://data.bnf.fr/en/atelier/15294839/laurent_bonnin/ who died in 1926. This may be the same guy. WhisperToMe (talk) 22:58, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
Full resolution images apparently follow this pattern: https://gallica.bnf.fr/iiif/ark:/12148/identifier/f1/full/full/0/native.jpg. Anyway, the map includes more than one name. Strakhov (talk) 02:24, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
@Strakhov: The other names are in italics and it is stated "D'apres les travaux executes au 1/50.000epar M.Mrs.: " (Google translate: According to the work carried out at 1 / 50,000 by M.Mrs.) -- These names are all dated 1900 (when the work seems to have been done): Langlois, de St. Maurice, Chapelle, Aurard, Bastide, and Venet (military positions are given). I can't tell if they actually drew the map or if they just did underlying cartographic work used as the basis of the map. A Google search for "Laurent Bonin" Langlois Chapelle Aurard Bastide Venet" seems to bring nothing. The 1935 map https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b525056279/f1.item states the same staff names. I'll see if any further info are available on them. WhisperToMe (talk) 19:31, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
A personal website I found has the profile of Laurent Louis Adrien BONIN: http://ecole.nav.traditions.free.fr/officiers_bonnin_laurent.htm
Possibly http://ecole.nav.traditions.free.fr/officiers_langlois_emmanuel.htm Emmanuel François Xavier Marie LANGLOIS (1880-1917) (it can't be http://ecole.nav.traditions.free.fr/officiers_langlois_emile.htm because he was born in 1904 and http://ecole.nav.traditions.free.fr/officiers_langlois_amedee.htm resigned in 1848)
WhisperToMe (talk) 19:49, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k57741021.texte.langFR.r=Cerfs-volants seems to have some of these names so I'll check if it has more info WhisperToMe (talk) 20:11, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k57741021/f35.image Page 24 states that there was a "Venet" who was a Leiutenant in the 10th Infantry Navy Regiment in Haiphong. These directories show who served in the French military in Indochina at the time so this could be used to figure out who did what. WhisperToMe (talk) 20:17, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
Thank you for providing these sources. Bonnin (1865–1926) is also listed in the "Annuaire" (p. 27), so this should be our 1908 editor. Emmanuel Langlois cannot have been involved because the Langlois credited on the map was already Capitaine in 1900. De728631 (talk) 00:33, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
Youre welcome! Even though the original is from 1900 (as per the 1935 edition which says that) and should work under "PD-old-assumed" it's good to figure out who these guys are anyway for historiographical reasons. WhisperToMe (talk) 00:45, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
Indeed. I found Paul Eugène Venet (1874–?) who is also listed in the yearbook (p. 24). De728631 (talk) 00:53, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
@De728631: Thank you! I also found on Google Books this document which lists a "VENET Paul-Eugène" although this is for the army apparently WhisperToMe (talk) 00:59, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
De728631 (talk) 02:01, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
J. B. Aurard died in 1911 [4], while D. E. Bastide was still alive in 1922 [5]. De728631 (talk) 12:35, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Upload new version fails if size > 11 MB

I am trying to replace an image with a newer version with some defects edited. The file is used in a couple of Wikipedia articles so the new file must have the same name. Hence, I used "Upload a new version of this file" link. As the file is 23 MB the server does not accept it. I am constantly getting an error message: "... Error: 502, Server Hangup at ...". I understand that this link has a limit of 11 MB. How can I replace the existing version with the improved version? Any help would be much appreciated. --Tagooty (talk) 16:19, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

@Tagooty: Hi, and welcome. Please try User:Rillke/bigChunkedUpload.js. Documentation is on the talk page.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 16:31, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
This worked, thank you Jeff --Tagooty (talk) 11:34, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
@Tagooty: You're welcome.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 15:52, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by:   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 15:52, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Latvian road signs

Since the new law of road traffic regulations, the numbering of Latvian road signs has slightly changed. Changing names one by one would be quite tedious. Is there anyone with renaming permissions, that might help me with this task? Soshial (talk) 05:25, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

@Soshial: It's about the ones with an A in the number currently, right? 1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 11:17, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
Exactly, @1234qwer1234qwer4: . This letter numbering is not used anymore. Also, some new signs might have appeared/removed, but I am not sure. I can only say, that this website is the official site to publish Latvia State laws. Soshial (talk) 16:43, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
@Soshial: I think it is a bit problematic to change the names, as pages that use them might not get updated correctly and the old and new names are interfering. I could do this though. 1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 20:30, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
Can we do this gradually one after one? First, first image is renamed, then bot makes relevant edits on all wiki-sites, that use this image; only then rename the next one. What do you think? (Also, starting renaming from the highest numbers is important to rule out interference.) Soshial (talk) 04:37, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
@Soshial: I planned to do it that way, but the success also depends on how many of the images are used anywhere. I can only rename a file without leaving a redirect if it is not used. I also think leaving redirects makes sense for the ones with a letter to leave it backwards compatible at least for these ones. 1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 10:10, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
I looked at some of the signs and almost none of them are heavily used. Obviously, I haven't clicked through ALL of them. Soshial (talk) 11:08, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Ну как, есть какие-нибудь подвижки? :) Soshial (talk) 15:04, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
@Soshial: oh, sorry. I've done the 5xx ones; however, File:Latvia road sign 524.svg and File:Latvia road sign 524A.svg seem not to have any equivalent. File:Latvia road sign 523.svg is currently in the way of renaming File:Latvia road sign 522 A.svg, but I've nominated the redirect for speedy deletion now. 1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 17:48, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
 Comment Done 8xx without any problems now. 1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 18:04, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
Done 7xx; that's it, I guess. 1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 19:45, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
Wow, this is an amazing progress! Thank you so much. PS. File:Latvia road sign 524.svg, File:Latvia road sign 524A.svg, File:Latvia_road_sign_734C.svg should be deleted, I think. Also, renaming of 413A till 422 haven't been finished yet, right? Soshial (talk) 15:24, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
Ah, I didn't notice those; will do them now. I don't think any of the files should be deleted, but they can be renamed to show the signs aren't used any more. 1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 20:08, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
@Soshial: Okay, done. Sorry for the late action. 1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 22:22, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Wooden coaches

I created Category:Railway coaches of the Netherlands (wooden). Is their any supercategory regrouping similar railway coaches?Smiley.toerist (talk) 08:30, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Hi. Maybe you can create Category:Railway wooden coaches in Category:Railway coaches and Category:Wooden vehicles, p.e., IMAO. lol LW² \m/ (Lie ² me...) 23:07, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
Except that should be Category:Wooden railway coaches. The other is not good English. - Jmabel ! talk 17:32, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
Oh, thanks @Jmabel: We don't have the same order in French, sorry... lol LW² \m/ (Lie ² me...) 21:54, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
English-language rules on adjective order appear to be even less intuitive for non-natives than German-language rules on adverb order, and just as strict. - Jmabel ! talk 21:58, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
Category:Railway wooden coaches now created. Besides the Netherlands, there are lots of other countries wich have had railway wooden coaches. These can be added.Smiley.toerist (talk) 08:38, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
(Obviously, what was created was Category:Wooden railway coaches, which is correct.) - Jmabel ! talk 18:44, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Damage control and rules needed for structured data

Sometimes someone takes a look at an image and adds all things that he can think of in structured data. One example of this my correction at Deventer 2014 1.jpg. Al dataitems should be specific as posible. I generaly look at the categories and the datawiki links they have. If necesary I go to the upper categories until I find relevant data items. The chosen data items realy need to be structured. Now its everything goes.Smiley.toerist (talk) 08:27, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

License for MakeCode snapshots?

It is possible to create snapshots of code in Microsoft MakeCode. Uploading them to Wikicommons, which license do I have to choose? --ChristianSW (talk) 11:13, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Best way to download images from Google Arts & Culture?

I want to download faithful photographic reproductions of public domain two-dimensional artworks from Google Arts & Culture (formerly known as Google Art Project) such as this one and then upload them here. Many of the artworks made available under the old Google Art Project banner have been uploaded through concerted efforts to Commons such as ones seen here but the rebranding into Google Arts & Culture also came with many new available artworks that have not been uploaded yet.

What is the best way to download/web scrape images from Google Arts & Culture at maximum zoom level? Will Dezoomify accomplish this objective? I did try Google Image search but I highly I doubt that the image I found was at maximum zoom level. Also, there is the hurdle of all those images being fed in tiles rather than a single digital image. StellarHalo (talk) 07:54, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

@StellarHalo: works well, even Google complained about it, see https://github.com/lovasoa/dezoomify/issues/435 . Multichill (talk) 16:12, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Merit of keeping all images "deleted" (unpublished) until copyright expires

I was interested to discover Category:Undeletion requests which apparently is a time capsule of images uploaded but under copyright and scheduled to be visible again once they enter the public domain. Is there any discussion on if these are all worth keeping, because I'm laughing at the fact that Category:Undelete in 2140 has "File:Female masturbation with pen.webm". Is this file especially worthy of being time capsuled for the people of 2140 A.D. to rediscover?...--Occono (talk) 22:12, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Who knows, maybe in 120 years people will want to know what badly shot Japanese pornography looked like in the first quarter of the 21st Century. My own inclination is "direct to dumpster," but I'll admit that if we had a 120-year-old silver nitrate equivalent, we'd probably consider it worth keeping. - Jmabel ! talk 00:09, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
@Occono and Jmabel: Perhaps she will become as famous as the subject of File:Mata Hari 13.jpg, or the book Erotische Fotografie 1890-1920.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 01:33, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
In 2140, there will be no Wikimedia, so problem solved. --Fæ (talk) 09:32, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
I think that nobody views these categories as "You are forced to undelete", but rather "keep in mind that these are now available". ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ • ✍ ⏿) 11:42, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Proposal for 2 new contests

Wiki loves illustrators and wiki loves map creators. Deer wikimedians. I would like to propose 2 contests. One for illustrations and a another for map creators. What do you think about these ideas. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Guillaumefrst35400 (talk • contribs) 02:22, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

@Guillaumefrst35400: Hi, and welcome. You would be better off posting at COM:VPP, and including a section header and a signature.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 02:27, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
Hi @Guillaumefrst35400: For needed/new illustrations, we have Commons:Photo challenge where you can suggest themes. lol LW² \m/ (Lie ² me...) 02:57, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Weird gallery pages without images and a fake Tours: namespace

I was looking at a a current FPC candidate, when I noticed a very non-standard navigation "template" at the top of the file page, consisting of only numbers linking to other loosely related images. It is defined at Tour:Nazi final solution, creating a fake "Tour:" namespace in gallery namespace. There are a few more in Category:Tours of multimedia files on Commons:

Description of the Category (split from Category:Tours in 2018 by @Ruff tuff cream puff: ) says "These pages contain jumping off locations to various guided tours (also known as a Series, Trails or Browse Sequences) of images and multimedia files on Commons: see the Tours talk page for details." As far as I can tell, the referenced "Tours talk page" never existed. Looks like some idea from the beginning of Commons (all created 2006-2008) that never really took of. That's all very non-standard by today's rules and procedures, so what to do with it? Pinging @Moroder and Makthorpe: as they appear to be the only ones who have done some work in this area. --El Grafo (talk) 13:44, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Discussion at Commons:Deletion requests/File:RJ Nieto during a Philippine Senate hearing on the Proliferation of Fake and or Misleading News and False Information.jpg

I think there's now conclusion to this March 2020-era discussion, Commons:Deletion requests/File:RJ Nieto during a Philippine Senate hearing on the Proliferation of Fake and or Misleading News and False Information.jpg, as it has been decided through many forums (including at enwiki Tambayan Pilipinas) that photos from government-owned and controlled media agencies (e.g. PTV News, PNA, PIA) fall within {{PD-PhilippinesGov}}. It was established anew at Template talk:PD-PhilippinesGov#Continued discussion that Philippine government works (including PTV photos or video screenshots) are automatically public domain. Quoting from Sky Harbor's insights:

* First off, local governments have no independent legal personality -- the Philippines, after all, is a unitary state. In the previous discussion way back when, it was confirmed by Anyo Niminus, a government lawyer, that local governments are considered part of the "Government of the Philippines", and all their works are considered part of that body. As such, they are also covered under PD per the provisions of the Intellectual Property Code.

  • Next, I continue to maintain the position that the provision on non-commercial use is unenforceable: there is no copyright on works of the government of the Philippines, so such permission can only exist outside of copyright. Yes, I think Marcos was generalizing when that provision was inserted in PD 49 when it was passed, and it frankly shouldn't have been inserted, as was the case in the law that it had preceded.
  • Finally, agencies of the Philippine government use Wikimedia work freely without credit, and we tolerate it. It would make my day if the Philippine government decides to take legal action for us using work that, prima facie, has no copyright per the provisions of the Intellectual Property Code.

JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 02:28, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

'Historical' vs 'Vintage' ?

Hi there. Me again with trucks cat's...

What's the difference between 'Historical' and 'Vintage'? I don't really catch it in French... 'Vintage' is used not always rightly.

'Historical': old B&W scanned pics? 'Vintage': digital colored pics? I don't know...

Thanks a lot lol LW² \m/ (Lie ² me...) 22:55, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

They are more or less synonymous, and usually both a poor choice in a category name. Insofar as there is a distinction, "historical" would be more likely for images from the period in question, and "vintage" for old artifacts that survive. (e.g. a Model T Ford in 1928 is "historical", one now is "vintage.") But, as I say, usually a poor choice of category name, and almost always requiring a description on the category. E.g. "Images of FOO that are at least 50 years old." But it is usually better to break down by century, decade, year, etc. - Jmabel ! talk 17:38, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
OK, thanks @Jmabel: That's more or less what I think but I'm not always sure for these kind of terms...
The two top level categories, Category:Historical vehicles and Category:Vintage vehicles, are linked to en:Antique car and en:Vintage car, not that that helps in the slightest. --ghouston (talk) 02:03, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
Not even the right level: cars are a subset of vehicles. --ghouston (talk) 02:04, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
@Ghouston: In France, "Category:Historical vehicles" is "fr:Automobile de collection" and "collectors" are "historicals" because they're the last visible part of the history of transport of their time; but now there's "old-timers" and "young-timers" so a 1990's car can be "collector"! We don't have fr:Véhicules vintage but "vintage" means more "old but not trash" than "collectors"... How can I judge that a 1932's car is not vintage just because it was build 2 years after the date shown in en:Vintage car? And what about Cuban cars ? Historical or vintage ? Except the body, you can't find a genuine part on them... And in deep Russia, Africa or China, with their home-made-vintage-diy-survivor-cars? But I've got enough work with trucks, won't jump in that trap, lol. lol LW² \m/ (Lie ² me...) 22:37, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
Please see Commons:Categories for discussion/2019/09/Category:Historical images. I would like to deprecate "historical" entirely as a descriptor as it is totally vague. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 22:39, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Question about organization of categories

Hello,

I have a question about where decisions about categories are made. An editor has reorganized the files of Pakistan and used what are (to me) unfamiliar categories. For example, Education in Pakistan (all the universities, colleges, schools, etc.), Politics of Pakistan (including international relations, terrorist attacks, protest and many other topics) and Sports of Pakistan are all hidden under the category Category:Activities in Pakistan This is not a category I would think to look for these important topics.

Category:Activities in Pakistan contains only Category:Activities by country of location and Category:Pakistan

I notice that other countries e.g. Category:Activities in India,Category:Activities in the United States contain different variations. Only Pakistan has "Sports" under this category, while India has "Public speaking" in its "Activities" category.

Category:Activities in France only has "Military activities" in it with 1 file there. Category:Activities in Sweden only includes Politics and Education. Category:Activities in Brazil includes "Transport in Brazil".

Is there some criteria for this category? And is there some way editors can be alerted to look for this category? I only found out yesterday when I could not find files in Pakistan. Thank you, Krok6kola (talk) 23:43, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

P.S. Why is Category:Motorcycling in Pakistan considered Category:Culture of Pakistan and not "Sports" or "Transport" for example? I feel as if I have to hunt to (maybe) find relevant categories. Krok6kola (talk) 23:48, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

@Krok6kola: "An editor has reorganized": I presume that is a user with a name, and it would be polite to ping them here so they can participate in the discussion. - Jmabel ! talk 00:45, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
I personally don't find "activities" very useful in this context. It is so nearly devoid of specific meaning that I can't see the advantage of having it. - Jmabel ! talk 00:46, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
@Jmabel: I can ping them; I just assumed it was a done deal and just wanted an understanding. But I would appreciate a discussion. @Elkost: . Also, @A.Savin: who support this category system and reverted my attempt add "Education" and "Politics" to the general Pakistan categories so they could be accessed some other way. Krok6kola (talk) 01:39, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
I think the pinged editors read this and added back categories previously reverted. I also added "Pakistan" to "Education" and "Sport" since I think those categories, especially Education should be easily accessible. Both editors pinged have been busily editing Pakistan since then so I do not think a discussion will take place here. Oh well. Hope I'm not called a "vandal" again for being confused over this as I was. Thanks anyway. Krok6kola (talk) 15:24, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
Before the discussion here was started I had already answered to Krok6kola on my talk page: in sections Pakistan and Categories. --Elkost (talk) 15:35, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
@Elkost: I posted here after you said:"I don't like, too, the useless categories “Activites” and the big blue templates with flags in categories by countries (I prefer the previous grey template with small letters) and I never use them. It's easy to find and ask the people who have created and applied the “Activites” and the new template." and "Sorry, I can't answer your questions. Ask the authors of these edits"
This was not helpful to me as I don't know who decides how to organize the categories of countries or where the philosophies about categories of countries (that should apparently apply to all countries) is explained and discussed (except I was told here). Also, when an editor like me who has put a massive amount of work into categorizing a country feels at a loss when these new categories are suddenly applied out of the blue to that country over the course of a week or so, ideally there would be a way to communicate to such editors what is going on and whether objections and changes can be made without being called a "vandal". Krok6kola (talk) 17:07, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Free Pictures !

https://web.archive.org/web/20020701083224/http://www.philcoradio.com/zena/others.htm

has: en:File:Camille Clifford 2.jpg
many others circa 1906 are on this 404'ed site.
Oko5ekmi5 (talk) 09:19, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Some shower thoughts..

No.1

I'll share some shower thought about commons...Feel free to answer, redirect me to the right page, trout, or even block me if this sounds stupid.

  • 1. It is regarded that files hosted in commons should be public domain in source country and USA right? So if a work is tagged as PD-...-gov in their source (say X) country, that means the file is public domain in its source country, but not in the USA because the government of X country is not the government of USA right? So that means the law of USA should be applied to the file right, and currently we have a lot of post-1970s file tagged as PD-...-gov. Regards, Jeromi Mikhael (marhata) 12:21, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
@Jeromi Mikhael: Every licensing template should consider implications of Commons' need to follow US copyright law.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 13:37, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
@Jeff G.: Excuse me? Please elaborate — in this case, what implication? Does the file with the above conditions still copyrighted in USA or not? Regards, Jeromi Mikhael (marhata) 14:27, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
@Jeromi Mikhael: Sorry, your hypothetical situation is not specific enough. Please choose one that fits squarely into a box on COM:HIRTLE.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 14:58, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
@Jeff G.: I'll take a real example. Take a look at this picture. This picture is tagged as PD-IDGov because the work is public domain in the home country. But we still have to asses the "public domain in USA" part right? As the Indonesian government is not the governing entity of USA, then the PD-IDGov is not enforceable in USA and thus this image is subject to the 70 years after death of author right? Regards, Jeromi Mikhael (marhata) 15:01, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
  • IANAL, but under the Berne Convention, Indonesia would be the country of origin. Article 7(8) of the Convention states that "unless the legislation of that country otherwise provides, the term shall not exceed the term fixed in the country of origin of the work". If, as in this case, that country does not grant copyright, then the term fixed in the country of origin is zero. - Jmabel ! talk 15:08, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
I think Commons' traditional position in this area is to treat government works specially here, and to say that if they're in the public domain in their country of origin, we'll assume that applies worldwide. The reasoning behind this is that a government passing a law saying "all government works are in the public domain" is equivalent to a person saying "all my works are in the public domain", so neither of those should be restricted to a single country. This seems a rather dodgy rationale to me, but I'm not much in favour of the "must be PD in the US" rule either, so I'm not complaining. In some cases, we have better reasons for treating foreign government works specially: some of them will fall under {{PD-EdictGov}}, and in some cases (like {{PD-UKGov}}) the foreign government has explicitly stated that works are out of copyright worldwide. --bjh21 (talk) 15:26, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
I subscribe to the view that when governments place their work in the public domain, they are doing so worldwide, unless there is evidence that the government intends to enforce foreign copyright on a work which is PD domestically. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 19:12, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

No.2

  • 2. Some countries government has a bad understanding of their law...stamps and currency that could include copyrighted images. Let me explain this bit for a second:
2a. Say there is country Y which states in their law that their stamps is public domain. Country Y has friendly ties with country Z, and country Y wants to make a stamp about a popular author in country Z who has recently died. Unknowingly, Country Y uses a copyrighted, previously published images created by a Z citizen on their stamp. A user from country Y uploads the stamp to Commons, stating that the stamp is in public domain.
In this case, Country Y has conducted a license washing. How would Commons respond?
2b. Same question, but Country Y now use a copyrighted photo from their own citizen without asking and without knowing. Regards, Jeromi Mikhael (marhata) 12:28, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
@Jeromi Mikhael: Governments and officials who violate copyright law should be punished, and their violative work product should not be here.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 13:37, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
@Jeff G.: How about 2b, governments who violated their own law? Regards, Jeromi Mikhael (marhata) 14:29, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
@Jeromi Mikhael: Governments, departments, employees, etc. which violate their own laws should be exposed, censured, and corrected, or the laws need to be changed retroactively.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 15:01, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
We handle such cases similarly to any other case of license washing, but with a greater presumption of good faith for governments and large organizations compared to ordinary users (i.e. it takes a large amount of evidence to convince us that a work claimed to be PD by a government is not actually PD). -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 19:10, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

PageImages enabled for categories

Hi all. Per phab:T198716, WMF/@Jdlrobson turned on PageImages for Commons categories yesterday. This means that if you post a link to a Commons category on Facebook, then you should now see an image in the link preview that appears below the post. For a bit of background, see Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2018/07#Enable_PageImages_on_Commons_categories.

The cache needs to be purged before the page image is shown - it's not clear whether than needs a non-null edit (like that at Category:South Pole Telescope), or a null edit (like I just did at Category:Lovell Telescope), or if the update I just made to Template:Wikidata Infobox will purge the info for all categories that use it. Please test it, and post feedback here or at phab:T198716.

I'm not sure if this solves the issue on Twitter, can someone test that please? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 18:04, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Category question

There is a category Evangelical churches in Santiago de Chile and a category Protestant churches in Santiago de Chile. Does that make sense? Many Protestant churches would also describe themselves as Evangelical, in whatever sense of the word.

The "Protestant" category currently contains a Methodist and a Presbyterian church, plus one that might be an Adventist church (if I read the sign correctly). The "Evangelical" category seems to contain several "Methodist Pentecostal" churches, whatever that might be. If "Methodist Pentecostal" is special enough to have its own category, we should have a category "Methodist Pentecostal". But they can't claim the term "Evangelical" for themselves only; that doesn't make sense. --91.34.39.253 14:17, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Teminology seems to be completely messed up on an international level. We have Category:Protestant churches and Category:Evangelical churches both as a subcategory of Category:Churches by denomination, suggesting that they are different things at the same organizational level. In en:List of Christian denominations evangelical is a subgroup of protestant. Has this ever been discussed properly? --El Grafo (talk) 14:39, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
I don't know about past discussion, but "Evangelical" is certainly a subset of "Protestant". What makes it tricky is that in Central European usage, "Evangelical" and "Protestant" are pretty interchangeable, but in U.S. (and I think other English-language) usage, "Evangelical" is limited to those whose doctrine specifies that salvation is "by grace alone." And it overlaps denominations: certainly Congregationalists can be on either side of that doctrinal divide. - Jmabel ! talk 23:36, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Questionable Youtube channels

Is there any established way to block questionable Youtube channels in a similar fashion to Commons:Questionable Flickr images? There are known license laundering Youtube channels (e.g. Youku Quan Yule: DR1, DR2) that we wish to block automatically. --Wcam (talk) 16:37, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

No, as there is no requirement to include the uploaders username in one of the upload fields, videos cannot be blocked by account.--BevinKacon (talk) 16:02, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Attention all license reviewers and admins

There are 2,708 files in Category:YouTube review needed and someone may feel like its impossible to review all those file!

What if we make a category-of-the-week team event? If all license reviewers and admins go to the category and review a few images every day for a week then it should be possible to reduce the numbers in a specific category a lot. Next week we could pick another category.

YouTube reviewes are very standardized because you go to YouTube and if the video is there you click on “Show more” and see if there is a “License Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed)”. It is of course also relevant to check if the image is from the video, if it is a derivative work and if uploader is likely to be the copyright owner.

(If the video is not there or the license is wrong it is more complicated because you would have to dig a bit in WayBack Machine etc.)

If you are not a license reviewer and you want to help you can apply if you have been active on Commons for some time and know about copyright. See Commons:License review/Requests if you want to join. --MGA73 (talk) 09:05, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

  • I love the idea of trying to do that. As long as we remember that the purpose is quality not quantity. Reviewing 1 or 2 videos, but doing it correctly is better than reviewing 100 or 200 and making blatant mistakes. I am not saying here, that I am so great and others are so horrible, but I thought that it was worth mentioning that. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ • ✍ ⏿) 16:36, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
I think it is unfortunately not that easy. I just took a quick look into the subcategory YouTube videos review needed and think there are quite a lot videos that have to be deleted for personality rights (a person identified by name even in file title accused for a bad behaviour) or following the precautionary principle, the latter because there a videos deleted on Youtube, partly even the uploading account, but the archived page shows the video had been CC licensed (maybe it’s accidental that I chose them as sample, but most of the problematic videos have beem uploaded her by the same uploader, so we would have to question whether this should be blocked in Commons). Sometimes you have to take a look on the website of the uploader (cf. e.g. the films in Category:Blender movies). — Speravir – 02:56, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
It is thankless bot task, better off trying to run Commons:Bots/Requests/YouTubeReviewBot over proxies.--BevinKacon (talk) 15:56, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Personal category with more text than media

I do recognise that we need personal categories to assist people with doing their own thing. But what if the category looks like Category:Photographs created by Judgefloro, 2020 is it still a category at this point? It does feel like an article. I think that it is inappropriate for CFD, since the category should not be removed, it is useful since it has a file in it, but I am unsure if I should just move on or bring it to some attention. Perhaps this discussion can help out. @Judgefloro: ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ • ✍ ⏿) 09:11, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

 Keep: Member of Category:User categories, so what. --Achim (talk) 09:16, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
This is not a place to vote. And also I have very specifically said that it does not belong in CFD because it should be kept as a category. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ • ✍ ⏿) 09:55, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Uploading an image that is free to use in the public domain

If I've been told in writing - by the person I'm writing a page about - that the image they sent me is free for use in the public domain, what do I click on in the Release Rights section? — Preceding unsigned comment added by WallaceEMann (talk • contribs) 15:22, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

@WallaceEMann: , could you ask them to email a template at Commons:Email templates to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org, where the OTRS volunteers will process and store the permission to use the image. ~~ Alex Noble/1-2/TRB 16:28, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
@Alex Noble: Thank you for your reply. I've done that. Can I still upload the photo and page while we wait for the email? Thanks WallaceEMann
In my experience, when the subject of a photo says that the photo if "in the public domain" that is better understood as "I am completely ignorant on the topic of copyright law, and you need to do some research." - Jmabel ! talk 18:34, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Podcast reviews and audio editing needed

Project page
IA audio (Internet Archive audio)
Podcast category
Podcasts
Search for Podcasts needing review
incategory:Podcasts insource:LicenseReview

This batch upload project has been successfully adding significant numbers of interesting audio podcasts to our Commons collections. But we need help as these are in need of careful review to check whether there are copyright issues such as inclusion of significant copyrighted music, copyright soundtracks, or the reading of significant passages from copyrighted texts or books.

Where the inclusion of music is fairly separate tracks, like in introduction segments, a smart approach is to crop out the copyrighted sections and re-upload. For example SP043 -Substral PolyWohnzimmer (IA sp043).mp3 had significant sections which had nc-nd license restrictions, but it was possible to crop these out and leave the interview sections, helped by the description that shows a time index of where all the music was included. In some cases it may be unclear if included music is incidental enough to fall under derivative works, or if the music is the same license as the overall podcast, so some further research might be needed to double check the podcast's history or if a mistake in the copyright assertion was made when released to the Internet Archive.

If you are not a license reviewer, you can still help out this audio project with better categorization, or simply listening to the podcast to check if there are any sections that don't seem copyright free to you.

Thanks! --Fæ (talk) 15:12, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Would listening to over a months worth of podcasts be a productive use of volunteers time? You've just described the source of your uploads as COM:PCP, so please discontinue such uploads.--BevinKacon (talk) 16:19, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
The Internet Archive is not a banned resource, nor is anyone being asked to listen to entire podcasts, or any. The only podcasts being uploaded are released on suitable verified licenses, refer to the project page.
  1. Many are simply fine on the release given with very little to check. As many of these podcasts are a series, once one has been examined the rest could be approved as they are from an artist that seems to understand how to do the copyright.
  2. Some are obvious copyvios, like this DR which is 146 episodes of book readings, around 250 hours of audio, but the DR was created after listening to a few minutes of audio, not even one whole episode. Just like Commons, the Internet Archive is very dependent on uploaders making good choices about the copyright statement, they are not going to always be correct, or to our standards which exclude excessive fair use unless covered by our interpretation of the derivative works.
  3. Anyone who wants to try clipping music segments from a podcast episode, will have the benefit of using local software and looking at the waveform. Finding music is trivial as it's visibly music with a beat pattern, rather than dialogue. Something that might be done in minutes, even if the podcast is over an hour long.
It would be useful to try looking through a sample of files, to base views on evidence of issues, rather than assumptions.
As a real example, after writing the above I downloaded and edited File:A Little Dead Podcast - Episode 14 - Quarantine and (REC) (IA ALittleDeadPodcast-Episode14-QuarantineAndrec).mp3 using Audacity to trim out the film and music segments (35 min → 22 min). This took about 5 minutes, though due to a poor connection here, it took twice that to overwrite the file. --Fæ (talk) 20:41, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
@BevinKacon: For me, your comment is an example of misapplication of COM:PCP. Our bar, as established by consensus, is that a ~1% chance of being non-free is probably acceptable ({{PD-old-assumed}}), while a 10% chance is clearly not. However, that does not mean that we cannot bulk import files with an a priori larger than 1% chance of being non-free, so long as further review can classify them as clearly free (<1% chance), clearly nonfree (>50% chance), or unclear and requiring discussion at COM:DR (1-50% chance). -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 20:51, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

2 things on African American categories.

  1. We seem to have a loop with Category:African American history and Category:African American culture each as a subcat of the other. I don't know which way that should go, but presumably only one way. Is one or the other of these ways more "normal"?
  2. We don't seem to have a category relating to African American barbershops, even though I would think they constitute something quite distinct from other U.S. barbershops, especially before the last generation or so. - Jmabel ! talk 22:12, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Is the "Creator" template confined to individual creators?

I was thinking we should have a "Creator" template for Webster and Stevens, who for nearly two decades consistently published their work jointly. - Jmabel ! talk 00:50, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

@Jmabel: that is often a messy issue which in the past was solved differently for different authors:
I think that if you have enough information to create individual creator templates and wikidata items for both Webster and Stevens than you should keep them separate but if you do not than a single template with whatever we know about them is better than no template. --Jarekt (talk) 17:30, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
I agree with Jarekt, because joint effort creations expire 70 years from the last person to die. So it is important to know the death dates for both individuals in the template. We also have separate templates for photographic studios where all the photographers are anonymous. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 18:27, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
The thing is, "Webster and Stevens" was more of a company (over a dozen photographers besides themselves), and I'm pretty sure the copyrights were all held by the company. Most (though not all) of their work is pre-1925, so it is out of copyright in the U.S. in any case. I'm kind of inclined to a joint template; a "Webster & Stevens" credit/copyright doesn't really indicate at all what individual shot the photograph. - Jmabel ! talk 04:55, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
I was thinking the other day about setting up a Creator page for another photographic company, but didn't get very far with exploring the idea. One problem with using the existing creator template is that it pulls Wikidata properties related to instances of humans (date of birth, birth location, etc.). For a corporate creator template to be useful, it would probably be worthwhile if it could pull across properties for inception and dissolution. From Hill To Shore (talk) 20:42, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
@From Hill To Shore: Yup. I've more or less given up on this for now. The "corporate creator" issue is not high enough on my own priority list, but I think it deserves someone dealing with it. - Jmabel ! talk 00:27, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Copyright files not deleted after six months

Commons:Deletion requests/File:Disa uniflora00.jpg has been open for over six months. I believe this file is a copyright violation, as its creator died in 1973, but that has been contested by the uploader (the discussion's only other participant), albeit with no evidence.

This is not the only long-overdue deletion discussion; for example Commons:Deletion requests/File:500greatestalbumsofalltime.JPG has been open even longer.

I know all the tropes about us all being volunteers, etc., but are we really content to leave such files on Commons for so long?

What is to be done to reduce the backlog? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:01, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

I have !voted on them. I have also tried to get into a position to help reduce that backlog, but to no avail.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 11:11, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
Saying there are backlogs to be dealt with is not helpful, proposing long-term solutions is, such as technical or policy changes. There is no urgent reason for this DR to be closed over the ones opened since December \ January.--BevinKacon (talk) 15:47, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
I didn't "say there are backlogs to be dealt with"; I asked "What is to be done to reduce the backlog?". I'm not clear which you mean by "this DR", but in each of the examples I cited are just that: examples. I'm also not clear why the existence of DRs from December or January makes the existence of six-month old DRs from February acceptable. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:46, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
It's not clear they're a copyright violation, since which volume they're from is not specified, and half the series was published before 1925. If the WMF were presented with a DMCA notice for works that aren't copyvios in the US, they'd be within their rights to ignore it. It's merely in violation of Commons policies. I don't see why the existence of seven-month and eight-month old DRs doesn't make clear that six-month old DRs aren't highest priority.--Prosfilaes (talk) 05:49, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
This is a discussion of the deletion-request backlog; it is not a deletion request. It is still not clear what you mean by "they", but one of the several deletion discussions given as an example has already been closed as "delete". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:41, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Editing help

Hello everybody,

I have a question about the editing on here and I was wondering if anybody here could help me with it. So, the thing is that I would like a 'user gallery' header on this page but every time the page gets updated, the new entry goes on top of the header. Does anybody know how to keep this header on the very top of the page at all times and have new entries to the gallery get placed to the bottom of the header?

Thanks in advance!! NeoMeesje (talk) 17:24, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

@NeoMeesje: Hi, and welcome. That gallery is updated by Commons:Commonist every time you use it. I suggest you ask at Commons talk:Commonist about customizing it.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 00:11, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Help choosing Licences

Dear everybody, I am willing to upload pictures of some postal stamps (taken by mobile camera). Which licence(s) should I use? --Meghmollar2017 (talk) 17:50, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

@Meghmollar2017: Hi, and welcome. I see you are from Bangladesh. You may not upload photos or scans of Bangladeshi stamps per Commons:Copyright rules by territory/Bangladesh#Stamps. Other countries may be more lenient about their stamps, see Commons:Stamps/Public domain and Commons:Stamps more generally.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 00:05, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

The years of registration vs. publication of the United Nations Treaty Series since Volume 401

I just found that the United Nations Treaty Series since Volume 401 would have separate years of registration vs. publication, so I just edited File:UN Treaty Series - vol 401.pdf with "1961 (1962 publication)" as the year while English and French share the word "publication". The registration periods at https://treaties.un.org/Pages/LatestVolumes.aspx do not always give correct months, so I leave the months out while uploading. Any comments before I edit File:UN Treaty Series - vol 402.pdf to File:UN Treaty Series - vol 599.pdf to distinguish the years of registration vs. publication, please?--Jusjih (talk) 02:01, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Donald Trump - Deplorables and Proud Photo - Nominated by Ellin Beltz to be deleted - please explain.

Hello Wikimedia Commons Village pump - I cannot help but think that my Donald Trump - Deplorable and Proud! photo is being targeted because I am a Conservative. The reasoning Ellen Beltz gives for nominating deletion of this photo has nothing to do with my photo. Ms. Beltz has actually requested that dozens of my photos that I solely own and were taken with my own camera - be deleted. I consider this to be harassment. If there is something I must add to the photo postings, Please explain. Best to email me Twins@esedona.net Thank you. Terrie Frankel

I have speedy-closed Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by TwinofSedona as it appears to be an indiscriminate nomination of all the user's uploads combining many different reasons for deletion, which is going to be impossible to discuss in one thread. However, that does not mean that all your photos are safe. Some of the photos appear to have been taken by someone else, and some of them seem to be personal photos with no use for Wikimedia; they may be renominated for deletion. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 19:53, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
@TwinofSedona: Terrie, I looked through your uploads and most seem to be fine additions to our collection. I especially liked some of your historical photographs. Please continue to contribute. In order to avoid potential deletions you should upload photographs you took or for which you hold copyright to. Some of the photographs you uploaded were questioned based on project scope, you can avoid that by concentrating on uploading images depicting people or places for which we have wikipedia articles. The more rare the better, as we have a lot of articles missing images or having only poor quality images. Thanks for contributing and if you have any questions about how to do things or why something happened please leave a note on my talk page. --Jarekt (talk) 21:17, 19 August 2020 (UTC) Thank you! --TwinofSedona (talk) 16:26, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
Agree these are interesting photographs, potentially of high value for illustrating aspects of American politics. The beliefs or political values of the photographer, or those of future reusers, are irrelevant here. Thank you! --TwinofSedona (talk) 16:26, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
Terrie, your uploads are welcome on Commons and this project's mission includes educational images that illustrate as many points of view as possible. If some get put up for deletion and there is not an incredibly obvious copyright violation, then the nomination must be on solid policy grounds, and as a good faith uploader you are free to question precisely what policy requires deletion and expect a consensus view, not just one opinion. Please take this as a 'no fault' deletion request, and I hope you continue to enjoy contributing here and possibly having your uploads used on Wikipedia too. --Fæ (talk) 21:44, 19 August 2020 (UTC)Thank you.--TwinofSedona (talk) 16:20, 25 August 2020 (UTC)Thank you! --TwinofSedona (talk) 16:26, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
The nominations have nothing to do with politics. The images of a Donald Trump doll were nominated because the face of the doll is comprised of a photograph that you didn't take. That's called a Derivative Work, COM:DW. The original photographer has the copyright to that image and it can't be incorporated into a second image without the original photographer's permission. It would be the same no matter whose face had been added to a stuffed doll. Several of the other images are professional/promotional images, and still others are pictures of objects not created by the photographer. Again, this has nothing to do with politics, and as Fae says above, please take as "no fault" deletion request. Cheers! Ellin Beltz (talk) 04:45, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

There is no doll in this photo. I do not understand what you are talking about. This photo was taken with my iPhone that I handed to someone to take the photo. I own the photo. TwinofSedona

@Ellin Beltz: Can you please review your nominations again? Some of the rationales are evidently incorrect, e.g. Commons:Deletion requests/File:Sheriff Joe Arpaio at Trump Rally in Prescott, AZ 2016.jpg. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 07:24, 22 August 2020 (UTC) Thank you! --TwinofSedona (talk) 16:26, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

I am speechless. I feel harassed by Ellin Beltz. My email is indeed Twins@esedona.net however somehow NOW it appears to have been altered in such a fashion on Wikimedia's end that the emails from Wikimedia asking me to 'prove my email' will not come through to me - making it impossible for me to return proof that it is indeed my email.. All of this, along with the blanket hysteria, picking apart so many of my photos - especially those showing my support for Donald Trump - and my photos as a patriot, veteran of the USO in Vietnam 1968, performer at the Comedy Store, former member of the Board of Directors of the Producers Guild of America, supporter of our military, etc, leads me to believe that Ellin Beltz should be questioned about her motives. I have had many iPhones and cameras over the years. These photos she questions are my own. Thank you TwinofSedona — Preceding unsigned comment added by TwinofSedona (talk • contribs) 17:08, 22 August 2020 (UTC)--TwinofSedona (talk) 18:03, 22 August 2020 (UTC) Is this signature correct? Thank you. NOTE: SORRY FOR THE CONFUSION. I NOW SEE THAT ALL OF THE EMAILS FROM ELLIN BELTZ WERE CAUGHT IN MY SPAM! Please reconnect my email address. Should go through now. Thanks. --TwinofSedona (talk) 19:38, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Pinging @Ellin Beltz properly.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 17:26, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
@TwinofSedona: Do you honestly expect people to be able to read to the bottom of your user talk page, with all the unexpandable templates there? Also, please sign your posts properly.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 17:32, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
@Jeff G.: Are you really blaming a new user for not properly dealing with the 150 separate templates an experienced user dumped on her page in the span of a few days? — Rhododendrites talk |  17:43, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
@Rhododendrites: TwinofSedona has been here for 7 years and has 351 contributions, you would think they would have learned something about user talk page management by now.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 00:57, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
@Jeff G.: Before the recent DRs, she only had 19 messages on her talk page, so archiving was pretty optional at that point in time. The display issues were definitely caused by the recent flurry of notices. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 01:02, 23 August 2020 (UTC)Thank you! --TwinofSedona (talk) 16:26, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
@King of Hearts: Point taken, dropping the stick.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 01:09, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
@TwinofSedona: It would be correct at the end of your post, rather than the beginning.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 01:00, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Regarding All of Ellin Beltz's emails to me from Wikimedia, I now see that they were ALL caught in SPAM. Please re-instate my email and feel free to email me. Thanks --TwinofSedona (talk) 19:33, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

This began because I group nominated some of your images. I was informed when the group nomination was kept to do the nominations individually. I did them individually. I am sorry if you feel harassed in any way, that is not my intention. The intention is to have the images reviewed. There are COM:DW and images which could be retained with COM:OTRS and there are several which are obviously professional, and some which appear to be by others. Since one administrator said they could not be reviewed as a group, I nominated them separately. The system is what creates the templates. We are required to notify. Cheers! Ellin Beltz (talk) 19:28, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

My email is now running. Again, all of your emails were previously caught in my SPAM. That has been corrected. I am now getting emails from Wikimedia. Thank you. Again, I thank all who have tried to help me and give support. First, I have reviewed the photos I donated to Wikimedia that Ellin Beltz nominates to delete (140+). There are a few photos that are connected to Wikipedia: United Service Organizations (1), Producers Guild of America (2) and Doublemint (1). I made comments on those four photos and prefer they remain. I still don't see how "Not a Selfie" and "Uploader Depicted" are reasons to delete such historic photos. Again, I request that if possible, these particularly remain. NEXT: the obvious'professional' photos were works for hire (4), you can certainly delete them. I thought that by giving open credit to the 2 photographers, it would be OK. My bad. I assure you, they were not donated with an 'intention to deceive'. One of my photos is of Military Patches given to my Twin and me by soldiers in the field during our Vietnam USO Tour in 1968. Ms. Beltz points out that I did not 'make' the patches, therefore I cannot photograph them! These are Government Military patches.... I see that Jeff G has left the following warning for me accusing me of... "intentionally uploading several files that were copyright violations despite requests from editors not to do so, and despite their instructions." This is not true. I would NEVER intentionally do this. Jeff G goes on to write "This is your last warning. The next time you upload a copyright violation, you will be blocked." I can assure you, I will NEVER UPLOAD ANOTHER PHOTO to Wikimedia Commons. I have only uploaded my photos out of a love and respect for Wikimedia. I thought I was uploading correctly. The words "Selfie" and "Uploader Depicted" were not mentioned when I uploaded so many of my uniquely historic photos from my past... or at least I didn't see those words... Again, don't worry about me uploading anything more. It will not happen. I apologize for any trouble I have caused. Not my intention. --TwinofSedona (talk) 16:20, 25 August 2020 (UTC)


Repeated MOTD?

Template:Motd/2020-08-23 vs Template:Motd/2019-09-07

I dont think it's a good idea to choose the same content (not just the same file) multiple times, because there're virtually unlimited high-quality videos/audio clips out there. (For example, a full movie and portions of it should not be chosen separately either, unless they have different significance, like in 2200 when The Matrix is in the PD, the bullet time clip might deserve a separate MOTD because it was a milestone in filmmaking.)

Choosing the same file should be outright disallowed. Even if something or some events deserve multiple MOTD, different video footage should be chosen rather than the exact same one.--RZuo (talk) 10:41, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Trams on route C / Template:OnRoute

I have added Category:Tramline C in Bordeaux, but when I try to connect to existing Category:Trams on route C I get errors. It organized nicely for trams on nummer routes but not letter routes. Could someone look into it?Smiley.toerist (talk) 08:44, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Ccould someone adapt the template or make a version for non-numeric routes (letters).Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:21, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Community size

Can anyone pull a couple of metrics for community size that can be compared to past years?

I'm wondering if we can identify a trend in growth, shrinkage or volunteer retention using existing measures, and whether there's any obvious impact from necessary changes in volunteers' lives due to the pandemic. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 15:00, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

The Wikimedia Statistics tool [6]. There is a strong ongoing increase of active editors since march. New registered accounts and human edits also increased. But the edits are close to the linear increase of the last years. --GPSLeo (talk) 18:17, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
I love it. Great utility.
The numbers are not what I expected. I think what I have been noticing is a personal perception of some long term editors dropping off (>5 years), but the effect of increasing activity from newer editors (<3 years) easily compensates in the stats. Verified good stats win over perception every time. --Fæ (talk) 20:07, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
No doubt COVID-19 lockdown left a lot of people looking for something to pass the time. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:03, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

How can I detect reasons for insane categorization?

Category:Streets_in_Poland - pressing "good pictures" lists https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Schlammvulkan_Berca.JPG?fastcci_from=1019417&c1=1019417&d1=15&s=200&a=fqv that is neither street, near street or even in Poland. Is there simple method to detect why image X is in category Y without laborious checking all its categories?

I see nothing applicable in https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Categories Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 18:14, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:CategoryTree?target=Category%3AStreets+in+Poland&mode=categories&namespaces=&title=Special%3ACategoryTree seemed useless but manually expanding entire tree is ridiculous Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 18:15, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
@Mateusz Konieczny: What do you see as wrong with this chain? "Streets in Poland → Streets in Poland by city → Streets in Bydgoszcz → Jagiellońska Street in Bydgoszcz → CM UMK Bydgoszcz → Human Y-DNA haplogroups in Poland → Haplogroup E1b1 → Vlachs → Wallachia → Counties of Romania in Muntenia → Buzău County → Berca mud volcanoes"   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 18:27, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
@Jeff G.: How you obtained it? I removed "Human Y-DNA haplogroups in Poland" from "CM UMK Bydgoszcz". Haplogroup E1b1 → Vlachs and agiellońska Street in Bydgoszcz → CM UMK Bydgoszcz also seem very suspect to me Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 18:36, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
The other categorization links you undid also look plausible on the surface:
  • Maybe research made in CM UMK Bydgoszcz was/is especially important for knowledge about Human Y-DNA haplogroups?
  • Maybe CM UMK Bydgoszcz is located in Jagiellońska Street in Bydgoszcz?
Unless you know for a fact that it isn’t so, then please undo your uncategorization and, if needed, ask the original editor for the reasons of these edits. Eitherway, plausible categorization should not be termed "suspicious" — I know that an attempt was made to hijack haplogroup categorization recently in Commons, but it’s important to avoid splash damage: Some is haplogroup categorization legitimate and should be done, and honest mistakes are part of it. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 18:16, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
@Tuvalkin: "Maybe research made in CM UMK Bydgoszcz was/is especially important for knowledge about Human Y-DNA haplogroups" - maybe, but it is not making Human Y-DNA haplogroups subcategory, subset or anything like that of that specific research location. And "Streets in Poland" containing all research topics of all Polish universities seems to be a very dubious outcome for me. I am not planning to revert my edit. Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 05:35, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
@Mateusz Konieczny: I used your link https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Schlammvulkan_Berca.JPG?fastcci_from=1019417&c1=1019417&d1=15&s=200&a=fqv and copied the info in the box just below "File:Schlammvulkan Berca.JPG". I undid nothing.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 23:56, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
@Jeff G.: Thanks! I completely missed this. I guess that either it is case of banner blindness or JS was very slow at this day or I just failed to look properly for it. Thanks again! Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 05:44, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
  • As someone who was once threatened with blocking for the use of O.C.D. to carachterize some fellow editors, I suggest that references to insanity should be striken from the language used in in this discussion. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 18:16, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
    • @Tuvalkin: Sorry if that felt insulting to anyone, feel fee to retitle/strike/moderate/whatever poor language choices - I am not a native speaker or frequent participant in discussions here. Though I want to point out difference of using such terms to describe situation and to describe a fellow editor Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 05:41, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Categories which promote the myth that politically defined countries have genetically distinct "races" of people is the promotion of eugenic theories and scientific racism, mostly by supremacist nationalists. It remains highly disturbing to see Wikimedia volunteers lobbying to keep on creating and organizing categories that confuse or conflate analysis of human genes with nationality.

Anyone interested in this systemic misuse of Wikimedia projects please take a look at the large list of examples, including misuse of Commons images, at m:Talk:Black_Lives_Matter#Scientific_racism. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 10:40, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

cirrusUserTesting=mediasearch_commons breaks all my queries, how to turn it off?

I noticed that search was changed to include cirrusUserTesting=mediasearch_commons breaks in the url. How do I turn this off so my queries work again? I already looked in preferences under search and Beta features, but didn't see anything obvious. Multichill (talk) 16:38, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Hello. We've identified the core issue and are working on it now. RIsler (WMF) (talk) 17:57, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
@RIsler (WMF): you shouldn't use us as guinea pigs without informing us and without offering the option to opt-out. Multichill (talk) 21:27, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
Hopefully the search function is working very soon. Search terms with "insource:" are not working too. --XRay talk 04:52, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
The exclude function using the "-" is also not working correctly. Keith D (talk) 11:16, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Same here. I did notice search was even less useful than before, with quotes and minus and other usual operators not working as they should. Glad it’s a glitch, not yet another exciting new feature. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 15:18, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
Found the relevant task at phab:T254388. Multichill (talk) 19:41, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
The offending bug should be fixed now. Please let us know if you encounter any other issues. RIsler (WMF) (talk) 22:54, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Important: maintenance operation on September 1st

Read this message in another language • Please help translate to your language

The Wikimedia Foundation will be testing its secondary data centre. This will make sure that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster. To make sure everything is working, the Wikimedia Technology department needs to do a planned test. This test will show if they can reliably switch from one data centre to the other. It requires many teams to prepare for the test and to be available to fix any unexpected problems.

They will switch all traffic to the secondary data centre on Tuesday, September 1st 2020.

Unfortunately, because of some limitations in MediaWiki, all editing must stop while the switch is made. We apologize for this disruption, and we are working to minimize it in the future.

You will be able to read, but not edit, all wikis for a short period of time.

  • You will not be able to edit for up to an hour on Tuesday, September 1st. The test will start at 14:00 UTC (15:00 BST, 16:00 CEST, 10:00 EDT, 19:30 IST, 07:00 PDT, 23:00 JST, and in New Zealand at 02:00 NZST on Wednesday September 2).
  • If you try to edit or save during these times, you will see an error message. We hope that no edits will be lost during these minutes, but we can't guarantee it. If you see the error message, then please wait until everything is back to normal. Then you should be able to save your edit. But, we recommend that you make a copy of your changes first, just in case.

Other effects:

  • Background jobs will be slower and some may be dropped. Red links might not be updated as quickly as normal. If you create an article that is already linked somewhere else, the link will stay red longer than usual. Some long-running scripts will have to be stopped.
  • There will be code freezes for the week of September 1st, 2020. Non-essential code deployments will not happen.

This project may be postponed if necessary. You can read the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. Any changes will be announced in the schedule. There will be more notifications about this. Please share this information with your community.

Trizek (WMF) (talk) 13:48, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Scientific racism, eugenics, and the sock farm that has successfully manipulated Commons

Bad news everyone, based on some tracking of sockpuppets, we have today identified 196 files that have been manipulated by one sock farm, which has been active on Commons for over ten years.

The objective of the sock farm appears mainly to promote "pseudo-genetic" race theories. It is quite likely that this may be a team effort, and it may even be a funded long term propaganda campaign based on the multilingual fluency of interactions. This is not just affecting this project, but Wikipedias in several languages including Chinese, Russian, German, Japanese and English.

The sock farm has a long history of ignoring copyright, so the maps and the additions to the map have been repeatedly found to be copyright violations. Often the socks have muddied the water by claiming (sometimes in deletion requests) that they have personally researched the data and somehow put together maps from hundreds of sources, which they can never quite get around to pointing to, or they point vaguely to large websites or series of journals in an effort to give the impression that copyright is impossible to verify, but somehow it must be wrong to insist on copyright verification.

The following deletion requests have been raised in the last 24 hours, you are welcome to add to these discussions:

If you want to help repair some of the damage by reviewing the content we have uncovered during investigation this week, please check the 196 files displayed at:

Category:Files manipulated by sockpuppets of WorldCreaterFighter.

Lastly, the number of blocked and indexed socks is the tip of the iceberg. As mentioned in the recent Wikipedia sock puppet investigation "this activity on Wikipedia is just one component/theatre of a highly elaborate and well-equipped Vietnamese-Russian joint effort to disseminate inflammatory rhetoric online and incite animosity between ethnic groups in Asia in a manner that somehow helps to further the agendas of their respective governments"

Thanks for any help! --Fæ (talk) 10:28, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

need more opinions in DR

User:Prompri author of a file filed this DR: Commons:Deletion requests/File:Anime eyes & red happy mouth with teeth.jpg requesting deletion of graphic artwork he no longer likes or wants to be associated with his nickname. There is nothing in Commons:Deletion_policy that would justify such deletion, but I seek more opinions on the subject. Should we delete or keep? --Jarekt (talk) 03:11, 28 August 2020 (UTC)


this file isnt used in any article, and isnt important for the community. its a G7 request. we can delete any self uploaded images from other sites. wikipedia's rules is confusing me. im really scared(might be banned suddenly for confusion) and confused, what to do and not to. i always assume good faith. Prompri (talk) 03:15, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Some information about the Siphonariidae family of molluscs

Hello to Wikimedia Commons members. Recently I started to write about mollusks of the family Siphonariidae in the Wikipedia of my native language. I started to put some links from iNaturalist, but one of these links was like CC-BY until I opened the copyright link of the image and noticed that in that location was placed CC-BY-NC (now I will open all licenses, after repairing this one error on that page). I also noticed something. The World Register of Marine Species page retreated in one of the nomenclatures. I would rather warn you here than modify the terminology that is not still valid on Wikimedia Commons. Mário NET (talk) 00:30, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

@Mário NET: Thanks for the warning. It's good to be aware that on iNaturalist, individual photos may have different copyright licenses than the observation itself. And in the case of Category:Siphonaria_obliquata, it appears that renaming may be warranted (Benhamina obliquata currently redirects, a situation that may warrant reversing), but in general there is no guarantee, nor mandate, that Commons follows the taxonomy of WoRMS for any taxon, as just as in taxonomy, stability and clarity is desirable, and categories should only be moved/renamed if arguments to do so are compelling (and WoRMS has its share of errors, incongruencies, and oddities, especially in obscure taxa). Sometimes in the face of conflicting taxonomies, we have to pick just one: it should be the most widely used and agreed upon name, even if it's not the one used in the most recent publication. --Animalparty (talk) 02:01, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
Many thanks for the reply. My next move will be the creation of the article of this mollusc family on Wikipedia of my country language. Mário NET (talk) 02:10, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

'Taken on' template with city as location?

This and other similar edits were IP actions, so I don't have someone in particular to engage on this, but I thought we had an understanding that {{Taken on}} never should use a location more specific than a country; while I'd have no problem with "Germany" here, "Berlin" is too specific, and the removal of Category:April 2018 in Berlin is wrong. - Jmabel ! talk 14:37, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. If we already have Category:Dülmen photographs taken on 2020-08-08 or Category:Railway photographs taken on 2019-10-14, what shall come next? Maybe "Penis photographs taken on 2020-07-26"? Seriously, if someone is interested on photographs on specific topic taken at a certain timepoint, there should be a tool for that, where such a query based on categories and SD is possible. There is absolutely no need for such specific categories; there should only be a small number of categories at each file, otherwise the whole approach gets untransparent and unusable. --A.Savin 00:11, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
It looks like there is a ton of this stuff: Category:Photographs of Berlin by date.
Opinions sought: Do I need to go through CfD to deal with this, or is this so clearcut I could just batch-edit with VisualFileChange? Or at least is there something less cumbersome than CfD, which can take an awfully long time to get consensus? - Jmabel ! talk 00:31, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
I agree that categories with pictures by day are very rarely needed. Some exceptions could be categories that use place and date to identify unique event, like day 3 of an Olympic, demonstrations, 2020 Beirut explosion, etc. --Jarekt (talk) 19:19, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
If no one objects in the next 24 hours, I will feel free to do this with VFC. - Jmabel ! talk 23:35, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Oh, how did I miss this discussion. This is something that I have been involved in for a while now. I personally do agree that categorising per day at the level smaller than a country should be done in only very specific situations, mainly when the territory is disputed (think Hong Kong, Crimea, etc). I do not think that there is anything particularly wrong with people attempting to do more subcategories, but this is a task that will never finish. We really need a different approach at dealing with categories over all. What often happens is that we have categories like "date in country", "month in region", and "year in city". All of them are suppose to be done by some sort of intersection tool, because all of them say the same thing: "This photo is made on this date in this place". ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ • ✍ ⏿) 17:10, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
    • @Gone Postal: I can't tell whether that is an objection or not, but I will hold off until you clarify. - Jmabel ! talk 02:54, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
      • I am honestly split on that, and we need more than just a few persons commenting on that to justify anything which can be considered community concensus. I personally really dislike the whole trend of categorising German cities like that, it makes me cringe and when I see that on a file I usually move on and do not enter that mess; but Commons does not exist for my benefit, and some people find this useful, and I recognise that. I must also recognise that, if we look at the numbers alone, then we do have enough photos of Berlin to justify using that as a location for taken on. I also think that if a user adds "Berlin photographs on date" whether through template or by hand, then they are more than justified in removing "Month in Berlin" per COM:OVERCAT, I do so when it comes to countries if I pay enough attention. In summary: I would not support deleting "city by date" categories, but do not ask me to create them myself. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ • ✍ ⏿) 03:19, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
        • @Gone Postal: That is still really wishy washy, but I will presume that 'I would not support deleting "city by date" categories' is an objection to my doing just that, and that I should not do this unilaterally.
        • In short: the splitters will win every time, however useless and even harmful the distinction. - Jmabel ! talk 18:02, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
          • @Jmabel: I am sorry, I fail to see the harm, where is it? If somebody creates a circular category tree then I see harm, but in this case we weren't talking about that. If somebody creates categories for cities before those cities were established, then I see harm, but we weren't talking about that. I can imagine some other situations, which were also not discussed here. My understanding was that we talked about "photographs of Berlin on date" and similar, and that was what I have responded to, was I wrong? ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ • ✍ ⏿) 18:12, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
            • The harm is that stuff gets scattered all over the place. In this case, for example, the small harm that if a photo is taken on a particular day in Berlin you have to look for it in a totally different place than what was taken that day in Hamburg, Munich, or even 10 meters outside of Berlin. In other cases, I find it much more harmful that African American lawyers get ghettoized away from other U.S. lawyers, or that female chemists from the United Kingdom are carved into a separate subcategory away from all other chemists from the United Kingdom. In the Berlin case, at least there are a lot of photos of Berlin, but when people break down photos of a smaller place by day -- sometimes even when people break down photos of a smaller place by year -- it makes for a lot of categories with 2 or 3 photos each, very hard to browse.
            • As far as I can see, the splitters win every time unless we have firm rules saying, "don't split in this particular way." We move steadily toward narrower and narrower intersection categories with fewer and fewer photos in each category. - Jmabel ! talk 18:28, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
              • @Jmabel: In that case I agree with you 100%, but I simply disagree that this is the way to go about it. I think that we should completely abandon intersection categories, they do cause many problems. I also want to add one that you have missed, often people make mistakes when setting up such categories. Photograph categories are titled in the way that makes it a photo of that place, but videos are from a place. So if a video of Chukotka is made from Alaska, then it is a video from the United States by date, but if we have a photo, then it is a photo of Russia by date. The problem with your approach is not in the goal, it is in the path towards it. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ • ✍ ⏿) 06:57, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
                • @Gone Postal: I don't see how we could do away with intersection categories completely. Are you saying that we would not have categories like Category:Houses in Seattle or even Category:Houses in the United States? Not Category:Economy of France, just Category:Economy and Category:France? I'm not that much of a lumper! No such categories as battles in a particular war, politicians of a particular country? - Jmabel ! talk 15:00, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
                  • @Jmabel: I can see the point of some, when they are about the content. For example, we will have category for Donald Trump, even though one could arrive at that by intersecting "United States presidents", and "Trump family". Most content categories are an intersection of several subjects. That is why I have mentioned (but wasn't clear enough) that there is a differece between the category that describes the content, and the category that described the media itself. And those two proabably should not be intersected. So no "OGV videos of batteles in Afghanistan" or something like that. And no intersection within media categories, so no "OGV videos taken on [date] with [camera model]". ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ • ✍ ⏿) 15:57, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
  • +1 to what Gone Postal wrote: intersection categories shouldn't be a thing at all. They only make systematical searching more difficult. Apart from that, categorization via templates breaks regular categorization workflows using HotCat, etc. Is should be handled with great care and only used when there is a clear advantage over regular categorization (which probably is the case for categorization by date). A template called {{Taken on}} categorizing by location is incredibly obscure and counter-intuitive. A terrible hack. If we want to categorize by location automatically, it should be done through the {{Location}} templates (simple geographical "point in polygon" intersection). --El Grafo (talk) 08:46, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
    • This is where we begin to disagree. I think that categorisation should be done with templates when possible, dates should becategorised with {{taken on}} and {{taken in}}, camera types should be added with {{taken with}}. Location should be done by templates like {{location}} or similar. Adding categories by hand should be done when this category is describing the subject depicted in the media, not describing the media itself. Otherwise there will always be fights. We have Category:Ogv videos, I used to put my OGV uploads there, then somebody came along and removed those categories, I didn't want to start a fight and let it go, but there is no agreement if we categorise by format or not. I would say make {{file format}} and put file format in there automatically, then have just one discussion which formats deserve their own categories, Category:JPEG images is probably useless, or maybe there is a good use for it, but today if we change our mind we have to do millions of edits flooding eveybody's watch list rather than editing a single template after discussion. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ • ✍ ⏿) 09:55, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
      Categories may be "hidden" inside templates, but only when the wider community is not going to have any legitimate reason to ever want to change them. For example the mass usage of attribution categories for credit templates, but never categories like species identification, which are highly likely to be refined or revised for specific photographs in the future. Per El Grafo, in general we do not want templates to be "hidden" inside templates, it makes it impossible to use standard tools like cat-a-lot to move files. --Fæ (talk) 10:02, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
      • @Fæ: I do hear you on cat-a-lot, and recognise that this is a strong argument against what I am saying. My disagreement comes in that I think that the best reason for the categories inside templates is exactly for when the community may decide to mass-change, abandon, or introduce them later. I am going to use a silly example, please do not pick on it, I recognise how silly it is, but it is only an example. Let's say that tomorrow it will become important for the community whether the file is named JPEG, JPG, or JPE. So people will want to create a category "Files with extension JPEG/JPG/JPE". If we run a bot, that will start adding these categories, it will either flood recent changes list or will never actually finish. On the other hand if {{information}} would have a call to something like {{categorise by file type}} then it will be a matter of changing that one template, and then allowing the server to crunch through populating those categories without the need to edit 90% of all the uploaded files. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ • ✍ ⏿) 15:57, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

And again

@J.-H. Janßen: re . Basically, I took a bunch of photographs of an event. All of these are mine, and all of them are of one festival -- actually, one day of one festival, because the other days were in different parts of town -- and they are already categorized as such in Category:HonkFest West 2015 in Georgetown. Now you make a new additional category and take all of them (well, not all of them: some arbitrary third of them or so) and stick each of them in completely redundant "Seattle photographs on date" category that conveys no information not conveyed by Category:HonkFest West 2015 in Georgetown. What possible use is this to anyone? - Jmabel ! talk 02:47, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Privacy issues

Greetings everyone, I am writing this because I am concerned as to the consequences of publishing private information here in Wikimedia Commons. I came upon these photos which show government issued IDs and certificates clearly containing personal details of private individuals. What are the policies with regards to issues like this? Are storing photos like these generally OK?

-Howhontanozaz (talk) 12:12, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Such files must be deleted and oversighted. See Commons:Oversight. --EugeneZelenko (talk) 14:19, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
If the uploader is the only person affected, it's more a matter for discussion, especially if the information itself is of a type already public elsewhere. Separate from possibly privacy is scope, and there would be sufficient doubt about value to either delete or anonymise these as example pandemic related materials. @Judgefloro: is well established, and this may be something to amend with friendly discussion rather than using our Oversighter team time. --Fæ (talk) 15:05, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Unrelated to the images, I noticed that the license declaration says:

Judge Florentino Floro, the owner, to repeat, Donor FlorentinoFloro of all these photos hereby donate gratuitously, freely and unconditionally Judge Floro all these photos to and for Wikimedia Commons, exclusively, for public use of the public domain, and again without any condition whatsoever

The use of the word "exclusively" is at odds with a release into the public domain. Perhaps Judgefloro can clarify his intent? Mo Billings (talk) 21:47, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

  • A couple of notes: Firstly if the person is a public figure, then it should be ok. For example, Donald Trump has releaced his birth certificate to prove that his father is not an orangutan video and I would support his birth certificate being on Commons, because it is essential to prove to everybody once and for all, that his mother was not impregnated by an orangutan, and also for educational purposes. Also when the private information is censorred, then it should be ok (my upload as an example). And of course, a person who uploads the image should be allowed to disclose their own personal information if they so chose. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ • ✍ ⏿) 08:26, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
@Gone Postal: I agree with you with regards to public individuals and publicly available information, but I am mostly concerned of these specific photos being out in public. I googled the people named in the IDs and none of them are notable. In two photos, there are COVID-19 relief aid cards which I fear might be used by unscrupulous individuals to obtain monetary aid from the government. The information in those cards contain not just the name but the age, complete street address, birth date, occupation, and signature of someone who is clearly not the uploader (Judge Florentino Floro). It just takes one criminal to break into said individuals house and rob said citizen of his relief aid; or one scammer to forge the cards and commit identity theft. What recourse should be done with regards to this? A deletion request maybe? -Howhontanozaz (talk) 10:24, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
If you have concerns, putting that down as logically as possible, with reference to Photographs of identifiable people would be a helpful step. The VP is for general discussion, but nitty gritty specifics are best in a DR nomination and discussion. --Fæ (talk) 10:50, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

User with the most number of uploads

Hello. This is a WLE-related question. I want to find the user with the most number of uploads, based on a raw list of filenames which I have (i.e. the top 100 rated files). These files are all in the main parent category Category:Images from Wiki Loves Earth 2020 in Sri Lanka (together with lots of other files). Is there a tool that can do this? Pinging User:AnastasiaPetrova (WMUA). Many thanks for any help. Cheers, Rehman 05:58, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

You would need to make the list public on-wiki for most tools to work on it.
A pywikibot query gives the following top ten for the parent cat, though someone could probably write a bit of SQL to do this.
  • 103 A.Savin
  • 85 Nisal Senanayaka
  • 83 Kasuna
  • 80 Dbulathwatta
  • 64 Rizzey Rhazes
  • 50 Lasitha sandeepa
  • 49 Dinith Tharindu Hettiarachchi
  • 46 Madugrero
  • 46 Malitha Daminda
--Fæ (talk) 15:24, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply, Fæ. The list of files are actually this and this lists combined (total ~100). Would you be able to help me by running another pywikibot query for those please? I know I should have provided the links before. Many thanks in advance! Rehman 18:16, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
Using the 30 + 70 files and sorting by names for first edits gives:
--Fæ (talk) 03:08, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
Many thanks, Fæ. Cheers, Rehman 03:56, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

wiki loves illustrators

Wikimedia foundation could organize a contest for illustrations. What do you think about it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Guillaumefrst35400 (talk • contribs) 07:13, 29 August 2020‎ (UTC)

@Guillaumefrst35400: All contests are organized by volunteers, none are organized by the Wikimedia Foundation. The WMF does support a lot of contests.
So if you have an idea for a contest, get some people involved and start organizing. That's also how we started Wiki Loves Monuments. Multichill (talk) 12:33, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Not found in stash

Since a couple of days I get during upload errors like "Key "17psbqaiqg0w.ln53au.128310.jpg" not found in stash". Is something changed recently? Rudolphous (talk) 06:46, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

There are major unfixed bugs for medium to large uploads, ref Phab:T254459. Though the task was raised about PDFs, the same bugs appear to exist for other formats, so it may well be related to these (apparently permanent) WMF server known errors. --Fæ (talk) 10:33, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
@Rudolphous: Did you try User:Rillke/bigChunkedUpload.js? Documentation is on the talk page.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 22:49, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
The Wizard also uses chunked upload. Upload-Errors do happen with bigChunkedUpload also. Even if a file is "not found in stash" it might have been published. Just look for it. --C.Suthorn (talk) 23:05, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

What edits are on my watchlist and i cannot see them?

quickstaments batch 40628 and 40625 (still running) have edited thousends of the files on my watchlist during the night.

I have no chance to find out what other edits to the files on my watch list that are "File:", "page edit", "latest revision", "non minor", "experienced user" and "human" have been done since yesterday. --C.Suthorn (talk) 04:31, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

@C.Suthorn: If you choose Hide my edits from the watchlist in your preferences --> watchlist, you will not see them. Hope that answers your question. :-) Lotje (talk) 05:42, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
No, it neither helps or answers my "question". It is not a question, it is a complaint. There have been more than 2000 edits by a single "experienced", "human" account and more edits by the "experienced" "human" owner of the account, all of these edits are "file", "page edit", latest revision", "non minor", and if i filter out my own edits, it doesn't change anything. I have no way to see, if other "experienced" "human" editors (or the editor in question) made more latest revision non minor page edits to files on my watch list, that are either tagged quickstatements or have no tag at all. I have complained about this more than once and the only suitable way to go on would be to disable edits of SDC until this and other known problems are finally solved. --C.Suthorn (talk) 16:59, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
  • I’ve had the same problem: Even though I have have &hideWikibase=1 in my habitual watchlist check url for years now (because I found out after a while that almost zero of those edits are useful for me to be notified about), SchlurcherBot’s and BotMultichill’s edits that are tagged with «Changed an entity:» are somehow not considered to be Wikibase edits and keep flooding mine and C.Suthorn’s watchlists — and likely many other users’. That should be changed. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 21:21, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
@C.Suthorn and Tuvalkin: I think the two of you are talking about two different problems. SchlurcherBot's edits (e.g. Special:Diff/444173294, like BotMultichill's, seem to be correctly tagged as bot edits, so they disappear if you ask the watchlist to only show humans. JarektBot, on the other hand, is making edits like Special:Diff/443905085, which aren't tagged as bot edits. The latter seems to me the more serious problem: anyone making hundreds of edits per minute for hours at a time really should be setting the bot flag on them. Personally, I don't think "my software is inadequate" is an adequate excuse for disruptive behaviour and Jarekt should not run the bot until it can be made to behave properly. --bjh21 (talk) 22:25, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
I apologize for pissing people off with my edits but I just discovered that {{OTRS accreditation}} was adding files with no OTRS permission to Category:Items with OTRS permission confirmed and I added Wikimedia VRTS ticket number (P6305) to too many files, so I was reverting some of P6305 additions. Issue with my bot edits not being marked as bot edits while using standard tools is tracked at phabricator:T247433, and I would love for it to get fixed. In the mean time adding 
$(document).ready($('.mw-special-Watchlist .mw-changeslist-line .mw-userlink[href="/wiki/User:JarektBot"]').parent().parent().css("display", "none"));
to your common.js should hide my bot's edits. --Jarekt (talk) 01:35, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
Adding something to a .js file does not help. The javascript is executed on the client side (the web browser). But the server side (commons:watchlist) does send no more than 1000 entries to the browser (it might be upgraded to 2000). If there are more than 1000 (2000) edits since you last checked your watchlist, than the .js will simply show an empty page on the browser. The OTRS batch is an example of this happening, but it happens again and again. The quickstatements tool never inserts a bot flag, it should do always, but that would still not help as more than one user can run quickstatements within the same timeframe (time between you check your watchlist). With 63M files on commons and hundreds of SDC tags that can be set, unset and modified over and over again (with and without tools like quickstatements) this is a problem getting worse until solved. If there was a watchlist filter to exclude edits by named users, that would do. --C.Suthorn (talk) 13:50, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

How to treat unused redirects

In this case, with template redirects - but it may concern as well other redirects. This is not a delete discussion but the plea for an answer.
And my question does not concern redirects that are anyway useful, e.g. abbreviations (e.g. {{Vva}} for {{Vector version available}}.
It happens often that a user, when trying to transclude a template but writes the name with typos, instead of correcting the typos to the correct name prefers to create a new redirect. There are numerous examples and we have templates with many redirects, and often a part of them is not in use. Look for an illustrative example at the flood of fifteen redirects, which caused also a DR Diskussion some years ago.
It seems to be an accepted custom (?), or a usual strategy in commons, to delete categories after a while of emptyness.
To me, it seems always good to tidy up and to get clear of obsolete entries that are useless ballast in the commons. When the special and personal redirect of a user has only a single transclusion, or very few ones, the link[s] can be changed and the now idle redirect is prone to deletion. When such a template redirect keeps hanging around may be somebody will sooner or later use it – otherwise it will "rot in peace".
I collected the facts because I want an answer. Please do not tell me "You can do like you think" or "Everybody may see it as in mood".
I am asking for a consensus, an opinion of others, how Commons strategy should treat unused template redirects. I start with my opinion

Thanks, I did misread it. --Fæ (talk) 10:15, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
You're welcome, but I agree with your point that cat redirects are designed to show as unused most of the time.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 10:48, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
  •  Delete per nom, via DR with notice. But be careful, some templates are designed to be substed, so substed use of the redirects will show as unused.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 10:11, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Delete, if you really want to. If there are unused, and unlikley to ever be useful, redirects in templatespace (and I'd class mispellings that are likley to be made again as useful here), then I see no problem in sending them to DR and deleting them. But I really can't see it as very important myself, and given the closure of deletion requests is rather backlogged already, I wouldn't really encourage going out of your way to delete them. ~~ Alex Noble/1-2/TRB 14:06, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Some of the unused redirects can be useful. Many files transferred from other projects come with local templates that mostly overlap with our templates. Than the proper approach would be to import them as-is, with foreign templates redirecting to local ones and than replace one with the other, possibly after readjusting input arguments. Than after replacement those template redirects are unused until the next upload. We should not delete such redirects. --Jarekt (talk) 16:54, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
@From Hill To Shore: Unused redirect: primary I can check the transclusion count; and secundary I can estimate by the name of the redirect. Third, when a "personal" redirect is only used once, or very few times by one user, I can carefully change the transclusions and then the redirect is unused, so tidying up can start.
I do not intend to delete everything I dislike - but sometimes tidying up with useless and unused objects might be an advantage.
@Jeff G.: Category redirects: This is another thing, and sure more difficult. I restrict on the rather easy point of unused template redirects. Like the more than thousand obsolete templates
Thank you for the hint about substed; when a template is substed it is not needed any more by that usage? Anyway, deletions can be undone when later comes up that a need exists. And I will be very careful with DR!
@Jarekt: Foreign: Thank you for the hint! I think that I can estimate such cases. I remember the troubles one year ago with the French template "M" for "Modèle", when I needed the letter "M" for the template "Module" - for a long time an existence check looked whether it meant a template or a module...
Thank you all for your contribution, now I see a consensus that with some care deletions can be recommended. -- sarang♥사랑 09:35, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
@Sarang: People, bots, scripts, and files which will eventually be undeleted will continue to use redirected templates for centuries to come, we need them for backward compatibility. For substed redirected templates, consider the fate of {{subst:please don't edit this line (new rfcu case)}} (used in setting up an RFCU page). Consider also {{Non-free use rationale video game cover}} (good luck getting people to stop copying file description pages from Wikipedia). Actually, any redirected template that would lead to deletion could give you and !voters a false sense of non-use because AFAIK you can't see the uses in deleted files & pages.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 15:47, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

My categories "Spiral staircases" are being deleted. Why?

My categories are being deleted. Why? There are all sorts of categories for stairs, but not for staircases.

Category:Spiral staircases in Turkey, Category:Spiral staircases in Germany, Category:Spiral staircases in Syria, Category:Spiral staircases in Finland, Category:Spiral staircases in the United States, Category:Spiral staircases in Switzerland Category:Spiral staircases in Scotland‎‎ and probably more are being deleted. Why does Category:Spiral staircase in the Vatican Museums and Category:Spiral staircases in England get to exist, but a valid unit of architecture "Category:Spiral staircases" was reverted into a redirect. Many images were not in any category because they are called "Staircases" and there is no such category. There are thousands of categories that are not as meaningful as "Staircases". I do not understand. Krok6kola (talk) 03:04, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

@Krok6kola: A.Savin moved most to "stairs" instead of "staircases" without redirects or explanations, and deleted at least one as empty. It is safest for you to populate a category BEFORE creation. I think there can be both, "stairs" for one or more individual stairs and "staircases" for entire sets of stairs forming staircases from top to bottom.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 03:46, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
@Jeff G.: They WERE populated. A.Savin reverted me 19 times today, emptied the categories I made. I NEVER create a category without populating it. Never. A.Savin has reverted me 19 times today without any discussion. Krok6kola (talk) 03:54, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
@Jeff G.: But why is this even an issue when other create empty categorys: Category:Places in Pakistan by city (empty now) is created so more familiar Pakistan categories will disappear under this, like "Ports and Harbors in Pakistan that is already hard to find. Who would think to look under "Places". In my opinion this is like Category:Activities in Pakistan To me "Education in Pakistan" and "Sports in Pakistan" should be easy to find, but now users need to know the administrative unit everything is under, and in sports the type of sport, even if as a westerner some of the sports have unfamiliar names. Should not important topics be easy to find? Must one know the administrative units of the 190 or so countries in the world to find anything? Or be willing to click through many categories to look? And many categories are encapsulated in several child categories to click through to get to the actual images. Sorry to complain, but it is so frustrating. Krok6kola (talk) 14:23, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
@Krok6kola: Please follow the steps at Commons:Dispute resolution.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 03:59, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
@Jeff G.: No point. A.Savin tried to get me blocked a week or so ago #Krok6kola after I reported him there per advice from the Help Desk and the few who posted trashed me without bothering to look into it. You described me as "making a mess" of categories and not understanding OVERCAT which isn't true. I defended myself and no one bothered to respond to me and it went no where of course. No one has ever apologized to me when I turn out to be right over contested issues.
I got an email from Wikimedia Commons wanting to interview me because I am so productive, but in reality I am not valued here. It's hopeless. I just have to learn I am bottom of the barrow. Thanks for answering though. Kindest regards, Krok6kola (talk) 04:36, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
(Edit conflict)@Jeff G.: @Jmabel: (I lost my edit in the conflict)
A user posted on my talkpage this last night:
Today I found a revert on my watch list on the File:Castle spiral staircase.jpg I wondered why the (now empty) category Category:Spiral staircases in France has been removed in favour of Category:Spiral stairs in France. I honestly would have searched for a staircase category and not a stairs category. So you are right! I don't know what the problem is. But I find categorisation at Commons highly irritating. Usually it's overcategorisation that irritates me: picture taken on this and that day in the canton of bla with this and that camera by virgins born under the sign of pisces. But sometimes there are categories like "Interiors of churches" where a foreigner like me would have searched for "church interiors" every time I have taken a picture of a church interior, I search for this stupid category. Maybe this is some kind of limbo, where we get punished for any beaurocratic qualities we might show in real life.--Stanzilla (talk) 10:15, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
This the way I feel also. When I was told twice to go to report my problems to Admin user problems, I said I would be demolished there and I was. No one responded to, or even probably read my explanations there, and A.Savin wanted to block me, saying I was as damaging as User:INeverCry and he got some support from pinged Admins who did not bother to evaluate the reality. I know I would be demolished at "Dispute Resolution" because I do not ping any supporting Admins as I have none. I've been on the Commons four years and only in the last several months have I had contacts with Admins, so there is no supporting Admins for me to ping. Maybe Wikicommons is the place to go? Or be interviewed as requested and see if I can get help or explanations? I am at a loss. Krok6kola (talk) 13:53, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
[7] --A.Savin 13:25, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
@Krok6kola: Why did you make that edit? In doing so, you created a circular category. Kindle cease and desist from creating circular categories.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 14:13, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
@A.Savin: Why are you moving categories including Category:Spiral staircases in Turkey, Category:Spiral staircases in Syria, Category:Spiral staircases in Finland, and Category:Spiral staircases in Scotland‎‎ without redirects or explanations? Redirects are needed in most cases for backward compatibility, and explanations are needed for accountability and transparency. Why are you emptying and deleting categories including Category:Spiral staircases in Germany, Category:Spiral staircases in the United States, and Category:Spiral staircases in Switzerland without explanations? "spiral staircase" is a legitimate English lemma and noun, and plural "spiral staircases" exist as architectural forms, and have done so for centuries.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 14:51, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
The categories were created not as a special case of "spiral stairs", but as parallel categories (duplicates) to the same subject. For example, the content of Category:Spiral staircases in Germany was [[Category:Spiral staircases]][[Category:Architectural elements in Germany]]. Besides, staircase means the room where the stairs are built in, and the room cannot be spiral. Only the stairs itself. --A.Savin 14:57, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
@A.Savin: Where did you find such a definition?   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 16:23, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
I looked at English WP, where staircase is just a redirect to stairs. --A.Savin 16:39, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
@A.Savin: I don't think staircase is the room or space where stairs are built. I think the term for that is stairwell. --Auntof6 (talk) 02:56, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
I'm not English native, so I have to rely on what English Wikipedia writes; and from what I understood, staircase is synonymous for stairwell. --A.Savin 03:14, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

 Comment The elephant in the room is that these things, whatever else they are, are helical rather than spiral. A spiral is a plane figure and such a staircase would not get you from one level of a building to another. But it's not like me to cause trouble. Rodhullandemu (talk) 17:23, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

@Rodhullandemu: You seem to have a friend at d:Q12513. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 19:00, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

I'm going to repeat verbatim what I wrote on Krok6kola's talk page:

  • When this started Category:Spiral staircases was a redirect. User:Krok6kola, if you had looked at its history you would have seen that I had created it -- 12 years ago -- and then promptly turned it into a redirect because (when I started categorizing) I discovered we already had Category:Spiral stairs. I am absolutely certain that you are aware I am still an active user: this is hardly the first time we have interacted, including under your prior account name. Mightn't you have started a CFD and pinged me and also the half dozen or so people who had edited Category:Spiral stairs and attempted to reach some sort of consensus on a preferred name rather than unilaterally making changes this size? I happen to prefer Category:Spiral staircases, but this was clearly a change against consensus and also a creation of two basically indistiguishable categories.
  • If you edit against consensus, you should expect the frustration of having your work undone.

Jmabel ! talk 17:23, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

I'm going to repeat verbatim what I replied to Jmabel on my talkpage.
  • @Jmabel: I was unaware of the history of this category, as the history has no useful information. And I don't see where "consensus" was reached for your category. Is the consensus that you started it twelve years ago? As with others, it seems like opinion. I have had categories I created redirected, often in ways that I did not like, but I thought this was a collaborative project and accepted the redirects as accepting the opinion of another.
    If an opinion of one is "consensus" then should I get upset when categories I created are redirected and demand a consensus be reached? This has been happening regularly in the last month as a user new to the categories of Pakistan has changed everything, creating new categories with vague names making common categories hard to find. I posted on the Village Pump about this, but as usual my questions get no helpful response.
    I don't know how consensus is reached on the Commons. I know there is no point in starting a "Categories for discussion" as the ones I have started or commented on just languish forever with no consensus reached. And I know there is no point in posting at the Village pump as my questions are ignored. Where was your category discussed and consensus reached?
    In my own history it is always A.Savin who reverts me, deletes my categories and I assumed (this time wrongly) that it was the usual harassment from him that I regularly receive with no explanation. And why did he empty and delete all my other categories (20 of them) that I was working on, that you had nothing to do with starting?
    As I have said before, I have not had any problems with Admins in my four years here, until the last few months, so I have not learned the proper ways of dealing with harassment. A.Savin has never explained his reversions, emptying categories and deletions, including the ones in question here, and I just have to learn from experience. All I have learned is not do to any categorization of his photos as that it always trouble within minutes.
    User:Auntof6, a very admired person on the Commons, is one of the many that used the category "staircases" within a few minutes of its creation.
    As you can read in the post above, there are others that have trouble with the Commons way of dealing with categories and appreciated the categories of "Spiral staircase" and quickly used them. A great many images use the words "spiral staircase" as it is very common in the real world. Thank you very much for responding. Kind regards, Krok6kola (talk) 17:25, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Also, the images I categorized were either named "spiral staircase" in their file name or were described as a "spiral staircase" in the file description. Do those here not consider what the real world calls and describes images? Is it not by the real world name that people (on the Commons and elsewhere) will use in looking for categories and images? Krok6kola (talk) 18:17, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Please do not start arguments when none exist. I would suggest the following hierarchy of categories:
Category:Stairs
Category:Stairs by country
Category:Staircases by country
Category:Stairways by country
Category:Staircases
Category:Staircases by country
Category:Stairways
Category:Stairways by country
Category:Stair steps
In this way a file can be placed inside Category:Staircases in Germany, that cat can be inside Category:Staircases by country and Category:Stairs in Germany. No file would be placed inside Category:Stairs and Category:Staircases at the same time, unless there are dismantled stairs that lay on a staircase. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ • ✍ ⏿) 03:58, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
  • I suggest we move this discussion to Category talk:Spiral stairs where in the future it will be easier to find that random village pump discussion (but make a link there of this discussion here) or just continue here but make a reference there at the end. I suggest people not refer to things as "my categories" if they want others to not think there is just personal egos at work. If multiple people disagree with you, you don't have a consensus to do it. Is the issue splitting the category alone or all the various subcategories by country? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 02:58, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
  • @Ricky81682: That discussion at Category talk:Spiral stairs is a few comments about geometry that concluded in 2018. It was not addressing spiral staircases at all. Krok6kola (talk) 03:31, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

I repeated my remarks in a second place because Krok6kola started a discussion in a second place. He then chose to put a wall of text in both places. I've already responded to the wall of text on his talk page and will not repeat myself here except to say that the right way forward is a CFD of Category:Spiral stairs with a proposal to move it to Category:Spiral staircases. I would actually support that move, but one user should not unilaterally rename a decade-plus-old category in which many people have worked, much less create a parallel, synonymous category. - Jmabel ! talk 04:09, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

YouTube -change of license

I like {{Flickr-change-of-license}}, to indicate Creative Commons licenses cannot be revoked -despite a change of license on Flickr. Is there also a {{YouTube-change-of-license}}? Vysotsky (talk) 20:56, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

@Vysotsky: I don't know of one for YouTube specifically, but there is the more general {{Change-of-license}}. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 21:21, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Ellin Beltz removal of 'undelete at' categories

Hello, Has there been any concensus on stopping the use of Category:Undeletion requests? I believe that Ellin Beltz has unilaterally decided that DR cannot be categorised after it has been closed, which is clear nonsense if these categories are to remain useful (In many cases where you do not know which way the deletion request will go, it makes no sense to requrest undeletion). The user in question has reverted my addition of a category here, and then refused to undo their revert after I have asked them on their talk page. I do not wish to engage in an edit war, can somebody else please undo their revert and explain to the person that this is not appropriate. Thanks. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ • ✍ ⏿) 07:04, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

−

being a sysop allows them to have certain extra tools (deletion, protection and blocking users). there's nothing special about it. with regard to editing after a DR is "closed", being a sysop doesnt make them more appropriate to edit that page.
sysops should stop thinking they have some sort of priveleges. no they dont. those extra tools are given to them for maintenance of the project only, not for them to have a monopoly on the project.--RZuo (talk) 10:41, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
Resolved

A question regarding pornographic content

I am Ulf Larsen, and I have contributed to Wikipedia since 2004. I am mainly active on Wikipedia in Bokmål, but I have also uploaded some files here on Wikimedia Commons. I am also an exhibitionist and amateur porn model, and a while ago I thought that some of my pictures (possibly later on also video) could be of interest for Wikimedia Commons. I have so far uploaded close to one hundred pictures, of me nude, with various females.

Several of these have now been tagged for deletion for various reasons. As I have written in my comments to the proposals for deletion, I consider myself on the side of the Wikimedia Community, and thus will not argue against that some (or all) of these pictures are deleted, see the statement below that I have given on the deletion requests:

"I am not going to argue for keep or delete, as I leave it up to the community here on Wikimedia Commons to decide if they shall be kept or not. Regarding consent, the various models I have paid to be with me in amateur porn has all agreed to have the pics and videos uploaded by me on the Internet. Regarding my former girlfriend, I have just a few days ago specifically asked her if she agreed to have the category "Prostitutes and customers", and she was fine with that. Regarding amateur porn in general, I do of course respect it if a decision is made to remove such media from Wikimedia Commons, but I believe then that one would have to discuss professional pornography. And if both of them are unfit for presentation here, what about other media that may be disturbing for some viewer (nude people, dead people, pictures of war). I have been contributing to Wikipedia since 2004, and I will continue to contribute, regardless if some or all of my amateur pornographic pictures are removed. As an exhibitionist, amateur porn model I do however believe that this also is a part of what should be of interest for a project that: "is a media file repository making available public domain and freely-licensed educational media content (images, sound and video clips) to everyone, in their own language." - a direct quote from Commons:Welcome."

In short, I would find it useful if this issue is solved once and for all, and not by some contributor, being against pornography, tagging my contributions for deletion. So again, if the community decides that such content is not of interest, I do of course respect that, same goes if some of it, with specified terms, is not accepted by Wikimedia Commons. Ulflarsen (talk) 13:45, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

@Ulflarsen: Independent of anything about keeping or deleting images: certainly the category "Prostitutes and customers" requires some sort of verifiability beyond just your assertion, because of the enormous potential for libel. If she is OK with being described that way, it would be very helpful to put her in communication with the OTRS team to clarify that.
I have to get to some work right now, so I don't have time to elaborate further. I'm guessing that you've been here enough that you understand how that process would work, but if not then say so and I or someone else can explain.
Also, FWIW, nudity or sexual content is not, in itself, a reason for deletion from Commons. - Jmabel ! talk 15:34, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
@Jmabel: : Regarding the pictures with my ex-girlfriend, with category "Prostitutes and customers", I have specifically asked her if she is ok with that, and she has agreed to adding it. For her, her being a prostitute is part of her identity. I can advice her how she confirm that with a mail to the OTRS team. Ulflarsen (talk) 16:46, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
I also think all your files are in scope as we do not have so much in these field. But as it is a critical topic you should send the agreement of every sex worker and model to the OTRS team. --GPSLeo (talk) 16:57, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
I've removed all such images from the "Prostitutes..." category, and removed that adjective from the descriptions, per our policy on biographies of living people. I've also removed pornography-related categories from Category:Ulf Larsen, which do not apply to one of the images (of identifiable individuals) in it. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:06, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
It isn't clear to me what is being claimed here. Was this the photographer's girlfriend at the time of the photoshoot? Or was this a former girlfriend who was at that time a prostitute? In any case, people who pose for pornographic images are generally called models or performers, not prostitutes. Sex worker is a more general term which could include both pornographic performers and prostitutes. Mo Billings (talk) 20:41, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
@Ulflarsen: User:Mo Billings's questions here are reasonable. Can you answer them? - Jmabel ! talk 17:21, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
@Jmabel and Pigsonthewing: : While uploading the various pictures I tried to add the categories I found fitting, but as I am mostly on Wikipedia in Bokmål I follow the advice that I get here regarding it. So removing - or adding - various categories, is fine with me.
If I understand the various comments above correct, the pictures are accepted as within that Wikimedia Commons could contain. I assume then that also video of the same would be accepted if I upload it. If so, I will within the coming weeks upload some more similar pictures and video. Ulflarsen (talk) 14:47, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
It would probably be a good idea with these to get model releases and send them to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org. Also, probably the {{Personality rights}} tag would be a good idea on uploads like this. - Jmabel ! talk 17:19, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
@Jmabel and Mo Billings: : At the time of shooting she was my ex-girlfriend and a prostitute, so I added the category in good faith, and after checking with her. My intention by adding the category was to give an honest description of the situation depicted, and that is the same for her.
When it comes to model releases I can only get that from my ex-girlfriend, although I have made very clear for the other models that all content will be released on the web. If any problem regarding it arise it will anyway be me that will have to take it, and I am very easy to find, as I live in Norway and contribute under my full real name. But if the Wikimedia Commons community wish so, I can arrange for a model statement from my ex-girlfriend, and then the other pictures can be deleted. Ulflarsen (talk) 17:39, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
I'm willing to leave these be, but others may disagree. Please, in future shoots, try to get a model release. That will presumably prevent deletion. - Jmabel ! talk 04:05, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
@Jmabel: : I will try to get model release for future shoots, and within the next week I guess my ex. will manage to mail her statement agreeing in the upload of the pictures of her and me here. If others decide on removing the other pictures - the ones I have uploaded now where I no longer have contact with the models - then I accept that. Again, as only a minor contributor to Wikimedia Commons I try to follow the rules and adhere to them. Ulflarsen (talk) 13:17, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
@Jmabel, Mo Billings, and Pigsonthewing: : As I am setting up an email to my ex-girlfriend to explain what needs to be done, I have tried to find a model release template, but I can not find one. If there are any templates, I would be happy to receive that. I tried to use part of the template for copyright, but I am not sure if that covers all that is needed. I would also be useful if this could be a general release, so she does not have to mail OTRS every time I upload more material. Ulflarsen (talk) 16:48, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
@Ulflarsen: Just something like "I am the model in https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ulf_Larsen_and_ex-girlfriend_01.jpg and other similar pictures by Ulflarsen. I am of legal age, and I freely consent to the free-licensing and distribution of this photograph and others he has taken (or will take) of me, and to the use of the term 'prostitute' with reference to myself." If you anticipate anything else that might be at issue, you might expand on that. OTRS can then presumably get back to her if they have any questions. - Jmabel ! talk 17:19, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
I don't really know anything about model releases, but that sounds very reasonable to me. Mo Billings (talk) 19:21, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
Thank you both for answers. Ulflarsen (talk) 08:22, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Images of XX with annotations

Category:Images with annotations is a tracking cat set by {{ImageNote}}, but some users created subcats and manually added them to files. Are these subcats really useful? The worst problem is of course they are manually added, so there's no guarantee the cats are correct.--RZuo (talk) 11:30, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Category:Images with 10+ annotations contains a lot of images that don't have a single valid annotation. Probably all with the word cropped in the filename. -- Andreas Stiasny (talk) 16:11, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
yes i think they are useless too. and i dont think any manual subcats would be useful.
if user wanna find images with annotations, they can just search with the parameter hastemplate:ImageNote . if they want a specific language, use insource:/\{\{xx/ , that will give files that used the language template {{xx|...}}.--RZuo (talk) 12:54, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Freedom of panorama in the Philippines

Hello. I just came here for some casual browsing and noticed that there are many fotos of philippine buildings and sculptures that are supposed to be for fair use only. I have knowledge on the so-called freedom of panorama, and the section at the philippines only allows photos of old sculptures and even buildings that date before 1972. Your policies state that fair use is not allowed. But i can see numerous fotos hosted here includinh:

Category:EDSA Shrine. - The creator, Manosa just died last year or 2019. Category:GMA Network Center - the builder seems to be still alive. Based on my google searches. Category:Pinaglabanan Shrine - if this is non releted to architecture why was it hosted here despite from 1973?

I can see other violations but I will leave the decision to other editors. Anyway this is just my concern. Hope the venue I entered is correct in addressing such concerns of fotos of philippine copyrighted works and structures. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.29.109.24 (talk • contribs) 18:16, 30 August 2020‎ (UTC)

Thank you for pointing this out. As a starter I have created Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Interior of the EDSA Shrine and Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:EDSA Shrine. De728631 (talk) 19:09, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Hello. thanks for the person who noticed my convern on fop. In reality i ask someone on fb to comment about the fop matter, and he said that "Wikimedia Commons does not allow fair use because it varies from country to country- this is for sure to avoid possible conflicts and confusion. That’s just it, their house, their rules. Philippine govt or courts cannot impose our fair use doctrine to Wikimedia because there’s no law prohibiting them not to." So it seems that philippine fair use doesnt apply to commons. And a glance at the copyright rukes by terriroty page of the philippines shows buildings completed before november 1972 are allowable. Yet like my concern earlier gma building seems new.

Also please check the gallery section of wikipedia article EDSA shrine. In particular the - - File:EDSA Shrine Commemorative Marker for EDSA Dos.jpg - File:EDSA Shrine Detail.jpg - File:EDSA Shrine Stations of the Cross.jpg

The main foto there is ok since it complues fair use which is only restricted to enwiki and not internationally.

Also please check the Category:Buildings in Makati City and its component categories.

Lots of modern blgs there. — Preceding unsigned comment was added by 208.71.226.183 (talk) 03:51, 31 August 2020‎ (UTC)

Kindly see COM:FU. Pinging @De728631 as original responder.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 12:16, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

- Thank you Jeff G. This will be my last reply. Please check thoroughly tge various categories of Philippine-related buildings and sculptures. I can see numerous potos of modrrn post 1972 bldgs. Ans also some recnt looking sculptures.

Examples:

- Category:TriNoma - post 1972 bldg

- Category:The United Methodist Church (Porac, Pampanga) - seems new

- Category:National Shrine of The Divine Mercy, Philippines

- Category:Saint Peter's Chapel (Tibag, Pulilan, Bulacan)

- Category:Rizal Monument, Naga City

- Category:Divine Mercy Shrine (San Manuel, Tarlac City)

- Category:Divine Mercy Shrine (Misamis Oriental)

- Category:Caloocan City Hall Building (A. de Jesus 8th-9th Streets, Barangay 103, Zone 9, District II, Grace Park East) - this is very very recent.

- Category:Mandaluyong City Hall

- Category:Batasang Pambansa complex - this is way after 1972!

- Category:Mother Ignacia Healing Center (RVM, Barangay 171, Bagumbong, Zone 15, Caloocan City)

- Category:Pasig City Halls of Justice

- Category:East Avenue Medical Center

- Category:Philippine International Convention Center - this is 1976 and not 1971 or before!

- Category:Sofitel Philippine Plaza - i dont believe this is 1971 or before based on the structure itself

- Category:Manila Film Center - 1982 not 1972

- Category:Cultural Center of the Philippines Complex - some scukptures

- Category:Pablo Ocampo Monument (Malate, Manila)

- Category:Fernando Poe Jr. monument in Roxas Boulevard, Ermita, Manila

- Category:Juan Luna Monument in Ermita, Manila

- All inc churches - Category:Iglesia Ni Cristo churches in the Philippines - seems that tge architect only died recently according to wikipedia

- Category:Kartilya ng Katipunan “The Life and Heroism of Gat Andres Bonifacio” Monument and Mural (Mehan Garden, Ermita, Manila)

- Category:Paul P. Harris Monument (Rotary Club of the Philippines, Ermita, Manila)


There are many many more potos, of post 1972 bldgs and new sculptures. Most of them with author field "judgefloro". Please check thoroughly several other categories. As long as those are 'sculptures' and 'bldgs that are built and completed after 1972' as said in your policy page on philippines, they are NOT ok. Thank you.

Well, this looks like a lot of work that needs to be checked step by step. By the way, I don't see anything copyrightable in File:EDSA Shrine Commemorative Marker for EDSA Dos.jpg and other such lists. The design appears to be too simple. De728631 (talk) 18:27, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Hello. I now just registered. Ill try to search for those categories and photos, and nominate relevant red-flag photos for deletion. Mrcl lxmna (talk) 16:17, 2 September 2020 (UTC)


AFTER reading some basics on commons editing methods i will now start nominating some for deletions ----

@Mrcl lxmna: Hi, and welcome. How did you learn to use VFC so quickly?   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 23:51, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
hello jeff g. I studied about the procedure on how to select photos needing scruntiny. Read about the two methods, the nominate for deletion anf the so called Visual file change. The bominate delete is there, while the visual file change is not. But still your help page with this contains a button to try, saying try the visual file change button. And it seemed easy. Wait, am i right in inserting user name which is four linear characters? ====

One problem is that i must enter characters to comply with the so called captcha. ====

This is found at the helpage of visual file change as tgis wiki calls. "Step 0: How to Install

 """Just try it without installing"""

To install it:"

section break

@Mrcl lxmna: please stop the "reckless" nominations for deletion on such Philippines photos. Some of the photos nominated comply with either Commons:De minimis and/or low TOO that has been applied for some cases like mall buildings. DM can apply at File:Meralco Avenue.jpg (as a normal and average street view, photo courtesy of User:RioHondo), and Commons:TOO can apply at this photo of 588 retail store in Pulilan photographed by me. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 12:55, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

My reply, ok. If there is the so called de minimos or what you claim accidental inclusion of buildings and sculptures. You claim the level.of originality for mall structures but i guess thats your speculation. i will just continue some more deletion requests. Copyrights of architects engineer designers and sculptors must be respected! ----

@Mrcl lxmna: Pls stop. You are just making speculations about no FoP with no evidence. Exec8 has opened a new discussion at Commons talk:Copyright rules by territory/Philippines#Application of recent Philippine Supreme Court decisions on mere allegations of copyright regarding FoP. In the foregoing, I might request all deletion requests involving PHL structure photos (including two deletion requests made by me [but not in my will]) on hold pending the renewed discussion at the said forum. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 14:44, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
To other editors including admins: can anyone clean up several photos at Category:Iglesia Ni Cristo churches in the Philippines? The user just made malformed DR's in some photos pointing to an obsolete DR unrelated or irrelevant to those photos. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 14:47, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
Their usage of Help:VisualFileChange seems not conducive to the already-heated situation on Commons:FOP Philippines. 14:50, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Ok, I respect ur decision. Mrcl lxmna (talk) 14:55, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

I browsed thru Commons:Philippines FOP cases/deleted and found numerous potos of structures incl malls deleted. The attempt to save moa potos by p199 failed which means your rationales are not widely accepted. I will continue to req deletions of ALL of your erring potos Mrcl lxmna (talk) 03:43, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Concerning your complaint on inc photos ive now fixed it. Now the photos arevlisted there. ----

That stupid rate limit and captcha arrrgh Mrcl lxmna (talk) 04:58, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your messages and good afternoon from hereat Bulacan, Philippines; by way of Reply please allow me to state that a) I was granted permission by the Tourism Offices and b) I talked to the lawyers and legal officers of the Category:Intellectual Property Center IP PHL both under Category:Ricardo R. Blancaflor and Category:Intellectual Property Center IP PHL and his successor Josephine Rima-Santiago (Philippines) as evidenced by i) Category:Letter (Receipt-Appropriate Action-Feedback) of the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (Marou Eduarte - of Josephine Rima-Santiago to Florentino Floro and ii) Category:Letter to Josephine Rima-Santiago (Philippines) and iii) Letter to Director Blancaflor Receipt; sad to say there is no Ruling, Directive or any Reply on my FOP request for Definitive Ruling due to the fact that the matter is very Grey under Philippine Jurisprudence and no Appellate or Lower Court ruling has been issued on any justiciable controvery ever; what I hold are verbal but authoritative opinions of both the Lawyers of the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines and the Tourism Authority offices; IN FINE: I respectfully submit that until now, since the passage of Copyright Law in the Philippines, Wikipedia article on it teaches that there are only 2 Supreme Court cases on the Law and nothing has been ruled on any justiciable controversy by any party hence Directress Josephine Rima-Santiago could not and has not issued any Reply to my or Our Letters for Legal Ruling; as a Regional Trial Court Judge and Ateneo Lawyer Alumni, please allow me to state that in the Phillippines which also follows the USA Jurisprudence from Federal Rules, photography regarding FOP alleged prohibitions cannot and would not be curtailed until the Supreme Court or the Intellectual Property Center would issue a Ruling or Circular on the matter of prohibition; I hesitate to say that is a real grey area, for if there is no penal law, on the specific matter of FOP, then no punishment could be born; with all these, I respectfully submit to the sound discretion of Commons as I remain very truly yours Judgefloro (talk) 07:54, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
@Judgefloro: the matter has been raised at Commons talk:Copyright rules by territory/Philippines#Application of recent Philippine Supreme Court decisions on mere allegations of copyright. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 09:42, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Mrcl lxmna continues to make reckless mass DRs after a stern warning, at least 8 more so far, see the last 8 edits to User talk:Ramon FVelasquez.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 04:31, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Moving away from PD-self

{{PD-self}} is a relic from the past that first seems to be introduced in 2004 so it predates {{Cc-zero}} by about 4 years. PD-self is a home brew release/license template that doesn't have a strong legal basis like CC0. It's also less interoperable. I would like to slowly move away from using this template for new uploads. So probably start with:

  • Ask people currently using it to switch {{PD-self}} to {{Self|cc-zero}}
  • Ask people if they want their existing uploads switched from {{PD-self}} to {{Self|cc-zero}}. A bot can help with that. I've done it in the past for people usually with a permalink in the edit summary to where the user agreed.
  • Removing PD-self as a standard option from our upload forms (not sure if and where it is currently configured)

Of course this is all on a voluntary basis. I don't want to force people. At some point in the future the usage for new uploads might have dropped that much that we can consider deprecating it for new uploads like we did with {{GFDL}}. What do you think? Multichill (talk) 11:59, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

  • I'd support this. - Jmabel ! talk 17:25, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Personally I am a sucker for old style of doing it, the simplicity, the joy of actually trying to release the work into public domain, right now I only release my audio recordings of people saying words like that... but I feel like a rebel when I do. Perhaps a good idea would be to add a parameter of a fall-back licence to {{PD-self}}, that would add "If that is not legally possible, the following licence applies". I would be willing to add {{WTFPL}} as a fallback. However, I  Support removing PD-self from the list of suggested licence to new users. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ • ✍ ⏿) 02:59, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
  •  Support I think that we should deprecate {{PD-self}} for new uploads, just like we did with {{GFDL}}. {{Cc-zero}} is a better tool. I can also help with bot runs to change templates if someone want to. --Jarekt (talk) 03:13, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
    •  Strong oppose On any deprecation. The reason why I would support this proposal is exactly how level-headed it is, this is not a time to push through an attempt to force people into a particular pet licence. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ • ✍ ⏿) 05:39, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Limited  Support. I think {{PD-self}} is still a perfectly legally valid way to release something into the public domain with fallback, but we should steer people towards {{Cc-zero}} whenever possible. So my view is: PD-self should not be selectable as a default option in any upload form, but if someone for whatever reason uploads it under PD-self anyways we will accept it as a valid license. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 04:07, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
  •  Support discouraging it's use, removing from default license lists etc, with uploaders encouraged to use CC0.  Oppose starting replacing licenses, unless the user has actually asked for this to take place. If a user really doesn't want to use CC0 for whatever reason, pd self should still remain an acceptable license, just one that's hidden away from new users. ~~ Alex Noble/1-2/TRB 09:46, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
  •  Support and  Oppose, same as Alex Noble. --Túrelio (talk) 09:48, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
  •  Neutral While CC0 is perhaps more thorough than PD-self, I want to feel like I'm throwing stuff into the public domain, not under a PD-like license. Bear in mind that I live in the U.S. and I have that option, even if others don't. Maybe it's just that CC0 as a name sounds more like CC-BY but without the BY to me than it sounds like a waiver. -BRAINULATOR9 (TALK) 20:08, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
  • User:Brainulator9 Yes short and readable text like PD-self is more satisfying than legalese language of CC-zero, but this is meant to be a legal document where someone paid attention to every possible situation. --Jarekt (talk) 16:22, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
    • {{WTFPL}} ?? ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ • ✍ ⏿) 16:32, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
      • I think the right way to think about things is this: COM:PCP requires us to reject images with a relatively high (say, higher than 1-2%) chance of being non-free, and allows us to accept images if the chance of being non-free is within that threshold. Making up numbers for the sake of argument, perhaps {{PDMark-owner}} has a 1% chance of not truly being a free license, {{PD-self}} and {{WTFPL}} each have a 0.3% chance, and {{Cc-zero}} has a 0.1% chance. (Obviously I use probabilities very loosely here simply to provide a numerical comparison, because probabilities are really more appropriate for discussing whether we believe an uploader's claim of "own work" than for discussing the freeness of licenses, but both are components of PCP.) All things equal, we should prefer the license with the lowest chance of being non-free and recommend it to anyone who is not sure on the choice of license. At the same time, we should continue to accept licenses which fall within the PCP threshold (as determined by community consensus), even if they have a higher chance of being non-free than the ideal choice. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 18:45, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
        • Once CC0 will be the default, you will start having photos of the television screen uploaded under that licence. Therefore, those probabilities are not very useful, they will always be towards whatever licence is not the easiest for a new uploader to make a mistake on. Today the most copyvios here are CC-BY-SA 4.0. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ • ✍ ⏿) 18:53, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
          • Yes, I included a disclaimer for that. What I mean is the probability that a picture guaranteed to have been released by its creator (obviously it's impossible to know for certain, but just suppose for the sake of argument) under a particular license is nonetheless non-free, because of problems inherent to the license itself. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 19:24, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
yes it's best to move from pd-self towards something standardised like cczero.--RZuo (talk) 12:54, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Quite a few languages already replaced the PD-self template in the upload form with cc0. I updated the remaining ones. Maybe someone else feels like writing a bit of documentation on why people should use {{Self|cc-zero}} instead of {{PD-self}} so we can easily point uploaders to this? Multichill (talk) 20:28, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

File move request

Please move File:Peraturan_Presiden_Nomor_52_Tahun_2010.pdf into File:Peraturan_Presiden_Republik_Indonesia_Nomor_52_Tahun_2010.pdf. It's just a little bit mistake. Mnafisalmukhdi1 (talk) 06:12, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Done. --ghouston (talk) 07:17, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
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