Commons:Village pump/Archive/2019/05

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Help needed: is someone speaking the German language?

Hello,
Woelle ffm is speaking the German language, but I am not speaking this language.
Is there someone, who speaks the German language, able to intervene in User talk:Woelle ffm#About Talk:Atlas? I do not understand why the talk page of a gallery should be emptied and redirected to a Wikipedia talk page of a user.
Regards --NicoScribe (talk) 13:17, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

✓ Done. --A.Savin 13:22, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Speravir 01:55, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Broken image display

For some time it has not been possible on my computer to correctly display images on Commons at different sizes. If say I click what is labelled as a "1,024 × 655 pixels" display, I get instead a blurry over-expansion way beyond the actual resolution of the image. In fact, the same bizarre over-expansion occurs even the display size of the image is reduced. Is this a failure of my computer system, or faulty programming at Commons? I use an iMac with OS X El Capitan and Chrome. – Epipelagic (talk) 01:44, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

I tested a few random files and no issue. (Macbook Pro Mid 2012, OS X El Capitan 10.11.6 and Chrome 74.0.3729.131) Bidgee (talk) 02:13, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
Maybe you are extremely far zoomed in (images are on a different domain and zoom factor is remembered at the domain level) ? Try Cmd-0 to reset the zoom scale. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:00, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
Ah, many thanks TheDJ. Cmd-0 worked beautifully! – Epipelagic (talk) 00:16, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
Can you take screenshots (both on-iMac and with a camera) to demonstrate the problem?   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 11:45, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Speravir 23:51, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

Finding transferred Flickr images

In December 2018 the National Library of Ireland released about 20 more images to flickr. Between about 2 to 4 of these are useful for en. Wikipedia articles. If I try to transfer with the Flickr2Commons utility it seems to tell me they have already been transferred (as it flashes by) but also seems to play secret santa as to the name used on commons. There may be some obvious trick or pointer I have missed as to how to find the file. One example is:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nlireland/33499277288/

Is anyone able to help locate this on commons and also ideally tell me how they found it. Thankyou. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Djm-leighpark (talk • contribs) 05:33, 1 May 2019 (UTC) Djm-leighpark (talk) 05:34, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

@Djm-leighpark: Try using "External links search", which you can find as one of the "Special pages" that are linked to from the Special pages link in the sidebar on the left.
Looking for pages with External links that link to the "https://www.flickr.com/photos/nlireland/", ie the NLI's Flickr account, gives this list [1] -- but there's a lot of images there! (A lot more than 20).
Looking at the categorisation for some of these reveals that there is a category called Category:Images from the National Library of Ireland with 2108 pictures in it. This may give an easier, more visual search for your files; but it is also possible that some might have the external link, but not have the categorisation.
It may be that people can offer further ways to cut this list down -- eg a sort by upload date, to limit to only files uploaded since Dec. 2018. There may be clever ways to do that & combine it with an external links search using an SQL query; and to combine the results with QuickCategories to put particular subsets of the results into new categories for future reference. But I hope this gives you a start. Jheald (talk) 07:03, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
The other thing is that if you know the number on Flickr for each of the images you want, then searching for it, eg for (21971609150).jpg or whatever, in the search box at the top left of this page should (with luck) take you straight to it. Jheald (talk) 07:09, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
  • It's possible that the file isn't on Commons. I can't find it by searching by SHA1 hash. [2] Flickr2commons doesn't seem to currently work for files tagged with "No known copyright restrictions". --ghouston (talk) 07:20, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Thanks Ghouston you may be right and I am misreading/misinterpreting the message flashing before me: I've followed the links [3] and [4] ad I guess there may be an issue ... I probably should be asking why Flickr2commons is just flashing an error message I can't understand ( I suppose I could sniff it or video record the screen but that seems over the top. I just want simples. Thankyou. (Unless anyone has other suggestions ... I dont want to spend a lot of wasted effort on this). Djm-leighpark (talk) 11:01, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Golden.com

So there's a new well-funded "resource for canonical knowledge" (read: Wikipedia mirror with some bells and whistles). As has happened in the past, authorship/licensing information for images that illustrate Wikipedia articles appears to have been either forgotten or hidden pretty well. I've emailed support about one of my own images whose license conditions appear to be violated, and also left a query on the HN thread... anyone else whose license includes an attribution clause may wish to do likewise, unless they can see an attribution that I cannot. Storkk (talk) 13:19, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Oh boy, another Everipedia? --Animalparty (talk) 20:23, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
Seems to be a kind of everipedia-wikidata mishmash with moar "2.0"ness and concomitant VC funding. Fun times. Storkk (talk) 22:05, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
They've at least responded to my support ticket - although their response is pretty far from adequate. So far, they've added a wikidata URL all articles in the article's /activity section, and are trying to claim this satisfies attribution. Storkk (talk) 10:53, 2 May 2019 (UTC)
My most recent email, after they added wikidata source information to the activity sections:

Hi. Thanks for your reply, but this does not satisfy the license: for starters, I don't see where I am credited (that's what "Attribution" means, and it's a crystal clear requirement of the license - so much so, it's in the license name). The licensor is not wikidata (and wikidata's URL is not commons.wikimedia.org), it is me. If you're going to list a source, that would be Commons, but listing a source is not the same as attributing the author.

Secondly, the location you have chosen for the attribution/license is inadequate. On viewing an article incorporating an image, it should be clear either who the author is and how the image is licensed, or at the very least how to find out who the author is. It is totally unclear that clicking on "Activity" should provide this information (and indeed, as I said previously it still does not).

Note that Wikimedia Commons (the repository that you have taken these images from) has machine-readable attribution for approximately 100% of the images, including the preferred attribution for many, so it's not like adhering to the license terms is at all onerous.

Comments/suggestions appreciated... Cheers, Storkk (talk) 12:41, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Just now on Twitter:

Jude from Golden here. We made a mistake there and fixing this as number 1 priority. We want to add the full attribution here, give me 24 hours to fix this...

-- Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:17, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

This now seems to be resolved. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:38, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
Not really... e.g. This page's image - there is no credit I can find to Jerzy Dzieciaszek/PhotoTango.Net (see original). This page also refuses to display credit, as does this one. Others are more obvious, like old images that don't have an {{Information}} template, so this one credits "Unknown" instead of Roland Zumbühl... though at least for that one there is a link to the source. I went over in pretty thorough detail with them what best practices might look like, so this "resolution" is disappointing - I actually used the Stephen Fear, Alika Hope and the Gavito photos as examples. I think it fails when the author parameter is not wikilinked, but I'm not 100% sure. Storkk (talk) 18:48, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
@Pigsonthewing: : I don't do Twitter, but I gather that through that you have some a channel of communication to an apparently relevant person. Can you pass these along? Virtually certain to be a sign of a much more general remaining problem. - Jmabel ! talk 20:22, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
They just said they have a script running, which "will take 1 week to fully import". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:55, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Notification of DMCA takedown demand - Five-element-cycles

In compliance with the provisions of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and at the instruction of the Wikimedia Foundation's legal counsel, one or more files have been deleted from Commons. Please note that this is an official action of the WMF office which should not be undone. If you have valid grounds for a counter-claim under the DMCA, please contact me. The takedown can be read here.

Affected file(s):

To discuss this DMCA takedown, please go to COM:DMCA#Five-element-cycles. Thank you! Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 20:45, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

'Inquire' image repository

Does anyone have a tool for downloading all the images from [5] in one go, instead of one at a time? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:40, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

@Fae: is good at this sort of thing, as long as usable categories are applied. Not sure if he's around right now. Rodhullandemu (talk) 00:25, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Depicts support coming to the UploadWizard next week

Support for depicts statements tagging will be enabled for the UploadWizard sometime next week. I'll let the community know when it's released, as well as provide some instruction on how to access it. If you'd like to try it out now yourself, you can visit Test-Commons for testing. If you have some feedback, you can leave it at the Structured Data talk page. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 18:53, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

And what about the basic upload form? --A.Savin 20:19, 2 May 2019 (UTC)
Special:Upload is not currently being worked on by the Structured Data project. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 21:27, 2 May 2019 (UTC)
UploadWizard was supposed to be our simple interface for uploaders. Is it going to get more and more bloated? Nemo 21:07, 2 May 2019 (UTC)
Structured data in the UW is, apart from captions, in a new "Add data" section towards the end of the process. This portion is optional and can be skipped. The basic, simple upload process is still intact. You can try it out on the test site that I linked to, if you'd like. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 21:27, 2 May 2019 (UTC)
A new section still feels like bloat. When will captions be moved there, so that people are not presented with multiple confusing options? Nemo 21:34, 2 May 2019 (UTC)
There currently are no plans to move captions to a different part of the UW. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 21:45, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

image page problem (ruwiki) due to filename redirect on Commons?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T30299
Tracked in Phabricator
Task T212687

Please have a look at:

  1. ru.wikipedia: Файл:Котельная.JPG – note the filename, and the difference between the fake large image (top) and the real image under "File history" (bottom);
    also note the doubled file infobox and license tag on the page (no reason visible in edit source mode)
  2. ru.wikipedia: Краматорск#Благоустройство – the file is currently used in this article, note that the real image is correctly displayed
  3. commons: File:Котельная.JPG – note the filename (same as on ru.wikipedia), and the existing redirect
  4. commons: File:Котельная в Звонарёвке.JPG – note that this is the image actually displayed on the ruwiki filepage

None of the file pages, including the one with the redirect, have been edited in the last 4 years.

I wonder if such a problem has attracted attention before. Deleting the redirect on Commons could be a quick solution, but please DO NOT. This case might be a good example for an underlying general technical issue also affecting other projects, which is worth closer inspection. Hope the description helps, and someone else can take care. --Te750iv (talk) 00:39, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

This is not a new problem. See Help:File_redirect#In-depth_notes_about_the_operation_of_file_redirects. Ruslik (talk) 17:57, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
@Ruslik0: thanks for the useful link. @Magog the Ogre: maybe this is of interest as an additional case for T212687. --Te750iv (talk) 20:55, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Category name

Hello there,

I need a category for Didier of Cahors. What do you think is the best name? Category:Didier of Cahors or Category:Desiderius of Cahors? He's also known as St Desiderius of Cahors and there's another Category:Saint Desiderius…

Thanks. Genium (talk) 18:35, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Japanese artists identification needed

Back in 1860, the London magazine Once a Week published a number of reproductions of Japanese prints and drawings. Unfortunately none of the original artists was identified (I provisionally blame the magazine's editor for this bit of racism since the author of the article they accompanied, Sherard Osborn, does seem to have been interested in distinguishing one artist from another). I have them in Category:OAW Japanese illustrations; is there anyone here who knows about such things and might be able to name any of the artists, or at least can add some suitable categories to the pictures? Levana Taylor (talk) 00:04, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

It seems a little strange that Fujiyama comes out as "Fusi-Hama"... -- AnonMoos (talk) 00:56, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Text only image

Hiii, so lately I discovered some images that are text only. They are made up images that contains Arabic text. Can I nominate them for deletion? This is an example file:محمد بن عبد الوهاب.png--SharabSalam (talk) 14:34, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

@SharabSalam: You can, but that image is hardly text-only and it is in use by 9 different language Wikipedias.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 14:52, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
@SharabSalam: Why do you want to nominate it for deletion? Regards, Yann (talk) 15:09, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
It's designed using Photoshop and I don't understand the educational purpose of it. It also contains honorific title which is "May God have mercy on him [Muhammad Ibn Abdulwahhab]" I really wonder what is the educational purpose of that image.--SharabSalam (talk) 15:52, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
Pinging Abu Ta'ab as he has created bunch of these text-only images--SharabSalam (talk) 15:58, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
@SharabSalam: It is used, so it is automatically in scope. The copyright status is another issue. It can be renamed if needed, that's not reason for deletion. Regards, Yann (talk) 16:10, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
Thanks Yann but could you take a look at أبو تائب uploads? There are a lot of text only images and contains something like (peace be upon him), (may God have mercy on him) etc. The same person who upload these images put them in wikipedia. Here is a list of these images File:ضياء الدين المقدسي.png File:الخطيب البغدادي.png File:عصام.svg(just a name) File:أسماء.svg also a name File:محمد بن عبد الوهاب.png mentioned this earlier File:السيدة هاجر.png the name of Hajar File:ابن شيخ الجبل.png File:أبو بكر قيم الجوزية.png File:ابن النجيح.jpg these images are purely text-only even if there are like some sort of frame around them. Also all of them are made using photoshop and contains honorific terms--SharabSalam (talk) 16:36, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
@SharabSalam: We don't care here where and how an image is used. That's the responsibility of each Wikipedia. If you are an editor in these Wikipedia, please check (and eventually remove) the image there. Once it is not used, you can nominate it for deletion. Regards, Yann (talk) 16:43, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
Alright just gonna give an example/evidence of what said earlier
Here is an example of creating a text-only image and then putting it in Wikipedia a total misuse of wikipedia as a host-server; creating this File:عصام.svg(Name only image) adding it by the same uploader here. Imagine if we are going to allow this then there will be a lot of people uploading their own work images that are only text!!--SharabSalam (talk) 16:49, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
@SharabSalam: Most of the files you mentioned are not just text-only images. They are presumed to be Islamic calligraphy. Please look at File:Hagia Sophia - Muhammad, Allah, Abu Bakr.jpg as an example. However, I agree with deleting File:عصام.svg only after its removal from the Arabic article. 4nn1l2 (talk) 17:31, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
These are own work. These are not from Hagia Sophia etc. I can give some examples where there are different own work texts-only images that are used one in Arabic Wikipedia and other in Persian Wikipedia for the same subject/person. So in a simple explanation these are names of scholars who had never had calligraphy names. This is a total made up work text of names and btw they are in normal fonts and contains blessings to some scholars who have influenced ISIS like Muhammad Ibn Abdulwahhab. I have discussed this in Wikipedia and I am doing massive deletion in slow motion from other Wikipedia projects so I don't have to disrupt wikipedia and cause problems. I will face difficulty in Arabic Wikipedia during the process of eliminating them but I think I have a way to delete them from Arabic wikipedia and when I do I will nominate them for deletion either one by one or all together as I believe such images should not be in an encyclopedia.--SharabSalam (talk) 20:08, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
Of course, they are not from Hagia Sophia. That's why I said "presumed" (i.e. "supposed"). I'm talking about a tradition of using calligraphy instead of depictions throughout the Islamic world.
Please look at fa:فاطمه زهرا, a featured and high-quality article on the Persian Wikipedia. You cannot just go and remove the "made-up" calligraphy from that article. You will be reverted within minutes. So the file cannot and should not be deleted from Commons. The same scenario may apply to ar:محمد بن عبد الوهاب, and it doesn't matter if this historical figure was an inspiration for ISIL members. [I say "may" because I'm not a regular user of the Arabic Wikipedia so I am not familiar with its atmosphere.]
I suggest that you NOT nominate most of these files for deletion, but if you want to do so, make sure that you won't disrupt Commons. Any such nominations should be on a one-by-one basis. 4nn1l2 (talk) 20:57, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

The Mother of all Photoshoots

Interesting discussion of the UK Parliamentary portraits (Wikipedia/Commons mentioned several times):

https://paulclarke.com/photography/blog/mother-of-all-photoshoots/

-- Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:01, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Postcard that doesn't represent reality

File:Lake Washington Avenue, as seen from the southeast, Alaska-Yukon-Pacific-Exposition, Seattle, Washington, 1908 (AYP 902).jpg: a before-the-fact, drawn postcard for the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific-Exposition that took place in Seattle in 1909. As it happens, it doesn't accurately represent the grounds as built. I've done a pretty thorough job of handling this in the description for the image, but was wondering if there is anything appropriate to do in terms of either categories or templates to mark this as a historically inaccurate image. - Jmabel ! talk 22:03, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

You could add {{Factual accuracy}} {{Inaccurate}} or {{Inaccurate-map-disputed}}, keeping in mind that merely because the text on a postcard is incorrect does not mean that the postcard has no educational value. Thanks for working to correctly represent reality, but keep in mind that some postcards are meant to subvert reality :) --Animalparty (talk) 02:41, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
Sure. This clearly wasn't meant to subvert reality, or for humor: the company that put out the postcard went off half-cocked. There are quite a few in the series that have inaccurate captions, but this is the first that I've worked on that was not more or less visually accurate. - Jmabel ! talk 02:51, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
I'm not sure {{Factual accuracy}} is what we want; similarly for the other templates. It's an accurate representation of a historical postcard; it's just that the postcard doesn't accurately represent the world. - Jmabel ! talk 02:54, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
Templates can only give a heads up. I say edit the files to be as informative as possible, as you have been doing. Adding references would help as well: I don't think Commons has as strict of a no original research policy as Wikipedia, but the most encyclopedic and formal you can make the descriptions, all the best to inform current and future usage. --Animalparty (talk) 03:19, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
Here's what I ended up with: {{Factual accuracy|postcard|While this is presumably an accurate representation of a 1908 postcard, that postcard does not accurately represent the grounds of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific-Exposition (1909). It should be used with caution as a representation of anything other than the postcard itself. See description for further explanation.}} - Jmabel ! talk 00:31, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Some questions

If any admin sees this, please establish a decision concerning the status of this file. I had this file vectorized, so I need to see whether I upload the file to commons or to local wikipedia.--Jeromi Mikhael (talk) 11:37, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

@Jeromi Mikhael: Wikipedia, please.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 13:24, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

VI bot issue

Hi, How to prevent the VI bot to add the same notification again on my talk page? [6], [7].

The ArchiverBot is also down, and nobody noticed.

Poor bots who need human assistance. Is Skynet still OK? ;oD Regards, Yann (talk) 10:14, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

@Yann: It appears to have been under maintenance until 5 minutes before you posted that. N.B. DO NOT ENABLE SKYNET! :)   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 14:27, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
Again today: [8]. Yann (talk) 04:58, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
Again: [9]. Yann (talk) 13:43, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
Again 3 times: [10]. Yann (talk) 04:40, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
JFYI, Yann: “The ArchiverBot is also down, and nobody noticed.” This is wrong, in fact the Bot has intentionally been disabled here on VP, cf. VP talk page and Autoarchiving in Village Pump. — Speravir – 23:19, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
Ehmm, I must revert this in parts: I just noticed that in COM:HD the ArchiverBot is not active, too, where is not has been disabled until now (I will in some seconds). — Speravir – 00:29, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Since when is a picture that was kep twice and nominated for a 3rd time deleted without explenation?

The person nominating this is blatelntly lying inthe explenation. Coinicidently the nominator and the admin doing the deletion also post on each others page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Markfree123 (talk • contribs) 23:05, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Kept twice? As far as I could see, it had already been deleted at least twice. Please do not upload deleted files under another name. Instead, file an undeletion request at COM:UDR if you think the deletion was not justified. Thanks 4nn1l2 (talk) 23:32, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Double image

File:Kunstwerk metrostation Bizet 1992.jpg and File:Metro Brussel decoratie.jpg are the same, only 'Metro Brussel decoratie' is bigger. I would like the more complete name 'Kunstwerk metrostation Bizet 1992' and the more precise date.Smiley.toerist (talk) 17:47, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

@Smiley.toerist and Jmabel: I would favour COM:HISTMERGE here (scroll down to Current requests). — Speravir – 23:17, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

COM:ERRORS

Do we have any way of reporting Main Page errors here at Commons? I couldn't find anything comparable to en:WP:ERRORS, which is dedicated to reporting errors at en:Main Page. (This came to mind after I found a typo at Template:Motd/2019-05-08 (en), which is on the Main Page now.) Instead of responding here, please visit Talk:Main Page#COM:ERRORS. Thank you. Nyttend (talk) 04:45, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

User Amruthary.2017

Please help decipher and categorise User:Amruthary.2017's uploads. Otherwise they might be out of scope and nominated for deletion.--Roy17 (talk) 21:28, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

You haven't posted anything on their talk page. Why not? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 00:04, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Licences

Hi:

The new WritingPro1234 is uploading images in Commons and claim they are his/her own. All of them seem to be from websites and are subject to deletion. I wouldn't want to be drastic, so I am looking for a way for an administrator to keep an eye on this user. Where should I turn?

Pierre cb (talk) 18:42, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

To Commons:Administrators' noticeboard. Ruslik (talk) 20:48, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
Thanks. Pierre cb (talk) 21:33, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Speravir 20:02, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Demokrati logo copyright status

Hi! I am 99% sure that the logo of the Croatian political party Democrats, found here, doesn't meet the threshold of originality. But to be 100% sure, can another experienced user confirm (or deny) this?
When replying, please ping me using the template {{Reply to}} so I get a notification for your reply. I will check this page periodically, but pinging me will ensure I read (and reply to) your reply in a timely manner. Thanks in advance! --Hmxhmx 19:43, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

In my opinion it is below ToO regardless of how define it. It is just a word. Ruslik (talk) 20:07, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
Okay, thanks! --Hmxhmx 22:21, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: --Hmxhmx 22:22, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Wikimedia Commons: a highly hostile place for multimedia students contributions

« A few months ago, after having spent a year working with HUHEZI professors and lectures, we received a tempting proposal to work with the Communication students of this faculty. The idea was for the students to create texts, images, photographs and videos for specific articles on Basque Wikipedia.Read more »
  • Video about pregnancy made by Communication students. This video was deleted and has been undeleted.
  • Infographics about dolmens in the Basque Country. This image was deleted and has been undeleted.
    Infographics about dolmens in the Basque Country. This image was deleted and has been undeleted.
  • Video about the Camino the Santiago made by Communication students. This video is still deleted and waiting for undeletion. [now undeleted ~~~~]]

Hey, have we a list of the files deleted and the students to apologize to and to thanks ? I just thanked the one who uploaded the dolmen visual.f Yug (talk) 19:56, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

  • Process suggestion when such projects happen in the future. (This should probably have happened immediately upon the initial mention on the Village pump where this project was apparently mentioned in advance; I don't remember noticing it at the time.) Might even be worth doing retroactively for this one. There should be a page, either in Commons space or (less desirable) in the teacher's User space, listing the students involved in the project, providing an overview, and ideally linking the videos. Students should be encouraged to link to that page from their user page. I suspect that just that would have been enough to prevent most, possibly all, of these deletions. I believe a good number of the WikiEd projects in the English-language Wikipedia do pretty much exactly that; we should follow their practice, unless we can actually improve upon it. - Jmabel ! talk 21:58, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
@Jmabel: . Ok, let's imagine now that I'm the Basque professor who thought that enriching Wikipedia with content that MUST BE uploaded to Commons is a good idea, and decides that he/she must post something about it in the Village Pump. This is highly irregular, because you don't have to post something on the en:wp Village Pump to ask for permission to start contributing with texts. So he/she puts this message:
Kaixo! HUHEZIko Komunikazio irakaslea naiz eta pentsatu dut nire ikasleek egiten dituzten lanak baliatzea Wikipedia indartzeko. Horretarako irudiak, bideoak eta ilustrazioak egin beharko dituzte eta Commonsera igoko dituzte. Ikasleek eurek egindako lana izango da. Eskerrik asko!
What would you do with this message? -Theklan (talk) 08:40, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
  • @Theklan: What would you do with this message? => Presuming I noticed it, and no one else seemed to be handling it after about 8 hours, I'd run it through Google translate. If I could make enough sense of it, I'd probably reply in Spanish, the most likely language for me to have in common with a Basque speaker. If I couldn't make enough sense of it, I'd seek someone (preferably an admin) with native or near-native Basque to help handle it. - Jmabel ! talk 16:26, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
@Jmabel: It's not the case for the professor, his second language is french. But imagine now a language that is not on Google Translate. That can happen. -Theklan (talk) 16:35, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
@Theklan: French for me is pretty much a "read only" language. No one wants to read my attempts to communicate in French.
In general, anyone communicating here who uses a language uncommon enough that it's not in Google Translate and who doesn't have a more widely-spoken language they can use is going to run into problems. That's a real issue, but it's not one that is easily solved. Much though Commons tries to be language-agnostic, someone who has (for example) only Navajo is going to have a hard time here. But that is really not the issue here: we have Basque-speaking admins, and plenty of French-speaking admins. Apparently we did get one "heads-up" ahead of time, and should have been ready to handle this better. - 00:09, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
Can it happen? Is there a university with internet in the world that speaks a language that's not in Google Translate? Maybe some of the more minor major languages of India, but in this case, the professor also spoke French, and in that case, the professor would likely speak Hindi or English. I'm pretty sure that between the variety of admins, the number of languages supported by Google Translate, and the dominance of a handful of languages, if the person wants to communicate with us, we can understand and respond back.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:59, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
Yes. -Theklan (talk) 21:12, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
Why shouldn't it be a highly hostile place for multimedia student creations? Commons is a good place for photos and maps and copies of existing movies and books. Videos are hard to edit; they're good for video of reality or simple illustrations of moving things, analogous to photos or image illustrations. They're not good for Wikipedia replacements; they're hard to edit and they're suboptimal for deaf users and unusable for blind users. They're simply a bad choice for the Wikimedia environment.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:52, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
Commons is supposed to be a repository of material with educational uses. Some people (myself included) prefer print, others prefer videos. I don't see any way the latter are inherently less educational. Certainly videos are useful to the illiterate, and texts are not. And certainly videos are useful to language learners who are more aurally than textually focused: I certainly know people who are literate in their primary language but can speak (but not read/write) another language. Now that I think of it, I have one of those myself: I understand Yiddish pretty decently, but I can't read it. - Jmabel ! talk 02:47, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
" Why shouldn't it be a highly hostile place for multimedia student creations?"
Simply because we are a community based in free culture, where the collaboration and accessibility is imperative. Every single hostile person should be banned, every hunter that bullies volunteers should be moved away from the community. We must have a healthy environment to people be free to contribute.
"Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That’s our commitment."
So, this is not for you, this is for the whole humanity.
Because of people with this vision that "videos" are bad, this outdated vision that only put us behind, we are not the main source of educational material for a whole generation already, that would prefer YouTube to search about a subject than ours.
Hard to edit is not a excuse:
This is hard to edit:
This is a giant trouble to edit:
This is a nightmare to edit:
...
All of the than utterly important!
And if we would be pressuring to the Wikimedia Movement came to the XXI century, we could already had a built in video editor.
"They're not good for Wikipedia replacements;"
We are not Wikipedia, again, we are not Wikipedia.
We do not need to replace Wikipedia, we do not need to establish our rules based on Wikipedia.
-- Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton m 04:27, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
"Why shouldn't it be a highly hostile place for multimedia student creations?" I can't imagine a worst to defend your point. We should be a friendly place because we want contributions. That's it. -Theklan (talk) 08:46, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
No, we don't want contributions. We delete a large percentage of what comes in every day because it's copyrighted or promotional. We want useful contributions that follow our rules. We want to be a friendly place, but that doesn't mean that we won't delete unhelpful contributions. I think most admins have had to block someone who wanted to contribute but didn't care to understand or follow the rules.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:59, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
This is not for me? But it's for humanity, the people you define as human?
This thread starts with loud yelling about how "Wikimedia Commons" is "extremely hostile". That's, not someone who defines themselves as part of Commons complaining about those of us who do defines themselves as Commons volunteers. There's places where you have to put up with that stuff, and it's called a job, and if there's too much of it, it's called a sucky job. People who delete the endless stream of promotional material and copyvio get a bunch of attacks and tend to burn out. Standing with the people passing out abuse on those who hold the mop tends to drive out people who do the hard work.
As I said, photos and illustrations that don't need editing are one thing. We are not Wikipedia, but we are part of Wikimedia, whose basic concept is works that everyone can edit. w:Incubus (1966 film) had a professional class restoration, and yet they could not erase the subtitles on the film. That pregnancy video is literally impossible to change the text overlay on in a quality way.
We get to establish our rules and get to discuss those rules, and should not be bullied by those who don't consider themselves part of Commons because they don't like the rules.--Prosfilaes (talk) 06:57, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
And turns out that we didn't even get a chance to respond; it was posted on [11] before it was posted here. I don't feel like working harder for people who have no interest in Commons except in how it benefits them.--Prosfilaes (talk) 07:14, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
Well, I'm not a huge contributor in Commons. I only have 7.344 editions, 7.128 of them live. I'm also one of the organizers of WLM, and hey... I even organized a photo exhibition in the University with different Commons contest winners. But yes, I have no interest in Commons at all. -Theklan (talk) 08:46, 6 May 2019 (UTC)


About deletions.

It's absurd deletions, Jmabel, I understand your proposal, however it's absurd. The deletions are based in "wow, the quality is great, we should delete it". No prove that this files was not free was given, and even so, they are deleted. This based on nothing deletions happen very often, and this is very big problem, as the high quality material suffer from this posture.

I'm imagining a videographer, or a photographer trying to contribute for the first time here. "You material is too good for this community, you probably stilled from someone else." as I already so this word being used in deletion request. How this people will contribute with us? Write down at Village Pump before he start to contribute? See the problem?

EugeneZelenko simply decided that the author took this from another place, didn't even requested the deletion, or even gave any, none, zero, argument, citation, source, reference to enforce his allegation, to crown a sysop delete without questioning, without checking; and the problem is in the professor???? That he should warn us before the uploads?

We should focus in solve the issue, not create bureaucracy to "work around" the problem.

Theklan, do you have the list of the users that contribute here? So we could track all files uploaded and undo the deletions, and apologize the students. I'm very ashamed that this is the community that I dedicated most of my energy to, I only can say sorry about your experience here, thank you for your effort, and count on me. -- Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton m 04:27, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Rodrigo.Argenton Yes, I have it tracked in the way WMF is suggesting to track this: using Outreach Dashboard. All the uploaded files are here. I didn't ask to undelete some of them, because I assume they could be tricky. -Theklan (talk) 08:34, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
  • You want solutions or you want miracles?
  • As for "every hunter that bullies volunteers should be moved away from the community," that's pretty rich coming from the person who told me that I don't understand Wikidata well enough to participate usefully in the discussion of Structured Data for Commons. - Jmabel ! talk 04:35, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
>>>Bullying, we have a giant problem, that appears every now and then, in your faces and you are more concerning about a comment about you that I did?
Saying that you don't understand about a topic is not a bully, now hunt a volunteer in every single thing that he does, or constantly using your force to stop other actions... well.. this is quite different.
I'm not seeing your contributions here...
And this is not about me, or miracle, is to solve the issue. I don't want a easy fix, I want a solution. Simple as that.
-- Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton m 05:51, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
  • You told me I was not competent to participate, I pretty much went away, and now you are criticizing me for failing to continue to participate in each new aspect of this. Absurd. - Jmabel ! talk 16:30, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

 Comment For files like File:Trikuharriak.pdf, we usually require to give a link to the background image. Regards, Yann (talk) 04:52, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

If we have the background image under our system, can't say that is the case, but we have a talk page that was not usage to request the source of the background image... -- Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton m 05:51, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
The license which most Commons users use assure them that they will get attribution when their photo gets reused. If it's used without that attribution, even on Commons, it's a copyright violation.
The creator's talk page got a message about their being a problem with this file, and the page sat there with a warning about derivative works for a week. Why do you think posting to the talk page instead of the user talk page and image page would have produced better results? How should we wait for a response, and why do you think giving it more than a week would have helped anything?--Prosfilaes (talk) 07:12, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
@Yann: The file was done by the uploader. You can see other examples of the same photoshot in her uploads. For example, here. If someone says that all the work is own work, and I was pretty sure that was her work because I was with here there, I don't see any further problem to upload it, as the authorship is stated in the uploading process. -Theklan (talk) 08:26, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
@Theklan: OK, but, as I said, we usually require a link. And if the background image is from someone else on Commons, it most probably requires attribution, otherwise the license is not respected. Regards, Yann (talk) 09:30, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
@Yann: Is not from another person. Is the same person uploading a photo taken from helself for the first time and stating that it's her work. How can a photo be uploaded freely without problems (she uploaded it without any further copyright notice from an admin) and a photo with text overlay not be free? -Theklan (talk) 10:07, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
It's not about what's free. If we had a device that could check for sources perfectly, then we wouldn't have a problem. We have to presume that a photo is free, baring evidence otherwise, and we're usually correct about that. However, it's harder to check whether the photo used behind a text overlay is free, and why would you expect it to be? 99% of people grab random photos for their PDF files and PowerPoint presentations; Wikimedia is about the only place in the world where you could upload such an infographic and anyone would care about the background image.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:59, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
Let's see. When I upload a photo it says: "This file is my own work" or "This file is not my own work". If we choose the first one it says: "I, _________ , the copyright holder of this work, irrevocably grant anyone the right to use this work under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 4.0 license". So yes, if it is my own work and I freely upload it I don't have to specify again that it is, indeed, my own work. Because I have stated it before. Nevertheless, most of the images that were deleted didn't have any text on them. So yes, maybe the fault is on the uploader because they uploaded things that where their own work. -Theklan (talk) 08:28, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
User:Yug, perhaps you should ask your sociology department about why this happened. I don't know of any open source group that is trivial to contribute to, and each of them has their own quirky rules. Certainly, for all of them, showing up, uploading stuff without worrying about what they're looking for, and then disappearing before anyone can talk to you about it is not going to get your work accepted. This is pretty universal; I can't imagine a group trying to work on something that didn't have the same features.--Prosfilaes (talk) 07:49, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
So your point is that it is supposed to be hard and that you are supposed to be part of a cabal ? The problem is that Commons has always been an "ingest" community and never a "share" community. Most of this is due to historical and technical reasons, but it seems to have convinced a certain group of people that therefore THAT is the only way to do it... It's not, has never been and is fundamentally incompatible with the mission in my opinion. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:17, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
My point is that if you're trying to build something, people who show up one day are of no help. Why do you think a "share" community would be any different? Communities demand social behavior; if someone drives by and drops off some stuff, that's not a community behavior. We have no history to judge whether it's likely trustworthy, and can't even ask the person if they took the care to make sure they were free by our (esoteric) rules.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:59, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
And if this community tried to make those people that just show up new helpers, maybe it wouldn't have such a scaling problem by now. The thrash is there, the hoops are there, but concluding that we therefore need to be a gated community, instead of getting some sort of community service in place just seems wrong to me. We should not be a gated community. And when we are, we should at least have a postpackage clearing center and a welcoming host. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:05, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
COM:L and COM:SCOPE say we're a "gated community"; more accurately, they say if a person uploads something they're interested in to Commons, it's likely get deleted.
If this community tried to make those people that just show up new helpers? How? Again, one of these users was on Commons for less than 24 hours and never responded to the message on his talk page. On the other hand, current helpers are being dismissed as hostile; that's not terribly welcoming.--Prosfilaes (talk) 16:32, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Some general remarks: The Commons community tends to be very suspicious with regard to copyright, yes. If an image (or video) by a new contributor is of "too high", professional quality, that might be grounds for suspicion - but also if it's too small (I recently made some remarks regarding the latter here). Sometimes, one can get the impression that as soon as your uploads aren't medium-sized, medium-quality recent photos that aren't too remarkable, you will be suspected of some sort of copyright violation. But it's actually not paranoia. We're really flooded with copyright violations here on Commons. It's a constant fight, and the experienced Commons users just have seen too many blatant copyright violations. That makes this platform indeed a difficult environment for contributors whose uploads differ from the expected kind of average contribution. So I think the only recommendation for avoiding such issues with similar projects in the future I can give is to really aggressively announce and explain the planned upload here, maybe also on COM:VPC, maybe even repeatedly. What could also work is a custom project template to be placed on the file description page, similar to GLAM partnerships, for example {{Nationaal Archief-license}} - that makes it clearer that there's a planned project, that it's not your standard case of likely copyvio etc. Gestumblindi (talk) 00:36, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

No doubt tricky stuff, involving hard work in all the sides showing here. I should give my opinion as a regular long-time user of Commons and member of the Basque Wikimedians User group involved in the Wikimedia Education Conference 2019 held at Donostia. If we are to give some strong foundations to the Education Project and not only testimonial or transient, it needs to be easily available for contribution, and enticing. Wikimedia Education intends to keep advancing, it would be nonsense to think Commons is a no-go area for videos. Bureaucracy is a strong deterrent of the contribution principle.
I do not know all the copyright principles, but I do have some grasp. I read above about the excellent picture Trikuharriak.pdf with a background image (cited by Yann) made, as noted by Theklan, by the user specified in the metadata. Anyway, in that case, the background image, dark and unrecognizable, looks to me irrelevant, since even if the background image was another one, the diagram image and the image as a whole would work the same.
Now that said, trust and clues provided by long-term editing seem to be helpful for administrators. I could very well understand that. I think it could be helpful to have new users add a short description of their current task and a link in their user pages to the institution instructor or the driving force behind the project, Theklan, in this case, in order to provide context in which these contributions are being made. Iñaki LL (talk) 13:33, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Picture policies

How about such pictures? Are they affected by general Commons policies or have Germans to discuss this only between themselves i.e. in respect to regional law or is there no problem at all and it's just a question of taste? --2003:7C:2F79:8D87:F020:F0FE:EF79:B443 15:13, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

  • They are allowed to have a discussion wherever they like it, but any actual deletion request would still have to go through normal channels. I have to say at a quick glance: none of these pictures would be any great loss. - Jmabel ! talk 15:27, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
COM:Photographs of identifiable people covers these. If they appear intrusive and there is no other explanation, that is probably sufficient to delete, pick one and click on the "Nominate for deletion" link on the left navigation bar. If any photographer appears to be using photography to harass people, that would always be a good reason to speedy delete all photographs at once, ask at COM:AN if in doubt.
However they probably also fail COM:Project scope as they have little educational value. This may be more complex, as sometimes it turns out we have very few photographs of, say, people waiting at bus stops in Vienna, people smoking cigars in the rain, people letting their dog lick an ice cream, or people wearing certain types of clothing, which may seem very random, but could be of actual illustrative value.
A separate issue is the specifics of German law. There may be past deletion requests that have thrashed out the German law with regard to intrusion/expectation of privacy in a public place, but per Jmabel, these photographs are not really good test cases as they fail our generic policies anyway.
--Fæ (talk) 15:29, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
Fæ, nitpick: All these images are Dresden area … (not that I want to question your point). — Speravir
Zu Eurer Information: Ping an sk and Lupus in Saxonia.
Stefan, Du könntest ja mal in de:WP:URF nachfragen – oder hast Du schon längst und das hat sich erledigt? — Speravir – 22:56, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
Noch mal: Ping sk. — Speravir – 22:59, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
Visited Dresden a few years ago, very unusual place with all the historic reconstructions. Not one of my photographs was of a random woman's rear, so I guess I'm not a good judge of what those photographs mean. --Fæ (talk) 23:04, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
@Speravir: The discussion was over. I inform Lupus, that this pictures can be a problem with the law. But he don`t wont delete this files. I accept this. IANAL -- sk (talk) 12:06, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Anyone can create a DR so long as there is a reasonable nomination statement. One has been started at Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Lupus in Saxonia but this currently only contains a sample. I encourage you to add all the photographs in the gallery of images which were discussed. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 12:39, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Was there someone looking at creating COM:CREEP (aka Don't be a creep)? Bidgee (talk) 13:21, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
Probably not a good idea, it would be thrown around as a way of being a dick. --Fæ (talk) 09:38, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
That's a problem to have a community where less 10% of people are women, this should be already deleted.
This is very creep, and should be delete inside this context, I already faced this sets of "butt shots" at Flickr and 500px, creep dudes take photos of girls.
Would be nice to have a essay about that, and any other creep sexist photos...
-- Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton m 22:30, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Capital letters

File:DB INTER CITY TRAIN AT KARSRUHE BAHNHOF GERMANY APRIL 2013 (8711510514).jpgIs there any rule preventing the excessive use of capital letters?Smiley.toerist (talk) 18:23, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

No. In particular, COM:FR is clear that changing case is not an adequate reason for renaming a file. --bjh21 (talk) 19:03, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
I have declined the rename request. The file name appears to accurately and adequately describe the image. Despite all capitals, the image can still be located by querying "DB Inter City train at Karsruhe Bahnhof Germany". --Animalparty (talk) 21:11, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Photo challenge March results

Blades: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 3
image
Title Old plough seen at a farmyard in Switzerland Rotella per pizza Forbici per parrucchiere
Author GabrielleMerk Garonzi Stefania Garonzi Stefania
Score 24 23 13
Town halls: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 3
image
Title Old town hall in Bamberg Town Hall in Michelstadt
(Odenwald, Germany)		 Tartu Town Hall (Estonia) in winter time
Author Ermell TeKaBe Vaido Otsar
Score 35 17 11

Congratulations to GabrielleMerk, Garonzi Stefania, Ermell, TeKaBe and Vaido Otsar. --Jarekt (talk) 02:45, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Is there a reason why one of these templates needs to be wider than 100% of the viewport, forcing a horizontal scroll bar onto the whole Village Pump? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:12, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
Pinging @Jarekt.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 08:36, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
I am sorry about that. I was not involved in designing or writing Template:Photo challenge winners table, but looking at the source code there is nothing there adjusting to the width of the viewport. The only parameter is image height. When I look at village pump on my smallest laptop the upper template takes ~60% of the screen width. When I force my Firefox browser to use extra small window than I get horizontal scroll bar, but you need it to see the right most image. It also looks fine on my phone in Safari browser. Is there a situation (or browser) that this template design causes issues? --Jarekt (talk) 02:45, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

CommonsDelinker down

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T223106

FYI, the CommonsDelinker bot is down. Issue is being looked at. See the Phabricator ticket for details. So do not expect images replacements to be done for a few days. Regards, Yann (talk) 17:45, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

✓ Done Works now. Thanks to Steinsplitter. Yann (talk) 12:14, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Speravir 22:07, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

John Cotton's Notebook

After much wrangling with the upload wizard, I have uploaded 44 tiff files, each over 50Mb, to Category:John Cotton's Notebook. These show the pages of an artist's sketchbook. I have a couple of questions.

The orientation on which the pages were painted varies. Should we keep the files aligned per the originals? Do we have a "do not rotate" template like "do not crop"? If we do keep them, can we upload rotated copies of those that need them?

We should probably have smaller jpg/ png copies. Is there a tool that will do this in a batch, or do I ned to create them offline and upload them myself? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:35, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

Wow thanks for doing this! I am just as confounded as you are by Wikisource policies, though, so I honestly have no idea about orientation. I would imagine that our main goal is always to "please our readers" though, no? Would love to see Wikidata items for each painting, and maybe even each page. This could be the first 3-project book in Wikimedia! Jane023 (talk) 12:49, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
On things where two orientations make sense, we should probably host two separate files, linked by {{Other versions}}. - Jmabel ! talk 15:17, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
Again: do we have a tool that will do that? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:19, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
I've never seen a "do not rotate" template so I'm afraid I can't help you there. To me it would make sense to have files that are in the position the majority of folk will likely want to reuse them but I like the idea of hosting two separate files, linked by {{Other versions}}. I also like the idea of having smaller jpg copies. However again I've never seen a tool that does that. The few edits of this nature that I have done have all been manual. Ambrosia10 (talk) 20:54, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
I was alerted to this with a series of undone requests for rotation. I was initially made aware of the work because of Andy's request for identification of species, the few I did involved reading the text by downloading and rotating the image. I have done quite a bit of multiproject work with books, I can probably provide a view on file handling if I know what the intention is with respect to presentation and conservation. cygnis insignis 05:49, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

112.199.129.242

help to create this page Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Thomas Cole - Architect’s Dream - Google Art Project.jpg with the following content. 112.199.129.242 04:45, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
{{subst:FPCnom/Basic |description = Architect’s Dream by Thomas Cole |format = landscape <!--change to portrait, panorama, or square, if appropriate--> }} *'''Category:''' [[Commons:Featured pictures/<add the category here>]] <!-- See the list at [[COM:FP]], please do not use "panoramas" anymore --> *{{Info}} created by Thomas Cole - uploaded by [[User:DcoetzeeBot|]] - nominated by [[User:{{subst:REVISIONUSER}}|]] -- ~~~~ *{{Support}} -- ~~~~

Also add Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Thomas Cole - Architect’s Dream - Google Art Project.jpg to Commons:Featured picture candidates/candidate list — Preceding unsigned comment was added by 112.199.129.242 (talk) 04:46, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

Why can't you login and do it yourself?   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 12:02, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

Special:GlobalUsage/Thích_Quảng_Đức_self-immolation.jpg

Why this pages lists a number of en.wikipedia.org page that have never existed? — Preceding unsigned comment was added by 115.27.194.67 (talk) 18:05, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

There is a better list at en:File:Thích Quảng Đức self-immolation.jpg#filelinks.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 18:23, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

Some files lose exif location in upload wizard

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T223051

I uploaded many files with batches in the upload wizard. All files had location data in the exif data. But now I saw, that some files lost the location data in the upload process. Are there any ideas how this could happen? And is there a good way to fix this? One examle: With location: File:Eckerlochstieg 20.jpg Location lost: File:Eckerlochstieg 19.jpg --GPSLeo (talk) 20:42, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

Are you sure all files had GPS ? Maybe your camera didn't get GPS lock on some of the pictures. Happens to me all the time and seems much more likely. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:19, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
There is still GPS data in File:Eckerlochstieg 19.jpg. It is just not rendered by the software. You can see it if you put it into an external metadata viewer. See [12]. Seems to be a bug with the software. A phab ticket should probably be filed. --Majora (talk) 21:29, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
After testing if purging dose help, I created a ticket. --GPSLeo (talk) 21:51, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

Where do I go to check on the provenance of a file?

I am not sure where to go to check up on the validity of an image -- File:Guantanamo Flag.png. After quite a bit of googling it has raised doubts in my mind moriori (talk) 00:02, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Minor: "In other projects" contains Wikimedia Commons

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T222965

The menu item "In other projects" in the left menu should contain others project and not the project itself. However, for Commons there is also a link to Commons. For example Category:Albert Einstein. This is not the case for Wikipedia and others. Don't know if it is a new issue. --Arnd (talk) 07:51, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

@Mike Peel: . --EugeneZelenko (talk) 13:49, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
@Aschroet and EugeneZelenko: It's not an infobox problem, it's a MediaWiki one. I suggest raising it on phabricator: unless someone's already done so. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 15:58, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
Ah, this edit on Wikidata fixed it in this particular case. It's to do with the use of Commons category (P373), not the sitelink. I'll post it on phab as there's a general point to make here too. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 16:24, 10 May 2019 (UTC) 
.wb-otherproject-commons {display:none;}
(example) will hide it for now. Just add it to the right css file to hide it for everyone. Multichill (talk) 19:49, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Problem of Chinese surnames

(and maybe Japanese too)

The problem is, completely different surnames have the same romanisation. Wikidata treats them as different entries, but Commons put them into a single category. Examples:

This is definitely wrong, but I cannot think of a solution. wikt:章 and wikt:張 have exactly the same pronunciation in standard Mandarin, i.e. Pinyin or any system of romanisation cannot distinguish them. Maybe we will have to use Chinese characters as category names for these special cases?--Roy17 (talk) 18:08, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

English names can be disambiguated with Chinese characters. For instance, Category:Zhang, 江 (surname). Ruslik (talk) 19:36, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
@Roy17: Could you please explain why Category:Chiang Kai-shek is a subcategory of Category:Jiang (surname)? The romanizations are different. 4nn1l2 (talk) 23:29, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
Pinging @Mike Peel: , designer of wikidata infobox.
@4nn1l2: infobox calls d:Property:P734 and creates the category by wrapping it with [[Category:... (surname]]. Chiang Kai Shek's surname is Jiang in Pinyin, but Chiang in another romanisation scheme.
The current design works for most languages, because they use letters, but not very well for Chinese and to a smaller extent Japanese, which have many homophones.
I suppose we should draw up a scheme for these names. For the ones that are not homophones, we continue using romanisation. I can think of several ways to distinguish the surnames. Take 章 and 張 for instance.
  1. Zhang, 章 (surname) vs Zhang, 張 (surname) (Ruslik0's suggestion)
  2. Zhang (章) (surname) vs Zhang (張) (surname)
  3. Zhang (surname) (章) vs Zhang (surname) (張)
  4. Zhang (章, surname) vs Zhang (張, surname)
  5. Zhang (surname, 章) vs Zhang (surname, 張)
  6. 章 (surname) vs 張 (surname)
I'd prefer #2 or #6.
Once Commons settle on a solution, we'll have to modify {{Wikidata infobox}}. A technical solution I can think of is, we keep a list of problematic surnames. If P734 matches one in the list, it's dealt with separately. We can either specify the disambiguating word in the list itself, or call d:Property:P1705 (native label). But the P1705 method may have another problem dealing with Traditional and Simplified Chinese (some surnames may be written in two ways, e.g, 張/张, 劉/刘.)--Roy17 (talk) 00:56, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
Thanks. Option #4 is my favourite as it is both readable and less-cluttered.
Regarding the technical side of the issue, one workaround is to just turn off automatic categorization (|autocat=off) and categorize these problematic surnames manually. 4nn1l2 (talk) 01:35, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
Interesting issue. I would say 1. Use both Latin and Chinese characters for the category, 2. Avoid too many parentheses. So #1, #4, or #5 are best. Regards, Yann (talk) 06:26, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
On second thought, I'd say #5 Category:Zhang (surname 張) with or without comma is the best. This format puts all alphabet in front and should be most user friendly for people without a Chinese keyboard input (cf. Li (Q686223), en:Category:Chinese-language_surnames and no:Kategori:Kinesiske_slektsnavn). I can't find the specific enwiki Manual of Style that set this naming convention, but I think we can follow, since quite a few wikis have adopted the same rule. I'd go with no comma.
Setting categories manually is not a good idea, because some problematic surnames are the most common ones: Zhang 張, Liu 劉, Wang 王, etc. Each has a population of tens of millions.--Roy17 (talk) 12:06, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
I suggest that we start using the commons sitelinks for the surname categories where they exist, and use the current setup as a fall-back option for where they don't. That way, you can call the category what you want, add it to the wikidata item for the name, and the infobox can auto-add that. Given that Wikidata has separate items for the cases in question, different sitelinks can be added for each different option. It means a loss of systematization, but a gain in flexibility. If that sounds reasonable, then I can start coding that up in the infobox (it's mostly straightforward, e.g. for Adam Smith (Q9381), it's the difference between Category:Smith (surname) and Smith - but things like sort keys and fall-back logic complicate it). Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 05:13, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
This linked=y method looks pretty good! So we'll just create categories and link them on wikidata, then infobox can call them?--Roy17 (talk) 12:06, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
@Jura1: Chinese can have two, simp. and trad. characters: Zhang (Q804909).--Roy17 (talk) 12:06, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Stop removing the "own" source!

Hi, we have two giant threads above discussing almost the same issue: Valid uploads delete due to volunteers that removed the "own work" from the source!

So, how about we stop this manoeuvrer??

This is a manoeuvrer to have a faster and without discussion deletions to files that are suspicious of copyvio but do not have evidences to be delete. So the volunteer remove the {{Own}} template from the source and after sometime it's delete!

The correct way is use {{Copyvio}} if you have strong evidences and sources, {{Delete}} with you have evidences, or strong suspicious and some evidences, but if you just suspect, sorry, keep to yourself, or open a thread at VP/Copyright.

This is the path, not remove the {{Own}} template to be delete without discussion, without evidences.

How about we revert every volunteer that made this? -- Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton m 04:08, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

  • There are certainly cases where {{Own}} should be removed even though there is no issue of a copyvio: for example, work that is in the public domain, but is clearly not the uploader's as when, for example, they put {{Own}} on a 19th-century photo. - Jmabel ! talk 06:08, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
A similar problem arises when people add {{Information}} but dont fill it up. Then come the people who tag stuff with no source/no permission based on an empty table. They dont spend any time checking file histories.--Roy17 (talk) 12:17, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
I would say that that is a issue with the admin performing such deletions. For new uploads with no source/no permission tags should be treated differently than files which were hosted on Commons for years. --Jarekt (talk) 17:20, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
+1. Recent copyright violations can be speedy deleted. Files uploaded here years ago should generally have a proper deletion requests. Regards, Yann (talk) 17:32, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Category:Pages transcluding "Template:Exif date" with "location"

I created this cat to trap any lingering cases of misuse of |location= in {{exif date}}, added by mistake and intended to work as {{taken on}}. It has been catching way more photos than I thought it would, though. Should I just run VFC on all files in this cat to replace

{{exif date| with {{taken on|source=EXIF|

or does anyone have a better idea? (The cat name has "data" instead of "date" — that needs fixing.) -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 01:25, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

  • @Tuvalkin: Apologies: I can't make any sense of what you just wrote. Can you take a step back and put this in a broader context (tangible example of what was done wrong and what it should be)? - Jmabel ! talk 04:59, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
    Sure: This category is populated thanks to an #if clause I added to {{exif date}}: It marks pages (typically photo file pages) where this template is used with the additional parameter |location=. That is of course wrong because this template does not make any use of location data to generate date/place cats (like {{taken on}} does) and it would be wrong if it did — because the template’s name is EXIF+date while location is not date nor EXIF usually contains location as text (it often includes georeferenced latititude and longitude but for that we use rather {{location|lat.|long.|source:EXIF}}).
    So, the contents of this cat need either
  • To have the data "|location=Some place" removed, losing the user-entered location info, or
  • to be left alone, rendering this additional info about location useless since the template will not transclude it, or
  • to be enhanced by changing {{exif date}} so that it will make use of a |location= argument, infringing however its expected use, or
  • to be edited to change the call to {{exif date}} to point instead to {{taken on}}, as probably intended by the users adding the |location= argument in the first place.
I favor the latter, but didn’t want to go ahead before others have the opportunity of suggesting a better approach. (Meanwhile I simplified and corrected the projected batch replace in my OP above.) -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 05:34, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
I think I understand, and it seems reasonable. Do I understand correctly that, for example, date={{EXIF date|2013-09-25|location=Italy}}}} would become date={{taken on|source=EXIF|2013-09-25|location=Italy}}}}? - Jmabel ! talk 16:04, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
  • @Jmabel: Yes, exactly. (Meanwhile some more dozen photos got added to this cat, suggesting that we a lot of photos with some location info added to their filepages’ wikitext that is being neither displayed nor transcluded as a template argument, being effectively buried. The proposed change will rescue this data and make it useful.) -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 20:02, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
(I did not read this thread before, but got caught be the {{Done}} addition without signature.) Tuvalkin, on the cat page Pages transcluding "Template:Exif data" with "location" I read that the incarnations of {{According to Exif data|…}} should be replaced with {{Taken on|source=EXIF|…}}, but in the template source of {{Taken on}} I do not see such a parameter source, so that’s rather useless. Fortunately it will be ignored. — Speravir – 17:29, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Sorry for overlooking my sig. An edit request was posted in order for {{Taken on}} to make use of |source=EXIF. When completed it will display "according to EXIF" after the date, as expected; meanwhile several hundred photo file pages affected by this problem were already modified to rescue the hitherto unused location info, by transcluding date/location cats. That’s a good outcome. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 21:37, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
m( Oh, sorry, that I did not look on the talk page, Tuvalkin. ●°.°● — Speravir – 23:05, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Finding deleted pictures

This is happening a lot on the Women in Red project and although I've been around for years here I don't know how to solve this. A wikipedia user has noticed that (for instance) Professor_Shohini_Ghose_October_2018.jpg has just disappeared. They don't understand why, but I can see that it has been deleted from commons. My guess is to put this title into a commons search but commons denies any knowledge of Professor_Shohini_Ghose_October_2018.jpg. Now, this has probably been deleted for good reason.... but what reason? How can I find out? Thanks. Victuallers (talk) 08:17, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

Going onto the file page (File:Professor Shohini Ghose October 2018.jpg) it has a warning bar (or you can view the log) that shows who deleted (Jcb), when (18 December 2018) and the reason (No permission since 8 December 2018). Bidgee (talk) 09:05, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
Thing is that it would probably be very helpful for the uninitiated if the information "We don't have a file of that name, but there previously was one that has been deleted. You should be able to find the reason for that in the deletion log." would be available directly from the search results. Possibly instead of the "Create the page "File:Foobarredlink.jpg" on this wiki!", which is really not very useful for the File: namespace anyway. --El Grafo (talk) 09:57, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
We don't want to do that, because then someone can could and have deleted a file called something like "File:El Grafo smells.jpg" (or much worse) and have that at the top of the results every time you name is searched for. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:02, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
@Victuallers: I checked the file. EXIF data says that the author is Dawn Bazely, who doesn't seem to be the uploader, that's why we need a permission. Regards, Yann (talk) 10:20, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for replies, appreciated. Its Dawn Bazely who is complaining! - what did she do wrong? We tell notable people to come to commons and donate a selfie of themselves and they get deleted. They then tweet about the experience and that gives a poor (accurate?) image of our project. I like User:El Grafo's idea - I consider myself a commonist and I couldn't find this info easily and the blank return would deter any newbie from asking for more info. Users only get one file deleted and that understandably is the end of their good will to donate to free information. It also gives misinformation to the person deleting the file who might assume that it was a fair deletion of an invaluable image. What can can I and Dawn do now? How can I advise future loaders to avoid this cul-de-sac to donating to commons? Victuallers (talk) 10:34, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
We tell notable people to come to commons and donate a selfie of themselves Well, given our current processes that's something we should really not do. From a copyright patrolling perspective it is impossible to determine whether that selfie uploaded by User:Robert Downey Jr. official was uploaded by Robert Downey Jr., his agent, or some random guy who copied it from the subject's instagram feed. Unfortunately, the latter is by far the most likely scenario, which is why these things get deleted easily. The safest way currently available is probably to send the file to COM:OTRS together with a proper permission, stand by for questions, and have them upload it as soon as it has been assessed. That may take quite a while though. --El Grafo (talk) 11:27, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
@Victuallers: I've proposed deletions as well of files by @Carries mum: because it was not obvious that she is Dawn Bazely. She should have reacted before or had his account verified instead of complaining at you (however I don't find any trace of complain by her, are you sure of that?). By the way where do you read that Commons endorses users uploading selfies? --Patrick Rogel (talk) 11:29, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
Are we working on the same project?
This is disappointing. Who is telling people to load selfies? We are!!! I find OTRS completely inadequate for loading a single picture of someone. Its OK for a GLAM who has 5,000 pictures. Very few people have the tenacity to complete a process that at best takes weeks, usually months. The only viable route for a notable (i.e. busy) person is to donate a picture they took. I can see that this isn't fool proof and overchecks show that some are maybe lying, but this used to be covered by AGF.... and the route through Flickr is usually addressed in this way. It appears that somebody has changed the process but forgotten to take the larger project consensus with them. WMF advises to load selfies and picture people have taken. I'm not recognising this conversation within my experience of Wikimedia's objective. Can you explain how Wikipedia's advice can get so out of kilter with this commons village pump conversation? Victuallers (talk) 12:18, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
@Victuallers: Where "WMF advises to load selfies and picture people have taken"? Are you aware that people can post permission for their selfies and other works on their websites or social media presences and then refer to those posts on file description pages or DRs or UDRs, as an alternative to OTRS?   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 12:30, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
Thanks Jeff, I am. That is a good route but many academics, for instance, have web pages on their organisations page and that comes with a thoughtless "all rights reserved" put on by the web developer (I'm trying to fix that). If I have a Prof on Twitter or on email who is willing to donate images then I would send them the advise that is on the en:Wikipedia. If WikiCommons has changed its policy then it needs to get this advise changed on wiki and en:wikipedia needs to stop moving images to commons in case they get deleted. I hope this is a misunderstanding. Victuallers (talk) 12:41, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
@El Grafo: @Patrick Rogel: I would really like to get this sorted out Patrick. You ask "Am I sure of it"??. Yep! We talk most days. Deletions of files is a regular cry of help/frustration on the Women in Red project twitter feed. There users are not "speaking up sooner" because they have less faith in the process and assume that they are just being treated in a random way. This is all symptomatic however. What really worries me is the mismatch between your advice about not loading selfies and en:wikipedia. If your interpretation is what is being used (in "current processes") then you need to advice en:wiki so we can stop advising these people to use commons and find a different route (en:wiki?) that supports the wiki objective. Can you advise? Victuallers (talk) 14:56, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
@Victuallers: You still haven't answered exactly where "WMF advises to load selfies and picture people have taken". Unless I can find it, I can't address it there.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 15:25, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
Hi, here's some real practical advice from a pragmatic mass uploader:
  1. Do not use OTRS, it takes too long for any human.
  2. As the photographer, publish your photograph on Flickr using your own account. If you don't have a Flickr account, they are free, quick and easy to set up, just make sure that in the profile you say who you are and link to a respectable work page, personal blog or similar so that the profile looks "official" and anyone wanting to verify that it really is you can email in.
  3. Upload your photograph to Flickr, make sure you pick a license that works on Commons, i.e. NOT non-commercial and NOT public domain mark, but CC-BY-SA through to CC-0 are all good options. Make sure that the image is publicly viewable, not restricted or friends only (public is the default)
  4. You or anyone else can now upload the photograph to Commons, giving the Flickr upload page as the source. A bot will come along shortly and approve it without you having to do anything more by verifying that the image on Flickr matches and the license there is appropriate.
✓ Done
Advising people to load selfies to Commons is, frankly, a nightmare. Advising them to release selfies on Flickr using an attribution license is a lot easier and it's really easy for Commons regulars to upload them with the built in wizard on request.
--Fæ (talk) 15:07, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
Flickr accounts are pretty much the same as Commons accounts, aren't they? Anybody can create one with any name they like? I'm not sure what is gained by going through Flickr vs creating a Commons account with the same information. --ghouston (talk) 06:45, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
It is. but thats the irony. Flickr images are basically never deleted if the license there is correct. But if you upload here as a new user you'll get the otrs permission tag which people will not understand and then your image will be deleted. Amada44  talk to me 12:36, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
Can I restate the problem, or can someone tell me where to discuss it. It seems to be agreed that its a mess.

WE ARE ADVISING PEOPLE ON WIKIPEDIA TO LOAD PICTURES WHICH VOLUNTEERS HERE DELETE.

- This needs fixing. Is it commons policy to deny anyone from loading a picture? - Cos I do it all the time with no issues. What is the policy. Is Flickrwashing officially OK? Are @El Grafo: @Patrick Rogel: correct, or do they need to take a different line. Victuallers (talk) 13:31, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Per my list above, it's never called Flickrwashing if someone verifiably links their real information in their Flickr profile, so there is a professional website and an email contact to check if there are licensing questions.
Yes, basically though it is not a deliberate Commons policy to deny anyone from loading a picture, there is effectively an assumption of bad faith for selfies. If you are advising volunteers to upload to Commons without warning them about quite likely deletion unless the license is nitpicker proof, then it's not good advice. However once a Flickr bot has rubber stamped a reasonable looking upload as Flickr license verified, it become highly unlikely that anyone will ever look at the upload.
Commons is not going to change, these licensing policies are fundamental. The advice on Wikipedia needs to become more robust or follow a different workflow for the same outcome.
A pragmatic reframing might be for you to set up an "official" WiR Flickrstream, where you are in control and WiR volunteers (and perhaps some Commons regulars) upload photos and double check the validity of the release, before uploading to Commons. At the end of the day, it's not an unmanageable number of photos. --Fæ (talk) 13:53, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
@Victuallers: Yes it needs cleaning: a Wikimedia UK member has enacted his own text back in 2016 which is neither a rule or a recommendations (and I don't know why it's on English Wikipedia main) and seems contradictory ("This usually means that you took the image yourself (...) You must not upload pictures taken by professional photographers, even if you or your employer paid them, if you did not agree a transfer of copyright.) to an official Commons policy ("Private image collections, e.g. private party photos, photos of yourself and your friends, your collection of holiday snaps and so on. There are plenty of other projects on the Internet you can use for such a purpose, such as Flickr. Such private image collections do not become educational even if displayed as a gallery on a user page on Commons or elsewhere."). So IMO you should rather rely on WMF official guidelines and people afraid of OTRS may follow Jeff G. or Fæ recommendations. --Patrick Rogel (talk) 14:00, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
There's more than one way to skin a cat. I think there should also be an official, easy but robust way to have pictures uploaded by newbies to Commons with a correct license, apart from external companies like Flickr. I guess you all know Wikiportret, an initiative by the Dutch Wikimedia chapter. This is a website with a low treshold, while at the same time applying the same Commons copyright rules. Result so far: 4,500 uploads. I think a Commons initiative like commons.wikiportrait.org could be one of the solutions for this problem. Vysotsky (talk) 14:29, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
@Patrick Rogel: If you're going to discuss me, have the courtesy to ping me. If you're going to quote something I wrote, please do not quote it out of context. And please explain why you think my being a member of Wikimedia UK is relevant? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:08, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
@Pigsonthewing: I suppose Victuallers was refering to Wikipedia UK when saying "we are!!!" (telling people to load selfies) since he was chair of Wikimedia UK too. You should rather explain him why he thinks you are "telling people to load selfies". --Patrick Rogel (talk) 15:53, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
LOL, as another past Chair of Wikimedia UK, what I write here has as much to do with that local chapter. Don't confuse our projects from several years ago with our current volunteer activities and associations. --Fæ (talk) 18:32, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
  • I would agree Fae's Flickr-based workflow above.
One further point to it is that it can also be used to maintain some degree of privacy. Flickr offers some privacy, and is relatively light on stalking. OTOH, WP editors should not release their own names in their account names or userspace, as WP isn't a safe space - especially not if you're near WiR or simply female.
What Yann has done here is to WP:OUT a Commons account which had chosen to not personally identify themselves. And to delete their uploads as long as they refuse to. WTF? How is that in any way acceptable, and how can it be seen as any sort of reason for deletion?? Do they really require EXIF data to say "Carries mum", on pain of deletion? Andy Dingley (talk) 15:39, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
@Andy Dingley: In most cases when EXIF contains something that's very different from the uploader's user name, the photos are suspicious enough and warrent deletion per COM:PCP. It takes extra work to find out w:Dawn Bazely is notable and mom to a Carrie. This information is too obscure. Most admins wont and shouldnt be expected to do extra work in this case.--Roy17 (talk) 17:25, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
  • "In most cases". Are we discussing the general issue, or what has happened here?
In most cases, the EXIF is blank. It is not a widely used channel, other than for technical metadata. I know I've uploaded some here with someone else's name on, because I'd borrowed their camera, in their house, to take a photo of their robot, so that I could upload it to Commons (over their wifi). Others have a university's name on, because I was using a pretty specialist camera, which again I'd borrowed. I don't know if I've ever bothered to set it to my own name on any of my uploads.
In this case, there is still no reason for "Dawn Bazely" to contradict "Carries mum". Let alone to delete such content immediately, without even a DR. It doesn't even say "Carrie", it says "Carries mum" (of whom we don't know their name, but "Dawn" is an entirely plausible name for them). We do not require EXIF data. We do not require EXIF data to match some other value, such as the account name (we do not require account names to be personally identifying). There is nothing suspicious about this EXIF (as "Copyright of the East Podunk Daily Chipwrap" might do so). Yann was entirely wrong to delete it on that basis alone, and was particularly wrong to do so without using our regular community-visible process to do so.
And in this case, it turns out that Googling does answer the question pretty rapidly.
Yes, there are cases when EXIF inconsistencies can make us suspicious. But this was not such a case. Nor should admins behave in such a manner and delete immediately, ignoring both the community deletion process, or any requirement to notify the uploader User talk:Carries mum. All for a fatuous and easily disproven suspicion. Andy Dingley (talk) 18:18, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
@Andy Dingley: to be fair, it was not Yann but User:Jcb. User talk:Carries mum was notified when it was tagged npd. Yann was just checking upon concern highlighted by this thread. I believe a UDR is justified.
To be honest, I have not come across a sysop that's willing to do the kind of Googling I do. I do this all the time out of curiosity and because I always try to keep photos on Commons. Honestly my habit wastes my life though.
It is not uncommon to find non-technical EXIF, authors, organisations, file descriptions, contact info and whatnot.
It's pretty common to find cases like this too. Students/staff grab photos from professors' websites and upload here. Carrie's mom could well be a former student or staff of Professor Bazely. Then, COM:PCP.
Even with this information that Bazely is indeed mom to a Carrie, some sysop would still insist on OTRS. I guess for example Jcb is almost certainly one.--Roy17 (talk) 19:21, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
Jcb deleted on the basis of lack of permission, last year (I can't see any more details). It was Yann who raised the EXIF as a reason. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:42, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
I would propose an alternative strategy to Fae's. For any notable individual who owns an official webpage/blog/whatever and wishes to upload images to Wikipedia/Commons without the hassle of OTRS:
  1. Register a wiki account. On his/her Commons/wikipedia user page, write down I am John Doe (or John Doe's representative).
  2. On his/her official webpage, put up a subpage/blog that contains the wiki user page link.
  3. Put link#2 on userpage#1 too.
  4. Start uploading pictures.
Isn't this a much simpler way to verify personal identity/authorisation? To be extra safe, back up link#2 on archive.org once. Step#1 is better to be a Commons user page, because enwp seems to be so stringent on COI/imposters/scam that they often strike down new user pages containing too much personal details and indef ban them.--Roy17 (talk) 17:25, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
  • I want to add my support to Roy’s suggestion above. As said OTRS is slow and crowded and should be suggested only for the thorniest cases (like heirs wanting to post family photos and such); publication on a recognized institutional or personal website allows the matter to be solved much faster, by enabling any user with the COM:LR flag to accredit the permission. The mentioned fact that most websites have an ARR notice should not be a problem if the Commons-compatible license for the file in question is clearly identified as such, excepting it from the remaining no-license content. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 01:07, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Restoration

Why hasn't the image in the OP been restored, yet? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:34, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

  • So why it is that we accept images from people who use an anonymous name without question, why dont we demand that every user be identified surely every user is equal. On that note I know a user who works in the "professional broadcast media" and contributes photographs of notable people taken while interviewing them and has never once been questioned this person uses an anonymous name. There is a select group of people that are no different to us and want to contribute anonymously but because they may be "famous" as soon as someone get a whiff of that potential they roll out OTRS & COM:PCP and demand complex rituals to let them continue. Gnangarra 23:49, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
  • I don't have the time to really dive into this discussion, but I'd like to hint at another possible solution for some cases: The German language Wikipedia handles this kind of thing through verified accounts in a spirit similar to what Twitter, Youtube etc. are doing. --El Grafo (talk) 09:36, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
Some useful advice here but I don't think we have nailed the issue here. Just as an aside, when is say "We do" I mean the whole wikimedia project. The whole shabang. Commons provides a valuable service to other projects so it needs to make its entry routes clear. Several editors here talk to real people. We are so convinced that we are talking to Professor Made-up-name, that we are embarrassed to ask for proof (but we do). These are real people with real lives. Now I am going to assume that no one thinks that OTRS is a great solution here. We cannot get it to work efficiently and busy people are going to lose interest with a process that takes more than a day or so.
So we are talking to real people and they are more than willing to give us a picture. They will say "there it is on my web page on the university of oxbridge". We explain that we cannot use that and we would then point them to agreed instructions. On wikipedia we have clear instructions as to what to do. The consensus here appears to be that this won't work - but you are not correcting the instructions. I think that its a pity that the gatekeepers here are unrepentant that we are deleting selfie files that our project wants those people to load. But OK. So if selfies are banned then we can cope with that. They can get their secretaries to take pictures of them and then load them under the secretaries name - I can see that there is now a bigger proof of consent, but we will have to ignore this. Obviously this particular file that prompted this discussion is important but its not the point. Commons needs to have clear instructions as to what to do
The conversation goes like this
us) Hi Professor Made-up-name could we have a rights free pic for Wikipedia?
them) Sure, what do I have to do?
us) Well we have to load it to a project called Wikimedia Commons, it is run by very nice people who want to help. They say that in order to get it loaded quickly we need to prove that you give permission
Professor Made-up-name) I do
us) and that you are who you say you are
Professor Made-up-name) Thats odd, but OK
us) We have this page on Wikipedia called "en:Wikipedia:A picture of you" and IT NOW says ...
What should it say? Victuallers (talk) 17:26, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
@Victuallers: That page "Wikipedia:A picture of you" says nothing, as it does not exist. "en:Wikipedia:A picture of you", on the other hand, gives a warped view of reality on Commons. If you are notable and the picture is a selfie, you probably have some sort of web presence (website, social media, whatever) where you can post permission for that selfie, which you can then refer to when uploading on Commons. If it is not a selfie, then we need permission from the photographer, either directly (they would upload) or indirectly (a copy of the contract transferring copyright, sent via OTRS).   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 08:43, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
The latter is what that page says. The former is not a requirement. And snarking over Victuallers's broken link (now fixed) is really unnecessary and unhelpful. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:05, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
@Pigsonthewing: Regarding restoration, please post a request to COM:UDR.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 08:53, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
My question was "Why hasn't the image in the OP been restored, yet?". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:01, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

Funny, two topics of the same issue. To giant projects being affect by Commons volunteers that want to delete, and delete. And the solution is to create bureaucracy. -- Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton m 22:25, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

About this Fae "tips" to upload at Flickr, pleas don't!!!
The only way to have Flickr maximum quality is paying for the account, otherwise the size and quality of the image will decrease!
Also, anyone can create a Flickr account and upload, not a solution.
How about we do not remove the "source" as was this case (and the case above also)??
If you could find any other online source showing that this was a violation of copyright, we do not delete, how difficult is that?
You are deleting files with no strong evidences of copyvio, you are going to very a very bad path.
OTRS is not a good solution, is a huge bureaucracy, serious, we should over this modus operandi of remove the source and then delete. This is an absurd.
If this is a clear copyvio, finding the source, okay delete, strong suspicious, {{Delete}}, kind of suspicious, because of the quality, let it go, you don't have evidences, do not bother the volunteer. -- Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton m 02:28, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
@Jeff G.: Thanks for finding the error in my link. You say that it gives a "warped view of reality on Commons". That was my point! You can claim that this is not "your" project, but no one outside wikimedia is going to notice that. They will notice that THE page on Wikipedia which advises about loading pictures of yourself just sets newbies up to fail. I work for Loughborough University and I have a page there - but I cannot change the license. I have a page on Wikimedia commons - but I cannot change the license. I have a page on Twitter - but I cannot change the license. I understand html. I can use Microsoft word to knock out a web page and load it under a domain I control and I can change the license. Does that convince you that the picture was taken by me? I really want some advise for newbies. If the answer is that that commons doesnt allow selfies then lets see that written down so we can get them stored elsewhere. At the moment I'm assuming than commons wants to help notable people have free to use pictures.As @Fae: notes we CAN get these pictures loaded to Flickr or similar sites but does that really convince anyone? I have loaded pictures of myself to commons and no one is bothered. I don't think its acceptable that you say that the current advise is "warped". Compared to what? What is commons policy? I would like to see as @Rodrigo.Argenton: proposes that commons policy should use AGF but can you make it work? I have other ideas but I don't want to confuse THE question.
I have a notable person who is willing to donate a picture to commons - how can they do this in 24/48 hours or less?

Is there no answer to this question? Surely commons should have a policy or how do we/you justify deleting other people donations? Victuallers (talk) 17:29, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

@Victuallers: I don't know what kind of instruction you cannot find. Suppose a person lands on Wikimedia Commons for the first time. There is a blue button of Upload on the main page. Click it. It tells you Please log in to upload files. Click Log In. Click Join Wikimedia Commons. All set. Since the notable person or his/her secretary has 24 hours, File:Licensing tutorial en.svg shouldn't be too hard to read. If the graphic and the uploadwizard are not helpful, there is a link right on top that says, Please visit Commons:Help desk if you need to ask questions about uploading files.
Tell them to spend a little time walking through the process, please.--Roy17 (talk) 18:15, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
Ummm , I know its a long thread above. But the editors who control this process say that you cannot load selfies and that they will delete them, and they do! even though they have no evidence to support copyright infringement they assume it. This is not one lost file, this is happening repeatedly. I cannot refer donators to a process where our volunteers believe that the instructions are not correct. Read the comments about the advice given on en:wiki. If only you were correct. I believe commons has a set of instructions on the home page that the gatekeepers feel is too lax. I would love it if you were correct. Victuallers (talk) 22:34, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
Just to confirm there are no answers here. Please ping me if you find one. I will point out that commons continues to allow en:wiki to advise users to donate files which its volunteers then delete. I am going to look elsewhere for a resolution but I am concerned that no one is really bothered about this. We have notable people in the real world who we have convinced that it may be A WASTE OF TIME TO DONATE IMAGES TO COMMONS even if you know that the image is free to use. I can only agree with them at the moment. Which saddens me no end. Victuallers (talk) 13:59, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

Need your presence at Featured video candidates

We request the honor of your presence at Featured video candidates
Dear User,
Featured video candidates needs your help and you can participate by reviewing or nominating your videos for the FV tag.

You can start reviewing/nominating videos now. Welcome! -- Eatcha (Talk-Page ) 20:47, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

This is good, I saw some people requesting this, hopefully this will inspire more people to upload video's to Wikimedia Commons. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 21:55, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
Thanks -- Eatcha (Talk-Page ) 12:38, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

 Comment Note, however, that for videos same copyright restrictions apply. That is, if in this video a probably unfree building in France is prominently visible, {{NoFoP-France}} is as relevant as for a photo of this building, I guess. --A.Savin 12:54, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Painted windows, fake windows and blind windows

Hello! As I was trying to categorize some photos, I found out that there's some confusion with painted/blind/fake windows. Currently we have Category:Painted windows and Category:Blind windows. As I understand it, it should be as follows:

Any thoughts? -- Syrio posso aiutare? 13:51, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

@Syrio: I have posted this for discussion at Commons:Categories for discussion/2019/05/Category:Painted windows. Josh (talk) 16:33, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
For clarity on the difference between "blind" and "bricked-up" windows, some architects deliberately incorporated blind windows to achieve a symmetrical facade. I'd say that bricked-up windows were originally not blind by design but have been obscured at a later date. Rodhullandemu (talk) 13:29, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
As for fake windows, I'd prefer "Trompe l'oeil windows". Rodhullandemu (talk) 22:28, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Upload wizard: "Add Data" tab

Hi folks,

in late April or early May, the upload wizard got a new tab, and the last but one step of the upload process asks for data. No way, I don't support a commercial database. Where can I switch off the nasty question (ask never again)? Thanks, --Cimbail (talk) 17:01, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Ahh, forget about this question. In December Commons intrduced "structured data" with CC-0 tags, and now the embarrassing questions for data, with every new upload. My career in commons is finished, I'm not interested in data, data has NOTHING to do with knowledge, and I'm fed up with this wikidata pile of shit. --Cimbail (talk) 17:25, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
Cimbail I am a bit puzzled by your reaction. Commons is modernizing the way we store data, shifting from all-text format to more organized format. That should not "finish" your "career in commons". If you do not like current upload wizard you can always go back to the uploader we used years ago or even uploader we used a decade ago. --Jarekt (talk) 17:56, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
For reference, this new tab was announced above at #Depicts_statements_now_available_in_the_UploadWizard.
Besides what Jarekt said, do note that this step is entire optional (it even comes after your files are already uploaded).
Jean-Fred (talk) 20:05, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
data has NOTHING to do with knowledge I never knew. Thank you for educating me. Presumably you're also against adding categories, machine-readable licence templates, and so on? Oh, wait, here's your latest upload: File:Red Chittagong cattle, Bangladesh (2).jpg. Lots of data there. 21:06, 13 May 2019 (UTC)Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits
Captions probably should have been moved "after your files are already uploaded" too. Said that, if Cimbail does not feel comfortable with "Structured data" and prefer "Unstructured" or "Semi-structured data"... their choice. Commons without the Structured-data-bit is commercial too, if "commercial" means their content can be used for commercial purposes. My concerns on "highly efficient databasing" are breaching contributors' privacy too easily, by allowing SPARQL-querying their contributions in the most inimaginable ways: place-wise, date-wise (...). It could be really creepy. Strakhov (talk) 23:08, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
  • To correct Jarekt’s snide reference to the «uploader we used a decade ago», please note that Special:Upload is termed at Commons:Upload (Jarekt’s «uploader we used years ago») as the «Upload form for experienced users» and «the main upload form». I for one never ever used Special:UploadWizard for any expedite work (although I tested it a few times, always apalled at its repulsive basic concept, that users are brainless meat bots, and always amazed at each newly added broken bell and faulty whistle) and have always used Special:Upload for all my non-mass uploads ever since DerivativeFX died. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 11:35, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Strange file count for Category "North Yorkshire"

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T221795
OPEN

While cleaning up Category:North Yorkshire a little, I noticed that the number of files given for this category in its parent categories Category:Yorkshire, Category:Counties of England, Category:North East England, Category:Yorkshire and the Humber, as well as in the "invisible" parent categories is off by 1718 (e.g. when the file count should read "(46 C, 2 F)", it reads "(46 C, 1720 F)"). This has been the case for some months now. What happened here, and how can such an occurrence be corrected? --Schlosser67 (talk) 10:13, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

It's an old bug dating back to 2008: phab:T18036.--Roy17 (talk) 14:44, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Need your presence at Featured sound candidates

We request the honor of your presence at Featured sound candidates
Dear User,
Featured sound candidates needs your help and you can participate by reviewing or nominating sounds for the FS tag.

You can start reviewing/nominating sounds now. Welcome! -- Eatcha (Talk-Page ) 12:36, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

This is a great development, hopefully other types of media such as books and documents will also receive this treatment soon. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 19:47, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Depicts statements now available in the UploadWizard

The ability to add optional structured "depicts" statements in the UploadWizard is now available. When opening the UploadWizard, the first major change you'll see is the introduction of a tab for adding data to a file towards the end of the process.

Once you've reached the point to add data, you'll see the ability to edit depicts statements.

Please note that adding structured data is not required, and files are uploaded and published before the step to add data. The step can be skipped completely.

Feedback about the release - questions, comments, bugs found, design concerns, etc. - can be posted at the Structured Data on Commons talk page.

Thanks to all the community for the help in planning, designing, and testing this new feature. Additional statement support for file pages and the UploadWizard will be added in the coming weeks. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 19:32, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, this is way more convenient than it was before. It looks like I became one of the first adopters (noticed the feature before I boticed this announcement).--Ymblanter (talk) 21:31, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
Keegan (WMF),
I asked you before, but I'll ask again.
How to add this massively? GLAM projects normally are the ones that have more potential to include this metadata, however we normally include several images...
And all the images already uploaded? Will have a effort to develop a tool by WMF, or we will have to relay on the community?
-- Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton m 22:21, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
Hello. We do have APIs available that can be used to implement structured data additions on 3rd party mass upload tools like Pattypan, etc. We expect that to start happening once we've finished releasing all the basic features (we'll also tweak UploadWizard at that point). As for existing uploads, a few prominent community members (like Magnus) have already volunteered to do some mass conversions of data when we're ready. Look for more discussions about that to happen in the second half of the year. RIsler (WMF) (talk) 17:12, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Storage of PDFs of Wikipedia: Books Collections

Hi,

as known PDF Version of Wikibooks are quite common on Commons, and quite some of them were uploaded by me. Still PDF Versions of Wikipedia Articles are not allowed. What I want to do now is to upload PDF Versions of Wikipedia Books. A Wikipedia Book is a collection of Wikipedia articles.

In former days there used to be a rendering service on Wikipedia that created PDFs from Wikipedia Books. This service has been decommissioned. As detailed in the following post summarizing the discussion a replacement is not expectable in the near future.

https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Topic:Uxkv0ib36m3i8vol&topic_showPostId=uxsjbpkqfmgq1jyx#flow-post-uxsjbpkqfmgq1jyx

So I propose that I render a PDF for each Wikipedia Book in my home and upload the on Commons. This way the PDFs are available to the users again.

Since I need to buy hardware, write software, set up everything and let it run for a few months, I do need a definitive answer whether I can upload those PDFs before I start this process.

Possibly some official voting procedure needs to be followed in order to get a community consensus decision. So I am also very happy if you could tell me which process I have to follow in order to achieve such a decision.

Yours Dirk Hünniger (talk) 15:03, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

If WMF doesn't have resources, may be one of local chapters could take over? Or dedicated conversion project should be created, if PDFs versions are so important? --EugeneZelenko (talk) 13:58, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
In my opinion PDF of wikipedia articles are not useful. They only eat up disk space but bring nothing new to the wiki projects. They may also contain unchecked copyrighted text or fair use images.--Roy17 (talk) 20:05, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
Hi, the point about fair use is an really important one. I will surely run into this problem. Excluding fair use images in the PDFs does not make much sense. So Commons is simply not a place where I can store those files due to this licensing issue. Thanks a lot for explaining this to me. I will look into different possibilities to store those files. Dirk Hünniger (talk) 21:13, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Proposed, relatively minor, change to Blocking Policy

Your feedback needed!

Refer to Commons_talk:Blocking_policy#Proposal_to_change_wording_for_"unauthorized_bot_accounts".

This adapts the wording of "unauthorized bot accounts", to focus on the use of blocks to halt large scale automation without implying that any such automation would always require an approved bot flag. This should better cater for disruptive events such as misuse of standard tools which have never required a bot flag. --Fæ (talk) 11:59, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Cleaning up Russavia's crap

See also Category talk:To do.

Russavia used over a dozen socks to dump tens of thousands of images in various maintenance categories. I want to take them back out. When I process all those files, putting in a few additional replacements will take little effort. So suggestions for that are welcome. I currently can't really continue as I'm waiting for my request for noratelimit to hopefully be approved. Soon after that, I want to process Category talk:To do. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 19:39, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Accounts like DarwIn or me are not Russavia socks, and our uploads may outnumber anything that Russavia had a hand in. Lots of the "check" categories are more a non-essential precaution to ensure that at some point a pair of human eyes make sure the text and categories make sense against the actual image. A bot is not the way to take those sorts of uploads out of the check category.
Keep in mind that these mass uploads for avionics were a smart move, as in many cases the licensing at source has become more restrictive, or the particular source has since vanished. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 19:46, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
@Fæ: Nobody will ever look at all of them. The uploader is not planning on checking them either. Without any clarification of what should be checked for, nobody else even could check them. If these maintenance categories are to be maintained, a clear definition of what the files should be checked for has to be provided. In the case of {{Check categories}}, that template was usually added years after the actual upload. I'm not complaining about the mass uploads, but these vague "check" categories are not useful like this. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 20:40, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
"what should be checked for" can be put on each category page.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 08:35, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
@Jeff G.: Yes, unless nobody really knows. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 08:20, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
@Alexis Jazz: The person who created each category had a reason for doing so.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 14:42, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
@Jeff G.: What if they are gone and we'll never figure out what that reason was? - Alexis Jazz ping plz 14:48, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
@Alexis Jazz: I imagine in most cases it's just a generic "this image was uploaded by a bot and needs to be checked for bot-related weirdness" (e.g. {{To check category header}}). Usually the only maintenance that's needed is refining the categories, but of course bots occasionally misinterpret things and get weird results. I create these types of categories a lot for my uploads. BMacZero (talk) 15:31, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
@Alexis Jazz: Then we guess. Are there particular categories which concern you in this regard?   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 20:17, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
@Jeff G.: Category:Photographs by Eva Rinaldi (check needed)‎ and Category:Photographs by the State Chancellery of Latvia (check needed). - Alexis Jazz ping plz 05:05, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
@Alexis Jazz: Category:Photographs by Eva Rinaldi (check needed) was created by globally banned Russavia, so we can't ask him. It contains 5,644 files allegedly by Eva Rinaldi of Eva Rinaldi Photography, mass imported from her Flickrstream. From the first page, the files are all photos, mostly of people, but without {{Personality}}. They should be checked for that and dws. Similarly, Category:Photographs by the State Chancellery of Latvia (check needed) contains 11,750 files, allegedly by Saeima for the Public Relations Department of Parliament of Latvia AKA the State Chancellery of Latvia, and they should be checked similarly.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 15:58, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
For my mass uploads around that time which are in these maintenance categories, there might have been some automatic categorization (honestly cannot remember), the reason for including the check cat is the obvious one, a pair of human eyes to make sure that it makes sense, and the image is what its title says it is.
It is an unhelpful starting position to presume that everything is "crap", a small bit of semi-automated housekeeping will probably rapidly shrink the size of the backlog, were anyone motivated to act positively on this. Effectively being shouted at for the crime of running a perfectly good mass upload gives me zero incentive to spend time helping with these. The uploads generated no serious complaints in the years since, in fact many have proved useful options for Wikipedia and journalists with respect to major stories with aircraft incidents, so maybe the best response you can expect from me here is meh. --Fæ (talk) 15:46, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Hathi Trust login needed

I want to add some PDFs from the Hathi Trust website, but am hitting a "Partner login required" restriction. Does anyone have a log-in, please? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:53, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: You can use Hathi Download Helper. This works very well for me. Regards, Yann (talk) 12:21, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Automated tool for individual Library of Congress files?

Is there such a tool/script that can import files or at least archival information on a case-by-case basis? I am moving USGov files from enwiki. Sometimes I find much better versions on loc.gov. For example en:File:Trolley at Glen Echo.jpg comes from https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017745368/ . A tool that imports archival information and organises it in {{Photograph}} would save much time.--Roy17 (talk) 15:15, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Pinging @Fæ.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 15:49, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
No. I do have a version of my LOC uploading script that can pull in very specific collections based on a LOC query, such as a search for a 'LOT' number. However I was intending rebuild how this works from the ground up. It's a background project for me that will probably take several months to get around to, depending on how many real life events take priority. --Fæ (talk) 16:40, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

New entrance for "Captions"

  • There are well established tools to describe a file in various languages in the {{int:filedesc}} by Information → {{en|…, {{de|… etc..
  • This board could be usable by innovative editors, too.
  • It has been a foolish idea to create a different entrance, which is incompatible with the wiki code.

--Ulamm (talk) 21:21, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Not that it will necessarily convince you, but you may read more on the reason for this at Commons:File captions. :-) Jean-Fred (talk) 08:37, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

National Gallery of Art

Hi, Has anyone any idea how to get such a high resolution for File:House of Père Lacroix E11039.jpg, File:Flowers in a Rococo Vase A24470.jpg, and File:Le Garçon au gilet rouge, par Paul Cézanne, National Gallery of Art.jpg? The ones available for me are much lower, around 2500 x 4000 pixels. Regards, Yann (talk) 17:26, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Apparently, AAvindraa is the uploade of these 3 images, so he should be able to tell, but it will be related to Help:Zoomable images. — Speravir – 22:12, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
Oh dear spelling mistake, it is Aavindraa. — Speravir – 22:15, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Translation required

Can someone translate this File:13. البحيرة المسحورة بمحمية وادي الريان بالفيوم .. مصر.jpg first? It is some lake in the sand.Smiley.toerist (talk) 20:09, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
A lake in Wadi Al Rayyan covers it. Broichmore (talk) 21:20, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

File:Ray Strachey.jpg vs. File:Ray Strachey restored.jpg and File:Ray Strachey restored.png

I understand that one doesn't want the {{FlickrVerifiedByUploadWizard|Flickr-no known copyright restrictions}} template added to new images without it being verified, but it does seem odd that I have to remove it in order to save a file that's a derivative of it. I'm not sure there's a perfect solution to this, though. Adam Cuerden (talk) 00:45, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Request to add Ottoman Turkish name label to text

When using "ota" (Ottoman Turkish) the name "لسان عثمانى‎" does not yet display

العربية: ABC
لسان عثمانى: ABC

Would an admin mind adding the label "لسان عثمانى‎"? Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 01:46, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

WhisperToMe, this is perhaps better asked in Commons:Administrators' noticeboard or even in Phabricator. Ottoman Turkish is actually also written right to left, isn’t it? Then this has to be fixed, too. — Speravir – 21:56, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
Oops, phab:T59342 is claimed to be resolved. — Speravir – 22:00, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Speravir 22:15, 24 May 2019 (UTC): Asked in COM:AN and was redirected to mw:Extension talk:CLDR.

Captions cannot be corrected

Somebody entered captions on one of my images which need to be corrected. However, when I change the text and try to publish it, I get the response Forbidden. How can I handle this? --Uoaei1 (talk) 11:39, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

@Uoaei1: I suggest you post to Commons talk:Structured data.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 11:44, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
@Jeff G.: Thanks for the hint, I have now posted there. --Uoaei1 (talk) 12:06, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
@Uoaei1: You're welcome.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 12:09, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by:   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 02:39, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

More eyes needed

Can we get some more participation over at Commons:Deletion requests/File:Adv (248274495).jpeg? Thanks! --Dennis Bratland (talk) 14:44, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

I have closed the DR as it's a pretty clear PCP case. Rodrigo needs a major attitude adjustment. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 15:49, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
@Pi.1415926535: Thanks. Rodrigo uncivilly undid my {{Be civil final}} warning.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 03:19, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Speravir 02:58, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

Partial blocks, is there consensus for them?

Apparently the ability to block users from only certain pages has been live for quite a while but is disabled by default for whatever reason. So before proposing this is in the proposals village pump I would like to see if there is consensus for the idea and what the arguments against partial blocks on Wikimedia Commons.

Of course, I am not suggesting that these should be used in lieu of simple warnings or that we should lower the standards of what solicits a block, as in a user who moves a couple of hundred files into bad categories shouldn't be indefinitely blocked for editing "Category:" Files indefinitely (which usually is for life) while in the current system they would have only received a 2 (two) weeks siteblock. Partial blocks could be used to prevent generally constructive users who are less constructive to be blocked from the pages where they are being disruptive, for example a user who uploads high quality photographs and helps newcomers could be disruptive at the QI nominations and would then be blocked from these nominations without also blocking him/her from editing spaces where they are not disruptive.

Are there arguments in favour and against this? I'd love to hear/read them before proposing it. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 19:22, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2018/09#Partial_blocks was a prior discussion here, but I had thought that there was a more active discussion about this. --Fæ (talk) 11:28, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
@Donald Trung and Fæ: I  Support a proposal about enabling partial blocks.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 13:49, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
For a proposal to fly, it would need to layout realistic benefits. Commons is not the same as Wikipedia, so the rationale from the WMF for introducing it, which was all about addressing behavioural issues on Wikipedia, are debatable for this project. --Fæ (talk) 14:10, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
An Anti-Porn Warrior user could be a productive uploader but might annoyingly report good faith users who upload nudes or something as "trolls" at the administrators' noticeboard, this behaviour would warrant a full siteban but if their uploads are fine and they are productive in other spaces then why exclude them from all of the Commonswiki if they are only disruptive in one area? Blocks are supposed to prevent disruptive edits but now thousands of good edits are also blocked as "collateral damage". This is just an example, but a user who repeatedly catches copyright violations but only uploads selfies 🤳🏻 could also be blocked from only uploading until they've convinced the sysops that they have learned their lesson.
I actually have a lot of named examples in mind who are productive uploaders but less productive in other areas who can't upload their great content now. A Chilean vector uploader, a Polish man who frequents museums, an American who makes the women in red blue, a Japanese man who badly nominated many images for deletion because he couldn't understand policy. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 14:19, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
Sure, hypotheticals are fun, however a credible proposal should highlight real past cases where the current system hampered administrators from acting effectively. If zero real cases can illustrate a proposal, then it may as well be parked as an idea until someone can actually prove it has significant benefits over the current system and will not be more complex, confusing or subject to unfortunate misuse compared to what happens in practice now. --Fæ (talk) 19:51, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
 Comment Blocking should only be used as a last resort, when discussion failed to fix the issue. So a partial block should not be used as a way to avoid discussion, even if that discussion is difficult. Regards, Yann (talk) 14:32, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
I agree that it should be a last resort, partial blocks should also not be used in lieu of discussion, but it would isolate the area of disruption. And would leave the user less bitter, so more likely to engage constructively. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 15:49, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
  • I've read about partial blocks before but I cannot really see a use for it on Commons. Similarly, Commons doesn't really go in for topic bans or interaction bans and there are good reasons for that. The community on Commons is small and each individual file does not require much (if any) discussion or cooperation. Commons is not a collaborative editing project wrt the media it hosts. Though multiple editors may make contributions to the File pages (categories, descriptions, translations, licence review, etc) they generally do that independently and not in a collaborative manner. If there are certain areas or activities that a user demonstrates problems at, then they may be blocked, and required to agree to avoid such conflict areas as a condition of lifting the block. There aren't so many of us that we'd need to automate such. There are of course people who upload (and themselves take) valuable images for Commons who have otherwise behaved badly enough to be blocked. I disagree that a partial block permitting them to continue to upload but not participate in other forums would make the user less bitter. They'd likely just create a sock account anyway. Better to tell such people to go away. And keep telling them to go until they find another hobby. -- Colin (talk) 17:21, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
    • That same argument can literally be made for any other wiki's, but blocks are not meant to tell people to look for another hobby, but to cease disruptions. If these people were meant to be banned forever than unblocks wouldn't exist. They'd likely just create a sock account anyway." not all blocked/banned users engage in sockpuppetry, nor do all users who are banned from certain spaces Sockpuppet to avoid their namespace bans. Jan Arkesteijn never sockpuppeted and from what I can tell, assuming good faith is a pillar of Wikimedia (even though it is rarely done) and just because abuse could continue doesn't mean that "because abuse keeps continuing we shouldn't use more tools to stop abuse". Wikimedia Commons would be richer if people who are uncollegial in some spaces be barred from just those spaces than the entire website. "If there are certain areas or activities that a user demonstrates problems at, then they may be blocked, and required to agree to avoid such conflict areas as a condition of lifting the block. There aren't so many of us that we'd need to automate such." this doesn't mean that Wikimedia Commons will stay small forever and where people meet, ego's clash and it's better to have a toolset and not need it than need it and not have it. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 22:08, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
      • I explained why/how Commons is different to encyclopedia wikis, where this feature is aimed at. You gave the example of someone who was disruptive at QI but otherwise participated well. It is already possible for someone, in their unblock request to say "OK, I have problems with QI so I'll not participate any longer in that forum" and an admin to agree that as terms of their unblock. I don't recall this ever happening, so why the need for automated tools to police such a "Block QI". Your arguments "Not all..." don't impress me on any level of logic. I don't agree with your approach to try to pick and choose which roles someone is allowed to play here. People are often blocked for character flaws that manifest themselves in certain areas. They show a lack of respect for others, for community-agreed rules, or for the law, they are dishonest, they are abusive when they don't get their way, they cheat. Commons is not a machine but a community of people. I'm quite happy that we block the whole person, not just take away their access to FP or QI. -- Colin (talk) 12:46, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
        • Which is entirely against the spirit of the Wikimedia Commons blocking policy which states "blocking is designed to be a preventative measure and not a punitive one" punishing a person over isolated disruption is against both the spirit and the word of the policy, a bug which could easily be solved with partial blocks. And partial blocks can also be administered for single pages, if two (2) users are engaging in an edit war on only a single file then blocking both of them from editing the file for a reasonable period of time would be preferable over losing two (2) productive users for any period of time. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 19:44, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
          • No Donald it is totally in keeping. Two users edit warring over a file is a symptom of two users who don't understand how to behave on Commons. You seek to treat the symptom rather than the cause. The problem is not with the file, but with the people. Sorry, but your approach seems to me to be appeasement of users who are rightfully blocked. -- Colin (talk) 10:24, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
            • But how can a user completely banned from Wikimedia Commons prove that they have learned from their mistakes, once you throw someone out there simply is no way to get them back if you lock the door. A user blocked indefinitely 10 (ten) years ago for edit warring can't show that they won't edit war and any appeal today would most likely be denied because all the sysops see is their old behaviour. Partial blocks most likely won't be used for serial harassers and serial copyright violators, but it makes no sense to punish a user incapable of understanding one aspect of the the website such as categorisation oe how to rename a file equally as severe as someone sending rape and death threats (as an example). If you already believe that a person who repeatedly makes a mistake on one file as a person is flawed so bad that they shouldn't be able to contribute anywhere else than all it does it take passionate volunteers at rom the project. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 10:59, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Let's say one is productive on one part of a project, and also is a BS on other part. Then you get partially blocked and you can act like as if nothing happened on the other side of the project. This is not acceptable. — regards, Revi 11:21, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
    • Curious, but why is it not acceptable? If it stops the disruption and the user remains productive while ceasing all forms of disruptive behaviour then what do we as a community lose from having them around? And what would we gain from completely excluding them? Partial blocks don't condone bad behaviour (in fact the opposite is true), a user partially blocked who would still be able to be productive in other areas is incentivised to not sock as they still have something to lose (their hobby), meanwhile a user completely banned from Wikimedia Commons would sock because they have nothing left to lose further. Also blocks aren't designed to be punitive but preventative so preventing good edits in one area because of bad edits in another seems counterproductive. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 10:47, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Talk pages consultation: Phase 2

"icon depicting two speech Bubbles"

The Wikimedia Foundation is currently conducting a global consultation about communication. The goal is to bring Wikimedians and wiki-minded people together to improve tools for communication.

Phase 1 of the consultation is over – thank you to everyone who participated! – and we've published the Phase 1 report. The report summarizes what people have said and what we've learned, proposes a direction for the project, and asks specific questions to explore in Phase 2.

Very briefly, the proposed direction is that wikitext talk pages should be improved, and not replaced. We propose building a new design on top of talk pages that changes the page's default appearance, and offers key tools like replying, indenting and signing posts. To keep consistency with existing tools, the new design will be a default experience that existing users can opt out of. We also propose building features that experienced contributors want, including the ability to watchlist a single discussion, and the ability to move, archive and search for threads. Building these features may require some loss of flexibility, or small-to-medium changes in wikitext conventions. The goal is to only make changes that directly enable functionality that users really want.

You can see more information and discussion about the proposed direction in the Phase 1 report, including the results of new user tests and some of the quotations from Phase 1 discussions that led to this proposal.

Now it's time to start Phase 2!

We have six questions to discuss in Phase 2, asking for reactions to the proposed direction, and pros and cons for specific changes that we could make.

You can help by hosting a discussion at your wiki. Here's what to do:

  1. First, sign up your group here.
  2. Next, create a page (or a section on a Village pump, or an e-mail thread – whatever is natural for your group) to collect information from other people in your group.
  3. Then start the conversation with the six questions listed in the Questions for Phase 2 section of the report.
  4. When the conversation is concluded, the host should write a summary of the discussion on the Phase 2 community discussion summaries page, and report what you learned from your group. Please include links if the discussion is available to the public.

You can read more about the overall process on MediaWiki.org. If you have questions or ideas, you can leave feedback about the consultation process in the language you prefer.

Thank you! We're looking forward to talking with you. DannyH (WMF) (talk) 17:44, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

  • The report starts by saying that talk pages are «baffling to newcomers and annoying for experienced editors». Which doesn’t say much about talk pages (indeed one debatable statement and an utterly false one) but speaks volumes about where we are going with this. Meanwhile actual problems remain unsolved and new ones pile on. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 18:19, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Slow

I'm trying to upload photos and since Friday I'm suffering a very slow speed of uploading. Very few files get uploaded and it takes an unsual lot of time. Is it happening only to me or is it a general problem? B25es (talk) 05:34, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Legacy interwiki links

There are still some like special:permalink/74165605. Is there a bot that takes care of these?--Roy17 (talk) 19:15, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Btw, if a bot is to link a commons category to a wikidata item, please let it add Commons category (P373) if the item does not yet have it. DeltaBot is doing that job but terribly slow.--Roy17 (talk) 19:21, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Searching in structured output

I have added Q23397(lake) to the file. I am curious if there other files in the Commons with structured data (lake). How can I find them?Smiley.toerist (talk) 19:16, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

PS: The location is know corrected.Smiley.toerist (talk) 19:28, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
@Smiley.toerist: [13]. This is already explained here. Cheers. Strakhov (talk) 21:39, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
@Smiley.toerist: Note that generic depictions like "lake" are discouraged per Commons:Depicts#What_items_not_to_add. There are untold thousands of images of lakes on Commons. The more specific name of the lake would probably be more useful, e.g. perhaps sand motor (Q1393347)? --Animalparty (talk) 22:53, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
That note is not discouraging generic depictions, but adding generic depictions when there is already a more specific one. Not exactly the same. Since sand motor (Q1393347) is not an instance of lake (or an instance of a subclass of lake...), tagging this image as lake IMHO is OK (if this is really a lake), unless someones finds an item about this specific lake. Having untold thousands pictures of lakes hosted in Commons is not a problem, it's a fact. A good one, I may add. Have in mind there's room in the future for a "location"-property (see "Items expected to be covered by other statements"). I do not know if that one would refer to "administrative entities" or "more generic places". Strakhov (talk) 23:31, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
There is a Category:Zandmotor meer but not a Wikidata item. There are two bodies of water. One lake, originaly an enclosed sea, but It has become a fresh water lake. The other is a lagoon wich is reached by seawater at high tide. It is drained by a narrow undeep channel, except by very high tide when the lagoon is refilled. There where occasions when the channel is filled over after a sandstorm. How do you type in structured output: File:Zandmotor januari 2016 14.JPG, File:Zandmotor januari 2016 01.JPG, File:Zandmotor januari 2016 07.JPG, File:Zandmotor januari 2016 09.JPG? It is to small to use 'bodies of water'. 'Tidal pools' or 'salt marsh' dont really cover it. Maybe puddle (Q152841), but it is larger and has structure (river like) and certainly not when it flows.Smiley.toerist (talk) 18:13, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
The strong point of the structured data is to find unusual combinations such as File:Paardenpauze bij strandtent.jpg.Smiley.toerist (talk) 18:21, 19 May 2019 (UTC)


Lakes in Wikidata

I have been relinking the lake property of files to specific lakes. However what if the more specific Wikidata-item (Q9181844) does not have the lake property? In this case a Commons category? Smiley.toerist (talk) 13:52, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

I hope I corrected the mess in Wikidata (Q9181844)Smiley.toerist (talk) 21:51, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
Not really, I'm afraid. There was a second Wikidata item for this lake which I merged with Q9181844. De728631 (talk) 22:28, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Is this policy legit?

Commons:User galleries, penned by a sock maybe?--Roy17 (talk) 20:05, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

I would say that this is an essay, not a policy. Ruslik (talk) 20:09, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
I went ahead and marked it as {{Essay}}, as it is certainly not a policy. — Huntster (t @ c) 21:11, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
I don't quite see the point of that page, as it only paraphrases a portion of COM:USER (our actual policy on that matter) in more casual language. It does no harm, however, as it is in line with the policy, to which it also links. --rimshottalk 20:18, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
Perhaps just make it a redirect to Commons:User-specific galleries, templates and categories#Gallery pages? Mkdw (talk) 18:16, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Category question

Do we need Category:Flags of the Confederate States by type of image - images of flags by image type, JPG, GIF, etc? Bubba73 (talk) 23:50, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

 Comment One of its parents, Category:Flags by type of image by country seems well-established, and I suggest that you could open a discussion. Rodhullandemu (talk) 23:54, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
Well, maybe it is OK then. Bubba73 (talk) 00:48, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
Category discusison started at Commons:Categories for discussion/2019/05/Category:Flags by type of image. - Themightyquill (talk) 08:51, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

180k photos from Belgium Herbarium of Meise Botanic Garden

In the last few days, some 180k photos have been published in cc-by-sa by the Meise Botanic Garden Herbarium on Zenodo: https://zenodo.org/communities/belgiumherbarium/search

On http://www.botanicalcollections.be/ there seem to be 1712k photos, apparently without a license. On a random record I read "© copyright BOTANIC GARDEN MEISE". I see they crosslink https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/ so they might be on Zenodo in order to join http://biolitrepo.org/ . Nemo 05:57, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

@Nemo: I created Commons:Batch uploading/Belgium Herbarium so we don't lose track of it. – BMacZero (🗩) 15:57, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Encountered numerous errors when uploading with the Wizard

Here's the screenshot. I'm uploading some videos that I've shot on buses. In order to ensure all of them have been uploaded, I have to upload the same set of videos over and over again. Success rate wasn't high, 8~12 out of ~40 can be uploaded successfully after waiting 24 hrs.

The upload bandwidth here is 3MB/s using IPv6 connection. Not too bad for uploading them IMHO.

Regards

Tomskyhaha (talk) 12:46, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

@Tomskyhaha: Did you try User:Rillke/bigChunkedUpload.js yet? Documentation is on the talk page.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 13:06, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
@Jeff G.: Trying now after seeing this message. Thanks. Didn't try before because of lacking desktop. Seems pretty labor intensive when batch uploading though. Needs to navigate to every new file page. Cheers Tomskyhaha (talk) 13:23, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
@Jeff G.: This tool is awesome: no longer constrained by the 4GiB limit.(no more file splitting, yay!) Tomskyhaha (talk) 13:44, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
@Jeff G.: OK so it errors out again, and the error message is quite similar to the ones Upload Wizard has prompted. 5 out of 8 files uploaded successfully.
Screenshots: 01 02 03 04 Tomskyhaha (talk) 01:03, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
Found some discussion of this issue posted User:Yann phab:T200820#4826332 and phab:T212101 Tomskyhaha (talk) 01:17, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
It can't circumvent the 4GB limit, errors out every time when it uploaded ~3.9GB chunks. Screenshot click here Tomskyhaha (talk) 03:24, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Search not properly working

Hi all, when pressing the "Search" button on the search page (https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=) the URL is not updated anymore. Instead i see https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php indepedently from what i search for. This problem began a few days ago. --Arnd (talk) 07:04, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

View one's uploads by file type

It's me again. :-D

In order to add subtitles with location information, I have to find out which video has been uploaded.

For instance, a video named foobar has been attempted to upload to Commons, comprises of the following files: foobar_00, foobar_01, foobar_02.

In most cases only the second or the third file has been uploaded. And the goal is to upload the subtitle to the 00 segment. Or reupload it if not present.

A list of uploaded videos would be helpful to either add subtitle to the 00 video, or attempt reuploading the missing segments.

Unfortunately I haven't found the page with the said function. Could anyone point it out for me? Any help is greatly appreciated.

Tomskyhaha (talk) 07:32, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Presuming you are asking to search for your uploads of videos, the trick is to use filemime. Search --Fæ (talk) 08:07, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
@Fæ: Thanks! That did the trick. Tomskyhaha (talk) 10:28, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Gallery move request

According to COM:NAME and common practice, every country's gallery is titled in it's official language (日本 (Japan), مصر (Egypt), Ελλάδα (Greece) etc). Previously, Israel had two official languages, Hebrew and Arabic, so it's gallery was titled either in two languages with "/" between, or in English. Since last year, Israel has one official language, Hebrew, (BBC) so I request to move it to "ישראל". --Triggerhippie4 (talk) 15:24, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

If Arabic still has "special status" and its previous uses will not be affected, that means that it will still be used on currency, postage stamps, and many street signs. The whole Netanyahu law thing seems to be annoyingly symbolic. I don't think there's any need to immediately rush to change the gallery name... AnonMoos (talk) 12:07, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
It's not a place to express political opinions. The law is not titled "Netanyahu law", it wasn't even initiated by Netanyahu. Hebrew is more widespread in Israel than any other language, and it has higher status (official language) than Arabic (recognized language). The only reason why the gallery wasn't titled in Hebrew only is that Israel formally had two equally official languages. Now that Arabic lost its status, it should be renamed because nobody would say that Israel's main national language is other than Hebrew. It's common sense. en:Lebanon has a recognized language (French) in addition to its official Arabic, yet the gallery is in Arabic only. --Triggerhippie4 (talk) 17:13, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
I would like to note that COM:NAME does not mention the "official" but the "local" language when it comes to galleries. So there is no need to change established names at Commons because of a new legislation in Israel. Although Hebrew is the prevailing (and now the only official) language, Arabic is still a minority language afaik. De728631 (talk) 17:23, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
What "established names"? It's English now. Israel. --Triggerhippie4 (talk) 19:52, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
Triggerhippie4 -- French in Lebanon is a former colonial language and currently-useful international language, like English in Israel. French in Lebanon is a foreign language, while Arabic in Israel is not a foreign language, so I don't see how the two cases are comparable. AnonMoos (talk) 16:07, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Categorisation specialists

I would like to draw your attention to contributions by Tris T7 (talk · contribs) (don't click the CPU-heavy user page). His/her commitment is commendable, but I hate to say, it does not help much with categorisation. For instance, separating by file types is mostly redundant, because files are categorised based on their contents. I was first alerted of such categories on 22 April. User:Themightyquill has tried to explain to him/her.

I think Category:Illustrations files needing categories as of 2018 and Category:Illustrations files needing categories as of 2019, two of his/her three recent categories, may not be very useful either. Illustrations is a very broad term, so it would include media of very different characteristics, which defeats the purpose of an interim. I would rather expect someone moving files straight to Maps of XX, Diagrams of XX, etc. In contrast, Category:Logos needing categories as of 2015 is specific and better.

@Tris T7: I have some suggestions:

  1. All interim categories should be marked with {{Hidden category}}.
  2. When you move stuff to interim cats using cat-a-lot, you should switch off removing {{Uncat}}.

Others, please help empty Category:JPEG files needing categories as of 2018 and Category:JPEG files needing categories as of 2017.--Roy17 (talk) 15:45, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

off-topic discussion on edit counts
I pretty much agree. However you fail to see the point. The perpetrator is interested in amassing a gigantic edit score, so called maintenance is the only way of amassing stupendous scores. -Broichmore (talk) 21:20, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
WTF is an "edit score"? Sheer number of edits? Who cares? And what is the gain (to anyone) in amassing edits? - Jmabel ! talk 01:20, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
@Jmabel: Please see en:WP:HIGHSCORE.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 01:51, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
Geez. I'll admit to having a count of "top uploads" on my Commons user page, so I guess someone could say I resemble that in (exactly) one respect, but actual images on Commons is a very different thing than edits. I have no idea how many edits I've made. Looked it up once (years ago) when dealing with someone who (ridiculously) tried to suggest I wasn't a significant contributor to en-wiki, but that's about it. - Jmabel ! talk 05:27, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
@Jmabel: You have 238,167 live edits on Commons, 86,160 on enwiki, and 331,735 globally.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 05:39, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
Sounds about right. Mostly shows how "cheap" edits on Commons can be. - Jmabel ! talk 06:01, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
In terms of quantity of edits your still a comparative baby against some others. You seem to spend a lot of time policing people here, possibly why edits are so cheap. Quality constructive edits are not cheap here if your editing unidentified files, and it comes with added benefit of not chasing away newbies. At least your not (as is common here, vandalising files by over categorization. Example Category:1951 on the Isle of Man Railway which holds only two files, and is the only cat in Category:Isle of Man in the 1950s which is four steps away from it; do you think you could use your energies to policing that kind of nonsense? As I said earlier, most high scores, comprise completely useless admin edits or destructive ones as mentioned, It annoys me that these people have such undue influence on the project. I think it high time for Admins to face re-election every three years, rather than have the lifetime rights of Supreme Court justices. Broichmore (talk) 11:00, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
If you have a good rationale to change policy to either encourage or mandate confirmation votes for use of sysop tools, then put up a proposal at COM:VP/P. Keep in mind the lack of enthusiasm in the most recent proposal in this area of Commons:Village_pump/Proposals/Archive/2017/04#Proposal_on_de-adminship_for_cause. --Fæ (talk) 11:12, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
@Broichmore: I presume that comment is directed at me, since it is immediately under my remark. You say, "You seem to spend a lot of time policing people here": can you give an example of what you consider inappropriate "policing" by me? Also, saying that I spend a lot of time on "policing" seems bizarre, unless everything that isn't an upload is "policing": other than my own photos, mostly I research, describe and categorize archival photos.

You appear to characterize my edits as "useless" and "destructive"; have you actually had a look at my edits, or are you just firing off randomly? And why is it somehow my responsibility more than yours to deal with the bad categorization you mentioned in an area unrelated anything I've done here?

If you would like me to face recertification as an admin, fine, please propose that formally, I have no objection to such a process. Otherwise, if you want to criticize my behavior, please give concrete examples of that behavior, not a string of unsubstantiated adjectives. - Jmabel ! talk 16:03, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

I unreservedly apologize to you. My two or three spot checks let me down. More fool me. I was unfairly firing off at someone else. I think that your edits are of a high quality. No I don't think there is a need for recertification in your case. I also take note of what Fae has said on the matter. Broichmore (talk) 18:53, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Categories & mobile interface

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T24660

I am one of those "holdouts" who uses a flipphone rather than a smartphone, so I have rarely seen Commons' mobile interface. Today, I was trying to show images of a particular building to someone on their phone and I could find no way to get from an image to its categories. So my question: starting from an image drawn from Commons, in a Wikipedia article on a mobile, how does one get to the categories for the image? - Jmabel ! talk 04:28, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

I couldn't find them either, which is weird because in all other respects the mobile file description page looks pretty much like the desktop version. – BMacZero (🗩) 05:19, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
Categories are filtered out in the mobile view, see phab:T24660. I tend to use the desktop view on my mobile to see them. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 06:43, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
That's insane! That reduces Commons to almost nothing but a minor annex to the sites that use the images. It removes the main advantage of having an image be on Commons rather than just floating out there on an isolated page of its own. - Jmabel ! talk 16:05, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
Agreed. Despite their (many) weaknesses, categories are still among the most useful things on commons, and we've removed them from our mobile app. - Themightyquill (talk) 10:21, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Inscriptions

In the spirit of being cautious, as is the guideline, I'd like to ask whether my latest contributions, adding inscriptions, are useful to the project. For example, see File:Unua_Libro_ru_1st_ed.pdf#Inscription or File:War_of_Anti-Christ_with_the_Church_and_Christian_Civilization.jpg#Inscription. While I certainly enjoy making these, I question at times whether or not I should make them. I think they can be a help to screen readers, the visually impaired, and others, but as few images have them I wonder whether or not they're truly helpful. Thoughts? Psiĥedelisto (talk) 06:43, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

  • I think this is very good work. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 07:31, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
  • I think in cases like this where the original is a piece of paper this it would be called a transcription rather than inscription. This file shows an inscription (and if you were to place the text on the file description page, that would be a transcription of the depicted inscription). But apart from that: great work, keep going! --El Grafo (talk) 08:58, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
  • All good. If you are including text transcriptions, be cautious about copyright where these are translations or the original would need a creative reconstruction. If the text is not your own transcription, then there may be a copyright claim for it, even where the manuscript or inscription is clearly public domain. --Fæ (talk) 09:02, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Nice job there.--Vulphere 21:45, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Psiĥedelisto -- for another heavily-transcribed page, see File:Wernigeroder Wappenbuch 010.jpg... -- AnonMoos (talk) 14:54, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

Adding qualifiers to Depicts

Testing for adding qualifiers to Commons:Depicts statements on the file page and in the UploadWizard is now available on Test-Commons: https://test-commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Adding qualifiers allows users to further develop depicts statements. For example, depicts: house cat can be extended into depicts: house cat[color:black]. You can find qualifiers in the "Structured data" tab on the file page, or in the "Add data" tab in the UploadWizard.

Currently supported qualifiers are: shown with features, color, wears, applies to part, quantity, eye color, and shape.

Once you've tested qualifiers, please leave your feedback on the SDC talk page with any questions, comments, or concerns you might have about the feature. When testing is complete, the qualifiers will be released to Commons both on the file page and in the UploadWizard. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 22:18, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Good update, testing it now.--Vulphere 12:14, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

Structured meta data - where ?

Where in the help system of Wikimedia Commons can an outsider WP/WD editor find help info about the newly introduced feature of WMC ? Kpjas (talk) 06:51, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

@Kpjas: Commons:Structured Data.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 06:54, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: --Roy17 (talk) 14:57, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Autoarchiving in Village Pump

For your information: I just now activated autoarchiving with the SpBot here in the Village Pump. (The timespan will later be reduced to 7 days as before – edit 18:25, 13 May 2019 (UTC): ✓ Done).

This has the side effect that the level 1 section headers with the dates will not be removed, so it has to be done manually.

Should the issues with the ArchiverBot get solved we can switch back to the old routine.
— Speravir – 19:00, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

Maybe the empty section headings will be deleted in future by Hazard-Bot who already adds the new sections. At least a test run was successful: Special:Diff/350162226/350162432. — Speravir – 16:40, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
In fact, the bot works quite reliable now. So I unprotected this short thread. — Speravir – 03:02, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

Commons:Ban

A red link, yes – Commons formally doesn’t ban anybody within its own jurisdiction. A user having account previously blocked on Commons receives treatment depending on whether does s/he annoy anybody having the “block” right. Not based on how dangerous or disriptive s/he is in general. Just two cases for comparison.

Панн

Made several dozens stupid deletions requests and orphan categories, evaded block two times. And we nowadays see all his uploads wiped out indiscriminately.

影武者 (Nipponese Dog Calvero)

The user has record of personal attacks and socking (across all Wikimedia) twelve years long – really since 2007, not kidding! On Commons tried to disrupt delreqs. Yet, Commons hosts multiple images by him and of him, most of which were directly uploaded by 影武者’s pup accounts.

The site should distinguish between those who are banned (and whose new creations are subject to speedy deletion) from petty offenders evading blocks via IPs or making one, two, or three socks. Many can also remember how IN____–_y got quite lenient treatment in 2018 from some Commons elements, in spite of the doubly global Wikimedia ban. As long as Commons is controlled by admins’ whims more than by policy, this community will be looked upon with suspicion. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 09:08, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

 Oppose Not sure we need the sort of drama that happens on en:WP, and to a determined disruptor, there is no technical difference between a block and a ban. Indeed, some wear a ban as a badge of honour, however dubious that may seem to a sane person. So I see no need for a policy of this nature. Rodhullandemu (talk) 09:14, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
Because existing Commons policy is already too… complicated to grasp? :D Incnis Mrsi (talk) 09:38, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
  •  Comment We don't need more bureaucracy. But see Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Jason Lin. IMO creating a page for 2 accounts is giving too much importance to them. Just do not feed the trolls. Regards, Yann (talk) 09:28, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
  •  Oppose, it's probably better to create "Commons:Long-term abuse" ("COM:LTA") for long-term abusers, persistent advertisers (as in non-educational content to promote a non-notable thing such as Fouadadan Islam), and similar forms of abuse specifically designed to misuse Wikimedia Commons, or wholesale behaviours such as using Wikimedia Commons as a pirate website for films and TV series using Wikipedia Zero. But what is the actual difference between indefinite blocks and formal bans? All it does is make it harder for a banned user to appeal, or in other words, give them less of an incentive to change their behaviour thus sustaining their (continued) disruptive behaviour. The harder it is for people to come back to the community in good faith, the less likely they are to stop their abusive behaviour. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 10:14, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
    Actually, creating a directory for Fouadadan-like people would be fool – they could obtain recognition this way whereas the present regime mostly shuns them. A spammer’s credential is his/her spam – I don’t feel anything to change about this kind of abuse which is combatted rather effectively. Skilled copyvio uploaders are much harsher a trouble. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 10:23, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
    Trolls like Панн probably use the same camera or have a style of uploading and naming files, listing what kind of files with file names they upload and documenting the camera equipment they use, their geographical location, and information about their uploads in a page like “Commons:Long-term abuse/Панн” could help new page patrollers catch their socks better. Their types of trolling or why they're blocked doesn't have to be listed, just general information about their editing and upload styles with like a custom tag like {{Speedy LTA|Панн}} if found by a new page patroller. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 11:08, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
    What? I didn’t see a single work by Панн. All his stuff is photos of persons whom he met in his TV set. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 11:34, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
  •  Oppose the difference between a block and a ban is artificial. We don't need the level of wikilawyering displayed at some of our sister projects. Natuur12 (talk) 14:06, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
  •  Oppose mainly what Rodhullandemu wrote above. Best --Steinsplitter (talk) 14:54, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
  •  Oppose No need for more bureaucracy. Vulphere 16:36, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Consider snow closed. Though Wikimedia Commons 'borrows' many concepts from the way that administration of Wikipedia works, it remains a bureaucratically simpler project. There has never been a consensus to create a system of project bans in addition to blocks. Topic bans and interaction bans have been used, however even these are very rarely considered as an option (none in 2 years). --Fæ (talk) 08:25, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
We got one recently: Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems#User:ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2 and the licensing policy. But because the user in question has voluntarily agreed to the restrictions instead of them being forced upon him, they're not recorded in Commons:Editing restrictions. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 09:54, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
So, ..., still none in 2 years then. --Fæ (talk) 17:50, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
  •  Comment I'm not sure what difference bans would make compared to blocks. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 09:54, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
    A block can be overturned by any admin (unless there is consensus against it), while a ban requires community discussion to be overturned. Additionally, on certain Wikipedia's ArbCom can issue special bans above community scrutiny. Essentially bans make it harder to come back for an editor than blocks, it seems quite counterproductive to turn away users who are willing to change their ways and bans tend to be so difficult to overturn that very few users (if any) ever banned return, sometimes even a decade after the ban and no bad faith edits were made by them were made. A good metaphor would be that bans are the death penalty while blocks are a life in prison. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 17:08, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
  •  Comment I'm not not all that active on Wikipedia, so I don't quite understand what is being proposed here. Please elaborate: Where are our current procedures insufficient and why? What distinguishes "ban" from "block", how would that fix the issue and at what cost? --El Grafo (talk) 09:09, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

File:Army-Navy "E" Award Termination Letter and Award Winners for New Mexico and New York.pdf

Hi! While attempting to upload a better scan to this file, I uploaded the wrong file at edit time "21:23, 27 May 2019". Is it possible to remove this wrong file at the above edit time from this file? If the last two edits can be deleted, I can start over and re-add the correct file. Thanks. Semper fi! FieldMarine (talk) 21:51, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Hi FieldMarine. I deleted the "21:23, 27 May 2019" version of the file. However, I did not understand why you said "the last two edits". Do you want us to delete something else as well? 4nn1l2 (talk) 06:54, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

Perfect. All fixed...thanks! Semper Fi! FieldMarine (talk) 10:10, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Vulphere 03:40, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Bureaucracy

I hope my English is understandable, English is not my first language. I am pretty sure this is stated in the wrong place, but I have not figured a better place. I must say Commons have made communication hard with all the templates and requiring correct usage of them and intricate codification. Templates are supposed to help, not create obstacles. In the best of Wikiprojects, it should be sufficient just to state an error, explain and maybe show proof. Pretty much anwhere and in any form. Then it will be taken care of by interested users. Not require strict usage of templates, strictly to be placed in the correct space/page/section of the project. If templates is important to the bureaucracy then interested bureaucrats can codify the requests. The important thing is to understand a request and act upon it. If it is not understood; communicate. Acting on requests should be any Wiki-projects main focus. Not bureaucracy. All you achieve with bureaucracy are fewer true improvements, more slowly taken in effect. Use any good, prefarbly free, encyclopedia and look up the meaning of Wiki.--LittleGun (talk) 13:12, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

This relates to the recent edits made at File:Enoch Thulin 1915.jpg. I think your move request was valid since the image was only used in the uploader's namespace at the Swedish Wikipedia. Billinghurst, however, may not have realised that "Användare" is the user namespace over there and may have thought the image was used in an article. Anyhow, I'm not aware of any rules that prohibit the renaming of images in use anywhere in the Wikiverse. That's why there are automated redirects. At this point, {{Disputed}} came into play: Since Commons is a multilingual project, we rely heavily on automatically translated templates for standardised requests and issues. So exchanging the file move template for another service template made sense from Billinghurst's perspective. I can understand though, how this can appear to be overly bureaucratic.
Unfortunately though, there is also a copyright issue involved, so I nominated the file for deletion. De728631 (talk) 14:05, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
@LittleGun: You asked for a rename, and I asked for you to take it through a disputation process. You can call that bureaucracy, or we can call that a fair process where there is a level of discussion where you wish to amend another person's contribution. If you were the uploader of a file and someone asked for its rename, I would believe that you would like the opportunity to comment. This is about having an evidence-base recorded on the talk page of why an action was taken where it is not obvious. Plus due respect for users whether they are in the past, here now, or editing into the future.  — billinghurst sDrewth 00:59, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

Delinker issue

At 14:23, 26 May 2019, I added a global replace command. One minute later, the bot removed the command with "Removing replace commands, will be executed soon". However the command was not run upto now. Other similar commands added later were run. What's the problem? Regards, Yann (talk) 16:52, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

So, the reason we can't see previews of Commons files on Twitter is ... ?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T157145
Tracked in Phabricator
Task T64811

...politics? -- if I've read the two tickets on the right correctly?

So in a thread like [14], the National Library of Scotland's image is visible, but ours isn't (?)

Does this accurately reflect what the community wishes? -- 18:27, 26 May 2019 Jheald

Commons:Deletion requests/Template:BBCYourPaintings

Was hoping to get some outside thoughts about this deletion request for Template:BBCYourPaintings. Thanks. -- GreenC (talk) 14:25, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Two 1752 illustrations in a book released in 2017

Hello Wikipedia. I have a Brazilian book launched in the year 2017 by Dante Martins Teixeira and Nelson Papavero. In it are contained illustrations made in 1752 by Indians for an account of Dom Lourenço Álvares Roxo de Potflis. I have already removed a photograph of one open page with these illustrations of a bird I wish to make the article. If I put the photo of these pages open, in the book, would this violate any copyright? Mário NET (talk) 10:01, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

@Mário NET: Yes, but reproductions of the old 2D illustrations would be covered by {{PD-Art}}.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 10:59, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
Thank you for the information. Mário NET (talk) 11:07, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Speravir 00:29, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

ImageAnnotator broken

…or at least behaving differently than usual: In the last few days, ImageAnnotator has been showing me error messages («Version inconsistency after saving») at every attempted use, stating that the addition was unsuccessful and offering the wikicode I can insert manually myself later (which is A-OK with me but would wringle a few noses among the influential crowd upstairs), and then turns out that the note was successfully inserted after all. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 11:35, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

I had the same problem today. It told me Exception Error: Version inconsistency after saving and Could not save your note (edit conflict or other problem), even though the annotation was successful.--Roy17 (talk) 12:18, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Exactly — which means that the error message is misleading, as the note does get added. If the user doen’t refresh the page before adding another note or otherwise edit the page, the first note risks to be lost, though. As Jmabel said, poor user experience. It’s especially frustrating to new users, of course, but new users’ experience only matters when it can be highjacked to justify tearing down wikitext and with that put control back at the top, in the hands of those who pay the devs, while content creation gets done with a more and more gamified and casual experience with a lot of “machine learning” thrown in. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 01:12, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Files imported from Flickr

GreenC: I noticed that there doesn't seem to be a way to double-check that a Flickr image which is no longer marked as CC-licensed was CC-licensed at the time of its upload to Commons. Would it be a good idea to archive the Flickr file description pages and the original files to the Wayback Machine (e.g. by doing it at the same time as the license check using FlickreviewR 2), in order to increase the certainty that Flickr images were correctly imported? I'm not sure if the current procedure is sufficient. Jc86035 (talk) 11:39, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Jc86035, if FlickreviewR 2 checks it would that be a verification? Granted a machine verification isn't the same as a live person (maybe). I'm not familiar with the processes but depending on volume maybe integrating a WaybackMachine save somewhere would be a good idea. What kind of volume do you think it would be? -- GreenC (talk) 14:22, 27 May 2019 (UTC)
@GreenC: I don't know if the check template is enough to trust it (although it seems to be acceptable), and the amount of images could make it easy for someone to abuse the system without being found out. It's probably working, but it also seems too easy to abuse the system.
FlickreviewR 2 has tagged about 2,543,718 images since March 2014. The bot appears to make as many as 37 edits per minute, but doesn't sustain the edit rate and usually makes a few hundred edits per hour. I think the Internet Archive could probably handle it.
Adding this to User:Majora/LicenseReview.js might be more difficult if it's not appropriate for a user script to make external HTTP requests (I'm not sure if this would be allowed). Jc86035 (talk) 14:40, 27 May 2019 (UTC)
The bot would be the logical place. I can check with IA, they will likely accept. Zhuyifei1999 could you add to the bot? It is a GET command issued to the WaybackMachine to save a page. -- GreenC (talk) 15:08, 27 May 2019 (UTC)
Additional notes: URL format is https://web.archive.org/web/*. If it's desired to save the image as well, you have to save it with a separate request (probably by downloading the saved page and searching for the image URL(s), or by using the Flickr API). Jc86035 (talk) 15:32, 27 May 2019 (UTC)
@GreenC: , yes I can do that, but please check with IA first. I'd flood them with requests ;) --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 03:04, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

If someone figures out how to do this, could this possibly be extended to all external links on Wikimedia Commons? there is already consensus for this (Mobile 📱), if all links from Flickr could be archived then I don't see any reason why someone can't run that same (or a similar) bot for the rest of all external links on Wikimedia Commons. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 16:28, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Donald Trung/Jc86035 Actually come to think of it, this might already be happening. See the first couple sentences here. There is a roughly 24hr turnaround. I don't think it works in userspace but it might in File: space. Need a link that is not yet on Commons and not yet archived at Wayback. Add it to a File page and see what happens after 24hrs. -- GreenC (talk) 17:53, 27 May 2019 (UTC)
@GreenC: , Nemo_bis also claimed this, but from what I can tell this doesn't seem to work on Wikimedia Commons. I can't check the Internet Archive's WayBack Machine as I get an error message every time I try to use it, but from all the deletions I've seen where no archived link was available I highly doubt that this already applies to Wikimedia Commons' files. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 16:03, 28 May 2019 (UTC)
I am running a test to see what happens an will report back, but you are probably right. -- GreenC (talk) 16:15, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

Checking for a deleted image

Hello, someone's got in touch with me after a recent editathon as one of the attendees uploaded an image which was deleted. I was hoping I might be able to take a look and work out if we have options such as sending a release through OTRS, but I'm struggling to find the deleted image. There isn't a notification on User talk:ArchAtlas and I can't spot anything in the user logs. Would deletion means it no longer shows up in the logs? Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 08:57, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Deleted images should show up but there is no sign of any contributions, deleted or otherwise, for ArchAtlas. Probably best to reupload it if it's his/er own work. Rodhullandemu (talk) 09:01, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
The database shows they have no deleted images and have no contributions globally. They may have been using a different account. --Fæ (talk) 09:20, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
Thanks very much both, I'll try to work out if it was a different account or if something happened that's been missed in relaying the story. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 12:25, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
Richard Nevell (WMUK): Their filter log has entries related to an attempt to upload a file using the cross-wiki upload form on English Wikipedia to upload a file to Commons. The filter that they encountered prevents low-resolution uploads from newly registered users using that particular upload form. The reason for this filter rule is that such uploads overwhelmingly turn out to be copyright violations. If they did indeed personally create this photo, the expectation is that they should be able to provide a full-resolution version rather than the 1462×1927 pixel miniature version that they tried to upload. If it really is their own work, they can upload it directly here on Commons. —LX (talk, contribs) 09:08, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
@LX: That's it! That's a very clever filter. Excellent, now I understand what happened it's going to be easier to help them out. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 09:14, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
I think Special:AbuseFilter/153 requiring a minimum of 5MP might be too harsh. 3MP should be enough. A common resolution is 2048x1536, 3.15MP.--Roy17 (talk) 14:57, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

No editing for up to 30 minutes on June 19

Hi everyone, unfortunately, due to a hardware problem (phab:T213664) Commons will be read-only for up to 30 minutes (we're aiming for less) on June 19, while we're fixing this issue. This will happen between 05:00 AM and 05:30 AM (UTC). The wiki will still be readable and showing all files, but we can't upload new files or make any edits during this time. Feel free to ping me here if you've got any questions.

Do you want to put up a sitenotice regarding this on June 19? Or do you want me to fix something? /Johan (WMF) (talk) 12:08, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

They try to make me go to rehab, I say no no no.. A banner at the top of every page (preferably some time before the db is locked so nobody starts working on an edit they won't be able to submit) would be helpful. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 13:41, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Linus Pauling, a mirror

Portrait of Linus Pauling's appears to be a mirror image: on Brittanica where Linus Pauling, c. 1954. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (cph 3b24095) he is facing to his left. Both this one and theirs are noted to be sourced from Library of Congress. --Omotecho (talk) 21:12, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

True [15]. However, I suggest to just rename the image, because "LTR languages" need him to look at the center of page. Of course, the flipped image is misleading (defective tooth in his right or left?), but that is up to the projects if they want to use the original image or the one which seems more appropriate for them. We should upload the original image as well and link them together. "RTL languages" may safely benefit from using the original image. 4nn1l2 (talk) 08:06, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
I added it to the category Category:Flopped images of persons, which has some guidance on usage, although in the absence of text or obvious asymmetric features, it's often hard to determine the original orientation (negatives may be inadvertantly flopped). I think that in any language it's extremely misguided to use a flopped (mirrored) image just to face the text. "Because it looks good" is a poor excuse for misrepresenting reality. --Animalparty (talk) 18:01, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
thumb|Teeth and eyebrows I think the current version we have, Pauling facing viewer's left/his right might be correct by comparing to this image. And I agree with Animalparty. Flipping images for text orientation is factually false and absurd.--Roy17 (talk) 19:42, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
I just found another one https://paulingblog.wordpress.com/tag/ascorbic-acid/ . I cant really tell which is correct.--Roy17 (talk) 20:08, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
@Omotecho: Don't trust Britannica blindly on this. I can't remember the article right now (hopefully it'll come back to me), but some time ago I found an image there that made it clear they don't always do proper research and may well be trusting Commons/Wikipedia. In this case, trust LoC. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 20:49, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
@Omotecho: It was probably File:Musa textilis - Manila Hemp - desc-flower.jpg. Still shows on https://www.britannica.com/plant/abaca. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 22:18, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
Thank you for the your crisp response, and great to see the LOC image, Roy17. Yes, it’s quite hard to tell whether the Linus Pauling.jpg image is flopped or not, and no, Brittanica is not perfect for sourcing images afaik, appreciate Alexis Jazz taking time to find the wrong Manila hemp image. That said, what options do we have and choose? My bet is no.2, what are yours? Or forget the case could be the answer...
  1. keep this image without adding a note that we don’t know whether it’s flopped or not?
  2. Or weblink to LOC in image description and add a note there is a consequence ?
  3. Or delete mention about LOC in the image description?
As far as an encyclopedia goes, the original image should not be flopped according to ltr or rtl text if I may suggest, it’s risky because it gives false message/sample that you could do the same with any, copyrighted images as well. Well, as I give up to research further, Oregon State U has Pauling’s images : Human ears are better physical feature than teeth to ID as Germany had filed ear shots for permanent non-German passport residents in the ‘60s; sorry not enough samples to compare and match with LOC image/Commons’. --Omotecho (talk) 11:15, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
@Omotecho: I just noticed it was sourced from LOC to dewp and moved here, and there had been several revisions. I guess the LOC version is correct. It seems pretty common some people like to flip portraits. If that is true, I would suggest we delete and redirect the wrong version to the LOC original.
The answer to our puzzle might lie in de:Datei:Pauling.jpg and de:Datei Diskussion:Pauling.jpg. @Gestumblindi and JuTa: could you please help check these two pages to confirm if the image had been flipped? Thank you!--Roy17 (talk) 11:46, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
I can't view the old versions of this file itself as an admin on German Wikipedia (no "Dateiversionen"), only file descriptions; I know that some very old files can't be viewed/restored by admins - not sure what the cut-off date is, but as this was deleted locally in 2006, it's presumably too old. The file descriptions don't say anything about flipping. The discussion page only contained a question regarding the image's PD status. Gestumblindi (talk) 12:09, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
@Roy17: Now I actually found something interesting in the file descriptions. The source given was http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/235_pop.html - and interestingly there the preview image is "flipped"? But if you click it for full size, he looks to the other side! Gestumblindi (talk) 12:32, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
Yes I realised that too. My suggestion is to keep both versions and inter-link them in other versions, which Animalparty has done. The correct orientation remains unresolved.--Roy17 (talk) 17:05, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

A side question: I (as a non-native English speaker) have never come across "flopping" as a technical term for mirroring or flipping vertically an image. There is an article in English Wikipedia which seems to establish that this is the term that should be used, but the article's sourcing is sparse (and broken), and other people have questioned it on the discussion page in the past. Maybe it was a case of trying to establish something via Wikipedia? As the article was created in 2006, it's of course hard to say now, 13 years later, who has started using "flopped" based on that Wikipedia article by now... Gestumblindi (talk) 12:50, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

@Gestumblindi: It's good to be wary about the undue influence of Wikipedia on popularizing terms (as well as perpetuating copyright violations), but "flopped image", referring to an image mirrored on its vertical axis, has been used in graphic arts since at least the 1980s, e.g. [16],[17], [18]. Remember, Wikipedia is not a reliable source. --Animalparty (talk) 17:24, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
Indeed, Wikipedia is not a reliable source, and that's why i was referring to the sparse sourcing of Wikipedia's article, which probably should be improved, then. Gestumblindi (talk) 17:33, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
Interesting subject, and I agree with Gestumblindi as another non-native: flip-flop is a footware to me; talking with photo archivist in the US, it is a jargon and the term survives today as in Chandler, Daniel, and Rod Munday. 2016. flopped image. Oxford University Press. (url-access=subscription); in the US graphic arts/photo industry: Birchfield, Stan. 2018. Image processing and analysis, but as old as Griffith, P. C. 1987. (NASA contractor report, NASA CR-181382.) But in Japan, the term Flop or flip-flop applies from electronic circuits to Algebraic Geometry. --Omotecho (talk) 17:19, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
The term flip-flop is centuries old, long predating electronics, though it has become more common since the mid-20th century. - Jmabel ! talk 21:16, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
Gestumblindi -- I've now added some relevant material to the Flopped image Wikipedia article. If Kate Winslet knows the word "flopping", then it can't be all that esoteric... -- AnonMoos (talk) 19:44, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
@AnonMoos: Rather anecdotal, but funny and an example of usage, yes, thanks :-) Gestumblindi (talk) 20:08, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Confusion over Periodic Table

I would like to recategorise the media on the Periodic Table. At the moment, it is laid out in such a way that out of date periodic tables are jumbled in with the current version. It would be great to clearly delineate these to ensure that people use the correct one when they reuse them. I'm happy to do it, I'm just not sure if there is a precendent for how it should be done? Based on the periodic table from the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, the most recent version is 1st December 2018, so I'd propose to have pre- and post- 1st December 2018 categories? Eolaíocht (talk) 18:47, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

Periodic tables that don't extend into the former "uuX" range are not really dated (though also not comprehensive). AnonMoos (talk) 19:33, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
They aren't, but this is why I was proposing just to have pre- and post- 1st December 2018 categories, rather than dating them all. It will hopefully mean that people are more likely to use the latest version if they are seeking a periodic table to download for their own use. I worry that people may reuse any of the others without realising they are inaccurate. Eolaíocht (talk) 19:49, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
They're not "inaccurate" in the sense of erroneous; they just use temporary names (later replaced with permanent ones). It might be better to have a maintenance category "Periodic charts which do not show permanent names of the heaviest elements" or whatever (similar to Category:Maps needing South Sudan political boundaries), so people know which images need updating... AnonMoos (talk) 02:59, 27 May 2019 (UTC)
I don't quite agree with that. If you take a look here there are quite a few that have blanks where there should be elements such as the top three images below. There are also quite a few that have particular classifications, such as lots of versions of Mendeleev's periodic table and the two periodic tables at the very bottom. Happy to have a maintenance category to help clear it up.
elements discovered by atomic layer deposition
atomic radii of elements
Eolaíocht (talk) 08:09, 27 May 2019 (UTC)
I would suggest to create a sub category Outdated versions of Periodic table or similar and move all older versions into it. — Speravir – 02:24, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
@Speravir: I like the concept of that suggestion, but the name Outdated versions of the periodic table would be more appropriate.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 09:16, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, Jeff. Did I mention that my first language is not English? ;-)
BTW, perhaps better to ping Eolaíocht. — Speravir – 23:10, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Mislabeled?

I think File:Nyssa_sylvatica_4zz.jpg resembles Asimina triloba more than Nyssa sylvatica. I notice from User talk:David Stang that a significant number of this user's photos have been deleted. I don't edit here much but I thought I'd flag this. The leaves aren't even in focus for what it's worth. It seems like it could be deleted to me. Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) 16:48, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Global ban proposal for the photographer Christian Michelides

Currently under discussion on meta:Requests for comment/Global ban for Meister_und_Margarita.

Commons hosts numerous Michelides’s photos, but many are uploaded by other user(s), that is, not Michelides’s socks. See more details on Commons:Administrators' noticeboard #RfC – Global ban for Meister und Margarita. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 07:00, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

Just wearing a Commons hat, it is worth highlighting that the vote on meta is heading to refuse a global ban.
The Commons block is unclear to me, their talk page history is a mess and the block rationale does not lay out specific case evidence. From what I can see others were not helping MuM's behaviour by bringing up issues from other wikis where they were already blocked. Should MuM ever wish to contribute here and avoid discussing issues from other wikis, there appears to be reasonable grounds to accept an unblock. --Fæ (talk) 08:13, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
Unclear? You know that I detest “civility” bigotry and nitpicking, but in this case a brand-new Michelides’s sock—IMHO a sock, I see characteristic editing patterns—attacked the user JD and hence Majora blocked it together with other accounts. A legitimate administrative actions on all counts. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 20:40, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
It was obviously spillover from a German war where Michelides committed IP and named socks into the combat over some minuscule pretext. As for “contributing here”, not has as much merit as one could think because Donna Gedenk uploads Michelides’s stuff independently of his sock ring. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 20:58, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

Wikidata infobox issue

Preface this with I could just be missing something here...

I've noticed the maps that show up on Commons category pages via the Wikidata infobox template don't match up with the maps or coordinates shown on the corresponding Wikidata page. I'm quite sure I'm missing something stupid because I can't even figure out where the infobox is sourcing it's coordinates for its map... Example:

What am I missing here. EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 21:10, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

I should look harder before asking, looks like it may be related to rounding? Still not quite understanding. Template_talk:Wikidata_Infobox#bad_coordinates EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 21:11, 28 May 2019 (UTC)
RexxS & Jarekt may be able to help then, looking at about 0.4 miles of inaccuracy in the pin? EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 21:14, 28 May 2019 (UTC)
@EoRdE6: The coordinates for Four Seasons Hotel & Private Residences, One Dalton Street (Q19878281) are stored on Wikidata with a precision given as 0.012154285277058 of a degree. That's around 0.012 x 70 miles or over 0.8 miles. So it should be hardly surprising that the pin may be 0.4 miles out. The way the rounding algorithm works in WikidataIB has the effect of dividing the surface into a grid whose dimensions are roughly equal to the precision. An object can then only be placed at an intersection of those grid lines. If somebody can work out where the building is to a better precision than within ± 1500 yards, then they could edit Four Seasons Hotel & Private Residences, One Dalton Street (Q19878281) to use a more sensible precision, which will immediately locate the pin on the map to within that precision of the given coordinates. For reference, 1 arcsecond (the unit used in Wikidata for precision) is around 34 yards N-S or 26 yards E-W in Boston. --RexxS (talk) 21:47, 28 May 2019 (UTC)
@RexxS: While I still don 't understand why Wikidata maps and Commons maps insist on using different logic for locating their pins, I've made the correction and it looks right now thanks. Someone had manually overridden the precision on Wikidata unfortunately. EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 18:50, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
@EoRdE6: Because I wrote general-purpose code to retrieve numerical coordinates from Wikidata, I had to observe the precision, otherwise we would end up with nonsense like Mount Everest (Q513) having coordinates of longitude = 86.925277777778; latitude = 27.988055555556. That last decimal place means we have a precision of about 100 nanometres for the position of a mountain. You can't locate a blade of grass with that precision. So I round the numbers using the stored precision to get values like this:
  • {{#invoke:WikidataIB |getValue |ps=1 |P625 |qid=Q513 |format=dec}} → 27.9881°N 86.925°E
Of course if all someone is going to do with the data is use it to show a pin on a map, they can ignore the stored precision completely because nobody sees the nonsensically over-precise numbers they're working with, but I don't have that luxury. The result is that these infoboxes show up where the precision stored on Wikidata is wrong, and somebody (like you) fixes it. Thank you. A lot of re-users of the information on Wikidata just got a much more sensible estimate for where that building is. --RexxS (talk) 21:48, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Just so yo know, the coordinates entered into this Wikidata entry back in 2017 (42°20'44"N 71°04'42"W instead of 42°20'45"N 71°05'02"W) were incorrect to begin with. No matter how much precision you add, if the latitude and longitude themselves are wrong, the pin will be at the wrong place anyway. --HyperGaruda (talk) 07:17, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

Slideshow of pictures in subcategory

How is it possible to make slideshow of all pictures in Category:Umgebinde? Is it possible zu play them random? Regards, Conny (talk) 05:41, 30 May 2019 (UTC).

@Conny: Please see Help:Gadget-GallerySlideshow, but beware it doesn't randomize.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 09:21, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
@Jeff G.: What about subcategories? Regards, Conny (talk) 10:22, 30 May 2019 (UTC).
@Conny: You can do the same in each subcategory, or establish Umgebinde (flat list).   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 14:08, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
@Jeff G.: Thank you. Sounds not very practical. In my opinion is the presentation of our works most important to spread. Anyone knows, there is a phabricator ticket for this? Regards, Conny (talk) 10:42, 31 May 2019 (UTC).

Is it possible to generate a List of all pictures of an category and their subcategories? So I can make presentation to a gallery :) . Thank you for help, Conny (talk) 10:44, 31 May 2019 (UTC).

Either by adding all images to a flat category like Jeff suggested or by creating a gallery page, e.g. Upper Lusatian house (at least this is the term in enwiki). See a slideshow with Example images gallery in Special:PermaLink/352672609. — Speravir – 20:27, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
Arrgh. I see now, you meant automatic creation. — Speravir – 20:32, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

Usage Terms E-mail and web site Domain Change

Images I've uploaded in the past include an e-mail address and web site in the metadata e.g. https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dokkum_01.jpg. My difficulty is that my domain is. .eu domain, I live in the UK and eurID/European Commission have stated they intend to revoke .eu domain names held by UK residents with 2 months notice when the UK leaves the EU (subject to any transition agreements).:This I've registered a new domain name and moved my web site to it (redirects in place for the moment).

Is there any way I can globally change this metadata (or get the metadata changed)?

Changing domain name is not something I wanted to do but circumstances made it necessary. Would only apply to already uploaded images as future uploads would have new domain information.

Many thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by PsamatheM (talk • contribs) 30 May 2019‎ 19:25 (UTC) (UTC)

@PsamatheM: COM:VFC is a tool that should make this change pretty easy. Ask back if you need more help with it. – BMacZero (🗩) 20:28, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
I misunderstood, sorry! I don't know of a tool to make batch metadata changes. I might be able to help with a custom script if nobody else knows of an existing way to do it. – BMacZero (🗩) 20:30, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) Try ExifTool (download link). It shouldn't be too difficult to write a script calling ExifTool to affect a batch of files. You'll have to download the files and re-upload them, though. clpo13(talk) 20:37, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
  • I presume you are referring to the EXIF data. As far as I know, there is no way to change EXIF data (or anything else internal to a file) once that file is uploaded; if nothing else, even if there is some way to handle that on the server it has to constitute a new upload (just like cropping with CropTool). It looks like you have a little under 600 files here so, depending on your connection speed, it might be practical to upload new versions in the conventional manner one can overwrite a file.
  • Does anyone know of a server-side tool for this, analogous to CropTool? - Jmabel ! talk 20:34, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Many thanks to everybody. It's not a massive issue, just a bit messy having contact info that probably wont work at some point in the not too distant future. I've loads more to upload so better spend the time uploading new stuff than being fussy about such details in existing stuff. I can easily correct it for new uploads (they are held in and exported from Lightroom so easy to change). Thanks PsamatheM (talk) 22:11, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

Naomi

A problem similar to Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2019/05#Problem_of_Chinese_surnames. Naomi can be a Hebrew or a Japanese given name. Should we separate them into different categories?--Roy17 (talk) 19:06, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand. How would you propose to separate them in cases where the person is neither Jewish nor Japanese? Category:Jan (given name) is apparently a Catalan, Dutch, Czech, North Germanic, German, Afrikaans, Swedish, Belarusian, Polish, English, and Slovene name. - Themightyquill (talk) 10:43, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
The names are being distinguished by scripts; Catalan, Dutch, Czech, North Germanic etc., all use the Latin alphabet and the name is identical. The problem occurs when names in other scripts can be transcribed to Latin in multiple ways. However, the problem of which variant of the name to use for a particular person can be tricky, and it has been discussed on Wikidata. I think the only conclusion is that if their name is published in a particular script, that's the version that should be used. Potentially, they may be associated with multiple variants if the person is well known internationally or has published works in multiple scripts. --ghouston (talk) 00:57, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
@Themightyquill: The world is multilingual but Commons categories prefers English (or Latin alphabet). John, Johan, Ivan, Evan, etc. have the same origin, but are treated separately. Then perhaps names that do not even have the same origin, like the Hebrew and Japanese Naomi, should be distinguished?
I'd say it's actually a flaw in wikidata's design to handle given names. People in the west mostly use established names, but names in East Asia are basically a combination of characters which offer far more varieties. Consequently, most Chinese and Japanese people's wikidata items do not have a given name (P735). The full name could only be stored in name in native language (P1559).
Mixing names that have different origins is fundamentally wrong. I find it absurd, but it's not a burning issue that needs immediate response. If Commons does decide they should be separated, category names could be Naomi (Japanese given name), Naomi (Hebrew-origin given name).--Roy17 (talk) 12:18, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
No, what would be the benefit of separating them? I could list tens of given names with the same Romanization but with completely different origins from different cultures. Take w:Mona (name) for example. Next time I see my cousin Mona, I should ask her if her name is of Persian origin or of Arabic origin! 4nn1l2 (talk) 12:35, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
Things go into the same category because they share that quality. A Japanese Naomi and a Hebrew Naomi have nothing in common except the romanisation. Otherwise, why not just put everything from London, England and London, Ontario into the same category?--Roy17 (talk) 12:44, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
Cities can be neatly distinguished by their geography. The first London is in the UK, the second one in Canada.
But this is not the case for many given names. Linguists disagree on the origin of names frequently.
Going into such details is beyond the scope of Commons, a media repository. 4nn1l2 (talk) 13:07, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
Category:Naomi Taniguchi is a Japanese man. Category:Naomi Watts is an English woman. They do not have the same given name. Distinguished as neatly as the geography of the two Londons. Japanese Naomi is pronounced as nah-o-mi. How absurd it is to find Japanese people in a subcat of Category:Hebrew-language feminine given names.
On the other hand, Sean, Seán, Shawn and Shaun are the same name, pronounced the same, but spelled differently, and so categorised separately.--Roy17 (talk) 14:30, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
Special:Diff/351596184 will solve the problem of finding a Japanese man in the Naomi category. That finding is as absurd as finding Category:Senkaku Islands as a subcat of Category:Islands of China. (In my opinion, not absurd at all.)
Suppose we could solve the problem of Naomi neatly enough. What would we do about various other given names with many peculiarities? We should consider consistency. 4nn1l2 (talk) 15:16, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
@4nn1l2: your edit suggests to me that you have no serious intention in resolving this problem. The Naomi from Naomi Taniguchi the admiral is romanisation of 尚真. Naomi could also be (quite often) feminine Japanese names. It is not comparable to a disputed territory either: nothing is controversial about the names. Naomi is a feminine name of Hebrew origin, but also happens to be romanisation of many Japanese names.
Adding that category is technically wrong. For most Naomis in the world, their names are never both Naomi and なおみ at the same time. In other words, it might be a case for disambiguation.
Your question is exactly the one I asked. What should we do with these names? It's never been brought up. Names categories on Commons are pretty recent introduction. On most wikis I've visited, people are not categorised by names at all. Only a handful like Chinese, Vietnamese, Cantonese wikis group people by surnames.--Roy17 (talk) 19:42, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
But London, Ontario and London, England are both English city names. w:London_(disambiguation) lumps them together with a dozen other cities named London, presumably all of English origin, but doesn't worry about where the names came from. Category:Naomi Taniguchi and Category:Naomi Watts are separate categories. Any category uniting Naomis isn't doing so because that's an important useful shared feature; it's an arbitrary name. It's because someone apparently finds it helpful to be able to look up Naomi Watts via Category:Naomi (given name), and splitting that category wouldn't help that at all.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:56, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
London is just an example. Category:Kochi, Kerala/Category:Kochi, Kochi and en:Salem are examples from different cultures.--Roy17 (talk) 19:42, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
And en:w:Salem is another good example; it seems possible that all of them are of the same origin. India seems unlikely, but Muslims could have named the city after Jerusalem or the Brits could have named it. The en.wp articles don't seem to mention it. And what use is it to separate them based on whether the name originates in Hebrew or some further east culture?--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:44, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

If you grew up in the U.S. and are of a certain age, this irresistibly reminds you of Love of Chair and its perpetual question, "What about Naomi?" -- AnonMoos (talk) 14:35, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

  • I don't think that the issue is whether we should start looking at people named "Naomi" in England or the United States and try to distinguish them based on where their ancestors came from (which would be crazy), but whether somebody named "なおみ" and somebody named "נעמי" should be grouped with these Naomis or not. --ghouston (talk) 01:06, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
Suppose Commons uses another language instead of English predominantly. Commons categories are supposed to be universal, i.e. choice of languages should not affect the outcome. That is true for most categories we have. However, in this case of Naomi for example, Naomi and なおみ would not be in the same category. They would be transliterated differently because their pronunciation is not the same. Now they are grouped together merely because they are spelled the same way in Latin alphabet.--Roy17 (talk) 19:42, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
I would bet that's not true for a far larger number of categories then you think; colors, to name just one thing, don't get lumped together the same way in every language or culture. And these categories are extraordinary in that they are explicitly arbitrary; there's no real property binding two people named Naomi together. If there's any value in these categories, it's reduced by splitting different origins of the name Naomi out. I don't see any problem with having a category Category:なおみ (given name), but I do object to removing people with the name "Naomi" from the category Naomi (given name).
If you're concerned about names that would be transliterated differently because their pronunciation is not the same, Naomi might be transliterated any number of different ways, depending on what language is original, what language is target (even for the same script), how the name was originally pronounced, and what standard is used. It seems to be digging into a huge mess, with no advantage but the theoretical. I'd be happy with solutions that have practical advantages.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:44, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
@Prosfilaes: if you insist on benefits, any benefit you find in disambiguating other objects like the aforementioned places applies to distinguishing these names. When someone wants to find out Japanese people named Naomi, the current category is not very helpful because it is filled with lots of other people, for example.
However, as I have said multiple times in this thread, mixing entirely different names is first and foremost factually false. It goes against the Selectivity principle--We should not classify items which are related to different subjects in the same category. The category name should be unambiguous and not homonymous.--Roy17 (talk) 17:05, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
I don't think this is the best way to split that category; if someone wants to find Japanese people named Naomi, they should find Japanese people named a variant of נעמי.
It goes against the selectivity principle to categorize people by given name, period. There is nothing connecting any set of Jacks, Jills or Naomis besides random choice of the parents. But once we combine a bunch of Jacks together, there's no reason we should combine a bunch of Naomis together; we're not breaking that rule any more. Either we should delete these categories altogether, or keep them as a practical exception.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:47, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

Then there's Naomi Osaka, a Japanese woman,just to confuse things... -- AnonMoos (talk) 10:32, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Jean

Wikidata has Jean (Q4160311) and Jean (Q7521081) since 2013. Yet everything is put into Category:Jean (given name). Should it be this way?--Roy17 (talk) 14:57, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

華北交通アーカイブ (North China Transportation Company Archives)

Kyoto University has recently released under CC-BY-4.0 the 華北交通アーカイブ, archives of 40k photos taken by North China Transportation Company (and others). (More info: [19][20].) Quality is pretty good. So far a handful has been transferred by a user. I wonder if someone would like to get in touch with the Uni to arrange for a systematic upload here. Or, if someone wants to unilaterally upload the entire collection.--Roy17 (talk) 21:42, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Wonderful! Looks worth uploading, even if metadata is not always present. Syced (talk) 11:43, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
Nice collection.--Vulphere 06:10, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
Fyi, the breakdown of the archive holdings: 39,775 images (38,797 photos plus 210 images of notes on their wrong side totals to 39,007 images from the North China Transportation Company.)
Name of the archive:
華北交通写真
(North China Transportation Company photos)
Maintained by: w:en:The Kyoto University Research Centre for the Cultural Sciences which originated from the Institute of Oriental Studies Tōhō Bunka Gakuin, funded by w:en:Boxer Rebellion compensation.
Basic collection: used for public relations composed of (specified on each photo):
  • Manchuria Railway Northern China Headquarters
    満鉄北支事務局
    (1937–1938) with notes on the wrong side of each image.
  • 293 photos by Kuwabara Jitsuzō
    桑原隲藏
    (ja) taken between 1907–1909.[1]
  • 252 photos by Kaizuka Shigeki
    貝塚茂樹
    taken in September 1936, a researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies.
  • Mizuno Kiyokazu
    水野清一
    and Hibino Takeo
    日比野丈夫
    took images in December 1940, part of which included in this archive.[2]
Sources
  1. ↑ Kōshi yūki
    考史遊記
    by Kuwabara Jitsuzō
    桑原隲藏
    , Tōkyō : Kōbundō, 1942.
  2. ↑ Mizuno, Seiichi ; Hibino, Takeo. ::223 images from Sansei kosekishi
    山西古蹟志
    (1956). Kyōto : Nakamura insatsu kabushiki kaisha shuppanbu. Series: Kyōto daigaku jinbun kagaku kenkyūjo kenkyū hōkoku [Kyoto University Humanities Institute Reports].
--Omotecho (talk) 20:33, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Database reports are down, but not all of them

This page hasn't been updated since "06:54, 28 May 2019 (UTC).", is it broken? Or is this only temporary? Did the database change or something, because this page seems to work just fine, showing "Page statistics - Content pages: 55,083,854, Pages (All pages in the wiki, including talk pages, redirects, etc.): 75,318,003, and Uploaded files: 55,738,883.". --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 19:39, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

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