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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/2024/08.

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# 💭 Title 💬 👥 🙋 Last editor 🕒 (UTC)
1 >600 TB of recent media files 25 8 MGeog2022 2024-08-04 15:07
2 Self-talken photo 14 8 Joshbaumgartner 2024-08-11 01:54
3 Are 4K videos discouraged now? 20 12 Miguel Angel Omaña Rojas 2024-08-04 20:34
4 Should we convert all TIFFs to JPEGs? 33 23 Ooligan 2024-08-08 19:10
5 Semi-protection on the Village Pump? 11 7 Yilku1 2024-08-07 18:51
6 Acceptability of file names containing emoji 14 7 Jmabel 2024-08-05 21:11
7 Further dissemination of Wikimedia Commons Atlas of the World needed 32 6 MGeog2022 2024-08-10 15:02
8 Nearcoord and SDC 5 4 Jmabel 2024-08-07 19:19
9 File:Leo K Thorsness.jpg 4 2 Jeff G. 2024-08-07 00:36
10 Reminder! Vote closing soon to fill vacancies of the first U4C 1 1 Keegan (WMF) 2024-08-06 15:29
11 Image file seems broken 4 3 Glrx 2024-08-07 04:06
12 Nominating for both speedy and community revue deletion has a problem 1 1 Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 2024-08-07 01:20
13 New type of tram in Częstochowa 1 1 Smiley.toerist 2024-08-07 11:58
14 Category:Files that need updating 10 4 Enhancing999 2024-08-11 07:50
15 Good news: Cat-a-lot works again like a charm! 3 3 Adamant1 2024-08-08 14:53
16 Bangladesh files in West Bengal 4 2 Enhancing999 2024-08-08 13:29
17 Can someone please revert the rotation of File:EB1911 Palaeontology - ichthyosaur with young - restoration.jpg 4 3 DivermanAU 2024-08-09 02:02
18 Add "Upload file" link for mobile? 12 9 MGeog2022 2024-08-10 11:10
19 Flickr2Commons 11 4 Jeff G. 2024-08-10 13:07
20 Uploading photos from City of Melbourne website 10 5 Trade 2024-08-09 20:16
21 Special:UncategorizedCategories 9 4 Jmabel 2024-08-10 19:23
22 Dating Monaco postcard 6 4 Smiley.toerist 2024-08-10 20:30
23 COM:CSD#G4 8 5 Jonteemil 2024-08-10 19:06
24 Template documentation 2 2 Geohakkeri 2024-08-11 10:21
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November 18

Wikimedia Poland's travelling POTY exhibition moves south

(I thought this might be of interest to at least some of you, hope this won't be considered as spam... :)

I am delighted to announce that the first-ever travelling POTY pictures exhibition, organised by Wikimedia Poland, is moving to yet another Polish city. Starting next Wednesday, January 18, 16 images chosen in the annual POTY contests are going to be shown at the Municipal Public Library in Bytom in the south, less than 90 km from the Czech-Polish border.

As some of you may recall, the exhibition premièred during the 10th anniversary of the Polish Wikipedia conference, held in Poznań last September, having been visited by a few hundred visitors in just two weeks. Our first stop outside Poznań was Przystanek Książka, one of Warsaw's media libraries, where the exhibition was shown from November 28, 2011 to January 11, 2012, and has been visited by over a thousand visitors (after making it to the main page of Gazeta.pl, one of Poland's most popular news sites)!

With high hopes, we are now moving to Bytom, where the pictures are going to be showcased until February 18. The opening of the exhibition will be accompanied by a public lecture on Polish Wikipedia and a Wikipedia editing workshop for 50+ people, led by Wikimedian Paweł Marynowski (user:Yarl).

For those of you currently living in the south of Poland or planning to visit the Upper Silesia Metroplex (e.g. Katowice) in the upcoming weeks: the library is located at 3 Jan III Sobieski Square in Bytom, just 400 metres north of Bytom Market Square, with direct public transport from Katowice (bus lines "820" and "830") and is open on working days from 8 AM until 7 PM (8 AM-3 PM on Saturdays).

We are still looking for more organisations and institutions willing to hold the exhibition – and if there's anyone from the neighbouring (European) countries willing to get involved (we are particularly looking at our WMCEE friends now :)), feel free to approach me at <tomasz.kozlowski @ wikimedia.pl>.

On behalf of Wikimedia Poland, odder (talk) 17:30, 14 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid it is a bit out of the way for me, living in the Netherlands, but my congratulations on this initiative! Kind regards, MartinD (talk) 17:58, 15 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Why do you use a strange acronym like this "POTY" which normal people do not understand ? Isn't it better to use simple English words everybody understands ? Teofilo (talk) 00:59, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
We are using the full name Picture of the Year in all external press releases sent to the outside world. There was a first announcement about the exhibition 2 months ago in which I used the full name, too, but I thought that every user of Wikimedia Commons would know the name by now. Anyway, thanks for your remarks, it's appreciated, and I'll keep that in mind! PS See COM:POTY for more information. odder (talk) 12:39, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I googled "POTY exhibition" and google found some "poetry" or "pottery" exhibitions. It took me quite some time to figure out what you meant, that's why. It seems a good idea because it is so peaceful, far from the "protest" and "black out" of the last days. People may go there and just enjoy the pictures, without feeling compelled to join Wikipedia or donate. It looks so "neutral". I like the idea. Teofilo (talk) 20:45, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
COM:ALAFU: Always Link Abbreviations on First Use :) Rd232 (talk) 08:29, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Costa Concordia (ship, 2006) Jan 2012 Grounding

Hey guys! Somebody just uploaded Category:Costa Concordia (ship, 2006) Jan 2012 Grounding. It's an impressive effort! The largest groups of passengers were Italians, German, French, and Spanish. Costa has its ship incident website into in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Portuguese (Brazilian & Portugal) - So these languages listed by Costa would be very important for descriptions WhisperToMe (talk) 03:50, 15 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You don't really "upload" a category... It's more important to have Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese Wikipedia articles on the incident than to add text in those languages to the category page. AnonMoos (talk) 09:09, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think he meant translations of the image descriptions, as those images will be used by lots of wikipedia and wikinews articles. And while you don't upload a category really, basically every photograph in there is by one uploader, which are going to be the "interesting" photographs. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:13, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The category has been renamed to "Category:January 2012 grounding of the Costa Concordia (ship, 2006)". — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 18:41, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

File:Wikimedia labs small logo.png is incorrectly licensed

  • Official Wikimedia logo
    Official Wikimedia logo
  • Wikimedia community logo
    Wikimedia community logo
  • Wikimedia Labs logo derived from the community logo
    Wikimedia Labs logo derived from the community logo

The File:Wikimedia labs small logo.png is IMHO incorrectly licensed. Their description page have the {{CopyrightByWikimedia}} tag, but is based on the community logo, a PD media. Uploader mistake? Yep, I known that any PD media can result in a fully copyrighted work, but don't make any sense a derivative from a PD logo with copyrights instead of a derivative from the official logo... Lugusto • ※ 17:38, 15 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

PD is not "sticky", which is the specific reason why Stallman invented the GPL way back in the 1980s. If WMF wishes to declare the combination of a unicorn plus elements from a PD graphic to be not PD, I don't see any big problem. AnonMoos (talk) 09:04, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It was uploaded as GFDL/CC-BY-SA as "own work", then "corrected" by the uploader to the copyright-by-wikimedia the next day. It's not clear to me if this was a pre-existing logo, or something done by that user who assumed copyright on the underlying community logo design. It is not the logo used on the (just-closed) labs.wikimedia.org site. As far as I can tell, it's only used on a couple of small templates on en-wiki, which were both recently created, one of which by the uploader here. To be "copyrighted by wikimedia", either copyright would have to be transferred, or it would have to be derivative of a copyrighted design. Not sure that is the case here, but I may just be completely ignorant of this logo's history. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:04, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Even if copyright is transferred it is not possible to withdraw a free license. --MGA73 (talk) 10:44, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't be too sure of that in this case. Two reasons that there might not be a license to withdraw:
  • I am not a lawyer, but one might find that that a "license" is not legally a license unless there is a licensor and licensee agreeing to the same terms at the same time. In the specific case of this logo, that becomes important: If the only licensee to accept the terms was the Wikimedia Foundation, who did not transfer a substantial copy of it to any other party in the next 25 hours before the template was switched, then it may turn out that no act of licensing occurred other than to the Wikimedia Foundation, who in this case is whom the rights were subsequently renegotiated with or transferred to outright, before any third party was involved.
  • What if this was a work-for-hire for the Wikimedia Foundation and the Foundation already held copyright at the time of upload, and the uploader had no legal authorization to place a GDFL/CC license in the first place? --Closeapple (talk) 06:30, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have a suggestion: If the unicorn in the logo is a new creation, but was never used by the Wikimedia Foundation, someone can simply ask Wikimedia staff for a clarification. Maybe the Foundation is willing to just extract the unicorn and release it under a free license, or assert that Petrb (talk · contribs) still retains copyright of the unicorn itself. Then, regardless of what happens to the unicorn by itself: If the logo is rejected by the Wikimedia Foundation, then the version with the Wikimedia logo-ish circular parts can be said to fail COM:SCOPE and disappear, never to be heard from again. --Closeapple (talk) 06:30, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Highlighted content in main category structure

I think the amount of resources spend on nominating, reviewing and promoting various highlighted media such as our featured pictures, quality images and valued images are disproportionate to the benefits given to media repository users, who use the main topical category structure. There is not an easy way for these users to find reiewed and promoted content unless you are lucky to navigate to a gallery, where the highlighted material is organized. But many casual users would never look at a gallery, and many would be dissapointed too as many galleries have fallen apart or have disproportionate number of media from a few users. The casual repository user would expect to be presented with the highlighted content in well-organized, internationalized and self-consistent form at the top of a category without having to navigate to any other page. Like showing the top search results in a search engine.

Instead the media are shown in the order of their file name (default) or an optional sort key, and not by their merit.

Ideally, the appearance in a category should be controlled in detail from the file page as argument(s) to the category or by specialized MediaWiki software knowing that if a file page is categorized as an FP, a QI or VI it should use this information to organize the content in a more meaningful manner on the category pages. (Think of the FA star on Featured articles on Wikipedia and how the stars pop up in interwiki links for a related example).

We should not go to a gallery page or a category page to add information, which really is already there in the file page. It is redundant work, which is hard to maintain (can be bot-assisted though) and non-transparent.

Would other users think that such an organization of the categories would be better (if it was technically feasible)?

If yes, should we try to pursuade the MediaWiki developers into implementing a feature which can address our need to better show highlighted content in our main category structure?

Do other users than me see a need for this type of highlightning?

Please do not start voting on anything! Let us discuss first to get the ideas right. Maybe there are some previous discussion about this, which I am not aware of, where clever thoughts have been made - much more clever than the ones I am dreaming up here. --Slaunger (talk) 22:25, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have explicitly notified the QI/VI/FP subcommunities about this discussion as well as a few expert users within categorization, administration and technique to try and kickstart the discussion. I have tried to attract users with diverse opinions to avoid a one-sided discussion. --Slaunger (talk) 22:45, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There are a number of quick fixes that could be implemented in order of ease of implementation.
  • Insert a category sort key for the images, for example 1 for FP, 2 for QI, ... (potentially with a leading blank). Obviously, this will be used by other people, why some people use file names that always start with a number, mostly a 1.
  • Make the thumbnail image display generation software so that it can change the aspects of a thumbnail image in function of a parameter of the image. This modification seems pretty much isolated. Problem is how to protect against abuse and having a limited performance impact. On the other hand, thumbnails usually remain in cache that could maintain such an "aspect" parameter.
I guess that actions at a higher level might be probihitive in terms of development and execution cost. --Foroa (talk) 06:13, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I tried a quick patch in {{Quality image}} but is does not seem to work. --Foroa (talk) 06:56, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
thanks for trying, but i am trying to be a little more ambituous and consider what the (near-)optimal way would be on a longer timescale. The cat-sort idea is a non-optimal hack, where we try to force the existing mediaWiki framework into fitting our needs. It will not work consistently for the reasons you name (other users nameing files such that they appear first, non-logical cat sort key). I am trying to think, what changes are needed to the mediawiki framework and our workflow to fascilitate a better highlightning of reviewed media. can it be solved by implementing a "Media category highlightninh" extension to the existing MediaWiki, for instance? --Slaunger (talk) 09:42, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree on your assessement about exposure, but I have no idea how to improve it. Yann (talk) 06:14, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]


Let the category; work to gallery

the subject is much more complicated than it seems. It can not be only a technical solution. To have a little reflection, I think the category are only storage locations hierarchical division. The gallery can showcase images immediately useful and labels may be included. The gallery must be the entrances of COMMONS. the WIKI should refer first to the gallery. Free to whoever wants to take to the category. --Archaeodontosaurus (talk) 06:51, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that reviewed images deserve a higher exposure in general, and am happy to see brainstorming as to how this can be done best. Personally I don't use galleries much as I feel the work I do will soon become stale. On the category front, I think the concept introduced by User:Tangopaso, and expanded by User:Docu at Category:Eiffel Tower is a really valuable one: thumbnail category navigation. This requires using a single image from each sub-category, and naturally FP/QI/VPs would get precedence if they thumbnail well. I'd love to see someone make a template for this kind of category navigation structure so that it was easier to set up. --99of9 (talk) 07:03, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Yes, given the current MediaWiki, I agree with Archeodontosaurus, that galleries are our only option (an embedding in the category pages would also be possible, if allowed), but it is options which require a lot of maintenance of redundant information. Odds are, as 99of9 mentiones, that galleries are a dead end. Especially after galleries lost in the galleries vs categories dispute we had years back. It would be better if we could push the information somehow from the file pages into the category pages, such that the needed information shouyld only be maintained in the one place where it makes sense: The file page. --Slaunger (talk) 09:54, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Interesting work with the Eiffel tower category, but I would like us to digress a moment from the current possibilities in MediaWiki to a dream world of what we would like (if possible). Once we know where we should be heading, we can let it meet reality and discuss steps, which will bring us towards the right goal. Obviously, this is a development which needs a lot of time. We have some bits and pieces for that puzzle, but I think a birds-eye perspective to see the picture of the puzzle needs to emerge first. --Slaunger (talk) 09:54, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This should be done in galleries, not categories. The fact galleries "lost" in the galleries vs categories dispute a while back is irrelevant, as that was a different thing: That was about allowing access to all content not highlighting specific files.
Galleries should be the point of access, and they need some maintenance if they are going to track the associated category and not become outdated. This does not need to be as complicated as 99of9 indicates, for example the improvements to Category:Eiffel Tower is something that could (and IMO should) have been done in the gallery Eiffel Tower. Once that is done, that gallery would actually be rather low maintenance.
Also, bear in mind the FP/QI/VI content of a category may not be the most relevant media in that category, to the category's subject. For instance File:Kotor and Boka kotorska - view from city wall.jpg is not that useful to illustrate Club Med 2; it would be wrong to highlight that view ahead of File:Club.med.2.capri.arp.jpg, even though the first is FP and the second is nothing. Working out relevance is an inherently subjective process - so needs human thought, making an automated process inappropriate.--Nilfanion (talk) 11:00, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree it needs human thought, but the human thought could just as well be at the file page level (if the wiki supported that). File:Club.med.2.capri.arp.jpg could become VI within the scope of Club Med 2, if one could indicate in the file page that the categorization was VI with respect to the category Category:Club Med 2 (ship, 1991) (and only that category) that could be passed onto the category page and used for the highlightning. If a VI can also be highlighted in the scope category, and takes precedence over FPs you would get the intended behavior. That would be much more elegant than maintaining a separate gallery. --Slaunger (talk) 11:18, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • A gallery will always be able to do more than that: Most importantly - it would allow a meaningful description, unlike the current category default of file name; or the possible option of sucking the description field from the file page (which result in a overly wordy description in most cases). Galleries are not categories, and cannot do a category's role (contain everything). Likewise categories are not galleries, and cannot do a gallery's role (being selective). When there isn't much content this second role isn't needed, so the gallery isn't really useful.
  • You are correct that galleries can organize media better than "file page pushed to category page" schemes, and certainly galleries should continue to play such a role. I just think we should work on finding a good way to order the appearance of media in categories after some kind of "value/quality/usefullness" scale. Although we are now in solution mode again (it is so hard to not think of specific solutions), perhaps the FP/VI/QI metric I proposed is not the practical and optimal one. Page views could be another: Let photos in categories be displayed in descending order according to their view count. Although not optimal, this would not require any human maintenance. Supplemented by the option to show a small FP/QI/VI icon in the category view forwarded from the file page we would get something, which is at least more useful than the current category view order. --Slaunger (talk) 12:56, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I like the idea of ordering files in categories according to the number of articles in which they appear. I'm not sure if this is the same as Slaungers "view count" ordering. This could be turned off in user preferences, if desired. Also, displaying small FP/QI/VI icons in the category view would be very helpful, I think. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 04:18, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not the exact same metric, but related. In the Wikiedia database, it is registered how many times each page and file is accessed. So it would be a metric of views, which is probably related to the number of articles it is used in, and weighted with the popularity of the page so to say. But your metric is also interesting. See my new comment below. --Slaunger (talk) 18:05, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • It may be undesirable to give undue weight to number of accesses. That metric may overweight controversial files, e.g., gruesome or sexually explicit images, and FP/QI/VI nominations with little indication of their merit. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 02:09, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The situation "non-reviewed image is more relevant than an FP" will frequently occur. Even if the image I mentioned was made the VI, of the other 6 images 3 are of the ship itself - and all 3 are more relevant than the incidental inclusion on that FP. This suggests 3 (or more) basic classes that the reviewed content could be sorted by "media is of subject", "media is relevant to subject", "media has incidental inclusion of subject". This could be done on the file page, but is already getting more complex to support/maintain.--Nilfanion (talk) 11:53, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think what is important in the gallery is the fact the contributors state the organization, and select the pictures to show. The categories are tags for me (and very important too). Well for me it's not one vs another solution, both are useful. What I'd like it's more tools to generate galleries (with descriptions) from categories, or categories interesct (a bit like Cat Scan on toolserver). PierreSelim (talk) 15:04, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • I suggested this a while ago but it passed unnoticed, if we could have a bot automatically adding all FPs, VIs, and QIs, to galleries, with a small seal in the description, it would be a good step forward. --ELEKHHT 21:54, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]


Hi,
I think that there are often similar images uploaded onto Commons. Following my opinion, it should be necessary to delete these similar images. But when I make a deletion request, it is rejected if the two images are not absolutely identical (duplicate). I think that it is a strong mistake for Commons. For a library, it is important to collect documents, but it is also important to discard similar documents (and keep the best one). There are also the personal images, the "my travel images", the "my wedding images", the images of artists (painters, rock bands...) unknown by anybody but themselves... Deletion requests are rejected for expression liberty reasons.
Category:Eiffel Tower is the perfect example. There is again and again a buddy to upload the 100th image of the tower seen from Trocadero. Thats a pity ! I created the gallery hoping that people will see the other images similar to their one and give up to upload their 101st image. User:Docu made a great job by adding categories from the different directions of view (I did not have this good idea).
I created also galleries in Category:Jardin des Plantes de Paris and Category:Gare de Paris-Est. A little bit Paris oriented ? True, I apologize. But it is really a wonderful town to live in... --Tangopaso (talk) 20:43, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

General category sorting and filtering

I like the Eiffel tower category idea - essentially, to give a representative thumbnail for subcategories. That's something we could file a bug for, I think it has great potential.

The featured content issue, though, I'm inclined to see in the context of the wider issue of category sorting and filtering. You can see MediaWiki:Gadget-GalleryFilterExtension.js implements the ability to filter by file extension; what we really want is MediaWiki to expand on that and provide a whole sort/filter toolbar for a category, including filtering by things like Featured status. A gadget could possibly be an intermediate step, but really it needs to be in MediaWiki. ... Yes, I know this isn't likely to happen any time soon, but if we're talking about what we'd like to have long-term, I think something in this direction is it. Rd232 (talk) 11:23, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • I think this is a good proposal. Improved category sorting and filtering, as Rd232 suggests, would be helpful. But, I think Slaunger is correct that automated flagging or sorting in categories is best for wide accessibility. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 20:49, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure. We need a predictable and verifiable sorting system. In many cases, people sort already images in a category to have the photo of the painter, maps, coats of arms, most representative category picture, ... on top of the list. So this basic capability must be maintained, but maybe overrided or brought forward when hovering/clicking on an icon. --Foroa (talk) 09:05, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It probably depends on the needs of the user which sort order is the most valuable. I see several relevant sort keys
  • Alphabetically by file name (what we have now)
  • Most popular (highest view count first)
  • Sorted descending according to the number of wikimedia pages the file is used in
  • Newest uploads first
  • Highest resolution first
I Imagine there could be a dropdown box for a selection of the sort order
The sort could be combined with some filters: E.g.
  • License
  • Geocoded
  • Reviewed content only
  • Only files over x Mpixel
The user choice could be remembered until next use as a cookie perhaps? --Slaunger (talk) 07:23, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
While we are at it: sorting/selecting by media type and date range would be very handy too. --Foroa (talk) 19:27, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

January 17

WikimediaCopyrightWarning

I'm finding that {{WikimediaCopyrightWarning}} seems to be applied to Wikimedia-related files that aren't actually subject to copyright. (Example: File:Wikipedia SOPA Blackout Design.png, where the logo content is {{PD-textlogo}}.) Maybe we need a variation of {{WikimediaCopyrightWarning}} which removes the reference to copyright, and just talks about trademark, visual identity guidelines etc? Rd232 (talk) 22:58, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Tada :) {{Wikimedia trademark}} –Krinkletalk 00:30, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Aha! Good. I've added a note to {{WikimediaCopyrightWarning}}. However, {{Wikimedia trademark}} still applies Category:Copyright by Wikimedia - it should really be a different category name too. Maybe "Category:Trademarks and logos of Wikimedia, with Category:Copyright by Wikimedia a subcategory? (There's also Category:Wikimedia official logos and Category:Logos of Wikimedia which seems confused/confusing. Don't even get me started on Category:Wikimedia vs Category:Wikimedia Foundation...) Rd232 (talk) 00:36, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why even a subcategory? Why can't this all be deprecated down (to just trademark)?--Brian Dell (talk) 22:46, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Because Wikimedia copyrighted files are the exception to Commons' licensing policy. This means we should be clear about which files are exceptions, and which files might appear to be exceptions ("It's a Wikimedia logo!") but aren't. Rd232 (talk) 23:41, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

January 18

Copyfraud at Getty Images

File:WP on Getty images with watermark.jpg
A "copyrighted" watermarked image from Getty Images

I just noticed this image of Wikipedia's main page on the NPR website, credited to Getty Images. In fact they claim copyright to this image, which appears to me to be a blatant violation of Wikipedia's CC-BY-SA 3.0 license. Pisses me off! Companies complain that their copyrights are not respected, but what about Wikipedia's license not being respected? Smallbones (talk) 04:42, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Whoa, hold your horses. This is not merely a screen capture of Wikipedia's main page but appears to be someone's photograph of the main page as viewed on a computer visual display unit or a tablet. In that case, I don't see why the photographer or Getty Images shouldn't assert copyright over the photograph as a whole. What they ought to do, of course, is to acknowledge that the content of the screen being photographed is licensed under CC-BY-SA-3.0 and that it is from Wikipedia. Perhaps you could contact them about this matter. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 07:18, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No, they could do that if it was cc-by-3.0, but cc-by-sa-3.0 forces derivative works to be put under the same (or a compatible) license. Prof. Professorson (talk) 07:57, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I see. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 11:24, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Getty Images has a nice 'live chat' feature at http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/HelpCenter. It might be an idea to point this image out to them as a copyright violation that needs to be escalated for corrective action; in a friendly way. --Fæ (talk) 11:29, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

From the "Live Chat"

  • Welcome! A representative will be with you shortly. For your security, do not give out your credit card number or other sensitive personal data during a Live Chat session.
  • You are now chatting with Ryan.
  • Ryan: Hello! How can I help you today?
  • Smallbones: Editorial image #: 137246977 is a photo of Wikipedia's main page. Which is licensed CC-BY-SA 3.0
  • Smallbones: But Getty has said that it is "copyrighted" by Getty, which is not possible
  • Smallbones: CC-BY-SA requires that it be relicensed under the same license for derivative works.
  • Smallbones: Can we get the photo properly licensed? i.e. remove the copyright tag?
  • Ryan: We license images on behalf of the photographer
  • Ryan: The copyright of the PHOTOGRAPH is by Karen Bleier
  • Ryan: we do not own the copyright, we own the rights to license the photograph
  • Smallbones: Not possible to copyright this photo - it must be licensed CC-BY-
  • Smallbones: Sa
  • Ryan: Certainly possible.
  • Ryan: but either way, we cannot change anything on our site
  • Smallbones: Who do I go to to get the copyright notice removed?
  • Ryan: We do not remove it
  • Ryan: so it will not be possible.
  • Smallbones: But who can remove this illegal copyright claim? Obviously you can't, but there must be a responsible person there.
  • Ryan: The claim is for the photograph only. We the content in the photograph might not be able to be copyrighted but we're not claiming to copyright that. Any photograph taken is copyrighted by the photographer. We're not claiming ot copyright the content.
  • Ryan: for example, if we take an image of a famous painting, we're not claiming to copyright the painting
  • Ryan: the copyright is for the photograph the the photographer took
  • Ryan: the content in it is separate
  • Smallbones: You need to read the CC-BY-SA 3.0 License - you are clearly violating it. Should I send the link?
  • Ryan: No, that's ok. We actually are not. Our whole business is built aroudn licensing images...we would not violate it.
  • Smallbones: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/
  • Smallbones: Please get a lawyer to read it - you are violating the license. End of story</quote>

Smallbones (talk) 13:48, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If I'm not mistaking the wikipedia logo is copyrighted (not even under free licence) by the WMF. PierreSelim (talk) 14:14, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
As that is probably sufficient to show we have exhausted their complaints process, it might be time to ping the issue to legal so they can try their own form of friendly contact. --Fæ (talk) 14:47, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the Wikipedia globe logo is copyrighted and trademarked by WMF. That image will be a perfect illustration for en:Copyfraud (currently un-illustrated). cmadler (talk) 14:59, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The WMF should send them a DMCA take-down notice; Getty is usually the first to jump to that kind of legal action when someone uses their images without a proper license, I don't see why we should be lenient with them. Prof. Professorson (talk) 15:21, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The text shown really isn't copyrightable. They could probably claim de minimis or fair use on the logo or any of the other material used -- it's not necessarily derivative, though it'd be a close call. News-reporting agencies get a pretty wide latitude when it comes to fair use. We don't rely on fair use determinations, but they certainly can and would. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:25, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I can't see a claim that this is not derivative or is "de minimus" - the image is composed of 75% of a piece of Wikipedia's main page, and 25% black. As far as fair-use, the only thing they needed to do to use it was label it "This image from Wikipedia is licensed CC-BY-SA 3.0" rather than "Karen Bleier/Getty/AFP." Doesn't seem to be anything fair about that use. Smallbones (talk) 15:46, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It's certainly a derivative of the non-free Wikipedia logo, which is featured prominently and kind of the whole point of the work. Used in the context of a news story, it may be fair use. Being sold as an asset on Getty's website, it is not. Dcoetzee (talk) 15:48, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not convinced at all the photo would be found derivative of the logo. The photo is not primarily based upon the logo. In any event, only the WMF themselves can bring an action, if they feel strongly about it, since they are its copyright holder. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:11, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Um, fair use? Surely this is a perfect example of fair use... Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 17:53, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
While the use of such an image in news reporting about Wikipedia probably falls well within fair use, Getty Images' claimed "right to license" the image is probably not, since they are claiming the right to commercially exploit the image for any end use. cmadler (talk) 18:46, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If the use of the logo within the context of the photo is fair use (which I think it may well be), then I think the photographer does not need permission to distribute their photo, in any context -- that is basically what fair use means, no need to get permission. If you wanted to crop to just the logo, yes that would be a problem of course. But the copyrightable work in question (the logo) is simply being shown as part of the web page, not a a work unto itself. Carl Lindberg (talk) 03:24, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Isn't the web page as a whole (layout, etc.) a copyrightable work also? cmadler (talk) 11:03, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Possibly. Arrangement of text in a printed book is not subject to U.S. copyright, so that casts some doubt on that, though a significant combination of fonts, placement, and styles may be (Reader's Digest won a case against a competitor basically wholesale copying their very distinctive format of their cover, even though none of the elements were copyrightable; see here). Not sure that the shown arrangement is quite as original though -- many sites use the vertical menu on the left, with more stuff across the top, etc. It's definitely fuzzy -- I would just caution against completely accusing them of copyright infringement. Carl Lindberg (talk) 19:11, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I found that this is sorta cheap. For me such challenges look even more mad than SOPA itself. What if Microsoft will go over the web attempting to take down every single screenshot of Windows claiming copyright on it? What if street protesters will try take down news agency photographs of their "copyrighted" posters? It's protection of copyright for the sake of protection of copyright, it doesn't benefit to the society or anybody else. Trycatch (talk) 17:08, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to me that people aren't thinking through the public relations side of thing very much. Wikipedia makes an unprecedented scene saying unless Congress is lobbied "big media" could potentially create a stink about a single copyvio on Wikipedia, and then turn right around and throw a fit about a single image on Getty? The PR of the banner on Commons was already discouraging to potential Commons contributors because it suggests that your contributions might just grow the Commons which would in turn enable a more influential banner advocating against content creators interests.--Brian Dell (talk) 23:03, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

NOAO images

A number of NOAO images and composite images where a portion is credited to NOAO are being put up for deletion discussion by User:Bulwersator. I'm not saying the user is right or wrong, but it seems the usage of these images, especially the composites is confusing. These include File:DEM L316 in Dorado.jpg which I uploaded from the Chandra site, CHANDRA X-ray Observatory CXC Operated for NASA by SAO, url=http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2005/d316/. With respect to Chandra, I found this "Images credited to NASA/CXC are public domain." at File:Sn2006gy CHANDRA x-ray.jpg. There are others like File:Luchsbogen.jpg which are composites with Hubble that appear to be covered by the Hubble public domain disclaimer yet include portions from NOAO. NOAO (url=http://www.noao.edu/image_gallery/copyright.html) uses the same copyright policy as Chandra (url=http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/image_use.html). This NOAO confusion applies to some 63 images found by searching using "NOAO", without the quotes. Much of NOAO funding comes from NASA, NSF, and other government agencies. There is also collaboration with ESA. Investigating each individually is very time consuming and may be unnecessary. I would be happy to contact any of these agencies on Commons behalf but I'm not OTRS, although if it does not require enormous time consuming effort I would be happy to help. There may be Wikipedia limited licenses which may apply and I will check that per User:Bulwersator suggestion. What do you think? Marshallsumter (talk) 18:05, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

One possibility for NOAO is something like Non-free with NC or something similar to Non-free ESA media, with ESA replaced by NOAO. Marshallsumter (talk) 07:23, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

URAA affirmed by US Supreme Court - deletion request opened

In a 6-2 decision, SCOTUS affirmed the decision of the district court. The principle findings were: "1. Section 514 [of the URAA] does not exceed Congress’ authority under the Copyright Clause. [...] 2. The First Amendment does not inhibit the restoration authorized by §514." Supporters were Ginsburg, Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Sotomeyer. Breyer and Alito dissented. Kagan recused. See SCOTUS Blog.

Regrettably, this means we can no longer defend our long-held position that the URAA is probably unconstitutional, and that our publication of files bearing the {{Not-PD-US-URAA}} in contravention of that law is justified. As such, I have opened Commons:Deletion requests/All files copyrighted in the US under the URAA and invite your opinions there. Over 3000 files are affected. Please post your opinions regarding deletion there. Please don't post here to avoid dividing discussion, as I'm posting this notice in multiple locations. Dcoetzee (talk) 18:14, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

How does that affect Commons' PD tagging policy and the PD-old template?

Should we not change Commons's policy concerning the tagging of PD files, by requesting users to:

We already have, but nobody noticed because it was in small text. The {{PD-old}}, {{PD-old-70}}, {{PD-old-80}}, and {{PD-old-90}} tags all specify that they must be used in conjunction with a US PD tag. I don't think it makes sense to create templates for every possible combination of source country and US PD tag, since there are way too many, but maybe there's another way to enforce this more stringently? Maybe we could have the PD-old tags take a US tag as a parameter, and produce an error message and put it in a cleanup category if none is supplied? Dcoetzee (talk) 16:35, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If we reach a consensus that the URAA is valid, there is no point of having a {{PD-old}} template which can never be used on its own. A tag which can never be used on its own is obsolete, in my view. I think the requirement to have two tags is much too complicated to understand, and therefore to enforce. And I also believe that the {{PD-1996}} template is too vague. Tags should be considered as a check list telling the user concretely what he must check, such as the publication date or the author's death date. The parametering solution might be good. I don't know which is the most "usable" for the average user who finds an old picture and wants to upload it here on Commons. Teofilo (talk) 16:55, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The main problem is the sheer number of combinations is overwhelming. e.g. an image may be PD in Canada by {{PD-Canada}}, but PD in the US by {{PD-US-no notice}} (if it was published within 30 days in the US with no copyright notice). Put them all together and we'd have thousands of tags. Common cases like {{PD-old-70-1923}} can be covered by a single tag of course, and the upload wizard could rely on these common case tags. I've considered designing some kind of new wizard for complex cases where a bunch of information has to be taken into account. Dcoetzee (talk) 18:16, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think having two tags -- one for the country of origin, and one for the U.S. -- is fine. For many very old works, which are obviously from before 1923, the single PD-old tag is probably enough.
It would be good to have something - be it with one template or two templates - that can be activated in one click with the upload wizard, at least for the most popular cases. Teofilo (talk) 19:53, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
We do have {{PD-two}}. Jean-Fred (talk) 19:56, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
And do you know what uploaders will say about this PD rules: "you're crazy" - and they are right. --Saibo (Δ) 22:20, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If we want to simplify our PD rules, we know how--stop worrying about anything but US copyright. It is primarily by the request of our European contingent that we keep the complex dual system rules in place.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:25, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
LOL - why the f... should everybody learn US copyrights even when it doesn't play a role (in average) for neither the uploader nor for the reuser (I think content is quite localized). --Saibo (Δ) 01:05, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Because that is where the servers are. If you notice, the megaupload site was just shut down today and folks arrested, despite being a Hong Kong corporation, because some of their servers were located in the U.S. and that gave the U.S. authorities jurisdiction (or they are claiming that anyways). Carl Lindberg (talk) 01:30, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Then the servers need to go somewhere else. Apparently not possible to think of for some people... WMF's aim is not be in US - I though WMF's aim is free knowledge (or something). --Saibo (Δ) 01:43, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Already being discussed at Commons:Deletion_requests/All_files_copyrighted_in_the_US_under_the_URAA#Proposal_1_-_server_migration_to_another_country (and note the link there to a relevant comment by Jimbo - actually a reply to me, originally :) ) Rd232 (talk) 02:18, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
They are claiming that even based on domain names alone: [1][2]. --AVRS (talk) 18:43, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
See further discussion in #Proposed_changes_to_PD_tags below. Dcoetzee (talk) 01:36, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

blackout screenshots

Hi, I took a bunch of screenshots of the web pages that joined the protest against SOPA. The file names are in the form <domain>.png . When I tried to upload them, all the .com sites have not been uploaded with "file type not allowed".

Can we allow screenshots of .com websites (which in many cases have linked to americancensorship.org) or are they considered non-free?--Japs 88 (talk) 18:32, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The file type was not allowed because it got confused by multiple extensions (blah.com.png was interpreted as a ".com.png" file, or something) - just rename it. Nevertheless, screenshots of websites are frequently problematic, as they may contain non-free images or extensive paragraphs of non-free text. Sites with just a small amount of text and no copyrightable graphics are fine (what constitutes a small amount of text is admittedly a bit fuzzy). Many open-source sites (like mozilla.org) license their graphics under the GPL, and so are also okay. Dcoetzee (talk) 18:48, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
“Many open-source sites (like mozilla.org) license their graphics under the GPL, and so are also okay.” seems confusing. At least mozilla.org’s text is under CC BY-SA 2.0+. --AVRS (talk) 20:02, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
(or 3.0+, because mozilla.com is being merged into mozilla.org) --AVRS (talk) 20:06, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
So, if in doubt, text is under CC BY-SA 3.0+. The logo files (at least in Firefox --AVRS (talk)) are under {{MTL}} (“or MPL2 if you prefer” --gerv). --AVRS (talk) 21:46, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
(a small warning: I am sleepy and the citation is out of context --AVRS (talk) 21:47, 18 January 2012 (UTC))[reply]
My mistake. I can never keep track which licenses OSS sites use... Dcoetzee (talk) 01:27, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Copyviol

This User:Lobo512 has uploaded lotta copyr. movies screenshoots. Thanks.--Pierpao.lo (listening) 19:27, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Pierpao has not carefully read the descriptions of the images, and ignored the great effort I went to checking that the publicity stills (not screenshots) are all in the public domain. --Lobo512 (talk) 19:47, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've just spot-checked Lobo512's recent uploads, and each has a clear explanation as to why it is in the public domain. (In most cases, these are either old publicity stills published without a copyright notice, or old movie trailers that appear to have not had copyright renewed.) Can you point to a particular one (or several) where you feel the explanation provided is incorrect or inadequate? cmadler (talk) 20:46, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No one, I confused his uploads with the jobs done by another user. My mistake. My best apologize to both of you--Pierpao.lo (listening) 09:35, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
And of course thanks for your effort. You made a great job--Pierpao.lo (listening) 09:38, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Map and PD-trivial

Is this edit appropriate?--Ymblanter (talk) 20:00, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think not. A map is not normally "simple geometry". cmadler (talk) 20:31, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks to you and to Prosfilaes, I saw that the action has been taken.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:03, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

January 19

January 20

Please put a link to the Commons FAQ page on the left menu

I am not a sysop or an IT professional, and I speak for the average user of Commons. We don't always think hierarchically, or have the time or brains to figure out the Commons hierarchy of categories or method of categorization. PLEASE put a link to the FAQ[[3]] on the left menu. Its existence should not be buried in a line of text on the main Help page. Downtowngal (talk) 01:47, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

At some point the menu gets too crowded. What if not "help" should FAQ be? --Saibo (Δ) 01:59, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I personally don't find the FAQ to be particularly helpful; there's just too much going on, not terribly well organised (especially in non-English versions). Also to be in the left menu you'd have to make it "FAQ", not "Frequently Asked Questions" - and I'm not sure how many people know what "FAQ" stands for. It's common among a certain geek crowd, but they're not the ones who need help. Rd232 (talk) 02:14, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Commons Help doesn't have a help section addressed specifically to the casual, infrequent, newbie user or uploader. An FAQ is the closest thing to this kind of guidance, and in my opinion it should be featured prominently. (May I point out as an aside, that the British style of signage requires people to read text; the American style reduces text to graphics and abbreviations as much as possible. Putting the FAQ link in a line of text several lines down on the Help page was obviously not done by an American.) At the very least, the FAQ should be in color, in a box, and featured prominently at the TOP of the Help page. I would rather see the term FAQ or "Beginners' FAQ" on the left menu. That way the casual user knows exactly where to go first.
To answer Rd232, I suspect "FAQ" has been incorporated into other languages (like "e-mail"), but input from native speakers outside Western Europe would be helpful.
In my opinion, there should be two FAQs, one full-length and one directed especially at the casual user. This is SO important in making Commons usable by the general public. (Having worked for a while at categorizing images, I can infer the kinds of errors the uploaders are making when they search for appropriate categories.) At present, only the very sophisticated user can navigate all the help materials. I would be happy to work on a second, smaller FAQ and on offering suggestions on fixing the longer one. Downtowngal (talk) 16:01, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Any improvement to the help pages are welcome, and a good, short, "Beginners FAQ" might be suitable for the sidebar, or at least for prominent linking in other places. So please feel free to have a go! Rd232 (talk) 23:32, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Erroneous rendering of an SVG that displays correctly with Inkscape, Gimp and Firefox

The file http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Heme-Synthesis-Chemical-Details-Mirror.svg looks OK with the tools listed above, but displays from Commons with a number of errors:

  • A giant "2" disappearing out of the top right corner
  • "H2O" rendered as "HO2" in two places

The file was produced with Inkscape as a modification of http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Heme-Synthesis-Chemical-Details-NEW.svg which has the "H2O" rendering problem but not the giant "2".

Help, please!

Thanks -- Ross — Preceding unsigned comment added by RossBoswell (talk • contribs)

Usually it helps to convert fonts (and objects in general) into paths and save as plain SVG in Inkscape. Every time I get a wonky SVG, these steps fix it. Patrícia msg 12:58, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The giant "2" looks like it comes from what is supposed to be a "H2N" notation. The "2" is being interpreted as some giant point size by rsvg obviously. The SVG looks fine in Safari as well. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:11, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I think I fixed it. The giant 2 may have come from a font specification of "65.0009234%" or something like that -- I think it was interpreting it as a 65 point size, not 65%. I changed to a fixed point size like all the other subscript numbers in there (though many, as Patricia noted, have already been turned into paths). My local version of rsvg did not have that problem, so I presume that is a bug in the older rsvg used on MediaWiki, but will be fixed in a future update. As for the incorrected "H20" -> "H02" ordering... it looks like rsvg has a problem with a formulation like <text>H<tspan>2</tspan>2</text> (i.e. intermixing top-level text with tspan tags). It puts all the tspan tags at the end. It was just getting lucky with the "C02" notations. I manually edited the text file to have <text><tspan>H</tspan><tspan>2</tspan><tspan>0</tspan></text> (i.e. put all text segments in their own tspan). My local rsvg did have that problem, so it looks like it is still a bug in that library. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:42, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Double Picture

Can you all fix it?

I uploaded one file about Casey Stoner from Flicker in 11 December 2011 with original link at: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:And_I_was_there!.jpg

But I'm finding that other user also uploaded the same file in 26 December in: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Casey_Stoner_2011_PI.jpg

Thanks for your attention F1fans (talk) 15:46, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

These should simply be linked with {{Other versions}}, since they are differently lightened & cropped. I'll do that. - Jmabel ! talk 17:00, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed changes to PD tags

The URAA decision is a reminder that we have to be clear, for every new upload, why it is in the public domain in both the US and the source country. Some notes:

  • Many works predating 1923 with known author death dates are adequately addressed by the {{PD-old-70-1923}} and {{PD-old-80-1923}} tags.
  • We've been generally assuming {{PD-old-100}} works are PD in the US. This is true for published works for at least the next 11 years, but after that (or for unpublished works) it may not be. For this reason we will also require {{PD-old-90-1923}} and {{PD-old-100-1923}} tags (the latter covering many existing files).
  • For works first published 1923 or later, things get messy. We need a tag to show PD in the source country. Additionally:
    • If they were published within 30 days in the US, we also need one of the US PD tags (and any of them could apply).
    • If they were not, then we have to establish {{PD-1996}}. I believe the {{PD-1996}} template is not specific enough regarding the reason the work was in the public domain in 1996 in its country of first publication, considering many nations' laws have changed since 1996. To address this, we need new more specific {{PD-1996}} templates, such as {{PD-1996-old-50}}, {{PD-1996-old-70}}, and for nations with particularly unusual or complex rules, nation-specific templates like {{PD-1996-India}}. See en:Wikipedia:Non-U.S._copyrights for a table of such rules by country.

Enforcement: we need to make sure every file not already using a combined tag, like {{PD-old-70-1923}}, includes both a source country and US tag. The template {{PD-two}} exists for this purpose. I believe the best way to enforce the policy is to make it so that source country only / US only tags cannot be used outside of the PD-two template. If they are, it will show an error message and place it in a cleanup category. This is not hard to implement technically: we have the PD-two tag pass an extra parameter to both of its argument tags, and if the parameter is omitted, the tag will show the error.

Thoughts? Dcoetzee (talk) 17:56, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe I'm missing something, but about images for which the source country is the U.S.? Powers (talk) 18:50, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
In that case only the U.S. license is needed. In all other PD cases I support requiring the usage of two licenses that make the situation clear. Hekerui (talk) 20:31, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oops yes forgot about those. Dcoetzee (talk) 00:51, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Apart from Powers' question above, it looks fine. I was wondering if we could have some templates that would "automatically" find out the copyright status of a work by combining parameters {{copyright status|country of first publication=France|date of first publication=1925|author death date=1936}} would produce something similar as {{PD-1996-old-50}}. Teofilo (talk) 20:35, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I considered this but this only works when the info is known. Often we make an "intelligent guess" that e.g. a work published in 1860 is probably PD-old-70 even if we lack the author death date. These kind of guesses, and ranges of values are hard to capture in templates that take specific values. Dcoetzee (talk) 00:51, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
We could design a set of symbols such as those of Template:Other date to define ranges of dates rather than exact dates. Teofilo (talk) 01:07, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
We've had this situation all along -- the URAA restorations have been part of U.S. law since 1996. PD-two has a common issue that you can't pass tags which themselves take arguments. I'm not sure there needs to be a sweeping change to existing files... but, for cases of copyright expiration, adding two tags (as part of PD-two or not) would definitely be helpful. I'm not sure a proliferation of PD-1996 templates would be a great idea either... you can usually tell which country is the one in question, and go look up the conditions of their law and figure it out. Keep in mind all of this stuff is ridiculously complex, and we do need to make things as easy as possible on uploaders, so any substantive changes have to be incorporated into the upload wizard, etc. The previous practice was basically as that as we notice files which are potentially problematic, we investigate and nominate for deletion as usual. If we make any changes... it should probably be careful, and not take effect anytime soon. Burdens of proof on the uploader have been a line in the sand; implementing this could pretty much scramble that even more. I don't see a need to make it more complex than it has been all along, as the law has not changed at all this whole time, but anything to make it easier (or to let uploaders enter information if they happen to know it) would be good. But yes, if we (as assumed) go with deletion of URAA-restored works, we should probably have a way to mark both copyright statuses. I think there are waaaaaaay to many existing files to actually require usage of PD-two though. Deletions on account of missing such tags would be very poor form on our part I think. Carl Lindberg (talk) 00:13, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Not recommending deletion of such cases, just review and updating of tags (and deletion nominations where warranted). Considering the backlog, printing an error might be inappropriate, and bot assistance would probably be required. My issue with {{PD-1996}} is that, unlike most of our tags, you can't just look at it and say "this work does or does not meet these conditions," which makes it much more cumbersome to check, and so more likely to be wrong. This is particularly frustrating since in most cases the country of first publication is not specified in the file information. I do think a new wizard is needed to help users supply correct PD information - right now AFAIK the UploadWizard is still using the PD-old tags by themselves which is definitely not right. Dcoetzee (talk) 00:55, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
We can't put all the burden on uploaders -- some research can be required for third-party reusers, or other editors here, to fill in some gaps; the full information doesn't need to be immediately apparent. But yes, the following pieces of information can help inform the status: date of creation, date and country of first publication, date the author died, and what country the author was from. Any and all of that helps, though a proper source usually means that much of that information can be determined by consulting that source, which is why we require that -- I'm sure many would doubt data provided by an uploader if there was no source, meaning we'd have to do the research anyways. Carl Lindberg (talk) 01:32, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think we should have some kind of flexibility regarding existing files, but we should try to streamline our procedures so that uploaders document newly uploaded files in an accurate way, and provide them with the tools to easily do so. Teofilo (talk) 01:07, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The upload wizard should simply ask for the required input data such as country of origin, date of first publication etc. and throw out the corresponding templates by itself. The question is, what to do about important missing data? --Prüm (talk) 01:20, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The relevant country is the country of author, not the country of first publication, isn't it? Then, asking for author and publication data will be usually enough.--Pere prlpz (talk) 01:40, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The relevant country of a published work is the country of first publication per Berne treaty article 5-4)-a) The country of origin shall be considered to be:(a) in the case of works first published in a country of the Union, that country; [4] The relevant country of an unpublished work is the country of the author. Teofilo (talk) 04:33, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
 Question Throwing in a question for {{PD-1996}}: Requirement is stated 1) not simultanously published 2) and published before 1978 without compliance with U.S. formalities 3)and PD in country of first publication at URAA date. My question is about 2). Published in the U.S. or published abroad without compliance? --Martin H. (talk) 13:29, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Update: I've now created Category:Files requiring U.S. copyright review and put in it all files bearing the {{PD-old}}, {{PD-old-70}}, etc. tags (unless they have the "used-with-US=1" parameter). I'm having a bot automatically approve all {{PD-old-90}} and {{PD-old-100}} files by converting them to {{PD-old-90-1923}}, {{PD-old-100-1923}} (which is accurate at the present time, reasonably assuming the work was published during the author's lifetime). The next step will be to run another bot which approves any files that have a US PD tag. After that, another bot may be able to use the "date" field to identify some more PD-1923 works. A ton of manual review will still be needed. I'm not even going to think about the PD-1996 cases for now, as the PD-1923 cases are quite extensive. Dcoetzee (talk) 19:13, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Wow wow wow, hold on. I am not sure I get it. All {PD-Old-XX} are deprecated ? Should {PD-Old-XX-19XX} the rule ? What about PD-two, is it deprecated as well? We are losing load of translations in the process too. Jean-Fred (talk) 19:32, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
PD-two is not deprecated - I modified it to automatically mark its first parameter with used-with-US=1. The PD-old templates aren't deprecated, but have to be used either with PD-two or in combination with a US PD tag (in which case they will be marked by a bot as used-with-US=1). Even PD-old-100 may not imply PD-US for works first published posthumously, so it's important to distinguish these cases. The translations aren't lost, they can be ported to the new templates easily enough. Dcoetzee (talk) 19:45, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmm, ok. So shall use the two templates (either combination with used-with-US=1 or Pd-Two) or {PD-Old-XX-19XX} ?
About PD-old-100 files, for eg 17th century paintings, are we supposed to replace PD-old-100 by {Pd-two|PD-old-100|PD-1923} ?
Jean-Fred (talk) 19:58, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Right, except for old paintings you should prefer {{PD-old-100-1923}}, because it's more compact (or for PD-Art works, {{PD-Art|PD-old-100-1923}}). I'll add translations to the PD-old-XX-1923 templates soon if no one beats me to it. Dcoetzee (talk) 20:01, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oh dear, I fear I may have created the largest backlog to ever exist. Category:Files requiring U.S. copyright review currently contains 1.2 million files. Assuming each one takes 1 minute to resolve, it will require over 2 continuous man-years of work to review them all. If I can assume the "Date" field is the date of first publication, a bot could resolve many of these. Any other strategies that might help here? Dcoetzee (talk) 21:22, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
User:Saibo is apparently upset about this review process, reverting my changes to Template:PD-old-100 twice, so I've stopped the bot which is automatically reviewing works in Category:Files requiring U.S. copyright review, in order to give him time to express his disagreement here more clearly before continuing. Dcoetzee (talk) 22:20, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just a note: User_talk:Dcoetzee#Stop_your_attempts_to_break_Commons. Dcoetzee is pushing his agenda (with bot support) to fuck up Commons. Why on earth?! Where is the neutral conclusion of this discussion? I cannot see it. No actions until the discussion (the "all" DR which was severely bashed included) is over. There is no rush in any way. --Saibo (Δ) 22:21, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • My change to Template:PD-old-100 that you reverted twice merely placed files which need to be reviewed in a (hidden) review category. As I've already explained, not all works whose authors died at least 100 years ago were first published before 1923 (they may have been first published posthumously), so they require manual review to ascertain this and replace the tag by {{PD-old-100-1923}} or another suitable tag. How does this "fuck up Commons"? I never threatened to delete anything, and the tagging for the DR you mentioned above will of course be reverted as soon as it is closed. Dcoetzee (talk) 22:24, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Difficult to understand what Dcoetzee is up to. Even Saibo says it is madness. I agree. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 22:28, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Dcoetzee: Wait with any of your actions until we have discussed, thanks. We are lucky that you did not delete all URAAAAhh! files right away with bot support for being copyvios, hmm? --Saibo (Δ) 22:31, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • I have explained this in considerable detail above. My objective is to locate works which are not free in the US, which are not permitted under Commons:Licensing, and nominate them for deletion, for the protection of the project and our US content reusers. To that end I am reviewing all files without a US copyright tag. The review category helps to track which files have been reviewed already and which have not. My bot, before you insisted I stop it, was tagging files which are PD in the US and so not candidates for deletion, quite the opposite of what you're assuming. Just to make this perfectly clear: I am not going to delete any files. Dcoetzee (talk) 22:32, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • (EC) You may want what you want but leave all the other users out of our personal US-centric agenda. You can do your personal projects in your user space. --Saibo (Δ) 22:41, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • Saibo, the law is the law. If you don't like that, why don't you make it clear that our tags aren't about the public domain, which is a legal concept, but is instead about what Saibo thinks is okay for us to host?--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:50, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • "Wow wow wow, hold on. I am not sure I get it. " was a comment of today by some other user above. Don't you get it, Dcoetzee? Go to your userspace for experiments, please. --Saibo (Δ) 22:44, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • This is a review process that I believe other users will want to help with, which is why I'm conducting it with a category. I don't see how it differs from any other active license review process. I already answered the questions asked by that user. If you have any substantive objections to this process, please explain them. Dcoetzee (talk) 22:46, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note further that due to the actions here the last days it seems not to be advisable to send the uploaders form dewp to Commons - as we tried as hard as possible. A NoCommons template is already added to de:Template:Bild-PD-alt since 70 pma apparently doesn't be to worth anything anymore on Commons. If this would go on you could rename Commons to US-Commons (all the language problems will be solved, too). --Saibo (Δ) 22:41, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Why should 70 pma be worth anything on Commons? It's not EU-Commons, and most people in the world have not had that long a copyright term shoved down their throat yet.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:50, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Read the DR - will not repeat here. --Saibo (Δ) 22:57, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • I don't think that such an aggressive style of communication (on both sides) is helpful here. But, Prosfilaes, in fact "70 years pma" is near to a worldwide standard (with some exceptions, but it's applicable in most countries, I think), and you could also vice versa say that "most people in the world have not had that long a copyright term shoved down their throat" regarding the "95 years after publication" term of the U.S. There are many cases where the "70 years pma" makes works free in their source country much quicker than in the U.S., but also cases where the opposite is true - depending of the author's year of death and year of publication. Gestumblindi (talk) 16:04, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • reasonably assuming the work was published during the author's lifetime --> I would rather we would carefully assess each case, rather than make bold assumptions not based on evidence. If we don't have evidence that a file is PD, let us tell the readers that we don't know, rather than make the reader believe that we know. I am not sure if every painting or every photograph is systematically published during an author's lifetime. It depends much on the notion of what the lawmaker means by "published". Probably many old 18th century paintings are PD in the USA not because they were published during the author's lifetime but because they were published in the 19th or the 20th century before 1923. Teofilo (talk) 00:23, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yes. I struck that text because I stopped running that bot task and I'm reverting all its edits, for the reasons you described above. I apologise for not waiting for feedback from others on that dubious idea. Dcoetzee (talk) 00:25, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • I guess that probably 90% of 18th century paintings were published via etchings/prints or photographs before 1923. We would still need to find out the remaining 10% and delete them. Some museums like the MET provide something close to a publication history. See this diff (for a 20th century work) Teofilo (talk) 00:33, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • I agree with Dcoetzee that we must find the files that could not be PD in the US to review and tag those that actually are in PD - e.g. we must search for publication date. Creating a category of files needing review would be useful. Finding which files in this category are used in every project would be useful to recruit interested editors in finding publication date and reviewing the files.--Pere prlpz (talk) 00:42, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • I could definitely build lists of files from that need review that are in use on various projects, that's a great idea. Dcoetzee (talk) 00:50, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • We do not need to find publication dates for files which are public domain (except in the one, single, overly important country, the US). And the files do not need review. The ones that you find that they are PD in the US get a "US-approved" tag and the others a deletion tag? Don't destroy Commons with US-centrism, thanks very much. --Saibo (Δ) 01:06, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think that the sad fact that the content of WMF servers located in the US must comply with US law has been abundantly debated. Proposals to have non-PD-US files (or the whole WMF) moved to anywhere else should be discussed anywhere else (e.g. the deletion proposal page). Here, we are just discussing the best way to tag file licenses.
And of course, copyright status in any other country is an interesting information for any file, although it doesn't change the legality of keeping the file in Commons. If you want to start a non US-centrist project to tag all files with copyright information for all countries (or even some files for some coutries), it will be an interesting project. We are trying to start with just one country - the country that is relevant in our ability to keep the files here.--Pere prlpz (talk) 01:30, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Germany has de:Erstausgabe, requiring to find publication dates, and all EU countries have the same due to 1993 directive article 4. Teofilo (talk) 14:39, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, but not Switzerland (which is not in the EU). Switzerland doesn't have a special protection for the publisher after first publication; e.g. if the author is dead for more than 70 years, the work is and keeps free, even if first published today. Date of publication is irrelevant. I don't know about the situation in Norway or Iceland, which are neither in the EU. Gestumblindi (talk) 15:55, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Also, before choosing which country's law applies, you need to either:
  • show evidence that the work was never published and that the author is a national of a given country, or:
  • show evidence that the work was first published in a given country
So you must always study the publication history of a work before saying that this work is PD. Teofilo (talk) 13:34, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Continuing discussion at #Organizing a US copyright status review below. Dcoetzee (talk) 02:20, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

How to categorize?

I've been working bit by bit on cleaning up Category:Reenactments, and I'm wondering how best to categorize photos that primarily show items, such as File:Dane Axe.JPG or Category:Historic chainmail reproductions. It seems like there should be some category for these within the main "Reenactments" that might also be within Category:Replicas? Looking for suggestions/ideas. Thanks, cmadler (talk) 20:43, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly. Maybe the way replicas of sailing ships are handled can help. --  Docu  at 06:06, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

January 21

Where to upload a donated instruction manual?

I have a hobby project of trying to document the history of a 1960's dairy farm milking technology known as the Step Saver, though finding citations and sources for the article is difficult.

Today I managed to obtain permission from a company representative to scan and upload one of their engineering manuals for the system, and release it under "CC-by" citing them as the source. They will be mailing me the manual for scanning.

I've never tried uploading an entire book before, so I'm not sure quite how to proceed. Can I upload a PDF of the entire scanned book here? Or should it go on Wikibooks?

Wikibooks doesn't seem the right spot, since the text and page layout of the content probably should not be edited from the form that the company had it, but should remain "intact" wherever it is uploaded.

DMahalko (talk) 03:53, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A content that should not be edited would be licenced under CC-BY-ND which is not a license allowed on Wikimedia Commons (nor on any other Wikimedia project, as far as I know). See Publication of derivative work must be allowed at Commons:Licensing#Acceptable licenses. Teofilo (talk) 11:18, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
CC-BY does allow derivatives, which is exactly what we want. I think that would be suitable for inclusion in Wikisource. The normal method would be to upload the scanned documents here, and then run it through OCR and the subsequent error correction on Wikisource. Once that's completed, the original scans (preserving original layout and the like) would be visible at Commons, and we'd have a digital text at Wikisource, which could then be translated, annotated, etc. cmadler (talk) 12:06, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well if someone ELSE wants to go through the bother of OCR and page layout re-rendering to make it editable, I don't see that as my concern. If you want to do that? Great. Otherwise I'm intending to just upload a static set of high resolution scanned images, and other people can twiddle with it, OCR it, and remix it whatever way they want. The original uploaded scanned image set can remain as the "original" in the series from which all else is derived. DMahalko (talk) 02:30, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You may want to raise a note at Wikisource:Scriptorium for advice, the related IRC channel is linked there for more immediate advice on how to go about your book upload. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 12:16, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Populated places: Three sub-cats reflecting one another with no constancy.

Can someone please enlighten me and tell the functional difference between:

and

They all exist one next to the other under same parent (Populated places), and at first and second glance they don't appear to justify their independence. Serious. It looks so inconsistant. Is there any structured hierarchy within them, which I didn't get on to? My guess is that it isn't meant to happen like this, and it just developed with each of the sub-categories apart, eventually all roof-meeting in Category:Populated places. Let me know maybe I'm getting it incorrect and entries that match the "Settlement"-definition are fundamentally different from others falling under "Villages", and "Cities"-entries are by no means identical to those which may populate "Cities and villages". Thanks, and sorry for bugging Orrlingtalk 10:02, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And for the more simple and local case, see here. Orrlingtalk 10:22, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think the same problem arises in every Wikipedia. Have you checked if any of them has ever found a satisfactory solution?--Pere prlpz (talk) 11:32, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Smile* I've been dealing with that sort of failures on the Hebrew Wiki for over 3 years - partially successfully; I'm also active within the Eng, Fr and Swe.-wikipedias yet I never went as far deep into category perplexities and I admit Commons - as a "parent" for other projects - is a cold-water pool for me for this matter, and I don't mind it. I believe everything should be neat and meticulous as we here in Commons "sell" to a larger public and while en:wiki maintains 3 million articles Commons has 12 millions files. This is why I want us to cope with this "head-on" as someone said about me two days ago. Orrlingtalk 12:35, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I know there have been debates over this on en-wiki. It looks like they currently have, within "Populated places by type" categories such as "Cities", "Suburbs", "Towns", "Villages", "Neighborhoods by type", and more. Further, there are some subcategories that aren't ultimately sorted into a type, such as "Unincorporated communities in the United States", which only sits within "Populated places in the United States". The problem is that different nations (or even sub-national regions) may use different terms to describe the same thing (a county in most of the United States is equivalent to a parish in Louisiana) or the same term to describe different things (see en:Township). In some jurisdictions certain terms also have specific legal meanings. Finally some areas have specific terms with distinct meanings that just don't sort well (en:Charter township). (Sorry for US-centric examples, but it's what I'm most familiar with.) That's how we sometimes end up applying terms such as "Settlements" for any non-city populated place. I think these are the relevant discussions on en-wikipedia: [5] [6] [7] cmadler (talk) 12:29, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think your reference is incredibly important and you put the finger on what I may have self had more difficult to come up with my English, however I think this is highly vital that we again point to the need to neglect on Commons as much as possible of "geocentric" perceptions and accomodate to a common universal terminology with City, Town, Village and District as a start and then only when one reaches deep enough into the particular nation's subtems one may reexamine the scope for any local type of categorizing, be it Kibbutz or Moshav, or Unincorporated place or Community. But in order to get to that place we have to traverse the existing malfunctions and re-sort and be able to tell what contains what. Orrlingtalk 12:55, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
About the "Settlement" – I personally believe what I see when I browse through similar-themed batches of categories and as I put it already it seems that normally the "Settlement" will include all other habitation forms. But it can prove different just upon your next look... How annoying. Orrlingtalk 13:01, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Not to mention that in many U.S. states - Washington, where I live, for example - "city" refers to a mode of local government organization, not to size, so you can have a "city" with a population of only a thousand or so, and another place with ten or twenty times the population that has no legal existence outside of being recognized by the U.S. census. - Jmabel ! talk 18:45, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

URAA, exhibitions date of paintings in museums and publication data

According to "new" URAA rules, publication date becames relevant to tell whether a work of art is in PD in the US or not. A lot of our involved files are pictures hold by museums, with known date of first exhibition - known or easy to find.

Article 3.3 of Berne Convention states that "The performance of a dramatic, dramatico-musical, cinematographic or musical work, the public recitation of a literary work, the communication by wire or the broadcasting of literary or artistic works, the exhibition of a work of art and the construction of a work of architecture shall not constitute publication."

Has US law a different provision overriding this? Are works of arts in exhibition before 1923 in PD in the US?--Pere prlpz (talk) 11:30, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Usually, exhibition of a work of art (especially a notable one) is accompanied by distribution of reproductions of it in advertising, art catalogues, etc. which would constitute publication. It can be difficult to demonstrate conclusively this occurred, but it's okay sometimes to make reasonable assumptions. Whether such assumptions are reasonable is best treated on a case-by-case basis. Dcoetzee (talk) 18:16, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

{{Self}}

I've helped to localise {{GFDL-user}} and derivative templates, and I think whether it would make sense to change template {{Self}} so that it would allow displaying informations in a similar way:

Rahulghose at the English-language Wikipedia, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publishes it under the following license:
w:en:Creative Commons
attribution
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
Attribution: Rahulghose at the English-language Wikipedia
You are free:
  • to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work
  • to remix – to adapt the work
Under the following conditions:
  • attribution – You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.

"aus der englischsprachigen Wikipedia"/"at the English language Wikipedia"/... [8] like in description of File:EuskoTran.jpg. I see two ways of making this: User:BartekChom/self and User:BartekChom/autoauthor.

BartekChom (talk) 19:05, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

File:Lady-Gaga-Birthday-1.jpg

Hello, I came a cross File:Lady-Gaga-Birthday-1.jpg recently and I do not know if it should be deleted or not, because it looks as if it is of little importance for the Commons. Thanks, --Gourami Watcher (talk) 21:56, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's used at an archive of a Czech user talk page. Nyttend (talk) 22:36, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If using this file to greet other editors in their birthday is not violation of Lady Gaga's personality rights, then the file is potentially useful in Wikimedia projects and should be kept.--Pere prlpz (talk) 00:27, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It's marginally in use; I don't see what we gain by deleting it.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:29, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Category:CC-PD-Mark

What templates are putting files into this category? The text at the top of the category says that it's only for items that explicitly use a CC declaration of PD (not the same as CC-zero), but for some reason {{Cc-pd-mark-footer}} says that it's used by lots of different templates. What's more, this category is showing up at one of my recent uploads, which has no permission tags except {{PD-scan}}, and that's not listed in the footer template's documentation. Moreover, what is the point of having this category? Any permissions category that includes both PD-scan and PD-USGov images seems to me to be redundant to Category:Public domain. It would seem better to me to restrict this category to images with an explicit CC marking, rather than including a 1.5 million images that passed into the public domain for a variety of reasons. Nyttend (talk) 22:46, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

For information, previous discussions: Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2010/12#CC_PD_mark and Template talk:Cc-pd-mark-footer.
Your upload uses it because {{PD-scan}} contains {{PD-Old}}. Jean-Fred (talk) 23:32, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Uhh. Using that automatically with our PD-old template looks like a bad idea and goes against the Creative Commons recommendations: "Notwithstanding the disclaimers and notice, if you know that a work you would like to mark is still in copyright in one or more jurisdictions, please do not apply the PDM." [9], [10] -- Asclepias (talk) 00:10, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree - PD-old doesn't even guarantee PD in US, never mind free of related and neighboring rights. Let's not apply it to the PD-old templates. Dcoetzee (talk) 00:40, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

January 22

Table with border in {{Description}}/{{En}}

When I give a table a border in the en description, such as in the file File:Advantage Six A9home with keyboard and monitor.jpg, I don't get any text to appear. Is this a bug?Smallman12q (talk) 02:18, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed (you have a "=" in the html). You should use 1= in your bot's desc to care for all cases. Btw: please try not to use HTML - but instead wiki syntax (en:Help:Tables). Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 03:04, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Checkmark This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Saibo (Δ) 03:04, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Following on from #Proposed changes to PD tags above: I would like to propose a review of materials tagged {{PD-old}}, {{PD-old-70}}, etc. up to {{PD-old-100}} for works that may be in copyright in the U.S. because they were published 1923 or later and were in copyright in their country of first publication on the URAA date. Even in the case of PD-old-100 this is possible if the work was first published posthumously. To help organize this, I think it would be helpful to have a category Category:Files requiring U.S. copyright review listing all unreviewed files with these tags, similar to e.g. Category:Flickr review needed. All files that use {{PD-two}} or {{PD-Art-two}} would be excluded from review, as would any using the combined tags {{PD-old-70-1923}}, etc. All files that already include PD-US-*/PD-1923/PD-1996 tags could be reviewed automatically by a bot. A very (very) large backlog is expected, but that's okay. If you think this isn't the best way to proceed, I'd be interested in hearing alternative proposals for review.

I tried to do this unilaterally before and made some pretty serious mistakes - I assure discussants that this time no action will be taken until the discussion is over and has been closed by a neutral party (and we have also heard from the WMF regarding the URAA). Dcoetzee (talk) 02:20, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Oppose It would be nice to have information for every country for each file in a machine readable form. However, this proposal here is only for US. The proposed license tags are overly complicated (remember that uploaders even have problems to understand the meaning of "70 years pma" (which does not require more than 70 years after creation but after death) and nearly no-one will understand this system; especially if it uses some template parameters which need to be set. I saw the file pages you created in your last bot run (which you have reverted): much more than one screen page full of public domain (we are not talking of license templates with restrictions...) tags? Ugly and scaring away everybody who looks at (probably the reaction: they are crazy).
If you require non-US works to have a US-copyright clearance for being uploaded here that is a clear bias towards US (US-centrism) and we are no "US Commons". The reason that WMF is based in US is their problem, not ours. Your proposal: No, that is not Commons. So, in essence: we do not need that review which only helps US but not other countries and which leads in the end to more needless deletions of content copyrighted in the US (but PD in most other countries!) than without this review. Furthermore: why can't you just wait until at least the WMF has said a first word? --Saibo (Δ) 02:59, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
A small note: I didn't actually add any tags to any files in my last run, only modified existing tags (there are files with lots of crazy PD tags out there, but they were already like that). Part of the reason the {{PD-old-70-1923}}, etc. tags were created (by User:Jusjih, I think?) is that they're much more compact than {{PD-old-70}}{{PD-1923}} or {{PD-two|PD-old-70|PD-1923}}. I agree about the cryptic template parameter - I think a simpler way to do it is to simply add the review category to the affected files, and remove it when done. User education is a difficult issue - we can't expect all uploaders to understand the intricacies of both the source country and US copyright. But in many cases {{PD-old-70-1923}} will apply, and in other cases I think a simple {{PD-old}} tag and a review category would be sufficient.
I do want to hear from the WMF and just wanted to get this discussion started while we're waiting. The requirement that all works on Commons are free in the US is part of Commons:Licensing policy and the Licensing policy resolution passed by the Board of Trustees. Dcoetzee (talk) 03:42, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It don't see why you are in such a rush. If WMF sees it the same way as you see it (US-centrisic mass deletions of carefully uploaded and maintained public domain content and crazy copyright tag requirements) then they have simply failed their mission - okay, failure is nothing surprising for WMF. ;-) But maybe they surprise by choosing a decision according to their mission. --Saibo (Δ) 06:12, 22 January 2012 (UTC) +1 link 16:23, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I suppose it's insane to hope that we might one day be able to write {{Super Magic PD template|type|publication date|creation date|country of first publication|author death date}}, and the template spits out what applies?? (And a wizard/gadget with dropdowns which helps uploaders fill in the parameters?) Rd232 (talk) 05:02, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well we have {{PD-old-auto}}, {{PD-old-auto-1923}}, and {{PD-art-auto}}, which is a start. Presumably if we had a template that allows you to specify important factors like the media type, death year of the author, year of first publication, and country of first publication, it could in many cases figure out whether it's PD or not and the appropriate reason. However, this doesn't address cases like {{PD-US-no notice}}, {{PD-US-not renewed}}; it may ask for information that isn't actually needed like the death date of author for US works pre 1923; and doesn't address cases where we don't precisely know all the information (e.g. perhaps we only know a range of dates, or have a guess, like saying an 1860 work is probably PD-old-70). I think a more viable strategy would be a "PD wizard" that asks you a bunch of questions until it figures out the right answer, then gives you the template(s) to paste in (or an explanation of why the file is not allowed). Dcoetzee (talk) 05:08, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I was imagining a super-template plus wizard, but I suppose you could just put the "super logic" in the wizard and use simple(ish) templates. Downside, perhaps, might be maintainability, since Javascript expertise is more scarce than template expertise. Rd232 (talk) 05:13, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • What's wrong with {{PD-old-100}}? If the author died 100 years ago, then their works were already in the PD in the source country in 1996, and were not restored by URAA. Trycatch (talk) 07:22, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • If the work was first published (posthumously after 1923) in both the source country and US simultaneously, and the work was registered and renewed, it could still be in copyright in the US (without the aid of the URAA). This doesn't seem unlikely for posthumous works of great commercial value. It will also matter in the future: starting in 2017, some Columbian works will be PD-old-100 which in 1996 were still under copyright in Columbia. In 2027 this will expand to most other countries (for works published 1932 or later). Better to start tagging sooner than have to sort it out later.
      I was going to say the work might have been first published in Mexico, but I just learned that Mexico was only life+75 in 1996. Maybe there are also other possibilities I'm not aware of. Dcoetzee (talk) 07:54, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Any work, no matter where it was published, which managed to follow U.S. formalities could still be under copyright if published since 1923. Any unpublished work could still be under copyright, as well. Things created before 1978 but published from 1978 through 2002 will still have copyright until at least 2048, no matter when the author died. All of this is without the aid of the URAA. Also, starting in 2019, old published works will start expiring in the U.S. again; copyright on restored works won't last forever. By 2027, the line should be works published in 1931 and earlier. One note on Mexico -- they really weren't even life+75. The extension from 50 to 75 happened in 1994, but it wasn't retroactive (though did extend existing copyrights). And the 1982 extension from 30 to 50 pma was also not retroactive, meaning the line is (at most) authors who died in 1952 and later, and that only if the 1982 change extended existing copyrights (not sure on that one, just as I'm not sure if the 100 pma change altered existing copyright terms). Mexico also had a registration requirement for works published before January 14, 1948. Carl Lindberg (talk) 13:37, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Support Copyright status in the US is relevant information about files and this information should be checked. Any categories, lists or templates that could help us to check it are welcome. A few reasons:

  • We can eventually be forced to delete or to move away files that are not free in the US, or even files not justified to be free in the US. Then, tagging the files that actually are free in the US wil help us to save those files and would ease the work of moving the other ones (if it is possible to move instead of deleting).
  • WMF inability to host unfree files may be its problem, according to WMF views or according to US courts, but if WMF decides (or is forced to) solve its problem by deleting, it will be our problem. It will be our problem even if we are not concerned with WMF problems but concerned with our projects.
  • As Saibo noted, " It would be nice to have information for every country for each file in a machine readable form." I support any serious proposal to tag copyright status in any other country, just as I support Dcoetzee's proposal for the US.
  • We can't expect all uploaders to be able to tell copyright status of every work in the US. In fact, a lot of uploaders just don't mind about copyright status. This is a good reason to organize files to be reviewed.
  • I don't like complicated templates, but the facts license templates describe are complicated. Having double templates seems a good idea, since simpler templates can be used separately or complex double templates can be used more efficiently, leaving the choice to reviewers.--Pere prlpz (talk) 12:33, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Support in principle, but how is it to be organised in practice? Perhaps this is another case for a Request for Comment, eg Commons:Requests for comment/reviewing PD tags. I would allow the scope to be a bit broader, because I echo Pere prlpz's point that as far as possible, we should try to be clear about copyright status in as many countries as possible. (I also think we could be clearer in COM:REUSE about what the implications are for reusers when copyright statuses are different in different countries.) Rd232 (talk) 16:12, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • I'm still getting used to us having an RfC, that sounds appropriate :-) I would definitely be amenable to a plan that clarifies not only US copyright status (which is essential to whether we can host files) but also copyright status in other nations (which is essential to whether content reusers in those nations can reuse files). We have little notes for other countries in e.g. the {{PD-old-70}} tag, but that's about as far as things go at the moment. It would be neat if we had like, some kind of drop down list of countries that could give you info about a work's copyright status in any given nation. I think any review proposal should also include more information about effective prioritization, considering the enormous size of the backlog. For the RfC, do you think we should move this discussion there and revise it as we go, or start a new one based on the feedback received so far? Dcoetzee (talk) 01:11, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Some more thoughts: I think one way to get started on this would be to start documenting copyright-essential metadata about each PD image with a machine-readable template. Think something like enwp's persondata. It might look something like this (based on your super-template from before):
{{copyright data
|publication date=
|creation date=
|country of first publication=
|author death date=
|(possibly other fields)
}}
Any fields that aren't known would be left blank. With a template like this, it would be possible for a bot to reliably, automatically add appropriate license templates in many (but not all) cases, while putting other cases on manual review (just as we do for Flickr review). It would also facilitate tools (e.g. on Toolserver or using Javascript) to provide copyright status in many different countries and explanations, just by examining the machine-readable data and producing appropriate info for the desired country. The info could also potentially be useful for automatic categorization, and for other analyses. I am aware it would not cover all cases, e.g. {{PD-US-no notice}}, but those could still be described using tags as is currently done. Thoughts? Dcoetzee (talk) 02:07, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Dcoetzee, majority of 452k mostly PD files using one of Category:Creator templates already have authors nationality and author death date, among other things. There are also 212k files transcribing little known tag template {{Works of authors who died more than 100 years ago}}. I think those templates can be used to quickly tag images which might not need an extensive review. It might be also a good idea to add creator templates to files being reviewed. --Jarekt (talk) 02:53, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think that's a potentially very fruitful avenue to explore. I'll just quickly point out that the persondata approach is not unique to en.wp: there are 10 interwiki links from de:Vorlage:Personendaten, the equivalent on de.wp [and 20 interwiki links from the en.wp template, in fact]. Jarekt points out overlap with Creator templates and others; I'm not sure if there's any elegant way to reuse that data; but duplication might be a price worth paying. Rd232 (talk) 03:27, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Dunno. You would need type of work as well (and the variants between all the countries is pretty daunting). Government work vs corporate work vs personal work. If multiple authors, needs to be the last death date, but that may be OK. You could start with using Commons:Hirtle chart, File:Canadian Public Domain.svg, and a UK chart (non-Crown copyright only) for an idea of the questions you need to answer, and the data you need up front to answer it. It might be possible, at least for many situations, but it would probably be quite difficult. Some countries would definitely be easier than others. There actually is an online public domain calculator for many EU countries -- you could see many of the needed questions there as well. Carl Lindberg (talk) 05:38, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
en:Wikipedia:Non-U.S._copyrights#Dates of restoration and terms of protection would be useful. Among the |(possibly other fields) you may consider adding |compliance with US formalities=yes/no/dontknow . To begin with, it would be good to start with a template working for one or two countries, and if it works, then try to add more countries, little by little. Teofilo (talk) 14:00, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support for an autotemplate/metadata system (in theory, at least): it can start off with common permissions issues, and let itself be over ridable. Then, over time, the niches can be incorporated. I think it's the only long term solution to making copyright user friendly. Happy to help! Jarry1250 (talk) 17:15, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have started writing an autotemplate for France (but I am far from being finished). To give you a taste, try the following
{{copyright data France
|the work is a musical composition=no
|country of first publication=France
|date of first publication=1926
|date of author death=1928
|author died for France=no
}}
Teofilo (talk) 01:42, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This is an interesting approach, having copyright data metadata templates for various countries, including data relevant for status in those countries. That way we wouldn't end up with one giant template with way too many fields. The way I imagine it, rather than just picking one, you could add many metadata templates for different countries. To avoid redundancy, the general {{Copyright data}} template could include information that is relevant in many countries, like the data I listed above. Dcoetzee (talk) 02:38, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I was thinking the general {{Copyright data}} would be a switch containing only a few lines of codes starting with " #switch:{{{country of first publication}}} ", switching to each country-specific template. If we are sure that two country have exactly the same rules we could merge them, but in that case it would be as simple to duplicate the template and just change the country name. Teofilo (talk) 04:07, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

RFC proposal

This is expanding from the original thread title, but I think it flows naturally from it, and we could use a concrete proposal. I suggest we launch Commons:Requests for comment/PD license tags to discuss the broader issue of how we organise license PD tags, with some of the ideas from above. I'd like some quick input on whether that's a good idea, and if so on what the scope and aims of the RFC should be. Rd232 (talk) 03:27, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is a good idea. I think the discussion should center around two main problems: 1. how should information relevant to the copyright status of a PD image be represented and displayed on file description pages; 2. should there be a review process for PD images to research this information, and how will it work? An RfC could support a series of proposals on these topics. Dcoetzee (talk) 02:05, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Murals vs. Wall paintings categories

Hello,

I have come accross these categories, and I wonder if they are redondant, or if they include different things. There is also Category:Frescos by country. Yann (talk) 12:51, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

From a quick scan of the relevant en-wiki articles, it appears to me that "mural" and "wall painting" may be the same thing (mural perhaps being a better term, but if merged, wall painting should remain as a redirect), while a fresco is a specific type of mural (paint applied to wet, or not-quite-dry plaster or mortar) and so should be a subcategory of the merged top-level category. Since you brought this up vis-a-vie the "by country" categories, I will add that the frescos of each country should also be a subcat of the murals of that country (e.g. "Frescos of China" would be a subcat of "Murals of China"). I suggest raising this issue at Categories for Discussion. cmadler (talk) 00:55, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

SOPA protest screenshot cleanup

(crossposted on en.wp)

A number of notable screenshots illustrating the 18 January SOPA blackout online are uncategorized or do not have licenses documented, both on Commons and en.wp.

Depending on the site, screenshots may be freely licensed (or can be requested to be freely licensed upon email to site owners - they probably won't object!), or non-free. Some will need to be transferred commons -> en.wp where permissions are not held showing free licensing, or transferred en.wp -> commons where confirmed free.

We need to be sure which are which and start to sort this mess out before it lags, a mass purge is proposed, and it's all a 3 day panic.

A search in File namespace for "SOPA" will probably find all or most images on either wiki - category pages shouldn't be relied on though they are a good starting point. If anyone who takes this up could also check en.wp for transfers inwards to Commons, and perhaps prepare a list of any images where a request for free licensing might be needed, that would help too, subject to Commons norms.

FT2 (Talk | email) 13:13, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Categorizing images of icy roads in the United Kingdom

I need some help to categorize properly images about icy/snowy roads in the United Kingdom. I looked for them and I got a lot of uncategorized images. I already started but it is a huge work. Could someone help me to put them in the Category Icy roads in the United Kingdom. There's also the possibility to separate between England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Cheers.--Carnby (talk) 18:26, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, I can help with that. Ajraddatz (talk) 02:41, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sandbox-cleaning bot?

Could a bot be made to clean COM:SB? There's one at en.wp and Meta, so perhaps it would make sense to automate the process here as well? It Is Me Here t / c 22:26, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely, it's a perfect little bot task. I suggest asking User:Chzz if he can adapt his en.wp bot for Commons, as he's been active on Commons recently (User:X!, operator of the Meta bot, nearly a year ago). Rd232 (talk) 23:19, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Generally, sandbox cleaning bots are more effort than just manually clearing it every day. At the same time, though, if it can be done easily with an existing one then I have no objections. Ajraddatz (talk) 01:17, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Messaged. It Is Me Here t / c 17:57, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Please give me 1 week to work it out. Ta.  Chzz  ►  19:41, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent, thanks. Please be aware that COM:SB has lots of language subpage sandboxes (eg Commons:Sandbox/es) which all need handling as well. And some aren't actually subpages; but all are linked via Template:Sandbox/lang. Rd232 (talk) 20:26, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

January 23

derived image bot

I am having two problems with the bot that helps upload derived images.

  1. The derived image bot asks uploaders to view an image to confirm that they are logged in to commons. The image the bot shows me indicates I am not logged in -- when I am logged in. Ignoring the warning seems to work.
  2. The bot refuses to help upload derived images when the original has been nominated for deletion. I don't care if it warns me. But I question when it over-rides my judgment.

I uploaded File:Pushing a barge on the Moskva River, Moscow.jpg a couple of years ago -- an image with a tug pushing a barge in the foreground, and a complex of highrises being built in the background. Yesterday it was named in a huge mass nomination for deletion, by someone who asserted the complex of highrises violated Russia's rules prohibiting freedom of panorama. The justified this nomination, post facto, by an "excess of caution".

So to be cautious myself I cropped the office complex that triggered the nomination. The crops are derived images. But, as I stated above, the derived image upload bot not only warned me that the parent image had been nominated for deletion, it refused to help upload the derived images. So I uploaded them without the bots help. File:Pushing a barge on the Moskva River, Moscow -b.jpg File:Pushing a barge on the Moskva River, Moscow -c.jpg

Should the bot substitute its judgment over mine? Geo Swan (talk) 07:59, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • In my opinion, the image in question is a candidate to be speedily kept (which happens often with nominations of Artem Karimov, who tends to misunderstand the Russial law on the FoP but nevertheless nominates several hundred articles per day for deletion). May be we should just wait for this particular one to be resolved.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:02, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Which is btw a problem for itself. We decided to run the sitenotice for 4K URAA images, but he will nominate twice as much in a week.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:07, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    You seem to confuse de minimis in Russia and the rest of the world. In most countries with FoP courts or lawmakers set the threshold of originality. In Russia it has been absent so far. Therefore we are in a swamp and have to apply precautionary principle. You say "keep" but refuse to discuss this fact. Artem Karimov (talk) 09:32, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I discussed the issue here, and the result was keep. I do not have the capacity to discuss with you every single of your hundreds nominations per day. Whereas most of these files indeed should be deleted, you clearly fail to recognize the difference between a picture of a building and a picture of smth else where the building or a part of the building accidentally happens to be a part of the picture. I tried to explained it to you on several occasions, and you do not seem to get the point. Well, let the admins decide. At some point, you will probably end up here exactly in the same way you once ended up in Russian Wikipedia - being banned for reductio ad absurdum.--Ymblanter (talk) 09:42, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Hehe. Yann never got to the point and asserted majority instead of assessing arguments. Therefore breaking closing guidelines whatsoever. And no, no one here including you ever tried to counter my de minimis argument. Artem Karimov (talk) 12:29, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think that this mass deletion request is abusive. Artem Karimov has an history of arguing without any valid argument against everybody else. See Commons:Deletion requests/File:Ул. Стойкости от пр. м. Жукова.jpg and my talk page. Yann (talk) 09:50, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The way you closed the nomination without assessing arguments but counting votes instead is abusive. Artem Karimov (talk) 12:29, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is my first interaction with you. I won't call you "abusive". I will say that this nomination was very disappointing, for several reasons.
  1. Your initial nomination was disappointingly brief. There were a lot more details you offered -- once challenged. Really however, as an experienced frequenter of the deletion fora, you should know that the purpose is to arrive at a decision through collegial discussion and informed debate.

    As the initiator of the discussion wasn't it your job to offer a nomination that covered all the outstanding issues around these images? I think so. I think you had an obligation to inform those not familiar with the issues at least a brief introduction to the positions of those who disagree with you. You are clearly familiar with the counter-positions.

  2. Your nomination included different kinds of images. Some of these are images with sculptures or monuments in the foreground, and nothing in the background. As an experienced contributor I am disappointed that you didn't initiate a separate, smaller nomination that just included those images.
  3. You have asserted that Russian copyright law does not recognize the "de minimus" principle. That is an extraordinary assertion. No one has backed up your assertion. You haven't substantiated this extraordinary assertion. I am disappointed you haven't done so.
  4. With regard to your prior history with challengers who think they know you all too well, I suggest either you shouldn't mention the prior disputes, and they shouldn't mention the prior disputes, or those mention should be accompanied by good diffs. If there really is an ongoing problem with your pattern of contributions, or with the pattern of how some challengers respond to you, I wonder whether that discussion shouldn't take place somewhere else -- someplace where sanctions can be imposed if either you, or your challengers, really have shown an ongoing problem. Geo Swan (talk) 16:20, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove DR template -> upload using bot -> place the template back. It's usually easy to circumvent the bot stopping you from doing something, but I agree with you -- script nannies are annoying. There are more examples of such script (mis)behavior. I've tried to upload using Flickr upload bot, but was stopped by the bot saying that the picture was transfered to Commons already (of course, it was not true). Another example, more serious -- MediaWiki stops you from reuploading already deleted picture (see COM:AN#Permission to upload previously deleted file). PS. What about the Artem Karimov problem -- I agree with Yann & Ymblanter wholeheartedly. Trycatch (talk) 10:13, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Derivative upload bot? How do you find it? It's not under Commons:Tools and a search for Commons:Derivative FX returns lots of discussions but no operating page anywhere near the top of the search; I'd pretty much assumed it had been taken down. With respect to the inability to recognize logged-in users, I saw the same thing last time I actually managed to find the Derivative FX; I also commonly have to log in again to use the Flickr upload bot, don't know whether that is by design or a known issue. Dankarl (talk) 13:58, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Users using one of the https-possibilities have to login in the http-portion, too/again.
  2. Link to Derivative FX
  3. Administrators may be able to re-upload deleted files. Preventing uploading deleted files is important for legal reasons.
  4. When Flickr-Upload bot is claiming the file is already on Commons, the reason could be 1) an external link from a file-description-page to that image; 2) an image with the same hash (sha1) is on Commons. -- RE rillke questions? 14:38, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • There are a lot valid reasons, valid use cases why a deleted picture can be reuploaded. I can't find the discussion where it was decided that reuploading of deleted files should be forbidden using script, so I hope it's a bug, and not one more strange decision forced on the projects by the WMF maintainers. Trycatch (talk) 23:10, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I just followed the shutdown Megaupload and read about other lawsuits against Rapidshare. It would be probably technical difficult to prevent re-uploading copyright violations only. In general we tell the user to use COM:UR instead of re-uploading. BTW, does it tell you which file the message is referring to? -- RE rillke questions? 23:25, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I found that some users on YouTube simply repeatedly reupload their stuff after repeatedly being banned, and YouTube anyway won the case against Verizon. But it's not the point -- don't forget that Commons is in a completely different league than YouTube or Megaupload (I didn't follow their story, it was a great filesharing site however, so RIP) -- almost all deleted files were deleted _voluntarily_, without being forced by the copyright holder, and they were deleted by _other users_, not by the WMF employees. Maybe reuploading of things that were deleted after DMCA requests may create some legal problems (I dunno, though it's dubious), but for an ordinary deleted file there is no legal risk at all. "BTW, does it tell you which file the message is referring to?" -- yes, it tells you the name of the file (at least something was done right), see MediaWiki:File-deleted-duplicate. However, it's worded as a warning, not as a prohibition -- "You should check that file's deletion history before proceeding to re-upload it." And there is a button "ignore warnings and upload anyway". It's a bug. See also bugzilla:30588. Trycatch (talk) 00:21, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A bulletin board

There is an image of bulletin board with a slogan. Once I made this photo because of its political mood. Eight months passed after its uploading, and other user changed the description in a chauvinist style to make the image offensive, and then blamed me of creating an offensive image. Seeing the image is used against its author, I started a deletion request. There I see that user 1) proposes to keep the image and 2) tells that I try to defend the image with its slogan. When I make a DR to remove the image, that user states I make «advocacy for Russian antisemitism». Please, people, help me to understand: what can I do now?--PereslavlFoto (talk) 11:46, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"my uploads" suggestions

The last column in "my uploads" should, IMHO, be re-implemented.

The column suggests that it contains the file description, but it does not. What it actually contains is the check in notes.

As it appears the vast majority of images are uploaded once, and thus don't have any check in notes, this column is currently under-utilized.

Meanwhile, the column I want to see, the actual description, does not appear.

Perhaps a blending of the two, the description on the top and the last checking below in italics, would be perfect.

Is this the right place? Maury Markowitz (talk) 14:30, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

bugzilla: is the right place for feature-requests to MediaWiki developers. The last column is just the log/comment. It is not used by UploadWizard and the upload forms create an auto-summary from the submitted text. -- RE rillke questions? 16:47, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If that is the right place, I have no idea how to do so successfully. There are a range of gibberish options for tagging, none of which seem to be anything like a term I've heard before. Can you help me get this started? Maury Markowitz (talk) 22:46, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
✓ Done: bugzilla:33947 -- RE rillke questions? 14:37, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Plain upload page

I was looking for a plain simple upload page, i.e. not much of a form (just local file name, commons file name and page content), since the page file contents of many of my uploads are quite similar, so I would like to C&P and then change only the differing items, rather than filling in the form again and again. --LeastCommonAncestor (talk) 15:48, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! Exactly what I was looking for. --LeastCommonAncestor (talk) 16:53, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
But unfortunately, since a couple of months the "preview" button has disappeared there... --Jwh (talk) 23:06, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Huh? I see it all right. Try refreshing your browser's cache. Also, what browser and skin (monobook, vector,...) are you using? Lupo 16:38, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Showing logs for deleted pages

If you go to en:wp and pick a page that's been deleted and never recreated, you'll be presented with the most recent entry on the deletion log for that page; see en:Mattis norén or en:File:Gog Magog0001.jpg for examples. I'd find it useful if we had the same thing here; I'll often see a reference to an image on Commons, and it's a bit of unnecessary effort when I have to check deletion logs to decide whether an image was deleted or whether someone misspelled an image name. Nyttend (talk) 19:03, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Personal video made by US army soldiers = public domain?

Made by US Army soldiers on active duty. Public domain? -- Cirt (talk) 20:38, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Only if it was made as part of their duties (i.e. did someone from the Army ask them to make it), or possibly on government-owned equipment... if it was something they did on their own, I think they'd still own the copyright. Carl Lindberg (talk) 21:27, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) Nope, if making of such video was not part of their duty. Trycatch (talk) 21:29, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well, from the link itself and surrounding info, does it look like it was made as part of their official duties? -- Cirt (talk) 02:25, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Then the issue is a derivative work; they used content from Lady Gaga so that is an issue that I would say no to an upload of this video. Plus there is no indication if this was an account owned or handled by the US Army in any way. User:Zscout370 (Return fire) 02:55, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, no worries, thanks very much for the input! ;) -- Cirt (talk) 04:24, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like a personal channel of a soldier. He uploads to it videos of his cat and so on. The video doesn't look as being commissioned by the army. Trycatch (talk) 10:38, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

January 24

Picture of the year 2011

A quick note to mention that preparation for Commons:Picture of the Year/2011 is getting underway. If you're interested at all, pitch in by translating, starting discussions or preparing the infrastructure. --99of9 (talk) 00:32, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

template issues

This is a bug with the main {{Information}}.

If any template eg {{ValidSVG}} is placed within the "other_fields" parameter, it renders in the permissions block at the end of the template(within the dull grey box).

However it renders like that if the "other_versions" parameter is blank. If it isn't eg {{Bva}} then the templates in "other_fields" parameter render before the info box at the top(outside the dull grey area). Logically, they should render below the "other_version" like in the first case.
Examples:
Wrong rendering:File:Rectified 24-cell orthographic-square-first-2D.svg
Correct rendering (with other versions field blank) File:Alternate angles.svg


--Gauravjuvekar (talk) 13:14, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It is due incorrect use of other_fields parameter, which (as documented) should be only used with {{Information field}} or similar templates. Please move your templates to permissions field. It is also due to general weirdness of current {{Information}} template which mixes wiki and html table styles, as discussed here. New proposed version of {{Information}} would not render the fields in "other_fields" at all. --Jarekt (talk) 14:17, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Visibility of global-usage links on a file page

This is weird but I can only see the full list of interwiki links of File:European Output of Printed Books ca. 1450–1800.png to WP.EN when I am logged in. Prior to logging the one to printing press only ever appears and this now for weeks. Try yourself. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 13:36, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The description and interwiki links look fine to me if I am logged in or not. Weird --Jarekt (talk) 14:20, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Unlog and clear all cookies from your browser, then I assume you should see only the link to the printing press article. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 14:34, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
These are global usage links, not "interwiki links" (which appear in the sidebar at the left). Checking Special:GlobalUsage directly, the usage links seem fine. Might well be a caching issue. Have you purged your browser cache? Rd232 (talk) 16:06, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Great, the purging mechanism worked! Funnily though, I still can't understand how this could have been a caching issue. I found these links missing on two different computers and despite myself having cleared the Firefox browser on each of them fully several times. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 09:58, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Caching issues can be pretty weird :) Rd232 (talk) 13:36, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Opinions on a Flickr-Account

Hi there, I just found a Account on Flickr with very interesting Images from iranina politicians and sportperson. All of them are released under creative commons licens and seem fine to be tranfered to the Commons. But before I start with that, i'd like to hear some opinions on that and on if I had missed something. Its Parmida on Flickr and i already transfered one Picture File:Mohammad_Reza_Rahimi.jpg. Is this trustworthy? Because if it is, there are some were nice Files, wich will improve some WP-Articles. Greetings --Ervaude (talk) 16:18, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. I'd recommend you try contacting this person. It looks to me like a pretty uniform photographic style, so my guess would be that this is, indeed, one photographer's work. - Jmabel ! talk 16:59, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Same opinion here. Looks like the work of a professional press photographer [11]. Its a pity that Flickr deletes Exif data from the automatically generated smaller pictures. Would be of help in cases like this. -- Herby (Vienna) (talk) 18:45, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it seems i was right questioning the trustworthyship of this one. My uploaded picture has already been deleted with the note "(Copyright violation: flickrvio http://www.flickr.com/photos/parmida/ is an flickrwashing account)". I dont know what that means exactly but I guess we can't use those Images, am I right? --Ervaude (talk) 20:28, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Its a flickr account created by a longtime sockpuppeteer for the purpose of flickr washing. --Martin H. (talk) 20:41, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Martin, I'm not doubting what you say, but how do we know that? Usually such accounts have a wide variety of photographic styles, and this looks a lot like a single professional's work. - Jmabel ! talk 05:28, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well, there's certainly something fishy about an account whose profile says the owner is "female and single" [12], but where several images are tagged "work of my wife, Amir" [13]. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:46, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's a tricky one. For a few of the professional looking images from the photostream I tried quite hard to find out if they were copied from the web, and couldn't prove it for a single one. Some of the soccer pics were uploaded the day after the game, another set was uploaded four days after the game. So to steal them, you'd think they'd have to be available on the web somewhere on that day. --99of9 (talk) 10:57, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm also tending more and more towards the view that it might be genuine. The rather weird inconsistency in the personal information I pointed out above might conceivably be due to poor English. At some point in her photostream she actually has a picture showing "Amir", her husband. I also didn't find any particularly striking overlap with images or specific narrow topic areas known to have been previously the object of our vandal's attention. That said, it's of course understandable that anything related to Iranian footballers is likely to raise eyebrows, given the incredibly tenacious sneaky vandalism campaign of the user Martin has in mind. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:52, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Her wife is apparently a man: [14][15] --Stefan4 (talk) 15:31, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
[16] this was found by User:Amada44 in the german version of this discussion here. LG --Ervaude (talk) 15:46, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Wow. That's rich. Stealing that guy's photograph to construct a double fake identity just for the sake of Flickr-washing. BTW, this one is also stolen [17]. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:15, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

For FlickR acounts, it is never wrong to follow this principle. --Yikrazuul (talk) 18:36, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

January 25

File:Aron Ralston on Independence Pass.jpg

The thumbnail for this looks weird on all the articles it is included on. See here. Should it be reuploaded? Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 00:08, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Help:JPEG#Color model -- RE rillke questions? 11:40, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

About User:Ken Billington and his "free" contributions

As I'm currently working on a project of guide about european birds, which will use many images from wikimedia, i wanted to be sure there's no problem with these images. So, I have contacted directly this User:Ken Billington to ask him precisions about his contributions on wikimedia. (1843 photos, mostly birds). Indeed, I was thinking he didn't understand correctly the scope of CC-BY-SA licenses he had choosen for all his images.

Here is an extract of the response he gave to me, which is clearly a violation of the CC-BY-SA license : « For commercial purposes I normally make a charge based on the number of images. What is your proposal? Please advise, Ken »

Therefore, it appears that all the contributions of this user are actually NOT FREE. Actually, he uses wikimedia as an advertising for his personal website, on which he sells photographs.

What are you thinking of this ? -- User:Bubulcus

When he uploaded, for example, File:Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes) (4).jpg, he did license it as CC-BY-SA 3.0. He also has a message on it saying, "If you would like to use, license, or purchase a high resolution copy of this image, please contact the author Ken Billington. The image is not in the public domain and should not be copied illegally. When using the image for non-commercial purposes, please credit the author in the immediate vicinity of the image together with a link to his website. At the same time please notify the author at the above e-mail address." I interpret this as follows:
  • The uploaded image is 2,000x1,500 pixels. If you would like access to a higher resolution copy (for use, licensing, etc.) he will sell it to you.
  • It's a simple statement of fact, regardless of licensing terms, that it's not PD and shouldn't be copied illegally.
  • He has requested a certain way of being credited and that he be notified when the image is used. This request does not contradict CC-BY-SA, but it is not binding.
As for the separate response he gave you, people are certainly able to release images in different ways through different channels. If he wants to post things here as CC-BY-SA, that doesn't limit his right to sell the same thing elsewhere under different terms. cmadler (talk) 11:07, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
OK, but the response he gave to me was about the images he had uploaded on wikimedia, not the ones he sells on his website.
For me, the message he put on each image means that he does not want that someone uses his images for commercial purposes, but only for non-commercial purposes.
When I ask him for a permission, i was very clear : i just wanted to use the images that he had uploaded on wikimedia, not the images he sells on his website.
And his response was « For commercial purposes I normally make a charge based on the number of images.»
Obviously, given its response, I cannot use the images of this user and I will certainly not use them. -- 11:31, 25 January 2012‎ User:Bubulcus
There seems to be no dispute that he is the photographer, and that he did release the photos to Commons under a CC-BY-SA license. Under the terms of CC-BY-SA, the license is perpetual for the duration of applicable copyright. The license certainly allows him to stop distributing a work himself or to distribute a work under a different license; however, the CC-BY-SA license can't be withdrawn. Since he did release the photos to Commons under CC-BY-SA, Commons can retain them and distribute them under the terms of that license, and third parties (e.g. you) can receive, use, and further distribute them under CC-BY-SA. He can argue otherwise, but the license is there for anyone to read. cmadler (talk) 18:56, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
After some thought, nothing said by this author is actually inconsistent with the CC-BY-SA license. Presumably, he does "normally" receive payment for commercial use, since most commercial reusers are either interested in higher-resolution print-quality versions, or want him to sign a license, just to be extra careful (and of course he wants to encourage this). His request on the file page to be credited near the image and inform him by e-mail when using the image is only a request, and I don't think it's part of the license. But the image is usable in a commercial context under the terms of the CC-BY-SA, and I hope the author understands that. Dcoetzee (talk) 01:25, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Identify subject: is there a specific place here to ask

Hello,

I'm having several photos of flowers and plants I took in Ecuador and I'm interested in identifying them. Is there a place like w:fr:Projet:Botanique/Quelle est cette plante ? where to put these images with some extra info and have the knowledgeable people that work here see them ? Thanks by advance, --Awkiku (talk) 13:12, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Add categories like Category:Unidentified plants or Category:Unidentified Asteraceae. You can use galleries to try to identify a plant yourself by viewing the images (e.g. Aesculus). -- RE rillke questions? 14:19, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I did that with the files I was interested in. However, I have the feeling that these categories are a little bt crowded :) --Awkiku (talk) 16:29, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You can also try asking at en:Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science which is patrolled by a few people who try to look for answers or maybe en:WT:PLANTS. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 16:33, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Is it just me or is this image corrupted?

Or is this a server hiccup? I cannot see anything but grey. File:Friedrich Georg Jünger.jpg --AndreasPraefcke (talk) 17:02, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Problem with this image. Idem for me. Yann (talk) 17:09, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The JPEG is corrupt - this thumbnail has an error message. I've notified the uploader, since he's active. Rd232 (talk) 22:00, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Commons requires censorship-proof History feature

Dear everyone, I have suspected several times that images which were inconvenient for some individuals/organisations disappeared from Wikimedia Commons. Now a history feature does exist, but the original files seem not to be retained.

I suggest that any historical files should be retained by default.

A special procedure to delete copyright-infringing files could be set up, but this should require checks-and-balances and peer-reviewing of the most extreme possible kind, to make sure censorship is stood up against.

- A not very well informed, but very concerned user. --Gulpen (talk) 20:44, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No idea what you are talking about. How about corroborating your claim by some real links or diffs? --Túrelio (talk) 21:21, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
All admins can see deleted images, unless they are oversighted. -mattbuck (Talk) 21:25, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, but this users del-log has only 1 file entry (a CD cover). --Túrelio (talk) 21:26, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There is a deletion log, where one can see file name and the name of the admin who deleted the file. Go to Special:Log. Deletions can be appealed. See Commons:DEL#Appeal. Typically, a CD cover would require a permission from the CD producer or from the artist who designed the CD cover. Teofilo (talk) 05:05, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just a heads up about a project you can join

Hey everyone, I just wanted to give a quick link to a taskforce that we're going to do a little work on, Commons:WikiProject Templates/Testing. The templates WikiProject seems to have been slightly inactive of late, but in any case we've been doing some A/B tests of user talk templates on other projects (EN, PT, DE) in order to get data about different styles of message and how effective they are. If you're interested in this, feel free to sign up and bug me with questions. ;) Cheers, Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 23:40, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

January 26
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