Commons:Upload Wizard feedback/Archive/2009/10

This page is a place for you to tell the Multimedia Usability Team what issues you encounter when using Commons or contributing multimedia content to Wikimedia projects. We are already aware of many bugs and wishes, but we also wanted to provide an open forum for less formal storytelling.

We welcome your ideas, but please focus on the issues rather than on possible solutions. If you want to propose a solution or request a feature, please do so but also tell us what problem it would fix.

Tell us your stories, tell us your frustrations. We will read them carefully and try to remedy as much as possible.

See also strategy:Category:Proposals for improving media usability.

→ Add your story

Audio Reader

I've imported in french wikipedia from Commons, some audio files to " René-Louis BARON " (a french music composer and inventor). I've seen every body clicking on the picture ("Loud speakers") to listen to the music and naturaly it's not de play-button. May be, a very little place to click for the picture is better ?! It's rare to get a picture when you need a music ! --JCAILLAT (talk) 14:37, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Support this idea! This is me who make this stupid mistake almost every second time i'm trying to listen 2 music though i'm a commona user for two years. Set this picture as a shortcut to "play". Wonderful idea of french colleague. - Zac allan (talk) 13:59, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

photos without quality control

Wikipedia commons is being used as a garbage dump for photos. There are too many substandard photos to plow through, and no quality control. Also moving photos from English Wikipedia to other languages is too complicated if the photo is not in the Commons, which is often the case. My specific concern is moving photos between Hebrew and English Wikipedia. --85.65.132.53 08:27, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Amen. 71.155.236.234 03:42, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree. There should be a certain degree of quality control for both photo content and technical quality. In addition, I found many almost identical duplicate photos. --Aangelo (talk) 23:19, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Commonshelper : add a link to wikipedias image pages when free licensed

The Commonshelper tool and its successor are great ways to help users transfer images to Commons. What should be done is add a link in the free licenses templates to allow the user to directly transfer an image to Commons.
There's a template in the French wikipedia that does that (see "pour Commons" parameter) (here's an example of the link). This template is used as the basis for all the licenses templates, so the link to Commonshelper is automatically included if the image is free licensed. This template could be adapted for the other wikipedias. The RedBurn (talk) 09:23, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Uploading multiple pictures of the same object

I find it rather a hassle to upload say six pictures of the same building. We obviously need multiple angels/views of the same building, park, train, etc. and so we often take multiple pictures of one object to upload. It would be really nice if we could select 5 images at a time to be uploaded so we don't have to sit around for 2-3 minutes per high quality image being uploaded. We could add the base categories and select the license all at once, and later go back and add additional cats/descriptions as needed. I know it would save me time as I can do other things while the files upload in the background. Aboutmovies (talk) 08:09, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

• Small program Commonist is quite useful for this purpose. See http://djini.de/software/commonist/ . Ciacho5 (talk) 10:21, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Better findability and fun by social tagging

In contrast to text, images need good manual description. The current classification system is based on Wikimedia categories (set-model-tagging = only one common set of tags per resource) and only ocurr in little galeries. If users could easily collect and tag their favorite images personally with one click (bag-model-tagging = one set of tags per resource and user), we would soon get much more description. Moreover you could browse images a user likes, see which users like similar images, get tag clouds etc. -- JakobVoss (talk) 09:41, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

• If a photo has EXIF data, could that be used to prepopulate some of the tags? --Mfbear (talk) 15:01, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Search and translation

The best way to open up Commons for people who do not speak English is by having the categories in a multilingual manner. We had a demonstration project that did exactly that. It allowed for the search of these translations in the language selected in the user preferences. Translation of categories is relatively easy because you SEE what is in the category. The more abstract categories are less likely to be used.

The software also had the category tree shown in the language of choice.. This project was complex, it worked but was not pretty. We ran out of money, this is the reason why it has not been completed.

Thanks, GerardM (talk) 09:52, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

And when I open the file (image) from my local Wikipedia the page loads with no categories at all! This could be an obvious place for language-specific categories (like "en:Category:Buildings" or "ru:Category:Здания") as we already can make language-specific file descriptions for that page. --Yuriy Lapitskiy (talk) 10:56, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

It is important to have categories in other languages than english, often I have to search for some time to find the right english word (at first I think a category doesn't exist until I finaly find it). For users who doesn't speak english it is nearly impossible. Traumrune (talk) 20:58, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

categories

When there is a gallery, dump the category with the same name. It adds nothing to the existing gallery, has virtually no organizational functionality, and is just a nuisance as both have to be maintained. Further nuisance is that to navigate to the gallery one always has to go through he category, which means an extra mouseclick and page load. Yes, I know this proposal is very hard for many commonists, as most of them have spend literally hundreds of hours to add categories to media files. Teun Spaans 10:14, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

---

Maintainers tend to delete categories because there was not enough content in them, they say. That is double counterproductive. If we have only few files on a specific matter or of a specific type, we make it extra hard to find that little. In addition, nonexisting categories will hardly grow, even if materials matching them are being uploaded. --Purodha Blissenbach (talk) 11:59, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Agree; however I'm not aware about the average "cost-benefit ratio" of, say, CATs with ~1-2 media. Possibly a category with ~4-5 items might be generally acceptable. [w.] 08:47, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

As user without much experience I'm not sure about this, but it seems that the work for the categorization or recategorization of images would decrease if the pages that have links on the homepage show the maximum of direct links to the categories and a minimum of links to the grouped categories [ + ]. With this, become longer pages and the images downloaded from the main categories would be too low. This does not appear, but can be a good thing, because many initial users tend to like that these images appear on the main pages, and, thus, more easily visible. (Google translator + little adaptations + eventual errors), Paulo Cesar-1 (talk) 14:55, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I disagree; galleries have to be maintained by hand, whereas categories are automatically updated when a new image is tagged for that category. I would prefer to see some sort of hierarchical structure within categories. - PKM (talk) 19:34, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Highly disagree with User:TeunSpaans:
Galleries are highly POV, even if more than one person worked on them [see, for instance, van Gogh ;]]; I've worked on the vG category for a while and gave up for lack of 'constructive' feedback, and support.]
I'd suggest, BTW, to generally allow, in WP projects, BOTH links, to gallery AND to the category. [w.] 08:36, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Licenses

I have several GB of online storage available for my own domains, so I have no need to host anything that does not belong into wikipedia. The only things I upload to commons are works of my own, that I want to use inside wikipedia. Due to past experiences I very seldom do so anymore, and this account has as good as no uploads attached to it. The main showstopper is, that I need to "decide" on things like the license. Which in theory requires me to understand the differences and think about them each and every time I upload something. And if after all that something that I wrote in my comments is in misunderstandable, someone will surely respond a year later with a deletion request...

I personally don't give a ... about license-details and all the other formal stuff. I'd like to have a clean and simple interface, and all those additional options removed from standard view, accessible via optional sections. -- Windharp (talk) 10:37, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I know at least half a dozen not-contributors for the same reason. Also, when I uploaded self made stuff, I often found myself in a jungle of not applicable options, questions, and choices with the most simple one I needed not being available. Now, I usually fill all required field with "a", and after uploading, rewrite the file info page from scratch. --Purodha Blissenbach (talk) 11:54, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Windharp, Purodha: That doesn't make sense to me. Clicking "Upload file" on any page leads here, where the first option is "It is entirely my own work". That page is as simple as it can be, AFAICT. If you don't care about license details, then you are not welcome at Commons. Why? Mainly because we expect respect for others, including everyone who cares about Wikimedia. Wikimedia will die under a deluge of lawsuits if it doesn't ask appropriately about license details.--Elvey (talk) 16:44, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the first page is a good one, I can agree with you on that one. But after clicking "It is entirely my own work", I have to fill out lots of fields. Preceeded by a very lengthy instruction. About respecting others: I don't get you here. Even in germany (which is a lot more strit on copyright laws) there would be no harm done in providing a default license model. Actually even offering only a single license model is fine, because people agree to the license when they upload their works. It's not like wikimedia is a monopilst who can be regulated by law... -- Windharp (talk) 15:10, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

You might have better luck with the basic upload form, then. That's here. As for licenses, most people just choose a license once and upload all of their files under that license. If you don't care about licensing, you can just release your files into the public domain, for example. Powers (talk) 15:24, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

No, you can't. If you don't care about license details, then you are not welcome at Commons. Why? Mainly because we expect respect for others, including everyone who cares about Wikimedia. They could be 'your files', but still trample someone else's copyright. Wikimedia will die under a deluge of lawsuits if it doesn't ask appropriately about license details. If you want to quickly upload a bunch of photos all with the same license, there are tools for that.--Elvey (talk) 05:40, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

That's not what I meant at all. I meant if an individual doesn't care to choose a restrictive license and wishes everyone to be able to use the image for any purpose whatsoever in perpetuity, then he/she can just release it into the public domain. Powers (talk) 16:38, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Ein Artikel über einen Menschen - egal ob Künstler, Sportler, Wissenschaftler ... - ist unvollständig ohne ein Foto dieser Person. Ich habe schon häufig sehr gute (vor allem Sport-)Fotos gesehen, die von (semi-)professionellen Fotografen stammen; darauf angesprochen, ob sie die Fotos für die Verwendung bei Wikipedia freigeben würden, sagten die Fotografen dies gern zu, einer freien Verwendung für Nachrichtenagenturen wollten sie aber nicht zustimmen; aus verständlichen Gründen. Warum gibt es kein Lizensierungsmodell für diesen Fall? --88.77.151.38 12:50, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Gute Frage. "Gefühlsmäßig" will "MAN" sich hier alle Möglichkeiten zu späterer gewerblicher Nutzung des derzeit von "IRGENDWEM" gesammelten "Allgemeinguts" sichern,und das ist ja auch in den Statuten so festgeschrieben. Dass dies der Qualität derzeit "erzielbaren" Bildmaterials schadet: Keine Frage.

Betr. Akzeptanz der WP-Bedingungen unter Profis und Halbprofis kenne ich Dein Leid und habe vor einiger Zeit, jedoch mit höchst bescheidenem Erfolg, versucht, eine akzeptable Lösung anzubieten: Hochladen von Bildern niedriger Auflösung (die aber für'n Bildschirm gut genug ist) plus Verweis (per Template) auf Urheberrecht+Autor und etwaige dort beziehbare (kostenpflichtige) qualitativ bessere Bildversionen. Vielleicht hilft DAS -- viel Erfolg!

Template:Pink_CC
[w.] 18:49, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Gallery

For finding an image on Commons I would love to have a thumbnail gallery. Many times it is easiest to find the image visually, so a gallery of e.g. 9x5 small thumbnails (like in Flickr) works best. I missed the gallery style in particular for the search results and for a page with many subcategories. When would this have been useful? For a derivative work I looked for an image of a tiger, with some pretty strict boundary conditions: the licence had to be compatible with Commons (CC-NC), the layout be a portait, the background be without much structure (no grass or shrubbery),... Both Flickr and Commons have enough tiger pictures to find a suitable one, but in Commons one has to click through the subpages of the tiger page to find it. In the search result page of Commons there is a hidden link to the Toolserver Mayflower search, which would probably do the gallery, but, firstly the Mayflower search was down, and secondly the link is hidden in a collapsed section "Other tools". Why not integrate the Mayflower search in the wikimedia style and link it visibly as "Gallery" in the search results? Perhaps one could even use it in pages with many subpages, for getting a visual idea of what is inside? --Danh (talk) 11:48, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Löschverfahren ist zu kompliziert

In de finde ich häufiger Fotos mit zweifelhafter Lizenzangabe, die in dem Commons stehen. Das Verfahren hier ist mir zu kompliziert, um darauf Löschanträge zu stellen oder auf die zweifelhafte Lizenzangabe aufmerksam zu machen. --Textkorrektur (talk) 12:32, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Na ja, also du kannst ja wohl immer eine Nachricht auf Commons:Forum oder auf COM:AN hinterlassen. Das ist doch wohl nicht zu schwer. --Túrelio (talk) 13:56, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Du kannst die Dateien mit {{Copyvio}} bezeichnen und dann brauchst du dich darum nicht weiter kuemmern.--Kozuch (talk) 07:37, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

please, translate all servises to russian language!!! Пожалуйста, переведите всё на Русский язык!!!

Why I loathe commons

I am a very frequent uploader to WP of images. I have come to loathe commons. There is a dedicated group of people who obsessively move images from WP to commons, this causes problems because:

1. Images moved to commons are no longer on the watchlist of the WP uploader, which means that they can be vandalzied or deleted without warning to the uplader, this has happend to my files.
2. File names are often changed in the move, often words are capitalized in the file name, which means that all the articles that used to link to the files no longer link; and people who make the move are too lazy to go back and change all the links to the correct file, which means I have to clean up after them.
3. Once moved to commons, images cannot be easily updated by WP users.
4. To top it all off, THE VAST MAJORTY OF TIMES FILES ARE MOVED FROM WP TO COMMONS ARE NOT USED IN ANY NEW PROJECT, making the whole effort a case study in pointless futility.

Why don't I just upload to commons, you ask. Because:

1. uploading to commons requres several extra steps, additional log-in, etc.
2. commons requires maintence of a whole nother set of watchlists, userpages, talk pages, etc.
3. I do not work on anything other than WP:english.

• In sum: unless you actually are going to use a WP image on a Commons project, please leave them on WP!

Thank you, wp:user:billwhittaker

Just because an image is not used immediately in other projects doesn't mean we shouldn't make them available for when users of those other projects come looking. Powers (talk) 14:11, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

That's a fair criticism. Any of the MediaWiki gurus want to talk about how or how hard it is to provide a technical solution to this? Isn't the "E-mail me when my user talk page is changed" preference a solution to this?--Elvey (talk) 16:50, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree that it would be nice to be able to combine the watchlist and talk page of Commons and wp:en. On the contrary, I don't agree with billwhittaker's summary. If an image improves wp:en it can also be useful for another language, and thus Commons is the right place. In my opinion this is even worth some additional mouse clicks. And since one is more or less forced to use Commons, the unified login helps a lot, even if one is contributing to wikipedia just in one language. --Danh (talk) 09:37, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

This is just why sometimes I loathe en.wikipedia. If I may say what I think, this is plain egoism. There are other projects that might use your files. They don't because they cannot find them. We lose time transferring precisely because you do not upload to Commons in the first place. We all know Commons is difficult to use, that is the whole point of this page. Global watchlist, simple upload, these are all projects people are working on as we talk.

As for additional log in, please see and activate meta:Unified login. Jean-Fred (talk) 17:17, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Russian language

Почему нельзя дать всю инфорамцию на русском языке для участников русскоязычной Википедии!? Это сложно? Это невозможно?--78.37.142.117 14:03, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

(translation from Babelfish: "Why it is not possible to give entire [inforamtsiyu] in the Russian language for participants in Russian-language [Vikipedii]!? This is complicated? This is impossible?") -- Powers (talk) 14:11, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Fix misprints. Powers! It is alban :P "I wanna see any of entire information and content in the Russian, because I learned babelfish and my *** English *** make me and many other Russian participants to not participate in Wikipedia's and Wikimedia's processes too good! Is it complicated to give any information in Russian? Is it impossible?" So, as for me I don't know what is a Wikimedia too, because of same troubles! --94.242.176.110 23:20, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

govindbhajet

Licence nightmare

I am quite tired of the Grand Inquisitors that controls the licences. Usually, I upload my own photos but at 2 times I found very interesting photo on Flickr to illustrate an article on WP. I got the permission of the creator, but the photos have been delete. I search help (in french) but I found cops obsessed with the "law" Pancrat (talk) 14:18, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. I've had several situations where I've gotten explicit permission to release but the emails weren't worded correctly. If commons wants very specific language in their releases they should provide a release form. Hassling the people who own IP and grant us to use it is not a good policy. Jbolden1517 (talk) 19:03, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

We do provide it, please read Commons:OTRS. Jean-Fred (talk) 17:08, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Wikimedia Commons

I have a few hundred photos I would upload to Wikimedia Commons, complete with descriptions, dates, and latitude/longitude, but it would take me months or years. I am not willing to re-enter this information, and I am not willing to enter the same information on Wikimedia Commons (author, license, etc.) for each photo.

There should be a simple way to select photos on the hard drive, and have the description, date, lat-lon, and possibly other fields automatically extracted from the exif information in the .jpg file. The selection of photos should be uploaded under the specified license, etc., rather than answering the same questions 800 times.

I am sure there are a lot of other people in my position. An efficient upload system such as this would likely increase the uploading of photos to Wikimedia Commons several-fold. As soon as something like this is in place, I'll upload a bunch of photos. (Unless I've already uploaded them somewhere else by then.)

Bob Webster

Bob, you might like to search for a tool called "commonist" on commons Teun Spaans 19:07, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I have tried Commonist, but never managed to successfully upload pictures because of connection issues — and I am probably not the only one. Furthermore, a lot of beginning users don't want to use another software, they would just need a nice form in their browser (extracting EXIF information, with a clever category suggestion, etc). I think that mass-uploading is one of the most important issue of Commons — wasting a lot of time for most users. --Pethrus (talk) 12:52, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

It's simply not possible to have a browser upload lots of files, without relying on an app (e.g. Java, ActiveX, or regular executable). It violates the security model to allow this; that's why it's impossible. Proof: No photo site has such a feature (that doesn't rely on an app). --Elvey (talk) 20:14, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

I had in mind the example of the upload of attachments in Gmail (at least on MacOS). There is a "file input" form, and one can select more than one file this way ; when selected, loading bars appear during the file upload. Another example — a bit different — is the picture upload on the web interface of Picasa. In both cases, I don't think there are many security issues. --Pethrus (talk) 10:33, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Clearly, I'm wrong; google HAS figured out how to let the user select many files from a folder at once!--Elvey (talk) 16:46, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

process of adding license

Its true all media files should have license with themselves, but its really a nightmare for a user who wants upload a file. It takes too much time, Its complicated, and in last when you done all, after a few days your file will be deleted !!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Marmzok (talk • contribs) 14:46, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Do you have a suggestion for how to address this that doesn't involve compromising our ability to create a repository of demonstrably free content? In most cases, if you're trying to upload someone else's work and it is indeed freely licensed, it's pretty clear what the license is. If it's not free, you can ask the copyright holder to make it free. If it's your own work, you're free to choose any license you like.

When I see users struggling to identify the correct license, it's almost always because they're trying to upload a non-free work and they haven't bothered to ask the copyright holder to make it free, so there isn't a correct license. I think the only way to increase usability for that use case is to forgo the founding principles of the project. —LX (talk, contribs) 21:27, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Commons, Complexity and an Opinion

For me not using commons has become a habit since the time we did not yet have unified login. It used to require two accounts, two logins and some dual tab fun to upload an image to commons. Even now that we have unified login there are still plenty of complexities over local upload, especially for new users. My own reason for evading commons is due to the useless complexity for editing image descriptions here.

If i enlarge a commons based image on the English Wikipedia and note a typo in the description i would have to head over to commons to correct it. For me that is minor. For new users who don't even know what commons is that is hell. First, The user actually has to figure what commons is (Based on an error message), then head over to commons to create an account or SUL his current account if not done already, then figure where the image was located again, go to the image, edit the description and then head back to his local Wikipedia to resume where he was. Compare that to just pressing "Edit page" and saving for local images. Why cant the description just be loaded in the English wiki? We can link the location of the image on commons. How hard is it to load [1] locally for example? If a user has a SUL account this should be no problem. Otherwise point the user to mergeaccount and make sure he has a SUL account. Im evading Commons for the sole reason i don't want to force the current procedure upon new users.

Finally, i agree with windharp that the current procedure is to much of a text-wall based procedure which little people will even read. Excirial (talk) 14:47, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, at least the point then head over to commons to create an account is not quite correct, because you can edit descriptions without being logged-in (as an "IP"). If a description has an error and this error would be corrected only in the description of the local copy, it wouldn't really make sense. --Túrelio (talk) 15:21, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Your entirely correct, my fault. At times i forget that anonymous IP's can also alter text on commons, and not only on the pedia's. Still, i deem it quite impractical that you must switch project to alter a description - and i still think its to easy to overlook the actual link in the warning message. Excirial (talk) 16:42, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Categories and file formats

I have encountered with two bugs (...or errors, or whatever) when uploading files. The first one is that when you upload a file into commons with the 'entirely my own work' wizard (at least that one), the file does not get categorized unless you click on the "+" symbol to add another one. In other words: the last category you input won't appear (when you click "OK" (and after checking that such category exists) the category will still be missing unless you start typing a new one). - ☩Damërung ☩. -- 15:04, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I have had a similar problem, as have other users. Basically, if you pick some catgories and go straight for "save", the file is placed in the chosen categories; but if you use "Show preview" prior to "save", all your carefully-chosen categories are dropped. See Commons:Help desk#Category got lost on upload --Redrose64 (talk) 17:45, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

The other problem is in the 'new version of an existing file' wizard. In which it doesn´t let me change the file format for an image. For example, in this example, it didn´t let me change a PNG for a SVG. Also, an existing image in SVG which I re-uploaded in a different page (to split the older version and that one, so both were present) didn´t let me upload it in SVG as it was, but in PNG. - ☩Damërung ☩. -- 15:04, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

More about categories

I'd like some simple trick to add/edit tag lists and search media by tag lists and to make categorization much more simple (and, possibly, consistent). I'd like to search by tag into large, comprehensive "super-categories" or "main topics". --Alex_brollo Talk|Contrib 15:27, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Es muy importante dado la poblacion de habla en castellano que elige esta lengua para aprender e informarnos.

SVG Files

I am downloading png files but it seems to be that you are favouring svg files. I have not found a good tool yet to make svg files of my representations. Maybe you could have a Tutorial or FAQ on this topic. -- Chemist62 (talk) 16:09, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Good idea. It looks like you're using a specialized tool to create your representations of chemical molecules. Which tool? I assume it doesn't support SVG. Does it support any vector, not raster output? If not, perhaps outputting to a high res image and feeding that into a vectorizer would do the trick. I googled vectorizer and some free tools came up. --Elvey (talk) 17:06, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Not to direct attention away from Elvey, but have you tried Inkscape? I can't speak for your own purposes, but it is easy to use for creating both objects and graphs and seems to be the most-often recommended SVG-creation software on Wikipedia. — CobraWiki ^{( jabber | stuff )} 18:37, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

The versions of ACD Labs and ChemDraw I have available will make png files, but not SVG. I wonder if there is a file conversion program. Let me check the tools noted by CobraWiki. Regards, -- Chemist62 (talk) 19:28, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Tried Inkscape, but this is what I get: see File:Ursolsäure.svg. I'll look some more, maybe on CNET. -- Chemist62 (talk) 20:47, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_raster_to_vector_conversion_software ?--Elvey (talk) 20:31, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

@Chemist62 : Your file does not work because it is just a raster image in a vector file. It is a known issue that when a SVG contains a raster image, it displays blank. Vectorizing is more that just open it in Inkscape and save it as SVG : you have to draw the SVG again (or use tools that can convert the raster into vector)

As for some help pages, the french graphic lab has a help page, fr:Aide:SVG, and a FAQ, fr:Wikipédia:Atelier graphique/FAQ SVG. You have some help here too on Help:SVG. Jean-Fred (talk) 17:26, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Step-by-step for new/non-expert users - needlessly prominent buttons

There really isn't that much difference between the main upload form for experts and the Upload your own work form. I presume the latter is the one that most of the less-experienced users use. The only difference is that the latter form has a whole heap of notes explaining every single possibility. This isn't a simple form, it's a form with a complete tutorial attached.

The simple form should be streamlined: offering step by step options, progressing onto different screens (i.e. [previous]/[next] style) after each part is entered. The most relevant notes (including perhaps links to commons policy articles etc) and a walkthrough can be listed briefly above a couple of relevant fields on each screen. The current slab of text is not very readable. I'm convinced that "Permissions" and "Licensing" could be combined into on section. At the very least, there is no obvious reason why a big, fat (often redundant) "additional information" box currently sits between these two clearly linked ideas.

A step by step approach could facilitate the addition of a category search option in the same window as the category adding process (e.g. typing a search term which brings up related categories, clicking one adds it to the current chosen list at the top). Is the commonsense tool like this? If so, there is no reason why that can't be incorporated into a step by step process. It is poorly advertised on the upload form: I only just noticed the existence of that tool now, after being an editor for two years! The problem with Wikimedia is that it is not very good at providing an alternate non-techie style of contributing. The over-representation of technical-minded, young males in the editor demographic is the clear proof of this. A simplistic step-by-step approach would provide an accessible option for non-experts, while the current upload forms will suffice for more experienced Commonsers.

Also, what's up with the buttons at the bottom of the upload form? I'm sure they are useful in some way but I've no idea where. You never see this kind of weird, unexplained thing in wordpress or other user created content sites. There is a reason: it is gobbledegook to anyone unfamiliar with the greater technical aspects of wikis. This could be bottled down to an "insert special character" function and a "change alphabet" function. Similarly, their needless prominent position in Wikipedia leads to weird edits where newbies simply enter "'''bold''' ''italic'' <gallery</gallery><gallery></gallery>". The stupid part is that advanced users generally are faster pressing the bracket button four times than scrolling down to press the "[[]]" button... Sillyfolkboy (talk) 19:47, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

ThoughTlessness in the survey

Number of files I've ever uploaded to Commons: ZERO.

Question I'm asked: "Among your uploads, what is the rough percentage of media files you created yourself? Choose one of the following answers"... none of which are "This is perfectly meaningless, since both 10% and 90% of zero produce the same result.

This survey also asked me twice why I never did something on Commons, immediately after I said that I had done that very thing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:54, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I see you missed the T out of the title. Don't worry we (nearly) all are imperfect. Even survey designers?? Victuallers (talk) 21:19, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Imagemaps

Image Maps are a useful way of making pictures and diagrams more useful. They are also to some extent multilingual. Readers who don't understand what I'm talking about can look at the explanation on en:wikipedia or there is an example on my user page of one running on Commons. Question: Has it been considered whether we could load these into commons? I'm not looking for a kludge really as I guess I can make my own. I'm thinking that I should be able to load these as templates (prefereably) and be able to call them from en, simple, de? etc. Any thoughts Victuallers (talk) 21:05, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Easy tools for metadata storage and upoloading together with a sets of pictures

We have commonist for mass upload but the problem is that there is no tools for mass storage and uploading meta-data (photo descriptions, authorships, licening and geolocation). If you are taking series of pictures in areas where there is no access to the net it would be good to store metadata instantly just after taking a photo and store them in a easy way to attach them to the sets of files prepared for mass upload using commonist or other such tool. It would be good to have an application in for example java one could use on both PC, PDA or smartphones for that purpose. Polimerek (talk) 21:38, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Commons in the web 2.0 world

The usability of the Commons would be substantially improved by a genuine web 2.0 platform. Ideally, the project should aim to provide a seamless end-user experience that rivals sites like Flickr and YouTube. Here are a few observations:

Issue: Newcomers are not sufficiently enticed to join the community.

Solution: Expand access to the project by allowing users to log in via alternative (OpenID, Google, ...) authentication systems.

Issue: Our category system discourages inexperienced users and is overall very inefficient.

Solution: Rename categories to tags, and introduce a low-latency smart tagging system that engages drive-by editors.

Issue: The Commons interface is overtly pedantic.

Solution: Transform talk pages into vibrant discussions that are presented directly below the media, and create an annotation platform. Significantly improve aesthetics, speed, and accuracy of default search functionality; use an AJAX gallery by default.

Issue: The Commons does not accommodate rich media content.

Solution: Automatically convert uploaded videos to Theora, and raise the file size limit to 4.7 GB.

Issue: Current content guidelines antagonize casual contributors.

Solution: Liberalize policy to indiscriminately permit all free content regardless of quality or practicality, and instead develop a quality control scheme that prioiritizes the results of media searches based on user ratings.

Issue: Very few members of the general public are familiar with the Commons.

Solution: Attract, facilitate, and encourage the layperson to painlessly (and perhaps even inadvertently) contribute quality media. Take advantage of the viral effects of social media by incorporating an interface that enables users to share and embed media (e.g. email, Delicious, Digg, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Twitter, etc) across the web.

Issue: The Commons is not "usable" from a corporate perspective, and virtually no media conglomerates or commercial ventures contribute any content whatsoever.

Solution: Create an easy to use system that encourages traditional copyright holders to make tax deductible donations of previously commercial movies, music, photos, scientific journals, and books. Once the Wikimedia Foundation legally owns the rights to said media, it can then be legally re-released under a permissive license. Form a grassroots volunteer group with the sole purpose of going down a list of every major media organization (e.g. MGM, CBS, Virgin, etc) in the world -- one-by-one -- to personally make requests for unprofitable media.   — C M B J   00:08, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

« Transform talk pages » : You might be interested in mw:Extension:LiquidThreads (currently tested on strategy).

« create an annotation platform » : ImageAnnotator has been active here for a while now.

« Automatically convert uploaded videos to Theora » : You might be interested in mw:Extension:Firefogg (currently tested here on Commons, see Commons:Firefogg).

--Jean-Fred (talk) 17:37, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Two userids

It certainly is annoying that I registered different userids on Commons and Wikipedia, and now elsewhere in the Wiki family. I have to be careful to avoid updating in the rarely used ID here. Perhaps there is a way to resolve that situation, but I don't know how.--Davidt8 (talk) 23:37, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

By the way, I have uploaded most of the photos using Commonist, a great tool, but like many powerful tools, easy to make a mistake with it, too. --Davidt8 (talk) 23:39, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

You may find help here: Commons:Changing username. --Túrelio (talk) 14:39, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

media participation survey problem

When I recently completed the media participation survey, at the end I received the following error messages:

Warning: unlink(/srv/org/wikimedia/survey/tmp/template_temp_090626181630.html) [function.unlink]: Permission denied in /srv/org/wikimedia/survey/common.php on line 6221

Warning: unlink(/srv/org/wikimedia/survey/tmp/template_temp_090626181546.html) [function.unlink]: Permission denied in /srv/org/wikimedia/survey/common.php on line 6221

Warning: unlink(/srv/org/wikimedia/survey/tmp/template_temp_090626175352.html) [function.unlink]: Permission denied in /srv/org/wikimedia/survey/common.php on line 6221

Warning: unlink(/srv/org/wikimedia/survey/tmp/template_temp_090626181507.html) [function.unlink]: Permission denied in /srv/org/wikimedia/survey/common.php on line 6221

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /srv/org/wikimedia/survey/common.php:6221) in /srv/org/wikimedia/survey/common.php on line 4087

Coding problem? Thought I should let someone know. Chick Bowen (talk) 00:40, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

I got it on the 2nd last page of the survey. It seems to be a hit-and-miss error because I then chose to go back to previous page and then flip back to the next page and those error lines are not there. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 01:00, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Yep, this seldom happens. It is not pretty, but it doesn't prevent you from filling in the survey. guillom 13:40, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Too De-Centralized

It makes sense that all other projects are separated because it is not nearly as typical for people to -- for instance -- read an article on English Wikipedia and decide to click the linked article in another language. Each project has its own text that is only relevant to itself (for instance, you don't write books in Wikipedia, you put them in Wikibooks. You don't write an article entirely in Dutch language in the Spanish Wikipedia, you write it in the Dutch Wikipedia). Commons is very different, though, since files uploaded here may be used with any project in any language. It makes little sense to me that a file can be uploaded to any project OR it can be uploaded to Commons, and if the file is in Commons, when you click to view a file's page from another project, you see the image but are then told that the file is in Commons and you must click to get there separately. Although I understand why this is done, at the same time it feel likes two processes that could/should be merged into one. — CobraWiki ^{( jabber | stuff )} 04:58, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't have the complete statistics, but I was under the impression that projects allowing local uploads are the exception rather than the rule. Unless there's a specific purpose, such as allowing non-free files, I agree that it doesn't make much sense to allow free files to be uploaded anywhere but here, where all projects can benefit.

I also agree that the local image description page previews are a bit of an annoyance. I'd rather be taken directly to Commons where I can see the categories and jump right into editing (but I understand that this could be confusing to new users). At the Swedish Wikipedia, there's a gadget for this, sv:MediaWiki:Gadget-commonsimagelinks.js, but from what I can see, JavaScript can't tell if the file is local or served by Commons, so this is only portable to projects that have no local image files at all (lest links to local files be broken). It would be nice to have such an option as a more integral part of the software. —LX (talk, contribs) 20:02, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

NO@CobraWiki

You totally forgot about juridical reasons:

On COM, only "generally [hopefully worldwide] acceptable" media would be allowed, while on, e.g., enWP, there is such thing as fair use which allows by far more media to be uploaded and to be used in enWP articles; such media might be transferred to COM "one day" (say, e.g., 70 years after author's death, or ...) "automatically". I suppose similar applies to other "national" projects. For the rest, I agree with user:LX. -- [w.] 19:18, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Sure, "one day" that fair user image will be PD, but since the author is not noted and enwiki doesn't care much, it will continue being treated as FU. Platonides (talk) 20:57, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

verschieben/move/...

ich wuerde mir wuenschen, dass fehlerhafte namen + titel + ueberschriften (durch verwechslung, tippfehler etc.) sich durch "verschieben/move" und/oder "überschreiben" beim hochladen der korrigierten fassung (mit dann korrektem titel) ändern liessen und nicht jedesmal dieser umstand: "löschen" und "neu-laden" notwendig wäre! dontworry (talk) 05:44, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Translation from German: "I wish that erroneous names + titles + headings (due to mistakes or slips of the finger etc.) could be corrected by using "move" and/or "overwrite" when uploading the corrected version (with the correct title), rather than having to go to the trouble of "delete" followed by "re-upload" every time!" -- pne (talk) 10:31, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Antwort: inzwischen kann jeder admin auf Commons Dateien direkt umbenennen, also ohne den bisherigen "Umweg" über den bot (mit Neu-Hochladen und Löschen). Weil Dateiumbenennungen aber alles andere als unkritisch sind und erhebliche Folgen auch außerhalb der Wikimedia-Welt haben können, ist es durchaus gerechtfertigt, dass die direkte Umbenennung nur einem eingeschränkten Nutzerkreis erlaubt wird. --Túrelio (talk) 10:40, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Inquérito

É muito desagradável terminar um inquérito que fazemos voluntariamente numa página onde o único link é este! Parece que estão a forçar-nos a participar no Commons... O inquérito deve terminar num link que nos permita regressar ao projeto de onde acessamos ao inquérito. Obrigado. --196.28.239.18 07:03, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Long, long, long

Hi,

I'm a regular user of Commons. I'm not perfect, but I begin to know what I can do here and what I can't.

My problem is that Commons is too long to use (« énergivore »). I take me many evening to upload personnal photos helping to illustrate French Wikipedia.

Do it is possible to have acces to another kind of uploading page (« formulaire »), one for the « old » users, one who can be more quick ? A kind of uploading page who would (« pourrait ») skip some warnings the old contributors know and allow them to upload many photos in one time.

- Khayman ^(contact) 12:19, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Try this. --Túrelio (talk) 13:07, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Si on a beaucoup d'images on peut utiliser User:Nichalp/Upload_script. Une script analyse les fichiers, on complète l'information dans un tableur (excel, gnumeric, ...) et une autre script fait ce qui reste. --LPfi (talk) 11:05, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Il y a aussi le Commons:Outils/Commonist. --LPfi (talk) 11:26, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

En général, je me sers de ceci ;]] -- EN: Use the "back-button" of your browser to edit description for another similar upload ;) AND: PLEASE be careful, 'cause otherwise this way-to-access might be cancelled. Amitiés. [w.] 19:33, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Difficulty adding logos, company info

I work for a company and my job is to update the profile on Wikipedia (http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%ADgitro). I was asked to upload the company logo and my addition was denied because I didn't have ownership of the logo. Now, the logo is available on the company's website (www.digitro.com) and I work here. I sent e-mails, explaining why we needed the logo there and did everything the right way. And still the addition was barred. I think it's important to watch over copyright on the web, but some other things also have to be considered. I gave up on Wikimedia Commons.

--Mayra Warren (talk) 13:50, 27 October 2009 (UTC)Mayra Warren

Hi Mayra, in case you didn't totally give up, here my answer. Being shown on a website, doesn't mean an image is free, as you likely know already. Therefore a permission is required, especially for images that are commercially used or professionally made. As we have no mechanism or requirement for uploaders to surely identify themselves, a self-confirmation isn't enough if you are not the creator of the image. All you have to do is, to go to Commons:Email templates, take the boxed template, enter the filename (complete URL after upload) and the choosen license, ask the legally responsible person or delegate of the company to put his/her name under it, plus the date, and mail it back to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org. After that you put the following on the image page on Commons: {{OTRS pending}}. Then, after some time an OTRS volunteer will put a so-called OTRS-ticket in the image description and everything is fine. --Túrelio (talk) 14:04, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

A imagem colocada na entrada "António Hipólito da Costa" não corresponde a António Hipólito da Costa mas sim a Hipólito José da Costa, pelo que peço façam a devida correcção.

Watchlist issue

My biggest complaint about commons is the lack of unified watchlist and separate log in. Wikipedia has lots of editors and they would be more inclined to do a lot of the grunt work (categories, et al) if there were a unified system. Americasroof (talk) 15:45, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Ok, but as to my knowledge you also don't have "a unified watchlist" over different wikipedias, or between wikipedia and wikinews. And about "separate log in", we have SUL since months and that allows you to interwiki-jump and you are automatically logged-in. --Túrelio (talk) 16:42, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

People who participate in multiple Wikipedia editions or multiple projects such as Wikipedia and Wikinews typically spend a decent amount of time on each project, and the projects are quite independent of one another. Commons is in a somewhat different situation. A lot of people who participate here do it primarily as a means to the end of serving another project, because that project depends on Commons for media resources. Maybe that's not what we'd wish, but we can't expect to gain more active participants by being insular. Increasing the visibility of Commons edits might make irregular visitors more active, though. I think it's a useful suggestion, and I see above that other users request it too. —LX (talk, contribs) 19:38, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

wat mis met mijn PC

er was wat mis met mijn PC ik hoop dat ik verder met vragen komt dat bij google,heb me veel geholpen met andere dat ik het niet wist dat hoe ik andere programma's moest gebruiken. ik hoop dat ik de vreden ben met het nieuwe hulp middel,

vriendelijke groeten

fred van golde

Watermark against authors signature

I am getting bored of people adding the watermark-template to the maps I draw for wikipedia. I am willing to share my maps for free with anyone using the cc-by-sa license. But I do not understand why I should not be allowed to put my name as a tiny signature in a corner of a map or any drawing / chart that I created. After all I garantee with my name for the quality of the information shown. Also this signature garantees that re-use always includes the credits that I insist on.sidonius (talk) 17:40, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

By uploading an image to commons you are allowing anyone to make derivative works of that image for whatever purpose they like, that includes removing your watermark if they so wish. --JD554 (talk) 09:02, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Diffusing catagories to much

In contrast to other users I find catagories more helpful than galleries because I can find a large amount of pictures with one click and it is also easier to add pictures to catagories than to galleries. Now, more and more categories are diffused and broken down into tiny pieces, so that this initial advantage of categories is lost. This could be solved, if there would be a fuction to show all pictures in a category including all subcategories. sidonius (talk) 17:40, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

What level of diffusion is appropriate depends largely on individual needs, so it's impossible to say how much is too much. Searching for images in a specific category and its subcategories (down to a given depth) is one of the many uses for the CatScan tool. Select the Commons wiki, enter your category and recursion depth, and select "for all images." It's a toolserver-based solution and not exactly blindingly fast, but it seems to perform the requested task. —LX (talk, contribs) 19:24, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

This idea is incorporated to my proposal at Strategy wiki.--Kozuch (talk) 15:42, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Reportagen geração em tecnologia

A projeção de uma página é bastante óbvia de acordo com cada sensão , uma distribuição de gastos para uma grande reportagem e com sucesso de um grande enpreendimento. Para tudo o que for conseguir de acordo com o seu auge , de uma educação a extremidade do QI ,é uma inteligencia fora do sério , para muitas pessoas ainda é algo estranho e sobre natural mais sabendo de cada coisa óbvia de hoje em dia por isso sempre se mantenha informado das mudanças da Física , medicina , ciencias e entre outras ... É ESTA A REPORTÁGEM QUE EU TENHO HOJE PARA LHE DAR .Só basta ter uma inteligencia fértil e bastante estudada para coisas óbvias etc... Mas sermpre siga as minhas dicas que você vai ter um ótimo enpreendimento em sua reportagem ou dedicação profissional de cada Ânbito de seu grande empreendimento. Um grande pensamento em grandes gerações de seu futuro , a glória vem de um fracaso ...Mas a dignidade vem da luta de cada um de nós. Cada contribuição com cada menbro de cada instituição de ornabilidade de várias frequência de cada opinião... Mas saiba que tudo vem de uma coisa que muitas das vezes n´s nem percfebmo s em nossa subvlime atualidade de revogação de um erro cometido poir lei judicial , . Tomar cuidado com as coisa que nos fazem mal mesmo sem nós percebermos ,basta apenas um toque para uma coisa bem diversificada aconpanhando com o desenvolvimento do Mundo . O consumismo é uma coisa bastante provavel entre anbos os aspectos . De cada ãnbito de uma conciência generalizada para cada um de nós ,A infro estrutura de cada monumento não pode ser interronpido por nenhum de seua aspectos fisíológicos . Nada é do jeito como nós pensamos tudo tem sua opinião o sei porquê ?do que e do algo são aspectos bastantes direcionáveis hoje em dia para cada um de nós.Tem um serta generalização de um serto progresso para um ânbito nacional e internacional . O governo aprova várias coisas mas depende do seu conhecimento sobre o que eles falam ,é bom saber que tudo seja uma priorização de estudo .

Pois as coisas são bem conplicadas de acxordo com o que precisa então ,ajudew a si mesmo a cadav dia em cada lugar ou gerencia de cada aspecto singular .A grandes coisas que nos fazem crescer como entendimento de uma atualização de sua opinião sobre algo, por isso o esforço sobre algo nunca é demais ... Saiba tudo o que uma boa reportagem quer lhe trazer em tempo e ewspaço aberto sobre uma tecnologia fora do sério , em meio de um instante o meio de comunicação em um instantes tudo sircula ao meio de uns fios que levam até vocês em casa no trabalho , e em vários outros aspécto são bastante prováveis de ouvir quaisquer ou outra repotagem de várias maneiras do tipo :violência ,roubo , culinária ,festas entre outras por hoje eu tenho somente into para dizer ... Byy

                Byyyyyy
                            
                   reportagem descrita no dia :27/10/2009
         Feito pela assistente de reportagem da wikipédia do meu sistema de navegação :
                  --201.57.224.242 18:24, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Batch uploading

Some sort of batch uploading/tagging system for similar files would be helpful (eg pictures from a vacation). Right now I just open up a bunch of simple uploader tabs and flip between them, copy/pasting all the identical information. Dar-Ape 00:02, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Exactly, this is the point. --Sokoljan (talk) 09:54, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Such a tool is in place already - see Commonist page.--Kozuch (talk) 10:32, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

This usability issue with multiple uploads seems to be a common theme. And though "Commonist" does exist, its not really the solution people are looking for. We want something integrated on the website, you know like modern websites do it. Hell, even technological simple Craigslist has multiple uploads. We do not want to have to download and install third party software onto our computers. For one thing, I would need to install it on all my computers, and some people do still use public computers at internet cafes, libraries, etc. and may not be able to install the software. So, address the problem with a real solution, not a work-around. Aboutmovies (talk) 08:32, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you - a web based interface is always better. You can run Commonist without installing too thouhg - it is a Java app which you can be run on 95+% computers usually, given that you have such a rights to run Java app on the machine - not sure this is the case in each library, but you surely can use it at home without the need of an install.--Kozuch (talk) 07:25, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Uploading...

As such i wish to upload many Multimedia items which can be helpful in Wiki Projects, but main thing which hinders me from doing this is Complexity of procedures. The main thing is Lesser information for help. The concepts of Uploading entities like OTRS, Licensing e.t.c. Though they are explained but not easy to understand the concept behind them & should be eased. Also search-ability is not good many a times i am not able to find media so i upload them, but later found that they are available. Another issue is with logos, symbols its not easy to get them uploaded as compared to wikipedia uploading options. (  Abu Torsam  06:28, 28 October 2009 (UTC))

türkçe

cosmos türkçe olursa o zaman ilgilenirim. --Son kahraman (talk) 09:09, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

The survey

THis survey concerning WikiCommons should be reviewed. Many answers can be complementary, I had to answer "very rarely" when my answer was "never" (concerning uploading videos). I doubt the result of this survey will be reliable to take good decisions because the information it will give won't be complete. Cgadbois (talk) 17:06, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

metamofose vlinder :bont zandoogje

Bont zandoogje

Hoe ziet hij eruit?

Het bont zandoogje is een bruine vlinder met kleine gele vlekjes die leeft in het bos. Het mannetje zit vaak op kleine zonnige plekjes in het bos te wachten op een vrouwtje. Die zonnige plekjes zien er net zo uit als zijn eigen gele vlekjes, zodat je hem soms bijna niet ziet zitten. Als er een ander mannetje op zijn plekje komt jaagt hij hem snel weg. Dan vliegen ze om elkaar heen hoog de lucht in

Waar kun je hem vinden? Als je in Noord-Brabant, Oost-Nederland of de duinen van Zeeland, Terschelling of Texel woont, heb je veel kans om deze vlinder te zien, want daar komt hij veel voor. Waar leven de rupsen? Het vrouwtje legt haar eitjes op gras dat half in de schaduw staat. Het bont zandoogje leeft in de winter als rups of als pop.

Waar leven de rupsen?

Het vrouwtje legt haar eitjes op gras dat half in de schaduw staat. Het bont zandoogje leeft in de winter als rups of als pop. In de winter komt hij uit als rups of als pop

Adding a batch of photos in one session

I often upload several photos in one session, not necessarily different angles of the same object. The main niggle is the way the Destination Filename gets automatically generated by the Wikimedia computer. This is user-unfriendly because it wipes any name I may have given it and automatically gives it the source filename on my computer or camera memory card. One complication of this is that it generates the red-framed error message that my new upload will over-write an existing filename. The only time this is helpful is immediately after I have clicked on the Upload button.

After I have uploaded the first picture, I use the back arrow on my web browser to get to the upload file page with most of the boxes filled in to save time. I do not want the Wikimedia computer to generate an automatic destination filename but only to give me a warning if I have not renamed this. -- Robert of Ramsor (talk) 17:17, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

I often encounter the same problem; it would be great to see the behaviour of this changed. The same also applies to the description box, which frequently (and irritatingly) gets reset whilst doing multiple uploads of related pictures. Mike Peel (talk) 23:18, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Oriacua

Oriacua Nacido en republica dominicana 1 de febrero de 1996 developer de maple story

File:Http://img33.imageshack.us/i/mybannerblinkyeb496ac9f.gif/

== Historia ==

en el 2007 oriacua hizo su primer server Jest-Ms el q no tuvo mucho fama pero las personas que los jugaron le gusto bueno el server alos 5 meses fue cerrado y por errores de hosting y problemas de internet en el 2008 oriacua creo su nuevo server Gamez-Ms revolution que fue la siguiente vercion de Gamez-Ms Gamez-Ms Revolution fue creado por Jesus Baqui y Oriacua, Donde se encontraban los GMs Cynthia, Camilo, Jan, Niel, Zarukiro, Kilmo, Sebax, Luego de los dos meses El server fue cerrado por que oriacua no lo podia mantener abierto con su trabajo de developer Oriacua continuo con su investigaciones de servers en el 2009 oriacua encontro un Server esta vez oriacua se unio al server llamado GeniusMs el server del ADM Y DEVELOPER Darkdemon oriacua se unio a el y se hicieron socios aalos 5 meses aproximado de GeniusMs fue cerrado.

Luego oriacua y Darkdemon esta vez con Waly formaron otro grupo y formaron MakyMs que es el nuevo server Oriacua era Gm alos inicios del Server pero Tuvo Problemas y dejo de serlo por varias ocaciones dejo su puesto de Gm en MakyMs y hasta haora el Server a estado abierto.

Hasta entonces No se ha sabido noticias de Oriacua solo de su Foro Gamez-Explorer.Net no se ha sabido hasta entonces si volvera hacer otro server o se unira con alguien mas.

'''Douglas Muzzi'''

Eu sou indescritivel

The saga of unidentified photos

Here is my little story: I came across some photos of a college town somewhere in the mid west (U.S.A.), in the request for capiton category. So I figured I will search the web. Well, these unidentified photos were simply being mirrored across cyberspace (the web). I realized this when one search return link led me back to Wikimedia commons.

If there is no way to identify what the picture is about, and if it doesn't have a source that goes with the picture that can help identify the picture, then delete it right away or after a very short time. It seems to me that those pictures were being retained in the hopes that someone would come along and identify them. To me this seems to be totally random - wiki-commons is waiting for a totally random person to come along who will recognize the picture.

It is also kind of like crossing fingers hoping it all works out. Pictures like this, without identification, are the responsiblity of the person who downloaded them, not the responsibility of Wikimedia or the volunteers who put in their time.

I was a new user back then, just learning the ropes. If it happened now, I would put them up for speedy deletion. And I would have good reason. Images like this are taking up valuable bandwidth. Also, that bandwidth has to paid for somewhere down the road.

So you asked us to define the problem - this is one that I have defined. Thanks for your time. Ti-30X (talk) 22:36, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Picture uploads should be less complicated!

I use wikipedia very often... every single day! I just wanted to start adding pictures in articles, nothing serious, just simple stuff like photos of bands and other people when they were missing in the very beginning of the article. I registered, but i did not know that the process of uploading was so complicated. Too many questions and extra information to give. I hope I am not the only one concerned about it, I hope that something will be done.

Thank you very much. Wikimedia is Outstanding I admire what you do!

SVG and PNG

SVG Files as known as Scalable Vector Graphics

Downloading downsized files

I recently bought a full frame, 25 megapixel DSLR camera and am a little concerned by the size of the generated files (over 5 mio for a regular file, more for panoramas). It is very (too) large for many people but I am reluctant to reduce the size of my pictures because the full definition can also be useful to other.

This issue could be resolved by allowing users to download intermediate, downsampled versions, either on demand (if possible) or standard sizes (like on flickr.com). inisheer (talk) 17:17, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

For logged in users, there is a gadget available in the preferences. --AVRS (talk) 17:49, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. It could be interesting to make it available for unlogged users as well, as bandwidth is usually not a problem to me. inisheer (talk) 18:41, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Cat sort on usage

Hi,

Maybe a good idea would be a way to sort a category on the usage of the files, since a week maybe 2 is there a checkusage on the WMF servers and when we could sort a category on the usage it would be much easier to delete dupes and other things.

Best regards, Huib talk 10:35, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Abolish the distinction between categories and galleries

In 2004 and 2005, ther question how to use galleries vs. categoriesy on commons was hotly debated [2]. there's still no real consensus, just resignation to a status quo, and the distinction keeps baffeling new users. It really makes no sense to have two pages for many topics, which are tricky to keep in sync, and sometimes are not even properly linked to each other.

I suggest to work towards removing the distinction, or at least making it irrelevant to users. When looking up a topic, the top part should use a structured/commented "best-of" gallery, of available, while the bottom part contains an unsorted list of media in the category (perhaps only loaded on demand). sub-topics and super-topics (pages and/or categories, without distinction!) should always be shown in a prominent way, for easy navigation. -- Duesentrieb ⇌ 23:01, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Often I don't know where to go first: "Something" or "Category:Something"? Since categories may display content just as a normal page do, why don't we put the content of Something into the Category:Something page? — Delhovlyn (discuter / talk) 20:47, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I also agree. The idea of a gallery is great, however, there just aren't that many editors creating them. Thus, the existing ones contain few images, separate few images from their corresponding categories and complicate linking. mahanga (talk) 05:03, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

I fully support using Category pages for some gallery content too.--Kozuch (talk) 07:48, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Linking commons image to facebook does not show any preview

Maybe it's not exactly Commons related, but if you try to link a common image on Facebook, all you'll get to display is a link and no preview for it.
For example, if you try to link to File:Gull portrait ca usa.jpg (just a random example), it will show a link and no preview to it, while other sites will have a link and an image preview...
Not sure if this needs to be fixed on Commons side or on facebook side (maybe on both?)
It is minor, but it could allow to make Commons more known...
PS: The fb faq says it has something to do with missing metadata http://www.facebook.com/help.php?page=416&hloc=en_US "I don’t have a preview for my link" ) Esby (talk) 15:15, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

For those unable to access Facebook, here's what it says..

If a preview is not displaying correctly for your URL, you may need to contact the webmaster of the site you are trying to share to check whether it meets Facebook's requirements.

In order to generate a Share preview successfully, a website must include the following three meta tags in its source HTML:

<meta name="title" content="Article headline here" /><meta name="description" content="Article summary here" /><link rel="image_src" href="http://www.example.com" />

Please make sure that this site includes these tags in the section of its HTML. Also, note that these tags are case-sensitive and URLs must be absolute. For more information, click the "How do I make sure the Share Preview works?" link at the bottom of http://www.facebook.com/share_partners.php.

If you have determined that this site includes all of the necessary metatags but it is still not generating the correct preview, please submit a report here.

mahanga (talk) 18:00, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I have experienced the same problem.--Kozuch (talk) 09:43, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Searching and finding is key to the use and reuse of Commons

A repository like Commons is there to be used. In order to find illustrations to articles inside and outside of the Wikimedia Foundation projects, it is essential that we are able to find the sought for media files and, it is necessary to appreciate them because of available annotations. Given that our search results only support English and given that our categories are available only in English Commons is effectively useless for people who do not understand the language. With over 270 Wikipedias in other languages, an English only Commons is simply not acceptable.

When the categories make use of a lexical support system, we can allow people to find whatever has translations available in another language. There are and have been multiple approaches to this. The one by Duesentrieb and my own are the best known examples of this.

Given that reuse is what makes Commons relevance, it is funny when you consider that so far the approach has been to improve on adding content to Commons. I am of the opinion that Commons has enough of a repository that we should give reuse at least the same priority as adding content to Commons. Thanks, GerardM (talk) 11:31, 2 December 2009 (UTC)