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Changing names of images which I have transferred from Wikipedia
Could somebody please tell me how to rename the images which I had originally uploaded to the English Wikipedia, and which I have now transferred to Wikimedia Commons, as there does not seem to be any way in which I can rename the image pages.
The images which I have transferred from the English Wikipedia to Wikimedia Commons now have duplications on both Wikimedia Commons and the English Wikipedia, because I unfortunately originally thought that the images had to have identical names to the names they had in the English Wikipedia when transferring them to Wikimedia Commons. I now realise I should have renamed the images when they were transferred to Wikimedia Commons.
Actually, I did do that at the English Wikipedia — I did not do it here. The reason why I asked for help was because there is no 'page move' available for images on either the English Wikipedia or Wikimedia Commons. In an attempt to remove the dilemma of duplicated files for the images on both Wikimedia Commons and English Wikipedia, I have now asked advice at the Village Pump at the English Wikipedia about changing image names there for the images which I originally uploaded there and have now transferred here. Figaro (talk) 19:11, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
(Indent reset) Insert {{rename|new picture name}} in the images if the name needs really be changed. An administrator has to accept the change (to avoid vandalisme and edit wars). A bot will then reupload under the new name and delete the old file. --Foroa (talk) 19:50, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
I would still be interested to know what happened at english wikipedia with that template and the (what I thought were) very complete and uncomplicated instructions for how to move images from there to here. -- carol20:19, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
In answer to carol's comments, I should like to point out that I requested information from the Village Pump at the English Wikipedia prior to my reading of your first comment.
Before I read your first comment, I was not aware that the template and instructions existed, otherwise I would not have been seeking help in the first place. While I am grateful for the help you provided in your first answer, I am not impressed with the sarcasm you have shown towards me in your responses to my query. I am neither a fool nor an idiot, as your sarcasm would seem to suggest.
Until now, I was under the impression that sarcasm towards other users in a public forum was not permitted — it would appear, however, from your comments, that I was wrong about this. Figaro (talk) 20:57, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
Figaro, I don't detect any sarcasm. Could you please (1) reread, assuming good faith, and see if you may be finding sarcasm where none was present and (2) if you still see something problematic, could you be specific about what you thought was inappropriate. - Jmabel ! talk23:41, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, thank you for this especially as Jmabel has been the recipient of what I thought was a funny reply but could have been easily perceived as sarcastic (this was on a talk page and not in a place like this). Perhaps I am not following the problem here also, but the way this reads is that there was a initially a request to change the names of images here since a duplicate exists on English wikipedia. The answer to that is to have them deleted there and how to do that was provided. Then there was a report that the template did not work there as expected and as they say it should work.
Further, I was prepared to explain problems that occur between the deletion bot there and uploads here. If I need to be sorry for the lack of defensive on my part it is greatly because I see nothing that needs it. -- carol (talk) 00:07, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Deleted image, or?
Somethign seems to be iffy with Image:Svenska Försvarsutbildningsförbundet vapen.svg the thumbnails of the image are still visible (e.g. here) but the image itself seems to have gone. The mysterious part is when I look at the log page rather then saying that the image has been deleted it says:
# 19:11, September 22, 2008 Lokal Profil (Talk | contribs | block) marked r14769257 of Image:Svenska Försvarsutbildningsförbundet vapen.svg patrolled (automatic)
I can reupload the image but before that I was wondering if anyone can figure out what happened (it might potentially have a happended elsewhere as well). /Lokal_Profil23:17, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
Aha, that explains the patrolling. And images going missing seems to happen every now and then. Anyhow thanks for the answer. /Lokal_Profil16:50, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
So when an admin is requested to delete an image and the image gets deleted, it probably wasn't that admin? -- carol (talk) 16:55, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
October 1
Questions about pre-rendered pages
I have some questions about pre-rendered pages and templates and feel free to answer them as if I were a complete and unexperienced idiot with these ideas.
How long does a pre-rendered page last?
If a pre-rendered page links to an article, is there any danger if the article is deleted?
Is my experience with pre-rendered pages re-rendering within 24 to 48 hours unusual or in my own mind?
How much does actual experience count here among administrators for such possibly dangerous requests as asking the deletion of an article when the template which delivers the article has been updated?
Actually, explain this slowly and with small and non-techincal words as if I have an understanding problem. Thank you. -- carol (talk) 07:03, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
No, I do not think you have an understanding problem. Considering your edits the last few hours or so I just think you are exhausted and in need of sleep. Good night, carol, sleep well. -- Slaunger (talk) 07:55, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
There are images placed directly in Category:CfD 2008-09 (and probably in other similar categories). Either I'm totally confused (unlikely in this case) or whoever put them there did not understand the category system at all. Someone might want to make as sweep through Category:CfD 2008-09 and the other Categories for discussion by month, remove all images from those categories, and possibly see if these need their categories revisited in general (I suspect most will). - Jmabel ! talk23:53, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Previously uploaded files are now missing - "File missing" error in categories
I uploaded 7 Jordan Pruitt photos about a week ago that have now gone missing; they weren't deleted and at the time I was able to get the image file names to put into one of my galleries. However now the files are not showing up and the image pages say that they don't exist (example). I recall that at the time I was uploading that Commons was experiencing server issues (not the first time by any means) which resulted in the error of the image uploading without the description and data being lost. This also happened to another file that I uploaded about three weeks ago. What is weird is that all these images appeared to eventually upload fine at the time but now are not showing up, but the categories have the image pages and state "File missing." Other images that were part of the series of uploads I was doing in a setting are not exhibiting the same issues. I can go back and reupload the "missing" images but am wondering what might be causing this to happen. BrokenSphere01:30, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
Well, if the computer script behind this could automatically post the {{Idw}} template on the upload requesting users's talk page, instead, that would help. Teofilo (talk) 15:51, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
Hi, could a Russian admin please check out, whether this user [1] is from the en:Maxim Fadeev management and therefore a good source - or that he/she is just a simple CR violator? I've uploaded Image:Glukoza1.jpg, but now I am a bit thoughtful, whether this was a good idea. And I would like to upload some more pics from him/her - but only when they are OK. Sorry, I don't speak Russian. Regards Mutter Erde (talk) 13:02, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
This user was upload images of different authors and mark them as PD-self. I mark them as images with unknown license --Butko (talk) 14:07, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
I have created a template at the English Wikipedia, w:Template:Commons page, which is a request for a sister page on the same subject to be created here. It can be used on any page, though it's mainly for use on articles. There are a lot of pages where there are enough images here to create a page (category and/or gallery) just by creating one and adding it to them, and there are more where the images have been uploaded locally so need to be moved here first. Often a single uploader uploads many locally and then tries to cram them all onto one page, seemingly unaware of Commons. Don't hesitate to use this, and if you're looking for a simple task to do check out which pages have this template on it. Richard001 (talk) 06:56, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
Great idea- but having spent time at User:Multichill/Category suggestions warning bells are ringing. We are trying to reduce the backlog of uncategorised images, and I have a nagging feeling that encouraging users to create galleries before they understand that all images must be in a category will exacerbate the problem. Can I suggest the wording is changed may be to
A corresponding page (category ) on this subject should be created at Wikimedia Commons, the page should be linked to other categories to enable your images to be located. The very best images can then be displayed in a gallery.
I don't think giving a link to a policy page is the best way to get the task done or to encourage a new user.
It is also worth noting that commons images do not allow fair use, so some images may not be eligible.
As transferring images from :en to commons is mindnumbingly repetitive, perhaps some of the botboys could be persuaded, to write a cron that searches for w:Template:Commons page, and after suitable checking (admin approval?) creates the commonscat, does a bulk transfer, and populates the category?ClemRutter (talk) 13:43, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
It might be useful to modify the template to include a link to the category/gallery here at Commons.
I agree with ClemRutter that we shouldn't create something which increases the backlog, we still have an awful lot of images to put in categories.
We have the tools to quickly transfer loads of images from a wikipedia to Commons, but the problem is that images always have to be checked before (source/author/licence) and after (did we lose information?/clean up/categories) transfering to commons. The actual transfering is quite fast. Multichill (talk) 16:58, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
I think that this will be seen as yet another form of user box, message, taxobox or quality assurance spam. I think that we would be more helped to have on each article and screen (left side above the language bar as in the nl:wiki) on each wikipedia a link to an appropriate gallery or category in commons. If the link is not defined (or the default link not correct), then it should show red. And this could allow to get rid of the ugly "see commons" boxes. --Foroa (talk) 18:04, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
Be aware of the level-difference between wikipedia and commons. Because of that level-difference, most wikicategories cannot be linked sensefully to the commonscategories of the same name. And most wikipages link sensefully to comonscategories of the same name. We must become aware of that level difference to reach a good "tuning" of pages and categories at commons. As long as the template w:Template:Commons page, does not take into account that level difference, it should not be introducted. Havang(nl) (talk) 21:20, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
I don't really know what you mean, Havang. ClemRutter, I don't think we can give a whole lecture on using Commons in one template. Foroa, we already have interwiki links on the left and many pages should never have Commons pages because there is nothing audio-visual about them. And isn't the statement that all images should be categorized, even if they are in a gallery, controversial? Richard001 (talk) 05:45, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
I have an image here, I was very careful to identify the plant in the image from where I choose to live and it was kind of fun to fill those requirements to have the image here where it could be found. The categorization was removed from the image page and the image was never added to the gallery. If it would make you feel like you are having a more even experience here, perhaps there could be a category for "Images that do not appear in galleries" but when they are categorized, at least they are somewhere.
Do the wikipedias lose articles if they are not categorized? I have a difficult time considering commons to be managed the same way that the encyclopedias are. -- carol (talk) 06:12, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
I'm not against categorization, but I got the impression that there are at least a few people that think it is enough for an image to be in a gallery (I kind of agree with this, but if someone adds it to a category as well I'm not going to revert them). Take Emma Darwin for example. A category for her would not have any subcats, and would only contain the same images that the gallery does (it's not like we have enough to be fussy), so I don't see that much utility in creating one.
Your comment about images being removed from galleries is a good point in favour of categorizing them.
Articles on Wikipedia can be found by searching Wikipedia or the Web, browsing categories, or being linked there from another article (or, perhaps, hitting the random article button!). The category pathway probably isn't that common (I suspect a lot of readers don't even notice the category system), but categorization is still important (as is linking - there are both uncategorized and orphaned (no incoming links) articles). Richard001 (talk) 21:06, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
Editing ogg videos
There are some videos where I might need to remove parts at the beginning and/or end of a video before I upload it. How can I (or who can I get to) do this? Richard001 (talk) 02:24, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
having uploaded my first image today (Image:Wood_duck_on_canal_in_birmingham_uk.png), i would like to be able to display its embedded metadata; i have used the `Metadata from image' tag, but no metadata is displayed; i got the metadata into the png using exiftool; the exif-specific part of the png documentation is here; a means of extracting this exif data would be desirable; failing that, is there another lossless format whose metadata is capable of being read here? another option is to dump exiftool's view of the metadata onto the image page, but i don't like that; or forget metadata altogether, but i don't like that either Mashoo (talk) 11:03, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
There seem to be a lot of metadata formats, but only some are displayed. Display, if it works, is done automatically and you do not need `Metadata from image' tag, which is only used to inform that a watermark was removed from the image. In general jpg is the format most people use for photographs on Commons. If you do not like lossy compression than use higher quality or jpg lossless compression. PNG is mostly used here for drawings and GIF for animations. You also need to add categories to your image. --Jarekt (talk) 12:40, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
JPEG lossless compression is a rather minor niche format (or perhaps several minor niche formats) which was never supported by the standard IJG software libraries; I would be suprised if Wikimedia does anything with it. Also, jacking up the JPEG "quality" factor does not produce lossless images, and in fact if you crank it up too much there's a definite point of diminishing returns, when the JPEG's filesize becomes greatly bloated without any real increase in image quality. I would say that if you want lossless files on Wikimedia Commons, don't use JPEG at all. Of course, Wikimedia PNG thumbnailing is very poor, so there are trade-offs... AnonMoos (talk) 18:38, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
Uhm yeah. Maybe we should keep the perspective here. Lossless sounds so much greater than lossy. It isn't. Get real. You won't see the loss in a well compressed JPG file. The uploader is obviously not concerned with quality issues. So instead of confusing him with a long discussion we should just nicely and firmly point him to upload JPG in the future. --Dschwen (talk) 20:35, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
all understood; thanks for the tips; improper tag removed; image categorised; metadata added manually (a cumbersome solution, but it might actually have saved space); uploaded a new version of the image (without metadata embedded), to brighten the bird; but the current/revert labels and date/time values in the file history appear to be attributed to the wrong versions Mashoo (talk) 18:22, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
The {{Metadata from image}} template means that textural information like page numbers or image descriptions were removed from the image and placed into the information template. About your image, if you upload the jpeg (perhaps the original) the image metadata will automatically be displayed if it is still there. Does the png format retain image metadata? I know png has a comment field. -- carol (talk) 18:34, 2 October 2008 (UTC) Sorry, redundant information has been stricken. JPEG is lossy if it gets saved and resaved -- kind of like a copymachine copy being copied over and over again. If you do not save and resave the image too often, it is not so lossy. My question "Does PNG retain the image metadata?" is still asked though.... -- carol (talk) 18:39, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
those current/revert labels and date/time values i mentioned seem to be correct now; so what about reading metadata from more than just jpeg? most of my images are not fine enough to deserve more than jpeg, but i can't give up on the principle of losslessness just so that my metadata can be extracted and displayed Mashoo (talk) 20:10, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
Hi, the link Upload a new version of this file is placed at every imagepage, it allows you to upload a new Version of the file and i think, it will be the best choice in this case to use it. Just go to Image:Conscription map of the world.svg (the old version), got to #File history and upload your new version, write in the description summary of the upload form what you did to the file. So we can keep the good filename without the version number 2 and no change accros the wikiprojects using this image is needed. --Martin H. (talk) 15:48, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
I have been working on the page about Jay Goyal. I contacted him through email and requested information. He was kind enough to send me some materials and a photo. My question is how the licensing works for something like this. The photo and some of the information is straight off of his website.
Hi, You can't just take images or text of his website. You should send him a email with the Quistion of he is willing to give the material on a free licence. Because when it has a free licence everbody can use it or change it.
In the email the author of the material must say under what licence you can use it (like cc-by-3.0 cc-by-sa-3.0 or GFDL) that email you must send to OTRS and they will respond back with a ticket number. If you put the ticket number on a image all will be oke.
Geocoding our users - an interactive map wizzard thingie
I created a page to generate {{User location}} tags at Commons:Geocode Users (requires JavaScript for the OpenStreetmap slippy map). It has a short FAQ, too.
The obvious knee-jerk reaction is I sure as hell am not going to tell the world where I live!. Think about it for a second. Address-level accuracy is not necessary! Set your geocoded location somewhere with in a distance you feel comfortable to travel to take pictures. This can be the center of the town, county, or even state you live in. Many users have their location in textual form (My name is Bob, I live in New York City). By adding a location tag that point to somewhere in NYC you are not revealing any more information about yourself, but you'll make it much easier to to be reached and asked for help improving Commons an the other Wikimedia projects. And that's why you signed up in the first place, isn't it? --Dschwen (talk) 19:15, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
Tested. Works with Opera, Firefox 3 Beta 5 on Ubuntu, 3.0.3 on XP but leaves a trail of markers. I have now put {{51.40033}} on my page- under the {{User geocoder}}- wouldn't it be better to merge the two templates so the announced that I was a geocoder to save screen space. This could be done automatically or by adding a third parameter to the template, |User location|51.40033|0.50468|geocoder=true. Or to add a sense of fun- the parameter could be an adjective leading to sentences like. This User is a enthusiastic geocoder-- a manic gecoder-- reluctant geocoder --slipshod geocoder ...
FF3.0.3 on XP works fine for me. No marker trail. Merging the two templates sound good, but keep in mind, that the babelbox template does not support boxes with parameters. --Dschwen (talk) 16:02, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Hi, at the above link I am getting an error message saying, Line 5: "OpenLayers" is undefined. Reload doesn't solve the issue. Wschroedter (talk) 20:30, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
That should not happen in the newest version of the code (I added checks to test if the Openlayers code was loaded before proceeding with the initializasion of the map). Please purge your browser cache. And please include some basic info on your system (OS/Browser) when you report a bug. --Dschwen (talk) 20:38, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
Interwiki linking policy
Hi, I've seen image pages with a lot of interwiki links. For instance this one, representing "potteries of the Golden Horde", has links to all WP articles on the Golden Horde. It looks wrong to me, because such links cannot be reciprocal (an article on the Golden Horde would rather link to a commons gallery or category) and thus link to an interwiki conflict. Is there a policy about that? --Eusebius (talk) 06:30, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
I definitely think you are correct in stating that there should be no interwiki links on an image page. It just does not make sense. It is is galleries or categories, which should have those. I tried looking around for some guidelines, and I found Commons:Image pages, which ought to describe this I think. However, it does not. But even if we are to incorporate no interwikis on that page, we should link to it from relevant places as the page is not linked to from elsewhere on Commons. -- Slaunger (talk) 06:54, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
I have a similar question, i'm interwiki linking cat to cat crosswiki[2], finding, external page iw's on commons in the cats and in the gallery's [3], assuming that i see this right, is there a bot running to remove such iw links ? Mion (talk) 07:10, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Linking from category here to categories elsewhere is just about the most useless thing! I don't even understand the reason they bother with categories at the wikipedias since they have articles that interlink really well. As proof, I cleaned up after a bot uploaded image once and the categorization that it got from English wikipedia (and the bot pasted for here) was more of a biography than the article which is in my opinion, not the way biographies should work (the information in the categories from there which were not in the article were about universities attended or taught at, places that were lived in -- at least I think that is what those categories were for, etc). They are two different things, image storage and article management. I don't think they map. -- carol (talk) 07:18, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Not so, what you do, by connecting the crosswiki cats with the commons cat, is that people who maintain the external cat on a subject out of interest will more easyly switch to commons and check the correctness of the content of the cat, so more participation, is there another approach to handle image storage (in means of more control over the content) than the cat system ? Mion (talk) 07:34, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Maybe they don't map in every field, but then in a category matrix it doesn't matter how much categories you have, you only have to switch attention to the less visited categories to roam the loose ends. Mion (talk) 08:43, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
I didn't mean to trigger such debates on categories... :-) If "no interwiki on image pages" is a rule, is it possible to state it somewhere? If it is not, how and where can it be discussed as a potential rule? I'm not familiar at all with governance issues. --Eusebius (talk) 08:57, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
If I find a category full of pictures on Commons I'd rather it linked back to the explanation of what those pictures show back on Wikipedia rather than linking just to more collections of pages. there are many more pictures of cats on commons than there are pages about cats on Wikipedia. Galleries are just the best bits of categories put onto one page so the two should be treated equivalently. In the reverse direction Wikipedia Articles should link to categories and/or galleries, Wikipedia categories may link to Commons categories. Railwayfan2005 (talk) 17:38, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
I like this growing awareness of level differences between wikipedia and commons. We should work that out towards a more systematic approach. Havang(nl) (talk) 10:14, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Interwiki links between wikipedia pages and categories and commons galleries and categories are very useful. For linking here i would like to propose:
Category : Link to the corresponding wikipedia categories. If that category does not exist in a language, a link to the corrosponding wikipedia article.
But how about cases where we have no commons gallery matching an article, but we do have a matching category? In those cases I think linking between the Wikipepia article and the Commons category should prevail over linking between the Commons category and Wikipedia category (if such one exists). Otherwise, these is no sensible iw link from the Wikipedia article to matching material on Commons (which could be a category). -- Slaunger (talk) 11:17, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
And what about putting IWs in the page of a Valued Image, pointing to the article exactly corresponding to the scope of the VI? Would it be sensible/useful, or should these links be present only on the scope category/gallery? --Eusebius (talk) 11:08, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
I think inline interwiki links (like en:Article or wikt:article) can be used in image pages if they are useful for the image description. But the kind of interwiki links that are diplayed in the sidebar (like language links between wikipedias) should only be in galleries and categories. /Ö12:05, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. It was actually the sidebar interwikis I have in mind too. Inlined interwiki is OK and quite natural when you have, e.g., descriptions in several languages. -- Slaunger (talk) 12:13, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
As for the item, "I think linking between the Wikipepia article and the Commons category should prevail over linking between the Commons category and Wikipedia category (if such one exists)", no, the articles themself are tagged with a commons template on the EN on the right bottom of the article, so Wiki CAT and commons CAT are directly linked and never the articles to category with the left column system. Mion (talk) 14:13, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Just a clarification I assume this discussion is about interwiki links that show up in the left column, not the links to wikipedia articles in the description. If so than I agree that interwiki links that show up in the left column are confusing and unnecessary and should be removed by a bot. --Jarekt (talk) 15:40, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
To have a smootly organised matrix structure for both wikpedia's and commons (apt to be used in the future for interwiki "central linking pages") to which all wiki's are linked the wikipedia and commons level differences are treated best if individual images and galleries of Topic A in commons are in commonscat Topic A and the wikipedia article Topic A is linked to commonscat Topic A. The semantic problem starts with the use of the name page for a gallery page on commons, which causes a tendency to make a wikipedia/like article from the gallery page, but that is out of the scope of commons. The better the interwiki matrix structure , the better commons will become organised. Give this long-term view a thought.Havang(nl) (talk) 16:00, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
If we follow multichills suggestion to keep the categories/categories and articles/galleries in a horizontal split, its an (more) easy task to tunnel from the bottom (categories) up into the matrix of articles. Not taking into account, i'm not a botmaster and new approaches such as on Category:Automobiles, the sisterproject templates, which seem to lift 200 external links to the top of the page. Mion (talk) 16:22, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
This is an excellent thought. Most previous discussions started from the idea that on all wikipedia's, one has similar articles and similar category structures, partly because people have a rather stable structure in mind such as species and cities/countries. In practice, on commons and on all the wikipedia's (200+ ?), those structures are growing dynamically and are similar but quite different. Even on Commons, the cities/cities and villages/villages/municipalities and regions/province/district categorisation logic is different from country to country, and in many countries, they are even different from province to province or region to region. Moreover, everywhere (fortunately less and less here), there is a logic that categories should be created only if the higher levels are overflowing, meaning that categories are bound to grow/expand/restructure all the time. So this is food for thoughts. I will come back on that and the IW usage later. --Foroa (talk) 16:44, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Would someone please help me clean up Category:Compass? The biggest task is to disambiguate compass from compass rose in that category and the subcategories, some of which are misnamed! If a category page is moved (changed to a new name), what happens to all the links to it? --Una Smith (talk) 18:21, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
I had a look at the area, and agree that it is a mess- but haven't a clue where to start. Firstly shouldn't the top category be Compasses. There then appear to be three sub-categories- Compasses ( Drawing Instruments ), Compasses ( Magnetic ) with -> Handheld Compasses, Nautical Compasses, Aeronautical Compasses and Compasses (Graphical Representation).The existing sub classes could be slotted into these. I am not sure of when the graphical representation is a compass rose. Missing from these, are gyroscopic compasses.
Many of the illustrations of heraldic images are of dividers not compasses, the difference being that a compass must draw a line. A further difficulty is the word itself. In English, compass (fr: Boussoule) is singular but its plural is compasses- while the drawing instrument, compasses (fr: un compas) is plural.
I have done a little more- and probably caused a few more problems in this area. So, why Compasses by type? I see your point about the extra layer. I catting some of my images and I came across Category:Pumps and saw that this was a possible model. It had Category:Pumps by type and Category:Pumps by material. I thought that dividing the images into types would work here too. It balances Compass roses ( redirected to Compass rose) which is not a type and has many incorrectly named subcats. OK, it may not be the best solution- but there is a precedent. The problems I have created. I created a cat Gyro compasses- not noticing the cat Gyrocompass- I now think that the cat should have been called Gyrocompasses, and the cats should be merged. I created a cat Nautical Compassess when it should have been Nautical compasses or even Maritime compasses. ClemRutter (talk) 23:27, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
It is looking much better. I agree that the drafting compasses and magnetic compasses are an artificial group and the category needs to be dispersed. As others are working on that, I will try to stay out of the way. --Una Smith (talk) 02:55, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
October 6
Higher resolution versions of pictures
Someone on Flickr has sent me high resolution versions of images on Flickr. Is it enough that he suitably license the normal images, or would he have to email permission specifically for the high resolution versions. Richard001 (talk) 09:12, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
Some photographs only release low-resolution versions of their work under a free licence, and reserve their rights on high-resolution versions to exploit them commercially. You should ask the user to either send permission for the high-resolution photos, or to upload them on Flickr. Pruneautalk11:35, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
Spanish translator needed
I'd like to ask the uploader of this image if he would release it under a suitable license, but he doesn't seem to have responded to my request, perhaps because he speaks little or no English. Could somebody who can speak Spanish please translate a request for me? The image is of an Apollo butterfly caterpillar, which is requested here. Richard001 (talk) 10:28, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
This user has uploaded a bunch of pictures. Some are good and interesting (animals and macros) tohers are completely irrelevant to Commons (especially those featuring couples or children, which might prompt Living person right to image anyway). All of them are watermarked. My take on this is that such images should probably be deleted on sight as:
The watermark pretty much renders the picture useless
and makes it a living advertisement
some rights are not asserted for some of the pictures
the resolution of the pics is not very high, which makes them unsuited to many uses anyway.
What are your thoughts on this? I will try and contact the uploader, but I would like to have a more general idea about such a case. Thanx notafish}<';>11:24, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
I agree, in the current version the watermark renders the picture useless and is a form of advertisment. This alone puts image out of scope, and should be reason for deletion. --Jarekt (talk) 15:04, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
In regard to South Africa I found this copyright law that states in § 15 (3):
The copyright in an artistic work shall not be infringed by its reproduction or inclusion in a cinematograph film or a television broadcast or transmission in a diffusion service, if such work is permanently situated in a street, square or a similar public place.
The term diffusion service is described before:
"diffusion service", means a telecommunication service of transmissions consisting of sounds, images, signs or signals, which takes place over wires or other paths provided by material substance and intended for reception by specific members of the public; and diffusion shall not be deemed to constitute a performance or a broadcast or as causing sounds, images, signs or signals to be seen or heard; and where sounds, images, signs or signals are displayed or emitted by any receiving apparatus to which they are conveyed by diffusion in such manner as to constitute a performance or a causing of sounds, images, signs or signals to be seen or heard in public, this shall be deemed to be effected by the operation of the receiving apparatus
This sounds like panorama of freedom but is restricted to films, television broadcasts, and diffusion services. I am in no way familiar with South African law and hence I am not really sure how this can be interpreted. --AFBorchert (talk) 21:47, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
Cecil (talk·contribs) deleted a free photo of Wikipedia commons. Please, revert his deletion, and ban him from Wikipedia commons, because the photo was taken by me, and it has a free creative commons license (CC BY):
Please, don't make more massive and stupid deletions, because You are deleting photos without copyright infringement. Why use a creative commons license (CC BY) If You take this license as a propietary license? My PHOTO IS FREE, all my photos are free, I'm free. Please, revert the deletion. IS A MISTAKE. --212.183.253.24915:07, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
Please refrain from insulting other users. Even if it were a mistake, there is no need to cry out loud. We can't check this now, as "Panoramio is down for maintenance". It would also have been more productive if you had given the name of the deleted file on Commons. --Túrelio (talk) 15:13, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
The IP is already screaming around like a luniac since some time. Obviously he is totally unable to understand that as an IP he could be an imposter. He was told to either send an OTRS-email or state the release at the image. But until know he was unable to do either. At the image you will find no proof that it was released under CC. -- Cecil (talk) 15:15, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
(EC)It's Image:Autovia A11 Burgo de Osma.jpg. It was part of a mass deletion request because of copyvio by an uploader. At the panoramio-page there is a note that the image can be used on Commons and Wikipedia, but no further release for other pages or the mentioning of any licence. That's why I deleted it with the other images and stated at the request that the IP should either send a OTRS-ticket or make a more detailed comment at the image. -- Cecil (talk) 15:23, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
Panoramio is back now, and looks like the photo details in the bottom right of the page do mention a CC-BY-3.0 license. --Para (talk) 16:08, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
Just what I thought. People need to get some perspective here. That pic is not really worth the trouble (probably not even worth the keystrokes of this response ;-) ). --Dschwen (talk) 16:26, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
It's so very makes me crazy: [5] There isn't menu for licensing tag, but without I can't continue it. So it may not needed if you have internacional tag, but I need copy from the Hungarian Wikipedia "{{kettős licenc}}" - it's so the {{self2|GFDL|cc-by-sa-2.5,2.0,1.0}} but there isn't menu where I can add it so I must take a crazy searching for it...May it must be fixed! Thanks --Beyond silence17:33, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
If you replace {{kettős licenc}} with {{self|GFDL|cc-by-sa-2.5}} at the hu.wikipedia, bots will have an easy time transfering these files to Commons. Multichill (talk) 20:42, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
To ask or not to ask
A series of related articles that I am writing on the English Wikipedia could use more images.
As it turns out I found a website with a very fine collection of photographs (color and B/W) of 19th century and earlier artwork, including several that would be just perfect for my project.
I have spent the past hour scouring the Wikimedia Commons for guidance. Apparently use of such files would be covered because they are entirely 2-D reproductions of Old Masters.
But what about the etiquette of grabbing a file from another website without asking? Legally, I'd be covered, but I'm concerned about the potential ill will thereby engendered, since the webmaster in question spent considerable time and effort compiling the collection.
Is it a good idea to ask for permission first? Should one offer a credit of some sort, perhaps in the form of an "External link"?
And what if the person says no? At that point, I couldn't in good conscience ignore their wishes and just go ahead regardless, could I?
If you are sure the image is in Public Domain than it does not belong to any one website. Works with free licenses explicitly allow such coping. I do not think you need to be asking for any permissions. --Jarekt (talk) 02:03, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
What do you do when an image has gone through Flickr review and passed, but you think that the image might not belong to the person who uploaded it to Flickr? AlistairMcMillan (talk) 00:30, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
Hi AlistairMcMillan, thats a common question, many Flickr user didnt care very much about copyrights.
1. If it is obvious a copyright violation tag the image with {{copyvio|reason or source/weblink}}, also inform the uploader (not the bot!) with {{Flickrvionote|Image:example.jpg}} at his talkpage.
2. If it is not so obvious, nominate the image for deletion by using the Nominate for deletion button in the toolbox (left sidebar, but deactivate you popupblocker by pressing Ctrl) or tag the imagepage with {{delete|reason}} and follow the instructions inside the red box.
Wikimedia uses different resampling algorithms for JPEG and for PNG
When I uploaded a PNG version of already uploaded JPEG image I noticed that the resampled previews of the images are different (although there is no noticeable difference in the full sized images). Please compare previews on pages: Image:Love-darts.jpg and Image:Love-darts.png. The resampled JPEG looks sharper (and I think better) like using en:Lanczos resampling transformation. Is it intended or is it some known or unknown side-effect? Is there a plan to use the same algorithm for PNG? --Pabouk (talk) 16:09, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
JPEG thumbs are sharpened after downsampling, to make Photos look good. Since PNG is intended to be used for line graphs only (hint ;-) ), that effect is not as desirable. --Dschwen (talk) 16:17, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for the answer. In the above mentioned example the JPEG looks better but the PNG version is an exact copy of the original TIFF file (lossless) and in addition it is smaller. The pictures also contain contrast text and measures. I would normally prefer the PNG because it has only advantages in this case. The only drawback is the resampling. Which format would you prefer in this case or should there be the image in both formats? Do you think that it will be useful to be able to manually override the image sharpening for PNG? --Pabouk (talk) 16:28, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
Mh, yeah, it is one of these special cases. I agree that the diagramlike elements (monocromatic areas, line features) and the lack of color tip the scale towards PNG. I would go for small filesize and good quality. If PNG is better in this case, screw the thumbnail. People can look at the full size version. The sharpening step doesn't generate more information, so in theory the thumbs should have equal value. I wouldn't give too much on the aesthetics (i.e. matters of taste ;-) ). --Dschwen (talk) 17:16, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
October 10
Does FOP apply to interior design in the United States ?
I cant see any "junk" here, the hotel has a Wikipedia article in 12 languages - so an image of the interior is in scope of our project. I also cant see anything inside this image with a treshold of originality, so FOP or no FOP is not the question here i think. --Martin H. (talk) 17:17, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
So if I am a hotel owner and need to change my hotel lobby, I can cut the expense of hiring an interior designer and simply copy what I see on this picture, without risking copyright infringement ? Teofilo (talk) 18:55, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
Photographs are the only form of art that enjoys a FOP for buildings in the US. If you copy the layout of a hotel for your hotel you WILL be violating copyrights. J.smith (talk) 03:13, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
Yet this picture is not used in any of them. Tilt, whitebalance, and low vantage point make it pretty useless. --Dschwen (talk) 18:50, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
Currently I'm fighting for a free Commons. Do we really have to care about Freedom of Panorama in France?? Till now the discussion happens on a deletion request page but I feel this is the wrong place. Where to go? Let's make Commons a bit more free! --Ikiwaner (talk) 20:41, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
Commons talk:Freedom of panorama maybe? But the point of Commons IS to be free, and unless there is freedom of panorama then the photos are NOT free. We can't ignore laws just because we don't like them. If we're going to allow copyvios like ignoring FOP in france, then why don't we just allow fair use too? Heck, why stop there, let's just allow people to upload anything they like. -mattbuck (Talk) 13:33, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
No matter what position we take at commons in respect with the FOP laws, it is about time to communicate the world (and governments) that the old FOP laws and their interpretation is no longer adequate for our current world. Who is helped by the interdiction of the publication of the picture of a sculpture, a house or other contemporary object? And how to combine that with the almost lawless and ruleless Internet. The French wiki can only document subjects properly/freely if all the authors are very very much dead. So yes, I think that we have to challenge the authorities, for example by proposing them a more relaxed/liberal interpretation of the French FOP laws. --Foroa (talk) 14:44, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
It doesn't matter if a law is stupid, breaking the law is still not something we should be doing as a project. It may be a stupid law, akin to the law against detonating nuclear bombs in a certain american town I forget, but it is still the law. It reflects badly on all wikimedia projects if we break the law. What's more, it's not our place AS A PROJECT to go against the law. You want to tell the French that they're utter idiots? Go ahead. But you do it as a private citizen, not as a wikimedian. -mattbuck (Talk) 15:30, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
Did I say that we should break the law ? I am saying that we should show the French government that their laws are out of date and no longer appropriate. That their laws prevent the creation of a proper and complete French wikipedia. And that there exists potentially more tolerant interpretations of that laws and that the French government could maybe help with a more flexible interpretation of their laws or potentially an adaptation to cover the modern internet needs. --Foroa (talk) 22:27, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
A few months ago, some French lawmakers have tried to change the law, and they managed only to create a Freedom of Panorama restricted to journalists, for use in news reports. I think the reason is that the "journalist lobby" is strong enough, while there is no "Wikipedia lobby" with a clear voice explaining lawmakers why a "journalist-only FOP" is not enough. Teofilo (talk) 09:22, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
amendment proposal Nr 157discussed and rejected here by the National Assembly. The latest version of Intellectual property code posesses a new copyright exception at article L122-5 "9° La reproduction ou la représentation, intégrale ou partielle, d'une oeuvre d'art graphique, plastique ou architecturale, par voie de presse écrite, audiovisuelle ou en ligne, dans un but exclusif d'information immédiate et en relation directe avec cette dernière, sous réserve d'indiquer clairement le nom de l'auteur." (it this paragraph which I call call "journalists only FOP") (source) Teofilo (talk) 19:19, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
Similar to open software and brevet regulations in Europe: if there are no movements/lobby groups, nothing will change nor be clarified. --Foroa (talk) 09:26, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
Commons is a free content site, not a warez site. Lately, some people have been ignoring this distinction. Commons will not be free, if we simply "let Commons ignore french law?", along with the other countries' laws people have already suggested disregarding. Superm401 - Talk00:10, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
I found a small, grainy image of Afghan warlord w:Hazrat Ali in an academic paper. I uploaded it to the wikipedia, and claimed "fair use". I suggested that since he was accused of being a major drug dealer it might be the only image of him to be published.
Last night CBS's 60 Minutes broadcast a segment that focussed on a retired Delta Force officer who is about to publish a book entitled, "Kill Bin Laden". It is about his force's November 2001 mission to to Tora Bora area to kill or capture Bin Laden.
The segment included a couple of minutes of video the officer and his men took while on this mission. Normally that would make those images in the public domain, even if CBS was the first to publish the images, not the US Government.
CBS stamped its logo on the images -- normally I do not believe this would mean they can claim the intellectual property rights on images taken by employees of a US Federal agency, as part of their official duties.
Some people act that since Afghanistan has never signed any international copyright agreements, and has no domestic copyright protection, that Afghan images are up for grabs, and whoever first publishes them in a country that does have intellectual property laws can claim all the rights to them -- even if they played no role in taking the images.
Realistically, the "General Ali" in these images is the warlord w:Hazrat Ali, in w:Image:Hazrat Ali, Afghan politician.jpg. But, I think, drawing this conclusion would be original research. I think w:Image:Hazrat Ali, Afghan politician.jpg should be deleted, if an when verifiable, authoritative sources identify the man in the Delta Force video as Hazrat Ali--and not before.
First, the 60 Minutes segment says the video was shot by the Major and his men. That 60 Minutes segment is about 12 minutes long, and viewable via the "source" link I supplied when I uploaded the images.
Dozens, or possibly hundreds, of journalists have been "embedded" in operations in Iraq, since the Iraq invasion in 2003. But, this mission was a year and a half earlier, and in an entirely different conflict.
Further, it was a secret mission. I suggest our nominator try to name a single instance when a journalist was "embedded" in a secret mission in Iraq, Afghanistan, or any other conflict in history.
Is our nominator really suggesting that an embedded journalist took this footage in 2001, and sat on it for seven years ago, even though it was potentially valuable?
I don't remember any embedded journalists being allowed on any missions in Afghanistan in 2001. Is our nominator aware of any?
Note, the 60 Minutes segment includes half a dozen clips of the Delta Force GIs, showing that they had disguised themselves as Afghan civilians -- which could be considered a violation of Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions -- and thus a war crime. I seriously doubt a journalist would ever be allowed on a mission where they would be recording that GIs were fighting in disguise, in violation of the Geneva Conventions.
Why did the Major come forward now, publish his book? Well, he was officially discharged from the Army, which I presume means he can't be court-martialed; and he was pissed off because the press speculation over how bin Laden escaped if that the US forces sent to prevent his escape fucked up. The Major could be in trouble for leaking the details of the mission. It seemed to me that he was angry over hearing how the forces sent to prevent OBL's escape fucked up, when he knew he and his men had risked their lives and OBL's escape was not their fault, and that this blinded him to the legal trouble he was opening himself up to. Geo Swan (talk) 14:48, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
"Some people act that since Afghanistan has never signed any international copyright agreements, and has no domestic copyright protection, that Afghan images are up for grabs, and whoever first publishes them in a country that does have intellectual property laws can claim all the rights to them -- even if they played no role in taking the images." That argument would not be sound. Assuming Afghanistan really has no copyright law, then all images taken there are PD. Even if someone republishes such an image in the U.S., the original is still PD. Superm401 - Talk02:10, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, all. (This is a very friendly place, compared to .??) Email is easy, but I am looking for something than can be said in an oral conversation that does not involve any mark-up, even if it requires a couple of steps. It would also be useful if I, '''''I''''' could remember the steps! Doug youvan (talk) 17:04, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
I want to upload 3 pretty similar images, and was wondering if I can do this in a single upload somehow. I don't see anything linked at the 'upload file' page, but I wanted to check here just in case. Richard001 (talk) 10:09, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
Commonist is a fantastic tool, but it might be overkill in this case since there are just three. If you have tabbed browsing (Safari, Firefox, IE7, etc), you could just open three different tabs and then copy/paste the relevant shared wikicode. EVula// talk // ☯ //14:51, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
Maybe Commonist could be linked from the upload page, e.g Upload multiple images. I'll keep that in mind if I have larger sets, but this time it probably will be easier just to upload them in parallel tabs. Thanks. Richard001 (talk) 07:35, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Categories lack memory
Categories lack memory, changes in category population are not memorised at the category history. It should be helpful for maintenance, if in the category-history these population changes were shown; and concomitantly, if the category pops up in the watchlist at changes in category population. - Havang(nl) (talk) 10:19, 9 October 2008 (UTC)/Havang(nl) (talk) 10:29, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
I'm waiting for the catwatch tool to come back. I mean, rss feeds are all well and good, but I'd need a few hundred of them. -mattbuck (Talk) 11:37, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
This is not a problem of memory but a problem of design of the basic wiki software. The way that the software works, one cannot monitor a category and its content, which means that it is difficult to take the responsability of a category as one can empty a complete category and its underlaying subcategories without being noticed by the person monitoring it (via his watchlist). A solution would be, when a category is changed in a picture, gallery or category, to insert a change transaction in the sense of "Picture/gallery/subcat xyz joined/left category zzz" so that the person that has category zzz on his watchlist would be informed. I am pretty much sure that such types of transactions exist internally in the system to update various tables, but they are not reported in the change log. --Foroa (talk) 10:24, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Does it apply to materials not actually produced by the Kremlin? Today a series of photos of Putin's wedding and such were uploaded that predate his term as president. Seems to me they are more like personal photos than government photos. -Nard the Bard13:46, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
I would strongly believe that the Kremlin has acquired the copyright to these images. Of course, it is possible that the Russian government has made a mistake here, publishing photos without the actual copyright, but still, I believe we may believe in the bona fide of the Russian government giving this permission. After all, we trust unidentified individuals with only nicknames, why shouldn't we trust a sovereign state? --MPorciusCato (talk) 16:32, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
There used to be an image identification process in meta (obviously, I don't contribute to meta!) I wonder if it is still there and active. The reason is, I have taken some photos from a flower I saw in the garden of my uncle's, and I want to upload them to Commons, but I don't know how to name them, or categorize them. If there is such an identification system, I can upload the images on Flickr first, ask people to identify them, then move them to Commons with the correct name and categorization. Please advise. Huji (talk) 07:04, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
Categories showing images, showing titles after choice
Is it possible to add an option button to category pages, so that according to what you wishes to do, the page shows the images (as it does now) or the page shows the list of titles of the images. This should be a very useful additional tool. Havang(nl) (talk) 09:29, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
You can always edit the page add __NOGALLERY__ and then press preview. As long as you don't save the change that is. /Lokal_Profil12:41, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
Could it be possible to integrate this Nogallery thing in a template of type SHOW/HIDE Gallery and put that standard as a button on the category pages. ? Havang(nl) (talk) 10:50, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
I have to agree, an option to just show image names in a cat would be very useful, though I suppose this can be done with catscan. -mattbuck (Talk) 11:44, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
Catscan is too slow for a quick glance and catscan blocks frequently lately - (why?). I hope for someone making that option button to switch between names and images. Havang(nl) (talk) 09:46, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Done. I made a script at User:Superm401/noGalleryToggle.js. Include it by following the instructions in the header. On categories containing images, it will add a toggle letting you move back and forth between a gallery and a list of titles. It works regardless of whether the page is originally a gallery or not. Feedback welcome. Superm401 - Talk20:27, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
Well, first off, you need to provide an actual link because I don't see such a section on jimbo's talk page, or the latest archive. Second, what Jimbo says really has very little value here. -mattbuck (Talk) 15:46, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
Commons already has a clear policy as defined at COM:SCOPE, particularly COM:SCOPE#Censorship. The views of one user (even a well known and respected one) posted on a different site do not affect that policy, so I doubt there is much to discuss. If you want to open a discussion on getting the policy changed, you might like to suggest improvements at Commons talk:Project scope. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 17:15, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I agree. If uploaded this would be a sure candidate for deletion based on insufficient quality and unidentifiable subject (essentially rendering it out of scope). --Dschwen (talk) 02:21, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
You can delete the the image and not upload the second one, I will try my cropping skills with jpegtrans and GIMP maybe some other day, just maybe some other day. --71.189.216.24802:29, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
I agree that section is ridiculous. Graffiti is just as copyrighted as any other art, regardless of the circumstances of its creation. Superm401 - Talk20:46, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
Even if I was the king of WMC... (about permission requests)
Even if I was a trusted user/admin/god-king, I would still have to have somebody send a permission email, right (or forward one from them)? A guy from Flickr told me "If anyone asks - provide them with our dialogue.", but I'm pretty certain we're going to need an email confirmation from him. Richard001 (talk) 09:04, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Yes, because Flickr images may disappear, and then your dialogue will also be gone. Alternatively, he can just change the license of his image to CC-BY, you upload it here (giving the Flickr link as the source), and our bot will then review it. Which image on Flickr are you talking about? Lupo09:38, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
The dialogue was through Flickr mail so is not visible publicly. If the dialogue was publicly visible that should be okay - lots of other websites can disappear too, but that doesn't mean we won't accept images from them if they say they are public domain. In this case they were high resolution images not available on Flickr (see my post up a bit) and they have now gone through OTRS. I'm familiar with uploading images from Flickr (see my uploads). Richard001 (talk) 07:22, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
Should the Commons be shut down?
I'm a user at Wikipedia and I've noticed that most images end up being deleted due to increasingly confusing and unreasonable restrictions on them. People like you keep changing requirements for image uploads and then you apply these Fascist rules to images uploaded years ago ex post facto. You don't add rationales to images yourselves and delete the images even though the uploaders no longer edit the site. The only attempts you make to contact the uploaders is by leaving messages on their talk pages.
Since it is very disingenuous to claim that you accept image uploads, you should shut this site down. Otherwise, you're lying by claiming that you accept images. You don't. We jump through bizarre hurdles which are based on a philosophy of "free use" and not any particular law. You delete images that are perfectly legal to use on our sites. But you are concerned for the corporations that cannot use them. You frequently change your rules, too. If most people knew that their images were going to be deleted, then they wouldn't give them to you. The display and uploading of images should be disabled on all Wikimedia projects and this site should be shut down.--Monthsince 3 (talk) 13:12, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
And while you're at it, shut down the rest of the internet too, it's full of crap. Oh yeah, that was a serious comment? Ummm, let me see if I can answer you... Patríciamsg13:27, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
And you should probably participate more in the project and actually get to know it before stating silly, wrong stuff as above, collectively call us fascists and making yourself a fool in general. It's hard to give any credibility to someone who has edited Commons solely to post this. We call those "single purpose accounts". Patríciamsg14:15, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Again, instead of changing the subject and talking about me, try to make a legitimate argument about the issue. I've been editing Wikipedia since 2004, so don't try to portray me as new.--Monthsince 3 (talk) 14:21, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not Commons and you talk like someone who does not know the project. Again, I invite you to correct your bias by participating in it. Patríciamsg14:29, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
(EC) You are new to Commons, Just because you've been a Wikipedia editor since 2004 doesn't mean that you're not new here. Commons project has different workings then what Wikipedia project has. Bidgee (talk) 14:33, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
I can in no way agree with you Monthsince 3 (talk·contribs) that we should shut down Commons. Mind giving some examples of what you mean? I mean it's just reasonable to give them a note on their talk page & move on, or do you want us to e-mail every single person that gets their images tagged with "No source, license, and/or permission"? --Kanonkas(talk)13:37, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
You probably should e-mail them if they don't edit here anymore. And you should try to figure out the rationale if they can't be reached, especially in really obvious cases. You also shouldn't apply new rules to old images. You and the uploader had an understanding when they uploaded, and you shouldn't go back on your word. That's lying.--Monthsince 3 (talk) 13:58, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Well that's really not possible to do with every inactive users, that's just how it is & I doubt it'll get changed now. Regarding the image stuff, no we're not lying we're keeping images free & within policy/licensing stuff. --Kanonkas(talk)14:10, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
No, most of the images you delete are free. People here are trying to redefine the word "free" to Richard Stallman's liking. Well, if you're free to use it legally on Wikimedia projects and I'm free to view it and download it, then it is free. As for the e-mail issue, the point I was making is that you shouldn't delete the images when you haven't made a legitimate effort to contact the uploader. If I am about to be evicted from my home, I receive a notice in the mail. The landlord usually also makes attempts to contact the tenant by phone. If you didn't object while the editor was here, then you shouldn't change your mind after they've left.--Monthsince 3 (talk) 14:19, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Big difference with uploading images and a landlord, bit like comparing a shark to a whale (Both swim in the Ocean but are to different subjects). Copyright is a big issue and if there is grounds or even doubts the image is put up for deletion and I do not see the point you're trying to make, what images are you talking about, what reasons was given for the deletion? Bidgee (talk) 14:27, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
(EC)Well who is to say they have used an email address since it's optional to use an email address (if they haven't we can't email them) and who is to say they still have that email address? Talk page is still the best place to inform uploaders of issues. Bidgee (talk) 14:11, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, but Commons ain't youtube or dailymotion. If you are not happy with it, stop using it. Images under fair use are not free images. Non commercial images are not free either. Images that are 'free of charge' but with conditionnal usage unacceptable with the Commons scope are not free either. Since you care that much about solving the issue of old images missing mandatory fields that might get deleted by admins cleaning the associated categories one day, how about you start editing such images before the admins so they don't get deleted by mistake? Esby (talk) 14:33, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
I don't use the Commons. I stopped years ago. I'm also weening myself off of Wikipedia. I use printed encyclopedias and e-books for pictures and research, now. I don't contribute to either project, either, because contributors aren't appreciated on these projects. They're scorned.--Monthsince 3 (talk) 14:44, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Considering the incredibly antagonistic attitude you've displayed here, it sounds like your lessening contributions is a win/win for all parties. Let's all just agree to disagree and move on, shall we? EVula// talk // ☯ //15:00, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Automatic upload towards commons, followed by deletion on commons, results in deletion on those wikipedia's where the image has been uploaded first and legally. For commons acting correctly should be: that the deleter on commons put the image back on the local wikipedia. But who is going to do that in case mass deletion requests like this one Commons:Deletion requests/Italian CoA come to a deletion decision). Havang(nl) (talk) 14:56, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Hi Monthsince. You may notice that you got some angry replies here. Unfortunately, the attitude you displayed in your initial post wasn't very conducive to generating polite replies. I'm going to try, though.
Your landlord analogy is a bit flawed, I'm afraid. Commons is an image hosting service, but the "tenants" are not users like you and me, but rather the various Wikipedias and other Wikimedia projects. We don't allow just any image here, even if it is free -- images have to be at least theoretically useful to one or more Wikimedia projects. As such, when we accept an upload, it's to help out the Wikimedia projects, not to host an image for the uploader. Thus, we can delete the images if they don't meet our criteria, because this repository is a repository of files that we choose to host. There's no contract implied or explicit between the uploader and the Commons (aside from the uploader warranting that the image is free use).
I hope this clears things up for you. Please do post again if you have questions.
This isn't a court of law. Ex post facto rules do not apply. We'll delete the very first image uploaded here if there's a good reason to do so. Superm401 - Talk20:48, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
Proposed PD-signature guidelines
Following a request on my talk page, I have created some proposed guidelines and a new template {{PD-signature}} to help determine which signatures are and are not public domain: see Commons:When to use the PD-signature tag. In all cases, judgement still has to be used, as there is no absolute rule that defines whether a signature is or is not capable of copyright protection. Admins may like to note that the rules could be tested against a current deletion request, namely Commons:Deletion requests/More signatures. Comments are more than welcome on the talk page, and perhaps a template guru could check over the template coding please. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 20:29, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
Image not showing up in categories
Today i noticed that images are not showing up in categories that i have added them to, i have placed the proper category name in the image but when i then go to the category page , the image isn't there.. for example this image http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:07Pennyat_Willunga.jpg i have tried to add to category:Australian Terrier, see the bottom of the page to see that it is there.. however click the link and go to the category page and the image is not showing up.... does any know why this is.. It worked fine yesterday.. I am trying to move dog breed images into the right category pages but today it isn't working..
Not just images, but also pages and recategorised categories. I came here to bring this up to find others are having the same problem. Is this a bug or some sort, or has someone decided to change the way Commons operates again and has decided that they want to review all categorisations and re categorisations before allowing them to stand. Either way things are a bit of a pain.KTo288 (talk) 21:03, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
I did notice this to, i added a category page to another category and it also did not show up just like the image did not, i created a new page to place images in but now the page just says there is no media when in fact there is.. It must be some kind of glitch or something --Ltshears (talk) 21:09, 12 October 2008 (UTC)--Ltshears (talk) 21:09, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
There is obviously a serious lag (at best) between an edition or deletion action and the result showing up in the related categories. Hopefully will the system catch up in a couple of hours. --Foroa (talk) 21:30, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
I see it there. Is it possible your having issues with your local cache? Or maybe it was a result of problems on the server's cashing mechanizes? J.smith (talk) 23:26, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
They are showing up now, there must have been a lag in the system like someone else suggested.. My images are showing in the appropriate categories now.. thanks --Ltshears (talk) 23:38, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
I'm wondering if it's possible to get more discussion about that, & possibly get consensus for a possible username policy. Thank you, --Kanonkas(talk)15:12, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
Categories like Category:Line charts not needed or not??
This evening an user (Timeshifter) is trying to eliminate the Category:Line charts (making it a redirect to category charts), argumenting:
I don't think Wikimedia Commons can duplicate all the categories on the different-language Wikipedias. There are so many more subcategories in the Wikipedias. "Line charts" is another name for "XY graphs...."
The first two arguments are highly questionable, and beside the point. And the third argument is simply false.
The thing is that I am trying to improve the "field of diagrams" in Wikicommons. Every type of diagram which has an Wikipedia article gets its own category. There are about 100 to 250 different types of diagrams, charts, graphs, specific models etc. Wikipedia articles and Wikicommons categories are working togeter here. The category illustrates the article. Now I think we should encourage this! Isn't this one of the main idea of Wikicommons? I think categories like this should be removing (or redirected, which is the same) I would like to hear your opinion about this? -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 19:16, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
I think that it is a good idea to improve organization of diagrams, charts, graphs, etc. categories. Using organization already used at en.wiki sounds like a good idea too, if one uses it as a starting point and uses his/her own judgment. I also like the directions which can be used to guide users on which images should be in each category. --Jarekt (talk) 14:40, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. We fortunately have found a way to proceed working together. It indeed is fascinating stuff. I already created maybe 100 new categories for separate types of diagrams, charts and models. And some galleries to give an overview such as Specific diagram types (still under construction) and chart, and more specific Logic diagram, Mathematical diagram, Unified Modeling Language. Every type of diagram is getting it's own category and we created a new template Template:On Wikipedia to link the categories here to Wikipedia articles. I hope that especially those galleries can go guide users!? If you have any suggestions, please let me know. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 23:00, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
October 12
Image Commitment scheme - or "how I can prove this is my image"
In the tradition of committed identity schemes, I am proposing a similar commitment scheme for images. The question of how to prove that I own the image that I uploaded was raised here a few days ago and I think this is the answer. You can see my entire proposal/concept here: User:J.smith/Image_Commitment_scheme. I would appreciate criticisms, spell-checking, grammar fixes or clarifications. --J.smith (talk) 23:22, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
So you plan on giving out your secret key to anyone asking for it? PS: If you are going to want to prove you are the author, just upload on a trusted peer one or several hashes of the image before you upload it somewhere. Refers to the hash, with the publication date and make sure the trusted site is the only one that can provide these kind of services. Esby (talk) 07:17, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
First of all, the original, unaltered image is the secret key. The idea is that you would keep it private until such a time when it's important. For example, defending yourself in a lawsuit or protecting your rights in case of plagiarism. The work required might be prohibitive for use on every image, but a few of your best might be worth it. J.smith (talk) 07:43, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
0- The commitment scheme is used to hide a content until it is needed to reveal it.
Here's your are revealing the content (the image), so this is not commitment scheme. You could say the content is the fact you made it, but still, here's again, we know you are the author of the image.
1- Using the original image as a key is obviously flawed by design.
The proper way would be to generate a key in a good random way.
2- What are you trying to prove?
That an image was yours ?
or that you (as an uploader/entity) uploaded the image?
The commitment scheme would answer the second case...
So you are going to say that someone might usurp your account later and claim that you did not upload the images?
In normal times you will have absolutely no use of that.
3- Let's suppose, your image got used by a third party. How are you going to prove with your method that your image was used? If he uses an unaltered version, that would work. Please note that the crucial information is that you need to prove that your work was released before the copyvioler work. If he modified it (coloring, resizing; cropping), then you'll be forced to rely on the human eye and on the usual mean of comparison, so your method does not add anything new here.
4- Let's suppose you are a copyvioler, you took the image somewhere else, you 'signed it' and are uploading it signed. Does that means your image will be authentic? No, because it will only proves that you uploaded this image, not that others images are possibly made after it. Most copyvioler removes exifs or any information that could lead to the prove you want to keep here anyway.
1.) How is it flawed? I'm the only one with the missing data. If someone steals the image then they will be using the image with the missing data because the unaltered image can't be found anywhere.
2.) This would take the place of having the negative in your hand. It would be additional evidence. Add to that the good solid upload date in the page history and the identity commitment scheme used to confirm the ownership of the account and you have a fairly solid portfolio of evidence.
3.) The image a third party uses would not have the missing data. They can't use the unaltered version as it's not published anywhere.
4.) Yes, that is a possibility. However, since the actual owner already has the unaltered version it doesn't actually do anything to support the plagiarism.
I think you misunderstand what I'm getting at here. All of the questions you asked are already addressed in the page I put together. J.smith (talk) 16:09, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
I'd suggest just cropping a few millimeters off any images you care about before you upload them. If they then appear on the web in the future and you have to prove ownership, all the later copies will be smaller than your original. TimVickers (talk) 16:00, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
for 1- How it is flawed? How can you assure that the key you are generating won't be crackable with a smart bruteforce attack? If you are cropping by a given method, then it's not random. If the method can be guessed, it's not random. That's like saying Enter 4 digits to initialize the entropy generator. Chances are that you can reduce the field of action of the possible bruteforce (or any other form of attack) given of the nature of the way you choose your aleatory.
For 2- That just proves you don't need your method to prove the paternity of an upload. Your method only proves that you are the uploader of the work, not that someone else is not the author of a 'similar work'.
As I said in point 3, this will be useless against anyone who uses an even slightly modified / stripped version of your uploaded image.
Since point 4, nothing in your method proves that you are the author of this work. You could have ripped it from elsewhere. Your method is just an (heavy) method to proves that you uploaded images under a given account, that for some reason you lost control of it, and that you are the 'author' of those uploads, nothing else. To be abrupt and short, in normal situation, this is useless on Wikimedia Commons because all uploads are associated with one identified account, the uploads are also dated so you can use the uploaded file, the name, the date and the image resolution as a proof to support you in a court if needed.
Nice idea, but pretty useless. Courts of law have already established ways to prove authorship. I recently read a piece on that with respect to the german legal system. It is unlikely that the hash method is acceptable, unless the hash is kept by a notarty public. The accepted way of proving original authorship is to submit a series or pictures which has not been published but shows the same subject and setting. Your scheme encourages the upload of degraded copies, with the accepted way you can upload originals. Serious photographers take several shots per motif and select the best one for publication. The remaining shots can be used for proof of authorship later on. --Dschwen (talk) 18:59, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
An old fashioned way of doing things suggested for manuscripts is to send a copy to yourself in the post. So for images I guess the equivalent is to run of prints of your images before making them publicly available, put them into a well sealed envelope and sign your name and date across the sealed flap, then send the envelope back to yourself by registered post. Once you get the envelope back in the post don't open the envelope but write down only what it is and archive. If you are ever challenged in court as to the ownership of your images you can produce your archived envelopes, the postmark on the envelopes should establish that you were in possession of the images before their first publication date. KTo288 (talk) 09:33, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
October 13
Proposal to make Meta an "internal image repository"
This would only work if images on Meta could be accessed as easily as images on Commons, which isn't possible (to the best of my knowledge). EVula// talk // ☯ //02:38, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
I support the removal of all non-free content from commons, but I have to also wonder whether it's truly feasible. -mattbuck (Talk) 03:03, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
I suggested similar thing when MediaWiki got support for multiple shared repositories. At least this could end holy wars against non-free Wikimedia logos. --EugeneZelenko (talk) 14:41, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
Isn't it largely a semantic debate? If we can use images from Meta on all WMF projects, there's really very little difference between hosting them here and hosting them there. EVula// talk // ☯ //14:49, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
I think this will cause only more work. The images are now here and must be replaced to Meta. The meta site must allouw linking from all wikimedia sites. Commons is our database for pictures. Why should it be a problem non free wikimedia logo's hosted on commons. If you don't want the logo's online.. maybe it is better that all projects host there own logo. Sterkebaktalk14:57, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
I am not sure wether my remarks is wintin the scope, but: Non-free: do you mean, not free to show as an image, or not free to be used as a official stamp. We are only concerned with copyright, we just must warn against false offical use, as is done for coats of arms. Havang(nl) (talk) 15:07, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
The point is that non-free images should not be hosted here. By moving them to meta, we make the rest of Commons safe for reuse. Superm401 - Talk20:40, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
Support - Non-free media on Commons are really not good, but it'd be fine to host them here if they can be used on all WMF wikis. Since this is technically possible, we should do so. — Mike.lifeguard | @en.wb03:31, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
I have asked ViperSnake several times without a (relevant) reply, and so now I'll posit the same question to you: since when is this technically possible? I've not heard of this feature existing until this thread, and the Meta discussion seems to think that it's an impossibility as well. Making proposals that can't happen is an excellent waste of everyone's time. EVula// talk // ☯ //18:30, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
I think will be good idea to browse MediaWiki release notes. Support for multiple sheared file repositories was couple of releases ago. --EugeneZelenko (talk) 14:47, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
Hmm, I think you're talking about mw:Release notes/1.13, but that's somewhat greek to me; I'd still like to see a direct link. WJBscribe did point out an important matter on Meta, though: Meta currently hosts Fair Use images, for use in limited ways (such as Wikimania bids). We wouldn't be able to enable partial sharing of images on Meta, and we'd be idiots to suddenly open up Fair Use imagery for anyone to potentially abuse. Really, I think this is a lot of effort and attention being paid to something that is a non-issue; WMF isn't going to crack down on itself for having its logos hosted here. We really need to put practicality first, rather than obeying the absolute letter of Commons law (in this case and only this case). Having the images on Commons simplifies matters for all 700+ WMF websites, which is reason enough (in my opinion) to not get worked up over it. EVula// talk // ☯ //15:18, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
“we'd be idiots to suddenly open up Fair Use imagery for anyone to potentially abuse”? You seem to be describing the current situation at the English Wikipedia (and other projects that allow fair use), where there is no technical constraint that prevents images uploaded under a fair use claim to be used in any article. Allowing (from a technical perspective) some fair use images from meta shouldn't be much of a difference. --Kjetil_r00:27, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
I don't understand what you're trying to say. Let's look at before and after. Before: Spanish Wikipedia is not allowed to use any non-free images, except the odd ones that are tolerated here on Commons. After: Spanish Wikipedia is not allowed to use any non-free images, except those that are tolerated on NonFreeCommons/MetaImage/WhateverYouCallIt. What's the issue? This proposal is not intended to prevent projects from using non-free images, only to get such images off Commons. Superm401 - Talk06:47, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Right now, the accept all images from Commons because all images from Commons are free. Once it's open to another source, one that doesn't have free-only imagery, they have to police every non-free image, which strikes me as a colossal waste of time (it could be done with bots, sure, but still... waste of time). Long story short: why do we need to implement a new system when the current one isn't actually broken? I've yet to hear an actual reason why we need to put the WMF logos elsewhere, considering the absurdity of the Foundation suing itself. EVula// talk // ☯ //00:32, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
I wish someone would tell me what will happen to all the unofficial Wiki-logo variants (from Image:Wikiswing.gif to some images with very serious purposes) under this proposal. Also, whether all screenshots of Wikipedia with the logo in the upper left corner will have to be moved to the new repository... AnonMoos (talk) 14:16, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
Actually, it states that use of the logo requires permission - unless these people asked the WMF for permission to use the logos, they should be deleted. -mattbuck (Talk) 13:03, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
IANAL, but I don't think the WMF has a serious problem with these humorous logo parodies as long as they are only used in informal situations on Wikipedia userpages.--Pharos (talk) 13:32, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
As is frequently stated, on commons we don't accept images because "I don't think the copyright holder would have a problem with it", we need assurances that the images are free. The WMF licence REQUIRES permission, whether or not they care is irrelevant to the matter at hand. I'm pretty certain that the guidelines on the WMF logo also prohibit derivatives... -mattbuck (Talk) 13:41, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
Well, I think it's a special situation, in that the copyright holder is the administrator of this website, and we already host the officially copyrighted logos. And these images, silly as they are, are currently used across multiple Wikimedia projects. I would suggest that the parody logos be considered an instance of "tolerated use" by the WMF, which still reserves the right to remove those it considers offensive (which it has done sometimes), and of course to prevent the images from being used outside of userspace. It would probably be good idea to create a separate template for such "tolerated use" WMF parody logos.--Pharos (talk) 14:06, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
Such "tolerated" images, as you put it, should go on the Meta site along with the non-free logos. Then, they'll no longer be an issue for Commons at least. Superm401 - Talk23:45, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
Yes, but so what? There would only be a problem if the uploads were advertising, and there is no indication of that. The user apears to be an excellent photographer who has done good work here and who has quite a number of high-quality free images at Flikr that we could make use of. The only issue is whether an image of self-created jewellery can have realistic educational value, as required by COM:PS and in my view the answer is quite clearly yes, particularly for an image of this quality. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 17:21, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
If she had bought the jewels from somebody else, we would need to know the name of the jewel designer and ask him for a free license permission. Teofilo (talk) 19:06, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
Seeking consensus for copying from the English Wikipedia to here
I'm going to go with no here. Just because you want the boxes to look exactly alike on your user pages does not mean we should add styles to the global css. If you don't want to use the existing commons box templates, just use divs with inline styles. --Dschwen (talk) 12:42, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Oh, it is already done :-(. So much about consensus being sought. Current consensus is that we do not blindly copy every bit of code over from en.wp. --Dschwen (talk) 12:46, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Oh, sorry. I did copy templates from en.wp. That edited tmbox only, afaik. tmbox is used on 5 pages, so it's hardly an issue. -mattbuck (Talk) 13:04, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, but someone modified the global css file. And copying the template is linked to it. If we don't want the css to get cluttered up with stuff from other wikipedias, the we don't want broken templates in the template main space either. Being used on 5 pages means it should probably be moved to user space. But my take on this is just delete it asap. Commons is an international project, if we start moving templates from wikipedias for convenience purposes we might as well copy a slew over from de.wp, and fr.wp, etc. That would clutter up our css big time and would create an inconsistent interface, with tons of different templates that do the same thing. --Dschwen (talk) 13:21, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Ok. As I stated elsewhere, I'm not really concerned with how it is done, I'd just like a box that looks the same. :) If the copy request does not get filled, could someone show me how to do it manually? Rockfang (talk) 18:01, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
No thumbs are showing up for the last three images I uploaded. Is anyone else experiencing this? See, e.g., my user page. Richard001 (talk) 08:08, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I've just posted to the administrators' noticeboard. None of my last 10 uploads have generated thumbnails. Durova (talk) 08:09, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Same with me. I uploaded some pics yesterday in the evening. For those of the pics I used right yesterday thumbs worked fine. For some of them I wanted to use only today in the morning - no thumbs did show up. --SibFreak (talk) 08:24, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
"Secure Connection Failed - wikitech.leuksman.com uses an invalid security certificate. - The certificate is not trusted because the issuer certificate is unknown. (Error code: sec_error_unknown_issuer)". Is this the correct link ? - Erik Baas (talk) 09:11, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
I know about certificates, but my browser (Firefox 3.0.1) just shows the above mentioned error message, so there's nothing I can do. - Erik Baas (talk) 09:42, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
There's a message from Tim Starling in gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical, dated Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:24:01 +1100:
The image scaling task has been moved to Ubuntu 8.04 servers. Along the
way, some software versions have changed:
ImageMagick upgraded from 6.2.8 to 6.3.7 (Q8 custom build)
Rsvg from 2.14.0 to 2.22.2 (with security patch)
FFmpeg: upgraded from patched r10291 to Ubuntu stock
DjVu: upgraded from 3.5.17 to 3.5.20
Fonts: generally upgraded with more coverage
Originally I only tested the merged rsvg security patch to make sure it
was secure, and indeed, rsvg-convert still can't read any local files. But
it also can't read its input file specified on the command line. So I'm
using stdin for now.
Keep an eye out for odd rendering of SVGs, e.g. bad font selection. Submit
a bug if you see anything like that.
It has nothing to do with rsvg. There are simply no resized images, so it looks like ImageMagick won't work. --Ayacop (talk) 16:29, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Replication from commons to toolserver is currently lagged by around 2 days, and getting worse. According to the #wikimedia-toolserver topic, it ought to be working again by the end of the week. -mattbuck (Talk) 23:33, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
"A database error has occurred Query: SELECT * FROM dewiki_p.image WHERE img_name = 'Kvikk_Lunsj_i_snøen.jpg' Function: getImageInfo Error: 1146 Table 'dewiki_p.image' doesn't exist (sql-s2)"
This the result of this query. Is there a need to report this bug somewhere ? In the past I would have left this message on Duesentrieb's talk page, but he seems to be no longer active here. Teofilo (talk) 10:54, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
No need to report an error. Did you read the text at the top of the CheckUsage page? It says:
Due to database corruption, our copy of the commons database is incomplete. Some tools may report incorrect results because of that, this includes CheckUsage and CommonSense. Should be back to normal in a few days.
It's (Database error) is just a message and a database corruption or error (such as a typo) will bring up that message. Bidgee (talk) 15:14, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
And how useful is this from the previous project in April?
A series of images was recently uploaded in the context of a project which sounds interesting but whose uploads are somewhat puzzling. The idea of organizing people to take photographs of Manhattan sounds good but I see a problem here when the actual uploads give the impression of unsorted material which appears to be in a significant amount out of scope or of insufficient quality and which is also problematic for other reasons:
No authors are named. The photographers were apparently organized in teams, one of them is for example named Three Blind Mice. Nothing is mentioned beside the team names. Did the photographers within this project consent to that?
All of the photographs were uploaded by WTMuploader, a self declared sock puppet of Pharos. There is no indication that this happened with the permission of the photographers, i.e. there is no OTRS ticket or an OTRS pending notice.
All of these photographs have a {{Information}} template where just the author field is filled with an invocation of the {{WSTM}} template and a team name. No description of the photograph's purpose or content is given. I wonder why no geocoding is provided if this is supposed to document Manhattan.
This gives the impression that Commons is used just as a dumping ground of some organized fun which is in a significant amount of no further value within the project scope. The uploader's page pleads:
Please don't speedy-delete anything by this account, even if it looks irrelevant. Some of these photos are contextual, and some simply show people having fun contributing to Commons, and should be kept in the same way we keep photos from wiki-meetups.
I haven't filed anything for deletion yet but would appreciate any insight how the results of this fun project could be useful in the context of our project goals and, in case we keep it, how this is going to be fixed up.
I raise this question also in respect to the earlier uploads from 5 April 2008 where likewise no authors are named and no other informations were added to the images, not to mention any categorization beside some user gallery categories.
Why isn't there a process within this fun project that selects from all the photographs shot a subset that is of useful quality and within the project's scope and which would be carefully described, geocoded, attributed, and categorized? --AFBorchert (talk) 07:09, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
The argument when this was brought up last time around is that all wiki events are automatically within scope. Just like say a wikimeet or random photos from wikimania. I would on the other hand agree that not all photos taken should necessarily be uploaded. It's not a problem that we get 5 new images of the same building even if one is clearly superior, the problem are the images that were only taken so that other images could be easily identified. Part of the uploading process could simply tag the relevant image with the number held up in the other image.
A biger problem I think is the lack of photographer mentioning and permissions etc. But the best way to solve this would probably be to leave a note about it on en:Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Takes Manhattan. Possibly suggest a post competition session where the image informations are filled out etc.
As a last pont I'd like to point out that even though I might have some objections to whats uploaded in the end I still think it's a great project and wish we had something similar at home. /Lokal_Profil12:21, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
Permissionwise doesn't seem to be a problem since contestants have to agree to CC-BY-SA when they register their team. If something similar existed at the first run of the project then a mentioning about it on the talk page of the WSTM template should suffice. The unknown authors part might still be a problem though. /Lokal_Profil12:27, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
I have no problem in general in supporting wikimeetings or such fun projects and I am not telling that all of the uploaded photographs are out of scope. However, I still believe in the importance of correct attribution and licensing and I think that this volume of unsorted stuff with auxiliary photographs that allow to sort the subjects photographed etc does neither serve these fun projects nor Wikimedia projects in general. Regarding the linked registration page: I notice that the participants provide their individual names and accept CC-BY-SA in this context. Hence, I do not think that the uploader is allowed to suppress these names. And I think that we need to lead this discussion here because we, the community at Commons, must at the end make a judgement what we can keep and what is better discarded. Thanks for inviting the participants of that project to this discussion. --AFBorchert (talk) 13:33, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
Think the main thing to do is sort out what Commons and the Wiki takes the City both expect/require on the upload side of things and then work that into the guidelines used by the uppcoming similar projects (see en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Takes The City). It's always easier to resolve these things before than after.
As a side point the registration page allows you to decide how you want to be attributed (actual name or team name I'm guessing). But I don't know if the original registration page was built up in a differnt way. /Lokal_Profil15:58, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
Contributors to Wikimedia projects have a right to pseudonymity under the meta:Privacy policy. We specifically asked participants whether or not they wished to publish their full names online (most said yes), and we'll be putting those names up as we finish up the project. Attribution to the team name is just as valid as attribution to a pseudonymous username like "Pharos"; and if a few participants choose to remain pseudonymous, we should not violate that trust.--Pharos (talk) 14:06, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
As a matter of fact, Team "Three Blind Mice" chose to be represented psseudononymously. Again, attribution to a team name is just as valid as attribution to a typically pseudonymous Flickr or Wikimedia username.--Pharos (talk) 01:42, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
I'm not talking about only one image here. You're the one who said "we'll be putting those names up as we finish up". That's the part I object to. Superm401 - Talk03:31, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
Some things do take time, and I doubt any one of our >50 participants has been so concerned about dotting every "i" and crossing every "t" immediately. (And we told them on the day of that it would take a while to complete the project.) Nevertheless, I have now completed attribution for all the as-yet uploaded teams (with the exception of one I'm still in communication with). Thanks.--Pharos (talk) 16:38, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
Again, you're missing the point. I know things take time. It's the order of things you're getting backwards. Complete the description page, then upload, not the other way around. That's Commons policy. What participants think about it, or rather what you say they think about it, is irrelevant.
AFBorchert has named the main problems with this uploads and I think that he is right. I want simply add one aspect: Most of the pictures are of a very low quality and not at all useful for our project. In many cases there is not the simpliest effort to make them useful, e.g. by rotating and cropping some pictures and so on. If they are only needed for the work of the Project, it would IMHO be better to use a free picture server and delete them, when the project is finished. --Mbdortmund (talk) 17:31, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
A couple of months ago, they used complex and special templates to assign all sorts of strange categories to their images, which they created afterwards, making double categories all over the place. I did spend quite some time to merge and clean some of it out as it cannot be bot-moved or handled with hotcat. So I would appreciate if they categorise their images at least in the right categories (and according to the commons conventions, not the en:wikipedia ones) in stead of inventing them at random (for example category:piano's). Their template should not include categories. If one looks closer in the images and the "improved" categories in Category:Categories improved by Wikipedia Takes Manhattan, one will better understand, --Foroa (talk) 18:10, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
Um, it appears you have been deleting good categories and replacing them with meaningless categories. w:Piano's is a bar and music venue in Manhattan, not the plural of "piano". Please don't do this if you're not familiar with the subject matter.--Pharos (talk) 17:53, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
When I stumbled on the piano's category, it contained many piano related images, so I moved them all except Image:WTM sheila 0011.jpg that when editing, had no category nor description. Meanwhile, I recreated category:Piano's bar (New York City) as a less confusing name following Commons naming conventions. I changed the template accordingly to correct the category. Because you use the same name for categories as for en:Wikipedia references, this will unavoidably lead to problems. --Foroa (talk) 07:56, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
I believe there has been a serious misunderstanding of the scope of this project. Please see Commons:Wikipedia Takes Manhattan/Gallery (and the individual image pages of course) for the information on the images from last time. See Wikipedia:Wikipedia Takes Manhattan/Spring 2008 for a list of the 90 articles on Wikipedia we illustrated with the last event. This is what my magical templates {{WTMid}} and {{WSTMid}} were for. Please be advised that were are not at all complete with the uploading and labeling of the photos from yesterday's event. We were fortunate enough to have 23 teams yesterday (a big step up from last time), and it will take a while to process everything. Thanks.--Pharos (talk) 18:18, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
Those images are not maintainable and cannot be recategorised by a normal user. Bot renames will not work. --Foroa (talk) 18:36, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
Hi Pharos, thanks for your comment but I do not see the concerns addressed. Yes, I took a look at Commons:Wikipedia Takes Manhattan/Gallery and I feel uncomfortable with the remaining problems of the earlier uploads, i.e. missing attribution, permissions, descriptions, and the great volume of photographs which are of no further use to any Wikimedia project. Perhaps it would be a good thing to create a specific Wikimedia project for these Wikipedia Take ... projects, to upload and document everything there, and then to move a subset of useful photographs to Commons. --AFBorchert (talk) 18:55, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
You're missing the point. We don't care how long it takes you to upload the images. What we care about is that you only upload images within Commons scope, and that you provide all required information when you upload. Superm401 - Talk20:34, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
I followed the link and I can see some useful pictures there, but many of them are very similar, many of them of bad quality, some of them only documents for the project. Perhaps you can think about not uploading everything, but let the groups make a choice of their best pictures. Some faults in the pictures could easily be corrected, if you invest some time in working with the resulst or showing the people how to rotate, crop or correct tilted pictures. I don't want to critizise the project, because I don't know much about it, but perhaps some aspects of the project could be organized better. Why not one simple cat for the project and use the normal categories for the other aspects? Excuse my terrible English.... --Mbdortmund (talk) 19:04, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
Think positive. Great activity to hit an area with so much enthusiasm. I am sure if you can get so many folks on the streets taking these image, then you have a plan for post-processing them. Could you just share it with the rest of us!.
How are you ensuring that each image correctly tagged with date, photographer, permissions and details of what it actually is.
What is your time scale?
When are you tagging your admin shots for deletion- there seems to be a management issue with the Spring photos.
Have you recorded camera position, so you can add the {{Location}} template, what is the time scale for getting them all tagged?
Categories seems to have been a problem in the past, have you got a list of the categories you plan to use, or have you got a member of your team assigned to checking that these categories are Commons format not :en:wiki. What is the time scale for getting all the images ?
Are you doing anything about quality control- are you assigning a team to retake images that are badly cropped or blurred?
Its a great idea, but you can appreciate why some of us have reservations but would be happy to suggest solutions for some of points above- that would be easy and fun for a large group of people to do- but mind numbingly boring for one of us to do alone in our humble garret.
Thanks, ClemRutter. We have decided not to delete the context photos, because they document the creation of free content for Wikimedia, in a rather more direct way even than, say, Image:Wikipedians strolling througth New York.jpg, or the many other meetup and conference photos we have on Commons. With maderrn storage technology, space is not an issue. We should be done with the uploading and tagging in at most a month. Many of the locations have geocoded articles, but no, we don't have a GPS reading for each camera shot. The locations that were poorly taken (or that were not taken at all), we will keep on the list for next year, and certainly a number of local Wikipedians will be working from the list just at their leisure over the next few months.--Pharos (talk) 18:02, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
Hell, I don't use a GPS, just Google Maps and a clever software trick. Firstly you show you team how to put this bit of code into their Bookmark Tool bar
(On Firefox- you enter this into the Location field:-- and the single character + into the Name: field. and save it.).
Now with their upload software open in one window, and a map of NYC open in another, they move around the street map till you are at the very spot where the crime was committed (or image taken). Hit the bookmark button- and a pop up window explodes- There is the location tag they need. Ctrl-C and then Cancel- move over to your upload page and Ctrl-V. For the uncommitted, you take them to a page at random and work out from the map where other peoples images were take. You use shadows and the exif data to workout the approximate directions from a church spire, Moosburg, Kärnten would be a great place to start. Your images are so much easier as you have all this meta data. And a side effect will be that we have another 23 teams of Geotaggers.ClemRutter (talk) 19:36, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
Goodness, this seems an odd place to discuss this large and well organized project, rather than a dedicated Commons page for WTM. Anyway I had great fun taking my 276 pix and getting all tired out and yes, I verbally gave Pharos permission to do, I forget what rights I gave but whatever he does with my product is all right with me. Yes, the pix are as yet unorganized. Yes, the teams ought to be identified. As it happens, my team name was just me, "Jim Henderson" but the awards all seem to be given out to teams of two or three with a cool team name. Whatever. Yes, I wish I had done a better job with my establishing shots. Yes, I wish I had a geocoding camera. No, I don't think their lack make it a bad thing. Yes, when the pix get organized enough to find my own, I'll sort them into location cats and whatever other cats seem appropriate over the winter. And those of other teams. Whatever it takes to make these pix useful. And thank you, Pharos and everyone else who didn't go out dodging SUVs on Flatbush Avenue and stayed indoors organizing the event. Jim.henderson (talk) 18:51, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
I am a bit disappointed that a narrow focus on scope could potentially derail these awesome and useful scavenger hunt activities. These events are wonderful for getting people excited about creating free content, and understanding what that means, and even being exposed to Wikimedia Commons. I am sure that Wikis Take Manhattan could easily upload all their work to Flickr instead of Commons, and if we keep nitpicking I am sure they will leave with a bad feeling and do just that. Wouldn't you? I would. Deleting "useless" images (not offensive, promotional or copyright-problematic in any way) instead of welcoming and encouraging these activities seems the wrong priority to me. And there will be more -- see de:Wikipedia:Berlin/CC- Wikis take Berlin.
Having said that, there could and should definitely be improved communication about the post-processing plans for projects like these, and actually details about what Commoners can do to help. I asked Pharos to write a bit about this on Commons:Wikis Take Manhattan. On our side, we could develop a "best practices guide" for people who organise these types of events, so that we understand each other's requirements more clearly. (Who wants to start Commons:Photo scavenger hunts?) As part of that I hope we would extend good faith and some grace period to people who are dealing with large data sets such as these. Could we please talk to them, work with them and try to find a good result for both sides? --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 01:11, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, Pfctdayelise, this is exactly the direction we should follow. As I mentioned at the beginning of this discussion, I think these projects are interesting and can be helpful. My intention was to open a discussion where we can learn more about these projects (the provided documentation on the images, galleries, and other associated pages is so far unsatisfactory not just for the last but also the previous event) and work towards a solution how this fits best into Commons and the other projects. And I think that the village pump is a more appropriate location to discuss these issues than a deletion request which focuses on individual shots only.
Besides the simple organizational issues I get increasingly uncomfortable regarding the licensing issues when I read the comment by Jim.henderson who states:
As it happens, my team name was just me, "Jim Henderson" but the awards all seem to be given out to teams of two or three with a cool team name.
This makes me afraid that none of these images are properly attributed. If this is not done correctly we might at the end need to delete them all which would be catastrophic (for the fun projects and the Wikimedia projects that profited from it). Even if Jim.henderson waives his personal rights on attribution for some of the pics, this does not resolve the problem in general. --AFBorchert (talk) 05:20, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
While we certainly have ways to improve these projects, I don't think there is any significant problem with attribution. You'll excuse me if I repeat some points I made further up, put perhaps you missed that thread (the conversation is getting pretty complicated). Contributors to Wikimedia projects have a right to pseudonymity under the meta:Privacy policy. We specifically asked participants whether or not they wished to publish their full names online (most said yes), and we'll be putting those names up as we finish up the project. Attribution to the team name is just as valid as attribution to a pseudonymous username like "Pharos"; and if a few participants choose to remain pseudonymous, we should not violate that trust. Thanks for your input.--Pharos (talk) 15:57, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
I propose that this whole mess be moved to meta. Meetups are really a "meta" kind of thing and weird pictures of index cards would fit in better. J.smith (talk) 03:18, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
Whether or not you consider them "weird", this documentation of Wikimedia activity clearly falls within COM:SCOPE: "Files relating to projects or events of the Wikimedia Foundation are also allowed (eg photographs of user meetings)." Thanks.--Pharos (talk) 13:36, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
That's meant for official Foundation events. It's not meant to say anything two Wikimedians do together is within scope. Superm401 - Talk20:34, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
No, please look at Category:Wikimedia meetups. These are all organized in a decentralized fashion. Why, here's a category for a lovely picnic I attended recently. As a matter of fact, this was a large event (>50 participants), and we did have to get specific authorization from the Wikimedia Foundation to use the trademarks in this instance. Jimmy Wales has even agreed that as grand prize he will have a dinner with the contest winners.--Pharos (talk) 01:42, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
Superm401 I think you are wrong in reading (eg photographs of user meetings) as only meaning Foundation events. I think it obviously covers informal meetups. Commons has had photos of those events since... ever. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 04:08, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
Are you really claiming Image:WSTM_Three_Blind_Mice_0005.JPG (a 1.42 MB photo of an index card with two characters on it, and no context) is within scope just because it happened to get made at a user meeting? Clearly, in no other circumstances would this be allowed on Commons. Superm401 - Talk23:41, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
Of course that picture is not particularly useful. No one is saying otherwise. But think about the bigger picture. How is threatening half this project's pictures with deletion going to improve our working relationship with them? Is there a way we could approach this with a touch more subtlety that just might get everyone leaving satisfied? Of all the problems we face ridding Commons of "useless" pictures of index cards is extremely low on the priority list, I would have thought. After all this image is perfectly legal and we are not running out of disk space. So why is the combative inflexible approach necessary? --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 01:40, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
The idea behind keeping the context shots is that you can get a sense of the quixotic adventure of the participants. I agree that most of the context shots are not particularly interesting by themselves, but the intention is that they be seen in context in a gallery as at Team NewYorkDolls; such a gallery gives a good sense of the team's itinerary and human experience. See Commons:Photo scavenger hunts#Benefits for a further explanation. Thanks.--Pharos (talk) 16:00, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
Reduced the size for people with crappy internet connection. I could make my point with lots of letters but i prefer to voice my opinion with some images. Please dont remove them again. Multichill (talk) 16:05, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
Sorry but please remove it. It's causing my computer issues when I load this page (Not sure about anyone else). Just link to the page rather then force images that most people visiting this page find that isn't relevant to them. Bidgee (talk) 16:10, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
Now, of course, they've just been given an extra use to illustrate photo scavenger hunt recording strategies. Honestly, I'd rather see 3,000 pics of this sort of useful, positive, helpful activity uploaded than a single extra example of a snap of someone's privates. BTW, thanks, Pharos, for the work! Man vyi (talk) 16:40, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
I never accused you (Multichill) of "spamming" and if you think that in someway my comment suggested that you were spamming then you're incorrect. Man vyi, the photos maybe relevant to you but they're not relevant since I live in Australia and rather not have image that make the page longer, crashes my internet browsers when viewing a page. I wouldn't force images on here since I know that some people will find it irrelevant. Bidgee (talk) 18:27, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
File size limits - rationale?
The file size limit is around 20 MB. I was wondering what the reasoning behind this is. Is it for the sake of the downloader (preventing people from having to download a really big file, for example) or for Commons performance (preventing people from using up lots of bandwidth that we can't afford), or something else?
Shouldn't we ultimately be aiming to host video files like full films, and if so, aren't we going to have to have loads of short 20MB chapters to achieve this (especially if the quality is any good)? Or is video of this file size/quality too much for Commons to handle? Richard001 (talk) 10:15, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
hm, thanks for keeping me. I'll be seriouzly concerned when the delete votes start rolling in. *looks over his shoulder* --Dschwen (talk) 02:25, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
Hi all. I'll admit this isn't something I've looked at before so I don't know if it's normal for Category:Items pending OTRS confirmation of permission to have so many entries. When I just looked the count was up to nearly 1300 with some pending for a month or more. Is this typical or has there been a breakdown or a large recent inflŭ or something like that? —Elipongo (Talkcontribs) 08:30, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
OTRS has a current backlog of about 700 e-mails.... so we have not received e-mails for a good part of those images. J.smith (talk) 16:41, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
I'm going through some of the older commons ones (50+ days old) and closing them to help get things organized, they've been sitting around for nearly 2 months waiting on a reply giving either a specific license statement, a link to the image on commons, or both. In many cases the image was never uploaded to commons, or if it was, we have no idea under what name. If you have a question about the status of an image, espcially one that's been tagged with OTRS-pending for more than a couple weeks, your best bet is to ask someone with OTRS access (the OTRS IRC channel can help with this). Mr.Z-man (talk) 17:05, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
There have been issues with thumbnailing recently. The first image was uploaded very recently, unlike the second one. The thumbnails will presumably appear soon. Pruneautalk15:42, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
So I wrote "again". They said the problem appears with non-latin char filename, but I have the same problem with latin char file too. --Skyluke 18:26, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
à would count as a non standard letter. With non-latin I really meant the non-english letters i.e. anything that wouldn't work in a url. /Lokal_Profil00:07, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
But I see the problems even with english letters filename. Commons are used from all the world, hundreds of wiki in almost every language, every one with almost one letter different from english, so it's a big problem. --Skyluke 14:35, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
Brands of The World terms and conditions say: "downloading artwork from this site does NOT authorize you to use the copyrighted logos without the specific consent of the copyright and/or trademark holder." - so not free, sorry ( but some may not be copyrightable). :( --Anonymous101talk17:40, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure that any will by PD-Old, as if they are not ineligible, the creator of the vector file at bands of the world is likely able to copyright his work. (note: This is just my interpretatation, so do not treate what i said as fact) Thanks, --Anonymous101talk18:27, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
I think it's something to do with the tool server (I know that the data base is corrupt since the geocoding isn't working). Bidgee (talk) 08:31, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
Invisible text error
Originally reported as Commons talk:Welcome log#Technical problem but since found to affect all pages containing <small>...(some traditional Chinese characters)...</small>, which includes most of the pages with language selector bars: on my system (Ubuntu Firefox, JavaScript off) the entire text, including the side/top bars, is not displayed until it is highlighted or (for links only) the mouse is moved over them.--QuantumEngineer (talk) 16:08, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
Viewing pages created
Is there a place where I can view the pages (e.g. categories, galleries etc) that I have created? I note that the contributions page recently has had some links added at the bottom, but none show this information. Richard001 (talk) 07:28, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
It goes back one month. Escaladix has a tool which lists all page creations in the main namespace, but it only works on Wikipedias. Maybe you could ask him to include Commons? Pruneautalk09:15, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
The new pages page is somewhat useful, but it is by definition only recent categories (and it also lists redirects). I wouldn't mind being able to have such a list (without the redirects) automatically generated on my user page.
Thumbnails not generated for images bigger than 12.5 megapixels
A typical failed thumbnail preview for a huge image.
Anyone know what the technical reason is for this thumbnail error message?
Error creating thumbnail: Invalid thumbnail parameters or PNG file with more than 12.5 million pixels
This can be seen extensively for the scanned images in the Scott Foresman collection Category:PD-ScottForesman (click on section P) which is a real problem because the idea here was for the Commons staff upload a massive pile of raw scanned images for people to then crop and format into proper images. If there's no preview then there's no way to look at these scans without downloading them completely, always at 12.5+ megapixels a pop.
I suggest you try wikitech-l or Bugzilla to contact the developers directly. Editors here can't change those settings. The problem is that an X megapixel image takes > 3*X MB of RAM in order to generate a preview using the current methodology. If there are too many too large images it can noticably slow down image rendering for all Wikimedia sites. However, it may be possible to increase the limit somewhat beyond what it is currently. Dragons flight (talk) 02:20, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
The issue is not the file size, but the amount of pixels. There is no fast thumbnail scaler for really large images. Bryan tried to write on some time ago, but I think it sucked for small images. Imagemagick gets really slow for large PNGs (probably eats up lots of mem too). Also an image can have a small filesize, but a huuuuge pixel count, so, no way the limit is going to be based on that. --Dschwen (talk) 02:23, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
I thing that anytime commons allows the upload that can not be correctly process, that is a serious issue that erodes users confidence in the system. It has to be fixed somehow. I have a few (possibly unrealistic and naive) ideas of possible solutions to this problem:
May be there is a way to outsource the job to other computers, for example having a separate computer whose only job is to create such thumbnails. May be create software that willing users would run on their computers, when they are not in use that would perform those tasks
Another way would be to allow users to upload somehow scaled versions of images and thumbnails. That would solve a problem with other types of images that can not be thumbnailed, for example compare image:Warszawa_Powstanie_1944-08-04.svg and its full version here.
Another similar idea is to allow users to use already generated thumbnails: user would upload large PNG, then overwrite it with a smaller version for which scaling and thumbnails would be created and then user would restore the large version, but do not delete the thumbnails.
May be prior to scaling and thumbnailing large PNGs should be internally converted to jpegs and then those jpegs would be scaled. This would help if png to jpeg conversion was less memory intensive than scaling, which quite possibly it is not the case.
Well, there used to be a way to specify which image should be used as the thumbnail while still linking to the full-size image: [[Image:Full_Size_Img_Name.ext|thumb=Manual thumbnail image filename.png|Caption]] did the trick. Only, when I just tested this, I noticed that it doesn't work anymore: it links to the manual thumbnail image instead. (Note that the parameter to "thumb=" does not have the "Image:" prefix.) If that still worked, it could be used on gallery and article pages (using a manually generated downscaled version for the display of the thumbnail), but of course thumbnails still wouldn't appear in categories. Lupo13:58, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
Smiley (click on expand symbol).
The thumb syntax still works, except that now only clicking on the "expand" symbol takes you to the second image (not clicking on the displayed image itself). AnonMoos (talk) 16:17, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
Your "SVG" seems to have a gigantic bitmap embedded in it. Scaling the bitmap is probably what it is rejecting, not the large size of the SVG per se. Dragons flight (talk) 16:56, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
To clarify, the SVG does not have any bitmap embedded in it (the size is 18 KB) but uses a link to bitmap from Image:Warszawa 1935.png. It does not have thumbnails because current software does not support thumbnailing of SVGs with links to other files, which I did not know at the time of the upload. The file was created as an experiment in my search to find a way to annotate images with help of overlays. --Jarekt (talk) 02:12, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately, the basic "philosophy" of intended SVG use on Commons is that SVG files should contain entirely or almost entirely of vector data, with any embedded raster bitmaps serving only as minor kludges or small fix-ups -- and not to start with a large raster bitmap and add a few trivial little vector arrows or annotations on top of it. This was previously discussed at Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2008Jan#SVG_problem... AnonMoos (talk) 14:04, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
It is unfortunate that there is no way to do on-image annotations the way other websites sometimes have (I thing flicker has a way to do it). I think we need it. And this was a promising possibility. --Jarekt (talk) 20:59, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
What's the state of that. It used to be just proof of concept quality. What bothered me most was the limitation to categories as box tags. And the interface was... ...let's say we (or certainly you Lupo ;-) ) can do better. --Dschwen (talk) 23:07, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
No I did not try the "ImageBoxes" gadget before you mentioned it. I had the box checked, but never noticed anything different with or without it, and never found any documentation for it, like a link from gadget page, or something that shows up when searching the term. Also never seen any annotation used before on Commons. But since you mentioned it I poke around and noticed "Add a Box" link below all the images, Which I have never noticed before. It did not do much: I draw a box around the church in the center in Image:A. Nevsky Cathedral in Warsaw (Aerial).jpg and I was asked to insert {{Imagebox|1|NaN|0|NaN|Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Warsaw}} in image description, which seems to put the box in wrong place. --Jarekt (talk) 01:46, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
Let me add here that I think "ImageBoxes" gadget has a lot of promise. Now that I know about it I think it would be great if it worked and was used more. --Jarekt (talk) 02:01, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
Just a note that I wrote a tool that can downsize very large PNGs efficiently. It should be tested though and reviewed by someone like brion or tim. -- Bryan (talk to me) 21:34, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
Where can I go on here to investigate image copyright upload issues?? Being fairly new to here... I'd like to participate more but am not familiar with this place much. --Kelsington (talk) 22:30, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
(Please feel free to translate this message into whatever language you like and paste it on whatever various village pump exists in your preferred language)
Hello! This is a message to inform all the Wikipedias and people interested in the Wikipedias that there is an ongoing project to fix the errors in the Wikipedia logo. There's also a plan to add more characters in the blank spaces and find characters for the other sides of the globe. Feel to visit the page on Meta-Wiki and discuss it on the talk page. If this message has arrived in the wrong place, please update the distribution list. Thank you, and see you on Meta! Bastiquedemandez00:02, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
Hello. FlickreviewR was granted bot status by Bastique. but his edits were visible on RC. Something wrong?--Kwj2772 (d) 05:35, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
Media restoration
Over on a sister WMF site a dozen of us have set up a media restoration project. Its natural home would be here, though. Posting to open a dialog about opening a Commons project for that purpose. Durova (talk) 06:15, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
The graphics village pump specifically turns away media restoration, but it could be a good link from our project. Durova (talk) 20:22, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
Hello, I uploaded the images Pokedex-German.jpg and Pokedex-Deluxe-German.jpg more than a year ago, showing merchandise versions of so-called "Pokédex" devices. However, the administrator Gizmo II deleted those a month ago. Because of the Pokémon logos on them, if I understand right. I blurred out the pictures of the copyrighted characters and the "Pokéball", but not the logos because there are a lot of photos of devices with logos on Commons. For example, Nintendodsfrench.jpg had a deletion request because of Nintendo logos, but was kept. And even the Pokémon logo itself is found on another photo, TOYOTA ist Pikachu Car.jpg, which went through two deletion requests, but was kept as well (Gizmo II deleted this one because of the Pokémon logo, too, but it got restored). There was probably not any discussion before, at least Gizmo II didn't even leave a message on my talk page. So what is about these images now? If those logos are really that big a problem, I could blurry those out, too, but why if other images have logos from Nintendo as well? --Grandy02 (talk) 16:59, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
It all depends on the size and complexity of the logos and other copyright material. Your images not only had the Pokémon logo but also had a graphic design on the printed labels. The Nintendo image is a much simpler logo and apart from that there is no graphic design. The Car image I think is on the edge. So, to avoid problems I would blur any prominent logos as well as other printed graphics. You should then be OK. See COM:CB#Product packaging: printed labels on a product are usually treated in the same way--MichaelMaggs (talk) 17:16, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the quick answer! :-) Okay, if those aren't allowed, I'll upload new versions with blurred out questionable parts. --Grandy02 (talk) 17:15, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
October 17
Renaming of commons categories is breaking links to commons
The problem is that (AFAIK) there isn't an easy way of finding "what links here" from other projects. Similar to how renaming an article on en.wiki will break every iw link on other projects which are pointing to it. /Lokal_Profil12:11, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
That is simply not true. Renaming an article makes a redirect, and after som time robots will have adjusted interlanguage links. But here you guys are deleting links, with no way of showing where content has gone. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 12:18, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
Redirect after move is not necessarily stays forever. It may be deleted too (as in case of wrong spelling).
Oh, please, not the same old discussions again. That interwiki discussion is as old as interwiki's themself. Just dont delete the redirect right away so my bot has time to pick up the new location. I might implement something to have the bot at the deletion summary, but of course admins have to leave something useful in there ;-) Multichill (talk) 11:18, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
This image is being used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use, obviously since it's on Commons it should be free. Who's wrong? Guest9999 (talk) 16:36, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
Since it's a 1964 or 1965 U.S. book cover, it's not obviously in the public domain; only if it were specifically documented that copyright was not renewed etc. could it be usedhere on Commons... AnonMoos (talk) 18:59, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
October 20
October 21
Poma 2000 system in Laon
I put all the pictures off the special funicular in a new category: Poma 2000 system in Laon.
It is a subcategory off Laon and funiculars off France. But I cant rename the category to "Poma 2000 system" or "Poma 2000". "in Laon" is not necessary.
S2 - which hosts the commons database amongst others - is not replicating. This was announced on the toolserver-mailinglist last sunday, where it was also stated that it would take "at least a few days" before things was back to normal. Current status says that it lags by 5+ days, so i suppose they are working up the backlog. --Hebster (talk) 09:57, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
Since last server update graphics render doesn't work well, you can read up in this page. Thumbnail for svg file works only if you use english alphabet only letters. I think this problem must be resolved at maximun priority, because commons is multi-language, and in few days we will have hundreds of wikis with broken image... --Skyluke 19:10, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
I say it's not even priority. It's critical to allow any character on filenames. After all, "cono" is not the same as "coño". -- Drini19:25, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
The three pieces in the center of that image are capitals, but I don't Know what are the other pieces, do know someone what are? Vibria (talk) 08:16, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
Is there somewhere to get updates on the progress on getting the database repaired? I'm really missing being able to use tools like Commonshelper, Check usage, etc. —Ashanda (talk) 18:13, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
Well, I think the db is restored, now it's just a matter of replicating all changes from commons for the last 10 days to toolserver. Lag is currently at 1 week, 12hrs. -mattbuck (Talk) 15:07, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
River just reported on the Mailinglist that the replication is running again and will probably catch up with the Live Database within 24h. --Dschwen (talk) 16:44, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
Geotagging made easy
Hi people, i wrote a tool to easily geotag images. The tool is available here.
On the left side you can set some options:
Type : Country/city/airport, you probably want to use "landmark" for Commons.
Wiki : For now only nlwp and Commons, i'll add more wiki's. If you want your wikipedia added please leave me a note with a link to your local location template.
Page: You can enter the title of the page to which you want to add the template.
Google controls are in the top left corner. In the bottom right corner you'll find a search box to make finding things even easier. You can doubleclick or use your scrollwheel to zoom. When you click in the map the template code is generated and placed under the map. If you entered a page, a direct link will appear to quickly add the template. The toolserver seems to be having some problems so sometimes the page has a hard time loading (just press reload). Have fun! Multichill (talk) 11:28, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, nice, but not really any easier than User:Dschwen/Coordinate_conversion_helper ;-). Plus it does not seem to be working in either Firefox 3, nor Konqueror. Also type is not used on commons, and the most important commons parameter heading is still missing in your tool. --Dschwen (talk) 12:35, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
That's a geek tool, this is supposed to be a tool understandable by regular users. I think the problem is on your side, it works fine with FF3, dont know about Konqueror though. According to the documentation at {{Location}} type is in use. Multichill (talk) 12:56, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
Uhm, ok, but you did take a look at Commons:Geocoding, did you? There is a list of tools, and one of them (the hjk tool) is.. ..rather similar to yours (Except it does not have that useful search box!). I disagree however on the geekyness of my tool. How hard is it to center a google maps or microsoft live maps view on a location and copy the address? (Thats right, in some places ms live maps has better imagery than google). P.S.: works now in FF3, but what is the zoom parameter. You shouldn't introduce non standard parameters. There already are dim (dimension of the coded object in meters, but useless for commons) and scale (map scale, which you could probably calculate from the google maps zoom). --Dschwen (talk) 14:06, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
Ok, three suggestions:
set a cookie to remember the last location on the map and open the map there (I frequently have a bunch of pictures to tag, all taken in close proximity)
make a javascript gadget that creates a geotagging tab whenever an image is not yet geocoded (on click jump to your script with the name box prefilled)
add a convenient way to generate headings for commons
It would also be nice if a short hint would be displayed in commons-mode that the location and direction of the camera should be geocoded. --Dschwen (talk) 19:22, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
Unless I have some sort of restriction (for example, it's a derivative work of a GFDL file), all files that I create are uploaded as public domain (see Image:Runway 24R, Dayton International Airport.jpg as an example of my standard format), and even when the contributions necessarily have restrictions, I note that my changes are PD. Curious, though: would it be appropriate to make a slightly modified template for myself (hosting it in my userspace) that would give the entire text of the PD-self box, with a little line of text underneath saying basically that I'd be happy if people credited me? I'm assuming that simply placing a PD-self license on my own image, with a normally-typed request for credit, is permissible under our policies; I'm only curious whether it would be valid to have such a template in my userspace and use it on image licenses. Nyttend (talk) 06:20, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
et
The way I understand it, if attribution is "encouraged" but not required than you should be fine. I personally do not like user specific licenses, and would prefer just adding a box below the current license template that author would like to be attributed, if possible. I thought we had a non-license template saying something along those lines, but I can not find it. --Jarekt (talk) 13:16, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
I'd agree with Jarekt, add a small box below (or above) the PD-self tag instead. If you want to save on your writing you can create a page in your user subspace with the box and the PD-self template and then subst that page onto image pages. That way you only have to add one line of text but you are using a clean PD-self template directly on the image page. /Lokal_Profil15:38, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
I (and apparently many others) have asked for trusted user status on this page for some time and still haven't seen anything change. Can someone take a look at it? Richard001 (talk) 09:57, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
Why do we allow Freedom of Panorama pictures on Commons ?
What you are talking about is the restriction that you cannot duplicate the copyrighted work in the same medium, ie make a duplicate statue, or use oil on canvas to recreate a painting. Arguably, this makes the work unfree for derivative works, but what is FOP really giving you? The right to reproduce an image in 2 dimensions only. It does not give you the right to reproduce it in 3. Does this make the photograph unfree because you cannot use it to make a new statue? But in reality what we say is the photograph itself is free, what is represented in it is still somebody else's work and if you want to do anything not covered under the FOP law then you must get permission. -Nard the Bard20:12, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
Of course you can make derivative works. The only thing not allowed is using the photograph for making similar buildings or statues. (You knew that, Teofilo, right?) /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 20:14, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
There are restrictions on selective cropping of many images we accept here, including many that use the {{Trademark}} template, and all where De minimis use is claimed, but all of those have long been allowed. We do not and never have said that every possible derivative work is allowed. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 20:24, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
You know, after actually readingCOM:FOP#Further derivative works (and COM:FOP#The right to modify above it) it does seem to me that Teofilo may have a point: the limited right to modification granted e.g. by the German freedom of panorama rules (German copyright law, §62), as paraphrased by the "right to modify" section of COM:FOP, seems more or less equivalent to that granted by CC-BY-ND (section 3: "to make such modifications as are technically necessary to exercise the rights in other media and formats"), which we do not consider a free license. While I personally quite strongly believe that such minor and reasonable limitations on reuse as imposed by trademarks, publicity rights or de minimis inclusion of unfree works should not disqualify an otherwise appropriately licensed work from being considered free, disallowing "any modifications except those technically required by the method of replication" really goes way too far. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 22:11, 22 October 2008 (UTC) (Note: Comment slightly edited for clarity and grammar on 12:40, 23 October 2008 (UTC).)
VARA allows authors to waive their rights, en:Visual Artists Rights Act is saying. Isn't a free license such a waiver, and doesn't the Wikimedia Commons policy require to accept only pictures which are distributed with such a waiver ? Teofilo (talk) 07:11, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
Commons does not require evidence of a VARA-waiver by for example sculptors of work commissioned by the US federal government. But anyway, this kind of restrictions is not nuch different from personality rights of people in photographs. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 07:39, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
Germany's freedom of panorama law does seem to come closer to the line, but it has been discussed before. The FOP law (where it exists) is usually more along the lines that the photograph of a public sculpture is not a derivative work (and thus there are no restrictions at all on reusing the photo). The section you are linking to is specific to Germany's law, not a generality, I think. Carl Lindberg (talk) 08:26, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
I think it is not specific to Germany : COM:FOP#Further derivative works seems to apply also to architectural works in the United States : freedom to make photographs does not seem to include the freedom to alter these photographs and create a picture of an imaginary modified version of the building, like adding windows on a blind wall, or two more floors. Teofilo (talk) 12:13, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
There is nothing in the U.S. law which would prevent that, I'm pretty sure. Copyright in an architectural work does not extend to photographs (or other pictorial representations) of that work, i.e. such photos are not derivative works, so a derivative work of the photo is dependent only on the copyright of the photo itself. 17 U.S.C. §120(a). Making a 3-D version would be a derivative work of the original building directly, not the photo (as none of the photo's expression would be present in the 3-D work). This is the usual situation with FOP laws. If you note at the top of this section of the page: We will discuss here the case of the German legislation, so any technical details in those subsections are specific to Germany. It is quite possible that the German law is only referring to further 3-D works as well; if that is the case maybe that section should be reworded to be more clear. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:51, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
Don't forget that our understanding of the German law is that photographying 2-D artworks like murals is allowed in Germany. You say that in the USA, photos of architectural works "are not derivative works", but I don't think so. Photos of 3-D works are either always or never derivative works. If photos of sculptures are derivative works of sculptures, then photos of architectural works should also be derivative works of architectural works... In two occurences on Commons:Village pump/Archive/2007Apr, user:Fb78 says Freedom of panorama does not magically turn copyrighted material into free material, and I think that I agree with him. Teofilo (talk) 15:52, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
That is the entire point of freedom of panorama laws -- they explicitly specify limitations on normal copyright to derivative works. The law defines what is a derivative work and what is not... there is no "always or never" or global law; each country's law can pick and choose. The U.S. law explicitly says that a copyright of an architectural work does not extend to photographs of that work, so the photograph is not a derivative work, copyright-wise. There is no similar exception listed for sculpture, so it is presumed that photographs of those are derivative works. Freedom of panorama (where it exists) is usually restricted to permanent installations, so when a sculptor allows a work to be put up in public in such a country, they lose all derivative rights on photos of that sculpture (and should be aware of that). But, the technical details in every country's law could be different. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:10, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
When you say that in some cases a photograph is not a derivative work, I would still prefer to say that this photograph is a derivative work although making it does not require an authorization. Even if you disagree with me about the pictures with more windows or more floors than the real building, I suppose that you would agree that using a FOP picture to make a small scale paper model is not allowed under the US copyright law. This means that a fundamental freedom of free licensed works is not available for FOP pictures in the USA. Teofilo (talk) 17:56, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
I wouldn't prefer that at all :-) Copyright never prevents the making of photographs, just reproduction, distribution, etc. A small paper model is a derivative work of only the building itself, not the photograph. It wouldn't matter which photo was used (copyrighted or not). To be a derivative work of a photograph, the end result would have to encompass some of the actual expression specific to that particular photograph, as opposed to just any photograph of the building -- otherwise it is derivative of the original building only. Some of the "skill and labour" countries may define "derivative" a little bit different, sometimes taking into account the process, but not the U.S. And this example probably wouldn't qualify even there, since the skill in taking the photograph is not present in the model. An altered photograph would be a derivative of the first photograph, but again not the building (the architect's copyright does not extend to any 2-D representation of the building in the U.S.); the copyright of such photos or drawings or paintings or film is entirely owned by their authors and can be licensed as they wish. Using a photo to make a model is not a use of the copyrightable expression in the photo, and so would not be a "use" the copyright sense. You could probably come up with a situation where a model is derivative of both the photo and the building, but that would be rare. Carl Lindberg (talk) 02:34, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
There is also a practical problem here. I doubt it is practical to clear out all FOP pictures without decimating our contributor base, who will get very, very upset, and most will not understand what is going on. I do sometimes worry when taking pictures of 20th-century statues. But pictures of old statues are still, of course, OK. Unless you worry about whether public display = publication, or not... Carcharoth (Commons) (talk) 11:37, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
I think it's essential to keep in mind here that, as Carl Lindberg notes, different countries have different laws regarding photographs of buildings and public artworks. Lumping them all under a blanket term like "Freedom of Panorama" and then asking if all such works are suitable for Commons is about as meaningful as asking whether Creative Commons licenses are free. The answer is that some are and some aren't. The German law seems to forbid the modification of pictures taken under §62; thus, it doesn't seem free enough for Commons. This is a peculiarity of the German law, though, and is probably not shared by the corresponding laws of most other countries. I'm sorry if I seem to be belaboring the point, but I'd just like to do as much as I can to minimize the kind of "You're wrong, U.S. law says this! — No, you're wrong, German law says that!" argumentation that some of the discussion so far seems to reduce to. (And yes, I admit I could've been clearer about it myself.) I do still believe it would be worth taking a second look at the freeness of pictures taken under the German FoP law, as well as those from any other country whose laws may have similar restrictions. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 21:02, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
I'm certainly not an expert, and I could obviously be wrong, but the cannot-modify provision seems to be rooted in §39, which applies to *all* works -- so even a regular photograph from a German user is subject to the same limitations. If that is the case... then wouldn't §39 (and thus the §62 restriction) just be more of a moral rights issue, in that you cannot "alter" a work, changing its character, while still attributing it as (only) the work of the original author (i.e. falsely attributing an altered work to the original author is a violation of moral rights). If we are literally reading "can not alter" as a copyright restriction then it would seem to say that almost all derivative works are illegal... that seems counterintuitive. If §62 is just an affirmation of the moral rights of the author of the pictured object, I don't see a problem. Am I missing anything? Carl Lindberg (talk) 06:12, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
§62(1) seems pretty explicit to me: "Where the use of a work is permissible under the provisions of this Section, no alteration may be made to the work." The "this Section" refers to the whole of Section VI ("Limitations on Copyright"), i.e.§45–§63a (and possibly §44a, which is listed under "Abschnitt 6" in the official German version but is missing from the translation, probably because it's a recent addition). As far as I can tell (I am not a lawyer, and certainly not a German IP lawyer), the reference to §39 in §62(1) seems to merely reaffirm that the latter does not override the former. The examples cited in COM:FOP#Germany seem to back this interpretation: for example, the answer to question 4 here explicitly says that photoshopping a picture of a building taken under §59 (other than to e.g. rescale it to web resolution) is not allowed. That said, it would be nice to know exactly what §39(2) is generally taken to permit: I'd assume it simply refers to trivial modifications that no-one could be reasonably expected to object to, but as I said, I don't really know the relevant case law. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 08:12, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
I'm certainly not a lawyer either, let alone have much concept of German copyright technicalities :-) However I read it to say that §39 rights of the pictured object remain even though though the exploitation right does not (and the photo would also seemingly be subject to the §39 rights of the photographer). Seems as though the lack of ability to "alter" is inherent in any and all German works, and there is nothing special about freedom of panorama works (except that there are two authors which have §39 interests in it). It does seem to come down to what §39(2) means... you may be right, but I could also see it meaning any alteration which does not prejudice the author is OK (if reading it from a moral rights perspective). Do free licenses normally require authors to relinquish §39 rights? I know this has been hashed out a lot before, but I can't find the discussion. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:13, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
October 23
Moving pictures in video
Some videos are made by simply having audio and pictures, or sometimes by having a static picture where the point of view is changing, e.g. moving up the picture. I'm guessing it is not possible to reduce file size in a .OGG file by storing something like the image and instructions to change view at a set rate? (Does having a static picture even reduce file size compared to constantly changing material?). Are there any formats that would allow this (maybe flash)? Richard001 (talk) 09:57, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
There are currently only 5 or so categories with the word moth(s) in it. If you cannot live with the local and google search facilities, I suggest to create a Moths (disambiguation) gallery or category. We have no clear strategy on that in commons, probably because there is no easy solution for the maintenance of that. We cannot use Category:Moths for disambiguation because in a minimum of time, it will be filled up with moth related items, which add another significant maintenance problem. --Foroa (talk) 17:10, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
I'll admit that I'm a neophyte in the field of licensing. Please see Image:Klippfisk.jpg. Is "byline needed for permission" a valid requirement for reuse? And does it mean that "Photo by Karl Ragnar Gjertsen" should be added when the image is used in Wikipedia, as it is in w:Dried and salted cod? I assumed not and removed the byline from that article, but an IP has added it back. Smalljim (talk) 13:22, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
No problem. I switched the image in the article to different one, without this (IMO annoying) requirement. Article authors do not get to sign their contribution in the article either. Why should a photographer get this kind of credit? --Dschwen (talk) 14:12, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply. Your replacement image gives a better idea of the scale, which is an improvement. But can you clarify what you mean by the "annoying requirement", please? Isn't attribution, as required by the CC licence, effectively the same as needing a byline (for reuse outside Wikimedia)? I'm just trying to learn here! Smalljim (talk) 16:14, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
Byline attribution is neither annoying nor disallowed on Commons, afaik. Free licenses can still require image attribution. You want your works free and not credit the photographer? -Nard the Bard17:09, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
I don't "want" anything in this regard. I was just trying to ascertain if a person who decides to upload one of his photos onto Commons can demand that he is credited in a byline (or photo caption) when that photo is used in en.wikipedia (or any other wikimedia site). I assume the answer is no. Smalljim (talk) 22:08, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
Creative Commons licenses require that attribution must appear “at least as prominent as the credits for the other contributing authors.” (cc-by-sa 3.0 unported Legal Code, section 4c). Some photographers do get a byline in en.wikipedia (see for example en:Image:TrangBang.jpg - “Please tag all thumbnails with 'Nick Ut / The Associated Press' to ensure compliance.”). Shouldn't authors of CC-licensed photos thus get just as prominent attribution as Nick Ut gets? --Kjetil_r17:28, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
at least as prominent as the credits for the other contributing authors. Should that mean that every author signs his contribution (paragraph, sentence, changed word)? I don't think so. Credit is on the image page. That is enough. --Dschwen (talk) 17:35, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
at least as prominent as the credits for the other contributing authors. To see the other contributing authors you need one click (history), thus to see image author you should require one click (on image to image page). CC-BY allows you to specify how you want to be credited, i.e. i want images to be attributed to Lokal_Profil rather then my IRL name. But it doesn't allow you to specify how the credit should be displayed. To take a silly example: I could otherwise demand that all attribution should be made in a font 20 sizes larger then all surrounding text and if there is not surrounding text then the attribution should be carved in stone. /Lokal_Profil15:31, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
If I apload an image at commons, and later I want revoke my permission I can delete that image. Might be someone has copied the image from commons into his computer, or in a site web, that is well, no problem, but I am giving a permission in Commons to copy and release that image and I want stop it. How can I stop it.
It is logic: for example I give every day some money to a non profit organization (for example, Wikipedia, Wikimedia, or Commons) if I give a new order to my bank I can stop the donation, it is legal.
The author of a work can give his copyrights, but he has a moral right on his own work, for example, Velazquez is death for 400 years at least, but he has the right to have his pictures in El Prado Museum, is his moral right. I think I have a moral right to delete my own work from Commons if I want it. If someone has a copy in his computer, at that moment, he can release it, at his own responsibility, but I can delete it on Commons.
Once you've released the images in the public domain or free-use (Creative Commons license) it can't be revoked. Bidgee (talk) 08:24, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
You can't formally legally unilaterally revoke permissions which you previously validly gave, but you can request that the images be deleted by nominating them for deletion through the usual process. Such concerns are often listened to if there is a good valid reason, but images won't automatically be deleted just because the original uploader requests it... AnonMoos (talk) 10:01, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
P.S. Once the money has already left your bank account, you may find it very difficult to retract a charitable donation... AnonMoos (talk) 10:05, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
At least as a moral right, and it is a moral duty, at least, for Commons, Wikimedia, or Wikipedia, if I thought it can damage me, I have the right to delete it. Vibria (talk) 13:30, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
You'll probably get a whole lot farther here by going through normal procedures and adducing specific valid reasons for the actions which you reqest be taken -- rather than loudly insisting on alleged "rights" which you simply do not have in a formal legal sense. AnonMoos (talk) 15:50, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
If X donates images to Commons under freelicense, Y copies it, then Y copy carries freelicense. You say "I want to revoke permission" but.. as Y site has free license allowing ANYONE to reuse, we can copy it from Y and host it with freelicense
That's the point of free licenses, you're not granting a license to commons or to "Y". You're granting a license to ***anybody***, so you just can't "revoke only Commons". 15:54, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
I do not revoke the copy on an alien computer, only on the computers of Commons. I don't ask the bank to return the money to my accounts (in that example) I revoke the order of a continuous transfer, then the bank do not return la sent money, but they stop all the new transfers. Other example: you do stop to my car to go from New York to California, I keep you till Chicago, very far from California, I stop my car there, I have no duty to keep you the rest of the journey. Vibria (talk) 17:24, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
Dear Vibria, when you upload a file to the Commons, you make a single, non-revokable transfer. You give up a portion of your rights, and you can't get them back without the Commons' agreeing with you. The free licences are very strict in this sense. You can't get your pictures deleted, and whoever may start distributing the images you've uploaded to the Commons anywhere in the net, provided he uses the same licence as you do and complies with it. It's like a thrown spear; you can't get it back. --MPorciusCato (talk) 18:31, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
Car analogy does not work (it's a unique material object, impossible to copy for reasonable cost). The bank is much closer: whatever you tell the bank, you don't control the money already spent, neither does the bank. It's gone, it's in someone else's hands, changing hands all the time. When you release some unique information (image) to the public, it's like spending money for a moment of pleasure - you give up your own asset for free, and it's gone. NVO (talk) 06:45, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
But, if, for example, this image can damage me in any way, Commons or Wikipedia or Wikimedia must delete it. I have the right to ask it. Vibria (talk) 13:26, 22 October 2008 (UTC) At least as a moral right, and it is a moral duty, at least, for Commons, Wikimedia, or Wikipedia, if I thought it can damage me, I have the right to delete it. Vibria (talk) 13:32, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
you have the right to ask, and if the image is deleted other site's can still use it under the same licence. It is almost inpossible to make sure the image isn't used any where Sterkebaktalk13:43, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
My unordered comments:
AFAIK, personality rights are not a copyright issue, so by some laws you can’t make a photo of a person completely free by releasing it under a free license, although you can release it under it (at least Commons does so). I have deleted your image. Even with JPEG, the person’s face (and other identifiable parts of their image) can be pixelized without affecting the quality of the rest of the image (using a program like jpegpixi, but not a usual image editor).
The problem was that you’ve failed to make a proper deletion request; consider using the “Nominate for deletion” button when you want to propose something for a deletion discussion. When you need something to be deleted quickly, there are other templates like {{Speedy}}.
Depending on how important it is, there is the template {{Personality rights}}, pixelization, speedy deletion… At least sometimes, a photo of a person made in a public place is not illegal.
Licences that are revocable are considered non-free here. The point of free content is that it has to be usable by anyone for any purpose at any time. Basically, if there is a copyright related loophole that allows you to revoke the licence, it is not free. ViperSnake151 (talk) 21:54, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
If I upload an image on Commons I have the right to revoque it and to delete the image, and I have the right to change my image and, for axample, to upload on that image an image saying "deleted", it is a right of anyone in Wikipedia and Commons. Vibria (talk) 19:55, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
Ok, which license is your work under? Read its terms. Show us where it says you can revoke it. It's a legal agreement, you cannot. -Nard the Bard20:09, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
You have the right to ask, but you'd lose. By DONATING (read UPLOADING) images to Commons, you release AT LEAST the following rights:
Republication must be allowed.
Distribution must be allowed.
The creation of derivative works must be allowed.
Commercial use must be allowed.
By trying to withdraw an image, you are stopping distribution of the image - a right you released. You're welcome to publish elsewhere under a different licence, but your donation to commons includes the agreement that anyone has the rights to reuse the image and distribute it as they see fit (subject to licence terms). -mattbuck (Talk) 20:17, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
The image has been deleted because it was obvious that you’ve requested deletion in good faith and not just decided that Commons doesn’t deserve to have your images. --AVRS (talk) 14:00, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
No, there's something going on between him and MarkMu, which started months ago on nl-wiki. Look at the history of the page. - Erik Baas (talk) 21:48, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
User MarkMu was importing problems from a other wiki (where he is block for two years) to commons. I have reverted him a few time's but he didn't stop. So i protected my talkpage so he had to stop (he is going true email but that is something that i can ignore). I removed the protection after 10 minutes so i don't see the problem really. Pieter next time send me a email or something like that. Posting in the villagepump was not needed. Sterkebaktalk21:56, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
Just add to your .css file .usermessage { display: none; } if the orange banners are annoying you. Administrators should not use their powers for their own convenience. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 23:24, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
Which brings me to the next question: what if an administrator tries to get an image deleted, just because of a personal conflict about it on nl-wiki ? And what if he does so anonymously ? See here. - Erik Baas (talk) 23:54, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
Sterkebak, you should probably ask someone else to protect your talk page rather than doing it yourself, but would you two please quit the mud-slinging, it's fun when there's a hot girl involved, but unless you two are willing to go on webcam and prove that you are hot girls, it's just annoying. I don't see the relevance of an IP nomming an image for deletion, even if it is Sterkebak. HOWEVER, having looked at the (fairly terrible) google translation of the revisions to Sterkebak's talk page, I don't see why it needed protecting at all. Seemed like a legit grievance to me. -mattbuck (Talk) 00:24, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
I hate to say it, but I'm starting to believe Sterkebak should not be kept after his probationary period. He knows far too little for copyright, even nominating an image of a dsl modem as a "derivative work" even with no artwork on it, and apparently knowing nothing of fop, nominating an image from the UK. -Nard the Bard01:39, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
Mattbuck i ask twice on the irc channel but no one give a respond. I really believe if you are vandal on a other project and are blocked there, you don't have to come to commons and leave messages like [8] or send me hatemail. After the protection the user ask te be blocked. If MarkMu want's to say sorry or something like that he can do before attacking me with talkpage messages and emails over two years not here en now. Nard the Bard i am very sorry to hear that, but if i am not sure about a image i nominate it for deletion. I didn't really know a admin should know all COM:FOP rules.If I am not sure i nominate. Sterkebaktalk03:43, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
I take back what I said, as Sterkebak points out on my talk page there is a legitimate question whether fop applies where the statue was. I'm sorry maybe I was just doubting too much. -Nard the Bard16:44, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
As some one who voted *against* Sterkebak for commons administrator may I please try to help out here? Please give this guy the leeway and allow help and coaching from his mentors now and do not jump on him. Also I do hope that he can constrain himself and not react on comments received from blocked wiki-nl user MarkMu at all how hard this may be sometimes for him. Mark knows he should not do this but I understood that due to serious personal problems he wrote about he cannot sometimes restrain himself so if those of you please focus on judging Sterkebak on his willingness to work hard and allow his mentors to help him learn the "how to" do well and improve hopefully up to standard and do not jump on the bandwagon. If some one has a problem with work done by Sterkebak I suggest focus on the case involved and contact one of his mentors describing the problem encountered factually. Kind regards, MoiraMoira (talk) 08:07, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
October 24
Needs fixing
The category Cathedrals by Country has the cathedrals listed in alphabetical order of the country. However, each individual sub-cat begins with the word "Cathedral", as in "Cathedrals in France" etc. Probably for this reason a number of the countries are listed under "C" for "Cathedral" rather than under the appropriate initial letter of the country. So, under "C" are listed "Cathedrals in Canada", "Cathedrals in Australia", "Cathedrals in Serbia" etc etc. There are about four countries wrong listed, and I have no idea how to fix the problem.
Mandy (talk) 08:29, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the info. I've fixed a couple so if you check my last edit you will see one I got right first time (!). Basically you need to pipe the name of the country to get the sort correct. So for Serbia for example you need to add |Serbia to the end of Cathedrals by country and that will work. There may be better ways to do it of course but taht is the one I know. Thanks --Herbytalk thyme08:37, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
Does this happen very often? Otherwise i could write a bot to check all the ..by country categories every once in a while. Multichill (talk) 12:12, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
Happens relatively often, especially when using HotCat. While at it, one could check the of/from or in/of consistency and cat naming consistency (I.e. "Topic from France" vs "French topic"). The sooner those problems are detected, the less effort needed for correcting. --Foroa (talk) 12:46, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
What are you saying here? Are these lists of errors that must be tackled manually- or lists, that one of your bots is about to do and you are wanting manually confirmation that these are the correct changes?
Fully agree. If it is messy, so it is normal that it is not followed. To put it politely, de commons scheme and rules is growing organically and I am somtimes amazed about (some of) the resulting consistency. so it might be the right time to review that category scheme. --Foroa (talk) 16:48, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
As far as i can see whe have the discription page but the files are missing. I think whe must upload the files again. But i am not sure enough, the problem could be solved in a few day's as it is a server error. But i am not sure. Sterkebaktalk21:33, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
Here they are. There were quite a lot of 503 errors, so I may be able to recover a few more if I run it again in a few days. Note that these are the latest versions archive.org has, which may not always be the version that was lost. Also, I didn't even try to recover the ones listed as "size mismatch", both because my script can't tell them from already fixed images and because some of them may have more complicated issues than the ones that are simply missing. Now running the same script for enwiki... —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 23:41, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
Very, very cool -- can those just be moved back into place, or do they have to be manually uploaded? You can check the archive.org timestamp (part of the URL) against the image history's version list to see which version it is; not sure how easy that is in the bot. For the above few images, I had some 503 errors the day before, so trying it even the next day may have good results. Really cool though. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:41, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
In the top right hand corner of the sub-section called "UK vs. worldwide perspective". It would also be better as 300 or 400 pixels wide instead of a thumb. Thank you very much. EvP (talk) 15:13, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia has it's own procedure for this kind of request and has a much larger community of editors and admins to help. Just drop the tag {{editprotected}} on a talk page with an explanation of the request. J.smith (talk) 22:52, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
Do you recognize one?
Hi, this is Rod Stewart in 2004. But who is the woman with the violin? Has she an article in wikipedia?
And who is the guy with the guitar solo after 2' 45" ?
Is this some kind of a joke? Why the hell won't it upload... and why is it red? Look in my contributions history and you can see my attempts. Please help.Manhattan Samurai (talk) 01:09, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
I use the mobile version of the Opera browser. That one can also view commons. (it is pretty fast also) but gonna check it out :-) Sterkebaktalk21:52, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
Gadgets not working
Hi,
I'm fairly new to Commons, and was recommended I patrolled new images as they were uploaded, as a way of helping out. Having asked on the IRC channel, I added a few gadgets in order to help with tagging images for speedy deletion. However, in the toolbox for such images, I'm left with two identical links to create a DR page, which is unnecessary for obvious copyvios. This obviously isn't right; there should be more links on the toolbox, and certainly not duplicates. I'd appreciate some help here, if possible. Thank you very much. How do you turn this on (talk) 14:32, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
The picture here was used in this revision on EN [10] - The description was "A classic example of a baby exposed to Cocaine and Meth while in the womb."
I have crafted a SQL query that lists people who have uploaded images made by different cameras. These may be people who are very rich and can afford multiple cameras, people who often upload images from other projects... or, people who snatch the first image they find from the web and upload it here.
Probably, people more versed in Commons procedures should go after such uploaders, so if someone is interested, (s)he may ask that this query is run at the Toolserver's Query service. The query follows:
What do you mean by go after such uploaders? I'd be one of them, and I'm neither very rich, nor do i snatch the first image they find from the web and upload it here, nor do I often upload from other projects. I simply a) upgraded to an SLR a 1.5 years ago, and uploaded occasional edits of other peoples' images. --Dschwen (talk) 21:46, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
I believe I'd have 5 cameras (6 next year), some Flickr uploads, a couple grabs from Creative Commons websites, some diagrams I whipped up in Powerpoint, a couple figures I threw together in CAD, a screenshot, a couple USGS images, and... hmm I'm sure I could think up some more. Perhaps the intent is good, but I'm a bit skeptical of the value. Er, unless I'm misunderstanding this whole tool to begin with... always a very likely possibility. --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 22:01, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
I don't know. I am aware of a user uploading from HP Photosmart E327, HP Photosmart E427, SONY DSC-H2, SONY DSC-F828, SONY CYBERSHOT, SONY DSC-H9, SONY DSC-P73, Premier DS 3090s (3MP-9CA), SAMSUNG DIGIMAX A503, DV 4MP-9TU, Olympus C5050Z, Fujifilm FinePix4900ZOOM and plenty without exif, claiming them all his own... Lycaon (talk) 22:12, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
If we would have a scoring filter for suspicious behaviour, uploading images from all sorts of camera's would certainly improve the probability. Nikola, did you already test or do the query? Multichill (talk) 22:22, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
I know a couple camera gurus whom collect a whole swath of different cameras, and they use pretty much all of them for various purposes. I agree with Multichill that this would be a great component of a greater tool which scans across numerous suspicious indicators, but on its own: I'd take it lightly. --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 17:17, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
Actually, I did run the query, it didn't took too long. The biggest culprits are bots, as expected, and I haven't actually found some copyright violators - probably because I haven't looked into number of cameras vs total number of pictures uploaded. But results from running it on some Wikipedias were more useful. I can put the results somewhere for download if someone is interested. Nikola (talk) 19:36, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
There are many reasons why people upload photos from multiple cameras. For example somobody works for magazine that test cameras etc. I declared my cameras at userpage, but some photos that I made are also from different cameras. --Dezidor (talk) 16:55, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
This is outrageous. Professionals and amateurs may have access to several cameras at schools, user groups, their own studios, or large agencies. They may also be reposting images from open sources—you know, like Wikis or something. To automatically consider them suspicious is not only a blatant disregard for good faith, but potentially casting aspersions on projects just like this one.
This may also be a violation of privacy, and a great tool for thieves who can fence expensive collections of cameras, and for overzealous police agencies who harass people when they take their medicine on the plane or take pictures at a public place. If people around here start treating my personal information this way, then I may reconsider what contributions I want to make.
To be clear: my beef is not about what data is available and how can be processed. It is about the attitude of the way it is being interpreted. —MichaelZ. 2008-10-25 19:19 z
Please. No one suggested automated people hunting, but simply using this as a pointer for people to check potential violators. Nikola (talk) 19:36, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
The trouble is, for the reasons given above, it will be almost useless as a way to catch copyright violators. Most people who do that sort of stuff strip meta data before uploading. Better to tackle this from a different angle. Identify images lacking paperwork and then examine other uploads by the uploader. Better still would be a reliable method of image patrolling, such that all images can be checked by reliable people who will take responsibility if they mark a dodgy image as patrolled. Also, image patrolling would avoid the same images being checked over and over again by different people. Carcharoth (Commons) (talk) 16:40, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
Wouldn't such image patrolling be a bit too authoritarian (not to mention an excessive burden), though? I must agree with Bossi above; this could be an useful tool for help in generally indicating possible trouble, but by itself it just doesn't do much. Besides, considering how inexpensive and "borrowable" digital cameras are these days, I don't think it even amounts to much of a wealth indicator either. Nikola overstated the matter with that talk of "very rich" people. But it is still a good idea to try and find possible fakes, so this tools is not without value, if taken with a grain of salt, as an aid for other tools. Luis Dantas (talk) 09:56, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
The wording on the original post isn't all that great; it does seem to imply that multiple cameras is grounds for suspicion (which it is not). It is an interesting idea, though my gut feel is that there is going to be a lot of "noise" (i.e. absolutely legitimate uploaders) in the results (and quite likely the large majority of them). Most images you randomly grab off the net do not have EXIF info in them. You would also have to do a lot of legwork to find the original versions of the photos (existing elsewhere prior to their upload to Wikipedia/Commons) to show that there is in fact a problem (multiple cameras in and of itself indicates nothing). That said, speculation is just that -- there is no way to tell for sure (either way) without actually running the query, and actually investigating the results. Someone may indeed come up with a pattern or filter that can identify at least a number of problematic uploads. Was this query actually run, and did any of the higher results seem to show actual problems? Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:44, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Michael, there is a privacy concern here. Generally, it's not a good idea to collect this kind of information about people unless there is a very good reason to. Guido den Broeder (talk) 21:23, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
That is also a good point. Technically, the information is already available for everyone, just not formatted, but it still would not be a good idea to make the statistics easily available. That in turn may lead to people stripping EXIF information from uploads, which is not something we want to encourage. Carl Lindberg (talk) 03:38, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I ran it (after my initial comment), and all the suspicious people I looked into manually were people who were uploading images from Wikipedias. Nikola (talk) 21:09, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
Categories
I often want to add categories to a file/page, and use en.wikipedia as a guide. However, categories here and at Wikipedia don't match up all that well, often because WP has a more extensive system of categorization than Commons and thus many of the links are red. When I encounter such a red link, I generally look at what the parent categories are at Wikipedia and add them instead. Sometimes you have to go to the 'grandparent' or further to find a suitable category, and some of these will be irrelevant. We seem to have bots that do this automatically, selecting parent categories if a redlink is found, when images are moved from Wikipedia. They are not very good at it of course (an area to improve), but a they provide a good base of categories to choose from - the irrelevant ones can be removed, and the relevant ones are quite likely to be there. Is there a way I can get a bot to do this when I'm creating, say, a new category? This way I could just trim down the ones the bot provides rather than tiresomely go through the process myself. The results might not be quite as good, but for the time it would save it would be worth it. Richard001 (talk) 03:27, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
I don't think that automatic moving of EN:WP categories is good idea. There are some differences (for example foo people <-> people of Foo and so on). --EugeneZelenko (talk) 14:31, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
What of it? These are just category redirects (or should be); a bot can deal with them. Ideally a category redirect would not show up in blue at the bottom but another colour, just as non-existent categories show up in red. Richard001 (talk) 23:57, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia has a more extensive system of general-purpose categories, while Commons often has a more fine-grained special-purpose system of categorizing images... AnonMoos (talk) 14:55, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
One can still refine one's categories as well, but some automation would surely speed the process up tremendously. I'm going through and writing down the process I use when categorizing here, and two things are clear - it's very algorithmic (and hence both boring and capable of being done by a machine) and takes a very long time to do thoroughly. It would be much more efficient to let a bot do the majority of the work, then I could look at what it had suggested/done and make any additions/removals etc as needed. Richard001 (talk) 23:57, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
Image redirect naming scheme for taxa
Whenever I create templates on Wikipedia, Wiktionary or another project I try to make it as efficient and flexible as possible. Today I spent some thoughts on a template for one of the minor Wiktionaries. My thought was, that all Wiktionary entries on animals and plants should have info on the scientific latin name of the species and an image. But I didn't like the idea of having to choose an image of a prototypical exemplar from Commons for every single one of them. Too much work to go to categories and galleries to choose the best of the best and the most examplary image of the species. I thought about a bot using the English translation given in the dictionary entry to get the name of the image used in the infobox of the English Wikipedia article on that species. But the Wiktionary interwiki link doesn't necessarily match the title of the Wikipedia article... Then I had a much better idea. Choosing the best and most examplary image of a specific species shouldn't be the job of the creator of the entry on Wiktionary, that job would be much better done by the people on Commons. They are the experts on images. They know the available images better. Image redirects do work now, so we could create redirects like Image:Bos taurus.jpg pointing to the most examplary image of a cow or bull available on Commons. Image:Megachasma pelagios.jpg would redirect to the most examplary image of a Megamouth shark available on Commons. We actually have no image of a Megamouth shark on Commons at all, but that would be another advantage: If an image of a Megamouth shark becomes available, we have to manually update all Wikipedia articles and all Wiktionary entries to include this new image. But with the proposed naming scheme we could create templates using #ifexist: which look for the existance of those image redirects. That would mean, our Megamouth shark would immediately be visible in all Wikipedia articles with these flexible templates after we create the Image:Megachasma pelagios.jpg redirect.
It's just asking for editwarring. It's already the case on en: that a large number of image uploaders think that the "most exemplary" image is the one that they just uploaded, no matter what was there already. There is also a problem in that "exemplary" depends on the use, so a cookbook might prefer a picture of a cherry fruit, while the gardening manual wants a picture of the cherry flower. Even so, I could see maybe introducing a mini-voting or ranking scheme of some sort. For redirects, exemplar images would need some unique name prefix/suffix, since many of the "genus species.jpg" names are in use already, often by poor images to boot. Stan Shebs (talk) 16:23, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
It's just asking for editwarring Every edit can cause an editwar. You could create a catologue of needed features for "exemplary images" (like "the face of an animal has to be visible", "organisms should be shown in their natural habitat" etc.). It would only be accepted to change the redirect to another image, if the new image fulfuls more criterions from this catalogue. For example the English Wikipedia article on tigers shows a tiger in his natural habitat (Image:Tigerramki.jpg). But the tiger does not look at the photographer and the face is only visible half. The German Wikipedia articles has an image of a tiger in a zoo (Image:Panthera tigris tigris.jpg), but it looks at the viewer and the resolution of the image is higher. Both are okay, but Image:Panthera tigris tigris.jpg would be preferred, cause it has more advantages. For example images of white tigers, lying tigers, close-ups of tiger faces, bathing tigers, dead tigers etc. are all not examplary enough.
a cookbook might prefer a picture of a cherry fruit, while the gardening manual wants a picture of the cherry flower Of course you could extend my proposed scheme to Image:Prunus avium (fruit).jpg, Image:Prunus avium (flower).jpg, but my basic proposal is about biology and thus about the whole plant or animal (for plants with roots only the normally visible part, for insects the imago etc.).
The editwarring comes from asking people to pick just one of several possibilities, using what are basically subjective criteria. To use your example, is "in habitat" less important than percentage of face visible? What if the profile of the face shows the defining characteristic of the species, but the full face image is higher resolution? What do you do when everybody ranks the different criteria differently? Stan Shebs (talk) 19:32, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
That's not a problem specific to my proposal. You have to do the same as with all disputes. Try finding consensus. My proposal demands the same decisions, which are also to be made when choosing a picture for the taxobox of a Wikipedia article. The difference is only, that from a standard scheme directly on Commons all projects can benefit immediately. --Slomox (talk) 20:24, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
I already had some thoughts on possible criterions for above-mentioned catalogue and sexual bimorphism was one of it. The image should show both a male and a female if there is a relevant sexual bimorphism. If there is no image available showing both a male and a female, we have to use an image of only one of both for the time being. That's actually what Wikispecies and Wikipedia do too, see fo example species:Tetrao urogallus and the Wikipedia articles linked from it. --Slomox (talk) 15:41, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
October 22
Removing sound from a .ogg video
Would anyone be able to remove the sound component from an ogg video, or provide instructions how to? I have one of birds taking a bird bath, but there is some distracting radio and a little talking in the background which would probably be best removed. It would be nice if the sounds the birds made could be kept, but that seems like a far more difficult task. Richard001 (talk) 01:42, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
User:FredrikT has brought to my attention a German law of 1907 by which photographic works are protected for 10 years from publication in 2nd Reich. This would put German images published before 1918 in the public domain.
For photos, there is the fact that some countries have a high threshold of originality for "photographic works", and a lower protection for photos that don't meet that threshold (so called "simple photographs"). That's what this {{PD-Sweden-1969}} tag is about. Germany, however, has a low threshold of originality for photos, and so does (and did) Spain. Therefore, apply 70 years to German (and Spanish) photos. Besides, a Swedish photo that is a simple photograph in Sweden may well be a "photographic work" elsewhere in countries with a low threshold (e.g., in Germany, or in Spain, or also in the U.S., who have a very low threshold of originality), and thus we shouldn't rely on simple photograph rules at all. But that is another old discussion that never came to a real conclusion.
And this EU directive 93/98/EEC is law, or at the very least as good as law: its implementation was mandatory, it was implemented by all EU members, and it had to be implemented by the "new" EU members before they joined. There are court cases from the European Court of Justice that have settled this revival of copyrights clearly enough. Lupo15:56, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
I am deleting User:Rama/PD-2ndReich, then. It seems obvious that it will not be needed, and I would rather avoid any possible confusion caused by this template. Thank you, Lupo, for keeping the global picture in mind, your reminder is most appreciated. Rama (talk) 16:04, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
Now wait here a minute! I've just studied the article "Oberlandesgericht Hamburg - U-Boot Foto 1941" on German Wikisource, and as far as I can see the conclusions made in this case regarding a photo from (or rather published in)1943 are not valid for at photo from the 1910s. Under 3) the court explicitly says that the copyright of the 1943 photo was renewed because its original copyright protection (25 years from publication) had not yet expired when the new copyright law of 1965 was launched ("§ 26 KUG ist durch das jetzige UrhG vom 9.9.1965 aufgehoben worden (§ 141 Nr.5 UrhG). Für vorher geschaffene Lichtbildwerke, die zum Zeitpunkt des Inkrafttretens des heutigen UrhG noch geschützt waren - dies war auch nach dem Vortrag der Antragsgegnerin bei dem streitgegenständlichen Foto der Fall - trat aufgrund der Übergangsvorschrift des § 129 UrhG die erst 1985 aufgehobene Bestimmung des § 68 UrhG in Kraft."). I can only understand this as:
photos from 1940-64 whose copyright should have expired by the end of the years 1965-89 got their copyright renewed (with regard to the date of death of the photographer) with the new law of 1965,
photos taken/published before 1939 whose copyright had already expired in 1965 (which would include all phots taken during the 2nd Reich) would not have had their copyright renewed in 1965.
PS The above would seem very similar to the rule in Sweden that photos taken before 1944 are not included in the current copyright law since their copyright had already expired by the date the new law became effective. /FredrikT (talk) 20:23, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
You're certainly right about the non-revival of expired copyrights in 1965, but what is the connection with the EU directive, which did revive already expired copyrights? My take would be to look at §137f(2): "Die Vorschriften dieses Gesetzes in der ab dem 1. Juli 1995 geltenden Fassung sind auch auf Werke anzuwenden, deren Schutz nach diesem Gesetz vor dem 1. Juli 1995 abgelaufen ist,..." (emphasis added). §129(1) says "Die Vorschriften dieses Gesetzes sind auch auf die vor seinem Inkrafttreten geschaffenen Werke anzuwenden, es sei denn, daß sie zu diesem Zeitpunkt urheberrechtlich nicht geschützt sind oder daß in diesem Gesetz sonst etwas anderes bestimmt ist." (emphasis added). In my view, §137f(2) does "provide otherwise" because following §129(1), the 1965 UrhG did not revive already expired copyrights and thus such works had the same (already expired) term as under KUG. Since this term expired before July 1, 1995 (in fact, before 1965), §137f(2), which implements the EU directive, is applicable. But IANAL. Maybe ask User:Historiograf, he's the specialist for the German Urheberrechtsgesetz. Lupo22:29, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
There are lots of PD-USGov sub-tags, which somewhat show a source (and sub-categorize) as well. {{PD-USGov-Military-Marines}} and {{PD-USGov-State}} tags exist and can be typed in manually; I think the "easy" dropdown is probably for government sites which have a large number of available images (especially image databases) and so are particularly common, but that is just a guess. Department of State may be a good idea to add since that could encompass all the embassy-made images too. Carl Lindberg (talk) 05:44, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
It deffinitelly a wrong licence, because it's a derevativ work and thereby not {{tl|self}-made, even the author claims that it is. Because there is "San Francisco 1863" written below the picture I would use {{PD-old}}. Does anybody else have another idea? thx --D-Kuru (talk) 17:15, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
If the original is PD, then the author has full rights to any derivative work, and the license is not necessarily wrong (the photo itself is certainly self-made). In this case you could maybe argue that the slight reflection in the glass and other effects, as silly as it may seem, is enough extra expression to qualify for a thin additional copyright. On the edge, but maybe in some jurisdictions. In this case, the original work is PD-US and probably PD-Old (apparently an 1863 edition of a work first published, and copyrighted, in 1862[11]). I don't think it's really worth changing the license (though noting that the primary part of the image is PD-US wouldn't hurt). Carl Lindberg (talk) 02:29, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
October 29
A list of Flickr people willing/unwilling to change the license of their uploads
I think we should compile a list of people who are unwilling to change the license status of their uploads at Flickr. From my experience, the majority (who reply, at least; one never knows what to make of non-responses) seem willing to change the license. Those unwilling can be added to a list so that we don't have to bother them more than once. Additionally, a Commons-friendly list could also be added for those who say that they are willing the change the license on any image if requested. People could then look through their images to see if they have other ones that are needed here.
This is based on the assumption that I'm not the only person that requests images at Flickr (well, not the latter list actually, which could still be of some use to others if they asked me to make the request), which may not be the best one at this stage (there are one or two that I know of, but not many). However, if you look at the stats, you'll see that very few Flickr images are Commons compatible, yet as I have pointed out far more are with a request to the uploader. And Flickr has hundreds of times more images than we do, so if I am the only one that needs to change! Richard001 (talk) 00:07, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
I can't say I see the need. There are thousands, if not millions of flickr users, and generally the chances of two commons users wanting the same user's photos is fairly small. Besides, it's a pointless exercise. Say I want photos from a flickr user, I would have two options:
Check the database, find out if the user is on it, and ask accordingly.
Just ask.
Option 2 is much quicker, involves less hassle, and doesn't cut us off from potential photo suppliers. If I go for option 1, and the person is on the list, then yes they won't get asked. But they may well be willing to licence some images but not others - ie, they may not be willing to release photos of a construction project they worked on, but would be willing to release pictures of a railway they visited on holiday. If you don't ask, you won't find out. And if they're not willing, well, that's a shame, but one extra request isn't going to make much difference, and since it's unlikely they'll be asked often anyway, it's not an issue.
All in all, it would be a waste of time to make it, it would be impossible to maintain it, it wouldn't be remotely complete, and it would just slow down the process of actually asking. -mattbuck (Talk) 01:38, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
Well, I guess the people who say no can always specify this in their profile if they are getting bothered by it. Flickr friendly users who take a lot of good photos on the other hand could be worth keeping an eye on, especially if the initial contact doesn't want to search through all their photos or is only looking for photos within a narrow range. Richard001 (talk) 08:13, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
Half of the pictures display Singapore Police Special Operations Command and the rest US Military. The category must be split somehow. Sv1xv (talk) 18:40, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
There are tens of countries with some sort of Special Operations Command, so with such a general name, one attracts images from allover the world. --Foroa (talk) 19:03, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
What do you think ?
This one ?
And this one ?
Support - Non-free media on Commons are really not good, but it'd be fine to host them here if they can be used on all WMF wikis. Since this is technically possible, we should do so. — Mike.lifeguard | @en.wb 03:31, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
Done. --Dschwen (talk) 22:59, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Keep Dshchwen, if the new servers are in a new facility with a better connection.... J.smith (talk) 23:28, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Delete Dschwen does not appear to be in a free file format and I have been unable to create copies of Dschwen. Dragons flight (talk) 02:46, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
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