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February 1

Picture of the Year voting is now open

Interested in honouring the best of the best? Vote now in the
Commons Picture of the Year competition 2006
Voting to select the finalists is open until 14th February.

Well done to the guys who have organised this. I was sceptical about this competition, but you have done a great job at setting up reasonable voting rules, writing clear explanations, gathering translations, and publicising it quite widely. I think it will be great way to yet again showcase some of our fantastic works, raise the profile of these 231 images (maybe they will get used in a lot more wikis? let's hope so!) and raise awareness in a very positive way of Commons' utility and multilinguality. In a way I think it will be a very good little "PR exercise" for Commons within Wikimedia, which is usually a good thing. :) So well done, and let's hope we have more voters than the Board elections ;) and no scandals either. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 14:07, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

EMF to SVG converter recommendations?

A little while back I tagged Category:Climate diagrams metric german Walther+Lieth as being good candidates for future SVG conversion. I've since been told by the editor who originally created the images that the software which produces them actually generates .emf files that he converts to PNG, which looks like excellent news because the EMF format is vector-based. I did some hunting around for EMF to SVG converters and the most promising hit appeared to be TotalVectorize but I was wondering if anyone else had recommendations. Bryan Derksen 10:17, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and while I'm at it I suggested to him that a quick and dirty way of "internationalizing" these graphs might be to simply crop away the data table on the right and the title from the top. Anyone know of a program that can do a batch process of cropping images like that? Bryan Derksen 10:22, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

en:ImageMagick is good for batch-processing of bitmap images, like cropping. It also has limited support for SVG and also EMF iirc - it may even be able to do the conversion you want. For simple graphics that may be sufficient - but generally, ImageMagick tends to be rather bad at processing vector graphics.

LaTeX's transfig/xfig can convert tex fig files to emf and svg both - maybe there's also a tool to convert emf to fig? -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 13:10, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Editing of heavily used templates

I frequently see unnecessary edits to heavily used templates - minor corrections of spelling, changes of layout, colors and logos, changes of wording that are then reverted, etc. People don't seem to realize that if you edit a template, all pages using it are rerendered. So edits to heavily used templates place a heavy load on the servers, and may even slow down the site for some time.

I suggest to a) protect heavily used templates (used more than, say, 5000 times), and require that changes must be discussed on the talk page first. b) educate people about editing template - perhaps a boler plate text (in a template, yes) could be placed on the talk pages of all the protected templates (or in a <noinclude> section, or both).

As far as I know, the english wikipedia has a similar policy in place for quite a while now (but i don't know the details). I could provide a list of templates used on commons, along with the number of uses, sorted with heavily used first. I would then suggest to start protecting the templates at the top of that list, down to some point. What do you think? -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 12:45, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I believe we already protected the most used ones ({{Self}}, {{Information}}, common used licensing templates). Btw, you can find the job queue on Special:Statistics. -- Bryan (talk to me) 12:51, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The downside of how this works on En.wiki is that any discussion started on the talk page remains unanswered until a "edit protected" tag is added. Once this tag is added the first person to spot it will (unless it's a trivial edit) remove the tag since the edit hasen't been properly discussed first... and so we're back at square one where no discussions take place. /Lokal _Profil 13:41, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

we don't need to be that formal.

Anyway, a few numbers: There are 89 templates on commons that are used more than 5000 times [1], 61 of them are unprotected [2] (two of those are semi-protected).

The second-most used template on commons (after Template:edit) is Template:Lang, used 753226 times. It's not protected currently (I will do that now). Next would be Template:Self (599278 times) and Template:Self2 (359924 times). I really think we should keep an eye on that -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 13:50, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've never seen the workqueue here go too high, perhaps we should wait until we see that or until someone like Brion complains before we start protecting for load reasons. Obviously protection to avoid vandalism to high profile templates, as we already do, is okay. --Gmaxwell 13:49, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'll ask Brion and Tim to comment on this when thy come online. But the thread of vandalism should be reason enough to protect those templates: many of them are used on image description pages, which are automatically transcluded to other wikis. By editing the right template, you can currently deface a couple of million pages across several hundred wikis. not good. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 13:54, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

For about two nanoseconds, though.

Trivia: after editing template:self, I have checked the job queue and it's been about a million. I have no idea if that is outrageous or not, although usually it is zero.

Not trivia: we may want to look into protecting the /lang templates that accompany license templates. they are transcluded into the license templates, which are then transcluded into the x million pages. or were they already covered in the analysis above? pfctdayelise (说什么?) 13:59, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

yes, they are covered. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 14:15, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

{{Self2}} and {{Self3}} are already redirecting to {{Self}}. They job queue indeed raised very high when I did this action. I think there is no reason not to protect them. Any changes can be proposed on the COM:AN, which is heavilier watched then the talk pages of those templates. -- Bryan (talk to me) 14:04, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

the redirects would have to be protected too, otherwise, they are just as vulnerable. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 14:15, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As was said above, the most widely used are protected already. I would agree that if some high profile ones are not.. we should probably protect them. However, if we haven't yet seen any vandalism on them.. it would be a little paranoid of us considering how open everything else is. --Gmaxwell 14:01, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm really scared of trying it out... also keep in mind that it's not so easy to find out what to do if you suddeny see The Gaping Anus (TM) on thousands of image description pages on, say, the japanese wikipedia. You have to find your way to commons, dig through nested and redirected templates, find the right one, and cause another spike in the job queue.

Too me, such templates are a vulnerable part of commons infrastructure. I think that's reason enough to protect them preemtively.

Perhaps we can find a compromise by negotiating the threshold - 100000 uses? 50000? 10000?... I suggested 5000 initially. Maybe i'm too paranoid. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 14:15, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What about a warning that's noinclude-ed that editing this template is not to be done lightly, and only protect the really really heavily used ones? I think there is merit in all the points raised, that we want to protect for good reasons and we want to stay unprotected for good reasons... ++Lar: t/c 16:36, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It might be an idea to edit semi-protect and move protect all licensing tags; with full protection for the really important ones. If we can develop a workable {{Editprotected}} system we can protect a lot more.--Nilfanion 16:50, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think we have a workable editprotected system: it's called "ask an admin of your choice or go to the village pump, the notice board, or the IRC channel". Anyway - semi-protection is probably enough to keep away the worst of vandalism. To use it for all license tags (and their respective language templates, and maybe also the translations) seems a good idea to me. To avoid unnecessary edits, maybe it would be enough to have a noincluded warning... hm. Does someone want to make a pretty box? I don't feel CSSish tonight. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 20:23, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OK, here's my proposal for tagging highly used templates:

Note: this templates is used on very many pages. To keep edits to a minimum, please discussed proposed changes on the talk page first.

Keep in mind that editing a template causes all pages that use the template to be re-rendered. If the template is used often, this can cause a lot of load on the servers.
Keep in mind that templates that are used on image description pages also show up on other wikis. Changing such templates can effect a lot of pages on dozens if not hundreds of projects.
Highly used templates may be protected to prevent prominent vandalism and unnecessary edits. If this is the case, ask an administrator to apply the changes that you have proposed on the talk page, for example by asking at Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/Attention

The trouble is, to place it on the template page, I would have to edit each of the most used templates :/

Anyway - any suggestions? -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 21:20, 4 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Embassies of Washington

Hi all.

At List of Washington there are a lot of images of embassies in Washington D.C. - pretty much all of them are freely licensed, but unfortunately most of them have been uploaded solely to the English Wikipedia.

It would take me far too long if I had to upload all the pictures manually to Commons myself. Is there any way to do that quickly? Or would anyone be willing to help? --Lhademmor 12:47, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The CommonsHelper tool will help, but you still have to do it manually at this stage. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 23:47, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Deletion debate about copyvio organisation logo

I think that Commons:Deletion requests/Image:Flag of Hezbollah.svg could use some community input. At issue is the Flag of Hezbollah, which we appear to carry as a copyvio, but which is very widely used. In the discussion, it has been pointed out that several other widely used logos and flags on Commons appear to also fail the licencing policy, and this is being given as a reason to keep them all. Once this particular discussion is over, I suggest we should either organise a systematic cleanup of flags and logos, or - I suppose this is the alternative if the image is kept - amend our policies to allow for widely used copyrighted logos of notable organisations. Sandstein 17:44, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Official (national) flags and insignia are very different from company logos, the two have to be treated differently. The gray area of logos of underground orginasations, NGOs or even the UN are really tricky. I'm not sure if they can be discussed at-large at all. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 20:27, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Incomplete deletion requests

I've added a Parser Function to {{Delete}} to add incomplete requests to this category. By "incomplete" I mean those where there is no deletion discussion linked from the page. We have known for some time that there are lots of orphaned {{Delete}}s out there, this gives us a way of sorting them out: by either retagging or completing the request as appropriate. Looking at the size of the category we have well over 1000 in there, get working people :)--Nilfanion 18:09, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Great work! -- Bryan (talk to me) 19:01, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ya, well done Nilfanion! --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 23:51, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Special:ImportFreeImages to be enabled on Commons?

I made the bug request here. You can vote for the bug to be emailed updates about it, but please don't "cheerlead" for it there; you can do that here. :) --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 23:56, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Before voting, are there any particular downsides on this? -- Bryan (talk to me) 15:57, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

None that I'm aware of. You can test it out yourself at [3] (you'll need to register an account of course). pfctdayelise (说什么?) 12:42, 3 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Just one : it can't be localised as yet. It would be better if the author of this extension could provide an i18n file (shouldn't be too hard IMO after a quick look at the code). le Korrigan →bla 19:22, 3 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Also : one cannot add categories or a description during upload. This may make import "too easy" and we might end up with a bunch of nice pictures with a good license but only useless descriptions and no categories. Maybe the possibility to add a standard message like "please now add a category and a description would be good" (or a standard category, like "Category:Uncategorised Flickr images")... le Korrigan →bla 19:26, 3 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe we can't have everything, good descriptions and good licenses. :P It's only one extra step to edit the image page. We can put a big notice on Special:ImportFreeImages that after importing they must edit the page and put categories and a description of what the image shows. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 06:26, 4 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, sure, I'd like to have this extension anyway given the number of Flickr images I import :-) but i18n will be a premium for Commons. Cheers, le Korrigan →bla 10:29, 4 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

For sure. I mentioned this to Travis and he told me it was translatable in a standard way. See [4] and search for 'flickr' - there are a bunch of MediaWiki messages that apply to it. So I think it should be fine. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 11:12, 4 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

February 2

Alexis Bledel

[5] Good enough ? 13:15, 2 February 2007 (UTC).

The picture can not be used for commercial purposes. Dantadd✉ 14:15, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Or derivatives either. We cannot use that image on Commons for several reasons! Cary "Bastiq▼e" Bass ^demandez 14:22, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. (Cary: the exclamation mark was unnecessary) 14:31, 2 February 2007 (UTC).

In addition of the several, this is not his work [6] (so he probably is violating copyright himself, but that's none of my buisness). The point is that is doesn't even make sense to ask him whether he'd be wanting to change the licence. Rama 14:40, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My picture

Can anybody delete this picture: Image:Plagiaterklärung (Muster).svg. I don't know how to mark it for deletion... thx. --Nutzer 2206 16:37, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Next time you can just add {{speedydelete|Reason}} to the image description page (and replace the word "Reason" with the reason you want it deleted). —An gr 16:59, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Image:Wiki washington post jeep jpg.jpg

Is this a legitimate GFDL image or is this a copyright-infringing derivative work? Rmhermen 17:07, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Also this image: Image:Wiki Jeep With Reporter.jpg. Rmhermen 17:12, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I am concerned they are copy vio's and should be deleted (both from here and WP). Taking a scan of a copyrighted source, adding a couple of photoshop filters to it (or tracing round it in an image editing program) and then claiming it as GFDL is a supremely weak defence. I could just scan in entire copyrighted books etc. and do this - i.e. copyrighting things would be a waste of time if this was allowed. SFC9394 13:30, 3 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Image:Wiki washington post jeep jpg.jpg is tagged as Fair Use on en: and should be deleted on the spot. Image:Wiki Jeep With Reporter.jpg seems to be a derivative work as well, but what of? Unfortunately the original uploader hasn't contributed to en: since November 2006. Jastrow (Λέγετε) 18:21, 3 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I was the one who changed the license from GFDL to fair use for Image:Wiki washington post jeep jpg.jpg on en: Wikipedia. I will list these two for deletion here. Rmhermen 02:13, 4 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Both are now deleted. --Fb78 18:57, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

February 3

Flag of the Vatican City

Hi, I don't know if it is the right place for this question, but is my first time that I write here. The question is: it is possible to change the keys emblem over the flag of the Vatican City (Image:Flag of the Vatican City.svg) with this one that I made modifing the original one (Image:Emblem of the Papacy SE.svg)? Thank you and regards, --F l a n k e r 10:38, 3 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I see, you already replaced the emblem. That's what I wanted to suggest you: If it's an improvement, it should be okay to replace it. Enricopedia ⇄ 16:47, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, yes is only an improvement, geometries are more smooth. Eh eh, I've posted here the 3 February and have replaced the flag today, I'm an impatient man... if someone don't like my improvements can easily rollback. --F l a n k e r 19:09, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

February 4

I don't undstand how to upload and tag an image >>> I OWN <<<<

I have been uploading highquality images that I OWN.

I have been tagging them as self, attribution share alike 2.5 licensing. I have sent the appropriate permissions to permissions@wikimedia.org.

The images are deleted repaetedly by Yann.

Please help!

Drewk 04:56, 4 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Drewk refers to OTRS Ticket#: 2007013110000999. The permission seems ok to me. Kjetil _r 05:22, 4 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Handball fotos to upload

Hello! Can anyone chech this site : http://www.ihf.info/front_content.php?idcat=17. There are good fotos about Handball. Information given at that site: These pictures are available for high-resolution download free of charge. Please note these pictures are for the use of media publications only. Can we use those fotos at Commons? Is it media publication ??? Klapi 17:57, 4 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Commons only accepts images that can be: unlimitely redistributed by anyone, commercially used by anyone, be built upon by anyone. So the answer is no. Please see {{Unfree}} and Commons:Licensing for more information. -- Bryan (talk to me) 18:16, 4 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The wording is very strange. How, except in a media publication, can a digital image be used? Books are media publications too, so are computer programs. I suspect that those terms of use are not though out very well - probably it was supposed to mean something like "news reports in TV, press and on the net". It might be worth the time to ask for a free license for some of the images. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 10:51, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I would try asking about permission (unfortunately I've got a lack of time until the end of the week). Is there a wolunteer to help ? Klapi 21:03, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Whoever asks, please use Commons:Email templates or Commons:Emailvorlagen -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 14:07, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Remove copyright remark

I would like to remove the copyright remark from Image:A400m.jpg. Since the image is under the GFDL with no invariant sections etc., that should be OK from a legal point of view, right? --Sebastian Koppehel 21:40, 4 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, go ahead. Kjetil _r 21:47, 4 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, section 4 E of the GFDL states that you must "Preserve all copyright notices of the Document." —LX (talk, contribs) 06:25, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hm. You are right. I never considered that. I guess we must discuss whether a (C) symbol as part of the image itself constitutes a "copyright notice". In 4.F they say Include, immediately after the copyright notices, a license notice giving the public permission to use the Modified Version under the terms of this License, in the form shown in the Addendum below. This suggests that the 'copyright notices' are separate from the document, and in our case I would argue are more equivalent to the image description page, the {{Information}} text. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 07:02, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is the kind of ambiguity that makes me love the GFDL so much. Or not. I think the intent of the licence is as you interpret, to preserve all unique statements of copyright (in other words: credit all contributors) rather than to preserve repeated ones, which is what it seems to literally say. I guess the rationale we can use to justify removal of the text from within the image itself as long as the notice kept with the image is that it doesn't say to preserve it in the same location in the work. —LX (talk, contribs) 16:13, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would say that the copyright notices only apply to the actual GFDL licenses. And copyleft is evil. -- Bryan (talk to me) 19:52, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what license is

I've just uploaded a map based on a public domain created by a U.S. Army soldier or employee, with only minor changes. Shall I license it with "This image is a work of a U.S. Army soldier or employee, taken or made during the course of the person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain. Subject to disclaimers.", as the original image? But I am not a "U.S. Army soldier or employee", and I did part or the work of the new image. --Amizzoni 23:12, 4 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

When you create a derivative work of a public domain image, you may choose the license yourself. Use either {{PD-self}}, {{GFDL-self}} or {{self|cc-by-2.5}}. Kjetil _r 00:43, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There is also {{PD-retouched-user}} /Lokal _Profil 02:21, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thaks, I chose GFDL. --Amizzoni 03:41, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

February 5

Dealing with misuse of copyrighted free use

{{Copyrighted free use}} is probably the most frequently misused licensing tag on Commons. I've suggested the addition of a note similar to that used in {{PD-because}} urging those using the media to verify the licence if possible. Please discuss at Template talk:Copyrighted free use#Suggested_disclaimer. —LX (talk, contribs) 06:21, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

{{npd}} --Benn Newman 15:59, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Again, please keep discussions at Template talk:Copyrighted free use#Suggested_disclaimer. —LX (talk, contribs) 03:17, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

wiki website

What is the mediawiki package programmed in, where can I find the source code, and how can I be a part of the project?

You will find all necessary information at http://www.mediawiki.org/ --Matt314 10:01, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Apparent change in Special:Upload

It looks to me that Special:Upload has changed: the dropdown list for licensing no longer includes one that is effectively only {{self|GFDL}}. Instead, one must either add CC-by-2.5 or leave out "self". How was a decision made to change this (the process was opaque to me)? Is there a good reason for this change? - en:Jmabel | talk 22:27, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Done by pfctdayelise and explained on talk page. -- Bryan (talk to me) 22:31, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As it says on Special:Upload ('license tag if not chosen below'), you can still write in whichever (valid) license you like. If you like {{self|GFDL}} then you can keep writing it in, it is totally valid. I chose to remove a bunch to conserve space and keep the list without scrolling. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 02:22, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

February 6

Help with license

Hello! I would like to upload here this image from English Wikipedia. However, its license is a bit confusing. It has two revisions which seem to contradict themselves. In addition it does not credit its origin and it has a fair use rationale even though fair use is not claimed. What should we do with it? Thank you.--SMP (talk page) 15:08, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fair use is much more likely in this case. I think you need to change license to fair use. --EugeneZelenko 15:58, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

But? The current version says that it is a Copyrighted-Free Use image.--SMP (talk page) 13:07, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes and it is probably wrong. So you unfortunately cannot upload it to Commons. -- Bryan (talk to me) 19:02, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that its author has answered in the talk page. Could someone go and check what is said? I do not understand it (I am not a native English-speaker). --SMP (talk page) 10:12, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have foud that it is a possible copyright violation. It appears in here with a (© Jean-Baptiste Mondino) mark. I do not know the process in wp:en to submit an image copyvio. Could you help me?--SMP (talk page) 13:57, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

February 7

Categories vs. Galleries

I'm totally convinced that this discussion has been had before but I would like to address it again to se if there is at least a consensus on how not to act. I know that different parts of Commons seem to prefer different systems. The heraldry section uses mainly categories and the tree of life section uses mainly gallery pages. I've read tons of discussions about the pros and cons of the different systems and it's obvious that there is no consensus on which to use or even whether both should be used. 'This discussion is not about which one is preferred but rather it is about how aggressive both parties should be tolerated to be. Lately I've seen categories (outside tree of life) being emptied in favour of gallery pages and I've seen at least one case of edit-wars over the be or not to be of the categorisation of an image. Basically I'm asking on the opinion of the community about the prominent three cases.

Removing the categorisation of an image in favour of a gallery page
Removing the image from a gallery in favour of categorisation
Adding an image to a gallery/Category which is already in a category/gallery

/Lokal _Profil 01:07, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say don't (everything being in a category and being able to tell what's not is useful), don't (some people feel that galleries should showcase only the best, so removing for that purpose can be okay, but don't remove useful information just because you disagree with how someone else chooses to use Commons; if you prefer categories over galleries – like me – and galleries offend you terribly, don't look at galleries!), and do (adding information is never a sin), respectively. I'd also say that it's fine to create a gallery or a category even where the other already exists. —LX (talk, contribs) 03:40, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Though I prefer galleries (you can give an explanation of images), i fully agree with LZ. Electionworld 07:49, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Adding should always be OK, removing should be done judiciously - on the rare occasions that I remove something, it's either because of agreed-upon mistakes, or the persons involved are gone, or other affected editors are agreeable. Stan Shebs 04:30, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Good, then I know that my oppinion on this ids in line with what most of you think =) /Lokal _Profil 22:17, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Upload rules

Aren't the upload rules a bit strict? I would like to just be able to upload things, provided they are under an allowed license, saying who is the author and what is the license. It seems that now I am obliged to send an email with every upload. Is that really necessary? And why isn't it automated? - Andre Engels 10:25, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It depends. If you got a the image from a website which has stated on the website that it is under some free license, adding the link to that statement is enough. If you got permission by e-mail, you do need to forward the e-mail to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org, so that the admins there can add a OTRS link. In anyway, it should be verifiable. -- Bryan (talk to me) 11:04, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) In my opinion if you can link to online evidence (a webpage) that the given license applies, that is enough. If you contacted the author to find out the license/ask them to use a free license, then that is when you should forward your email. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 11:14, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dual-licensing free (GFDL) and non-free (CC-NC/ND) licenses

Hello,

The question was asked about whether or not we should have templates that specify things like {{self|GFDL|cc-by-nc}} or {{self|GFDL|cc-by-nd}}. These are valid license combinations allowed on Commons, since we only require that at least one of the licenses is a free license. However the NC/ND licenses all redirect to speedy templates at the moment. I suggest we keep that that way. But we might create some custom templates like those above, which have the non-free templates "substed" in with warnings that the file is only allowed on the Commons because the other license is a free license, and we recommend to use that one... or something like that.

However I don't think we should create such templates, because I think we should actively encourage and promote the use of free licenses (more or less exclusively), not just passively exclude non-free ones.

Also, GFDL being the only free license is a big pain in the arse for offline use. :/

So to people who want to dual-license free and non-free, I suggest we tell them that they can manually write in the non-free licenses, and they should link to the license text at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ , but they shouldn't use a template for a non-free license.

What do other people think? --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 04:42, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I generally agree, but i'd like to point out two things:

There's a generic CC template: You can use {{CC|by-sa-nc}}, {{CC|by-sa-nc-nd}} etc to create a non-deletion, non-standard cc tag. I see no problem with that.
Please keep in mind that for example dual-licensing with cc-by-sa and cc-by-sa-nc is more free than cc-by-sa only: the dual licensing allows the authors of derivative work to license their creation for non-commerical use only, thus giving them more freedom of choice.

Regards -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 10:07, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

cc-by-sa & cc-by-sa-nc offers more choice for the re-user, but I wouldn't call it more free. I've also never seen anyone want to do that, but it's possible of course. The most common combination has been GFDL + some CC. I know I'm not the only one who dislikes GFDL as a(n only) license for images. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 10:32, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Right. The debate over which is more free is the same as the GPL/BSD debate. GPL ensures the freedom of the work and its derivatives, whereas BSD maximises the freedom of the recipient of the licensed work (though not necessarily of recipients of derivatives). —LX (talk, contribs) 15:17, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I believe CC has many advantages over GFDL, that it should be encouraged, and that it should be encouraged in its freest forms (i.e. without NC or ND restrictions); forms which are acceptable on their own. Most people seem to find licensing confusing enough as it is, and we shouldn't confound the issue further just because it's legally possible to do so. —LX (talk, contribs) 15:17, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

February 8

Reply from Commons?

Hello I have forwarded a permission letter (for a photo I want to upload) to the appropriate Commons address and weeks passed by, no answer came. How long is the checking process? Can I upload the photo with the (free) license (stated in the letter as weel) and add the commons-reply to the license later? I don't want to wait MONTHS to be able to upload a photo that was released by its owner into a CC License... --Teemeah 14:38, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, can you give us some details such as the subject line of the email and the date you sent it? Then one of our OTRS volunteers can investigate it and let you know what happened. cheers, pfctdayelise (说什么?) 14:42, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In general is there a place on commons where one can ask about potentially "lost e-mails" to permissions@... ? /Lokal _Profil 18:39, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is it Image:Aydilge.jpg? I'll ask an OTRS admin about it. -- Bryan (talk to me) 20:27, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I got a reply some hour ago. :)seemingly because of your help so thanks a lot!!! --Teemeah 22:07, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

@Lokal: here or the admin board should be good. Also IRC is often good (there is an OTRS room you can visit, too). pfctdayelise (说什么?) 00:43, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers, since this thread is already open I'll ask here this time. The subject line should have the name "Bernard Cloutier" in it./Lokal _Profil 20:43, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

LooKing... Cary "Bastiq▼e" Bass ^demandez 21:40, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Because the email cited some en articles, somehow it got dropped into the en.wikipedia queue, which is a bit further behind than the commons queue. I've moved it to the right queue and will take care of it. Cary "Bastiq▼e" Bass ^demandez 21:43, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks /Lokal _Profil 02:05, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Custom template for own photos

I want to fix up licensing (mostly to dual-license) and add a category to my uploads, and a custom template seems like a good way to ensure consistency among my 3600+ uploads. Are there any good models? I know Fir0002 has one, but can't seem to find a category of templates that are for individual uploaders. Stan Shebs 15:42, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Aka's is pretty cool, IIRC. Maybe check some of the FP regulars, I guess they are more likely to have them. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 00:46, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Image:Vfactoria.jpg

Could someone check out Image:Vfactoria.jpg and the website given in the desctiption? Is the licensing all-right? (Unforunately I don't speak Spanish..)--Bdamokos 23:51, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Without speaking Spanish, I am almost certain that this is not PD. This is probably a promotional only image. -- Bryan (talk to me) 11:41, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

February 9

Fair use question

Hi all, One question, could fair use photograph be printed on a commercial book?

It's a book consist of bio like Einstein, Helen Keller, Michael Jordan etc. We just want to put a tiny bit of (about) 20 kb worth of "what they look like" in the first section of the paragraph. I told my boss we can download from wiki commons because it's public domain, and use it (btw do we need to put on a source to such as www.commons.wikimedia.org?), but for other people that we don't find in commons I told her that we could make our case as fair use to avoid legal suit, if any, later on *grin*

But then I realize it is for commercial. Anyone could help? Serenity 04:08, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We can help you with any concerns you have about using Commons material, but we're not a general legal advice service.

If you list which pictures you are interested in using we can give you more specific advice about them. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 04:23, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm, ok about the general legal service thingy - I just thought u have problems all the time about fair use term, perhaps you'd like to share experience. But I take no for answer ;p

List:

(btw do we need to put on a source to such as www.commons.wikimedia.org?) Serenity 04:37, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Whether fair use applies, depends on the circumstances. That your work is commercial does not mean that there can't be fair use, it does mean that there is less that you can do under fair use. I know too little of American law to say anyhthing more specific. However, your claim that WikiCommons is public domain is NOT correct. You can use all material here, but only under its license. On the image description page of each image, it is shown what the license is. In general, PD can be used freely, CC-BY requires that you mention the photographer and CC-BY-SA that you mention the photographer and the license, and GFDL that you mention photographer and license, and also include the license in your book. - Andre Engels 09:45, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Also note that Commons (in contrast to the english Wikipedia for example) does not, and cannot, allow fair use material.

About fair use in general: as far as I understand, using a photograph of, for example, Einstein is fair use only if you discuss this specific image, not if you just write about Einstein. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 10:29, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Also note that if you use a CC-BY-SA or a GFDL image, and fair use does not apply, that you have to also freely license your book. This is called copyleft, and applies if your book could be considered a derivative work of the image. -- Bryan (talk to me) 11:22, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Books are mostly collective works, and my understanding is that if you use a cc-by-sa licensed image in a collective work, the collective doesn't have to be released with cc-by-sa. Samulili 11:38, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Since books, unlike Wikimedia Projects, are not generally intended to be reusable by downstream users, it's also quite feasible for you to request permission from the copyright holder if you want to use copyrighted images. —An gr 16:11, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would prefer not to use this interpretation. It would mean we have to remove all CC-BY-SA images from our wikis, since those are not CC-BY-SA but GFDL. Pushing this would do more harm than good. - Andre Engels 09:34, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

@Serenity: If the license info on the image says "This image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired. This applies to the United States, Canada, the European Union and those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 70 years." - you can use the image freely. --Fb78 16:53, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To Bryan: are books ever considered derivative works of images???? I have never heard that interpretation. Any examples? pfctdayelise (说什么?) 04:25, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not that I know of. But I am not a lawyer, so I suggest that Serenity gets some real legal advise, before using the images. -- Bryan (talk to me) 11:43, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you all, Very helpful.

Andre, v.clear, but I guess that CC-BY-SA has been cancelled out with Samulili statement, right?.

Thank you @ Bryan, I need to read more about that derivative work that you pointed out.

@ Ang, yeah, I will try that as a last resort --chasing down copyrighted material is not exactly my favorite activities.

@Fb78 thanks, basically the answer of my question is yes then :D Serenity 06:20, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

For quick delete

Image:Jennifer lopez wax.jpg

Image:Wax eltonjohn.jpg

Image:Sean connery waxstatue.jpg

Gridge 17:11, 9 February 2007 (UTC).[reply]

All deleted as {{Derivative}} works. Kjetil _r 17:17, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I guess... Gridge 17:20, 9 February 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Soccer players? Or footballers?

This from a discussion on IRC...but I found it odd that our footballer categories are under the "Soccer players from Foo" format. Given that "Footballer" is never used to refer to an American football player, and "Soccer player" is only used in North America, I have no issue with the whole lot being recategorized as "Footballers from Foo", even as someone from the US. I would "be bold" and change them, but I don't know if there was some discussion to resolve it this way or not. Anyway, thoughts? Cary "Bastiq▼e" Bass ^demandez 22:30, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

'Soccer player' is not only used in the US. Australia uses it too. But we recognise it's not the dominant meaning used by the rest of the world. There are other types of football as well, such as rugby league, rugby union, other national codes. 1) What does English Wikipedia do? and 2) Is there a pressing need to change the current system? Are people unhappy with it? pfctdayelise (说什么?) 04:28, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

For starters, there is en:Category:Footballers which currently has no articles but the following subcats:

Zzyzx11 22:47, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think the key thing is to distinguish between Football (soccer) footballers, Australian rules footballers, Gaelic footballers, and Rugby footballers. Just saying "Footballers from foo" is not specific enough. Zzyzx11 22:51, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

cascading protection

At the moment Hauptseite is semi-protected (edit=autoconfirmed:move=sysop) with the cascading protection activated. I would have expected that all included templates are therefore also semi-protected. As it turns out it was impossible to update Image:POTY barnstar 1.svg because it was potected against uploading new versions (not only for new users). Is this a bug? --Matt314 12:23, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is a feature, and is currently being discussed on #wikimedia-tech. -- Bryan (talk to me) 12:53, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

For now, cascading protection is only possible in the "heaviest" form, that is, all included pages will be fully protected, even when the primary page is not. NielsF|talk/overleg/discussion/discussione 13:22, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Excactly, and according to its implementer, Werdna, this is not likely to change very soon. Cascading semi protection also introduced a bug: users could fully protect a page by transcluding it in a semi cascaded page. I have therefore removed all cascading semi protection I could find on commons. -- Bryan (talk to me) 13:39, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your fast answers and removing the cascading option! --Matt314 15:36, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

February 10

Help with 'Eudyptes schlegeli'?

I have uploaded several photos - the prime subject of which is Macquarie Island. However, some of the photos also include Royal penguins, or Eudyptes schlegeli (MacquarieIsland7.JPG, MacquarieIsland8.JPG and MacquarieIsland9.JPG). I have tried to categorize these photos accordingly. However, they are not linking to the Eudyptes schlegeli page but instead try to create a new page. Would anyone be able to offer advice as to how to get the category link to direct to the correct page instead of creating a new one? Many thanks! Merteuil 16:55, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Created Category:Eudyptes schlegeli which is now a subcat of Category:Eudyptes. Also have put Eudyptes schlegeli into there. If you want to add your pictures to this gallery, you can do so by clicking the edit button. -- Bryan (talk to me) 18:37, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks! Everything is much clearer now (category page vs. a normal page)! Just wondering if maybe the Eudyptes schlegeli page under the Category:Eudyptes schlegeli page should be deleted? It is now basically a duplicate of the Category:Eudyptes schlegeli page. Thanks for your advice! Merteuil 21:29, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Heh, that is a longrunning debate here. :-) Note you can add captions to the images in Eudyptes schlegeli, and make subsections, which you can't do with Category:Eudyptes schlegeli. Stan Shebs 15:37, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Good point - will leave it be - thanks!! Merteuil 03:48, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I speak Hebrew and I wanted to get your opinions on the name Wiki-Share. For some reason, somebody chose to translate Wikimedia Commons into Hebrew as Wiki-Share. This happened way back in 2004 I think (I checked the main page history). I'm firmly against this name as Wikimedia Commons should be transliterated into Hebrew and not given a different name. I think it should be changed back to its real name, which is Wikimedia Commons. Yonatanh 20:59, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Some languages keep the English name Commons; some prefer to translate. It seems to me (and only to the extent that I'm familiar enough with the writing systems) that those languages using a non-Latin alphabet are more likely to translate - presumably on the grounds that if they're having to transliterate they might as well translate. I rather like the Russian Викисклад, which neatly expresses the concept of use. Since commons means that which is held in common, my personal opinion is that Wiki-Share is a reasonable version, but of course it may resonate differently for Hebrew-speakers. On nrm: I use C'meune, for what it's worth. Man vyi 21:35, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think its generally a bad idea to translate "proper names" - on the other hand, a name that is more "telling" to some community may help acceptance. So... I really don't know. Translated names give me an odd feeling, but I also kind of see the point. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 11:02, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yonatan, why don't you stop getting everything out of the he: Wikipedia, I see that you are depressed because of the criticism you received in our Wikipedia but it doesn't give you any respect when you "report" here everything we do. This, as well as other things, is an inside issue and nobody here can tell us how to call Wikimedia Commons in Hebrew. Also it's a bit sad that you want to "screw" us in any way, that you report things like that, which don't even matter. Yellow up 20:05, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yellow up, don't bring issues from another wiki into Commons, especially irrelevant ones. Yonatanh's message is interesting for us to know. It's not telling - of course it's a heWP issue, we can't control how you translate the name - but it's interesting for us to know. So discuss the issue and not the person, please. And leave heWP arguments at heWP. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 05:22, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, I just mentioned the most probable reason why he brought up this subject. Second of all, you said "It's not telling ... we can't control how you translate the name - but it's interesting for us to know", but Yonatan in his original message wanted you to force us to change to the English name, so it is telling. Third of all, you told me "leave heWP arguments at heWP", but you should tell that to Yonatan, not to me. Yellow up 15:51, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thinking I'm "out to get you" is borderline paranoia IMHO and in addition is also not true. I personally think wikishare is not the proper name for Commons which is why I raised this issue (after finding others in agreement with me). I don't see the relation to the Hebrew Wikipedia here as Commons is what it is and the Hebrew Wikipedia is a seperate entity and I don't see how it would "screw" the Hebrew Wikipedia if I the name was to be changed anyway as I didn't see that the translation was decided there. By the way, it's hard for me to get depressed due to things that happen on wikipedia and specifically the Hebrew Wikipedia. I'd also not characterize the harassment I received over there as criticism but whatever. Just another interesting fact, it's weird that your first edit in about two weeks at Commons happens to be here. I'd appreciate it if you can keep any disputes you have with me where they belong. Thanks, Yonatanh 04:13, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why not use the name in english, phonetically rendered, as the name but accompany it by some text that gives what it means in the native language? As for Yellow up's comment I think I agree with Pfctdayelise, we were being asked an opinion, not being asked to act beyond our scope, and being asked this question seems reasonable. "I think it should be changed" seems reasonable too, as that is just a statement of opinion. So, could we please all leave controversy behind when we come here, to the maxiumum extent possible? Thanks for understanding! ++Lar: t/c 16:38, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This was what I meant. Not keeping it as "Wikimedia Commons" but rather as "ויקימדיה קומונס" which is the Hebrew transliteration of it. To be honest, if somebody sees the name "Wikimedia Commons" in English they don't immediately think, "Oh, that's a repository of media." The same would obviously be true for Hebrew as well and wouldn't give the wrong impression that wikishare gives. Personally, the association that popped into my mind when I first saw the name wikishare was p2p software, etc. which is obviously not the case for Commons which is why I think the name is inappropriate (in addition to the fact that I feel the transliteration would be the best name, regardless of the inappropriacy of the name wikishare). Yonatanh 04:18, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

One might also take into consideration that Wikitravel - totally unrelated to the Wikipedia/Wikimedia world -, call their media depository/database "Wikitravel Shared" [7], so there might be a slight risk of confusion. -- Túrelio 09:37, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

February 11

Blocked

i got blocked on the main wiki because they thought i was vandalizing!!!! its not fair jump to link title

You probably got blocked on good grounds. And don't complain here, as there is nothing we can do for you. -- Bryan (talk to me) 18:46, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikinews Accreditation

Gmaxwell and I have applied for Wikinews Accreditation here. Given the opportunities we might have getting free photos of notable indivduals, I believe this is a good idea for our community as well. See how it goes with us and the Wikinews community. We can always use more good photographers! Cary "Bastiq▼e" Bass ^demandez 22:36, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I should comment that I decided to do this now because I just heard from another Wikimedian that she'd been denied access to a Barack Obama event which she was attending to photograph for us because the general public was not allowed to enter with a DSLR. I've been denied access in the past as well, so I certainly can see how press accreditation will help. I am somewhat concerned that the Wikinewsies are not used to photographers applying to their process, but we'll see.--Gmaxwell 22:56, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm the Wikimedian Greg is referring to, and I've also just applied for accreditation on Wikinews. Commons should definitely consider having an organized method for accrediting photographers, as this would both assist in gaining access to controlled venues as well as make it easier for photographers who get in "trouble" to get out of it. An accredited photographer found taking pictures of "something odd" is likely to get less scrutiny from authorities and is likely to get through such scrutiny more readily. Kelly Martin 00:26, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is a very interesting idea, having accredited photographers. I'm certain we could set it up pretty easily. But I'm not clear on how the process works once we decide we want to accredit someone and send them off into the world. For example if you want access to a sporting event. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 05:13, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikinews mostly has a process worked out, including a contact phone number. I suspect that if lots of us go this route we may end up the primary users, perhaps justifying our own process.. But for now, we can piggyback on their work. --Gmaxwell 05:24, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Typically, in order to gain access you would file with the press relations office of whatever event you're trying to cover, presenting your credentials. They will contact the issuer of the credentials to verify your association with them, and if you check out they give you a press pass that gives you access. (Note that abusing this merely to get access to an event without paying for it will generally result in getting oneself blacklisted, and if it happens too many times from the same organization, the entire organization will get blacklisted.) This works for planned events. In most cities, police departments will issue open press credentials in a similar manner that will allow the bearer access to unplanned events (such as accident scenes, impromptu press briefings, and the like), although since 9/11 background checks have been required by some cities for such privileges. In smaller places, the press card itself, if sufficiently "official" looking, will often suffice, especially if presented with enough vigor. Kelly Martin 08:41, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To Gmaxwell: I am not surprised they are reluctant to accredit a bunch of people from Commons. I doubt they will appreciate it if we "flood" their accreditiation people with folks from here, too. It makes sense for the people from a particular wiki to be the ones to judge the accreditation.

To Kelly: thanks for the info, although it seems like a crazy amount of work for the people verifying this info... --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 09:04, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the board has thus far only designated the authority to them... and not only does their policy accept folks from other wikimedia wikis, it is also not unprecedented for Wikinews to approve folks who are mostly active on other projects. The process is actually going quite well for Bastique, Kelly, and I. In any case, Wikinews benefits from images submitted to commons just like any other project. :) --Gmaxwell 09:09, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is Wikinews well-known enough for its accredited photographers to be accepted? It may yet be more efficient to be accredited by a local chapter. As for me, I asked Wikimedia France to request my accreditation for the French presidential election. Jastrow (Λέγετε) 23:07, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Good point; I don't know. But unfortunately there are very few local chapters. :( --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 03:34, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Bug 8951: Add a category field to Special:Upload

Hello,

I have proposed to add a "category field" on the Upload form, a bit like the Commonist tool does. This would be a better invitation to put categories on images, and a more simple way to do it than currently.

If you support this idea you can vote for the bug :-) Thanks, le Korrigan →bla 23:23, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Order of languages

Sorry to sound petty, however I just want to know what we do about it. On some pages the languages are in different orders, am I right in thinking they should be ordered alphabetically by name or is there another method. I think it is important that they are all unified, however I don't want to be accused of bias. Lcarsdata 08:04, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think they should be organised alphabetically by language code, because not all languages have alphabets. But I notice sometimes Finnish is out of order, presumably because 'Suomi' looks odd nearer to the start than the end. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 09:06, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think "suomi" should be at "S" because people who speak Finnish (and only Finnish) will find it easiest that way. The same goes really for all languages. Samulili 17:09, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Should the boxes for linking to English Wikipedia always be put before the other languages? Like on Category:Munich. /81.229.40.172 17:45, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No; we're an international project. English is only our lingua franca and working language but isn't more important than say Dutch or Finnish. So an alfabetical order of image descriptions would be in order, according to me. NielsF talk/overleg/discussion/discussione 06:18, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I very much disagree. Finnish is far, far less important than English :) That said, I don't oppose to alphabetical order. Samulili 08:23, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Image:Topographic30deg N60E0.png and the same

Are maps from Demis really PD? Is it right to use GFDL? --Panther 16:51, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I can find, they are neither. -- Bryan (talk to me) 19:22, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

permission email suggests that they are pretty relaxed. The problem with maps is always that multiple copyright holders can be generated as data passes between hands. We have a pretty large category full of images from there - most should be fine, but as Demis's email points out, there is no guarantee that content on the maps is from a free source. The one linked above I would guess is fine as the topo data looks like it has come from the GOTOPO30 dataset - mind you I don't know where they got the bathometry data from. It is always the problem with all but the most simple maps - the border data could be PD but the river data not - or the settlement data PD and the road data not. While it is fine for Demis to absolve themselves of responsibility it rests on us to ensure that content from their map sets are not contaminated with copyrighted data. SFC9394 23:38, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Additionally, it should be pointed out that those topo map sets are not the best anyway. The data hasn't been rectified, thus landmasses near the poles look smeared out and like it is being viewed from an angle (which it is - the viewing position is the equator). Obviously projection arguments could rage all day - but the main point is that this projection isn't much use unless the whole world is wanting to be viewed in one image - that isn't the case here, indeed the whole thing is organised to allow the viewer to zoom in on an area - in which case a local rectified projection gives a far better (and truer) image. SFC9394 23:55, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Bot approval for Category-bot

In order to categorize/update categories on images and link corresponding articles in en: , I'd like to obtain a bot flag for User:Category-bot. It's to run the meta:pywikipediabot framework. -- Docu 12:13, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See Commons:Administrators#How to make bot flag request. --EugeneZelenko 16:05, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I did so here. Meta:WM:IRP#On_other_wikis probably needs updating. -- User:Docu

Map Request for Alaska

Does anyone know how to put out a request for someone to create a blank map? I'd love to see a blank map of Alaska, broken down by Boroughs (our version of counties) and by Census areas (not all of our lands fall within Boroughs). Maybe also maps with land ownership (federal/state/private) etc. But I'm not savvy enough to create these things and I don't know how to get a call out to the people who can.

These might be a good start: Image:Alaska boroughs and census areas.png (english labels), Image:Alaska administrative units clear.jpg (no labels). "County" boundaries on Image:Map of Alaska.png. These are all found in Category:Maps of Alaska. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 08:55, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Unique set of alternative licensing buttons needed

As announced here, version 1.0 of the Definition of Free Cultural Works has just been released. This definition distinguishes free and non-free works and, I believe, will be of great usefulness to the Commons community in the future.

We want to develop a set of licensing buttons that people can put under their works to identify them as free (and to give an instant idea what the license is). Buttons which do not say "Some rights reserved." Buttons which are in the public domain. Buttons which link to http://freedomdefined.org/ , where people can learn more about both the license and the underlying concept of freedom -- not just a value-neutral, legal text. In order to achieve this, we need the help of talented artists to come up with really sexy designs. I've made some concept art for the buttons, but I know we can do a lot better. Please, even if you don't believe you can contribute directly if you can think of an artist who believes in free contact, drop them a note and ask them to help. It would be much appreciated.--Eloquence 23:59, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is a great idea, one whos time has come. --Gmaxwell 00:29, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

welcoming anons

Do we have any welcome-anon templates, that both explain how to use the Commons and the benefits of registration? The only current welcome template that I've found makes an assumption that the user has already registered. — coelacan — 20:28, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not that I know of. Because I assume most anon users who make useful edits are Wikimedians who can't be bothered signing up another account. When SUL is implemented maybe our anon edits will go drastically down. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 03:24, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well-intending anons are also extremely rare since registration is required to upload a file, and let's be real, who comes to Commons for any other reason than to upload a file to use for an article (registration required) or to look for a file to use (no edits required, no mark left)?--Orgullomoore 06:37, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

People from flickr come here to update information on their images.[8] Some anons do a lot of sorting.[9] Some leave helpful tips on talk pages.[10] I think it would be nice to have something that gives them a little extra encouragement to sign up. When is SUL going to be implemented? (Not that this will affect our flickr visitors at all.) — coelacan — 09:26, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

SUL, when it will be implemented is anyone's guess. What exactly are the benefits of registering for these anons? Why shouldn't they just stay anon? I don't see that they even necessarily should register... --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 06:13, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

February 14

National Library of Medicine

Unfortunately a lot of images of scientists that are not in the public domain, but are available from the NLM's History of Medicine collection have been uploaded here as PD. Can someone come up with an effective way to find all these images; most are not using the NIH license, but many have the above url in the image description? Most also have a watermark on them, which as far as I can tell, does not mean that the NLM made the image. --Peta 01:40, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See here. --Gmaxwell 23:59, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Awesome new search tool: Mayflower

Finally an awesome search tool for us. Relies on the toolserver, but it's good for the moment.

Mayflower Commons search

Be sure to report and bugs/suggestions to Tangotango to help improve it! --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 03:36, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is a wonderful tool, would it be possible to be linked from the side toolbox Gnangarra 05:31, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, still impossible to search by dates. Man vyi 05:55, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To Gnangarra: you mean have a search box for it in the sidebar? I am trying to find out. At any rate we would like some more minor improvements before we put it there (like search by media type, date, license?, mouseover copyright/author info). I put some prominent links to it on Special:Search, so if you search for something and press 'search' (or there's no page with that direct name), then there's a link directly to the Mayflower search for those terms. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 08:45, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That is so good. The first search I made found stuff that needs cat'ing/linking. Integrated sidebar approach would be very useful. Thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 09:54, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How out-of-date is it? I tried searching for images and gallery I created yesterday, didn't get any matches. Stan Shebs 14:08, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Try again in a coupe of weeks. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 16:10, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Screenshot

Could someone check this image? It is a Firefox screenshot and I think that it is not free because it shows the Firefox icon.--SMP (talk page) 18:12, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's my opinion that that's permissible as an incidental inclusion. Kelly Martin 19:01, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the image is used here, so I would not say that it is not really incidential. --Matt314 18:05, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's a tough call, then. Aside from the logo, I believe the Firefox L&F is released under a free enough license (Mozilla Public License, IIRC) to be acceptable on Commons. I would request clarification from the Firefox team, quite honestly; they might agree to such uses as permissible. Without the Firefox team approval, the proper thing to do is to delete the image. Is it really necessary for the article? Kelly Martin 18:28, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Firefox logo has been deleted from here before since it is trademarked and cannot be used for commercial purposes. See Image talk:Firefox.svg. --Pmsyyz 06:11, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

February 15

Watermark warning

Please see my proposal for a Watermark warning on the upload file page at MediaWiki talk:Uploadtext. Please comment at that page and not here. Thanks a lot. Deco 19:03, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Unstable licensing problem

Is there any way to deal with the problem of people on third-party sites changing the licensing on their media? (I've seen this quite a few times.)--Pharos 22:26, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, contact them and get a free license grant directly. This will also help expand our community. A grant that results from a conversation with us would be a lot harder to renig. The problem is that on many sites like Flikr it's quite easy to pick the wrong license from the dropdown... and a license grant made unintentionally isn't a grant at all. --Gmaxwell 22:31, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It would probably be sound policy to always confirm Flickr licenses with the content creator; far too many people on Flickr select licenses they don't intend to use or do not understand. While we can probably make the legal case that we're entitled to use the content under the license thus advertised, it is not the morally correct thing to do. Kelly Martin 22:55, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is probably outside of our league, but perhaps their should be some sort of movement to encourage Web 2.0 sites to make image licensing more transparent and binding, and altogether more legally real. Something for the folks at Creative Commons, I guess.--Pharos 22:58, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It would help if were were a bit more transparent about it ourselves. I've long argued for mandatory click-through licensing (first time you submit anything you have to click through a page that explains the GFDL; you have to accept it before continuing), but as of yet nobody has shown any interest in this idea. Kelly Martin 23:09, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There is a plan right now on commons where we will have a separate upload page for "self-made" works, government sourced works, etc, each with a custom license selector. This will allow us to make things more clear. We've also had some support on commons for a mandatory first time upload tutorial/quiz .. we can use this to also make sure people understand the license they are selecting. --Gmaxwell 23:32, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, at least we could lead by example. Checkboxes, for example, might be less error-prone than drop-down lists. We might also have an explicit warning, "Your contribution can be used for other purposes, including commercially, and can be modified by others".--Pharos 23:50, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Care should be taken here... It is a good thing that your work can be used for other purposes, so we should make it clear without making it sound bad. We need something more like "Thank you for the generous non-revocable donation of your work to entire world for use in almost any way that they see fit. While Wikimedia commons only accepts content which is available for everyone to use, sell, modify, or redistribute we do offer a number of license options which differ in the details of how the freeness of your work is maintained:" Then list the license options and explain them in brief. --Gmaxwell 00:05, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Come on, we both know nobody's gonna read that... As for the tutorial procedure, that'd just drive away potential contributors who don't want to waste their time going through a tutorial. Yonatanh 07:52, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That approach is fine, I didn't really want to scare everyone away :) I just feel we should be as explicit in explaining the rights the contributor is giving up as in the rights they are retaining. Only then will we have truly communicated the free culture message. Yonatanh probably has a point about a long notice that's likely to be skimmed over– I'd prefer some shorter version of your statement, to the effect that "Your contribution will be free to all, free to use, sell, modify, or redistribute.", or at least that such a line should be especially visually prominent.--Pharos 19:09, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Again: User talk:I.R. Annie IP.#Image:Decision Tree on Uploading Images pl.svg

sic! 213.47.146.118 10:57, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Commonshelper

I recently recived a message from User:Starscream about the Commonshelper. He suggested that a notice about this be placed on the Main Page, to inform users who don't know our policies on transfering to the Commons. What does everyone else think? Lcarsdata 12:00, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's in the Welcome message, which users also receive when they create accounts. There is a problem that we have so many things to tell people, which are not relevant to all audiences, and we risk overloading people with irrelevant information and them consequently ignoring all our messages. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 01:49, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

February 16

Deep-Thought : Putting Questions in Wikipedia?

I think it's time to come up with a standard way that people can ask questions at the bottom of an article, which can later be answered by someone who knows the answer. Questions can be of a known type (e.g. "What is the population of the USA?") or questions can be of an open-problem type ("is the problem of pre-emptive computer scheduling of 3 CPU's with precedence constraints in the P or NP complexity class ?")

I will often read an article - either on wikipedia or elsewhere on the internet - and wonder something. By increasing the interactive nature of wikipedia, to include questions and responses (sort of like a blog), we can move way beyond the definition of a traditional knowledge base and turn Wikipedia into a knowledge advancement engine.

The "discussion" area is useful for arguing about truth in the article. We need to make it blatently obvious for people to realize they have something to contribute to wikipedia ~ a good way is to feature a few prominent questions from readers at the bottom of each article. If an article has too many questions, they might be available on a separate page (e.g. if there are 115 questions, put them into a "discussion" type of area), but still upon each download of the article includes 3-5 questions randomly from the questions area ~ at the bottom of the article.

--SystemBuilder 16:49, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think you may have intended to post this on the English Wikipedia's Village Pump. Kelly Martin 16:59, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Question about licensing of USSR generated images

Hi! Is there anyone that can help me with this? I am interested in adding some images downloaded from the NASA website, more concretely from this link. I reviewed the licensing details at the site, to make sure it is possible to upload the images here with the NASA template, and the following doubt struck me: the images I am interested in, are [11], [12], [13], [14] and [15]. They were generated in the USSR and I'm not sure if NASA has all the rights to release these images. In the Polish wikipedia, I found this comment that says "According to the non-retroactive copyright laws of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics, all works published before 1973-05-27 are public domain. This applies worldwide". Is that statement accurate? Can we then upload the mentioned USSR images? In advance many thanks for the help! --Sergio 18:30, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ask User:Lupo about this, but, in short, that statement is not accurate to the best of our understanding. Jkelly 19:00, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This has been discussed before, at some length. While there is some disagreement as all of the gory details, there is in general no special exception to copyright for images created in the USSR, regardless of the date. The safest rule to apply, from the commentary I've seen, is to assume that any work of Soviet origination is protected by copyright with a duration of 70 years p.m.a. This is a conservative rule; in some cases shorter terms will apply, or may apply but not worldwide (for example, a work published in what is now Russia prior to 1954 is now public domain in Russia, but not in Georgia or in the United States, where a 70 years p.m.a. duration applies). The "May 27, 1973" rule applies only to the copyright of works NOT originally published in USSR, and ONLY within former Soviet states; it has no bearing here because we are talking about works originally published in the USSR. For more, see Template talk:PD-Soviet. I can find no fault with Lupo's analysis there.

However, the works may qualify as uncopyrightable under Russian copyright law ("information reports of events and facts" are not subject to copyright in Russia). In order for this to work, the works must be excluded from copyright in all of the members of the CIS (since, according to Soufron, who I have no reason to doubt, the several CIS states are coequally the successors of the USSR and publication in the USSR is treated as publication in each of the CIS states simultaneously). I am not sufficiently well-versed in Azerbaijani or Kazakhstani copyright law (to pick a couple of CIS states at random) to state whether this is the case. Kelly Martin 19:16, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, I believe that the Russian government considers itself the sole legitimate w:successor state of the Soviet Union. More to the point, shouldn't these little "rules of thumb" guidelines on copyright be collected somewhere other than talk pages?--Pharos 20:05, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The United States, at least, considers each of the CIS states as coequal successor for the purpose of copyright (even while at the same time not necesssarily doing so for other purposes); the United States has entered into bilateral agreements with each of the CIS members confirming this status.[16] Obviously this applies only with respect to the United States and to other states who either have similiar agreements with the CIS states, or whose own law would reach the same conclusion even in the absence of an agreement. One of the annoying things about copyright is that there's no universal answer, even for Berne Convention signatories. It's very possible for a work to be in the public domain in the country in which it was first published, but not in the public domain in another country. (This is actually the case for many Russian works.)

In any particular case, one may need to consider any or all of: the type of work, the country (or countries) of original publication (if any), the country (or countries) in which the work was created, the nationality (or nationalities) of the author(s), the dates of creation and of original publication, the country in which a subsequent copy or derivation is made, the nationality of the copier or deriver, and the country in which such copies or derivations are or may be found. People asking about copyright in a particular work or class of work are strongly encouraged to gather and present as much of the above information as possible before asking for an opinion.

This particular rule of thumb should probably be added to the summaries at Commons:Licensing. I believe the current information there with respect to Russia is incorrect, however. Kelly Martin 20:28, 16 February 2007 (UTC) (amended 20:37, 16 February 2007 (UTC))[reply]

In what respect? Lupo 20:50, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I do not believe that "The same law applies to the works from the former Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic of the USSR, since Russia is recognized as the successor of the state of the USSR. Copyrights of works originating from other former Soviet republics may be claimed by the corresponding post-Soviet states." is correct. While Russia considers itself the sole successor of the USSR, it is clearly not the case that they hold that status as a matter of general international law. It appears to me that most countries will follow the coequal succession that Soufron describes, which will generally lead to a longer term of copyright than one would reach applying only Russian law. It does not matter, as a matter of law, which internal republic a USSR work originated from; legally they all originated from all of them, simultaneously. The erroneous language may tend lead one to conclude that a work is out of copyright when an enforceable copyright still exists in their nation (even if it does not exist in Russia). I think the language there should reflect the general international practice of considering each of the CIS states as a coequal successor (in copyright) to the USSR (without regard to which republic the work originated from), and the resultant longer terms of effective copyright in most nations. Keep especially in mind that the Commons is published in the United States, and all works published by the Commons must comply with US copyright law as well as the local law of the individual contributor. Kelly Martin 21:27, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for all the time and attention devoted to this. From all this, and after going through the Talk at PD_Soviet, what I gather is that the Nasa.gov-stored images are not uploadable here :-( Thanks again. Regards.--Sergio 21:46, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Do we have a MOS (Manual of Style)?

Does the commons have a MOS for general guidance? I only ask as the current featured pictures appears to be a flower growing on a mountain that is "4.164m" high - by my reading that isn't very high! If we aren't going to go down the "what notation to use" route then perhaps just dropping separator variables altogether would be easier. SFC9394 19:57, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not high but measured very exactly! ;) .. Yes, dropping separators would be a reasonable standard. --Gmaxwell 20:03, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The problem still arises in respect to decimals though... English for example uses a period, German a comma. --SB_Johnny|^talk|_books 20:55, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So for the description in each respective language, use the appropriate decimal symbol and thousands separator for that particular language. In other words, use a decimal comma in German descriptions and a decimal point in English descriptions. —LX (talk, contribs) 03:17, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That is a fantastically sensible approach! :) --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 04:29, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Picture of the year

The results of the first round of the Commons:Picture of the Year/2006 are known: Commons:Picture of the Year/2006/results. The election of the final starts tomorrow and will last the rest of February. Each Wikimedian has one vote for the picture of the year.

The final is supposed to open on 00:00 UTC; unfortunately it is then already deep in the night here. So if you are still online at that time, feel free to change the page to open the election. The protection on the vote will expire anyway on 00:00 UTC. Please also announce this on the Village Pumps of other Wikimedia projects. -- Bryan (talk to me) 21:39, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

17 February

commons helper

I did not know earlier that it was commonshelper This is brilliant idea. Congratulation to author this facilitate. I think we must publish this information at Main Page of Wikimedia Commons. Thank you! --Starscream 03:56, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

CommonsHelper will be mentioned prominently in MediaWiki:Uploadtext/fromwikimedia, when it gets written. I think this will be the perfect place for it. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 06:16, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Redesigning Special:Upload

Hello,

I have recently been thinking about how we can improve Special:Upload. One way we can do it is by splitting off particular sources, which allows specialised forms for with more relevant and particular information. These are the specialised ones I am planning:

ownwork
fromflickr (at least until special:ImportFreeImages is installed!)
fromgov

If your file doesn't fit into any of these categories, then you use the usual default form.

We can put different license choices in the license selector, as well as different intro text.

Unfortunately I can't figure out a way to only update the English sidebar. Because the English message is also used when there is no language-specific message defined, and I don't want to update 200 languages at once. Well I can think of a hack, but that is it...

Any comments on design or elements that should be included, or help designing, or whatever, are welcome: User:Pfctdayelise/SpecialUpload redesign

--pfctdayelise (说什么?) 07:15, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to see what you vision that Special:Upload will look like. Samulili 16:51, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well this one is good, but the main problem is that most people don't read such information, that's why I like the concept of English version en:MediaWiki:Uploadtext. It is short and states main principles.--Vaya 11:53, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Do you think that's short? I don't... I wouldn't read it :P And it suffers from an explosion of styles. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 12:14, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the explosion of styles. I think the problem is that those that will read the details will do so anyway. It is really about how to get the attention of the "I know what I am doing"/"Rules don't apply to me" folk. I recall finding my first uploads on Wikipedia some time ago very hard to understand --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:23, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not talking about the style, only the concept. This version is shorter then User:Pfctdayelise/SpecialUpload redesign for sure. Ok maybe you are right about those people that will read, so then maybe some critical moments should be pointed out, for those who won't (Like: DON'T UPLOAD UNFREE MATERIAL) --Vaya 01:30, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The people who don't read and don't know any better will just think "This is free, I paid nothing to copy it off a webpage".... The bold text approach is just not effective. Nothing we can say in a few words will sufficiently educate someone who just doesn't know better. --Gmaxwell 01:37, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To Samulili: I plan to change the upload link (in the English menu only, to start with) to point from Special:Upload to Commons:Upload. So take that page as your 'preview'.

The 'ownwork' and 'fromflickr' versions are basically done. I haven't started 'fromwikimedia' yet and 'fromgov' still needs some work. But of course suggestions and improvements are always welcome. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 04:25, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is applied on ar.wiki ar:ويكيبيديا:رفع الصور. Helped a lot there. Copyvios went down from +100 daily to less than 10. Plus, it allowed us to redirect free martial to commons. --Tarawneh 07:45, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Tarawneh, that's great to hear! NLwp also made this change (nl:Wikipedia:Upload). Their average daily uploads dropped from 80-90 to 40-50 which is a great reduction in workload. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 06:21, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at the previews, I feel too much shouting. On balance, I prefer the layout of the current Upload page. From own experience I know that the licence dropdown menu is easiliy overlooked. Maybe because there is already written text and I am used to look for empty boxes to fill in. And it is tucked beneath the big summary box. My suggestion:

optionally: other_versions given via a wikilink; can be left out.

Licencing: [ *** --- please select licence --- *** ]

If you do not provide suitable license and source information, your file will be deleted without further notice. Thanks for your understanding.

Source filename: - Destination filename: - Summary: - checkboxes

It is mainly about different placing. And oh yes, please do not make me click through too many pages before I can upload a file.--Klaus with K 12:16, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

These proposals remind me of fr:Aide:Importer un fichier, which is linked directly from the sidebar menus of fr.wikipedia; fr:Special:Upload is not listed. Zzyzx11 17:27, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Come to think of it, I am also reminded of fr:MediaWiki:uploadtext as well. Perhaps they could be a model for us too. Zzyzx11 17:31, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - I like the clear structuring of these pages, both textual and visually. The little icons do help. And the idea of not cluttering the upload page is nice as well. Coming back to the licence dropdown menu placement, may I suggest:

Licence: [select]

or specify licence in the Summary section below.

If you do not provide suitable license and source information, your file will be deleted without further notice.

Thanks for your understanding.

Source filename: ...

Do not write a long text into the initial dropdown menu field.--Klaus with K 19:43, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To Klaus, it's only one extra click - not too many, I think. And I am not clear what you are suggesting. We don't have total freedom over which elements of the page we can change... --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 06:21, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I may be convinced on this extra click (have commented favourably on the French example). And regarding page elements - can the dropdown menu be placed differently (or are we restricted to the location below the Summary and above the checkboxes)?--Klaus with K 11:38, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

from a government source is misleading - government work would be much better. We still get too many pictures that are claimed to be PD simply be3cause they where taken from a US government website. -- Duesentrieb ⇌ 11:34, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To Klaus - no, we can't change the placement of the dropdown menu, sorry. Or easily put info next to it, for that matter. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 13:11, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Spanish files

Hello,

are there all the files in english language? I´d like to download files in spanish, since I´m not as good understanding pronunciation as in written english, I have searched but I didn´t find any file in spanish, is there an option for this?

Thanks in advance

What do you mean: file names/file descriptions/categories? Please specify. --EugeneZelenko 15:39, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Spanish language ought to get you somewhere, I think.--Orgullomoore 00:45, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

18 February

Problem rendering thumbnails using Windows XP

Hello,

I am experiencing the problem that some thumbnails are blank when I render them in a PC using Windows XP. Does not matter whether using Firefox or Windows Explorer. Works fine with Linux Fedora 6 and Firefox. Anyone who has a clue how this can be fixed? Thanks. Julius Agrippa 08:30, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Are you using any firewall/antivirus/adblocking program? Particularly thumbnails with /ad/ in there names cause problems... -- Bryan (talk to me) 12:58, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fan art again

Following up on a previous discussion here I have started a Commons:Fan art page to explain issues regarding the use of 'fan art' on Commons. Please review and make changes as needed. --CBDunkerson 18:20, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think this have have been constructed a bit too restrictively; see my comment at Commons talk:Fan art re: images like Image:Divisions of the Quendi colour.png.--Pharos 02:43, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Definition of Free Cultural Works"

It seems that some consideration has been given to adopting the "Definition of Free Cultural Works", per the use of their logo at MediaWiki:Uploadtext/ownwork. This standard does closely parallel the Commons copyright policy. I would like to point out, though, that under the official definition, our GIF animations would not qualify as "free". For these animations to qualify, we would at least have to supply alternative files in MNG or APNG or some alternative free file format.--Pharos 18:43, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think the reasoning behind that is expired: the last GIF-related patent expired 1 October 2006. GIF is now a fully free format. Kelly Martin 20:37, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Quite Correct. We don't accept non-free formats here. Although the GIF claims were never too strong and it was trivial to make a gif that didn't run afoul of the patent claim by disabling compression... --Gmaxwell 21:24, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I wasn't familiar with the details.--Pharos 23:31, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Note that the current draft Board resolution on licensing only refers to the license section of the definition, not to the works section. The works section also recommends the availability of source data, which would make many media we currently have on Commons non-free (e.g. 3D renders without a source file, bitmap graphics that were rendered out of a vector graphics editor). Requiring such files to be removed would be a bit heavy; we should try to gradually add source data wherever possible to increase modifiability.--Eloquence 19:13, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

February 19

Commons delinker

Puzzled - I just deleted a talk page Image talk:Adolf Hitler in Yugoslavia crop.JPG and very shortly after Commons delinker has removed a link to the image on Wikibooks saying that I deleted it - something faulty somewhere? (The image is still here) --Herby ^{talk thyme} 19:44, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

User:Orgullomoore has been notified.¹ Kjetil _r 21:32, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. Thanks, guys--Orgullomoore 00:12, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Persistently removing categories

"What can be done if a user persistently removes categories from an image..." see bottom of Commons:Images on normal pages or categories:Vote page.--Klaus with K 19:52, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

February 20

Translation request.

I recently edited the description page for Gottlieb-Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur.jpg. Because the Czech translation previously reflected incorrect text, I commented it out. Where would I request a revised translation of the caption information? grendel|khan 07:39, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's looks like translation is fixed already. Please look into Commons:Babel if you need to find native speakers. --EugeneZelenko 15:47, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Graffiti

I was contacted by uploader of the graffiti photo in reaction to the deletion of Image:De La Vega graffiti of Celia Cruz -2.JPG. Please see also the talk page of the image. --Zirland 19:26, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I'm the uploader that Zirland mentions. I've been looking around the web for info on copyright issues for photos of graffiti and street art after a photo I took was put up for speedy deletion. I had assumed that since Category:Graffiti and Category:Murals are so well-populated there was some straightforward reason why these photos were free. It's way more complicated than that; a good conversation, in that it expresses most of the regular confusion, on the legal issues is this.

The key point appears to be whether or not artists can claim copyright on work that infringes on law, such as those specifically targeting graffiti or trespass. I can't find a firm answer. If they can claim copyright, then the practical argument is that someone who carried out an illegal act is unlikely to come forward and claim copyright. In that case, most of the graffiti pictures on Commons are still derivative works. Is the basic assumption that the graffiti was done with or without the permission of the owner of the surface? If one takes the conservative assumption that the graffiti was done with the permission of the owner, then uploaders would have to assert that the graffiti was illegal, again assuming that this makes a difference.

What seems pretty clear is that, in cases where the artist has the permission of or is commissioned by the owner of the surface, the artist owns the copyright. Some of the images in Category:Murals therefore clearly are not free and, if one assumes legality, none of them are.

I really came into this looking for a reason to keep my photo on Commons, but things look rather doubtful. So the two questions I have for the community is (1) if anyone has a clear answer about if copyright can be claimed on work created illegally and (2) do we assume legality, unless proven otherwise? Thanks, BanyanTree 16:22, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There's another discussion here. And one wonders how Commons:Freedom of panorama would play in. As a matter in the real world, I'm pretty sure that the many commercial publishers of graffiti photo books assume that copyright issues are irrelevant for illegally-created works. I really think in this case it would be appropriate to develop a Commons:Murals and graffiti policy page.--Pharos 19:28, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In countries which proceed from English common law (and therefore where an action to enforce copyright is in the nature of a proceeding in equity), the creator of a work who creates the work in violation of some law other than that of copyright, is likely to be barred from enforcing any copyright therein vested by the equitable doctrine of unclean hands. (An interesting possibility, however, is that a person wronged by such illegal acts might be entitled in equitable restitution to the benefit of the copyright; see also "Son of Sam laws" in the United States.) Such works are effectively in the public domain because there is no person who can effectively enforce the copyright. I am not well-enough versed in the laws of other nations to say whether similar provisions exist there, but I suspect that a similar conclusion would be reached, although not necessary by the same reasoning. Kelly Martin 19:48, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And how far do you think Commons:Freedom of panorama would apply to legal murals, if it applies at all?--Pharos 20:02, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It would apply in a country where freedom of panorama specifically applies to two-dimensional works. This is not the case for most of the countries listed on Commons:Freedom of panorama, and that article already discusses murals in several places. In general, one should assume that the freedom of panorama does not cover murals. Kelly Martin 20:16, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I know, the same reasoning as the one Kelly describes applies in France and Belgium: unauthorized graffitis are not protected by droit d'auteur. I can't find my reference for France anymore (still looking). As for Belgium, I found this answer to a Parliamentary question (in French, Dutch version also available). Jastrow (Λέγετε) 21:14, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The reasoning explained here should be mentioned on Commons:Derivative works. Lupo 23:15, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've added a paragraph. [17] Kelly Martin 02:30, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, does "These countries have freedom of panorama for buildings, but not for sculptures.", include murals as well?--Pharos 06:41, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Clarified. It now reads "These countries have freedom of panorama only for buildings, but not for sculptures or other works." Lupo 07:48, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to everyone for their clarifications. Now that there is written policy, can an admin make a judgment on Image:De La Vega graffiti of Celia Cruz -1.JPG and Image:De La Vega graffiti of Celia Cruz -2.JPG? The first image has been tagged for speedy deletion since this conversation began; there are apparently quite a few users who mark these images as derivative works. Would a graffiti license tag be useful in informing people of the guidelines? Thanks again, BanyanTree 14:25, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Upload file

Please, correct, improve, change, add, ...

Source filename: my computer
Destination filename: myname.svg

{{
|Description:
Voltage number in R
(A number in R is positive, zero or negative)

|Author:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Tsi43318
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Tsi43318
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gebruiker:Tsi43318

|Source:
Own work
I didn't use an editor.

|Date:
February 2007

|Licensing:
Own work, all rights released (Public domain)
}}

Watch this page: yes or no
Ignore any warnings: yes or no
What's the meaning of this?

Tsi43318 20:23, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Categories naming and multiligual Commons

Hello,

People have argued that categories should be named in English because categories redirect does not work. However categories redirect works pretty well, so I think that categories should be named after the language of the place. Anyway I think it also better that this is done through discussion, not imposed by people threathening others of vandalism (see Category talk:Genève. Regards, Yann 21:33, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category redirect doesn't work for cases where we would need multiple fully functional names in order to be multilingual. I don't know that I've seen anything proposed which would really solve all the problems involved: Even with category redirect we still would have the problem where an image would be tagged with a list of categories in languages you do not speak and you would have to click each one to find out where it goes.

So how about this proposal:

First, we implement support for localized content in our pages. (Arnomane wrote a patch but it has bad caching interaction that needs to be fixed). This will allow us to write pages which display text in the right language if it is available.

Second, we create a new namespace. For discussion, I'll call it "tag" but I don't care what it's called.

Third, in the tag namespace we create pages named things like Tag:en/Dog breeds. The page will contain only the words "Dog Breeds", translated into many languages using the multilingual page feature. We create more pages like Tag:de/Hunderassen as redirect to the one with all the translations. (It doesn't matter which one actually has the translations.. it's just for whatever comes first).

Forth, we replace all our categories with a section at the bottom of the image page with tags like {{tag:en/Dog breeds}}. Now the image pages will display the text of the applied tags in the users local language.

Fifth, we provide a category display tool which uses templatelinks table rather than categorylinks table, and obeys redirects. It would take only a couple of lines of code to change mayflower to do this.

Tada. We totally discontinue using the category system.

This would also allow us to have the advantage of allowing us to make many different tag namespaces such as Tag:cleanup/low resolution for meta taggings which describe administrative tasks and which should behave differently (such as only display for logged in user). Other namespaces could be used for other forms of semantic relationship, for example we could have separate is_a and related_to namespaces if we wanted to get that fancy.

Fundamentally categories are a subset of the template feature set with pretty printing for whatlinkshere and a weak gallery interface bolted on. In any case.. just an idea... but I suppose everyone else will want to wait eons for more significant software changes. I'm not holding my breath... category names in english do not harm me. --Gmaxwell 21:59, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I'm fairly new to this Commons discussion, but have been involved extensively with the categorization projects at the English Wikipedia, so I thought I'd pop in to help. I see that there's already been considerable debate about the gallery/category issue, so I apologize if I've been reinventing the wheel here... In any case, since I didn't see any equivalents, I decided to be bold and create some systems that were similar to the Wikipedia way of doing things. I created the {{Uncategorized image}} template, and an {{Uncat}} redirect to it, which I've been adding to images that seem to have neither a category nor any kind of gallery link. This puts those images into Category:Media needing categories, so someone else can come along and put them wherever makes the most sense.

In terms of the multi-lingual aspect, perhaps someone could add information to the category and template, in other languages, which explains what they're for? It would probably also make sense to make some other language equivalents of {{Uncat}}, which all redirect to {{Uncategorized image}}, or something similar in another language.

Does this sound like a good idea? If I've accidentally stepped on anyone's toes here, I do apologize, and just let me know if there's a better consensus system on how to handle this, and I'll adapt accordingly. :) Or if this works for everyone, we can proceed with tagging images with {{Uncat}} to help get a handle on the problem. --Elonka 06:39, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the effort, but the Orphan Images tool has been built to list images that aren't in any content categories or galleries. The Gallery tool also shows a prominent warning if an image isn't categorized. Currently the addition of such an unrecognized metacategory breaks the tool for those images, but User:Duesentrieb can add it to the source if these systems really need to coexist.

If you identify a user with many orphans, using the {{Please link images}} message on the user's talk page is probably more efficient. --Para 12:34, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the info, but I'm afraid that neither of those links are working for me... Can you please provide some more documentation on how to use them? Also, if I'm understanding correctly, those are "pull" tools, which are used to first identify which images aren't sorted, and then sort them? An advantage to the EN {{Uncat}} method, is that it tags the images as needing categories, so that other editors who may be reviewing the image, can then take the initiative to categorize it themselves. This can be preferrable, especially because the uploader is probably in the best position to decide which categories would be most appropriate. --Elonka 19:51, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The toolserver has database problems sometimes, but mostly it's working alright. You're right about the idea of the tools, and the difference with the enwp way is that nobody has to search and tag unsorted images, when the OrphanImages tool already does that. There are considerably less visitors to an image page here than to an article in the English Wikipedia, and trying to raise any attention on an infrequently visited page is less effective than doing it at the uploader's talk page. Unfortunately Commons is a secondary wiki for many, and update notices in watchlists don't work very well for people who don't check on Commons too often, so a talk page message would be better if you want to have any single user look through their uploads again. Also the people who do categorizing, other than the uploader, would probably appreciate having as little to do with an image as possible. Having to delete a tag from some random location on the page doubles the amount of work that is generally just copypasting the same text to the same location for a number of images. Sorting requests could be used for big categories though, I'm sure there are quite a lot of categories with no active users maintaining them. --Para 13:38, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

February 21

Import Request

Can someone import the following to commons:

so that they can be used for other WMF projects.--71.217.206.24 00:38, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Or someone could just redo them as svg, thereby saving a step. Incidentally, surely these are ineligible for copyright. Jkelly 00:40, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

All of them are already on commons. In fact, I created an SVG version of Image:25%.png at Image:25%.svg about a week ago. Yonatanh 16:54, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Complete in SVG:

. Siebrand 01:52, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nice job, by the way what did you do to optimize my version? It was the first and only SVG I've done so I'd like to know so I can make it better next time. Yonatanh 03:31, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Look at the XML code in the file and compare the 2 versions. You'll see. I manually edited the SVG. I do have to change the colours, though, as was pointed out to me by the Dutch Wikibooks guys. I'll be on that now :) Siebrand 22:38, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is this a joke?

Is Akutagawa Ryunosuke.jpg a joke? grendel|khan 06:04, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It appears to be based on a photograph of Akutagawa. See the two images at the top of it:Akutagawa Ryunosuke, in particular the arched eyebrow. It seems to be original artwork, at best, though I'm not sure why one would use it since free photos are available. - BanyanTree 13:54, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Afghan copyright

Having been asked to investigate, I've come to the conclusion that Afghanistan currently has no national copyright law, and furthermore is not a party to any copyright treaty. As a result, legally works first published in Afghanistan (and not simultaneously published in a Berne or UCC Geneva treaty partner) by an Afghan national are legally in the public domain. However, Afghanistan is in the process of developing a national copyright law. In my opinion, I believe we should treat Afghani works as if Afghanistan were a UCC Geneva signatory partner (even though they are not and never have been, as far as I can tell) and afford their works protection the protections that would be minimally provided by adherence to that treaty. Comments? Kelly Martin 15:38, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Did Afghanistan ever have a copyright law? If they passed one in the past, I think the presumption would be it's still in effect, despite the several drastic chanbges of government in recent years.--Pharos 16:10, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See Drafting Afghanistan’s first copyright laws in particular and en:WP:PD#Countries without copyright treaties with the U.S. in general. Lupo 16:41, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I can find no evidence that Afghanistan ever had a copyright law. The current regime has a claim as the legitimate successor to the kingship of Zahir Shah, but it does not appear that either Zahir Shah or his predecessor Nadir Shah ever promulgated a copyright law or caused the country to accede to any copyright treaty. Afghanistan has historically been extremely isolationist as well as largely undeveloped economically; its leaders (whether during the Barakzai dynasty, the shortlived Republic, or the Taliban government) apparently never saw any point in adopting a copyright law or acceding to a copyright treaty. Kelly Martin 17:21, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Kelly, could you explain why you propose to treat Afghanistan as if it were a UCC (1952 Geneva text) member? After all, it is impossible for Afghanistan to ever join that treaty—since the 1971 Paris version of the UCC became effective, countries cannot join the 1952 version anymore. So, why not the 1971 UCC? Or, since the efforts to develop a copyright law for Afghanistan seem to have the goal of producing a Berne or even WCT/WPPT compliant law, why not the Berne Convention? Lupo 21:24, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Because Berne requires a term of copyright that I personally consider unconscionably long. UCC Geneva mandates shorter terms, which I find less objectionable. Kelly Martin 22:00, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hm. Then use at least UCC (Paris 1971 text). IIRC, the copyright terms are identical, only that the 1971 version makes explicit that an author has the exclusive rights to reproduction, public performance, and broadcast of a work. Plus the 1971 version has a whole bunch of provisions for developing countries.

All right, let me play devil's advocate. If the Berne Convention terms are too long, then why consider Afghanistan party to any treaty? That might make sense for a country that at least does have a domestic copyright law. But why do it for a country that doesn't even have a domestic copyright law? Lupo 22:22, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Because I don't think we should use things without the permission of the authors, either -- even if their country doesn't see it that way. I don't object to UCC 1971 (Paris) instead of UCC Geneva, in any case. Kelly Martin 22:44, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not convinced. Either we treat works created by nationals of Afghanistan first published in Afghanistan and that are not simultaneously published in other countries ("Afghan works"—BTW, is it Afghan or Afghani?) as public domain worldwide based on the absence of both international treaties and domestic copyright legislation.

Or we recognize author's rights as fundamental human rights and say that we should grant the authors of such Afghan works a copyright, but then I don't see why we should only grant them some kind of inferior copyright (UCC), when most countries of the world are members of the Berne Convention. Just because we might prefer the shorter UCC terms over the longer Berne terms is not a particularly good reason. If we say that author's rights are a fundamental right, it strikes me as discriminatory to limit these rights to anything less than the de-facto standards set by the Berne Convention.

The draft legislation for Afghanistan appears to be based on the laws of Qatar[18] and of the United Arab Emirates[19]. Qatar has a general copyright term of 50 years p.m.a. since 2002, applicable to all works whose copyright term under the previous law from 1995 had not expired by 2002. I do not know what the term under the 1995 law was. The UAE also have 50 years (except 25 years for works of applied art, and 20 years for broadcasts—the minimum of the Rome Convention). If one wants to consider Afghan works copyrighted, I think it would be only fair to pretend Afghanistan had a copyright law with such conditions. The advantage of using the BC provisions is that if and when Afghanistan does join an international treaty (and it appears that the drafters work under the assumption that Afghanistan would join the BC, not the UCC), we'll have minimized the necessary re-tagging of Afghan images that will then become necessary, because we already would have used a close approximation.

Regardless of whether we'd decide on the UCC or the Berne Convention, we'd also have to pretend that these rules applied retroactively, if we want it to make any difference. I.e., if we'd choose the BC, we'd pretend that only Afghan works of known authors who died before 1957 were PD in Afghanistan. Lupo 21:30, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

P.S.: Just some related background info: The U.S. State Departement mentions in a 2006 report that Afghanistan has no IP legislation.[20] Afghanistan is a member of the WIPO Convention (but not of WIPO's copyright treaties) since December 13, 2005.[21] At least this expresses some interest in IP matters on the part of the Afghan government (see also [22]). Some more background is here. Also of interest is the U.S.-Afghan trade agreement, which lists IP issues as an objective of the trade council.[23] Lupo 22:57, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As there have been retroactive copyright laws in certain countries in the world, we should assume that Afghanistan may do the same thing. Without a copyright law in Afghanistan, reproductions of foreign copyrighted items cannot be effectively stopped there, but exportation of copies against foreign copyright holders' wishes are subject to bans imposed by other countries. As the USA Customs enforces trademark and copyright laws, travelers with articles with fake trademarks or pirated copyrighted items (even if public domain elsewhere) may be allowed an exemption to import one article of each type for non-commercial personal use [24], nowhere compactible with GFDL.--Jusjih 08:32, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Huh? Where does this import/export/pirated items thing come from? I fail to see how this has any bearing on this discussion. Lupo 08:44, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

From the US Customs (.gov). What is in the public domain somewhere may still be copyrighted elsewhere. This is why I write American non-acceptance of the rule of the shorter term at Meta to hopefully increase awareness. Without a copyright law, Afghanistan is like a hole on the earth. The import/export/pirated items thing from the US Customs never encourages piracy, but it is good for non-commercial personal use. For example, if someone gets a copy of American-copyrighted and trademarked Mickey Mouse from a country without copyright protection, but made against The Walt Disney Company's wish, then carriess it to the USA, it will trigger the import/export/pirated items thing. GFDL intends to allow free distribution and reproduction, so I consider this somewhat relevant.--Jusjih 18:32, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I knew you had this from U.S. Customs. I wondered why you mentioned it, which you explained anyway. This is nothing at all we have to worry about either way. It's a prohibition on parallel import of pirated items, similar to what the Geneva Phonograms Convention specifies for phonograms.[25] But we're not importing anything anywhere. We're not going through U.S. customs either. And furthermore, the allowance for personal use you mentioned would come only into play e.g., if you went to Afghanistan and brought back a pirated CD you had bought there. Which is why I don't understand at all how this should relate to the question of whether we should treat Afghan works as copyrighted even though they aren't. Lupo 19:51, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Internet traffic does not go thru US Customs, either. We already see some countries retroactively extending copyright. The problem is how to deal with Afghan works without copyright law there. I would say: even though theoretically Afghan works are not copyrighted, uploading them here may risk deletion should Afghanistan makes a copyright law and international copyright relation, then we have to see if fair use is possible at certain Wiki sites. To make another example, it seems that the Afghan Embassy in the USA may copyright its works under US law, though the embassy should have diplomatic immunity.--Jusjih 17:05, 25 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is this a derivative work?

Are the images Image:Sin título-1 copia.gif and Image:Anti-govern.gif a derivative work? The original is in here and the legal notice of the site states: "No modification of the web or its content is permitted". --SMP (talk page) 18:12, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

February 22

How large a gallery

Is there any recommended maximum size for a gallery page? 100 images? 1000? Rmhermen 01:35, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Given that category display limits itself to 200, that seems like a good point at which to consider alternate organization. A couple of my personal galleries got to around 1000 or so before I split them, sometimes took 20 minutes to finish bringing them up, that is if the server didn't just get tired and give up :-), leaving the page with a bunch of blanks. Stan Shebs 05:51, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies to Recent changes users.

I finally go around to identifying most of the images that we've pulled from the stock.xchng website (a source which isn't acceptable for commons without contacting the image authors). Because SXC now blocks messages trying to contact authors for alternative rights, I'm not sure exactly how we should move forward... but at least we should tag them. So I am currently tagging them, which is resulting in something of a RC flood. Also, people are still uploading these images, so more frequent identification of SXC problems will help us. Bot flag would keep these edits from showing up on watchlists, which I'd rather not happen. So sorry about the noise. There are only a few thousand images. Cheers. --Gmaxwell 19:34, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Could the box be somewhat less obtrusive? Currently each photo page on stock.xchng carries a note "Standard restrictions apply" with a link to the site's license, which as you know, hasn't always been the case. Why should restrictions different from when the images were sent here be displayed with all images from that source? The content of a warning, if any, should be the first chapter of the current box at the most. --Para 13:11, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it should be. SXC hasn't changed their license or their policies; all they did was change their interface to be less misleading. Unfortunately for us, we can't legally rely on a misrepresentation from SXC as an indication of the author's intent to license, especially now that we know that that was due to an error by a third party, and even if we could it would not be moral for us to do so. SXC's confusing representation of their copyright terms is not sufficient to waive the copyright interests of those who contributed content to their site. In my opinion, the current warning is actually a very soft compromise compared to what the appropriate action should be: deletion for being out of scope. Kelly Martin 13:28, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Interface design is a very important part of conveying information. If a site chooses to display a prominent box of specific information related to that single page only, in interface design users can't be expected to also look elsewhere for the same information. Perhaps legalese doesn't agree then and this is just another case of hidden small print that ignores all logical guidelines?

The only thing we can be sure of is which of the usage restrictions (unrestricted, contact for public use, contact and credit for public use, written permission needed) the photographer chose. Gmaxwell keeps saying how there are many users on the stock.xchng forums complaining about the conditions on the site's license not being respected on image reuse, but I can't find anyone saying anything about such use when it's properly credited, like on Commons. I doubt many of the photographers are aware of the "standard restrictions" or have really even read the site's terms of use. Unfortunately stock.xchng didn't notify the photographers of this change to the restrictions shown next to their photos. On a similar note, I might say that on the forums there are requests to get a "no restrictions" back, without any standard restriction notices.

In any case, we should decide to keep or delete them all; I hate seeing some admins whimsically deleting one every now and then based on the stock.xchng restrictions. Perhaps the warning will actually help with that, but in my opinion it's still not necessary to have a local copy of the whole license, the relevant parts would suffice. --Para 15:23, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Unless it can be shown that the "no-commercial" and other licensing restrictions were added after the images were added to Wikipedia, then we have an incompatibility and the images must be deleted. If we do keep the images, a template that explains that the licensing on the site has changed vs. when the image was copied, so it doesn't come up for deletion later. It also seems to me that we should have copies of licenses that we allow and the dates that they are valid for, to prevent problems with the license changing. Otherwise we have no legal proof that the license was ever with no restrictions. Ram-Man 15:37, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The licensing at SXC has not changed; all that changed was the manner in which SXC notified users of the licensing restrictions. SXC's previous UI was poorly-written and gave people the impression that the works were available under a broader license than they actually were; however, clicking on the licensing link took one to a license which has not materially changed over the life of the site. SXC is not authorized to relicense content submitted to it by content creators; their misrepresentation of the licenses under which content creators submitted their content to SXC does not in any way diminish the validity of the underlying copyrights. It would be both illegal and immoral for us to insist on using these works contrary to the expressed wishes of the creators merely because SXC lied to us about the licenses under which they were authorized to publish them. Kelly Martin 15:45, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In that case, the images must be deleted project wide. I see no other solution. They are incompatible. Does anyone disagree? Ram-Man 15:53, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone taking part in this discussion should be aware of Commons:Stock.xchng images and the related discussions. The SXC license agreement actually has changed over time, in a way that allows SXC to add more restrictions to the use of an image than what the photographer chose from the dropdown list. The only way SXC is lying is only now in 2007 after the addition of the link to the site-wide license in the restrictions box, by translating the photographer's choice of "no restrictions" to "standard restrictions". --Para 16:21, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The only thing which changed to the license was a statement of agency. It always had the unacceptable terms.

Your characterization of the "no restrictions" thing is very much incorrect.

When an uploader on SXC submits content to the site, he is forced to see and agree to that license. He then is allowed to pick between several "usage restrictions" via a drop down, there is an explanation of each of the options by the drop down:

Unrestricted In this case the photo can be used for any purpose listed in the Image license agreement.
Contact for public use In this case the user has to notify you when using the photo just to let you know that it will be used.
Contact and credit for public use This is the same as the above, except that the user will have to credit you in the product / website / etc. where your photo gets used.
'Written permission needed The user will only be able to download the photo if you grant permission on our online interface (see My account / Requests). You can make a decision based on the data they enter in our request form.

If you go read the forums on the site you can see that many of the SXC users expect the license to be followed, ... and this was the case long ago before they adjusted the website to not confuse outsiders. --Gmaxwell 04:00, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What do we do about pictures before "29 December 2005"? Does what you say above apply to them as well? If so, then they should all be deleted regardless of the date of upload (except in the case of explicit permission). Why is the date rule in place anyway? Ram-Man 04:05, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My view is that our original position was incorrect. It was argued that the SXC license was non-binding due to what amounted to a legal loophole, my counter is that (1) at least some folks expected it to be binding so we have an ethical obligation and (2) if the license wasn't binding we didn't have any right to redistribute the images at all. However, getting a consensus around my position was taking more effort than I was willing to expend and it was easy to get people to agree that at least the new images had to go. What I'd like to do is (1) mark all as possibly questionable (done), (2) delete all which are totally unused (I'm waiting for this discussion to die done first), (3) delete all which we can make unused by swapping out with an equal or better image (I expect there will be many of these).. and then take our time trying to get releases on the rest. We've known there were problems with these images for two years, another few months to clean them up won't kill us. I think this approach will be acceptable to both people who think that the license changed and to people who think it was bad all along... and I won't have to drive myself crazy convincing anyone. :) --Gmaxwell 04:18, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This sounds like a fine solution. I have no objection, provided that we make sure we get a list or category containing all of the images licensed under these terms. We don't want any to slip under the radar. Ram-Man 05:48, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I do not agree that a photographer's choice of "no restrictions" verified as "there are no usage restrictions for this photo" (before 2007) could in any way be interpreted as "redistribution of the image is strictly forbidden". The explanations of the restriction options are not shown next to the list, and there is no link to stock.xchng license agreement the way shown above. On registration the terms of use are offered in a tiny 8 row box, showing that nobody is expected to read them. Most stock.xchng contributors probably haven't, and believe their work to be usable with no restriction. Like I said earlier, there are already requests on their forums to get the "no restrictions" notice back only after a month or so of seeing "standard restrictions", and there will no doubt be more of them as people start noticing their choices having been changed by the site admins.

SXC's obvious intent of trying to be the photographers' exclusive agent with the unbelievable man-in-the-middle operation is making any contact efforts impossible, so I won't object to deleting the images. Perhaps as a last chance we should try reaching them through their forums? --Para 14:14, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You're relying on mindreading of SXC's contributor's intent. We can't be sure what contributors there intended; we have to assume the least favorable reasonable interpretation, rather than the most favorable. It's quite evident now that when SXC said "no restrictions" they meant "no restrictions beyond the standard ones". While it's possible that some photographers interpreted this to mean "no restrictions at all", assuming that all contributors understood it to mean that is pure guesswork, and is further unsupported by later developments that have come to our attention. I really think that the interpretation of "no restrictions" that you are forwarding is unsustainable, and that we have no legal or moral right to continue to use these images absent specific evidence of intent to release under an unrestricted license by the individual content creator. That SXC appears to make it very difficult to contact individual creators to get such statements is frustrating, but our frustration at SXC does not excuse us from our moral and legal duty: we have no choice but to discontinue distributing this content. Kelly Martin 15:40, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure what you are trying to say, Para... To Ram-man... iThe only other solution I see would be to mark them all for deletion, pending contact from the original authors, with no contact == same as negative permission, and delete all that we don't get positive results for. I agree with Gmaxwell and Kelly that we cannot morally rely on a mistake to claim license, we should be better than that. UNFORTUNATELY, there is a flaw with the above solution... that SXC does not allow direct contact of the original uploaders (which seems bizarre to me). Since they don't, Ram-Man is right, they all have to go. Regrettably, but it's the Right Thing to do. Did I misstate anything? ++Lar: t/c 16:48, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's quite interesting/sad how if you use the "contact" button to contact the photographer you get a reply from stock.xchng instead. The scary part is that the reply does not at all make it clear that you are not getting a reply from the photographer. /Lokal _Profil 17:11, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What actually happens in my experience is that letters mentioning wikipedia do not go through anymore. They also block you from emailing if you send more than a few. --Gmaxwell 04:00, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Ram-Man and Lar: We don't have a free license (anymore) here, and we can't contact the creators to make sure they intended their images to be freely licensed. Thus, we do what we do in all cases where the license can't be verified: delete the image. --Fb78 17:12, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Image

Hello Everybody. I'd like to know what happened with the File:Dcleveland.jpg?. I could'nt find it. Should i request it?. Thanks a lot. Humberto, Mex. 10:07, 23 February 2007 (UTC).[reply]

It appears it was never uploaded. It's at the en-WP: en:Image:Dcleveland.jpg. Note that we do have another portrait of the lady at Image:BarbaraVilliers.jpg. Lupo 10:48, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks a lot. I need the picture cause i'm working in the article in spanish, thank you very much. Have a nice day. Humberto, Mex. 05:51, 24 February 2007 (UTC).[reply]

I've uploaded the en-WP version as Image:Barbara Villiers.jpg. Lupo 22:33, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

February 23

Barnstar discussion

Please see this discussion about possibly adding a Barnstar for people who make simultaneous contributions to Wikipedia and Commons. We welcome your thoughts. Johntex 15:24, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It passed en:Template:The Commons Ambassador Barnstar and en:Wikipedia:Barnstars/General. --Evrik 05:27, 7 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

people

all people talk to me they thing that i am some one eles and have done somthing rong!!!!! —the preceding unsigned comment is by 198.237.17.15 (talk • contribs) 17:43, 23. Feb. 2007

sometimes when you forget to sign your comments that happens! ++Lar: t/c 22:59, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No category for images lacking description?

There seems to be no cat for images that have no or an insufficient description of the depicted object (e.g. like this one Image:Halitziya.jpg). At least I couldn't find one in Category:Images for cleanup. Any suggestions? -- Túrelio 17:36, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That image is missing essential source information, you can mark it with {{subst:nsd}} and follow the directions for notifying the uploader that appears on the image's page. If that seems too harsh, follow the directions at Commons:Deletion requests (i.e. start by marking it with {{delete|reason}} ~~~~ and then follow the rest of the instructions on Commons:Deletion requests). —RP88 18:31, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think Túrelio meant images wich have enough source and licensing description but not enough description of what the image is actually depicting. /Lokal _Profil 19:08, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. -- Túrelio 19:17, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if you just wish to mark the image as lacking sufficient information to identify the depicted object, you can add Category:Unknown_subject (or one of its subcategories) to the image. However, it appears that the category gets very little attention. —RP88 19:42, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Would it possible to randomnly draw one image from that gallery and show it on the front page with title like "Can you help us tell what this is?" Samulili 21:12, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Basically, no. Unless we do something creepy with Javascript. -- Bryan (talk to me) 21:38, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I like the Category:Unknown subject idea, and I'll volunteer to help with that, by checking the image's usage, to see if anything can be gleaned from its context. For example, Image:Halitziya.jpg is being used here at en:Halit Ziya Uşaklıgil. For an image with no source info though, and no indication that it's actually being used anywhere, I'd say get rid of it. --Elonka 23:24, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

@ Elonka: In case of Image:Halitziya.jpg, I've asked the uploader (User:Ozyurekli) for comment, though there may be a language problem. If anybody here knows Turkish, she/he may translate my request[26].

@ All: Thanks for your comments. I conclude that in case of images/media with no or really insufficient description of the depicted object the Category:Unknown subject would be best.
An alternative option would be creating a new Category:Images requiring description or Category:Images lacking description. I'm not advocating that, but would like to hear your opinion. -- Túrelio 09:45, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

February 24

Category:Animation

Can any actual animations be split off into category:Animated diagrams or Category:Animated illustrations? Does anyone have any qualm against this measure, to make sure the Animation category is just for the history and science of animated filmmaking? -- Zanimum 00:56, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I just had a quick look and it seems that the vast majority of items there are animated images, rather than media about animated film-making. So I think animated film-making should be the thing to be split off. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 10:41, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Coin-operated toy horse

I recently added Image:Ride Bucky.jpg, and was very surprised not to find a specific category for coin-operated mechanical toys like this. We don't even have a Category:Mechanical toys or Category:Coin-operated toys. But, perhaps there is a specific term for them, and I failed to find it in the hierarchy. Do we really have no other such images? -- en:Jmabel | talk 07:59, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In looking for this, I found Image:Musée Mechanique 3.jpg, but it's also uncategorized. Using the new Mayflower tool, I tried "penny arcade", but got only one relevant hit. To my further surprise, we don't even have a Category:Arcade games, though I'm sure we must have something of the sort under a different name. - en:Jmabel | talk 08:12, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Jeez, we don't even have a Category:Juke boxes. - en:Jmabel | talk 08:18, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Jukeboxes... pfctdayelise (说什么?) 10:34, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OK. Glad to see that. But the only category it is under is Category:Audio, so that doesn't get me any closer to coin-operated machines. - en:Jmabel | talk 19:41, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to point out that Image:Ride Bucky.jpg is potentially a copyright infringement on the designer of the horse in the original ride. The horse probably has enough of an artistic element to be copyrightable, in the US at least, and as a 3D work requires a derivation license to create a publishable photograph. Kelly Martin 19:44, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Remember that this is old enough that, at that time, one would only have had copyright by registering it, and that almost no one making this sort of thing did so. I'd be astounded if there was a copyright on it; I seriously doubt that there is a problem. Certainly less of an issue than with our many depictions of video arcade games, which date from late enough that copyright would have been the default. - en:Jmabel | talk 03:10, 25 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Template:ConfirmationImageOTRS

Could someone place this template on commons too? On en:Image:Caucasiamapussr.gif (uploaded here now) I came across this template, but it seems not to be listed here. Or can it not be used on the commons? --Hardscarf 10:21, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you look on the bottom of the page, there is a link to the Commons template, which is {{PermissionOTRS-ID}} -- Bryan (talk to me) 10:30, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Our {{ConfirmationOTRS}} is the same, but I created a RDR for the other name just in case. Thanks for telling us. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 10:32, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

how to upload new version of an image?

Hi, I'm having trouble figuring out how to upload a new version of an image. The one I'm trying to replace is Image:OregonCavesNM-HAER.png (it's a black-and-white image, but the format is saved in a 256 color version; a small adjustment results in a file that is only 8kb rather than 228 KB.) Can anybody tell me how to do this? Ideally, contact me on my Wikipedia talk page, or just post here and I'll check back. Thanks! -Peteforsyth 11:03, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Answered on the user's talk page. Jastrow (Λέγετε) 11:19, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

blocking and security

I bought a new computer and lost the 60day trial anti virus - I bought a new one and it would not load - I downloaded one off of the Army Knowledge On-line and got it loaded on my computer. Problem now is I can not open up drop down boxes on websites or photo links etc... I went to the internet options, security and when I hit custom level the area is blank and won't allow changes. What do I need to do in order to see photo links and drop downs on web pages? Thanks -

You might want to try installing a new browser. Firefox is very good. So is Opera. You could also switch your system to another operating system, such as Fedora. Although you also might want to find a better place to ask. This is Wikimedia commons, not the support site for your anti-virus. --Gmaxwell 19:44, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

February 25

How do I deal with halftone artifacts?

I scanned a painting (reproduced at a pretty small scale) from a book at 400 DPI, and it's come out with this repeating halftone pattern on it. Is there any way to deal with that? Using a "despeckle" filter gets rid of the detail and makes it look mushy. I have a lot of paintings to scan from this book, so any sort of specialty tool would be much appreciated. grendel|khan 03:29, 25 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The halftone pattern is quite probably showing up because it's present in the original: it was doubtlessly printed using halftones. You can ameliorate by scanning at a resolution that is not a small multiple of a large factor of the printer's resolution (say, something like 370 dpi, or 423 dpi); this will at least spread the regular halftoning artifacts so that they're not occurring in consistent positions from scanline to scanline. You can also downsample the scan, or you can simply scan at a lower resolution in the first place. Scanning at a resolution significantly higher than the one the original was printed at is generally useless and often causes problems, unless, of course, your specific intention is to capture the details of the printing process. (There is, however, merit in scanning at twice the resolution of the original and downsampling, if your scanner uses a Bayer filter and you are scanning in color.) Kelly Martin 03:43, 25 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I was thinking of descreening. There was some (quite old) software called pei I'd seen some time ago, but it's grayscale only. (There's a very good example of what I was talking about over here.) I ended up reducing the size by half, which gave me results I was okay with: see Image:Opitz-Dedication of a Synagogue in Alsace-1820.jpg. grendel|khan 05:06, 25 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There is quite a lot of software capable of descreening, although I've never tried it much myself. You should usually scan at least twice the resolution of the original or sometimes multiple times more. This depends somewhat on the software I think. Note the image will be downsampled at the end as part of the descreening step. There are also I believe resonable effective albeit tedious ways to achieve a good effect without special software (altho from what I've seen of the software, I expect they do do a better job). Unfortunately, I have no idea if any of this software is free, but you might want to do a search for descreen or moire pattern removal Nil Einne 21:16, 1 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I did try this software recently [27] (admitedly I only really choose it because it comes up early in Google). The design seems resonably advanced, which doesn't necessary mean i'ts good and it's not free but you might want to give it a try. At least it will give you an idea of what's possible perhaps :-P Nil Einne 21:18, 1 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Picture of the Year 2006 Archive preview

At the end of the Commons:Picture of the Year/2006 election, we are planning to release a zip archive of all Featured Pictures of 2006. A preview of this archive is located at http://tools.wikimedia.de/~bryan/poty/. It is not completely done yet, but the most important part, the image description pages are there. Please review them and post all mistakes, comments and critiques here. Thanks, -- Bryan (talk to me) 18:44, 25 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The author link at http://tools.wikimedia.de/~bryan/poty/233.html is wrong. It should link to http://flickr.com/photos/17393884@N00 . pfctdayelise (说什么?) 02:56, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Also 'Picture of the 2007' doesn't make much sense. 'Picture of the Year 2007'? I am not sure what you plan to link that to. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 02:59, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You are correct, I missed out the Year. It will probably contain the results of the finale, but that is of course still subject to change. About 233, there was a space to many in the author name. Will be fixed in the next bui;d.

I need a good CSS'er to make something nice from this. Any volunteers? -- Bryan (talk to me) 18:05, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

SVG distortion at small scale

Is there any way we can deal with distortion like this?--Pharos 21:15, 25 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nope. The only way to avoid this is to make the height of the thumb a factor of the number of rows in the image. -- Bryan (talk to me) 21:24, 25 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

These little flag icons are used incredibly commonly in Wikipedia articles. Perhaps it would make sense to create special versions of the images for icon use?--Pharos 22:42, 25 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Um. Whats distortion? The line aliasing? You get the same result if you take a PNG and downsample it to that size, this isn't a SVG problem. You can't accurately display something with a spatial frequency of N without 2N pixels. See w:Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem. As you get closer to the limit higher spatial frequencies will be reflected back and create aliasing. --Gmaxwell 23:00, 25 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I realize that it's not a technically soluble issue (now I do, anyway). My point is just that these flag icons look terrible, and they're everywhere. It would probably be better if we had "simplified" designs for the flag icons.--Pharos 23:25, 25 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

They should have created the states with some nice power of 2 states ;) -- Bryan (talk to me) 19:04, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My suggestion is to campaign for a change to the US flag. Either a change in the number of stripes or go with one of the bog standard, ugly, tricolour designs. Admitedly

works okay and it quite a nice flag but I don't think the US deserves a cool flag Nil Einne 21:22, 1 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

February 26

Wheelchair symbols

The point has been made in en:Wikipedia talk:Fair use#The_wheelchair_logo_is_copyrighted.3B_what_should_we_use_instead.3F that images like en:Image:Wheelchair.svg are copyrighted. Category:Wheelchair symbols consists entirely of derivative works based on that design; most of the images make public domain claims based on publication/use by governments. What does this mean for their copyright status? —xyzzy_n 07:44, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's a really lame development. I would have thought it was PD-ineligible. :/ I wonder if one like

is also a deriv work? pfctdayelise (说什么?) 12:39, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It’s complex enough not to be ineligible, in my opinion (ineligibility is quite narrowly defined, and there is an evident artistic process here), and Image:Handicap.svg is just a mirrored version with minor differences, obviously based on the original design, which means it’s certainly derivative. (IANAL, of course.) —xyzzy_n 13:28, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How is File:Wheel.svg for a free alternative? --NE2 17:06, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Note that the images in Category:Icons ISO 7001 (and possibly other uncategorized ones) will have the same status. It might be helpful to read the actual 7001 document, to see if it says anything about licensing terms. Unfortunately, that costs money; I haven't found anything online yet other than general copyright statements by ISO - it's conceivable the icons themselves have different terms than the publications. --Davepape 17:37, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I found a draft of a revision of ISO 7001 via Google. It has the usual assertion of copyright. Modification of the images is allowed to account for national/cultural differences, but there is nothing there that would look good on a copyright tag. Could somebody ask ISO what they allow to do with the images? —xyzzy_n 17:57, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Presumably the P at least is ineligable or we could at least use a similar design with some free font sans serif P and it'll be fine Nil Einne 21:24, 1 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

User-specific licenses and categories

I've run into these and I couldn't find a place that specifically prohibits them but I don't see the use for them and as I remember gmaxwell saying, they will make it more difficult to sort by license when (if) we ever implement a feature like that. Following are two examples (one a category and one a template): Category:Avi Kedmi Template:GFDL-chlewey Yonatanh 11:38, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I forgot to mention in my previous edit that regarding the categories, I am, of course, only speaking of non-notable commons users who don't deserve a category for their photographs. Yonatanh 11:41, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

User-specific categories are ok, as long as they are under Category:User galleries and files also have subject-describing categories.

User-specific templates are ok as long as they are subst'ed when used and do not impose any further restrictions on use, as per previous discussions here.

Just ask users to do these things, I am sure most will be happy to comply. If they are not, send them here to explain why not. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 12:33, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What PFC said. We discussed these here a few weeks ago. User templates on image pages only if they are substed and don't do funky things with licensing. Licensing shouldn't be obscured behind non-standard templates. From discussion here this appeared to be the consensus. If you can find an appropriate policy page feel free to write this in as a rule.--Gmaxwell 19:35, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

User interface copyvio?

See Commons:Deletion requests/Image:Apple-iPhone.jpg. Scepia delted this picture of an iPod video because the user interface is copyrighted. I'm a bit confused, because there are many iPod pictures here on Commons with a user interface on it ([28] [29] [30] for example). Plus, all the pictures with an user interface should be deleted. A picture like [31] would be unacceptable because it shows some kind of user interface.

I think this is a bit weird, but there's an other conflict too: user interfaces aren't the only copyrighted stuff Apple produces: the design of their products is an other one. You can't just make an exact copy of an iPod for example. So why are pictures of an iPod accepted at all? Can someone please explain this to me? Yorian 21:09, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I deleted it. I just meant to make a reference to the arguments made by User:Scepia. In short, because I have to go to bed: a) user interface and its elements are often copyrighted and when they are showns as clearly as in the picture mentioned, I don't think that is ok. b) The design of iPod is protected but as far as I know, not by copyright but some other right. This time I wish that users Lupo or RtC were here to give the right answers :) Samulili 21:21, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The iPod itself is patented and not copyrighted (to my understanding, it can't be according to COM:DW#Isn.27t_every_product_copyrighted_by_someone.3F_What_about_cars.3F_Or_kitchen_chairs.3F_My_computer_case.3F), however the software can be and is copyrighted. Yonatanh 21:42, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

February 27

Horrid mess on deletion requests

There's a mess following http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests#Image:ITN_headquarters_aerial.jpg of which the origin I know not, Can anyone fix? William Avery 01:25, 27 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Mostly cleaned up now. User:Secar_one didn't quite follow the instructions in the deletion message, with the handy formatting template. --Davepape 04:05, 27 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Trademarks on fictional elements

Would Template:Trademarked belong on images like the Fleisher cartoon stills at Superman? The films are PD, but the character is still protected by trademark. So far, I think I've only seen the 'trademarked' template on logos.--Pharos 21:57, 27 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

February 28

Template:PD-ineligible

I'm starting to question the usefulness of Template:PD-ineligible after reading this (a substantial out-of-court copyright settlement being made on a silent musical piece) and after looking at a few pages of Category:PD ineligible, which is very much a hodge-podge. At the very least, this should be better defined, or maybe split into distinct subjects where we feel such a justification makes practical sense. I'm not saying that PD-ineligible isn't a concept that exists in copyright law, but I wonder how useful it is for us to employ this as a licensing tag.--Pharos 03:43, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Threshold for copyright is originality. 4' 33" of silence presented as music was pretty original. I have no doubt that we frequently screw up pd-ineligible, but that doesn't mean that it never applies. --Gmaxwell 03:58, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I agree that it's certainly philosophically original, but I'm not sure a work with no content should really be copyrightable (not that I can't appreciate it as avant-guard art). Anyway, I would really like to know what's considered a "good" example of PD-ineligible for use here. So far, the most compelling images I've seen are simple geometrical shapes. Were these simply lifted from renderings by others?— that would in my opinion be a "bad idea", and certainly unnecessary for simple geometrical shapes. And if the images are user-created, then I don't see where the problem would be in giving these conventional licenses (or just marking them PD or even PD-ineligible-user). In short, I think giving "PD-ineligible" as a pull-down option, though the concept is real in copyright law, does not really further the goals at Commons.--Pharos 01:26, 1 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

On which license menu is PD-ineligible an option???? I thought it had been removed from the drop-down menus because it is, as you point out, very much open to abuse. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 02:09, 1 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, you're right, I hadn't noticed that PD-ineligible had been removed from the drop-down. That is a positive step. I still think, though, that any use of PD-ineligible here is bound to be problematic and unnecessary for our purposes, barring examples to the contrary.--Pharos 02:32, 1 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I use PD-ineligible regularly for graphics of individual letters and words; I think everything under User:Angr/Gallery#Writing is tagged PD-ineligible, because although I'm the one who created those images, they don't reflect any originality on my part. —An gr 13:23, 2 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really have a problem with user-created PD-ineligible, I just think that labeling third-party stuff PD-ineligible is bad practice. I also think we would be on better footing if we used more specific templates, like a "PD-script" (this image representing a character in a writing system...) for your images.--Pharos 01:15, 7 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

PD-ineligible is perfectly fine. It is clear and correct. Commons, of all communities, should not start to commit "copyfraud" by using all kinds of other licenses when the only correct one is "PD-ineligible". --AndreasPraefcke 14:03, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, at the least I think a generic PD-ineligible should be "obsoleted" like Template:PD, because what it covers is very unclear. Instead we could have tags like PD-script for writing, PD-shape for geometry, etc.--Pharos 12:58, 14 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that this would be much better, not least because script and letter shapes can be protected in some countries but not others. Do you want to make a start on sonme draft templates? --MichaelMaggs 13:30, 14 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I've drafted Template:PD-script, Template:PD-shape and Template:PD-chem, based on what seem to be the three most common (and reasonable) justifications. I'm a little skeptical of the structural formula justification personally, but it does seem to have been widely accepted here.--Pharos 02:50, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Should it be noted on PD-script that only raster fonts are public domain in the United States? --Iamunknown 02:53, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If that's the law, then definitely — I'm not really familiar with it. Ideally, we would have all sorts of disclaimers explaining under what circumstances and in what countries the tags actually applied.--Pharos 05:49, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As a disclaimer, I am not very familiar with copyright law either. My above statement will need to be verified. --Iamunknown 05:58, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

PD-shape seems to be OK, but I'm not sure about the others... I think that creating a structural formula may take a lot of work and if someone would wish to license it as CC-BY, then we should stop him from that. As for PD-script... I also thought that fonts are copyright and can be very creative, so I'm not really sure if this is correct. E.g. what about self-created medival-like fonts that are in reality small pictures? As mentioned above - I would leave the decision to the author, at least in most cases. --Nux (talk··dyskusja) 10:52, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Your opinion

Hello, I would like to modify a template which is very used. It is Template:Creator. The goal is to obtain something looking like this test page => Image:José de Ribera 017.jpg. (the test template is here => User:EDUCA33E/test).

If it is visually correct, the goal is to show automatically in template like Template:Painting the Creator sheet (if it exists) with the corresponding artist name.

For example with something in Template Painting like this :

{{#ifexist:Creator:{{{Artist}}}|{{Creator:{{{Artist}}}}}|{{{Artist|-}}}}}

So before I destroy anything ! I would like to have your opinion...(even if I have to put this idea in my pocket.). Regards, EDUCA33E 01:17, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think that the test looks great. Very nice work. Jkelly 23:07, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So, if no opposition, can an sysop copy/paste User:EDUCA33E/test in {{Creator}} ?

(Note : A bot request has been made here for cleaning <br> tag and * lang.) Regards. EDUCA33E 14:17, 1 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Changes in French jurisprudence regarding copyright

Short summary of the issue: before 1995, the normal duration of copyright in France was 50 years after the death of the author, or after publication in the case of collective or anonymous works. However, there were special extensions meant to compensate the world wars. Due to European "harmonization" of laws, the normal duration was extended to 70 years (following Germany, I think). The lingering question was whether the war extensions still applied. The French Court of Cassation said they didn't (at least in the case where extensions didn't start to elapse before 1995, but those who did will be over in 2009 or so). A yet unsolved question is the case of the 30 year extensions for authors killed in action (the only major author that comes to mind is Antoine de Saint Exupéry, of Little Prince fame).

Wikimedia France is having its counsel investigate the exact implications of this evolution. In any case, it seems that the situation is better for us. David.Monniaux 22:37, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Muahaha ! good for us. But why, in our Internet Time in which every soft and study is no usable or accurate after 5 years, they moved from 50 years to 70 years. (If I'm president of Europa, I Will move it from 70 to 30 years I promise it !). Yug 23:28, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Because they aligned it to the longest time. Because even in our Internet times, there are powerful lobbies at work that want extended copyright terms. See this article to see the kind of content that some powerful companies don't want in the public domain.

Interestingly, the SNE, the union of French book publishers, acted against these wartime extensions --- probably because they don't want their members spending money paying heirs of the authors of "classical" works. David.Monniaux 00:18, 1 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Commons:Village pump/Archive/2007/02

February 1

Picture of the Year voting is now open

EMF to SVG converter recommendations?

Editing of heavily used templates

Embassies of Washington

Deletion debate about copyvio organisation logo

Category:Incomplete deletion requests

Special:ImportFreeImages to be enabled on Commons?

February 2

Alexis Bledel

My picture

Image:Wiki washington post jeep jpg.jpg

February 3

Flag of the Vatican City

February 4

I don't undstand how to upload and tag an image >>> I OWN <<<<

Handball fotos to upload

Remove copyright remark

I don't know what license is

February 5

Dealing with misuse of copyrighted free use

wiki website

Apparent change in Special:Upload

February 6

Help with license

February 7

Categories vs. Galleries

Upload rules

Dual-licensing free (GFDL) and non-free (CC-NC/ND) licenses

February 8

Reply from Commons?

Custom template for own photos

Image:Vfactoria.jpg

February 9

Fair use question

For quick delete

Soccer players? Or footballers?

cascading protection

Tags

February 10

Help with 'Eudyptes schlegeli'?

Wikimedia Commons translated as Wiki-Share

February 11

Blocked

Wikinews Accreditation

Bug 8951: Add a category field to Special:Upload

Order of languages

Image:Topographic30deg N60E0.png and the same

Bot approval for Category-bot

Map Request for Alaska

Unique set of alternative licensing buttons needed

welcoming anons

February 14

National Library of Medicine

Awesome new search tool: Mayflower

Screenshot

February 15

Watermark warning

Unstable licensing problem

Again: User talk:I.R. Annie IP.#Image:Decision Tree on Uploading Images pl.svg

Commonshelper

February 16

Deep-Thought : Putting Questions in Wikipedia?

Question about licensing of USSR generated images

Do we have a MOS (Manual of Style)?

Picture of the year

17 February

commons helper

Redesigning Special:Upload

Spanish files

18 February

Problem rendering thumbnails using Windows XP

Fan art again

"Definition of Free Cultural Works"

February 19

Commons delinker

Persistently removing categories

February 20

Translation request.