Commons:Village pump/Archive/2004/11

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Village Pump archives
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Image copyright tags inflation?

The list of copyright tags (Commons:Image copyright tags) was copied from the english wikipedia. To me, it seems there are a lot of tags that basically say "Public domain", with minor variations about the actual source. To make things simpler, I would propose to reduce the large list of different tags, especially if the licensing does not really differ. {{PD-USGov}}, {{PD-USGov-NASA}}, {{USAID}}, {{US-DOS}}, {{PD-CAGov}}, {{Sovietpd}}, {{Polishsymbol}} and {{PD-art}} can probably all be reduced to {{PD}}. {{PD-US}} may be kept, depending on the inclusion rules, where {{PD-US}} may not be {{PD}} elsewhere in the world. I do a lot of image work on the english wiki, but i am still often confused about which tag to use exactly, and usually I just fall back to {{PD}} or {{GFDL}}. See also Commons talk:Image copyright tags -- Chris 73 01:48, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I created a few of those tags because I was taking several pictures from one source, and found it better to write it out full than just say "this is US government work". There is of course no obligation to use them, but if you remove them, it will mean that information will be lost. "This picture is from the USAID website, which tells us so-and-so-and-so about copyright" is a lot more information than "this is a work from the US government and therefore public domain". - Andre Engels 11:22, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Ok, makes sense. I may add a line to W:Wikipedia:Image copyright tags that some are optional for {{PD}}. I also copied a number of tags from the english wiki, adn will do a bit of fine tuning. -- Chris 73 11:57, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
You forgot to make a good interwikimedia link. To link to Wikipedia, you have to use [[W:]].
I worked my way through all the copyright tags we have now, fixed links, images, and changed the format so it looks similiar. All PD stuff is blue (same as EN-Wikipedia), all GNU or CreativeCommons is brown (same as EN-Wikipedia), and all Crown copyright is reddish (i.e. a warning color, since these are actually copyrighted). Let me know if this is Ok, or if there are some suggestions. Oh, and if someone finds a better "reddish" for the crown copyright tags, go for it! Also, I don't know what to put on Template:Polishpd. An overview can be found at Commons:Image copyright tags Visual-- Chris 73 14:04, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Commons:Images missing information

There are a number of nice images listed for deletion just because the information is unclear. I created a new page Commons:Images missing information, looking for information on images. Comments are welcome -- Chris 73 14:19, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

However, we should not let the list of untagged images stack up -- the licensing is important, and untagged images should be deleted in a set amount of time. --- Sverdrup/public terminal
True. I was thinking about some deletion rule, e.g. for (a) unknown/unsuitable copyright status, (b) not useful images, (c) Images without information that hang around for a longer time. So far I didi not yet write a guideline or so. Also, before we delete anything: How do we know if an image is used on another wikipedia/media project? We don't want another Wiki to end up without an image. -- Chris 73 22:41, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Sysop & bureaucrat application

I've posted my application in order to become admin and bureaucrat on this project here. Thanks to to vote and tell me what :) villy 21:34, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I also proposed my candidature as administrator on commons. Thanks also to provide me your feedback. Greatpatton 09:37, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Basic help page

I'd like to create a short basic helpfile for newcomers, with an obvious link placed at the very beginning of Main Page. I propose this text :

First steps to contribute to Commons
  • 1° Please make sure that you have a registered account here on Commons. Only registered users can upload files. You can create an account here;
  • 2° Upload your file with information about its licence;
  • 3° Create an article on Commons containing a minimal information, a thumb of the picture or a link to your file, and a category (please note the category should be inserted in the article and not directly in the file page). You could as well add Wikipedia interwikis to it. See Fallopia dumetorum or Henry David Thoreau for minimal articles.

Like an ABC. What do you think ? In case there's no opposition or modification of this proposal, I intend to create it in a few days. Or does such an help file already exist ? I haven't found it yet ... (this is different from Commons:FAQ). Cheers,
villy 10:03, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Please go ahead. Maybe carify a bit more that the image should not be added to a category, but to an image page instead. (if this will be policy) -- Chris 73 10:10, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)
You're right. I've been more explicit above.villy 10:51, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Who's said about few days. Done :) villy 14:55, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Nice work, and bilingual, too, plus a third translation by Ascánder. -- Chris 73 02:49, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Images added to categories or pages

Do we add the images/files to categories directly, or list them on image pages within the category? So far it seems to be mostly the latter (Images to pages), butIguess we should come clear about this. -- Chris 73 10:22, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

There has been discussion about this, but no real decision yet. I took the opinion to put them into 'normal' pages. - Andre Engels 10:30, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I also prefer this, although it is a bit more work. Where can I find this discussion? -- Chris 73 11:03, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Strange - I seem to be unable to find it. - Andre Engels 14:57, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Above on this very page, 'No unused images'?

I think we have to differentiate her. Im my mind, the pages are for grouping images that show the same thing. Thus, categories that apply to the Thing should be put into the page. Other categories apply to the image, as they specify a type of picture (photo, diagram, etc), a license or an artist. The artist could however also have a separate page. -- Duesentrieb 21:09, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Plase also note the thread #Categories and Images - Important changes below -- Duesentrieb 17:01, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)


Other langages

I have a very simple question : How do commons will handle other languages ? Will the categories have their counterpart in other languages ? I use to put a lot of images on my localized wikipedia version, using its categories and puting a localized description, how can I do for commons ? Must I traduct the categories and add them as new ones ? What about the software interface ? Nojhan 13:52, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Still very much undecided, I think. Pages like the Main Page have duplicates in different languages. Commons:Picture requests has the instructions duplicated in multiple languages, but the requests are on one page (see Commons talk:Picture requests). The categories itself are tough. For biological stuff, the w:Binomial nomenclature is the way to go, since this is universal in all languages. Currently, most other image pages and category names are in english, as this seems to be the lingua franca, and many editors here speak it as a first/second/third... language. The image pages should be crosslinked to the pages in the different wikis. (see e.g. Toilet, which is linked to en, de, nl, ja, sv). Personally I would prefer latin names for biological stuff, and english names for everything else, with possible redirects if needed. Also, names for places and people could be using the native name (i.e. München over Munich), this would defuse a lot of edit wars we have on the english wiki, I think. -- Chris 73 00:21, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
But it might as well cause others - do we put Brussels at Brussel or at Bruxelles? And it's even worse for rivers that might have different names at different parts of their flow. Nevertheless, I think I would be in favor of such a step. - Andre Engels 14:45, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Ok, answers my question. I'll go ahead and start working on Roma, probably should make a redirect at rome. eean 03:42, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Feature request

Is this the appropriate place to request a new feature? My wish: I'd love to see which images are actually used in which wikis. It wont be easy, I guess, but I suppose it would be safer if using pages on other wikis showed up here. Else we start deleting stuff which are actually in use somewhere. TeunSpaans 10:30, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I prefer delete the images uploaded in other wikis instead of delete the Commons images (advoid doublettes, specialization principle). In othere words, the users only could upload images in Commons, instead of Wikipedia or similar Wikimedia Projects. And the wikimedia upload file link would redirect to Wikimedia Commons upload file.
I think the place to put this kind of request would be Bugzilla, but I'm afraid it's rather complicated - it means the commons database should be updated each time a picture is added or removed on another wiki. I'm afraid this will not happen unless we get a great database redesign. - Andre Engels 14:43, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I know it requires a new db table or at least a change to the existing db table with links. TeunSpaans 09:04, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I think adding interwiki links to pages for each image at all wikis would be good for now. Ausir 21:37, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Could you pls explain this? Do u mean that whenever a page on a wiki uses an image on commons, an interwiki link should be added to the image? TeunSpaans 09:04, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

A proposal: Census in Babel

I'm wondered about how we are working, speaking each one different native and secondary languages. I wish to know what languages speaks anybody, for a better collaboration. I thinked to add some Categories to our user pages, for collect this information. It may be like that: 

(at end of [[User:Pybalo]])

 [[Category:User es-3]]
 [[Category:User en-1]]

meaning this that User:Pybalo speaks an advanced(3) Spanish(es) and basic(1) English(en). Then, this categories may be grouped in a top Category:Users by language. What do you think? --Pybalo 12:11, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think it is a good idea and easy to do. It helps users to know in which language they can talk with another user. Great you're here, Pybalo. ;)--Javier Carro 16:30, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I agree with that idea as well, I'm new but working on the Spanish wikipedia so I might have some questions about topics here from now and again and it'll be useful to know who speaks my mother tongue :)--Anna 03:26, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Sounds good to me, too. So good in fact that i pushed ahead and created Category:User with some english and german subcategories. One difference: I made only two levels, (1) for users that understand and can respond to questions in this language, and (2) for users that can contribute and check spelling and grammar in the language. Please have a look. -- Chris 73 09:51, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well, I think that 2 levels is not enough, but I am not sure ... I tried a "wikiexam" for levels in spanish. And added 3 templates for include this categories.

Template:(es-1) Template:(es-2) Template:(es-3)

In my user page, for testing I added Template:(es-3), Please, have a look, too --Pybalo 18:16, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Templates are good, better than just categories. I think 2 levels are enough, but i can also live with three levels if needed. Check Template:De-2 and Template:En-2. -- Chris 73 01:52, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Nice boxes! These are really auto-explaining! I like it. It release my Categories' ugly names. I will update the Spanish templates... I think in 3 basic levels:
  1. Basic-Elemental. Can read and understood, but writing...
  2. Medium-Normal. Can read and write decently
  3. Advanced. Can resolve complicated or obfuscated expressions, like a native speaker or a lingüist
What level are you? And me? I think that I am en-1 or en-2, and es-3. --Pybalo 02:27, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

OK, three levels, e.g.: Template:De-3Template:De-2Template:De-1Template:En-3Template:En-2Template:En-1. Also, if you put a bracket around your levels, e.g. "(es) Usuarios hispanohablantes ", it will be listed under "(" in the category. -- Chris 73

Ok! About breacket... Yes. The idea was split categories in "(", and the rest of user from A-Z. I don't know if it is important. Look at spanish categories... Javier is in J and Pybalo is in P: Add a PAGENAME variable to your template and "re-edit" your page for a nice indexing! I will update the spanish templates now... or in short time --Pybalo 04:22, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Well, I had touched too many templates to finish mi last proposal. I will explain why I changed or renamed some templates.
1. The 3 levels offers a good point for select candidates to a task, but was difficult see all the people that shares a language. For this reason, I added 2 level categorization in templates. For example Category:User en include all people that knows English, independently of level. As you see, we are in this "group" then we "can speak". This category includes, as sub-categories Category:user en-1, Category:user en-2, Category:user en-3, for selecting people for specific tasks
2. I was renamed Template:en-1 to Template:user en-1, because I was need a parent category, and I don't want to create a Template:en, this name can be conflictive in a future then i was choose "Template:user ...."
Please, sayme if it's all right or if I'm forgotting any important point. Bye! --Pybalo 06:00, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Looks all right and makes sense. Nice. -- Chris 73 13:34, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Important: :) In Commons:Babel you can get more information about creation and use of these templates. Thanks! --Pybalo 22:59, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Interwiki links

Interwiki links from the commons can easily be made for example as [[en:Wikipedia:Village pump]]. However, how do you make interwiki links TO the commons, i.e. how do you interwiki en:Roald Amundsen to Roald Amundsen? [[commons:Roald Amundsen]] does not work. But I think it would be useful to link to a source of images related to a topic. Is this currently disabled (as for example with the klingon wiki), or did I just type it wrong? -- Chris 73 09:39, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

You can also consider making more prominent links. On the PL.wikipedia we use a template saying Have a look at the gallery "{{[[Commons:Name|{{PAGENAME}}]]}}" in Commons. I think it's a better solution than interwiki (interwiki link to Commons would probably be missed by most visitors). The template produces such box in articles:
http://www.hum.aau.dk/~tgsi02/files/galeriacommons1.png
The example is from pl:Korona duńska.
--tsca 11:01, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Perhaps we could start a list here for people who wish to add such links to Wikipedias:
Actually, wouldn't this be a perfect use for a bot? Maybe as part of the interwiki link update bot? -- Chris 73 00:59, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
At this point not all galleries are worth linking to. Let's wait with that.
--tsca 01:13, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Actually, I think if we link the gallery, we would get more attention, and hence more uploads. But maybe we should wait until the guidelines on the commons and the integration in the wikis (i.e. image page copyright tags for wikis using common images) has been sorted out. The {{Commons|name_on_Commons}} tags also should include a note and a link to the commons stating that these images are free to use. -- Chris 73 01:56, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I like the idea of being able to make an interwiki link to Commons. Templates may be more useful on most articles, but for example with user pages such a link might be better. (On my user page at en:Wikipedia I could link to "[[com:User:Infrogmation]]", or however we decide to designate it. -- Infrogmation 06:13, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Extra page for each Image - Why?

Hi - I do not understand why an extra page should be created with a thumbnail of the image. What is this good for? Putting the Image-Page itself into Categories works find, and there is room for a description there, too. IMHO this is just another obstacle for using the commons, also it may well lead to confusion regarding the correlation of image name to page name.

BTW: I can't find that page that sais that you have to do this at the moment. Where was that? -- Duesentrieb 23:58, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The discussion is on this page, see section "No unused images". At the moment, this is still somewhat under discussion and a sort-of-policy. The reason is that images are best explained in a thumbnail. if you put only the image in a category, you will get only the image name, which may be rather cryptic, or in a foreign language (e.g. Image:冷枚-避暑山庄图.jpg). for the users it would probably be best to see the thumbnail. For the contributors, however, it is a bit more work -- Chris 73 13:38, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
To me it would make sens to use a page to list different images of the same thing. Is that intended? If so, most categories should be applied to the page, but "type"-categories (like category:Photo, etc) shuold be attributed to the image-page, because there may e.g. be photographs and diagrams of the same thing, listed on the same page. -- Duesentrieb 21:02, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Yes, pages are intended to be not for every single image, but for image galleries of the same thing/person/city/species etc. Ausir 21:04, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Naming of animal gallery pages

Is there a policy or guideline for the naming of gallery pages for pictures of animals? I started out creating english named pages, but User:Ausir pointed out, that latin (species) names should be used. User:Andre Engels created pages with the latin genus name. I think genus named gallery pages should suffice, species could be handled by subsections.

It depends - one of the other can be used depending on how many pictures of species of a particular genus we have. The main rule is that the latin name should be used. If a gallery is for an entire genus then redirects from species name should be created to. Ausir 15:42, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
That's true, sometimes the genus page is more effective, sometime is the species page. And some wikipedias has articles for a genus and hasn't its species pages or viceversa. And sometimes there is subspecies too. I am testing two new templates that, inserted at top of the latin named page, enables:
  1. Raw listing of genera, species and subspecies in one page. I expect that software supports this long list.
  2. Navigation to http://species.wikipedia.org and all the Wikipedias founded in Main Page
I think that it can help for collect the spreaded images in all Wikipedias.
The templates are Template:·Animalia genus and Template:·Animalia species. About the dot ("·") in the template name: It's a little trick to separate the templates from the species in the main list. Whay do you think about this? --Pybalo 21:25, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I don't see the advantage of this - what it does is linking the page to the same name on several Wikipedias. We have interwiki-links for that, which can also much easier be removed if the page does not exist or changed if it has another name. And why do this for genera and species, but not for people, cities or colors of the rainbow? Regarding the original question - it has to be decide on a case-by-case basis, although I think genera is usually the best. But sometimes it's the species level, or the family level, or even a level that is not a separate level in the binomial nomenclature (I have for example created zebra, feeling no need to have separate pages for the three species, but still wanting to separate them from the donkey and the horse) - Andre Engels 14:45, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Thank you for answering my question. Concerning Pybalo's proposal I do not think, we should overdo the navigational and informational overhead of the gallery pages. Commons is not intended as a research tool but as a repository. If someone need an image (or whatever) for an artice, he already knows what to search for (let's say an image of Lemmus lemmus). It helps if there is some basic information about the picture in terms of categorization, common name, type of image. To provide interwikilinks or is nice but in no way necessary to fullfill the purpose of commons. We shouldn't clutter the gallery pages with information that is readily available elsewhere and would be redundant. Petwoe 15:02, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I am agree in most of these points. Then, I can summarize some key points following your observations:
  • This templates are tagging templates. They only tag the pages as animal genus page, or animal species page.
  • Currently, these templetes add a common category(Category:Animalia, genera and species). I founded this category useful to create a fast index of "zoological resources in Commons". Depending on variable community needs and preferences, these templates are open to modification.
  • Additionaly, we can add (or remove, too) dinamically some extras utilities: Fast links to Wikispecies, scientific name entries on Wikipedias, or external public domanin resources. This is not a replace for wikilinks, it's a complement.
  • About Andre question, latin names for genera and species are shared entries between many wikipedias. Most of these entries are redirects to natural names. It's true that many of them are incomplete, but I think that Commons can be a good starting point to coordinate these resources. It depends of universality of names. On rainbow colors, somebody says red and other says rojo; on cities may exists more matches: en:New York, de:New York, es:New York. Person names may be the most shared of your examples... we can create a Template:·person name tagging template if you wish... ;)
I think that we are in the begining of Commons, and we need to collect resources spreaded in many wikipedias. Then, we can remove this navigational feature from templates. --Pybalo 20:23, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

MIDI Files

I want to upload a MIDI file (a ragtime by Scott Joplin), but the system does not accept *.mid files. I read in the FAQ "What materials can I upload? Anything that can be used in the Wikimedia projects". Anything! --Plenz 20:14, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This was chenged due to problems with viruses embedded in media files (MSIE-problem). I hope that MIDI and SVG will be allowed again soon, as they are definitely important and copact formats, especially with the GFDL asking for "transparent source". So... please, anybody?! -- Duesentrieb 21:22, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC).
For sure, before Christmas ;) We need Christmas midi ( we could include links to midis in Wikipedia and the rest of Wimedia sister Projects.

Tags for insignia

I would like to have tag-templats that explain restrictions on images which are independet of the copyright status. Specifically, the use of official insignia is restricted, and users should be informed about this. In the german wp, we hava a template for this: de:Vorlage:Wappenrecht, which is widely used. Here is a draft for such a tag:

Note: This image shows a flag, a coat of arms, a seal or some other official insignia. The use of such images is restricted in many countries. These restrictions are independent of the copyright status of the depiction shown here.


feel free do modify it. -- Duesentrieb 21:19, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

um, anybody? -- Duesentrieb 01:06, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Maybe your suggestion is so good everyone just noods silently... I'd say be bold and do it. andy 08:43, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
How about {{Insignia}} at Template:Insignia? Just made it. -- Chris 73 10:24, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Insignia This image shows a flag, a coat of arms, a seal or some other official insignia. The use of such symbols is restricted in many countries. These restrictions are independent of the copyright status.
Great, thanks! Mind if I change the colors? -- Duesentrieb 17:03, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
go ahead. Looks better now in yellow -- Chris 73 22:33, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Wikisource and Commons

It seems to me that Wikisource is made obsolete by Commons - it serves with the same function as the commons, but in only one medium - text. Surely it would be productive for both projects, and Wikimedia, for Commons to annex Wikisource. This would allow the userbase of both projects to expand - though I am not typically a contributor of Wikisource now, if I could upload documents to Commons, I no doubt would. Similarly, 'source users may not bother uploading images now, but if they could do so within the same project - they may well. It is also beneficial to the non-contributing user - far easier to find all kinds of media in one project than over several. In my opinion, the broader the Wikimedia projects the better. --[[User:OldakQuill|Oldak Quill]] 01:50, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Great idea - one more reason for a single login solution... -- Duesentrieb 02:09, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I'm not sure I'd be happy with that. I have no experience as to what Wikisource is doing now, but it seems rather different from WikiCommons. For one thing, images are supposed to be included on Wikipedia pages, source documents are to be excluded (although I think we are too strict about that). I don't see much gained from combining the two, they simply work very differently. - Andre Engels 14:35, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I also prefer it separately. we can always link to the wikisource, the same way wikipedia currently links to Wikisource or the Commons (ie. the {{commons|PAGENAME}} tag -- Chris 73 23:16, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Category:Commons

The Category:Commons contains different language pages. How about using subpages Category:Commons-de, Category:Commons-en, Category:Commons-es etc for the individual language pages, and Category:Commons only for pages related to all languages? I gave it a start, please feel free to revert if you don't like it.-- Chris 73 02:10, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Linking of unused files

As per (ongoing) discussion above, there should be no unused images on the commons. I use Special:Unusedimages to find and place unused images. Now, the problem is with sound files: If they are linked on a page as [[:Image:la-cls-acervus.ogg|la-cls-acervus.ogg]], they show up as unused, and will soon fill up Special:Unusedimages. If they are linked on a page as [[Image:la-cls-acervus.ogg|la-cls-acervus.ogg]] (notice the missing colon), they are now used, but this displays on some browsers a "broken image" box. Are there any solutions to this problem? -- Chris 73 02:38, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yes: You can link them as (or add a link as) [[Media:la-cls-acervus.ogg|la-cls-acervus.ogg]]. This creates a link which, when clicked, plays the soundfile. Perhaps the best would be to have both a Media and an :Image-link. - Andre Engels 23:32, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Country images

Do you intend to copy the Flag/Coat of arms/Location map images for the countries from en.wikipedia?

Currently on bg.wikipedia we are planning to update our country articles using templates and we can use the opportunity to change the image names (our local files have names in Bulgarian). May be there is a better way to upload these files than using our bots? --bg:Потребител:Nk

Please have a look at National insignia and category:insignia. Also, please mark images showing insignia with Template:Insignia to clearify their legal status: many of those images are not limited by copyright, but their use is still restricted by law.

Categories and Images - Important changes

Eloquence (who does a lot of coding of the wiki) just dropped me a line saying that "the current CVS version of MediaWiki shows thumbnails of images on category pages - that's why I don't bother to put them on separate article pages. 1.4 is likely to go final within the next two months or so". I.e. in two months all categorized images will be shown as thumbnails in the categories. In view of that, should we continue to put images on separate pages? This is more effort than simply slapping a category on an image, but makes recategorizing images easier, and allows comments to be added to the pages. With this new info, i am personally leaning towards categorizing images and not separate pages that contain the images. Comments? -- Chris 73 13:46, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Asked about next 1.4 on IRC #wikimedia ; answer :
nov. 09 15:00:18 <Angela>	no one knows for sure, but Brion has said he intends it to be out this year
Now we know that, it seems meaningless to create articles. Maybe we should focus on a consistant categories and sub-categories scheme. villy 14:06, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I'm a bit ambivalent on this one. For one, I don't want to lose what we have before the new is there, for another, I'm not sure whether automatic thumbnails will look as good as what we are making now - what will the descriptions look like, for example? On the other hand I do agree that the automatic hierarchy of categories would be a great improvement. - Andre Engels 14:53, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I'd say the articles have their use as well as good categories set for each picture. Especially the article allows to put a short discription on the picture - in the category even when the thumbnail is visible the description of what is shown (if it's not self-evident) needs to be looked up at the image description page, which can take some time for loading for higher resolution photos. andy 17:27, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I don't know if it is implemented that way, but I would suggest using the "pipe part" of a category-link as the title of the thumbnail: an Image-Page with the category-link [[category:Foobar|Quux]] would create a thumbnail with the title "Quux", either below the image or as tooltip. -- Duesentrieb 00:49, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The MediaWiki 1.4 is tested here. A category with images AND articles is here. The images are shown as thumbnails very nicely, but listed only with the image name. I tried piping a description to the image (e.g. the freddy image shoud say A picture of Freddy Mercury), but this does not work (yet). Overall it looks good, except for the image caption. -- Chris 73 01:13, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

If this system is put in place, and if it replaces the need for separate articles, then I suppose the interwikis would have to go on the image description pages (image->article) and/or category pages (category->article; category->category). I've also been putting down "in other languages..." for languages that have not yet created articles to link to. But to emulate the very useful "multiple views of same object", article pages still seem ideal. Well, I suppose you could have a "dead-end category" called Category:Freddy Mercury with just Freddy. A-giâu 03:27, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Well, thanks to Chris, now that I've seen 1.4 test, I'm not convinced. This is the kind of thing that could lead to category pages full of unidentified pictures. Let's says we have a "gas engine" sub-category with pictures of various engines and closeups of different parts of engines. 1°) If the pictures aren't carefully named, we'll have no idea at all - even if properly categorized - of what each exactly shows; and remember we can't change a media file name 2°)The fact the caption doesn't seem editable is a pity too; again it will prevents to give important information about the picture. Not to mention the fact that separate articles are not doubt easing a topic search. So that actuallly, I support we keep on doing separate article pages, even with mediawiki 1.4. villy 07:16, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Important information that cannot be added to the image caption, will (should) be present in the image decription. But it's clear that an article per serie of images provide more flexibility. Greatpatton 11:29, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I have added an request to the Bug Reports to allow for piped links/piped categories. Hope they will add that, in which case I would be all for categorizing images directly -- Chris 73 11:41, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Delete Image with wrong Name

Hello, i have uploaded an Image with the name "MartinskircheBeiNacht_Budapest.jpg", but it was the wrong name. The right name is "MatthiaskircheBeiNacht_Budapest.jpg". I have also uploaded the same Image with the right name. But how can i delete the old one? Thanks for your help --Firestarbl 14:16, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I have deleted this image. In the future, please mark the wrong image for speedy deletion by putting {{delete}} in its description. Nadavspi 14:21, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
OK, thank you. --Firestarbl 14:37, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Flags and Coats of Arms

I started uploading some flags and coats of arms and listed them on National insignia. Theres not much there yet, please contribute more national symbols!

Please mark images showing insignia with Template:Insignia to clearify their legal status. This will also ass the image to the category:insignia: many of those images are not limited by copyright, but their use is still restricted by law.

I have a question to the categorization, though: the primary purpose of category:insignia is to collect images that share the legal status of a legally protected symbol or emblem. In that, the category is similar to the copyright-categories and applies to images. On the other hand, we will probably have several pages besides National insignia dealing with insignia, like for instance on that collects the coats of arms of german cities, etc. Those pages should also be collected in a category - the question is: shall those pages be put into category:insignia? Is it ok to mix images and pages in one category? Or would it be better to have a category:ProtectedInsignia or some such for the images and use category:insignia for pages only?

Furthermore, it would make sens to have separate categories for flags, seals, coats of arms, etc, that would be sub-categories of cat:insignia. Should the images or only pages be placed in such a category? If only pages, we would have to create pages like Flags of Germany, Seals of the United States, etc to be able to categorize the images correctly... waht do you think?

Thanks, -- Duesentrieb 19:52, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Pages by number of images

With the help of some folx of the en-wp, I created the page User:Duesentrieb/Pages by number of images listing the top-500 pages with the most images here. I think this could be helpful to find good galleries to link them to wp-articles. Maybe we could move this page to a more prominent location? Update it regularly? As i'm not an admin, i can't do this myself... what do you think? -- Duesentrieb 22:49, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Neither can admin. You need to be able to do SQL-queries, and Admin SQL-queries have been disabled since February or so. - Andre Engels 23:24, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

CC by-sa confusion

Template:Cc-by-sa and Template:Cc-by-sa-2.0 are linking to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/ .I think the first one is meant to be the 1.0 Licence, but did not change the link since there are a lot of Images tagged with it and I don't know which Licence was meant. Any Ideas what to do? -guety 01:53, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I created the templates, and probably mixed up the link. I just changed the link to 1.0. Regarding to which license was meant exactly, I think most contributors (for example me) neither know nor care much about the difference between 1.0 and 2.0. -- Chris 73 01:58, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Oki, thanks. -guety 02:03, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Does someone knows the difference between 1.0 and 2.0? Greatpatton 08:02, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This cc blog entry seems to explain things. -- Kowey 11:51, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Transferring images from Wikipedia

I've contributed a number of original images to wikipedia under GDFL. Is there any way to transfer them to the Commons without going through the tedious process of reloading them and making a new index page? --24.61.45.215 17:25, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Not yet. Ausir 18:27, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Duplication between en: wiki and commons?

So, if I have my original images on en: already and upload them again to commons: to be able to use them on both en: and fr:, what happens to the old en: copy? Do I {{delete}} tag these and, if so, does the fact that they're still in use in my contribs to en: articles pose any problems? (User:Carlb)

Images on the commons can be used on all other wikis. If you don't change the filename, they will be visible on the english wiki without problems. E.g. Image:Convento do Carmo ruins in Lisbon.jpg is only on the commons, but can be seen on the english wiki as en:Image:Convento do Carmo ruins in Lisbon.jpg, although you cannot yet see the image information. However, I would advise to wait with deleting the images on the english wiki. The guidelines of the Commons are still much under discussion, and at the moment we have no way to determine if the image on the commons is used on the other wikis, which is a problem if you want to delete images. In any case, make sure that the images you upload have proper copyright tags and are NOT copyrighted, otherwise they may be deleted. You can also add interwiki links to the image on the english wiki using [[en:Image:Filename.jpg]]. I also hope there will be bots that do the copying of images from the english (and other wikis) to the commons. Also, could you sign your edit? -- Chris 73 03:07, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

A good idea would be adding interwiki links to the image description page to image description pages for the same image on other wikis. Ausir 10:44, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

As a temporary solution i have make this template en:Template:NowCommons for tagging files that are just available on commons. --Fedi 18:57, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Preferring high quality and source material

I have written a position paper on the English wikipedia regarding image quality and the ability to edit and modify images in accordance with the GFDL, even after the original creator left the project. Please see en:User:Chmod007/Alternate version proposal. It is just as appropriate, if not more, for Wikimedia Commons. — Chmod007 21:17, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Could you provide us with a link? -- Chris 73 00:09, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC) Ah, fixed your link, you forgot the colon -- Chris 73 00:10, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)</nowiki>
This proposal touches on a question I've been having: how high a compression to use for JPEG? Ordinarily I use around 80%. Given that others may edit my work in the future, is that enough? Should jpeg be edited at all? If not, then providing a framework for uncompressed versions would be useful. A-giâu 07:07, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Yeah, I was wondering that myself. I wanted to upload a picture of Gale Norton, but the uncompressed JPG is about 6 meg. When I tried to upload that, I got a warning that the image was bigger than the recommended size. So I uploaded the smaller version – it's 53K. But which is preferable? Quadell (talk) 02:24, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I usually use a compression of 85% for JPG and level 6 for PNG. This seems to be a good trade-off between quality and size. All of my uploads have been less than 1MB, and are usually around 200kB for my own images. -- Chris 73 00:04, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Proposal

I would like to propose that Wikipedia Commons be organized in the following way:

  • There are no "articles" at all.
  • Since an image, when uploaded, has an image page created for it automatically, this is the page that should be used for identifying and describing images.
  • This image page would contain licensing info, source, and any additional info. It would also contain many categories.
  • An image like this might have categories of "Buddha", "Tibet", and "Painting". This image might have categories of "Red states", "Blue states", "Map", "Cartogram", "Politics", and "2004".
  • Categories, in a sense, take the place of articles. When you look up "map", you are directed to the "map" category page: a page full of thumbnails (automatically generated) of all images in the "map" category.

Advantages:

  • It's easier for the uploader not to have to create a new page after uploading an image. This encourages participation.
  • If a picture is a painting of a Buddha in Tibet, it's much easier (and more intuitive) to add categories to the uploaded image, rather than going to the Buddha page, the painting page, and the Tibet page, to add the photo to there.
  • Pages (which aren't much in the current system anyway, and are rather repetitive) would be auto-generated. So there's less to keep in synch.
  • The multiple-languages problem is solved. This image could be have categories of "dog", "hund", "pero", etc.

Disadvantages:

  • It would take some code changes to make this work.
  • Maybe others I'm not thinking of at the moment.

Comments? Quadell (talk) 04:28, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I am currently also leaning in that direction, especially with the upcoming version of mediawiki 1.4, which displays thumbnails of images in categories.: The MediaWiki 1.4 is tested here. A category with images AND articles is here. The images are shown as thumbnails very nicely, but listed only with the image name. I tried piping a description to the image (e.g. the freddy image shoud say A picture of Freddy Mercury), but this does not work (yet). This is the only feature I am missing. Also, I think the multiple language problem would be better by having redirects and interwiki links for the categories containing the images. -- Chris 73 05:45, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Question: How can we make this multilanguage? At least with article we can imagine to have many translation pointing to the same image. Greatpatton 07:12, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
You include the image in category Dog as [[Category:Dogs|German Shepherd]] and category Hunde as [[Category:Hunde|Deutscher Schäferhund]]. This would need piped links, though. The extra work needed for the translation is about the same as for translating a page displaying the image. But in general I would propose to use english first, and other languages as options. -- Chris 73 08:01, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Why do we have to do it only one way? When categories work better for images then it's of course worth to put categories at the images, or maybe even mandatory that every image should have at least one category. But why should that one be the reason to disallow articles? Why not make the placement of the images into article optional then? IMHO commons is the ideal place to put galleries of images which belong to one subject, sort them more nicely than any category can ever do with sections etc., give longer explanatory captions, provide links to the Wikipedia article in the various languages. And these galleries can be linked from the Wikipedias as well, same as we link to associated Wikiquote pages. The only problem with articles is that they should be multilingual - but that problem we already have in the image description page. andy 08:59, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I see more disadvantages than advantages of the proposals, especially from the internationality point of view. For the cat gallery, I only have to add a redirect from the Polish name kot, add the Polish name of the species and an interwiki link to the Polish Wikipedia, and it's fully functional for all Polish users. If categories in different languages were used, one would have to constantly watch for new imaged added to a category to add it also to the category in his own languages - and new articles in a category don't show in the watchlist! Ausir 11:26, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
But with the current way, if I add a picture of a cat, I would have to add it to the articles on "Cat" and "Kot" and "Katze" and "Gato" etc. This requires me to search for and modify multiple pages. (Or, with redirects, a Polish user would type in "Kot" and get to the article for "cat", including text written in English.) By using categories instead, you would still have to add categories for "Cat" and "Kot" and "Katze" and "Gato" to the image, but you would only have to add all these to one page. The category page for "Kot" would be in Polish. There could also be a way to automate this somehow, but I'm not sure of the details. (Have "Cat" and "Kot" marked somehow as identical categories, and running a bot regularly to add the category "cat" to all pictures that have a category of "Kot", and vice versa.) Quadell (talk) 14:06, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
You're right, there should be just one category for all languages. But how about just redirecting the Kot to Category:Cat? -- Chris 73 11:28, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
The redirect would then show in the category, which would look quite messy if we had redirects for all languages. And in categories you wouldn't be able to divide the images into sections - you could do it by using subcategories, but they wouldn't show on the same page. Besides, new images added to a category wouldn't show up in the watchlist, and new images added to an article would. Ausir 11:54, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Redirects do not show on the categories. See here, which receives two redirects (see here. As for sections and watchlists: Yes, that's a problem -- Chris 73 13:01, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
It's good to know that they don't in 1.4 but redirects still show in categories in 1.3 for now... Ausir 15:39, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think Chris's idea of the piped-links thing for categories (showing up in image captions) in v1.4 is a really good idea. Quadell (talk) 14:06, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Practically speaking the top concern would be to add meta data in such a way as to allow desired images to be engine searchable (either built-in or Google, etc). This is currently done by embedding interwikis and alternative language titles within article text (particularly important if a languge title is known but no corresponding page exists). This (I imagine) would be the major way in which people find images. Navigation through a category tree might just be an option. From this perspective categories would just be a way for people to find clusters of similar images. So long as the category page itself carries proper multilingual metadata, it ought not to matter what language the title is (ideally speaking) -- though our search engine does prefer titles. A-giâu 03:29, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

IMPORTANT UPDATE:' JeLuF has just committed a generic image gallery feature. You can see it in action here: http://mediawiki.mormo.org/index.php/Gallery --Eloquence 11:05, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Okay, I have a possible refinement to this suggestion. Category tags could work like this: a picture of a cat might have the categories: [[Category:En:Cat]] and [[Category:De:Katzen]]. This would mean that the picture belongs to the English category "cat" and the German category "Katzen". There could also be tags like [[title:en|My cat Flicker eating lunch]] and [[title:de|Meine Katze 'Flicker' isst Mittagessen]], which would be the titles in various languages. So then, if a user chose to only see Commons in English, he could search on "Cat", pull up the category "cat", and see (among others) this picture, with the title in English.

There's a lot of potential here. An image description page should, I suppose, contain only meta-data. Meta-data on the titles in various languages, meta-data on the categories, metadata on the license, and that's it. To find the image, you'd look up any one of the categories it's in. The image name could be something complete uninformative like "1.jpg" and it wouldn't matter. It would still show the picture in a category in your language, and the caption would be in your language. I'm quite excited about this possibility. Quadell (talk) 04:21, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hmmmm... I am unsure about having a page/category for every language. This might lead to some images included in one langauge page/category, but not in another, leading to confusion. I'd rather have only one active page/category, and a lot of multilingual redirects. This way it is much easier to keep the commons updated, otherwise we'll have a large number of differen images on differnet pages in different languages, which sounds very messy to me. Also, I much prefer the image name to be descriptive in a language, probably best in english. -- Chris 73 08:02, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Me too, and unless an easy way to move rename in all its articles and to add categories to watchlist with all their articles is added, I prefer articles to categories. Ausir 10:12, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
That would be a useful feature. Quadell (talk) 21:44, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
(To Chris's statements above:) Messy, yes, but any multilingual project is inherently messy. Not all words have exact parallels in other languages. For instance, in English, one word "box" can refer to many different containers, regardless of size or shape. A picture of a round hatbox would have a category of "box", and so would a large, brown moving-box and a small jewelry-box for a ring to go in. But in German, these wouldn't all go in the same category, since there are different words for different sorts of boxes. The category structures simply wouldn't be the same in different languages.
I think we're going to have to decide, collectively, whether Commons is going to be in English, conceptually at least, with limited support for other languages; or whether it will be truly multilingual. If the latter, then it will be messy, but manageably so, I believe. If the former, it will basically be inaccurate in many languages, but it will be simpler. Always before, it seems to me, Wikimedia has chosen openness and accuracy over simplicity, and it's served us well so far. Quadell (talk) 21:44, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I don't know about your definition of "manageably", but the managing does include having about 150 dictionaries at home to check what the keyword you are adding is in each Wikipedia language. If you want to keep up with it, go ahead, I find it extremely complicated. - Andre Engels 21:47, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Well of course you wouldn't have to. You'd just add a picture of a cat, and include [[category:en:cat]]. Anybody else could add a category in their own language if they wanted to. Correspondingly, you might come across a picture of a cat that includes [[category:po:kot]], and you'd say "Hey, that's a cat!", and you'd add [[category:en:cat]] to it. (There could be a query that returns all the pics without categories in English, for easy browsing, if you like.) It doesn't seem that difficult to me. The beauty of Wiki is, you don't have to be an expert in 50 languages; you just add what you know, and let other people add what they know. Right? Quadell (talk) 23:08, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Well, I find that messy. It would mean that if I want to find a picture on a subject, I have to go through to 50 lists that probably are 90% all the same pics just to find that one extra. And it means that to do it well, we have to do the translation between the various languages once for each picture. Let me tell you, it's already growing over our head to have 'cat' linked _once_ to cat in each language on Wikipedia. In your proposal, I might as well have a bot running full time just translating the categories in other languages. - Andre Engels 20:41, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
You may be right that having separate categories for each language would be too unwieldy. I'd certainly be open to the prospect of having a category page for "statue" with some metadata that lists the translation in other languages or something. But my main concern is just that the data for a picture be in the image's description page. Here, I'll explain, outside of this indention. See below. Quadell (talk) 02:02, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I recently added this picture: Image:LightningVolt Twisting Branch Lilac tree.jpg. With the current set-up (with image being included in at least one article, and only articles having categories), to do it correctly, I would have to then add the pic to the article on Lilac (oh wait, what's the latin name?), add the pic to the article on tree, and add the pic to the article on "branch" -- oh wait, there's no article on branch, so I'd have to create one. It's tedious work, and to be honest, since my purpose for uploading the image was to include it in a Wikipedia page, I was tempted to simply upload it there because it's easier. I couldn't help thinking that it would nice to simply add [[Category:Lilac]] [[Category:Tree]] [[Category:Branch]] to the image description page -- which is what I did, actually. We want it to be as inviting as possible for people upload images. Besides, it seems more intuitive to me for words that describe an image to be on the image description page.

Okay, I've made my point. (Probably over-made it at this point.) If it looks like a good organizational method to you, I hope it gets implemented. Quadell (talk) 02:02, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think that if things are going to be that complicated to categorize images, people will not do it anymore. Of course, English not being my mother tongue, I'd resent a bit English the only workable language here. But I can't see a simple way to do it the other way. Whatever the solutions finally adopted, we'd better make the category data tree really up to date or ask for an automatic update, or even I would soon be unable to find the more accurate category for an image. villy 20:16, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I have tried to increase the category tree based on the categories used in the english wiki. I pick an image and add all categories parent categories until i am at Category:Fundamental. I also started to clean out the Category:Other. -- Chris 73 23:05, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Radial engine

Could someone please take a look at Radial engine and figure out what the hell's wrong with the graphics? They get all messed up when I try to thumb them and the larger one seems not to respond to manual resizing (i.e. through frame|150px|). Is this a bug in MediaWiki or is it the graphics' fault? --TOR 08:49, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Animated gifs can't be resized. A-giâu 09:16, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Creating a community of artists and creators

I've written a proposal on the new commons-l mailing list about how to raise awareness of the Commons and turn it into a real community of creators (of content useful to the Wikimedia projects). I'd appreciate all help in getting this off the ground.--Eloquence 11:53, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)


Shared images and localised names

If I understood this correctly, one of the purposes of commons is to allow all wikipediae to use the same image file, rather then having them duplicate them. What I don't understand is how all those wikipediae can assign that single image their localised filenames. Aliter 04:11, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

They can't. Ausir 10:07, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It would be extremely good if we could have a feature like "image aliases", similar to redirects. This would resolve the "local name" issue, and also the problem that we can't move/rename images - wich results in a large number of cryptically or wrongly named images. -- Duesentrieb 15:55, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Disagree. Image aliases would mean, that the same image would be indexed by robots (eg. Google) several times. That would be a real mess and waste of resources. Wanted 08:35, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I've been wondering about the same thing as Aliter, and have decided to use only English in my uploads so far (as it's the de facto "common language"), even though I'd like to use the same pics e.g. in the Finnish Wikipedia. But yeah, a feature like image aliases/redirects sounds like a good solution.
How would that be a problem? Wikipedia, for example, has lots of redirects, indexed by search engines and all, but I fail to see a "real mess" anywhere because of that. (In fact, it would be good if Google found the same image using search terms in several languages.) --Jonik 10:30, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Commons:Deletion guidelines

I created a page with some Commons:Deletion guidelines. These are of course up for discussion, feel free to add or remove points (with comment on the talk page). I tried to use common sense. -- Chris 73 04:04, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Video clips on the commons?

Is there any guideline if video clips are to be included in the commons? Some clips were added, but I though initially the commons was only for images and sound files. If the matter is not yet decided, I would tend against videos, since they either have low quality or high bandwith, and Wikimedia is sometimes quite short on bandwith. -- Chris 73 00:35, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I would suggest we allow video clips under 20 megabytes for now - they are, afterall, just as valid (if not more) than any other media format. Eventually I would hope that we could vastly increase this 20 megabyte limit. Non-digitally remastered versions of early 20th Century films are falling into the public domain - highly valuable artworks that need preservation and accomodation. Of course, I would support a complete lifting of a limit today - were it not for fiscal constraints. --[[User:OldakQuill|Oldak Quill]] 01:36, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Request for translation

Could someone please translate the Commons:Scheduling_PoD#Day_18 caption to English? I'd like to do a Polish translation but I don't know the first thing about Spanish. And it's the 18th tommorow so there's little time to waste :) --TOR 11:51, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This is a picure of a building which is called "Templete de la Virgen de los Dolores". Translated into English, the name means "Chapel of the Sufferings of the Virgin", but you almost never see it translated like that. (It would be like calling the Rio Grande the Big River.) So theres not a real way to translate it. Unfortunately there is no articel on the chapel in Wikipedia. Quadell (talk) 16:16, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
"Virgin de Dolores" is sometimes rendered in English as something like "Our Lady of Sorrows". I believe it is the same as what is commonly rendered in Catholic Latin as "Mater Dolorosa". -- Infrogmation 21:40, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I have attempted to remedy this kind of situation - where an article/category/image description does not exist in English - but does in other languages - by creating a specialised page: Commons:Requests for Translation. --[[User:OldakQuill|Oldak Quill]] 14:10, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Copyrights of Stamps/Screenshots/currency/ etc

At the commons we cannot keep copyrighted material. Are stamps/screenshots/currency etc. copyrighted? I found the following info:

  • All stamps & currency old enough for expired copyrights can be kept.
  • US stamps before 1976 (1978?) are public domain 1976 1978
  • UK stamps are copyrighted [1]
  • Canada has copyright on their stamps [2]
  • Belarus stamps copyrighted since 1992 [3]
  • Screenshots of free software may be free (i.e. software licensed under the GFDL or similar)
  • Currency may be limited due to counterfeit laws

We have a nice collection of Category:Stamps, especially Category:Stamp (Faroe Islands) thanks to User:Arne List. We also have a nice collection of screenshots. I don't like to bring this issue up, but we would have to face it sooner or later. Any comments about how to handle this problem? -- Chris 73 14:10, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hello, this is no problem, if you look at the disclaimers here: faroestamps.fo and faroeartstamps.fo ("Site info, Contact" says, that even the texts are free for use). I have also a written permission from the Faroese Post's philatelistic office, dating from 19 April 2004:
Dear Mr. Arne List
You are welcome to copy our stamps as "public domains".
Kind regards
Knud Wacher
*******
Postverk Føroya, Philatelic Office, FO-159 Tórshavn, Faroe Islands Tel. +298 346200, Tel. direct +298 346210, Fax +298 346201
E-mail: filateli@postur.fo, Website: http://www.stamps.fo
:-) Arne List 15:13, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I looked at [4], and was dismayed to see this seemingly contradictory (as we currently see it) statement:
The texts and graphics on Faroestamps are in Public Domain and can be copied and cited, as long as Faroestamps is mentioned as a source. The texts and graphics may not be used for commercial purposes, or mechanical reproduction without permission from the Faroese Philatelic Office. (emphasis added)
So the concept of PD here is not quite the PD understood here; it's more like Creative Commons' cc-nc-sa (Non-commercial, Share-alike) license. Which makes me wonder which concept of PD Knud Wacher of Postverk Føroya (I assume this is a government agency) had in mind. It seems that in some parts of the world the "public" in PD is understood to mean "the public" excluding commercial interests. See also [5].
A-giâu 18:24, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
The comment by Knud Wacher conflicts a bit with the info from the link. However, since Knud explicitly gave permission as PD, I would take him by his word and ignore the link. It would also be good to state the PD release by Knud on the stamp image pages or article pages. Looking at the number of stamps, this may even allow for a new "Faroestamps " tag that contains the PD tag. -- Chris 73 06:42, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Furthermore, Knud knows very well, what I am doing in the German category Färöer, as well, as the webmaster of faroestamps.fo (some of the German texts there were translated by me from English, so we have a cooperation since many month). The latter (Anker Eli Petersen, who also designed the maps like of Streymoy) made that disclaimer just to ensure, that a certain terror, which was tried by a troll in German Wikipedia against me, to denounce me as criminal after I published a by-myself-reviewed and another by-myself-translated free text by-himself (Anker Eli), stops. But for sure a special Postverk Føroya tag would be a nice idea.
Regarding A-giâu: Yes Postverk Føroya is a state-run institution by the Faroese self-government. It will be privatised. For further reading: faroeislands.org.uk the news alsmost at the bottom there. Arne List 17:24, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I made up a tag: Template:Faroe stamps. Can we agree in it, and I show it Postverk Føroya again, and they write HERE, that this is correct so? :-) Arne List 17:43, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I have changed the tag a bit, but I am perfectly happy with the current copyright status of the stamps as explained above. Thanks for the good work in getting permission! -- Chris 73 00:57, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Arne, thanks for the clarification. It's reassuring that both Knud and Peterson are aware of the nature of your contributions. A-giâu 07:18, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Yep, thanks. Just look here for an example, were we co-operate open with our names (author - translator): Elinborg Lützen. This finally provoked a troll in the German Wiki, for this was to much for him - and therefore came that disclaimer, which contradicts somehow. Anyway, Knud Wacher ensured again support for the Wiki Commons already, so we can make a comprehensive Faroese stamp catalogue here. I can ensure by knowing the stamps, that none of them is "somehow nonsense" (like in other small island-countries e.g. of the Commonwealth), but each one is telling from the local nature, culture and heritage. ;-) Arne List 21:45, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

do maps make sense?

Hi! Coming from the german wikipedia I wonder if it makes sense to put maps (with english labeling, e.g. Image:Darfur map.png) on wikimedia commons which hardly could be used by wikipedias of other languages. Of course, they could be used by them until the are translated, but at least then they are quite useless to the other projects, aren't they? --Addicted 18:26, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Unglossed maps are most ideal (and sorely needed). These can have numbers or letters in place of names -- or just left blank -- and different languages can put up the gloss later, either on the image itself or in the text. But where these are not available, it may still be better to use a "foreign map" than not put up one. It'll be up to each language to decide their "tolerance level" for foreign language maps. So, yes, please upload them. A-giâu 20:47, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
It isn't about tolerance on foreign language maps, it is just about difficulties when having text in german transcription (simple example: de:Dschanub Darfur) referencing an english transcribed map (en:Janub Darfur) – and not only to peoples those are not so fit in foreign languages. But of course you are right using a foreign map is definitly better than no or an unlabled map. (just needed confirmation ;) --Addicted 21:14, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
i would say commons should be treated like a source that is things like maps which are usefull to various wikis with modification should be stored and indexed here Plugwash 11:31, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I agree. Commons isn't just for images which are directly useful. We should also include images which are useable after modification. Anthony 22:11, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

In the spanish Wikipedia we have developed a way (using CSS) to put names on a image, without changing the image, and it works in all the modern browsers. It could be used to label unlabeled Commons' maps. It's on w:es:Wikipedia:Mapa de wikipedistas; this one only puts red dots (which show information on mouseover), but it has been used to put city labels too. --Comae 22:11, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

No info is shown on mouseover in my Firefox. Ausir 13:32, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
idem :( btw, what about upload an svg ? it's easy to translate the text and export it to png format. FoeNyx 14:22, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
In my Firefox v.1 they show up nicely, and it has been tested in IE and Opera without trouble. You can see the same map with texts in [6]. SVG it's good, but this method could be used to mark the coordinates of cities, mountains, historic events... without any special (no wiki) software. I think they could be complementary: for articles as "Europe" and "Canada", you can use SVG and PNG, for showing the location of the city in articles like "Rome" or "New York", the marked points. It could be created special wiki markup for it, so the dots and texts could be added to the PNG by the server, as ti has been done with timelines. --Comae 16:45, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

copying into the commons

is it best to keep the original dutch/german/whatever filename or make up a new (english) one

the former option makes life easier for bots removing duplication later the latter option makes the commons look neater Plugwash 19:49, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

There is no rule yet. I think english works best, and if you provide an interwiki link, the bots may be able to find images on other wikis easier. I would oppose foreign names using a character set that cannot be read by most of the population, i.e. chinese/japanese/russian charatcers, but rather prefer names using ASCII and related characters (áéâöçñ...) -- Chris 73 00:21, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Same as Chris 73, but restricted to [A-Z][a-z][0-9] and +-_ -- Petwoe 18:45, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
It is nice for you to oppose the different charactersets for use within Commons. For pronunciations, there is a need to have them in their own characterset because THAT is what the soundfile is about. The naming convention for these files is ISO639-word.ogg where ISO639 is the ISO 639 language code and word is the word in the original script. GerardM 08:23, 10 dec 2004 (UTC)

Upload Limit?

I believed the upload limit was 20 megabytes (as stated on the Main Page) - however, while attempting to upload a 14MB file I recieved the following error:

Sorry- we have a problem... Your upload is too large The current upload limit for Wikimedia is 8Mb. To get more information on this you can visit #wikipedia.

Surely this is not correct? --[[User:OldakQuill|Oldak Quill]] 23:40, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Corrected the main page. I think multi-megabyte-uploads put too much load on the bandwith compared to their usefulness. Hope the 14MB file was not an image :) Chris 73 00:24, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Limit is 20MB - the problem lay in the Squids... or so it seems. It was an Edison film. --[[User:OldakQuill|Oldak Quill]] 00:43, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Images with unknown copyright status

How do we handle images with unknown copyright status? Category:Unknown looks still not too big, but this may change in the future with the success of the commons. I would propose to allow the deletion of images with unknown copyright a fixed period (e.g. 1 week) after it was tagged, and the uploader notified. It would also be good to have the community look at it if they can figure out the copyright, but I am not sure how to organize that. Maybe a simple list similar to Commons:Deletion requests? Any comments welcome -- Chris 73 08:03, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I support the idea of a fixed period (not necessarily one week, but that's ok too). I guess the community has a tendency to check those images anyway, even without organizing. If not - the image is to be deleted. Petwoe 18:41, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I've deleted some of these pictures after 3 or 4 days. People are aware the copyright information is necessary right from the upload page so that I don't feel like waiting more than necessary to type three words with {{}}... In opinion one week is a maximum or we're going to be flooded just out of carelessness villy 19:29, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I agree with villy. -guety 00:12, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Well...I'm not so sure all uploaders know all they need to know from the upload page -- if only because it's a lot of English to read. Would be nice to have a multilingual bar linking to translations (maybe just a summary). Providing links to the upload pages on the Wikipedias sounds nice, except that I'm not sure their policies are necessarily consistent with Commons. Best to re-translate for Commons. A-giâu 07:28, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

category names - naming conventions?

Hi! In the german wikipedia it is usual to use singular in category names but here in commons there are many categories with plural naming, e.g. Category:Organizations. Are there any Naming Conventions at all? --Addicted 09:48, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Commons uses the English Wikipedia category naming convention, which uses plural category names. Ausir 17:00, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Argh, so my Category:Stamp (Faroe Islands) is totally unconventional :-( Arne List 18:58, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC) (coming from German conventionalism too ;-)
Initially we can follow the Wikipedia categories --Mac 10:24, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Help for the periodic table...

Hello I have just started a new periodic table page. I'm looking for help uploading the pictures inside... If somebody wants to contribute i will be very peased. Thanks :-) Joanjoc

upload copyright page not logical

See Special:Upload

Specify the licence of the file OK.

But when you upload you need to select; I affirm that the copyright holder of this file agrees to license it under the terms of the Wikimedia Commons copyright. And that is a stange way of saying it is GFDL.

Also the frase By uploading a file to which you hold the copyright, you agree to licence it under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

I understand by this that you can only upload stuff under the GFDL-license. That can not be good. You should be abel to upload a file under the a license like cc-by-sa-2.0 but not under GFDL.

I should be like "I promise to include detailed and correct copyright information" --Walter 00:12, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It's simple - if the uploader is also the copyright holder of the image (e.g. he created it himself), he releases it as GFDL by default. And the "terms of the Wikimedia Commons copyright" means that it can not only be GFDL, but also cc-by-sa, PD etc. Ausir 00:16, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Now I understand. But it is confusing like it is now. --Walter 00:24, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

So wait a second, if we own an image we upload here we have to GFDL it? Anthony 22:04, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yes, you have to GFDL it (CC-BY-SA and "more free" is also acceptable, PD naturally too - which is where the confusion comes from). But basically, yes, if you contribute anything to any of the wikimedia progjects, you allow anyone to use your work for any purpose, as long as you are mentioned as the author. -- Duesentrieb 01:36, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
You say I have to GFDL it. Then you say CC-by-SA is acceptable too. But if I take a picture, and I choose to only release it under CC-SA, and not under the GFDL, does that mean I have to get someone else to upload it? Note that images under CC-SA can still be included in GFDL works, under the aggregation clause, but any edits to the image itself would have to be CC-SA. Anthony 18:27, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
This actually doesn't make sense. Either cc-by-sa is acceptable or its not. If it is, then a user who wants to contribute via cc-by-sa but not GFDL, should not be forced to upload an image onto a different site then ask a 3rd party to contribute it to Wikipedia in order to avoid being the copyright holder who is uploading the file. -- Solipsist 13:30, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Simple import from Wikipedia

It would be very usefull to have a way to move images and other media content from Wikipedia. This should be done nicely, with automatic relinking in Wikipedia and adding links in Wikimedia to use in Wikipedia. Nct 14:00, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

having a server side tool for moving the image file and copying the description page from a Wikipedia to the Commons would be very helpful. Relinking in the Wikipedia is not necessary if the filename stays the same. I don't understand however what you mean by "adding links in Wikimedia to use in Wikipedia" - maybe adding interwiki-links to the description-page? that would be faily easy i guess. Such a tool should also remind the user that the image should be at least added to a thematic category on the commons, and/or be linked on a galery-page.
I am thinking about writing a bot that does this. However, it makes little sense to download an Image just do upload it again to the same server. It would be a much cleaner solution to do this server side. I also think it should be fairly easy to implement. Maybe the developers will have time for this after Version 1.4 has been released, i.e. in a few weeks. -- Duesentrieb 15:51, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I have elaborated on this idea at Commons:Transfer script. Comments on the Talk page :-) -- Kowey 10:28, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
There is already this option in the Python Wikipedia bot framework. Those who have the bot, and have it logged in on Commons, can get an image from Wikipedia using "python upload.py -lang:commons -wiki:en Image.png" (replace 'en' by the wiki where the picture is, and Image.png by the name of the image, of course; on Windows, "python" can be left out). - Andre Engels 13:17, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
A very practical tool! It works, but says Type error in lib_images.py. This should not happen. Please report this problem (robot-20041016.tar.gz). --tsca (tsca.bot)
Create the tools now, please ;) Insert non-formatted text here

including credit and license information

When you upload a image you can (must) include some information about it. But that information can always get separated from the image for several reasons. I find it is best to try to include so many as possible information in the image file itself.

You can do this by including meta data in the image file. You have the w:en:IPTC (image meta-data) system and also jpeg-comments. This information can only been seen whit software who supports this. It can be changed off course or deleted. But this has a greater change of surviving then information on the description page.

I would like to include this information on my pictures. I have not found any free software to change the IPTC info for several images. Only one at a time. Does anybody knows a good solution? (Windows or Linux)


You can also include a signature on the pictures. Like in a corner. Name + license. When it is a high resolution picture you will not see it normally. Only on full view when you look at it. Is there any policy about including water marks or comments about it? --Walter 21:01, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Try ImageMagick, it should do the trick - it understands pretty much every format, can do any conversion, and is fully scriptable. There is a -profile option that should do what you want. BTW: i read somewhere eabout the idea to extract such information automatically from the image and display it on the description page - i like that... -- Duesentrieb 21:55, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. I will test it. To use the meta data information automaticly whould be usefull. But only if users are putting that information inside the image. I whould be great if the updating of the IPTC info could be done by the mediawiki software. You could create profiles who whould be included in the files you upload. --Walter 22:52, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Sounds like a sensible approach (editing and display of image metadata via MediaWiki). This would allow correcting mistakes without downloading and re-uploading. A-giâu 07:01, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Problem with search

I think something must be wrong in the kingdom of images because searching "England" returns nothing in article titles, when there is at least 2: Richard III of England and Henry VII of England. Am I doing something wrong? muriel@pt 09:50, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

  • I am having the same problem. I thought that a media repository would have the ability to search for media by keyword, but I haven't been able to find this option. Am I missing something too? Malcolmj 05:56, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
    • I have noted this problem here, let's hope someone reacts. - Andre Engels 19:14, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Thanks. Malcolmj 20:23, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Non-image files

For security reasons, the wikipedia doesn't let people upload files that aren't images. This means that my file wikipedia-mode.el [7], a customization file for editing Wikipedia articles using the text editor Emacs, can't be uploaded (the old copies of the file are still there, but I can't upload new versions.) Any chance that Wikimedia commons will let in non-image files? -- CYD

See bugzilla:898, and vote! -- Duesentrieb 12:50, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Could somebody advise me a good freeware to record ogg files from microphone?

I'd like to record Spanish pronunciation for the Wiktionary. I've searched in download.com, softonic.com and the only freeware i found was harddiskogg and it doesn't work to me. Please, could somebody help me to find one which works? Thank you :) --Javier Carro 08:10, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

You could try Audacity Matthewmayer 15:25, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Wonderful. It works perfectly with ogg. Thanks a lot :) --Javier Carro 00:06, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Automatically show file name

I suggest create an option in [[Images:]] and [[Media:]] to include automatically the file name. You can see some examples at musical notation. It could be [[Image:Hemidemisemiquaver.png|Showname]] and it would appear as

Image name [[Image:Hemidemisemiquaver.png]].

This is a very, very usefull tool to use the image (the user would copy and paste the image file name when editing a wiki page). --Mac 09:56, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Online convertion tool

Is there any online convertion tool, to convert jpg to free png. We could include a link to it in the upload page. --Mac 10:29, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Why not just install ImageMagick? Uploading large images just to convert them seems a little tedious... -- Duesentrieb 11:18, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Not only to convert: to upload and convert. I can upload a GIF (that uses a propietary image format) and at the same time convert it to PNG that is a free image format. The question is the freedom. And why not install a program in one's hard disk?. Because of the same reason you don't have to install Microsoft FrontPage to edit the wiki (easy and speedy).--Mac 12:35, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)
jpeg at least in its usual form is an open and free format. Also since the jpg will be much bigger than the PNG and you can't go back to jpg without losing further quality such a converstion would be extremely stupid
I can certainly see advantages to converting gifs on upload though both are lossless and png gives better compression in most cases carefull not to convert animations though ;) iirc the patent issues on gif are over with now though (finally) Plugwash 20:20, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)
It would be extremely cool if the wiki software could do that conversion optionally on upload. That's quite easy to implement, it uses ImageMagick for scaling etc. anyway, i think... -- Duesentrieb 19:47, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Copyright of Reproductions

I have yet another annoying copyright question for you: The origin of Image:Rosetta2.jpeg is unsure, as [8] does not state a source. However, the stone itself is far byond any copyright. The question is - is the image possibly copyrighted anyway? As far as I can see it is a purly technical reproduction, not a "work of art". As far as I understand, this would (at least in germany) mean that it's not eligable to any copyright. Can you tell me how this is handeled in other places?

A siminar question arises with reproductions of old paintings etc in books - am I allowed to scan those, if the original copyright has expired? Or does the books author/publisher have a claim on the image? IMHO there is no "fresh" copyright if the book gives a purly technical reproduction of the image. The problem is here to determine "amount of creativity" that went into the picture (the german Term is "Schöpfungshöhe") - please tell me what you think of this.

For example, i have a copy of "Kunstformen der Natur" ("Art Forms of Nature") by Ernst Haeckel, a book of extremely nice drawings especially of marine flora and fauna and of microscopic creaturs. The book is from 1998, but it's a reprint of a book first published in 1904. Ernst Haeckel died in 1919, so the pictures are (again, at least in Germany) PD since 1989. So, would i be allowed to use those images here? -- Duesentrieb 11:18, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

According to en:Wikipedia:Copyright FAQ, reproductions of public domain 2D images are public domain, while reproductions of public domain 3D objects are eligible for copyright. Anthony 06:47, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I guess the tricky point in this particular case is that the stone is 3D but the surface with the text shown here is 2D. However, the point of the Bridgeman case seems to be that a flat photograph or scan of a work of art, whilst requiring skill, doesn't involve creativity so isn't covered by copyright. Most photographs of sculptures do involve the creativity of choosing the camera angle and lighting so are copyright. In this case, the photograph of the surface looks closer to a non-creative 2D reproduction so should be OK, whilst a photograph of the stone from the side wouldn't be. Some source information would still be useful. -- Solipsist 12:52, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
This explanation makes sense to me. Anthony 16:21, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll copy this info to the image's talk page. -- Duesentrieb 17:37, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

inlude image namespace in default search on commons

this would seem like a good idea to me as the whole perpose of the commons is files Plugwash 23:02, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

You can change that in your preferences -- Chris 73 23:32, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
sure, but think of people that have no account here, that are just looking for an image to use in an article.
While we are at it: I would also suggest to include the categories in the default search - especially because categories will serve as automatic galeries in the next version of mediawiki, which is due in the next weeks. I would even go so far as to suggest to implement an automatic fallback from the article namespace to the category namespace: if an article is not found, the categorie with the same name should be shown automatically, if it exists. This would be very useful, because we can expect that only few "real" pages will prevail when we get automatic galeries. -- Duesentrieb 00:40, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
True. Can this be done with the default CSS style sheet? Sorry, but the CSS is still a bit of a mistery to me -- Chris 73 01:06, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
No, this has nothing to do with CSS. CSS ist for applying layout, colors etc. to "raw" HTML or XML, it has nothing to do with content, and it can not do redirects or alias namespaces. The default-namespaces for searches can probably be set in some (PHP) configuration file by someon with server access. My other suggestion (namespace-fallback) would probably require changes in the Mediawiki-Software. -- Duesentrieb 01:12, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Does the search actually work. I've switched on searching in Main, Commons, Commons talk, Image, Image talk, MediaWiki and MediaWiki talk in my preferences. Searched for 'Panda' and got nothing. But there is actually a page on the giant panda at Ailuropoda_melanoleuca with three images each of which include the word 'panda' on their image pages. -- Solipsist 10:54, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
The 'panda' search seems to work for me now. -- Solipsist 20:53, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I support this suggestion, I'm using commons for 2 weeks and only today I noted that commons doesn't search in image namespace by default. Gbiten 18:59, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Fundamental Question

I hope this question doesn't sound stupid but after reading the FAQ and other documents I have a question about the commons. Are users encouraged to move images from other wikis to here if they think they might be used later in another wiki? Is the commons only for new images or images that are already used in multiple wikis? Basically what I want to know is...should I continue uploading most of my images to wikipedia or should I switch to the commons? (I understand that the commons doesn't accept fair use images) Thanks! BrokenSegue 02:44, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

(1) There are no stupid questions. (2) I would upload new and free images to the commons, and new and unfree images to the respective Wiki. I also started copying my own free images to the commons. -- Chris 73 03:22, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
In the german WP, we have a big hint on the upload page stating that most images should be uploaded to the commons - I would like to encourage others to do the same. IMHO only images that are very specific to a single Wikipedia (user portraits for example) should be put into the WP, everything else should go here. I think it would even be worth considering to put all images uploaded to any wikipedia into the commons... but that would require some changes in the infrastructure, i guess. -- Duesentrieb 17:30, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
new uploading of FREE images should be done here on the commons. Transfering images here should for the moment be done on an as needed basis until such time as we get support for doing transfers server side with full preservation of history (this may have to wait until after single login is implemented). The commons basically has an upload policy as strict as the strictest individual projects. Therefore individual projeccts will keep thier own upload spaces for non-free images that the individual prject finds acceptable (for example fair use images on en) Plugwash 00:16, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Am I right, that pictures like en:Image:Barbados.OwenArthur.01.jpg can't be uploaded to commons? The license informations given there look like "fair use" to me. --Jailbird 20:13, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

No, it would be okay to include that image, as far as I can see. We may use the image because the copyrightholder allows us to do so, not because of fair use clauses in the law. - Andre Engels 17:46, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Nazi Symbols and such

We have some images here on the commons that are illegal to use in some countrys. Specifically, Nazi-Symbols such as Image:Flag Germany 1933.png may be used in germany only in the context of art and education, not as a logo, flag or political symbol; The flag of Taiwan is illegal in the PR China, etc. Some images already contain a legal disclaimer stating the limitation. My questions are the following:

  1. Would it make sense to have a template for such images, assigning them to a category? The template could take the region and terms of the limitation as a parameter.
  2. In how far should "similar" images be tagged as "restricted use", for example this one: Image:52-square swastika.ant.png? If this would be considered leagal would probably depend on the context of use and the vim of the judge. Should we have an official pollicy for such cases?

any thoughts? -- Duesentrieb 17:30, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

We are using these images in the context of art and education. I do not like the idea of having "restricted usage templates" - if we do begin, then I'd like to start introducing pornographic images: these are as valid as any other form of image on Commons. A restricted usage template would overcome any related worries about sexually "explicit" or otherwise images. Essentially, we are just worrying about the PRC - alot of Wikimedia content is illegal in PRC already. --[[User:OldakQuill|Oldak Quill]] 13:30, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I do not doubt that the use in the wikipedia is legal. I was just suggesting to warn about images to which legal restrictions apply, independently of the copyright status, in case someone wants to use the image in a different context. This is especially true for all official insignia, for which we have Template:Insignia - and it is also true for symbols that are outlawed in some contries. Following your argument, we would have to delete those images, because they are free by copyright, but can't be used for all purposes. I don't think that's a godd idea... -- Duesentrieb 18:49, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Furthermore, swastika is not only a Nazi symbol, but also an oriental symbol of luck. This doesn't look like the nazi swastika to me. Ausir 15:35, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Yes, absolutely. But if you use this image as a logo for a newspaper in Germany, that would be illegal and could bring you quite some prison time (or a slap on the wrist, if the contant of the paper was not fascistic - but still). My point is: shouldn't we warn about that? -- Duesentrieb 18:41, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
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