Commons talk:Administrators

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[edit] Flag of Northern Ireland.svg

The Ulster Banner is not the Flag of Northern Ireland, as can been seen here, this is the banner of the former devolved government of Northern Ireland between 1953-1972, which was dissolved by the British Parliament in 1973 under the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973, it never had any status as a National flag, the proper name for this image is the Ulster Banner and should be renamed as such.--Padraig3uk 01:19, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

See: The Union Flags and flags of the United Kingdom which set out the status of flags in the four constituent countries of the United Kingdom as determined by the British Government.--Padraig3uk 00:22, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 2 months....

"You are not completely new to Wikimedia projects. You have been an editor for at least 2 months and you understand and agree with the goals of the project." - from "what is expected from an administrator?"

Does this refer to two months on Commons, or two months overall? It's slightly ambiguous.... --[[Anonymous Dissident]] 06:21, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

At a glance I'd say 2 months on Commons, but then I've been proven wrong before (lots!). — Giggy 06:24, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
That was my first thought, but someone said differently the other day.... --[[Anonymous Dissident]] 06:45, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
This kinda died but it would be good to see some life there again. Might help everyone out with some clarity. Cheers --Herby talk thyme 08:30, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
Well, that makes it seem like there are no editorial or chronological prerequisites. I think we should cememnt these policies, tbh, to make things more transparent. --[[Anonymous Dissident]] 12:38, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
It would be great to get a light under that aspect of policy again - feel free to have a go! --Herby talk thyme 12:39, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Backlogs

Where can I find the list of backlogged items that need admin attention? I have not been active for a while, but want to some time into it it now. jossi 22:40, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Category:Commons backlog is the short list. Others include the speedy deletion categories 哦，是吗？(O-person) 22:46, 22 January 2008 (GMT)
There is also the Commons:Announcements where people can add backlogs. / Fred J (talk) 22:56, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
COM:DEL was OK last time I looked, but it can fall behind quickly. — Giggy 05:28, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Rollback & NewPagePatrolling

Putting head above parapet Ok - this caused real drama on en wp but this is Commons isn't it :)

We can now allocate a couple of new rights (for those of you who do not know). Rollback (which is the admin speedy version) and New Page patroller which allows users to mark new pages as "ok".

Vandalism is not a big issues here on commons but it does occur & rollback is very efficient. However new page patrolling is a very valuable job (which not that many folk do at present![1]).

So - I think that getting these rights available on Commons might well be a good idea. However part of my reasoning relates to the fact that these are aspects of admin rights - it might be useful for aspiring admins to get these so that the community can see how they handle it?

Granting these rights on en wb is simply an "ask" and if there is nothing against you will get them. They are granted by any sysop ('crat, admin) and equally importantly can be removed locally too so the risks really are minimal. Views appreciated but if it gets like en wp I'm no longer interested :) Cheers --Herby talk thyme 08:59, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Agree with activating New Page patrolling for non-admin users; we did this on pt.wikipedia and thus far there are no objections/problems. Oppose rollback for non-admins; the level of vandalism on Commons is not as significant as on wikipedias and I'm afraid it will become an edit warring tool. But I'm not editing very much on en wp, so I don't know what's the local feedback on this (I know there was a huge discussion before). Patrícia msg 09:31, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't think rollback is necessary. Given that we are not text-based the Undo functionality is enough. NPP, how does it work in relation to uploads? If upload patrollers think it's useful then I'd say go for it. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 12:01, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Rollback's not necessary and can even make some situations worse (thinking back to previous edit wars). It makes sense on en.WP to activate because of the persistent vandalism - not so much here. But if enough non-admins think they would make good use of this little tool, I would not oppose.
New Page patrol is also not necessary because we usually have very little, if any, mainspace pages not patrolled at any given moment. As a new page patroller, I like the idea that all mainspace pages were seen by at least one admin. Without the ability to delete, non-admins can't help much with this process because even if the mark vandalism/test/spam pages with a speedy tag, they won't be gotten to any faster. (Although, marking these pages can show us what they would do if the were an admin.) And checking new uploads (not pages) is better done through Special:Newimages where there's no patrolling. If we start patrolling new file pages, then I would support giving auto-confirmed users this right as many already help a lot with catching incoming copvios, but now there's no need. Rocket000 13:20, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Is newpage patrolling useful for checking new uploads? If so, one option would be to set up a formal "upload checker" group of people to check source and licensing information for new material.
As for rollback, given the low level of edit-warring on Commons, I'd suggest giving it to everyone, or at least to all autoconfirmed users. --Carnildo 22:27, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
I strictly oppose both proposals. Newpage patrolling will not be of much use here given the fact that media outnumber galleries and other content pages. Even more, vandalism media descriptions are extremely rare (I personally have not seen one to date). In regards to rollback, Commons does not have a policy regarding edit warring, and will not likely adopt any such policy in the future due to the project preferring to be mellow. RC here is not as much patrolled as en.w, and because there is no way to cap edit wars at the moment, rollback can easily be used to edit war. 哦，是吗？(O-person) 23:10, 24 January 2008 (GMT)
We only really use new page patrol for mainspace pages. We could do it for all pages including image pages, but right now we don't make any effort to and doubt we ever will. Other namespaces receive very little vandalism—and I find watching Special:Recentchanges is more efficient. We can't patrol uploads themselves, but we can patrol the description pages. It's just easier to use Special:Newimages because that shows you thumbnails of the images without having to go to every single page.
The thing with rollback isn't the function itself, it does the same thing as undo just without asking for a reason. The use of it should be kept to a minimum (admin or not). It's just I don't see too much non-admin reverting of vandalism to justify instantly supporting it like I would on someplace like en.WP. Rocket000 23:15, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

OK - let's try this again.

Forget rollback. Let us look at New Page patrolling. Maybe 4/5 of us do this mostly (my thanks to them - they know who they are). It is good & worthwhile.

However take User:Rossrs for example. This user will create in one session more new pages than I have created in my time with Commons (there are others - his was the most recent on the list). I know when I "patrol" his pages they will be fine. If he & a handful of other prolific page creators were to have the rights their new pages would be marked a patrolled automatically. Is this worth a discussion? Cheers --Herby talk thyme 13:50, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd support granting new page patrolling to users after some discussion (or at least a request where objections could be raised) but I'm not keen on rollback here. ++Lar: t/c 14:52, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
Action on this would be good (or more people patrolling new pages). User:Sarefo has been creating pages faster at times than they can be patrolled (they are all fine but they still need clearing - flagging him as a page patroller would achieve that). Thanks --Herby talk thyme 15:21, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
I support both rollback and new page patrol. Although I doubt that they will be used much it can only help (assuming it's not autoconfirmed). Mønobi 01:40, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
I'd support allowing admins to give out +rollbacker and +patroller. Please note that patrollers do not have the autopatrolled permission by default; you'll have to add that to the bugzilla request if one is made. I think having rollbacker or patroller on autoconfirmed is not a good idea - verification by admins should be fine. Take a look at the process at en.wb for what I'm thinking of. – Mike.lifeguard | @en.wb 00:52, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
I too support this idea. --- Anonymous DissidentTalk 01:18, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Voting in RfAs and stuff

It would be helpful if the page actually stated who can vote in RfAs, whether it's everyone, just admins, just people in the position the request is for... -mattbuck (Talk) 12:51, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Good point - as it stands I think any registered user can vote but with 'crats able to take into account a sudden flood on new accounts voting (certainly not just admins - would be good if more people did get involved). Others may agree etc --Herby talk thyme 12:58, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, that would be a very good idea to write down specifically. As a matter of fact I thought RfA voting was for admins only because it was my impression by seeing who actually votes. Thus, I have never voted, although I have felt from time to time that I may have had input to the process. -- Slaunger 11:16, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Please do get involved - otherwise you get the admins you deserve :) I'll take a look at the wording on the page shortly. Thanks --Herby talk thyme 11:17, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
I've put something in twice based on not knowing where people are most likely to look - edits, amendments more than welcome - cheers --Herby talk thyme 11:27, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Well, I noticed it where I expected to, so it works for me now. And let me use this oppurtunity to give a pad on the shoulder to all the Commons admins. I think you are doing great. I have only ever had a problem with one Commons admin, who is not an admin anymore. -- Slaunger 12:30, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Autopatrolled"

Resurrecting this one from above. I discovered that I have been made "autopatrolled" on another wiki that I have been contributing to (adding Commons cat tags). It was a rights change that I was not notified of & I guess it saves them time spending too much time watching my edits which is fine.

I would love to make some users here autopatrolled. There are competent non admin users who go through spells of creating quite a few new pages usually rather quickly. One of the people who works on new page patrolling then has to mark them as checked (there are very few admins doing that work). It would be much better to have them made autopatrollers after they made a specified number of satisfactory edits & save the rest of us work. I would imagine any admin could give someone the right based on their edits though a page such as the trusted Flickr one would probably be a good idea.

I'd appreciate folks giving this some real thought - thanks. Approval would be good and/or whether we add New Page Patrollers as above. However, if we have people autopatrolled the new page work would be far less anyway. --Herby talk thyme 10:34, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

What about bringing in w:User:JVbot (run by jayvdb)? It's really been very useful on EnWP and EnWS (where it started off). giggy (:O) 11:03, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Maybe explain more but new pages need human patrolling I think - often no category, no gallery format etc etc. It is more a case of when we know someone knows what they are doing we don't need to patrol theirs any more? --Herby talk thyme 11:07, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Oh, well, what the bot does is have a whitelist of users, and mark as patrolled all pages those users create. So if we make a list of non-admins who do good work with galleries, categories, etc., the bot automatically marks them patrolled. giggy (:O) 11:18, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Sounds good to me - I could make up a list of 6 or so in a matter of minutes (I was only basing it on the fact I'd been marked as autopatrolled elsewhere). I guess there would never be hundreds but 20/30 maybe. Anything that cuts back on unnecessary work is fine. --Herby talk thyme 11:24, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Sounds good if it cuts down on extra work. No real reason to patrol editors that are being routinely approved anyway. This saves more time for other admin work. FloNight♥♥♥ 20:37, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I think the method enwikibooks uses makes more sense than this suggestion. Admins may grant and revoke patroller rights. Those with patroller may a) mark pages as patrolled and b) have their own pages autopatrolled. It may be worthwhile to look at autopromotion of editors for Commons, but I think including the autopatrolled permission is rather better than having a bot do it. If we take the autopromotion route, I'd say that the threshold should be higher than autoconfirmed if possible (I think it is). But I prefer having humans dole it out as editcounts/time since account creation is really not a good measure. I'd like to think Commons admins are sane enough to have a loose process such as that of enwikibooks, but perhaps a genuine policy/guideline for that would be better. – Mike.lifeguard | @en.wb 01:16, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I have no objection to this however I still see some user who would be perfectly competent to be allowed "autopatrolled" to cover their own page creations.
I've also slept & realised the snag with the bot suggestion! The only group that can "mark as patrolled" are admins - therefore the bot would need admin status..... & that ain't going to happen easily here. So we would still require "patroller" as a rights group anyway. --Herby talk thyme 06:48, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Hmm.... do bots get patroller? I'm not sure. In any case, if we can use Mike's method, it's definitely better. System solution > Bot solution. giggy (:O) 09:24, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
They have "autopatrol", see ListGroupRights. Cbrown1023 talk 01:24, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Trouble is we don't have "patroller" as an available right anyway (no conclusion was reached above). If we are going to put in a bug fix we might as well request "patroller" and "autopatrolled" - no need to use it but it would be there if we wanted it? I stil don't think "rollback" is really a good option on Commons - not that necessary & could get used for the wrong reasons...:) --Herby talk thyme 09:49, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Agree, support a bugzilla. giggy (:O) 10:01, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
OK - who is allowed to grant? Just crats or admins.... --Herby talk thyme 10:08, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Well, I'd trust admins with it. I don't really mind either way if other people have preferences. giggy (:O) 10:26, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

By default, admins and bots have their pages autopatrolled. Admins may mark others' pages as patrolled. So we'll have to request a configuration change. We're agreed then on admins doling it out? – Mike.lifeguard | @en.wb 21:17, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I think I'll go make a request in the next day or so if no one objects
  1. Create a user group "Patroller" who are able to mark new pages & edits as patrolled
  2. Create a user group "Autopatrolled" who are mark their own new pages & edits as patrolled
  3. Allow admins to grant and revoke these rights
If we don't use any aspect, no problem but we might as well get both in one go. OK? Cheers --Herby talk thyme 06:50, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

See Commons:Village pump#Proposal for a new user group ;) Rocket000 (talk) 07:15, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed alteration

In What is expected from an administrator?, I suggest altering:

  • You have a user page on Commons and are a Commons contributor with 200 edits (including uploads) minimum, and should be interested in helping the Wikimedia Commons community. People may have their own personal standards that require more than this.

to

  • You have a user page on Commons and are a Commons contributor with 200 edits (including uploads) minimum, consistent activity, and should be interested in helping the Wikimedia Commons community. People may have their own personal standards that require more than this.

This is in response to Future Perfect at Sunrise's RfA where we denied on the basis that he wasn't active in the community and his activity on the project was sporadic. I'd also suggest we clarify the helping the Wikimedia Commons community to mean talk page activity. -mattbuck (Talk) 00:23, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure about this, I believe it is covered by People may have their own personal standards that require more than this. We will probably all have our personal standards for what "consistent activity" is as well. Regards, Finn Rindahl (talk) 00:30, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
My concern is what does one define as "consistent activity". Some of use are around every single day, some a few times a week, some a few times a month. As long as you are showing up on a regular basis that is "consistent". Plus I'm a fan of having less "hard" rules for what an admin is - and let the community figure out the rest. At least until the point in which we have a new RFA every day - then we can make more rules. --ShakataGaNai ^_^ 00:56, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
In reality, activity is commonly defined on Wikimedia as having edited in the past 6 months, with high activity being making more than 50 edits in a thirty day period. --- Anonymous DissidentTalk 01:05, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Remember that Commons are and should continue to stay mellow. The new addition does nothing but open a can of worms. --O (谈 • висчвын) 01:34, 22 June 2008 (GMT)

  • I support this proposal. Fut.Perf wasn't the happiest chappy after what happened in that RfA, which is understandable, but I think we should avoid stuff like that... adding two words here may help in that regard. giggy (:O) 01:35, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Yeah, I'd also recommend changing something. The misleading thing is in the "people may have their own personal standards that require more". From what I gathered yesterday, that's too weak. There's apparently not just individuals but a strong community consensus that in practice does require considerably more. It should say something like: "In practice, most people expect ...". – To O: Yes, it is broken, it needs fixed. I relied on what I saw written, and could have spared myself the frustration if this had been worded more realistically. (Apart from that, I obviously have no problem with that rejection. If you guys want higher standards of prior experience, that's fine with me, just say so.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:49, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
    • For the record, the English Wikipedia's main RFA page is also pretty vague in terms of experience (and perhaps the requirements in general). Just something to think about. --O (谈 • висчвын) 01:55, 23 June 2008 (GMT)
  • For now I'll just say Meta is looking at removing its "edit requirement" because of confusion. I think we should take a serious look at this. --Herby talk thyme 09:21, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
    • I wouldn't object to replacing the edit requirement to something about activity... but until it's done (in a 'crat capacity) I'm still enforcing 200 edits. giggy (:O) 09:26, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
      • All right, based on Fut.Perf. and giggys comments I will not object to adding "consistent activity" - allthough I'm still not sure how to define that. Maybe we should change "People may have" into "People often have" as well. These guidelines are IMO more guidelines to new candidates for when adminship may be requested than guidelines for users&crats for who could be supported/appointed. After all, just recently there was consensus (at least, strong majority support) for promoting Kanonkas even though he did not meet the 2 month criteria at the time. As for Fut.Perf.s RfA it could also serve to remind us all how we word our opposes - we (self included) could have given our responses in a more considerate and encouraging manner. Regards, Finn Rindahl (talk) 15:16, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
        • I think the wording of our comments was were the more major cause of this discussion. --O (谈 • висчвын) 01:55, 23 June 2008 (GMT)

[edit] Template:User14+

Anyone mind if I switch {{user14}} with {{user14+}}? (It could use a better name, though.) Rocket000 (talk) 03:28, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Adminship

I used to be an admin here, and due to inactivity (very busy in non wiki life) I could not edit wikipedia much. Now since I have resumed editing on WP, do believe I have to go through the RFA process again. Would deadminship be a hindrance if I list my RFA, or would I need some "activity levels" to request a new RFA? I feel very handicapped here without the admin tools that I was used to using for so many years. Nichalp (talk) 18:48, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, if I am allowed to add a comment as a mere user (albeit being active here since 2005), I would recommend at least to follow actual discussions and policies at Commons which have significantly evolved over time. Your user page currently points anyone wanting to contact you currently to your page at the English wikipedia. Such practice is perfectly ok for non-admins but I would expect admins to check their watchlist here at least as often they do it on other Wikimedia projects. This being said, I would not expect it to be a big deal to regain adminship. It is perhaps helpful to tell what you did before and what you intend to do in the future (adminwise). --AFBorchert (talk) 09:09, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
Hello Nichalp, good to see you again! There are no minimum activity levels that I'm aware of to regain adminship, if you're active in the community I personally wouldn't have a problem with resetting the bit. If you feel unsure as to the community's opinion of you, though, an RfA is always the way to go. —Giggy 09:15, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the inputs. I agree things have evolved quite a bit over the past year as with wikipedia, and will appraise myself of the goings-on. Regards, Nichalp (talk) 06:33, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Access to selected parts of the admin toolbox without being an admin

Is it possible to grant a user limited access to selected parts of the admin toolbox without being a full admin? Say, for instance, if an experienced user who knows what he/she is doing would like to be granted access to editing protected pages, (like, e.g., templates), but has no interest in doing an RfA. Would this be possible, and is there a place to apply for such limited permissions? -- Slaunger (talk) 20:57, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

No, it's not. It would require a change in the software used for Commons (it's technically possible, but it hasn't been enabled on any Wikimedia wiki). Cbrown1023 talk 21:01, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
OK, thank you for the swift answer. Only good then that I find that admins here, in general, respond very quickly on requests to edit protected templates. -- Slaunger (talk) 21:04, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Oh, it is by the way interesting that the functionality has been implemented but not enabled. Has the possible enabling of these implemented features ever been discussed - to your knowledge? Or am I the first to ask for such limited access? -- Slaunger (talk) 21:06, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
The functionality exists because not only Wikimedia projects use the MediaWiki software, other non-Wikimedia projects may need to have different break-downs of rights (ie. a group of people who can only delete/protect, etc.). I don't think you're the first one, the usual response is "too much trouble for too little good". If you're trustworthy enough for one of the tools, you should be trustworthy enough for all of them. Cbrown1023 talk 21:55, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Ah, OK. And (being and admin for a work related computer system) I know all to well what you mean by "too much trouble for too little good". -- Slaunger (talk) 22:12, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
There's been some past discussions, for example here was my idea. Rocket000 (talk) 09:19, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Interesting reading. It seems like the thread never came to a conclusion, except, perhaps, no clear consensus. -- Slaunger (talk) 09:38, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bot flagging?

Comments here would be appreciated. Cheers --Herby talk thyme 07:19, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Getting involved

Hi there. I'd like to do more at commons and can help out with biochemistry in particular. I've found Category:Disputed chemical diagrams, which I can contribute to. Are there any other areas where I could also be useful? TimVickers (talk) 16:50, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi Tim. Category:Biochemistry, and its subcats are, in my opinion, in a dire need to be refreshed/redistributed/whatever. There's a lot of stuff needing to have redundant categories stripped of, recategorized, etc. I've done a bit there, but I'm always swamped with other work around here... Patrícia msg 17:00, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
Thanks Patrícia, I'll get on with that. TimVickers (talk) 17:29, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
Help is more than welcome Tim. Looks like you have some suggestions here (though why you would pay attention to some who does not use the preview button I have no idea - not something I would ever do :)). Be warned - Commons is addictive! Cheers --Herby talk thyme 17:13, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New page to add to watchlist

I recently created Commons:Requested updates to protected images which I'd like to ensure that more admins add to their watchlists, so I thought of listing it here in the list of pages for admins to add to their watchlist, but I'm hesitant to make it too long so I wanted to make sure everyone is okay with it. What do you all think? Dcoetzee (talk) 19:26, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, that's a good idea, but isn't it the same as {{editprotected}}, with the difference that it would be to upload instead of just changing text on the description page? Patrícia msg 10:58, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Archives

Following this talk with Lar, I'd like to see separate archives for bot requests and RfXs. So I was thinking of leaving Commons:Administrators/Archive for RfXs and create Commons:Bots/Archive (right now it's a redirect to Commons:Bots/Requests/Archive, which seems to be pretty dead too?). It would still be chronological, etc, but I think the current archive is getting messy and big. If there are no great concerns about this, I can do it in a day or two (or someone else can be bold and do it before ;)).

And since I'm at this... do we need a bureaucrat's noticeboard? I feel we could have use for it sometimes... Patrícia msg 10:56, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi Patricia, I have been thinking along exactly the same lines. See Commons talk:Administrators/Requests and votes. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 16:49, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
Ah thanks, I'll participate there instead. Patrícia msg 19:00, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestion to re-write the main Administrator page

Please see Commons:Administrators/Proposed. Comments are very welcome there. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 16:45, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

In view of the fact I have had no feedback whatsoever, I have updated the main page to get more visibility. Or is no-one watching this page at all :) ? --MichaelMaggs (talk) 17:07, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
Wow, I could have sworn I had this page watched... I guess I only had the other subpage watched. I'll take a look at the proposal. Rocket000 (talk) 02:28, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
This rewrite happened, and the main page has been updated with the rewritten stuff. It's probably time to clean out the ../Proposed page (and maybe its talk?) so as to not confuse people. Or tag it historical till the next time we do a big rewrite? Or something. ++Lar: t/c 06:32, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Books renaming and admin's request

Hi all,

With the increasing capabilities of bots to help us to load lots of scanned books, there are more and more of them that we have to rename, categorise, organise, and delete when wrong or duplicate; the goal is to reach understandable and sortable titles like these ones. I request to be an admin here because I think there is no reason to bother admins here every time Wikisource needs these renamings or deletions. Trusted user from August 2008; contributor from June 2006, admin on several Wikisources (French, English and Multilingual), I know the tools. I use lots of images even if I don't create them myself, I love the work that is done here, and I am ready to contribute with the kind of capacities I can offer even if it is not much. --Zyephyrus (talk) 14:48, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I believe you should post your request in Commons talk:Administrators. Sv1xv (talk) 06:44, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
Thank you very much, Sv1xv. I will do it. --Zyephyrus (talk) 07:11, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Anna de-sysop and Cookie sysop

I think will be good idea if next request will be done by steward (original).

Last year I asked for the usurpation of User:Cookie account to unify it, now it's just been done. Would you please de-sysop my former account User:Anna and sysop the unified User:Cookie or does this need a petition somewhere else? Thanks in advance. Cheers. Anna (talk) 16:47, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

why desysop? Ask crat to renaming Anna ⇒ Cookie (and Cookie rename to something else).--Anatoliy (talk) 00:08, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
You can request a rename on Commons:Changing username. The sysop flag will follow you to the new name. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 08:28, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
Done. Thanks. Anna (talk) 21:32, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Chris Evert Photos

I was needing a Chris Evert Photo because I work with the Wikipedia:TENNIS project, which I am wondering if this are legitimate to use! http://www.flickr.com/photos/35333224@N05/3291019528/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/deilert/3427772649/ Thanks!Bluedogtn (talk) 22:39, 10 June 2009 (UTC) By the way I am user TennisAuthority on wikipedia and talk to me their!

Answered w:en:User talk:TennisAuthority - this is the wrong place to ask questions, use Commons:Help desk in future. --Martin H. (talk) 01:06, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] number of adminstrators past and present

Does somebody know the total number of adminstrators past and present? And what is the average length of adminship for those that are not admins any more?

--ALE! ¿…? 11:53, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

The information you requested is available on Commons. See here: Commons:Administrators/Archive. Sv1xv (talk) 12:10, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
It is available, yes I know. But it is not easy to analyse. So maybe there is a toolserver tool or something like that for this? --ALE! ¿…? 13:38, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
According to a toolserver query, there are 400 users on Commons with at least one entry in the protection, deletion or block logs. I'd assume this can be taken as a reasonable indication of having been an admin at some point in the past, though the converse is not necessarily the case; indeed, we have six current admins (out of 271 total) with no protections, deletions or blocks logged:
Of these, two are bots, one (Silver Spoon) just got the bit today and one (Cary Bass) is an alternative account for Office actions. Grin and H-stt just don't seem to have been active in these areas so far. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 16:18, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Thanks a lot for this information. --ALE! ¿…? 08:28, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Is 1st August going to be a problem?

Any images you'd like to migrate before midnight strikes, or is this a non issue? [[2]] --Tony Wills (talk) 00:00, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] On counting neutrals in the final percentage tally.

RFA is not a vote, not exactly, it's more a gauge of consensus. Yet, we have traditionally given a tally as part of the close, showing the number of supports, neutrals, and opposes, and the percentage. Recently Commons:Administrators/Requests/J Milburn was closed by Eugene Zelenko, one of our steadiest and most hard working 'crats (I think he does more renames and bot promotions than any of the rest of us... I'm a big fan, if you can't tell...), and he gave the stats like this:

Symbol support vote.svg Support = 13; Symbol oppose vote.svg Oppose = 0; Symbol neutral vote.svg Neutral = 1 - 93%

That caused me to go "???" because a 13 to 0 has always struck me as 100% (13S/13S+0O)... but Eugene calculated it as 13S/(13S+1N+0O). So I asked Eugene about it and he said he's always been doing that. Now, with limited exception (such as in carrying out the precise calculations for OV and CU) I've always just viewed neutrals as a lot like comments. So what do people think? Should we...

  • decide we don't care, and get rid of tracking percentages except when it really matters
  • decide we don't care and let each crat calculate how they like?
  • decide that we should switch to counting neutrals like opposes (in the sense that they increase the total and don't count as supports) and all 'crats do it that way going forward?
  • decide that we should switch to not counting neutrals at all (so they don't increase the total) and all 'crats do it that way going forward?
  • decide to use a hybrid system in which a neutral counts in the total and for calculating support counts as 1/2 support, and all 'crats do it that way going forward?

If we have an "all crats switch" do we need to go correct the archives? What if we find a candidacy for which the result would have been different? just leave it? I suspect almost all candidacies it doesn't matter which way was used, but there may be some.

Thoughts? Am I making too much of this? ++Lar: t/c 18:10, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Personally I've always thought a "neutral" vote should count in some way. Someone has taken the trouble to express and opinion (other that "support"/"oppose"). 0.01 --Herby talk thyme 18:18, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
When you were a 'crat and did a close, how did you count them? ++Lar: t/c 18:30, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
I would hope that any RFA where this might have mattered was carefully evaluated by the closing bureaucrat, so that the actual percentage would matter even less than usual. As far as I'm concerned, the only point of the percentage is that one can brag "I was elected with 100% support". Any of the "decide we don't care" options suit me; definitely don't go through the archives to "correct" them. Pruneautalk 18:33, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
On one hand, I'm also leaning towards "don't care" (which would, sort of appropriately, make this a "neutral" vote, I guess). On the other hand, just as a purely personal opinion, if I explicitly state that I am neutral on something, I would certainly not want myself to be counted as having voted to oppose (especially given that, under supermajority voting, a single oppose effectively carries much more weight than a single support). That's kind of the point of being neutral, after all. So I'd rather see people going for option 4 ("switch to not counting neutrals at all"), whether by collective policy or just by individual 'crat (or admin, etc., since the same really applies to any support/neutral/oppose style polls) choice. Of course, neutral "votes" should count when evaluating consensus, just like any other reasoned opinion that someone has taken the time and effort to express; they just shouldn't be counted numerically as opposes, which is effectively what including them in the tally ends up doing. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 20:53, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
RfA's votetastic nature is insidiously deceptive. Is 100% weak support better than 90% strong support and 10% weakly opposed? Tally the votes if you want but I think we're better off not making some half-ass attempt at quantifying such a complex and multidimensional attribute as suitability for a job. Dcoetzee (talk) 04:50, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
I don't think its really important but when we have a vote where there is a need for xx votes I think we should count them as votes, but not tally them in the %. When I vote neutral on somebody I dont want my neutral to count as a full oppose nor as a full support. Huib talk 08:48, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
I think neutral votes is votes that are not support or oppose. Comments are explicitely expressed as such. So I think we should account neutral votes. --EugeneZelenko (talk) 14:38, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
Yes but the way its used now it counts as a oppose, and it isn't a really oppose so if we are going to count it we should discuss how we are going to count it. Huib talk 14:49, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
Hybrid system then? Count it for 1/2 ? Or maybe present two tallys, one that's used for the passage, strict support/(support+oppose) and one that's about overall feeling/participation, support/(support+neutral+oppose) ??? ++Lar: t/c 17:02, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
How longer I think about it how more strange I think it is.
We are talking about neutral votes so people that placed a vote but don't really want to support or oppose because the are neutral isn't it kind of strange that we are going to count them in the tally? I think the Symbol neutral vote.svg Neutral can be used in positions where a COI or something like that makes sure you cant vote or that you dont want to vote.
I personally only use it to show I have seen the RFA but didn't make up my mind and not sure if I can decide, so its more for people that always vote to show that they have seen it and don't have a opinion.
No opinion is the same as no support or no oppose so it shouldn't be counted right? Huib talk 17:11, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Ilmari pretty much sums my view. As Ilmari said, "Of course, neutral "votes" should count when evaluating consensus, just like any other reasoned opinion that someone has taken the time and effort to express; they just shouldn't be counted numerically as opposes, which is effectively what including them in the tally ends up doing." Same goes to supports. Though, I would still prefer to have the neutrals counted in the tally, but not as percentage in an RfX. Neutral votes usually don't count to the end tally of an RfX, but should be when it comes to espescially hard closes. I see neutral votes more as "I want to say something to the community/candidate, but I'm not voting one way or another". That's espescially an area where neutral votes may decide a request. It also depends on the neutral/oppose voter's rationales. A good rationale is usually a helpful one. For example, an RfA at 74%. The opposition are giving well thought out arguments, while the "three" neutral votes in this case says there is a potential, and we would trust the candidate. However, most of the neutral votes are recommending more time gaining experience as a user. But they do trust the candidate, but would feel more comfortable if they were to stick a few more months before getting the sysop tools. In this case, what should we do? Should the bureaucrats close on an arbitrary number, and close it as unsuccessful? No... I think this one needs to be reviewed more carefully if this was a real RfA. Bureaucrats are here to evaluate the community consensus, which indeed can be a hard task. If this was an easy task, we could've just let a bot do the work. Thankfully we have some trusted, and elected editors, to the the "hard" part, which is to evaluate the consensus. I hope this helped. As such, I have to note I do oppose making a "hybrid" system, as Lar pointed above. Please ask for any clarifications, if I was unclear on some points. Kanonkas (talk) 23:37, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Undoing the split, sort of?

We have split out the various request pages and requests for other than admin are no longer visible on COM:A, only admin is. While this makes sense organizationally and makes everything neat and tidy, I'm starting to think it may have some undesirable side effects. In particular we just had a CU request open for 2 weeks that didn't get nearly as many comments as previous CU requests did. (SB Johnny's being the highwater mark I think). I am thinking of putting the page Template:Vote_archive on every vote section as it now has links to all sections. Either that or retranscluding all of the request pages (the type pages, not the individual requests, those are already transcluded at the type pages) at COM:A, without undoing their transclusion at the individual places. What do you think? Because we are too big to have requests fail for lack of input. ++Lar: t/c 12:26, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree completely with Lar.
On a related subject. Meta policy clearly states that OS/CU requests should be publicised in the community. I imagine the presumption on Meta is that the vast majority of such requests will take place on single language wikis. Commons isn't - as such I think it really should be policy to announce these requests in as many languages as possible to encourage participation. I would also suggest that RfBs are similarly announced so that as many in the community as possible realise they are encouraged to participate. --Herby talk thyme 12:37, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
I've never been a fan of having so many admin pages. I thought someone was going to boldly merge them back together a few months back (I'm not going to look for that old discussion - mostly because I don't know which page it lives on!) but I guess they abandoned the idea. Too bad. Wknight94 talk 11:37, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
I'm possibly confused. I was talking about the RfA, RfB, RfCU, RfOV pages... are you talking about the subpages of the admin noticeboard? ++Lar: t/c 02:34, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
Oh. Yes, that's what I was talking about. Same problem, different area. Sorry. Wknight94 talk 03:16, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Who can vote in RfAs

Harej's recent RfA led to an interesting discussion regarding who can vote in RfAs, and how much weight a bureaucrat will give votes from new users. IMO, it's necessary for big projects like enwiki to limit who can participate, but all valid opinions should be accepted at smaller communities like Commons. Thoughts? –Juliancolton | Talk 15:01, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Disagree on what makes a "valid opinion". Per long established practice, contributors here with few or no contributions will be discounted if the vote is at all close. c.f. SBJohnny's CU request and the resulting 'crat chat. We drew the line very generously there at 10 contribs prior to the start of the vote, if it comes up again I'd draw it rather higher. Commons is a special place. If you haven't contributed enough to even have a hope of realising why that is, your perspective may not yet be valid. That is our practice, and I personally see no reason to change it. Oh, and by the way, Commons is bigger than en:wp... ++Lar: t/c 03:28, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] User:Forrester

It seems that User:Forrester has left us as an administrator. So he should be removed from the admin list. --ALE! ¿…? 08:44, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Forrester would have to request removal of the tools on meta. We can't request removal of the tools because he seems to have retired from Commons. — Kanonkas // talk // e-mail // 08:47, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
And his talk page should be unprotected, I think. –Tryphon☂ 08:49, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
OK, so I unprotected his talk page because he's still an admin and users must be able to reach him. –Tryphon☂ 20:34, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] File:Acis ionica flower.jpg

Dears,

I just have uploaded picture File:Acis ionica flower.jpg.

I have originally found this nice picture on Flickr. I have contacted the author asking him whethter he allowed me to upload it to Commons. See hereafter the written authorization he has sent to me toghether with the picture in original size.

Best regards, --Réginald (To reply) 09:06, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Dear Réginald,
attached is the original image. [I also have just taken some shots of Cyclamen rohlfsianum that I grew from seed in 1995 and has only just flowered for the first time this year!!]
I hereby give my permission for Réginald Hulhoven (alias Meneerke bloem on Wikipedia) to upload the attached image on my behalf.
Best Wishes,
Steve Covey. [VC7/8]
http://www.wiltshiredragonflies.org.uk
http://www.wildlife-galleries.co.uk/
http://wiltshire-dragonfly-news.blogspot.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/15121707@N00/

[edit] Administrator

Hello everyone!

Can administrators lose their stadium of being an administrator? If yes, you many have lost the administrator stadium. Is there any statistics?--A.Hakansson (talk) 10:38, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Admins can either resign voluntarily, be desysopped for inactivity (Commons:Administrators/Inactivity section) or be desysopped following a request for desysop. I don't know of any statistics regarding the frequency of those processes. Regards, -- ChrisiPK (Talk|Contribs) 15:54, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
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