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COMMONS DISCUSSION PAGES (index) Commons Help desk Village pump (general discussion) Copyright Proposals Technical Graphics and photography discussion Photography critiques Image improvement Illustration workshop Map workshop Photography workshop Video and sound workshop Categories for discussion Undeletion requests Deletion requests Volunteer Response Team/Noticeboard Translators' noticeboard Work requests for bots Contact administrators Vandalism User problems (Dispute resolution) Blocks and protections Bureaucrats' noticeboard CheckUser requests Oversight requests Telegram IRC webchat Commons mailing list (archive) Commons' bugs on Phabricator Welcome to the Village pump This page is used for discussions of the operations, technical issues, and policies of Wikimedia Commons. Recent sections with no replies for 7 days and sections tagged with {{Section resolved|1=--~~~~}} may be archived; for old discussions, see the archives; the latest archive is Commons:Village pump/Archive/2024/04. Please note: If you want to ask why unfree/non-commercial material is not allowed at Wikimedia Commons or if you want to suggest that allowing it would be a good thing, please do not comment here. It is probably pointless. One of Wikimedia Commons’ core principles is: "Only free content is allowed." This is a basic rule of the place, as inherent as the NPOV requirement on all Wikipedias. Have you read our FAQ? For changing the name of a file, see Commons:File renaming. Any answers you receive here are not legal advice and the responder cannot be held liable for them. If you have legal questions, we can try to help but our answers cannot replace those of a qualified professional (i.e. a lawyer). Your question will be answered here; please check back regularly. Please do not leave your email address or other contact information, as this page is widely visible across the internet and you are liable to receive spam. Purposes which do not meet the scope of this page: Please do not make deletion requests here: use the relevant process for it instead. For technical support and graphics talks (PNG, SVG, GIF, etc.), please post on the Graphics village pump. To ask for image improvement, see: Graphic Lab/Photography workshop for photographs. Graphic Lab/Map workshop for maps. Graphic Lab/Illustration workshop for other illustrations. To ask for video or audio improvement, see Commons:Graphic Lab/Video and sound workshop. For translation requests, please post at Commons:Requests for translation. For media requests, please post at Commons:File requests. Search archives:       Start a new discussion

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The last town pump to be in use in Saint Helier, Jersey, until early 20th century [add]

Centralized discussion See also: Village pump/Proposals   ■ Archive Proposal to prohibit political restriction templates (5 February 2024) Should PD-CQ Roll Call be used for recent images? (5 January 2024) Technical needs survey (17 December 2023) When does PDART apply to textile works? (15 November 2023) Does this image contain "love hearts"? (17 August 2023) Overhaul of categories by period (5 December 2022) Version of Saudi flag to use (11 July 2022) Concern regarding revocability of KOGL licenses (22 December 2021) Should deleting content from your own talk page be forbidden? (11 November 2021) Revise the COM:FOP Sweden section (1 February 2021) Change technical name of LRs to license-reviewer from image-reviewer(2 November 2023) User talk:湯崩正海#Image Tagging File:青島ビール放尿動画事件.jpgとUser talk:湯崩正海#File:青島ビール放尿動画事件.jpgで議論しています。皆様のご意見を募集しています。是非、ご参加ください。(2 November 2023) Template: View   ■ Discuss    ■ Edit   ■ Watch

January 28

New User Right Proposal: Large Uploads

I'd like to propose that we add a new usergroup that allows users to upload files over 100 megabytes in size. Similarly to how some users are trusted to create large numbers of accounts (with the implementation of the accountcreator right), there are some users who work with media files that feel restricted by the 100mb limit on upload size for high quality uploads and restorations. Granted that files of over 100mb are regularly discussed by featured image uploaders, it seems that larger files may be appropriate in some cases. While developers can, and do override this limit on a regular basis, I, along with many others, have no interest in bothering them with such frivolous requests, especially when their time is better spent reviewing and patching the MediaWiki software. That said, I'd like to propose that we add a largeupload usergroup, assignable by admins at Commons:Requests for rights, to make contributors' work easier. Thoughts and !votes? -FASTILY ^(TALK) 06:19, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree, at least up to some kind of reasonable maximum size like 500 MB (larger than that the devs should really check out). Keep in mind that even if the user is trusted, without sideloading enabled (upload from URL), a user with an unreliable connection will probably be unable to upload a large file via HTTP. Dcoetzee (talk) 06:49, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

I think the developers work on chunked uploads. See bug 29250 -- and there is some work is going on there. --Trycatch (talk) 08:40, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

I've come across things many times that I thought would be great to have here, but like you, I didn't feel it appropriate to bother the devs with such a request. I wonder if this idea could be tacked on to the image-reviewer permission, since both fall under the trusted user concept. — Huntster (t @ c) 07:02, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

 Support Yes please! This limit is a huge impediment, and has stopped me from uploading content (especially video) many times. InverseHypercube 07:30, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

 Support --Trycatch (talk) 08:40, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

 Comment - this already exists as a Bugzilla request: Bugzilla: 21338 - New user right: "Allow large uploads" (it's even listed at Commons:BUG#Media_.28audio.2C_video.2C_documents.29). In addition, I seem to remember seeing developer comments somewhere that once chunked uploads (29250) is in place, the upload limit would be raised substantially. My only question is (and I've asked that at Bugzilla: 21338) whether upload-by-url might be of use here, if that becomes available before chunked uploading (since uploading from another server ought to be stable enough for large files). Rd232 (talk) 09:53, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Maybe we should allow all users to upload larger files? Bulwersator (talk) 13:59, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

 Support and I'd suggest to give local administrators this right too. Trijnstel_talk 19:07, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

As noted above, reliable large file transfer over HTTP depends on chunked upload support being enabled. We're going to enable that feature (chunked upload of large files) for test users soon, so we can see how it behaves in production before making it more widely available.--Eloquence (talk) 00:56, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I've been quite successful in uploading files over 200 MB to a MediaWiki site that I operate, both via HTTP and with upload by URL. I did have to adjust PHP timeouts and such but if the uploader has a reliable connection, or first uploads their files with a restartable protocol like SFTP to a file host like Amazon S3, it works fine. At the least, I'd like to give Commons admins upload by URL with no max size so that they can import files previously uploaded to a server like S3. This would enable us to set up a request page that we can handle without dev intervention (I think we could get up to at least 500 MB this way pretty easily). Dcoetzee (talk) 04:34, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

•  Support as long as the WMF is OK with such large uploads on its servers (we know content takes up a lot of its resources). Question, though: when is too much too much? Are we going to upload reams of public domain movies? That could get expensive. Magog the Ogre (talk) 11:19, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
  • On the other hand, if a movie is in scope, why should we arbitrarily limit ourselves to either a) a low-resolution version, b) an excerpt, or c) breaking it into separate pieces? cmadler (talk) 12:53, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
•  Support There is so much content out there (generally videos) that would immensely benefit from this. Getting a dev to upload wastes valuable dev time on a task users can handle. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 20:06, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
  • We may need the ability to permanently delete these very large uploads for practical reasons. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 20:20, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
• Note that 973.53 MB file File:Ouverture des États généraux du multilinguisme dans les outre-mer.ogv was uploaded a few days ago. It seems that there is no longer a 100 MB limit. Teofilo (talk) 15:10, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

• I should very much like to know how that was done (if not without developer assistance of some sort), because as of 10 minutes ago, I am still unable to upload files exceeding 100MB -FASTILY ^(TALK) 19:48, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

So do I. Teofilo (talk) 21:26, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Unless I am mistaken, this was done through a Server-side upload. Jean-Fred (talk) 21:52, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Very much likely to be a server-side upload since I'm unable to even upload a video that is over 100 MB. Most of my high res videos are on YouTube due to the size and lowing the size for Commons makes the quailty so bad that it isn't really worth uploading. Bidgee (talk) 02:40, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

•  Comment I appreciate the need for a large upload for certain images and possibly other media. I'm not really seeing the need for us to move in on the Internet Archive's space by doing full movies. They've got it setup and may be around longer then we are.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:26, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Even so, large uploads should not require dev involvement. That is just counter-productive as far as dev time is concerned. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 23:48, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
    • Agree. The goal of this proposal was to ease the contribution process for image/video creators, and not rip every single movie on Internet Archives to Commons. -FASTILY ^(TALK) 01:58, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
      • So, should we make this a policy, and add it to COM:SCOPE and proceed to deletions when users infringe that policy ? On the other hand, should we not have the movie inserted in the Wikipedia page if there is a Wikipedia page about a specific movie ? Actually I am not sure if I can agree to have such a policy. Teofilo (talk) 11:23, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
        • Honestly, I don't think that's going to be a problem. I would expect users granted this right to have demonstrated the ability to use common sense... -FASTILY ^(TALK) 11:46, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
•  Support, however would recommend that a bandwidth / upload speed check be mandatory for anyone requesting this right. Deryck Chan (talk) 12:37, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
•  Support Great idea! Ease dev time and let in more high quality videos. Royalbroil 13:00, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
•  Support, important if you want to upoad large (PD-)eBooks.--Antemister (talk) 08:37, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
•  Support good idea; important for video uploads for instance. --High Contrast (talk) 09:36, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
•  Support The current limit is too restrictive for trusted users. --Avenue (talk) 10:11, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
•  Support Yes please, it's really irritating when you can't upload a scan because it's too large. --Claritas (talk) 10:13, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
•  Oppose: Please stop adding admin-assignable user groups like this for specific tasks. It's a complete waste of time. Page moving preceded file moving, but somehow there was a need to make file moving part of a separate user group. Regular file uploads preceded larger file uploads, but somehow there's a need to make larger file uploading part of a separate user group? This is just needless bureaucracy. Implement sensible, automatic metrics for who can upload large files. If there's abuse of the functionality, treat it as you would treat abuse of any other wiki-interaction functionality (with user warnings, blocks, etc.). --MZMcBride (talk) 16:36, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Pre-emptive prevention seems important to me in this case, in light of the fact that at present, there is no on-wiki way to permanently delete files (which would be necessary for useless files so large that they cause capacity problems). However I agree that a feature to make this possible, combined with soft enforcement, would be a better alternative. Dcoetzee (talk) 11:01, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
    • Not being able to actually delete files sounds like a technical problem to me, not a social one. :-) I've given this a bit more thought and you'd actually want a user group, but for the opposite reason: to allow brand new (trusted) users to upload large files. Some wikis have a "confirmed" user group, which confers autoconfirmed privileges to accounts that wouldn't technically meet the requirements. Something similar here would be a good idea. But in general anyone should be able to upload large files. If there are surrounding technical concerns, address those separately. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 01:00, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
      • And there are good reasons to not allow permanent deletion of files: 1) deletion often occurs in error 2) we might need to keep the files around for legal reasons. Both of these apply as well to files larger than 100mb as they do to everything else. Lewis Collard! (lol, internet) 10:35, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
•  Comment. I do not see the point of this discussion. It's not like a vote on Commons may magically solve all technical issues which prevents Wikimedia developers from enabling >100MB uploads. Had they been solved, the large files upload would have been enabled long time ago. VasilievVV (talk) 16:49, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
  • I do not believe there has been any issue reported on filesize of 100MB. I believe 100MB is kept because it is a reasonable cap to prevent too many large uploads at the same time. In any case discussions such as these give community consensus that devs may look for before deciding on what to implement next. Is this discussion binding for devs? Of course not. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 03:50, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
•  Support, assuming it's technically feasible, and WMF isn't concerned about what this would mean vis-à-vis server capacity and bandwidth. If the creation of a new admin-assignable userright is a concern, perhaps this can be attached to the patrol and autopatrolled userrights. Also, as per Teofilo, and as I mentioend above, I disagree with any restriction on hosting full movies that are within scope. cmadler (talk) 13:34, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
•  Support It would be great. Yann (talk) 13:21, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
•  Support Some scanned djvu or pdf files take more than 100 Mb, and I should split them.--Anatoliy (talk) 15:30, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
• Apparently chunked uploads for UploadWizard were enabled in MediaWiki 1.20/wmf2,[1] which has been deployed on Commons. Does anyone know if this can be used yet? InverseHypercube 20:10, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
• Comment: How about a new "Large file" namespace and a new large upload form? Files deleted from "large upload" namespace would be deleted forever. Users wouldn't be able to permanently delete other files. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 20:13, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
• It seems that large uploads (up to 500 MB) have been enabled for everyone! See #1.20wmf2 deployed. InverseHypercube 22:33, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
•  Support Yes, as image or movie size are increasing rapidly day by day. -- Biswarup Ganguly (talk) 15:19, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

SVG thumbnails not displaying on image description page

Just uploaded new versions of File:Labrys-symbol.svg and File:Labrys-symbol-transparent.svg, and I don't think that there's anything wrong with the SVG files themselves. The syndrome is that thumbnails of every size of these two files now display except the 493px-wide thumbnails on the image description pages themselves. I've tried purging and reloading, and it doesn't seem to help... AnonMoos (talk) 14:10, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

They display fine for me. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:30, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

They really do not display in my browser. I'm not sure if it's MW 1.20 or what, but the 493px-wide images seem to start to load for a split-second, and then are immediately replaced by blue text of the name of the image displayed on a small rectangular transparent background... AnonMoos (talk) 15:41, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

I've had this problem before as well. It's an odd caching quirk of some sort or other in which when you upload a new version of a file you have trouble seeing the new thumbnail, or see the old thumbnail where the new one should be. When this happens, go onto IRC and ask someone else to look at the thumbnail, or if you have a second PC use that one. It should be fine for everyone else, and fine for you after 48 hours or so. Sven Manguard Wha? 16:20, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

I've experienced a number of caching glitches before, but never one that seemed like some kind of scripting error... AnonMoos (talk) 02:53, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

---

Now affecting File:Palestine-Mandate-Ensign-1927-1948.svg. I really don't think it it's a caching problem -- it looks like the image is trying to display for a split-second, then something intervenes to prevent it from displaying. Seems a lot more like a scripting problem. AnonMoos (talk) 07:34, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

They display fine for me too. What browser are you using? Jarry1250 (talk) 10:07, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Fixed now anyway (File:Palestine-Mandate-Ensign-1927-1948.svg quickly, the Labrys files after a number of days). AnonMoos (talk) 06:26, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

500 Internal Server Error

Hello,

I get this while looking at [2]. Yann (talk) 14:45, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

"Internal Server Error

Guru Meditation:

XID: 1473875618

Varnish cache server"

• Hmm, I don't get the error. Could you try again and see if you still get the error? - Jmabel ! talk 18:09, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Yann -- that doesn't look like a Wikimedia error; more likely to be an error message issued by something intermediate between you and the Wikimedia servers (programmed by a fan of the Commodore Amiga, apparently). AnonMoos (talk) 06:15, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

CategorizationBot

User:CategorizationBot went down some time ago because of toolserver problems. The bot did three tasks

1. Find uncategorized files
2. Try to get files categorized
3. Notify users

I'm thinking about restarting the bot, but I'm only doing this if I get enough positive feedback. So what do you think should I restart the bot or not? Should I run all tasks or just some specific tasks (for example no notifications). I'm looking forward to your replies. Multichill (talk) 16:10, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

•  Support No need to ask... Ofcourse you should restart the bot. In many cases the bot find really good categories. And even in the cases where the categories are not perfect in many cases it is a step in the right direction. --MGA73 (talk) 16:12, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
•  Support unless you plan to do it manually ;) --  Docu  at 16:28, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
•  Support Categories are important and users should be aware of categories. The bot is the only one making new users aware of categories since the dev of upload wizard decided to hide the inputs by default. -- RE rillke questions? 16:54, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
•  Support --Foroa (talk) 17:18, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
•  Support with all features. Thanks! - PKM (talk) 17:20, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
•  Support --Wouter (talk) 20:28, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
•  Support with all features, including the one that processes {{Intersect categories}}. --Auntof6 (talk) 21:44, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
•  Support with all features, thanks! --Jwh (talk) 22:49, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
•  Support for all three tasks. Btw., for the task #2, some more intelligent and sophisticated algoritms should be devised sometime. --ŠJů (talk) 00:40, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
•  Support Yes, I think this would be a good idea.--Ymblanter (talk) 09:17, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
•  Support We need the bot urgently. --GeorgHH • talk   20:17, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Wrong EXIF dates

Is there a category for collecting images where the EXIF Date and time of data generation is obviously wrong? I couldn't find one. If there isn't, maybe one should be created? Often the date setting in digital cameras is wrong, people forget to set it correctly (e.g. after a battery change). E.g. File:Siggern unterlauf flumenthal.jpg - uploader's description says it was taken 30 April 2011, which looks plausible; the EXIF date says 05:25, 17 November 2007 which of course can't be correct (the trees would be bare and anyway it would be pitch-dark at 05:25 in November, in Switzerland). Collecting such images could be helpful for re-users who extract EXIF data, I think. Gestumblindi (talk) 18:41, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

May be adding something like {{Watermark}} as a warning is sufficient. Wouter (talk) 20:36, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

You could also do as I did here: File:Heron and small trout crop.jpg?--Canoe1967 (talk) 21:49, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

What you can also do is use {{Upload date}}, using the date it was uploaded to Commons (or Flickr, etc.) instead of the date of creation, if it is not known. InverseHypercube 00:06, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Upload date is already in the upload history on the file page, so there is no need to also put in other places. If the creation date is not known {{Other date|unknown}} can be used. /Ö 21:58, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, adding "(EXIF data is incorrect)" to the date in the description, as you did, is certainly better than nothing and I have done so for my example for now. Maybe it's sufficient. Gestumblindi (talk) 00:20, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Why not just upload a new version with correct EXIF data? /Esquilo (talk) 14:51, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

 Done Date corrected. The original time is unknown and 05:25:43 is unlikely to be correct, so I reset the time to 00:00:00. --Stefan4 (talk) 16:19, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Stefan4. In this case, we were lucky to have the correct date provided in the uploader's file description. But of course there may be other cases with obviously wrong EXIF dates where we don't know the correct one. Gestumblindi (talk) 15:31, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

An easy or best way to separate multiple image uploads

I've come across this image File:Datalink USB Dress Edition.JPG, and most of the versions in history are actually different photos. Can an admin move the images apart, or is there a tool that should be used here? ▫ JohnnyMrNinja (talk / en) 19:45, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

You can request the seperation by adding {{Split}}, or a request at Commons:History merging and splitting/Requests for more complicated cases. Personally I'm not really sure that it is needed in this case unless you think a particular version in the history is useful as a seperate file. --Tony Wills (talk) 20:53, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for that. Yeah, I know there isn't a lot of variety there, but we don't have very many images of that make of watch. If we already have the free images, we may as well have them usable. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja (talk / en) 21:28, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Image annotator colour change?

I recently added 7 notes to this image: File:Arecibo message.svg. There are two border colours that look very close to each other. Orange for mouse over section, and yellow for the others that are not under mouse over. I don't think it is a really big issue, but some may consider it hard to tell which section the note is for on images with notes that overlap.--Canoe1967 (talk) 20:29, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia no longer trusts Commons

There is a proposal at en:Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion#Retire F8 to retire WP's F8 criteria because "the community no longer automatically trusts Wikimedia Commons". This was apparently sparked by a discussion on WP's Administrator's Noticeboard. I thought people here might want to take a look. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja (talk / en) 22:04, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

I may be reading it wrong, but it seems they only want to remove F8 from speedy deletion, not normal deletion processes?--Canoe1967 (talk) 22:27, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

F8 is a criteria for speedy deletion, it does not cover other deletion processes. The RFC is suggesting that duplicated images that would have been subject to F8 be handled through a deletion discussion (I think that's what you're saying). The suggestion is that we should dismantle our process because some entitled WP editors don't trust Commons editors with "their" pictures. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja (talk / en) 00:45, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

So they be acting like trolls? Should we all pop over and kick some trollish butt with a logical boot?--Canoe1967 (talk) 00:53, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I doubt it will go further, but it may be indicative of a larger problem. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja (talk / en) 02:02, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Hm, I assumed it would be the think of the children crowd, but apparently not. Well, the ANI discussion has one of them, but not the whole crowd. I don't think this is anything we need to worry about, or even care about. There has always been a bit of friction between en.wp and Commons, recently due to en.wp trolls being upset that we have nudity and sexuality images, but more generally because people see things removed from en.wp and put here without their consent, or without their realising it. That has always been a problem - I got some flak for it a few years back when I transwikied all photos of the Ffestiniog Railway, but you just have to ignore the vehemence and respond calmly about what Commons is for. -mattbuck (Talk) 02:14, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

So anyone who distrusts commons is a troll? --Guerillero 17:57, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

That is not what I said at all. There are certainly trolls who distrust commons, but some people are just misinformed. -mattbuck (Talk) 18:14, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

If you're inherently distrusting the entire project and everyone who works on it, yes I'd say so. Mistakes can be made by anyone though, so there may certainly be valid reasons for specific complaints. Deletion of in-use works should never be done unless there is a copyright issue, so any mistakes along those lines should be brought up at Commons:Undeletion requests. But do keep in mind that Commons does look at the copyright status in the country of origin more closely than does Wikipedia, and there can be lots of uncertainty which goes with that, so under-documented images are going to be subject to a lot more judgement calls, and such decisions by their nature can vary a fair amount. Most everyone here is working in good faith towards the project goals; if there are any systemic mistakes being made though, it should be brought up as a topic of discussion, so that it can be corrected (or if it turns out to not be a mistake, explained better). Keeping files on en-wiki just to avoid copyright scrutiny is not really a good idea though; it's a better idea to switch to using tags like en:Template:PD-US-1923-abroad to indicate that something is OK in the U.S. due to being published before 1923 but not in the country of origin -- that should also prevent files from being transferred. If a file is deleted here for copyright reasons, *usually* that means it should be deleted from en-wiki as well, though not always. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:34, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I have looked at some of the comments on the AN/I thread, and the negative comments seem to be misinformed, or misconstrued in their makeup. Take for example, User:Carrite comments on his uploads. File:Cannon-James-Nov1922.jpg was deleted as it was made out to be {{PD-Soviet}}. Unfortunately, the description didn't state that this was a work of the Soviet government; even then without date and place of first publication, the old PD-Soviet tag doesn't necessarily apply, and it definitely doesn't apply when that copyright tag is no longer valid -- so much so, I have been going thru such files in the last few weeks, fixing copyrights when it is an easy process, and nominating others which are either iffy, or outright false to begin with. Carrite then changed the licence tag to {{PD-RU-exempt}}, which is obviously not correct, as anyone who has dealt with Kremlin.ru images knows about. Now it is possible that the image is public domain, but we need to know things such as authorship, date and place of first publication, etc, in order to ascertain whether this status is correct. Our precautionary principle is of utmost importance here, as this protects the WMF and our content re-users, and it is a policy that Commons will NOT waiver on to suit the sensibilities of some. If Carrite would like to come back to Commons and discuss this image, they are welcome to, but so long as they continue to act as nothing but a troll ("Fuck commons" indeed), I don't see anyone going out of their way to help them. russavia (talk) 02:59, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

This brings a question to mind about legality. If an image is illegal in commons isn't the 1st legal step to ask for removal? If this is carried out, then the plaintiff can not really sue for damages because we did remove the image in good faith and speedily?--Canoe1967 (talk) 16:43, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Nope that's not true, although that is the route most authors would take to avoid the cost of litigation. It limits damages but does not remove them. The DMCA does provide that route to protect the *Wikimedia Foundation* itself, as an online host of the material, but that does not protect anyone making direct use of the work -- they would be guilty for any actual damages, and if the work had been registered in the U.S., statutory damages as well. Secondly, we aim to only host free works; we don't wait for complaints if something is obviously still under copyright and not licensed. This is a philosophical position, and as such we will delete works even if it perfectly legal to host works (via fair use, explicit permission for Wikipedia, general educational-use permission, or other exceptions) since the goal is to host works that *anyone* can use in almost any context. Having a work here increases the likelihood of people elsewhere using it, so we do want to be rather sure that the copyright status is OK. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:34, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the response. I can assume that WP is protected by DCMA from damages if we speedily delete upon reasonable requests then?--Canoe1967 (talk) 18:47, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Or DMCA takedowns requests, yes. That would not necessarily protect the uploader though. Carl Lindberg (talk) 19:44, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

From those discussions, and this one, it seems that the biggest issue is that Commons seems to enforce guidelines that Wikipedia does not. The question is, is a matter of Commons having different guidelines, or that Commons is more strict in enforcing them? Ideally, Commons and WP should both enforce the same rules the same way, right? So that editors don't feel confused when "totally legit" WP files are deleted here. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja (talk / en) 21:31, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Commons obviously does have different guidelines. Free vs. fair-use being one, the licensing of images "for use on Wikipedia" being another. There's a potentially huge DR (albeit mostly ignored) open at the moment Commons:Deletion requests/File:Crusader1117.jpg about a major magazine archive having granted "the reuse on Wikipedia of any material", yet this having been assumed (IMHO poorly) to mean Commons too and never cleared up with the rights holder. There are differences, and at times we've been careless about following them.

There are also cases (and this is one) where media should rightly be removed from Commons, but could easily be retained at WP. However practice seems to be that it gets uploaded to WP, moved (wrongly) to Commons, deleted F8 from WP and eventually deleted from Commons too. It's thus lost unnecessarily to both projects. We seem poor at supporting any "Move back to WP" process for such necessary Commons deletions. Andy Dingley (talk) 21:51, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

According to the English Wikipedia's guidelines and policies, images licensed "for use on Wikipedia" are not considered free. That particular image should have been marked as non-free content on Wikipedia and given a non-free use rationale for each article. It seems to me that in most cases, files that are moved from Wikipedia to Commons and subsequently deleted from Commons were inadequately or incorrectly described on their Wikipedia page, such that if they had been correctly described they never would have been moved, and possibly might have been deleted from Wikipedia. I can really only think of two situations where a file can properly exist on Wikipedia but not Commons: fair use, and free in the US but not the source country. In both cases, if the file is correctly described on its Wikipedia page, it will never make it to Commons. cmadler (talk) 10:14, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia-only permission is not allowed on either en-wiki or Commons. That particular case you cite is problematic... the statement was the result of a longer discussion which did seem to contemplate commercial use by others, so the "on Wikipedia" part may well just be acknowledging the need for "free" licensing to use them here, and the copyright owner was looking for a compromise to allow it. But, it is a bit ambiguous when reading just the statement, as usually that wording is interpreted to mean Wikipedia-only permission. Those images are still under copyright, though they may start lapsing in the UK (70 years from publication for unknown authors), but the U.S. term would be 95 years from publication. Images from their magazine from before 1926 where the photographer is not named would be OK as {{PD-UK-unknown}} and either {{PD-1923}} or {{PD-1996}} for the U.S. side of things. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:16, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Closure

It's obvious the community doesn't agree with me. Leaving the RFC up for a secondary discussion, but if you disagree, feel free to pull it.

— NYKevin @879, i.e. 20:05, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Thankfully, the proposer has withdrawn the proposal, even though the normal time limit for such proposals wouldn't end for a few days yet, having realised that there is strong consensus for keeping things as they are. The only live discussion on the subject is considering the idea of requiring a waiting period before deleting an image, and that (1) is unrelated to us, since it would still permit deletion; and (2) has gotten opposes from everyone who voted so far, including the person put together the original proposal. Nyttend (talk) 20:34, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

April 30

We could not process your edit due to a loss of session data

Tonight, the upload process extremely often fails and displays the message "Sorry! We could not process your edit due to a loss of session data. Please try again. If it still does not work, try logging out and logging back in.". Where is this problem from?

Btw., when the process fails, the upload form keeps the content of almost all fields, except for "Source filename". It is very bothering to seek the filename again and again for every new upload attempt. Would by someone able to fix this problem? --ŠJů (talk) 00:57, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

The whole systems is becoming unworkable; tens of seconds to open or add a cat, minutes for some others or a complete cat display. I stopped already many times working on Commons as it just generates too much waiting time. --Foroa (talk) 06:28, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Likely related to Bugzilla: 35900. Killiondude (talk) 06:34, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I have had lots of problems with loss of session data lately, mainly on Commons but to a lesser extent also on English Wikipedia. If I press the preview button, I might notice that I'm no longer logged in, although I might mysteriously become logged in again by just pressing the preview button a second time. The save button often fails because something thinks that cookies have been changed or sessions lost, and I've often had to press the save button multiple times before it works. --Stefan4 (talk) 12:35, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I had a message an hour or so ago that the whole WF site was down (commons and en:WP I tried). It only lasted a few minutes then both sites were back up. It may have been techs doing a fix?--Canoe1967 (talk) 18:52, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Sculpture

Is this sculpture actually 2 thousand years old or is it a recent reconstruction? Pass a Method (talk) 09:34, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

• Yes, I believe it is 2K years old. Do you have any evidence pointing otherwise?--Ymblanter (talk) 09:48, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

undo deletion request

I have accidentally added a photo on Wiki Commons to deletion request. How do I undo this? DarkKomodo (talk) 17:37, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

You want to undo the deletion request? If no one responded, and the image is not yet deteleted, you can just remove the template. If the image is deleted already, you can do an undelete-request. Edoderoo (talk) 17:50, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

And if the deletion discussion is underway, post there as nominator saying you withdraw the nomination. Dankarl (talk) 18:15, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Hide own edits in Watchlist

On Wikipedia, if I click 'Hide my edits' in the My Watchlist interface, when I come back later it remembers that I want my own edits hidden. On Commons, I apparently have to click 'Hide my edits' every time; it dosen't seem to remember that I want them hidden.

Is there a fix? Is this just me? Sven Manguard Wha? 15:43, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

I can at least tell you that my edits are still hidden in my watchlist. -- RE rillke questions? 15:48, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-watchlist has an option to "Hide my edits from the watchlist". /Ö 16:40, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

You need to set it in commons 'My preferences' (at the top of the page) as well as WP. I am not sure how many preferences are cross wiki.--Canoe1967 (talk) 16:52, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

@Canoe1967: It's not a cross-wiki thing, I mentioned Wikipedia because on Wikipedia when I change a setting on My Watchlist it stayes changed, and on Commons when I change a setting on My Watchlist it dosen't.

@Ö: I did, and it still forgets. Sven Manguard Wha? 18:28, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

@Sven: Did you change the default setting in preferences on a main commons page at the top (beside My talk); then save changes with the save button; or just in an edit page?--Canoe1967 (talk) 20:06, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

"Photographs by" category moves

Three of us have had a recent disagreement that we are unlikely to resolve on our own. I'll try to be as neutral in stating the matter as I can.

User:Howcheng recently moved a number of "Photographs by" categories to simply the name of the photographer. For example, Category:Photographs by Frank H. Nowell was moved to Category:Frank H. Nowell. User:Dankarl and I think that goes precisely the wrong direction. For the discussion to date, please see User_talk:Howcheng#"Photographs by" category moves.

I'll lay aside some issues about the process by which the moves were made (which is water under the bridge). At this point, Howcheng's argument seem to be mainly that children of Category:Photographers from the United States should be people, not their photographs, and that the more common way we handle photographs by a particular person on Commons is to place the photos in a category whose name is the photographer's name. (Howcheng, if you think I've paraphrased you wrong, please take your own shot at stating your position.) Dankarl and I say that the first point could be easily resolved by having, for example, both a Category:Frank H. Nowell and a Category:Photographs by Frank H. Nowell, with the latter as a subset of the former, and that one problem with Howcheng's approach is that if we have other materials on the person (for example, photographs of them) they are very hard to find under Howcheng's approach.

I'd greatly appreciate comment from other experienced contributors. Certainly we all want to avoid a wheel war. - Jmabel ! talk 15:53, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm interested in hearing from Howcheng, but at first glance I must say that the Category:Frank H. Nowell and Category:Photographs by Frank H. Nowell scheme, as you described it, was always what I thought to be the proper categorization in cases such as these. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 16:15, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Ditto Skeezix1000. See also Category:Vincent van Gogh and subcategories (for example). cmadler (talk) 16:24, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Mhmm, the Category:Frank H. Nowell and subcategory Category:Photographs by Frank H. Nowell system makes the most sense. Sven Manguard Wha? 18:30, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Recommended categorization schema of categories related to Creator templates.

The approach I usually take, which also seems to be shared by other editors working on categorizing art images and maintaining categories related to Category:Creator template home categories, is to always have categories like Category:Frank H. Nowell (subcategory of Category:People by name), and if the category has enough files than split it into Category:Photographs by Frank H. Nowell, Category:Paintings by ...., Category:Engravings by ... categories (see graphics). This way we can separate images where someone is an artist from images where someone is a subject. For example Category:Images of Albrecht Dürer (Dürer is a subject) and Category:Works by Albrecht Dürer (Dürer is an artist) are kept separate and are both subcategories of Category:Albrecht Dürer. So in case of Frank H. Nowell I would have kept both categories. --Jarekt (talk) 18:51, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree that the moves were retrograde. The regular categorization scheme should be as Jmabel and others describe and want. However, there is a question of cases where we have still only one type of files related to certain author - and the two-level categorization can seem untimely, not necessary, overly complicated. In such cases when a simplified solution is chosen, I prefer the former organization that some categories "Images by..." or "Paintings by..." or "Photographs by..." are categorized also as category of people - rather than the second variant that the images disappear from category tree of images, paintings or photographs. Thus, the situtation before Howcheng's changes was better then the situtation past them. --ŠJů (talk) 22:56, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Great schematic diagram Jarekt! That says it all. --99of9 (talk) 00:15, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Fantastic, brilliant, marvelous... (What else?) scheme. This is our standard.--Pierpao.lo (listening) 02:53, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

To fix the problem of "Category:Photographs by Frank H. Nowell" not having a parent category named "Category:Frank H. Nowell", the standard fix would have been to create "Category:Frank H. Nowell" and add "Category:Photographs by Frank H. Nowell" in there. No need to move "Category:Photographs by Frank H. Nowell" to "Category:Frank H. Nowell". --  Docu  at 04:53, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

This is beginning to feel close to consensus, but I would be a lot more comfortable if User:Howcheng would weigh in. I was accidentally a bit late in notifying him that I had followed up on our agreement to take this to the Village pump, so I'd like to give him another day or so to reply here. - Jmabel ! talk 05:59, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Although I tend to agree with the global category structure, I think that there are thousands of photographers (and some bloggers and other artists, ...) out there from which we really don't know anything, often even not the first name nor nationality (and probably will never see an article on them), except that they made photographs. So creating such "photographs by xxx" makes not a lot of sense then. A series of examples can be found in Category:Authors of the Travelers in the Middle East Archive. Another example of "by photographer" categories without almost any photographer cat in Category:Images from the German Federal Archive by photographer. Many of those categories are template generated, so there is not always a choice à posteriori. --Foroa (talk) 09:57, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

• I just came across someone else doing the same type of move. I think the confusion is because initially people create the category Fred Bloggs and populate it with works by that person, and only later when someone comes across images of "Fred Bloggs" or other material relating to them (like their family, the house they lived in etc) do they realise there should be a separate category. But for many the split never gets made. But definitely we do not want to move files from "Photogaphs by xxx" to "xxx". --Tony Wills (talk) 12:56, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks for bringing this up. I noticed about a week ago that a bot had collapsed several subcategories under Category:Photographs by Todd Huffman to Category:Todd Huffman. Huffman is a talented photographer who published hundreds of photographs, some of them both unique and of exceptional quality.

  I looked for, couldn't find, a specific discussion, anywhere, where this particular change, was discussed. I looked for, couldn't find, a general discussion, anywhere, where this kind of change was discussed.

  I uploaded many of Huffman's photos. Someone else did the hard work of splitting them into subcategories. It may have taken them a whole day, or longer. I sure hope another bot can roll back the collapsing of those subcategories.

  Unfortunately, empty categories are often deleted. I have been told that the contribution history of categories can't be restored for some technical reason. Geo Swan (talk) 06:09, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Given that Howcheng still has not posted here, I guess he is not going to. Is someone interested in taking on reversing the ill-advised edits? It will take careful work, because he also made some perfectly good edits in the same period. Some bot requests can be found at [3], [4], [5]; that may not be comprehensive, I didn't spend a ton of time investigating. The rest appears to have been manually done around that same time. - Jmabel ! talk 15:11, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

And, no, there was no discussion before he did this. - Jmabel ! talk 15:11, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I moved the ones for Category:Frank H. Nowell back to a subcategory. --  Docu  at 19:16, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I think this is a fairly complete list of the moves in question. I think a lot are basically category renames (ie everything was moved to a new category). Probably easiest to just use catalot to select the contents and make the moves, you can probably visually select which are about the author and which are his/her works without reference to this list anyway. --Tony Wills (talk) 12:48, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Hierarchical category system

• Split off discussion from "Photographs by" category moves

I would also like to suggest that structurally "Category:Photographs by Fred Bloggs" should not be a sub-category of Category:Fred Bloggs but should be a see-also relationship. Otherwise all the works of Fred Bloggs logically now lie in the trees containing people (regardless of the contents of the work). This detail is seldom addressed, and is part of a much larger problem ... but then generally the category tree is pretty mutilated anyway ;-)

• Not every subcategory is an is-a relationship. That's fine. For example:
  • We have categories for museums, with subcategories for artworks in that museum. That doesn't suggest that the artworks are museums.
  • We have categories for countries, with subcategories for cities (and people, and lakes, and lots of other things) in that country. That doesn't suggest that the cities, etc., are countries.
• - Jmabel ! talk 15:40, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorry but that is the exactly same mis-use of our hierarchical category system. The category structure should reflect a hierarchy of concepts, from the most generic one down to the very specific. It is as "is a" relationship all the way down. The leaves at the end of the "museums as buildings" branch are pictures/videos etc of museums. Another branch will end in "Artworks in Musuem xyz" and its leaves will be pictures/videos of artworks contained there. There is a relationship between the "Musuem xyz (building)" and the "Artworks in Museum xyz" categories, but it is not a hierarchical one. The problem is that we have categories like "Museum xyz" whose function and structural location is amibiguous and tangle two seperate tree branches. This sort of confusion occurs all over the Commons tree structure because very few people understand what they are doing when they create, categorize or populate a category. And many people will tell me I am wrong because no one else is complaining ... these days I don't spend a lot of time tilting at this windmill (the category structure needs serious pruning, but until there is some automated way to maintain the structure, eg a bot, it can't be kept in shape) --Tony Wills (talk) 21:13, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

You forgot that Commons (as well as wikipedias) is not a collection of words (concepts) but collection of media files (themes) and the categorization should organize media by theme. Contrary to the biological taxnnomy, the hierarchy here is based not only on the relation hypernym-hyponym but also on the relation complex-parts, producer-product (more generally: treating-treated), main-subsidiary, subject-representation and many other types of hierarchic relations. Interconnectedness of all these relations (netting, modular categorization) is a big advantage of electronic wiki-categorization over a simple tree system used in physical paper card index.

Besides it, the category "Albert Einstein" doesn't contain this person (dead or alive) personally but media related to him. Naturally, many themes have more aspects - a museum or school can be categorized as buildings as well as organizations – and eventually, a category of images by some person can be categorized as a category of this person until he/she have his own parent category. --ŠJů (talk) 22:33, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

This is not René Magritte. :-) cmadler (talk) 13:28, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

I do not forget anything of the sort ;-). Multi-purposing categories, eg using a category like Category:Joe Bloggs to contain two entirerly different sets of images (eg works about the person and works by the person) and sticking it in two otherwise separate hierarchical trees, just creates a mess. That approach is akin to using the category as a tag rather than a structural element. If you want to have Category:Joe Bloggs containing lots of stuff 'relating to' Joe Bloggs, then don't put that category in either the 'people' tree nor the 'artworks' tree. Put it in some new tree that starts from the root category with something like 'images related to things', with subcategories 'images related to people', 'images related to buildings', then under each person have 'images of xyz' and 'works by xyz' etc - the later two can then be added to the 'people' tree and the 'artworks tree' as well (actually I am not really asking you to create this structure, in fact don't do this :-), but that is the structure that you seem to be implying). --Tony Wills (talk) 13:08, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Implicitly, you are requiring that the categories be arranged literally in a tree, but the relevant specification at Commons:Categories#Category structure in Wikimedia Commons is a multi-heirarchy, with the link directed to en:Directed acyclic graph. The latter does a much better job of mapping objects which may each display multiple interesting aspects. Having categories have multiple parents is fundamentally no different than having images fall into multiple categories. Dankarl (talk) 20:11, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Sandbox to visible article

How do I convert a Sandbox article to a live visible article?

This isn't Wikipedia. We don't have articles here. — SMUconlaw (talk) 08:54, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

What we do have are galleries-which work in much the same way as an article. This will work bothe here and at wikipedia, check the namespace you want for your article/gallery is free by putting it into the serch box, if there is already an article/gallery of that name you'll need to think of another, if its free you'll see a redlink. Click on the redlink to get an empty page. Open up your sandbox, click on edit to get to the base markup-and click and clone its contents, paste said contents onto the empty page-preview and if you are happy click save to create the page.--KTo288 (talk) 10:33, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

If what you want to create is a page (or gallery) rather than an article, and no one else has created a page with the name that you want to give it yet, you can also use the "Move" command which appears in one of the menus near the top of the screen. — SMUconlaw (talk) 17:01, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Ctrl-Click bug while editing

If I am previewing an edit, and I click a link to open another page, I get a Javascript popup warning me that I might lose my changes and asking if I am sure I want to leave this page. That works fine. However, the same prompt also pops up even if I Ctrl-click a link (which should open the link in a new tab). Ctrl-click works as expected elsewhere on the site, and I can open a link in a new tab by right-clicking and select "Open in new tab", or by clicking with the middle mouse button (the mouse wheel in my case). I can reproduce this on Firefox 13 and Chrome 18, but I can't quite reproduce it consistently on IE 9. Also, it doesn't seem to be a problem on any other WMF site, just Commons. Can anyone confirm if they can see the same problem? 81.142.107.230 08:35, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I do not reproduce with Firefox 12.0. Dankarl (talk) 11:57, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Hmm. I've managed to reproduce on Firefox 11 and 12 (on a different PC, with no Firefox addons etc.), but on another machine (on a completely different network), it works fine on both Firefox 10 and 12. Glancing at the code, it seems to be a jQuery thing, so I wonder if there are different versions of jQuery being loaded? 81.142.107.230 13:38, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

100k additional templates?

Experienced editors might have some comments about the discussion at Commons_talk:WikiProject_Tree_of_Life#Kersti_Nebelsiek idea 2: template for langage, where we have a discussion about creating a template for each species (I think). At the moment this is being implimented for birds only. Input about the implications of so many templates, and suggestions for alternative ideas would be welcome. --Tony Wills (talk) 13:18, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Project to commission CC-BY fantasy art

Commons editors may be interested in a Kickstarter project to commission "a free library of art representing heroes of all backgrounds" from professional artists, to be made available under the CC-BY license. I suppose this could be useful here for illustrating articles about the standard fantasy tropes. The project's URL is http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sarahdarkmagic/prismatic-art-collection. (I note in passing that our Category:Fantasy art is a rather mixed bag in terms of quality or usefulness.) Sandstein (talk) 16:43, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Sounds great, please keep us updated! I could do a bot transfer once it's out; however, there might be some problem with Commons:Fan art, if these are copyrighted characters. InverseHypercube 16:54, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

As per InverseHypercube, if they are copyrighted characters there will be obvious issues, but all in all, as a Commons inclusionist, this looks like a good project for that category in the future. However, on the obverse, there are some who feel that art by non-notable individuals isn't worthy for inclusion on Commons. russavia (talk) 16:07, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

1.20wmf2 deployed

Hi all, we've deployed mw:MediaWiki 1.20/wmf2 to this wiki a few minutes ago (as part of our new bi-weekly deployments). See the release notes to see what changed. -- RobLa-WMF (talk) 19:53, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T38460
RESOLVED

Do you know if the chunked uploads feature for UploadWizard has been enabled?

Support is now fully deployed, but we've not flipped the switch yet. We'll enable it as an opt-in preference soon to do some testing in production. If you want to help, you can set up a wiki page documenting why we're doing it, instructing users how to enable the preference, and explain how to best get test/broken files deleted for users who don't have admin rights. Then we can broadly advertise that page and invite users to test the feature once it's available as an opt-in preference.

The user preference will be called "Chunked uploads for files over 1MB in Upload Wizard" and will be listed at the bottom of the "Uploads" section in Special:Preferences, under a heading called "Experimental features".--Eloquence (talk) 20:17, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

There you go: Commons:Chunked uploads. Jean-Fred (talk) 20:53, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

That's great news. Do you know if there are plans to change the file size limit after this is implemented? Because according to NeilK from the WMF, this was one of the prerequisites. InverseHypercube 23:03, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

It's one, but not the only one. Through May we're going to work on the migration of all files to the SwiftCloudFiles infrastructure which will triple our storage capacity. That should finally allow us to up the limit for all users.--Eloquence (talk) 00:00, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

OK, try it now per the earlier instructions. This actually will allow you to upload files up to 500MB in size, if I read the limits correctly. I just uploaded a 128MB file through Upload Wizard with the preference enabled. However, I got an error message at the end, indicating that there might still be some hiccups for large files.

I can't guarantee that we'll keep the higher size limit until we have more storage in place, but give it a try and see how it works for you. Please report issues at Commons:Chunked uploads.--Eloquence (talk) 21:09, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

That's incredible, many (including me) have been waiting for this for a long time! I uploaded File:Le Voyage dans la lune colour.ogv (just barely over 100 MB) with no issues. InverseHypercube 22:36, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

While it's nice to see continuous development of the mediawiki software, it would be more important to actually fix bugs which plagued us for several months now. The most important would be the lost/corrupt image bug, affecting previously working images like File:Lencana SMA Trinitas.JPG and many, many more. --Denniss (talk) 17:04, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Just if you wonder why the buttons in JS-tools in Vector are exchanged now, it's related to bugzilla:35046. Didn't change anything ;-) -- RE rillke questions? 21:22, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Possible bug

What happened with the image page File:Karmin grup.png? Log shows image uploaded, history shows nothing and a text The database did not find the text of a page that it should have found, named "File:Karmin grup.png" is visible. --Denniss (talk) 00:09, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

See also the #Corrupted files after upload report below -- same thing happened to a series of uploads. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:05, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

This also happened on other projects. See Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files/2012 May 3#File:CCN1 Staining.jpg for example. --Stefan4 (talk) 15:08, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Compliment

The new feature of a download re-starting at the point where a previous failed download attempt left off is great! AnonMoos (talk) 08:10, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Can we manually force re-rasterization of File:Quebec MRC Minganie location map.svg @ 250px ?

Is it possible to manually re-rasterize File:Quebec MRC Minganie location map.svg to a 250px PNG file? Right now http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d3/Quebec_MRC_Minganie_location_map.svg/250px-Quebec_MRC_Minganie_location_map.svg.png is a "404 not found", so using [[File:Quebec_MRC_Minganie_location_map.svg|250px]] in Wikipedia shows a broken image.

Background details can be viewed here. -- P.T. Aufrette (talk) 23:08, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

It works fine for me. --Leyo 23:22, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, now it does. The problem went away, whether through human, machine or divine intervention... -- P.T. Aufrette (talk) 03:25, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

May 3

Bradley Manning

Can anyone give me a quick rundown on the use of Military personnel portraits. Are these copyright protected or public domain? Is the image File:Bradley Manning US Army.jpg OK and if so can the date be secured?--Amadscientist (talk) 06:30, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

If taken by the military, yes they are PD. I uploaded the full version from the named source; the title of the document at Google Docs is "MANNING, BRADLEY PFC HEAD AND SHOULDERS 4-26-2012.jpg" and the EXIF date matches that. Either that date has been altered, or maybe it's a photo taken by the defense team (presumably still military though). Carl Lindberg (talk) 13:09, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks!--Amadscientist (talk) 06:49, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Old feautred templates for deletion

I want to propose {{Featured picture on}} and {{Featured picture}} for deletion but both seems to be used on a number of non-file namespaces (such as Commons:Templates). Suggestions? -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 13:33, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Furthermore future of {{WideCommonsWallpaper}}, {{CommonsWallpaper}} (redirect to {{Wallpaper}}), {{Wallpaper}} can also be considered. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 13:40, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Just leave them be, or mark them as deprecated? Seems more useful to preserve history for templates which were once widely used rather than delete them. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:12, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

They can remain and be marked with deprecated. That is a fine alternative. The issue is I want to update its remaining uses and remove them from documentation replacing with {{Assessments}} which is used in its place. I would actually prefer if someone else carries out these edits. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 15:16, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Also {{Featured picture on}} is protected so I cannot touch it. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 16:03, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I've unprotected. --99of9 (talk) 13:36, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

I have deprecated {{Featured picture on}} and {{Featured picture}} completely. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 14:56, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

May 4

Village Pump image

Per talk page I have modified the image and made it so that it alternated. It currently has only 7 possibilities which probably isn't random enough. The count perhaps should be increased. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 09:57, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Corrupted files after upload

I encountered a problem after an upload of 20+ files yesterday 3 mai 23:00 UTC. The files are loaded without any text and cannot be modified. It seems that there is a technical problem in the database concerning these files. For example : File:Eglise d'Escolives Ste Camille DSC 0059.JPG The files concerned : Special:ListFiles/Pline between 3 mai 2012 à 23:05 and 23:07. --Pline (talk) 10:08, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Our apologies. I'm assuming you're referring to the files that were uploaded between 21:05 and 21:07 UTC. That correlates with a transient outage caused (and quickly repaired) by this set of changes reflected in our server admin log. We made a change to external storage on May 3 (yesterday) that didn't go well at first, starting 21:05 UTC. Reverted those changes 21:09 UTC, and then reapplied the correct version 21:14 UTC. We had many reports of problems during that first 4 minute window over IRC. Sorry for the inconvenience. -- RobLa-WMF (talk) 17:09, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes this is it, sorry for the hour. The (?repaired) files are there but when I try to modify their description (add description, category, ...) i have the famous wikimedia "blue screen" "Our servers are currently experiencing a technical problem.. etc". What shall I do ? Upload the pictures with an other name ? Pline (talk) 17:37, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Comme le disait l'employé qui a effacé sa réponse, il semble que la solution serait de demander à un sysop de supprimer les fichiers, puis de les téléverser de nouveau. Mais, tant qu'à faire, à mon avis ce serait mieux de changer les noms des fichiers de toutes façons, car les portions de type «DSC 0000» sont plus irritantes qu'autre chose dans les titres, à moins que tu tiennes à les inclure pour quelque raison. Pour faire d'une pierre deux coups, la typographie de quelques titres pourrait être ajustée, par exemple «Pres de l etang de Baye DSC 0687.JPG» pourrait devenir «Près de l'étang de Baye.jpg». -- Asclepias (talk) 20:01, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Etant un peu de la partie ma demande a pour objectif de laisser une situation propre dans la base de données Commons (suppression ou remettre les fichiers d'aplomb). Les terminaisons en DSCnnnn me permettent de faire le lien avec mes fichiers et de m'assurer que je ne vais pas me heurter à une problématique de doublon. Pour les memes raisons (faire le lien avec la source), j'insère l'identifiant de la NASA dans les noms des fichiers chargés depuis leurs serveurs. Pline (talk) 22:05, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

We had this multiple times before. After deleting the image one can create a file description page. I would be grateful if the techs would block new uploads when making changes that could lead to those problems. But at least this time someone admitted that we are not talking about ghosts. It's getting better. Thank you.

Pline, could you please tell me which license to use. I will use a batch-tool to replace the no-license tag with the right license. Thank you. -- RE rillke questions? 20:51, 4 May 2012 (UTC).

I use cc-by-sa-3.0. Thank you. Pline (talk) 22:05, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Copyrights on MIDI?

Are there copyrights in MIDI arrangments of public domain sheet music that was written in the early 20th century and earlier? Is a MIDI file legally considered a 'recorded' version of a song? The reason being is that I have a CGI video that I wish to upload to commons, but would like to know the commons legal policy is on the 1882 midi soundtrack I used for it.--Canoe1967 (talk) 15:20, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

A MIDI file itself is not a recording but an encoding, and if the MIDI file simply represents encoding of a public domain work with little or no new creative content, I would guess that would not establish a new copyright in the US or other countries with a similar threshold of originality. However, it's possible -- perhaps even likely -- that in countries with a lower standard based on the "sweat of the brow" doctrine (e.g. UK and Australia) such a MIDI file would get a new copyright. cmadler (talk) 16:51, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

There are no copyrights marked anywhere in the original midi files I found on the net. I have mixed up different tracks from different midi files as well. I can't see the bass and rhythm tracks having issues, they seem like common cadences that are probably available all over. I didn't use the solo improvistation track from one, just in case it has issues. Most of the other tracks I had to clean up quite a bit. I think they were recorded from a midi input instruments and the musicians' timing and notes were off quite a bit. To get tones I just adjusted the notes by ear. I adusted the note timing, spacing, and length with the numbers so all notes match. The result is quite different from the original four midi files I found. I wrote at least four more tracks, and only used one lead, one rhythm, and one bass track from the others. I had to do major corrections to the lead I used as well. I may upload my tracks as a midi file incase others want to further my work.--Canoe1967 (talk) 17:52, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

A MIDI is not a recording, so the issues with sound recording copyrights would not come up. It would be a derivative work of the musical composition, but if that is PD, then that is not an issue. At that point, it comes down to if the act of making a MIDI from a composition involves its own creativity -- I'm not familiar enough with the process to really know. If it does (and things like making an engraving from a drawing, or making a mezzotint from a painting, have been ruled as having their own creativity in the U.S.) then there may be a copyright on the MIDI files, and your work would be derivative of theirs. That's for U.S. law... the UK has more of a "sweat of the brow" approach which makes something like a MIDI more likely to be copyrightable, and Canadian law is somewhere in between I think. If making a MIDI is pretty much rote without any originality (e.g. different people would come up with basically the exact same file given the same source, i.e. the entries in the MIDI file are completely determined by the notes in the composition) then the MIDI may count as a "copy" rather than a derivative work having its own copyright. I really don't know. Copyright notices have not been required in the U.S. since 1989, so lack of notice on MIDIs distributed since then doesn't really mean anything. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:06, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

I have since found 10-15 compositions/arrangements all over the net. The creator of the best one seems to have disappeared. More than one site ask if anyone knows how to contact him to use his version on their site and/or copyright status of it. One site that is adamant about only having PD midis has it listed as PD. I sent that site an email to confirm the status. I will give her a while to email back before I edit much further.--Canoe1967 (talk) 18:39, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

There is no case law on whether a MIDI has any copyrightability above that of the original work, but in my opinion its creation inevitably involves creative choices such as the selection of the MIDI instruments to use for each track, changes due to limitations in the format such as the number of instruments to include/changes to rhythm, etc. There are many distinct-sounding MIDI instruments that can be reasonably applied to a part written for a single classical instrument. I would much rather see us accept only MIDIs where the MIDI author released all their original contributions under a free license (ideally CC0, to match the public domain status of the underlying work). Dcoetzee (talk) 08:44, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Category:Journal de Bruxelles nr 131

I uploaded a 1800 newspaper. Category:Journal de Bruxelles nr 131. I have added newspaper category, but the content stil has to be categorised. (also places mentioned). Have fun. I already found naval commissions given bij Bonaparte Napoleon.Smiley.toerist (talk) 15:47, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

May 5

Lester Piggott

Hi,

Please could you give me some information as how to get in touch with Lester Piggott as he is my fathers cousin (Tom Cannon)and I do not know the first place to look , I hope you can give me a lead on this. My e mail address is <redacted> Regards

Sandra Cannon-Donowa

Hi there. We do not hold email addresses here, so cannot help you. All I can suggest is that you see if he has a website and contact him through that. I have also removed your own email address to prevent it being abused by spammers. Cheers. Rodhullandemu (talk) 12:58, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Just a long shot, but you could try emailing the pub near the stables that I think he owned.

• http://www.whitelionnewmarket.co.uk/index.htm is their website with email. I can't find a website for Lestor or the stables.--Canoe1967 (talk) 19:19, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

May 6

Slow uploads

I haven't been able to upload large files to the Commons for months. Even small files (2-3M) can take an hour or more. The larger ones take many hours, sometimes overnight, then crash in the end. Are other people having this problem or is it just me? Dovi (talk) 15:34, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

• I had a similar problem, and on two occasions even got an error in the end and had to restart the process.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:54, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
• Have you tried this:Commons:Tools/Commonist?--Canoe1967 (talk) 16:20, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

I've commented on Bugzilla: 31610. Please try Commons:Chunked uploads specifically for large file uploads; we're not aware of any general upload performance issues (in testing, I can easily get 400KB/s upload performance on my local network).--Eloquence (talk) 19:41, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

If chunked uploads don't work for you, I can arrange an alternate means of uploading via an intermediary - for example you could upload to my EC2 server via resumable SFTP and I could upload quickly from there. Let me know if needed. Dcoetzee (talk) 12:26, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

What's the matter with video downloads?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T38577

Here's the second thread on the Computing Refdesk about this in the past few days. Presuming the problem is unfixable (like the U.S. in general, WMF seems to be losing the ability to innovate things other than new ways to track, control, and punish people), can we arrange to put instructions about how to use a download manager to power through the lost connections into the general display for any image, or any large image? Wnt (talk) 15:35, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

This is likely related to the recent switch of Squid to Varnish, which has poorer streaming support for large files in its latest release. You should generally be able to obtain these files by means of a direct download, although your attempt may time out and you may need to try again. See Bugzilla: 36577 for progress on this issue.--Eloquence (talk) 21:17, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Site-wide layout issue

Layout is an important way of notifying users. Just bu looking at the style people should be able to identify the message. {{Style formatting template list}} displays a list of them, each a separate template.

We currently have License templates and other templates sharing the identical layout. For instance {{PD-Layout}} and {{Restriction-Layout}} displays an identical scheme. This is not a good idea as one is meant to be used on issues where there are "restrictions" and perhaps should have a color with a red-tint in essence saying "watch out!", conversely PD scheme means "Hey you can go nuts with this" which is why users may dismiss the restriction template after seeing the PD colors.

Also, having so many templates for layout with near identical code is difficult to maintain. License and warning templates should in general look identical with style differences. For instance we probably want a standard in terms of cellspacing and cellpadding. We lack this. For this reason I have unified more common styles under {{Layout}}.

{{Layout}} can be used to discuss and develop different schemes. Also some style values (such as cellspacing and cellpadding) can be standardized. I haven't attempted this prior to a discussion.

-- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 18:12, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Layout templates have two purposes:

• provide uniform look to children templates
• allow you to track different types of templates and files using them.

For example if you want to find PD files in some category all you have to do is to use CatScan2 to find files transcluding {{PD-Layout}} which are in that category. That is also the reason some of the layout templates are identical - they started as a single template, but were split for tracking purposes. That is also why I do not like {{Layout}}, since it does not allow easy tracking through CatScan or toolserver queries. The number of different layout templates should not be large, I think we have about 10 of them, and I agree with you that they should be producing different looking styles for each type of message. --Jarekt (talk) 12:09, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

It is possible to leave a signature translclusion for that purpose. Also, categories can be used. We have far more than 10 layouts actually. For instance deletion templates have their own custom style. I feel all file templates (License, Warnings, Deletion notices and etc) should have the same width, padding, spacing etc. The only difference should be borders and backgrounds in terms of style. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 13:03, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Notice for countries without copyright agreements with the United States

• Afghanistan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iran, Iraq, Kiribati, Nauru, Palau, San Marino, São Tomé and Príncipe, the Seychelles, Somalia, Turkmenistan and Tuvalu

{{Non-Berne Signatory}} Per this discussion I invite anyone who knows anything about the copyright status of these countries to add the relevant notes to the relevant line. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 20:56, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

May 7

Cookie checking during login

Recently when I've tried logging in from my mobile, I've received an error message saying that I haven't got cookies enabled. The problem is, I do, and have checked this. I've tried turning them off and on, clearing cache, cookie and all browser history. Anyone else having similar problems? --99of9 (talk) 11:25, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Remedy for wrongful use of the spam blacklist

Since it has been about three weeks since a couple of sites were wrongfully added to the spam blacklist, and that general consensus showed that the sites should not appear on that list, when will someone actually remove the sites from the spam blacklist? -- Thekohser (talk) 15:37, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

I was starting to wonder the same thing. cmadler (talk) 16:45, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

In Bosnian and Serbocroatian, Dobrodosli is written as one word, while in other Balkan languages as two words

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T38541

The requested change is to make this "Dobro došli" -- ☠MarkAHershberger☢(talk)☣ 17:21, 7 May 2012 (UTC)