User talk:Gmaxwell

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Previous discussions:

• Archive 1
• Archive 2
• Archive 3
• Archive 4

[edit] Image:Wolf Trap (national park) Filene Center inside.jpg

Hi, I noticed you wanted this image to be replaced with an image with the lights turned on. I can't do that for you, instead I changed the contrast in parts. Hope you like it. I also reduced some color distortion on the sides of the image. Now it looks a bit sharper. If you don't like it, just revert my image. Regards. Jan Arkesteijn 11:17, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Seems reasonable enough. Thanks. --Gmaxwell 22:14, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Philly

Chinatown? Photo? Please? Evrik (talk) 20:00, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

• Found them yet? Evrik (talk) 18:08, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Global deleted image review questions

Are you proposing that commons' admins be able to view only deleted images or other deleted material as well? I think you need to be very explicit on this point as any confusion is going to lead to an uproar and opposition to this policy. Have you talked with the developers to see if a view deleted images only feature is even possible? As the new Global sysops feature has shown, the English Wikipedia appears to be hesitant to allow others extensive rights without local approval. Thanks. KnightLago (talk) 23:57, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] L'Armee Française (book).

I'm trying go avoid overcategorizing, which is why I made LAF a subcategory of Edouard Detaille, otherwise it appears twice, there and in the parent. Don't we normally try to avoid that? Also, wouldn't the text be more appropriate for Wikisource? I have no intention of putting scanned versions of the text in the category, as IMO the value of the book lies more in its period illustrations. The source I've been using only presents the illustrations where they occur; sometimes this in the middle of a page of text, but otherwise I would just isolate the image and upload that. BrokenSphere 03:11, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Clubbing baby seals

Well done, and thanks! -- Avi (talk) 18:40, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Geocoding

As you are the person on top of the list working on Geocoding, I would like to ask a simple question, as I just started geocoding my images and I would like to do it correctly immediately. For instance, this image: Image:IQ-Diskont Tarrenz.jpg. I tagged this petrol station at 47 15 36.06 N 10 45 19.47 E, the exact location of the petrol station. However, the place of the camera when taking this picture was somewhere around 47 15 36.03 N 10 45 20.78 (so let's say, 20 yards away). What should I pick as geotag, or is this just nitpicking from my side? Thanks for the answer! Tubantia (talk) 21:55, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

It's a nitpick, yes.. but with our current tagging the camera is the desired location: As there could be multiple subjects in the picture, and the camera location is more likely the needed for reproduction. We've talked about making subject tags, mostly useful for wide sweeping landscapes.. but no one has bothered doing it yet. --Gmaxwell (talk) 01:58, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Cascading?

Is there a reason why you are using cascading protection on those templates? I mean, if they have any templates inside them, those would have to be used at least as much and should be protected individually anyway. By using cascading (for zero benefit) you are also protecting any documentation... The whole point of /doc pages are to avoid this (along with server issues). Do you mind I remove that (I'll keep the full protection on)? Rocket000 (talk) 00:25, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Meh. I hadn't noticed transcluded doc pages, nor had I been considering them. The reason I was cascading was to avoid creating an additional vigilance obligations (thats what cascading protection is for...). Your point is valid. I'll stop doing the cascading protections. Darn. --Gmaxwell (talk) 00:28, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. If it's the work, I don't mind doing each one individually. :) Other than that, it's really really bad because any templates (or images) used in documentation are affected (mostly low-use ones that shouldn't be protected). And of course it prevents non-admins (and bots!) from adding/updating categories, interwiki links, and documentation. It also makes it really hard to track what all is protected. I wish there was a way to protect everything but the <noinclude> parts. What exactly were you trying protect with cascading? Maybe I can help. Rocket000 (talk) 00:38, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

(I followed up with you via email this user a little bit ago)--Gmaxwell (talk) 01:04, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Me too, but I forgot to ask you if we should get rid of {{protected template}} and Category:Protected templates? It's kinda useless now. And just to clarify, it's ok if remove the cascade from the rest, right? Rocket000 (talk) 01:15, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, we should probably get rid of it. :( Feel free to remove the cascades... or I'll do it when I get done with the list. I don't mind cleaning up my own mess.--Gmaxwell (talk) 01:58, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Okay, done. I should have removed the cascade from all of them. If I missed one or two I'll sweep them up a bit later when I do a database query to check. Thanks for your attention to this matter.--Gmaxwell (talk) 03:48, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Request

I hate to do this since you've been so busy, but I was wondering if you could make a special query request for me. If it's not to much trouble I would like a list of all (fully) protected template redirects. This will be very useful for my work with {{template redirect}}. It's far from complete, but it will be similar to the system they have on en.wp where they categorize certain redirects through templates. But better. It's mainly for tracking/maintenance purposes but can aid in finding templates also (e.g. {{DP}} showing up in a category for French-speakers would be more useful than just showing the target {{PD}}). It will be good to know what protected templates have unprotected redirects and vice-versa. It can also useful for uploaders and tools to find the right license equivalent when transferring the info from another protect. It's not terribly important; I can probably make the list myself after the next data dump, but if you can, it would be greatly appreciated. (You can dump the results in User:Rocket000/Sandbox, email me a .txt, or whatever's the easiest for you.) And take your time; I got plenty of other stuff to work on. Thanks! Rocket000 (talk) 06:10, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Done: User:Rocket000/Sandbox. No problem, any time.. Sorry I was asleep when your request came in. --Gmaxwell (talk) 12:31, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Awesome! Thank you very much! Rocket000 (talk) 12:41, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Please add it to pd-old-100 template

Since you protected it, can you add this line:

[[Template:PD-old-100/it|{{#language:it}}]] |

to this page? Thanks!

Seems someone else got to it before me. --Gmaxwell (talk) 19:29, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

^_^ --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 20:04, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal to disable hotlinking on meta.

I'm sure you remember the "Possibly Evil Images" thing. I've done my own searches and try to obliterate them when I find them, but...

There's a proposal to disable image hotlinking from all except Commons, on Meta. While the proposal is, in my mind, a good idea, what bothered me more was the ease of finding things on Wikimedia sites that we're apparently hosting: like copyrighted mp3 files apparently.

m:Meta:Babel#Proposal_to_disable_hotlinking for the discussion. Kylu (talk) 03:10, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Templates

hello Gmaxwell,
It is a good thing that you protected all these templates from Category:External link templates.
But I am now no more capable of improving them and their documentation even if I created many of them (and also added a lot of call to them ;-))
A solution would be to move their documentation to a less protected subpage. There is somewhere a template to call in templates to say that the template documentation is in a subpage.
That way I would be able to improve the templates documentation.
Cheers Liné1 (talk) 11:52, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh, sadly the template is french: fr:Modèle:Documentation modèle en sous-page (meaning "template documentation in subpage")

You can find its usage here: fr:Modèle:Taxobox_binomial_animal

Liné1 (talk) 14:14, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Hello? What do you think of the documentation subpage idea ? I think it was also recommended for performance purposes.

Cheers Liné1 (talk) 08:20, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Decategorising

Per your excellent and apparently quite effective undertaking to put an end to the decategorisation of images, would you be willing to do something about this and this? I have had too many disputes with this editor over decategorisation, and have stood by and witnessed too many more, and am simply too frustrated with the situation to take action myself. Hesperian 04:45, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

P.S. I cannot say for certain that the editor is aware of the shifting of the winds on this issue. I'm not asking you to do anything harsh. However you want to handle it is just fine with me. Hesperian 04:45, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Statistics Netherlands map

Hi, there's a link at Template:Statistics Netherlands map that doesn't look right ( [[:Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek|Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek]] ). You protected the page, so I'm asking you to fix it. Would you please?

Btw, I think it's quite uninviting to protect pages before they're vandalized. Is that really necessary? I'm here to fix something, and I can't. There must be way more people like me than people that want to harm the templates.

Best regards, Galwaygirl (talk) 15:59, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Commons Scope - Pdf and Djvu files

I have added some text dealing with these based on the discussion on the talk page. Users are by no means unanimous about which files should be allowed, and I have tried to follow the majority opinion. Thus, the suggestion is that if a Pdf or Djvu file is educationally useful even to a single other Wiki it should be kept. Would you like to comment before this page goes live? Please do so at the bottom of the talk page. Regards, --MichaelMaggs (talk) 21:49, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Unprotection requested

Hello, can you unprotect the following template : {{Bilderwerkstatt}}, {{Atelier graphique}}, {{Atelier graphique carte}} and {{Kartenwerkstatt}}. I'm the creator of 2 of them, and I plan to merge them into an international {{Graphic Lab}} template. Thanks. ;) Yug (talk) 00:17, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

As you requested. Please let me know when you're done with your work as they are used in a lot of places. --Gmaxwell (talk) 01:20, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Request to unprotect Template:Assessments

Hi Gmaxwell,

You have indef full protected this template stating as a reason that it is widely used. I would like you to remove the protection as the protection inhibits work and improvements, see Template talk:Assessments. Actually, I do not quite understand the aggressive full, blown protection of this template. Its edit history shows that the template has never been subject to edit wars nor of vandalism. Sure, the template itself is controversial, but the controversy has always been debated on the talk page and not lead to any disruptive editing. If I read Commons:Page protection, it seems like it is an unusual interpretation of the page protection policy. Although, I could accept that it is semi-protected, due to use (it may by used on 1000-2000 image pages, but it is nowhere the usage levels for the license templates mentioned on the policy page), full protection seems over the top. This is especially a problem for experienced editors (which I boldly perceive I am one of), who do not wish to do a RfA just to be able to edit protected content. -- Slaunger (talk) 19:13, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Gee, full protecting templates is really something you are into. On a more general level: Are all those full protections of templates really needed? Quite shocked to see that contribution list. -- Slaunger (talk) 19:21, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Ping. -- Slaunger (talk) 10:41, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

After some spates of pretty nasty vandalism on templates of this sort (browsers crashing full screen goatse html table) I protected all templates in use on more than a few thousand image pages. Until we adopt version flagging leaving those templates unprotected would make us an attractive way to attack other projects, and commons is not well equipped to deal with the sorts of vandal attacks some of the other projects see. We've mostly been free of the cycles of vandal/anti-vandal activity that present such a burden elsewhere. If you're not interested in RFAing, thats *OKAY*, but there is always going to be some level of template protection that you'll have to deal with. Why not fork templates into subpages to make your edits, then do request edit-protected to get the changes merged back in. It will impose a little delay, but no limit on your opportunities to contribute. --Gmaxwell (talk) 14:04, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I understand the need to sometimes protect templates, but why not simply semi-protect (has the vandlism been done by registered used) and if full protects are done, then make them time-limited. The indef full protects are very dramatic and not in line with Commons:Page protection as I see it. It is very unpractical to make copy of the template and work on it there and then make an edit protected request. It is work inhibiting and a general turn-off. If you look at the template talk I mentioned you will notice admins asking for help to maintain the template. I would like to help, but having to go through that editprotect fence leaves almost as much work for the administrators. I have also asked if it was possible to be granted limited right, such as the right to edit protected content without being granted the other admin priviledges and tools (in which i have no interest). I have been told that the MediaWiki framework supports this, but there is not opened for doing it at Commons due to the potential administrative burden. Here I request that a singe template is unprotected (or at least semiprotected). A template which has never been vandalized, but has been left in a most unfortunate state by the original creator, who was an admin and has resigned from the project. I do not understand at all why such a request should not be accepted. -- Slaunger (talk) 14:18, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the vandalism has been done by registered and autoconfirmed users (who were also building up farms of sleeper accounts (I'm a checkuser, give me some credit here!)). Please trust than I am not the militant "protect everything" kind of person: I'd much rather see zero protection. But at the same time if we become a favorite target for the vandalism game, we won't be able to avoid protecting far more than is protected now. I'd rather that we endure some full protection now which will end as soon as the stable-template feature in flagged revisions can trickle it's results down to the client-wikis that include commons image pages, then end up developing communities of dedicated vandals and vandal-fighters who are perpetually at war with each other and will not go away. I hope you can understand the position I've adopted here. It's not like these protections we're made in secret at the time they were done, either.

All that said, I don't see much harm in opening up one highly-used, but not extremely highly used template which is in need of help. Especially when there will be people actively working on it and there isn't an obvious attack on-going right now. I've reduced the protection to semi on that template, though I'll restore it again once it is no longer undergoing changes. --Gmaxwell (talk) 14:35, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Gmaxwell - also for explaining why you have done the protects. Now I have a better understanding why you have felt this is needed (although i still think it is overdone, but that is just based on what I see here and not with CU insight). I am not sure the edits to the template will be over very fast though, actually I see it as a continuous maintenance task needed as other WMF projects change the way they handle their own FPs. If vandalism becomes a problem, you can just protect it again. -- Slaunger (talk) 14:58, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Image question on wikipedia

Hi Greg. I'm not sure if you are the right person to ask any more, but from memory you used to be the guy who knew when it came to fair use. So I'll ask away and you can either give me an answer or point me to the right person if I'm lucky. We're getting the odd image uploaded which is artwork commissioned by fans, for example [1]. My understanding is that our fair use claim is less strong on these, from my pov actually doesn't exist since there is no prior publication. However, it is being argued that being placed on the web is publication, and that the image can be located at [2]. What I'm looking for is insight into the ins and outs of having such images and what the best approach is. Since I remember you as having an interest in this area and I respect your opinion, I'd like to know what your take is? Hiding (talk) 12:44, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] about the notice at the bottom of your user page

I'm specifically speaking about the page but not its content. The URL http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Gmaxwell is a resource on a server owned by the Wikimedia foundation, it's not mine. My continued use of that URL is governed by the will and whim of the Wikimedia Foundation and the community of users to which it has delegated its authority in these matters. The content of the page, however, is still my copyrighted work as you stated. Feel free, if you like, to revise my notice to make it clear that I'm speaking of the URL and my use of Wikimedia servers, rather than the content of the page. --Gmaxwell (talk) 18:41, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Translation of GFDL-1.2

I ask you to add the German translation GFDL-1.2/de to template GFDL-1.2/lang. Thanks in advance. --Eva K. ^{tell me about it} 15:54, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Template:PD-Art/lang

I want to add macedonian language code here, i.e. {{Template:PD-Art/lang}}, for further translation of other template parts. Is it possible to do it for me, because now the template is protected. Best regards. --Brest2007 (talk) 11:19, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] {{Taxonavigation}} & {{Taxonavigation/APWebsite}}

Hi Gmaxwell,

Some wikiuser create categories and articles not following APG II, but the modified version (let us say post APG II) provided by APWebsite.

This is the reason for the parameter classification=APWebsite of {{Taxonavigation}}. But currently classification=APWebsite generates a link to APWebsite. To make thing more symetric with other classification values, I created {{Taxonavigation/APWebsite}} (like {{Taxonavigation/Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy}}).

Could you modify {{Taxonavigation/classification}} to replace "APWebsite = the url" by "APWebsite = [[Template:Taxonavigation/APWebsite| APWebsite]]'''"?

Thank you

PS: if you want to see a good exemple, see Category:Centroplacaceae. See Category talk:Centroplacaceae for the proof that Centroplacaceae is not APG II. Cheers Liné1 (talk) 12:55, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sciences exactes.svg

Cleaned a junk code of sorce code, sorry by my low level of english Victormoz (talk) 21:30, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Geonotice on en.wikipedia

hi, I've sent a request for a geonotice on the en.wikipedia but feedback seems to be that you are no longer doing these. If this is the case could you please do a post so alternative options can be looked at. Alternatively it would be great if you could send the geonotice for our meetup :) . Thanks - SimonLyall (talk) 21:29, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Help on editing protected Template:SOlicense

Hi Gmaxwell,

A while ago you protected Template:SOlicense. I don't have admin rights and the COM:SOP seems too inactive for anyone to notice it if I put something up on the template talk page, so I figured I'd see if you would be kind enough to replace the usage section with an inclusion of Template:SOlicense/Usage below a == Usage == header. I've placed the usage section in a category without a <noinclude> tag since the template should be in that category too. Thanks! --Swift (talk) 05:33, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Any chance you could get around to this at some point, or should I take this somewhere else? --Swift (talk) 05:09, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, missed the first request. There ya go. --Gmaxwell (talk) 05:17, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Awesome! Thanks. --Swift (talk) 06:29, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi Gregory, a few days ago I added a request to the templates discussion. It may be easy to insert the categorization, but if nothing will be done to extend the Template:SOlicense by an additional parameter for that, I will add the cat-requests into the files; I did with File:匕-order.gif and File:匕-red.png, but i am stopping it now to wait a while for another better solution.
We will need the categories for the German Radicals-project. As you may see at de:Radikal_20, the "Weblink" below to Category:Radical_020 shows only some (before 2, now 4) of the 6 candidates.
By the way, with a BOT everything could be done automatically. What about that? --Sarang (talk) 08:13, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

In the meantime I expanded the Template:ACClicense to do the same categorizing, as you may see. The more I look on the problem, the more I get the idea that a BOT will be the best way to improof the missing categorization. Not only in this case. Otherwise it will be quite a lot of work - but something should be done. Whereever I look into the Commons, I see that categorization is not at its best state.

If you prefer, you may tell me (at my German talk page, or by e-mail) when you open the locked SOlicense for editing, that I can insert quickly that statement {{#if:{{{5|}}}|[[Category:Radical {{{5}}}]]}}; or you insert it by yourself. Or you tell me why you are against it. Greetings, --Sarang (talk) 16:52, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi Gregory, now I brought the talk to Commons talk:Stroke Order Project#Catgorization problems. If you answer, please at Commons talk, not at your user talk page. --Sarang (talk) 10:00, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Created with Autostitch

In the template {{Created with Autostitch}}, could you change the category from:

[[Category:Marker templates|{{PAGENAME}}]]

to:

[[Category:Created with ... templates|{{PAGENAME}}]]

?

(The subcategory is more specific, and you protected the template, hence I figured you’d be interested / best able to handle this request.)

Thanks!

Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 22:46, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Done. --Gmaxwell (talk) 23:36, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks!

Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 01:01, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Commons:Deletion requests/Category:Location not applicable

Hi Gmaxwell,

I inform you that Category:Location not applicable is requested for deletion (again).

Sémhur (talk) 17:07, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Template_talk:Painting#Location_created

Hi,I would like to have your opinon, there, or, if acceptable, that you might realise the extra field within the template. There is almost no traffic for quite a while, there.

Further, I created today Category:Drawings and other by van Gogh in the Van Gogh Museum and a paternal category, for a trial run. At the moment, COM has many of those fancy vGogh paintings, but more than half of vG's work is draughtmanship, and I'd like to create some better balanced view on the oeuvre, soon. I'm uncertain about correct category names, and too stupid to learn it from Commons:Naming categories. A similar question which I asked Siebrand, User_talk:Siebrand#Let's_come_to_the_point: is not answered for three weeks. Do you think my language there sounded unfriendly? I for sure did not want to be unfriendly to Siebrand.

Category:Drawings and other by van Gogh in the Van Gogh Museum should contain everything except paintings, as I wrote in the description. I was reluctant to create more differentiated similar categories, because they would hold too few items, I suppose. Thisone might however keep two or three dozen, soon. I did ask about a reasonable category name for thisone, weeks ago, on Category talk:Vincent van Gogh#Proposals for future Sub-CATs on October 30, with no anwer but one off-topc one (i was asking for Category:Van Gogh Non-Paintings to be put into a good name). Would Category:Draughtmanship by Vincent van Gogh in the Van Gogh Museum be a good name? Up to now, the sample categories I created contain just one file each, so it is not a problem to re-categorize those and SPEEDY the CATs, but as I'm going to continue cleanup in Kröller-Müller Museum (which owns mostly drawings and similar), tomorrw, it would be important to know in advanve how to name correctly.

Thanks, and I hope you can afford the time to have a look at my questions, soon. Wolfgang (talk) 09:42, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Commons:Categories for discussion/Current requests/2008/07/Category:Adult videos

Sorry my friend, but you can´t execute a deletion request that you have requested yourself... Chaddy (talk) 15:48, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Sure I can, when people do not comment on it for months and there was no dispute. By evidence of the response I should have never bothered making the request to begin with. --Gmaxwell (talk) 15:54, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Commons:Sexual content

thought I'd drop you a line on this one :-) - I think restricting sexual content from userspace here may be a bit stronger than restritcting it to article space at Wikipedia, but it's one option, I guess... your thoughts and feedback would be much appreciated :-) Privatemusings (talk) 04:13, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Please see COM:PS#Censorship for current policy. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 07:03, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Excellent

Perfect execution from photo to upload and description @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lincoln_Memorial_(south_wall_interior).jpg /81.228.235.98 22:20, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Video question

I just uploaded File:192447main 017 law of inertia.ogg. I think I've found a video with the correct license, and uploaded it correctly. It's my first video, though, so I'd like someone familiar with uploading government videos to take a look at it. If you could reply at my WP talk page I would really appreciate it. I want to start uploading lots of cool vids, but I want to do it correctly. Thanks. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 05:43, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] en:WP:Geonotice

(Dual posted to en:User talk:Gmaxwell) Are you still fulfilling Geonotice requests? Either way, please see en:MediaWiki_talk:Watchlist-details#WP:Wikipedia_Loves_Art_notice_proposal and let us know there; your input would be welcome. (Note: my primary talk page is on en.wiki).--Aervanath (talk) 15:12, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Request

Dear Gregory,

Would you be kind to help me by editting Template:Yearcategory/Languages? A line written by Chinese is in the talk page of it, which should be added to the template.

Best regards, --KeepOpera (talk) 23:39, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Licensing question

Hi Gregory, I had a question about the licensing of your images. As I'm sure you're aware of the problems inherent with applying the GFDL license to Wikipedia images, and the fact that rather than addressing those problems, the FSF has chosen instead to allow Wikipedia to migrate its content to Creative Commons licenses through the GFDL 1.3, why do you license your own Commons contributions under GFDL 1.2 only? I also noticed that you actually created the {{GFDL-1.2}} template. Again, I'm curious as to what purpose. Kaldari (talk) 16:50, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm uninterested in offering my images under CC-By-SA (and have stopped contributing photographs to commons, as well as non-minor Wikipedia text, for over a year now because of my disinterest in adopting those terms personally). Among other issues Creative Commons, through Lessig, has previously advised reusers that they can ignore the copyleft requirement of CC-By-SA when creating derivatives of CC-By-Sa works (i.e. creating proprietary textbooks using CC-By-SA illustrations). My photography is only a hobby, but it's an expensive one. I offer commercial publishers who want to produce non-freely licensed works the option of either freeing a work in exchange or paying a typical market rate for the use of my images. As a result, this hobby has been entirely self-funding. Moreover, Creative Commons licensing isn't guided by a long-term philosophy of intellectual freedom that the Free Software Foundation is, thus the existence of the -NC licenses, which I'd rather not have my work associated with. Fortunately, many of current management people that I know at Creative Commons are really great people, so I have greater confidence in their short term work. But without the long term philosophical underpinnings, and with the history of substantial material alteration to existing licenses (such as the allowance for attribution to be removed from works if demanded by a website terms of service in CC-By-*-2.5), I will not be agreeing to relicense my works here under a Creative Commons controlled license in the immediate future. If commons wishes to reject GFDL licensed images, I would consider that to be unwise in the extreme, but I would not protest the removal of my images. In fact, I may ultimately be forced to demand their removal if Wikimedia begins using images in a manner not permitted by their terms. Thanks for your interest. --Gmaxwell (talk) 18:00, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand your objection. Textbooks are (arguably) collections, not derivative works. If collections were required to carry strong copyleft the license wouldn't be "free" in any practical sense. Same issue with the GFDL and images. Reusing images under the GFDL is so legally impractical as to virtually nullify the image being "free". It seems to me that you are applying the goals and values of the free software movement to the free culture movement, when their goals are very different and require different types of licenses and different types of "freedom". Incorporating code into a program is not the same thing as including an image in a textbook. Strong copyleft makes sense for software, it doesn't always make sense for media, however. Kaldari (talk) 18:19, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Also, I don't see how making sure you get paid for reuse of your images benefits "intellectual freedom". For software, sure, for educational materials, no. Kaldari (talk) 18:32, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

It sounds like you've been misinformed about the difficulties of reusing GFDL works. This isn't surprising, as I've seen a lot of misinformation promoted in varrious places. Without being vague, what exactly do you think is required, without using vague accusations like "legally impractical". For example, There are a few use cases where providing the license text is impractical, e.g. a postcard. But these cases are a minority, and the FSF has indicated a willingness to improve the license in the future to address this point without compromising the philosophy of making sure recipients understand their rights. I've certainly never said that it's perfect, but your claim of 'virtual nullificaiton' is harmful, misleading, hyperbole.

If you build a free educational article out of copylefted content the resulting enhanced educational work needs to have the same freedoms as the original. It shouldn't matter if the building blocks are images, text, video, audio, a practice exam, etc. If someone can take an freely licensed educational work, enhance it incrementally, and then release the result as a enhanced whole under a non-free license it would largely defeat the material purpose of copylefting the work to begin with. You might as well have used a basic attribution license. It shouldn't make a difference if the components are text, photographs, diagrams, audio, etc. Obviously a mere aggregation of separate and independent works is a different matter.

Especially in the case of still photographs a 'diluted copyleft' is likely to be of limited value, especially compared to software: The modifications people make 'inside the border' of raster images are usually of limited value, trivial to reproduce independently, and often not copyright earning in any case. Cropping, minor-touchups, etc. Furthermore, the normal commercial market for photography (stock photography; news photography; event photography) are completely insensitive to the ability to make those kinds of derivatives. The commercially worthwhile usage are ones such as advertising materials, textbooks, etc where the image becomes part of a larger more expressive whole without substantial modification 'inside the borders'. Even if you can see a point to making some still images diluted copyleft, hopefully you can see a value in somethings being full copyleft. With CC-By-SA it's not clear what you are getting. The text of the license is clearly a normal full copyleft, and some people of authority claim it is, while other people of authority have claimed otherwise. Free licensing should be unambiguous, I never want to be in the unfortunate position of feeling the need to litigate against a re-user of my works because someone with a respectable name gave them bad non-legal-advice advice.

Copyleft doesn't make sense for all works, in software or otherwise. But it often makes sense for education works: Like software the majority of educational materials are not created to be distributed for a profit: Teachers make worksheets and pamphlets to enhance their educational services which they are paid to provide, organizations create educational works to help their participants do their jobs, or understand their work, etc. (I don't have data to back the majority claim; I think it's intutive, but even if I'm wrong, it's clearly a significant percentage). With a large base of copylefted educational components there is an increased incentive to freely license these works, and an excuse in order to get an organization to allow free licensing which otherwise wouldn't. (I.e. "If I don't freely license this worksheet, we'll have to pay a couple grand for licensed images or pay a photographer to create decent replacements")

As far as getting paid goes, its less a matter of direct intellectual freedom and more a matter of the content existing at all. You did ask why *I* "license [my] own Commons contributions under GFDL 1.2 only", but the freedom to use something which doesn't exist if it did exist isn't worthwhile. The majority of images I've contributed to commons are not just casual snapshots, few have less than a half hour of labor into them, many have much more. If I didn't have a way to offset my photography hardware costs I simply never would have created them (for commercially worthless snapshots I've generally cc-by-sa released images on request, such as File:Wm2006-gm notawake.jpg). My decision to offer negotiated terms in lieu of the copyleft license also allows organizations to see a *cost* from not choosing to freely license their output: "We can save $X if we can find a way to adopt free licensing". (And I have gotten a textbook freely licensed as a result, though it's an oddball religious one ;) )

I should have also mentioned that the reason that I use FDL-1.2 only rather than FDL-1.2 or later is because I was aware of the possibility that a future FDL might allow changing to a completely orthogonal license without my consent. I don't believe such an act is either legal or ethical, and if it were done to any work of significance of mine I'd be inclined to take the matter to court. With that in mind it was prudent of me to take whatever steps I could take to minimize the opportunities for that kind of confusion to occur. (Thus using 1.2 only once I was aware of the possibility of that kind of change, and discontinuing my submission of copyrighted content to Wikimedia once I knew Wikimedia would be pushing in that direction. Hopefully, once the dust settles and it's clear how things will work I'll be able to contribute again— I have a backlog of thousands of useful illustrations)

I hope I've helped you better understand my position. --Gmaxwell (talk) 21:16, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

"A few use cases"? More like most use cases. No one wanting to use an image on a pamphlet, brochure, blog, booklet, slide, print-out, movie, collage, newspaper, or newsletter is going to want to include 5 pages of legal text. If these use cases were really such a "minority" why are photographers like Muhammad Mahdi Karim and Fir0002 (who care nothing about the philosophical issues) choosing to use GFDL 1.2-only so that they can get more commercial relicensing offers?

And yes, I know that the FSF had indicated a willingness to improve the license to address these problems. I was one of the people back in 2006 working on those changes. Unfortunately, all of those changes were dropped and the relicensing clause added in their place with the understanding that Wikipedia would migrate all of their content to Creative Commons so that the GFDL could remain as is. This is really an important point, so let me state it again: All of the fixes to the GFDL (regarding excerpts, the maintenance of cover texts, invariant sections, disclaimers, etc, etc) that were fought for over the course of 3 years were dropped in the final version of the 1.3 license. You can compare the draft and final versions for yourself if you like. The idea of keeping content as GFDL on Wikipedia defeats the whole purpose of that agreement which sacrificed 3 years of work (as well as any leverage to get the license modified in the future). The GFDL will never again be modified to address any concerns of Wikipedia (once most of our content is CC licensed). So I simply can't grant any credence to the idea that the GFDL can be "fixed".

BTW, I agree that (strong) copyleft can make sense for educational materials, but in the case of the GFDL being applied to images and media files specifically, it doesn't make sense. Your own example of a teacher reusing images in a worksheet or pamphlet is untenable with the GFDL. The worksheet would have to be 90% licensing text. Surely you can see the problem here. Another problem created by this situation is that 99% of actual Wikipedia image reuse does not actually adhere to the license and no one ever bothers doing anything about it. This "wink-and-nod" policy (as it has been referred to on Wikipedia for years) hurts both the GFDL and free licenses in general as it creates the impression that free licenses are not enforced. At least with CC-by-sa we can start making reasonable requests for adherence that people will take seriously. Sure, maybe CC-by-sa isn't perfect, but it's a big improvement over the GFDL for Wikipedia's purposes. Kaldari (talk) 00:31, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Thought you might be interested in the discussion going on at w:Wikipedia talk:Featured picture candidates#Non commercial image license. The most prominent defenders of {{GFDL 1.2}} (Muhammad Mahdi Karim, Fir0002, and Diliff) who also happen to be the most prolific contributors of featured images, are now arguing that Wikipedia should allow Non-Commercial licenses and railing against Wikipedia's "misguided ideology". Meanwhile others are trying to educate them on the difference between free (as in speech) and free (as in beer). Kaldari (talk) 15:45, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Flickrreview

Is there an icon or a banner to tag a protected template with? You protected {{Flickrreview}} but there is a tag saying only to edit it if you know what you're doing.--User:Doug^{(talk • contribs)} 04:33, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

[edit] PermissionOTRS/lang

Could you please add Czech and Esperanto to Template:PermissionOTRS/lang? Regards --Petrus Adamus (talk) 12:05, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Done. --Gmaxwell (talk) 15:08, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Wikimedia Research Network

Hi, I am thinking about doing some major edits to meta:Wikimedia Research Network, to move to obsolete content to archive and update the page, but to be honest, most of the content is pretty obsolete :( Do we have any plans about reforming/revitalizing WRN/Wikidemia? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 19:58, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Research Question for the Chief Research Coordinator

Hi Greg, I am part of a research team at Carnegie Mellon University headed by Robert Kraut (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~kraut/)that has been studying social aspects of Wikipedia for over a year and a half. We are currently studying the Request for Adminship (RfA) process in Wikipedia and have a few questions for you about the possibility of running a small survey on RfA voters. I'm not sure if this is the best place to contact you since you have a few user pages, but this seemed to be the most relevant to your Chief Research Coordinator position. We are interested in getting this survey running as soon as possible, please let me know how you would like to be contacted for questions regarding this. Thank you! Ben Collier (talk) 18:23, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Please check my first Upload

Hello, I saw that you are an admin of Commons. Would you please check the first foto I just uploaded to Wikimedia? Is everything ok? Did I make any mistakes? Here is the Link: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tragschrauber-Autogyro.jpg Thanks, --PhilipMay (talk) 09:55, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Looks okay to me. I had to request the the server regenerate the thumbnails by adding ?purge to the URL for some reason. It's possible that the image was uploaded while a server was having a problem. --Gmaxwell (talk) 12:14, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Ahh ok thanks! What about those two erternal links in the description? Should I put them into a "References" section below the article? --PhilipMay (talk) 12:23, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

It would seem wasteful to create a whole section just for those. They aren't unreasonable in the description in my view. --Gmaxwell (talk) 12:48, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] again: Template SOlicense

Hi Gregory, you keep still that template locked, so nobody can do neither harm nor good to it.

In that template, there is a line "other versions": the template finds exactly one "other" version, which is the file itself, creating by this way always a link to itself.

That seems of not much use, and the intention may have been quite different.

In the meantime I made another template, SOovers, which shows all other SO-versions (with the exception of itself). You may look for it, if you don't trust others, and if you want then copy it over your protected SOlicense - afterwards you may ask for a speedy delete of Template:SOovers. I won't mind if you alter things, or make them better, at that template. Good luck, --Sarang (talk) 14:41, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Check comment

Check my comment to your proposal, please.
follow the link to Wikimedia.org--Biris (talk) 10:56, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] CheckUser

I would like to draw your attention to this. Thank you, Tiptoety ^talk 04:36, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Today in images

Could you look at Talk:Main Page#Today in images and tell me what you think. Thanks. Evrik (talk) 01:12, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Please link images

BotMultichillT 14:05, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

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