Commons:Village pump/Archive/2016/10

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Fop Belgium

Could someone undelete File:De Wand schildering.JPG, as this is now allowed?Smiley.toerist (talk) 08:26, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

✓ Done. --Túrelio (talk) 08:30, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Speravir (Talk) 20:20, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Image maps are not updated

The maps linked from {{Location}} template should show "this and other nearby images on: OpenStreetMap - Google Earth". However, updating of these maps (indexing of new images) ceased cca on 2016-09-12 04:05. Images from the last 16 days are not displayed. This service has always fails and delays, but over two weeks is too much IMHO.

However, the template documentation and the Commons:Geocoding page linked from the template don't contain more information about this tool/service and about contact to its operators/administrators. I think, the {{Location}} template should contain an embedded message template which should inform about possible fails and limits of the service. --ŠJů (talk) 17:28, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Updating seems to be renewed now. --ŠJů (talk) 02:54, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

September 29

August Commons:Photo challenge results

Firefighters and firefighting equipment: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 3
image
Title CAL FIRE UH-1H Super Huey Two Calera, Alabama firefighters pause during a battle
against a residential housefire on April 27, 2016		 Feuerschiff im Golf von Finnland in St. Petersburg. Russland.
Author Tequask 31813D Kora27
Score 13 9 8

Congratulations to Tequask, 31813D and Kora27.


Underwater photography: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 3
image
Title Sea Turtle with Remoras - Marsa Alam, Egypt Christmas Tree Worm, Thailand, Spirobranchus giganteus Silhouette of scuba diver with the sun behind.
Author GiorgioGaleotti TimSC TimSC
Score 12 12 10

Congratulations to GiorgioGaleotti and TimSC.

Please vote for September Commons:Photo challenge images here. --Jarekt (talk) 04:22, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

October 02

deleted files

Hello , i just wanted to ask if its possible by any mean to dowload/view deleted files , i m curious to see some of them , please help — Preceding unsigned comment added by Uchiha itachi007 (talk • contribs) 06:48, 02 October 2016 (UTC)

No it is not. That's why they are deleted, that they can no longer be viewed.--Bjs (talk) 10:44, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
More precisely: administrators have access to deleted files and can view them and, given proper reasons, undelete them. If you have a specific need to know what is in a particular deleted file -- for example, if you need to know whether it matches a particular file you have found elsewhere on the net, or if you suspect it has potential to be used to one of the Wikipedias where policies on non-free use are looser -- feel free to ask your specific question, as long as you understand that no one is required to follow up on it. - Jmabel ! talk 16:06, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

October 03

Century categories

I have a question regarding the categories that spans long time periods and where the inclusion criteria may span several categories.

What is the criteria for a category like Category: 21st-century men of Norway? Is it the active period (for when the person was notable), date of birth? Which century category would a hypothetical Norwegian male person born in 1960, active as a politician from 1990 to 2010 and diseased in 2015 be placed in? Wouldn't this be both a 20th and 21st century man and should he be placed in categories for both centuries? Toresetre (talk) 17:25, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

As it is a part of the category tree of "people in 21st century", only images of Norwegian men that were made in 21st century should be included. Ruslik (talk) 19:07, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
No, the category is "21st-century men", not "21st-centry images of men". It's subcategories are categories of people. I.e. the first explanation is right - every of the subcategories should be placed to both centuries if appropriate. --ŠJů (talk) 10:09, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
Your explanation makes no sense. People typically do not belong to a single century. And the category has "people in 21st century" as its top category. Ruslik (talk) 19:56, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
Pepole typically live in one or two centuries, exceptionally three centuries. I.e. belong to them. Essentially. They can not travel through centuries freely. --ŠJů (talk) 16:42, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

COM:ENGVAR?

WP:ENGVAR is probably well-known here. A policy that takes the sensible line that no English language version is favoured over another, but that we do need to avoid language ping-pong and edit-warring, so that we value stability over particular choices of spelling.

What is the equivalent for Commons? Does Commons need a similar statement?

Specifically, why rename Category:Machine vices (British English) to Category:Machine vises (US English) for no other reason than "Spelling 'Machine vices' is British English" ? Similarly other parts of the existing tree at Leg vices [1], Woodworking vices [2] and Hand vices [3]. Andy Dingley (talk) 21:42, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

@Andy Dingley: No. The closest is Commons:Language policy. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:33, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
Commons:Naming_categories#Language is quite helpful. Categorization remains a major weakness in Commons, but moving to a Multilingual Categories + Tags system looks like it will wait until Wikidata forces it to happen by the back-door. --Fæ (talk) 06:28, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
Sorry, I have added a subcategory “Bench vises” under the category ”Vises” and then, somewhat later, I saw some other subcategories having the spelling "vices" (Hand vices, Leg vices, Woodworking vices.) I renamed these categories giving them an equal spelling and I replaced all the files. I did not know that there was not an Wiki guide line about the prefered spelling in cases of spelling variants British / American English. Anyway it looked logical for me to do so. I am sorry if I unknowingly have irritated somebody. --Elgewen (talk) 08:49, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
PS [4]
[5] --Elgewen (talk) 08:52, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
  • So if a number of categories are long-term stable under one spelling, you add a new category, choose to introduce a different spelling, then the "needed" action is to rename all of the pre-existing categories to match your new one? Andy Dingley (talk) 19:12, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
  • Category:Vises has long been under that name, and it couldn't be under Category:Vices, because that category means something else. It was a bit ham-handed how it was handled, but the subcategories should have matched the name of the category, and even if there was agreement to move the main category, it couldn't have simply been moved to the British spelling. This is probably the best solution all around.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:32, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
  • We've usually worked to reduce the amount of variation up and down a category tree. Commons:Naming categories says "A single name by given subject: we should not use different names to label a single subject. In particular, translations in other languages, or language variants are not an acceptable way to specify subdivisions of the main subject." so the idea is not unheard of.--Prosfilaes (talk) 11:06, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

October 01

License selection

Would someone have a moment to look at this image. I got an warning about the license, and I'm not quite sure what license to place on it. The uploader marked it here as public domain. Thanks. Magnolia677 (talk) 12:22, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

You need to change the author to "Roger Puta" not "Marty Bernard". In the process of searching for Roger Puta I came across this template {{RogerPuta}}. Not sure myself what needs to be done, may need to contact a OTRS member to see what options there are (or maybe you'll get lucky and one will see this post). Offnfopt(talk) 12:43, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
The essential problem with this ticket boils down to the old PDM vs CC0 issue. Ankry tried to clarify this with the ticket submitter in April, but nothing was received since. Pinging also Jim who appears to have been tangentially related and may also have further insight. Storkk (talk) 14:09, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
I just read through "What is the difference between the PDM and CC0" after seeing your reply. So does this mean there is a official stance regarding allowing PDM here? I'm asking because we have the {{PD-user}} and {{PD-author}} templates which seems to promote the use of PDM (which I have used quite a bit on my own images here). Offnfopt(talk) 14:25, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
The consensus as I read it seems to be that PDM is simply a statement that someone doesn't have reason to believe X is still under copyright. It is not a license or a release, and it appears to be revocable. Storkk (talk) 14:30, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
I don't understand why you read {{PD-user}} and {{PD-author}} as promoting PDM, but I may have missed something. They certainly should not. Storkk (talk) 14:34, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
(after three edit conflicts)
I have put a note on the OTRS ticket and modified {{RogerPuta}} accordingly. The OTRS message isn't perfect, but I think we're safe using it.
The PDM mark is not an acceptable Flickr status -- I deliberately avoid the word "license" because it is not a license, it is simply a statement that the user believes the file is PD somewhere. It can be changed at any time.
"The tools also differ in terms of their effect when applied to a work. CC0 is legally operative in the sense that when it is applied, it changes the copyright status of the work, effectively relinquishing all copyright and related or neighboring rights worldwide. PDM is not legally operative in any respect – it is intended to function as a label, marking a work that is already free of known copyright restrictions worldwide.” —Creative Commons, https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/PDM_FAQ"
.     Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 14:36, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
{{PD-user}} and {{PD-author}} state a fact. They can be used only when the author has put CC-0 or a similar license on a file. They should not be used in cases where the only thing on the file is the PDM. .     Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 14:39, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification, looks like I'll have to take some time to correct the license on some of my uploads. Offnfopt(talk) 15:14, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
I've never come to the Village Pump and not received a fast and very detailed response. Thank you for all your hard work. Magnolia677 (talk) 22:04, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-40

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 4 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 5 October. It will be on all wikis from 6 October (calendar).

Meetings

  • You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 4 October at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

  • Tidy will be replaced. Instead the HTML 5 parsing algorithm will be used to clean up bad HTML in wikitext. This would cause problems on a number of wikis. They need to be fixed first. [6]
  • <slippymap> will not work on Wikivoyage after 24 October. You should use <mapframe> instead. If you need help to fix this before 24 October you should ask for it as soon as possible. [7]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

21:30, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

October 04

Changing Category Description

Can any editor change the description of a category, or is this something that should be offered up for discussion first.

I am looking at the category "United States" with the description "The United States is the best and most populous country of North America."

This is a subjective judgment. I would suggest a paraphrase of Wikipedia, such as "The United States is a federal republic, the most populous country in North America."

Drbones1950 (talk) 16:37, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

  • Anonymous trolling undone. In cases of such trivially unsuitable content, corrective editing is to be encouraged. (Either way, it it a wiki, after all — in principle any content can be edited.) -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 16:47, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
Thanks, Tuvalkin. I see that you changed the wording of the description, good. I did not see how to edit the description when I looked at the category, there wasn't an "edit" field to click? How is it done. Drbones1950 (talk) 19:47, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
I didn't change, merely blind reverted to the previous state: Anyone can do it, just click "(undo)" in the history of any page. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 23:09, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
User:Drbones1950 claims no edit button/tab; might be a “feature” of a mobile interface, or the category’s protected status? -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 18:11, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, everyone. Now I'm not sure that there was not an edit button visible on this page, but I will look more carefully for one if this comes up again.

Vehicles by brand/manufacturer

Maybe I'm too stupid and my english is too poor, but I cannot get it how to determine categories "Vehicles by brand" and "Vehicles by manufacturer". What should be in each? What's the difference? --Stolbovsky (talk) 09:21, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

I’d say both parent categories, yes. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 18:24, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
Unfortunately, it get's more complicated than that. Some vehicle brands are produced by multiple manufacturers through time. In some rare cases, there are multiple manufacturers even at the same time. --MB-one (talk) 19:47, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
Your threading implies that your "that" refers to my suggestion about using multiple parent categories. If so, then no, not complicated, at least not complicated enough to need a solution other than, as suggested, using multiple parent categories. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 00:28, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

Commons License Template statistics

Slides

Hi, I was just preparing some slides for my talk at WikiConference North America, and thought I will share some statistics.

  • Group license templates per number of files transcending including each template. Plot number of files and templates in each group
    Group license templates per number of files transcending including each template. Plot number of files and templates in each group
  • Percentage of files using of most popular templates per percentage of license templates. For example: 90% of files on use 3 % of most popular templates
    Percentage of files using of most popular templates per percentage of license templates. For example: 90% of files on use 3 % of most popular templates
  • Group license templates per type. Plot number of files and templates in each group. There are 6 public domain types, three Creative Commons types and others.
    Group license templates per type. Plot number of files and templates in each group. There are 6 public domain types, three Creative Commons types and others.

Comments and corrections are welcome. --Jarekt (talk) 12:18, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

  • I assume that by "transcending" you mean "transcluding" (or simply "including", same meaning as "transcluding" in this context) since I've never heard of "transcending" a template. - Jmabel ! talk 15:48, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
Jmabel thanks. I am spelling challenged (in English and in Polish), but this issue is a clear case of not paying attention to spellchecker suggestions. --Jarekt (talk) 00:23, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
@Jarekt
  • I note your comments/titles/graphs on page 2 don't seem to match each other ?: "69% of templates are Public Domain (PD) templates but only 20% of files", but the graphs (or their titles) indicate the inverse..
  • I have trouble understanding the titles of some of those graphs. Try really stepping back from your own knowledge and finding concise descriptive titles for a wider audience.
  • You also might want to check your spelling a bit more :). "Created Commons", "pupular", and "on use".
  • You might want to grab a screenshot from mrmetadata those are interesting views on overall progress and easy to follow (though i believe they are a bit outdated atm).
  • Another thing I note is that when you discuss the purpose and you note verification, you talk about the language, which is good, but this made me realize: I think you are missing a big thing that you should touch upon. Not all our license templates (groups) are actual licenses.. They might be better described as "copyright summaries", a verification by consensus view (this is why purpose/verfication/language triggered me). They are an argumentation of copyright status and/or (in)eligibility. Many of the USGov templates for instance provide argumentation as to why we consider a certain set of material to qualify for USGov. Same often with public domain status. It's a summary of an interpretation that concludes why we consider something to be in the public domain. This is rather important, mostly because few other parties are this diligent, but also it's rather confusing because we call these things licenses, but they aren't always licenses :)
  • Thanks for doing this ! —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:49, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
User:TheDJ, thanks for your great suggestions.
  • About the graphs on page 2: I think I have the labels reversed. I will verify and correct.
  • The graph titles were quite a challenge for me to make them clear and I went through several iterations. The labels under plots in the gallery above were my newest attempt.
  • Yes as I was saying to Jmabel above, spelling is not one of my best developed skills.
  • I do not understand what mrmetadata is saying. It talks about adding infobox templates and license templates with machine readable marking, and Commons is "100% Complete". All Commons files have license templates or are waiting for deletion, but we still have 33,860,638 files without any infobox, so no machine readable source or author. I can not figure out what "100% Complete" means there.
  • I use terms like license template, copyright tag, license tag or copyright template interchangeably, but you are right that PD templates are technically not "license templates" but explanations why image is in PD. Maybe I should just call them copyright templates. Also verification means that someone verified that all images that meet requirements of a PD template are in PD ( or as close to "all" as possible), and in case of copyrighted images verification means that license is compatible with free license. I will modify that text.
Thanks again for checking. --Jarekt (talk) 01:26, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

How does multi-licensing affect this. I wouldn't have thought you could create a pie chart on files-by-licence since many files are I suspect most of our GFDL-licensed images are dual-licensed with CC. Some images are even dual licensed with a non-free CC licence. I'm confused why template numbers and template-usage-in-files are combined in the same graphs. Surely the number of templates we have for a specific area merely reflects an administrative and fairly internal choice. For example, whether we use two templates or have one template with a parameter. Is it important? Isn't what is more important the number of distinct licences, and you are using templates as a proxy for this? The numbers seem strange where you show 2% of files with GNU and 21% with CC yet later you show nearly 5 million with GNU and about 25 million with a CC licence. Note that CC0 is not strictly a licence but a public-domain-declaration (though it can be a licence if the declaration is legally invalid in some country). So a file with CC0 is no longer "copyrighted" (slide 6). Is the Free Art Licence (Licence Art Libre) insignificant in numbers? -- Colin (talk) 17:32, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

Colin those are great points, which I should address.
  • I based my numbers on quarry:query/5441 and quarry:query/5201 queries and those just count number of transclusions of each template in Category:Primary_license_tags_(flat_list). I occasionally add or remove templates from Category:Primary_license_tags_(flat_list) based on quarry:query/5045 or this CatScan3 Query. Counting transclussions means that multi-license files, like most GFDL files, are double counted. Non-free CC templates are not in Category:Primary_license_tags_(flat_list) and do not (or should not) have any machine readable markings or transclude {{License template tag}}. Those are not considered as valid "license templates" and are not counted.
  • I do not understand some of your questions in sentences 4-6. I was showing the number of files and templates in each group, partially to explain why do we have almost a 1000 of distinct licence/copyright template/tags. I was trying to understand it myself, especially since there is a maintenance cost associated with each template.
  • The "2% of files with GNU and 21% with CC" issue is due to swapped labels on pie charts. Opps
  • I was trying to figure out where to place CC0 and decided to keep it in CC section, but I agree that it is close to PD-author (that is why I kept them next to each other)
  • {{FAL}} or Free Art Licence (with 123k uses) for some reason was using {{GNU-Layout}} and in my stats is lumped together with GNU licenses. I changed it to {{Copyrighted-Layout}} but numbers are quite insignificant as compared to other templates.
Thanks for the review. --Jarekt (talk) 02:46, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

I have new version of the file that hopefully addresses many of the suggestions. Thanks again. Now I "just" have to write this presentation. --Jarekt (talk) 16:44, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

Picture of the day

The english description of the today picture seems a little odd to me. Is there not a transaltion mistake for conversos ? I find it bizarre that there would be a refectory for the converted, and think that it may be a refectory for the lay brothers, called fratres conversi in latin, or hermanos conversos in spanish. Any thoughts ? Pleclown (talk) 11:54, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Conversos were a specific phenomenon in medieval Castille. Perhaps it should just remain untranslated? Storkk (talk) 12:57, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
It wasn’t and it shouldn’t. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 18:00, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
Pithy, but I agree with Pleclown that "the conversed" isn't English (at least in the sense of religious converts). Storkk (talk) 07:17, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

October 05

I've noticed that User:Pubudualmeda has added a number of images stating that they are all his own work however these images are taken directly from the school's website. Dan arndt (talk) 01:38, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

User blocked by INeverCry and their contributions has been nuked. Thanks. Wikicology (talk) 08:32, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

Seeking info about sorting of "main categories"

I'm trying to understand whether there are special sorting rules for "main categories" under countries, cities, regions, etc. This came up at Category talk:Paris#Sorting and User talk:Verdy p#Category:Paris. I am told by User:Verdy p that certain main categories should have sort keys that begin with an asterisk so that they appear at the top of their categories. For an example, most of the categories under Category:France and Category:Paris are sorted with an asterisk sort key that puts them at the top. I believe Verdy p has recently made this change for many other France-related places (perhaps departments and regions?).

Verdy p says that this is a standard practice. He/she also says that many people express thanks for his work. (He/she also says some other things that I'm not sure I understand.) However, I haven't seen it as standard in the many such categories I've worked on. I frankly don't like this practice, because it makes it harder for people to find the categories they're looking for. Most people aren't going to know or remember that certain categories get sorted differently. Can anyone shed any light on this? Is this practice documented anywhere? Thanks in advance. --Auntof6 (talk) 06:32, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

  • Initially you reverted changes of categories but did not speak about the asterisks. Though they are common practices in categories that are likely to contain other very specific local subcategories which do not form generic subtopics used in many similar categories; these are the subcategories that we are expected to find in lot of brother categories of the same type. Some topics are very generic (Geography, History, Nature, Society...) and used as impoart search and subclassifica axes on really a lot of categories (notably most categories for territorial entities). When sorting these categories, they are the most stable ones when many other member subcategories will be reclassified in some inner more generic category: these generally don't use any sort key, and are just sorted alphabetically, after the important generic ones (also sorted themselves alphabetically). Sort keys generally create subgroups with their initial character, but the "*" subbgroup are spanning almost everything else related to the main topic of the category. There's also the " " subgroup which is basically made for strict/exhaustive subdivisions of a topic which can be enumerated in a closed set (In some categories related to clasification by dates, this " " is often used, but frequently they are grouped with their first digit, which may or may not be convenient when these are years or centuries with a variable number of digits). The rest which is open to infinite numbers of items gets just sorted by name using their initial.
Anyway what is important is that the list should be coherently presented and subtopics correctly organized in their most precise parent categories. verdy_p (talk) 11:32, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
  • Auntof6, in short — yes, this (adding sorting keys to subcats to tailor their sorting and grouping in the ToC of a parent cat) is standard practice and, in principle, a good idea. One additional example: This Category:Lisbon tram 560 is keyed [[Category:Lisbon trams by fleet number|560]], with "560", to make it sort by number in a flat fleet category ToC, but like this [[Category:CCFL fleet series 541-585|60]] as "60" to make the ToC of a fleet series category ToC to display separate headings for tens, as they would be all under "5" if the sorting key were the whole number.
What I cannot imagine is how could this have caused an incipient edit war. One of us adds a parent category, another adds a sorting key to it, what’s the problem? Can (one of) you provide an example of the kind of edits that prompted this dicussion? -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 15:28, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
I personally don't think we should sort this way. I think anything that's, for example, "Foo of foo2" should be sorted by its actual name in the "Foo2" category. However, if that is not how things are done, I'm asking that that be documented somewhere so that we all know how to do it, and so that we can point to the documentation when someone questions it, as User:Paris 16 and I have dine in these discussions. --Auntof6 (talk) 18:49, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
  • @Verdy p: I don't remember reverting any recent change of yours, so I'm not sure what you're referring to when you say I initially reverted something. --Auntof6 (talk) 18:49, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
    Basically those asterisks are categories that will very likely stay there and won't be further subcategorized as there's no evident way to group them. Thhis leaves tem at top, and the other categories are just listed by name after it, but may be further grouped into one of the "asterisk" categories. They are indication of progress of the classification, mor or less modeled from the root categroies of Commons (plus some more generic categories specific to a topic, where we want to group items further into.
    I had reverts (may be not you) by someonethat did not look at correct parent categories I found. If it's only the asterisk, it's easy to see that such sort order is still coherent and that there's no real benefit it separating them within multiple groups by letter when they create a single short list (e.g. in Paris). Those asterisk categories follow somme common conventions used in parent categories, and also used in sister categroies of the same type: you know where to look for them before the rest in long alphabetic lists which may span multiple pages. I've been incorrectly challenged that I was the only one using this kind of sorting, but it is used in many places in Commons by many users, and since very long. The purpose is to help sorting and grouping items so that they can be given precise categories with the best semantics and where we expect them and not left being in multiple branches which are hard to find. Finally the files can be categroized using much less categories and automatically by import tools that will scan categories and propose the most precise ones, but not too many because we are better focused on precise topics that can be found through multiple paths. verdy_p (talk) 19:02, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

I don't want to report any attack against me, but see this

I don't want to report any attack against me, but see this User_talk:Miroslaw_Magola

  • These are perfectly valid nominations for deletion, and no personal attack should be read into them. it's just that {{Own work}} only applies to images you yourself have created. For example, it doesn't apply to screenshots from television programmes. Rodhullandemu (talk) 14:32, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
  • May I add that normally screenshots from television programs are not permitted on Wikimedia Commons unless the uploader can prove that they do not infringe copyright. In order to do this, you need to show that both the United States copyright law and the law of the country where the program was broadcast are observed. Martinvl (talk) 15:28, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

Hierarchy of Search Results

What is the hierarchy of search returns on a phrase that does not have an exact corresponding category? I would think that the closest category match would be displayed first, or the appropriate redirect if there is one.

For example, one of the categories I am currently editing is "Episcopal Church (United States)". Users might be expected to search the phrase "Episcopal Church". But if you enter "Episcopal Church" in the search box on the Main Page of Wikimedia Commons, and click on results "containing Episcopal Church", the first eleven results describe individual churches. The twelfth result is for the actual words "Episcopal Church" and tells you that "This category is located at Category:Episcopal Church (United States). To get to the category, the user needs to scroll down past the first eleven more particular references to the general reference (ie. the category).

So I guess I am wondering if the default search result is for the target or closest category of the phrase entered.

Thanks, Drbones1950 (talk) 19:32, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

October 06

Creative Commons 4.0

Hello! I'm writing from the Wikimedia Foundation to invite you to give your feedback on a proposed move from CC BY-SA 3.0 to a CC BY-SA 4.0 license across all Wikimedia projects. The consultation will run from October 5 to November 8, and we hope to receive a wide range of viewpoints and opinions. Please, if you are interested, take part in the discussion on Meta-Wiki.

Apologies that this message is only in English. This message can be read and translated in more languages here. Joe Sutherland (talk) 01:34, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

October 07

درخواست کمک به زبان فارسی برای گپی رایت

برای از بین نرفتن حق کپی رایت عکس هایی که گرفته ام کمک به زبان فارسی می خواهم. زمان شرکت در مسابقه را دارم از دست می دهم. Khosro70000 (talk) 17:45, 5 October 2016 (UTC)khosro7000

Khosro70000: سلام، چه کمکی از دست بنده بر میاد؟ --Mhhossein talk 17:50, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

Kodachrome processing of slides

I am scanning Kodachrome slides from 1979 onwards. You send your filmrolls to the Kodak processing plant and you got your mounted slides back in plastic boxes. On the paper frame there is the month and year of the processing imprinted together with a slidenumber from 1 to 36. This helps tremendously to research when and where the pictures was taken (I made no notes at the time and my memory isnt perfect after more than thirty years and lots of pictures). However there is a fairly short period when no month and year was imprinted. If I could at know the year when this happened I could retroactively year date the slides. I will also try to discover a slide wich I can date on the content.Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:02, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Where to store not-allowable file types?

I recently uploaded 2 PDF files with slides for WikiConference North America 2016. I would like to upload original presentations somewhere so they are available to others (and me in the future). You can not easily modify, or reuse parts of PDF file for future presentations so PDF is kind of useless, if the aim is to share. I understand why Open Office documents are not among Allowable file types. I remember in the past other websites where people were uploading original "raw" files that could not be uploaded to Commons because of size or type restrictions. Anybody remember what they were and if they are still around? What is the best practice in this case? --Jarekt (talk) 13:12, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Note, we fixed the issue with filtering open document formats years ago. We could allow them again if people want (Actually having a preview display is a little harder. Probably do-able with WebODF, but would require some work...). Bawolff (talk) 17:40, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
I think it would be very useful, even without preview. --Jarekt (talk) 05:29, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
You can upload them to Commons Archive and link from Commons with {{Commons Archive}}. --ghouston (talk) 01:01, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
User:Ghouston Thank you. That was what I was looking for. --Jarekt (talk) 05:29, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

October 08

ایجاد لینک برای اماکن بیشتر در ایران برای مسابقه

درود بر همگان، چه خوب بود اگر برای تفرج گاه ها، اماکن مدرن، تجاری و سیاسی و و صنعتی نیز امکان ایجاد آپلود برای شرکت در بخش مسابقه نیز بوجود بیاید تا عکاسانی که در این باره فعالند و آثار در خوری دارند بتوانند آنها را با شما در میان بگذارند. وجود 26000 مورد عالی است ولیکن محدودیت محتوای اماکن حس می شود. با سپاس فراوان

خسرو حیرت نگاری

Khosro70000 (talk) 17:46, 5 October 2016 (UTC)khosro7000 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Khosro70000 (talk • contribs) 17:20, 5 October 2016‎ (UTC)

Google translate is failing pretty spectacularly, and Aryanpour.net is not doing much better... @Mardetanha, Ebrahim, Mmxx, and Mhhossein: can you help? Storkk (talk) 16:36, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
Storkk: Yeah, sure. The user says: "It would be nice if there were the chance to upload photos of promenades, modern, political, commercial and industrial places for participating in the competition (I think he means WIKI Loves monuments Iran). Having this option available, photographers who are active in this field and have significant works may share them. 26000 items available is good, however it's felt that the options are limited. Thanks a lot." --Mhhossein talk 18:01, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
Thanks, Mhhossein! Storkk (talk) 18:29, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
You're welcome. I'd like to help. --Mhhossein talk 18:36, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
@Khosro70000: Unfortunately, Iran has no Freedom of Panorama law. Modern architecture is protected by copyright, and we respect those copyrights. Some countries allow photographs to be taken of things like architecture without violating Copyright. This is called Freedom of Panorama. Iran is not one of those countries. Storkk (talk) 18:29, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks everybody It was a useful discussion Sincerely Khosro70000 (talk) 16:59, 8 October 2016 (UTC)khosro7000

JPEG files with CMYK colour profile

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T141739
Tracked in Phabricator
Task T38346

I’m interested what’s happening here, that we get an increased number of error messages caused by JPEG files with CMYK colour profile (here and at least in de.wiki, quite probably also in en.wiki). Is there some new software out there, that we get more and more of these images or may there be a relatively new bug in Mediawiki software? Note, that I’m aware of phab:T141739 – by the way the error comes also with non-progressive JPEG files. In en:JPEG I read, that a colour profile can be inserted, but nothing about CMYK.

The most recent example I noticed is File:Mental Disorder.jpg (though here, sorry for the pun, the effect seems quite suiting) – according to EXIF data the file was edited with Adobe Photoshop CS6, but I did not check all the other images. — Speravir_Talk – 00:39, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

And the actual error message is...? (Or would you describe how to see an error message? As your link does not display any error here.) --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 08:44, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
If you look at the old version as a thumbnail down at the pic-page, you'll just see horizontal blurry stripes. After the change by Speravir everything's fine. See here as well. Sänger (talk) 09:00, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
Sänger, I find Jeffrey Friedl's EXIF viewer very handy for investigating such issues. Simply removing the colour profile with GIMP may have "fixed" the issue here, but doesn't actually correct the problem with the photo. This photo you link is b&w so it isn't that important, but the JPG is still tagged with EXIF ColorSpace = CMYK. What should have been done is to import the photo to a photo editor (e.g. Photoshop, but perhaps GIMP can do this too) and convert the colourspace back to RGB and supply an sRGB colour profile. It needs converting, rather than just lopping off information. Again, for b&w this is relatively pointless. The problems seems to be "user error" where someone has created a JPG or TIFF they intend to send to a printer (using CMYK) but have uploaded it to the web. Since Commons is a web-based repository, one could argue that our upload tool should simply reject such uploads. The user can then re-export their JPG from Lightroom or Photoshop using the correct profile and colourspace. While it is possible to convert an image from CMYK to RGB, once it is in an 8-bit JPG this will be very likely to result in significant loss of colour information. (This is far more radical a change than converting from AdobeRGB to sRGB, say, because both are RGB colourspaces). Far better that the problem is fixed by the user, who's source image is in RGB anyway. For images not uploaded by the creator, it's more of a problem. Really the best solution would be to contact the source website and query their content because if they are hosting CMYK JPGs then somebody is being clueless or careless, and they may appreciate being told. -- Colin (talk) 09:46, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
I have no idea about all this, I just provided some links and information. I've got Gimp on my puter, but that's about all I know about picture editing, not to mention all this meta stuff about pic files. Sänger (talk) 09:54, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
Colin, the wiki has the ability to detect CMYK colorspace and provide the user(s) with a notice and guidance. The notice could be something along the lines of
"We have detected that the image you're trying to upload uses CMYK colorspace. This can cause potential rendering problems, to avoid these problems please upload the image with a RGB compatible colorspace."
We could then provide a link to a article on the wiki on the subject with more detailed guidance. We have nothing to gain by blindly accepting images that use CMYK and allowing the repository to fill up with images that are unusable in articles when we have the ability to do something about it, before they pile up into a massive maintenance category. On the implementation to detect the problematic images (on upload) we could use the Imagick PECL. Imagick::getImageColorspace function, it does what we need, just check for the imagick::COLORSPACE_CMYK constant. If the developers would rather use a command-line utility to detect these images then we could use the identify program that is part of the ImageMagick package. At the very least we should inform a uploader of the potential problems with uploading these images.
@AKlapper (WMF): see: 1. Possible_jpeg_rendering_or_import_bug, 2. Corrupted_previews_of_File and 3. JPEG_image_doesn.27t_resize_properly_in_viewer for other recent reports. I added 2 related Phabricator tasks to the top of this section. Offnfopt(talk) 10:43, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
You can also use EXIFTOOL to detect the ColorSpace tag or profile name. I know EXIFTOOL is already used for the TinyRGB profile work on thumbnailing. I don't think "this can cause potential rendering problems" is going to be understandable to many people without computer science degrees :-) and it isn't the "uploading" that is the issue but the exporting/saving from their photo software. Possibly something like "The image has a CMYK colorspace which is typically used for sending an image to a printer and not for display purposes. Please export your JPG with an RGB colourspace (such as sRGB) before uploading on Commons." We could then link to some page that mentions some browsers and image software can't display CMYK and perhaps guidance on what options to pick for a few software packages. I think anyone clued up enough to choose CMYK probably knows the options they picked and will just facepalm at their mistake and fix it. -- Colin (talk) 11:18, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
Colin, it was simply my mistake not knowing that there is something in the EXIF data. Even using exiftool with ExifToolGUI (in Windows) now and seeing this I do not know, how to remove this part (seems I can only remove the whole XMP-photoshop section). But no one hinders you from uploading a fixed version yourself. — Speravir_Talk – 16:29, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

Oh, I had forgotten this other Phab task, though it is linked in the one I mentioned above, and had read this already. So, the issue is known since at least since May of 2012. But I remember only complaints for a time of several months now. Should this simply be coincedence, that there was a longer time span without users noticing this issue? — Speravir_Talk – 16:38, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

I see a couple of redlinked categories that I think might just be misspelled. Could someone with some knowledge in this area please take a look? The redlinked categories are Category:Unidentified Actinoptergyii and Category:Unidentified Actinoptyergii: Should these be Category:Unidentified Actinopterygii? Thanks in advance. --Auntof6 (talk) 07:39, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

Video template grant proposal

I just started a grant proposal to create video templates to make it easier for volunteers to create nice looking videos. Feel free to comment or endorse the proposal on meta. Ainali (talk) 13:49, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

private files

i want to ask if its possible to upload a file but without sharing it, so that it would stay for me even if it violates some copyrights . — Preceding unsigned comment added by Uchiha itachi007 (talk • contribs) 20:26, 08 October 2016 (UTC)

Short answer: If you want to keep your files private, Wikimedia Commons is not the place you are looking for. Long answer: COM:SCOPE. --rimshottalk 20:42, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
@Uchiha itachi007: That is the opposite of the purpose of Commons. Why would you want to do this? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:09, 8 October 2016 (UTC)


October 09

Diocesi di San Pedro de Macoris or Nuestra Señora de la Altagracia

Belongs this church in "Diocesi di San Pedro de Macoris" or "Diocesi di Nuestra Señora de la Altagracia and Higüey"

According to this and this Commons files La Romana is in "Diocesi di Nuestra Señora de la Altagracia and Higüey" See isla Catalina

According to thecatholicdirectory La Romana Province belongs to "Diocesi di San Pedro de Macorís"

Who can provide clarity about this? --Jos1950 (talk) 03:15, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

  • I would have to guess that the Catholic Directory is more authoritative than what some Commons user did, but you could contact whoever made what appears to you to be a wrong categorization and see if they had a reliable source. - Jmabel ! talk 17:04, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

I got delete message

Hello, I got message that picture that i have upload will be deleted. I dont know why? I make page for grand karate sensei Radomir Mudric, he give me that pleasure and honor to help him. All pictures that I am upload are very rear and exclusive and of course He give me all rights to do that. There is picture from private collection. I dont see why You want to delete them? --Димитрије Давидовић (talk) 17:41, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

Cleanup needed at Category:ICC

This category appears to contain a hodgepodge of images related to two unrelated things, the "International Criminal Court‎", and "International Champions Cup". Some images may also relate to the "International Cricket Council". BD2412 T 22:31, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

Two recent news articles

  • Google releases Open Images dataset: Open Images is a dataset of ~9 million URLs to images that have been annotated with labels spanning over 6000 categories. The annotations are licensed by Google Inc. under CC BY 4.0 license. The images are listed as having a CC BY 2.0 license. Note: while we tried to identify images that are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license, we make no representations or warranties regarding the license status of each image and you should verify the license for each image yourself.
  • Google shuts down Panoramio: Panoramio, the location-centric photo sharing service Google acquired in 2007, will show its last image on November 4.

Do they count as one good news, one bad news?--578985s (talk) 10:26, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

For me are bad news. What about all the open images uploaded at Panoramio? Somebody knows any tool to upload directly images from Panoramio to Commons? And, somebody knows a method to search oepn imagen at Panoramio? Bye, --Elisardojm (talk) 01:20, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
I agree. Check these:
-- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 02:42, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
With regard to Panoramio shutting down, Archiveteam has a page about Panoramio (which mentions User:Panoramio upload bot) that may be of interest. --Gazebo (talk) 06:50, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Strange warning when using the upload wizard

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T147659

Hi, my last two uploads via the wizard have produced an unexpected error message: "Warning: We recommend that you properly fill in all the fields. Do you want to continue without correcting these warnings?" As far as I know I filled in all the fields and the error message appeared over the "upload success" screen and the files I was uploading uploaded fine. Is this a known issue? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:34, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

Hi Harry, this is not uncommon here. I usually experience the same thing and I don't think it cause any harm. Warm regards. Wikicology (talk) 18:53, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
@HJ Mitchell: Yes, it's a new issue, sorry about that. Last week we've been working to allow this popup to display more details about the warnings, but in the process it looks that we accidentally made it appear even when there are none (I work on WMF's Multimedia team). This is filed as phab:T147659. We'll get it fixed on Monday, for now please just ignore the popup (it doesn't do anything if there are no warnings). Matma Rex (talk) 15:42, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
@Matma Rex: Thank you very much for the explanation. Please do keep us updated—it looks like it could be a great feature once everything's ironed out. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:55, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
@HJ Mitchell: This should be resolved now. Matma Rex (talk) 18:52, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Bio-tex postcards

I have scanned some Bio-tex postcards. [8] These are seemingly old pictures of children. This one Any idea about the date an how the licensing goes? The scanned postcards are printed in Italy.Smiley.toerist (talk) 21:09, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

The text in the left bottom corner is ´REX 2491´Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:40, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
I have uploaded the pictures now.Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:59, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

@Tuvalkin: Just as a late-comer, can I suggest uploading an unmodified copy of the scan as well as the modified, and to note whether the adjustment was made against the postcard in your hand, or just a best-guess? These are important for maximising documentation. Adam Cuerden (talk) 16:28, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Adam Cuerden, I cannot see why you pinged me on this. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 19:47, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
I can guess why. Originaly the ping was misplaced and put under the wrong header. The displayed images gave the impression that they belonged tot the header (Soviet postcard)(before the clear was placed). The last user name there was Tuvalkin. To confuse matters more the ping referred to a text in the file description of File:Bio-tex kind.jpg = Colours adjusted to mostly black-white background and levels adjusted. (nothing out off the Village Commons) @Adam Cuerden: You should always check carefully after a modification if the text is correct in the whole context. This is a perfect example off the laws of Murphy.Smiley.toerist (talk) 22:37, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
In answer to your question: By old foto images I always try reconstruct as close as posible the original work without distortions. Discoulouring througth age of the postcard paper. What was originaly Black and White should be restored to it. In the levels I removed the mist of the images. The added ligth in the whole picture is removed so the original scharp contrast is restored. As usual pieces of print inkt fall of the postcard. That damage is restored as far as posible. Paintings are different: You can never be certain of the colours the artist originaly intented. Anyway I no longer have the original scan.Smiley.toerist (talk) 22:49, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Видаліть мою сторінку!!!https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Мадзій_Ірина_Богданівна_-_16073245.jpg

Я не знаю куди тут писати і кому! Але я вже два місяці борюся за те, щоб мою сторінку https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Мадзій_Ірина_Богданівна_-_16073245.jpg видалили! Автор Микола Василечко завантажив два фото, де зображена я, тобто Ірина Мадзій. Я НЕ ДАВАЛА своєї згоди на публікацію цих фото і створення сторінки. І я вимагаю від вас вилучити її взагалі. Що ще для цього потрібно? ВИДАЛІТЬ СТОРІНКУ! Без ніяких пояснень і коментарів - просто ВИДАЛІТЬ! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Irina Madziy (talk • contribs) 07:12, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

See User talk:INeverCry#File:Мадзій Ірина Богданівна - 16073245.jpg brought up by Taivo. The deleted version here for admins is a small professional head-shot with no COM:EXIF 298 × 375 (26,849 bytes). I history-cleaned it and restored Mykola's version because it's obviously his work without the copyvio concern of the small overwrite, and because a high-res portrait is well within COM:SCOPE. lNeverCry 07:22, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Я не веду мову про видалення чи заміну файлу! Я ХОЧУ ЩОБ ВИДАЛИЛИ МОЮ СТОРІНКУ!!!! ВИДАЛІТЬ мою сторінку ВЗАГАЛІ!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Irina Madziy (talk • contribs) 07:59, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

What about File:Установча конференція Тернопільської обласної організації Руху Наливайченка «Справедливість» - 16073237.jpg? You're in the photo, but this is also the largest group photo in Category:Founding Conference of Ternopil regional organization Movement Nalyvaichenko «Spravedlyvist». I could courtesy delete the image of you alone, but not the group photo. lNeverCry 08:06, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
Я веду мову про видалення цілої сторінки і всіх фото взагалі. ВИ МОЖЕТЕ ВИДАЛИТИ МОЮ СТОРІНКУ?
I can delete the single photo of you and your category here, but uk:Громадсько-політичний рух Валентина Наливайченка «Справедливість» uses File:Установча конференція Тернопільської обласної організації Руху Наливайченка «Справедливість» - 16073237.jpg, so that can't be deleted. lNeverCry 08:33, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Ви не можете видалити цілу сторінку з двома фото? Якщо ні, то видаліть перше фото, на якому зображена я, а друге групове залиште.I want you to remove my page! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Irina Madziy (talk • contribs) 08:39, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

File:Мадзій Ірина Богданівна - 16073245.jpg видаліть цей файл. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Irina Madziy (talk • contribs) 08:45, 10 October 2016 (UTC) 

я знаю, що згідно з вашими правилами, щоб видалити файл, його треба замінити іншим. В мене такої можливості немає, тому ВИДАЛІТЬ мій файл з фото File:Мадзій Ірина Богданівна - 16073245.jpg — Preceding unsigned comment added by Irina Madziy (talk • contribs) 08:51, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
    • Что ж вы так кричите :) Свои мысли вполне себе можно излагать спокойно. Да и фото не такое уж и плохое, ну :) --Stolbovsky (talk) 09:09, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
✓ Done @Irina Madziy: I've deleted your portrait and category. lNeverCry 09:22, 10 October 2016 (UTC

Вполне спокойно пишу, но настойчиво. Потому что здесь непонятные правила и меня два месяца не слышат. Я просила убрать страницу ещё с августа. И сделайте так, пожалуста, чтобы её уже никто не мог восстановить! Спасибо! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Irina Madziy (talk • contribs) 09:52, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Is someone deleting my POTD claims?

Back in June or so, I started to deal with the large backlog of my FPs that haven't gone on the mainpage, sticking to about one a week, and focusing on themes (Black History month photos in February 2017; Women's History March 2017.

February still has that rough distribution, but there's two images of mine in all of March, and I'd have sworn that a lot of images I had put up for POTD have disappeared from the queue. Am I just forgetting things, or what? Adam Cuerden (talk) 13:56, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

When you add a POTD, just add it your watch-list too. Then you will know when somebody edit them. As are as I know, it never happened to me without requesting me to change a date (when someone want to choose a particular anniversary date). Jee 14:09, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
I do, but if you miss a deletion in your logs, it's very hard to check. I find it very hard to believe (for instance) that I wouldn't have claimed 8 March 2017 - that being international Women's Day. Adam Cuerden (talk) 14:15, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
Hi @Adam, I just had a quick look at your deleted contributions and I can confirm there are no contributions of yours that have anything to do with POTD that have been deleted. I checked your contributions from this moment all the way back to 2008, so it does appear you are forgetting things :-) Thanks, odder (talk) 22:32, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
Okay, no worries. Probably did a lot of the Black History, then didn't get around to the women's History that came after that. Thanks! Just don't want to keep adding things that I'm going to get objections to. Adam Cuerden (talk) 22:38, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-41

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • You can show Special:RecentChanges on a page by using {{Special:RecentChanges}}. You can now use tag filters by using {{Special:RecentChanges/tagfilter=tagname}}. [9]
  • The notification badge is coloured if you have notifications. When you check the notification the badge will now turn grey on all wikis instead of just the local one. [10]
  • Colours used in the Wikimedia wikis' main interface changed slightly. This is to make them easier to see for readers and editors with reduced eyesight. [11]

Changes this week

  • Hidden HTML comments will be more visible when you edit with the visual editor. <!-- You write hidden HTML comments like this. --> [12]
  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 11 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 12 October. It will be on all wikis from 13 October (calendar).

Meetings

Future changes

  • Language converter syntax will soon no longer work inside external links. Wikitext like http://-{zh-cn:foo.com; zh-hk:bar.com; zh-tw:baz.com}- must be replaced. You will have to write -{zh-cn: http://foo.com ; zh-hk: http://bar.com ; zh-tw:http://baz.com }- instead. This only affects languages with Language Converter enabled. Examples of such languages are Chinese and Serbian. [13]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

20:30, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

User:LuIsAlOtArI

Block this spammer here and globally. --Andyrom75 (talk) 20:45, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

✓ Done Blocked on Commons. Requests for global should go to meta. Эlcobbola talk 21:03, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
Thanks. At least he's not able to link any image from here. .....with this username.... --Andyrom75 (talk) 21:04, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

October 11

Uploaded a Huge File

I just uploaded a new version of File:Coat of Arms of Teresa Cristina of the Two Sicilies, Empress of Brazil.svg as a vector version of File:Brasão de S.M a Imperatriz D. Teresa Cristina.png. However, my new file is huge. I don't know how to identify what is making it so large and how to clean it up. Can you help? --Glasshouse (talk) 05:30, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps @Fry1989: or @Tuvalkin: could check this out real quick? lNeverCry 07:46, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
I would like to recommend the tool "SVG Cleaner". It has reduced the file from 7.75 MB to 865 KB. -- MaxxL - talk 08:15, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
@Glasshouse: I think this simply is a very detailed image file. (You can zoom in x50 to e.g. the castles on one of the shields, and they still look nice: https://i.imgur.com/06f3jj4.png.) All that details has to be recorded somewhere. There is some bloat in the file (I think it's from repeatedly transforming the shapes), but it's not a problem. I don't think you should be bothered about large file size until it causes the file to nor thumbnail, or to be difficult to edit. Matma Rex (talk) 17:48, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
I'm sorry for the late response but I was out for most of today. You can use an SVG scrubber to reduce the file size. I'm not a fan of it personally, but some users like to use it. Fry1989 eh? 22:14, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

How to access, download data sources from the data vizzes?

Was trying to access data here; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Profile_Zoncolan_Sutrio.svg#/media/File:Profile_Zoncolan_Sutrio.svg

but there is no link to original data source. How can I contact the author?

Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mfinaly (talk • contribs) 19:05, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

You can contact User:Vomer~commonswiki , who uploaded it. Ruslik (talk) 20:32, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
Click here and then use a text editor or you can view the source code since here. There are also web sites where you can see the source code of a page using the url. --Metrónomo's truth of the day: "That was also done by the president" not an excuse.

October 12

Doubt

This image is a scan from a book originally published in USA in 1904. Is posible hosted it in Commons? And under what license? Than you. --Metrónomo's truth of the day: "That was also done by the president" not an excuse. 09:41, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Note: aparently, the cited book is a school text-book. I couldn't verify the source, but I could confirm that exist. See an advertising in a newspaper of 1904. You could buy it for 45 cents :). --Metrónomo's truth of the day: "That was also done by the president" not an excuse. 10:00, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
It can be transferred to Commons and a {{PD-1923}} applies. --Fæ (talk) 10:15, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
Thank you very much. The result: File:Sasarul01.jpg. --Metrónomo's truth of the day: "That was also done by the president" not an excuse. 12:49, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: ★ Poké95 12:56, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Weird sorting anomaly

Can anyone see why Category:1933 events in Japan is sorting out of order in Category:Events in Japan by year? It appears to be sorting between the categories for 995 and 1003. I compared it to Category:1932 events in Japan, and I don't see any difference that should account for it. --Auntof6 (talk) 01:43, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

It's showing in the proper order for me. I'm viewing it with the latest Opera on Windows 7. lNeverCry 02:35, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
For me, too, now. Maybe User:Tuvalkin's change fixed it. --Auntof6 (talk) 02:44, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
My edit removed the invisible character U+200E LEFT-TO-RIGHT MARK, whose presence in the template arguments caused it to create an incorrect sorting key. (Sorry I didn’t explain it here when I did it, I was just too sleepy.) -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 17:08, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Check out and endorse the GLAMpipe project!

GLAMpipe metadata manipulation & upload tool is an extensible, open source web-application for cultural metadata. It is aimed for data-savvy wikimedians and data partners. It gives the user the power of bots without the need to code.

Nodes are the building blocks of the data flow. A node can act as a data source, it can split, combine, create wikitext or process data in other ways, and a node can export data to files or web services like Wikimedia Commons or Wikidata. Nodes can be created, altered and shared by the users, making it possible to build upon work by others.

We are applying for a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation to create an online, collaborative version and the possibility of preparing and importing data to Wikidata. Read more about the project, and endorse it at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/GLAMpipe

Best regards, Ari, Kimmo and Susanna Ånäs (Susannaanas) (talk) 21:32, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

October 13

Location maps

Hello. Can anyone help me create or modify a location map? Xaris333 (talk) 12:29, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

You can make a request @ Commons:Graphic Lab/Map workshop. Offnfopt(talk) 12:56, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
Thanks. Xaris333 (talk) 13:17, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

tif vs jpg

Is it okay to use tif files on the Danish Wikipedia and other wikis rather than jpg files. --Villy Fink Isaksen (talk) 06:29, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes. Where there are visually identical jpegs matching TIFFs, then it may be better to use the jpeg as it (currently) creates better thumbnails. --Fæ (talk) 17:11, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
Thx --Villy Fink Isaksen (talk) 18:15, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: ★ Poké95 05:58, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Strange watchlist behaviour

Yesterday I uploaded some new images and added them to my watchlist but the last two File:Séan Lemass at Schiphol Airport (cropped).jpg and File:Séan Lemass at Schipol Airport.jpg, while they appear in my "View and edit watchlist" page, do not appear in my actual watchlist. I have unwatched and rewatched them 2 or 3 times each and purged the image pages but they still do not appear as entries when they were uploaded or edited. Any ideas? Ww2censor (talk) 13:25, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

@Ww2censor: Operations has been having ongoing issues today, that have caused various odd problems... earlier I could not 'watch' or 'unwatch' pages, for instance. Reventtalk 18:18, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
Thanks, whether it is a result of reediting the two images in question, they now appear on my watchlist, so all seems well. It was just curious that 2 images out of about a dozen showed this problem. Ww2censor (talk) 19:07, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: ★ Poké95 06:30, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Deletion summaries for copyvio tagged files

Currently when admins delete files tagged with {{copyvio}} the default summary "Copyright violation; see Commons:Licensing" is provided. It would be nice if the reason and URL were included in the summary. It'd make it easier to check whether e.g. other later contributions by the user are re-uploads of the deleted file. --Paul_012 (talk) 21:36, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Depending on which JS tools an admin uses, most admins looking at the copyvio tag will have a trashcan button that automatically populates the deletion rationale with the copyvio or speedy rationale that the page was tagged with. Relatively frequently I remove these, although it means a couple extra clicks, for a variety of reasons. Either I don't particularly wish to endorse the language used (since it would seem like it is coming from me rather than the tagger), or I think the proximate source found was problematic, or for other reasons I don't think it would be productive. Storkk (talk) 15:39, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for the explanation. I looked a bit more, and found deletion logs that indeed mentioned the URLs, so I might have been misremembering things. --Paul_012 (talk) 06:19, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: ★ Poké95 06:25, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Glitch with Template:Numbercategory-clothing

I can't figure out a problem with {{Numbercategory-clothing}}, which is used to create headers and categories for Category:Number # on clothing. For instance Category:Number 3 on clothing, it is a child of Category:Number 3 on objects (where it should be), but when going to Category:Number 3 on objects, it is not there. Instead it is under Category: 3 (number). Strangely, Category:Number 2 on objects doesn't have this problem. Thanks for looking into this. --P 1 9 9  ✉ 13:42, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Eso es normal. Cuando se modifican plantillas o mensajes Mediawiki que afectan a la categorización es posible que el árbol se complete con el tiempo a medida que se vayan actualizando los archivos en los servidores (sí, esas páginas están cacheadas). Lo que se observa en la página de una categoría es el contenido de un archivo que se modifica cada vez que una página o categoría se edita, pero eso no sucede cuando se modifica la categorización en una plantilla. #ifexist es una función costosa y que tiene un comportamiento inusual (si usted coloca #ifexist:Foo en una página, Mediawiki tomará que se ha insertado una plantilla llamada "Foo" y es posible que aparezca Template:Foo en Special:WantedTemplates aunque no se use ni siquiera una vez). Yo he visto hasta 2 meses para actualizar completamente un árbol de categorías extenso y complejo. La lista de errores posibles que se pueden observar es extensa (y algunas cosas son realmente extrañas :) ). No se preocupe, cada cierto tiempo se actualizan los archivos internos de los servidores escaneando las wikis en busca de inconsistencias y esto se normaliza. --Metrónomo's truth of the day: "That was also done by the president" not an excuse. 17:19, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
Gracias. The change was already made on September 2! I guess I have to be patient a little longer. I'll check again when 2 months are up. --P 1 9 9  ✉ 17:50, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
Or you can force it, saving a blank null change. Look now Category:Number 3 on objects. --Metrónomo's truth of the day: "That was also done by the president" not an excuse. 18:10, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
@P199: As Metrónomo says, a null edit would refresh these and make them show up where expected. If you have AWB access here, you can use it to run through null-editing all of them quickly. You don't change anything, you just hit "save" when each page comes up. If you don't have AWB access and you'd like me to do it, I could do it tomorrow. Just let me know. --Auntof6 (talk) 10:04, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
Yes, I have AWB, but it is no big deal waiting for the category tree to be refreshed. --P 1 9 9  ✉ 12:28, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

October 14

34 million files

The 33,999,999th file of Commons.

Oh, look…! -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 22:04, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Does that number include deleted files? Offnfopt(talk) 22:15, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
The number 33,999,999 for this photo was generated by adding this to the description on upload:
| other_fields={{Information_field |name=1st uploaded as the|value={{subst:formatnum:{{subst:#expr:{{subst:formatnum:{{subst:NUMBEROFFILES}}|R}}+1}}}}<sup>th</sup> file in Wikimedia Commons}}
(The file I had next in my queue got stamped 34,000,006.) Since we’re constantly uploading and deleting files, more the previous than the latter, each given number mark may be passed several times: For any exact number, there’s more than one file that adds to that total in the moment of upload — although only fleetingly, while the number of additions largly surpasses that of deletions. That’s never a given, though: If tomorrow half a million files got deleted, we’d be back to 33½ Mfiles and we’d be celebrating the 34M again in a few months. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 23:09, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

October 15

Soviet postcard

This section was originally about File:River_crossing_for_coal.jpg, meanwhile deleted as copyvio and its transclusion removed by bot. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 20:13, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

I cant read Russian. Wich river and place is this? Is there anyway to date the postcard? I suspect the 1930s. Is there a anonymous license in Russia? Smiley.toerist (talk) 23:31, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

I’m almost sure Stalingradgidrostroĭ changed its name in 1961, when Stalingrad become Volgograd, so the photo (presuming that it is correctly labelled) cannot be outside of the year range 1925-1961. Please note that the while printing company publishing this postcard was was in Kalinin city (previously and later: Tverh) their postcards would depict scenes from all across the Union. Note also that a postcard published after 1953 (when Izogiz was created, as said) can show a much older photo — so one thing is dating the photo, another is dating the postcard. The photo was dated as pre-WW2, I kept this in conjunction with 1925-1961, based on the construction company name. It can be improved. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 02:29, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
@Tuvalkin: According to ru:Сталинградгидрострой, the company was formed in August 1950 for the construction of the Stalingrad hydroelectric station in Stalingrad. There was a big connection to Gulag labor/management. The last director of Stalingradgidrostroi was in charge from 1956-1962. lNeverCry 03:07, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
Ah, good find. Seems that the date range is 1950-1961, then, as it is unlikely that the company name didn’t change in 1960. Smiley.toerist, what was the source for dating it of before WW2? -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 03:17, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
No evidence. That´s why I asked the questions. The style most likely placed it in the 1930´s or 1950´s when there where big industrial Soviet projects. I would like some guidance as to when anonymous Soviet Union postcards can be uploaded. The Category:Postcards of the Soviet Union is fairly meager compared to Category:20th-century postcards of Russia (but all pre-Soviet times). I suppose all postcards from this time where never private initiatives but produced by local authorities using anonymous photografers. Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:04, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

pre-Soviet postcard

By the way could File:Станция Смоленск. Вид на вокзал со стороны путей.jpg be dated? (not 2011) Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:04, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

I’d say after 1868 (when the station was opened) and before 1918 (when the spelling reform replaced "ѣ" and "і" and eliminated word final "ъ"). -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 20:13, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Soviet postcards

With the undelete in 2081, the image is treated as an individual creative work. 70 years after his presumed death. I think there there are good arguments to treat this not as an individual work but as an collective (company) work. This would be 70 years after publication. The same as an anonymous newspaper picture or an advertisement. The reasoning is this: In the 1950s in the Soviet Union, nearly all people worked in fact as state employees and there was practical no private enterprise or artists working for personal profit. All work was following the socialist principle done for the common good and people where paid pocket money for their personal needs (housing. many services and meals at work where provided free of charge). The picture taker probably took the picture on orders of the work group producing postcards mostly for propaganda purposes.

There is no conceivable commercial value in this postcard, but it has historic documentation value. We are talking about orphan work here, where documentation is missing. (I dont expect archives in the soviet organisations to be kept for long, except maybe the KGB) Why should we respect theoretical authorship rights which where not respected in the Soviet Union? (It was used, but only as a means of censorship for publication outside of the Soviet Union) Why impose ourselves a needless self-censorschip? Postcards where strictly monitored so nothing politically sensitive at the time is published. There is a big gap in the Commons after 1917 with very few images of Soviet times. Certainly compared with other countries which have explicit rules for orphan work.Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:17, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

We follow Russian law for Russian works. I understand that Russian courts have big on protecting copyrights that may not have existed in a practical or even theoretical sense in the Soviet Union.--Prosfilaes (talk) 13:12, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

October 10

Naming and sorting of a category about macaronic language

I want to create a category for media presenting macaronic language. But how should I name it, and under which category/ies should I sort it in? I first thought of naming it “Writings in macaronic languages” and sorting this below the cat Literature by subject, but this would exclude audio and video media – there is at least one audio file and perhaps the trailer for “The Great Dictator”. — Speravir_Talk – 01:45, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

I’d go for new Category:Macaronic languages, categorized under Category:Languages and Category:Satire. As for The Great Dictator, please note that the ghetto shop signs are spelled in almost flawless Esperanto, not in any purpose-made macaronic code. Hynkel’s ramblings can be termed macaronic, though. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 03:40, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
Agree about creating Category:Macaronic languages, although I'm not sure Macaronic languages are inherently satiric: what about Xul Solar's pan-criollo? And then there could be subcats for writings vs. audio. - ! talk 03:47, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
Passages of text may be macaronic but by definition no single entire language can be. Consequently the parent category is not logical. --Fæ (talk) 10:36, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

I see it like Fæ, it’s more a figure of speech or, probably even better, a stylistic device (and, right, not only satirically used). But this brings me to the idea to sort it into Rhetoric in art, though it is not perfectly fitting (depending of definition of Rhetoric). Tuválkin, I do not have in mind to sort the whole cat The Great Dictator (film), perhaps only the trailer video, but actually I’m unsure here, as well – the macaronic language is there, of course, not the main topic. Jmabel I didn’t intend to create subcats for now, but perhaps a subcat for macaronic Latin would be good, though a(lmost?) all media I found would belong into this potential subcat. — Speravir_Talk – 18:06, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Notification about a mention does not work

I’ve activated the feature for both successful and failed mentions in the notification area of my preferences (I had problems with this and want to get a notice). The same settings work fine for me in de.wiki, but do not show any action here in Commons. Are there other people facing the same issue? Who must be informed about this? Could the problem be caused by my changed signature? — Speravir_Talk – 18:17, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Is there a tool to get a list of categories based on pieces of the category name?

I'm working on making sure that all metacategories have the metacategory template in them (or an equivalent template such as {{By country category}}). There are many that aren't tagged as metacategories. My approach has been to try to look at all categories that have, for example, "by city" in the category name, eliminate any that aren't metacategories (such as things to be categorized by country/city/location, etc.), check them for an appropriate template, and add a template if needed.

I'm having trouble getting a list of all the relevant categories. When I search for "by city" in category names, search tells me that there are 20,415 of them, but as I page through the search results, 500 at a time, it won't give me any past number 10,000. When I did the search for "by country", I think I got further than 10,000, but still didn't get all of them.

Ideally I'd like just the names without the category info that search gives, but as long as the names are in there somewhere I can probably work with it.

Any ideas of how I can get such lists? If you have an idea for another approach, that would be fine, too, but knowing how to get the lists would still be helpful. --Auntof6 (talk) 22:47, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

October 16

Canvassing

Commons:Bureaucrats/Requests/Kanonkas (de-bureaucrat) could use more input, though I would ask that people consult the background before !voting. I'm poking it here because it could use wider input than just the people who watch such pages. Reventtalk 00:05, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

I want to add this image to Commons but...

I can't tell if the CC licensing is appropriate for usage on Commons/Wikipedia. This is the image's CC license: Creative Commons and this is the: Flickr image. There don't seem to be any other available images of Eliza Garfield, the first child of James A Garfield who died when she was around 3 years old. Appreciate any help - thanks, Shearonink (talk) 01:24, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

@Shearonink: In the United States, taking a photograph of a painting is generally not copyright-able unless there is some creative work involved in the photo itself. The painting was probably made when the girl was alive which puts it long before 1923 and consequently in the public domain in the United States. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:00, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
Every file with a CC license containing nc (non-commercial) and/or nd (no derivatives) cannot be uploaded on Commons, see COM:CC for accepted CC licenses. — Speravir_Talk – 03:15, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
I've been casting a wide net on how to proceed & so asked a similar question over on Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. If there are any WP'ians with plans to visit the museum I would think they could take a photo & upload that image to WP. I haven't been able to find any info online about when the painting was exactly painted so any photos possibly used on WP or Commons are predicated on the assumption that the painting was done before or around the time of Eliza's death. Shearonink (talk) 03:25, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

October 17

The category "flatbread trucks" links incorrectly to the German Wikipedia article Tieflader, but when i click on "edit links", the Wikidata page is correctly linked with Pritschenwagen (Automobil). --Espoo (talk) 22:32, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Edit done by me. — Speravir_Talk – 23:21, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Speravir (Talk) 23:21, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Stop.jpeg

Hi guys,

the file File:Stop.jpeg frequently gets overwritten. May you redirect it to File:Name.jpg?--Evalina Generosa (talk) 10:30, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

That was all by a single person, back in 2013, but this seems sensible... the given source is for the 'original' upload, and it's a quite vague name. Reventtalk 12:37, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Voting for challenge photos

How do I vote for my favorite photo in each month's Photo Challenge? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Knobby983 (talk • contribs) 16:19, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

@Knobby983: Each subject will have a voting page listed at Commons:Photo_challenge#Challenges_open_for_voting. There are brief instructions at the top. Reventtalk 18:22, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Revent, when I click on a photo the photo and it's attendant information is all I see, not any kind of voting page. I've been on commons for a year or so and I have a photo in the challenge I'm trying to vote on (not my own Photo) After I click on a photo what should I be seeing?Knobby983 (talk) 19:23, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

I went over to https://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#mediawiki and received some tips so I was trying to vote in a month that was still accepting submissions and that is not allowed. So I see for September each photo has it's own edit option to then go in and record my vote. Adieu......... Knobby983 (talk) 20:26, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-42

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

Problems

  • Some users got a warning about Wikipedia's security certificate last week. This was because of a problem GlobalSign had. This has now been fixed. Only a small number of users got the warning. [14]
  • Editors couldn't edit semi-protected pages in the Wikipedia app for Android. This has now been fixed in the beta version. [15]

Changes this week

  • There will be no new MediaWiki version this week. [16]

Future changes

  • The Editing Department are working on a new wikitext editor. It will have tools that are in the visual editor but not in the wikitext editor today. You can read more about this. This is an early plan and things can change. The old wikitext editor will still exist.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:42, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

October 18

External uses

Hello. I vaguely recall seeing a filetalk template some time ago, which was/is used to link to websites which used the particular image from Commons. Does anyone know what that template is? Thanks! Rehman 12:02, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Template:Published ? -- Asclepias (talk) 12:20, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
Thank you! Rehman 12:31, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: ★ Poké95 10:02, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Overview for external organisations contributing content to Commons

Hi all

I've been working on planning a mass upload and I'm finding it impossible to understand the whole process. I would like to help create a central overview of mass uploading from external organisations that would be suitable for non technical people. This would include things like:

  • The workflow from a non technical perspective (so someone from the external archive could look at it and understand what will happen)
  • Different ways of achieving mass uploads
  • The technical processes including the different tools available and what differences there are what istuations they should be used in.
  • Documentation on all parts of the process e.g how to match categories from external databases
  • Examples of mass uploads and how they were achieved

I guess a good starting point for this would be to:

  • Identify what has already been documented and where
  • Identify the major stakeholders who work on mass uploading
  • Identify the steps external organisations go through when contributing open license content to Wikimedia Commons

Thanks very much

John Cummings (talk) 17:43, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

yes, we have been begging for this perennially. there is the Commons:Upload tools page, but it is a list not tutorial. in the meantime, check out com:pattypan - it can do mass uploads with metadata via spreadsheet.
let me know if i can help. the problem is the tools change, so it is a moving target / task flow. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 18:17, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
Hmm, com:Pattypan is looking very good, very good indeed! This must be the first new thing I see around here, clearly promoted (and funded?) by the WMF, that’s actually geared to improve volonteers workflow (yay, power users!) and not something aimed to dumb down the projects’ procedures to inflate stats of drive-by casual contributors. Way to go! -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 23:56, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
For reference, we do have Commons:Guide to content partnerships and Commons:Guide to batch uploading. Jean-Fred (talk) 18:40, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
I think this resource would be very valuable and should incorporate and update information created earlier. I am willing to assist in the work process. And I support any location chosen for the "resource center". Cheers, Susannaanas (talk) 05:48, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
Thanks all, another thing that might be useful to do is consider the steps the volunteers and the organisation would go through for the the uploads to happen (user journeys), here would be an example for the partner organisation:
# Introduction to Wikimedia
# Understanding the reasons and benefits for open licensing
# Understand there are tools to track how their content is used on Wikimedia and how to use them
# Understanding the process they need to go through to upload content
# Understanding if they need to do any work to prepare the content
# Making the decision to make the content available under an open license
# Request on a page on Wikimedia it be copied to Wikimedia Commons
# Understand someone is doing it and see the progress
# See the results of the upload
# Track the usage of their content
# Give feedback on the process
# Request more content be uploaded (go back to step 7)
Thanks
--John Cummings (talk) 06:22, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
I would add some topics about reuse of the content. That could include engaging with online and offline content communities (eg. WikiProjects or local/peer group), strategies for curation, promoting the materials though activation events etc. Susanna Ånäs (Susannaanas) (talk) 07:35, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
Good points, maybe some more focus on post-processing the upload. When batch uploading, after uploading the images there is still a lot that can be done to improve the content and its reusability. This is done both by engaging the public/Wikimedians with the content and by enriching it by adding categories, fixing small issues. Using the correct tools a lot of valuable work can be done after the upload (visualfilechange, cat-a-lot, insource/incategory search terms). I'm interested in helping with trying to get some more overall organisation in the batch uploading process, currently there is Commons:Batch uploading, which seems to have a large backlog and not that much activity lately. Gr, Basvb (talk) 09:31, 7 October 2016 (UTC)


Hi Basvb, thanks for your thoughts, I think these would go into a workflow for volunteers which would look something like this:

  1. Pick a request from a request page on Commons
  2. Add name as doing the upload on that page
  3. Process the request including matching categories, contacting the organisation if there are issues
  4. Create category for files uploaded
  5. Upload files
  6. Request the category is added to BaGLAMa 2
  7. Provide confirmation to organisation that the content has been uploaded
  8. Do work to encourage reuse with Wikiprojects (which you have expanded)

Thanks again

--John Cummings (talk) 21:16, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Maybe we need to start fresh with a new page, something like Commons:Institutional upload. Then merge other efforts there--Pharos (talk) 23:30, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Thinking about the steps organisations might go through to make content available under an open license might be helpful, this is similar to the previous list but kind of goes one step back to think about what happens rather than the tools and documentation needed to do it.

  1. Understanding open licensing
  2. Reusing open license content themselves
  3. Trial release of content under an open license
  4. Getting metrics on content reuse on Commons
  5. Policy change that content is made available under open access where possible
  6. Implementation, making content available under an open license and copying it to Wikimedia Commons
  7. Getting metrics on content reuse on Commons
  8. Expansion to more content e.g as more content is digitised
  9. Recognition by Wikimedia community and other communities e.g blog posts, tweets etc

--John Cummings (talk) 16:20, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Hi! Maybe the "project leader" tasks in what we've identified can be of use. We've started identifying and documenting all the actual steps involved in a batch upload process in the Connected Open Heritage project from a technical point-of-view (i.e. what I do) both as a way for me to learn and as a way to be able to create easy-to-use tutorials especially for newcomers like me. Currently we've identified 86 (!) steps involved in the batchuploads I do in that project with multiple cooperation-templates etc. The plan is to smooth the process when I understand it better and create learning material, which is a part of the project goals. Just to get an idea of how we currently think about understanding the steps in a batch upload you can check out the tasks on Phabricator for one of our batch uploads. Phabricator tasks makes it possible to both have a linear 1->2->3 description of involved processes and catch related non-linear stuff like long-term follow up with the GLAM. Early work, but I think you'll get the idea of why we're so tedious about naming and identifying types of skills etc. It woulöd be great to get help with simplifying it all, it IS quite daunting! :-)

/Mattias Östmar (WMSE) (talk) 07:56, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Trouble with hosting 19GB of ancient Chinese documents as djvu files

I've been asked to upload some ancient Chinese texts from this Baidu share, see User_talk:Fæ#Imperial_Encyclopaedia. Unfortunately attempting to download the zip to the UK drops out before it gets to 4GB, the total being 19GB. I have tried setting up a Baidu account, which failed, but I'm not certain this would be a good solution even if I was logged in (effectively using the mobile site is already a work-around).

Any suggestions for how to solve this? If someone could pull out the data and host on an FTP server, that would be great. :-) --Fæ (talk) 10:14, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Have you had a look to see if archive.org has already pulled them across the great firewall?Geni (talk) 15:13, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
I can download it and host it somewhere, but I can't find where to click to download the zip file. I can also set up a FTP server and the user can upload the zip file to it. --Thibaut120094 (talk) 15:20, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
I also don't see an option to download a ZIP file, I can only download individual files one-by-one or install their downloader application to download them all. I could try the app in a virtual machine, but I've been getting slow download speeds when I tried individual files (~100 KB/s), downloading 19 GB would take multiple days – are you getting better speeds? Matma Rex (talk) 15:32, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
I could start a download of the whole folder, perhaps you need to navigate up the tree? I found the maximum I managed to download was 4GB before drop-out. It may help if you emulate a phone in your browser header, though it seemed to work quite well in Chrome without modification. It could be that someone with a Baidu account may have more success at getting the whole file, which could then be shared (by Thibaut?), then uploaded to Commons (by me?). --Fæ (talk) 15:59, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
In desktop browser, I see: https://i.imgur.com/mBmlmXF.png In mobile browser, I see: https://i.imgur.com/jaWpUje.png Going by automatic translation, none of the buttons appear to download the whole folder, but just to make sure I think I clicked everything on that page and the only thing I get is a download of an application that I suppose can be used to download the files, but I'm not really going to run that. 12:56, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Do you need to download something from Baidu? Well, only paid users can download files on Baidu-share smoothly (so they are forcing you to buy their paid membership). But we have ways to get through it. If you do need to download Baidu-share, I can first drag all the contents on Baidu to a server located in Tokyo or Europe, and you can download it. --Techyan（Talk） 11:54, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

@Techyan: Yes please. The link is as above. You may want to email me a link to your own server copy. I'm on a domestic connection, so it may take a day or two for my download to complete. Once I have the folder, I'll look into uploading the collection to Commons a few days later. --Fæ (talk) 12:00, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
@Fæ: Okay, I'll start dragging it to my server in Tokyo. --Techyan（Talk） 12:03, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
@Fæ, Geni, Thibaut120094, and Matma Rex: BTW, the speed of downloading files for unpaid Baidu users is exactly 128KB/s, (that's why the speed so slow). --Techyan（Talk） 12:02, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
Well, that's if you use a single connection. I'll temporary (ab)use my v2c servers to download it fast, and let's see if it works --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 16:05, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
@Zhuyifei1999: I have been doing that already. --Techyan（Talk） 16:42, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Files on Baidu-share have been successfully downloaded. I am sending to Fæ privately. Contact me by email if you need a copy. @維基小霸王: 以后传文件别用百度盘了。这玩意在国外太慢。--Techyan（Talk） 10:52, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

The batch upload has been completed. Housekeeping issues, such as corrupt or missing files, can be discussed at Category_talk:Gujin_Tushu_Jicheng. :-) --Fæ (talk) 07:56, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Naturism or nudism ?

Some registered users (like Jiel) or IPs (like 84.7.50.185 and 84.7.24.79) are currently mixing categories about naturism and nudism. I'm wondering if there's a discussion somewhere about that because it doesn't make sense to me. I'm not a specialist bu I think "nudism" and "naturism" are not exactly the same thing... I used to think "nudism" was more a recreational activity and "naturism" more a wider lifestyle. But when I read the French articles about those termes (BTW on English WP both terms are in the same article), it seems that "nudism" is from an individual point of view and "naturism" is a collective nudism. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 18:22, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Notification of DMCA takedown demand - Celtic tree (18968258040)

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.

Please note that the Office of General Counsel has decided that a "strike" is not appropriate in this instance because of mitigating circumstances (e.g., there is a clear lack of willfulness and a mistaken belief of compliance).

Affected file(s):

To discuss this DMCA takedown, please go to COM:DMCA#Celtic tree (18968258040) Thank you! Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 23:05, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

October 19

Official seals of provinces of Philippines

I have a question about the scope of {{PD-PhilippinesGov}} (see talk). I want to know if it apply to the official seals of the provinces, e.g. File:Ph seal zambales.png. The available seals currently not cite the source, making it difficult to know if they are works of government officials (ideally we should make our own SVG seals, based only in the description). In 2013, the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP) created the Interactive Registry of Government Seals (IRGS) administated by the Research, Publications and Heraldry Division. This website has all the province seals in downloadble PNG version, and they are better resolution than currently available, e.g seal of Zambales (is very different from the version we already have). These seals are definitely works of public officials in performance of an official duty. The IRGS have a copyright mark in the bottom which links with the webpage of the NHCP, but I didn't found a section of terms of use or similar. Can we transfer those images to Commons and tag it with PD-PhilippinesGov? If I'm wrong about something, I will appreciate your clarification. --Metrónomo's truth of the day: "That was also done by the president" not an excuse. 06:32, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

The NHCP falls under the national government umbrella. There is a link from nhcp.gov.ph to gov.ph, where it states that "All content is in the public domain unless otherwise stated." It is indeed otherwise stated that the webpages at philgovseals.nhcp.gov.ph are copyrighted. Either the government reserves the right not to release everything as PD, or it may be the work of another level of government (i.e. provincial) which doesn't fall under PD-PhilippinesGov. This is a recurring topic at w:Wikipedia talk:Tambayan Philippines, see also w:Wikipedia talk:Tambayan Philippines/Archive31#Copyright violations. --P 1 9 9  ✉ 18:58, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
Your explanation was very clear. Then, philgovseals.nhcp.gov.ph have a copyright mark ( Not OK), but nhcp.gov.ph haven't a copyright mark ( Possible "public domain unless otherwise stated"). I understand, thank you very much. --Metrónomo's truth of the day: "That was also done by the president" not an excuse. 02:20, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
The copyright status of Philippine government works is actually unclear, I have a book borrowed from a DepEd Division Office (I am living in the Philippines), and it states there is no copyright in any government work, but commercial use is not allowed and permission for it from the government is needed (you will also need to pay a royalty for that). I already asked the Copyright Office about this issue via email, but I still got no clear response. They just said that they are forwarding my question to those that know the copyright status of Philippine government works (since they don't handle those cases). ★ Poké95 06:04, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Xenosmilus

It would be possible to get some more pictures? I have got big book about this animal and large article without pictures is... OJJ (talk) 09:48, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

It would certainly be possible, and we'd love if you took some and shared! Storkk (talk) 19:49, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
@Storkk: Unfortunately, I haven't got any free picture. That's why I'm writing. I thought, that you find some free on Arkive (?). I don't much understand. OJJ (talk) 04:09, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
Apparently the three images in Category:Xenosmilus are all that we have on Commons. De728631 (talk) 19:23, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Is there an English expression for that ?

How do we call in English when a musician or orchestra plays live music during the projection of a film, like here ? I wanted to create a category on Commons but I don't know how to name it. There's an article about that on French Wikipédia (we say Ciné-concert in French) but no interwiki. Any suggestion ? --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 21:31, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

I think the normal phrase used for a film/piano combination is 'silent film accompanist' or 'accompanist', but an 'orchestral accompanist' seems to be a specialised role within an orchestra - see en:Accompaniment. The Royal Albert Hall [17] uses the phrase 'live orchestral accompaniment' having already set the 'with film' context. 'cinematic orchestral accompanists'? --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:09, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for your help. Thus I created the Category:Films with live orchestral accompaniment. Not sure about how to categorize it. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 07:45, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

October 20

Hi all, is it valid to remove the footer of the images provided by the Bundesarchiv (see here for example)? My personal impression is that images should not be overwritten. New cropped images should be uploaded as new images instead. Am I right? Thanks --Discasto talk 12:57, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

This effectively falls under our norms for removing watermarks or credit bars. So long as the information is contained in the image description page, I see no issue with it being removed and the file replaced, as it is not part of the original archive photograph. I understand that archives want to retain their name and references on an image, but we should encourage them to trust the CC licenses to be credited and so long as they provide permalinks, Commons will retain those links with the images. --Fæ (talk) 13:22, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
yeah no wonder: "co-operation has been ended unilaterally by the Bundesarchiv". Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 23:03, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Gadget does not work

Hello.Please fix MediaWiki:Gadget-markAdmins.js (Details here).Thank you --ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2 (talk) 11:52, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Concern regarding WebM

A user on the English Wikipedia has raised a concern on my talk page there regarding the use of videos documenting chemistry experiments in articles on chemical topics, questioning how are users to know that those videos are virus-free. After checking that the WebM format of the videos is preferable over the ogv formats, I advised him to ask the community here for proper answer. Thanks.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 16:08, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Wait a sec... Virus can spread through videos? o.O en:Computer virus are software programs, and videos shouldn't be directly run as a "software". (That's why we don't allow executables such as .exe uploads). There are caveats, though:
  • Try to trick the OS to think the video is a "software". On Windows, you must rename the file to an executable extension such as .exe; .webm is safe unless you're already affected by a virus that changes the registry to make the OS to think .webm is also an executable. On Mac/*nix, usually the file has to be chmodded +x, and that's not the default for downloaded files. In addition, even if the extension is .exe, it is (imo) extremely difficult for a webm as a proper container format to contain a binary payload for proper execution of this piece of "software", as Commons check each uploaded .webm to see whether it's valid webm file. (The same goes for .ogv, .jpg, .png, etc, uploaded files must be valid)
  • Or feed the video to a virus already present on the computer, to activate the virus. In that case, ...
In short: No videos here simply cannot be viruses， unless the user himself is 作死-ing (or someone with supernatural intelligence successfully injected a working virus into the video). --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 16:42, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
Btw: Video playbacks here are usually scaled down versions (re-processed) of the original video. To inject a virus into that... well, I'm sure the virus-maker has better methods to spread the virus than attempting this --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 16:48, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
The original concern seems to be about the videos downloading automatically (as opposed to streaming in the browser), which is strange, since any modern web browser should know what to do with a WebM file. Smokefoot must have something misconfigured if the video downloads instead of streams. At any rate, as others have said, if a virus were masquerading as a WebM, we'd know about it. clpo13(talk) 17:36, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
There is an exploit that prompts users, usually of Windows Media Player, to download a codec to play a video... the codec itself is a trojan horse, that installs the virus. No video in any format that we allow should be capable of triggering this... it's (AFAIK) exclusively related to WMV files, usually 'stolen' porn videos on torrent sites. Reventtalk 22:06, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Notification of DMCA takedown demand - Merrakech1

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

Affected file(s):

To discuss this DMCA takedown, please go to COM:DMCA#Merrakech1 Thank you! Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 01:03, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

? in templates

I will put this infolink in file Pedro Juan Rodríguez Meléndez, but there is one ? and it is not accepted by template {{es | .....}} with error (missing text). With a short disappears information. How can I fix this? --Jos1950 (talk) 16:32, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Please read the documentation of the template Template:Es for how to use it. -- Asclepias (talk) 17:16, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
Done, thanks. --Jos1950 (talk) 23:35, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
In other words: The issue didn’t come from the question mark, but from the equal sign in the link. — Speravir_Talk – 16:17, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Speravir (Talk) 16:17, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

File names for images in Commons categories are truncated to single lines

For the last few days filenames for images in Commons categories are truncated to single lines. This sometimes makes it very difficult to find appropriate images. For example: if I'm looking for a particular subspecies in a species category, I can't usually tell from the thumbnail or the first line of the filename what subspecies it is. Is there a way to switch back to see the full file names under the tumbnails? -- R. A. Nonenmacher (talk) 02:58, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

+1 Ghastly change, massive blunder. Makes it impossible to navigate categories to find images by title. --Fæ (talk) 12:41, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
It was a mistake in gadget maintenance, now fixed. See the last topic on MediaWiki talk:Gadget-Long-Image-Names-in-Categories.css. Matma Rex (talk) 15:22, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Speravir (Talk) 16:11, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

File:FELIPE OGAZ - DIABLUMA (15074070175).jpg

To categorize this file (series) I need help by a spanish speaking user: Who is the photagraphed man and what is the subject for this file(s). Thanks --GeorgHH • talk   20:00, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

@GeorgHH: Felipe Orgaz is a spokesman of a radical left-wing politico-cultural Ecuadorian organization called DiablUma, mainly about anti-corrida protests (it's the subject of the picture). Apparently (Spanish is not my mother tongue), he and DiablUma are at the origin of a referendum that lead to forbid corridas in Ecuador. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 09:04, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
Caution : the files with Orgaz are not only about corrida. this one is a debate about drug control. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 11:02, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
✓ Done Thank you for help, I've categorized the files now. --GeorgHH • talk   11:15, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Speravir (Talk) 16:12, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Proposed change to UploadWizard: Use {{PD-1923}} instead of {{PD-US}}

Proposed change https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/314259/ would result in UploadWizard using {{PD-1923}} instead of {{PD-US}} when the user chooses "First published in the United States before 1929" on the license selection screen. It would only affect newly uploaded files (it doesn't affect existing uploads, or any tool other than UploadWizard).

{{PD-US}} is broader than just works published before 1923. This license description only mentions works before 1923 (the most common case for PD-US licensed works), so we might as well apply the specific {{PD-1923}} template. The [localisation message documentation] entry even specifically mentions {{PD-1923}}.

This looks like a good idea to me, but I'm asking for approval here in case I missed something (and also to let you know of the change; are there any documentation pages to be updated?). We plan for the change to be deployed on October 26. Matma Rex (talk) 13:50, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

I've merged the change and it will be deployed on October 26, as planned. Matma Rex (talk) 04:55, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Proposed change to UploadWizard: Warnings about mismatched licenses and dates

Proposed change https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/308177/ would result in UploadWizard displaying some new errors and warnings when the license selected by the user and the work creation date don't match. In particular:

  • We'd display an error (preventing the user from uploading a file) if:
    • Selected license is "First published in the United States before 1929" ({{PD-US}} or {{PD-1923}}) and selected date is after 1923
    • Selected license is "Author died more than 70 years ago" ({{PD-old}}) and selected date is less than 70 years ago
    • Selected license is "Author died more than 100 years ago" ({{PD-old-100}}) and selected date is less than 100 years ago
  • We'd display a warning (which can be bypassed) if:
    • Selected license is one of "⧼mwe-upwiz-license-pd-art⧽" ({{PD-Art}}), "Original works of the US Federal Government" ({{PD-USGov}}) or "Original works of NASA" ({{PD-USGov-NASA}}), and selected date is today

This looks like a good idea to me, but I'm asking for approval here in case I missed something (and also to let you know of the change; are there any documentation pages to be updated?). We plan for the change to be deployed on October 26. Matma Rex (talk) 14:23, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

  • Sounds like a good idea :-). --Steinsplitter (talk) 14:33, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
  • Sure I agree with the change, although I have felt like some people misunderstand the date field as an field for the date of upload, which it is not.--Snaevar (talk) 23:03, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
    @Snaevar: It is clearly labelled as "Date work was created or first published" (MediaWiki:Mwe-upwiz-date-created), so I think that's unlikely. If they really do, I don't think we can help those people :( Matma Rex (talk) 03:09, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
    Oh, right. I have not looked at UploadWizard for a while, so I do not think I have any cases after that label was added.--Snaevar (talk) 00:33, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
  • are you stopping the upload, or are you guiding the uploader to a better input? Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 02:59, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
    @Slowking4: The exact error message shown is e.g. "The selected date doesn't match the license (First published in the United States before 1923).", and the user can't proceed until they correct the date; hopefully that's guidance enough. Right now it won't always be possible to correct the license, because it's selected in the previous step and you can't go back – we're actually working on this too (https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/314024/), but it's not ready yet. Matma Rex (talk) 03:19, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
    i sure hope you have a way to comply with the warning, rather than start over, i.e. for me that would be a show stopper. (and yeah the 2 step process is a minus compared to the other tools) Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 03:36, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
    There may be a problem: if the original date is unknown, the easiest way to proceed is to guess at a random year satisfying the wizard. We can get a lot of hard to distinguish incorrect dates. I think we should explicitely suggest a way to say the date is not known to the uploader. "Unknown" is probably not the best option, as it is widely used when the year is unknown also to others. Suggesting a range (such as "before 1850", "1200-1300") might be better. A "before 1923" is obviously suspect, but should be allowed for this exact reason. --LPfi (talk) 08:53, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
    @LPfi: Interesting point, but I think in this particular case this is unlikely to be a problem. In most cases it's easy to identify modern images vs ones that were taken 70 years ago, and I don't think intentional copyright violations are often exceptions to this. (As a side note, it is possible to specify any value for the "Date" field, including "unknown", and the user will be allowed to proceed with the upload if they type anything that is not an actual date.) Matma Rex (talk) 04:51, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
  • Good idea. ★ Poké95 03:11, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Looks like we agree this is an improvement, so I've merged the change and it will be deployed on October 26, as originally planned. It can still be reverted if anyone has a good objection, or if it turns out it causes copyright problems, but I don't expect that to happen. Thanks for the comments :) Matma Rex (talk) 04:58, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Non-free_logos

Is this possible in commons? --Jos1950 (talk) 19:00, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

It is impossible to give a general answer. It depends on the circumstances of each file. Ruslik (talk) 20:28, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
But usually, no, because we don't accept copyrighted images without an explicit license from the rights-holder. - Jmabel ! talk 21:19, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
But you can search, it's posible to find free logos because they are very simple (only text and simple shapes). See Commons:Threshold of originality. --Metrónomo's truth of the day: "That was also done by the president" not an excuse. 00:56, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
If it is simple, it is "free". Likewise if it is old enough or has an acceptable licence. So no, I cannot see when that category could be used here (else than as a path for deletion). --LPfi (talk) 09:00, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
Incredibly, many simple logos are tagged in Wikipedia in English (and others) as "non free". E.g. this simple artistic interpretation of the real logo made by a local user: File:AP Films logo.png, that I recently transferred to Commons. --Metrónomo's truth of the day: "That was also done by the president" not an excuse. 02:26, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Is Template:Italy-MiBAC-disclaimer de facto a blanked exception for FoP Italy on historical monuments?

I asked this at Template talk:Italy-MiBAC-disclaimer, but nobody replied there for several days. I think this question deserves clarification, as it could affect numerous images. It could also lead to the need to review Category:Italian FOP cases, as IF it can be used to justify keeping such images, we may be able to restore some content that was deleted in the past before this template was introduced. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 13:46, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

The answer to your question is no. Commons is not necessarily concerned with exceptional restrictions such as those in the cultural heritage law of one country. A reuser, outside Commons, who would contemplate republishing in Italy the image of a monument affected by the cultural heritage law should be careful. On Commons, the template "Soprintendenza" can be added to the description page as a warning to those reusers in Italy. The other template "Italy-MiBAC-disclaimer" seems to be specifically for images taken in the context of Wiki loves monuments Italy, after 12 September 2012, of monuments on the lists provided to WM Italy by the cultural heritage administrators, in application of the agreement between Wikimedia Italy and the ministry of cultural heritage. The background explanation for the agreement is not entirely clear, but that seems to be the idea. Both warning templates are about the same topic, but they would apply to different files. Note that all that has nothing to do with "FoP", as Commons uses this jargon term in the context of copyright law. Copyright law and cultural heritage law are distinct. If someone wants to publish in Italy the image of a monument that is under copyright, they should comply with the copyright law. If someone wants to publish in Italy the image of a monument that is under the cultural heritage law, they should comply with that law. I would expect that many monuments that are old enough to be under the cultural heritage law are old enough to be out of copyright, but someone who publishes in Italy should comply with all applicable laws there. The way FoP is managed on Commons may be discussed, but it is unrelated to the templates about the cultural heritage law of Italy. -- Asclepias (talk) 20:12, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
Well, as we see monuments being put up for deletion under the current FOP guidelines which should not, then yes the section there ought to be extended to explain what was agreed with WMIT. Though WMIT were assured by their lawyer that the outcome was equivalent to CC-BY-SA, we do not have an expert view on public record which lays out the case.
My reading is that the outcome is not limited to WLM type events in Italy, but it is limited to the list of cultural monuments. We probably should have the list on Commons or available as a list from Wikidata, so the guideline can link to it in a definitive way. At the current time we probably have deleted photographs unnecessarily and there may be cases where we have incorrectly applied the template, but in those cases of ancient buildings the separate concern of the rights of architects do not apply. @CristianCantoro: --Fæ (talk) 08:44, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
  • Indeed, Commons does not forbid the uploading and hosting of free media just because some types of external uses of the media may be subject to restrictions in some particular contexts or in some particular locations. That's one of the ideas expressed in Commons:Non-copyright restrictions. Applications of this general principle include uses that may be affected by trademarks, personality rights or regulations that have a local application only. The consensus is that Commons does not impose, on all its users and reusers worldwide, all sorts of non-copyright restrictions that may exist locally in the laws of some countries or in the bylaws of some municipalities, given that such local restrictions apply only to the use of the media inside the country or municipality in question, and do not affect the use of the media elsewhere. In some cases, users of Commons may add an information template to inform readers of a restriction that exists on a type of use or on the use in a particular location. Some of the examples in the page Commons:Non-copyright restrictions are the templates Trademarked, Personality rights, SpomenikSVN, Soprintendenza. They are optional templates. Any user may add them to description pages where it can provide a useful information. Files are not deleted from Commons when they don't have such an optional information template about a non-copyright restriction. For cultural heritage monuments in Italy, the information template Soprintendenza exists since 2008. It is the information template that applies to images in general of such monuments. Nothing has changed about that. Free images in general of Italian monuments that are and always were allowed on Commons did not suddenly become forbidden or subject to special restrictions on Commons when WM-It and MiBAC in 2012 concluded a particular agreement between them in the context of Wiki Loves Monuments Italy.
  • I think the template Italy-MiBAC-disclaimer should be limited to files of Wiki Loves Monuments Italy and published within the frame of the WM-It-MiBAC agreement. The wording of this template is mandated by a contractual agreement between parties external to Commons. The wording of this template is unmodifiable by Commons. Well, in the technical sense, we could of course modify or delete it, but that would put WM-It in trouble. So, we shouldn't modify it. I suppose we can accept that situation, as long as it does not interfere with the rest of Commons. However, we should not allow this template on which we have no control to creep on the rest of the project on files other than strictly the files uploaded pursuant to the WM-It-MiBAC agreement.
  • Lists of monuments are included in the various statements of adhesion by the local administrators of cultural heritage at the municipal level, available from there. I just looked at two of the 2016 statements. They mention specifically the context of WLM-It and they require specifically the use of the license CC-BY-SA 4.0 Italy for the photographs published in the context of those statements. (However, according to the CC FAQ, ported versions of the CC licenses 4.0 do not exist. I guess the requirement will have to be interpreted either as CC-BY-SA 4.0 international, or as CC-BY-SA 3.0 Italy, or as an interdiction to publish photographs.) The stated objective of WM-It for its agreement with the MiBAC was to make sure that contributors to WLM-It, especially contributors who reside in Italy, would not run into trouble with respect to the local non-copyright cultural heritage law. WM-It did not negotiate in my name, or (I assume) in your name, or in the name of the community of Commons, or in the name of all the communities of all the Wikimedia projects. Whatever obligations WM-It (or any other individual user or group of users, for that matter) agreed to bind itself to, must not force those obligations on all users of the Wikimedia projects who have nothing to do with it. If a resident of the U.S. travels to Italy and, after returning to the U.S., he publishes his photos of Italian monuments on the server of Commons in the U.S., he can use a free license of his choice, not a license chosen by a municipal administrator. Actually, I think that both WM-It and the MiBAC acted reasonably within the limits of their own rights only, knowing that they can bind only themselves. So, I think that WM-It didn't claim to represent all past present and future users of Wikimedia and that the MiBAC didn't expect that the cultural heritage law of Italy would rule the whole world, including outside Italy. If the MiBAC expected that, we would have a big disagreement.
  • The lawyers of WM-It do not say that the information template Italy-MiBAC-disclaimer is equivalent to a CC license. They merely remind something that is already known and explained in the information pages of Commons and of Creative Commons. The fact that laws, or other reasons independent of the will of the photographer-licensor, may restrict some types of reuses by a reuser-licensee in some particular contexts or locations, is not incompatible with the fact that the photographer-licensor can offer his own photographic work under a free CC license. The photographer-licensor releases some of his own rights and allows the free use of his own work. But, with CC licenses starting with version 2.0, he does not offer a warranty that the photograph will never be encumbered with something beyond his own rights. (The notable exceptions to this principle are the CC licenses version 1.0, which include such a warranty from the licensor. Which is a reason why Commons contributors should be careful before they offer a CC license version 1.0, unless they know exactly what they are doing.)
  • I'm not sure to what you refer when you refer to a section of the FoP guidelines. I don't know if we have such a thing. If you think of the COM:FOP page, it's not a guideline and it should not be seen as one. It is a hodgepodge and different users see it in different ways. In my view, the basic usefulness of the page is that it gives information and links, about local restrictions in the different countries, to help external reusers get a general idea about which files from Commons they can or can't reuse in one country or another. (That's mostly about FoP in a copyright-related sense. But should we ask users not to include information about non-copyright restrictons? I don't know. It may not be unreasonable for readers, who wonder if they can use a file in country X, to expect to find a mention about both copyright and non-copyright restrictions of country X.) On the other hand, I know that some users use the page for a different purpose, as a sort of collection of suggestions about what they should upload to Commons. Over the years, the page has turned into a collection of various things. The problem is not the objective information about the laws of the countries, information with which the readers can do what hey want, but the problems start when some users try to use the page to tell other users what should be done on Commons. The dual use of the page may cause misunderstandings. Maybe we need two pages. A page about what can be taken from Commons and reused in different countries remains unproblematic, the obvious limitation being that we can give only a superficial idea of the laws, but otherwise such a page could be relatively objective. On the other hand, a page claiming to be used as a guide about what should be uploaded to Commons would remain problematic and, actually, the difficulties about such a page are just a symptom of the disagreements, still unresolved, about what might be a sensible policy of Commons about matters related to FoP.
-- Asclepias (talk) 21:10, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Who is Nderitu Muriithi

I am working on an article concerning the personality mentioned. Can someone please help? — Preceding unsigned comment was added by 41.89.224.2 (talk) 19:24, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

  • I have no idea why you are asking this on Wikimedia Commons, which is the media (image, sound, video, etc.) repository of Wikimedia Foundation (which also umbrellas the various Wikipedias). Is there something specific you want related to an image or something similar? Otherwise, you are probably asking on the wrong site. - Jmabel ! talk 23:13, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

October 22

FSA file without source

Skip tub on a blast furnace

Hi,

does anyone find this FSA file at loc.gov? It must be from there, but the uploader has concealed its source.--Kopiersperre (talk) 20:55, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

There. See also this file. -- Asclepias (talk) 21:02, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
the old uploads you should be able to find at LOC. back in the day they did not link as we would like, overwriting with a higher rez is bad form. all the HAER ones have been mass uploaded by Fae. i see user:Revent has linked those versions together. welcome to metadata cleanup. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 22:46, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
Yeah, correctly attributing the many images we have by en:Jet Lowe from that source has been an on-and-off task of mine for a while now. Reventtalk 22:50, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
@Slowking4: could you clarify "overwriting with a higher rez is bad form", please? If it is related to metadata, the only metadata that appears in the low resolution version states that camera make/model was Sinar 54H, which obviously refers to the scanner digitizer and not to the original photograph. Storkk (talk) 07:37, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
well i did not want to name names but here [18] replacing a 598 KB image with a 5.87 MB one, when there is a 17.22 MB tif (elsewhere that you had to find) does not add much value. see also Commons:Overwriting existing files but i have seen worse cases of over writing. the larger problem is the backlog of LOC photographs in information template without good metadata. the upload tools are not helpful. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 12:27, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
I'm still having trouble understanding your objection unless it is that I didn't perform this at the same time. If that's really your objection, I'm a little baffled. That's analogous to saying you shouldn't correct a typo in a Wikipedia article unless you're going to bring the whole article to GA status. Wikis, including this one, are built incrementally and collaboratively, and I'm not sure how uploading a higher quality JPEG is possibly detrimental. Storkk (talk) 12:33, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
i've uploaded a few thousand jpg + tif's from LOC. uploading a bigger jpg than the download options from LOC, but smaller than the tif is a tiny improvement. users who want the highest rez will go to the tif. i'm finding my time best spent cleaning up metadata so users can find the image, or uploading the huge backlog of LOC images not uploaded. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 12:40, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
You cannot upload a .tif over a .jpg, and the new jpg is not smaller (in pixels, obviously) than the tif. Am I just being dense? Storkk (talk) 12:44, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
the tif is 17.22 MB > 5.87 MB, you had to convert the tif to jpg and downsize it to upload it over the jpg. it seems like a lot of work for a file not much in use. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 22:41, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
So are you saying that my uploading a larger resolution jpeg is either somehow worsening it, or that it is hampering some other effort with the tiffs? "Bad form" implies there is some kind of deleterious effect of my actions, and I'm sorry but I'm just not seeing it. If you're instead complaining that I didn't either upload the tiff or link the tiff, that is again akin to telling someone not to correct a typo in an article if they're not going to fix all its issues. It seems rather a perverse way of looking at it. And of course JPEGs are smaller on disk, but I'm really struggling to see any relevance of that whatsoever. Storkk (talk) 12:40, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

October 21

Seal of Chico City, California

According to this website, the design of the seal of Chico City is dated in 1890s (if I understood correctly). Is it possible to use that to upload this file to Commons claiming that it is in the public domain? --Metrónomo's truth of the day: "That was also done by the president" not an excuse. 15:23, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

@Metrónomo: Upload it under the license "PD-CAGov" in PNG with a transparent background with all excess space cropped out. For future reference, know that 99% of California government works are public domain due to their "Sunshine Law"; same goes for Florida as well. – Illegitimate Barrister (talk) 18:30, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
@Metrónomo: I have gone ahead and uploaded it here for you. – Illegitimate Barrister (talk) 18:36, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
@Metrónomo: If you have the time, try to upload every California and Florida city/county seal you can find, since they are in the public domain. Upload them under the naming formula "Seal of CITY NAME, STATE NAME.png". Make sure they are in PNG format with a transparent background, and no excess empty space beyond the edges. – Illegitimate Barrister (talk) 18:47, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for the info. I edit from a smartphone, if I get a simple way to do what you recommend, I will upload all seals I find. This website has many. If you have time and want to work, your help will be appreciated. --Metrónomo's truth of the day: "That was also done by the president" not an excuse. 00:09, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

October 23

Offensive language

As a new admin, who has access to the extended set of tools, I am looking for an advice how to deal with edits like this one. Should I hide its contents and/or description every time I spot such an edit? --jdx Re: 09:53, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Imho just reverting is sufficient (and block the offender if the behaviour continues) - Jcb (talk) 09:56, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
I may be not an admin but as Jcb said above, just revert them (and if they continue, RBI). For the revdel stuff, do it only if the comment was intended as a personal attack against a user. Thanks, ★ Poké95 11:18, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
I'm also not an admin, but I did a reverse DNS lookup on the IP address and it shows proxy-53-filtered.education.netspace.net.au, so may want to do a preemptive softblock (i.e. blocks anonymous users from the IP and requires them to register to upload/edit). You would then put the {{Blocked school}} or {{Anonblock}} on the talk page. Also note I did a look up of the surrounding IPs and 202.45.119.11 through 202.45.119.250 host are flagged with "education" reverse DNS. Edit: Forgot to also note plenty of inappropriate edits from that IP address on other wikis. Offnfopt(talk) 17:00, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
i would caution you not to do school ip blocks for test edits every 6 months. we all know ip blocks do not work, so you are making work for yourself without result. some version of revscore m:Research:Revision scoring as a service would be more functional. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 16:17, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

photos at Panoramio

according to [19], Panoramio no longer available after November 4, 2016. User:Panoramio upload bot just uploading files to ID ~20M, total ID is ~130M. all cc-by + cc-by-sa phptos about 1-1.5M from Panoramio.(now uploading about 200 thousand). How can I upload all the photos before November 2016?--shizhao (talk) 06:41, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

  1. It may be a lot faster to run it on a WMF labs account.
  2. Parallel threading in Python may speed things up, depending on how the internet connections work.
  3. I'm presuming these are url whitelisted transfers, if not then swap to direct url uploads rather than handling files clientside.
  4. If your plan is to upload 1m images, you may need to to a quicker wget and create a temporary archive based on a filter rather than attempting a Commons upload within the cut-off date. Raise a task on Phabricator for it if you want to do this using WMF server space.
However you do this, you are going to be very pushed for time. --Fæ (talk) 07:18, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
Now is a multi-threaded. And I don't have time to re-develop and deploy, and time is too tight....--shizhao (talk) 09:31, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Have you tried reaching out to Google to see if they have anyone interested in helping. They're not exactly short of computing power and internet bandwidth. -- Colin (talk) 14:51, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Another party to consider is the volunteer project Archiveteam. They have an interest in archiving and preservation and they even have a page about Panoramio. --Gazebo (talk) 09:13, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
I have begin crawl all metadata of freely licensed photos--shizhao (talk) 08:28, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Problems with Safari

Commons doesn't work. wikipedia and wikidata work--Oursana (talk) 01:19, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Hmm, weird. @Oursana: What Safari version do you use? I use Safari 6 on my iPad, and it works very well for me on all Wikimedia sites. Even if I use desktop mode. Thanks, ★ Poké95 01:54, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
Please elaborate what does not work. You've been able to post this comment, so it's clearly not all broken. Matma Rex (talk) 08:27, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
I am using Safari 10.0. I used Firefox to make the posts here. Commons does not show up at all, wp and wikidata do.
That was my last contribution with Safari. That never happpened before. But there are often smaller problems using Safari. With my mobile device it works.--Oursana (talk) 09:31, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
At least the European mirror server must have had issues last (European) night, and not only Safari was affected. There are in the moment three threads in Dewiki’s Fragen zur Wikipedia (short FZW, English Questions about the Wikipedia); links before archiving (everything’s in German, of course): de:WP:FZW#Bildanzeige, de:WP:FZW#math-Umgebung (yes, math rendering was also affected for all, who get the math environment as image) and de:WP:FZW#George Chadwick – Bild wird nicht angezeigt. — Speravir_Talk – 22:40, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
Ah, forgot this: @Matma Rex: Almost no images have been shown or sometimes they have been partly loaded, at one article here it worked after the third refresh (probably the images had meanwhile been in my local cache), but I din't try all the articles. In Commons this is “deadly” – at least I guess, this is it, what Oursana meant. — Speravir_Talk – 22:47, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
The image rendering problem is known (see phab:T148917 and potentially also phab:T148830) and has been reported in the issue tracking system). It's currently being investigated. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 10:32, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
And for the Chadwick image there is now phab:T148927. :-) It really seems to be a different issue. — Speravir_Talk – 00:31, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Thx for all your answers. I am not quite sure if we talk exactly about the same. It happened exactly last Saterday European time 9:45 am, see the link to my last contribution. After that I got Safari kann die Seite .... nicht öffnen, da Safari keine sichere Seite zum server commons.wikimedia.org aufbauen kann. This only happens with commons, wp and wikidata work with Safari as always. When I want to open the link to my watchlist, the surface is unusual and the login does not work. with https://commons.wikimedia.org the main page in an unusual surface but with images shows up, when I want to reload https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page it says again Safari kann die Seite .... nicht öffnen, da Safari keine sichere Seite zum server commons.wikimedia.org aufbauen kann. I guess 10% at least use Safari and have problems.--Oursana (talk) 19:08, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

(I removed indentation of Oursana’s post above mine) Oh, sorry, Oursana, this looks in fact like a different issue. Translation of German text: “Safari could not open page …, because Safari could not establish a secure connection (my guess, Oursana’S text has ‘page’ here) to the server commons.wikimedia.org.” @AKlapper (WMF): Could this be a certificate issue? — Speravir_Talk – 00:31, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

October 24

UAS (Drones)

DJI Inspire 1 Professional

After over 7 years of contributing hundreds of aerial photos to this site, most of them I have done while flying the plane, we now have a host of new talented people with UAs/Drones that is only going to continue to grow. Perhaps a group on the subject would give other UAs pilots a place to go and we make it a regular "Project UAs" group just as we have for Aviation. Few people can ever understand just how complicated Aerial Photography can be and, I am willing to do what I can to share my insight, I fly drones in Film and Television production so it is safe to say that is some valuable insight that others could benefit from. Thoughts?? --WPPilot (talk) 16:34, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

If there is a project being created, please ping me. I am interested. I fly small airplanes like Cessna 172 and sometimes my passengers take nice pictures, e.g. File:Luchtfoto Harderwijk centrum.JPG - Jcb (talk) 15:10, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
If you don't mind me asking you, how much money do you get for doing this job WPPilot? Braxer26 (talk) 03:44, 24 October 2016
Commercial drone pilot rate differ from job to job and the rate is dependent upon the provisioning of equipment, to the production. http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Cinematographer/Salary shows that a Cinematographer in this industry starts at 40 a hour. That assumes that the production owns the equipment. A certified Drone pilot with top quality equipment can make as much as $163,218 a year: http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Drone_Pilot/Hourly_Rate... but that assumes that you have already spent a lifetime in the industry, have a reasonable investment in top quality equipment and have established reputation in the industry. Professional pilots make a bit more, and at least in the Film industry a FAA pilots license is required, http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Commercial_Pilot/Salary in addition to a "drone pilot" certificate making your question a complicated one that is really a case by case issue. -- WPPilot (talk) 07:40, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for this reply! I will check out those links. Braxer26 (talk) 14:04, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

You are welcome, good luck! - --WPPilot (talk) 09:24, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-43

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Problems

  • The abuse filters had a problem and caught too many edits. This has now been fixed. [20]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from October 25. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from October 26. It will be on all wikis from October 27 (calendar).
  • The "Search" text in the search box will show the name of the project. For example, on Wikipedia it will say "Search Wikipedia". [21]
  • About a dozen wikis now have numerical sorting in categories. If your wiki wants numerical sorting in categories you can ask for it. [22]
  • Some wikis that want numerical sorting in categories can also ask to use UCA to sort categories. The biggest difference is that characters with diacritics will be sorted together. For example, for most languages Ä will be sorted with A instead of at the end of the alphabet. This is not true for languages that have Ä as a character in their alphabet. Wikis that already use UCA are listed on Meta. Languages that can use UCA are listed on MediaWiki.org. You can test it.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

17:39, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

@Johan (WMF): Could you please sign these posts rather than the information being hidden from view? You are the person directing and responsible for the bot posting this message, so it is our convention for your contact details to be posted as signatory. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 12:44, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

October 25

Proposal to stop deletion requests being closed by their nominator

I have added this proposal to Commons talk:Deletion requests#Nominator closure of deletions. The current policy does not specifically disallow this happening, and it does happen, which gives a basic problem of poor governance of deletions. Comments welcome on the policy talk page. --Fæ (talk) 09:51, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

canadian user uploading us pronunciations

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:K6ka This user is uploading en-us sound files ( https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&profile=default&fulltext=Search&search=K6ka&searchToken=ckp7ws6chq6j4bzt9mkupdlnq ) despite the fact that he's canadian and has certain canadian pronunciations.. I don't think this is right. Canadians have different pronunciations of words. Here is a map of the different NA dialect via map. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/North_American_English_dialect_regions.jpg I think something should be done about this. At the very least he should of uploaded them with en-ca-community.ogg or something like that. Some of the vowels are different. https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10151861837052908&id=124536002907 Labov made that map of the NA map who is a highly regarded lingustic. Rezfan83 (talk) 04:05, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

I clicked through a decent amount and didn't notice any major problems. Have you tried contacting K6ka and giving him pointers on the ones you found problematic, so he can correct them?Offnfopt(talk) 04:40, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
The way many of the vowels are pronounced are different. I gave you a link to a dialect coach that even confirmed this. Then I gave a link to Labovs dialct map. I'm not for deleting them, but they should be renamed en-ca and not en-us. How is not having accuracy "not a problem?" Rezfan83 (talk) 04:45, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
Which specific pronunciations did you find problems with? Offnfopt(talk) 04:52, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
FOr example the a and I in some of his pronunciations are most certainly Canadian. Even is some words the "e" is different. The "I" really glides. I can tell he didn't try to just do US interpretations with these. Again, I don't think he should delete these, they should just be renamed en-ca-wordusedhere.ogg I'm ok with these files being used on canadian pronunciation pages, but it's inaccurate to have them on US pronunciation pages. Again, here is a map from William Labov about different dialects across NA. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/North_American_English_dialect_regions.jpg. The canadian and american accent isn't radical different, but there are some differences. And I don't think these should be named us-en. I have nothing against canadians :) I'm sure some canadians would feel the same way if someone from the US made canadian files and had different pronunciations. Rezfan83 (talk) 04:59, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
Jmabel must be a regional issue, sounds fine to me. Offnfopt(talk) 05:05, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
Have you tried talking to the user? It doesn't appear that you've even pinged him in this discussion. --Auntof6 (talk) 05:03, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
What's exactly bad about bringing this discussion here? I was directed to here on mirc by and admin. What's the problem? I'm not calling for him to be banned or anything of the sort. I just think the en-us sound files should be renamed en-ca.Rezfan83 (talk) 05:11, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
Nothing is bad about bringing it here. What we're doing is discussing it. The uploader should get a courtesy notification that his/her work is being discussed. If he/she wants to create files for US English pronunciation, it would help if people told him/her which files seem to be wrong so they can be fixed. If your argument is that Canadians are incapable of producing files for US pronunciation, or that they shouldn't, then I disagree with you. --Auntof6 (talk) 05:50, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
I agree with Jmabel and Rez. Some of these sounds are most certainly canadian sounding. Particularly his "o" sound in some words. Mikekdaniels (talk) 05:13, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
I've been around a bunch of south US dialect, northern US dialect, British dialect, English with German accent, English with Spanish accent, English with Russian accent, so maybe my ear is too skewed to tell the difference. Offnfopt(talk) 05:22, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
As a Canadian Rez, Jmabel and Mike are right. I live in american currently and the way americans and canadians say some of the vowels are different. To give and example, the despot clip shows a different pronunciation of the o in that word. Rawmonze (talk) 03:51, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Sure is a shock to wake up one morning and see myself being dragged here rather than getting a friendly notification on my talk page first. I mean, I'd appreciate that before coming to a noticeboard like this. —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 11:14, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

I was told on mirc (by a wikimedia admin) to take the talk to this page for discussion of the topic I brought up. They gave me a direct link to this page. If you wanted it to be discussed on your talk page first then I apologize. While I do use wikimedia here and there often, I don't do discussions on boards ever. So that's why I went to and admin first to get help. As I said on the discussion there, I wasn't looking for you to get banned or in trouble, just to rename the files en-us to enca. Rezfan83 (talk) 12:14, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
what's bad about it, is that you are not collaborating, you are talking behind the editor's back. asking an admin for help is like asking a cop for directions, he may just direct you to court. if we communicated more and templated less, maybe we could get more done. why don't you make a list of the ones you want corrected, record your correct US pronunciation, and then upload them? Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 16:33, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
I went to his talk page and apologized. He did not respond. Although I apologized since he was offended, I see nothing wrong with contacting admins on here asking what to do or even the cops (in the real world) The admin I talked to in regards of this was very helpful and polite. They gave me the direct link to here and were very nice when asking for help. Rezfan83 (talk) 23:25, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
asking admins for help is like asking wiley coyote for a life preserver, you know he will give you an anchor. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 01:55, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

 Comment There seems to be a general agreement that at least 'some' of these 60-odd files should be renamed, but I'm sure there are some where the us and canadian pronunciations are the same... can someone please create a list of the specific ones, somewhere, so we can come to some kind of consensus about what if anything to actually move? Reventtalk 00:13, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

  • Seems to me that they should be renamed (and categorized, as appropriate) as Canadian pronunciations, since that is what they are. The fact that coincidentally some are identical in the U.S. is really not relevant. For example, when I upload a pronunciation, besides accurately naming it based on my own country (U.S.) I would typically further indicate that I'm a New Yorker who has lived most of my adult life in Seattle. On anything where pronunciations vary, things like that are typically relevant. Similarly, a Toronto pronunciation, a Maritimes pronunciation, and a Vancouver pronunciation might vary. They would all be described as "en-ca", but as a rule the description should make the specifics even clearer. - Jmabel ! talk 04:54, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
As I stated in my initial post, I think they should all be renamed en-ca. Rezfan83 (talk) 12:20, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

✓ Done Since the consensus seems to have been to move them all, and because it was happening piecemeal anyhow, I've gone ahead and done so (and changed the category to "Canadian English pronunciations", which was being overlooked). Having listened to nearly all of them now, some (such as File:En-ca-libra-weight.oga) are distinctly not 'American' pronunciations... in that particular case, it's a Latin word, and this is the latin pronunciation that probably no American would use outside of a Latin class. In other cases (such as File:En-us-Vienna.ogg), the pronunciations are not 'wrong' for American English, but seem to be so deliberately done that the syllable breaks are incorrect for the dialect... Americans generally pronounce the word "Vee-enna", not "Vee-e-na". Reventtalk 02:01, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Commons blocked on Virgin Trains wifi

I regularly travel on the UK's Virgin Trains East Coast services, which provides free wifi so long as I buy tickets direct. I can access all Wikimedia projects when I'm on the train apart from Commons, which is blocked by their service provider. I raised a complaint about a month ago, hoping they would allow access on the basis of this being a valid educational resource, but apart from an original acknoledgment, this does not seem to have made a difference.

It's irritating, as my travel time is often over 3 hours, which would be an excellent moment to catch up on my backlog of projects to look at on Commons. Does anyone have any influence with Virgin Trains to get the block removed?

A few retweets may get action https://twitter.com/Faewik/status/790491984070897664. --Fæ (talk) 09:46, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

i imagine it is a throttling thing. i note a lot of free wifi is phone friendly, but not laptop, would that work? or could you try a VPN? Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 23:25, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
Maybe, though images should not be an issue as surfing other image intensive sites looks fine. I'm surfing on my tablet when on the train. --Fæ (talk) 18:02, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Photographs from "Meeting of Frontiers"

There is interesting site with good photographs from Siberia. Host of the site is the Library of Congress. They wrote: "The Library of Congress and its partners are providing access to the materials in Meeting of Frontiers strictly for noncommercial educational and research purposes and make no warranty with regard to their use for other purposes". [23] What could be used as PD license tag for the photographs from the "Meeting of Frontiers"? Hunu (talk) 09:46, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Open commenting on WMF Seeking Additional Resources for Structured Data on Commons

The Wikimedia Foundation in cooperation with Wikimedia Deutschland, has a unique opportunity to potentially secure additional resources to expedite development work on Structured Commons. We would like feedback on a 3 year plan that describes accelerated software development if these resource becomes available. We would like to invite you to participate in a conversation at: this page which provides an overview of that proposed timeline. We look forward to your comments and thoughts.


Joseph Seddon and Alex Stinson 22:27, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

October 27

Looking for your advice on software development

Hello, all. I wonder if a few of you would please review something one of my teammates has been working on? Keegan's been leading the development of a mw:Technical Collaboration Guideline.

The Technical Collaboration Guideline is a set of voluntary best-practice recommendations related to planning and communicating product and project information, with the goal that content contributors and software developers (both volunteers and WMF staff) will work together better during the product development and deployment cycle. It's intended to be flexible, since every project is unique and also since plans and products change during development. It's also intended to be lightweight advice, rather than completely comprehensive. (Or, in plain English, I'm not writing it.  ;-)

Please share your thoughts at mw:Talk:Technical Collaboration Guideline. The guideline and at least most of the previous conversations about it are written in English, but comments from all languages are welcome. Keegan promises me that he will read all feedback and take it into consideration when working on the next draft of this advice, even if he doesn't reply personally. Thanks, Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:31, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Category:Head stands and Category:Headstands

Would you say it's relevant to have both categories ? I suppose we should merge them together and create a subcat such as "Headstands in yoga". --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 13:12, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

✓ Done I've merged them into "headstands" and created different subcats. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 08:56, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
Good idea. "Headstand" sounds like standing on your head, while "Head stand" sounds like something for a guillotine operator's trophy case. Nyttend (talk) 12:57, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

October 26

Wikidata problem

Can anyone change this Wikidata (20 entries) to Category:Salcedo (Hermanas Mirabal)? I fail. --Jos1950 (talk) 14:18, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

@Jos1950: ✓ Done Reventtalk 15:22, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
Thanks. --Jos1950 (talk) 15:52, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Dear all

Connected Open Heritage (a project aiming to improve information of built heritage in danger) is looking for community input on choosing the official logo. You can submit new logos until 6 November and support the proposed logos until 11 November.

Thanks

--John Cummings (talk) 14:27, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Information source of map

The original uploader mentions the URL http://www.mitomap.org/WorldMigrations.pdf, but this does not work. I made the wrong conclusion with the mysterious haploid X wich ony occurs in Europe and America. I came to the easy conclusion that it was the Vikings. The real explanation seems to be in http://sciencenordic.com/dna-links-native-americans-europeans. I stil would like to see the original article the map was made for.Smiley.toerist (talk) 14:54, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

The dashed line indicates a hypothetical migration according to the explanation on the image page - but not in the image itself. In this case probably referring to the Solutrean hypothesis. Having so many things defined outside the image makes reuse difficult. Rmhermen (talk) 19:16, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
When looking for information from broken links, first place to look is the Wayback Machine, here is the PDF. Edit: If you put http://www.mitomap.org in the wayback machine you can browse parts of the older website and maybe you'll find what you need. Offnfopt(talk) 20:03, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
Except the dashed lines on our map don't match the dashed lines in the source. Rmhermen (talk) 21:05, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Equipment for Matemateca (Math museum) digitalization for GLAM project

Hey guys, just to the community be aware of that, I started a small grant that the main target is Wikimedia Commons, meta:Grants:Project/Rapid/Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton/Equipment for Matemateca digitalization, it's part of a GLAM programme, if you like the idea, pleas endorse it. And if you have any questions let me know. -- Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton m 02:21, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

October 30

Cat-a-lot and metacategories

Earlier today, a large group of images were uploaded as part of a cooperation project, but they were put into a misspelled hidden category, so someone created a new hidden category at the correct name and used Cat-a-lot in attempting to move them from old to new. Unfortunately, they were subject to a misclick, and the files ended up in Category:Hidden categories by mistake; you can see an example by checking the history of File:06635-Eisleben-1905-Annenkirche-Brück & Sohn Kunstverlag.jpg.

As a frequest Cat-a-lot user, I wonder if it would it be possible to tweak Cat-a-lot to reduce the risk of this happening? I'm imagining that the gadget checks to see whether the proposed target category is a metacategory, and if it is, a dialog box pops up with a message resembling "Are you sure you want to do this?" For this purpose, perhaps "metacategory" could embrace categories tagged with {{CatCat}}, {{MetaCat}}, etc., as well as hidden categories. Since there's often good reason to move categories into these categories (e.g. you'd want to put Category:Buses in the United States into Category:Buses by country, but you normally wouldn't want to put an image into Buses by country), it would move categories without bringing up the dialog box, i.e. it would work just like it does now. Nyttend (talk) 13:16, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

that is not an own work, and you might want to fix that before someone slaps a "no source" on it. need to use artwork template. dumping information in description field is not helpful. Brück & Sohn is the author, and you have an unknown photographer, you have an item number with no deep link to the website, that would be helpful as a source. you might want to confirm CC0 in an OTRS. you do not have a rights statement on the website, that would be helpful.
you kinda need to think about structuring your metadate before upload. you could use visualfilechange, or fix by hand. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 10:25, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

Open graph tags missing on Commons pages?

 What is the reason that open graph tags seem to be missing on Commons pages' metadata?

See here a screenshot of an iconic photograph's embedded view on Facebook when about to share its Commons page. The image has on Commons clearly defined parameters of photographer, title, description, source but what would go to Facebook is

File:Migrant Mother (LOC fsa.8b29516).jpg - Wikimedia Commons
العربية | čeština | Deutsch | English | español | فارسی | suomi | français | magyar | italiano | македонски | മലയാളം | Nederlands | polski | português | русский | slovenčina | slovenščina | Türkçe | українська | 中文 | 中文（简体）‎ | 中文（繁體）‎ | +/−
COMMONS.WIKIMEDIA.ORG


instead of a decent:

Lange, Dorothea − Destitute pea pickers in California. Mother of seven children. Age thirty-two. Nipomo, California
This image is available from the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID fsa.8b29516. No known restrictions on publication
COMMONS.WIKIMEDIA.ORG


With a proper reference in the meta tags I suppose more Commons files (pages) would be shared to Facebook that would also drive more people to Commons as well. I find the current solution really inappropriate. Puik (talk) 22:22, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

See also meta:Legal/CC BY-SA on Facebook... --Atlasowa (talk) 22:54, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
But posting and (hyper)linking are different things. When we're sharing on Facebook a link to content we are not posting the content (and thereby granting the licence) to Facebook, that's why linking should be the favorable way of sharing as it could visibly reference the author and the source is just behind a click. Puik (talk) 06:23, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
Open Graph is also used by other sites such as Twitter - it's not exclusive to Facebook. BMacZero (talk) 19:15, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
See also:
--Atlasowa (talk) 23:56, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

October 29

User nominating images with sources for deletion with no sources template

I noted that User:Jcb is nominating images for deletion due to no source/etc. but I am afraid that this being done without due attention. As at least one image of mine was deleted (I did not react in time because the template that was used on my talk page was malformed and suggested it is a problem with description - see here) I've decided to bring this here, particularly as in the random 4 images nominated by that user for deletion I was able to find source in three, and perhaps all four images:

  • File:8e R.A.jpg - malformed description template, but clear source "collection personnelle"
  • File:Sachsen-koenig - coat of arms.jpg - source was given in the original edit summary, accessible through the Original upload log field (H.G.Ströhl, Deutsche Wappenrolle, 1897)
  • File:Sakai Cockpit A5M.jpg - source is given in the description. The image is also clearly labelled as public domain, and so secondary source is of little importance as it cannot change public domain status.
  • File:Sala Mauretańska sufit.jpg - no source, but uploader chose CC with attribution, whose wording suggests it is their own picture.

While case number 4 is somewhat dubious, I am afraid that this small selection calls Jcb's judgement into question. I am afraid that user is not reviewing the files carefully, perhaps uses some automated tool that also leaves broken notification templates on uploader's talk page. I'd like to ask Jcb to stop tagging files for deletion, revert him/herself and resume only once he addresses the concerns raised. In addition, community review of all files deleted due to that user's nominations may be in order. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 05:04, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

I tag files for which the source information is not sufficient to determine copyright situation, which is obviously the case for all of these four files. If the community wants to review the about 50.000 files I have dealt with for the past six months, I wish them good luck. Jcb (talk) 05:40, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
The community may then wish to stop you from creating further work for them, because as I've shown, your deletions and tagging are problematic. Why did you revert me at [24]? With no edit summary. This is clearly disruptive. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 05:48, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Here is more:

Now, I am not saying all of your taggins are in error, I can't see a source for File:866corregidor map.jpg for example, and I support you there, but at least 50% of your recent tags seem dobious - source is given, or very easy to find. This IS a cause of concern, given how active you are in deleting things. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 05:55, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

    • Please be aware that in most countries you have to show that the author has died more than 70 years ago, so just the date of publication is often not enough. And no, my error rate is not 50% of course. Jcb (talk) 06:38, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
      • I am perfectly happen to extend good faith and say it is maybe just the last few taggings of yours which have a bad ratio; it is certainly clear you are a dedicated and experienced volunteer who is doing a lot of helpful edits. But while we have to be vigilant regarding spam or other illegal uploads, we also have to be careful not to delete good images (and using correct templates). If you wish, we can discuss images on a case by case basis, but I do think they are anything but clear cut no-sources. --166.104.240.102 07:11, 17 October 2016 (UTC) (that was me, Piotrus, editing from a public computer)
      • I am posting here again since there have been reverts in file space without discussion anywhere that need to be addressed. Your attitude is not helpful, User:Jcb. At [26] instead of constructive edit summaries you are now threatening speedy deletion. This is just short of abuse of admin power - seems like you cannot produce any valid arguments, so you want to stifle discussion by deletion. (And Commons:Criteria for speedy deletion is not a toy for admins, you need to provide a valid speedy deletion rationale, which you have not done). You say on my talk that I can convert the discussion into a regular DF ([27]) but why should I do so? I identified a source. Your no source template is NOT VALID. Ditto in [28]. I explained, twice, that there is a source. You just keep reverting me without a rationale. This is a behavior not becoming of an admin; users who revert others and refuse to engage in discussion are classified on this site using a different terminology, I am afraid. If you have further concerns about this or another picture, you should not revert me without any comment, restoring the wrong template (which is what you have done several times now), but at the very least you should provide an informative edit summary (explaining why I was wrong), and ideally, if you still have concerns, since the speedy template is disputed (and by someone else then the original uploader), you should convert it to DR yourself (since you think there is a problem). I do not think there is a problem, so I see no need for a deletion discussion (or any template). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 08:09, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

I have converted File:Karel Eichler.jpg and File:8e R.A.jpg to deletion requests. Jcb seems completely sure these are copyright violations, enough to repeatedly revert other contributors and threaten speedy deletions without a correct explanation. I suggest these are used as test cases for Jcb's judgement, as there seems to be a very obvious issue that these look to be fundamentally public domain images of the type that most contributors believe are in the public interest to host on Commons and which administrators should make all reasonable efforts to avoid removal on bureaucratic grounds rather than factual grounds. --Fæ (talk) 08:43, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

After a brief examination of the above two files I raised DRs for, I can see no good reason for Jcb to engage in revert-warring over the no source template and to threaten speedy deletion and to give warnings to the uploaders without a more detailed explanation of their actions. For an administrator, the actions on these files appear inappropriately aggressive and tendentious. I suggest other administrators experienced in the appropriate judgement of when to require hyperlinked sources and when to make a judgement about public domain material that does not need a hyperlinked source, chip in with their views. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 09:08, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Edit warring on speedy deletion tags is inappropriate, we have deletion requests for that. But I write here to make an admission: lately I've been using the "no source" tag also for sources which I believe to be blatantly incorrect, mostly uploads by newbies sourced as "own work". The reason is that the helpful script leaves an informative message, unlike {{Copyvionote}} which does not say anything specific. Nemo 10:12, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Refer to Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard#Block_of_User:Piotrus. --Fæ (talk) 11:36, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
@Nemo bis: it would be useful if {{Disputed}} could be set up to leave similar user notifications for "low-risk" images which are likely to be public domain, or have valid sources added with a bit of research, rather than forcing the 7-day limit before deletion on everything. Maybe this is something to request on Phabricator as a change to the listed Tools? That way certain administrators would avoid getting into un-mellow spats over files that need housekeeping, but are highly unlikely to ever be real copyright problems. --Fæ (talk) 12:02, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
yes, we need a process to improve metadata, and deletion / doubt source is not it. it is a standard of practice by some, to delete file rather than fix license or source link. this tends to undermine the credibility of commons. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 03:07, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

I don't see any reason why these files couldn't have gone to DR. It's a clearer and more overt action that gives more people time to see them and fix them if possible.--Prosfilaes (talk) 13:10, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

I think everyone except Jcb agrees. I hope that after the outcome on COM:AN, he will accept the trout-slap for his tendentious behaviour, rather than wasting everyone's time with more of the same nonsense. Based on the past record, I doubt we are going to see Jcb apologise to anybody, or even admit to doing anything wrong. --Fæ (talk) 17:00, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
I've been checking the categories under Category:Media without a source (the day by day cats) by taking a look at files which (visually) look like they might be PD-old or PD-gov-US. I've found that for quite some of the files I've been able to find a source with just a few clicks and found that in a lot of other cases further discussion is necessary. Often this discussion is about the licensing of the file. For example whether it is reasonable to put a pd-old template on a 1890 file. Those kinds of discussions should be dealt with using a deletion request and not a no-source-with-7-day-deletion method. By checking these categories from the last few days I've already been able to find circa 20 files which have been saved from deletion. These files are often widely used and more than 10 years old. I find it shameful that we as a community allow for such valuable (widely used) files to be deleted with so little procedure. Given that I've been able to identify the sources for an average of circa 5 files a day in these categories, and the number of 50,000 cases Jcb mentions above, I estimate that thousands of validly hosted and often valuable files have been deleted in this manner. Often these files have initially been hosted by local Wikipedia's and were later moved here. How can local Wikipedia's trust us to host their (valid) images if we throw them away without too much of an investigation. The current methods hurt Wikimedia Commons and its free content to an enormous extent. Basvb (talk) 18:41, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
A very good point and indeed this is our main concern: we should take all due care to protect PD content from deletion. Having no source should NOT be an auto-deletion criteria, not where there is any reasonable doubt that a source may not be needed. Please see Template_talk:No_source_since#Valid_licence.2FPD_but_lacking_source. I think we need to develop best procedures for using no source and similar images, which clearly state that not all cases should end in deletion after 7 days. Many should be converted into deletion discussions. We also need to accept that images with no source have right to exist (if there are clearly PD otherwise). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 03:24, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
we see a rise in use of "doubt source", and mass "doubt sources" of uploader, rather than engage on talk, or DR. because why waste time when you can semi-automatically give adversive direction. we need training in how to curate images and collaborate with uploaders. those who do not want to professionalize their conduct may need to get a goodbye. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 03:13, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
We should open a COM:AN/U for Jcb (as I intended a few weeks before). Unfortunately Commons has not an admin-critic-system like Wikipedias and admins here are more like master of the universe. I've much more examples of this aggressive and irrational behavior, which is more like vandalism (I've evidence for this judgment). ↔ User: Perhelion 10:44, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
well, the problem is systemic more than an individual. the last time he got talked about at AN/U it degenerated into admin bickering. we need some training and professionalism among the admin class. there is a fundamental lack of standards of practice. will they be motivated by this case to elevate their conduct? i wish it were so, but i doubt it. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 17:35, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Please see also Commons:Undeletion_requests/Current_requests#Files_uploaded_by_VirginRedemption where JCB deleted images as "out of scope" after all the discussing parties reached consensus that the files should be kept. --Jarekt (talk) 19:51, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Proposal to halt all unsourced cross-wiki transfers

I suggest the following proposal in the light of the highly probable significant loss of Public Domain education material that the current processes for cross-wiki transfers have encouraged, and the absence of improvement to the way Commons administrators are deleting unsourced public domain files. Refer to the estimates by Basvb above, which I find highly believable.

Proposal
  1. All cross-wiki bot transfers of media without explicit and verifiable sources are to stop, if necessary by blocking the relevant bot accounts if the operator is unavailable.
  2. Cross-wiki transfers by bot can only restart once a bot operator has confirmed that sources have a tested verification process. This need not require hyperlinks, but sources must be verifiable and reliable, such as standard source book references.
  3. Rejected cross-wiki transfers should be marked as such, indicating on their home wiki that there is a problem with sourcing that requires a manual fix.
  4. Sources which are "own" or to a Flickr account, must be verified as by established accounts. Uploads from accounts with very few remaining uploads, or accounts that are blocked or banned, should not be considered "established".

Note that the community will need to agree some numbers for what "established" should be, just to help out the bot operators decide how to do the checks. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 19:20, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

I doubt whether the new uploading of unsourced images is the real problem here. In this query (other cat) you can find an overview of the years in which the files in Category:Images without source have been uploaded, there you can see that the bulk of the images is older than a few years. That doesn't mean that I oppose your idea, I simply think that we should not forget to focus (as well) on the images that are already here and which need attention. We should be able to find a less destructive way to deal with this backlog. Basvb (talk) 19:48, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
I would not be against moving all unsourced transfers back to their 'home' wiki, regardless of age, and not moving them back until they have been reviewed correctly. As has been said, these mass deletions of public domain media files uploaded in good faith, do not help the reputation of Commons one bit. --Fæ (talk) 20:00, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
the problem is that some of these are ancient, and the transfers are semi-automatic without regard to source. and the broken transfer process breaks what little sourcing is there, i.e. changing author to transfer bot. and the wiki may have a different view about sourcing, i.e. we had the case of the person who bought a copyright release with the print and uploaded to english, and then the files were transfered, and deleted on english, and then later deleted on commons when the paperwork was not otrs'ed years later. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 17:29, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
Moving files back to the home wiki is impossible in the case of e.g. sv-wp, which has no local repository. And the files moved back would not be usable elsewhere. We also have truly problematic files uploaded on projects other than Commons, which should be deleted here instead of left on the original project. So, the problems have to be solved here.
Even verifying the source does not help, as some administrators place absurd burden on the source. One example linked above included the requirement that an anonymous photographer should be proved anonymous or otherwise the death year of the probably 90+ years old photographer found. In another, "Private collection" was not enough as source, as that would not allow proving the copyrigt status (which above is stated as a requirement for the "source").
In an earlier case, the link being dead and the file not available at the source anymore was reason for deletion (the administrator suggested the verification scheme should have been used – is it really used for places like governmental web sites?).
I think the problem is our having very different views on how much evidence we should have to keep an image, the function of the source information, and when the no nource since template should be used. The views should be consolidated, with adinistrators stopping with these deletions until we reach consensus.
--LPfi (talk) 10:12, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Proposal to ban Jcb from using the 'no source' template for six months

While we consider procedural and policy changes, the vast majority of problems in applying the {{no source}} template in the last few months can be sourced to the actions of one user, Jcb. In the light of this administrator's tendentious edit-warring and highly inappropriate and incompetent use of the administrator tools in relation to their aim to mark for deletion files that have been automatically flagged as unsourced, regardless of the fact of whether sources are in the description, or the image page history, or whether the image is very clearly out of copyright so need not be deleted. Many contributors no longer have any trust in Jcb to apply this template or to use the admin tools to delete files affected. Refer to the history on AN for background. Banning Jcb from using this template need not affect their valued volunteer efforts on other backlogs.

I am raising this proposal on the Village Pump, due to people recently affected by Jcb's actions not all following the discussions about Jcb that have been raised on administrator noticeboards, including several serious admonishments from fellow administrators that Jcb has ignored. For this reason it seems more representative to gain a sense of consensus here, where more non-administrators may take part.

Please add a support or oppose below; I suggest raising longer comments, discussion and discussion of specific cases in a sub-section.

Proposal

Jcb is to be banned from using the {{no source}} template on any image for six months. Should Jcb continue to use this template, or any variation of it, their account will be subject to a series of escalating blocks.

  •  Support as proposer. --Fæ (talk) 17:58, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
  •  Oppose. due to second oppose vote below There's no reason to try to take sysop tools one at a time from a sysop. Ellin Beltz (talk) 18:06, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
  •  Oppose as currently drafted. This ban would be incompatible with Jcb's duties as an administrator, so there would need to be discussion about whether or not a de-sysop request is justified in the circumstances. Nick (talk) 18:14, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
    • I don't see how this is incompatible. Refraining from using this template is not part of sysop tools and Jcb could raise DRs or use the {{disputed}} template as more collegiate alternatives to achieve precisely the same objective. Sorry to say this, but being an administrator does not give you a free pass from responsibilities that would be enforced for non-admin accounts, this is explicitly stated in COM:Administrators. The continual deferring of corrective action until things have got so bad we must have a desysop vote is a simple form of the Super Mario effect, giving Jcb special immunity because they have sysop rights, rather than treating the account in the same way as we would for any non-administrator account. --Fæ (talk) 19:49, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
      • You misunderstand, if any administrator was to be barred from performing a less complicated task, such as tagging files as having no source, it raises the obvious problem about whether they can be trusted to have continued access to the administrator toolset. The question is thus - is Jcb's conduct unbecoming of an administrator. Nick (talk) 21:50, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
  •  Support The {{No source}} means no source, not an admin thinking the source is wrong. The latter requires explanation and probably discussion, so COM:DR is the right way in this case. And, source is not required if it is not necessary to resolve the copyright status. If, as it is suggested in previous opinion, using {{No source}} is an admin tool, I would consider this situation as misuse of admin tool. Nominating for deletion because the uploader made a little mistake (and even without notifying the real uploader) does not made Commons better. Ankry (talk) 18:33, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
    • @Ankry: Imagine you find a file with an obviously wrong source... say a photograph of a modern politician, whose source states "Olmec inscription"... are you saying an admin should not remove the obviously incorrect source and cannot tag it as {{No source}}? What if the source reads "Z" or "source" ? Are you saying if it was not literally blank at the time of upload, it cannot be tagged "no source" and should go through DR? Storkk (talk) 12:39, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
      • @Storkk: Removing absolutely bogus source information is OK to me. But I do not think that adding {{No source}} is OK if a source information (even bogus) is present or if it is misplaced or when copyright status can be determined without a source. And something totaly meaningless for one person may be clear for another (eg. "Source = s.25" (or "p.25")) may be clear information if it is stated in the description that it is an image from a specified book. IMO, it is better to let somebody else to look at it in a DR if any doubts or, especially, if the uploader is not or cannot be easily notified (bot upload/cross-wiki upload).
And please note, we are not talking about desysoping (I appreciate Jcb's work in other fields). This is just suggestion to avoid a specific template (he would be still free to create DR's, delete files, prepare lists of unsourced files for other admins' review, etc.) Ankry (talk) 14:14, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
  • @Ankry: I was trying to clarify your statement that "{{No source}} means no source, not an admin thinking the source is wrong". I have often done exactly that, and as long as we agree that bogus information doesn't count, then I think we're discussing a matter of perception rather than clear black and white. IMO this points further towards my suggestion below of changing policy to nobody using {{No source}} on files over a certain age. Storkk (talk) 15:31, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
  • I believe it's better to discuss these issues with Jcb and on COM:AN/U, not in the main village pump. Such a discussion could (should IMO) include both the administrative tools as well as tagging files without a source. In this stage I still hope that a discussion indicating that some working methods are considered harmful (by a broad range of users) and a short cool down on the side of Jcb to consider his methods are a solution. However for that to work Jcb needs to involve himself in the discussions concerning his working methods. I understand that this is not easy to do and that the current discussion can feel like an attack on ones person. However the current working methods: tagging files with doubts about the validity of the source or license as having no source (there are sources, but Jcb doesn't agree with them, often correctly, sometimes incorrectly) as well as blocking/deleting users/files with which Jcb has an issue/nominated himself, are harming our project. Basvb (talk) 19:39, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
  •  Oppose for now. I have not seen suitable evidence of widespread "incompetence" presented here. Instead users have cherry-picked a handful of images they contest. A quick glance at Fae's talk page and archives will reveal thousands of his uploaded images posted for DR. Are we to conclude Fae is "incompetent" wrt copyright or scope issues and should be banned from uploading for six months, or consider that in the light of the couple of million uploads he's done. I'll assume the same for now of Jcb, who is rather active as an admin unlike some we've discussed recently, unless we have clear evidence that he gets it wrong too frequently. Seems to me Jcb is being made a scapegoat for the huge backlog of unexamined uploads and for poorly written bots that lose information. Perhaps he needs additional help in examining these files with poor/no sources rather than a constant stream of attacks. Images that are not reliably documented with a source and evidence of their free licence or PD are worthless to our re-users. -- Colin (talk) 21:46, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
  •  Oppose mostly per Colin. I'd support a change in policy, though, to confine {{Nsd}} and {{Npd}} to files younger than, say, 6 months. Storkk (talk) 22:29, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
    • Oh come on. Months of tagging PD works that have been here for years and can be easely fixed only to delete them yourself 7 days later isn's widespread incompetence? Tagging complex cases for months which should go to a DR isn's widespread incompetence? We don't need a policy change merely because one user abuses the tagg. Natuur12 (talk) 11:36, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
      • Natuur12 I've seen the noticeboard posts. What's the ratio of success to failure? And how much better would the next average admin do (given that nobody's perfect). What we've got here looks like someone commenting on all the dead bodies coming out of a hospital and concluding that it should be shut down. How many images does Jcb investigate and locate/fix sources or correct licence tags? How many are correctly tagged and deleted? How much effort are people expecting an admin to spend investigating each image. For example, 10 minutes work per image for 1000 images is 16 weeks at two hours a day, five days a week. Is there a particular class of image that is a problem (e.g. PD old). Is the problem the tag or the fact that it serves a 7 day death sentence on images where the uploader is no longer active -- in that case, the community needs to revise the procedures so we know the steps/policy that applies to everyone. There was an attempt at something like this before, but it confused procedural policy with hosting policy. Natuur12, perhaps you could mediate because it seems clear Jcb won't talk to Fae. -- Colin (talk) 12:19, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
      • (Edit conflict) I see it differently... is there really any reason to use {{Nsd}} or {{Npd}} on old images? I don't see a major drawback to confining them to young files. I have used those templates on older files, and always felt a little uncomfortable doing so, because the whole point of the templates is to get the original uploader to fix the error while things are fresh... what percentage of uploaders from ~2 years ago are even still active? Why not just put them through a DR, where they are more easily seen by a wider variety of people, and can be referred back to by non-admins, and are also much less likely to cause contention. I see Jcb's actions apparently much less black-and-white than you or Fae. I see a difference in interpretation of "source" requirements, perhaps mistaken, and perhaps pursued overly enthusiastically. I agree that these all probably shouldn't have been tagged {{Nsd}} ... but IMO neither should other old files. That's where I think the appropriate remedy lies here, I don't see a sanctionable offence. And I'm not shocked that Jcb has made some errors, nor should you be. Maybe he should slow down a bit - but that's a totally different discussion, and not one I would participate in. Storkk (talk) 12:31, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
        • @Colin: Please see the post made by Basvb at 18:41, 17 October 2016 (UTC) for some estimated numbers. He should just slow down and take more time investigating images. Having no backlog at no permission, no source and deletion request is nice but if Jcb and INC would just slow down a bit other admins would have a change to help. I used to close some series of deletion requests in the evening for example but because they are rushing through our backlogs there is nothing left. If Jcb would slow down in that area he would have more time to investigate the sources.
He is blocking people he gets in conflict with, behaving dickish when people complain about deletions, taggings etc, not responding to questions and complaints from his fellow admins. I am not sure if we can resolve this. Natuur12 (talk) 12:40, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
Ok I see that post now, though it only looks at tagged files, not really easy to work out how many files Jcb examined and (a) decided were fine or (b) corrected or added sources or licence fixes to. I agree there is an issue with Jcb not participating in these discussions, though I suspect that's partly because fae keeps starting them and various people are itching to remove his admin bit. So we have a communication problem. But we also have a general problem with the procedure whereby tagged images always get deleted 7 days later, and everyone here seems to think that should only happen for newly uploaded files, whereas older files should presumably go onto some DR or backlog pile for people to work through. I do agree with you that it isn't good for any admin to be over productive. Perhaps fixing our procedural policy would be the least confrontational approach? -- Colin (talk) 14:21, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
  •  Support Jcb's recent actions made me worried that all files that were uploaded years ago will be deleted blindly just because it lacks a source or the source provided is not sufficient. And their block of Piotrus is also inappropriate, so that's why I am no longer trusting this admin anymore. --★ Poké95 13:27, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
  • File:800px-Oceanie2.png. The file is confusingly both released into Public Domain and GFDL. This was created by User:Domaleixo who was blocked permanently in 2012 for copying the illustrations out of books. Seems like someone needs to investigate why his other uploads are still not deleted. We've been illegally using this file since 2007. There's even an SVG created from it.
  • File:866corregidor map.jpg. This claims PD US GOV and was uploaded by en:User:Celebrity historian. That user hasn't been active since September 2006. Their talk page is full of messages, since August 2006, about the lack of sourcing for their images. So clearly there has been a known problem with this person's images since 2006 yet it was transferred to Commons in 2009. That's indicative of a systemic problem with Commons accepting material other wikis already know isn't acceptable.
  • File:86th BCT.jpg. Another PD US GOV. Uploaded by en:User:Mikeofv who is still active on Wikipedia but has not been notified that their image lacks a source. This has been discussed before -- the wikipedia transfer bot has been notified instead!
So this is a bigger problem than just Jcb, and we are failing to notice (and thank) Jcb for helping to delete content (like the first one of three above) that we've been hosting illegally for nearly a decade. There's definitely a problem here, with Jcb, with transfer bots, with tag->delete processes, with the user notification mechanism, but also a big problem with Commons hosting material and Wikipedia using material illegally and which nobody is removing in a timely manner. -- Colin (talk) 15:02, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
Do you think we should stop accepting automated transfers where the original uploader is no longer active (less than 10 edits in the last 90 days, or some other metric) ?
I'd also suggest we shouldn't be allowing automated transfers where the original uploader is now blocked/banned on their home/source wiki. I mention automated uploads - manual transfer with careful analysis of the images would of course continue to be permitted/encouraged. Nick (talk) 18:44, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
Please see User:Basvb/nosource for an investigation of all the files tagged no-source on the 15th of October by Jcb. Of course the conclusions are influenced by my personal opinion, but I believe it gives a good overview of an average day and relevant percentages. On the other hand Jcb has indicated on my talk page (in Dutch) that he is reading the discussions and takes into account the feedback. I think the considerations on the files from the 15th of October shows that often the cases are more complicated than should be handled using a simple no-source tag. Limiting the no-source tag (and maybe the same for similar tags meant to warn users) for files uploaded in the last 1-3 years seems like a good solution to me. Older files can often benefit from a broader discussion via a DR. Basvb (talk) 20:08, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
It's worth looking for no source + PD licenses where it becomes easy to see obvious PD files, such as reproductions of works more than 200 years old or where the source is given in the description, it's just not a hyperlink. The report is https://petscan.wmflabs.org/?psid=563304, but most problematic files have been removed in the last few hours. When the error rate is greater than 10% then the process is not working, so it's interesting to read through Basvb's analysis which shows there was only a 50/50 chance that a templated file was suitable for speedy deletion once scrutinized by other volunteers. --Fæ (talk) 20:27, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
Thanks Basvb, very helpful, with the limitations you point out. And I note your comment "investing so much time for all images is not something that I expect to be reasonable". We must remember that for those tagged no source by Jcb, there are many others left untouched, or source added, or licence corrected, or sent to DR, etc, etc. The practical element of this must be considered: if people are uploading unreliable images faster than our admins can review them, say, then our repository will fill with cruft that makes it very useless for re-users. Nick, I don't know the details of the transfer bots. It seems some wikis are not doing their job wrt checking images, so perhaps we need to consider those wikis are utterly unreliable and thus every image transferred must be examined by a human. There was an earlier attempt by Fae to change the policy wrt this template leading to deletion, but it suggested changing our precautionary principle hosting policy, which was completely the wrong focus. I see no need to change our hosting policies but a desperate need to change our procedural ones wrt this template. As has been widely pointed out, for files we have hosted for years, the assumption that the uploader can rapidly fix the issue does not hold. Either that uploader has gone or the tool isn't correctly picking up the Wikipedian who uploaded it and so is templating the transfer bot. I would support a change to our procedures that prevent files older than 1 year, say, being automatically deleted for "no source", though that obviously requires some commitment from admins to do more DR.
I would also be interested if the same analysis could be done for other editors adding nosource tags (I saw Hedwig and Ellin in the category I looked at, perhaps there are others). My guess is that a second pair of eyes on these images may also demonstrate more than Fae's 10% error rate threshold (error being that the file probably shouldn't be speedied, which is Basvb's analysis, rather than being that the file shouldn't be deleted). It's simply a contentious area whether an image is "obviously" lacking necessary evidence or is "probably" lacking the necessary evidence and users will disagree. We can't design a perfect system. Other pragmatic suggestions might be that a file that is in-use must go to DR. Both changes could surely be handled by the tool detecting the upload/tranfer date and also the in-use on other projects links. There clearly aren't enough people doing this job, if we've hosted many deletionable images for nearly a decade, so we need to improve the system to target those files most likely to be faulty and to take extra care with those files most likely to harm our project if wrongly deleted. Simply demanding perfection (or eliminating a user who is generally doing a useful job) will only make the backlog grow and we'll be hosting these files illegally for another decade. I'm glad to see comments that Jcb is reading this and considering it, so I hope we see a more cautious approach to using this tag in future. -- Colin (talk) 07:53, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
  •  Support i've long been concerned with the projection of black and white, when for me, there is a lot of gray area, and a lot of low risk items. this conduct is impacting the reputation of commons. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 03:17, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
  •  Support With the caveat that nothing I have seen since I first encounter Jcb on Monday makes me believe he is suited to be an admin, and I'd support removing sysop privileges, since he has abused not only the template in question, but also other more important tools, such as the block button (which was used to silence me for no other reason then I disagreed with him; I have yet to receive a single word of apology from that user). Further, the fact that the editor has not even bothered to explain him/herself here suggests to me that they still believe they did nothing wrong (and perhaps can do no wrong...), and that all of our talk here is meaningless fuming. Several editors have suggested that this should be discussed at COM:AN/U and whatever the outcome of this discussion here, I think it should be continued there (and if it is, I'd appreciate a ping). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 13:43, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
  •  Support Jcb does "an important work", but I say only COM:Forum #Quellenangabe bei Wappen / amtlichen Werken…. He deleted (SVG) images with source (reference) and also don't replaced the SVG with the JPG source on deletion (without deletion log), although mentioned and pinged. ↔ User: Perhelion 14:36, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
  •  Support: I was skepical at first, about this sectorial, temporary taking away of admin tools. But seems that it is feasable, judging from some of the above, so I join the chorus: This will prevent further deletions of important material. Faulty file pages should, of course, be improved, and actual copyvios should be deleted. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 20:07, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
  •  Oppose Fix the technical issues if any. An admin need to be trusted to use all tools available to do his duties. If the trust is compromised, go for de-admin. Jee 03:18, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
    Adding a "no source" template is not a sysop tool. ★ Poké95 05:03, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
    Who said its a sysop tool? Read carefully. Jee 05:14, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
  •  Support. Also  Support de-admin. Why? Frequent incivility. On top of all the comments I see here and have noticed elsewhere:
 Info A request was raised at Administrator's noticeboard for an administrator to close this proposal at 08.29, 28th October. Views added after the request may have been attracted because of it. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 16:35, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
  •  Oppose I have just deleted half a dozen images marked "no source" by Jcb. I have also kept two. As far as I am concerned that is a very much more than acceptable ratio. Even if his "no source" nominations were wrong 80% of the time -- which is nowhere near the case -- bringing problems to our attention is a good thing. I think the problem is that when you do as much work on Commons as Jcb does, there inevitably are mistakes and, since he does more than all but one of us, he makes more mistakes even though his error rate (as measured by successful DRs and UnDRs) is lower than average.
A suggestion, that might eliminate some of the problem. Now that our DR backlog is under control (thanks in large part to INC and Jcb - 60% of deletions are their work) perhaps the active Admins could go to work on Category:Images without source which has 52,000 images in it. We probably need a new template to put in the "Source=" line which will keep the bot from adding them to this category. I would suggest something like "reviewed by license reviewer or administrator x and found to be OK even though there is no stated source). On the other hand, I see at least half a dozen image on the first page of the category that ought to either be {{Speedy}} or {{Delete}}. And, of course, there are many there where the source is in the description line and the bot can't find it. .     Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 14:31, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
With regard to the raw numbers point, you used a very small sample to come to an opinion. The statistics like yours of 2/8 were keeps may seem of marginal concern, but once we are talking a failure rate of 20% to 25% in 1,000 or 50,000 deletions, that's an unacceptable failure rate which loses a significant number of valuable public domain images from Commons. If you check the prior discussion around stats, this used a slightly different sample space. I assert that based on my using searches like this, limiting the statistics to deletions where there were public domain licence templates on the images will yield a much higher rate, like 50% being keeps, which then becomes weak enough to let a simple bot take care of the backlog. As you have sysop rights and can analyse deleted images, it would be very useful if you could do some analysis along these lines for images which Jcb has deleted in the past, rather than analysing just those which have not yet been deleted. --Fæ (talk) 14:42, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
If we're going to fling imaginary numbers around based on random guesses of error rates, 1,000 "no source" deletions with an imaginary 20% error rate is 800 violations of our COM:PRP and a substatial number of these will be copyright violations. So while some might weep for the imaginary 200 images that might have been saved given an imaginary number of imaginarily productive admins spening an imaginary number of hours of investigations, it is very likely that a much larger number of images are being illegally hosted by Commons and published on Wikipedia against the wishes of a large number of very not-imaginary photographers and artists.
This whole topic should have been conducted as a discussion on how the community best deal with the issue and to come up with consensus on best practice, policy changes and procedural changes. Instead, it is started as yet another attack on Jcb. Can we just stop the personal attacks for a while and discuss this complex area without trying to ban someone or encourage a whole lot of pile-on spleen-venting by people who aren't offering any solutions or to volunteer to spend their evenings doing it any better. -- Colin (talk) 15:05, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
 Comment Ellin Beltz just to note, you now have two votes listed. Offnfopt(talk) 17:19, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
Struck through the top one, only one opppose remains. Thanks for pointing that out. Ellin Beltz (talk) 17:22, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
  •  Support Jcb's actions, on a range of topics, have been bureaucratic, combative to other editors, and have lost sight of the project's broader goals. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:17, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
  •  Oppose Briefly, this is not the way to solve this. If Jcb can't be trusted to use the template correctly, then he can't be trusted as an admin, and any issue with using nsd 'carelessly' goes beyond just him. I've just converted a file from nsd to a DR, that was marked by a different admin, uploaded in 2006, where the name of the uploader and the stated 'author' were identical, the file was licensed as {{PD-self}} at upload, and there was no apparent external use other than mirrors. If it's a fault in 'using' the template, which it seems to be, it's also a fault in the admin who actually pushes the button without checking carefully. We need to 'all' be more careful about checking things for obvious solutions other than deletion. Reventtalk 01:12, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
  •  Oppose, per Revent. - Jmabel ! talk 06:56, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
    • you keep talking about trust, and all or nothing. you do of course understand that there are GLAMs who do not trust commons to keep their images, and who use flickr where images do not get deleted? where is your solution? where is your culture change? where is your standard of practice? this "trust the admins" is wholly inadequate: no one does. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 09:51, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
  •  Oppose, per Jim and Revent. Wikicology (talk) 06:42, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
  •  Support Same reasons as stated by Andy Dingley (talk · contribs). The Yeti 08:00, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
  •  Comment - Wikimedia Commons works because the people in our community deeply care. Jcb, I am sorry that you see Fae's proposal as harassment but I can boldly tell you that this wasn't Fae's intention. Please, see any constructive criticisms here as useful feedback. I understand that this could be frustrating at times but we just have to deal with it. However, I think we should take a calm, loving, and reasonable approach in this situation. The harmony of our work depends on human understanding and forgiveness of errors. I can't determine the extent of damage this user's errors might have caused the project but I know they meant well. If the community no longer trust Jcb with the admin tool, someone can initiate a de-adminship process. I don't see this proposal as a solution to the underlying issues. In fact, I don't think any Crat will be ready to close this thread to enforce the proposed ban. I think this thread should be closed as "No consensus" for now. If anyone is willing to start a de-admin process, of course that is welcomed! All the best. Wikicology (talk) 11:09, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
  •  Oppose, per Jim, Colin, and Revent. Yann (talk) 23:17, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Could you please tell me if this photo can be uploaded to the Commons? The copyright information on the website located here states that it is covered by "Creative Commons Licenses". Thank you. Magnolia677 (talk) 19:43, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

The website states that the images are all rights reserved, unless otherwise specified. This means that the image may only be uploaded if a free license is explicitly stated. --rimshottalk 21:09, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
And it ain't. Thanks! Magnolia677 (talk) 21:24, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

October 31

Is a template for photos from a library archive a good idea?

I was reading an academic article on increasing the discoverability of library resources through Wikipedia (http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19322909.2012.641808, probably behind a paywall, sorry, but the user who wrote it was probably TejasDiscipulus~commonswiki). They recommended using a template on photos to make copyright clear and to tell other users where they could get higher-resolution copies of images, as in [[File:Cloche_hat_Walker_Photograph_cropped.jpg]]. I work for a university and I'd like to get more of our images on the Commons. Is this image actually using a template? It looks like they weren't really consistent with using it either--do you have any specific recommendations? I looked into batch downloading but unfortunately our content management system, contentdm, doesn't provide individual image URLs, so I will most likely be uploading photos manually (though I'm still looking into batch uploading from files). Thanks Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 21:21, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

@Rachel Helps (BYU): Best practice for works in a reference collection, really, is to use {{Artwork}} or {{Photograph}}, that both allow for information about the holding institution, accession numbers, and a 'credit line' if needed for specific works. As far as the actual copyright, when possible a 'specific' public domain license template should be used, that gives the actual rationale for the particular work being PD. For information that you'll be repeating often, you can either create a custom 'template' that you transclude from your user space, as if it was an actual template, or substitute the content of a page from your user page, that can then be edited as needed for the specific file. It does not look like the uploader of that image actually did either, but instead just pasted the text into the pages when uploading.
The license on that image isn't really correct, either, I don't think... UofH apparently scanned the photographic negative, but that does not make them the 'author' of the image... a mere scan does not involve original authorship that creates a new copyright. The author of that image was apparently Harry Walker... UofH seems to believe the original image is PD, possibly due to a donation agreement, but the rationale for that isn't really clear. Reventtalk 04:36, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
The article does not appear to actually be paywalled, btw.... reading now. Reventtalk 04:37, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
It's actually not bizarre that the archive would hold the copyright to their holdings; during my intro-to-archives class in library school, taught by the director of archives, it was strongly suggested that all deed-of-gift contracts include a grant of all donor-owned copyright to the holding institution. The point is to ensure that the institution is as free as possible to use their holdings as they wish. Presumably in this case, UoH decided to say "If this image is still under copyright, we release it", and while not the right template, PD-author basically got the point across. Do we have a PD-release template meant for use when the author granted copyright to another party, which is the one giving the release? {{PD-self}} is meant for uploader-created works, not uploader-owned works that someone else created and sold/donated to the uploader. Nyttend (talk) 13:30, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
@Nyttend: I didn't mean it was 'bizarre', just that I could not identify the specific rationale that UofH was using, from what I saw.... they don't specify, but a clause in the donation paperwork is indeed likely. There are 'sample forms' for such deeds-of-gift, such as [29], that include such language.
AFAIK, we don't explicitly have such a generic tag, but {{PD-self}} (which claims 'ownership of the copyright', instead of actual authorship) is probably closest. For specific cases there are the tags in Category:No known restrictions license tags, most of which cover the exact situation for specific Library of Congress collections and rely on {{Library of Congress-no known copyright restrictions}}... creating such a tag for other GLAMs that intended to do large donations of such material would probably be best. Reventtalk 14:28, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
Understood. I initially saw it as bizarre when first encountering the concept, so I thought perhaps you or others might see it that way too. Nyttend (talk) 16:14, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
best practice would be to have a rights statement per photo collection per the LOC i.e. [30] image metadata is made machine readable using "templates" - the box with the information on the image page. use photograph or artwork template which allows a separate author and artist / photographer. UH using information template has a conflict with photographer = Walker, Harry and author = University of Houston Libraries. the increased visibility is how commons images appear in search engines, while institutional page may not; and use in wikipedia increases visibility and click through.
you can upload using the other template using the old uploader [31] or commons:pattypan.
User:Rachel Helps (BYU) touch base with GLAM volunteer User:Todrobbins, or m:The Wikipedia Library User:Astinson (WMF) can hook you up. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 10:14, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for all the information! I'm familiar with Todrobbins. I'm still working out how to get access to the files themselves, but my hope is to use the Pattypan uploader with the metadata we have. I want to upload our Charles Savage collection of photographs, which is in the public domain. Would it make more sense to use {{PD-1923}}, or to make a new category specific to the collection? Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 17:15, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

October 28

Global autopatrol right

See meta:Wikimedia Forum#Global autopatrolled. Filemovers here replace usages of files with their own accounts and admins often do the same when processing duplicates. For trusted users there's really no need for these edits to be patrolled on other wikis. I personally have autopatrol on 16 different wikis. Anyone with rollback on 16 wikis would be an easy candidate for global rollback, and anyone with deletion tagging, etc, on half that many wikis would be a candidate for global sysop. Global autopatrol seems like a good idea for experienced Commons filemovers and active admins who do filemoves and/or process duplicates on a regular basis. lNeverCry 06:11, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

i think you will find other wikis do not trust commons admins, but hey go for it. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 22:05, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
I have good relations with people at several wikis. I'm sure you get a mixed bag when it comes to trust all the way around. This also includes filemovers remember, so you would be eligible for this right yourself. My interest here is in avoiding unneeded pending changes/patrolling work, etc. They've found a way to make global rollback and sysop work, so maybe this will work out. Or maybe we'll go on as we have. I'm certainly going to keep renaming files, and if I remain non-autopatrolled on many wikis, that will create one more edit a reviewer has to check. I've got 17 autopatrols on different wikis, and that will increase with time. Not a big deal either way. I think Commons has some great admins personally, some of the best around. I'm a bit biased though... lNeverCry 10:46, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
ask you good relations what the reputation of commons is on other wikis, you may be surprised. [32], [33] Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 13:55, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
I've opposed, thanks for highlighting the vote. It comes down to the choice of whether Wikimedia Commons has any say over how rights on this project are to be handled here. This decision to globalize will happen on meta with no vote on this wiki about changes to rights here. As with the loss of a local OTRS flag, these small changes to globalize rights erode the project's self-determinism or self-governance as rights holders are not held to account here, or against the policies here, the same place where they are exercising those rights. --Fæ (talk) 14:04, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Naming a subcategory about peaks

Hello, I am interested in making a subcategory of Category:Rocky Mountain National Park for peaks, if I remember correctly there are about 60. I don't know if it should be "Peaks of Rocky Mountain National Park" or "Rocky Mountain National Park Peaks", or something else.

Then, my plan is to hook-up subcategories, like Longs Peak, to that category and add files about specific peaks to that subcategory that don't have their own category. Your help is greatly appreciated!--CaroleHenson (talk) 16:12, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

It looks like there are plenty of "Peaks of..." categories. So, I started Category:Peaks of Rocky Mountain National Park. If it isn't' right, though, please let me know.--CaroleHenson (talk) 16:33, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
There is no 'naming rule', but "Peaks of..." would probably be more consistent with the way most other categories are named. Reventtalk 17:04, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
Great, thanks!--CaroleHenson (talk) 17:24, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
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