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COMMONS DISCUSSION PAGES (index) Commons Help desk Village pump (general discussion) Copyright Proposals Technical Graphics and photography discussion Photography critiques Image improvement Illustration workshop Map workshop Photography workshop Video and sound workshop Categories for discussion Undeletion requests Deletion requests Volunteer Response Team/Noticeboard Translators' noticeboard Work requests for bots Contact administrators Vandalism User problems (Dispute resolution) Blocks and protections Bureaucrats' noticeboard CheckUser requests Oversight requests Telegram IRC webchat Commons mailing list (archive) Commons' bugs on Phabricator Welcome to the Village pump This page is used for discussions of the operations, technical issues, and policies of Wikimedia Commons. Recent sections with no replies for 7 days and sections tagged with {{Section resolved|1=--~~~~}} may be archived; for old discussions, see the archives; the latest archive is Commons:Village pump/Archive/2024/06. Please note: If you want to ask why unfree/non-commercial material is not allowed at Wikimedia Commons or if you want to suggest that allowing it would be a good thing, please do not comment here. It is probably pointless. One of Wikimedia Commons’ core principles is: "Only free content is allowed." This is a basic rule of the place, as inherent as the NPOV requirement on all Wikipedias. Have you read our FAQ? For changing the name of a file, see Commons:File renaming. Any answers you receive here are not legal advice and the responder cannot be held liable for them. If you have legal questions, we can try to help but our answers cannot replace those of a qualified professional (i.e. a lawyer). Your question will be answered here; please check back regularly. Please do not leave your email address or other contact information, as this page is widely visible across the internet and you are liable to receive spam. Purposes which do not meet the scope of this page: Please do not make deletion requests here: use the relevant process for it instead. For technical support and graphics talks (PNG, SVG, GIF, etc.), please post on the Graphics village pump. To ask for image improvement, see: Graphic Lab/Photography workshop for photographs. Graphic Lab/Map workshop for maps. Graphic Lab/Illustration workshop for other illustrations. To ask for video or audio improvement, see Commons:Graphic Lab/Video and sound workshop. For translation requests, please post at Commons:Requests for translation. For media requests, please post at Commons:File requests. Search archives:       Start a new discussion

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Thatched water pump at Aylsham, Norfolk [add]

Centralized discussion See also: Village pump/Proposals   ■ Archive How do we organize categories by date (14 May 2024) Proposal to prohibit political restriction templates (5 February 2024) Should PD-CQ Roll Call be used for recent images? (5 January 2024) Technical needs survey (17 December 2023) When does PDART apply to textile works? (15 November 2023) Does this image contain "love hearts"? (17 August 2023) Overhaul of categories by period (5 December 2022) Version of Saudi flag to use (11 July 2022) Concern regarding revocability of KOGL licenses (22 December 2021) Should deleting content from your own talk page be forbidden? (11 November 2021) Revise the COM:FOP Sweden section (1 February 2021) Change technical name of LRs to license-reviewer from image-reviewer(2 November 2023) Template: View   ■ Discuss    ■ Edit   ■ Watch

Oldies

"good pictures" tool

hi;

why is there no access link for the little category tool @ the top of each category page that allows you to select feature/quality/valued images in that category?

i wanted to examine the tool, & make some suggestions on its talkpage, but there is neither an access link on the tool, not a template visible when you edit the category.

so congratulations, guys, on making your tool COMPLETELY INACCESSIBLE, with all the behind-the-scenes stuff hidden & unfindable.

for this you win a "passive-agressive/controlling" barnstar from me.

this is still a WIKI, you know...

{:p)

Lx 121 (talk) 07:05, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

I think you're looking for Help:FastCCI. It would probably be helpful if the dropdown menu included an "About this tool" item linking to that page. -Avenue (talk) 10:26, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

it would so... (be helpful). thank-you! Lx 121 (talk) 11:53, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Was genau bewirkt denn dieses Tool? Ich kann hier klicken, was ich will, es passiert einfach nichts, außer daß eine Zeile "Verbinde..." auf der Seite erscheint und nicht wieder verschwindet. -- Smial (talk) 14:13, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

@Smial: Das Tool zeigt Schnittmengen mit anderen Dateien an. Funktioniert es jetzt? In Category:Water treatment? Falls nicht, kannst Du Dschwen (Maintainer des Tools) diesen Report schicken? -- Rillke^(q?) 09:43, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Hab gefunden, wo man das Tool in den Einstellungen abschalten kann, stört jetzt nicht mehr. -- Smial (talk) 10:29, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, dass ich gestoert habe. --Dschwen (talk) 22:46, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Entschuldige, daß ich gewagt habe, ein Problem zu berichten. Wird nicht wieder vorkommen. -- Smial (talk) 10:33, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Ach so, das sollte ein Bugreport sein. Funktioniert es denn jetzt wieder? Ach ja, hast es ja eh abgeschaltet. Na dann tschess. --Dschwen (talk) 21:22, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Looking for a famous image of an alien

I recall a famous image of an alien that was drawn by/for a purported abductee/encounteree, and I would like to use it in an article. Someone here might recognize the image, I cannot find it here.

Basically it was a humanoid with few features, especially on the face. Instead, the head sported three long cones, two from where the ears would be, and one from the nose.

This image was widely featured in books I read in the 1970s and 80s. Anyone have any tips?

Maury Markowitz (talk) 16:30, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Don't tell anyone, but I am in fact an alien in disguise. So you can take mine, although I have only ordinary eyes and ears... Sorry, I couldn't resist. ;oD Yann (talk) 16:56, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Don't believe Yann. The selfies he is posting are retouched. He HAS three cones. ;) --Maxxl2 - talk 17:08, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Try Category:Aliens. --Túrelio (talk) 17:16, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Clearly the category does not contain the image in question. No one remembers this image? As I said, it was widely copied back in the day? Or am I just the oldest person here?! Maury Markowitz (talk) 16:06, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Maybe you mean the "Pascagoula monsters"? That's about the only one fitting your description that I could find. See here (scroll down), or just google the phrase in Google's image search. Seems to date back to 1973. There was even a book about it (co-authored by one of the abductees ;-), Ufo Contact at Pascagoula, ISBN 0960855866. Lupo 21:46, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

.P.S.: [1] Lupo 22:05, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

I'd say Lupo has it. There are multiple images of it at "Pascagoula Alien Abductors (Mississippi, USA)" on the American Monsters site. There are also Wikipedia articles at en:Pascagoula Abduction and three other languages, but no images there. --Closeapple (talk) 21:04, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

No descendants of author

Normaly we have to wait 70 years after an author died to use his works in PD. Theoreticaly you can ask his decendants permission, but it is nearly imposible to find the descendants. To find out when someone dies is already dificult enough, but to find out who his children where? But what happens if there are no children? This is the case of a catholic priest. I cannot be absolutely sure as he could have had a married life before being ordained, but it is very unlikely. His being 78 years old when he died in 1946, his parents have certainly died. Following inheritance rules some more distant relatives could inherit. The question is this: Does the 70 years rules for permission apply to a authors decendants or inheritors? The copyrigth 70 year rule is made to provide income for his decendants. My reasoning is that if there are no descendants the works are ipso facto in the public domain.Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:46, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

The specific case I am referring to is Commons:Deletion requests/Images of San Camillo (Milan) with the priest/architect (Spirito Maria Chiappetta). (see [2])Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:46, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't know about Italian law, but in some countries, the government (either local or federal) of the place where the person last lived inherits the copyright in such cases. That is why the copyright for Mein Kampf belongs to the state of Bavaria: Adolf Hitler's last official place of residence was in Munich. I believe that for people who lived in Austria, the copyright would belong to the federal government though. darkweasel94 11:55, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

In cases where the inheritance falls to the state it could be argued that as the state belongs to the citizens (we all own it and is public property), it is de facto in the public domain. Mein Kampf could be a special case as there is a strong public interest for the work not to be published.Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:08, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

The mere fact that a priest does not have descendants does not indicate that he died intestate. He could have executed a will and left all his worldly possessions to a charity or to the Church. Thus, this has to be ascertained in some way. Also, assuming that he did in fact die without executing a will and there is no relative to inherit his intellectual property, thus resulting in the state taking ownership of the property as bona vacantia, I'm not sure it can automatically be concluded that the property is thus in the public domain. As we know from the laws from various jurisdictions, what is owned by a government is not necessarily in the public domain. It depends on the law of the jurisdiction in question. For example, in Singapore the government asserts ownership of the copyright in certain works, and this does not mean that the works are thus in the public domain. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 12:24, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Governments often hold copyrights (even the US federal government, it holds copyrights that have been transferred to it), there is no case at all for saying that such works are PD. darkweasel94 13:10, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

I think, firstly, if descendants of a creator have inherited copyright, then yes, they could re-license the work using whatever license they chose. To your main question, I believe it is well established that in most jurisdictions the works of a dead creator do not enter the public domain upon the death of the creator. That is the specific reason for the "70 years after death" rules, and in some jurisdictions, even 100 years. Storkk (talk) 13:33, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

What is the purpose to protect the works for 70 years in these cases? I really see no logic if there are no descendants to protect. Public bodies have the obligation to work for the public good. By that logic they should give permission to use the work. If not they should explain why.Smiley.toerist (talk) 18:01, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

There's your mistake: you're looking for logic in copyright laws. Don't do that. --Carnildo (talk) 00:35, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

When the law becomes irrelevant you ignore it. As there are no legal "victims" who can claim damage, so no case will ever be brought to court.Smiley.toerist (talk) 21:03, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

No, we don't ignore it. Cheers! Storkk (talk) 13:55, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Wel there is nowadays a more wait and see attitude [3], as the foundation is protected from trolls and nuisance suits. So if the law has no logic, we can ignore it. The law has to serve the living, not the dead. They cant care.Smiley.toerist (talk) 22:47, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for that link, Smiley.toerist! The wording isn't crystal clear, but it seems to be discussing works that were in the Public Domain and then because of URAA had their copyrights restored (see the legal team's statement, which was linked from the page you pointed to). I may be wrong, but it is my understanding that this is not a URAA-related case, and that {{Not-PD-US-URAA}} wouldn't be applicable... thoughts? Storkk (talk) 10:43, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

It is the attitude of the foundation that counts. If no conceivable harm is done and there is no legal risk to Wikipedia, a less strict application of law can be envisaged. There is after all also a moral rigth to publisize as much of the old images as posible. It is our cultural heritage. The intention of the law is to protect all posible income from the artist works for his descendants.Smiley.toerist (talk) 19:28, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Category:License review needed images are now no longer free

I uploaded a whole bunch of images by en:Joey Lawrence (photographer) which were hosted at his 500px account. Only one image got reviewed. Since then, all the images in Category:Photographs by Joey Lawrence have been changed to a non-free license at source hosting site. Creative Commons licenses cannot be revoked, but the vast majority of these (great) images were not reviewed. Will they now all be deleted? - hahnchen 04:12, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

It seems File:Procession under Tuma by Joey L..jpg was uploaded on 25 March 2014 and the license is changed within two days. We usually entertain courtesy deletions if author requested within seven days. And we have no provision to assume whether the license was changed or not for the not-reviewed files. I suggest to contact the author first as a healthy practice prior to such uploads (even though it is not a mandatory requirement). Jee 04:38, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

He has a website where all his images can be found and i can notice a big "© Joey L. 2013. All rights reserved" at the bottom right corner....professional photographers rarely (if at all) release their images freely....I think it was an error on his part on 500px and thus he tried to fix the licence....--Stemoc (talk) 04:53, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Error or not, CC licenses cannot be revoked. Currently, the only freely licensed image left on his 500px portfolio is this which I have not uploaded. Not sure whether or not to upload it as an example of his work, or whether it'd just get deleted. - hahnchen 04:59, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Most legal actions (eg. granting a license) require intent. If the author did not intend for the work to be licensed under a Creative Commons license, then no amount of accidental tagging can make the work CC licensed. --Carnildo (talk) 00:38, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

I reviewed (and marked as failed) all other files and filed a DR. Jee 06:02, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

The deleted images at Category:Photographs by Joey Lawrence were uploaded in good faith with a suitable non-revocable license at the time. While I'm sure there are many erroneous flickrwashed style uploads, it was not the case here, I think it would have been better for all those images to go through a deletion process, and not to have them speedied. - hahnchen 17:56, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

• I strongly agree with Hahnchen. It sounds like many people here are jumping the gun, and acting as if they know why the images were once under a free license, only to have the IP rights holder try to claw back the rights they released. Yes, we consider courtesy deletion. We don't always grant courtesy deletion. I strongly agree that we shouldn't grant a courtesy deletion based on guesses as to the IP rights holder's motives. Geo Swan (talk) 20:07, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Apologies for not raising this issue sooner, but I have been in private contact with the copyright owner and the details are complicated. OTRS agents will be able to determine the copyright statuses for the images and handle this issue. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 06:35, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks; it is good if the author explicitly give the permission. Jee 06:50, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Those images had been available under a free license for about a month, the images at 500px were at a lower resolution and formed only a small subset of the photographer's portfolio found on his website. Before I uploaded the images, I verified that Joey L did in fact own the 500px account in question. I had concerns that some images may have been work-for-hire, his celebrity portraits were commissioned by the Screen Actors Guild and there are promotional images he took for Killing Lincoln and Kiling Kennedy. But given that he's still selling the images, I assumed that he had all the relevant rights. The photographer released the images under a non-revocable free use license, I've abided by the rules of that license. That licensing may have been a mistake, the questions to be asked are, whether of not I'm lying over these licenses, and whether or not we allow courtesy revocations. - hahnchen 17:56, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Nobody said you lied or even questioned your intentions. But we have established practices to make sure the license is perfectly valid without any doubts. And the concerns you made above makes the situation even worse. A CC license is only valid if the granter have those rights to grant. Somebody did a mistake is not an excuse for us to use it. BTW, it seems TeleComNasSprVen already contacted him; so our OTRS team can handle further steps and recommend to undelete if possible. Jee 02:59, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Any update TeleComNasSprVen? File:Procession under Tuma by Joey L..jpg has been deleted despite it having been reviewed, yet it is still available at 500px (now under a non-free license). I was hoping that we'd get some input from OTRS before that deletion occurred. The 500px account holder is the copyright holder to these images, is this just a courtesy revocation? I am now less likely to upload any third party images without Flickr bot's auto-review. - hahnchen 16:11, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

I was asked to responed to your last comment. The file had a review that is correct but the uploader changed his license two days after the review. This was a courtesy deletion since it was not clear if he actually had the intention to release his work under a free license. CC-licenses are not revocable but we must not forget the human part. People make mistakes and keeping this file only sounds like a technicle we got you now to me. We must not forget the human part in this. Natuur12 (talk) 19:36, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

• You write: "This was a courtesy deletion since it was not clear if he actually had the intention to release his work under a free license."

Okay -- but why shouldn't he have explained this to the commons' community at an ordinary deletion discussion, just like everyone else who requests a courtesy deletion?

Do OTRS team members have the authority to make speedy deletions based on what they learn through their confidential correspondence? I think they do -- but shouldn't those be very limited instances, where there is a compelling reason to keep the actual reasoning for the deletion confidential?

In this particular instance, isn't the IP rights holder a professional photographer -- not a vulnerable minor, or a vulnerable victim? So, really, was there any reason why the IP rights holder couldn't have made their own case for courtesy deletion, at a regular deletion discussion, with the only input required from the OTRS team being a confirmation that the individual claiming to be the IP rights holder actually was the IP rights holder? Geo Swan (talk) 20:09, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Independent OTRS note As someone not previously involved or interested, I have checked ticket:2014032710005592 and tidied the ticket history up slightly. There appears a credible error made and the circumstances in the email show that this may have been due to a misunderstanding of someone other than the photographer. The email discussion on OTRS is actually about fair use on the English Wikipedia rather than about a licence suitable for Commons.

Geo Swan is correct, OTRS volunteers have no special authority on Commons. However we all have an interest in respecting the dignity of uploaders, doing our best to respect the property of photographers and offering an environment where uploaders of original educational material can be reassured that the community will offer courtesy deletions in reasonable circumstances. This is a deletion made only a couple of days after upload and the circumstances of the error are on record on OTRS. I believe this makes it comfortably within the community's norms for courtesy deletion.

Hahnchen acted in good faith and can be thanked for their work to improve Commons. Natuur12 has acted in good faith based on the circumstances we now understand more about. This is a good case illustrating how courtesy deletions should work. If folks feel that courtesy deletions should have better guidelines around when DRs must be used and when they can be skipped as a courtesy, then I agree, that is something we should probably invest a bit of volunteer time into sorting out. --Fæ (talk) 20:48, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

PS I see from this note that my presumption based on Geo Swan's note that this was handled by speedies may be incorrect, however what is on OTRS is unchanged and my general point seems okay too. --Fæ (talk) 21:29, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) I think the first thing to do would be to require that all deletions, courtesy or otherwise, based on information in an OTRS ticket should explicitly reference the OTRS ticket number in the deletion summary. This gives transparency without releasing any confidential information. Similarly, courtesy deletions, however requested, should make it clear that the deletion was done as a courtesy to the photographer/artist/uploader. Whenever is file is contributed to Commons in good faith and then subsequently deleted, it should be trivially easy for the uploader to find out the reason for deletion. Thryduulf (talk) 21:36, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Inaccurate maps

What is the policy regarding inaccurate maps here? Are they deleted or kept for records? I don't see anything about inaccurate images at Commons:Deletion policy. I'm concerned about these two files: File:Devapala.jpg and File:Pala Empire (Dharmapala).gif - both are unsourced and inaccurate maps created by someone with an ethno-glorification agenda. While the images are no longer used in any articles, they do turn up when someone searches for "Pala empire map". Besides, now and then, someone tries adding these maps to the Wikipedia articles. Utcursch (talk) 19:12, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

I'd like to see a deletion request, so the community can decide. --Hedwig in Washington ^(mail?) 00:35, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Utcursch -- if there's a legitimate dispute between two different groups of historians etc., then the Commons solution is to keep images expressing both viewpoints, and leave it up to the individual language Wikipedias to decide which images to use. If there's a map which has a particular p[roblem in one area, then add {{Disputed map}}. If the map is completely worthless, with no conceivable legitimate use, then nominate for deletion... AnonMoos (talk) 01:46, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree with AnonMoos. Examples: Commons:Deletion requests/File:Hrvatske opcine u BiH.png - a map disputed for political reasons, kept. On the other hand Commons:Deletion requests/File:US President George H. W. Bush Presidential Trips.PNG - this map was plainly wrong and useless, deleted. Gestumblindi (talk) 00:12, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

March 29

Crimea Categories Template

This category contains files related to Crimea and/or to the city of Sevastopol. Note that the legal status of this region is currently disputed by Russia and Ukraine. According to the Russian law (Article 65 of the Constitution of Russia in the revision of March 21, 2014), the Republic of Crimea as well as the Federal City of Sevastopol are subjects of the Russian Federation. This status has not been recognized by the Ukrainian government and is internationally considered controversial. As long as there is no agreement between Russia and Ukraine on the legal status of Crimea and Sevastopol, this category should contain both Ukrainian and Russian parent categories. For example, the Category:Cities in Crimea should be included both in Category:Cities in Ukraine and in Category:Cities in Russia. You are kindly requested not to remove any of these categories. Thank you!

Following a discussion (mostly in english) on the Russian speaking Forum, there has been a proposal to introduce a template Template:Crimea notice created by the user A.Savin to be used in all Crimea categories for the time being as to avoid an edit war of if an image should belong to Ukraine or Russia. There have also been voices against it and user/admin User:Skeezix1000 has already started making use of it. Category policy should remain one of portraying the world from an possibly unpolitical de facto point of view; that is, to portray to the best of our judgement the current reality. That is the Crimean Republic now de facto exerts administrative de jure rights on crimean territory. The fact that this though is not recognised by many states leaves us with the template as the best solution so far. Also most discussion participants agreed to switch the discussion to the english speaking forum here as to include a broader audience; so the discussion over there has been closed there and the voting has been truncated not to have two same parallel discussions open. Here the copy of the fist voting for the use of the Template:Crimea notice template with categories under both Russia and Ukraine instead of Ukraine only:
--Walta (talk) 11:04, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

•  Support --Walta (talk) 18:11, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

•  Support--Yuriy Kvach (talk) 06:54, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

   Info According to en:United Nations General Assembly resolution 68/39 Crimea is the territory of Ukraine. The categories cannot be under both Russia and Ukraine. This is Ukraine only. The template is necessary, but must be changed. --Yuriy Kvach (talk) 07:25, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

  No. That's not as easy as you think. GA resolutions are not obligatory, and the fact is that Ukraine doesn't have any control over Crimea any longer; and in the future, the public life in Crimea will become more "Russian" than now. So, Commons cannot simply ignore facts. Do not also forget that this template is a good compromise to prevent inavoidable revert wars. Without it, we'll have user problems between Ukrainian and Russian "activists" nearly every week. Admins on Commons have better things to do than permanently mediate it. --A.Savin 08:56, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

  Do you think Russia has control over all your subjects? I don't think so. Most of Russian territories are under the control of local criminality, not Moscow. In the case of Crimea is same - it is under the control of local criminality, which supported by Russian troops. The categories must be supported by any official documents, not just your opinion. --Yuriy Kvach (talk) 09:09, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

  Ykvach, I think you confuse the commons with a political forum. Coupled with your canvassing ([4], [5], [6] etc) it looks ugly. Ю. Данилевский (talk) 09:24, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

  This was no canvassing. User just notified participants of discussion on Russian forum about the new place of discussion and didn't ask to take his side. --BaseSat (talk) 18:02, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

  So what? I don't understand what your latest statement may change. Regarding the crime, Ukraine surely will not be better than Russia, and following your logic, some regions of Mexico or Brazil must be independent states because they aren't being controlled by the state authorities. Which is rather ridiculous, so I don't see any reason for any further conversation with you (ack Yuriy; and you're obviously on a very certain political mission here on Commons). --A.Savin 15:14, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

•  Strong support Makes sense for now. --Hedwig in Washington ^(mail?) 20:05, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

•  Support, in principle, but I’d like to see two things dealt with in this regard:

1. What is the approach Commons use for other cases, less current, of territorial entities over which more than one sovereign State says «This is mine!»? (Category:Taiwan, Category:Kashmir, Category:Arica, Category:Olivenza, to mention but a mere few.)
2. Could the exact wording of the template be tweaked to make sure it sounds and feels 100% neutral hands-off strict-business uninvolved librarian talk? Because it isn’t exactly there yet.

-- Tuválkin ✉ 00:22, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Please clarify why don't you find the current text neutral, and what can be additionally done. --A.Savin 05:56, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

It is hard to pinpoint, and probably I should let it in the hands of English native speakers, but reading {{Crimea notice}} I could faintly imagine between the lines a shadow of smug moustache twirling Russian diplomacy at work (if you pardon my use of comical stereotypes). It may be the lack of any dates, the lack of any acknowledging of the 1954-2014 status, the mentioning of Russian law (but non of relevant Ukrainian legislation)…

I’d go for something terse and clear, leaving aside any misplaced ballast. Something like:

Crimea was been administered as an autonomous region within Ukraine since 1954 and through the latter’s independence in 1991. In 2014 it was unilaterally annexed by Russia.

And then follow the last paragraph of {{Crimea notice}}, which I find spot on.

-- Tuválkin ✉ 14:14, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

I'll see what I can do; but don't also forget that the text shouldn't be too long, otherwise no one will bother reading. --A.Savin 15:14, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

I think the originally proposed wording is far more neutral than Tuvalkin's proposal (which implies, through unilaterally annexed and such wording, who is right). I would however suggest also stating the constitutional status within Ukraine just beside the status within Russia. darkweasel94 15:23, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

«Unilaterally annexed» is strictly neutral and an objective assessment of the situation. It means that the annexation was not asked for, nor welcomed, by the hitherto administering power — nothing less, nothing more. By failing to mention the 1954-2014 status, the current wording of the template is gravely misleading; while users are expected to learn about current events from a wide array of sources and not just this one template, this detail about dates can be construed to be a naive attempt at obfuscation. Moreover, simply contrasting both countries’ official positions on the matter, instead of, or along with, a terse description as outlined above, will contribute to this kind of needless muddying. -- Tuválkin ✉ 15:49, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm not getting into Wikipedia-style debates about what is and what isn't most "neutral" here on Commons. If I may propose the following, which I hope satisfies everybody:

As Crimea and Sevastopol are claimed by both Russia and Ukraine, this category is located in both Russian and Ukrainian categories. Please do not remove either of these categories.

The point of the template is, after all, to inform people about why the category is in both category trees, not to give a detailed overview of the current (and much less, past) political situation on the peninsula — that's what Wikipedias are for and anybody interested in it can read about it there (and anybody who wants to debate the most neutral way to describe the situation can do so there too). "Claimed by both Russia and Ukraine" is strictly factual and doesn't say anything about recognition, legitimacy, legal status within either country, etc., none of which is necessary to understand why things are categorized the way they are. darkweasel94 16:06, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

 Support darkweasel text, It is much better than original. I would only add a link to en:2014 Crimean crisis in a rare case someone just wake up from hibernation and has no clue what is happening. --Jarekt (talk) 17:47, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

"Unilaterally" is far from neutral; it implies no one else supported Russia in the controversy, when there have been a fair amount of supporters on both sides. "[T]he annexation was not asked for, nor welcomed, by the hitherto administering power" - based on whose opinion was the annexation not welcomed? TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 17:32, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

TeleComNasSprVen, please pay attention:

1. "Unilaterally" refers to one of only two sides: The annexing side, and the annexed side. Even if Russia’s position had vast international support, the annexation would have still been unilateral.
2. I wrote that the annexation «was not asked for, nor welcomed, by the hitherto administering power» — said power being the goverment of Ukraine, both before and after the change in february. I weighted my words very well, having used the phrase "administering power" (which is what matters for the issue at hand), and not local government nor population, locally and elsewhere.

It is not a matter of opinion. -- Tuválkin ✉ 18:03, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

•  Support doing it this way, although I'm not sure a template is needed unless edit warring has actually occurred on the specific page. This is also the approach recommended by Commons:Disputed territories (although that is just an essay). I think everybody agrees that Crimea is a disputed territory right now, regardless of the specific importance of de facto status, international recognition, UN resolutions, validity of the referendum, etc. darkweasel94 14:36, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

•  Comment Agree with Tuvalkin that the wording seems not very neutral. I think the paragraph "According to the Russian law (Article 65 of the Constitution of Russia in the revision of March 21, 2014), the Republic of Crimea as well as the Federal City of Sevastopol are subjects of the Russian Federation. This status has not been recognized by the Ukrainian government and is internationally considered controversial." can be removed. Remaining seems enough and OK for the purpose. Jee 16:23, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

That also seems ok, although my wording is more concise and says the same thing. I don't think we should say much more about the actual situation in the template than "it's disputed". darkweasel94 16:30, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Exactly. We need not make any comment on who is right or wrong. Jee 16:37, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

I’m sure that the reference to the Russian constitution needs to be referenced to as «after the revision of March 21, 2014», not just «in the revision of March 21, 2014». -- Tuválkin ✉ 18:03, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

 Support Comment Perhaps we should more express that joining to RF wasn't supported by international community (current line seems to be tiny for me). Also if we have link to Russian law we should put link to Ukrainian one and UN's decision. But in general Wikimedia project should be neutral and show all opinions so it's OK for temporary doubling of parent categories. --BaseSat (talk) 18:02, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

•  Support for the template, but I prefer Darkweasel94's proposed wording: "As Crimea and Sevastopol are claimed by both Russia and Ukraine, this category is located in both Russian and Ukrainian categories. Please do not remove either of these categories.". Thryduulf (talk) 18:13, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

 Comment Now, after suggestions by Darkweasel and Jee, I'm willing to modify the template following way:

This category contains files related to Crimea and/or to the city of Sevastopol. Note that the legal status of this region is currently controversial. As Crimea and Sevastopol are claimed by both Russia and Ukraine (see 2014 Crimean crisis and Accession of Crimea to the Russian Federation), this category is located in both Russian and Ukrainian parent categories. Please do not remove either of these categories! Thank you.

If that's OK, feel free to implement the changes yourself. I'll be just sporadically active next couple of days. --A.Savin 18:59, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

This version seems fine for me — NickK (talk) 22:49, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

I would remove "Note that" (it doesn't add anything meaningful), and "disputed" seems like a better word than "controversial" IMHO. I'm being bold and changing the template now. (I am also subst'ing the template in this discussion because some parts of it, e.g. references to "the proposal above", make more sense that way.) darkweasel94 23:19, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

I think it would be good to make the template translatable. can someone do this? Holger1959 (talk) 23:32, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

 Support now. Jee 02:29, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

 Support now (2). José Luiz ^disc 02:42, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

 Strong oppose --- My stolen bike is still my bike. It is simple. The annexation of the Crimea does not change the borders. The annexation is a crime, great crime. BTW: Category "Culture of Russia by region" with category "Culture of Crimea" is sneer. Category "Post in Russia by region" with Ukrainian stamps also, etc. --- Bobek (talk) 16:26, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

 Comment Well Bobek, comparing Crimea with a bicycle is funny; and your statement with the culture snear reads like there has never been any multi-ethnicity in Crimea and no russian culture there neither, to which i fully disagree as Crimea had a history of many cultures and dominations. Sure, i agree secession was a crime against Title X of Ukraine constitution but read here http://rt.com/news/ukraine-crimea-parliament-government-056/ and follow up on http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2014/03/15/in-kiev-ukraine-parliament-axes-crimea/ There is no real "Crime" been done to some individual (so no stolen bicycle here), but as i already mentioned, to Title X of Ukraine constitution, therefore against the agreements with the Ukraine State. So before the Crimean territory could totally pass into [Uti possidetis] of the secessionist state (with help from Russia) the referendum had taken place where Crimeans could vote “yes” or “no” on whether the “Autonomous Republic of Crimea has state sovereignty and remains a part of Ukraine, in accordance with existing treaties and agreements.” And we know the outcome. Also U.N. Charter states that each country’s territorial integrity is inviolable but also that all people have a right to self-determination. So there is these two principles that conflict when an oppressed minority seeks to achieve self-determination by seceding from an existing state, in this case the Ukraine. The legal status of de facto states remains insofar always controversial: However, a recognition remains towards ius gentium and such states are normally awarded a limited international legal personality (including a responsibility for breaches of international law). The first sentence of Article 3 of the Montevideo Convention (1933) determined that "The political existence of a state is independent of recognition by other states.„ A similar opinion about "the conditions under which an area is considered as an own state" was also expressed in 1991 by the European Economic Community Badinter Arbitration Committee; which determined that you can define a state, an entity that has an area, population, and a government. So therefore i remain with the opinion the template option is best solution so far and would also agree to a similar template for the Kosovo. --Walta (talk) 01:28, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

 Support also with the revised template. I would maybe use a smaller lettering though, so as not to use to much place on the top of pages where users will apply it. --Walta (talk) 01:28, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

•  Comment May I suggest a further-information link in the template to an essay I wrote: Commons:Disputed territories? --99of9 (talk) 01:45, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

 Supportseems like a sensible step.--KTo288 (talk) 09:54, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Relicense all my content

Over the years I've uploaded various images under different licences for no particular reason. Is there a convenient way to relicense them all? I basically want to update them to whatever is the current preferred licence, and am happy to be as unrestrictive as possible. Stevage (talk) 23:30, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

You can try COM:AWB to do a mass search-and-replace. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 23:46, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Sorry; you can't revoke a license already granted. It is because to protect the interests of the existing reusers, if any. The only thing you can do is to add more licenses if you prefer so. And you need not have to advertise the old license prominently as earlier. Raymond has some good tricks to accomplish it. I too updated some of my very old licensed works with latest one; but not nice as Raymond did. You can use bulk edit tools like VFC to do so. Jee 02:51, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

If authors replace their own CC-BY-SA by CC-BY, or CC-BY by one of the PD variants including CC0, it's no serious problem, or is it? Some reuses under the older more restrictive license would still fit under the new CC-BY or CC0. A really small note on the page could explain "what" happened; the edit history is good enough for "when". –Be..anyone (talk) 10:15, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

They seem not make any issue as there is no "revocation of any right". But a change to version 2.0 to 3.0 or 4.0 make some reusers in trouble. Switching from FAL to CC BY-SA or vise versa is also seems not acceptable so far as they didn't officially list it under compatible licenses. (Disclaimer: INAL). (I checked one of his old file and is multi licensed GFDL, CC BY-SA-3.0, CC BY-2.5) Jee 10:45, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

ACK, legit reuses shouldn't need a lawyer to figure out if everything is still as it should be. –Be..anyone (talk) 10:58, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

@Stevage: , you can use COM:VFC to append a licence to your own photos. If you want it to be as unrestrictive as possible, you may wish to release them under {{CC-0}}, which is releasing them into the public domain. If you choose CC-0, you can remove other licencing if you wish. Just be aware of that releasing into public domain means relinquishing all rights that you may have in terms of copyright. russavia (talk) 03:07, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes; russavia is right. But remember CC 0 is not part of the recommended CC licenses, due to its poor handling of author's moral rights. So make sure do you really want to use it. Jee 03:24, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Not correct. The reason CC-0 is not listed there is because it is not a licence, but rather a statement of release of all of your rights (in terms of copyright). It has absolutely nothing to do with moral rights. Let's not confuse the poor chap by feeding them incorrect info :) russavia (talk) 03:29, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Hahaha; attribution is part of moral rights in an extended sense. Read CC discussion forums, if you have doubts. :) Jee 03:35, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Frankly, I don't need to read any forums. It is pretty obvious what releasing into the public domain actually means as per this. And one thing that you lose when you release works into the public domain is the right to be attributed for your work. So it doesn't handle moral rights poorly, as you state, because you actually waive the right to be attributed under CC-0. It's actually very simple and very, very logical. Anyway, that's last comment from me in this regard; @Stevage: , if you decide to use {{CC-0}}, but need help to do the change of licence on your files, there are people who would be willing to help you with this; in the event you have thousands of photos (sorry, I haven't looked). russavia (talk) 03:41, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

"And one thing that you lose when you release works into the public domain is the right to be attributed for your work." For all I know, this could be correct in some countries, but it certainly isn't the case everywhere. Blue Elf (talk) 00:07, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses, all. One thing I have learnt from many hours searching the web for my images is that the supposed "right to attribution" isn't worth much. I'd estimate around 10% of reuses of my image actually give me any attribution (a few more credit "Wikipedia"). I'm happy to give that up, and replace it with "Credit is appreciated, but not required." I'll give both AWB and VFC a go. Stevage (talk) 08:05, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Although a change from a cc-by-sa license type to a cc-by type of the same version is possible the easiest way for a license change is to add the new less-restrictive license. This way we keep the old license and have a less restrictive new license so re-users may be sure they used the correct license in their older works + the option to use a less restrictive license for newer works. A Bot work may be tricky as the contributions show some maps from openstreetmap which shouldn't be changed. --Denniss (talk) 11:20, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

March 31

User:Ser Amantio di Nicolao

I'm not really sure how to word this so that no one is offended by it, especially Ser Amantio di Nicolao. I just proposed deletion for a few of the photos he has uploaded and while doing so I went to his talk page to notify him. I noticed that it is covered in deletions and the like. Many of which are for things that are out of scope. In one case he appears to have uploaded over 400 photos of questionable quality to a category that they may or may not have been relevant to.

Anyhow. After all of this, I was going to go to the Admin notice board and ask that he be blocked, or to have someone explain to me why we shouldn't, but then I noticed that he has uploaded a few gems. A reasonable number of photos (87) he has uploaded are actually in use on the English Wikipedia as well. Though that number pales in comparison to the total he has uploaded (1197). Can anyone help me determine what is the proper action to take here, if anything? Zellfaze (talk) 19:45, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Circa the end of November 2013, a problem with many files he transferred from flickr was discussed (see archive) but seemed settled. Possibly some of those files are still being found, now and then, and nominated for deletion. But did you notice any serious problem with files he transferred *since then*? If so, please provide examples. If not, there is probably no problem. Is the count of 1197 the number of flickr transfers through the upload bot? Where can that information be found? Is there a way to have a list of flickr transfers made by one user through the upload bot? If it refers to the files uploaded with his own account, they do not seem to have been disputed. The proportion of files used on a Wikimedia project does not matter much, as long as the files are fine for Commons. -- Asclepias (talk) 20:58, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

The count was provided by a tool on Toolserver I believe. I don't remember which one. I didn't link to it because the data was passed via POST not GET. I'll see if I can hunt it down again. I have a deletion request at the moment for a number of, what I believe to be, out of scope photos of K-Mart, though it has been disputed whether or not they are. They were uploaded in November, so if those are from then, then I have no further issues. I just wanted to make sure that everything was settled. I only mentioned the proportion of files used on Wikimedia projects to show to anyone unfamiliar that I definitely think that he has uploaded some quality material, though there has also been a lot of cruft. Zellfaze (talk) 13:00, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Please don't waste too much time looking for the counter. I was more interested to know if there was some way to get a list of the files transferred by a user with the upload bot. The idea being to get a general picture of the situation about the files transferred by the user and allow a review, if someone wants to do it. -- Asclepias (talk) 14:50, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

• I went to the deletion discussion, and found the nomination raised some questions that I thought merited wider discussion.

My main concern was that I don't think we have any policy that authorizes capping the number of images we have on particular topics. I offered the examples of:

Category:Statue of Liberty	1270 images
Category:CN Tower	628 images
Category:Eiffel Tower	several thousand images

No one has suggested we should cap these iconic and frequently visited and photographed structures at 100, or 1000 images. In my opinion the number of images of these iconic images shouldn't be capped.

Should we cap the number of images of less iconic structures? If so, under what criteria? I may be mistaken on this, but I suggested, in the deletion discussion, that there is no explicit policy authorizing enforcing caps on the number of images of any topic.

I think we could introduce a new policy intended to cap topics, but it would require a lot of discussion, and, if it is not broken, why fix it? Geo Swan (talk) 22:10, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Category:Free software

That should not have been moved to Category:Open source software. That's not the same thing [7]. Wikidata also has d:Q341 for the former and d:Q39162 for the latter. --Ricordisamoa 21:23, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Is that you, RMS? Politics aside, free software and open source software are simply not clearly distinguishable categories and most people recognize them as synonyms. We do ourselves no service by trying to maintain two separate categories for them.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:22, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

They can have different meanings, but I don't know that the distinction has much usefulness for Commons categorizations... AnonMoos (talk) 03:40, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

de:Vorlage:commonscat or en:Template:commonscat could prefer other ideas nearer to the new Interwiki freesoft:. In this case they'll manage, but not very useful here isn't the same as useless. –Be..anyone (talk) 06:54, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

If we can't rely on the distinction to be maintained, couldn't we rename the category as Category:Free and open source software and add a small text on the category page explaining the distinction and why we don't try to make that distinction in a Commons category? - Jmabel ! talk 15:13, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Good idea. The distinction is important to some people, and explaining why we've merged the categories could reduce conflict. --Avenue (talk) 19:35, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

As an unreformed Stallmanite myself, I'm one of the people who sees a distinction and considers it important. Free and Open Source Software, with a quick explanation of the difference, seems to me to be a good compromise. Zellfaze (talk) 13:06, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Wikimedia is not an English website. "Free and Open Source Software" is an English expression. Category:Logiciel libre is not an option for the same reason. genium ⟨✉⟩ 22:21, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

There is a naming convention for this wording, it contains related categories such as Free software by name, Free software by genre, etc. Note that Open source software is an English term while Free software seems universal, we say Logiciel libre in French, Software libre in Spanish, etc. Best regards. genium ⟨✉⟩ 22:21, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Wikimedia Commons is not an English website, but English is the main language on Commons for content that can’t be localized due to technical restrictions (e. g. category names). COM:C and COM:LP say: ‘Category names should generally be in English’. I support the FOSS proposal as a correct naming is more important than having a rather universal, but misleading name. --ireas (talk) 23:27, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

April 1

Changes to the default site typography coming soon

 Opt-out: Typography refresh

This week, the typography on Wikimedia sites will be updated for all readers and editors who use the default "Vector" skin. This change will involve new serif fonts for some headings, small tweaks to body content fonts, text size, text color, and spacing between elements. The schedule is:

• April 1st: non-Wikipedia projects will see this change live
• April 3rd: Wikipedias will see this change live

This change is very similar to the "Typography Update" Beta Feature that has been available on Wikimedia projects since November 2013. After several rounds of testing and with feedback from the community, this Beta Feature will be disabled and successful aspects enabled in the default site appearance. Users who are logged in may still choose to use another skin, or alter their personal CSS, if they prefer a different appearance. Local common CSS styles will also apply as normal, for issues with local styles and scripts that impact all users.

For more information:

• Summary of changes and FAQ
• Discussion page for feedback or questions
• Post on blog.wikimedia.org

-- Steven Walling (Product Manager) on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation's User Experience Design team

#firstHeading { font-family: "Linux Libertine",Georgia,Times,serif; }

Please tell me that's an April fool hoax. mate2code 19:45, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

I guess they don't merge april fools into mediawiki core. Because I lack time and I couldn't find any official advice how to get the old style back, I copied mw:User:Cathfolant/typographyrefreshoverride.css to my User:Rillke/vector.css. If more than 25 users support creation of a deactivation gadget, I would be inclined investing some time into its creation. -- Rillke^(q?) 20:30, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

@Rillke: I discussed the idea of creating a gadget to disable Typography Refresh with @Steinsplitter on IRC earlier today, so please count us in. Only 23 users left to meet your threshold! ;-) odder (talk) 17:50, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

No community consensus through RfC required? -- Rillke^(q?) 19:25, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

I really tried to get used to it, I really did, but in the end I copied over the personal css. Bawolff (talk) 21:14, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for that, works for me, but today's work (6 hours of it) has been made somewhat arduous as a result of this change, and if it is a joke, sorry, I don't get it. Rodhullandemu (talk) 20:48, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Its not a joke (Deployed on April 1 because April 1 is a Tuesday, and the previous weeks work of code updates get deployed to non-wikipedia sister projects every Tuesday). There is a previous post on the VP about this by Odder if you scroll up a little bit Look in the archives (There's been actually quite a bit of back and forth about the font choice on the developer mailing lists for people who are interested). As for April fools jokes - the last good one was in 2010. Bawolff (talk) 02:24, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T65408

Would it be possible to increase text size in all the textboxes of Special:UploadWizard so that they are similar in appearance to other text as it is now? Thanks. YLSS (talk) 09:26, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

• New typography imho is just awful. Ю. Данилевский (talk) 19:34, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Something must be wrong with me, I like it. :-/ --Dschwen (talk) 21:27, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

I like it too. Much easer to read on this hi-res monitor. Saffron Blaze (talk) 22:48, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

I really hate it. It hurt my eyes. Natuur12 (talk) 19:55, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

I really really hate it. New fonts are really awful for non-latin languages. — Revi_complaint? 06:53, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Looks like the body font (not the headers) may get changed back on tuesday [8]. Other aspects of typography refresh are staying. Bawolff (talk) 15:09, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Wrong description?

A reader wrote on ru.wiki that this photo - File:Nizhnyaya Tunguska Reka 01.jpg - has wrong filename and incorrect description: this is not the w:Nizhnyaya Tunguska River, but its right tributary - Severnaya. Here are some photos from Panoramio to prove this point: [9], [10], [11]. Do we have to rename the file and remove it from all the articles where it was placed? Thanks, Sealle (talk) 04:50, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Renaming would be helpful. Just use this: {{rename|newname.jpg|3}}. The article should also reflect the corrections, either by deleting the image there or better improve the article. --Hedwig in Washington ^(mail?) 13:27, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

 Renamed. -- Tuválkin ✉ 16:01, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, but you have also to change the description. Moreover, it says the original description is on Flickr. But no mention of Severnaya on Flickr for that pic (or I missed it). The next one who comes around might want to change the name back in this case. --Amga (talk) 16:33, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

I assumed good faith from both Sealle and the reader he quoted. -- Tuválkin ✉ 03:20, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Um, renaming was an easy piece of work which I could do myself. All this was about a couple dozens articles where the image still remains. Sealle (talk) 16:46, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Ummmm, you should know that Commons doesn’t editorialize, and surely not cross-project. Changes of legend text and/or replacing or removing this photo in Wikipedia articles should be discussed in the articles’ talk pages. -- Tuválkin ✉ 03:20, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

To notify users on the other projects would be nice, though. --LPfi (talk) 10:11, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Lots of free historic New York maps

Category:NYPL maps

First upload test, using the NYPL API. A "mapp" of America dating from 1690.
5,176 × 5,531 pixels, 82MB

See here Is anyone uploading these? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:28, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Not sure, looks like a bot-job to me. Man! So many maps! And all CC! :)) --Hedwig in Washington ^(mail?) 13:29, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

We need to create a category for these really fast, before people start adding them willy-nilly. I agree that this should definitely be a bot's job, as it'd be rather tedious to do manually. --Nicereddy (talk) 04:20, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

I have uploaded quite a few historic global maps and I would be happy to sort out this small batch upload over the next week or two. A project page has been started at Commons:Batch uploading/NYPL Maps, chip in with opinions or suggestions there. Off the top of my head I do not know what to do about the KML files that volunteers have created for these maps, suggestions or example previous cases on-Commons would be useful. --Fæ (talk) 08:07, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

A metadata mapping is set up, an ingestion template created, and I am (finally) into the API which appears to include links to the highres scan (where it exists). Unfortunately the API does not include file information such as size, and so this may be complicated, and rather wasteful, as I will have to download 100MB+ files just to discover if they are over 100MB and can't be uploaded... Oh well, I have written to NYPL about it, and I will get some uploads started over the next week so long as there are no major hiccups.

The GWToolset may not have the 100MB problem, which seems a good reason to test it out on this batch. I have asked for the relevant NYPL sub-domain to be allowed to be used by the tool. I don't know how tricky generating a suitable xml file would be, or how difficult the template mapping will be, so no promises but if it works it should be a lot faster than me doing these in dribs and drabs on my Macmini on my home broadband.

How you can help I notice that many of the maps seem to have odd orientation, sometimes the scans are even upside down, while others need cropping as they include colour panels and excessive borders from the scanner. Rotatebot can rotate those under 20MB, they just need to be marked. For images over this size, you may need to use your own image editor to rotate or crop. --Fæ (talk) 11:24, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

GWToolset should upload files up to 1GB in size (However, the XML metadata file must be under 100MB). Bawolff (talk) 19:47, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Request for a Commons chunk-uploader written in Python

In relation to the maps uploads, many of these files are over 100MB tiffs and it takes about 5 to 10 minutes each time to discover that the file is too big (as the NYPL API does not have this information to read in advance). I have not got a working uploader that uses the Commons API for uploading by chunks. If anyone fancies getting a working example running (in a standard Python installation) and publishing it for re-use, I would be very appreciative, as I have no easy work-around apart from uploading one at a time; and there just are not enough hours in the day for that to be realistic. --Fæ (talk) 23:20, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

April 3

2 images that look very similar, one has 5 times larger filesize

Hi there! We probably only want one of these two images but I don't know which one. The files are File:DRA-Dachterrasse.jpg and File:DRA-Trier-1.jpg. Palosirkka (talk) 07:04, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Big picture has a much smaller jpeg-compression. Look high magnification sharp edges such as the right corner of the table. Ю. Данилевский (talk) 09:23, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Right. Here's two more twins, File:M Gallo Garden.jpg and File:M Gallo.jpg. Palosirkka (talk) 07:11, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

RfC on metadata licensing

Per the previous thread here (which just had time to get archived before I wrote this) I've started an RfC on the issue of metadata/description licensing. In part I also turned it into an RfC because discussions on this was happening in several different venues and focusing on slightly different issues. Please give the link to anyone who might have a stake in this but is unlikely to keep up with the fast pace of the Commons Village pump. /André Costa (WMSE) (talk) 08:37, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Single image categories

I work in speedy deletions. During last couple of days I have seen speedy deletion requests for categories with reason "single image category". Single image galleries are deleted, this is even standard reason for speedy deletion. But categories? I have not done anything so far in that matter: I have not deleted single image categories, but I have not reverted the requests either. But speedy deletion requests for single image categories disappear: that means, somebody does something with the requests. What should I do next time? Taivo (talk) 11:09, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

There are many single image categories for objects of WLM or animal/plants species, which should contain (in ideal) appropriate templates and registered in wikidata. IMHO deletion it is wrong way. Ю. Данилевский (talk) 11:49, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Such categories exist not just for the single image but also for any future images that may be so categorised, they should be kept Oxyman (talk) 13:25, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

 Agree I deleted some categories in the past and got hit over the head (for good reason). I think: When in doubt, don't delete, remove speedy-tag. --Hedwig in Washington ^(mail?) 15:06, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure about animal/plant species categories, if there are templates etc. But over the years I've nominated a couple of person categories that contained only one image. E.g. here it's rather annoying to have around 60 single-image subcats, so it's needed to navigate into each of these to browse the images instead of having them in one category. For many of these it's unlikely that there will be additional photos in near future or ever. We could easily recreate these categories when they are of more use. 193.40.10.180 17:37, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

well please stop such nominations, I see no benefit in having a single general category full of images over one that has properly categorised images under relevant title. You provide no reason why "it's unlikely that there will be additional photos" presumably you can see into the future or something in order to make this statement. I see categories for politicians, why should they not be likely to be newsworthy and hence attract photography and consequent uploads here? I also have to say that if you find navigating between categories "rather annoying" then you are too easily annoyed, you do still have to option to use the search box. I can't see how commons can ever satisfy people who are so easily annoyed, I think damaging someone else's decent work categorising images in order to avoid yourself being annoyed is rather self centred Oxyman (talk) 18:37, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Well, I haven't nominated many of such categories and I haven't bothered to do so for a while. Just pointing it out that I see why you encounter such nominations. It's just my experience that it's rather hard to get free photographs of living people on Wikipedia. Indeed I can't prove or guarantee that there won't be new photos of these people in near future. I obviously say rather annoying because I believe that I'm not the only reader or Commons user that prefers to see categories more easily navigatable (the benefit you don't see). 193.40.10.180 19:16, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

One image categories are less useful than bigger ones, but they shouldn't be deleted unless a clear policy is approved about it. Specially they shouldn't be speedy deleted since they are potentially controversial - at least, the user who created them thinks they should exist.

Developing tools to see images in all subcategories of a given category could be a very better approach. In fact, the new "quality images" button is a great step in this direction.--Pere prlpz (talk) 08:45, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

I confess that I´m one of the people who have created a lot of single image categories, comparable to the ones mentioned by 193.40.10.180 above (though not Estonian but German politicians). I felt justified by COM:PEOPLECAT (For notable people, it's generally worth creating a specific category ... "Notable people" are usually those with many images depicting them at Commons or with a Wikipedia article about them...), where "or" leads to the assumption that categories are ok regardless of the number of pictures if the person has an article. And I found it worth doing so because (1) specific objects (people, buildings...) are easier to find and sort by category than by file, (2) the commonscat-link in the Wikipedia-article increases the chance that future additional pictures will be categorized correctly (3) object-related and image-related categorization is separated. But I would prefer larger categories with less subdivisions for all "visual" categories: Category:Men with moustache and striped tie would IMHO be fine for deletion, if it contained only one image (or even just a few), while Category:Franz Löffler should be kept. --Rudolph Buch (talk) 09:50, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Notification of DMCA takedown demand - Southern-baptist-convention.svg

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):

• File:Southern-baptist-convention.svg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

To discuss this DMCA takedown, please go to COM:DMCA#Southern-baptist-convention.svg. Thank you! Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 21:55, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Bad link on "Help portal"

"Help portal" under the logo currently links to https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Help:Contents. This is apparently determined by a MediaWiki default at MediaWiki:Helppage. An admin can create the page to change the link. Also discussed at w:Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Sidebar "Help" link broken. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:20, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

April 4

Copyright watermarks

Hello, not sure if I should post this here or on the Administrators' noticeboard, but I don't think an admin is required yet. The user Ultra7 recently uploaded many pictures (about 68, which are stunning by the way) with a watermark claiming copyright. I contacted him via User talk:Ultra7. He suggests to leave them this way as this is not illegal, I beleive they should be cropped.

Before cropping those files, I think its for the best to ask other people what is usually done in this kind of situation. Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you! --SamuelFreli (talk) 16:58, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Here's a sample of one of the images in question - File:Clifford's Tower (13133442224).jpg. As you can see, they're perfectly valid uploads, sourced by me from Flickr. The issue here appears to be that SamuelFreli has not understood that the author is still the copyright holder even if they release images on CC licences - using a copyright symbol in a watermark is not the same as invoking 'all rights reserved', it's merely the way you identify yourself as the copyright holder. He also doesn't appear to be familiar with Commons:Watermarks - despite what the template {{Watermark}} claims, the status of these sorts of author marks - visible but not destructive or promotional - is not settled at all. They are not currently considered acceptable or unacceptable. That's not to say I object to them being removed, I don't. I'm more concerned that SamuelFreli might be giving people bad advice over what they can or should be doing with such uploads - or worse, telling people they can't upload them at all, which is just wrong. Ultra7 (talk) 19:12, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

I never said those files should be deleted or against the rules, I'm just looking for a way to improve them. As explained on Commons:Enforcing license terms : Do not add visible watermarks to your images, such as printing your name in the corner. These will be removed as they affect image quality. I understand you want to show you're the author, but this is not the best way, I'm suggesting you other ways. --SamuelFreli (talk) 20:00, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Presuming Ultra7 is uploading other people's work from Commons that happens to have watermarks, I see nothing wrong with what he's doing. Is that not the case here? - Jmabel ! talk 21:10, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm not the author, I just sourced them from Flickr. It's not clear what you're saying really. All I know is, none of these pages: Commons:Enforcing license terms, Commons:EXIF or Template:Watermark are actual policy. Commons:Watermarks is a proposed policy, and it says marks like these are neither acceptable or unacceptable, they are merely (Discouraged). Which to me only means that you can remove them if you want, but you shouldn't be telling other people to remove them, or worse, telling them not to upload images with them in. According to Commons:Watermarks, you shouldn't even be tagging them, you should only tag images with (Not acceptable) marks. Ultra7 (talk) 21:51, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

You seem to be agreeing angrily. There is nothing wrong with uploading other people's watermarked images from Commons. If SamuelFreli wants to fix that with cloning or cropping, he can make other versions. - Jmabel ! talk 23:25, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

I have to admit I didn't realize you weren't the author. Therefore, I'll crop them to remove the watermarks on your photos. I thought you started using those watermarks and tried to help you avoiding using them, my mistake. Thanks for clarifying! --SamuelFreli (talk) 12:31, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Like I said, I'm fine with that - but if you see similar marks like this in future, don't tell those people they have to crop the images or even tag the images - it is not policy to do that. Ultra7 (talk) 13:13, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

thats your own view - but a very one-sided one and certainly no consense of the community. Watermarks of all kinds are officially (with some restrictions on paintings etc.) not wanted in any Commons image. That means any watermark can (and will at least after some time) be removed. All licenses accepted by Commons allow for such modifications. Minor edits such as frame and watermark removal do not call for new versions, but simply for removal. Commons does use other means for attribute authorship as visible texts inside images. - Andy king50 (talk) 17:49, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

It's not my personal view, it's a basic fact. If you try and stop anyone from uploading an image to Commons because it has a watermark in it that is not destructive and not promotional, or if you try and remove them by over-writing in the face of objections, you're going to find out pretty quickly that you don't have any support for that in policy, and thus you won't be reflecting any official stance. Those kinds of watermarks are merely discouraged, and that is only the view of a proposed policy. If you don't really understand the implications of that sentence, you need to stay right away from this area. Ultra7 (talk) 16:06, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

" All licenses accepted by Commons allow for such modifications. " No, this has recently come up as a legal grey area 8-(

• We do not like watermarks or embedded copyright banners, but that is not the same thing as saying that we do not permit such watermarks or banners.

Also please note that much content at Commons is still in copyright. It must be freely licensed as well, but the two things are not the same. Much of our content is legitimately still someone else's copyright, and they are quite at liberty to watermark images to indicate this. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:37, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

And wait for official replies, if any. :) Jee 03:24, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

April 5

In-browser solution for recording and uploading audio files

Hi! At the Swedish language Wiktionary, we're considering creating a tool that enables users to easily upload new pronunciation files. It would work like this:

1. enable a "pronunciation recording" gadget
2. go to an entry without pronunciation audio
3. click a "record" icon to start recording
4. do very simple editing, such as cutting off the beginning and end
5. confirm the suggested filename (the tool suggests a filename based on the entry and language section)
6. add information about the speaker: gender and origin (will be remembered till next time)
7. confirm/change the suggested categories
8. accept license terms (it seems simplest to require CC-BY-SA 3.0 and GFDL)
9. upload the file to Commons as an Opus file
10. add the pronunciation guide to the entry

My questions:

• Is there a utility that already does steps 4 and/or 9? It only has to work in Opus-supporting browsers (Firefox & Chrome).
• Should files recorded and uploaded with this new tool be marked somehow, with text, template or category?
• Are there any other considerations? I'm assuming test uploads are okay, as long as I mark them for deletion afterwards.

Skalman (talk) 05:58, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

For your info, bugzilla:46610 might be related. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 16:22, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

I believe User:Rillke was also planning to do something similar. You should maybe coordinate with him. Bawolff (talk) 17:49, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Bawolff. I was off for a week and attended several software-related conferences. I am going to talk with Skalman and notify all the remaining Wiktionaries and well as Commons very soon. -- Rillke^(q?) 20:09, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Two people with a same account

Hi, I have a question about Wikimedia Commons. Can two people upload images with a same account ? 89.217.24.240 22:30, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

• They're not supposed to. They should each open their own account. - Jmabel ! talk 23:45, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Is it forbidden ? 89.217.24.240 23:51, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
    • Yes, multiple people using the same account will eventually get blocked and much of their could be listed as copyright violation as we would not be able to distinguish whether the uploader is the rights holder Gnangarra 02:57, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Why would somebody want to do that? Palosirkka (talk) 18:21, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Often in practice only one person in a household knows how the site works, while others contribute more seldom, perhaps by letting the one person upload their photos. For us, who need to be confident about authors and licensing consent, such arrangements are problematic, but for people who do not understand those problems, a shared account is an easier solution than sending OTRS mail.

Also for associations and firms it feels natural to have a single account, managed by whomever is responsible for such questions for the moment. Having accounts tied to people who are ill, go on vacation or leave the firm (perhaps for a competitor) may feel less safe.

--LPfi (talk) 15:54, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Awful new font

• The new font for headlines is unsuitable for headlines, especially because of its design of numbers.
• Furthermore it makes any reader feel to have awoken in a passed century.--Ulamm (talk) 02:19, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

If you scroll up, on April 1st, there is a red link titled "Opt-Out: Typography Refresh"....click on that, follow the instructions and you can opt-out of the new font on commons..I like the new font but i still opted out because its OK on content pages, but it messes my Watchlist ..--Stemoc (talk) 02:52, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

automatic nummering

The copy function of the file name can go wrong. File:Viering 150 jaar HTM.JPG, File:Viering 151 jaar HTM.JPG etc until File:Viering 156 jaar HTM.JPG. For a 150 years celebration thats not the intention. Should be: File:Viering 150 jaar HTM 01.jpg, File:Viering 150 jaar HTM 02.jpg etc.Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:21, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

@Smiley.toerist: You can request renaming of files, if you want.--Pere prlpz (talk) 15:35, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Usefulness, authenticity and claimed sources of musician/album/song logo files

I notice that this user has uploaded a large number of "logo" files.

These issues relate to accuracy (versus what they are meant to represent), copyright status and claimed origins. I'll concentrate on some files as an example

Firstly, all seem to claim "own work". If these are derived from the original artwork- but the logo's simplicity excludes it from being copyrightable- surely they should be "pd-textlogo" rather than "own work"?

This "cover" doesn't appear to be the actual cover, which can be seen here. In short, it doesn't appear to be accurate. So, should it be kept?

This "logo" for "When I Look At You" by Miley Cyrus appears to have a photographic background. Is this the photo from the original logo or artwork? If so, it's probably a copyvio (doesn't fall under "simple shapes" or "text logo" exclusion). If not, then (a) does the "own work" claim cover the background photo and (b) is this another fan-created "approximation" of the original artwork? Doing a Google Image search on the release, I can't find any official artwork that resembles this, so is it just a "free" alternative to the original artwork to make articles look prettier?

This is the (actual, non-free) cover for single "The Climb". This is the "own work" free version of the logo. It's probably not a copyvio because it's just simply text (i.e. pd-textlogo), and one could argue whether it's really the uploader's "own work". But does it actually represent the artwork anyway?

Which version- if any- of the Cosmopolitan magazine logo is this meant to represent. (AFAICT, Cosmopolitan has used a sans-serif logo since the mid-60s relaunch that gave us the magazine we know today). If the answer is "none, but it's free", then there's no point. Besides which, the real Cosmopolitan logo would be free as a "pd-textlogo" anyway... having quickly checked, yes, others have already uploaded it on that basis.

Most of these probably *aren't* copyvios. But the question is, what are they for if they're not accurate representations of the non-free thing they're standing in for? And even if they are, how meaningful a representation are the logos taken in isolation?

Maybe I'm making too big a deal of this, but I'd like to know others' thoughts!

Ubcule (talk) 15:30, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

There is no harm in placing "own work" banner on "pd-textlogo" image. Copyright law is often ambiguous and there may exist jurisdictions where text logos may be considered copyrighted. As to the accuracy of logos, it is an issue only for the Wikipedia articles that use them, not for Commons. Commons is just a repository of files. Ruslik (talk) 17:00, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Regarding your comment "There is no harm in placing "own work" banner on "pd-textlogo" image", I'm afraid I can't agree with that. I believe that we should always try to be clear about *why* an image is free.

You say that "Copyright law is often ambiguous and there may exist jurisdictions where text logos may be considered copyrighted".

Surely that *strengthens* case for licensing and origins to be labelled correctly? Although "pd-self" and "pd-textlogo" may have the same effect in jurisdictions where "pd-textlogo" is valid, it is misleading in countries where "pd-textlogo" is not valid. (A user there may believe they are using a freely-licensed personal creation, rather than a non-free logo).

Obviously, it's impossible for file uploaders for and creators of templates to account for all possible legal jurisdictions. (I certainly wouldn't suggest that). And, as you say, copyright law is often vague. However, at least it makes the basis of the case clearer if the rationale for claiming an image is "free" is correctly stated in a standard, plain manner (preferably via a standardised template).

Regarding the logos; yes, I understand that Commons doesn't judge images in use at other Wikis (assuming they're not copyvios). However, File:23 Cover - Mike Will Made It.png *isn't* in use anywhere. It's just an inaccurate (non-)reproduction of the cover. If (say) I created my own free cover that looked *nothing* like the original- say with a smiling cartoon millipede on it(!!!)- of course that wouldn't be acceptable on Commons, as it would serve no educational purpose.

Ubcule (talk) 20:36, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Changes that don't pass de minimus?

The 1906 building at 95 Berkeley Street, Toronto has been recommended for a heritage designation. A report from city staff reproduces some rare old maps, where arrows pointing to the building's plot have been added, or the location highlighted. Am I correct to interpret the arrows as not passing de minimus, and that the derived images remain in the public domain? Geo Swan (talk) 19:23, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

1. File:Detail from Goad's Atlas 1913, showing the locations of Christie Brown's biscuit factory and stables in downtown Toronto in 1913.jpg
2. File:Detail from Goad's Atlas 1903, showing the future location of the Christie Brown stables at 95 Berkeley.jpg

Both should be fine, IMHO --Hedwig in Washington ^(mail?) 20:53, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Changes to file description pages for commons files on local wikis

Screenshot of what change will look like

Hopefully this is of interest and on topic. In some ways commons is the only wiki not affected, but I figure you guys like to know about the interface for how your files are used.

User:This,_that_and_the_other recently made a cool change to how the tabs at the top of a file page on local wikis (wikipedia, etc) for files from commons, work. Previously such a page displayed a "create" tab, and generally looked like what the tabs look like for a page that doesn't exist. For example, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Henri_Rousseau_009.jpg . After this change there will be tabs for "View this image on Wikimedia Commons" and "Create local description" (or "Edit local description" if it already exists). There will be no changes to file pages at commons, or the file pages of files locally uploaded to the other project.

The change is part of 1.23wmf22, and will probably go live on April 10 to test.wikipedia.org/test2.wikipedia.org/mediawiki.org, non-wikipedia sister projects on April 15, and Wikipedias on April 17. (See deployment calender at mw:MediaWiki_1.23/Roadmap#Schedule_for_the_deployments for details on the deployment schedule). Its live right now on beta deployment wikis ( http://deployment.wikimedia.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/File:16001000395904-Kiruna-Riksantikvarie%C3%A4mbetet.jpg ) and will (probably) be on translatewiki some time tomorrow. It will also affect 3rd party wikis using Commons:InstantCommons, provided they are using MediaWiki 1.23 (which as of yet is unreleased), or higher.

As always, if you have any concerns or questions about this (although I don't expect this to be controversial) or any other MediaWiki changes, please let us know. Bawolff (talk) 04:12, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Something I've thought for a while is that it might be nice to show the Commons category links on the local-wiki file description pages (suitably labelled, of course), when these pages are only virtual. I wonder how many readers never realise that there is a useful Commons category tree they could be navigating for other associated content, because they never click through to the Commons page. Jheald (talk) 17:59, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm told in the coming weeks, MultimediaViewer is going to go from an opt-in to an opt-out feature on some wikis (e.g. To start, huwiki and cawiki around april 17 [12] (edit: Release plan at mw:Multimedia/Media_Viewer/Release_Plan#Releases). My understanding is if feedback is positive, it will expand on smaller sized wikis from there). One of the features of MultimediaViewer is that it will show categories from commons. So there is that. As far commons categories on local file pages, I'm ok with the idea (personally anyways. Obviously changes in MediaWiki involve a variety of people so its not solely up to me, but I can't imagine its the sort of thing people would fight about) as long as the interface is clear that the categories are from commons. Bawolff (talk) 23:53, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Well actually, it might look slightly different from the screenshot, due to visual editor messing with the tabs. See mw:File:Example.png. Bawolff (talk) 20:20, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

@Bawolff and This, that and the other: Is there a reason why a "View on Wikimedia Commons" tab is not also introduced for file discussion pages? Also the "Create" link for empty local file discussion pages could/should be renamed to something like "Add local discussion" in my opinion. --Patrick87 (talk) 20:52, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Point of contact needed

Hello. An acquaintance of mine is a professional photographer, and he sent me an email today saying: "I want to make more photo contributions to Wikipedia can you advise me on who to contact to submit a photo to add to a post? I have more than 3 million photos in my archive."

Apparently, we are talking about a donation of thousands, perhaps millions of photos. Can someone here tell me who he should get in touch with, preferably including an email address. Then I will convey that contact information to him. Thanks.Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:48, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi, IMO, a mail to COM:OTRS is the way to go. Once the permission is accepted, pictures can be uploaded on Commons. Regards, Yann (talk) 06:08, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi Yann, thanks. Will OTRS actually help with the uploading? We're potentially talking here about a HUGE donation, so I'm wondering if there's someone who can actually help and advise this photographer, not just accept a permission and then tell him to do the rest.Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:43, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I can take care of this request via OTRS. Regards, Yann (talk) 06:58, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Template:Pt-br

I have started a deletion request regarding this template and invite interested people to join in the discussion.

• Commons:Deletion requests/Template:Pt-br

Regards, Capmo (talk) 12:59, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Uploader dictates extra restrictions

Like here File:Screen shot of Money.Net platform.png, isn't that against Commons rules? ("only uploaded for use on...") Palosirkka (talk) 14:27, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

• Looks like their restriction "only uploaded for use on Money.Net wiki" contradicts their license. Its also very ambiguous. If that means a wiki maintained by Money.Net, then it has no place on WMF atall. If it means en:Money.Net, where this image is currently used, it should be transferred to en-wiki to be used on a non-free use basis, and removed from Commons. - Jmabel ! talk 15:33, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
• Commons:Deletion requests/File:Screen shot of Money.Net platform.png --Alan ^(talk) 15:51, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Terrible choice of filter being used for image downsizing.

I've recently uploaded File:Engraving after Matthew Paris drawing of John of Wallingford (1255).jpg, which is an 1890s line engraving.

I was appalled at the amount of aliasing being shown in the Commons thumbnail. At this scale (434 × 599 pixels), the apparent horizontal lines are misleading artefacts, created by a poor choice of filter when the image has been downsampled, that should not be visible. At this scale the background of the image should instead appear to be a uniform grey.

The introduction of artefacts of this kind should not be acceptable. They can easily be avoided, eg by specifying that a Lanczos filter or a Mitchell filter should be used when doing image size reduction. (ImageMagick has code that gets this right; GIMP may be broken).

We should not be trashing the appearance of our images like this. Jheald (talk) 18:08, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

If you have found better ImageMagick parameters/settings for creating thumbnails than the currently used ones, please share them so they could be tested. --Malyacko (talk) 09:58, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Jheald -- I'm not 100% sure what you're complaining about: the original full-size JPEG is full of strange wavy horizontal lines, and the resized thumbnail is full of strange wavy horizontal lines. Strange in, strange out... It's possible that if a slight blurring were applied with downsizing (instead of the slight sharpening which is actually applied), then the lines and background would become a texture. However, I'm skeptical as to how clean-looking the resulting image would be, and in fact the slight sharpening works well for a broad range of ordinary photographic-type JPEGs. The algorithm should presumably be tuned for types of JPEGs commonly encountered on Commons, not for unusual and infrequent special cases... AnonMoos (talk) 10:54, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Okay, so I've now uploaded a copy of the image reduced to 435 x 600 using ImageMagick's default settings: File:Reduced engraving of John of Wallingford, using Image Magick.jpg, using

convert engraving.jpg -resize 22.73% reduced_engraving.jpg done with ImageMagick-6.8.3-Q16 running on Cygwin

This is what the reduced image ought to look like (IMO). It's not actually a blurring filter. Technically, a Lanczos filter (or the very similar Mitchell filter that IM uses by default) is actually a slightly sharpening filter. But the important thing is that it is a filter designed with awareness of aliasing. (See also en:User:Jheald/image_resize_testing for an exploration of the effect of downsizing a test image with different filters in ImageMagick and in GIMP). What Commons is doing isn't absolutely as bad as it could be (we're not using decimation), but it isn't as good as it should be.

@AnonMoos: yes, the full-size image includes "strange wavy horizontal lines" -- it's a line engraving. But the point of a line engraving (as an illustration in a real book) is that when you don't look close up you don't see those horizontal lines, you see an even tone, which doesn't distract from the key lines of the drawing. That's what we ought to be showing our readers at 600 x 435.

Instead, what we are showing readers at 600 x 435 is a different set of (much cruder) strange wavy horizontal lines, which do distract from the key lines of the drawing, and which are aliasing artefacts produced in the image reduction process.

(To see that the lines we're showing are indeed much cruder, count for example up from the top border of the picture to bottom of the word 'Infirmarius' above it. From what we're showing at 600 x 435, it looks like there are 3 quite crude engraving lines in between. But at full size there were actually nine. What looks like three are actually artefacts, which misrepresent the underlying image.)

There's a simple fix for this, which is to use a filter in the image downsizing process that has been mathematically designed for the job. That's what IM does by default; and it's what Commons ought to be doing, because it should not be acceptable for images of line engravings to be trashed in this way. Jheald (talk) 12:58, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Mathematically designed for what job? The problem is most of the images on Commons are photographs, and you can't compromise their quality to improve the quality of engravings.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:05, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

The treatment of such photographs wouldn't be noticeably affected. (Try it for yourself with ImageMagick -- or load a big photograph into Firefox, which appears to use a filter similar to IM's in image downsizing). It's specifically periodic structures with spatial frequencies close to multiples of the pixel spatial frequency that give problems -- periodic structures like the almost parallel lines of line engravings -- and this is what appropriate filters specifically notch out. But for most images you will simply never see a difference -- unless they are images with particular periodic structures like the bricks in the example image at the top of the en-wiki aliasing article. Jheald (talk) 22:15, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

If Commons were to use e.g. the Lanczos filter, there could maybe be performance issues? At least the popular image viewer and converter tool IrfanView has a "slow" warning accompanying the Lanczos option. Gestumblindi (talk) 01:31, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, performance problems make more sense than actual artifacts from scaling photographs. Lanczos is the default scaling algorithm for both Firefox and Chrome, and nobody complains about such photos looking bad. However, due to performance issues, what they actually do is a linear interpolation initially, and then replace it with a lanczos once the slower rendering is finished. I'm not sure how viable that method would be for Wikimedia. Trlkly (talk) 04:54, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Remember that most images served by Commons (especially the default 600px views) are cached, so the image downsizing would only need to be calculated once. So yes there might be a performance hit, but it wouldn't be as if the algorithm was being re-run every time an image was served. Jheald (talk) 08:34, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

I know. But I still think a staggered approach might be worthwhile. Use the current method when files are first uploaded (or even a faster method), but cue up a lanczos transformation that can take as long as necessary. That way we wouldn't run into any timing restrictions (like we do with large progressive JPEGs). Once cached, of course, there's no performance penalty at all. Trlkly (talk) 20:47, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

I would be concerned if we caused problems for photos of bricks (or insect eyes) as a side effect of improving our treatments of engravings. Is it technically possible to have per-image control of the thumbnailing? If not, could we submit this as a feature request? --99of9 (talk) 02:09, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

@ 99of9: With bricks, insect eyes etc, any issues will be issues in our present rendering of such images, which should be fixed by using a more considered filter. Jheald (talk) 08:34, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

While I would also really like more options for thumbnailing, there is an interim solution. Just upload your own thumbnails and use those in actual articles. Have the thumbnail's description include a link to the full sized image. This is how we currently handle problem with SVG rendering as well. If this only affects a few files, this is probably the only solution we'll ever get for a while, as other problems will take priority. —Trlkly (talk) 04:45, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

I should clarify that, while there may be some similar problems with thumbnails, it's really the standard Commons 600px sized views that sparked my concern. Yes, people could make there own 600px images and upload those, in the same way that we sometimes upload alternate versions for ultra-big images; but I think that would be a pity on a number of grounds. Firstly, because in most cases people wouldn't do it, and it would be a lot of work for those that did. But also, because it would silt up the system and image categories with unnecessary duplicates; because the images that were actually better quality would still look crap in preview, so people wouldn't realise they were actually better quality; because we'd still be providing poor images at intermediate higher resolutions, rather than the best reference-quality images we could for those resolutions. And I think finally because there are so many images of engravings already on the system -- eg the works of people like Category:Gustave Doré -- which I think people don't realise how significantly better they would look, if the resizing had been done better.

Yes, most of the images on the system are not engravings. But that is because Commons is so huge. There are a lot of engravings here, and the number is increasing as people start to systematically upload the illustrations from out-of-copyright 19th-century sources -- eg the million Commons:British Library/Mechanical Curator collection images, and perhaps in future systematic uploads from the Internet Archive's 19th-century scans. Some of these images are really good (what's available is well worth a browse), but people will be more motivated to upload them if they can be sure that when the images get to Commons they will be shown properly, rather than full of Moiré patterns and other garbage from scaling artefacts. Jheald (talk) 09:08, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Well, then, I'd say it doesn't just affect a few images. I was thinking that maybe not all engravings were affected, just ones at a certain resolution. In that case, sure, we should file a bug report. It's clearly possible to set thumbnailing settings, as we can set TIFFs to produce either JPEG or PNG thumbnails. Though, honestly, I think the staggered approach I mentioned would be better--few users are going to know to use the special options. And it would mean an increase in quality for all reduced images. (Here's an example where I had to upload my own thumbnail due to aliasing.) Trlkly (talk) 20:47, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, its possible to add new thumbnailing options. It does add extra complexity though. There may be some resistance to adding it just for specific edge cases (or maybe there won't be, not 100% sure, just mentioning the possibility). We currently use image magick for resizing images, but with the -thumbnail option instead of -resize, which I guess is for speed(?). In my test of that particular file, -thumbnail took 0.278s vs -resize taking 0.940s (The true test though is big images) . For reference, the command we use is something like: '/usr/bin/convert' '-quality' '80' '-background' 'white' '-define' 'jpeg:size=435x600' '/var/www/w/git/../phase3/images/8/82/Engraving_after_Matthew_Paris_drawing_of_John_of_Wallingford_(1255).jpg' '-thumbnail' '435x600!' '-set' 'comment' 'File source: http://localhost/w/git/index.php/File:Engraving_after_Matthew_Paris_drawing_of_John_of_Wallingford_(1255).jpg' '-depth' '8' '-sharpen' '0x0.4' '-rotate' '-0' '/tmp/transform_4dbf5d5a8a4c-1.jpg' (but with some of the paths changed, obviously). Bawolff (talk) 02:44, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

As for performance (This is off the top of my head from things I've heard second. Possibly entirely wrong. Take with lots of grains of salt). I believe image scaling has typically been more worried about memory usage, then it has about CPU time. The image scalars don't exactly look overloaded cpu wise [13]. However, I do believe that the multimedia team has been concerned with latency on uncached thumbnailing hits (particularly in relation to media viewer), so they would probably be opposed to increasing that latency further. Bawolff (talk) 03:08, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Having now just uploaded ca 150 more engravings, of London in the 1820s (Category:Metropolitan Improvements (1828) Thomas Hosmer Shepherd -- some renaming and description still to do), most of which show this problem at least to some extent, I'm now even more convinced that something needs to be done.

Re Trickly's delayed display suggestion (ie: show uploaders a quick rough and ready downscaling, but queue those newly uploaded images for a higher quality downscaling), I wonder if that is necessary. Small thumbnail images, as presented by UploadWizard, should be possible to generate pretty quickly whatever the algorithm. When (or if) the uploader then clicks through to see a 600px version, waiting one second should not be too noticeable.

More generally, there seem to be two ways to go about organising a fix for this. One would be to add some sort of MAGICWORD to the description page of images that need more careful downscaling, that the software would then pick up and take note of. But this would require uploaders to be aware as to which images could benefit from such an option; to be aware that the option did in fact exist; and to remember (or be bothered to) apply it; including adding it to all our old images. The other option is simply to use the more careful size reduction for everything, and if that requires another server rack to be bought, then so be it. I think the second option is the one we should follow. Images are held on Commons not just for Wikipedia, or for casual viewing, but as a reusable resource for the whole world. If we're aiming to provide reference versions of images at particular pixel sizes, then we should be aiming to provide as clean a resource as we can, and not compromise quality. In connection with which "-quality 80" also seems quite mean. If we see ourselves as creating a resource for the world here, we should be aiming to provide resource-quality images. Jheald (talk) 01:01, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

John of Wallingford's Shield of the Trinity diagram

By the way, File:Reduced engraving of John of Wallingford, using Image Magick.jpg is about what I was expecting -- the mysterious lines and the background intermix to form a overall "dirty" texture, and the image doesn't end up looking overall too clean. I'm not sure that there is any resizing procedure which would make this type of engraving (which is not a usual type of engraving) look clean...
P.S. Since John of Wallingford was mentioned, if there's any scan of the John of Wallingford Shield of the Trinity diagram available which is better than that at [14] available, that would actually be helpful for an article (the image at [15] isn't really worth uploading at Commons), thanks... AnonMoos (talk) 15:58, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

@ AnonMoos: Is the image at [16] so bad? The est and non est relations are clearly legible, and the image could easily be cropped to just the MS page, without the other leaves, binding, background etc.

As per the links at the top of Category:John of Wallingford, Collecteana (c.1250s) - BL Cotton MS Julius D VII, the Cotton MSS haven't yet been added to the BL's ongoing Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts; and this one isn't one of the ones that has been fully digitised yet. The hit at "Online Gallery" you have already found. The blog search is flaky, because of limitations in the Typepad's online searching, but it looks like there's nothing there. There is a hit at BL Images Online; but it's not one of the 430 images they released to Flickr in February and since uploaded to Commons. But I suppose it's possible that if you sent a nice request to the Manuscripts team (Twitter: @BLMedieval) they might be able to get some sort of release. Though I don't know if it's much better than what's already on Online Gallery. If anyone has included the Images Online pic in a published paper (typically 2000px), you might be able to scrape it from there. It doesn't look as if Bridgeman have it, so it doesn't seem to be gettable-at from any of their resellers. Looks like for the time being "Online Gallery" may be the only bet. Jheald (talk) 20:37, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

If the [17] image is cropped to just the manuscript page, then you get a 432x624 pixels image, which is fine as 432x624 size images go, but leaves much of the text either barely above or barely below the threshold of reasonable legibility. What's most interesting is not necessarily the standard text seen in Latin Shield of the Trinity diagrams, but the distinctive features of this particular manuscript illustration, which only come across in a semi-mediocre way at 432x624 px.

Thanks for info. As for contacting the British Library website people, I did have one success in pointing out a mirror-flipped image long ago (ca. 2005) before they completely restructured and commercialized the website, but my only contact attempt since then (to point out that the image at [18] seems to fail to match the description at [19]) appears to have been a complete and ignominious failure, so I'm not sure I really feel like begging favors from them... AnonMoos (talk) 02:11, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Remember that there are different teams at the BL, working in different departments/silos, who may have very different outlooks. (Which is one reason that the image categories for BL manuscripts now have anything up to six different search links to different BL silos, for Commons people looking for more or better images or cataloguing information re a particular MS).

BL Images Online is the commercial side, which I imagine is pretty commercial. BL Online Gallery is the former curatorial outlet, which I think is now pretty much a set of legacy pages that nobody around at present feels much responsibility for. Digitised manuscripts and Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts are both live, but (I think) supported by different grants, which may be why they don't appear to talk to each other. Finally there are the blogs, which are more informal. The last three (I think) are all run by the curatorial side, who tend to be *much* more positive towards content reuse (the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts images, for example, are all explicitly licensed CC0). So if you got in touch with those guys, (who are also the people responsible for the @BLMedieval twitter feed), you might well have more luck. Jheald (talk) 21:49, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Algerian picture

Can anyone estimate the date? It could be much older then pre-WW II. As to what license to use. As this picture was taken before independance does the Algerian law or the French law apply? I could use PD-Algeria-photo-except instead of Anonymous-EU. Smiley.toerist (talk) 19:35, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Published in France. The publisher CAP as such was formed in 1932 but it reused the photographic fonds of the preceding companies, so the first publication of the photo could be earlier than that. With research, you might find earlier publications with the marks of Lévy or/and Neurdein. Sidenotes: The quality of reproduction seems horrible. You might find better reproductions online. It would be useful if you clarified if "source: postcard" means "scanned by the uploader". -- Asclepias (talk) 23:29, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Quick search: ebay. Sellers claimes pre 1900. --Hedwig in Washington ^(mail?) 23:49, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

On the 1940 map I see no fortification wal and I suspect a roadbridge was build later. It is mayor enginering work. No modern buildings or roads and dit could wel be pre- WW I. The quality of the picture supports that. Buyers wouldn't accept that in later years. (by the way on the map I see that the river is goes underground in parts. Limestone rocks and caves?)Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:48, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

I would like to congratulate those taking part in the analysis here, great research. Discussing the image with someone familiar with the history of the city, he suggested concentrating on any bridges (or their absence), in the way that Smiley.toerist has done. Finding city skylines to compare to would be much harder than comparing with maps showing bridges, and the city is known as the City of Bridges. I have left a note at meta:Talk:Wikimedia_Algeria#Help_for_a_Constantine_postcard for some of those with a knowledge of Algeria. --Fæ (talk) 11:14, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

The I think it is very likely that the photograph has been taken way before WWI. The question is: When did the manufacturer publish the postcard? It seems it's #131 according to the ebay image. Reverse: : CAP - Cie Alsacienne Des Arts Photomecaniques, Strasbourg. # 131. There are some informations on the web regarding the manufacture. I couldn't find any information about the company yet. --Hedwig in Washington ^(mail?) 21:34, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

The 131 is a catalog number so local businesses could order the postcards. What is important is the first publication. Reprints are generally not considered as creative work in the Commons, unless something is modified. A lot of books use old postcards. I prefer to scan the original postcard to avoid problems, certainly by recent postcard collection print books. And then only one or two to avoid Database/collection rigths.Smiley.toerist (talk) 18:25, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

I found an ebay auction in which the seller says the photo was taken c. 1915. Einstein2 (talk) 11:01, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Users are being forced to log out

Wikimedia users (Commons included) are being forced to log out and log-in again due to a vulnerability discovered in the OpenSSL implementation of the SSL and TLS protocols.

Wikimedia Foundation servers have been affected, and had their OpenSSL version updated earlier today; as a precautionary measure, all user session tokens will be reset — which causes the loss of session and forces users to log-in again using new, secure tokens.

Wikimedia Foundation also recommends that users change the passwords they use to log-in to wikis. Read more. Sincerely, odder (talk) 21:13, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

I am concerned to see this email. Though we do not wish to overreact, I think this advice should be shared with all our contributors. Could the advice to change passwords be made into a project notice? --Fæ (talk) 21:37, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

@Fæ: I have now added a sitenotice which is visible to all logged-in users, following the example set by the German Wikipedia. I'll take it down in about 24 hours, unless people think it should be visible for longer than that? odder (talk) 12:50, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

This is some scary stuff. My reading of the vulnerability (I just skimmed it. I'm not familiar with the internals of OpenSSL. I'm not an expert on the security of c programs, etc so take this with salt) is that in the worst case, it would allow someone to compromise WMF's private certificate (and possibly some other things in memory of the ssl servers, which maybe could contain some sensitive info of a few other users beside the current connection. Maybe). This would be the equivalent of an attacker being able to turn all the https connections into plain http connections. So if someone was tapping the data connection between you and WMF (or listening in on an unsecured wireless network), they could read your password. Somebody might also be able to set up a fake server that identifies as Wikimedia (if they also hacked your dns somehow). Bawolff (talk) 22:22, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

@odder: I'd like to see the warning for at least 3 days, better a full week. Thanks for adding the notice!!! I'd give you a barnstar, but your talkpage is a barnstar-free zone. I send you an imaginary coffee ;-)) --Hedwig in Washington ^(mail?) 17:26, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

+1 A week seems a harmless precaution. --Fæ (talk) 17:27, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Status upload KML files?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T28059

There was a problem uploading KML files in the Commons, because an old version of the explorer browser, used a lot in Asia, gives errors. Is this still a problem? As the XP microsoft software is no longer supported, it could be that older versions of explorer get outdated.Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:56, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi, what exactly is your question? Plus pointers to "a problem" are welcome as it's rather vague currently. Thanks! --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 11:59, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

This refers to an older discussion on the Commons for uploading KML/GPS files to the Commons. That way geografical lines (railways, roads, borders, etc) can be projected on any background map the same as geopoint locations are today. The problem then was that uploaded files must be usable in the old MS explorer 6.Smiley.toerist (talk) 13:22, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

No, the issue was, that if we allowed kml uploads, someone could use them to steal the accounts of people using IE6. We don't care if it works on IE6 (although obviously, its better if it does), the security issues on the other hand are a concern. (I don't really know at what point that doesn't become a concern. Currently IE6 is 1% of people visiting the site [20]. Of course those stats may be unreliable in certain ways. Some people might be pretending to be IE6). Anyhow, I think there is a work around with this entire issue by just padding the file at the beginning, but nobody has seriously looked into that as of yet. Bawolff (talk) 19:20, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Technical Problem with Image

I'm being told https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Asbestos1USGOV.jpg is somehow broken (and responsible for PDF rendering issues occuring when you export an article that contains this image). Could someone check that and maybe fix it? Thanks, — Pajz (talk) 11:50, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

I successfully created a PDF file on enwiki. Ruslik (talk) 16:15, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi Ruslik0, it seems to only affect Adobe Reader. A user reported this issue, and I then asked the developers of the extension what could be causing it (and they told me there's something wrong with the image). Cheers, — Pajz (talk) 18:20, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Should be ok now. --McZusatz (talk) 20:28, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, McZusatz, that has solved the issue! — Pajz (talk) 10:56, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

I see strange looking background in the right lower corner of the image, looks like corruption. Looks like also the source image is corrupted as well as all archive copies I can find of it. Perhaps the easiest fix would be to find and use another image. Palosirkka (talk) 18:15, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Different image uploaded on top of another

What to do when somebody uploads one image as a new version of another, e.g. File:The Sanctuary of San Michele.jpg#filehistory? Any guidelines? Palosirkka (talk) 18:09, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Actually, both are copyvios. Deleted. Thanks for mentioning that. Regards, Yann (talk) 18:17, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

He's been doing it for many files, immediately overwriting his own uploads with successive uploads, see log. He may have wanted to upload all those different files but he forgot to give them different names, if only by numbering them 1, 2, 3, etc. In this case, you could use his talk page to ask him what he's trying to do exactly. You may want to also ask him to clarify the relation between him and the website. He's sourcing the files from a website where there is a notice all rights reserved. He might have to send OTRS permission from that source. He should also source more specifically to the pages where the photographs are. -- Asclepias (talk) 18:29, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Problems with template Created with GIMP

I am having a problem with Template:Created with GIMP, and have been unable to fix it. I cannot seem to use the documented "vector" option. Even with it set, the notice still refers to a raster image.

I used GIMP as part of the process in creating File:Anti-aliasing demo.svg (see the discussion page for how) and I wanted to include it. Yet, it currently refers to the image as a raster, when it is 100% vector.

Can someone try to fix that template to work properly?Trlkly (talk) 05:57, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

This was the issue but someone will have to update all language subpages or migrate this template towards using the translate extension. -- Rillke^(q?) 09:47, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

I updated the remaining language subpages, should work for all languages now. Best regards, --ChrisiPK (Talk|Contribs) 11:44, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Tiff magenta blues

• 
• 
• 

I have had two large tiffs from the NY public library collection turn strangely magenta after upload to Commons but they display correctly locally (even when re-downloaded from Commons). Does anyone have suggestions of what the cause might be, and if there is a fix? I have tried editing locally in Photoshop, saving as a new tiff or png and re-uploading, but this seemed to make no difference. If this is a bit of thumbnail creation weirdness, it probably should become a bug report.

I have uploaded over 300 large tiffs this week to Category:NYPL maps, so this fortunately appears to be a rarely occurring problem. --Fæ (talk) 12:43, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Weird. Thanks for the uploads, these are great documents. Yann (talk) 13:16, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Its because they have an embedded (incorrect) colour profile: PowerPhase FX with TG1, tungsten. Some software supports colour profiles, some don't. Since the colour profile data is wrong, the image shows up wrong on software that supports colour profiles (like many web browsers). You can remove colour profiles using the command exiftool fileNameHere.tiff -ICC_Profile=. I did that for one of the images above. (You of course should only do this if you know the image has incorrect colour profile data. In general colour profiles are a good thing and make the colours showing up more correct for the image). Bawolff (talk) 19:42, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Blimey how complicated. If it keeps happening I'll try to fix it in photoshop and failing that, then investigate the command line method. Hopefully these will be stay very rare glitches as these are quite large files to play around with on my teeny weeny underpowered old desktop. --Fæ (talk) 19:55, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

If it happens again, just holler and somebody will fix it for you. :) Palosirkka (talk) 14:34, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

attempt to match monobook on English Wikipedia

For some reason, the main font on the English Wikipedia is larger than on here when using the Monobook skin. (I don't like using the default skin so I can easily tell whether I'm logged in.) All the interface elements (like the tabs and the side bar) are the same size, so I can't just increase the font size to fix it.

Does anyone know the custom CSS I would need to get them to match? I find the Wikipedia font size to be perfect. Trlkly (talk) 20:30, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Notification of DMCA takedown demand - Hermann Herzog

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):

• File:Hermann Herzog - Sunflowers.jpg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
• File:Hermann Herzog - A shepherd with his flock.jpg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
• File:Hermann Herzog - Approaching storm.jpg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
• File:Hermann Herzog - Boat on a lake.jpg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
• File:Hermann Herzog - Escaping the storm.jpg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
• File:Hermann Herzog - Extensive majestic landscape.jpg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
• File:Hermann Herzog - Figures by a mill.jpg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
• File:Hermann Herzog - Fisherfolk on the Beach.jpg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
• File:Hermann Herzog - Fishing.jpg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
• File:Hermann Herzog - Florida Landscape.jpg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
• File:Hermann Herzog - Niagara.jpg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
• File:Hermann Herzog - Scene Near Camden, Penobscot Bay, Maine .jpg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
• File:Hermann Herzog - Sentinel Rock, Yosemite.jpg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
• File:Hermann Herzog - Sunset, Florida.jpg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
• File:Hermann Herzog - The Lure of Norway.jpg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
• File:Hermann Herzog - The Matterhorn, Switzerland.jpg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
• File:Hermann Ottomar Herzog In the Alps.jpg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
• File:Hermann Ottomar Herzog Landscape with Watermill.jpg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
• File:Hermann_Ottomar_Herzog_Norwegian_Landscape.jpg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
• File:Herzog Herman Campfire in Moonlight.jpg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
• File:Herzog Herman Evening on the Susquehanna.jpg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
• File:Herzog Herman Girl With Geese.jpg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
• File:Herzog Herman Moonlit Fishing Scene.jpg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
• File:Herzog Herman Mountain Landscape and Waterfall.jpg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
• File:Herzog Herman Sagne Fjord.jpg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
• File:View of Niagara Falls in Moonlight, Herman Herzog, 1872 - Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, MA - DSC03997.JPG (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

To discuss this DMCA takedown, please go to COM:DMCA#Hermann Herzog. Thank you! Jalexander--WMF 21:58, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Paintings by Hermann Ottomar Herzog. WP says "Following his death, his family retained a large group of his paintings, most of which were released to the art market in the 1970s." So these paintings are probably still under a copyright. Yann (talk) 11:43, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Scope of fictional flags

A discussion with regards the scope of fictional flags is being held at User:Antemister/Fictional flag issue.--KTo288 (talk) 09:59, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

User:Antemister's apparent choice to invite some of those who agree with him, but none of those who User:Antemister is exceedingly well-aware have plenty to say on the other side (such as Fry1989 and myself), is very unfortunate, and already starts the discussion off on the wrong foot. I really don't see how a discussion taking place on the sub-page of a user's page can have any authority to set any policy... AnonMoos (talk) 15:33, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

That discussion there was of course only some starting point. Started an RfC now, you're invited to comment.--Antemister (talk) 11:55, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Convenience link: User:Antemister/Fictional flag issue. - Jmabel ! talk 17:28, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Addition to Edittools

Hi there!

Can anyone tell me where I have to go to get == {{int:filedesc}} == added to the edittools and have spaces added to =={{int:license-header}}==. Cheers --Cwbm (commons) (talk) 11:48, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

That would be useful. Regards, Yann (talk) 12:03, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Testing if a picture is already on Commons

Sometimes I upload a picture only to notice it already is on Commons, is there a quick way to check? Palosirkka (talk) 14:30, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

If an exact byte-for-byte identical file has been previously uploaded (or uploaded and deleted), then the upload form should tell you. Otherwise you can search on keywords or do a TinEye search... AnonMoos (talk) 15:05, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions. Or one could make a search for the source URL I guess. Looks like that doesn't work for too recent uploads though. Palosirkka (talk) 15:25, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

You can check for a byte-by-byte copy without uploading, given that you are running a modern browser, with FileAnalyzer. -- Rillke^(q?) 19:39, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

April 12

I have just spun out category:Steep, Hampshire from category:steep, however I'm not sure if we need category:steep or what it should be a subcategory of. WereSpielChequers (talk) 12:06, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

What are the rules covering awards?

What are the rules covering awards?

I'm looking at OTRS permission for this image: File:Global Jurist Award.jpg

The permission for the photo seems fine, but I am concerned about the underlying copyright of the award itself.

I see that we have a photo of an Academy Award on Commons: File:ACMI 14.jpg

On the other hand, that file description says "This is not a valid license on Commons;" so I am puzzled.

I also need to deal with

File:2013 Global Jurist Award Presentation.jpg

That file is currently deleted, but because the permission was originally provided by someone other than the photographer. I now have permission from the photographer. This second photo includes presenter, recipient and the trophy, I think the trophy is small enough to qualify for de minimus even if the trophy alone is problematic.

How should I proceed?--Sphilbrick (talk) 17:02, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

The first image should be nominated for deletion - it is a copyright violation. As to the second, you can ask it to be undeleted at Commons:Undeletion requests/Current requests. Ruslik (talk) 19:04, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

April 13

"Theshold of originality" in India

I was going over this user's uploads, and while some of them are (IMHO) above-the-threshold-of-originality copyvios- assuming user doesn't have permission- others are clearly below that standard and would be considered PD under US rules.

However, Commons requires that images be free both under the laws of the US and their country of origin, and these appear to be for Indian companies. The Threshold of originality article does not cover India. Does anyone know how that applies under Indian law?

Ubcule (talk) 14:08, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi, The logo you nominated is certainly above the ToO. The other logos may be OK on this point, but may be be out of scope. The picture is a probable copyvio. Regards, Yann (talk) 14:37, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback, but does your comment "the other logos may [my emphasis] be OK on this point" reflect Indian law on the threshold of originality? Given that India is a large country, it is probably useful for us that we have that information on record.

Yes, I agree that the nominated logo is above the ToO (that's why I nominated it! :-) )

I had my suspicions about the image too, mainly due to its low resolution. If you're confident that it's a copyvio, feel free to nominate it yourself. All the best, Ubcule (talk) 18:47, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

April 14

Change of colours after a move

Hi, this image completely changed colours after a move. How can this be resolved? --Eleassar ^(t/p) 12:05, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

It is probably related to the fact that this tiff file uses jpeg compression. Ruslik (talk) 19:24, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Copyright status of wood samples?

I have a small book which has a box, containing 16 numbered wood samples, attached to it. No special treatment has been done to the blocks apart from the numbering, it's just a selection of the 16 different wood types that are described in the book.

While the book itself is clearly a copyrighted work, what is the status of the blocks inside the box? Can a scan of the blocks be uploaded with a public domain tag? - Anonimski (talk) 18:13, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Can you upload an example image? Ruslik (talk) 19:00, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Here it is: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:16_wood_samples.jpg

You should use {{PD-ineligible}} tag with these files. Ruslik (talk) 19:27, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. I've tagged it now with both PD-ineligible (for the wood patterns) and PD-self (for the arrangement). - Anonimski (talk) 20:44, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Deletion of images in use by "serious" university project

The files nominated in this deletion request appear- after some investigation- to consist of images being hotlinked by a legitimate student project at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. Apparently, it's won an award and appears to have had quite a lot of work put into it.

However, the files themselves are arguably too specific to their original use to warrant in-scope retention at Commons. However, I do not wish the project to be broken.

If anyone has an opinion on this, could you please contribute at Commons:Deletion_requests/Files_uploaded_by_Taku_Ueki. Thanks, Ubcule (talk) 19:28, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

How to fix the localization on the file pages?

I just noticed that some parts of every file page are sometimes not localized on commons. I tried: to play with file pages with uselang=pl and setlang=pl options and sometimes the "Upload a new version of this file" is in English and sometimes in Polish. The same with "File usage on Commons" and "Metadata" section title and text. I could not see any pattern of when I would get one language or the other. Does anybody understand what is going on or can figure out under what conditions we get the wrong localization so we can fill a bug report. I hate reporting bugs which have 50/50 chance of being reproducible. --Jarekt (talk) 21:00, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Upload user statistics

Userboxes
12377 uploads

It is now possible transcluding your upload count to your user page. A bot will update these statistics every 24 hours.

How can You use it?

1. Create a subpage in your user namespace. For example, Special:MyPage/top uploads with the following content: {{UploadStats/alive}}.
2. Wait 24h for the bot updating the page.
3. Transclude Special:MyPage/top uploads — {{User:Example/top uploads}} to your user page.

Example

1. I created User:Rillke/testpage.
2. The page was updated by the bot.
3. Now I could use a fancy userbox, for example

   {{Userboxtop|extra-css=float:right; clear:right;}}{{MyGallery/userbox |1=Rillke |heading='''{{User:Rillke/testpage}}''' uploads }}
   {{Userboxbottom}}
   

Extending?

Admittedly, these I-have-soooo-many-edits-tools are not very educational (c.f. mission statement of WMF). However, if it is strengthening editors engagement — mission accomplished.

Anyone who feels it would be useful to extend to edits, all uploads alive (including overwritten)? Let me know. Here. -- Rillke^(q?) 21:10, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Automatically created pronunciation recording files from Wiktionary

If a pronunciation recording gadget is developed and used by Wiktionaries, a considerable amount of pronunciation audio files will be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons and a gadget will be installed at Commons so Wiktionaries can use shared code from Commons for producing these recordings. I believe this is in the interest of Commons as we will be able to adjust how the file description page is build and to specify the information that has to be present on it.

These files will be categorized by language or even dialect; the description will be automatically created. There is not a lot to say, except that I don't expect a lot of trouble here at Commons with these files/ file description pages. -- Rillke^(q?) 21:35, 14 April 2014 (UTC)