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COMMONS DISCUSSION PAGES (index) Commons Help desk Village pump (general discussion) Copyright Proposals Technical Graphics and photography discussion Photography critiques Image improvement Illustration workshop Map workshop Photography workshop Video and sound workshop Categories for discussion Undeletion requests Deletion requests Volunteer Response Team/Noticeboard Translators' noticeboard Work requests for bots Contact administrators Vandalism User problems (Dispute resolution) Blocks and protections Bureaucrats' noticeboard CheckUser requests Oversight requests Telegram IRC webchat Commons mailing list (archive) Commons' bugs on Phabricator Welcome to the Village pump This page is used for discussions of the operations, technical issues, and policies of Wikimedia Commons. Recent sections with no replies for 7 days and sections tagged with {{Section resolved|1=--~~~~}} may be archived; for old discussions, see the archives; the latest archive is Commons:Village pump/Archive/2024/06. Please note: If you want to ask why unfree/non-commercial material is not allowed at Wikimedia Commons or if you want to suggest that allowing it would be a good thing, please do not comment here. It is probably pointless. One of Wikimedia Commons’ core principles is: "Only free content is allowed." This is a basic rule of the place, as inherent as the NPOV requirement on all Wikipedias. Have you read our FAQ? For changing the name of a file, see Commons:File renaming. Any answers you receive here are not legal advice and the responder cannot be held liable for them. If you have legal questions, we can try to help but our answers cannot replace those of a qualified professional (i.e. a lawyer). Your question will be answered here; please check back regularly. Please do not leave your email address or other contact information, as this page is widely visible across the internet and you are liable to receive spam. Purposes which do not meet the scope of this page: Please do not make deletion requests here: use the relevant process for it instead. For technical support and graphics talks (PNG, SVG, GIF, etc.), please post on the Graphics village pump. To ask for image improvement, see: Graphic Lab/Photography workshop for photographs. Graphic Lab/Map workshop for maps. Graphic Lab/Illustration workshop for other illustrations. To ask for video or audio improvement, see Commons:Graphic Lab/Video and sound workshop. For translation requests, please post at Commons:Requests for translation. For media requests, please post at Commons:File requests. Search archives:       Start a new discussion

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Village pump in Diepenheim, Netherlands, being packed in straw to prevent freezing (1950) [add]

Centralized discussion See also: Village pump/Proposals   ■ Archive How do we organize categories by date (14 May 2024) Proposal to prohibit political restriction templates (5 February 2024) Should PD-CQ Roll Call be used for recent images? (5 January 2024) Technical needs survey (17 December 2023) When does PDART apply to textile works? (15 November 2023) Does this image contain "love hearts"? (17 August 2023) Overhaul of categories by period (5 December 2022) Version of Saudi flag to use (11 July 2022) Concern regarding revocability of KOGL licenses (22 December 2021) Should deleting content from your own talk page be forbidden? (11 November 2021) Revise the COM:FOP Sweden section (1 February 2021) Change technical name of LRs to license-reviewer from image-reviewer(2 November 2023) Template: View   ■ Discuss    ■ Edit   ■ Watch

April 8

Support for TIFF files - just ask for it!

Hi all. Support for TIFF files has been discussed here time and time again. Uploading TIFF files has been possible for a while, but wouldn't it be nice to be able to view them directly, like other images?

There's now a working and fully featured extension for handling TIFF files: mw:Extension:PagedTiffHandler. Wikimedia Germany contracted Hallo Welt to write it, I personally oversaw the development and reviewed the code. I think it'S ready to go live, even if it could use a little more polishing here and there. In addition to normal thumbnail generation, it offers support for multi-page tiffs (like we have to DjVu and PDF), and it's possible to specify lossless thumbnailing if desired.

So... all we have to do is ask for it to be neabled. I'll file a request on Bugzilla, but we have to have "community consensus" to back it up and put some weight on it. So, if you want to be able to view TIFF files directly, say so below :) -- Daniel Kinzler (WMDE) (talk) 20:15, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Is there a demo of the functionality somewhere ? TheDJ (talk) 20:58, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

•  Support No doubt. –Krinkle^talk 20:20, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
•  Support this is an important move forward !! GerardM (talk) 20:26, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
•  Support Scratch another HIC SVNT LEONES Paradoctor (talk) 20:42, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
•  Support Heck yes! - David Gerard (talk) 20:52, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
•  Support Mike Peel (talk) 20:54, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
•  Support What maximum resolution would be? Trycatch (talk) 20:55, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
•  Support Needfull things NobbiP 21:10, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
•  Support Sounds nice. Thanks to the guys who made this tool. --The Evil IP address (talk) 21:41, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
•  Support Yes! --Magnus Manske (talk) 21:58, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
•  Support *wait* --Prolineserver (talk) 22:03, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
•  Oppose TIFF format is of no interest at all. --GaAs¹¹⁶⁷¹ 22:14, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

  How succinct. Killiondude (talk) 22:22, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

  Wikimedia foundation has a lot of more interresting things to do before. --GaAs¹¹⁶⁷¹ 22:24, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

  Don't mind him. He enjoys drama and he just decided to troll Commons after trolling fr.wikipedia. Let him do it, and he will get banned here too soon enough. guillom 22:27, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

  guillom, ce genre de remarque n'est pas digne de toi. Moi je fais part de mon opinion ici, et toi tu fais part de (quoi au fait?) --GaAs¹¹⁶⁷¹ 22:39, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

  I just gave my opinion here. The only troll I can see is the contributor above, but I can't decipher why he did that. --GaAs¹¹⁶⁷¹ 23:12, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

  My understanding is that TIFF is useful for archival purposes as it is a lossless format, whereas GIF and JPEG are lossy: see, for instance, [1], [2]. This is therefore a good reason for allowing storage of TIFF images. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 08:20, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

  First of all: the Foundation dousn't have to do much to make this go live. Just a code review. The extension is already functioning.

  As to the usefulness: we already allow TIFF files to be uploaded for archival purposes, so we have the "original" arround should someone need it. Having to convert it manually and then upload the jpg version separately is a pain, not only for the uploader but also for the admins to manage.

• About the compression: TIFF supports both lossy (JPG) and lossless (LZW) compression, and even uncompressed data. -- Daniel Kinzler (WMDE) (talk) 10:02, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

• Thanks for the clarification. Providing support for TIFF files is good because TIFF can support lossless compression, whereas GIF and JPEG currently cannot. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 11:46, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

• So, I understand thumbnails will be generated like is done with PDF and SVG. Will the extension also generate a lossless PNG version of the file ? That would be a great function for those who can't open TIFF files easily but do want the full resulution lossless. Link(s) could be displayed below the preview like "This image rendered as PNG: " as is done for SVGs. –Krinkle^talk 00:07, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

•  Support Interests me.  fetchcomms☛ 22:20, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
•  Support I've uploaded a few TIFFs before and was so disappointed they wouldn't render. Great job to whomever worked on this. Killiondude (talk) 22:22, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
•  Support Sure, but I expect to see SVG rendering changes sometime as well (they're just as important :) ZooFari 22:41, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
•  Support --Kjetil_r 23:09, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
•  Support Sure, this will be very useful for Wikigraphist.   ■ MMXX  ^talk  23:31, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
•  Support. Many space programs release their highest-quality files in TIFF format, so support would be welcome to show these works. — Huntster (t @ c) 23:35, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
•  Comment Any hope to see the ZoomViewer gadget to support TIFF files as well? -- IANEZZ  (talk) 23:48, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
•  Support what a silly question we can upload tiffs, we have tiffs, of course we need to be able to see/use them. Gnangarra 00:41, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
•  Support Sure. Raymond 07:20, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
•  Support Woudloper (talk) 07:49, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
•  Support, would only be a positive to the project. Am I too late to join the party? Blurpeace 10:58, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
•  Support {{oppose}}because I can't read them directly on Firefox. I would support if jpg thumbnails are provided in a similar fashion as video or pdf files. 120px jpg thumbnail should show up on Special:NewFiles. Teofilo (talk) 11:45, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
  •  Comment That is the case. The extension creates jpg thumbnail, by request png thumbnails. Everyone can see the thumbnails in every browser. Raymond 13:20, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
    • OK. I change my "oppose" into "support" then. Teofilo (talk) 20:02, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
•  Oppose Per Teofilo, tiff is a storage format, having thumbnails for RC would be a good idea, but we should not encourage people in using tiff if they don't know what they are doing. Esby (talk) 12:10, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

  people shouldn't convert the jpgs they have to TIFF, right. But nither should we have to convert the TIFFs we get from archives, museums, NASA, etc to jpg before we can use them. -- 79.222.100.95 13:23, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

•  Support 'Bout time. Lupo 13:47, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
•  Support Don't see why additional file format support could hurt any project :-) --EugeneZelenko (talk) 14:45, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
•  Comment By the way, TIFF isn't so much an image "format" as a loose collection of semi-compatible formats, so it would have to be an extremely comprehensive program that would allow viewing of 100% of TIFF files... AnonMoos (talk) 01:37, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

This is correct. The PagedTiffHandler per default uses ImageMagick - which supports a variety of TIFF flavours, but not all. The extension tries to detect this on upload, and rejects any image that it can't handle. -- Daniel Kinzler (WMDE) (talk) 10:02, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

•  Support The possibility to share uncompressed pictures offers many possibilities to our community, for instance to help users with edits without the lossy detour over *.jpgs. --Mbdortmund (talk) 14:53, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
  • No, TIFF supporting uncompressed data is really a misfeature, and the only reason people use it is because TIFF has so many compression formats with varying support (and the most generally useful, well-supported one, LZW, used to have patent issues.) PNG files offer lossless compression already, so our users can edit without JPGs. TIFF is only good for support for not reformatting external files and occasionally working in advanced colorspaces and complex print features.--Prosfilaes (talk) 13:24, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
•  Support are those multilayerd photoshop tif files supported to? Amada44 (talk) 15:33, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
•  SupportTIFF is a single format which allows multiple forms of data. Unlike JPEG data can be taken directly from hardware and stored while the tags describe how to interpret that data. This makes it far less lossy than JPEG and IHMO superior. You can store in JPEG within a TIFF. An importer should be able to read them all, the two that I have written could.--JIrate (talk) 16:21, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
  • How can it be "superior" when there is almost no software which supports all forms of TIFF, while almost all JPEG-displaying software can display all valid JPEG images? The first point of a standard is to encourage interoperability, and TIFF somewhat fails with respect to interoperability. AnonMoos (talk) 08:40, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
•  Support Multi-page TIFF support is also very useful, e.g. for some book scans which are provided in that format. --Nemo 18:28, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
•  SupportFinally!!! But will it also have a limit on pixels like png?--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 18:39, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
•  Support Yes please. Kaldari (talk) 19:39, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
•  Support I support it too, everything to be said about this has been said already. --Rosenzweig δ 20:14, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
•  Support of course! Jacopo Werther (talk) 13:25, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
•  Support TheDJ (talk) 08:53, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
•  Comment Based on the comments above, I think we need a policy page to accompany the introduction of TIFF support, so that users know when it's best to use JPEG, PNG, SVG or TIFF (to avoid people converting JPEG to TIFF because TIFF is "better", or using it interchangeably with PNG). Basically, it seems to me TIFF should only be used when an external source provides TIFF files directly (such as LOC or NASA), or when people really know what they're doing.
  Another concern would be the 100 MB upload limit; for TIFF, this is ridiculously low, so we may need to increase it. –Tryphon^☂ 09:06, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
•  Support Will be very useful, as many science journals and image collections only provide their high res images as tiffs, until now they had to be converted and reduced in quality before being uploaded here. FunkMonk (talk) 10:11, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
•  Support --Avenue (talk) 04:23, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
•  Neutral There isn't huge reasons to have TIFF support. After all we already have support for one lossless format, PNG (From where have some people above got an idea that one is "more lossless" than the other?). It isn't hard to convert from TIFF to PNG (hey, this could even be done automagicaly by server?), also PNG is more than often smaller. Legitimate reasons why it should be enabled are already uploaded TIFFs and as I can read from the comments above, multi-page files. Hluup (talk) 12:31, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

The main difference between tif and png is that tifs can contain layers and - as far as I know - png doesnt't. --Mbdortmund (talk) 12:10, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

PNGs too?

What about PNGs? PNGs have MAJOR technical advantages over TIFFs: They're generally half the file size. I'm told that a fix for thumbnailing large PNGS is already created as well. Adam Cuerden (talk) 16:14, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Told by who ? TheDJ (talk) 01:45, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

How about DNGs?

If lossless TIFFs are useful then how about the new(ish) DNG (Adobe's Digital Negative)? A very useful format for photographers dealing with raw files. --Fred the Oyster (talk) 21:54, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

DNG seems to be highly proprietary...don't we typically take issue with that? It seems to be equivalent to TIFF, so what is the value of supporting it? Are there cameras which only output DNG? — Huntster (t @ c) 22:05, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

DNG isn't proprietary at all, in fact it's an open standard. And although similar to TIFF it has advantages and facilities over and above the TIFF format, especially for photographers who prefer to use camera raw formats. DNG was originally designed as an archival format so lends itself well for Commons usage. --Fred the Oyster (talk) 22:51, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

It's just TIFF isn't it. Just with a whole set of obligatory metadata. It's likely compatible with the above technology, however..., I seriously doubt if ImageMagick has support to take all that metadata into account for thumbnailing. Simply no idea whatsoever. TheDJ (talk) 23:05, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Although based on TIFF/EP along with expanded metadata facilities it also supports HDR images natively without having to store them as tone-mapped jpgs, I believe this is the only open source image format to be able to do this, but I could be wrong. --Fred the Oyster (talk) 00:00, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

There was already wide agreement to include DNGs in prior discussions on Commons, and I've been pushing for this very strongly. However, this requires developer action and there has been no progress on this bug in recent months (I'd do the work myself if they'd let me, but they won't). See Bug 19153. Dcoetzee (talk) 00:52, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Once TIFF support has been enabled, I suppose it only takes a little more code to also allow enable rendering support for DNG files. So I suggest to talke this step by step. -- Daniel Kinzler (WMDE) (talk) 12:31, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

We don't really rendering support for DNGs right away (I'd be happy if they'd just let us upload them!) But they want to develop a filter for it first... I tried to tell them the TIFF filter would work fine but the bug has laid fallow for a while. Dcoetzee (talk) 06:07, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Test it on translatewiki.net

The extension is now live on translatewiki.net, see for instance [3]. You can test it there if you like. -- Daniel Kinzler (WMDE) (talk) 21:22, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Works for me. --The Evil IP address (talk) 16:08, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I got "Error creating thumbnail:" when I tried a thumbnail of a different size then "800px": [[File:Rheinauhafen - Sport- und Olympiamuseum - Sportplatz auf dem Dach (8704) -lzw komprimiert.tif|thumb|100px]] –Krinkle^talk 22:13, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

April 9

Vector issues

Reading this page, there still seem to be some issues with the new Vector skin. I'd like to summarize them here so we might be able to work on these.

• There were concerns that the skin settings shouldn't have been changed for registered users.
  • It's certainly not the friendliest thing, but if someone pays you 300K $ to create a new design, then they expect that this new design is also used by people and doesn't become an orphaned one.
• There are performance problems when using the enhanced toolbar, which is enabled by default for everyone.
  • Should definitely be fixed ASAP, actually before this was actually implemented.
    • I doubt this can be fixed, the toolbar is already significantly optimized. In the future a new version of jQuery will be used and this will give a few more speed improvements, but I doubt these improvements will do much for the people complaining about this. People with old browsers or old computers will just have to disable the editor themselves. The alternative is not to provide a better editor, but I don't think that is really a realistic option. TheDJ (talk) 19:39, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
• Cat-a-lot doesn't appear to work for some people.
  • It worked for me, but of course I can't speak for other people.
    • Has always been rather shaky for me personally. Does it have a maintainer? TheDJ (talk) 19:39, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
      • I've had some issues with it for a while. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 20:02, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
        • I have some improvements for it, and have identified a conflict with popups and a bug in the search interface selection. working on it, TheDJ (talk) 23:47, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
          • Cat-a-lot has been repaired. Not as pretty everywhere as I would like, but basically working and I don't want to spend more time on it right now. There is a bug on recent Safari and Chrome versions btw. It doesn't open the new windows for anything but the first selected file. TheDJ (talk) 00:13, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
• The star symbol isn't a good symbol for watching, an eye would or simply the word "watch" would be much better.
  • I agree here. It's not really a good symbol for watching something. An eye might be a better option.
    • As far as I remember body parts should never be used for these things. They can mean different things in different cultures. Also an eye atop every page may "weird out" folks. TheDJ (talk) 19:39, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
    • I wrote css to display plain text "watch". I think there is also a bug about changing/removing the icon somewhere in bugzilla. /Ö 20:28, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
• The truth of the statistics is questionable.
  • I recently read a Powerpoint presentation about how to lie with statistics. While I don't think that it was your idea to lie, I would recommend not to trust too much on statistics.
    • What statistics are you talking about? Kaldari (talk) 15:54, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
      • Probably the #These statistics are meaningless section above. Killiondude (talk) 17:13, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
• Accesskeys need more than half a second to load than in Monobook.
  • I can't say, but if it's like this, it should definitely be fixed.
    • Seems unlikely. Accesskeys are properties of links, so all links that are loaded should work directly. Only accesskeys of dynamically added elements (not part of the core software) might be problematic. TheDJ (talk) 19:39, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
• The Interproject font-size is too big for Vector.
  • Fully agreed, this was one thing that annoyed me as well when I already used Vector. Another thing is that the bullets in there simply suck. Vector doesn't use them, so they shouldn't be there.
    • Inter project links are not part of the default software, but a Commons javascript hack are they not ? TheDJ (talk) 19:39, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
      • I fixed it, the new code (which works on all MonoBook-derived skins, including Modern, Chick and Vector) is at MediaWiki:InterProject.js. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 19:54, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
• The buttons are poorly designed.
  • This is pretty much POV. I'm fine with them, but as many people are against anything new, it's common that they're not loved.
• The "Nominate for deletion" button no longer works on Vector.
  • I noticed this already when first using Vector. As someone who knows the formatting, I don't mind this, but I really see a problem here. It's really essential for the DR backlog that every 4 edits are saved, otherwise the DRs remain orphaned for months. Should soon be fixed.
    • Local Javascript problem. TheDJ (talk) 19:39, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
      • These scripts should not use autoedit btw. They should use the editapi. Using autoedit as they do now is unsupported behavior of the software. TheDJ (talk) 19:49, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
        • Sure, but realistically it'll take years yet before every auto-edit script has been ported to use the API. (As it happens, I do have an unfinished draft of an API-based replacement for the quick deletion tagging script in my user space, but it's a long way from working yet.) —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 19:54, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
          •  Question Would that mean that we no longer need to open popup windows if we use the API. If so, that would be real awesome, since that's a major reason why many deletion requests remain orphaned for months at a time. --The Evil IP address (talk) 13:47, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
• There's no more "Gallery" button on contribution pages.
  • Noticed it as well. For me, there's only the Filter and Autodelete button, but no Extra-tabs, which can be quite inconvenient to browse to someone's user talk page first where the buttons exist.
    • Local Javascript problem TheDJ (talk) 19:39, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
      • Caused by attempting to add actions to p-views. On Special pages, there is no p-views. TheDJ (talk) 20:03, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
        • Actually, the portlet is there, it just needs to be unhidden. I'd fixed this long ago in addPortletLink() from wikibits.js, but I just copied the fix to our MediaWiki:Extra-tabs.js too. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 19:54, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
  • My personal feedback is that both work fine for me, but I like Vector's layout better. However, some of these points are more than valid, and I would be more than happy if they could be fixed or if someone could make recommendations on how to fix them. --The Evil IP address (talk) 19:10, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
    • I don't really understand the technical mumbo-jumbo above - but really would appreciate having my "Gallery"-button back. Any chances? --Burkhard (talk) 19:30, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
•  Thank you. for the fixes that have been made so far. --The Evil IP address (talk) 02:12, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Theora thumbnails

I just got a Flip Video MinoHD. I recorded a couple of sample video clips, and then converted them from H.264/MP4 to Theora using ffmpeg2theora. The videos are uploaded as File:Foosball.ogv and File:Coffee machine.ogv. The videos work reasonably well, but how do I get proper thumbnails? Kjetil_r 13:27, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Thumbnailing for theora/ogg is temporarily broken. The developers have to deploy a fix and it is rather up in debate still. Also somewhat complicated by the whole vulcano thing that has thrown a wrench into operations. TheDJ (talk) 13:32, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

OK, so should I avoid uploading videos until this is fixed? --Kjetil_r 13:36, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

No, when it is fixed, just purge the image description page and the problem should be resolved. TheDJ (talk) 14:15, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Weird, thumbnailing seems to work well for File:E18-Lysaker (01).ogv and File:E18-Lysaker (02).ogv. These clips were also created in ffmpeg2theora (v. 0.24 on my home ubuntu box, unlike File:Foosball.ogv and File:Coffee machine.ogv which were created on my office WinXP computer using v. 0.26). Does the broken thumbnail problem only apply to files created in WinXP, or is it ffmpeg2theora v.0.26 which is to blame? --Kjetil_r 17:27, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Neither, it is a bug in the scaling software. TheDJ (talk) 17:48, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I have also found good thumbnails from Theora videos encoded with ffmpeg2theora version 0.24. Version 0.25 always yields garbled or empty thumbnails. From now on I will be using 0.24 as a workaround, until the bug is fixed. Version 0.23 also might work. For reference, the bug is bugzilla:23160, see also Help talk:Converting video#Video thumbnail error and Commons:Village pump/Archive/2010Apr#Video thumbnails corrupt since 9 April. -84user (talk) 20:03, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

The version of ffmpeg2theora itself isn't relevant. It just happens that your ffmpeg2theora 0.24 binary is linked against a version of libtheora which is not happening to trigger the bug in the software at Wikimedia. --Gmaxwell (talk) 00:14, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Tim Starling has fixed it now and it seems to work well for new files. But I do not really understand the way to repair the older broken thumbnails...--Pristurus (talk) 07:27, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

I have purged as many of the movies that I could find. Only a few are giving me problems:

• File:Rockerbll_web_Test.ogg
• File:Kbm_telemark_carving_apex1.ogv
• File:Mount_Saint_Helens-ffmpeg-600-1920x1080.ogg

TheDJ (talk) 13:47, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you to Tim Starling and the others that helped fix this bug. I made some derivatives of the first two videos above.

• File:Rockerbll_web_Test.ogg -> File:Rockerbll web Test theora.ogv contains just the theora video channel and it produced a good thumbnail; most of the original file contained a huge audio stream with just very low amplitude noise.
• File:Kbm_telemark_carving_apex1.ogv -> File:Kbm telemark carving apex1 reencoded.ogv is a re-encoding using ffmpeg2theora-0.26+svn16949 which also gives a good thumbnail.

With oggz-tools version 0.9.9 I had first tried to rip and then re-merge the theora and vorbis channels into File:Kbm telemark carving apex1 remerged.ogv but that also failed to produce a thumbnail. -84user (talk) 00:05, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

See also tim's analysis here: bugzilla:23402 TheDJ (talk) 19:17, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Why is the user menu on Commons different than Wikipedia?

By user menu at the top looks like this:

My talk My preferences My watchlist My contributions Log out

while on Wikipedia, it looks like this:

my talk my preferences my watchlist my contributions log out

Why are the "My"'s capitalized at the commons? It looks better at Wikipedia. Jason Quinn (talk) 00:17, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I suppose you are using new vector skin where letters are capitalized. One solution would be to switch back to monobook or wait till English Wikipedia moves to vector skin too with all capitalization :) --Justass (talk) 00:23, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I admit that this change totally sucks. As a workaround, you might want to copy the following code into your vector.css:

/* Make all of the links lowercase */
div#p-personal li { text-transform: lowercase; }
/* Override the lowercasing for the username */
li#pt-userpage { text-transform: none !important; }

And FYI, this design will soon also be at Wikipedia, Commons is only the wiki to test the skin for any problems before rolling it out on Wikipedia. --The Evil IP address (talk) 08:59, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. Now I understand why it's different. I agree with The Evil IP address that it looks bad with the capital letters. That should be changed on the Vector style. Jason Quinn (talk) 15:21, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

We could even change it site-wide via MediaWiki:Vector.js. But I'm not sure if it looks good in other languages, so it might be better to do it solely for the English language. --The Evil IP address (talk) 16:09, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Yep, care has to be taken here. I.e. for german, using small letters would basically be wrong there (the german localization used to have all small leters, until about a year ago, when this "bug" was fixed). --PaterMcFly (talk) 17:55, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I actually like it lower-cased in German too, but it's indeed not gramatically correct. I've now created MediaWiki:Vector.css/en. If more languages should have this, we should probably write some Javascript instead of filling out a number of vector.css subpages. --The Evil IP address (talk) 13:42, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

The Special:MyPage/vector.css solution worked for me, but I don't think MediaWiki:Vector.css/en does. -- User:Docu at 06:56, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I see The Evil IP address added a function to MediaWiki:Common.js to load language specific Common.css files and (skin).css files. I am proposing to revert and delete that, since this loads non-exising pages for a lot of people + I can't imagine anything that would have to be in those files ? For one, I use custom Portlet links in that topbar that are now being forced lower case. I think part of the change to Vector is to capitilize more. Look around the skin and compare, it's part of the design. If you believe this is a bad thing and have good reasons for it, go ahead and address it at the Usability Initiative, but unless the Commons-users are different then on other Wiki projects, I think we should not change the skin only on Commons only in English in JavaScript. –Krinkle^talk 20:39, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

This is not a new thing, it was used before already, see for example Special:PrefixIndex/MediaWiki:Common.js/ or Special:PrefixIndex/MediaWiki:Monobook.css/. I only moved it to Common.js to reduce the need of adding this in every single skin. And there's no problem in using a customized skin. If there were one, then there wouldn't be the possibility to adjust the skin design. --The Evil IP address (talk) 02:08, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Announcement of language preference

Is it possible to notice the user they can modify the language preference of Commons' interface whenever they visit Commons from non-English Wikimedia site. For example, the first time accessing to Commons by the link ends with ?uselang=zh, show up a message at the top of the page in Chinese (zh) language to say "You can change the interface language of Wikimedia Commons permanantly by modifying the Internationalisation in 'My Preferences' or else the interface may revert to English when you visit another page. 閣下可以到'我的參數設置'的國際化永久改變维基共享资源的界面語言，否則當你下次進入其他頁面時界面語言可能會回复為英文。" This can prevent lot of file upload with problematic file description entry because the user is unfamiliar with English language.-- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 02:18, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Maybe the language preference should be set "undefined" by default and display English.

If a user visits Commons for the first time with ?uselang= option (autocreating an account here), the preferences could be set directly to that language. It could also use the language preferences from the homewiki. -- User:Docu at 08:25, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

• If you come to Commons through the description page of a file on another Wikimedia site where you are not logged in, you automatically inherit the other site's language (even if you have other preferences on Commons), try zh:File:DengXiaoping.jpg and click on 详细描述).
• This language setting is not particular to Commons, you can do the same on every Wikimedia site (and I do it, it is very useful).

--GaAs¹¹⁶⁷¹ 12:19, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Commons is different as users come to Commons for files for other wikis.

I suggested an enhancement for the default settings for the user language at Commons at Bugzilla:23335. -- User:Docu at 07:13, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

"If an account is autocreated at Commons, the language preference for the user should be the one from the homewiki." Good, but why only on Commons? If I have an account auto-created on dz.wp, I would be very pleased that it takes as default language the language of my main account. --GaAs¹¹⁶⁷¹ 10:09, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

For other wikis this can be useful, but it might not. E.g. if you contribute to dz.wp, you might want to have the same view of the website as the main contributors of that wiki. To change it for other wikis, I think a more detailed analysis is needed, but for Commons, the answer seems easy. -- User:Docu at 12:34, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

The only reason I can think of to prefer the "original language" rather than you own language on a given wiki is to work on / speak about interface and system messages of this wiki (unlike on Commons, on Wikipedia and others, language setting changes only the interface, never the content). This may be the case for a very very very small minority, but for the vast majority their native language is always the best choice to start. And you always can change back the setting.

In fact in my case it is exactly the opposite of what you say, as Commons is the only wiki where I generally don't use my native language. --GaAs¹¹⁶⁷¹ 12:48, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

global preferences

Encountering the same problem as sameboat mentioned above I came to the question why there aren't any "global preferences" you might want to set. At least ... the registered email-address is copied automatically to any new created local account once SUL is activated ... why just the email-address and not the whole set of settings? Favourite language, signature, etc. ...? axp_de^Hello! 15:00, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Adminship revoked without a notice

Hi, I'd like to notify the community about the procedural error regarding my desysopping by an unknown steward in February 2010. I have been actively editing Wikipedia and uploading images here and also did quite a lot of work to localise the Commons for the Slovene-speaking users. However, I was on a pause recently. Today, I wanted to resume my work but have found that I don't possess the rights needed to edit the user interface. The reason for the desysopping was my inactivity per Commons:Administrators/Inactivity section/Feb-Mar 2010. The linked page says: "These administrators have received a message on their user talk page on February 17 and have to respond within 30 days or will lose adminship." The COM:DESYSOP says the following: "A notice should be placed on the inactive admin's talk page linking to this policy and explaining that admin rights may be lost. An email should also be sent." I have never received either a notice or an email.[4] "The ex-admin should be notified by a talk page message." As evident from my user talk page history, I have not been notified. Therefore, I consider the correct procedure was not followed here and ask for the reversal of the action, especially as I did good work during my adminship and never abused the tools and am needing the status for my further contribution regarding the Slovene localisation of the project. --Eleassar ^(t/p) 16:06, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

See meta:Steward_requests/Permissions/2010-02#Inactive@commonswiki. I wonder if this went wrong for more users. You should be reinstated. Just have to poke a bureaucrat or a steward to fix this. Multichill (talk) 16:50, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

The message was posted see, [5] but the requirement "... and also to make at least five further admin actions in the following six months." was not fullfilled, as seen in your logs. So the remove of Adminright was done with notice and due to comunity guidelines. --Schlurcher (talk) 17:15, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but this message was posted in August 2009, not February 2010. At that time I did enough edits to retain the adminship (activity available in the logs and in my contributions list).[6][7] The page Commons:Administrators/Inactivity section/Feb-Mar 2010 is from February and says: "These administrators have received a message on their user talk page on February 17 and have to respond within 30 days or will lose adminship." I did not received any message on February 17 nor have later, but only found out today through being unable to perform some actions that I have been revoked of the adminship. --Eleassar ^(t/p) 20:37, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I count 2 admin actions since August 2009, required where 5 in 6 months. So 6 months later the admin status was revoked due to "... and also to make at least five further admin actions in the following six months.". The Inactivity sections are renewed every 6 months, maybe this second necessity was checked then. --Schlurcher (talk) 15:19, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

This matter is probably better over at the bureaucrat's noticeboard. I know that there's a policy that requires an admin to make at least 5 actions within half a year, but most people aren't familiar with the exact execution of this policy, since it's a bureaucrat matter. --The Evil IP address (talk) 16:44, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Internationalization of images themselves

Hi, I have an image with some text description inside and would like to publish it in different language versions but not as different submissions. What is the recommended way for this? -- Trilarion (talk) 12:57, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Create separate images with the text in different languages, and upload them separately. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 12:59, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Okay, this would be as if they have not much in common. Is it possible to have different versions of one file corresponding to different languages? How can one access them conveniently in an article? I would prefer if these files could be kept together as much as possible, so for others who want to translate them further, its easier. On the other hand, if there is no such solution I will upload them with name extension -en, -fr, -... -- Trilarion (talk) 15:24, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

I suggest something like this File:Anaximander world map-de.svg --Schlurcher (talk) 15:27, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Yup, I was going to suggest something like that. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 21:12, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

In principle, the svg specification supports a language switch. But a) I do not know if any browser supports it, and b) the user is served png files on the wikipedia pages. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 15:31, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Okay, so there is just no way to group images by same content (only different language) on one page. This might be a good case for interface improvement of the wikimedia commons software. I would love it. Just would have to make it more general (tag versions). -- Lexic 4712 (talk) 13:58, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

For text, there is {{Multilingual description}}. It is useful in descriptions of categories, it probably also works in image descriptions. Maybe it can even be a wrapper around images. So one might be able to make a gallery page that automatically chooses the image in the right language. I will try something this evening (unless someone else manages to try this first). /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 14:18, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I made the page Anaximander world map. It is not a good solution, because all images get downloaded first. Only after that, one language is selected. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 17:07, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Spam

I notice that Commons:Spam does not exist. I think we need to define what "Spam" is. Should we use the definition of "spam" on the English Wikipedia? (See en:Wikipedia:Spam) WhisperToMe (talk) 22:01, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Does Commons see enough spam to need a definition of what it is, or is common sense sufficient? --Carnildo (talk) 23:11, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Considering that a user referred to "Canvassing" (which I consider to be appropriate canvassing) as "Spam" on my talk pages, then yes, I do think that. In any event it is not difficult to simply adopt what the English Wikipedia says is Spam as the definition. In regards to Canvassing, I also posted a request below about defining canvassing. WhisperToMe (talk) 23:19, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Commons lacks a lot of "strict" definitions like enwiki has. I think people make up for that by using common sense. I mean, we haven't needed to have a project page on spam in how many years that Commons has been a project? :-) Killiondude (talk) 00:53, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

It's understandable since Commons has had far less activity than, say the English Wikipedia. Commons has been a project for awhile, but it also is not as busy or trafficked so far fewer disputes have arisen. However I want to be able to say "this is what spam is" or "this is called canvassing" and be able to point to a project page on the commons (so people can't use a "this isn't wikipedia" excuse) as ironclad proof. If you are wondering, the other user who I was in a dispute with is a sysop on here. WhisperToMe (talk) 02:08, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

--unindent--
It seems to me this thread is confusing "spam" and "canvassing", at least as the English Wikipedia defines them.

• Spam -- External links, references to books, or even articles whose primary purpose is to advertise the subject of the link or article.
• Canvassing -- Canvassing is sending messages to Wikipedians to inform them about a community discussion. Canvassing itself is not necessarily bad, if limited and neutral.

I do a fair amount of New Page Patrol on galleries and I would guess that once a day something appears that falls into the en: definition of spam. I tag it {{speedy delete| out of scope - spam}} and it gets deleted. I suppose it might be nice to have a policy page to point to, but they've all (if I remember correctly) been IP or new users and there's been no pushback. . . . . Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs) 12:21, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

• The user who was in a dispute with me was the one who was confusing "Spam" and "Canvassing" (if you would like, read the entries at User_talk:WhisperToMe#Please_stop_spamming_Commons:Forum and User_talk:H-stt#Air_France_447) - that is why I want Commons to have its own entries on those. I was the one saying "this is not spam" - Since my messages were only posted to one place, I would also say that whatever "canvassing" was there was appropriate. BTW when I pointed to the Wikipedia guideline entry about spam he said "because the internal definition of the enWP in their Wikipedia name space is of no relevancy at Commons." WhisperToMe (talk) 13:21, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

 Support the enwp version of spam guidelines being implemented here. - Stillwaterising (talk) 19:09, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

But they are two entirely different projects. Enwiki's spam guidelines can't possibly apply to Commons. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 01:41, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

It is physically possible to place "sales-oriented language and external links to a commercial website" in an image description or a Commons page with links to many images. WhisperToMe (talk) 08:16, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

•  Comment: I don't know if Commons really needs its own guideline for this. It's clear that we don't like spamming, but to be realistic, it doesn't happen too often, which is pretty obvious after further thinking. Commons simply isn't that famous and known as Wikipedia is. An external link within an important article will highly increase their visitor count. Commons is a project that a high number of those spammers don't even know and external links here don't increase their traffic that much. To show one example, one abuse filter was copied about one year ago from en.wikipedia that deals with link spamming, but the last time I checked it, it hadn't got any hit so far. This is one advantage of not being as famous as Wikipedia is. --The Evil IP address (talk) 16:39, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
  • Would you be in favor of a redirect to the English Wikipedia's spam policy? WhisperToMe (talk) 12:54, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
    • Yes, and I'd be in favour of automatically making ALL enWiki policies in force on Commons unless they are obviously irrelevant or the Commons community has specifically decided otherwise. 9carney (talk) 16:31, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
      • Are there any unanswered objections to using en.Wikipedia definitions for Spam and Canvassing? WhisperToMe (talk) 11:02, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

• • • • • w:WP:Spam discusses primarily Wikipedia articles. Commons has no such articles. It can't be of much use here. -- User:Docu at 11:12, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
          • Firstly I explained that it is possible to place spam on the Commons in the general manner described in the English Wikipedia document. People can make image descriptions, category descriptions, or "page" descriptions that are advertising or promotional in manner. People can also insert spam external links.
          • But the issue is because a user is inappropriately labeling a set of actions of mine as "Spam," and when I pointed him to definitions of "spam" on the English Wikipedia and "canvassing" on the English Wikipedia he said that they do not apply on the Commons. Commons may not have needed a definition of "spam," but it does now.
          • Inappropriately labeling people as "spammers" and actions as "spam" makes discussions inflammatory. People on here need to use proper terminology. I told the user, User:H-stt, to stop referring to my action (re-posting an ongoing, long translation request on one page, Commons:Forum, after repeated archiving by archive bots) as spam. He has refused to do so. He was the only user to complain about my re-posting of the long request (the items in the request decreased as time passed, as more and more were translated, so it was an on-going request) - Commons:Forum had no rule saying that such requests were prohibited, and the user made no attempt to have a message inserted in the Forum talk header to try to redirect long, repeated translation requests to another place. At the time Commons:Forum was the best place for long, repeated requests.
          • My request is there to make Commons users use proper, respectful terminology and to understand via the Wikipedia Canvassing page when canvassing is appropriate or not appropriate, and to be cautious when referring to "spam"
          • WhisperToMe (talk) 12:20, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
            • One can call your actions "spam", there's no problem in this. --The Evil IP address (talk) 12:52, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
              • He was the only person to do so, and no other people in the community said "We don't want to do these" or "We have seen them enough, stop posting them" - There was no way to keep outstanding translation requests on the page without the bot archiving them. -- If multiple people said "yeah, I agree it is spam" that would be one thing, but he was the only one to do so. As a matter of fact, I'll go back in the edit history and show you the diffs involved.
              • Also you might want to see the initial messages posted: 1 and 2 (with the message "do you even notice what you are doing, spammer! Stop this crap immediately, revert your spam and never do it again. ")
              • WhisperToMe (talk) 12:59, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

• After some searching I found that you are probably referring to the work lists you posted to the (German language) forum, e.g. here. Even if you import the definition from WP, you can't avoid that users of a specific forum consider your posts spam (or even add this to a Commons definition of spam).
  Personally, I don't see an overwhelming need that File:Air France Flight 447 path-it.svg (the Italian version of graphic available in several languages) would have an additional description in German nor why you would posted three times about it in the (German language) forum. -- User:Docu at 13:10, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

1. The reason that image needed German is the same reason why every image in that category needed German - there were a lot of passengers on the plane involved were from Germany. Air France and the French Bureau of Aviation Accident Inquiry and Analysis posted official communications about the incident in German. Therefore German is a language important to the said subject (the other three are English, French, and Portuguese). Because of that every image and page in that category needed a German description.

2. The only reason why I had to post those messages multiple times is because the bots automatically archive. There is no way (that I know of) to prevent the bots from archiving a (still) outstanding request (such as a request involving an entire category). I wanted the request to remain until it was finished. Each time I re-posted the request list, a few items at a time were done. If the bots did not automatically archive the request list, I would not have re-posted it like I would have. If it had been manually removed I would have made a talk page message to that particular user. But we are talking about a bot, so I simply re-posted the same message (minus any completed entries). -- If any images that had still not been completed had been reposted x number of times, it is because nobody had gotten to it yet.

3. "you can't avoid that users of a specific forum consider your posts spam" - As I have said before, it was one user who messaged me on my talk page - No other users posted messages saying that on the Forum page itself, nor did anyone else specifically message me saying that. The fact that a few individual requests were completed at a time sent a very different message, that the posts were okay. Therefore it is not the forum that considered the messages "spam" - it was that one user.

WhisperToMe (talk) 14:22, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Just for the record: As Commons is an international project beyond languages and cultures, it is totally unacceptable to make enWP guidelines automagically apply here. Why are enWP guidelines considered superior to those of faWP or jpWS? --h-stt !? 19:27, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

The reason I suggested English is because English is the "standard" or "default" language of Commons (after all category names must be in English) - if any language would be the "default" or "standard" it would be English. I do not believe that this concept contradicts the international mission of the Commons (as we seek to have everything from image descriptions to policy pages to templates translated in a plethora of languages). I did not anticipate that another language Wikipedia would have radically different concepts regarding, say, Canvassing or Spam.

If this is the case, then all language version policies should be compared, and then Commons can choose which one is the best for its mission, or it can combine any parts of different language policies.

How would culture factor into choosing which language Wikipedia policy is the best to be adapted to the Commons? From my understanding it mainly has to do with difference in opinion in how to handle copyrighted images (Commons does not accept unfree images, and this is a cornerstone rule of the Commons, so that is a moot point) and differences in local laws (The Japanese Wikipedia requires articles to comply with Japanese law)

It brings another point to mind - What if, say, two language versions of the same policy or guideline on the Commons, even if they are written to convey exact the same meaning, somehow conflict? If it is impossible to modify one to be in line with the ones, one could have a statement saying "If there is a conflict between the English and any non-English version of a written guideline or policy, the intent of the English version prevails" or something like that. I see that all the time with policies and guidelines related to courtesy translations of material (I.E. something like "if there is a conflict, the Japanese version is authoritative" is seen on Japan Rail documents, etc)

WhisperToMe (talk) 20:37, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm not too interested in reading walls of text, but you're barking up the wrong tree if you wanna start enforcing enwiki policy and stuff on Commons. To be quite blunt, lots of other wikimedia projects try to not be like enwiki in many avenues (outside of producing so much content, enwiki isn't always the best project). We usually take things on a case by case basis here if we don't have a strict policy about it. Killiondude (talk) 22:45, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Okay, to be more concise, what I said above is that if other Wikis have differing policies on a certain subject, Commons could consider all of the different versions and pick the one best for that project. I never said that EN policy is always the best every time. WhisperToMe (talk) 23:02, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Images of Signatures and BLP concerns

What do people think about us hosting images of living individual's signatures? Could these not be used in forgery and identity theft? What if we got a BLP complaint from someone concerned that their signature is now freely available on the internet? Should we reconsider hosting signatures of living people? Should we deleted only on request? Should we tell those contacting us concerned about their privacy that it isn't our concern or problem? Where is the line? Looking for additional input, and seeing where the community stands on this. Thanks! -Andrew c (talk) 20:51, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

How many do we have? --Jarekt (talk) 21:38, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Browsing through Category:Signatures, I'd very loosely estimate a couple dozen. -Andrew c (talk) 22:26, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Definitely a privacy/identity theft concern. Kaldari (talk) 23:26, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Here would be my proposal. Signatures of living people sourced to the individual, or a closely associated organization (such as File:Michael_Steele_signature.jpg and File:Tony Blair signature.svg (*UK law may allow for copyright of signatures so this may not be ok for that reason) and File:Joe Biden signature (blue).gif (*assuming source pans out, it is "Server not found" now) while signatures sourced to autographs and personal correspondences not made otherwise public would not be ok (maybe something like File:Gordon Brown signature.svg or File:FirmaLacalle.jpg or File:Bobby Flay Autograph.svg or File:Anwar Masood's Autograph.JPG). Does that distinction make sense? -Andrew c (talk) 03:44, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I would say it depends a bit on the situation. Signatures of famous persons, say Bill Clinton, Angela Merkel or Arnold Schwarzenegger to show some examples from Category:PD signature, should be kept because they clearly meet our scope and there are also no copyright issues. In other cases, I would count this as a valid argument for a DR and might even recommend a deletion then. But I dont support a mass deletion. It might be that they can be abused, but hardly anyone out there would do something like this, and in such a case the abuser should be punished, not those that properly use the signatures. Otherwise, we could go with the same argument for the deletion of company logos and similar stuff, too. --The Evil IP address (talk) 06:47, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I can see no conceivable use for signature images here. At least company logos (that are PD here or fair use on enwiki etc.) serve to help identify a company. Stifle (talk) 09:05, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I do not agree Collecting Autographs is a popular hobby and our collection could be useful as a reference or to illustrate more in-depth articles about it. --Jarekt (talk) 12:23, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

You can't use company logos to sign forged checks or open up fake credit card accounts or steal personal identities (or logos aren't really used for identity verification, and don't affect an individual person in the same manner). Due to the anonymity of the requester, I can't get into specifics yet, but we have had someone raise a BLP concern and ask for deletion of their signature which we are hosting. I am quite sympathetic, but told them I wanted to feel out the community on this, and perhaps maybe take it to DR instead of speedying it, but I'm also concerned the longer we host it publicly, the more possible (or speculative) damage it could cause. This isn't a case where it is a government official who has their signature posted on their official website on signed letters and stuff like that. It's an autograph sort of situation. I'm almost compelled to comply. Is there any clear argument why we should keep such an image when at the very least the subject hasn't made it public and asked for deletion?-Andrew c (talk) 13:11, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Signatures are not copyrightable in the U.S., so by normal policy we would keep them. They are particularly heavily used for politicians, etc., so I wouldn't support deletion of signatures of living people as a general rule. You can most certainly violate trademarks etc. with company logos, commit fraud with them (or government insignia), etc. (think forged letterheads or company checks). You could also make the argument that having a known good signature available here makes it easier to identify forgeries elsewhere. That all said, if somebody thinks they could come to further harm from having their own signature here, I would support deletion in those on-request cases. So no, I can't think of a good reason to keep in this particular situation, from the sounds of it. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:11, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for everyone's input so far. Hopefully I'm not going to far in deleting the one image in question, and perhaps we can discuss general policy further if necessary. -Andrew c (talk) 14:58, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, i agree with Carl above. In this case I would support it, but for politians et cetera I would think that we should keep them on Commons. Killiondude (talk) 16:34, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Just some thoughts here. Copyright is an interesting question but not the most important one in this context. I think the BLP issues are much greater. I liked the idea of... if there is a public source for it, that seems different from private correspondence or autographs. Like many BLP issues, the relative notability of the person is certainly relevant to some extent although difficult to include in deliberations in a consistent way. That is to say, the signature of Bill Clinton or Pete Rose is not likely to allow anyone to successfully harm them through identity theft, but the signature of a notable but non-celebrity scientist could be quite handy for a criminal or abusive person. I think that "on request" is a decent rule but I hope we could go a bit further, on the theory that many people with their signatures here might be surprised to know it. I was.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:44, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for this case. We even talked there about possibilities of abuse and assumed that nobody would use his official signature for quasi public autographs. Nevertheless, in case of doubts and/or individual request those pics should of course be deleted. Jimbo, could you please check out these three other ones with your signature: File:Free Travel Shirt Abschlussevent DSCF8063.JPG, File:Free Travel Shirt Abschlussevent DSCF8074.JPG, File:Free Travel Shirt Unterschriften DSCF8076.JPG. Thanks and sorry again. --Martina Nolte (talk) 18:44, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

@Andrew c: Not that I want to force you to tell it to us, but would there be a way to tell us which image was asked for removal? I think that this would make discussing much easier, since I (and others probably too) don't really know what exactly is the topic (besides signatures in general). @Stifle: They're clearly useful. Just see the Barack Obama article on Wikipedia where the signature image is used within the infobox. --The Evil IP address (talk) 16:17, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

It was one of my photos - from the shirt serie I mentioned above - with "Wikipedia" and one autograph singled out. --Martina Nolte (talk) 18:40, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

It's easy to forge signatures. Signatures have almost no value as a means of security. It's like e-mail, anybody can forge the "from" line. And whenever I signed a document I have never seen anybody comparing it to previous signatures. If anybody wanted to make sure that I am who I claimed to be they would ask for an ID or something similar.

If a publicly known signature would be a security risk it would generally be a security risk to sign letters.

It's comparable to a moral panic, a "security panic". Wit Google StreetView some people have argued that it's bad cause it could be abused by pedophiles who could search for potental victims and study their homes online. This criticism of course is nonsense cause the hard part is not "finding" a child (there are millions out there, just go to the street and grab one). The hard part is not being catched _after_ you "found" the child. Just the same with signatures. The thing that stops people from forging signatures is not that it's hard to find a specimen of the signature. It's the fact that it's illegal and doesn't work well as soon as somebody finds out that the supposed signer of a document does not approve of the document's message. --Slomox (talk) 12:48, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

how to prevent spontaneous keyboard setting changes

Hello, how can I prevent spontaneous keyboard setting changes when moving from commons to any wiki and back to commons; how can I prevent langauge changes when moving from commons to any wiki and back to commons? --Havang(nl) (talk) 17:15, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

You can set your interface language in your preferences. Some wiki's override this by setting uselang=<somthing> in their links to Commons. For example if you click a link at nlwp (nl:Amsterdam) to Commons ([8]) you'll get Commons in Dutch. Next click the uselang is gone and you're back at your normal interface language. Multichill (talk) 20:12, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Uploader-requested deletions

File:Dutchess County Route 9.jpg is an image I uploaded about two years ago, before I was familiar with Commons' quality. It's a poor-quality image and only barely falls into project scope, if at all. In the past I've just deleted my own images that are unused, poor-quality or duplicates, but I just want to make sure that's alright with everybody before I continue to do so. Thanks! –Juliancolton | ^Talk 19:29, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

You should be very careful. Uploader request should only used when someone makes an mistake. As for poor quality, see Commons:Deletion policy#Redundant/bad quality. Exact duplicates can of course be deleted just don't forget to replace all usage. We have these rules to protect Commons against it's admins. Multichill (talk) 20:09, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Even if the image in question is of low-quality and inferior to other files? –Juliancolton | ^Talk 20:21, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Redundant or low quality files only get deleted on a case by case basis after they are listed at Commons:Deletion requests (from here) seems pretty clear to me. Multichill (talk) 20:41, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I have some of these from when I first started, too (I was just learning to use a digital camera). Don't sweat it: there is no harm in keeping them here. - Jmabel ! talk 22:38, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Fine; I've restored a couple that I probably should have been more careful with. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 23:46, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

•  Comment: You know, uploader request deletions are often a problematic thing. I can understand the desire to remove pictures from here, but if they're in scope, we should be careful with deletions. In a perfect world, someone would propose it for speedy deletion and an admin would apply common sense, check if it's better to delete it or not, and then act accordingly. As it's not like that, we probably have to go to deletion requests in order to make sure we don't lose too many acceptable images. I'd like to see a better system, but I must honestly admit that I have no idea how it could look like. --The Evil IP address (talk) 16:10, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

• Well, one issue is that since this is a gray area, DRs tend to attract little attention as seen here. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 19:32, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

now I have to log in every time

I've been using 'classic' skin for months, monobook was what I could look at -it was tolerable; this vector is awful, please make it less blue and remove gradients, the colors should be evenly distributed Q/0/k 22:25, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I hope when you opted out of the Vector skin, you gave feedback... Because we can't really do anything about it. That was in the hands of the Usability group that the WMF pays. Killiondude (talk) 22:30, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Changing filename

Is it possible? File:Embassy of East Timor - Washington, D.C..jpg is actually the Embassy of Cape Verde, per page 6, and you can see the flag of Cape Verde, rather than East Timor. Thanks, Grsz11 (talk) 23:32, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I've requested a rename for the file. Pretty straightforward evidence. — Huntster (t @ c) 02:52, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Rename  Done. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 03:04, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Would you delete the redirect too? -- User:Docu at 07:36, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Oops,  Done. Should've checked the box to suppress it to begin with. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 13:37, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

May 1

Batch upload of Images of firearms

I'm currently batch uploading images of Firearms from flickr to Category:Images of Firearms to check If anyone is interested in helping categorizing these images and putting them in the appropriate articles...--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 09:25, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Yah! Your bot is working :-) Multichill (talk) 19:18, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Category:Smith & Wesson could use a series of subcategories based on en:Smith_&_Wesson#Notable_revolvers. The filenames of your batch should allow to categorize them there. If you prepare a file with filenames and categories, my bot could upload them and remove some of the redundant categories. -- User:Docu at 11:35, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Watch/unwatch

How do we watch or unwatch a page/file with the new system ? --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 16:24, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

The new system being the Vector skin? You should see a tab with a yellow star on it; click that to watch/unwatch. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 16:40, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes that's what I meant. Thank you (this is strange to have chosen a symbol, you have to guess for what it is !) --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 11:33, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

I think that I recently found out where the star came from: Firefox. see image on the right. Amada44 (talk) 18:53, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Proposal for a new screenshot category

It has come to my attention that there are many screenshots on commons from film trailers from before 1964. However I have been unable to figure out exactly how these pictures should be uploaded, and in most cases I have just uploaded them to wikipedia and someone else has tagged them as mtc. I think there should be a new upload category under screenshots for public domain film trailers, because these trailers are very useful for getting public domain pictures of older actors and actresses, as well as pictures from older films. From what I have seen on commons and wikipedia, it seems that all or almost all film trailers before 1964 are in the public domain, as well as some from before 1978. Givememoney17 (talk) 16:45, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Use the "basic" upload form, leave the "Licensing" dropdown set on "None", and then put whatever specialized licensing tag you want in the information template in the main description box... AnonMoos (talk) 18:54, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Let's add a rename user right

Since some time now, the rename queue has been extremely long and I feel that this is something that not solely administrators need to deal with. As it was once with the MediaMoveBot, regular users should have the option again to rename files. It's really not that much of a problem which can be extremely abused, and it also didn't happen when we used the MediaMoveBot.

Thus, my idea would be to add a user group to Commons which has the right to rename files. They can be added and removed by any administrator, just like with rollback or patrollers. With Commons:Requests for rights, we already have a pretty good page to request this right. The same idea has been proposed already and the only concern was that User:CommonsDelinker/commands can't be edited by non-admins.

This problem now has a solution: The way to open it for "renamers" would be by using the AbuseFilter. We would first change the protection level to "[edit:autoconfirmed;move:sysop]" and then configure two Abuse Filters: One to prevent that a non-renamer adds any command, and one which prevents renamers from adding any command other than {{Universal replace}}. I tested it and it worked, so it shouldn't be problematic in this case. Of course, it would be tested again if this is to be implemented, so that no serious errors happen.

Considering the political rights of this user right, it's basically the same as with the admins at the moment. File renames should be renamed when it makes sense, which you can see at Commons:File renaming#What files should be renamed?. If there's misuse, then the right would be revoked. I've written a draft version at User:The Evil IP address/rename, feel free to alter it, it's far from being perfect.

Since now all problems are solved, I propose that we go to Bugzilla and request to add this user right. Please let me know if this works for you. If you have problems with this, please state them, so we can try to find a compromise. Also, feel free to ask any questions if you didn't get something. --The Evil IP address (talk) 19:21, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Opinions

•  Support: Long overdue. --The Evil IP address (talk) 19:21, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
•  Support - Anything to help reduce backlogs around here. Abuse of the pagemove feature in other namespaces has, as far as I know, been minimal. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 19:30, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
•  Support. Per The Evil IP address. It's about time someone proposed this. — Kanonkas // talk // e-mail // 20:10, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
•  Support: This would speed up file renaming process which is currently too slow. --Sa^Mi ✉ 22:10, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
•  Support in principle. I would like to point out though that universal replace can be used for more than just file renaming, it can also be used for replacing. TheDJ (talk) 22:15, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
  • We could program the abuse filter to only allow universal replaces with reason "File renamed", so that one would have to lie when replacing other files, but I think it's similar to non-admins closing deletion requests. If it's a good replace, e.g. a replacement of a bad name or exact duplicate, then it's not a big problem if a non-admin does it. Since replacements to .svg are disabled, it can't be abused that much, and if it actually happens, then we should revoke this user right from the abuser. --The Evil IP address (talk) 15:35, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
•  Support Good idea. Jafeluv (talk) 16:29, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
•  Support --GaAs¹¹⁶⁷¹ 12:33, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
•  Support Many good reasons to promote an user to renamer but not to administrator.--Nillerdk (talk) 07:42, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
• I like this idea. I've been looking forward to a smaller move-request backlog for a while now. :-) Killiondude (talk) 08:04, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
•  Support Thanks for this useful proposition. --Myrabella (talk) 09:49, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
•  Support Yes, please. I probably ask for one or two renames a day and I hope I can be trusted to simply do them, as I can on English Wikipedia. . . . . Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs) 12:02, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
•  Support. Jack ma (talk) 14:04, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
•  Support I think its a good idea. the backlog is always huge. Amada44 (talk) 18:45, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Comments/Questions

• We're creating all these different user groups. Why not throw all these rights in one group and call it something like "trusted users"? Multichill (talk) 19:49, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Me thinks it does already exists, called something like admins ;-). --Túrelio (talk) 20:30, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Admins are users who have demonstrated all-around trustworthiness and some degree of skill in multiple areas. The more specific usergroups are often for the many users who have demonstrated ability in a certain corner of the project. That's how I view it, anyway. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 21:22, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Because there are cases where users could surely get one or two of these rights, but not all. For example, "rollback" would be something that I wouldn't give to a user that tends to get into edit wars, but "autopatrolled" or "rename" might be ok. --The Evil IP address (talk) 10:24, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

• Might be easier/more efficient to create a "trusted user" group and take away specific control bits if they prove to abuse it. Because delete/undelete is not available, risk of serious damage is fairly limited anyway. --Foroa (talk) 14:54, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure this is actually technically possible, but there are also instances in which I wouldn't give certain rights generally, not only when they're abused. And btw, you can just check the other boxes on Special:UserRights, it's not that big of an effort. --The Evil IP address (talk) 17:27, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
• A common argument against admin-candidates is that they don't have experience in the "deletion request" department. It thus does make sense to have specialised user rights. My support. Nillerdk (talk) 07:41, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

"File extension does not match MIME type." on new file being uploaded

I was uploading two audio files into new commmons' filenames with the file extension ".oga" which did match the mime type as they were both vorbis audio files.

After upload was over I got the warning "File extension does not match MIME type." and all the time waiting for the upload was lost.

I have no idea what's the problem since I have been, through the last weeks, uploading audio files with the same extension and created in exactly the same way as these ones.

I'm re-uploading them now, with "ignore warnings" checked.

Why isn't there a possibility to ignore those warnings after you have uploaded and reviewed them, instead of immediately throwing the received file away if there are any warnings?

This is so awful it's surprising, who would guess such? I just lost a lot of time because of this.

Did I do somethings stupid?

Hugs,

--Solstag (talk) 19:43, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Try the OGG extension. ZooFari 19:45, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure i understand what the problem is. Is it that vorbis files uploaded with the .oga extension are not allowed ? If so, i will log that problem into bugzilla. (PS, file extension warnings are no longer warnings that can be ignored. They are errors. TheDJ (talk) 22:03, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, errors, I just found that out the hard way :P. Indeed the problem seems to be that ".oga" is no longer being recognized as a valid extension for ogg vorbis audio files. If you'll log it into bugzilla, thanks folks for the help. I'll try the ogg extension now. --Solstag (talk) 22:18, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

bugzilla:23375 for tracking. We probably already found the cause, but will have to verify. TheDJ (talk) 22:49, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

The fix for this problem was just deployed. It should now be possibly to upload ogg files with the following extensions: oga, ogv, ogg, ogx and spx. TheDJ (talk) 01:50, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Site notice and cookies

Not this kind of cookie! :-)

Hey all, this might not be interesting to all users, but I needed a central places to point a bunch of coder people to, to talk about Commons' sitenotice and how we might be able use cookies to help out.

I noticed on enwiki's MediaWiki:Watchlist-details when there is a notice sent out to everyone, each notice is able to be dismissed separately by giving it a unique cookie number. TheDJ (talk · contribs) told me, off wiki, that this is enabled through w:MediaWiki:Common.js/watchlist.js and that it was doable for Commons, but it is complicated by the fact that we have a multilingual interface (we use MediaWiki:Sitenotice and MediaWiki:Sitenotice-translation). The main feature for doing this is so once people click "dismiss" they don't miss other (important) announcements that occur in the near future. For instance, once we turned on the Vector sitenotice, some people clicked "dismiss" and missed the announcement about re-uploading being down (which has since been fixed).

I think if we could get some ideas on how to implement this cookie enabled noticed on Commons, it would be great. Killiondude (talk) 22:23, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Isn't MediaWiki:Sitenotice id be there for this? --The Evil IP address (talk) 22:27, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

There's something for that already as Evil IP says, the reason some people missed that upload-new-version-bug-announcement is that the number wasn't bumped. –Krinkle^talk 22:30, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

(e/c)I was aiming for one for each notice. During the last month we had a few times where there were a few distinctly different notices up on the sitenotice page, and when people clicked "dismiss" it would take away future notices that they weren't aware of. Killiondude (talk) 22:31, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

As the person who added the notice: It wasn't bumped up because I could not remember where Mediawiki:Sitenotice id was. It's not like the sitenotice stuff is documented very well. We probably should. Adam Cuerden (talk) 13:31, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

I still think it would be preferable to have a dismiss button for each message on the site notice. That way people don't have to see things like the vector notice each time we have to add a new message to the sitenotice and they'll still see new events. Killiondude (talk) 17:04, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

May 2

j ai quelques projets je voudrais savoir si je peux utiliser vos images ets droits dn auteur joseph —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.67.177.158 (talk • contribs) 08:05, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Normallement, vous pouvez utiliser toutes les images d'ici, mais parfois il faut que vous citiez le nom de l'auteur et/ou que vous distributiez l'image sous la même licence. Cette information est toujours dans la page de description d'image, mais si vous n'avez pas de compte, ce texte est en anglais. Pour le traduire en francais, créez un compte, allez dans vos préférences et changez la langue. --The Evil IP address (talk) 09:57, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Unknown specie of Clematis

Is here anyone flowers-savvy? Please help identify Clematis on the left. Thanks. Laitr Keiows (talk) 06:22, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

According to my mum, it "could be a Nelly Moser, but there are a lot with stripes like that." -mattbuck (Talk) 12:49, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

I mixed names

Hi. I mixed names of 2 different persons. Therefore I uploaded 2 pictures with a wrong name (+ a category). The gymnast I called Asal Saparbaeva is in fact Irina Volodchenko. What am I supposed to do in such a case ? --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 10:26, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

1. Move the files to the corresponding category

2. add {{Rename}} to the files. -- User:Docu at 10:47, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

 Done Thanks. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 11:31, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

File:Th silivasmount.jpg

This file seems very dubious to me. Wouldn't it be a copyvio ? --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 11:17, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

That seems likely. Doing a Google image search for "Daniela Silivas" turns up this page among the first page of results. The image there appears to be identical, except larger and with an earlier last modification date. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 11:28, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

deletion request for: File:Merkur steam loco.jpg

there is an incomplete DR here, as far as I understand. Again as far as I understand, there is no good reason for it. Can someone help? Cholo Aleman (talk) 11:37, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

There is no link on the image description page to any deletion request. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 14:23, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Commons:Deletion requests/File:Merkur steam loco.jpg. --GaAs¹¹⁶⁷¹ 11:43, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Cosmatesque categories

I am not sure if this is the right place for this question.

I have noticed that there are a number of related categories related to Cosmati and Cosmatesque, which I think should all be organized together, but are not. For instance: Category:Cosmatesque pavements[9], Category:Cosmatesque[10], Category:Cosmatesque mosaics in Italy[11]. There are also images that result from a search under "Cosmati" that are not now in any of these categories, but which I could gather together.

It seems to me that the best approach might be to group all these in Category:Cosmatesque, which seems the most inclusive even though it is now almost empty. But arranging and changing categories is something with which I have little experience. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 12:16, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, Malcolm, your approach is correct: you start making a search with Comatesque and with Cosmati, you put all found items into Category:Cosmatesque, and you may diffuse later that category to possible subcategories. --Havang(nl) (talk) 12:20, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I will do some work on it soon. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 19:09, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Euh, you both, is cosmatesque an english word? Euh, I mean, should it have an article on the Wiktionnaire? Ie fr:wikt:cosmatesque? --GaAs¹¹⁶⁷¹ 18:49, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Cosmati was the name of a family of 12th and 13th century Italian architects who developed the style named after them. "Cosmatesque" is used in English to describe the unique style of mosaics they developed. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 19:07, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

My statistics at the wet finger about Commons

I clicked a lot on special:random/file these past weeks. I didn't make any serious statistics about that, but I would like to report my feeling about it.

• Images about sex on Commons are very very very rare. In fact I never get to one of them by clicking on random. The only way I get to them was through discussions about the fact that there is too much of them .
• There is a bit less than 10% of images missing {{Information}} template.
• There is more images missing language templates, but not so much in fact.

Regards. --GaAs¹¹⁶⁷¹ 12:25, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Very interesting... --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 18:03, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

C'est pas gentil de te moquer de moi . --GaAs¹¹⁶⁷¹ 18:39, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Google translation of above: "It's not nice to make fun of me (lol)." - Stillwaterising (talk) 11:31, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Non non je suis sérieux. Je trouve cela vraiment intéressant. Surtout quand on voit que certains ultras s'offensent de la présence de trop de sexe sur Commons. Et les deux autres points sont rassurants en termes de travail à faire. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 06:00, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Google translation of above: "No no I'm serious. I find it really interesting. Especially when you see that some extremists take offense at the presence of too much sex on Commons. And the other two points are reassuring in terms of work to do." - Stillwaterising (talk) 11:31, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

With regard to the sexual images part, I ran a quick process using AWB, and it told me there is over 67,000 pages (recursively) in Category:Human sexuality (edit-- I was hoping that was the top-level category for most of the human nudie pics, but I was mistaken. The number is probably much higher including all the other categories... ). Compared to the over 6.5 million files currently hosted on Commons, that's not much in comparison. However, what would be interesting to know is the pageviews of sexual content (in total) versus nonsexual content (in total). The top individual files are all sexual files, but as I've realized, that number could be trumped by the total pageviews of non-sexual content. <up next: all the people complaining about the definition of sexual content>. Killiondude (talk) 06:53, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

May 3

Redirect

[ Sorry, I can't explain this in english! ] Italiano: Quando in modifica uso il tasto redirect, puntualmente la sua formulazione viene poi corretta da un bot (per esempio qui l'ultimo che ho fatto). Non sarebbe il caso di cambiare la funzionalità di questo tasto in modo che esso scriva subito nella maniera giusta attualmente gradita? Thank You. --DenghiùComm (talk) 12:28, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

If I understand you correctly, you are using the edittoolbar or edittools to add "#REDIRECT[[]]"?

An easy solution could be to add <charinsert>{{Category redirect|+}}</charinsert> to MediaWiki:Edittools.

Varying either based on namespace seems more complicated. As the bot also takes care of it, I wouldn't worry too much about it. -- User:Docu at 12:57, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Is it possible to use <charinsert> inside a {{#if:}} ? --GaAs¹¹⁶⁷¹ 13:09, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

I did some quick experiment in my sandbox, and it apparently works fine also inside parser functions. -- IANEZZ  (talk) 13:52, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

So something like

{{#ifeq:{{NAMESPACE}}|{{ns:14}} | <charinsert><nowiki>{{Category redirect|+}}</nowiki></charinsert> | <charinsert>[[Category:+]]</charinsert> }}

should work. --GaAs¹¹⁶⁷¹ 14:09, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

I just tested

{{#ifeq:{{NAMESPACE}}|{{ns:14}}|<charinsert>{{Category redirect|+}}</charinsert>|<charinsert>#REDIRECT [[+]]</charinsert>}}

It should work for edittools (click edit to see the source). -- User:Docu at 14:40, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks to a helpful admin (Kwj2772), it's now available through edittools. Try edit on any category page. -- User:Docu at 09:24, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

It seems OK for me. And the text of the button changes automatically! --GaAs¹¹⁶⁷¹ 09:46, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Media of the day

Hey, all! We've made some good progress with the Media of the Day (Motd) revamp, and I have working versions of all the necessary templates. A sample of the new translation page can be found at Template:New_Potd/2010-05.

The only main things left to be done are adding translations to Template:Change_media_file, a stress-test (which requires that we move forwards with the test month), and, it'd be useful to get the bot that adds template:Picture of the day to images that have run on the main page to add an equivalent Motd file

I'd like to propose a test in the month of June, to try and find any issues, and to see how the community takes to this. I'd suggest allowing any media file of definite copyright status to be used for the test; if it goes well, we can easily set up a QI-like approval process later, but, weel, I'm mainly working on the revamp alone at the moment. Adam Cuerden (talk) 13:41, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

New potd? I was under the impression you guys were modeling the motd after the potd, not actually changing the way the potd works. Could you please explain? Multichill (talk) 13:51, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

This was mentioned in Point 2 of the original proposal, and I tried to emphasize it as much as possible, but, evidently not enough. Basically, remember that one of the primary points of the PotD setup pages is translations. Hence, it makes sense that everything that needs translations can be found on one page. There can also be PotD-alone and MotD-alone setup pages, but, for the default, it's better to have them combined.

The revamp ONLY affects the translation page; nothing else will be changed WRT PotD, except maybe a little code cleanup, since I discovered some issues there when working on the MotD copy related to hard limits on number of parser function calls. For example, I'm kind of worried about how many #ifexist calls are in Template:Potd/Months, but I can't find the documentation on how many are allowed to see how close we are to a problem. Adam Cuerden (talk) 14:31, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

The combined template is too big, it takes over 20 seconds to parse. Multichill (talk) 18:59, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

That's actually about what it was on the current PotD setup last week, before I cleaned up some unnecessary #ifeqs. Still, it's always worth making it more efficient. I'll see how much more can be cut down. Adam Cuerden (talk) 19:17, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

...Well, I just found a major efficiency savings. {{{month}}} is ALWAYS passed to the day setup template as YYYY-MM - not passing it that way breaks the template. So the padleft function being called CANNOT do anything, as it can only pad to two digits! That'll save over a thousand function calls. Adam Cuerden (talk) 19:25, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Ooh, that made it lightning-fast. =) Adam Cuerden (talk) 19:49, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Tested, double-checked all templates in which the modified template is used to confirm padding, and checked out as good =) Adam Cuerden (talk) 19:57, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

By the way, I'm using a speaker as a filler image for unchosen sounds; I'll probably go back to the blank area like at PotD, but I would like it if there was some easy way to tell PotD from MotD. If anyone has a good idea, say =) Adam Cuerden (talk) 21:18, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Commons images used in Businessweek

Diliff recently posted a message on the English Wikipedia about a number of Commons pictures which appeared on the website of Businessweek, apparently without attribution or a share-alike license. For example:

• This image has been used here.
• This image has been used here.
• This image has been used here.
• This image has been used here.
• This image has been used here.

I think it would be a good idea to inform the original Commons uploaders that their work has been published, so that they can discuss the licensing of their pictures with Businessweek (if they have not already done so).

This is potentially quite a time-consuming task. The Businessweek article comprises 50 pages about US states, so we need to go through and search for each image on Commons. Since most of the images are of major US cities, the easiest way to do it is to search for that city's category on Commons. If a positive match is found, the original uploader needs to be informed and Template:Published needs to be added to the image talk page. I created a page in my user space to assist in informing uploaders. Any help in this task would be much appreciated. NotFromUtrecht (talk) 15:05, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

I've just sent an e-mail to User:Sswonk, who made the Massachusetts image in the series (#22), who is off Wiki right now. I also posted a polite note in the comment section of the BW site.. . . . Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs) 15:25, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Great, I'll tick that one off. NotFromUtrecht (talk) 15:30, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

It is a shame that such a major publication ignored the licensing requirements. The Houston Chronicle used my photographs, which 1. were public domain, and 2. were attributed to me anyway. BusinessWeek is capable of the same thing. WhisperToMe (talk) 22:47, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Some know more or less how to do it: vanityfair.com. --GaAs¹¹⁶⁷¹ 10:41, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Do they credit Magnus Manske's transwiki bot? -- User:Docu at 10:45, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

May 4

Making other projects link images directly to Commons, not the local mirror

Guys, as a result of this discussion in Spanish Wikipedia; on which we discuss the benefits -in those projects who disabled local image uploads and choose to solely use Commons for multimedia storage- of bypassing the local mirror of images and link directly to the Commons description page. User Dodo developed a little yet powerful script that does all the dirty work for you. This script can be added to monobook.js (for individual users) or common.js (for global setting) in those projects with disabled local images. The script is as followed:

function cbCommonsImageLinks() {
  var els = document.getElementsByTagName('A');
  var elsLen = els.length;
  for (i = 0; i < elsLen; i++)
    if (els[i].className == 'image') {
      var href = els[i].getAttribute('href')
      if (href.substring(0, 14) == '/wiki/Archivo:')
        els[i].setAttribute('href', 'http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:' + href.substring(14) + '?uselang=es');
    }
}

addOnloadHook(cbCommonsImageLinks);

In any individual case, the "/wiki/Archivo:" and "?uselang=es" strings should be modified according to the local language of the considered wiki. I wish to thank Dodo for his time and effort developing this script. Hope you find this script as useful as I do. Cheers, KveD (talk) 02:35, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Don't hardcode "Archivo" and uselang=es, use wgFormattedNamespaces and wgUserLanguage. This was already active at the German and the Dutch Wikipedia. Multichill (talk) 06:01, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

I would love to see a similar script for wikis such as en.wp which have not disabled local uploads: if the image is on Commons, bypass the local mirror; if the image is on the local wiki, show it there. This would be very useful for people who do categorization work, as the categories are not shown on the mirror. Is it possible? Pruneau^talk 10:22, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

I understood that on en.wp they use the local description page & talk page to put history of featured pictures and may be other things. See en:File:Fimmvorduhals second fissure 2010 04 02.JPG. --GaAs¹¹⁶⁷¹ 10:41, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

I created nl:MediaWiki:Gadget-Direct-link-to-Commons.js a couple of weeks ago. I still have to fix it to also properly work with the secure server, but you should be able to just copy it to other Wikipedia's and use it as a gadget (or enable it by default). Multichill (talk) 10:50, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Rotatebot

The subcategories of these scans include a series of illustrations together with pages of text. Most images look better after rotating them by 90° instead of using the text layout.

If you want to help, please apply {{rotate|90}} to these images (see Commons:FAQ#How do I fix the orientation of an image? for details). About 100+ were already rotated (see log). -- User:Docu at 07:23, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

update: a somewhat quicker way could be to use Commons Commander (CC) to select the images that need rotation and add them to a temporary category (e.g. Category:To do). Another bot can then convert the category to a rotation tag. CC tends to timeout though.

BTW Years after 1890 should be done next time Rotatebot operates. -- User:Docu at 09:13, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be easier to contact Rotatebot's operator (Luxo) and ask them to feed that list of images directly to the bot? That would save two or three completely unnecessary edits per image. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 13:42, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

The images still need to be selected in one way or the other. It works fairly well with CC. Simply adding a category "Category:Images requiring rotation by bot (90°)" would be quicker, but the conversion (by bot) to {{rotate|90}} isn't too complicated. Besides, in the meantime, I noticed that some images already have cropped and rotated versions. -- User:Docu at 13:49, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

You can add also use [[Category:Images requiring rotation by bot|<degree>]] if it is easier this way. --Luxo 14:00, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Search

А как теперь найти страницы начинающиеся с…--AndreyA (talk) 09:07, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Special:PrefixIndex ? --GaAs¹¹⁶⁷¹ 09:43, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Оно. Поставьте на страницу поиска эту ссылку, чтоб сюда не лазить.--AndreyA (talk) 13:29, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Google translation: It. Put it on the search page on the link to here is not to climb. I suppose it means that it's what you was searching, and that we should put it somewhere it is easier to findM --GaAs¹¹⁶⁷¹ 16:01, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Place (put) it on search page. In the first window it is unessential, but this link will be useful in a search result page. Do you understand my words? --AndreyA (talk) 17:14, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes I understand very well. I made that on other wikis years ago, and I should ("should" means: if I can't, someone should apply a coup de pied au cul to me...). I probably don't have the rights to make the necessary modifications on Commons, but I'll try to propose something useful, please just let me some time to think about it. --GaAs¹¹⁶⁷¹ 18:52, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Hard to read your discussion.

If your are really looking for a link to Special:PrefixIndex/Test on Special:Search/Test, then maybe it's worth noting that it's there in the English language version, but probably not in a sufficiently visible way (look at "Other tools"). To change it, maybe we should remove the collapsible table part.

BTW, it's not visible if you use uselang=ru -- User:Docu at 15:08, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

• The collapsible table is not very visible if you don't already know it's here.
• The collapsible table doesn't exist either in spanish.
• In french, the links are to Special:AllPages, not Special:PrefixIndex/

I think there is cleanup to make. --GaAs¹¹⁶⁷¹ 16:20, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Template:Brooklyn Museum-no known restrictions

55 files found in "Paintings in the Brooklyn Museum" AND "Works of authors who died less than 70 years ago" are probably tagged only with {{Brooklyn Museum-no known restrictions}}. This results of the action by Jaretkbot removing (rightly so) the PD-art tag the files used to be tagged with (see this diff for example). This raises several questions :

1) When do we know a painting has been first published in the United States ?

1-1) When do we know in which country a painting was first published ? (Is it enough to consider that the painter was a US citizen [or was living in the USA] and the painting is still owned by a US owner nowadays in the XXIst century ? What if the painting was first bought by a wealthy British art collecter and moved to Britain some time ago and brought to the US again later ?)

1-2) What constitutes publication for a painting (so that we can determine in which year that took place) ? A similar question for sculptures was raised and partially answered at Template talk:PD-US-statue/proposal.

2) Is {{Brooklyn Museum-no known restrictions}} a proper permission tag ?

2-1) If the answer is no, should not it be renamed and changed into a simple "source" template, similar to Template:LOC-image, with the compulsory inclusion of the « This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work » wording ?

2-2) Should not the "Remove PD-art for authors who died less than 70 years ago" bot simultaneously tag the pictures with {{No license since}} ?

Teofilo (talk) 09:09, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

You beat me to it!

1) I use http://copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm for reference. I wonder if these paintings are published before 1923 if you use their definition.

2) It's a source tag, it should always have an additional license tag

2-1) I already changed the look to make it look like similar templates. If you change the wording please be careful, don't want to piss of the Brooklyn Museum

2-2) See the part about pissing of the Brooklyn Museum. Probably useful to tag all the images with a tracker template and than figure out per images what to do with it.

Multichill (talk) 09:32, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

The Brooklyn Museum is using an extremely ambiguous copyright information statement about its uploads on Flickr with wording such as "are for personal research and enjoyment" and "it is the policy of the Brooklyn Museum to charge licensing fees for commercial use of these image". I don't know if it is necessary to "piss off" the Brooklyn Museum, but we have to explain them clearly and strongly if necessary that the standards for copyright information on Commons are different and higher than elsewhere. Wikimedia Commons belongs to the kind of websites which provide highly reliable and clearly written copyright information. This is a huge difference with a lot of websites reviewed in this paper : Melanie Schlosser, "Unless Otherwise Indicated: A Survey of Copyright Statements on Digital Library Collections", College and Research Libraries", v.70(4), p. 371-385 (July 2009). See also that picture, uploaded by them on Flickr although they are not able to tell who the (presumably French) sculptor is and a fortiori to certify that he died more than 70 years ago. This kind of picture is not welcome on Wikimedia Commons. And we are not going to be deluded by vague and spin-doctored "no known restriction" statements. Teofilo (talk) 12:21, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

I was under impression that {{Brooklyn Museum-no known restrictions}} is a license tag, just as {{Flickr-no known copyright restrictions}} is. If additional information is known about the image to ensure it is PD than additional license trags should be added. --Jarekt (talk) 13:46, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Wrong category names

Hello!

This category with all subcategories were created by the polish speaking User:Marek Banach. Well, I think these categories do make sense, but I the word "built" is wrong. Because buses are vehicles, you have to use something like "Category:Buses manufactured by year". Or am I wrong? Greets and thanks. --80.187.106.33 18:54, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

This problem was in discussion Category talk:Buses built in the United Kingdom. Maybe manufactured is better. Marek Banach (talk) 19:10, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Well you do build them, I think so anyway. They come in various different parts, chassis, body panels, windows etc which all have to be put together, mostly by hand. If the name is a problem then do change it. I only suggested the *Buses built in United Kingdom category to solve a problem at the time. Arriva436^{talk/contribs} 20:14, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

In US speech, "manufactured" would be pretentious -- we say cars, boats, ships, are "built" and our dictionaries support it. It's true that the OED favors the use of "built" only for buildings, but it doesn't rule out its use for other things, as long as they are reasonably complex. Therefore this is one of those things that will not please both sides of the Atlantic. "Built" is shorter, and, in general, shorter is better, so I vote for leaving the cats as is, and thank you to Marek Banach for creating them.. . . . Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs) 00:19, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I think maybe the words should be reordered to "Buses by year built" or "Buses by build year". That is more like how this kind of categories are usually named "<somethings> by <criterion>". /Ö 09:51, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Storefront in France question

Would an image of a storefront within a particular building be a free image, or would it be fair use? I am aware that France does not have freedom of panorama. I have an image of the Air France vaccination center in Paris, which takes a storefront of a modern-looking building. Can I upload an image to the Commons if it does not show the building, but only the storefront within the building? WhisperToMe (talk) 22:11, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Hard to answer without seeing it. As you describe this image, unless there is distinctive decoration on the building, the photo probably wouldn't be copyvio for the building, but that's not to say that it might not have something else that was a problem. Read the second paragraph of this carefully. Then, why not upload it and, if you really want to spark a discussion, hang a {{Delete}} on it yourself and see what happens? . . . . Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs) 00:31, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good - Here is the image: File:AirFranceVacCenter.JPG WhisperToMe (talk) 00:43, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

National Library of Norway, CC-by on Public Domain images on flickr.

Hello!

I am worried about National Library of Norway's use of the CC-by license offered by flickr, and the impact it have on images on wikimedia.

I have tried to adress the issue (in norwegian) http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Kjetil_r#Nasjonalbibliotekets_cc-by_p.C3.A5_flickr and was sent here.

The majority of images on http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&search=National+Library+of+Norway&fulltext=S%C3%B8k is in Public Domain. When wikimedia picks up and accept the present misuse of the CC-by license at flickr it all goes wrong.

They state at the 'profile' tab at: http://www.flickr.com/people/national_library_of_norway/

The documents are free to use, if no other exception is expressed. All images that are uploaded to The National Library of Norway’s photostreamon Flickr are in the public domain because the copyright has expired as to Norwegian copyright law, and/or the copyright belongs to the library and has been wavered.

Please make a clear source reference to The National Library. Please link back when sharing photos on the Internet. Questions regarding high quality reproduction should be directed to the library.

Flickr www.flickr.com/account/prefs/license/?from=privacy (assume logged in member) offer a user with a basic account the choice between to keep all rights, or to waiver rights trough the use of this:

• None (All rights reserved)

• Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Creative Commons
• Attribution-NonCommercial Creative Commons
• Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons
• Attribution Creative Commons
• Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons
• Attribution-NoDerivs Creative Commons

The page also states:

You should only license photos you own the copyright on.

The last sentence is important.

The owner (normally the autor, part of the copyright can be inherited, sold,..) of a copyright to a material have the right to issue a waiver http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waiver and this is at flickr given as a choice between some Creative commons licenses.

But. The owner of a copy of a work does not have the copyright to the work. (It can be transfered to, but as a separate item.) and by that no (few) right to copy (private ok) and republish that work. And no right to issue a waiver like a CC-by license on that material.

The owner of a copy of a work (or the original glass negative, and so on) in the public domain does not have the copyright to that material. And no right to issue a waiver like a CC-by license on that material.

When a owner like National Library of Norway ignore that and is issuing a cc-by lisence on material in Public Domain this happens:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/48220291@N04/4472475957 is picked up and rights transfereded to http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bjørnstjerne_Bjørnson_og_barnebarnet_Bjørnstjerne_Albert_Bjørnson-Langen,_1900.jpg

Dato / Date: 1900

Fotograf / Photographer: Gustav Borgen (1865-1929)

Eier / Owner Institution: Nasjonalbiblioteket / National Library of Norway

The information does (IMHO) prove the work to be by large margins in Public domain. Death of autor +70 year, names suggesting norwegian copyright all over, and placed on flickr, whitin US Public domain.

On wikimedia:

Opphavsperson Nasjonalbiblioteket

Tillatelse (Gjenbruk av denne filen) Denne filene er lisensiert under Creative Commons Navngivelse 2.0 Generisk-lisensen

That is close to theft. When a owner of a copy of a public domain work uses the position to claim copyright.

I have on http://www.flickr.com/photos/national_library_of_norway/4545457762/in/photostream/ argued with the National Library of Norway, and pointed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyfraud . They continue to upload images on Flicr under a cc-by license so i have to asume they dont care.

They are violating my rights (and yours and everyones, short: our rights) on this public domain material. As a public state owned library they disapoint me, and seems to develope a policy far off from peers like http://www.abm-utvikling.no/digitalt-abm/europeana-public-domain-charter .

The images is of high value, the cc-by licenses should be ignored.

What can be done?

To remove all traces of unsubstantiated CC-by licenses issued by National Library of Norway on flicr, injected into wikimedia?

To put the National Library of Norway on this list? http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Questionable_Flickr_images

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests ?

Mvh Vidar Andresen

Andrez1 (talk) 23:20, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

The major problem is that Flickr does not allow users to upload images as being in the public domain. They have made a special exception for works generated by the United States federal government, but even then, some government sources still just use a CC license (or even full "all rights reserved" license) because the US Gov't option isn't readily apparent or available to all of them. Rather than being confrontative with them, you might try suggesting to them to contact Flickr and make available a Public Domain license, as they've done for the US Gov't. Now, there may be other issues going on, but this is not the first time that an organisation has put material on Commons under a Creative Commons tag (or other) simply because that's the only option available. — Huntster (t @ c) 23:54, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Long speech about the well known issue of copyfraud. Simple solution: Change the license to PD whereever you're certain. -- 91.115.177.40 14:41, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

They are not let into http://www.flickr.com/commons/ , yet. If and when that happens, it will solve the problem. Until then the use of cc-by function act as a kind of ad-ware. It will empty the license for value. What is a batch issued cc-by license applied on a mix of copyrighted by others, by self, and the rest 2/3 public domain images; worth?

Agree on pragmatic simple solution : "Change the license to PD whereever you're certain." But the problems will arrive in large numbers, more than it will be posible to identify and change to PD. I belive that as long as the library and flickr se a win-win situation in the misuse of cc-by licenses they will not change. To use time on solving the problem i se as nothing short of facilitating the misuse of cc-by licenses on Public Domain material.

Mvh Vidar

Andrez1 (talk) 19:25, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Here's the thing...you are acting way too confrontational towards the museum in this situation. Is the CC licensing correct? No. Is there any other option for them at this point? No. Would you prefer they not upload anything to Flickr till a solution is available, or would you prefer they take everything down? Seems like they just wanted to share their holdings, and chose the least-bad solution. Quit condemning them for making their holdings available to the international audience, and try to help them deal with Flickr. As said above, items that are provably in the public domain can be uploaded here with a PD license...just because they put a CC license on Flickr, doesn't mean it is enforceable. If they have mislicensed any non-public-domain works on Flickr as CC, then they will have to deal with that problem. It isn't a good situation, certainly, but it isn't the end of the world. — Huntster (t @ c) 19:54, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I dont agree on beeing to confrontational towards the library. They are the strong part in this conflict of interest. They are a strong national policy-maker, they have a up to date and industrial grip on what they do best: storing, ordering, (Mo i Rana in short) logistics. An even digitalised 3 decades of norwegian books. Http://bokylla.no (here i am more impressed on use of teknology than how it is delivered to the enduser.)

The culture which grows out of libraries, museums, archives is to often one of ownerships to collections. Which exludes the public. Or parts of the public. This, and a established business-model where some of the museums\libraries\archives are generating income on selling scans of the collection. That can be ok.

For some of the material (specially PD material) ownership or job as a guardian of a material and copyright is not the same thing. If that is confused to generate income, it is at my expense. They might succed in continuing their business-modell on net.

They have both the means and teknology to make this accesible to an international audience. And if they wish to use flickr, thats nice. But not if that implies to putting PD-works under their copyright.

What they should do with the material already there? http://www.flickr.com/photos/national_library_of_norway/4545457762/in/photostream/ "Stop doing that. Even if that implies to delete published images and stop future publishing of public domain material under a basic Flickr account."

Mvh Vidar

Andrez1 (talk) 22:05, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

May 5

HotCat on steroids

Just a pointer to a call for beta-testers for a new implementation of the HotCat gadget. If you're interested, do give it a try! Lupo 06:51, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Doubts about a license

This is about File:Ontheroad-Kerouac-(theroll)-4876145.jpg. The first author is Kerouac himself, no? And in this case, this document cannot be published under a free license? What do you think? --GaAs¹¹⁶⁷¹ 08:59, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Copyvio -- I just hung a {{Delete}} on it here. Ordinarily, I might have hung a {{Speedy delete}}, but since it could clearly be used -- the one page -- in the USA on a Fair Use basis, it probably needs discussion here.

If I may make a suggestion, if you have doubts about a file, just put a {{Delete}} tag on it so that it will go through the process. That puts it in the ordinary path for such discussions. . . . . Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs) 10:37, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I feared I was missing something. --GaAs¹¹⁶⁷¹ 12:46, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Translating SiteNotice

I translated the SiteNotice to Hebrew. I thought that the right place to put it would be MediaWiki:Sitenotice/he, but after refreshing i still see the English SiteNotice. What have i done wrong? --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 12:06, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand everything, but look at MediaWiki:Sitenotice-translation. --GaAs¹¹⁶⁷¹ 12:17, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

 Done, That's exactly what i needed. Thanks. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 12:27, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

By "understand everything", I was speaking of the page structure of sitenotice, not your own message which was clear. --GaAs¹¹⁶⁷¹ 12:43, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Return of Checkuser rights query

Please see here for the detail. Input or queries are welcome. Thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:58, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Linux -- Silly question about the display of "ux"

Silly question -- when I type Linŭ, or anything else with abcdŭ on Commons, it does not display correctly. As shown here, it is correct in section heads, but not in the body text. Does anyone know why? . . . . Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs) 13:01, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

May be you are using My Preferences/Gadget/Language support/EoMagicalConversion and it might be its "Esperanto magical conversion". --Jarekt (talk) 13:13, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much, that is it. I have no idea how that box got checked, but I don't really need an answer to that. abcdux is OK now. . . . . Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs) 13:39, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Special:UsabilityInitiativePrefSwitch

How to translate Special:UsabilityInitiativePrefSwitch in Finnish? (Now its only partial translated) --Olli (talk) 14:44, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Main text seems to be MediaWiki:Prefswitch-main. Maybe MediaWiki:Prefswitch-main/fi is missing (or better http://translatewiki.net/wiki/MediaWiki:Prefswitch-main/fi ). -- User:Docu at 14:55, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Using freely licensed images on clothing

Enough room for the credits?

Someone asked me whether it's possible to reuse freely-licensed images from Commons on clothing, bags, etc.

For Public Domain the answer is easy. But what about GFDL and CC-BY-SA? It's weird to require an embroidery artist to put the credit and the license right on the cloth. Would it be OK to distribute a cloth with a piece of paper saying what the license is and who is the author of the work from which the pattern on the cloth is derived? --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 15:12, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

For GFDL, you have no other solution, except if you want to make a tee-shirt with the full text of GFDL . For CC, you just need to write "Image CC-BY-SA by xxx", you certainly can find a place to write it on the tee-shirt, why not on the label inside? --GaAs¹¹⁶⁷¹ 15:39, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I think that distributing a shirt or a bag with a piece of paper is reasonable, although a bit wasteful :) --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 15:43, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

But the tee-shirt is a derivative work, do you have to put the whole tee-shirt under CC-BY-SA? --GaAs¹¹⁶⁷¹ 15:52, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I have no idea. What can you copyright in a t-shirt - the stitches? Maybe a designer dress is copyrightable...

In any case, GFDL is more troublesome, if i understand correctly. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 15:58, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Imagine a Rolex with a CC-BY-SA image on it, the whole watch being CC-BY-SA, anyone could build and sell copies of it legally just by crediting Rolex .

Yes for your comment about GFDL. --GaAs¹¹⁶⁷¹ 16:06, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Unless you modify the image, I don't think the tee-shirt is a derivative work. It's simply a copy of the image on an unconventional medium. --Carnildo (talk) 21:06, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Under U.S. law, clothing designs as such are generally considered to be "functional" or "utilitarian" and so uncopyrightable. That's why haute couture designers can't prevent cheap knock-off imitations of their designs from being sold. Of course, this doesn't mean that the copyright owners lose their rights if a copyrighted image is printed on clothing, or the outfit of a legally protected character (such as Batman) is made into a Halloween costume, etc. AnonMoos (talk) 17:07, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Advertisement in the description of media

I've noticed a link to an external website in hundreds of pictures of the user Ralf Roletschek (contributions) which seems to be included solely for getting people to his private website and maybe a better google page ranking. I asked the user to remove the link from his media, his response was negative though. Since in my point of view it casts a damning light on WP as well as on Commons I want to ask how the community dealt so far with advertisements of this kind. Thanks, --Rabenkind (talk) 16:16, 5 May 2010 (UTC) After deactivating Adblock I also see, that this is a commercial website. I see here abuse of commons for commercial purposes. --Rabenkind (talk) 16:24, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I see no problem with that. The authors can choose how they wish to be credited and if that includes a link to their homepage so be it. --Dschwen (talk) 16:27, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

@rabenkind: ¿Quin problema tens amb mi i per què no parles alemany amb mi? --Ralf Roletschek (talk) 17:12, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't have any problem with you, but with the (in my eyes) abuse of this project. And I post that in english in order to reach a broader audience since I already discussed this with you on your discussion page with no result. --Rabenkind (talk) 17:19, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Wie groß muß ich eigentlich en-0 noch schreiben? --Ralf Roletschek (talk) 17:31, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

You should definitely be more careful with allegations of abuse of this project. --Dschwen (talk) 17:46, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't think there was anything inappropriate about the query. I didn't read it as Rabenkind being insulting of Ralf Roletschek or bearing any ill will towards him, but rather that (s)he was concerned that commercial links generally are an abuse of the Commons.

I don`t think there is anything wrong with a link back to a website of the uploader`s photographs, or a website about the uploader. But the link back to a site on cycling seems odd -- mind you, the Google translation of it is by no means perfect. Does the site have anything to do with the uploaded photographs and/or the uploader (besides simply being an unrelated site created by him)?--Skeezix1000 (talk) 18:43, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

It is my page, see: http://www.fahrradmonteur.de/impressum.php --Ralf Roletschek (talk) 19:21, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

The query by itself would not be inappropriate, but a) there is a backstory to it, in which it was already attempted to explain why this constitutes no problem, b) he now explicitly calls it an abuse of this project (no more friendly "query" here). Apart from that, the section title is a bit misleading/POVish. The link is in the author/credit line, not the description field of the image - it is on the description page though. --Dschwen (talk) 19:47, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

@Rabenkind, despite its professional appearance it is a sort bicycle fan/expert website with many useful information and links. But you can buy nothing on it, so calling it a commercial website is a bit misleading. --Túrelio (talk) 20:23, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Wow, criticism doesn't really seem a very welcomed thing by some users. The reason I believe he does that out of commercial interest is, that on his website one can find google-ads. Therefore he might have an interest that many people visit his page to make money. And the "backstory" is simply that I politely asked why does he put the links on all his pictures - not only the cycling related ones which come form his website. The answer was simply that it's his website. Therefore I asked him to remove it. And I still can't see any advantage for the commons user. I truly have no problem with the user or his pictures and we never had any contact before. It's solely his habit to put the link on every single one of his uploads as it seems. --Rabenkind (talk) 21:14, 5 May 2010 (UTC) Bitte entschuldige Ralf Roletschek, dass ich das hier auf Englisch vorbringe, ich wollte lediglich eine breitere Nutzerbasis mit meinem Anliegen erreichen. Google-Translations ist dir sicher bekannt - da solltest du auch keine Probleme haben die Texte zu übersetzen.

English: I can clearly state that I don't like the link. I also don't like the fact that Ralf Roletschek releases his files under GFDL-1.2-only (plus a CC-ND license). I personally think that this is done to hinder the reusability of the files (Ralf Roletschek of course has a different view on it).

But both the attribution line and the license do not conflict with any of our current rules. So this is a moot discussion.

Deutsch: Ich muss klar sagen, dass ich den Link schlecht finde. Ebenso finde ich es negativ, dass Ralf Roletschek seine Dateien unter GFDL-1.2-only freigibt (verbunden mit einer zusätzlichen CC-ND-Lizenz). Mein persönlicher Eindruck ist, dass damit die Wiederverwendbarkeit der Dateien eingeschränkt werden soll (Ralf Roletschek selber vertritt natürlich eine andere Sicht auf die Sache).

Nichtsdestotrotz verstoßen sowohl Autorenzeile wie auch die Lizenz gegen keine der aktuellen Richtlinien. Diese Diskussion ist also müßig.

--Slomox (talk) 21:33, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Achja, die Lizenzfrage mal wieder. Spätestens seit der letzten Bundestagswahl, bei der Bilder von Dschwen und Wlady in der ganzen Republik verbreitet wurden bin ich mir sicher, daß ich bei GFDL 1.2 bleiben werde. Bei diesem Bild kann ich es nicht mehr verhindern, daß gewisse Randgruppen es für ihre Ziele benutzen und dranschreiben: "Wählt uns, sonst müssen wir Deutsche..." Ich möchte nicht, daß meine Bilder mit meinem Namen in gewissen politischen Zusammenhängen verwendet werden. Ich habe bisher auf Nachfrage jeglicher (auch kommerzieller) Nutzung zugestimmt. Ich möchte nur wissen, wer was mit meinen Bildern macht. --Ralf Roletschek (talk) 22:14, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Since it was stated that links inside of picture descriptions to commercial websites are not against any rule, but several users expressed that they dislike them - where is the best place to discuss such a rule? In case the majority of users dosn't want them - maybe the rule is simply missing so far. --Rabenkind (talk) 07:20, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Du kommst daher und willst mir erzählen, was ich mit meinen Bildern zu machen habe? Was ist eigentlich mit deinen zahlreichen Fotos, die du mit der teuren und selbst bezahlten Technik angefertigt hast? --Ralf Roletschek (talk) 11:33, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

LivePict

Checking out a picture recently added to an article on it.wiki, I noticed it was licenced CC-BY-SA-3.0 using Template:LivePict. This template links to livepict.com, a spanish website/gallery, with reference to a "licencia" subpage (at the moment non-existent) which, I suppose, contained all the licence guidelines regarding the pictures. I assume every picture was licenced CC-BY-SA-3.0 and then massively imported to Commons. When I was verifying that pic, I saw at the bottom of the main page "All Pictures Copyrighted © 2006-2009 LIVEPICT.COM" and no trace of the "licencia" page mentioned above. What to do now? --Gliu (talk) 23:07, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

It seems that Creative Commons licences were there until a few days ago... --Jaqen (talk) 23:12, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Hi,

Current pictures: We can keep them: CC licenses are not recovable, so no problem (except if the site weren't the copyright holder).

Future picturs: We should edit the template documentation to note the change and warn user they can't import pics from May 2010. --Dereckson (talk) 23:15, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

It was me who uploaded all the pictures from LivePict as was requested at Commons:Batch uploading/livepict.com. At the moment of upload all content was licensed under CC-BY-SA-3.0, but author have changed his mind since then. Maybe it's worth mentioning this in the {{LivePict}} that no additional images can be uploaded using this template from the website but for already released images licenses are not revocable so northing to do about it --Justass (talk) 23:16, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Have added notice to the license text [12] --Justass (talk) 23:34, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your immediate elucidation and correction. --Gliu (talk) 02:14, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

May 6

Cleanup policy

Will likely be of some interest--Jimbo Wales (talk) 01:53, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

"Trolling"? Changing policies for adminship? It seems to me that the founder should try to relax. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 06:18, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Does Jimbo have the authority to declare policy on Commons? -Atmoz (talk) 06:29, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Even files that had been kept after DR are getting summarily deleted now, see User talk:Fran Rogers#Deletion spree. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 06:39, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

• Also this comment from Jimmy is relevant here - Alison ^❤ 06:41, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Hear, hear. Commons needs to get back to its mission of cataloging images for educational use. There's been a major misunderstanding among some users that Commons is a carefully categorized database of erotica/fetish pictures (see, for example, this discussion), or that Flickr import is for uploading random artistic pictures of people. The existing project scope needs to be dutifully enforced. Fran Rogers (talk) 06:47, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

There are a humongous backlogs of deletion requests. On your censoring spree, are you even checking if a file has been kept after DR? Or if it is in use? /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 06:53, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Calling it "censorship" is poisoning the well. Editorial selection is not the same thing as censorship.
Anyway, the deletion request is clearly badly broken, as the above concerns voiced by Jimmy himself indicate. More drastic action is needed; the "educational use" requirement needs to be more zealously enforced. (And often times, a file is nominated for deletion for a reason other than being out of project scope (like licensing concerns), then kept; this doesn't exempt the image from being deleted for being out of scope. Such was the case with the image you mentioned on my talk page.) Fran Rogers (talk) 07:14, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Let us call a spade a spade. You are not editorially selecting images on the basis of quality, or of usefullness. You are targeting images that illustrate wikipedia articles about sexual practices. Which is censorship. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 07:45, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I thought that Commons was a collection of educational media, which includes human behavior, even fetishistic behavior. I'm sorry, I guess I was wrong; only ethnic nudity/fetish material needs apply. We have multiple pictures of just about every small town on Earth, but we can't even keep one photograph of one of the most typical human behaviors. That's censorship.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:24, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Clearly you do not care, see en:Special:Contributions/CommonsDelinker. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 07:11, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

It seems that the Wikimedia projects are going to be censored according to US-american norms just like Apple and Google are already censoring contents which might upset americans. It would really suit a worldwide project like Wikimedia to say no to censoring, and instead push forward to implement a content filter, so each user can choose on his own. We must realise that what americans do or do not find upsetting can be very different for people originating from other cultures. Nillerdk (talk) 07:37, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree that a content filter is the way forward. However, while we don't have one, I support a certain amount of deletion. --JN466 20:06, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Whilst I would agree that there is probably a reasonable amount of files which are of questionable educational value, I am concerned by users apparently taking Jimbo's comments as a green light to speedily delete masses of files. It also deeply concerns me that one of those users has declared that the "deletion request [process] is clearly badly broken". Broken in what way? That it doesn't result in files the user wants deleting actually being deleted? A process isn't broken just because it produces in an outcome one doesn't agree with. Yes, some pruning of the masses of explicit images should be done but I don't think someone who shows such little regard for existing deletion requests should be involved. I would accept that in some cases where targeted files have been the subject of deletion requests it might have been for reasons other than concerns about the project scope but I would suggest that in such instances users participating in the discussion will probably consider whether there are any other problems beyond what has been highlighted. What I fear is happening here is not a reasonable removal of images with little educational value but rather an imposing of the views of those involved in selecting files to delete. "Censorship" is an inevitable concern when masses of files are being deleted without discussion. I think this should stop, or at the very least, those deleting masses of files on the basis of Jimbo's recent comments should document such deletions somewhere central so others can review them without having to try to work out which are relevant from searching through deletion logs. After all, if what is really going on is a pruning of useless files, those involved should be more than happy to help others recognise that and not fear something else is going on. Adambro (talk) 08:00, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

en:Special:Contributions/CommonsDelinker is very concerning. Adambro (talk) 08:04, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Also nl:Speciaal:Bijdragen/CommonsDelinker where Tiptoety is flaunting policy. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 10:01, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

• Ok, we can't do anything against the decision of the boss, but why this file (at flickr, Google Pictures) was deleted? It was a CGI drawing, and a innocent one. And Jimbo says nothing about mass deletion of all non-pornography nude pictures: "We should keep educational images about sexuality - mere nudity is not pornography - but as with all our projects, editorial quality judgments must be made and will be made - appropriately and in good taste." Trycatch (talk) 08:11, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
• Jimbo has said "Existing policy can be enforced firmly and swiftly". Since existing policy says that an image legitimately in use on another WMF project is considered in scope, I hope no more images that are in use will be deleted with the incorrect suggestion as the deletion reason that they are beyond the project scope. Adambro (talk) 08:12, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
• I'm getting angry for enforcing policy without wide-and-sufficient consensus, not for deleting ponrographic images. I'm really concerned that Jimbo's interventions to individual project is being serious. I think Jimbo should try to relax. – Kwj2772 (msg) 08:44, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
• I propose to speedy delete all the images of Category:Christian crosses, as they are offensive for hundred millions people. --GaAs¹¹⁶⁷¹ 09:26, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

• Are we really going along with this? Jimbo makes one of his rare appearances here and says "we should delete porn regardless of policy, and anyone who dares think otherwise will have his adminship revoked", and five minutes later hundreds of images (some of which were in use so clearly in scope) are deleted at the sole discretion of one individual (with their own definition of what porn is). And let's not pretend this is about the project scope; he didn't say "let's get rid of all the images that are of little or no educational value" (we have thousands of private pictures or personal artwork, sunsets, cats, unknown locations, etc. that could also be removed), but no, this is only about "all pornographic images", assuming that none of these can be educational (and yet a lot of them were in use in article namespace on various projects).
  And what does it say about us admins, trying to do our job responsibly and following policies, trying to carefully implement policies through consensus, keeping in mind that hundreds of projects depend on us? Well, it quite simply suggest that we were not acting to serve this project, but rather our own perversions; or maybe that we are not mature enough to take decisions as a community, and we need some messiah to guide us back on the right path.
  I really feel insulted and saddened by this, and I sincerely hope this is not going to be the way decisions are made on Commons. We're all volunteers and give our time and energy to a project in which we believe, not to a project were we are reduced to blindly follow arbitrary decisions. –Tryphon^☂ 09:39, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I think it'd be a good thing for us all to aim towards making sure commons is accessible in schools around the world - if that necessitates some pragmatic changes, then I think that's probably, on balance, for the best. Now if we can figure out a sensible tagging system (I think there's one on the way! hooray!) then I'll re-upload my extensive blow job pic collection with... um... nobs on ;-) cheers, Privatemusings (talk) 09:44, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

• This "policy" which is nothing more than an off the cuff statement, has already degenerated into vandalism. Two illustrative, non pornographic (but perhaps disturbing) images File:Doggirl in her routine shower.jpg and File:Doggril tries to escape.jpg have just been deleted. I don't agree with deleting Christian imagery, but much is just as prurient, offensive and non-educational as any illustrating human sexuality. All Jimbo has actually said is the existing policy (i.e. that already worked out by consensus) be quickly enforced. This vandalism spree needs to be stopped and reversed now! --Simonxag (talk) 09:48, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

It goes from bad to worse. It seems Image:Prince_Albert_Piercings(expert19612005)..JPG used on de:Dehnen von Piercings and de:Prinz-Albert-Piercing, has gone. No discussion, just an interpretation of a remark from chairman Jim, and no evidence afterwards that anything was there, so it gets deleted from the Wiki project article and airbrushed out of history. --Simonxag (talk) 10:22, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

• Speedy deletions, with consensus, based on the opinions of some people as to what constitutes "educational" and "pornographic" is increadibly upsetting. Tryphon said it best above. Why not put these people in charge of Commons and be done with it? The question was asked, but I don't believe answered -- does Jimbo have the authority to establish policy? --Skeezix1000 (talk) 12:12, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

  I reject any attempt to speedy delete images on grounds of being pornography. Deletion requests, fine, but speedy deletion IMO should generally not be used for out of scope images. -mattbuck (Talk) 16:13, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Has to be an imposter

I'm not convinced that the comment was actually made by Jimbo Wales. It may be that someone hacked his account. Consider the content of what it says and how uncharacteristic and irresponsible what it says is. Not at all in alignment with how he would act.

• "...but which appeal solely to prurient interests have my full support. This includes immediate deletion of all pornographic images"

Clearly he would not direct admins and editors to use an extremely subjective personal measurement such as "pornography" or "prurient" and tell them to go outside the established deletion process in doing so. Also, he knows that his personal opinion should not override the board of directors and the established organizational structure. He would have dealt with it through them.

• "I am fully willing to change the policies for adminship (including removing adminship in case of wheel warring on this issue)."

Again, can we believe that he would go around the established processes and hierarchy and actually threaten to delete admins who do not agree with deleting images of sexuality? That would result an a mass exodus of people from the entire WMF. The real Jimbo Wales knows that the project is about collaboration and consensus, and stopped being about him and his opinions a long time ago. Whomever posted that on his page has to be an imposter.

• "I think our existing policies here on commons are sufficient to deal with the problem - with the minor exception that many things should just be speedy deleted and argued about later."

Saying that things can be dealt with within policy, when the preceding comments, and the following comment say that they should be done outside of policy does not make sense. He would not have said it like that. The end result of mass deletions of images used in articles shows how following user space comments that appear to be the opinions of Jimbo Wales, rather than established process or through official channels are damaging to WMF.

If the real Jimbo Wales had wanted to take action, he would have used established processes through the foundation, rather than creating chaos by offering personal opinions posed as a directive on his user page. Certainly Admins and editors are aware that real policy about something so comprehensive would not have been delivered in the manner of a drunken text message at 1:53 am, and would have been discussed and delivered through official channels instead. How many other directives and foundation policies have circumvented the Board and been delivered on his talk page?? Do you see my point? What we need is a comment from the real Jimbo Wales reassuring us that this collaboration follows established channels and processes.

Atomaton (talk) 12:09, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

• The files used in Wikipedias are/were by definition in scope and should be undeleted. --Jarekt (talk) 13:21, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

• Certainly. Nillerdk (talk) 13:37, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

And restore to the projects. See the list at http://toolserver.org/~delinker/ /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 13:46, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

"I'm not convinced that the comment was actually made by Jimbo Wales." - I am. I have every reason to believe it's him saying these things. I think suggesting this is from an imposter is not helpful. ++Lar: t/c 14:08, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I'd be happy if it turned out to be an impostor, but judging from previous inconsiderate command-like interventions by Jimbo, I don't think it is. --Slomox (talk) 14:20, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

• Besides the way how media influence Wikimedia, it's also a shame how this is done. Obviously, since there will never be a consensus for this, it needs Jimbo. Hopefully, there will be a good end out of this, but to be honest, seeing the complete lack of resistance, I doubt this will happen anytime soon. I'd recommend not wasting your time with this: Go out, breathe some air, look at the sky and the birds any maybe you'll have a good day. --The Evil IP address (talk) 15:31, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

No, we must resist. Mr. Wales did already admit that he doesn't have the authority to enforce his opinion without the Board. So policy still applies and steps must be taken against the uncontrolled deletion of files in use. Nillerdk (talk) 15:43, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I believe that you misinterpreted what I said. I said that if the Wikimedia Foundation wants to declare that it is ok for Commons to be a porn host, they can do that, and I'll not be able to continue. That isn't going to happen, though, and in fact you should expect a strong statement from the Board and/or Sue in the next few days.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:35, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree. The ramifications of this could be huge. His statement isn't policy, and any deletions should be reversed. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 15:50, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

No, my statement is policy. Please don't wheel war about it, and please don't undelete things lightly.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:35, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Even if I can agree with this new policy, there's something of an autocracy in the way it has been done. And I don't like this at all... --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 17:51, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I've never even been involved in these debates over sexual content, but this bullzozer approach to the issue is shocking. Images are being deleted unilaterally before the Board has issued any statement or the community has had the opportunity to discuss how best to implement it. What a mess - it has been handled so badly. Concerns about censorship about the Americanization of the project are pretty legitimate and the responses/lack of concern from Mr. Wales is disappointing to say the least. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 17:53, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Damn you Jimbo, I was assuming you'd say "I'm not an imposter" and I'd reply with "well you would say that" but you went and ruined it. I recognise that you are the founder of Wikipedia, and Wikimedia, and thus Commons by extension, but I do not recognise your right to unilaterally declare policy. Especially not in this manner. If this is a legal position, so be it, but this seems more an issue of prurience and IDONTLIKEIT than anything. -mattbuck (Talk) 18:14, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

(ec) All WMF projects are on private ground of the WMF. Jimbo Wales is not just the founder of this but still member of the board of trustees. The WMF does not provide just free webspace to everything that is hopefully legal but follows a mission and gathers support for it from donors. Given this, we shall aim to support this mission and to take recommendations coming from members of the board of trustees seriously. This does not mean that community consensus is abandoned. But it means that we shall strive to support this mission and in consequence Commons as one of the WMF sites is restricted to educational content. Getting rid of material that is out of COM:SCOPE is not censorship as anyone is free to open elsewhere a free repository of non-educational material. --AFBorchert (talk) 16:03, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Nobody disputes that. It is the unilateral determinations of what is in scope and what is supportive of the mission that is troubling. It is, as far as I can tell, an abandonment of the consensus principle. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 16:15, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I understand Jimbo Wales' recent comments as an appeal to be more strict in regard to COM:SCOPE as it was handled in the past. As far as I understand, there has been quite some press coverage of this issue since Larry Singer accused the WMF to host child porn (see here, for example). Even if this claim has been refuted by the WMF, this is now clearly a point which is debated in public news. Given this, it comes to no surprise that the WMF board is apparently preparing a policy statement in this matter. I understand Jimbo Wales' recent comments into that direction that we shall take care that Commons does not host hard-core porn media. A possibly problematic example is File:Deep.jpg which was so far two times nominated for deletion but kept. As far I understand Jimbo Wales, we are expected to delete such cases from now on. Even if we can long discuss how this still can be possibly identified as education as it illustrates some sexual technique, it remains questionable how much support this is likely to find in the press and in consequence by our donors. --AFBorchert (talk) 16:48, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Usually, anything in use in the projects is automatically considered to satisfy SCOPE. Part of the objection is that dozens of images in use in encyclopedia articles were already deleted. Dragons flight (talk) 16:31, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm appreciate that Jimbo is offering Commons assistance in moving forward with better ways to manage this sensitive content. I encourage everyone to not wheelwar or editwar and to stay calm in the discussions. From my reading of his comments, he thinks that current policy supports the deletion of much of the sexually explicit content but is in favor of drafting a policiy that gives better guidance to uploaders and admins on this point. FloNight♥♥♥ 16:28, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

• This is an inappropriate thread and if the poster of it is not blocked or admonished for blatant disruption then that would be a shame. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:23, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
  • Blocked? Seriously? I think tempers are high right now and a big dose of COM:MELLOW is in order, let people blow off steam a bit and don't fret. Relax, everyone. ++Lar: t/c 02:21, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Oh ffs - this is Commons not some other daft project. "Edit warring" requires the actions of not one idiot but two. Let the idiots stay away from Commons and let us get on with the project and its tasks which includes the deletion of the regular garbage that comes by - otherwise "per Lar". --Herby ^{talk thyme} 11:51, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Should we desysop triggerhappy admins?

Someone suggested that if I withdraw this "proposal" then peace might be restored on Commons. I doubt but if it works it is worth trying. As someone might notice this not really a proposal but a "Please think and check before you delete" but anyway this is hereby withdrawn. --MGA73 (talk) 21:04, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Cleaning up is a good idea. But speedy deleting without checking if it is used or if we have better images is really bad. I feel tempted to suggest that we desyop admins that delete files that is in use without checking.

We have had bad images for so long so there is no reason to act in panic. It will not ruin Commons if it takes a week to clean up.

Take your time, check one category at a time. Find the best images and delete only the worst ones. And before you delete please check if deleting the image will make other categories lacking images. Often images are in more categories and an image that is "useless" in one category could be "brilliant" in an other category. So please check before you nuke. --MGA73 (talk) 18:19, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

•  Support - I think a lot of images on commons need to be deleted, but an overhasty delete will help nobody und will generate further frustration. Normaly elected admins are responsible for the compliance of the rules (as they are the only ones who acctually can delete) -Schlurcher (talk) 18:22, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
•  Neutral - I support a reprimand, but not necessarily desysopping. -mattbuck (Talk) 18:30, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
  • Please be aware that the cleanup project is a very special situation, and admins are requested and supported in efforts to be vigorous and get this done in a timely fashion. Anything can be undeleted later, if it proves to be really critical. There will be no desysoppings for those doing this work. It's a wiki, anything can be fixed.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:43, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

The delinking of the pictures is done automatically whereas each picture needs to be put back into the articles by hand. --Schlurcher (talk) 18:48, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

If you think admins are requested and supported in efforts to be vigorous and get this done in a timely fashion is that easy to do, why don't you do it yourself? I'm an admin, and I'm not and will not be prepared to censor. Kameraad Pjotr 18:52, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

•  Comment As I said I suppert the cleanup but I also thinks that admins should check if image should really be deleted. Deleting and undeleting makes us look like fools if it is not a few exceptions.

God did not create the universe in one day so why is it important that we clean up today? Why not do it like this. Day one - make the rules and make a notice. Day two - delete the illegal images and link to the rules. Day three - start cleaning up in legal but unused/not educational images and link to the rules. Day four - finish the cleanup started in day three. Day five - check if any of the remaining "in use images" can be replaced with someone that is better. Day six - check for mistakes. Day seven - enjoy the result. --MGA73 (talk) 19:07, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Day 8, start work on other categories which have low resolution useless images. -mattbuck (Talk) 20:52, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

•  Oppose Admins are volunteers like all other users, their time is limited like yours and mine. You generally should feel free yourself to replace used deletion candidates and any other used images by better images. Delinking deleted images can globally be done by bots. Empty categories are no argument at all to keep an image for that deletion has been decided. --Martina Nolte (talk) 18:45, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
• No. I trust Commons administrators to use good judgment. And if an occasional error happens then it can be discussed with them directly. We want to empower them to do their work and not make them overly cautious. FloNight♥♥♥ 18:52, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
•  Support The sysops that delete files that are in use while invoking reasons of scope, are in violation of policy, and should be stopped; also "Commons is not censored" is still policy. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 19:03, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

 Comment I think that voting on this is not going to resolve anything. Amada44 (talk) 19:12, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

This was only considered as a support to MGA73 not as a voting on this. But it helps express the opinions so I added a comment to mine. --Schlurcher (talk) 20:18, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

•  Support Not all the deleted images have even been restored yet. I wonder if any are actually porn: they seem to be all documenting piercings and alternative sexuality, whatever annoys this particular admin: it really would be just as reasonable to delete Christian related images. I'm worried that a policy is being developed here that sexuality images can be deleted willy nilly except perhaps if they're actually in use: editors need a range of material to make choices from and if an item is gone it's gone and nobody can see whether it was useful or not. The damage done is far greater you might think: I've done some work on the English Wikipedia human sexuality pages and the biggest problem is editors' moral in the face of a tide of vandalism (and censorship). Ironically, the Wikipedia sexuality pages are the main source for most internet users for neutral sourced factual coverage of any of this stuff. This in a world where AIDS has just become the number one killer of women of child bearing age over and above any other cause: there isn't going to be a cure or a vaccine; knowledge is all we've got. The government slogan goes Don't Die Of Ignorance and what do you think the consequences of this assinine campaign are going to be? --Simonxag (talk) 19:41, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
•  Oppose - Proposal fails to address the severity of the issue, and the proposal is poisoned by the use of the charged term "trigger-happy" to describe the legitimate speedy deletion of questionable images which fall out of the scope of Commons. Perhaps the people who are 'trigger-happy' in restoring these images should be desyoped. Bastique ^{☎ appelez-moi!} 19:49, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

  In fact, this entire proposal is loaded with terms. "Panic" implies that people are acting in haste, which is far from the truth. I think administrators are tired of pandering to the "anything in the name of not-censored" crowd, and are merely acting in response to Jimbo's activities. This entire proposal is an unenforceable, populist, knee-jerk reaction to a possible board decision. Bastique ^{☎ appelez-moi!} 20:00, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

  Bring on the board decision and let people change the policy according to it, then we can talk about deleting. Not the other way round. Until those deletions are backed up by policy, they need to stop. Regards, -- ChrisiPK (Talk|Contribs) 20:04, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

  Those deletions are backed up by policy, have been backed up by policy, and continue to be backed up by policy. The fact that a group of Commons admins have chosen to ignore that bit of policy for their own convenience is irrelevant. This proposal is meaningless, and unenforceable no matter the outcome. Bastique ^{☎ appelez-moi!} 20:11, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

  Deleting images which are in use as "out of scope" has NEVER been backed up by policy. Neither has deleting images because Jimbo says so. -- ChrisiPK (Talk|Contribs) 20:26, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

  Oh, and FWIW, the "administrators" you are talking about are right now a group of about 3-5 people. Not really a significant number, considering the number of administrators on this project and the number of people participating in the discussion. Regards, -- ChrisiPK (Talk|Contribs) 20:07, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

  You want more administrators on board? I can guarantee you that a lot more tahn 3-5 people are in concurrence with this. Bastique ^{☎ appelez-moi!} 20:11, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

  Right now I see more people opposing the idea than I see supporting it. I am seriously considering having my admin bit removed voluntarily if this should change. Regards, -- ChrisiPK (Talk|Contribs) 20:26, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

•  Support - While I see the need for cleanup in general, I disapprove of how it's done. Jimbo said to get rid of pornographic images and suddenly a few people start deleting everything that is remotely sexual. I am still missing a policy or guideline on what to delete. Right now it's only a bunch of people deleting stuff at their sole discretion and they are backed up by Jimbo's threat to de-admin anyone who restores those images. I am truly shocked by the new "Shoot, then think" attitude being propagated here. Regards, -- ChrisiPK (Talk|Contribs) 19:52, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
•  Comment I would first remind that group of admins that theirs is a minority position, that all the previous attempts in creating a sexual content policy and its predecessors has been shot down. I would remind them that their hand has been strengthened by Jimbo's intervention but to take it as carte blanche to go on a deletion spree has the effect of weakening Jimbo's moral authority (see threads below) and with it their own long term goals. Rather than taking Jimbo's comments as dictat to achieve short term gains I would advise them to use it as a bargaining chip in getting a version of the proposal they have been agitating for.KTo288 (talk) 20:28, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose, this proposal is worded in a clearly disruptive and inappropriate manner. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:25, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

•  Support Thousands of work hours are already wasted and multiples will follow. :( I am very disappointed of this censorship action here. Jimbo, you made a wrong decision. --Saibo (Δ) 01:02, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

•  Oppose: Administrators can be trusted to make decisions about what falls outside project scope. The suggestion that it would take "a week to clean up" with something beside speedy deletion is absolutely insane. It's difficult to find a lazier Wikimedia wiki than Commons with regard to deletion discussions. To say that they languish is putting wildly mildly. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:08, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
•  Support This enforcement of US-American standards threatens to make commons irrelevant. Why would wikipedia projects store their media here, if an article in Fox-News causes mass deletions? Erik Warmelink (talk) 02:21, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
•  Support Any new project scope policy could be enforced without this shameful haste, licenses to kill and opening of a witch-hunt season. Trycatch (talk) 03:43, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
•  Oppose: We do not need to turn this into a civil war. Right now, tempers are running high on all sides, and a lot of people are doing and saying things they will probably regret later. Unless there is a sign that someone is either being abusive of other users or blatantly using this as an excuse to remove obviously acceptable content (e.g. "In Saudi Arabia you can't show a woman's face, so I'm deleting all pictures of women's faces"), de-sysop'ing should not enter the picture. Do remember that we can always restore images later. I think a lot of people right now are in honest doubt about the right thing to do, and should be assumed to be acting in good faith. The proposed policy at Commons:Sexual content needs a lot of clarification. Right now, it is, in many respects, unclear and self-contradictory. I presume that the Board will back Jimbo in the general direction he wants to take this, so it seems to me that the constructive thing to do now is to try to hammer out a coherent policy quickly, rather than form a circular firing squad. - Jmabel ! talk 05:13, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
•  Oppose: We do not need more drama but a clear policy. --AFBorchert (talk) 06:29, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
•  Oppose AFBorchert (above my post) put it quite well. Killiondude (talk) 06:43, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
•  Support as has been said several times above, any file that is in use on a Wikimedia Wiki (for purposes other than vandalism) is by definition in scope, any file that can be realistically used in a current or likely future Wikimedia or other educational project is also within scope. Where there is any disagreement over this we act like civilised human beings and discuss the matter. One ambiguously worded statement from one person, no matter how important they were in founding the project, does not (or at least should not) overrule policy that has been arrived at by consensus. Thryduulf (talk) 10:40, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
•  Bloody ridiculous Per AFBorchert. Worth bearing in mind that "edit warring" (bloody silly en wp tradition) is not the actions of one idiot but two idiots. I've slept for 2 hours in the last 28 or so so bear this in mind. Improved policy is required but deleting passing garbage is the job of Commons admins (who actually do some work here). So it goes wrong occasionally - that is life. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 11:47, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
•  Support Removing non-educational porn is good thing. But it should be stopped speedy-deleting files in use. Since there is a policy not to censor contents uploaded to Commons. Deletion policy does not define "Out of Scope: cleanup non-educational file" as a speedy deletion criterion. It might be regarded as policy violation. Administrators should respect the existing policy. – Kwj2772 (msg) 14:21, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Is Commons evolving as a dictatorship or something like that ?

There's something very problematic happening currently on Commons. I can accept the fact that we may need to make a choice between nude and sex files we want to keep or delete. But I surely don't accept the way it's done sometimes ! There's a clear abuse of power from some admins and also (maybe) from Jim Wales himself ! Let me explain : people like Tiptoety are currently deleting nude or sex files unilateraly without asking any DR process. And when I asked him how and why he could do such subjective speedy deletions, he argued that Wales asked the admins to do that ! I see 4 big problems :

1. Wales is the founder of Wikimedia, but as far as I know, he's not the autocratic boss who decides everything that happens, especially in terms of rules or deletions ! So his words are not orders to follow !
2. What he stated is not so strict and he actually "support" admins who'd delete files he himself would like to be deleted (not an order!).
3. Wales says "many things should just be speedy deleted and argued about later"... How can you argue about files that have been deleted and therefore can't be seen by those who may want to discuss about them !!!
4. If we now accept that admins may procede to speedy deletions on their own behalf whenever they want or think a picture is useless, DR processes have no meaning... and the concept of neutrality (one of the main rules of Wikimedia) is in real danger !

Even if there may be many solutions to find in order to deal with nudity and sexuality on Commons, that's not how we'll improve Commons. Current solutions appear to be worse than the problem to cure ! Pandora's box is opened ! --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 15:54, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Please review the latest version of Commons:Sexual content... note carefully the wording Jimbo used. I read that as that Jimbo is seeking board endorsement of this clarification of the scope of commons (note I say clarification, not change) and the ramifications to the deletion process here. It is unfortunate that it had to come to this but the resistance in some quarters forced his hand, I think. ++Lar: t/c 16:08, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

But don't you think it's a real danger of losing neutrality on Commons ? I'm quite afraid to see that admins could do anything they want ! There would be no mean to stop abuses. And even with such "delicate" subjects (nudity and sex), I think we all have to be less strict (both supporters of those files like me and people who seem to want the deletion of 99% of them!) --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 16:23, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

OK, now that I've read more carefully, I can understand. But I still have some few questions :

1. How was File:Mammary intercourse with dildo.jpg connected to one of the 5 cases of "actual or simulated acts" ?
2. Isn't the word "lascivious" too subjective to be applied ? (I know the law states that but I really wonder if they really thought about it).
3. How ejaculation is understood by the law ? Strictly speaking it seems to fail in none of the 5 cases.
4. Isn't exagerate to say that any smiluated act is outlawed ? Such as this one ?
5. What about non-human masturbation ?!
6. How can we be sure that some admins would not "cheat" and delete even pictures that are not falling in the incriminated cases ? --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 16:32, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that what is being proposed would effect the neutrality of our content. Rather, the standard already in place are being enforced in a timeframe that makes sense. For example, it does not make much sense to have lengthy discussions about whether the person meets the age of consent or if the person gave consent instead of having the admin do an outright deletion of the material if the uploader does not provide good information. The policy HAS been to delete this type of material but we have been inconsistent in managing it and this has added to the confusion around the matter. For specific exceptions, we can discuss the matter and if an educational use exists on a wiki then the community can give the go ahead for it. FloNight♥♥♥ 16:45, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Well you see, your comment actually makes me think even more that there could be some problems/abuses. When you write it does not make much sense to have lengthy discussions about whether the person meets the age of consent or if the person gave consent instead of having the admin do an outright deletion of the material if the uploader does not provide good information, this comment applies to... nudity ! And the "new" rules deal with sexuality, not nudity (at least not all nudity) so this kind of debate will still occur about non-porn nude pictures ! And if you saied that, it means that some admins may potentially make a sex-nudity shortcut in their mind and procede to the speedy deletion of non-porn nude ! You see what I mean ? --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 16:50, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I trust our administration to use commonsense. There is a massive difference between an art materpiece and an amateur upskirt shot done by an unknown user of an unknown person. I trust our administrators to see the difference. And if an error happens then the admin can be contacted and it reversed. FloNight♥♥♥ 17:13, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

If you say so. I'll try to trust them too (but I have had many proofs in the past that some can be very subjective about some subjects). Anyway, in case I've been misunderstood I prefer strict rules and an officiel photo censorship about sex (because it is) than the hypocrisy and incoherences we had for a (too) long time ! It's clearer now ! Not 100% clear because of some few borderline cases and the risk of abuse about nudes, but far clearer than it used to be ! --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 17:19, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

 Comment I reposted the other questions on Commons talk:Sexual content --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 17:47, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I seem to remember an interview Jimbo did with BBC in which he likened his position at wikipedia as something akin to that of a constitutional monarch, a figurehead divorced from the day to day running of things. So by that count Commons and the other wikimedia projects have always been an autocracy. However one of the strengths of a constitutional monarchy is that although the monarch retains powers these powers are by tradition never used (well okay I'm only familiar with the British one but the other ones seem to work the same way). Rather the strength of the monarch lies in his or her moral authority born of the respect of citizens and ministers to the monarchy. The use of such authority is enhanced by rather than diminished by being indirect, a quiet chat over tea and biscuits, a personal observation on a matter rather than instructions to act. If Jimbo can decide today to expunge smut from Commons, tomorrow he might decide to eliminate pictures of people with beards, or whatever he's irked by at that time. Commons can survive the elimination of all the so called sexual images, it will probably survive the lost of trust and respect that this episode has sparked, but it will no longer be the project I fell in love with.KTo288 (talk) 20:51, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

@Lar, yes, sir, yes, I note you say "clarification, not change". And, indeed, "Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia". Erik Warmelink (talk) 02:27, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

NOT helpful. ++Lar: t/c 11:32, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I view this whole episode almost laughing hysterically at how everybody is complaining about dictatorial authority being asserted here. IMHO, some pushback is not only useful but prudent. For those not aware of the situation, Jimbo Wales did something similar to this on English Wikibooks a couple of years ago when a major segment of Wikibooks content was removed. It centered around two particularly sensitive areas of content, one of which is related to this current issue about "porn" and the other not really so much but should be just as alarming.

One "wikibook" that was deleted was the Jokebook. I'll be the first to admit that some of the jokes that were added to that collection were off color, racist, and distasteful. Some of the jokes, on the other hand, were quite funny and provided a sort of humorous outlet for relief among the Wikibooks contributors. By simple fiat (not really policy) the book was deleted without even so much as a RfD/VfD discussion taking place by none other than Jimbo Wales. He did later try to explain his decision, but it was after the fact.

The other major area of content was the video game guides. Essentially, a fairly significant part of Wikibooks had become a whole bunch of video game walk-throughs.... sort of like is now found on the Wikia video game sites. I would dare say it comprised about a third to half of the actual content on Wikibooks, and about half of the content edits (not necessarily discussion edits) by contributors to the project. Again, a directive came through that essentially all of this content was to be removed, and some of the larger guides simply had their main navigation pages removed right away. For myself, I think Wikibooks is a weaker project as a result of pushing away these contributors, and I hate to be "see I told you so" on this point.

For myself, I do think some of the sexually explicit images on Commons did need a second look through to see if they were acceptable to the community and if it really contributed to the larger mission of supporting the other Wikimedia sister projects. Perhaps some stricter policies could have been enacted here, and at least the issue raised in a significant manner that includes noting some of the legal environments and consequences to hosting this content, or even perhaps discussing how some significant contributors to the WMF may or may not be put off by some of this content. It is unfortunate that major policy changes didn't happen through consensus building but rather by top-down fiat. For myself, if a policy change is useful and beneficial, going through normal channels is a much better way to resolve the issue rather than engaging in a god-king type of fiat decision.... particularly for something that may result in substantial content removal. As far as I know, Jimmy Wales still carries quite a bit of weight around with comments he may make about a topic, and any sort of policy suggestion he may make will certainly be very seriously considered simply because of who he is. Why it had to be done as if it is official policy already doesn't make sense and shouldn't be happening. --Robert Horning (talk) 13:02, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I think we should close Commons

I thought Commons, and Wikimedia, was made for everyone in the world. Reading some comments here, it seems it is not: according to who I'll not name, it seems to be made only for White American people, ignoring the 96% of the World who are not American, and I can't agree to that. If it is really the case (I wonder), it is clear I will use all means I can imagine to destroy the Who In't won't say the the name foundation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ArséniureDeGallium (talk • contribs)

I have to say I partly agree. But I also think it may be better for the projet... and we also have to keep in mind that Wikimedia is hosted in the US so I suppose it has to follow their laws... --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 17:45, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

And as a precaution, we should definetly close Commons. It's the only way to conform to these "policies". --GaAs¹¹⁶⁷¹ 17:46, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

You're exagerating... There's not only sex on this site ! Comons is still useful for all other subjects ;-) --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 17:49, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

lol Mike R (talk) 17:48, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm not joking. This is where the Commons is: beeing a slave of the man I won't name, or having its right to decide about its future. --GaAs¹¹⁶⁷¹ 17:57, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Even if I hate the way it's done, we have to be objective : Wales's will has a legal background, so I guess it's easy to go against Wales's will but not the hypothetical legal problems WMF may have if we continue like before. It's really sad IMO but it may be reasonable after all. But again, I really am angry about the way it had been done. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 05:25, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Oh come off it. This isn't our project. It is property of the WMF. Killiondude (talk) 17:59, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

[[#ref_{{{1}}}|^]] Commons is not "the property of the WMF". It is a collaborative project, designed (as the name suggests) as a resource for the whole world, and organized and licensed accordingly. One can debate whether current contributors have 'more ownership' of the project than readers/future contributors, but all have a share. The WMF supports it and its sister projects with free hosting, freedom from ads, and centralized funding of interface and feature requests; and is the designated protector of its trademark. But Commons was designed to be ownable by its community, and to be forked and modified by any group that might want its own copy, for any reason whatever. –SJ+ 23:00, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

To say that it is owned by WMF is legally correct, but completely misses the point that is being made (whether one agrees with the point or not).--Skeezix1000 (talk) 18:02, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Arséniure, or as they said in the 16th century ende heur te gebieden ende gebruycken als slaven, moet ghehouden worden niet als Prince, maer als een tyran[..]maer verlaeten ende een ander in zijn stede tot beschermenisse van henlieden voor overhooft sonder misbruycken ghecosen werden. Kameraad Pjotr 18:16, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree, we should not accept Jimbo coming in and declaring what our policy should be. IF this were grounded in legal opinion, as endorsed by Mike Godwin and the WMF, THEN I could accept it. But right now I do not accept that Jimbo has the right to declare what we should do. -mattbuck (Talk) 18:19, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

[[#ref_{{{1}}}|^]] Jimbo's actions seem to have lost us at least one admin (The Evil IP address) Kameraad Pjotr 18:34, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I'am about to create a page: Commons:Scuttle Commons. --GaAs¹¹⁶⁷¹ 18:24, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I created it for you. -mattbuck (Talk) 18:37, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I overwrited your creation. v--GaAs¹¹⁶⁷¹ 18:45, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't complain if you hadn't removed the image AND said "overwrited". But you did. You are going on the list. -mattbuck (Talk) 18:53, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

And the emeritus Chairman had deleted it?!? /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 21:23, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

The implicit argument being put forward here is laughable and racist in a very disgusting way. The truth is, if Commons were for "White Americans" only, or, as long as we are being childish and insulting, let's say it is for "White American Men" - then it would be a free ground for all manner of pornography. Remember that a few years back an executive of Ebay was imprisoned for 7 days because a single porn video appeared for sale on Ebay in India. Remember that in the Arabic/Islamic world, virtually all the content under discussion these days is illegal. Look at this before you move to a knee-jerk understanding of this issue as "American prudishness". Unless you have a really global perspective, you will make errors that are deeply offensive - and deeply offensive to me personally for the primary reason that they are factually wrong.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:52, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Could you please explain more? From what I understand, your argument is that because some people in the world are not as liberal, free-speech wise, as America we should compromise our principles? To me that doesn't seem a good way to work, although I accept I am not an expert in anything other than Neveron, and knowledge in that field is completely and utterly useless. -mattbuck (Talk) 19:00, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Where arguments are lacking insults find their way into discussions. I remember last time when mass deletions of porn material without any educational use was discussed and people screamed "German Censorship!". Now it's "Americans". Tomorrow it's "Asians" oder "Africans". Farewell in your nutshell. @ Mattbuck: I know it's hard for some of us to distinguish between free-speech and arbitrariness. --Martina Nolte (talk) 19:11, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

The primary reason that several weeks back I became involved in the Common's discussions about sexually explicit content is my work with the strategic planning process for WMF. During the strategic plannings discussions, I became aware of the problems with the lack of diversity among WMF readers and editors. As I considered the topic, I came to the conclusion that WMF hosting an unlimited amount of sexually explicit content could be "one" of the barriers for WMF being more diverse. The manner that we display nudity and sexually explicit content makes it difficult to avoid. Currently, our policies and practices do not allow for special care when displaying the content (for deletion discussion, categorizing, or links to our sister projects, ...). So, people may unexpectedly see it. In my opinion, the current approach to managing the content is insensitive to many people in the world of many nationalities and religions, and people that access WFM projects through settings where sexually explicit content is inappropriate or not allowed. So, I see a policy that better manages the content as potentially making WMF projects open to more users. And therefore disagree entirely with the underlying premise of this thread. FloNight♥♥♥ 19:16, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

That is an interesting point, thank you. I would love to see a longer essay on the subject, with some of the qual and quant data. –SJ+ 23:00, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

• Not hosting uneducational pornography is not an excuse to claim racial bias. This thread is inappropriate and should be closed. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:30, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
  • I accept the argument that sexually explicit images can be educational about sexual practices. I am not offended by such images. I consider "not censored" a good and valuable idea. But we should give users, in particular parents, libraries, schools and other organisations providing computer access to minors, an easy option to filter out this material, both in Commons and Wikipedia and other projects. I agree with FloNight that this will aid diversity. --JN466 20:44, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
  • I also believe it is inappropriate, and does the standing of this project no favours whatsoever, to have underaged admins involved in administering hardcore pornography. --JN466 20:48, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Not that again please. If you are going to forbid underage admins, or forbid underage admins to do certain things, then the project is really lost... Kameraad Pjotr 20:51, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

The issue is not the desire, but the potential necessity. It is entirely possible that the law in the US may require it and we have been misinterpreting that law. If such is the case it would be regrettable, as calendar age is not the only measure of maturity. ++Lar: t/c 11:34, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

We seem to be going from bad to worse. We can be inclusive of societies by accepting their censorship norms. It clearly starts with sexual material. Where exactly does it stop? --Simonxag (talk) 20:43, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Agree. Kameraad Pjotr 20:51, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

At the beginning I was enraged. Later I was angry. Then troubled. And finally curious. So I did a search on Google, and found this. I think it's no coincidence we're seeing changes being made, now of all times, and so swiftly. I guess policy has a way of changing fast when words like imprisonment and jail are heard in corporate head offices. W00pzor (talk) 22:24, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Hi W00pzor, the story you are linking to seems to have triggered the recent development. See my summarizing comment above. But as far I understand this, it is less a question of legal requirements but more a question of how Wikimedia is seen in the public and in particular by its donors. --AFBorchert (talk) 11:49, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

On the other hand, the Martin van Maële images in Category:Pedophilia that apparently prompted Dr. Sanger's complaint have not been touched. --Emufarmers (talk) 18:55, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Goodbye to you, "Wikipedia is not censored". All hail the new era of Benevolent Grand Chairman Jimbo censoring content according to the tastes and dislikes of the general American audience. Also, this. --Melanom (talk) 14:53, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

These antiamerican polemics are completely missing the point. What world do you live in for heavens sake? You guys should really ask yourselves if all this drama, all this verbal poison, all the hate, all the Cassandra cries about the end of commons and the "free" world is really is really worthwhile. All this for a couple of crappy shots of dicks and cunts uploaded by a few pubescent morons. Way to keep some perspective here. --Dschwen (talk) 15:02, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

antiamerican polemics - Are you out of your mind? a couple of crappy shots of dicks and cunts uploaded by a few pubescent morons - Either you are just propagating blatantly false propaganda, or you have utterly no clue what you are even talking about. Hint: Take a look at all the files that have been deleted so far. Jimbo Talk page is a good place to start. --Melanom (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Vandalism

Please check this out. --UAltmann (talk) 20:34, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Looks like somebody is trying to make a point, if clumsily. Some people, on the other hand have been deliberately damaging important Wikimedia projects. --Simonxag (talk) 20:47, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

• User:Kameraad Pjotr has abused his ops in protecting the page after restoring his preferred version with outright vandalism and attacks in it. His user page makes it clear he is doing this as a Conflict of Interest and a direct violation of Point. He believes the WMF is censoring Commons and is abusing his admin ops in furthering his accusations. I have requested both his immediate desysopping and a block for blatant disruption here. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:08, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

  Please refer to Commons:Administrators/De-adminship and work through the process if you feel this way. As far as I know Jimbo Wales does not have the power to desysopp an admin. Things are a bit heated at the moment and calls for desysopping by any side doesn't help.KTo288 (talk) 21:23, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

  Jimbo, as founder, retains the power to desysop outright abusive admins, especially those violating CoI and Soap in order to disrupt policy pages to make attacks against the Foundation. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:32, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

  You could just as well say that any bureaucrat has the power to desysop outright abusive admins; but they generally take the more politic approach of discussing perceived abuse (since the perception is often stronger than any actual abuse). In this case, I don't see Kameraad Pjotr attacking the Foundation, and his minor disruption of one page was soon reverted. –SJ+ 06:54, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Kameraad Pjotr has already (sort of) resigned, which is rather unfortunate.
Users on both (or more) sides should stop unnecessarily escalating the current conflict. We have enough to do to find a feasible way how to deal with these controversial images. There is no need to create additional conflicts between (or against single) users. --Túrelio (talk) 21:26, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree, it is most unfortunate. –SJ+ 06:54, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

What an unfortunate mess. From the start, this issue has been handled with all the grace of the proverbial bull in the china shop. While I don't think that actions such as those of Kameraad Pjotr are helpful, their frustration is understandable. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 21:57, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm amazed at the reaction to all this. As the main proponent of the removal of pornographic images on Commons I feel somewhat responsible. Everybody, please stay calm. Things will get worked out. Commons has many amazing educational images and the sexual images are only a very small percentage of the 6.5 million image files. - Stillwaterising (talk) 03:27, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but you appear to have missed the point as to what has gotten people upset. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 10:46, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

And I must say Stillwaterising, that you have been calling for war. So I am a bit amazed how amazed you are at the reactions. Nevertheless, it is a good idea to stay calm. Amada44 (talk) 11:13, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

"The main proponent"? SWR, you are nothing of the sort. People have been concerned about this problem for years. You are someone that has appeared here recently, raised a big ruckus and acted disruptively, making resolution of this issue more difficult rather than less. You need to change your ways or you will be removed from the discussion. Not because of your views, but because of how you express them. ++Lar: t/c 11:28, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

May 7

"You must give the original source of the file, the author of the work, and a license."

I have tried filling the Original source buffer with many variants of what I have read here:

• PD-self (with double brackets)
• Own work
• Own work, PD-self (with double brackets)
• Own work, no copywrite (Public domain)
• etc, etc, etc

Could someone please show me the correct way to fill the Original source buffer?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shabd sound (talk • contribs) 12:39, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Please, when you leave such messages : 1) sign your message, 2) tell us precisely what you're talking about ! --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 05:19, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

What do you mean by "original source buffer", and what were you trying to do when you saw the message referred to in the section title? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 09:54, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Please forgive me for not being clearer. I am trying to upload a scan of a photo I took years ago to Commons for an article I wrote in Wikipedia. One of the fields that must be filled out during the "Upload your own work" process is called "Original source". No matter what I type into that field (examples in my original post), I receive the error, "You must give the original source of the file, the author of the work, and a license." Thanks for your patience with a complete newbie. -- Shabd sound

Use "{{Own}}" for source field and your name or username in the author field, but I suspect the error is due to lack of license which you will likely have to pick from a pull down list. Let us know if it worked. By the way sign your messages with --~~~~ or by pressing "signature button" on your toolbar above edit window. --Jarekt (talk) 12:44, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

It worked! Thank you so much!!--Shabd sound (talk) 12:52, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

How can we prove that a law doesn't exist ?!

Hi everyone. When {{FOP-unknown}} was applied to File:Metro Tachkent MM.jpg I tried to look for informations about FoP in Uzbekistan. I asked a French-Canadian WP user with Uzbek origins to help me and he told me that there is very probably no such law that could say this is forbidden or authorized. Therefore, if there's no law forbidding it, FoP is logically authorized. But how can we prove/source the non-existence of a law ?! --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 05:16, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

• Law exists (Article 28) and Uzbekistan is already listed in COM:FOP. Only non-commercial freedom of panorama and only in the cases when the showing of the work not constitutes the main purpose of the reproduction, as in most of Ex-USSR. Trycatch (talk) 06:02, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

• FOP stuff is generally an *exception* to derivative-rights clauses in copyright law; if the normal derivative rights clause is there, and there is no stated exception... we generally presume such photos are not OK. Always a thorny issue, but cases have played out that way in a few countries I think. Carl Lindberg (talk) 06:11, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
  • I agree. The general rule is that derivatives of a copyrighted work such as a statue are generally not permitted without permission of the copyright owner. Freedom of panorama operates as a special exception to this rule for artworks, etc., that are permanently installed in public places. Therefore, without such a rule, the derivative works cannot be used on the Commons. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 07:32, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
    • OK, thank you for your messages. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 15:11, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Foolish newbie question.

If there are images on wikipedia, that I wish were on commons instead. What is the best way to go about requesting them to be imported? Thenub314 (talk) 09:41, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

You can do this yourself by taking the following steps:

1. First, make sure that the English Wikipedia images have been properly licensed under a suitably free licence. Commons will accept images that have been released into the public domain by the copyright owners, or those licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License or a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) or Attribution ShareAlike (CC-BY-SA) licence.
2. Next, if you want to do the transfer yourself, apply for a TUSC password here.
3. Finally, use the CommonsHelper tool to transfer the image from Wikipedia over to the Commons. You will need to type your TUSC user ID and password into the online form.
4. Edit each image description page to make sure that the information about the image is correct, and categorize the image.

If this too fiddly for you, or you need assistance with any of the above stages, leaving a message here with a link to the file on Wikipedia will suffice. Some helpful editor will come along and lend a hand. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 09:49, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Excellent. It is working well. Thank you. Thenub314 (talk) 10:10, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Forgot to mention that once you have transferred the image to the Commons, you can tag the image at English Wikipedia with {{Now Commons}} so that it can be deleted. This can be done by clicking on a link at the results page generated by CommonsHelper once the image has been successfully transferred. Also, if you have changed the file name at the Commons, update all articles at English Wikipedia or elsewhere with the new file name. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 20:08, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Silly warning of the vector skin

Can you please disable this warning "Leaving this page may cause you to lose any changes you have made. If you are logged in, you can disable this warning in the "Editing" section of your preferences." by default? This is at the most a problem of buggy web browsers. It is maddening to have to click "OK" again and again and again. The coercion to log in every time is no solution. --91.32.62.202 10:51, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, when you are logged in, you go into you preferences > editing > uncheck "Warn me when I leave an edit page with unsaved changes". Dodoïste (talk) 20:09, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Portuguese speaker needed for discussion of someone's uploads

Hi. Are there any Portuguese speakers available to assist at User talk:Deiwyd#Arbritariedade? I have marked many of his uploads for deletion since they do not have appropriate sources, and he is protesting in Portuguese. I have responded there in English. Thank you. Wknight94 ^talk 12:42, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Try User:Alvesgaspar. --Dschwen (talk) 13:11, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Okay, thank you. Wknight94 ^talk 13:25, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

HELP - upload from Commons to Wikipedia

Could anyone advise me on how to upload an article I've created and edited in the Wikipedia Commons onto Wikipedia itself.

I've only been able to save the page in the Sandbox, but I wish to make it a viewable article on Wikipedia now.

thanks

If you would sign this, so we could see who you are, it would be a lot easier for someone to help you.

You need an account on Wikipedia to start an article there. Do you have one?

Assuming that you are the only person who has made substantive edits to your draft on Commons, so the work is entirely yours and there is no particular reason to record other contributors in the history, you should simply be able to "create" a new (blank) article at the appropriate title on Wikipedia and copy-paste the wiki source text you have created on Commons to that page. That's all there is to it. - Jmabel ! talk 20:22, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Slashdot: "Wales Supports Purging Porn From Wikipedia"

Having read the issues, my conclusion is:

• Having any single individual dictate content policies might be a bad idea in general.

The Actual Policy Debate

Any content that is illegal is, of course, destined for deletion. This line is decided by lawyer types, and I think there's a strong consensus to trust the Foundation lawyers on legal questions. Thus, the only question is how we handle content that is entirely legal to us to host-- that is, non-obscene, free-licensed or public domain information.

The opinions on where to draw that line will be varied, but it's something to consider very seriously. Not Censored is very important at one end of the spectrum, but at the other end, I don't suppose commons has the resources to be an image host for every image on the internet, so some sort of criteria is required.

But all and all, nothing too crazy about the overall issue. I can see why some people are hesitant at the idea of "too much" pornography hosted by Wikimedia, and I can see why some people are hesitant about policy changes that would result in the deletion of useful content.

In short, setting these standards is going to be work, but Wikimedia has faced far larger hurdles than this, and I'm sure in time, this will all get sorted out through the usual mechanisms. So why all the heat?

Benevolent Dictatorship

But the real source of heat here is, I think, actually the Benevolent Dictatorship itself. A lot of people didn't like the decision that was made. A lot of other people may bristle at the fact that ANY decision was made outside of the normal policy formation process.

The way I see is that if you keep a benevolent dictator around the house, you shouldn't get too upset when he starts dictating.

So, when a problem arises, we fire up the Jimbo signal, and we wind up seeing see some classic benevolent dictator behavior:

• Rewriting policy page and declaring it policy
• Statements such as-- "The Foundation will be doing x,y,z, no point in arguing about it"
• Encouraging speedy deletes without discussion
• Pretty harsh threats to that admins, all and all
• Declarations like ... "At least some of the things that may be done in public will not be within the scope of commons". (Emphasis is mine )

And there's the rub. I think a lot of people get quite grumpy about being part of a community that depends on equal cooperation, only to have a single individual to dictate the answer for the entire community. A dictated policy is bound to have a somewhat inflammatory act-- far more so if the edict is controversial.

And yet, Jimbo is the certainly adorable puppy that nobody, myself included, can long stay mad at. I don't think he was at his best in the handling of this particular issue, but I know over the long haul he's done better at his job than I ever could have.

In the end, I think Jimbo's getting the rotten end of the deal. We don't know where the dicatorship begins and ends, we don't know how much he speaks for the Foundation and how much he doesn't. We don't know if he could ever get elected to EN:Wiki's arbcom or pass a RFA, and we don't know what his status is on other projects or commons. Is his word law, or suggestion? In a inter-admin dispute, does he automatically win, or only when he really wants to? Is it kosher for him to dictate Commons policy on his own authority, or does he need to achieve a consensus first? Does he need to go to the board first before making policy shifts, or does he make them on his own? Is his role "by consensus" or "by founderhood"? Where does Jimbo begin and end, how powerful is he allowed to be?

We don't know. We've never really decided most of that, have we? We've just sort of made it up as we went along, like the rest of Wikimedia.

And of course-- and this is critical-- we have to remember that Jimbo's just making it up as he goes along too. If he oversteps his bounds, that's just because nobody's explained to him where his bounds are. The dividing line between what he can do and what he can't is defined not by constitution or consensus, but rather by the rule that he is allowed to do "whatever he can get away with"-- and where that line will fall isn't clear to anyone, not even him, until after the fact.

Clarify or Abolish The Monarchy!

We've got a dictator, Jimbo volunteered and has donated his time and energy to fulfilling that office. He's served admirably, but I think the benevolent dictatorship, as an institution, might well be more trouble than it's worth.

Wikimedia is too huge for any one individual to have too much control, no matter how well intentioned. To set up a dictatorship is, literally, to invite one individual to singlehandedly make decisions that truly do affect so many lives.

And as long as that job description exists, whoever sits in the seat will, inevitably, make some really bad decisions, offend a lot of people, step on toes in explaining to the rest of us how it's going to be.

Whatever you think of the recent decision, the underlying question is-- do we _really_ want one person making such large decisions for the entirety of the community?

--Alecmconroy (talk) 14:56, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Langswitch

How do I use LangSwitch while incorporating a language without a langauge code? Marshallese, Hmong, and Chuukese are among those without language codes (to my knowledge) and I want to use langswitch with those languages.

Since I do not believe it is possible to set your browser to view Commons with that language, maybe have the languages without codes displayed in addition to the code used by the user's browser? WhisperToMe (talk) 15:56, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

The codes are mh, chk, and hmn. I added the codes to {{LangSwitch}} and {{Language/en}}. Test: "use uselang to see the other languages".

But this only works for Marshallese. That's the only language with an existing Wikimedia project. Chuukese and Hmong are not present in Mediawiki's language tables and thus it cannot be chosen via the preferences or the uselang parameter. --Slomox (talk) 18:34, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Ah, I didn't know Marshallese had a Wikimedia project. Thank you for creating the codes! Hopefully in the future Hmong and Chuukese will get them too! WhisperToMe (talk) 18:43, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

edit conflict: The template {{LangSwitch}} is used to adapt texts to the language set in the preferences, so languages that cannot be chosen in the preferences don't need to be present in the LangSwitch. On which page do you want to use it? Perhaps I can come up with a solution if I know the problematic page. --Slomox (talk) 18:46, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I put them on Category:Hawai'i Department of Education - Even though it is not possible that Chuukese cannot be chosen, I still put it in the langswitch template so that when it is available, there will be little difficulty in choosing it. In addition I put Chuukese outside of the template because it is not selectable yet. - While Hmong is not included in the Hawaii category, it is present in several categories related to the State of Minnesota, so in case I have to use Langswitch there it will be helpful to be able to eventually have Hmong as well. WhisperToMe (talk) 18:49, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Jimbo the vandal

Jimbo has now decided to delete what he considers pornographic artworks, by notable artworks.

All of them.

I confronted him on IRC, and he said he intends for all of them to be deleted, then, maybe, sometime in future, we can discuss undeleting some of them by sifting through the remains.

After Commons delinker has removed them from use in every project.

When there's no way to easily tell a deleted artwork from deleted amateur ponc ruft except by looking through every single deletion, and maybe getting lucky with some file names.

Despite noone, literally noone but him advocating for deleting artworks a Commons:Sexual content.

Jimbo is a vandal, he should be blocked, and I refuse to have a part of a project that thinks it knows art better than art historians. That's heathenish behaviour.

Further, he engages in Orwellian doublethink. What does the policy which he wrote and under which he's doing these deletions say? Although there is a common saying that "Wikimedia Commons is not censored," this statement should not be interpreted to imply that we do not make editorial judgments about the appropriateness of content.

Yess it fucking is censored, you're deleting artworks by major artists from the 19th century which you consider pornographic. That's the damn definition of censorship.

Fuck you, Jimbo. I'm off, and not returning here. Adam Cuerden (talk) 18:17, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

• Supported, I'm gone as well. TheDJ (talk) 18:21, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
• As have already left User:The Evil IP address and User:Kameraad Pjotr
  • Be sure to vandalize the mainpage on your way out. *Rolls eyes* --Dschwen (talk) 18:31, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
    • Second that eyeroll. Enough drama whoring already. Steven Walling 19:26, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Sadly some more people has left Commons:

• User:The Evil IP address - de (admin)
• User:Rosenzweig - de
• User:Saibo - de
• User:Kameraad Pjotr - nl (admin)
• User:TheDJ - nl (admin)
• User:Alecmconroy - not sure
• User:Silver Spoon - nl (admin)
• User:Justass - it (admin)
• USer:Adam Cuerden - en-gb (admin)
• User:Roux - not sure.
• User:Tryphon - (admin)

--Diego Grez ^{let's talk} 18:44, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Most of the users listed above have abused their positions as editors or administrators, made nasty attacks, and shown that they are not here for the good of Commons or our projects. It is better that they go on their own then having to waste the community's effort to force them out. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:53, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

It is easy be smearing the reputation of users which are not here to defend themselves and return the favor. User:Ottava Rima comments above are definitely not helping in the current situation--Jarekt (talk) 19:40, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with your comment above Ottava. No help-y. --Diego Grez ^{let's talk} 19:52, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Not only is it an easy smear, it is also nothing more than the hypocritical ramblings of a banned user at EN. Resolute (talk) 19:57, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

@Ottava Rima, Jimbo abused his position, some sycophants were "just following orders". You are sucking up to Jimbo so much that all alleged pornography pales in comparison. Erik Warmelink (talk) 20:39, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I have not left, just expressed my dissatisfaction with the things going on here. And btw, User:Ottava Rima certainly shouldn't bemoan "nasty attacks" after what he just wrote here. --Rosenzweig δ 18:55, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

And what he wrote here User_talk:Ankara#Warning.--Ankara (talk) 19:01, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

• I strongly disagree with recent cleansing of sexually explicit material and how it is done. Seems like extreme views of Jimbo and handful of other admins cloud their judgment and have very negative impact on the project and community. I am quite sadden about departure of many knowledgeable users who were donating their time and skills to the project. I also agree with some of the arguments of Jimbo and others about too much sexually explicit material here. But there has to be a way to resolve this problem without alienating large number of volunteers mostly working on other parts of the project. Many people volunteer here because they like project where all the decisions are made by consensus of the users. Reminding them that some users are more equal than others is very destabilizing. I hope that many volunteers currently departing the project will reconsider and return in the future. --Jarekt (talk) 19:04, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

•  Comment I agree that the new policy was implemented in a bad way. As I understand it Jimbo feared that donations would stop if Commons "hosted porn". See http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/05/07/wikipedia-purges-porn/ as an example. I just hope that if we in future has to delete other "offending" material it is communicated in a smarter way. --MGA73 (talk) 19:34, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

FYI: Please take a look at this foxnews article which possibly explains the motivation Jimbo's recent involvement at Commons and the urgency it takes. --AFBorchert (talk) 20:13, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Many years ago, Jimbo took unilateral action to remove templates from the English Wikipedia that he considered "divisive and inflammatory" and authorize all administrators there to do the same. This rule has since been repealed, out of recognition that it was impractical, out of line with community standards, and had no real positive impact on the site. I'm sure Jimbo's actions have made the symbolic impact that he intended on the media - 6 months from now, when everybody calms down and forgets about it, we should open a new discussion to repeal the policy and restore the educational content. I honestly don't think he'll even notice. Dcoetzee (talk) 20:23, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

[edit conflict] I find myself writing here because of a series of edits by CommonsDelinker that can only be described as bizarre. What is going on? It seems that files used on other wikipedia projects are being deleted and then undeleted willy-nilly, if you'll pardon the pun. Whatever the righst and wrongs of the argument(s) for and against keeping or having such files on Commons, I hope it is realised that this has a potentially dispiriting and damaging effect right across the board. One minute a file is there then it is gone then it reappears. Many smaller wikipedia projects such as "mine" - Welsh Wikipedia - find it difficult to keep up with this. We don't have the manpower to keep checking to see if a file has or has not been actually deleted. And many people seeking to find out what on earth is going on, such as myself, are going to be puzzled and perhaps disillusioned. As somebody who contributes at several projects, including Commons, I'd like to say "hold on, why the rish to delete? We don't delete on a whim and then undelete a day later only - maybe - to go through the same process again. That would be completely unacceptable on a project such as Welsh Wikipedia and I don't see how the rules can be different here. The last thing we want is to damage the entire Wikipedia project - and if knowledge of this situation becomes widespread I'm afraid that will be the result. This seems so unneccessary and counterproductive. Anatiomaros (talk) 20:30, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

[ec] @Dcoetzee: Jimbo told something that follows a similar direction: We will have a solid discussion about whether Commons should ever host pornography and under what circumstances at a later day - June 1st will be a fine time to start. --AFBorchert (talk) 20:34, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

[edit conflict] Is there a list of what was purged due to the fear tactics of fox news? Historic artwork and images/illustrations of educational value? This seems to be a pretty drastic step. — raeky ^{(talk | edits)} 20:35, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Is images like File:Édouard-Henri Avril (29).jpg on the chopping block? Where is the line? — raeky ^{(talk | edits)} 20:38, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Don't go anywhere! Stay here and fight! I am willing to help as much as I am able to do. Although my permissions are useless in this case, you should know that at least one steward is with you. --Millosh (talk) 21:00, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

The damage seems to already of been done... there is no easy way to relink all the deleted content if after review some of these (most/many) of them get undeleted. Someone will have to search and manually relink every image. Unless theres a new bot written to relink... I'm greatly disappointed in this... reading foxnews.com to see that there was a mass purge and coming here and seeing what damage was done by the founder after a rash decision to delete many images that community consensus has determined does meet guidelines. MAAANY of these images have gone through the deletion processes and have been kept. But now, one man has removed them all, creating an IMMENSE amount of work to ever restore them. — raeky ^{(talk | edits)} 21:04, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Question about images e-mailed to me

Hi! I had filed a photo request for the TAP Airlines headquarters. pt:Usuário:Rbsmr on the Portuguese Wikipedia said he would try to photograph the building. He e-mailed me a few shots he had taken, but said that he felt they weren't good enough and said he would try again later. His last edit on PT was on March 2010. I had e-mailed him and posted on his talk page, asking if I should upload the images, but there have been no replies.

Should I upload the images he e-mailed me to the Commons myself? I would obviously credit him. Should I assume that he wanted GNU/GDFL/CC? WhisperToMe (talk) 20:46, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

What exactly did you say about the potential future use of the images in your e-mail conversation with him? (I'm guessing you did not discuss how the images should be licensed.) If you merely talked about the images being used "on Wikipedia" and not "for any purposes" (including modification and commercial use), then this is a problem. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 20:51, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I intended to use the images to display the corporate headquarters of TAP Portugal in its Wikipedia article. Portugal has Freedom of Panorama, so the images were intended to be freely licensed. - His first post regarding this was at pt:Discussão:TAP_Portugal - Other stuff is at pt:Usuário_Discussão:Rbsmr#TAP_photo WhisperToMe (talk) 21:01, 7 May 2010 (UTC)