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Village pump (Archives)

2004: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 2005: 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 2006: 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 2007: 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 2008: 52 | 53 | 54 |

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

[edit] 5 June

[edit] Problems with User:Juan Miguel

This user uploads images without source or without copyright information. He was asked (by me and others, even in spanish by Anna) to add the required info but he refused to do so. He also almost always remove nld/nsd tags. It'll be nice if an Admin looks into his contributions and deletes stuff without source or copyright or with questionable source. --Denniss 02:20, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I blocked this user for 1 day. Please add contributions to Commons:Deletion requests. --EugeneZelenko 02:33, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Calendars/fundraising

While it's a bit early in the year, I think we should think about putting together some calendars to sell as Wikimedia merchandise in November and December. I frequently look at our FPs and think, "This is a completely perfect calendar shot to stare at for a whole month." As well as several generic kind of "beautiful landscapes/animals/portraits/science" calendars, we could also make some specialised by nation for example (different language, different number notations, different holidays).

Aside from the fun of choosing images (the only restriction I can think of is that we should 100% sure on the license, and also favour work created by Wikimedians over random US Govt or whatever photos), the only two things we need to do are:

create the month (or week, etc - could even have a daily calendar) representations
find a printer service that suits us (Wikimedia). It would be cool if there was something CafePress except for calendars. I'll look into it.

We could also offer to "sell" computer desktop backgrounds, say a batch of 10 for US$5 or something, pick the very best by theme and offer it as a downloadable ZIP or whatever. And maybe put together screensavers.

I also think it would be cool if we had like Commons:Calendars where we offer generic calendar templates for people to create their own. The idea of "buying" one, though, is really to save you that hassle and also just sweeten your donation, which is the real point. :)

Anyway just thought I'd throw that out there, keep it in the back of your mind as you admire the amazing wonders of the Commons. :) --pfctdayelise (translate?) 06:09, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

OK, actually CafePress already does calendars! :) monthly, yearly (one image). They also do several types of posters/prints, as well as mousepads, journals and greeting cards. This is a good start... pfctdayelise (translate?) 06:17, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

ALSO we could work with wikiquote for one of those inspirational.insipid "quote of the day/week/[etc]" type products :) --pfctdayelise (translate?) 06:38, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

+1 Good idea. Our projects have more possibilites than thoses used. Platonides 20:16, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Uploading Pictures

How do I do it?

First visit Special:Userlogin, then Commons:Licensing and Commons:Project scope, and when you understand the implications of those pages, Special:Upload. pfctdayelise (translate?) 15:04, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Commons:First steps is also a very much recomended tutorial (not just for newcommers only ;-). Arnomane 15:08, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 6 June

[edit] HELP!!!

How do you put a helpme banner on your user page? Scotty jasper2000 21:49, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

To get help, you should post at the Commons:Help desk. I fixed the Babel templates on your user page. You're going to have to be slightly more specific for anything else you want help with. :) pfctdayelise (translate?) 00:34, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bug with picture metadata Image:KikkaNavyBase.JPG

This black and white picture of a world war II aircraft, probably taken in the 1940s has a category listed as "Images created with Canon PowerShot S110. From the caption of the photo, it appears that the canon was used to take a picture of the original US Navy picture

It was a nice idea, but Computers are still to dumb to allow such automatic categorization. Is there a way to turn off these auto added categorizations?

-Mak 01:16, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I have noticed these appearing just recently too. And I agree they're not very useful. Unless anyone thinks it's a great idea to keep them, maybe I will open a bug request to get rid of them again. pfctdayelise (translate?) 01:39, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree. The images I uploaded recently are categorized under Images created with S1. --Tarawneh 03:31, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Hm, see Category talk:Camera type, apparently some people like them :/ --pfctdayelise (translate?) 05:28, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Shutterbugs definately are interested in all sorts of arcane information. If this can't be shut off in situations where it is clearly wrong, then it is not a difference of opinion on the merit of including such obscure info. When the content becomes factually incorrect, then it doesn't belong. Perhaps it should be shut off until such time as it can be selectively turned off in cases where the metadata is wrong. The only way for me to correct the data now is to download the image, nuke the metadata packets, then re- upload the image.

That's a huge waste of time, bandwidth, and storage, to edit out 10 bytes of incorrect information. -Mak 08:14, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

~~bugzilla:6229~~ bugzilla:3402, marked "resolved (worksforme)". Apparently resolved due to the presence of MediaWiki:Metadata-help in the metadata box. If you want to take this up further, I suggest you reopen/comment on this bug. pfctdayelise (translate?) 07:55, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Hm I never knew we had Commons:Manipulating meta data... (no easy answer, though) pfctdayelise (translate?)

Yeah, it is real real complicated.

Commons says this picture was taken in 2006 with a Canon Powershot- guess it must be so, because people can easily change things on Wikipedia if they are wrong. And Wikipedia folks make no exceptions or excuses about propagating false information. Right?

-Mak 18:40, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

May it be a photo taken (with Canon etc.) from part of an old poster, photo or book? --Jollyroger 17:26, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I think we figured that much out. The second sentence of this thread reads:

"From the caption of the photo, it appears that the canon was used to take a picture of the original US Navy picture."

-Mak 23:45, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah sorry I lost that passage. --Jollyroger 11:20, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Typeface samples

Many of the samples in this category are proprietary fonts that are covered by copyrights. Is it correct that all of the images are declared as PD? JeremyA 03:09, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

(Not related, but AFAICT Arial is still a copyrighted font. :P) pfctdayelise (translate?) 03:31, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

OK, I did a little more research--it seems that an interpretation of US copyright law is that fonts designed in the US are not subject to copyright (fonts designed elsewhere may be). JeremyA 03:45, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Afaik, fonts as such are not copyrightable in Europe either. While font files may be copryighted (like programs), and you need a license to use them, the result of such use (i.e. a rendered text) is unencumbered by right the font's createor my have. Otherwise, you could not use them for any text you want to publish; that would not make sense, it defeats the purpose of fonts. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 09:37, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cool new magic word

{{#language:es}} --> Español
{{#language:zh}} --> 中文
{{#language:zh-tw}} --> ‪中文(台灣)‬
{{#language:he}} --> עברית
{{#language:th}} --> ไทย
{{#language:vi}} --> Tiếng Việt
{{#language:en}} --> English
{{#language:nds}} --> Plattdüütsch

OK, you get the idea. :) I think we will use this a lot! --pfctdayelise (translate?) 03:54, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Yay! They finally implemented that!? Now, all my works go to waste, but I don't mind at all XD —UED77 04:18, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Could you please explain what this is and how it works? Thank you. Longbow4u 09:27, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

It's a new magic word created by the MediaWiki developers. When you put in the language code, it shows the name of that language IN that language. The bit on the left is what you type, and the bit after the arrow is what it produces.

It's useful for providing links to translations. If you have an English page with a Chinese translation, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to link to the Chinese translation by saying "Chinese". They might not well know even what that means. (You can also link to translations by the language code, but this can be quite obscure for monolingual people not familiar with Wikimedia.) Whereas they will instantly be able to recognise the word for their language, IN their language. See: {{#language:de}} --> Deutsch makes more sense than putting "German". pfctdayelise (translate?) 10:12, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Hm but at the language links we already have native names. Where do we use English language terminology much? We just use in some places ISO-Codes in order to have a more lean interface. The only idea coming into my mind would be a replacement of the zillions of language templates expanding not nothing special and a secret CSS-class known to the inner circle (let us say 0.1 % of all users) and some potential machine readability (but the text would have to be sourounded by some kind of start and stop signs). Arnomane 15:49, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I would like it, if the information template would show me a German version, if I have German settings enabled, or a Chinese version, if I have a Chinese setting, for the subject of each line (Description, Source, Date, Author, other version ->Beschreibung, Quelle, Datum, Autor, andere Version etc.). Or if this Template is shown inside the German wikipedia, as imported picture, to show the German version of the template. I understand that this is probably hard to do. This magic word is for other things, apparently. I would like to see an example of use, an implementation in a real image description page or another Commons page, to possibly imitate the use. Anyway, thank you for your reply, pfctdayelise. I am a little concerned about the syntax, which might be a little bit too complicated for average users - so this is probably only for hard core Commoners. Longbow4u 21:40, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I know WE already have native names, but even on the Donations page they are using language codes as links!! (Note: well, now they're not... oh well, I take credit for this since I asked them to update it ;)) To Longbow4u: this magic word really benefits anonymous users, since we can't know what their "language setting" should be. pfctdayelise (translate?) 21:46, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

OK, with the diff-link I see how it works. Perhaps we could use it in {{Template:De}}, too, for example? Longbow4u 22:24, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

That's... actually...a brilliant idea! pfctdayelise (translate?) 04:41, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Done, see {{description}}. The lang templates (i.e. {{de}}) now show the lang name instead the lang code. Sanbec ✉ 10:09, 8 June 2006 (UTC) ~~Note: You must purge the language template to see the change. I only purged {{de}} and {{es}}~~ Automatically purged.

Ummmmm, many language templates are no coherents. ~~I'll fix it~~, no I don't understand the four parameters of {{description}}. Sanbec ✉ 10:48, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Which ones?? zh-hant and zh-hans won't work because they weren't defined by MediaWiki. MediaWiki uses zh-cn (==zh-hans) and zh-tw (==zh-hant). pfctdayelise (translate?) 15:16, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Those names that displaying are defined in languages/Names.php in Subversion (see [1]). --Shinjiman 05:11, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] No thumbnails?

I uploaded a file Image:TRTS Route Map Future with Taoyuan MRT.png, but the thumbnails does not appear (see Category:Taipei_MRT) , and I cannot insert it correctly in a page (see User:Littleb).

I tried to upload again (Image:TRTS Route Map Future.png) but still failed. What's wrong? --Littleb 12:32, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

The image is very big - since scaling it would take a lot of time and memory, potentially bogging down the servers, it's not thumbnails but transfered "as is" to the browser (in other cases, thumbnailing is tried but fails because it hits a limit - then you see a broken or empty thumbnail). The solution is to upload a smaller version of the image after the original (so the full size is available in the upload history). The rendering limit for PNG is around 12 Megapixels, i think. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 13:48, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I uploaded again with resolution 3480x2560 and it works fine. Thanks :) --Littleb 14:16, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Initiative proposal: collecting scores (music)

Unfortunately very little scores are available on the internet. Even Wikimedia Commons has practically none by yet. To my mind this is an unnecessary deficit. Please correct me if I'm wrong but I imagine the copyright for scores is the same as for literary works. If so, there should be no problem providing self-typed copies of scores on WP, because many famous composers are dead for more than 70 years yet. I do not know the copyright in detail but according to http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/categories/4 and other sites the compositions of Beethoven or Mozart for example are not copyrighted.

Therefore I propose to start an initiative for collecting and reproducing sheet music.

Falk

Before you do this, please check at wikisource: if such material is ultimately not more appropriate there (obviously images can be uploaded here and used there, though). pfctdayelise (translate?) 21:39, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

The music in itself is not copyrighted, but the scores themselves are very much so. Worse, the music industry enforces this copyright very strictly. However, there is the free mutopiaproject, which writes and collects free scores. This is done with the cross platform free w:GNU Lilypond program. Perhaps that should help you. Longbow4u 21:51, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

That's a really cool project. Hm, I wonder if they are interested in collaborating (well, I wonder if there is enough interest in Wikimedia to collaborate). We could allow .ly files I think, if there was demand - they do PDFs as well. And they only license CC-BY, CC-BY-SA and public domain! So in theory we could upload all their material here. ;) Lilypond .ly files can also generate MIDIs! pfctdayelise (translate?) 07:25, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Also, Lilypond outputs SVGs ^_^ pfctdayelise (translate?) 07:38, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Also :) WikiTeX extension supports Lilypond notation, so you can write it directly in wiki pages, see also bugzilla:189. And Category:Mutopia - we already have some of their stuff! pfctdayelise (translate?) 07:43, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 7 June

[edit] MediaWiki:Anoneditwarning

If you are an admin, please have a look at my message posted a few days ago on Commons:Bistro#MediaWiki:Anoneditwarning to add French and other languages. Teofilo 06:54, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

The formatting is slightly different (p span and classes and stuff...). Which should we use?

Also, I think we should use our new {{#language}} magic words! (Did you see this, Teofilio? I think you will like it. A few topics up.) pfctdayelise (translate?) 07:11, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I dislike this anon-edit wraning. Better we would simply drop it entirely. It is one of the interface strings we just don't need and that create clutter. Arnomane 08:12, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Isn't it a warning that (A) they're not logged in (if they have an account, it might be by accident) and (B) a piece of information about them is going to be recorded for time immemorial in our wiki? Plus, if it's half a page long, maybe it will encourage people to log in. pfctdayelise (translate?) 08:20, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh no I don't want to convince (anon) IP's by pain. ;-) Yes it gets only shown if you're not logged in. Indeed their IP will be stored for eternity but that's happening almost everywhere. The contrast is: We are so friendly and directly show them that we do so. ;-) Anyways as long it is one line I can live with it but I think we generally should reduce such warnings in size as much as possible (more and more general warnings don't get noticed more often than single precise ones). Arnomane 07:43, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Menu translation for id

Hi. I've put the translation for menu on left. Please update.

Done. You're always welcome to translate the content pages too...or even update the main page...or set up a CommonsTicker for id.wp... pfctdayelise (translate?) 08:06, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! I've updated the main page for Indonesian language. We've already setup CommonsTicker on id.wp :) I will try to get people who speaks Indonesian to translate content pages on Commons. -- IvanLanin ♫ 08:17, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] About User:Brya

I donnot know why User:Brya deleted all other languages descriptions in plantae galleries and said "update". Is there a rule of that? I think that descriptions on pages would help google them use other languages better than only links existed. --Fanghong 08:10, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Problem with user Richard Arthur Norton

I have stumbled several times on Richard Arthur Norton's contributions http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=Richard+Arthur+Norton+%281958-+%29 He is, as far I gathered, uploadin in Commons his whole genealogical tree. But for this kind of things already exists http://www.findagrave.com. Yesterday night I stumbled on http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Jarvis_Andrew_Lattin "(1853-1941) Vendor of Fruits and Vegetables on Long Island Railroad"... How encyclopedical!!!! May I create a page about my granny too, then?
As if it were not enough, his pages have all disproportionately long texts (dozens and dozens of lines), which should be placed in Wikipedia proper, not on Commons (provided that anybody be interested in Mr Norton's dad and uncles). Could any adm give a check to the Opera Omnia of this contributor, explain him what Commons is supposed to be, and remove Mr Norton's not-so-encyclopedical relatives?
Best wishes --G.dallorto 10:30, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Note that this user has been blocked indefinitely. pfctdayelise (translate?) 10:37, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

OK. And what about the entries he created? Shall we keep them? --G.dallorto 11:11, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, I have been moving them to User:Richard_Arthur_Norton_(1958-_)/pagename (making them subpages in his userspace) and deleting the main namespace RDR as inappropriate. Just because I am not keen on deleting factual information that is possible useful to someone in some universe. I haven't seen any evidence any 'Wikimorial' or any of the other projects he claims will spring into existence and thus validate these articles, actually will.

He still has another 50 odd articles in the main namespace so if you want to go ahead and move them, feel free. I just do it when I run across them.

Also note the fact that I haven't deleted them should not be seen as condoning continuing editing of them. In fact I expressly don't. If you notice anonymous editing of these articles feel free to semi-protect them.

You could nominate them on COM:DEL if you really wanted, but eh... is it worth the effort, hassle and drama? I figure just get them out of the road (the main namespace), that's good enough. pfctdayelise (translate?) 11:51, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

There is a point when raw historical information is not just family fluff, but meaningful. The UK has archived many audio recordings and letters of soldiers who went off to have their lives thrown away by generals who seemed incapable of learning. They talk about chores they left undone at home, financial affairs- some pretty mundane. The UK government didn't think these scribblings were worthless. I think that if some family archivist has sorted through and presented information that shows some connection to something larger- eg. in this case has some sociological value- like, showing the transition of agrarian to industrial economy in NY state in the early 20th century, then it has value. I agree that commons should not be a dumping ground for family archives, but such "slices of life" are important. -Mak 17:20, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Menu URL for Indonesian language

Hi, please update:

MediaWiki:Welcome-url/id to "Commons:Selamat datang"
MediaWiki:Contact-url/id to "Commons:Hubungi kami"
MediaWiki:Sitesupport-url/id to "Wikimedia:Penggalangan dana"

Thx. -- IvanLanin ♫ 12:14, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Did the first two. The third doesn't exist and shouldn't have a Wikimedia: prefix anyway. Commons:Penggalangan dana? Help:Penggalangan dana? No... pfctdayelise (translate?) 12:32, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Thx. For sitesupport-url, it will be translated by the interwiki parser to [2]. Please see w:id:MediaWiki:Sitesupport-url. -- IvanLanin ♫ 14:57, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Wow, tricky! :) pfctdayelise (translate?) 15:40, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion Guidelines revamp

After I reorganized C:SD a few weeks ago, I was quite tired and neglected to update Commons:Deletion Guidelines. I made up for that yesterday, when I removed all mentions of {{redundant}} and updated it to reflect {{duplicate}}. I also added a couple of things about speedy deletion, but I am planning on rewriting the entire speedy delete section in the coming days. Just in case the changes went unnoticed, I would like to call it to your attention, and ask for some peer review, questions, and comments. Thanks :) —UED77 13:28, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm just very confused, so sorry for all my stupid questions.

If redundant and duplicate are not the same, why is {{deleted duplicate}} mentioned under "Redundancy". Is superseded redundant or duplicate or neither?

{{Duplicate}} says "After replacing all instances with the preferred image, the others should be speedily deleted" (that is, "delete pages, images and other files 'on sight'")." Yet I have been instructed to overwrite the image with a cross (not delete) and use {{deleted duplicate}}. Deleted duplicate template asks to wait for a month. (And I'm not an admin, I couldn't delete anyway.)

The 4th case mentioned is "duplicate" but detailed guidelines has "redundancy".

-Samulili 08:25, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tweaking the upload form

I'm sorry if this the wrong place but I did search on Commons but couldn't find the answer. I find the "Description" field in the upload form a bit painful: it's too large (too much cols) and way too small (too few rows) for my taste. Is there any way I could change that, in a monobook.css perhaps? TIA, Jastrow 15:05, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

You mean the actual input box? I guess that would be a MediaWiki setting. You could make a bugzilla request to the developers to change it (or at least suggest that they change it). It does seem quite wide. It is probably so few rows in order to keep the whole page on one screen (no vertical scroll bar). pfctdayelise (translate?) 15:29, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you can configure it in your personal css file, the field's ID is wpUploadDescription. Something like this should do:

      #wpUploadDescription { 
         width: 20ex;
         height: 12ex;
      }

HTH -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 15:48, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Duesentrieb, you're my personal hero! Thanks so much. Jastrow 16:00, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] StringFunctions on Commons

StringFunctions expose PHP functions like strpos, strlen etc. A stable version has been out since last month. What's the timeline for enabling this at Commons? -Mak 17:05, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

What would you use it for? These decisions are typically made by m:User:Brion VIBBER.--Eloquence 18:14, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

There's no timeline; for one thing we've never heard of it. :) --Brion VIBBER 07:24, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Search engines... again

Has any recent progress been made regarding search engines' ability — or rather, the lack thereof — to index images found on Commons? I propose composing an official request by the Commons community as a whole; an approval from the Foundation would greatly be beneficial. It would be better to contact more than one search engine, hoping at least one will implement it, which will hopefully serve to urge all others to do so as well. —UED77 23:01, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Realistically, that's not going to happen; the web is many millions of times larger than just Wiki*edia. At some point in the future we'll need to accomodate this with changes to the system. --Brion VIBBER 05:39, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Wiki*edia is not nothing, though. We surely have some clout. We can surely at least freaking ask. Is there any timeline to "at some point in the future"? In the meantime, Wiki*edia search freaking sucks and Google Images is much poorer without our content. pfctdayelise (translate?) 11:02, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I am bold. I will now write to google, yahoo and msn officials until I get feedback from them. :p Arnomane 11:17, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I asked Google about this last month and, no, it's not feasible for them to change the spidering behavior in this way. On the other hand it is feasible for us to change the way we name image pages, and we'll likely want to do this in the future anyway. --Brion VIBBER 07:19, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, tell them the community stands behind you like one contributor. And thanks again for your intervention in favor of InstantCommons on the foundation mailing list. Longbow4u 11:49, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

NB. previous discussion here: Commons:Village_pump_archive-29#Googling_Images_revisited pfctdayelise (translate?) 04:51, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I didn't notice this good question:

I assume Google Sitemaps have already been considered and rejected. Just in case, I'm mentioning them. JesseW 06:09, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Has anyone tried a sitemap with a few explicit references to image page urls? -Mak 09:28, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

We already generate Google Sitemaps. --Brion VIBBER 07:19, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What about a newspaper?

I was watching the RFA page, and saw that just few people vote. I think that's because people don't even know what happens. It happens something that people discuss about a particular template o similar, in the template talking page, and still nobody knows anything, just if people go to watch the RC. Italian, english, german Wikipedias have created a kind of newspaper which reports links to main events happening on Wikipedia. The model I like is the italian one. Look it: it's good. Why don't we create something similar to put in the Main Page? Bye Bye --ßøuñçê Y2K 20:34, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

If you are well informed and active on Commons, please use the idea and implement it. It sounds great. Siebrand 16:39, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd be willing to help you, Bouncey. I agree that there should be some way to disseminate information more efficiently. Commons as it is is especially prone to long lapses into inactivity. —UED77 17:21, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Starting with something requiring fairly little maintenance like w:en:Wikipedia:Announcements in a layout like w:nl:Wikipedia:Mededelingen and linking to it from either the main pages and/or recent changes may be a way to get people up to speed with recent events quickly. Siebrand 17:34, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Good idea. I think we should try that each news is explained in 1 o 2 sentences with a relevant link, so that translation is fast and easily made. --Javier Carro 18:08, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bot for "Category:Deleted duplicates - unknown month"

In Category:Deleted duplicates - unknown month it says

Images in this category don't have the "month" parameter given on {{deleted duplicate}}. Please replace {{deleted duplicate|other image name}} with {{subst:deldup|other image name}}

I was going to start doing that, but then I realized that using a trained monkey for it would be a waste of intellectual capabilities. So this is a request for some nice person to create a bot to go through that category. -Samulili 14:26, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I suggest you make this suggestion on Commons:Bots, it does sound perfect for a bot. pfctdayelise (translate?) 10:13, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. I will. -Samulili 18:49, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Spanish (or whatever) eventhough I don't want it

How did this happen? Is this a known bug? --KAMiKAZOW 17:21, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Purging MediaWiki:Monobook.js, which contains the localized strings, might help. Strange things like this have happened before, and one possible reason can be that the cached copy of the file on one of the squids is incorrectly saved in another language. Or, if this happens, a hard refresh (locally, Ctrl+Shift+R in Firefox) might help. —UED77 17:30, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, they're the spanish ones. But i have seen it (with the spanish interface) in polsky, english... Platonides 21:39, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Congratulations

Congratulations for every members of Commons. I am really annoyed and I communicate to you that the Wikipedia in Catalan has lost its better user due to your continued blockages to Walden69. :´-( Pasqual (ca)

I hope it doesn't sound snotty, but a look at User_talk:Walden69 shows that Walden69 has created a lot of work for people cleaning up after him. I'm sorry to hear he's not working for the Catalan Wikipedia any more, but for the Commons, maybe it is for the better if he doesn't bother to learn some basic rules. --Fb78 18:05, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Agree with Fb78. I hope that you can work things out with Walden69, but we have to follow copyright and other policies around here.--Eloquence 18:13, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

It was my tribute to him. I know the rules, and I think that his behavior isn't logical nor reasonable. Probably he has other questions that he didn't tell, but he accuse (people of) Commons. :´-( Pasqual (ca)

It's always more easy to blame other people then change own behavior... --EugeneZelenko 19:40, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

That talk page is incredible. How more patient can we be? How many times can we say, "If you're not sure, ask first"? How many times can we say, "You have to understand the licensing requirements. No one has a choice about this"? And how many more times will we be attacked by local projects when we are already bending over backwards? Is there some giant disconnect, that local projects don't understand an image copyvio is just as important as a text copyvio? I am sure they would go out of their way to remove text copyvios, so how about a bit of help with the images? pfctdayelise (translate?) 06:15, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Yesterday I found Image:Jumper.jpg, where Walden uploaded a photo of somebody called John Jumper although there was already a photo with that name, a photo of a piece of clothing. I think WikiCommons has been patient enough with this kind of vandalism. Thuresson 09:57, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Commons Journal

have a look here :) --ßøuñçê Y2K 23:29, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh, wow. It's quite nice, and I especially love the sidebar on the right! May I build upon your design and tweak a few things in my userspace? —UED77 23:33, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

“Text is available under GNU Free Documentation License”. Yes, you may. Btw, nice design Bounce. Kjetil _r 23:44, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Looks great! For i10n purposes I think it would be best if content was seperated from design as much as possible. Could those perfectionising this feature please make some templates for header, (footer), and news item, so that adding messages is as transparant and easy as possible, without having to dig through a lot of wiki code? Siebrand 06:24, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Am I the only one that sees the text heading overlapping itself? Not a good look. (FF 1.5.0.4 on Windows XP) Also it would be good if it could adopt the current colour scheme used in the main page, commons:welcome and help:contents etc. Also I hope you plan to keep it updated :P Ideally I would have thought the Village pump itself has this kind of function... pfctdayelise (translate?) 06:34, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I've just bettered a little bit the page, the colors are the same of those in the Main Page of Commons. I think there are all main news and discussions (adminship, featured pictures). I've also added the "how to use" link in the right, to help people add their announcements. If you have got other ideas.. --ßøuñçê Y2K 12:50, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mailing list discussion - appoint a legal adviser?

Hello. I recently suggested that the Commons should ask the Wikimedia Legal department to appoint a "Commons liaison officer" (CLO) to help us solve the more difficult copyright debates that frequently recur. Because it is very hard when most of us know next to nothing about copyright, and yet we are trying to make these difficult decisions that are not easy even for copyright lawyers. So I think we should ask for some permanent professional help.

First I want to check if the Commons community thinks this is a good idea or not. So please reply either on the mailing list or to this topic. (For long comments please use the mailing list, NOT the village pump.)

I also made a post recently about how the Commons has a backlog of around 12,000 images waiting to be deleted - and this is just the tagged images. If you have some ideas about how we might solve this then you are welcome to comment on that too. (And I don't think "just appoint more admins") is really going to cut it.)

Thanks, pfctdayelise (translate?) 08:23, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you on having an adviser expert on international copyright law. That would solve many headaches to Commons. I think it would be worthy to pay a salary for that. And, about the backlog you mentioned, I think that most of the users in other Wikimedia projects who "throw" their wikimedia content here and go away are not aware of that problem. An easy thing we can do is to write a press release and distribute it in different Wikimedia press websites: Kurier, Wikizine, Wikipedia Signpost, giving short advices on how they can cooperate, avoiding that their images are deleted, encouraging at the same time more active participation on image deletion process. --Javier Carro 12:04, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

It would make sense for a professional or group of professionals who have spent years studying this to come forward and assist. However, whether or not a permanent position can be established would depend on the amount of time any person is willing to donate. It is certainly a good idea, but whether or not it is feasible is another question. --tomf688 (talk - email) 14:26, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I am very sceptical about that idea. At the moment we enjoy almost complete freedom of action. If there is a lawyer, you can expect him to be very sceptical about almost every feature decision we take. That is his job. You can see how m:InstantCommons is not going anywhere at the moment, precisely about (imho unfounded) legal concerns (see mailing list). The responsibility for copyright infringement lies on the people using Commons content, not ours. If we employ a lawyer, his most probable professional opinion would be to shut down operations completely because of possible legal liabilities. Lawyers are notoriously uncreative. So yes, this would be a very bad idea. We should stick to the motto "notice and take down", and make ourselves as an archive ~~imprescindible~~/indispensable/. That s the best possible defense while maintaining creativity. Greetings, Longbow4u 15:49, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

WMF already has lawyers! It's just that we don't really use them. (And I don't think it's legal concerns holding back InstantCommons, BTW.) The problem is half the time we don't really know if something IS a violation or not. It's not straightforward. Of course, the simple cases we would continue to solve ourselves. (And I don't know what imprescindible is.) pfctdayelise (translate?) 22:29, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

The type lawyer who is versed in "international" (read around the globe) intellectual property law is not available as volunteer for wikipedia. Sorry. You can get some type of lawyers, but what they can do almost anyone can do with a little bit of common sense. If a picture is less than 100 kb ("optimized for websites") and the uploader does not provide source information about author, making of, etc., instead puts it under public domain, then it is with 99,5% probability stolen. There are a lot of images of that type. How can you blame people, e.g. in latin america, for not value-ing Intellectual Property? Some do. But in most cases, they could not afford to buy stuff produced in the West anyway, because it is so expensive. Also, they usually do not suffer from persecution, like filesharers in USA or Germany do. How could they care about copyright? That is a difficult topic even in the West. Of course you can invest big dollars in lawyers, but I cannot imagine a lawyer spending multiple hours in the "Category:Copyright violation" and debating single pictures. He will most probably say: "delete the entire category without further ado, and pay my bill of 2000 $." That is it. I wanted to say "indispensable" instead of inprescindible. Sorry I missed the word. English is not my native language. Of course people say the InstantCommons project is not stalled at all, it just does not go ahead. And it is of course due to myriad of technical/organizational problems. I just don't buy it. There are political concerns, and of course, copyright concerns on the bottom of it. An experienced developer said this could be implemented in short time, so that is not the true reason for not implementing it. Some people on the mailing list explicitly expressed legal doubts. So I do not expect this to go ahead in the near future. That frustrates a little bit. One invests time in the interface, translates, uploads and all that, and than some bureaucrats do not deem it fit to make all this work more useful.

Sorry pfctdayelise, my argument is not directed against you. I respect your work here very much. But I see it that there is a very short window of opportunity here for us to set a global standard, but if we do not act fast, we might miss the opportunity, and then it would be either illegal, or another commercial player, like flickr, has moved before us. We have to act. Greetings, Longbow4u 11:23, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

P.S. Please do not misunderstand me. To clean up our act on copyright violations is also of great concern to me. But I think all the so called "fair use" images on en.wp are far more serious risk for the viability of the entire Wikimedia Foundation and its projects, than any file the Commons hosts. Perhaps we should announce to all the communities that they have 3 months to look for unsourced or improperly licenced images they have imported from the Commons, and if they are not properly licenced then, we purge those images once and for all and move on. Then we could focus on our more valuable 628000 properly licenced files, and do not have to worry about the 12000 critical ("problem tags") one anymore. Like tabula rasa. Longbow4u 11:37, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Can we put this in the Community Portal ? (right side, with Babel)

Graphics abilities Project (or User's Abilities or Abilities Babel): For categorisation of users in function of their graphical/audio abilities on commons, and then find quickly help need to work more efficiently.

Choise the best title in english, this text is a [good?] translation of the french « Pour categoriser les utilisateurs en fonctions de leurs aptitudes graphiques/audios sur commons, pour ensuite trouver l'aide appropriée », please correct my english if need. Yug (talk) 21:08, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Invisible SVGs

180 pixels wide. Visible.

Same image 300 pixels wide. Invisible.

A PNG that looks silly when 150 pixels wide.

Some SVGs become invisible in the articles if they're displayed at certain resolutions. See the two examples here. Possibly a MediaWiki bug. Any thoughts? --Hautala 12:14, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

<joke> It's a new mediawiki feature. Knowing that wikipedians drink to much coffee mediawiki don't not allow to show too big Coffee pot.

Big Orange juice and multi-vitamines juice pot and bottles are allow. <end of joke> Yug (talk) 14:28, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I think there's maybe having a problem in SVG → PNG renderor, it needs some time to investigate these cases what's components having this problem. --Shinjiman 14:27, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Some time that's a format question (plein SVG , SVG inkscape). The french Atelier graphique already have some trouble like that (black square appeare on the svg, etc). I will ask them. See also the users user:Dake, user:Sting (fr), and User:Piom for help. Yug (talk) 14:35, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Please report back if you know a working format. Meanwhile here's another problem: a PNG that resizes into vertical bars. --Hautala 15:01, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

None of them showed for me. I have seen it several times before. They're made with an adobe program, have <!ENTITYs... and our PNG conversion fails. When i find it i download it, save with Inkscape as Plain SVG (Inkscape SVG works too) and reupload it. You make sure your cache is cleaned... and voilà. Platonides 17:36, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Could someone do a technical check to see if they can isolate the problem as this !ENTITY line? eg make a valid SVG in Inkscape, add an Adobe-style !ENTITY line and see if it works or not? pfctdayelise 05:43, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

That work fine for me today [the both]. But I use the s-link https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/wiki/Commons:Village_pump , and you ? Yug (talk) 20:05, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, yes. In my previous edit i tried to say that i touched them and now show... Platonides 12:38, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

This is in theory now resolved. One last purge may be necessary on images already broken. --brion 05:26, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GPL question

I recently tagged Image:Pyramide1.jpg for not listing a source. However, I have now found that the French wikipedia lists the source as [www.gnuart.net www.gnuart.net]. I downloaded the file, which comes as an archive, to check the licence, and the readme file states: "In case of a diffusion from you, with or without modifications, you have to keep all these files included in an archive." The licence is GPL--do we fulfill the terms of the GPL without distributing the extra files (there are three text files in the archive)? Thanks, JeremyA 14:29, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Does the README state that as part of the GPL or a separate condition? Either way, it doesn't sound so good... pfctdayelise (translate?) 14:11, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Commons Journal has opened!!

Please discuss changings in the relative talk page. --ßøuñçê Y2K 17:50, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

See Commons talk:Journal for a Howto on translating it to your language. Siebrand 20:53, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Caricatural vandalism?

Today, I noticed via the CommonsTicker that Image:Felipe Calderon.jpg was overwritten. When I took a look, some Caricature was uploaded over it. Same with Image:Felipe Calderon.jpg, both done by User:Fecal. Could an admin handle this? (I already reverted them, but don't know the policy here about vandalisme) --Tuvic 09:53, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Hm. It might not have been intentional...or is there some special reason you think it was? I can't read the cartoon. (Their username also makes me suspicious...)

Also, you might like to provide a translation for MediaWiki:Fileexists, we can easily install it (another good one is MediaWiki:Filewasdeleted and also MediaWiki:Fileexists-forbidden).

It's good that CommonsTicker is proving useful! Also, is there some reason to have those two images exactly the same? pfctdayelise (translate?) 11:00, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

The two images are the same, because I made a typo: the second one should be Image:Felipe Calderon sin fondo i.jpg. I also think it's definateley on purpose: it were the only uploads of that user, and over that exact 2 images. --Tuvic 15:06, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

The cartoon's text translates (through Google's translator) as, "It is a danger for the companies! It is a danger for the family! It is a danger for the companies of my family!" I would imagine this edits to, "It endangers businesses! It endangers families! It endangers my family's businesses!" Seahen 03:32, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How to know an Image is used on what wiki project?

Hello, I want to know a certain image is used by what other wiki projects. Where can I get the information?--百楽兎 13:59, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Click on the tab Check usage at the top of the image page. It seems broken for the moment however. Otherwise go directly to the tool: [3] and fill in the name of the image. NielsF 14:04, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you! :-)--

百楽兎 04:38, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

One note: this doesn't work for the English project. However, you can either click the tab labeled "en" or click directly into en.wikipedia.org, to find out. Cary "Bastique" Bass ^parler _voir 13:45, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] link in the navigation box

What about adding a link to The Commons Journal in the navigation box under "Village pump"? --ßøuñçê Y2K 18:13, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

It's not possible to add a link to only the English menu. The link will also appear in all user settings' menus. So until all those languages have a Journal (or even a dozen or so), I think it's better not to put the link there. pfctdayelise (translate?) 23:51, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

What about the Village pump? Every language has a bar, but in the menu there is only the english one. Haven't we said that the english Journal should be the central project? We can use "Journal", which is similar to many languages. --ßøuñçê Y2K 09:27, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

EDIT: Also the Community portal has an english link, so the Main Page. I'm really wondering what the problem is.. [09:55, 12 June 2006 (UTC)]

Yes, each language has versions of those pages with names in their own language. For example Main page with French menu (to view different languages, change the language code in the URL). pfctdayelise (translate?) 09:33, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I know but this kind of link are not well known, there are no link to this kind of pages. When i enter Commons, the main page is in english (the same the navigation box), then I click on "italian", "french", etc and the main page changes, but the navigation box ramains the same. Whatever, we could add the link to the Journal in the navigation box, then every language translates it into their languages. Is this such a big deal? --ßøuñçê Y2K 12:40, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

The settings change permanently when you set your language in Special:Preferences. You could set yours in Italian if you wanted. Then the menus would be permanently in Italian.

There are around 20 different language Village pumps set up, and 64 mainpage translations. Adding a new page and expecting all language communities to translate it represents a not-small amount of effort. I am not entirely convinced it is worth it. But I will reserve judgement and see what other people think.

The place to add it, BTW, would be MediaWiki:Sidebar. pfctdayelise (translate?) 12:39, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

We could write "Journal" for all. It is a word similar in different languages --ßøuñçê Y2K 19:26, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Please place it in the Commons:Community portal with a teaser to the current news (instead of the old news but move all the old news into the journal first). This is the central place for links to new stuff and there's already an old news section which now has been duplicated by the Journal (why didn't you take the old news page and evolved it into the Journal?). And "Journal" is not "international". Arnomane 11:10, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thumb mode doesn't work!?

Hi, I uploaded a PNG-Image at Wikipedia Commons but the image didn't appears in the thumb mode. Whats wrong? It didn't appears in the category (Politics_of_Greece) and it didn't appears in der German Wikipedia too.

Please take a look, the file name is GreeceJurisdictionGerman.PNG and GreeceJurisdictionGerman.png --Lemonc 18:24, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

On some days the thumbnail function is broken. Usually it works again the next day. Perhaps this is caused by a delay in the generation of the thumbnails. Another user in the german forum also reports a problem with the thumbnail at the moment. Please consider using our {{information}}-template for the image description page. Longbow4u 19:25, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 13 June

[edit] PNG recurrent bug ?

Since yersterday, I see a reccurent png' bug. .png small version don't appear. I use firefox & Suse. User:M4RC0 seen the same bug.

Test by gallery : Gallery doesn't work :

Doesn't work.

uplo

Commons:Village pump/Archive/32