Commons:Village pump/Archive/2011/03

Approaching 10 million files

Commons has just passed the 9 million file mark, I'm not sure exactly when it happened though it appears to be within the past week, see above. The present upload rate is very high, largely as a result of the Geograph batch upload.

GeographBot is at about image number 1,200,000 (of the ~1.9M total) and the total file count is about 9.2M. Therefore, that one project will get us very close to the 10M mark and soon. Depending on the exact numbers remaining it might even get us past ten million by itself ignoring all other contributions.

Its time to start thinking about the biggest milestone for Commons since the 5 million mark in September 2009; it will be happening at some point in March.--Nilfanion (talk) 00:00, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Put it up in news pages: WikiNews? ITN? I think that would be nice. Rehman 03:40, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

For that purpose it would be good to know which file is the 10 millionth one. --Isderion (talk) 04:09, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Really what we'd do is what other projects do, which is choose a file that is about the 10 millionth one but is actually good. Dcoetzee (talk) 05:26, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

9,287K now (so that's about 60K a day), Commons:Press releases/10M seems a logical place to draft something (and could reuse the info from the 1M, 2M, 3M, 4M releases. It ought to go on the Main Page when it happens, and it may be worth alerting those who will be interested (such as WMF and the chapters) in advance?. As for identifying file #10,000,000 - it would be nice to have a chance of identifying it and giving it the best possible chance of being a high quality image by a Wikimedian. Both those suggest a temporary pause, or at least throttling, of upload bots like GeographBot when we are very close to the magic number.--Nilfanion (talk) 10:33, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I'd say let's do both - when we're close to the 10M mark throttle the bots, but if the actual 10 millionth upload is not a good one (e.g., copyvio or one of those poor quality "lookie me" ones that clog the upload queues) then let's choose a good one that was done nearby. Do we have any better estimate of when 10 million will be reached? I have contacts with some high quality photographers who regularly contribute so I'd like a chance to give them a heads-up. Tabercil (talk) 15:56, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, we are now at 9.4M, so in the past 2.5 days we got another 200,000 files. The current upload rate will get us to 10 million in about a week from now (so March 7th at the earliest). However, GeographBot may complete its upload before then. If that happens, the last 100,000 will take a bit longer.--Nilfanion (talk) 16:11, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Bad new uploads on top of old files

I was doing some patrolling when I noticed that Taisyo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log) has a dazzlingly high number of uploads in which he's writing on top of old good uploads. I was able to revert about half of them - I went from the present back through March 2009 [1]. Frankly, I've run out of steam and I don't have my whole life to be undoing another user's edits, so I'm done with that; at least for now. There probably remain 1/4 of them left. As such I ask for help on three fronts:

1. Reverting the remaining uploads on top of other uploads (up until February 2009)
2. Possibly reuploading the new uploads somewhere else. These are in fact very good quality and we should keep them
3. I would like your opinion on how I should notify this user. I've already placed the standard {{subst:do not overwrite}} tag (which has a Japanese translation), but it's only for one of the files, not the several dozen of them. Magog the Ogre (talk) 08:15, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Looking at a few of these uploads, I would say that several of them seem to be legit, or at least borderline cases. For example, at File:Hiroshima Rapid Transit Astram Line train.jpg, Taisyo simply replaced his own old image (moved here from ja.wikipedia) with a higher resolution version of the same photo. I would consider this perfectly reasonable, even if the larger version arguably has worse color balance. (After all, colors are easy to correct.) At File:Mitaki Station platform.jpg, the new version has a higher resolution and a wider crop; I would consider this borderline but permitted, as, after all, it's still the same photo and can be easily recropped if desired. At File:Midorii Station building.jpg, the new version is a different photo, but taken from the same angle and presumably at almost the same time (you can see the same people in it); it's close enough that one could argue it's just another version of the same photo.

Given that none of these uploads seem to have been blatant vandalism, I would've hoped that Magog could have discussed them with Taisyo (and/or with the community in general) before going on a mass revert spree. Given that he did revert them, though, I'd like to ask both parties to refrain from further reverts (and reuploads) until some discussion has taken place. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 09:19, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, well I'm glad I came to the village pump to be lectured at in the third person. You guys sure are less friendly here than at English Wikipedia. Magog the Ogre (talk) 11:50, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Taisyo is aware of the discussion here and has expressed his confusion at Commons:井戸端. He says he never meant to vandalise or anything; he just intended to replace his own old photo with the basically same image of better quality (higher resolution and, in some images, wider crop to show the whole building). He also says he is sorry if he has (uncunningly) violated any rules in Commons. So, Magog, could you please tell us what Taisyo should do? He is quite willing to follow your advice.--Dwy (talk) 12:03, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, first off, apologies to Ilmari for being a bit dickish above; I shouldn't edit at night when I'm grumpy. Part of the reason I didn't communicate directly with Taisyo is he is incapable of speaking English. To explain:

• General practice is to avoid overwriting files unless it's a minor change or an upgrade in the file resolution. See Commons:Avoid overwriting existing files, which (unfortunately) isn't written in Japanese yet.
• I've asked an administrator for help in splitting up the files without needing to go through the process of re-uploading the files [2]. Magog the Ogre (talk) 19:50, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I checked a few files and many of them look ok. Replacing smaller file with larger file is ok in most cases. I agree with Ilmari Karonen that it does not look like vandalism. I also agree that splitting history is a good alternative to revert and reupload. --MGA73 (talk) 19:31, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Would you be the one willing to do the history split, MGA73? It's much cleaner for an admin to do the history split than for a regular user (preserves history). Magog the Ogre (talk) 04:29, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Sure. By the way we should have a template to add on images that have been overwrited to ask admins to split up history. I split up most of the files from 2010 and 2011. I reverted your revert once because the new upload (File:Hiroshima Big Arch.jpg) was the original and looked better (at least to me). I have not split up 3 files because they are the same file - the color and/or brightness is different. I think it would perhaps be better to adjust the original so we do not keep a low res file. The files are File:Hiroden-654.jpg, File:Yokogawa Station display of Japan's first bus.jpg and File:Hiroshima Rapid Transit Astram Line train.jpg. So I would like to hear what others think before I split those. If I forgote some just leave me a note. --MGA73 (talk) 20:54, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Per discussion on Commons_talk:Avoid_overwriting_existing_files#Template_to_add_on_files_that_has_been_overwritten I created {{Split}}. --MGA73 (talk) 21:23, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

 Done I've marked several files with {{Split}}. Magog the Ogre (talk) 01:50, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I upload many pictures, and sometimes mistakes are made (by me). Then I need to upload a new (improved) version, and this is not painless. Example is File:Socialdemokrat.Veronica Palm 1c301 5882.jpg, all the first ones in this batch are off-color, and the new ones are better. It would help if I could delete the old ones immediately (so nobody starts using the old ones). In addition, Commonist does not easily support keeping file description information, so now the old files have better description than the new ones. And I am not willing to spend an hour manually copying and pasting the old info to the new files. As it is now uploading pictures is a slow and difficult process. If anyone has help on this, please tell. Regarding old versions, I think that I, as the photographer, have the (moral) "right" to upload "improved" versions (like larger version, better color, better adjusted exposure). --Janwikifoto (talk) 09:15, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Need help with minidjvu

Hello all, I uploaded a scan in djvu format; unfortunately, the file was still too large for the size restriction, so I had to split it into two parts:

• File:Foucauld, Dictionnaire touareg, part 1.djvu
• File:Foucauld, Dictionnaire touareg, part 2.djvu

For using it on wikisource, it would be great to have it as a single file. I tried to use minidjvu to reduce the file size, but I simply wasn’t able to figure out how to use that program. Hence:

• Could someone use the uploaded files to create a single file and re-upload it? (Provided, of course, that the resulting file is small enough.)
• Or: could someone give me a very clear, step-by-step explanation how I could do it myself? (I have very, very little experience with command line utilities.)
• Or any other suggestions?

I’m sorry for being such a noob & I’d be grateful for any help! — Linus (disc) 21:10, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I cannot help You, my computer is not friend with the .djvu-format yet.

But are there any problems with using multiple index-pages, that I haven't been aware of yet? We are using it on a few places on sv.wikisource with a good result, this far. -- Lavallen (talk) 16:30, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I admit, it’s a question of ease of use. A single file would be more convenient, but isn’t strictly speaking necessary. — Linus (disc) 01:27, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

February 28

Rename request

File:File-Night time 378152 H&I 2.jpg. Accidentally wrongly named but never mind. Does it matter on the mentioned photos being earlier than displayed? For best descrition of query, see image description. Simply south (talk) 12:22, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Actually, whilst we are on this subject, could someone rename both the above image, to remove File in tha name, and more importtantly, if still minor, rename File:Night time 378512 H&I 3.jpg to File:Night time 378152 H&I 3.jpg. Agh! Numbers!. Simply south (talk) 12:30, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Both done. In the future, you can use {{Rename}} to request the renaming of files. Instructions are at the template. And for the times, no, it isn't that big of a deal (especially with just a 10 minute difference). — Huntster (t @ c) 13:21, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Request to update File:Chigai_kuginuki.svg

The following (hand-rolled) replacement for File:Chigai_kuginuki.svg is also in the public domain (hereby placed there, if you think it needs more than {{PD-shape}}), but more compact and has fewer rounding issues. (Remove single leading space from three lines to un-wiki-quote.) I can't figure out how to make the edit without an account (which I don't want).

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<svg version="1.1" height="59.4" width="82.1"
  xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"
  xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
  xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
  xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#"
  xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">
 <defs>
   <path id="p" d="M0 0 h42 v14 h-10 v-4 h-22 v22 h22 v-4 h10 v14 h-42 z"/>
 </defs>
 <metadata>
   <rdf:RDF>
     <cc:Work rdf:about="">
       <dc:format>image/svg+xml</dc:format>
       <dc:type rdf:resource="http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/StillImage"/>
     </cc:Work>
   </rdf:RDF>
 </metadata>
 <g transform="rotate(-45,35.85,14.85)">
   <use xlink:href="#p"/>
   <use xlink:href="#p" transform="rotate(180,29,29)"/>
 </g>
</svg>

I don't understand the metadata section, so I copied that from the original image, although I was very tempted to delete the blank rdf:about attribute. It's a different (smaller) size, but I don't think that matters much to svg files. Thank you! 71.41.210.146 16:52, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I think it may be better for you to post a message at "Commons:Graphic Lab/Illustration workshop". — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 17:07, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I uploaded a version of it, but without making it display as a rather small 59x82 pixel image by default... AnonMoos (talk) 20:33, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

By the way, the only real purpose of the metadata here is to inform a generic XML parser (which might not know about SVG specifically) that an SVG file is a static image with MIME type "image/svg+xml". There's no need to include this metadata in files uploaded to Commons, but if it is included, it has to follow a strict syntax to be correct according to the "Dublin Core" etc. rules... AnonMoos (talk) 07:02, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

March 3

Download all files from one category ?

Is there currently any way to download all files from one category ?

Is there someone able to edit a python code (this one ? or this one) or create one to provide this function to wikimedia ?

This is for the COM:SOP (CJK Stroke Order Project) : we have a set of about 2000 files for teaching Chinese, and currently, no way to share them ;( Yug (talk) 15:05, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I suggested this idea ~ year ago to MediaWiki developers as part of Commons usability project. But it still not materialized :-( This feature will be very useful for book scans too. --EugeneZelenko (talk) 15:54, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

This is of course very easy to do using a tool based on the Mediawiki API. For relatively small images like these, a Toolserver tool to facilitate this task would be fairly straightforward (it could create a ZIP of them all which you then download). Dcoetzee (talk) 19:41, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I hacked up this toy some time ago to download images. It's pywikipedia based and you can easily modify it. Multichill (talk) 20:44, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Multichill, Do you have time to edit it to fit this need ? Namely : a python code, the user provide the category's name (Big_dogs), and the target folder on his PC, and the script download all these images. Not necessary to work on toolserver. The code being online + working on the user's own PC / linux should be ok for many cases. Yug (talk) 13:48, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

But how about user who don't have Python installed or don't have time to look into wonderful Python stuff? I think will be good idea to take care about them too. Gadget looks better solution. --EugeneZelenko (talk) 15:52, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Currently, we have nothing. So first get a working python, secondly get someone to put it online. Yug (talk) 10:38, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Personal hide in print

I have written an Organic Chemistry book in my mother language, italian. Several parts are too advanced for some of my students and I'd like such parts to be hidden and no printed for them. I'd like to use the personal css at the purpose. 1) I set up my skin as monobook 2) I created under my username a monobook.css 3) In my monobook css I created a class called "TooAdvanced" in this way

.TooAdvanced {display: none;}

Unfortunately the part I want not to be displayed and printed, is not displayed but is printed. Haw can I avoid printing?

Thank you very much for your kind help — Preceding unsigned comment added by Laghi.l (talk • contribs) 2011-03-03T12:47:36 (UTC)

However - please check the Wikibook rules (I guess you're asking for use in a wikibook) that inserting such classes ("tooadvanced") is allowed. If all users would insert custom classes books would look very messy. Maybe just make a temporary copy of the book in your user space and then do it only there.

See en:Help:Printable#Personal_customization: you have to use "@media print" in your .css file. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 13:19, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

March 4

wikigallery

What is the relationship between wikigallery.org and the wikipedia foundation and why is wikigallery.org not in the list of sister projects on the commons main page? --Havang(nl) (talk) 11:38, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

There is none.--DieBuche (talk) 12:04, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

They seem to take PD images downsample them, put their watermark on them and present them with our templates on a page with dozen links to "US Art related news". I am not sure what is that all about. --Jarekt (talk) 13:45, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

At least the donate button goes to Wikimedia Foundation and all interwikis on artist pages go to Wikipedia. The page contains lot of false license statements (Example from Miro, created in 1967 & tagged as 'PD life of the author plus 70 years'... *uhm??*), therefore it is not a mirror of Wikimedia Commons, as suggested by the layout of the mainpage, but something different that is likely created not by a human brain but by a robot. Regretably there is no law in the U.S., unlike Germany, that forces publishers to disclose their full identity in the websites impressum, I not found any hint on who operates this silly project (silly because of the false copyright statements and because of the unreactive Wikimedia Commons imitation/plagiarism). --Martin H. (talk) 15:01, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

The site seems to serve a commercial purpose, looking at the site newsletter you see a.o. http://www.oil-painting-reproduction.com/, with a similar menu. --Havang(nl) (talk) 16:56, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

It has a few feature missing at Commons .. Nice work. --  Docu  at 18:13, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Be carefull, the images are not free for commercial use. And about the donation, with the Jimmy Wales message, can one confirm that the pay-adress : Wikimedia Foundation - Citibank International PLC - 1-5 Rue Paul Cezanne - 75008 Paris - France is towards THE wikimediafoundation? If no, that's bad; if yes, what is the link of Jimmy Wales with this site? --Havang(nl) (talk) 18:39, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

The pay adress is right. I guess this is their way to give back to the project... As for the link with Jimmy Wales, I guess their's non. On the other side, I wonder how they can claim a non-comercial use clause on things that are in the public domain. If so, you can't become the copyright holder by making a copy of a work by someone else? I feel ther is something wrong there...Letartean (talk) 18:47, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

I found on en:User:Jimbo Wales info about WIKIA! http://community.wikia.com/wiki/Community_Central ; it could be that wikigallery is a wikia, which could mean that Jimbo is involved.... commercially --Havang(nl) (talk) 19:07, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

No. Your 'finding' (its nothing new) is completely unrelated. --Martin H. (talk) 09:36, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

But there are connections from Wikigallery to the wikimedia commons site, see the lay-out, the wiki-list on the main page, the donation link, etc. The wikigallery upload form states: (Commons has over four million files). This upload page is in flagrant contradiction wit the site copyright mention on the main page: [3] Is it a copied texte from an older wikimedia commons upload form? Is all this authorised use or unauthorised abuse? --Havang(nl) (talk) 11:04, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I was just looking up on Google some obscure painters from Web Gallery of Art and wikigallery is the only place on the web with some of them. I have a feeling wikigallery copied all the images from Web Gallery of Art and copied many templates from Commons. May be that is all what they have. --Jarekt (talk) 21:33, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikigallery, « The Largest Gallery in the World » !?! lol!! And wow! They are really brilliant, they're able to publish reproductions of paintings like this one under a public domain license... but with no commercial use allowed!?! "PD-NC", is this a new license? May be they should also put a patent on it...! Seeing their low-end cellphone-quality reproductions (I only visited the page linked above) and the former statement: one more srap site. Sting (talk) 14:12, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Why MP3 should be allowed

I have been researching why the Wikimedia Foundation does not allow MP3 files. And to be frank, I can't find any valid reason. Browsing through the archives, I found one snippet attributed to Jimbo, saying that we can't allow "file formats that can not be used by legal free software".

I find this statement to be terribly misguided and ill-informed for the following reasons:

1. The patent 'encumbering' the MP3 file format only applies to encoders and decoders, not on any files produced with them. Fraunhofer's licence explicitely state that any MP3 file itself is royalty free from any patent or licence. It is only the software used to create or playback these files that are covered with patents. Since Wikimedia Foundation does not use any software to encode or decode sound files, but only hosts them, they are at no risk at all of infringing any patent.
2. By forcing users to use "legal free software", the Wikimedia foundation is essentially accusing it's users of any potential illegal activity by association. The wording implies that by using anything else, users are using "non-legal free" software, and does not consider the possibility of using "legal non-free software". Non-withstanding, it should be the user's discretion what software he or she chooses to use; this is not a choice that the Wikimedia Foundation is entitled to dictate.
3. Users are instructed to convert any MP3 file they may want to upload to a patent-free format. However, the Foundation is apparently does not realize that doing so requires software that is potentially equally non-free or non-legal, thereby negating the original principle set forth by the Foundation. By allowing converted MP3 files, the same 'risk' incurred by using MP3 files remain intact. The only difference is that the use of MP3 has been hidden from view; the 'violation' is however still a fact.

MP3 patents are set to expire in 2012. Just like GIF files (which were always allowed), MP3 is a web standard. It is one that Wikipedia should embrace just for that fact. Fears of patents are unfounded, as only software creators are liable for any infringment. It's users and the files they create never are, and never will be. Let the debating begin... — Edokter (talk) — 15:40, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Your first point is not true. Wikimedia does host a Java-player to playback OGG files. This is necessary for people not having OGG software or an OGG supporting browser on their computer. If Wikimedia allows MP3, a Java-player for MP3 would be necessary as well. Jcb (talk) 15:52, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

The java player is only necessary because most browsers lack native support for OGG. But 99.9% of browsers in use do support MP3 natively, so there would be no requirement for a java MP3 player. — Edokter (talk) — 16:25, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

That's also not true. For both Internet Explorer and FireFox you need to install Adobe Flash to be able to playback MP3, where FireFox has native support for OGG. Jcb (talk) 16:37, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but that is patently false. Flash is only needed when explicitely loaded as a Flash object (and the server serving a flash MP3 player). Internet Explorer and Firefox will use Windows Media Player plugin to play MP3 files when embedded. — Edokter (talk) — 16:47, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, in that case you will need to have that plugin installed, which not everybody (not even 90%) has. So it's the Flash plugin or the Media Player plugin. I rest my case. Jcb (talk) 16:51, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Interesting link - Jcb (talk) 16:52, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

You don't have Windows, do you? All Windows versions have Media Player installed by default, and it automatically installs the plugin when required. The page you link to explicitely relies on Flash for MP3 playback, which isn't even needed. And apart from Internet Explorer, both Fiefox and Chrome support MP3 natively. — Edokter (talk) — 17:54, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Home versions do, professional versions of at least Windows XP don't. As a system administrator I installed Windows Media Player to a lot of Windows XP professional workstations, because it wasn't there and it didn't install itself either when needed. Also Internet Explorer still has a market share of 56 %. Jcb (talk) 18:03, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Then something went wrong with those installation; XP Pro does install Media Player be default. — Edokter (talk) — 19:01, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Not the case for Windows XP Pro, having installed and used the OS. With Vista HP and Windows 7 Pro (two OS's I still use) you need plugins for IE, FF and Chrome for WMP to work within the browser. Bidgee (talk) 08:34, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm glad that Windows users have WMP installed by default; that's everyone, isn't it? Linux users like me just don't exist, do we?--Prosfilaes (talk) 18:28, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Are you saying that Linux does not have MP3 playback capabilities? — Edokter (talk) — 19:01, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Most Linux distributions don't support mp3 per default due to patent issues. You have to install additional software that's considered illegal in some places (the same with DVD-support). -- 194.48.128.75 06:25, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

The question is really one of reuse. MP3 may be fine for webpages (since most people have the requisite plug-ins), but we'd like for our media to be reusable in free applications without those applications having to secure a license to play back the content. Once the MP3 patents are expired this will be largely moot, but for original recordings, OGG is also technically superior, demonstrating better listening quality than MP3 in experiments at all bitrates (see en:Vorbis#Quality:_Codec_comparisons). MP3 certainly has practical advantages though (e.g. some portable and embedded devices support MP3 in hardware but not OGG). In cases where the OGG was produced from an MP3 file, I would hope that we could at least upload the MP3 as a source file under the Commons:Restricted uploads proposal. Dcoetzee (talk) 16:54, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I refer back to #2 above; It isn't Wikimedia's place to dictate what software must be used for the purpose of reusability. We are not talking about free content, but the user's choice of software to handle that content. If it is the user's choice to use propriatery software to reuse any content we serve, we have no business telling people otherwise. Doing so implies illigitemate application on part of that user. Any reused/modified content created by that software is also not hindered by any patents; as I stated above, any generated MP3 content is royalty-free. — Edokter (talk) — 17:54, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

At the risk of sounding flippant, why don't you just wait 10 months for the patent to expire? Magog the Ogre (talk) 18:02, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

We're not dictating to users what software they can use; we're giving users a choice of using free software that doesn't violate patents.--Prosfilaes (talk) 18:28, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

No, you're restricting them from using propriatery software. BTW, there is open-source MP3 software available, even without infringing on MP3 patents. — Edokter (talk) — 19:01, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

How are we restricting them from using proprietary software? They can use any software they want that works on OGG Vorbis. There is no open-source encoders that do not infringe upon MP3 patents; the case for decoders is at best more ambiguous.--Prosfilaes (talk) 19:03, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Instead of uploading the MP3, we could upload OGG FLAC; it's every bit as lossless as copying the MP3, and it's lossless for every originating format.--Prosfilaes (talk) 18:28, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I thought of this, but the cost in space and download time/bandwidth cost for those who need to access source media in FLAC format is quite unreasonable (typical FLAC files are 5 to 10 times larger than typical MP3 files). It's also difficult to ensure that all metadata is transferred accurately. Dcoetzee (talk) 04:21, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

•  Support I'm sure that some users may have problems with pdf-files but still we allow them on Commons because most users can view pdf-files. Some users may also have problems with huge tiff-files (they may use an old 36 k modem) but still we allow huge files on Commons to have the best possible source file. I see no reason why we should not host free mp3-files and other free media (as source or to use). If we want to make sure that Linux users and other users that are not able to play mp3-files we can just create a OGG-version also. --MGA73 (talk) 19:47, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

The basic operating principle here could be summarized as follows: All Wikimedia Foundation content needs to be usable (and editable) by relying exclusively on free and unencumbered software -- no user should be forced to install proprietary or patent-encumbered technology in order to view a page, play a file, etc. Some (including myself) have argued for parallel transcoding to widely used proprietary formats, but the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees has rejected that possibility, prioritizing the agenda of supporting the adoption of free file formats more highly than any short term gains that could be made by transcoding to non-free formats.

That being said, it's significantly less controversial for us to host alternative software implementations that make free file formats playable on proprietary systems, just as we make changes to our HTML/CSS code to make our sites work better with Internet Explorer. This could include, for example, a Flash-based player for Vorbis (proof of concept). Nobody's yet put in the effort to make this work well, but I don't think there's any fundamental philosophical opposition to it, provided the code is open.--Eloquence (talk) 01:19, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Are you aware that Flash and Java are both closed, proprietary and patent-encumbered software that needs to be installed by users? I fail to see how MP3 players are any different in this regard. — Edokter (talk) — 03:59, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Are you aware that Windows is closed, proprietary, and patent-encumbered software that needs to be installed by users? We don't force people to use unencumbered software, we merely make it possible. --Carnildo (talk) 00:49, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I've read above that Windows does always have the WMP onboard. Well, that's wrong and not only when it comes to "Professional" versions, but also to those MS Windows Copies sold in Europe under a regulation from an European commission, I think the same that has brought us Europeans this pesky browser selection screen. Of course, a "standard" version with the WMP is still available, but it is possible that users bought a copy without the player. But I'm wandering off the topic - I think that MP3 should be allowed immediately after patent expiration next year, so it would be sensible if a developer team could begin work on this with short delay... Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 07:44, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

You would be hard-pressed to find a Windows installation without MP3 support. That "WiMP-less" European edition was a flop, making up less then 1% of total Windows sales without the media player. — Edokter (talk) — 15:35, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Supporting MP3 should be part of the road map, so that we can flip a configuration variable the day the patents expire. There are cases where your original source is MP3 and uploading that orginal source is usefull. Once patents expire and we have a functional transcoding infrastructure, there is really no reason we should not allow mp3 uploads and transcode to the mp3 format. This is especially useful for older and closed devices that may make it difficult to install and support ogg transport and playback from http sources. --Mdale (talk) 17:49, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

added to road map --Mdale (talk) 17:55, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

March 1

Give credit where due

If this site is going to put up an image, the artist's name should be shown. I don't have the time to waste in learning all the minutiae of a klunky interface of templates, so I'm not going to mess with figuring out {{Creator, etc., in the Summary for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Leighton-God_Speed!.jpg But this should be fixed or removed. 71.203.125.108 01:26, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with File:Leighton-God_Speed!.jpg.--Prosfilaes (talk) 02:02, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I'm just baffled at this. Unfortunately we will probably never ever hear from this anonymous again, but I wonder what on earth he meant?! The artists name is right there. --Dschwen (talk) 05:35, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Almost certainly refers to the fact that for a while on Wikipedia you didn't see the file description information from Commons (see en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-02-28/Technology_report, scroll down to "In brief"). AnonMoos (talk) 06:56, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Oh, ok, thanks. That bug had been resolved already by the time I checked. --Dschwen (talk) 15:13, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

The bug seems to have been fixed several days before 71.203.125.108 made his post... AnonMoos (talk) 18:52, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Hotcat problems

Hotcat gives problems, if I make consecutive changes, the latter change undoes spontaneously the earlier change. Is this a known problem? How to solve it? --Havang(nl) (talk) 13:08, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Confirm the same problem, observed using IE, while not with Opera. --Túrelio (talk) 14:09, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

I've made a minor change to ensure that IE caching doesn't get in the way. reload your browser's cache and see if that solves the problem. Lupo 17:20, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Category sorting

The sequence of files in categories is strange (since the last update?). New files (and files recently changed) are sorted in front of all old files. --AndreasPraefcke (talk) 13:58, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

There was a related discussion at "Commons:Village pump/Archive/2011/02#Ordering of images in category". — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 15:27, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Commons not working with IE, again

Hello,

Since this morning, we have reports on the village pump of the French Wikipedia, that people are unable to go to Commons with Internet Explorer. I tried with IE 8 and it just crashes (with no error message) when I try to access [4] (the problems also occurs with the mainpage in English, and when accessing through [5]) Does anyone have any information about that ? -Ash_Crow (talk) 11:41, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Does it crash on the main page only or on all other pages as well? Does it crash if you go to File:Graf Zeppelin boven Nederland.ogv? If so, it could be a problem with how the browser handles Ogg playback. (I can't check because I don't use Windows.) —LX (talk, contribs) 12:00, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Dear All,

What have you changed to the access to Commons? I cannot access Commons this morning via Internet Explorer, well the other sites of wikipedia.

As when you had changed the access to the pictures, I can fortunately use the not user-friendly Firefox as a "rescue wheel" to access Commons.

May I ask you to solve this "bug" ASAP? Thanks, --Réginald alias Meneerke bloem (To reply) 12:02, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

A web browser shouldn't crash even if it receives erroneous content, so ultimately, it's a bug in Microsoft Internet Explorer. Microsoft don't exactly have a good track record of fixing bugs quickly, so regardless of whether or not there is anything wrong with the way we do things today, it's in our interest to find a fix or workaround on our side. As a first step, you can help by addressing my questions above. —LX (talk, contribs) 12:45, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm accessible to Commons without JavaScript. I think it may be javascript errors. – Kwj2772 (msg) 12:09, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I can at least confirm a crash upon half-way loading with IE 8.0.6001.toomanynumbers. Disabling javascript does indeed solve the problem, but of course this should not be necessary. — Huntster (t @ c) 12:19, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

The Ogg playback relies on Javascript, so could you please address my questions above? —LX (talk, contribs) 12:45, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I encounter this problem also at Recent changes, file history pages. I don't think this bug is related to Ogg playback. – Kwj2772 (msg) 12:48, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Me too with version 8.0.6001.1909 under Vista. My watchlist was my homepage, so IE crashed upon opening. After I made my en watchlist my homepage, it opens, but looking at anything in Commons (Main, Category, Image) crashes it. Thank goodness I also have Google Chrome. Jim.henderson (talk) 12:56, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

There's also a discussion on the en Wiki village pump: en:Wikipedia:Village Pump (technical). This comment is most useful: "Any commons page I try to get to fails to load. The times I'm lucky, it doesn't shut down IE completely and I end up with a page that displays:

• We were unable to return you to wikimedia.org.
• Internet Explorer has stopped trying to restore this website. It appears that the website continues to have a problem.
• What you can do:
  • Go to your home page
  • Try to return to wikimedia.org
• More information
• When a website causes a failure or crash, Internet Explorer attempts to restore the site. It stops after two tries to avoid an endless loop."

This is what was happening to me, I go onto any commons page, IE would say there was a problem and it is trying to do something, stop, do the same thing again and then you end up with that page. It doing it twice presumably explains "It stops after two tries to avoid an endless loop." Fortunately I too have a different browser I can use. Arriva436^{talk/contribs} 13:22, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Okay. This sounds like the same problem that they have or have had on the Chinese Wikipedia: bugzilla:27677. —LX (talk, contribs) 13:31, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

The very awsome crash feature of IE shown here sounds similar to the section above #Internet_Explorer_.28IE.29_8.0.6_and_IE_7.0.6_crash (which was caused by the still IE-disabled MediaWiki:Stockphoto.js). Good browser it is. ;) Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 13:36, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I have the same problem since this morning. In IE 8 (XP prof.) a Commons page tries to appear, then crashes the browser, who tries to restore the page and crashes again. No problem with Opera (which I hate to use). And it's Commons only, no problem with Wikipedia.--Túrelio (talk) 13:39, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

IE access is now restored. – Kwj2772 (msg) 14:04, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Great. Thanks. --Túrelio (talk) 14:09, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Bryan identified this (Common.js) as the cause of our IE crashtest. Clear your cache if it still does not work! Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 14:11, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Good news! I was the one who started the aforementioned discussion at the en:wp village pump, and it couldn't have been a simple sound issue — I got the same result on every page that I tried, and the first one on which I noticed this problem was Special:Upload. Nyttend (talk) 14:12, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

The probleme is solved. Everything is working again OK. --Réginald alias Meneerke bloem (To reply) 14:17, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Maybe someone could, you know, inform MS of this? Or alternatively, write a zero-day script which exploits the vulnerability to install a nasty virus and harvest SSNs, and credit card numbers (jk). Magog the Ogre (talk) 18:54, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

The problem has reappeared now! --Túrelio (talk) 21:38, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes. Jim.henderson (talk) 22:41, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Because the script was enabled again... another user complaing and confirmed by another two users in chat. It should work again since 2011-02-28T23:26:30. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 23:35, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. However, due to the dire consequences, couldn't this script (or whatever) be protected against "enabling" until a real solution has been found? --Túrelio (talk) 07:21, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, in all fairness, I think the script has indeed been corrected. The problem now is just that a number of people have the old, uncorrected script in their browsers' caches. Either re-enable it only after 31 days, when the client-side cache period has elapsed, or force a cache bypass by appending a dummy parameter to the script import ("&dummy=bypass"). Lupo 07:28, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I've been having Chrome for Linux go bonkers quite a bit tonight across both en.wp and commons, but in all honesty it might just be because I'm running the beta version. Magog the Ogre (talk) 07:31, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

It's happening once again - and to be honest it's hacking me off this time. How many IE users across the world is this affecting every time someone tries to change the script?? Arriva436^{talk/contribs} 18:12, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

We're back up and running again, a new record time of only 11 minutes this time! But serously, what can be done to avoid this happening? Arriva436^{talk/contribs} 18:16, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Can be very simply avoided, by never ever EVER touching any of the code ever again. And then in about 10 years we will be dissolved, just as geocities has been dissolved. TheDJ (talk) 18:23, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the scarcasm, most unhelpful. Once maybe is fine, but for it to happen three times without warning is not great. Especially as it is actually crashing the browers of the IE users trying to access the site - it's not just the page not displaying. Could there could be some prior warning next time? Can the script not be tested without the whole site breaking? Arriva436^{talk/contribs} 18:43, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

(EC) It should work again (after 18:11:28 UTC). It was just a short try based on Lupo's idea (see above). Thedj thought this will do it, too. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 18:19, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank goodness it wasn't Wikipedia, but if there's a reason an improvement must go live before being tested offline with various commonplace browsers, can the guinea pig be another Wiki with an even narrower and nerdier audience, such as Meta? Jim.henderson (talk) 23:28, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Just to follow up on this, the script was tested, the problem for some weird reason only occurs on Commons. TheDJ (talk) 10:22, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Copyright status of Mexican federal government works

What is the copyright status of Mexican federal government works?

This document http://www.ssp.gob.mx/portalWebApp/ShowBinary?nodeId=/BEA+Repository/308060//archivo has some pics of Mexican prisons that I would like to use...

WhisperToMe (talk) 03:50, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

There is information at the WIPO website, but you'll need the help of a Spanish speaker as no English translations are available. However, it doesn't seem that you'll be able to use the images. According to "Commons:Licensing#Mexico", "works created by the Mexican government do not default to PD, they being protected 100 years after publishing (art. 29)". — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 04:31, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

That's too bad - I may add a new photo request asking for a resident of the Toluca area to photograph the main entrance WhisperToMe (talk) 02:33, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

March 2

Dating a stagecoach service

File:Postkoetswissel Bérisal.jpg. As usual there is no date mentioned. It must be before the opening of the railway in 1906. Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:05, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

In many wikis there is a general article over stagecoaches, but I mis articles over a specific stagecoach line. Prices, timetables, connections, how long the horses could be but to work, toilet stops, inns and lodgings, reservations, organisation, etc. I would like some local historian to research such stagecoach line. Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:46, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Flickr review manually needed

Hi! The Flickrbot said that a manual review is needed for File:Parchmanmaingate.jpg - Would someone mind doing a manual review? Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 02:30, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

 Done, see diff. It gave an error because you modified it before upload, and the bot expects an exact copy of the image at Flickr. (It checks EXIF and other parameters.) In the future, allow FlickrUploader or whatnot to upload an original copy first so it can do its automatic stuff, then upload the modified version later. — Huntster (t @ c) 05:22, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I see! Thank you very much :) WhisperToMe (talk) 19:07, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

admin, help please

Please remove all "File-" in title of following files：

• file:File-Jasmine Revolution in China - Beijing 11 02 20 crowd 8.jpg
• file:File-Jasmine Revolution in China - Beijing 11 02 20 police autos 2.jpg
• file:File-Jasmine Revolution in China - Beijing 11 02 20 police 8.jpg
• file:File-Jasmine Revolution in China - Beijing 11 02 20 police 7.jpg
• file:File-Jasmine Revolution in China - Beijing 11 02 20 police 6.jpg
• file:File-Jasmine Revolution in China - Beijing 11 02 20 cameras 4.jpg
• file:File-Jasmine Revolution in China - Beijing 11 02 20 police 5.jpg
• file:File-Jasmine Revolution in China - Beijing 11 02 20 police autos.jpg
• file:File-Jasmine Revolution in China - Beijing 11 02 20 police 4.jpg
• file:File-Jasmine Revolution in China - Beijing 11 02 20 Mcdonalds.jpg
• file:File-Jasmine Revolution in China - Beijing 11 02 20 crowd 7.jpg
• file:File-Jasmine Revolution in China - Beijing 11 02 20 crowd 6.jpg
• file:File-Jasmine Revolution in China - Beijing 11 02 20 crowd 5.jpg
• file:File-Jasmine Revolution in China - Beijing 11 02 20 police 3.jpg
• file:File-Jasmine Revolution in China - Beijing 11 02 20 police 2.jpg
• file:File-Jasmine Revolution in China - Beijing 11 02 20 crowd 4.jpg
• file:File-Jasmine Revolution in China - Beijing 11 02 20 cameras 3.jpg
• file:File-Jasmine Revolution in China - Beijing 11 02 20 crowd 3.jpg
• file:File-Jasmine Revolution in China - Beijing 11 02 20 outdoors Mcdonalds 2.jpg
• file:File-Jasmine Revolution in China - Beijing 11 02 20 cameras 2.jpg
• file:File-Jasmine Revolution in China - Beijing 11 02 20 police.jpg
• file:File-Jasmine Revolution in China - Beijing 11 02 20 cameras.jpg

Thanks.--JerryofWong (talk) 11:32, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

You can tag the images with {{Rename}}. Click on the link for information on how to use the template. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 11:36, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

 Done. All renamed. --Havang(nl) (talk) 12:10, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Category:City districts - Category:City parts - Category:City quarters

Argh! Some fusion could be considered maybe? To me they are all synonymous, and since there is no explanatory blurb, er... - Olybrius (talk) 08:25, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

• There should be two category trees: formal administrative divisions, cf. Category:Districts of Vienna, and informal (heritage) names cf. Category:Localities in Vienna (or call them quarters, parts, neighborhoods etc.). To further complicate the case, administrative divisions of a city may have more than one level (Category:Districts of Moscow -> Category:Municipal divisions of Moscow), and informal names may overlap in at will. My guess is that "City parts" should be retired (move to "districts" or "quarters"). NVO (talk) 08:53, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

The most generic term (and one that makes it obvious that it is generic) would be City subdivisions. Terms like district, quarter, and borough often have a very well-defined meaning for a particular city, but may represent entirely different administrative or informal levels depending from one city to another. —LX (talk, contribs) 10:11, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

The generic term is fine for the meta-category. The individual city categories should continue with the appropriate english language usage, ie Category:Districts of Vienna. I see no problem with having parallel category trees, eg Category:London by Travelcard & Category:London boroughs Railwayfan2005 (talk) 19:59, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

I think I am just repeating what LX and Railwayfan have said, but the parent categories should be merged into Category:City subdivisions, while each city can have subcategories as appropriate (pertaining to boroughs, districts, neighbourhoods, etc. - whatever is applicable/appropriate for that particular city). --Skeezix1000 (talk) 21:15, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

If we are happy with the name it's time to be BOLD! Railwayfan2005 (talk) 22:51, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Name pushing by Schoci

Hi.

I'm not familiar with this type of situation so I'm coming here for some help or advice. Schoci (talk · contribs) has been pushing his name on Wikipedia, both as text in captions of images and as watermarks in the images. All the images he uploaded to Commons have an obvious watermark to them: see his gallery. I've notified him on his discussion page yesterday ([6]) but he has not replied yet.

The user has been modifying articles in WP of all languages ([7]) and constantly adding captions in English (e.g. [8]) to Wikipedias where he didn't know the language. Some of his edits consist in adding images twice to articles (e.g. [9]).

Does someone know how to handle this situation and where to handle it? Cheers. Badzil (talk) 14:15, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Where he adds a personal credit in image captions in en-wp articles, WP:CREDITS can be relied upon to delete the references to his name. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 16:22, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

The images were often overcategorized as well. I removed the watermarks on as many of them as my skill level allows. – Adrignola talk 17:44, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Can something a bit more general be done? This user is IMO at the edge of spamming Wikipedia (watermarks, credits in captions and author name/website in image names) and I spent a couple of hours yesterday tracking his edits and removing the credits in the caption per WP:CREDITS. This morning, I left a link to WP:CREDITS on his talk page on WP:EN: [10] I got no answer from him yet. Badzil (talk) 17:51, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

There's certainly not much we can do here about him spamming Wikipedias. The next step should probably be a notice on the English Wikipedia's Admin Noticeboard. Powers (talk) 19:28, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

I moved a lot of his images in order to get a filename without this spamming effect. Grand-Duc (talk) 08:49, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

There is no reason for renaming his files. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 12:14, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, I think there actually is a reason for these moves, but this discussion could be continued here: Commons talk:File renaming#Author or website names in filename]. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 08:00, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Eigentlich ist schon alles gesagt und mir ist das Ergebnis auch recht egal (bzgl. File Renaming). Ich habe die Einbindung eines stark verwatermarkten Fotos ganz entfernt und bei einem, wo das Watermark kaum auffällt, nur den Bilduntertitel geändert. Das ist das, was ich für nötig halte. Mehr? Von mir aus, aber nicht zwingend. Ich habe wichtigeres zu tun. ;) Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 16:25, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

March 5

Multiple errors

I was dealing with this for quite some time, but is getting a bit annoying now. I keep getting a variety of errors while accessing random pages on Commons. I have reproduced and recorded the following errors when accessing my Watchlist (as thats the easiest to reproduce; repetitive clicking of the link):

• Error: http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:BannerLoader&banner=BlankBannerNew&userlang=en&db=commonswiki&sitename=Wikimedia+Commons&country=LK at line 1: Error loading script
• Error: http://geoiplookup.wikimedia.org/ at line 1: Error loading script
• Error: http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Edittools.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript at line 1: Error loading script

I use Firefox 3.6.15 on Windows 7 Professional 64-bit. Anyone else get these errors? Rehman 10:55, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm using Firefox 3.6.13 with Windows XP and am not encountering any problems. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 11:38, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

If you stop the page load, errors are nothing unsual. --DieBuche (talk) 12:30, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I am quite sure that the page load was not interrupted. But either way, I have not changed my style of operating Firefox or editing Wikipedia, and these errors are all totally new... Rehman 14:36, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

They could have been there for ages. They are just reported in that way since recently.--DieBuche (talk) 23:29, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Unindexed page

Hello, I have a question. I put the _NOINDEX_ tag at a Commons file page, and it doesn't show up in the search results anymore. However, the Wikipedia file page (which is a 100% copy of the Commons one) is still shown. Does anybody know how this page can be omitted from search results? Regards, Dutch773

You would have to create the corresponding file description page at Wikipedia and add the tag to it. But it will still show up in search results at the other 700+ projects that work with Commons. It seems counterintuitive to try to remove a file from search results, however. – Adrignola talk 17:19, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the advice. However, I don't understand it completely. I do not want to omit this page from Wikipedia search results, but Google. Upon googling my username, you will find this file, and I want that to go away because the file has already been replaced by someone else. Creating the file description page is the part that I don't really understand, because there's already one (which is the Commons copy) which already has the tag, but it won't disappear. Does anybody know how to solve this? Regards, Dutch773

Creating a description page at a local project will place content above the content at Commons and not replace it. The noindex tag tells Google not to put the page in search results. But now that I think about it, it will not be heeded in a content namespace and so the tag on the file page is likely being ignored. If you're worried about your username being associated with the file, you could change the author of the file in the information template to the username of the user who uploaded a replacement version. – Adrignola talk 22:48, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Okay thank you very much. Then my last question is: how do I change my username at the information template? Since my file has been replaced, my name is still shown in the file history, which is uneditable. Is there a way to do this? Regards, Dutch773

I guess that you have to ask a local administrator to hide this particular version, but I do not know if he or she would comply with your query. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 08:05, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Bots cluttering Special:NewFiles

Shouldn't mass uploads by bots normally be hidden on Special:NewFiles? The only bot uploads effectively hidden right now, it seems, are those by GeographBot. Mass uploads by User:SLQbot and User:RobotMichiel1972 clutter up the screen, which makes the use of the special page somewhat tedious. Can something be done about it? --Rosenzweig δ 20:15, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes. Give them a bot bit. They both applied for it ages ago. Michiel1972 (talk) 20:19, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I do not know why this wasn't done (yet?). But as long as it isn't, bots shouldn't perform mass uploads, at least not at a high frequency. SQLbot seems to operate at a somewhat slower rate, but RobotMichiel1972 uploads images at a rate of one every two or three seconds. That's a bit much without a bot flag. --Rosenzweig δ 20:29, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Considering how long it takes to get a bot flag around here, I don't think it's realistic to stretch out their total upload time by a factor of 5 or 10 just to tidy up the NewFiles list. Dcoetzee (talk) 23:18, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Change of deletion policy so that scope and sexual content are valid reasons to speedy delete files

Some deletions do not follow Deletion policy as it is written now so to fix that the policy should be changed. I made a notice here about what the changes are. --MGA73 (talk) 22:04, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

March 6

Please, someone help me edit the Kopimi template

I've been trying to get the template to auto-categorize any pages it's transcluded on (like all the other license tags.) I don't know what I'm doing wrong, though, because I can't get it to work. Please, someone help me with this. --Siddharth Patil (talk) 01:24, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

I tweaked {{Kopimi}}, but I'm not sure if this is what you want to achieve. At the moment, if someone specifies "{{Kopimi|category=Balloons}}", then the image will be placed in "Category:Balloons". However, if |category= is left blank or omitted, the image is placed in "Category:Kopimi". Also, the English text of the template is not very clear. What does "the copyright holder of this work does not only release it" mean? Should it read "the copyright holder of this work does not only release it into the public domain"? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 08:13, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Deletion request

Please delete the file, because of its very lousy resolution. Thank you in advance Γλαύκος (talk) 15:11, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

 Deleted, per uploader request. Rehman 15:56, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Linguistic issue: English everywhere follow-up : a premonitory 1998 vision of Wikimedia Commons

Follow-up of Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2011/02#Linguistic_issue:_English_everywhere

In recent studies educators and researchers of English as a second language have discussed issues of ideology that English language teaching creates worldwide. They argue that the dominance of English, promoted by teaching English, has constructed and maintained structural and cultural inequalities in which more resources are allocated to English than to other languages and in which English-speaking individuals and social organizations benefit more than others (Tollefson, 1991; Phillipson, 1992; Pennycook, 1994; Kachru, 1997).

Ryuko Kubota, Ideologies of English in Japan, World Englishes, Vol 17, No. 3, pp. 295-306, 1998.

That was prophetic. In 1991-1997 they could not guess that Wikimedia Commons would be created some years later but what they say applies perfectly to Wikimedia Commons. Teofilo (talk) 15:07, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

The interface and templates translate based on your language. There are different language discussion forums. Category redirects can be made from other languages to the existing one. Files can have descriptions in any number of languages with templates indicating the language name. If people are the resources with which Commons develops, then it follows that people are simply not allocating their time to providing additional translation. What would you see as needed to correct this? – Adrignola talk 18:47, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I think most things on Commons are multilingual (although some pages are not yet translated into enough languages and of course it's not reasonable with the resources we have to expect us to translate our discussions), but it would be awfully nice if we could transparently use multiple names for both files and categories without all of the issues that redirects cause (e.g. they kinda break the "what uses this file", and confuse some bots). I think multilingual filenames are an especially pressing problem, because WMF projects (enwiki included) are being forced to embed filenames in wikitext that are illegible to their users, which certainly doesn't help usability. Dcoetzee (talk) 23:22, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I also notice many files with Summary and Licensing headings that have not been changed to {{int:filedesc}} and {{int:license}} and so they are in English no matter what interface language you use. There was a bot that replaced these uses a while back. It would be nice for it to be run again. – Adrignola talk 15:40, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

A Peep at Washoe / engravings / categorization

I have no idea how to properly follow this up, because obviously SieBot was just following someone's instructions, but I see from the recategorization of Category:A Peep at Washoe that Category:Engraved illustrations has gone away and this has now been placed in Category:Books with engraved illustrations. While A Peep at Washoe was eventually a book, it was originally a series of three magazine articles in Harper's, from which I scanned these illustrations. I'm sure there are other similar cases, so I think this needs to be revisited. - Jmabel ! talk 17:19, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I was looking at that today, too. File:Hufeland 1797 Moriae.jpg may have come from a book, but it's not a book; it's an engraved illustration.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:18, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps we can recreate "Category:Engraved illustrations", make "Category:Books with engraved illustrations" a subcategory of that category, and add usage notes explaining that only illustrations that were not originally published in books should be placed in "Engraved illustrations", while subcategories containing illustrations taken from particular books should be placed in "Books with engraved illustrations". — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 08:22, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

"Books with engraved illustrations" sound like it should be used to categorise books (probably a djvu file or a category for each book), not individual illustrations. A single illustration is not a book, so I think it is better to use "Engraved illustrations", or if it important that images is from a book "Engraved illustrations from books". /Ö 09:25, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

There are some existing subcategories which contain all the illustrations from particular books. I think such subcategories can be placed in "Category:Books with engraved illustrations". I'm not sure it is very useful to have a separate category containing single engravings taken from books. Those can be placed in "Category:Engraved illustrations". — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 17:20, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

So is someone interested in taking on cleaning this up? I have no idea who made the request to SieBot that messed this up in the first place. - Jmabel ! talk 06:13, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

That would be me. I was cleaning up the "Category:Engravings" category tree generally. Mea maxima culpa. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 09:06, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I've recreated "Category:Engraved illustrations", made "Category:Books with engraved illustrations" a subcategory of it, and moved the files not in subcategories to "Engraved illustrations". Please help to place files and subcategories in either "Engraved illustrations" or "Books with engraved illustrations" as appropriate. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 17:04, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Motd/2011-03-07

Hello, I have changed Motd/2011-03-07 a few hours ago of course "Battle of Brega.ogv" is marked as "No permission for licence art libre or any other free licence". Now, my changing is reverted again. I think an administrator should have a look to it. Thanks, --Pristurus (talk) 20:57, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

March 7

Archived versions of uploads

I was trying to look at the original upload of File:Diet Coke Mentos.jpg, which should be at [[11]] but I get a "404 error: File not found" error, the thumbnail is still present though. Is this just me, or have some bits leaked out of the archive bucket? --Tony Wills (talk) 09:57, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

The small 80px thumb seems to be in some cache. Different thumb sizes do not work: 809px gives: Error creating thumbnail: convert: unable to open image `/mnt/upload6/wikipedia/commons/archive/7/7f/20090107200234!Diet_Coke_Mentos.jpg

Apparently the harddisk lost some bits. ;) Maybe they come back again.. (I already tried with purging) Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 15:59, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

MW 1.17

The Commons is running now the latest version of the MediaWiki software (version 1.17wmf1). This is part of the deployment plan for version 1.17.

Known issues:

• ImageAnnotator reports a "version inconsistency" after adding a new note or after deleting an existing note. A fix has been programmed, but due to caching, you may still experience this error. If so, just reload the page and reload your browser's cache.
• It appears that SVG files are handled differently now. In particular, the new SVG handling appears to be much more sensitive to slight errors in SVG files, which previously were silently ignored and gracefully handled. Some SVG files therefore no longer may display.

  A fix for this has gone live. Lupo 16:14, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Lupo 09:47, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

So that explains why the site running on 1980s modem speed with no stylesheets. Film at 11. —LX (talk, contribs) 10:15, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

OK, so I'm not the only one... (Another link, although I know it's easier to criticize...) My previous entry in this page may or may not be related as well. --Eusebius (talk) 10:26, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

The speed problems and missing stylesheets apparently are caused by en-WP having been switched to MW1.17 on 10:01 UTC and switched back to MW1.16 at 10:11 UTC (see [12]). That appears to have caused some problem in the "bits caches", which serve the site wide CSS and JavaScript. See [13]. The computers for these "bits caches" are running at 100% CPU, so requests take a long time and then time out frequently. Lupo 10:38, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Appears to be fixed now. Thanks, Mark! Lupo 11:03, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I got two more JavaScript errors (that unfortunately play Showstopper for me, as they block my GUI changes):

• Error: http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Multilingual_description.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript at line 106: $.cookie is not a function

  Fixed with this edit, with credits to RoanKattouw in #wikimedia-tech --Guandalug 19:21, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

• Error: http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Edittools.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript at line 85: $("#wpTextbox1").wikiEditor is not a function

On editing (I disabled the enhanced editor) --Guandalug 23:40, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

SVG files

Please fix also those or tell what to do: #two_recent_svg_issues._Cache_problems.3F_New_malicious_files_filter.3F .... those images are in high use. If they work well before you cannot suddenly break them. And now I am guessing the reason why my repair attempts above worked at first: probably those svgs got corrupted in cache during the first 1.17 deploy attempt. When I reuploaded a "repaired" version 1.16 was running. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 21:17, 16 February 2011 (UTC) Let's see how many svgs will work again when this is live: (22:55:35) thedj: Saibo: i just fixed svg:svg issue in trunk. still needs review and deploy --Saibo (Δ) 23:09, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

---

Was it not so far that has not been recommended doctype (Help:SVG#Validation, Don't include a DOCTYPE declaration)!? The update description seems not to be true, it's contradictory, because it still makes no different (not necessarily) PS.: This would also argue against Inkscape (no doctypedeclaration!?). -- Perhelion (talk) 08:24, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

• TheDJ's fix for this has gone live. Lupo 16:13, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

SVG strictness revert

I think (but I am not sure) it would be best to revert the strictness change in the svg renderer for now. There are no improvements visible (internally there are) but the change causes some disruption here. People are annoyed by svg because it suddenly breaks (png files here do never break). E.g in Category:SVG coats of arms of Switzerland there are many files broken.

We could activate it for new uploads as soon as we have an error reporting which is better than the current "wrong MIME type" (try to upload a broken svg file under a new file name (check ignore errors due to duplicate detection)). And - I guess it is possible - we can run a bot to list/tag "bad old ones" (maybe even sorted by usage count) so we can repair them without disrupting articles and community. The problem is for some svg we do not know how to fix them.

What is true, is that those svgs which are not working now really have problems. They are not valid and causing problems when trying to display them for example in Firefox. That's not nice and should be fixed. By hosting corrupted svgs we spread those and people may get upset because the svg is not behaving as intended.

What do you think? Would it be better? Do you know how many articles which use those svg files are affected? Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 01:07, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

An hour of 4 of investigation involving at least 3 people, has uncovered that this is entirely NOT related to the new SVG functions. As a matter of fact, we have uncovered a bug that has long since existed, and something else we have fixed or changed in filetype detection has made that bug visible. It was a wonder that these files were accepted before you might say. More investigation to follow. (note that we haven't even found what has changed that has uncovered the existance of this bug, so can't even revert if we want to, we don't know what we would have to revert so far). TheDJ (talk) 17:25, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

I would agree TheDJ. --Perhelion (talk) 21:12, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

@TheDJ: could you take a look at bugzilla:27508, please? I have a feeling (but no proof) that this might be related. Lupo 21:15, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

There is bug 27544 for the problem now, if I understand correctly. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 22:11, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Closed as "won't fix". Affected files are incorrect and should be corrected. Lupo 07:33, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Edit page in MW1.17

Maybe this is related, maybe not, but why am I seeing now the awful Vector version in edit mode, when I had chosen MonoBook in my preferences?-- Darwin ^Ahoy! 11:10, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Go to your preferences and in the "Editing" section, uncheck the flag for "Enable enhanced editing toolbar". Then save your preferences. That should get rid of these vector features. I'd say that the transition to MW1.17 switches this back on is a bug. Lupo 11:15, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

This won't help. Bugzilla:27368--DieBuche (talk) 11:18, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, it worked for me. I cannot reproduce that bug. Lupo 11:33, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Worked for me as well, thank you very much!-- Darwin ^Ahoy! 11:34, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Where is the Vector (image) version edit mode (I know it gives, SVG live edit on Wiki, but when?)!? --Perhelion (talk) 22:39, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I have the same problem with Vector edit mode. In my preferences "Enable enhanced editing toolbar" is checked off but I still see only new Vector editing toolbar. Also toolbar is not working: I have to add signature, tags, etc. by hand. --Jarekt (talk) 14:08, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Refreshing JavaScripts in MW1.17

Does anybody know how to make sure that after MediaWiki:Clearyourcache, my browser really gets the newest versions of changed JavaScripts? Prior to MW1.16, this was no problem, but since MW1.17, I always seem to get some Squid-cached old JavaScript. Which means I cannot test the fix I made in ImageAnnotator for MW1.17. Purging the changed JavaScript files didn't help; and neither did purging MediaWiki:Common.js. So, what do I newly have to do? Lupo 11:33, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Strike that; I was looking at the wrong code. Refreshing still works, and ImageAnnotator is fixed. Just reload your browser's cache if you get errors when adding or deleting image notes. Lupo 13:19, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Number of category members not appearing

Looks like the counts on subcategories disappeared from category description page. {{PAGESINCAT:<category name>}} works. --  Docu  at 12:12, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, anything we can do about this? Is there some page that can be refreshed? (Seems to be the solution to a lot of things ... :-) ) — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 13:02, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

They're back for me (monobook). Looks like this also was due to bug 27451, which appears to be fixed now. Lupo 14:47, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

It's now working for me in Vector too. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 19:28, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Good to see it's back. --  Docu  at 06:40, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Disabled functions

• Blocking of uploads of generic meaningless filenames (camera-created names) seems to be disabled. --ŠJů (talk) 13:29, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

  Filed bugzilla:27470 TheDJ (talk) 20:33, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

  As Bryan (in the Bugzilla conversation) doesn't know how it is done: It's done via MediaWiki:Titleblacklist and MediaWiki:Titleblacklist-custom-filename. As I don't have a bugzilla account, someone can pls forward this? --Isderion (talk) 21:09, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

   Done--DieBuche (talk) 21:12, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

  thx --Isderion (talk) 21:19, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

  <whinge>Does anyone have an estimate for how much longer this is expected to stay broken? It leads to quite a lot of needless work when some bright individual decides that File:DSCF0006.JPG is the perfect name under which to upload a blurry penis photo, thus changing an English talk page redlink referring to an old version of File:Santa croce.jpg to take on a slightly different meaning.[14] To name just one example.</whinge> —LX (talk, contribs) 18:54, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

• Blocking of unintended overwriting of files seems to be disabled. --ŠJů (talk) 13:29, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

  What does that mean ? Example please. TheDJ (talk) 20:33, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

  An example is here but I'm not sure that the example can explain more than a description of the problem. In the past, when somebody tried to upload a file under an occupied name, he had to confirm "Ignore warning and save the file anyway". In the example, a confirmation dialog was omitted. --ŠJů (talk) 14:57, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

• drop-down "+" at category pages is disabled. --ŠJů (talk) 13:29, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

  That was bug 27451 and appears to be fixed now. Lupo 14:42, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Galleries

The HTML for image galleries has changed. Previously, galleries were HTML tables; now they are styled UL-lists (each image in the gallery is inside a LI list item). Any JavaScripts that rely on galleries being tables will need to be reworked.

• MediaWiki:ResizeGalleries.js is no longer needed (and has, I believe, already been disabled by User:DieBuche).
• MediaWiki:Gadget-GalleryDetails.js currently doesn't work (it's just inactive) on galleries. It does still work on search results. I'll update it in the next few days.

  Fixed now. Lupo 06:53, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

• Others?

Lupo 13:47, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Audio file rendering

"Play" button now overlaps with file name (when there's no NOGALLERY tag) NVO (talk) 15:59, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Bugzilla:27338, patch not yet applied. --DieBuche (talk) 16:22, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Good luck with all these fixes... I had two more complaints but they seem to on record already. I'm migrating onto SAP in real life - must be easier than all these ogg-buttons. NVO (talk) 16:36, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Patch applied--DieBuche (talk) 08:30, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

RTL.js

I think that MediaWiki:Rtl.js is broken - setting the interface language to Hebrew doesn't really make the layout RTL. Can anyone try to fix it? --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 16:10, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Fixing it everything for he.wikipedia.org was already a challenge, this one will probably have to wait a bit :D It's a rather complicated thing that will probably need a lot of work. Will take a few days I think. TheDJ (talk) 16:43, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Hotcats.js

Hotcats is behaving a bit strange today. Asks "are you sure you want to leave" (actually that message is in French, probably because my Firefox is in French), and you need to press "OK". Hotcats used to be "one click", though. diff. This was in Vector skin. Monobook skin seems all right. Teofilo (talk) 19:01, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Don't know why this dialog suddenly triggers if the user has "Warn me when I leave an edit page with unsaved changes" enabled in her or his preferences, but in any case, I've switched it off. Possibly you'll have to reload your browser's cache to get the fix. Lupo 07:11, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Gadget-PrettyLog.js

Doesn't load thumbnails anymore because of bug 27477. Lupo 22:45, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Implemented a workaround. PrettyLog is fixed. Lupo 06:55, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

UTC clock purge link gone

The purge link on my UTC clock has disappeared. Don't know if this is related to the 1.17 deployment. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 10:10, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

This gadget has been centralized and updated. Please copy the content of w:MediaWiki:Gadget-UTCLiveClock.js to MediaWiki:Gadget-UTCLiveClock.js so that the gadget works with 1.17 and is continually kept up to date. – Adrignola talk 14:17, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, it's now working fine. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 11:02, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Internet Explorer (IE) 8.0.6 and IE 7.0.6 crash

This is a reposting of an issue which was reported on Commons:Bistro and is confirmed by me.

I can confirm the issue with IE 8.0.6 on WinXP 32-bit (fully patched). Every image page Special:Random/File crashes the current tab completely - even the error console is crashed so I cannot see any more specific error. As I am not using IE usually I am not aware of any "freezing" options which could help debugging. If I set security to "high" (and thereby disabling javascript) everything is fine. Medium-high security setting crashes. If I disable "active scripting" (aka javascript) everything is fine again.

Next PC: Win Vista 32-bit, IE 7.0.6: Crashes IE completely on every image page and both language problems. (did not try without JS)

Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 12:40, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Could you try this with all gadgets disabled and without user JS? Also, which skin did you use? Lupo 12:52, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I was not logged in. Like the normal user. ;) Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 12:55, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Bryan identified that Stockphoto.js is causing the problem. Please fix somebody - Bryan has no time currently. Maybe simply switch stockphoto off for IE until the problem is fixed. Reported on MediaWiki talk:Stockphoto.js. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 14:59, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Done. Did it help? I'm kinda skeptical that it was the source of the problem--DieBuche (talk) 15:11, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

"Edit 2011-02-17T15:10:17 DieBuche" disabled it. Now in both my test systems the problem does not occur anymore. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 15:32, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

It still happens with any image I try to open in Wikimedia, the image uploads partially (twice) then I get "We were unable to return you to wikimedia.org." and the following: André Kritzinger (talk) 11:46, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

  Internet Explorer has stopped trying to restore this website. It appears that the website continues to have a problem. 
  What you can do: 
    Go to your home page 

    Try to return to wikimedia.org 

    More information 

When a website causes a failure or crash, Internet Explorer attempts to restore the site. It stops after two tries to avoid an endless loop.

More- Clicking on an image in a Wikipedia article loads the Wikipedia version of the image just fine, but then using the description page there link causes the page to crash too. Been like that for two days now, can someone please fixit! André Kritzinger (talk) 11:56, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

I concur. This bug is actually undermining the usability of the project - countless users (the vast majority of whom do not follow the Village Pump) using IE can't actually view images on Commons. Kind of strikes at the heart of what we do. I would have thought this would be a big enough problem that the implementation of a new version of MediaWiki would be rolled back until someone could figure out a solution. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 14:02, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Looks like someone fixed it - works fine now. Thanks, whoever! André Kritzinger (talk) 16:13, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

I still have the problem, although if it's working for you that suggests someone is plugging away at the issue. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 17:18, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

It was fixed when I said it. Apparently your browser keeps the skript's page in cache and does not load a new version of it. I think we can hardly do anything from our side here. People will need to clear the browser's cache (mostly a privacy setting/tool), hit F5 / Ctrl+F5 or just wait until the browser decides to fetch a new version of the script. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 18:46, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

I cleared my broswer's cache each time before posting here, including moments before I posted immediately above. As recently as ten minutes ago, it wasn't helping, but it is now. Maybe there is another explanation for the lag time. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 18:50, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

language script with problems IE

Another issue: the language selection drop-down on the left side is not usable: click → displays but when releasing the mousebutton it hides again.

And: the header is suggesting the language "null" ("Wikimedia Commons in null") on top of every page.

Tested with with Win Vista 32-bit, IE 7.0.6 and WinXP 32-bit, IE 8.0.6 not logged in. --Saibo (Δ) 15:37, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Confirmed, still an issue. TheDJ (talk) 08:24, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Trash can icon and link missing

I've noticed that the trash can icon and link (which makes it easier to delete the tagged image) on {{Speedy delete}} is missing. It was there before but not after the update to the MediaWiki software. Bidgee (talk) 12:56, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I have the opposite "problem." I am not an administrator, and {{Nuke}} was previously invisible to me. Now I see it, even though I shouldn't. —LX (talk, contribs) 13:04, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

So that's what the dinky little trash can is. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 14:08, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Should be fixed now. TheDJ (talk) 20:00, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Layout of search results

If a file name is that long that it needs to wrap on a second line, there seems to be a space missing between a file title and the description. Compare, e.g. Special:Search/File: Tree to Special:Search/File: Tropenmuseum Tree. --  Docu  at 19:16, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

The line break or space is missing also with some short file names like this. The line break reappears if I disable javascript. Teofilo (talk) 21:55, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I just notice that my two samples (now?) look the same: the space is missing in both. --  Docu  at 03:52, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Filed as bugzilla:27547 and a temporary fix deployed here on Commons. TheDJ (talk) 01:05, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Good. Thanks for fixing it. --  Docu  at 06:38, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Job queue length & transcluded categories

"Job queue length" wasn't this on Special:Statistics before?

I'm trying to figure out why a change to a transcluded category isn't propagating to its members. Maybe this doesn't work any more either. --  Docu  at 08:22, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

The value was removed, because most people were misinterpreting it. TheDJ (talk) 09:49, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Too bad. Is it visible elsewhere (e.g. API)?

BTW, why didn't this change have any effect? The one file that ended up here is there because I clicked "edit" and "save". --  Docu  at 10:53, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

The commit in question. Because updating categories has very low priority in the job queue system. 3 weeks waiting time isn't out of the ordinary at times. Clicking edit and save on a page bypasses the jobqueue and forces re parsing of a specific page. The number is still available to the only folks who should ever care about the number, system administrators. TheDJ (talk) 12:23, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

It might be weeks at en WP, but at Commons it was only a matter of hours. The only exception might be if we actually got all pages in the job queue .. (due to some update ..) --  Docu  at 12:30, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

See also Bugzilla:27584. --  Docu  at 12:34, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

The bugzilla links gives an alternate way to look at the length. It went down from 300,000 to 270,000 since (there is still just 1 image in the category). --  Docu  at 16:27, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Could it be stuck? The value at Commons is higher than the one at en_WP. --  Docu  at 06:22, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

I reported a bug about the transclusion problem (Bugzilla:27626). --  Docu  at 03:11, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

It seems like it's still broken. Most files are still in the original category. --  Docu  at 12:45, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Table sorting issue

I'm not sure if this is related to the 1.17 upgrade, but I've noticed I can't sort the table at Commons:MIME type statistics by bytes. Sorting by MIME type, media type, and number of files works fine, but when I click on the sort icon for bytes, nothing happens. Tested on Firefox and Safari. --Morn (talk) 13:12, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

I removed the colspan from the last row. Not sure if it worked before. --  Docu  at 13:17, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, now it's working again. Of course the bot will overwrite your change eventually, so it's only a temporary fix. --Morn (talk) 13:34, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I left a note to its operator. --  Docu  at 13:50, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it worked before, and you really should report the regression at bugzilla. But I'll implement Docu's workaround for now. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 15:44, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

That famous Che Guevara graphic

...might no longer fit Commons rules. One news article is here. ~ trialsanderrors (talk) 16:10, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

• This is not news. Original photograph is in the public domain, see w:Guerrillero Heroico and Fitzpatrick's poster is used in Wikipeida under fair use: w:File:FitzpatrickChe.jpg. --M5 (talk) 17:12, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Yup, that's my reading of {{PD-Cuba}} too. The original photograph was taken by Alberto Korda in Cuba in 1960, and must have been published between that year and 1968, because in 1968 Jim Fitzpatrick created his derivative version of the photograph. According to {{PD-Cuba}}, the copyright in a photograph expires 25 years after its first use. Thus, the Cuban copyright in the photograph expired at the latest in 1993 (1968 + 25 years). Copyright in the photograph has also expired in the US because the photograph was first published in Cuba without compliance with US copyright formalities and used in Cuba before February 20, 1972, and the Cuban copyright expired before Cuba joined the Berne Convention on February 20, 1997. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 17:20, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

The graphic is "transformative" derivative work by an Irish artist, so Cuban copyright law and the copyright status of the original photograph are irrelevant. What is news is that Fitzpatrick now seems to have changed his stance on enforcement of his copyright to prohibit "crass commercial purposes", whatever that means (likely NC, as we don't have a way to separate "crass" and "non-crass" commercial uses). Oh, and the svg I thumbed is on Commons and widely used, as are a number of others from Category:Derivative works of Guerrillero Heroico which use the graphic and not the photograph as the template. ~ trialsanderrors (talk) 11:33, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Since all Fitzpatrick apparently did with the photo was posterize it to 2 levels, I'm not sure if that even warrants a distinct copyright. Changing the number of levels is a purely technical (reproduction) step. (Otherwise converting a JPEG to GIF would have to be considered "tranformative" too.) Warhol did something artistic with colors and overall composition that made his works more credible as having a separate copyright, but I don't see that kind of effort here at all. Also, claiming copyright on something that has been Public Domain for decades is questionable and probably will not work. If he had wanted the copyright, he should have claimed it right from the beginning. --Morn (talk) 14:29, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I don't really see anything by Fitzpatrick "transformative" (creative) enough to generate fresh copyright. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 15:20, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Interestingly, starting with File:CheHigh.jpg and applying a straight 50% threshold seems to produce an image nearly identical to File:Che por Jim Fitzpatrick.svg, especially if one blurs the image a bit first to get rid of noise. So even the choice of threshold doesn't appear particularly creative. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 00:17, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Images without license templates

Over the years, I've come across quite a few files on Commons that didn't have any license template. And some of them even had been around like this for years! Such files are of no use to anyone and should be dealt with as soon as possible. Has there been any coordinated effort to identify such files so far?

Or can we just let a bot add a new category (Category:Media without license templates or something similar) to all such files without license templates. In many cases, there's probably some information about the license in the file description or the information was removed by a vandal, so a valid license tag could be easily added by experienced editors. --Kam Solusar (talk) 02:19, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

People will tag files that they find, placing problem files in subcategories of Category:Media without a license. – Adrignola talk 04:23, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I know. But as I said, I've stumbled across many files that never even had any license template or were vandalized and stayed without a valid license template for years. Wouldn't it be better to query the database to find all such images and deal with all of them now instead of waiting for someone to accidentally stumble upon a few here and there years later? --Kam Solusar (talk) 02:40, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Spanish sound recording for "Paris"

For Spanish speakers, who would mind recording the word "París" in Spanish?

The article "Paris" has sound recordings in English and French. But the Paris municipal government posts official city information in Spanish, so Spanish is also an important language in regards to the city (The municipal Spanish portal is at http://www.paris.fr/portail/es/Portal.lut?page_id=8230 ). Would anyone mind recording the Spanish pronunciation of the word "París"? WhisperToMe (talk) 02:33, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

It's actually going to be rather different in most Iberian Spanish from most New World Spanish, because of the different pronunciation of the 's'. - Jmabel ! talk 01:22, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

In that case I could request both pronunciations. WhisperToMe (talk) 05:42, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Can I change my username for a Unified Account?

Long ago, when I opened my Commons account, User:PDTillman, I tried for my Wikipedia name http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Tillman, and fouled it up somehow. Hence this account. User:Tillman doesn't seem in use here now. Can I unify to that username, for convenience? TIA, PDTillman (talk) 16:47, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

The account exists since 2007 but has 0 edits. Looks good for you. Make a request for usurpation at Commons:Changing username → Commons:Changing username/Usurp requests. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 21:41, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Newclose Cricket ground

I'd like to upload the photos on this page to Commons, http://www.newclose-cricket.co.uk/pictures/. Above the list it states that the images can be freely re-used as long as attribution is given. Although I've been active on Commons for a while now and have uploaded many of my own images I've never taken any from other sites (except Flickr) and was wondering if it is OK just to go straight ahead and upload? Or do I need written permission from the author, as it would be very easy for them to suddenly remove the text at the top and claim we were using the images incorrectly. Any help would be appreciated. Editor5807^speak 01:03, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

It isn't specific about granting permission to alter the images, so COM:OTRS might be a good idea; on the other hand, it's not like they say images must be used unaltered. Can someone weigh in on whether this is sufficient permission or requires that we go the OTRS route? - Jmabel ! talk 01:38, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Although the website does say "freely" I'd be more comfortable with OTRS verification since the website owner's view of what "free use" is may differ from ours. By seeking permission from the website owner, we would also be letting him or her know what we are planning to do with the images, which is polite and likely to be appreciated. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 04:42, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

en:File:Spyros Kiprianou Sports Centre Limassol.jpg

Is there any (license related) reason not to move this picture to Commons? COM:FOP#Cyprus is probably not applicable. --Leyo 15:30, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I think freedom of panorama does apply in this case. Section 2(1) of the Copyright Laws 1976 to 1993 of Cyprus defines artistic work as including "works of architecture in the form of buildings or models", and section 7(1)(c) provides that "copyright ... shall not include the right to control ... the reproduction and distribution of copies of any artistic work permanently situated in a place where it may be viewed by the public". It should be fine to move the image over. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 15:57, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. It does not matter that this picture was probably taken from indoors (i.e. not through a window from outdoors)? --Leyo 17:29, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

You'll need someone familiar with Cyprus copyright law to confirm that. But my reading of the wording of section 7(1)(c) suggests that there is no such limitation. All that is required is for the artistic work in question (here, a building) to be "permanently situated in a place where it may be viewed by the public". — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 18:08, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

OK, I moved to file. Thanks again. --Leyo 23:50, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Server changes?

Has any new changes/updates been made to server protocols or something? I have several categories where flags are organized in order using numbers or letters/names (Argentine Presidential standard is sorted as "Category:Presidential standards|Argentina", for example, where the standards are sorted by country alphabetically), and some of them are now moving to different positions against their sorting protocol (for example, Slovakia is now after Zimbabwe, even though S is before Z in the alphabet). It doesn't make any sense to me, and it's only started today. Fry1989 (talk) 23:55, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

See section above #Strange system behaviour. Somewhing probably went wrong on one or more of the servers. The glitches are not just at Commons, but on other wikis too... Rehman 00:25, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Fry1989 (talk) 00:52, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

March 9

23 "Wikimedia Commons page User talk:JarektBot has been changed" emails in 2 hours

Last night I got 23 "Wikimedia Commons page User talk:Jarekt has been changed" emails in 2 hours notifying me about some old discussions. I guess notification system was down and now someone boot it up? --Jarekt (talk) 01:47, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Same here. Most probably to do with the #Strange system behaviour again... Rehman 02:44, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

It's been like that for some time for me for not just Commons, but Wikibooks as well. Notifications of talk pages changes would be sent out all in one clump, several days after the changes were actually made. But the two most recent changes I've received did generate emails less than an hour after they were made, so maybe it is getting sorted out. – Adrignola talk 02:45, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Strange system behaviour

Looks like the system takes a lot of time before newly created or added categories are properly displayed. Category:Self-published_work generates a database error. --Foroa (talk) 07:01, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Yup. And this is not just for Commons, but for nearly all wikis... Nearly all pages at the English Wikipedia gives an "This site is experiencing technical difficulties" with a note "MySQL server down"... Rehman 07:12, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Things seem to be back to normal. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 11:14, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Not yet. At 11:22 UTC The system failed to display an edit to a page (showing "ref tag in place but no references section" error when there were no refs on the page). It passed after another, dummy, edit at 11:24. NVO (talk) 11:30, 8 March 2011 (UTC) p.s. And at 11:30 it failed to display the edit made to this page. NVO (talk) 11:30, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Edits and page creations are "realized" only about five or more seconds after they are made; weird. Rehman 11:49, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I am not getting any database errors but I am experiencing what Rehman has observed. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 11:54, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Another glitch - piped sort codes (like. [[Category:X|sortcode]]) don't work for categories (only for images). NVO (talk) 19:45, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

• And now subcategories are sorted (real example) in M-H-S-G-K-T-B-1...(then it switched to normal) order. NVO (talk) 20:01, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
• much worse: Category:Streets and squares of Moscow which has >700 subcategories and around a hundred files, displays only 183 subcategories and 17 files. Which conveniently adds up to precisely 200. NVO (talk) 20:04, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
• I'm having the same problem. Tearing my hair out as there seems to be no way to navigate from the first page of any given category. Who do we notify this of.--KTo288 (talk) 22:25, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Curious that it works for some categories (they have "next 200" blue links) but only some and sometimes. Category:People by name at first says "has the following 370 subcategories" and displays "next 200" button. Press the button, and "This category has the following 211 subcategories, out of 104,991 total". NVO (talk) 22:35, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I guess my comment belongs here too: I have several categories where flags are organized in order using numbers or letters/names (Argentine Presidential standard is sorted as "Category:Presidential standards|Argentina", for example, where the standards are sorted by country alphabetically), and some of them are now moving to different positions against their sorting protocol (for example, Slovakia is now after Zimbabwe, even though S is before Z in the alphabet). Fry1989 (talk) 00:54, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

• All categories now seem to have a maximum of about 200 entries, the ordering of which is sometimes rather eccentric. Bad news for anyone trying to use the Commons as an image library. --Simonxag (talk) 03:09, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, that 200 image limit is gonna be a huge problem. I hope it's just a glitch and not a new (and rather foolish) policy. Fry1989 (talk) 05:14, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Category:Cathedrals by country has a second list from A to Z repeated but with other contents. Same on en: and fr:wikipedia, so I guess that some people will not be entirely happy with the "creative" sort methods. --Foroa (talk) 07:06, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

I've noticed this too, it's a complete nightmare trying to find anything when it's displaying in two different (0-9)A-Z lists with no hint of which images are in which bit! Arriva436^{talk/contribs} 16:46, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

• There's some information about what's going on there. –Tryphon^☂ 07:10, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
  • "we didn’t believe was risky, but was irreversible". Great news. Does it mean "wait for 1.18" or it's just this, irreversible, restart and reboot? NVO (talk) 09:39, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
    • Hi everyone, sorry for the problems. Yes, this does appear to be a temporary result of new category sorting deployment. There's a long running script that is still in the process of running on the largest wikis (including commons). After the script is complete (hopefully later today), much of the weirdness should clear up. We'll be tracking the problems in bug 27956. -- RobLa-WMF (talk) 16:07, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
• Improving sorting methods is fine, BUT apparently leading spaces in sort keys are now completely ignored, which makes a lot of files be scattered in the file collection instead of being at the beginning. I think a lot of people will complain about this... — Bjung (talk) 16:37, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Might be a good idea to inform users about (temporary) sorting problems before they all start to change the sort keys (See suggestion here.
  • If new sorting algorithms "clean out" the leading blancs in the sort keys, we will have a huge problem indeed.
  • It would be nice to know when the system is stable so we can check.
  • Thank you for the great work, hopefully we get rid of the sort problem that is bothering me since several years. --Foroa (talk) 17:02, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Leading blanks in sort keys should not be removed in the new algorithm (at least not the uppercase one. For uca-default I have no idea, it might remove leading blanks) [For those who don't know, we're currently using uppercase collation which means case insensitive, but plan to move to uca-default which is much more complex and for example, sorts accented letters how you'd expect them. Or at least that's the last I heard]. Bawolff (talk) 01:14, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

License

When I put {{self|cc-by-3.0}} as a license to images of his own, how specify a way to assign my work? And I can change the license? (sorry for the poor English) --HélioVL ^(talk) 19:12, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

If I have understood you correctly you ask how to specify the attribution: See the documentation pages Template:Self (and Template:Cc-by-3.0): {{self|cc-by-3.0|attribution=HélioVL the master of photography}}

What do you mean with "I can change the license?"? Sorry - I do not understand. General License help is at COM:L (choose your preferred language at top - but note that the content my be reduced)/ → Commons:Licenciatura. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 22:21, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

That's right. I wanted to know about specify the attribution. About "change the license", this is correct? --HélioVL ^(talk) 23:29, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

No your license change at the image you have published is not correct. You can not remove licenses you have granted once (except if you replace it by a license which is more free and fully includes the previous one). You need to continue to license your photo under PD-self and PD-self is much more free than cc-by-sa. Similar there would not really be a need to add cc-by-sa as PD-self includes this license. Please see here: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/FAQ#What_if_I_change_my_mind.3F Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 02:57, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

I do not know that. But thanks for answering my question. --HélioVL ^(talk) 11:30, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

If you could void a license which you have given once this would be against the idea of free content and public domain. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 00:43, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Transfering an image from Wikipedia

Can anyone transfer this image from Wikipedia: [15]. I am too much of an occasional user, it would take me too long to figure out (again) how to do it. Thanks for any help. GiuseppeMassimo (talk) 15:20, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

 Done. Rehman 15:33, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much! GiuseppeMassimo (talk) 15:35, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

You're welcome. :) Rehman 15:39, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

The file is missing information about author and source. It only says it was uploaded to English Wikipedia and who the uploader was. It is possible that is own work by the original uploader but then the description here needs to say that. /Ö 19:40, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

FlickreviewR

I loaded this image from flickr, licensed on CC-BY-SA, which is accepted in the Wikimedia Commons. But the FlickreviewR recognizes that "hash not matching". What's wrong? --HélioVL ^(talk) 18:25, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

The review has been fixed. If you'll notice, the file you uploaded was badly corrupted (you'll have to scroll to the upload history section to see now). The reviewer could not accurately match the corrupted file with the one at Flickr, so it reported the error. In the future, please use something like FlickrUploader to automatically move images from Flickr and have them reviewed, rather than manually uploading. — Huntster (t @ c) 18:45, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

I thought that was a problem of visualization in the computer. Thanks for the help. --HélioVL ^(talk) 19:52, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikimedia projects still using non-commercial-only images?

I have no idea where in the world to bring this up, but tonight, I noticed File:YosriUlamRaja.jpg, which was transferred from the ms Wikipedia at ms:Fail:YosriUlamRaja.jpg. They have a whole bunch of images that use cc-by-nc-2.0 template. I thought that such things were supposed to have been expunged from Wikimedia projects a long time ago. So anyway, I searched and found at least two others - File:YosriUlamRaja1.jpg and File:YosriTapakKuda.jpg. Then I found Category:Files moved from ms.wikipedia to Commons requiring review. I clicked on a few of the images that were all uploaded by this same person and the original ms images have been deleted, so I can't check to see if they have the non-commercial license or the correct license. Any thoughts? --UserB (talk) 05:04, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm quite alarmed that ms wiki has a CC-BY-NC template that they are actively using on images. This template must be deleted along with all images using it. This is a Foundation Issue and they do not have a say in the matter. Unfortunately none of us have administrative privileges on that wiki, so we cannot enact this. Who should we contact? Dcoetzee (talk) 05:56, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Hi there. This is Yosri. Please note that the said picture predate the non/noncommercial exclusion. I have stop contributing to common immediately after the said policy was approved, but no at ms because each local wiki was allowed to have local say whether to allow or disallow such pic. (yes. I am that old) Should there was any changes that I'm not aware off where this policy is being forced down the throat to local wiki, please point to such policy. Then I may decide to convert to GDLF or delete them as I wish, since I regard the CC licence is a fraud, worst than GDLF. By the way you do know that we understand English there. Just drop a line, and we can do our own deletion just fine.
Regards. Yosri (talk) 06:48, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I am not aware of the image policy at ms.wikipedia and so cannot comment on that, but NC images cannot be transferred from that Wikipedia over here to the Commons. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 09:12, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Please see meta:Resolution:Licensing policy. Your project does not have an Exemption Doctrine Policy (EDP) and thus must not host any unfree files, and this should have been addressed three years ago. This is not something that the Malay Wikipedia can decide to depart from on their own volition. —LX (talk, contribs) 10:46, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Dear LX,
The reason MS project does not have an Exemption Doctrine Policy (EDP) is because nobody bother to inform us, because each of you is so full of praise of each other, to take time to talk clearly with (not to) other people. This should be communicated clearly to us 3 years ago. Who know, some of us might even withdraw from the project 3 years ago. It's not something that that Malay Wikipedia decide to depart from, since how can we depart from what we did not know. As far as we concern, Wiki is the one who depart from it's original goal. The sentence "The Foundation resolves to assist all project communities who wish to develop an EDP with their process of developing it." never happen. And GFDL seems does't cut it also under the new licensing (read carefully). I'm still reviewing the terms and conditions of this new licensing for now, to determine next step of actions. The whole licensing agreement is convoluted and hard to understand, jumping everywhere. I will need some clarification later, but for now, I having indigestions trying to digest what actually covered under new licensing. Yosri (talk) 15:35, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

You are permitted to use the GFDL as a license for your images, both on Commons and on ms - it's merely deprecated, not abolished (although it's against the spirit of the project to attempt to use the GFDL to discourage commercial use). It's also okay to dual license your work under both the GFDL and CC-BY-NC (as long as at least one noncommercial license is an option, there is no problem). However, all images licensed as CC-BY-NC on ms wiki, by you or anyone else, must either be relicensed or deleted as soon as possible. Dcoetzee (talk) 17:02, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Hi Yosri! Please try to use normal indentation practices on talk pages, as it makes it easier to see which comments were posted in which order in response to what. (I've fixed up the indentation in this section to the best of my abilities.) I am not sure exactly how the licensing policy resolution and EDP requirements were communicated to individual projects. Some of the possibilities I can think of include site notices, village pumps, embassies, and mailing lists. It would probably make more sense to direct questions about how the Foundation communicates its resolutions at the Foundation rather than at volunteers participating in the Commons project. The Wikimedia Foundation has a number of local chapters. I'm not sure, but I think the one that would be best positioned to help the Malay Wikipedia might be the Indonesian chapter. —LX (talk, contribs) 11:19, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

PS: BTW! How did this was cascade to other project. What was the delivery channel used? Can you point out in MS Wiki, where it was posted? Why MS Ambassador not highlighting this matter to MS Community, or are they sleeping on the job? Yosri (talk) 15:35, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Yosri, foundation:Resolution:Licensing policy gives the Wikimedia Foundation's licensing policy. All projects are required to only have "free content" that meets with this definition, which specifically allows commercial reuse ("Copies may be sold, swapped or given away for free, as part of a larger work, a collection, or independently.") The Foundation's policy states that all non-conforming images are to be deleted no later than March 23, 2008. If you want to relicense your contributions under the GFDL, that's fine, but they can't stay here or there licensed for non-commercial use only. --UserB (talk) 12:41, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

If I still cannot understand the new licensing by end of March, I will delete them myself. This dual licensing requirement is tough to understand. I rather delete those image than letting fat cat getting fatter on my blood, toil, tears and sweat. I can always reload them, if I decide so and if I still have a copy. Yosri (talk) 15:33, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Just noting here that "dual licensing" is for your "text" contributions (articles, talk pages, etc). You can license images under any free license of your choosing, including the GFDL, if that is your desire, without having to license them under a second license. Please see File:Mike Hogewood and Doc Walker.jpg for an example of an image that I have contributed under only the GFDL. --UserB (talk) 16:06, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Comment to the above, those picture dated 2005-08-29, the new ruling was updated 23 March 2007.Yosri (talk) 15:25, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Lax image practices are unfortunately not uncommon in many of the smaller Wikipedias. I could point to several projects where non-free images are routinely claimed as "fair use" without apparently any scrutiny for replaceability (e.g. here, mk:Категорија:Промотивни фотографии). I doubt these projects have ever heard of an "exemption policy" either. There are of course also projects where image policy is simply non-existent, e.g. here, where almost all images are simply uploaded without any description or copyright declaration whatsoever, and nobody ever bothers to check. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:45, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

FPaS just took the words out of my mouth (although I was going to point to Russian Wikipedia). That said, Wikimedia Commons itself is in the process of utterly disregarding policy. We have tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of images which are free in their home country, but not in the US (Category:Works copyrighted in the U.S. gives just a taste of the sample). Like elsewhere on commons, any time I bring such issues up, I am strewn with a stream of vitriol accusing me of bad faith and double standards, so I've kind of given up on it, although to be honest I've thought about trying to get in contact with WMF lawyers for their take. Magog the Ogre (talk) 17:58, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm also planning to consult with the new General Counsel regarding the URAA, but he's not active yet, so I want to wait until then. When I do I'm going to get some signatures from concerned parties so I'm putting you on my list. Dcoetzee (talk) 18:47, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I am not aware about any serious problems with licensing or fair use content in Russian Wikipedia. Trycatch (talk) 14:35, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Does the Foundation have any process for reaching out to the smaller projects to help them come into compliance? It creates at least somewhat of an inconvenience for other projects because (a) it results in well-meaning users uploading copyvios to Commons and (b) we can't reuse the images that they are spending time to collect. --UserB (talk) 19:20, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

The Foundation already have an establish process for reaching out to the smaller projects, ie fundraising. We never missed them. And, had image uploader to common is being informed the reason why their image being removed in the first place, they can convey the same message to their local Village pump and stop same Wiki user from loading the same into common. This will also reduce work of Common Admin. Instead they were left wondering why their uploaded images mysteriously vanish overnight. See Icelandic Wikipedia experiance below for example.Yosri (talk) 11:55, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Lets focus on helping the smaller projects

Like UserB it think we should think about how we can help the smaller projects. Unless we have a reason to think that they ignore the rules I see no reason to be so "tuff". Who knows if they were informed back then or if they understood the meaning? Not all users of wikipedia fully understand English.

I would like the small projects to see Commons and its users as a friendly place that helps you if you need help - and not someone who "kills you" if you if you make a mistake.

So please help inform the projects. Guide them how to solve the problems. Is there alternatives to mass delete the files? Perhaps offer bot assistance to inform the uploaders. Etc. After some time check up if process is going as planned. So help before spanking please... --MGA73 (talk) 19:38, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure who you think has been tough on whom. Dcoetzee mentioned that it's alarming to see {{Cc-by-nc}} in use on Wikimedia projects (which it is, since it – knowingly or unknowingly – goes against the licensing policy resolution and founding principles). Yosri thought that each local wiki was allowed to have local say whether to allow or disallow licenses which prohibit non-commercial use. I pointed out that this is not the case. The only tough words (by which I mean non-factual and ad hominem) I saw above were Yosri's accusation that "each of you is so full of praise of each other."

I really think the Foundation should step up to its role in this. Commons' task is to serve other Wikimedia projects and other reusers with high-quality, well-organised, verifiably free media. We should be clear about what that means in terms of which files we allow to be transferred to Commons, but we should not be in the business of going onto other projects as Commons representatives to announce Foundation resolutions or audit other projects' compliance with those resolutions. Of course, volunteers from Commons can get involved in Foundation activities, but we need to be clear about what's what. —LX (talk, contribs) 12:19, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Tough or not - I guess you only checked the edits here on Commons and that is ok :-) I agree that the Foundation should make sure everyone is informed but on Commons we have the knowledge and if we learn that some projects does not follow the rules I think it would be a good action to inform them kindly and help them if we can. Status is that ms-wiki now knows and it seems that Yosri has been so kind to inform other Wiki projects about this (i do not how many) so hopefully all wikis know about that now. --MGA73 (talk) 16:48, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Interesting, we at the Icelandic Wikipedia have been in the dark on this until Yosri let us know at our local Village Pump. I have uploaded images since sometime around 2004, they were removed from Commons when the licenses for images of buildings were reviewed. In Iceland an image of a building can not be reproduced for commercial reasons unless after consulatation with the owner of the copyright (architect) or his descendants, until 70 years from the death of the architect. We discontinued using Commons for this and used is.wikipedia to host these images with appropriate licenses. Now it seems we will have to delete 99% of the images of buildings in the Icelandic wikipedia to allow for commercial use of existing images? Bizarre about turn. --Stalfur (talk) 12:59, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Your local project might consider some sort of fair use exemption for buildings. And even then, strictly speaking, the Wikimedia servers are housed in the US, so really you only have to pay attention to US law with respect to appropriate licensing. And US law does not recognize copyrights on pictures of bulidings (COM:FOP). Magog the Ogre (talk) 13:21, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I quote ``Wikimedia Commons accepts only media that are explicitly freely licensed, or that are in the public domain in at least the United States and in the source country of the work.`` so if the picture is not free in iceland and the picture is made in iceland it may also not be used freely other wikimedia projects. As some lawyers will see this project as commercial and other as non-commericial. The pictures needs to be completely free of any copyrights. Carsrac (talk) 16:34, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

That's Wikimedia Commons policy. That's not overall policy for Wikimedia as whole; for example, the English Wikipedia permits images out of copyright in the US and not in their source nation. If they wish, a Wikimedia project only has to worry about US law.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:49, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Yosri has informed the Swedish Wikipedia [sv] (who has no local upload), but no other Swedish projects. The other Swedish projects: wikt: and v: has no local upload (as far as I can see). n: and q: has local upload, but has no files, except from the project-logo. s: has a bot who daily identifies new files, and check if they have any license-templates. b: has several files, but are not using any license-templates at all, as far as I can see. -- Lavallen (talk) 21:02, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

The Tagalog Wikipedia has also been informed by the aforementioned user, but no other projects in Tagalog. Then again, it perhaps is appropriate: the Tagalog Wikibooks and Wiktionary have few contributions to begin with. However, we do have to deal with the issue of communities and EDPs: we have tried to get an EDP passed twice, to no avail. Unfortunately, many of the smaller communities (including ours) are just not interested in dealing with the intricacies of U.S. copyright law. --Sky Harbor ^(talk) 09:27, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

URAA

FYI, SCOTUS has agreed to review the URAA[16]. The case is on the 2011-2012 docket, so a decision is not likely before next June. -Nard (Hablemonos)(Let's talk) 18:20, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm very happy that we'll see a conclusive opinion on the URAA soon - it should resolve our longstanding policy standoff one way or the other, since it will apply nationwide and have no chance of appeal. Next June seems like a long time now, but in the scheme of things it's not so bad. Dcoetzee (talk) 20:45, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Note: updated Commons:Licensing. Dcoetzee (talk) 03:15, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

If we(some here) plan to delete all pictures which are not in the PD in the US we need to fork Commons - just to mention. ;) Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 18:05, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Depending on the outcome of the SCOTUS case, setting up a media archive in another nation is a very real possibility. Dcoetzee (talk) 22:59, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikimedia does already have mirror servers in other nations, like the Netherlands. Jcb (talk) 23:32, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

image from Wikipedia

Hello, can anyone transfer this file from wikipedia [17], or does the license Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 prevent its transfer? Thanks! GiuseppeMassimo (talk) 18:55, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

 Done: File:Some Basic Macrobiotic Ingredients.JPG. – Adrignola talk 21:10, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much! GiuseppeMassimo (talk) 21:50, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

March 11

Interactive media

How does one upload interactive media directly to Commons? I’m thinking of a situation where some really famous but old game like Mario has its copyrighted expired and we have a chance to upload the entire game here. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 01:44, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Presently, we don't accept interactive content, largely because no notable video game will fall into the public domain for decades to come. It's not unreasonable that games may be released in their entirety under a free license (e.g. projects by students at game design schools), but there isn't really a standard open source plug-in for interactive content, and it remains difficult to rule out security vulnerabilities in content containing executable code. For now the best alternative is external links. We do have some examples of SVGs that include slider bars and that kind of thing, but even those have been fussy to get working on all browsers. Dcoetzee (talk) 02:02, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Only the file types listed at Commons:File types can be uploaded. Those do not include Flash files, which would be one of the most common methods for interactive games online today. – Adrignola talk 02:04, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Commons Administrator Logo Proposal

A discussion has been initiated at Commons:Administrators' noticeboard#Commons Administrator Logo Proposal to adopt File:CommonsAdminMop.png as the unofficial logo of Wikimedia Commons Administrators. All editors are invited to comment and provide input. -FASTILY ^(TALK) 08:08, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Correct license for a vector trace of a photograph of the Moon

If i digitally enhance a bitmap image of the Moon and trace it into a bunch of vectors, how should that resultant .svg be licensed? If the original image was attributed to NASA and had its customary licensing?

Gregors (talk) 14:36, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Since your source image is in the public domain, you can license your image however you like. I think converting a raster image to vector is requires sufficient creative input to be transformative, although others might say it's just a slavish reproduction and thus not eligible for a copyright separate from that of the original image. Powers (talk) 14:56, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

I would generally license such an image {{Cc-zero}}. This way whether or not I'm actually entitled to any copyright, I waive all rights regardless. If attribution is important to you, however, you're free to choose another license and I wouldn't argue with you. Dcoetzee (talk) 17:59, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. In at least the case of the Moon vector image attribution is not very important; altjhough I did do almost an hour's woth of "tweaking" to reduce the number of nodes from over 30,000 to under 8,000 so it was not just a "machine translation".

Gregors (talk) 08:05, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

March 12

Image uploaded by mistake

Hallo, a few minutes ago I uploaded the image "Benjamin Seizes Daughter of Shiloh.jpg". Unfortunatly the preview doesn't show the final result and this image must be deleted since it shows a writing of the site from which I took it. I don't know the procedure to cancel it, can somebody do it?. Thank you for your help, --Gab.pr (talk) 19:04, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Please go ahead and upload a version of the file without the text; use the same filename. Then an admin can come in and delete the old version. Powers (talk) 19:13, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Monobook skin is broken for RTL-UI

Screenshot of the bug

Some days ago Monobook skin was broken for RTL-UI, the main toolbar (Commons icon and all links) moved from the right side (OK) to the left side (wrong) (in Vector skin, toolbar position is OK). Other Symptom: the compare-version feature lost its background colors, attached screenshot of the 2 issues. Netanel h (talk) 20:11, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Does this only happen for you on Commons ? Or on any RTL-wiki ? If the latter, please open a bug for the software as it's probably not a bug in Wikimedia Commons but in the MediaWiki-software. The ticket system for feature requests and bug reports is at: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/ (needs a seperate account). –Krinkle^talk 17:44, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

This issue happans Only in Commons, in He.wiki (RTL wiki) with Monobook skin it's OK. Netanel h (talk) 17:03, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

March 8

Deleting your own images

Just asking, is it possible to delete images that I uploaded and created and released under Creative Commons? Can you do it yourself or do you have to go through some kind of procedure? Juvarra (talk) 22:54, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

You must click "Nominate for deletion" in the toolbox on the left-hand side when viewing the file. You'll need to specify a rationale that appeals to the deletion policy. Images used only on your user page, if removed from use, would be out of scope and could be deleted with little fanfare. But others with educational use would likely be kept. It depends on the image. – Adrignola talk 00:46, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

(EC) Please see Commons:Deletion_policy for help on this. In short: you cannot delete by yourself. Only admins can delete in accordance with this policy. Which procedure is correct (if any is correct) depends on why you want the images to be deleted. In general you cannot revoke a license you gave for your pictures - so if you want them to be deleted just because you changed your mind regarding this free license long after uploading the images this is not possible. See e.g. [18]. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 00:49, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

A moderator of Dutch Wikipedia accused me of copyright violation in uploading images when I was banned there. AFAIK I did not do that, I took care only to upload copyright free images or images which I got permission for (only on the English Wikipedia which allows "Fair Use") and many of them are my own creation, but it might be hard to prove that. I asked the Dutch ArbCom by e-mail for clarification. That's why I asked. I much rather have the whole lot deleted rather than risk a court case. (BTW: This is *NOT* intended to be against WP:LEGAL!) Juvarra (talk) 01:56, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

If the moderator is a Commons user as well, you might want to bring it up on Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard/User_problems. --  Docu  at 05:26, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

For the people who can read Dutch: nl:Overleg gebruiker:SpeakFree/blockmsg. Multichill (talk) 15:52, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

I get no response from the Dutch arbcom by e-mail and have no other way of contacting them. It seems that there is no appeals process for banned users. But I'm letting it go. Dutch Wikipedia a closed book to me. But I won't delete my images. Juvarra (talk) 13:29, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

March 10

Army of

{{Place/aux}} includes "Air force of <country>" and "Army of <country>", however these are all category redirects. e.g. Category:Air force of the United States and Category:Army of Australia.

This template is used everywhere, such as Category:Australia in the 1910s.

Either the template needs to be fixed (gosh, it looks complicated), or we should revert to the old category names. If we are mucking around with this template, it would be good to also support categories called 'Royal ...', such as Category:Royal Australian Air Force. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 06:47, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

For reference, the thread that produced the current locations is here. – Adrignola talk 13:33, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

You may also wish to comment here, slow burnining discussion as most procedural discussions tend to be. In a nutshell the debate is between using the name of a thing or organisation as the category name or a description of it. i.e. Category:Royal Australian Air Force is the name of the organisation. Category:Air force of Australia is a description of what it is.--KTo288 (talk) 10:04, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Category:Fine arts

Is Category:Fine arts a meaningfull category? --Havang(nl) (talk) 11:27, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

It reminds me of Category:Art photography. At least that one states which two photographers to include ;) --  Docu  at 12:10, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

• It isn't if it has 8 images in it; it might be if it had 8,000, but is not worth filling up. Close it down, & redirect to "Art". Defining the term, which is generally avoided by art historians, is difficult anyway. Johnbod (talk) 13:38, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

• Its not meaningfull. The category has been used as a "tag" by some artists doing self-promotion on our projects, the category had content and was now created. The files should go to better categories, e.g. for paintings, and/or tagged as no-permission and/or nominated for deletion as self-promotional spam. --Martin H. (talk) 13:47, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
• It's already a redirect. Let's keep it that way. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 15:16, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Move & Replace problem

Hi, is there an option to enlarge this green box in script? Polish translation don't fit, because it's too long/font is too big. Yarl ✉ 18:05, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Please report at MediaWiki_talk:AjaxQuickDelete.js. looks like the font size is way too big. Please include the browser version you are using at the talk page I pointed to. And maybe try with another browser if possible. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 23:15, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Need help with a bot command.

I'd like to command a bot to replace some files with their vector versions on all the wikipedias. This is for the flag maps project, where there are alot that are now replaced with a better vector version. So for, I've had to do it by hand, which is slow and monotonous. I know such bots exist, as I've seen it before. Are only admins allowed to program such bots, or can I do it myself, and if I can, can you please show me how? Thanks Fry1989 (talk) 21:34, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi. AFAIK, that place would be User:CommonsDelinker/commands. But, per the notice there, the bot will not replace a file if the new image is svg and the original is not... Rehman 02:13, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Oh, that's a shame. Well, thanks for your help. Fry1989 (talk) 02:24, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

You may wish to look into AutoWikiBrowser to automate what would otherwise be repetitive edits. It would be easy to work with if the vector version only differs in the file extension. Otherwise it could get tricky and would be less effective at saving you time. – Adrignola talk 04:22, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

March 13

Edditing picture attributes of already UPLOADED pictures

I am a newbie in attaching pictures to an article. I was updating the article of my father Martti Tiuri. I Uploaded 2 pictures to Wikimedia marttitiuri2010.jpg and metsahovi1978.jpg, but they are going to be deleted in 7 days if I do not figure out how to EDIT the picture atributes. PLEASE Can anyone of the Moderators ADD a LICENSE and SOURCE to them so they will not wanish from the Wikipedia ?Lmfzor (talk) 15:27, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Hello, Lmfzor:

• File:Marttitiuri2010.jpg: If you took this photograph personally, you can release it into the public domain by using the Creative Commons CC0 licence, or license it to the Commons under a free licence such as the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. You apply these licences to the file description page by adding either {{Cc-zero}} or {{self|cc-by-3.0}} under the licence heading. You should also add information about the photograph. To see how to properly provide information on a file, go to "File:Court of Appeal courtroom, Old Supreme Court Building, Singapore - 20101010-02.jpg" and click on the "Edit" link to see what to type on the file description page.
• File:Metsahovi1978.jpg: You have indicated that this photograph was not taken by you but by Martti Tiuri. You will therefore need to ask Tiuri to send an e-mail to permissions-commonswikimedia.org to confirm that he agrees to licensing the photograph to the Commons under CC0 or CC-BY-3.0. For more information, see "Commons:OTRS".

If you need more help, post another message here. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 17:08, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for trying to help me so quiclly Jacklee - unfortunately your kind explanation did not help me solve the problem completely. I am looking (I have a dream) for a USER INTEFACE where the logged in person can EDIT the attributes of any picture file he has uploaded him self to the Commons. I can go to the Gallery interface but I can not see any link on every pictre saying "EDIT PICTURE PROPERTIES" that I can click. It is good to know WHAT you sholuld write into the license ,but I really meant HOW to write into the license ! Unfortunately I live in Finland (the most eastrern state of USA) and the Wikipages are all in finis. I tried te link translated to "Edit atributes in another Application" and it opened an empty index page in Dreamweaver view-mode. I am only familiar with Windows and Front Page ???? Lmfzor (talk) 19:39, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

If you are viewing the Wikimedia Commons website in a foreign language and wish to change some of the text into another language, you can change the language setting by clicking on the "My Preferences" link at the top right-hand corner of the screen (third link from the left – in Finnish it says "Asetukset"). On the next page, look for the section marked "Internationalization" (Finnish: "Kieli"), select the language you want (for example, "en – English"), and then click the button at the bottom of the screen marked "Save" (Finnish: "Tallenna Asetukset").

I am not sure what you mean by the "Gallery interface". If you go to "File:Marttitiuri2010.jpg" by clicking on the blue link, you will see the word "Edit" (or, in Finnish, "Muokkaa") in a tab near the top of the screen. Clicking on that link opens a text window which enables you to edit the file description page. (By the way, when did Finland become a state of the USA? ;-)) — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 08:23, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Ok JackLee so far so good. Bare with me just to solve the last point PERMISSION. I found out that the link "Add Source Information for this file" takes You to a place where You can EDIT the attriputes of Your UPLOADED picture file Now I only have the PERMISSION wrong, but I can not INVENT what in the world I should write there, so that the picture is correctly saved, and there are no more ERROR ALLERTS ??? The ATTRIBUTES look like this

---

{{tl|no source since|month=March|day=10|year=2011}} === {{int:filedesc}} === {{Information |Description=Portrait of Martti Tiuri |Source=Foto Tapiola |Date=10 March 2011 |Author= {{PD-self}} |Permission= |other_versions= }} === {{int:license}} === {{self|cc-by-3.0}}

---

Also no source since... looks suspicious ??? 91.154.113.49 15:42, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I think you've got the information mostly correct, but what does "Foto Tapiola" mean? If you were not personally the person who owns the copyright in the photograph, then you cannot upload this photograph to the Commons unless you get the copyright holder to confirm that he or she is willing to release the photograph into the public domain or license it under a free licence, according to the instructions at "Commons:OTRS". Oh, and don't forget to log in before you post messages! — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 16:02, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

PD-Self is not an author; you need to put the username or real name of the author in there.--Prosfilaes (talk) 19:48, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Prosfilaes: Now I finally got the IDEA - One SIMPLE WORKING picture atributes list can look like this == Summary == {{Information |Description ={{en|1=The parapoloid antenna "Kurpitsa" (the Bumbkin)at Metsähovi observatory}} |Source =own photo by Martti Tiuri |Author =Martti Tiuri |Date =1978 |Permission =Martti Tiuri |other_versions = }} == Licensing == {{self|cc-by-3.0}} You should of course put Your own name instead of "Martti Tiuri" - of course not all pictures are about Radioastronomy.

I do noy know if You can write PHP-pages to Wikipedia ? An easy WEB USER INTERFACE with pulldown menus and INPUT fields for PICTURE atribute formating was something I was expecting from a GROWD SOURCED web encyclobedia instaed of some complicated TAGGED coding language that looks like Extensions.conf file from an ASTERISK mediagateway

Allowing .ico uploads

Would there be any objection to filing a bug to allow ICO files to be uploaded to Commons? Free favicons would be cool. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:33, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

It takes 2 seconds to make a favicon from an image here. (e.g. wget [19] -O favicon.ico -- am i missing anything?) How about either a toolserver tool to do this, or just build into mediawiki on the image page, where it says "This image rendered as PNG in other sizes:", add somewhere the option to get it as a favicon.ico. Still, no objections to the .ico format for uploads, being unaware of any technical or security issues with the format. -Aude (talk | contribs) 04:51, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

afaik ico is not a wrapped png. If IE <9 doesn't interest you, you can just use png as a favicon, it's got better support for transparency anyway.--DieBuche (talk) 11:36, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

sort files with toolbox by date (upload or better date of exposure)

This would be handy! In Wikipedias, Wikinewses and Wikibooks you could find much more easier "most current" pictures of people, buildings; in general single things, which change their appearance "quickly" (in difference to species, classes of buildings, nations etc.) Of course quality is the next point, but in this way you’re able to select most qualtitive + current pictures.
I’m sure, this is not the first time this idea is spoken out. If there’s a css oder js – can it be acitvated by default? --Hæggis (talk) 00:37, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Two tools which may be of some help:

With thumbnails (but without subcategories): http://toolserver.org/~magnus/catfood.php - example

Without thumbnails (but with subcategories): http://toolserver.org/~magnus/catscan_rewrite.php - example (hit the "do it" button)

Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 18:30, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

*knicks* for the tools :-)

I guess, sorting the tumbnails is the best way for impatient poeple oO

Do you think, it's appropriate – server burden, maybe trouble to install, and not to forget 1 point more in menu – to include it (Commons-)globally for all users? Nastrovje, Hæggis (talk) 00:12, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

No such links are easy and no server burden. But activating them by standard would clutter the screen too much for people who do not want them. I hacked up a small gadget: User:Saibo/CatNewsTabs.js. Just insert a link to your User:Hæggis/monobook.js (or vector if you use vector - but not tested if it works (but it should)) to use it:

importScript('User:Saibo/CatNewsTabs.js');

The tabs will be CN-T and CN-↓ and appear only on category pages.

Currently I just used the config of my example links from above. Tell me what you think of this. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 01:41, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for providing the script :-)

I opened User:Hæggis/vector.js and bypassed browser cache, but (vector?) it doesn't work. But maayyybe it's due to Asbach Uralt browser I use at the moment. I'll give answer when I can use the modern one. Santé, Hæggis (talk) 18:39, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Now I have tested it on Monobook and Vector skin, on Firefox 3.6.13 and Opera 11. To see if your vector.js works at all just insert the line to get a annoying message box on every page you open.

alert('Testtest');

I guess also an Asbach Uralt browser will work - as long as it has javascript enabled. Then you should see at least the new tabs (hidden in vector behind the ↓ tab). Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 02:49, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Et funktioniert! (it works!) Asbach Uralt had shown error:catfood.jpg or stuff like this oO

Many thanks & salud, Hæggis (talk) 18:31, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Japan shifted 2.4m because of earthquake. Consequences for GPS points?

Apparently Japan shifted by 2.4m (According to en:wp its 5 meters, direction: east) and I was thinking if that should have any consequences for GPS points (here on images, on wp on articles)? Should we move all GPS points by 2.4m? Just a thought. Amada44  ^{talk to me} 08:11, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

No need for that, there is seldom such a precision. --Havang(nl) (talk) 09:47, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Agreed with Havang; until the base maps themselves are updated with the new geodetic information, I don't see the point in making such coord changes. From a visual perspective, two meters isn't a whole lot when looking at maps. That said, it might be a good idea to get some system in place so that the change can be rapidly deployed if necessary. Note that the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile made such geological changes as well; apparently Concepción moved ~3 meters west and Haiti's fault zone moved an average of 1.8 meters. Long story short, while being able to make such updates might be useful in the future, this doesn't need to be done right now. — Huntster (t @ c) 10:07, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

While not urgent, this needs an orchestrated approach as people might start from tomorrow entering new coordinates that correspond to new and old positions; such a mixup is difficult to manage and correct. --Foroa (talk) 10:32, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Is there any international agency that makes official announcements about such matters? If so, perhaps we should wait for one. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 15:15, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

More fundamentally - why change anything? Japan moved as a result of the quake, therefore a GPS reading at the centre of the Imperial Palace will be slightly different than a reading at the exact same spot last week. However, a photograph taken of the palace last week should indicate the geolocation at the time of the photograph. It would be incorrect to say that a photograph taken at 35.684753N, 139.752458E before the quake, was taken at 35.684753N, 139.752460E. New photos should use the new coordinates, but old photos should use the old.--Nilfanion (talk) 17:53, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Good point. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 18:02, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that is so significant; it happens all the time (if not so suddenly, then gradually). For instance, the plate boundary near Fiji moves North-East by 0.237 meters every year (Fiji is about 700km from the boundary)... Rehman 13:12, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Another good point. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 18:02, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

While interesting, this isn't a big problem, since all photos are timestamped, so anyone interested in geolocating points relative to the Japan landmass have all the information they need to correct the data. In historical studies in a few hundred years, people might want to develop some systematic landmass-relative coordinate system for this. Dcoetzee (talk) 05:00, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

There's quite a difference between timestamped coords captured with a GPS-equipped camera on location, and coords entered postfactum by referencing photographs with googlemaps. I regularly do it for 100-year-old photographs (either as "object location" or "camera location" - referenced to present day street grid and present-day geo data). This data is useless for historical studies of Earth's tectonics. Perhaps there should be some clear division between "live" and "post factum" coordinates? (p.s. Updates of google sat photos can introduce more error than any plate tectonics - say, the 2007 photo had all buildings tilted to the left, and current photo has them tilted to the right, completely obstructing view of the street itself... ) NVO (talk) 12:25, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

"Source=EXIF" for example in File:Grafes Ende memorial snow jeh.jpg makes some attempt in this direction, though in this particular example as in many the EXIF coordinates were actually added after the photography and before the upload. Jim.henderson (talk) 13:11, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Uploading large files

Hi all. As a result of Wikimedia UK's recent activities, we have several sets of large (>=500MB) video files that we'd love to see hosted here. Examples include Cory Doctorow's keynote and the full length version of File:Jimmy Wales Bristol Public Lecture wp10 6min promo.theora.ogv. Is there any way of getting around the 100MB upload limit so that they can be added here? Doing the uploading isn't an issue, as I have access to a high speed (~1MB/s) symmetrical internet connection. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 21:05, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

This would require modifying the php.ini file for the server/cluster. See MediaWiki. This would likely need at minimum a community consensus but would also come down to whether the server operators consent to it. – Adrignola talk 22:26, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

I believe there is concern about such large uploads being corrupted during the upload due to any number of factors, so I wonder if any provision is in place to mail a physical copy of such large files to the ops. — Huntster (t @ c) 22:39, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

php.ini configuration: I believe that there are two settings here. One is the PHP setting, the other is a MediaWiki setting. So, in theory, the PHP one could be increased with the mediawiki one being increased for selected users - but I'm not sure how practical this is.

Upload corruption: this depends on your connection (and the server connection). From my home connection, I've regularly seen corruption of pictures only a few MB in size (see my upload history for examples). From my work connection, I routinely transfer files around the world that are gigabytes in size. So, this should be manageable (as archive.org shows, in fact). A mailed physical copy would be a very interesting idea, though; I can see such a system getting a lot of use if set up. An alternative might be asking the server operators to provide FTP access to a filestore to chapters, who could then upload material from individuals or activities within their country. Mike Peel (talk) 23:05, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Go on IRC, wikitech channel, ping a sysadmin or two, and ask them to do a server-side upload. Last time I checked, this was how it worked :-) (last year Tim Starling uploaded for us 1400 DjVu files from our server − all he needed was a SSH access to the prepped files).

(Of course, I agree a better process such as the one Mike suggests would be nice) Jean-Fred (talk) 00:13, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

I'd also like to upload somewhat larger than 100 MB image files for the Google Art Project stuff. The full size images are too big for the server to thumbnail, but 100 MB probably isn't quite as big as they can handle. However, this does mean any derivative works would have to be downscaled to be uploaded (this is already a problem for edits which put the images over the 100 MB limit, such as releveling). Dcoetzee (talk) 04:57, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

March 15

Wikimedian in Residence

According to en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-02-21/Versailles and blog.wikimedia.org User:Trizek will become second "Wikimedian in Residence" at Palace of Versailles after User:Johnbod who had similar post at British Museum. Wikimedia DC is also talking with National Archives in US to create similar position. --Jarekt (talk) 13:58, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Er, your info seems a bit inaccurate/outdated, Jarekt.

• User:Witty lama was resident for 5 weeks at the British Museum last year ;
• User:HstryQT is at the moment resident at the Children Museum of Indianapolis − see Commons:The Children's Museum of Indianapolis ;
• User:Trizek has been at the Palace of Versailles for a month − see Commons:Château de Versailles − and, as he mentionned last month, Commonists are welcome to ask him anything in which he can be of any help.

Jean-Fred (talk) 16:51, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm currently in the place, as announced on February 17, and for six months. Everybody is welcome to help. Trizek ^{here or on fr:wp} 16:54, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

US National Archives Wikipedian-in-Residence

Just officially announced...

"This summer, we hope to strengthen our institutional relationship with the Wikipedian community by hosting a Wikipedian in Residence. We are currently seeking applications for this student position for the 2011 summer. The Wikipedian will gain an insider’s look into the National Archives and develop an appreciation for the records and resources we have available." — US Archivist David Ferriero

This is a paid summer intern position for a student, to work at NARA 2 in College Park, Maryland.

Full blog post and

• Full blog post - by David Ferriero
• Application + details (pdf)

Please spread the word and encourage all good candidates to apply. Cheers. -Aude (talk | contribs) 21:32, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

earthquake/tsunami pictures

The U.S. Navy has a large collection of pictures already - including some very useful ones amid all the repetitions. I would upload some myself but my computer is very slow (or maybe it is Wiki). See [20] and search Japan. 75.41.110.200 20:13, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

One of my bots uploads the new Navy images on a daily basis, see galery. Multichill (talk) 20:45, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

March 16

Proposal: Fair use upload bot

More than one wiki has complained to me that they transfer images to Commons only to have them deleted as copyvios, when they would rather have kept low-resolution versions of the images under fair use. The reason we overlook doing this is not just laziness - every wiki has a different non-free content policy, often with daunting and complex requirements, and there's simply no way we could know them all, especially for an image used across many projects. The right way to do this is to shift some of the burden of determining the NFC compliance of deleted images back onto the wikis that use them.

Here's my proposal:

1. Instead of deleting in-use files, they would be tagged with {{Fair use delete}} (an admin bot might watch recent deletions and undelete in-use files and tag them).
2. User:Commons fair use upload bot would find all images with this tag, and for each one it would go through every wiki on which the file is used, and if any of them allow non-free content of that file type, it would upload it along with a copy of the file history, and tag it with a local tag indicating that it requires review for fair use (something like en:Template:Fair use candidate from Commons). It would then delete the file on Commons (so it would need to be an admin bot).
3. Local editors would review files bearing this tag, and do whatever is necessary for local fair use compliance (including downscaling), or delete it if it is not compliant. They would also decide when and if it should be deleted, if the review is not completed in a timely manner.

Although this certainly creates more work for other wikis, I think it would be a paltry addition beside the volume of fair use uploads they already cope with, and now any decision to delete them is their own responsibility and not ours. Thoughts? Dcoetzee (talk) 12:05, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Couldn't they already do that by monitoring the delinker log? --  Docu  at 12:15, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like a good service. Who is going to write this bot and who is going to maintain this bot? Please no admin bot, just tag with {{Speedydelete|Fair use image. Usage copied to local projects}} at point 2. Multichill (talk) 14:40, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I could build and maintain the bot, it's not very complicated. It's certainly easier if it doesn't have to be an admin bot. If it works out well maybe that feature can be added later. One obstacle for me is I would need some help localizing the {{Fair use candidate from Commons}} tag and explaining the process to local editors. As for monitoring the delinker log, no, they can't - because most of them do not have permission to view deleted content at Commons, and because reverting delinking can be awkward after there have been intervening edits. Dcoetzee (talk) 21:25, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

•  Comment "Transfered"? If fair use files are transfered from en-wiki to Commons and then gets deleted en-wiki admins can just undelete the fair use files. But they should not delete it in the first place. The deleting admin should verify that the file is on Commons and can be kept there before the file is deleted locally. If they want a bot to undelete such files they can run it locally.

As for new files I agree that it would be a good service. But it should of course only move files to wiki-projects that allows fair use. --MGA73 (talk) 21:26, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

In an ideal world, yes - but sometimes we only discover long after the fact that a file which was thought to be free is in fact not free (for example, the original uploader was discovered not to be the copyright holder, or license laundering was involved, or whatever). Additionally, having them locally undelete files is problematic in cases where the file was retouched or updated with new information while on Commons (we would want to preserve these changes). Dcoetzee (talk) 21:29, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

A really good bot would upload down scaled versions if the file exceeds a certain size. Multichill (talk) 21:36, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I thought about that, but I'm a bit hesitant to do so since it's hard to select the right resolution to downscale images to, since that depends on local fair use conventions. Best to leave that part to them, unless they're willing to give me a resizing policy. Dcoetzee (talk) 22:53, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Added thought: it would be good if I also notify the talk page of articles where the image is in use so that they have the opportunity to review it for fair use, otherwise it might get overlooked. I've created en:Template:Fair use candidate from Commons notice to demonstrate. Dcoetzee (talk) 00:04, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm currently mocking this up, going to do a trial with just En. Can branch out from there. Dcoetzee (talk) 00:10, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Turns out En requires admin privileges to upload files that are present on Commons. Argh. I'll have to request an admin bit for my bot there... Dcoetzee (talk) 01:47, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Kurdish

Why does templated text in Kurdish, that is descriptions enclosed in {{Ku}}, template internationalisation as with {{PD-old/ku}}, show up right to left? Kurdish uses the Latin script, at least usually, as at ku.wikipedia, but somebody seems to have thought it uses Arabic. —innotata 18:47, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I just remembered while looking at enwiki that there are tow standardised types of Kurdish, one of which uses Latin, and which the Kurdish Wikipedia uses, while the other, Sorani Kurdish, for which there is a Wikipedia ckb:, uses Arabic. Presumably the language templates here should match the Wikipedias. —innotata 18:49, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Noticed there is a Category:Commons-ku-latn category, which is only contains a template for an old encyclopaedia; however, there should instead by one for Kurdish in Arabic script (and others for Soranî etc., if anybody wants to use them), as Latin is usual for the main dialect of Kurdish and is used for the Wikipedia. The {{Ku}} template does use "Kurdî", as well. —innotata 19:55, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Just a note: All these templates use {{Dir}} to decide what direction to go. So if you want to go in the opposite direction, change this template. Multichill (talk) 20:55, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I've asked that it be changed there. I also see that there is a ku-arab language system, but why are there both ku-latn and ku? These surely are the same thing. I would nominate the contents of the almost empty language option ku-latn for deletion, but this is a language option in preferences, even though it is apparently the same as ku. —innotata 01:41, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Propaganda with Commons

This picture : File:Arab Liberation Army.svg that is claimed to be the flag of the en:Arab Liberation Army is a fake. It is also propagandist with a dagger stabbing the Magen David. It is currently only used on a talk page on the he:wiki after it was removed from articles on wp:en , wp:fr and wp:he. The problem is that due to the high referencing of commons, it appears on google research at the top level [21]. Could it be deleted or at least could the name of the picture changed to something with no link to the Arab Liberation Army. Thanks. Noisetier (talk) 20:00, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Please see the very first point under "Purposes which do not meet the scope of this page" at the top. —LX (talk, contribs) 20:10, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Not sure what the point of it is, or whether the person who uploaded it was pro-ALA or anti-ALA, but I added Template:Fictitious flag... AnonMoos (talk) 21:53, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

@ LX : sorry. I missed it.

@ AnonMoos : my point is that this flag is not the flag of the ALA.

-> I try to proceed the right way. Noisetier (talk) 12:20, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

New page Francesco Simonini

After uploading three works by the Italian painter Francesco Simonini (born in Parma 1686 - died in Venice 1753), e.g. File:Simonini_Marcia di soldati.jpg, I wanted to create his page but I don't know how to do it. Is there someone who can help me? Thank you, --Gab.pr (talk) 21:47, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Created Category:Francesco Simonini (you could have done the same by clicking on the red link and editing). AnonMoos (talk) 22:08, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Added Creator:Francesco Simonini template for better documentation. --Jarekt (talk) 02:18, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Added [[it:Francesco Simonini]] to navigate to for documentation. --  Docu  at 12:19, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

empty categories

Commons:Forum#Leere_Kategorien there is a discussion about maintain some kind of empty category. Is anywhere some crystal clear guideline saying that empty categories are not allowed or there is no still plain consensus?--Pierpao.lo (listening) 10:01, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Generally they get deleted. They can be helpful if you prepare, e.g. a series of locality categories in a set.

Simple intermediary categories like Category:Chemical plants in Lower Austria aren't that helpful. --  Docu  at 10:17, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes! There is a (well hidden) official policy for categories having no media file content -> Commons:Project scope/Pages, galleries and categories#General pages, galleries and categories: The purpose of pages, galleries and categories is to support Commons' aims. Any page/gallery/category that does not fulfill that purpose is out of scope. Galleries and categories having no media file content are generally considered out of scope unless there is a particular reason for retaining them (eg a useful redirect). Bohème (talk) 14:52, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

There are hundreds if not thousands of empty categories created as a preparation of massive downloads or for structures that has to exist one day, such as all the villages, cities, mines; ... in a certain area. Examples in Commons:Batch uploading and Category:Commons batch uploading. The pre-creation of villages and cities greatly facilitates the categorisation for occasional uploaders while decreasing significantly errors and recategorisation. --Foroa (talk) 15:31, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

The policy (which should be followed by all users) admits on that point unless there is a particular reason. This might be the case for cities and villages, but not for the Hanover-Categories on which this discussion startet on the german Forum. Category:Streets in Hanover has 2217 subcategories. Bemong the first 200 subcategories about 90 are empty, about 40 others are filled with only one file scanned from the "Adressbuch der Stadt Hannover" so I guess we have about 900 empty subcategories and about 400 with one single adressbook scann file categorized in douzends of other subcategories. Some of the subcategories contain voluminous texts, which is not allowed. Others contain empty subsubcategories for particular houses (Street number xx). The empty ones are not helpful at all = educationally useless = against the commons' aims = admittable for speedy deletion (see: Commons:Deletion policy#Speedy deletion). Bohème (talk) 19:27, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Were these made for some sort of a project? --  Docu  at 19:38, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Could be questionable indeed, but we should ask the plans of the author in the first place. He probably tries to follow the example in Category:Streets in Wuppertal. --Foroa (talk) 06:53, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

For one who tries to create categories by street, Streets in Wuppertal seems a good sample to follow. --  Docu  at 05:51, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

To avoid that empty categories appear everywhere, maybe we should add NOINDEX to them. It might be possible to implement this without editing them all. --  Docu  at 12:24, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Category:Wuppertal has 115 well filled subcategories. The question was not: "does this kind of structure makes sens", but 1.) "are empty categories admittable" (in opposition to the official commons policy) and 2.) "does it make sens to create 900 empty subcategories with an uncalculatable number of empty subsubcategories"? They lead to nothing else than --- a bottomless gaping void. Isn't that bluff, which makes the whole category tree useless, extremly annoying? Bohème (talk) 00:39, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

My general opinion is that if it makes sense for a category to exist then it should, no matter whether it's populated or not. For instance, if I have stuff in "2006 in X" and "2008 in X", I'll likely create "2007 in X" even if I have nothing to put in it as yet. -mattbuck (Talk) 01:16, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, if it makes sense. This one makes no sense. You didn't even trow a glance at the involved cat-tree, did you? Bohème (talk) 02:14, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

IMO commons should follow in this affair a simple and undiscussable principle, f.e. "Every empty category that has existed for more than (let's say) 24 hours without any file, is deleted". Nor should there be exceptions for any abstract systematic reasons. --Rabanus Flavus (talk) 13:09, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

March 14

Int:License

Hi! When one use the upload guide for own work in Swedish[22] (and, I assume, in many other languages as well), the headline for the result is "Summary" and for the licence "License". Is there a way to get the internationalization templates to work with the guide? Could someone with authority replace "License" with {{Int:License}}, and an international summary template, if there is any? Regards --V-wolf (talk) 06:51, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

See COM:FAQ#Why_is_the_text_of_my_new_uploads_corrected_soon_after_upload.3F. Cheers, Jean-Fred (talk) 10:32, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! But has no one figured out a way to change the Mediawiki code yet? It seems to have been several years since the problem came along? --V-wolf (talk) 11:26, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

{{Int:License}} simply renders system message MediaWiki:License, I guess you could propose some #if/#lang magic on MediaWiki_talk:License. The int: is internal, not international.^x -Be..anyone (talk) 12:53, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Bad category

Is there any templates other than {{Cleanup image}} to indicate, that an image has bad categories? Dani ^(talk) 23:19, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

{{Check categories}} any use to you? --Tony Wills (talk) 01:01, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! Dani ^(talk) 22:42, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

March 17

Image deleted for political reason without proper procedure

Hello, This image (File:Affiche OMS-AIEA.jpg) was deleted twice in the last 2 days, I believe for political reason, and without any proper procedure. It was tagged as Speedy and deleted the same day, and I was not warned as the uploader. It was again deleted today without any warning nor information to anyone. It is totally not acceptable that admins delete images because they do not like the political content.

There absolutely no copyright issue with this image. The 2 symbols (medical and nuclear) are obviously not copyrighted, and the rest is just a few words. Yann (talk) 18:15, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

In how many places are you still trying to start the same discussion? Ok. It is absolutely not an ok-behaviour for an admin to block people for a whole month for harrasing behaviour when they haven't said anything at all. Even more it is not ok if said blocking admin has a long history of fighting against this other user (you remember what it means to be neutral? No?) Still you violated our rules by doing so. And now you are trying to get more people by baiting other people in your 'war'. -- Cecil (talk) 18:44, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Kids, please play nice. No more speedy (un)deletions and blocks please. Multichill (talk) 19:32, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

OK, blocking was not the right thing to do. It was an expression of anger against a repeated abuse of right. There was not a proper procedure for deletion, so requesting that I use a proper procedure for restoration is completely unacceptable. If someone thinks that there is a problem with this image, a deletion request is needed. Yann (talk) 04:26, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Rama is not being helpful at all. I'm really disappointed about his childish behavior. The deletion request is now at Commons:Deletion requests/File:Affiche OMS-AIEA.jpg. Multichill (talk) 16:09, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Ancient coins to put in Wikipedia entries

hi,

do you help me put the pictures of this page: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Itamar_Atzmon%27s_collection in the relevant Wikipedia entrie?

--Atzmonit (talk) 14:59, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Atzmonit. You can find instructions on how to insert images into Wikipedia articles at "Wikipedia:Images". — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 16:40, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

March 19

Picture of the year 2010

So, how is it going with POTY2010? Its been 3 months and im starting to get a bit anxious. :) 193.235.138.40 07:44, 14 March 2011 (UTC)forgot to log in, real sign here. Evalowyn (talk) 07:46, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Bump. feydey ^(talk) 18:43, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

There were no entries on the committee page. I have been working to create the galleries but without any other participation it will likely only be available in English and voter eligibility will have to be checked by hand. That's if it gets off the ground at all, and it won't without a member of the committee with access to the CentralNotice to promote it. – Adrignola talk 13:33, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

How to create a Gallery

This is not the first time that searching for Help is very good except for the most essential, the most rudimentary information.

I think I know how to create a Gallery except for two little points:

How to control the size of the heading

• Greyhounds in art

gives a small font.

How to upload the gallery syntax: I can try it in a sandbox but then how to make it permanent?

If I edit an existing Gallery, there is no code or other information on the heading.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Henrytow (talk • contribs)

You can currently modify the font-size of the heading. Why don't you use a normal heading and a gallery below it?--DieBuche (talk) 01:45, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

His sig was not expanded as the closing /gallery tag was missing. Consequently his sig was inside the gallery were they are not expanded --Saibo (Δ) 02:14, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Just look at existing galleries like Gravestone. The help page is at Commons:Galleries. Oh - and for making it permanent just use copy and paste of the code in edit mode. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 02:07, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Somehow the gallery I created is redirected from a gallery of the same name, Greyhounds in art. I do not understand what is wrong.

The second gallery title in in red. I do not understand. Henrytow (talk) 02:14, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

You created a gallery under the name "Gallery:Greyhounds in art". Just some minutes ago I moved it to the correct name "Greyhounds in art" as galleries do not have a name prefix (they are just like articles in Wikipedia). The title is red because the category you have linked to is not existent - just click on the link and you will see. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 02:20, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I understand that and fixed it. Now another problem: When I constructed the page, I used the syntax Image: file name| title name. This was changed to File:file name| title name

What is the difference? I cannot find anything in Help after 20 minutes of looking, nor in Wikipedia: The Missing manual. Henrytow (talk) 14:42, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Image is the old prefix for files. It is a synonym for "File:" which you can see on every file's page in the title. I am sorry - I do not know a help page on this. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 19:38, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Upload a new version of this file is a nuisance

"Upload a new version of this file"

We really need to add something to that upload link to discourage well-meaning users from uploading significant changes over existing files. It's been broght up before by others and myself, but Commons:Avoid overwriting existing files just is not sufficient. Could we have a technical solution? -84user (talk) 00:14, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

• Whatever you do, please don't get rid of it entirely. I use it a lot to upload improved versions of images, especially of my own images. - Jmabel ! talk 02:26, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
• I second Jmabel's - the system cannot decide which reuploads are good and which are not. Perhaps reuploading need a different process path (separate from basic upload form), but if the user is determined to replace the "old" file, it can't stop them, right? NVO (talk) 03:42, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
• One way we can help fix this is to not allow overwriting uploads through the standard upload form, but only through the "Upload a new version of this file" link on the file description page. That way, the user's first action would have to reflect their intention to overwrite. I think this would cut down on both accidental overwrites, and would also give us a page on which to remind them of the Avoid overwriting existing files policy. Dcoetzee (talk) 11:46, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
  • "I think you overestimate our dear Viennese, my friend." Don't they all just press Go? NVO (talk) 12:56, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
    • It is a nuisance .. Some users seem to think that this is the way to change an image in a Wikipedia article. --  Docu  at 12:29, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps there just needs to be a clearly worded warning? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 14:39, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Some time ago I had it edited a bit, but maybe it should be developed further. Blocking it from the standard upload form might be a way. --  Docu  at 21:14, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

I did not have any particular "technical solution" in mind, but I also do not want to get rid of it. Maybe, the first link should be "upload a changed version" which leads to an upload form with a new name and all the other fields already copied over, and the second link could be "I know what I am doing" which actually overwrites the image on the same page. With better wording of course. -84user (talk) 22:46, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Proposal to add a point about legal threats to Commons:Blocking policy

I have proposed to add a point regarding legal threats to Commons:Blocking policy. Please go to Commons talk:Blocking policy#Legal threats to discuss the proposal. —LX (talk, contribs) 16:06, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

If it is ok to mention here I also suggested "Personal attacks" Commons talk:Blocking policy#Personal attacks. --MGA73 (talk) 18:46, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

March 20

How do we make proper attribution more obvious?

I came across this page on the internet http://sanleandro.patch.com/articles/moms-talk-life-is-a-video-game#photo-5014163 clearly crediting me for my fine image. The image in question was actually moved from Flikr, and I've never taken a decent photograph in my life (here is an example of the same photo, properly attributed). Would it be possible to create some means for those with short attention spans to properly attribute photos, or for people who just don't really understand free licenses? When you look at an image, the first text is description. This is great for people looking to use the photo. What about a separate box above everything, with a single line of CC shorthand. "Photo taken by R Pollard at Flickr, reused under cc-by-2.0", or something like that, keeping all of the current formatting below. I know we have "re-use this file", but why not have a clear single line for them simpler folks? I didn't take this picture, or this one, or this one. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja (talk / en) 23:40, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Template:Information suggests you use {{Credit line}} in the "Other fields" field, like this: Other_fields = {{Credit line |Author = © John Doe | Other = Wikimedia Commons |License = CC-BY-3.0 & GFDL}} . You can adapt suitably for your case. Dcoetzee (talk) 05:47, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

You may want to use the attribution parameter of th Creative Commons templates.

Anyway, what you descrive is to me done by the StockPhoto tool (the big buttons), by providing one-click reuse cases with attribution lines (precisely based on Credit line or CC attribution parameter).

Jean-Fred (talk) 13:06, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Tools for one-click reuse could be more closely integrated into the default mediawiki UI. This could also be connected to feedback for the OpenAttribute widget. --SJ+ 15:08, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

They could indeed. This has already been suggested on MediaWiki talk:Stockphoto.js. As for UI integration... Well, this was expected to be tackled as part of the Multimedia usability project. Ah well. Jean-Fred (talk) 18:35, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

March 18

Wilco image

• Not sure if the is is the right place to ask this, but here goes: It appears that this image

  

  is not properly credited. Flicker comments it is not for commercial use. Someone in the know may want to look into it. Verne Equinox (talk) 22:54, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

This issue is excatly described in {{Flickr-change-of-license}}. The image was free in the past, the license has changed but that has no effect on our reuse as described in the legal code of the license, 7b. --Martin H. (talk) 23:27, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Please notice the Flickr Review template, which indicates that User:WilyD reviewed the image in 2007 and that it had the license indicated. The license must have been changed by the Flickr user in the meantime, but that is irrelevant to the image license here, since a Creative Commons license cannot be revoked once applied. Please note that, while WilyD currently has no true "rights" applied to his account, he is an admin on en.wiki, and back in 2007, admins on other projects were speedily granted the ability to review Flickr images. Further, he was an admin on Commons before becoming inactive, so there is no reason (on our end) to doubt the accuracy of his license review. — Huntster (t @ c) 23:47, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

March 21

Using images

Good morning! Well, somebody has to lead the way. I just uploaded three files to wikimedia. That went well. The trouble is, it doesn't provide me with a link to edit them into the article they relate to. The files are all pictures I took myself, and there is an article related to them so I would love to use them. Help? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Feddacheenee (talk • contribs) 01:36, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Hello there, and thanks for the contributions. Please read through Commons:First steps for tips on getting started here and using media (especially the last link on that page). Also, please remember to provide categories for your images. I don't know enough about the train cars in your photographs to properly categorise them, but perhaps you can. Start with Category:Trains, and look for subcategories that best fit the object of the image. Let me know if you need any help. — Huntster (t @ c) 07:21, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you kindly, I'll give it a go. Feddacheenee

Renaming of "Saint Joseph Church, Singapore"

May I invite editors to participate in the discussion at "Category talk:Saint Joseph Church, Singapore" concerning the renaming of this category? Thanks. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 11:15, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

GoogleEarth screendumps

Are screengrabs from GoogleEarth allowed in WikiCommons? what license applies in that case? Gregors (talk) 12:30, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

No they are not (in general), as the images are usually copyrighted by Google. -mattbuck (Talk) 12:32, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

ill defined categories

Can categories like Category:Art history be useful ? At first sight it seems rather sensible but if we look into it we see, among other things:

• A museum that does not seem to be radically different from other art museums
• A few artistic techniques or themes (Category:Tondo, Category:Contrapposto). They have nothing special compared to hundreds of similar themes
• Category:History of painting that just contain a few paintings that are no different from thousands of paintings on Commons.

Possibly we could make the category more sensible. But if we include everything that is somehow related to art history I seems to me that it would be so broad that there would not be any real benefit over Category:Art.--Zolo (talk) 07:12, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

You can start a discussion at "Commons:Categories for discussion". — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 07:28, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Those discussions have very limited feedback, sometimes none for many months. In the meanwhile the whole category system is becoming a complete mess, which I already start to give up on. Regarding art history, I agree we need to better define the scope of overarching categories, and a good way is to provide a short description upfront. Obviously if a shallow definition of art history (like applied to Category:Landscape design history) is used by some editors, than all art (or even any human created object) is also art history, so that the category is rendered meaningless. --ELEKHH^T 01:21, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

What I meant was that you could start a discussion at "Commons:Categories for discussion" with a concrete proposal on how to solve the issue, then post a notice here inviting people to join the discussion. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 07:45, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Ah, sorry than, my misunderstanding this time. --ELEKHH^T 02:00, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

 Done see Commons:Categories for discussion/2011/03/Category:Art history--Zolo (talk) 07:56, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Flickr user template or category

I've been copying quite a few photos over from Flickr recently. I was wondering whether or not it would be possible to have a template or (hidden) category for every Flickr user. That way if there are copyvio issues, or whatnot, we could track them down easier. And it would be useful for outreach: one could point a Flickr user to a list of all the images that have been put up on Commons. Some of them may wish to edit metadata, add categories and so on. (I thought about this as I've been drafting a page to explain to Flickr users what Commons is all about.) Is this possible/desirable? —Tom Morris (talk) 14:23, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I’ve done so a few times (eg Category:Photographs by Nicolas Esposito, Category:Photographs by Andréa Farias). I e-mailed Nicolas Esposito about this, pointing also to the cool tools we have that show file usage and he seemed very pleased.

Note that bryan's Flickr tool allows to browse all uploads from a Flickr user copied to Commons (example).

(Not sure a category is needed for every single Flickr user we copy stuff from, though).

Jean-Fred (talk) 18:55, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Unified Login

Searching for a way to set up a unified login, I am redirected to a MetaWiki page where it tells me to

"To do so, go to Special:MergeAccount on a wiki where you already have an account"

But a search on wikicommons gives me no such thing... What am I missing? How do I set up this global/unified account so that I can post and use the foour tilde thingy on other language wikis without creating an account for each language?

Or am I missing the point an that wikicommons is not a project within the same sphere as WikipediA? Gregors (talk) 14:43, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

If you take a look at this page, it notes that you are already set up for using the same login for Commons and the English Wikipedia. The red lines indicate projects where you would need to visit that Special:MergeAccount page and connect the local accounts to your global account, if you had actually registered on them. If not, then you'd have to visit a page in that project (the name will vary) to request that the existing account be renamed so that you can login there with your desired username. Any projects not shown, such as Wiktionary, will use your global account when you login with the same information that you use to login here at Commons. – Adrignola talk 14:50, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Upload page

The Upload File page seems to have just gone bananas, showing something called "sative" and a load of incorrect matter. Can anyone help revert it? ACCassidy (talk) 22:07, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmm.. works for me. Probably just a temporary issue - we currently (the last days) have server software problems. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 02:55, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it came back for me after about 10 minutes. I've also noticed recently that when clicking on some pages that used to load quickly, there is now considerable belay waiting for some script or other; then just before the page loads the taskbar at the bottom of the screen flashes a whole load of uppercase letters that appear meaningless. Ths happens on clicking the "All my own work" button for file uploading, for example, and then again for creating a new Category. These changes have only happened in the last couple of weeks, before that, upload was always a pretty slick affair. Just what scripts are we waiting for? Anyone know? ACCassidy (talk) 19:27, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like you are using Internet Explorer, aren't you? See above - maybe it is related. Can you try with a different browser (Firefox, Opera, Chrome, Safari, ...)? And: please tell us which browser you are using (the version number accessible via Menu help → about) on which operating system. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 23:11, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

It is quicker with Google Chrome. I was using IE8. Why the difference? ACCassidy (talk) 23:08, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

The difference probably is that IE has many bugs and non-conformances to standards, debugging/programming for IE is more complicated than for other browsers, I guess most people/programmers here to not use or have IE installed and therefore maybe not all parts here are optimized for IE. Also many people/programmers here simply do not really care for IE that much (for named reasons and because it is a non-free browser). Disclaimer: my personal opinion. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 00:40, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

How should images derived from US government data be categorized?

I would like to upload some graph images that I have created from Congressional Budget Office data:

http://cbo.gov/publications/collections/tax/2010/all_tables.pdf

The original data is from a CBO publications, but I created the images. Are the images considered "entirely my own work", or are they "from a US Federal Government source"?

Bixexe (talk) 22:36, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Both parties can be credited. For example, in the author field, just put "Data courtesy U.S. Congressional Budget Office; Image by User:Bixexe". Source would of course be the above link. — Huntster (t @ c) 23:06, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

• I would have thought that from a copyright point of view they are entirely your own work. Of course from a credibilty point of view you need to cite the data used. --Tony Wills (talk) 23:41, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

• The graphic work is your own, and that should be the only tag needed. Copyright on data is separate if it exists, and is a fuzzy subject... facts are not copyrightable but some collections of data may be (in this case though, there is definitely no issue as it is a US Government work). With this kind of thing, the copyright tag should be yours, but as with all charts, noting the source of the data is very important. If someone makes a derivative graphic (or other) work which is still predominantly of U.S. Government authorship, the only copyright tag necessary would still be the one that person's portion of the derivative work, but the portions which come from the government should be explicitly identified (per 17 U.S.C. 403). Carl Lindberg (talk) 00:15, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

March 23

Duplicating the whole category system ?

I have the impression the whole category tree is being duplicated as a subcategory of Category:Black and white photography. Is this useful in any way? --ELEKHH^T 00:55, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

One the face of it it doesn't sound useful. But having a look at it, it is quite natural. So long as no one is creating a large structure full of empty categories. Assuming people may want to easily find black and white photos, it is useful to put them into a category, as you subdivide that category it is natural to divide it the same way existing files are categorised. --Tony Wills (talk) 01:15, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Why would anyone want to search within black and white images only? Any image can be converted to black and white. So if I want a good picture of let's say a garden (?) in black and white, I can select from all images of gardens and than convert to black and white anyway. --ELEKHH^T 01:31, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

I always felt that subcategories of Category:Black and white photography are quite useless and only make the categories related to subject harder to find in the images. Most of the images from World War I or World War II are B/W so are most images from Bundesarchives, and it is rather silly to add B/W categories to them. --Jarekt (talk) 02:01, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

IMO, and per Elekhh, I think the entire "Black and white photography" thing is just over-categorization, and shouldn't exist... Rehman 04:31, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Is a build in choice sorting menu system (something like tagging (own work:y/n) (photo:y/n) (scan:y/n) (copy from web:y/n) (black and white photography:y/n) (diagram:y/n) (people:y/n) etc, an alternatif in combination with the classical categories? --Havang(nl) (talk) 07:46, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Many images in the b&w-photo category are not b&w photos but b&w reproductions, scans of b&w books and so on. So besides that the category is relatively useless and a duplication of categories in many cases it is also used wrong and describing photos as en:Photography#Black-and-white while in fact that files have not much to do with this technique (or there is no evidence that they have). --Martin H. (talk) 07:59, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

I think that over time, Commons category displays and search facilities will have additional tag filtering capabilities. Possible tags will be type of medium (analog photo, digital photo, video, audio, (3D) drawings, SVG, graphs, PDF), media specifics (Black and White, HD, VGA, ...), resolution, date ... Duplicating all categories for B&W, video, sound ... does not makes sense to me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Foroa (talk • contribs)

• In general the whole wikimedia category system is quite munted ;-). Someone creates a category system then it is totally mis-interpreted and odd things happen (often because the category doesn't have a description beyond its name, and few editors look at the category page before adding a category to a file anyway).
• First we need to separate the discussion of Category:Black and white photography and Category:Black and white photographs of xxx. All Category:Black and white photographs of xxx should be moved to being sub-categories of Category:Black and white photographs.
• Categories under the "Category:Topics" category tree are for describing the subject of the photograph (as opposed to attributes, eg the size or format of the image). So given that b&w photos is located within Category:Black and white photography, the subject being photographed should be a printed monochrome photo. This would mean b&w photos taken with digital cameras (set to monochrome mode, or made by b&w cameras), or b&w scans of colour material would not be included (as the subject of the photograph is not a b&w photo, although the technique being used is b&w photography). Photos or scans of printed b&w images could possibly be included (if the printed image is from a b&w photo rather than an engraving etc). All very confusing really.
• If, as is much easier to categorize, we just use the category b&w photos to contain monochrome images, ie we are using the category to describe an attribute of the medium (like describing the size or format of an image), then we should move the b&w photos category to a completely different branch, Category:Images by technical criteria. And all the subcategory, Category:Black and white photographs of xxx, would go.
• I now agree the the current structure is a form of "over-categorization", and if we retain Category:Black and white photographs as a sub-category of Category:Black and white photography we should get rid of Category:Black and white photographs of xxx and sub-divide the category in other ways relevant to that sub-category (exactly how, I am not sure).
• If people fundamentally disagree with having "black & white photos" categories, then logically do we get rid of such things as "Category:World War II color photographs" as well? --Tony Wills (talk) 09:25, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

This kind of replication of category structure is indicative of the fundamental limitations of hierarchies - namely, that it forces you to adopt a certain refinement order, when you might want a different one. What we need here is a tag-based or attribute-based system. If we just put all B&W photos in a single base category that isn't subcategorized at all, then perhaps a Toolserver script could intersect that category with the rest of the category tree to create the desired browsing view. This doesn't seem trivial but perhaps possible. Dcoetzee (talk) 10:06, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

There are already a couple of tools allowing to do that. Maybe we should feature them with preset selections on category pages.

We could probably reduce the redundancy by merging Category:Black and white photographs of xxx into Category:Black and white photographs. At the same time, we could improve the topical subcategorization of such images as they are frequently lost in Category:Black and white photographs of xxx-type categories. --  Docu  at 12:25, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

I like Dcoetzee idea of using some sort of tags for B/W photographs. Are there any plans for tag based categorization? I created a few empty protected templates which are used to "tag" some types of files related to creator template. those "tags" can be easily intersected with categories using CatScan2 and are not cluttering visible categories. Some system with similar capabilities could be used for photographs: every image can be tagged as either B/W or color. --Jarekt (talk) 18:04, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, categories are like super-tags. We can have a B&W cat (overcrowded, but this has never been a problem). We just have to keep users from sub-categorising. Jean-Fred (talk) 20:06, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

• To me, it's a simple case: "Black and white photographs" should belong to Category:Media types root tree, not Category:Topics. Just move it there. Oh, yes, it won't magically become a universal parallel universe (on par with Category:Copyright statuses) - but the same can be said about the "main" Category:Topics system. NVO (talk) 15:45, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

• No, this is indeed quite bogus. B&W is a valid cat, and it's valid to add images to it, but searches for "black and white images of ginger tomcats" should be done by filtering on the intersection of two categories, not by creating a vast tree of intersection categories and then expecting images to be categorised into them.

The only thing worse is when "Tiddles by moonlight" then gets removed from "ginger tomcats" because it's already categorized into a sub-cat of it - a pointless edit that's horribly popular amongst editors who don't understand taxonomy.

Incidentally, filtering like this is dead easy on MediaWiki and can be done nicely with DPL, the Dynamic Page List extension. However for performance reasons, it's not installed on en:WP or Commons. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:20, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

I should point out that what you said is inconsistent with COM:OVERCAT, which states: "The general rule is always place an image in the most specific categories, and not in the levels above those." — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 17:59, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

No, it's not inconsistent at all. That's only a general rule. There are several exceptions, there are sadly a great many editors who are incapable of realising this. Andy Dingley (talk) 18:52, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Please list the exceptions (or point us to a suitable page) to improve our capability --Tony Wills (talk) 20:01, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Conclusion

Thanks for so much constructive feedback. Learning from all these contributions the solution seems to be:

• Category:Black and white photographs should become a subcategory of Category:Media types;
• Merge all Category:Black and white photographs of xxx to Category:Black and white photographs;
• Include a description of its specific use (tag like, no subcategories, link to the tools which allow intersect-scanning of categories);
• Add a content description to Category:Black and white photography, as per its discussion page;
• Instead of being a subcategory of "Black and white photography", the two categories should be linked via See also in the description;

Anything else? --ELEKHH^T 20:57, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

• Sorry, but this is a very once over lightly discussion. Before we go and tear down a huge structure ("b&w photos" etc), we had better be very certain about what we're doing. I see User:Docu has recently moved many categories out of Category:Black and white photographs up one level to Category:Black and white photography, and also Category:Black and white photographs is already a hidden_category. So before we undo lots of painstaking work, and get some people really, really upset, this should be discussed more extensively in Commons:Categories for discussion and invite those currently active in this area. Yes, it may be a long winded process, but I hate to see us working against each other and undoing each others work, instead of working together. --Tony Wills (talk) 07:58, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I second the suggestion that this be discussed more fully. It seems a little odd that subcategories of "Category:Black and white photographs" should be moved up to "Category:Black and white photography". I would have thought that the latter should contain files relating to black and white photography as an art form or techniques of black and white photography rather than the photographs themselves. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 10:48, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

• All misunderstandings: (1) I did not meant to proceed with the merger without a CfD. (2 )@Jacklee, no I did not suggest that at all. Above is written move to "to Category:Black and white photographs" not "photography". (3) Is obvious that the status quo is also upsetting many users (which consider these categories useless and confused), so no change is no solution either. --ELEKHH^T 21:06, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Implementation

Started CfD here. --ELEKHH^T 07:15, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

UK sounds etc

At Commons:Deletion requests/File:Adventures Robin Hood opening.png MithrandirAgain pointed out that at least a 1995 copyright law in the U.K. had sounds and broadcasts from over 50 years ago in the public domain. Is this so, currently? If so, why was PD-UK deprecated, and why isn't there a copyright tag for these? —innotata 23:53, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Moving this to Commons talk:Licensing. —innotata 21:06, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

March 22

Some big news regarding the URAA

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear Golan v. Holder so there's still hope of getting the URAA overturned. The WMF is thinking about joining an amicus brief with the EFF. What the Foundation needs from the community is to find out what kind of impact this decision is going to have on Commons. I've already sent a high-level overview of the situation here to the WMF lawyers, but they would also like to highlight some specific examples. Are there any especially historically important files that are in danger of deletion due to the URAA (or have already been deleted)? For example, I've heard some people mention the works of Picasso. The full list of files currently identified as being in violation of the URAA is here. There are about 3000, so it's a lot to comb through. If you find anything interesting, please post it at Commons talk:Licensing#Some big news regarding the URAA. Thanks! Kaldari (talk) 20:32, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

This is great news! This also impacts Wikisource: several important works were deleted there, and many more not published because of the URAA. If URAA would not exist, we could publish any work which is in the public domain in its country of origin. For countries like India, that means any work publish after 1922 and whose author died before 1950 (for example Gandhi). Other countries like Australia, Canada, and Russia would also be impacted, as they have or had a shorter copyright term. Yann (talk) 21:08, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Too early to celebrate. It's also possible that SCOTUS will upheld the Tenth Circuit decision, and all {{Not-PD-US-URAA}} content will be deleted. Trycatch (talk) 22:31, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

@Yann: Can you remember any specific instances of works deleted from WikiSource? BTW, it does look like The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi are affected by the URAA since they didn't become public domain in India until 2009. Kaldari (talk) 00:07, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Why not look in the delete-log? I have personally deleted pages because of the URAA! It's a hard subject since we today cannot stop bookpages with URAA-texts (on Commons) to be visible on WS. We have a template for texts younger than 1923, but it is also often used for older texts. -- Lavallen (talk) 15:55, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

I hope if nothing else that the SCOTUS decision will unify projects behind a common URAA policy. Dcoetzee (talk) 11:57, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Request for renaming

Hi, I would like to request for renaming this file, because it has been recently uploaded as a new version of an existing one, but it's completely different in quality and source of origin. The new name could be the same whithout the numbers at the begining, while maintaining the current name for the previous version. Thanks in advance, --Vasilcho (talk) 07:16, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Hello. You can tag files for renaming with {{Rename}} (click on the link for instructions on how to use the tag). But in this case, I think what you should do is download the new file on to your hard disk and upload it to the Commons under a new name. Then, on the file description page of "File:F1010011-The defeat of Shipka Peak, Bulgarian War of Independence.JPG", click the "revert" link to go back to the original file that you uploaded. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 07:48, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

No need for the download-reupload. I have split the file to this and this. Hope that's what you wanted. Kind regards. Rehman 08:38, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Ah, an administrator saves the day. Thanks. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 20:40, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks a lot to both of you for the effort and explanation on how to procede in such cases, that's exactly what I wanted to do, so thanks again ;) --Vasilcho (talk) 16:29, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Removal of userpage and talkpage

Since there's no way in removing a user account on wikimedia projects could my userpage and talkpage be removed, I'm leaving the project and won't access any other wikimedia sites... CitadelCommand (talk) 15:15, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

 Deleted both pages. Hope that's what you wanted. Kind regards. Rehman 00:25, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Mirra score question

Pre-article question. I am looking to have user Fae make a photocopy of the Mirra Intermezzo. Listen here: [23]. He will have to go to the British Library and copy it manually. Then User Adam Cuerden would compose a sound file of the piece. The concern is that while the opera dates to 1920 (an Italian), the sheet music was published in 1932 (checked two sources, same date). So are we clear or wasting our time? I don't want to do a bunch of multiperson work and then AFTER find out we were unsat. thanks. The sound file would be use on en:wiki in a GA article, but the usage is too remote to justify fair use.TCO (talk) 02:51, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Was this composed by Domenico Alaleona (died in 1928)? If we are talking purely about the musical composition, and if it was considered first published in Italy, it would seem to be OK. Italy had a 50 pma term on the URAA date, so using 1928, it would have become PD in Italy in 1979. I'm not sure what would count as "publication" of the composition, whether being part of the opera was enough or if sheet music had to be printed. But, the term should be the same either way I think. It would seem to make sense that being part of an opera (where sheet music would have had to be distributed to the performers, right?) would be when it was published and would determine country of origin, though it's possible there is some idiosyncrasy (I don't think the Berne definition of publication is quite as convoluted as the U.S. version, but who knows for sure). If there is an element of all of this which could be considered UK-origin copyright, that may be more problematic (which country was the 1932 publication from?). But, if Italy is the country of origin, I'd guess you are fine to create a fresh recording of a fresh performance of the work. Carl Lindberg (talk) 04:46, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Looks Italian to me: [24] TCO (talk) 05:03, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

It does, although it sounds like the Ricardo company (while headquartered in Milan) did have a UK branch (and still do, now owned by Universal). Still, it's hard to fathom any copyrightable element present in that particular printing which would still appear in a modern performance/recording, other than the original composition which was from much earlier. And it also sounds like the score may well have been at least simultaneously published in Milan as well, which would also be enough. Carl Lindberg (talk) 05:12, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Would you all want the sheet music itself uploaded? Do we keep that sort of content?TCO (talk) 05:26, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Indeed we do. Consider uploading in DjVu format, however, at least for works of more than one page. Let me know if you need help figuring out how to create DjVu files. Dcoetzee (talk) 11:55, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Deletion of bad pictures

I upload many pictures, and sometimes mistakes are made (by me). Then I need to upload a new (improved) version, and this is not painless. Example is File:Socialdemokrat.Veronica Palm 1c301 5882.jpg, all the first ones in this batch are off-color, and the new ones are better. It would help if I could delete the old ones immediately (so nobody starts using the old ones). In addition, Commonist does not easily support keeping file description information, so now the old files have better description than the new ones. And I am not willing to spend an hour manually copying and pasting the old info to the new files. As it is now uploading pictures is a slow and difficult process. If anyone has help on this, please tell.

Regarding old versions, I think that I, as the photographer, have the (moral) "right" to upload "improved" versions (like larger version, better color, better adjusted exposure).

Could somebody with permissions delete and remove the old versions very quickly now, before somebody starts using the bad old version, please! Does somebody have information how I can myself get the right to remove the old (useless) versions? --Janwikifoto (talk) 15:26, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

If you mean that the version of 11:15, 2011 January 29 from File:Socialdemokrat.Veronica Palm 1c301 5882.jpg shouldn't be used and deleted and the version of 21:47, 2011 January 30 used instead, this shouldn't be a problem. You can ask an administrator to do this for you.

BTW, it's unlikely that the earlier version gets used. It's not easily possible to use the version from 11:15, 2011 January 29 on wikis and it was suggested to stop bots from indexing them (Bugzilla:24319). --  Docu  at 15:39, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

>> "If you mean that the version of 11:15, 2011 January 29 from File:Socialdemokrat.Veronica Palm 1c301 5882.jpg shouldn't be used and deleted and the version of 21:47, 2011 January 30 used instead"

Yes, this is exactly what I mean, for all the pictures in that batch. However, it would be kind to transfer the Description from the old (bad) version to the new version, as that info would else be lost. How do I get an admins attention for this? --Janwikifoto (talk) 22:16, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Descriptions are different; they are in the page history. Normally uploading a new version does not replace the existing description, but Commonist might -- never tried so not sure. But, deleting old revisions won't affect the image description text, if you think it's important to delete the old versions. Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:23, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

REQUEST FOR ADMIN HELP - Please DELETE / REMOVE the files upload time Sat Jan 29 12:15:57 CET 2011, as they are wrong in color. Or give me the right to do it myself. It would be beneficial to move the description from the upload time Sat Jan 29 12:15:57 CET 2011 version to the later uploaded version, and fix the 'template:' error. The file list for deletion follows:

1. 11:51, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) m File:Socialdemokrat.Berit Hogman 1c301 5942.jpg
2. 11:49, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) m File:Socialdemokrat.Hakan Juholt 1c301 5932.jpg
3. 11:47, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) m File:Socialdemokrat.Jennie Nilsson 1c301 5872.jpg
4. 11:45, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) m File:Socialdemokrat.Kent Harstedt 1c301 5888.jpg
5. 11:44, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) m File:Socialdemokrat.Lars Johansson 1c301 5944.jpg
6. 11:42, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) m File:Socialdemokrat.Lars Johansson 1c301 5954.jpg
7. 11:41, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) m File:Socialdemokrat.Lena Hallengren 1c301 5972.jpg
8. 11:40, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) m File:Socialdemokrat.Lena Hallengren 1c301 5973.jpg
9. 11:39, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) m File:Socialdemokrat.Matilda Ernkrans 1c301 5956.jpg
10. 11:37, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) m File:Socialdemokrat.Matilda Ernkrans 1c301 5961.jpg
11. 11:37, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) m File:Socialdemokrat.Sven-Erik Bucht 1c301 5926.jpg
12. 11:34, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) m File:Socialdemokrat.Sven-Erik Bucht 1c301 5927.jpg
13. 11:34, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) m File:Socialdemokrat.Urban Ahlin 1c301 5919.jpg
14. 11:34, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) m File:Socialdemokrat.Urban Ahlin 1c301 5921.jpg
15. 11:29, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) m File:Socialdemokrat.Urban Ahlin 1c301 5922.jpg
16. 11:26, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) m File:Socialdemokrat.Tomas Eneroth 1c301 5868.jpg
17. 11:26, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) m File:Socialdemokrat.Mikael Damberg 1c301 5892.jpg
18. 11:24, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) m File:Socialdemokrat.Mikael Damberg 1c301 5899.jpg
19. 11:23, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) m File:Socialdemokrat.Veronica Palm 1c301 5875.jpg
20. 11:16, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) m File:Socialdemokrat.Veronica Palm 1c301 5882.jpg
21. 11:15, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) N File:Socialdemokrat.Veronica Palm 1c301 5882.jpg
22. 11:15, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) N File:Socialdemokrat.Veronica Palm 1c301 5875.jpg
23. 11:15, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) N File:Socialdemokrat.Urban Ahlin 1c301 5922.jpg
24. 11:15, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) N File:Socialdemokrat.Urban Ahlin 1c301 5921.jpg
25. 11:15, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) N File:Socialdemokrat.Urban Ahlin 1c301 5919.jpg
26. 11:15, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) N File:Socialdemokrat.Tomas Eneroth 1c301 5868.jpg
27. 11:14, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) N File:Socialdemokrat.Sven-Erik Bucht 1c301 5927.jpg
28. 11:14, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) N File:Socialdemokrat.Sven-Erik Bucht 1c301 5926.jpg
29. 11:14, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) N File:Socialdemokrat.Mikael Damberg 1c301 5899.jpg
30. 11:14, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) N File:Socialdemokrat.Mikael Damberg 1c301 5892.jpg
31. 11:14, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) N File:Socialdemokrat.Matilda Ernkrans 1c301 5961.jpg
32. 11:14, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) N File:Socialdemokrat.Matilda Ernkrans 1c301 5956.jpg
33. 11:14, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) N File:Socialdemokrat.Mathias Persson 1c301 5864.jpg
34. 11:14, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) N File:Socialdemokrat.Lena Hallengren 1c301 5973.jpg
35. 11:13, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) N File:Socialdemokrat.Lena Hallengren 1c301 5972.jpg
36. 11:13, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) N File:Socialdemokrat.Lars Johansson 1c301 5954.jpg
37. 11:13, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) N File:Socialdemokrat.Lars Johansson 1c301 5944.jpg
38. 11:13, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) N File:Socialdemokrat.Kent Harstedt 1c301 5888.jpg
39. 11:13, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) N File:Socialdemokrat.Jennie Nilsson 1c301 5872.jpg
40. 11:13, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) N File:Socialdemokrat.Hakan Juholt 1c301 5932.jpg
41. 11:13, 29 January 2011 (diff | hist) N File:Socialdemokrat.Berit Hogman 1c301 5942.jpg

--Janwikifoto (talk) 18:38, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Jan, there is no need for these old versions to be deleted. They will not be used in any articles, since the corrected versions were uploaded over them. Also, as Carl mentioned above, the descriptions are not connected to an individual version of the image; regardless of the "current version" of the image, the description will remain stable. You did exactly the right thing by uploading the corrected versions over the old versions...there's nothing more that you need to worry about. — Huntster (t @ c) 03:54, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. However, that still makes me want to see the old versions permanently removed-erased-deleted. Reason is that there is a button "restore" next to the old version, and it is in no way impossible (actually quite easy) for an external user to download the old bad version. The old version has wrong colors, and I simply do not want it spread around the world. Descriptions, I believe you do not the the problem I see: It seems that the description is simply the name of the person. However, on the first (bad) upload I spent more energy on adding correct texts, these texts _only_ seems to show up in my gallery page (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Janwikifoto/gallery). Go to the gallery, look under "Sat Jan 29 12:15:57 CET 2011" and you will find red text "Template:xxx" under each picture. Template is probably because I set something wrong in Commonist, but if I click on of these pictures with template-description, then I do not see the template-description. Strange, but now I understand better why people say the descriptions are not connected to individual versions - but I hope now you understand that the description is connected to the first version, kind of anyway. I (manually) cleaned up File:Socialdemokrat.Hakan Juholt 1c301 5932.jpg so you can see what the description actually should look like. But I am not keen on doing this manually for all the pictures, as Commons is painfully slow and cumbersome in the interface. And I am definetly not going to do it until I know the old off-color pictures can be removed-purged-erased-and-deleted forever. I upload a lot of pictures, and I would really prefer to be able to delete (my own) pictures when something goes wrong, myself instantly. --Janwikifoto (talk) 12:16, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I understand. If an admin is willing, there shouldn't be an issue with removing the old versions, I just wanted to impress upon you that it wasn't critical to the existence of the new version. Regarding the descriptions, it's possible there was a problem with Commonist, because the descriptions should not be wrapped with {{ }}'s. This makes the wiki try to fill in individual templates there, which obviously don't exist. Thankfully, that problem did not show up with the images themselves, and in fact, it appears that the descriptions were previously there. See this diff for the image you mentioned above. It shows that you removed the whole descriptions...was this actually something automated that went wrong?

--In any case, you can go back and re-add the descriptions with no problem, just as you did for Mr. Juholt's image, if that is what you want to do. (In fact, no need to do this manually; just go to the history page and revert the last change for each of those images, which is where the descriptions were removed somehow.) If this is the case, let me know, and I'll fix them myself...I don't mind. I tried to add an English translation to Mr. Juholt's image, but I'm not confident enough to do that for all of them.

--You mentioned that "I hope now you understand that the description is connected to the first version", but I want to re-enforce the notion that the descriptions are in no way tied to the image versions. Image and Text are totally different, and are simply bundled together under the file name. Now, perhaps it is Commonist that is causing these problems, but I cannot speak to that, as I have no experience with that program.

--Regarding the notion of being able to remove images yourself, unfortunately that is not possible. To protect against vandalism and such, only administrators can delete files. There is currently no way to allow an individual user to delete only the files they have uploaded, for which several reasons exist that aren't relevant here. Should you encounter a situation in the future where an image should be removed, I would suggest uploading the correct image under a different file name, and adding {{speedydelete|uploader request, bad image}} or somesuch to the incorrect file.

--Sorry for the misunderstandings so far, and hopefully this can be resolved to your liking. Cheers! — Huntster (t @ c) 18:29, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

> "shows that you removed the whole descriptions...was this actually something automated" it was probably that I did not enter descriptions on the second upload by commonist

> re-add the descriptions ... no need to do this manually; just history page and revert the last change for each... I will look at that some day, to see if I understand.

> to re-enforce the notion that the descriptions are in no way tied to the image versions... Maybe I use bad english, what I meant was probably more "descriptions APPEAR to be tied to one version". Which they probably are not, but something was messed up here.

> "uploading the correct image under a different file name". This is not really a smart alternative. Now I have already spent much time on this, equates to uploading another 50 pictures with _good_ descriptions. If it becomes too difficult to correct minor errors, then I will have to think about uploading - meaning uploading less. The easiest and best is to give me admin rights, then I can fix my own errors. Sorry, but in order to upload many more pictures, it has to be a smooth and easy ride. And I still do not know how to get in touch with an admin to get the old versions cleaned out. Sorry, I am used to doing things myself, and getting things done once I start. --Janwikifoto (talk) 23:17, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

I just note that still after almost a week nothing has happened. Soon this discussion will be moved to archives... and maybe that solves the admins problems. I would really like to see the old versions permanently deleted. --Janwikifoto (talk) 16:15, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Janwikifoto is forum shopping this same topic at COM:AN#Delete/Remove/Purge bad versions of pictures. Ww2censor (talk) 16:22, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

The old versions will not be removed, because there is no reason to beyond user request. We only usually honour user requests where there's some kind of risk to the uploader or other compelling reason to delete. Dcoetzee (talk) 13:20, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

What is this? Now we have no picture of en:Håkan Juholt, category:Håkan Juholt at all, at the very hour that he is being elected to new party leader. --LA2 (talk) 12:36, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

The deletion turned out to be a mistake. All images have been undeleted and re-linked in all articles. --LA2 (talk) 14:08, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Usability issues and ideas

What's the status of Commons:Usability issues and ideas? The page says "This page is a place for you to tell the User Experience Team what issues you encounter when using the prototype Upload wizard interface". However, when I follow the "User Experience Team" link, there's a message that this project is discontinued - so, to whom am I talking when I post something at the "Usability issues" page, anyway? Not to the User Experience Team, as it seems, as it doesn't exist anymore? Are there still people dealing with this Upload Wizard thingy (which I think is a nice approach, but doesn't seem to be quite finished, see e.g. my error reports regarding big uploads and preview images)? Gestumblindi (talk) 01:53, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

The usual channel would be Bugzilla: or here (Village pump) --  Docu  at 16:01, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

So that page is defunct and should not be used anymore? Or should it? I notice that you have moved it now to Commons:Prototype upload wizard feedback which is probably a more fitting title, but only if it still makes sense to leave feedback there. The intro still says This page is a place for you to tell the User Experience Team ... so this should be changed, too, I think, if there's currently no User Experience Team? Gestumblindi (talk) 21:40, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

See the recent update from NeilK, the primary developer. The project is very much ongoing (and the devs are monitoring the above page), but there's no formal "user experience team" anymore, so I've altered the page accordingly.--Eloquence (talk) 19:48, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. It certainly would be nice if the devs not just monitored the page but also responded occasionally (and were it only a short "thanks for your report, noted" or the like) so that people feel their feedback isn't wasted, but I understand that they have a lot of work to do... Gestumblindi (talk) 22:03, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

SVG user information - creating a template?

One year ago, I started active membership on wikimedia projects and was happy when information were dropped on my discussion pages because the watch list was too complicated. (Now, I use it.) Therefore I think generally, notifying users is a good idea. Because I am not sure how many server cost such a notification requires and whether there is a majority that will support my intention, I discuss it here before creating: A lot of users upload things that contain simple geometry and text using raster images. But we all know, when it comes to translation/ inernationalization, an SVG would be quite easier to handle. Therefore, I created a template in my user namespace which courteously informs the user of the capabilities of SVG - Files, which I use with an automated script, if I tag the file as {{ToSVG}}. Is there any encouragement of creating this template in public template namespace?

Don't misunderstand me. I do not want to clutter the talk page. There has to be a strict guideline, on how to use it (e.g. if images are not self-created, it is useless to notify the uploader; One time I did (mistake) and the uploader - of course - was not amused).

Tell me your thoughts, even if you are uncertain. Thank you. --RE RILLKE Questions? 13:36, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

If a user uploads figures, diagrams or alike in the JPG file format (example), generating a SVG might be a too difficult task for him or her. It would even be a large gain, if the PNG file format would be chosen. --Leyo 08:30, 25 March 2011 (UTC) PS. The template up for discussion is User:Rillke/SVG Request.

If users utilize Microsoft Office, they can install PDF-Creator. This virtual printer has the ability to generate SVGs very easily (but has some bugs if you use color gradients). But, yes even a message should be included, preferring PNG - graphics to JPEG. --RE RILLKE Questions? 08:51, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Seeking the archive, I found this here. Does anybody know, whether this idea has become implemented, yet? --RE RILLKE Questions? 09:08, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

How to keep track of all your uploads?

Is there an easy way to see all the files I've uploaded? I might want to put them on my "I love me, wall" or even just the number. TCO (talk) 16:48, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Try this toolserver app. -mattbuck (Talk) 16:50, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Special:ListFiles/TCO --Leyo 17:25, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

• Both are quite slow and need address line edits to "get there" (short of stepping screen by screen to the destination). Ideally it should be a text-only list. NVO (talk) 17:47, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Do not know what you mean by address line edits. Just use CSV on the tooserver gallery and import to your spread sheet application (e.g. LibreOffice Calc) and you have your text only list. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 20:36, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Plain language, please! Where's the path to this magic toolserver gallery? NVO (talk) 04:27, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Ah, never mind. Extracted offline - although "working" with half megabyte of plain text (just file names, no table yet) is quite inconvenient. NVO (talk) 09:31, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Category:Photographs by User:TCO ? --  Docu  at 18:11, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Your gallery? - Jmabel ! talk 00:41, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

• I was going to suggest [Special:Logs - uploads] but I won't ;-) --Tony Wills (talk) 07:34, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

statistics by media type

Do we have statistics on the number of media files in each file type ?
e.g. how many pngs; how many jpgs; how many gifs; how many djvu files; how many Ogg Theora (video) files; how many Ogg Speex (sound) files ; how many Ogg Vorbis (sound) files ? John Vandenberg ^(chat) 23:15, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

This? ;) Commons:MIME type statistics The category it is in might be of interest to you, too. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 23:24, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

I see now it is even mention on Special:Version. I feel a bit silly. Thank you for a prompt answer. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 23:39, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

March 25

Enable page moves in category namespace

As category descriptions get longer, it might be worth enabling page moves in category namespace. Administrators and bots could move the description pages. Bots such as SieBot or Russbot would still need to move the category members. --  Docu  at 07:46, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

"Page moves" for categories are not possible, Bugzilla:8685. Rehman 07:58, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

The bugs seem to be about SieBot/Russbot's functions.

It should be much easier if we just want to enable moving the description texts. (maybe still a minor MW patch though) --  Docu  at 08:13, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

File update function seems failed since March 24, 2011.

Hi, folks! Since yesterday (March 24, 2011), file update function (using Special:Upload) have continuously failed. Does anyone knows the status ? --Clusternote (talk) 14:38, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Note: I've always uploaded, updated or transfered hundreds of files, and most were successfully done. Therefore, this issue seems to be caused by some problem on server program or networks, instead of my improper action. Before I report it to Bugzilla, I want to know if other users also encountered same issue. Please show me if you encountered similar problems. best regards, --Clusternote (talk) 01:11, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

 Done This issue seems to have been resolved at 02:16, 26 March 2011 (UST). Thanks folks ! --Clusternote (talk) 11:36, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Sha-1 of files on Commons

I am rather confused about Sha-1 signatures of files on Commons. CatScan2 can be used to display Sha-1 signatures, for example "http://toolserver.org/~magnus/catscan_rewrite.php?language=commons&project=wikimedia&categories=Eugenio+Cajes&ns[6]=1&ext_image_data=1&doit=1". According to it Sha-1 of File:San Ramón Nonato alimentado por los ángeles.jpeg is "kktudsvyd57eimh3iydqtvvcequyhpb" but according to Online SHA1 Hash Calculator and my MATLAB code it should be "b02b6fe3425de43bd23d67be3fc16ed78a36f41f". Does anybody know how Sha-1 is calculated for our files? I am trying to use Sha-1 signatures as part of Commons:Batch uploading/Web Gallery of Art in order to tell which of the files we already have in Category:Web Gallery of Art. --Jarekt (talk) 16:19, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

• It's the same thing, only in base-36 encoding, not hexadecimal. See http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=36^^kktudsvyd57eimh3iydqtvvcequyhpb Trycatch (talk) 17:04, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, That is what I was looking for. --Jarekt (talk) 15:19, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Geographicus Rare Antique Maps

I'm very pleased to announce the partnership with Geographicus Rare Antique Maps. Geographicus Rare Antique Maps is a specialist dealer in fine and rare antiquarian cartography and historic maps of the 15th though 19th centuries. A large portion of their inventory of authentic antique maps is online at their website. Geographicus Rare Antique Maps donated their collection of digital images of maps. The collection consists of more than 2000 old maps. You can help with categorization or matching cartographers. Multichill (talk) 17:34, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Wow, tremendous thanks to Geographicus for the donation. All the maps I've glanced at appear to be of great resolution and very usable quality. Hopefully I can start digging into them tomorrow. — Huntster (t @ c) 03:37, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Can we use Wiki to help promote our new business , If yes How?

We have a small-business dealing in Office Supply & Office furniture. Any ideas ,HOW we can promote our business and be as popular as Wiki and by co-operating with Wiki Foundation . Any feedback from Out There.

Thank you Jay ABC OFFICE SUPPLY 600 KENRICK Houston ,Tx. 77060 USA

No, you can't. Please read Commons:Project scope and Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not, especially Wikipedia is not a soapbox or means of promotion. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 23:35, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

March 26

Wikipedia screenshots and licensing issues

Hi all, I've been reviewing Category:Wikipedia screenshots and Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Wikimedia_project_screenshot and they raise some issues.

The first thing I've been working on is effectively separating the screenshots containing non-free Wikimedia Foundation logos from those which don't using the new "logo=yes"/"logo=no" parameter. The question is: should the images in Category:Wikipedia screenshots containing works copyrighted by Wikimedia and Category:Wikimedia screenshots containing works copyrighted by Wikimedia have the logos removed by image editing? Note that some have very obvious, prominent logos, some have partial, cut-off logos, and some have very small logos (e.g. the Commons favicon or the Wikimedia Foundation logo at the lower right of all Wikipedia pages, etc.). Should these classes of images be treated any differently?

Next, many of these images contain content from Wikipedia articles without attributing them properly according to the license - they should at the least contain a link to the revision they were pulled from, which can often be guessed from upload time and a cursory Google search on content. It's also important to attribute the creators of all images visible on the page and link to their Commons pages - not so much for license compliance (since they can click through to the article then to the file description page), but this will help ensure that if someone needs to delete an image they can use "What links here" to see that the screenshot has to go too.

Other issues: some Wikipedia screenshots may contain fair use images. These will have to be deleted and (possibly) uploaded as fair use back to their source wiki. Some screenshots are not correctly licensed (being derivative of Wikipedia content they need to be CC-BY-SA). Some screenshots may contain text or images which were later deleted as copyvio. Some screenshots (like of desktops) may incidentally include non-free content (like wallpaper). Dcoetzee (talk) 12:02, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Screenshots with fair-use images will have to be deleted, unless the fair-use content is "de minimis". However, as for screenshots with Wikimedia logos, add Template:Copyright by Wikimedia if the logo is somewhat prominent, otherwise probably don't worry about it (especially not about a favicon!)... AnonMoos (talk) 16:24, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

The real question for me is why we're allowing non-free content in these images when it's not necessary - basically the only reason the logos are there is either because they were included accidentally, or because the author wanted to make it clear that the screenshot was of Wikipedia. In very few cases is this actually relevant to the way in which the image is used (and in any case the name "Wikipedia" is usually also present somewhere on the page, albeit less prominent). Many authors correctly removed the logos before upload, so no reason they shouldn't also be removed from these images. The CC-BY-SA noncompliance for text content also remains a serious issue. Dcoetzee (talk) 03:45, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Lets start with checking the copyright status of the wikimedia logos

In this discussion m:Talk:Allrightsreserved and Commons:Deletion requests/Unfree screenshots in breach of Commons:Screenshots, To create a free screenshot, article 3 we had a discussion about the logos. Since the question has now been raised on Village pump I would like to start a discussion about some of the logos.

In my opinion several of the logos should be licensed freely per my arguments below (see sub headings below).

This could just be the start. Feel free to add more logos if you have further information about those. --MGA73 (talk) 18:48, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikisource logo

This file File:Iceberg.jpg is licensed GFDL + Cc-by-sa-3.0. The official logo File:Wikisource-logo.svg is licensed with {{CopyrightByWikimedia}}. Please take a look at these files:

• 
  Original file - GFDL + Cc-by-sa-3.0
• 
  Old logo - GFDL + Cc-by-sa-3.0
• 
  Official logo - {{CopyrightByWikimedia}}

I would say that the official logo is a derivate of the old logo that was a derivate of a file licensed with GFDL.

So my question is now if it is correct to license the Wikisource logo with an unfree license when the source is licensed with GFDL + Cc-by-sa-3.0? --MGA73 (talk) 18:48, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

The original image is a composite image, and I was wondering whose image was the bottom half, but it appears it is a picture of the same iceberg as [25] on the website of the same photographer, User:Uwe kils, so he was probably quite entitled to license it. His original license was only GFDL so the CC license is irrelevant to this discussion.

If you can trust wikipedia ;-), en:GNU_Free_Documentation_License "requires all copies and derivatives to be available under the same license". So apparently the logo needs to have {{GFDL}} added. --Tony Wills (talk) 22:23, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Technically the conclusion doesn't strictly follow from the premise. Derivatives created by adhering to the GFDL (or CC-BY-SA) will inherit the license, but the copyright holder can permit derivatives to be created under other terms if s/he so wishes. Since I gather than Uwe Kils made the original, you should probably ask him if the WMF ever approached him about granting a special license for the new logo that would allow the WMF to control the rights to it. Absent a special dispensation though, you are right that the uploader should have assigned at least one of the original copyleft licenses. Dragons flight (talk) 10:48, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Um, if the file doesn't actually cite the sources with appropriate permissions, we have this habit of deleting things ;-). Speculation on who might have given what permission doesn't hold much water when it comes to licensing around here :-) --Tony Wills (talk) 19:44, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I'd be very careful of stating the logo is a derivative work of the photo. The photographer does not have a copyright on the iceberg itself. The old logo obviously was, and the new logo is definitely inspired by it, but there is very little of the original, actual expression from the photo still present -- the shape of the iceberg, sure, but that is not subject to the photographer's copyright. It's still a little fuzzy, as maybe the perspective was retained, but really all the specific outlines in the logo are different. If you asked me to pick one way or another, I'd say it's a separate work. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:36, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree with your sympathies, I often think deletions on the basis that something is a derivative work are a bit broad. But in this case the shape of the iceberg and hence logo, is very much the work of the contributor of the ice-berg "photo". The form of the "ice-berg" below sea level is totally a figment of the photographers imagination. He has taken a shot of the edge of an ice-berg (or perhap ice-shelf) that is carving off bits of ice (part of the shot appears to actually be the splash from ice hitting the sea), and turned it upside down and stuck it onto a photo of the visible part of another berg. So the proportions and shapes above & below water etc are very much a creative work, the iconographer could not have created his/her work from looking at any real ice-berg. --Tony Wills (talk) 19:44, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

That's a very fair point. On the other hand, relicensing it is assuming there is no separate agreement between the photographer and Wikimedia, which is quite possible. They would be completely within their rights to let the Foundation have the full copyright to that particular derivative work. Carl Lindberg (talk) 02:29, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

I raised this at File talk:Wikisource-logo.png, back in February, but no response. Rich Farmbrough, 19:56 23 March 2011 (GMT).

Wiktionary logo

This file File:Wiktionary-logo-en.svg is licensed with {{CopyrightByWikimedia}}.

• 
  Is this {{PD-textlogo}}?

I think that this looks just like text so if it was not "our own" logo I feel pretty sure we would call it {{PD-textlogo}}? --MGA73 (talk) 18:48, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

It's really only deserving of {{Trademark}} and {{PD-textlogo}}. – Adrignola talk 22:36, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

I could agree with that. I'm not sure there is enough creative arrangement there. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:38, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

While I know nothing about copyrights, I think the phonetics are pretty original... Kayau (talk) 14:31, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

This is just the standardised International Phonetic Alphabet, and doesn't contribute any originality. — Huntster (t @ c) 16:09, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Same here. In addition to the unique use of phonetics arranged directly below the name of the website, placed on top of a checkered background, and there are also the shaded words above and below the center of the image (the first of which reads "a multilingual free encyclopedia" and the second which seems to say "Wilco" in bold coupled with other phonetics). :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 22:12, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

A bit odd to say this, and say the Wikibooks logo is not original enough. It is entirely text, the checkered background is just the way svg backgrounds look in galleries. —innotata 23:07, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

You're right I guess, but the Wikibooks logo does look like a borderline case. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 23:26, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

None of the words or phonetics are copyrightable. That is not a unique use of phonetics; that is mimicking a standard dictionary entry and is not original either. They put the slogan above and in gray... not enough arrangement for a copyright to me, as that is only two elements. Per the Copyright Office, the arrangement of type on a printed page cannot support a copyright claim, and that is all this is, really. Same for coloration -- mere coloration cannot support a copyright even though it may enhance the aesthetic appeal or commercial value of a work. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:21, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikiquote logo

This file File:Wikiquote-logo-51px.png is licensed with {{CopyrightByWikimedia}}.

• 
  Is this {{PD-ineligible}}?

I think that this looks just like simple shapes so if it was not "our own" logo I feel pretty sure we would call it {{PD-ineligible}}? --MGA73 (talk) 18:48, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I think that is PD-ineligible. It is a common symbol. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:38, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree, this would not be eligible for copyright protection. BD2412 T 01:55, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, this is too simple to have any originality or creativity associated with it. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 22:03, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

I've created {{Wikimedia trademark}} (a lot like {{Trademarked}} but with links to the trademark policy and visual identity guidelines). And applied it.. –Krinkle^talk 10:41, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikibooks logo

This file File:Wikibooks-logo.svg is licensed with {{CopyrightByWikimedia}}.

• 
  Is this {{PD-ineligible}}?

I think that this looks just like simple shapes so if it was not "our own" logo I feel pretty sure we would call it {{PD-ineligible}}? --MGA73 (talk) 18:48, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

PD-ineligible is a fuzzy thing without clear guidelines. However, courts have generally held that the creativity required for copyright is pretty minimal. Personally, I lean in the direction that there is enough uniqueness and detail in the way the pages are arranged and stylized to justify a copyright. Though I can understand how other people might feel otherwise. Dragons flight (talk) 10:54, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

And contrary to a couple of above, I think this is probably copyrightable... I would certainly not be comfortable claiming PD-ineligible on it. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:40, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

This is not ineligible. -mattbuck (Talk) 16:55, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

The design is similar to File:NY Arrows logo.png, which was ruled ineligible for copyright. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 18:22, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I think that this is considered sufficiently unoriginal. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 22:13, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia logo

GFDL in 2004. Was that a mistake?

I noticed this logo from 2004 File:Wikipedia-logo-en.png that was originally licensed as GFDL. Licenses are not revocable.

The text says "Wikipedia logo by Nohat (concept by Paullusmagnus)". So I think we should find the original and see what license it had. --MGA73 (talk) 18:11, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I asked User:Nohat about the logo. --MGA73 (talk) 18:44, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Relicense of the logos

I think we should relicense the logos unless there is good arguments not to do so.

Today I added notices on the projects "Village pumps" or similar to inform them that the license is disputed. I also added notices on the talk page of the logos.

The question is now how to do so. Should we just change the licenses? Should we inform someone else? --MGA73 (talk) 09:48, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

The arguments above make sense. I'd say just go ahead and change them (as we do for other files in this situation). --99of9 (talk) 10:20, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

You should ping someone at the foundation. I'd suggest using legal-en@wikimedia.org as an appropriate venue. Dragons flight (talk) 11:04, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Trademarks of Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. should not be tagged with {{PD-ineligible}} which reads, in part, "it consists entirely of information that is common property." If some of them do not meet the threshold of originality needed for copyright protection, which may be a debatable proposition, then they should at least be tagged with {{PD-textlogo}} + {{Trademarked}} (or something specifically asserting the foundation's trademark rather than "may be subject to trademark laws"). See foundation:Trademark Policy for further information. ~ Ningauble (talk) 11:54, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

PD-textlogo is just a specific case of PD-ineligible, which is for works which do not reach the threshold of originality. Those license tags are purely about the copyright, and do (should) not imply anything about other potential rights, such as trademark or publicity rights. I could maybe see changing the license on two of them (see my comments above), but in all cases {{Trademarked}} must still be there, and {{CopyrightByWikimedia}}, despite the name, has portions which deal with trademark, and that (along with the links to their trademark pages) need to be kept one way or another. In the end, trademark is by far the most important protection for the logos. Keep in mind though that copyright laws in different countries may be different -- even though these may not be copyrightable by U.S. law, they may well be copyright in (for example) the UK or Australia, and the Foundation may wish to still explicitly claim those rights in those countries. By Commons policy, we would only use U.S. law for, but in real life the law in the country of actual use is the relevant one when it comes to any disputes. I would be careful about changing the licenses, maybe with an explicit mention that PD-ineligible etc. is only for U.S. usages. It is possible to give the logos a "free" copyright license while retaining full trademark rights (the Apache Foundation did this), but the Wikimedia Foundation has not yet, and I would tread carefully about changing the licenses here. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:51, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

• Comment:I would say if it was licensed under the GFDL it needs to stay that way - as with everything the copyright holder can not change the license once it is given. Carl is correct that it would still need to carry {{Trademarked}} tag, and the {{CopyrightByWikimedia}} is fine as well if the "all rights reserved" is removed from the wording. Currently there is no license tag at all on File:Wikipedia-logo-en.png and something such as File:Wiktionary-logo-en.svg, if it had been anyone else's "logo", would have been re-tagged with {{PD-ineligible}} or {{PD-textlogo}} long ago. Soundvisions1 (talk) 18:29, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

• • The GFDL tag was removed from File:Wikipedia-logo-en.png after only a week (back in 2004); it may just been a mistake by the person making the Commons upload. Also, copyright owners are free to give further licenses as they wish, or can still assign the copyright to others, including the Wikimedia Foundation. Thus, there may be valid works owned by the Foundation even if there is no "free" license. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:20, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Reply: That wasn't what I was saying. I was saying if the image was available as under the GFDL than it can't be changed to "all rights reserved"/"use only with permission". Another example - If I upload something that is under a SA-BY-CCL 2.0 and than you crop it you can't change the license to ND-NC CCL 3.0 or make that derivative PD. You can, however, license your work under a SA-BY-CCL 3.0, which is compatible to the 2.0 version. Soundvisions1 (talk) 16:38, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

You can change the license on the derivative if you get a separate agreement from the copyright holder of the original work, that is what I'm saying. The CC-BY-SA license just specifies what can be done without further permission (in which case yes, the licenses on derivative works are limited). And, if a file was mistakenly tagged with GFDL for a week, I don't think that should really matter. I'm really not sure what the original licensing was, to be honest. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:53, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

wmf logo

What about this?

Really simple lines and polygons and originally was in

designed by Wikipedia user "Neolux" {{GFDL}}

−ebraminio^talk 15:45, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm quite doubtful that meets the w:threshold of originality. ;) :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 22:15, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Media of the Day on the Main Page

It seems that somehow we lack sufficient material to populate this. I think we should remove this section from Main Page. --  Docu  at 17:56, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

I have to agree. Anything goes isn't a good model for the Main Page; maybe if we get better video support in the future. --theMONO 04:54, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

• I couldn't disagree more. Yes the quality of the material varies, but it represents what is here, and advertises the fact that this repository is not just for still images. If we removed it from the front page, I expect we would get even fewer videos and sound files submitted. It would probably help if more people participated in the media of the day selection page, but is there a particular bit of media that was a problem? --Tony Wills (talk) 08:20, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
• Maybe something will meet your fancy in a donation of videos we've just received from the World Monuments Fund. See Videos by the World Monuments Fund. – Adrignola talk 19:25, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that we don't just need one file or the other, IMHO it would need to be maintained consisently to appear on the main page. If we just want to advertise that we accept non-jpgs, maybe there is a better way to achieve that.

It happens once in a while that there is no media there. Today (27), the media for the 31 hasn't be selected yet. On the 23rd, we had File:US Supports No-Fly Zone Against Libya.ogv on the main page. Clearly not something we would want there. If the section was regularly maintained, this wouldn't happen. --  Docu  at 11:42, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

A new backlog

If anyone is looking for something new to do, I have assembled a new list of broken links from English Wikipedia to Commons. Enjoy. User:Wknight94/Broken English Wikipedia links. Wknight94 ^talk 20:57, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

This would appear to be a en-wikipedia task, so perhaps recruit volunteers there rather than on commons :-) --Tony Wills (talk) 04:25, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

File:Mk 48 PEO Soldier.jpg

When I upload this at the original size the grayscale goes haywire. Is there a limit to how large an image I can upload? Would make a good featured picture candidate. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 21:24, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

The maximum file size is 100 MB (a file on your computer). --High Contrast (talk) 21:28, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

There are problems with CMYK on Commons, so it's better to convert it to RGB. BTW the picture is not so high quality in the full resolution. Trycatch (talk) 21:48, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Ask for new upload at the file of the Flag of the Buenos Aires Province

Good night everyone! I am an argentinian user with a little problem. I am working with some articles related whith the Buenos Aires Province. On that, I have a problem whith the flag of the Province: Its official file (File:Bandera-bonaerense.svg) has a darker blue than that which the made flags have and that it is named in the official website of the site. So it was created a alternative file with the correct colors (File:Bandera-bonaerense-3.svg) but the problem with it is that it has a more difficult name, and that almost all of the files of the flag are the ancient and too dark ones. I would want to know if it is possible and correct to replace the correct file in the name Bandera-bonaerense.svg

I thank you very much, such if you can as if you cannot help me, and also excuse myself by my english's use. Plav mušketir ^Živijo 23:48, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Mmm, you could try clicking on "Upload new version of this file" and updating the colours over the current file... Rehman 01:00, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Rehman: since the file already exists here, there's no reason to upload over the existing file, especially without a source for the exact colours...

Plav: is there an official statement of the exact colours that are to be used on the flag, anywhere? From what I can find of the law that was passed, it only states a generic blue and green. If an official source could be found, it wouldn't be difficult to add {{Superseded}} to the incorrectly coloured images, but I don't think renaming the correct file just to remove the "3" would be necessary. — Huntster (t @ c) 03:06, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

My response above was purely based upon the technicalities of how to get a new File-B to be shown in File-A's place, without deleting File-A. The fact that whether this is or is not the right move, is explained by Hunster... Rehman 03:17, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I think Plav is referring to pictures on the province's official site. I had a quick look and found this picture, where the blue is clearly a lighter shade. Plav should be able to find better picture if not an official depiction (as I know veery little Spanish). We usually overwrite flags with the current/correct versions so I think the original file can be safely overwritten and the other (-3) can be deleted as duplicate. Regards, -- Orionist ★ talk 03:36, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

From what I've seen colours and shades of colours on flags is a rather contentious issue. Unless there is a very wide consensus on which one is correct (and often there is not a "correct" shade as the exact colour is never specified) I would *not* over-write the existing file, but leave it as a seperate file. That way the fighting ground for which is "right" can be carried out on the pages that use it, rather than a multiple reversion war here on Commons :-) --Tony Wills (talk) 04:19, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

March 27

Speedy deletion request

Could someone give me some advice on how to delete this:CIA Archives: Chinas Great Leap Forward ? Arilang ^talk 01:13, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

 Deleted per your request there. You may want to take it to COM:AN next time though :) Regards. Rehman 02:35, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Downloading audio files under CC license

Is there any way to download in bulk all the audio files for British English word recordings and find an index for them?

See Commons:Village pump/Archive/2011/03#Download all files from one category ?. --EugeneZelenko (talk) 14:50, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Copyright States of China's Bank notes

According to PRC's copyright law, artwroks which published 50 years enter public domains. But this law did not specific on bank notes as neither works for hire nor normal artworks. But Administration of Renminbi Regulation Article 27, Title 3 and Title 4 states that using picture of RMB on any kind of promotions, publication and other commodities without People's Bank of China's permission is prohibited. Should commons concern about the image of RMB?--Mys 721tx (talk) 12:08, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Commons:Currency mentions some countries, but not PRC. --  Docu  at 12:22, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

So the leak of mentions means okay or not okay?--Mys 721tx (talk) 09:28, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Kathmandu festivals

Does anyone know the name of this festival in Kathmandu? It involves the use of two chariots of hindu gods. Smiley.toerist (talk) 20:07, 21 March 2011 (UTC).

There seem to be quite a lot of festivals in Kathmandu. I suspect it is the "Seto Machchhendranath" [26] Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:53, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Correct name is "Seto Machindranath". see [27]. Seto is "white". There is also the "Rato" (Red) Machindranath. Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:16, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Sculpture photos

I found some photos of US sculptures:

• File:Big Chair in Denver.jpg
• File:Denver sculpture the yearling.jpg

Shouldn't they be on EN? WhisperToMe (talk) 17:11, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

They shouldn't be on Commons. Whether they should be on en-wiki is for en-wiki to decide. You should probably nominate them for deletion here. - Jmabel ! talk 17:37, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I'll make sure that en:Denver Public Library has significant content about both sculptures. Then once/if it does, the sculpture pics should be moved, then the Commons should delete them. WhisperToMe (talk) 20:50, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

New edit interface

I use monobook. Whenever I edit a page the old editing interface appears for a second and then the new interface (with 1.5 linespacing, and random toolbars), which I don't want, loads. How can I make this stop? Stifle (talk) 12:43, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Play with the options on the fourth tab (editing) @ Special:Preferences. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 14:38, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Got it, I needed to check "use old-style edit tools" and uncheck "enable enhanced editing toolbar". Thanks Stifle (talk) 17:08, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Strange, the first one seems not to change anything for me. But the second one does it, yes. What I would like to set is the line spacing. Proably it is possible with a css / js hack. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 03:30, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Transit Artwork

On a recent trip to Boston, I took some photos of MBTA stations for upload, to use to illustrate articles on the English Wikipedia. Several of them contain pieces of public art in stations, and I'm not sure where they stand as derivative works.

The first few (here's one I uploaded to my album on Picasa) are sections of a giant mosaic in Park Street station, by a still-living author. Although they show detail of the station (pillars, etc), I assume they're not currently eligible for upload. The question is, who would I need to get free-use permission from - the MBTA (who owns the station) or the original artist?

Then I have one (again on Picasa) that shows a sign at the BU West stop - a surface stop, with buildings and cars visible. On the MBTA station sign is a painting, that at current takes up only a small amount of the image. First off, is that viable for upload under freedom of panorama, or not because it still shows the artwork. Second, I'd prefer to use a crop showing just the sign for the Wikipedia image. Should I bother with seeking permission to use it as a free use image, or should I just upload it to Wikipedia as fair use?

Thanks in advance; I know these are probably stupid questions but I'm new at trying to understand copyright law. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 19:38, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Good questions. All uploads to Commons must have free licenses. Commons:Freedom of panorama does not apply in the United States. Generally a photograph of a non-trivial creative work that is not {{PD-ineligible}} may not be uploaded without permission of the copyright holder. Usually this will be the artist. If you wish your photograph to be available to non-English Wikipedias, you should seek permission and upload your image to Commons.

• Please see can I upload photographs/pictures of ...? for general information and examples.
• Please use Commons:Email templates for permissions and follow the instructions at Commons:OTRS.
• Please see Commons:De minimis for a (narrow) exception to this rule. De minimis would not apply to the two examples you mention, in my opinion. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 03:46, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

To clarify one point: Freedom of panorama does not apply to works of art in the United States, but does apply to buildings. - Jmabel ! talk 14:22, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your input. I'm now looking into how to contact the artists in question. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 04:02, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Transfer image from Wikipedia

Can anyone transfer ElectricScrewdriver.JPG to Commons? I tried, using commonshelper.php but I can't make it work. GiuseppeMassimo (talk) 13:31, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Toolserver may be temporarily down. Maybe try again in an hour or so? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 13:54, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Commonshelper never worked for me. You can always use commonshelper2 as a possible alternative for file transfers. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 14:06, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Transferred with CommonsHelper: File:ElectricScrewdriver.JPG. --Leyo 14:16, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

I think it's more like there are too many steps which I don't understand. I have had this problem in the past (for example, I don't know what is TUSC. It says not to use my password, but then, what? Do I make up a password? Do I leave it blank? Nothing ever works. And I don't understand what to do after I click the "get text" button) I have similar problems with commonshelper2. I'm sure the system works great, but it's designed for people who are using it regularly and know all the jargon, which is not my case. GiuseppeMassimo (talk) 14:14, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

TUSC is a separate free account that you can create on toolserver.org, the domain under which the commonshelper tool is located. Unless you are going to work with the tools regularly, you most likely won't need to fill out that field. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 22:31, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

suppressredirect

I´ve got an suggestion: Why not add suppressredirect to the permissions of file movers? This right would be helpful when renaming files with wrong or very unhelpful names (such as Superjimi!.jpg or IMGP0487.JPG). Of course, it shouldn´t be used with files which are widely used, but files which should be renamed are often relative new and nearly unused, so the absence of an redirect wouldn´t cause a problem which can´t be fixed manually. Are there any reasons against this suggestion? --FalconL ^?! 13:53, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Please see Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2010/11#Adding_suppressredirect_to_Filemovers for an archived discussion about this. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 13:56, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. But why not discuss it again? Of course the right should be handled with care, but I guess our 1,638 file movers are trustworthy enough to only use it when it´s appropriate. --FalconL ^?! 14:08, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Sure, if that were the case. But sometimes files are moved even when they shouldn't be, so the level of trust could vary by individual. Redirects for older files should always be kept for outside sources beyond Wikimedia that use the files. Wikis that have programmed in Commons as a file repository won't show up in global usage and will continue to point to the old name. – Adrignola talk 15:15, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

But this should be easy: If anybody repeatedly acts against the guidelines, you should speak to him and revoke his concerning right if he refuses listening to the advices. --FalconL ^?! 15:46, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

I do not think we have the time nor manpower to monitor the Renaming logs for that. It is unfortunate, but it is a fact that those guidelines are ignored (just my personal judgment, I have no hard numbers to back up this). Jean-Fred (talk) 17:40, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

IMHO, handing over this right to all filemovers is a bit too risky. As I said here, many of our filemovers don't understand that Commons is a repository of files for all wikis and many other websites, and that playing around with them has a bigger-than-expected effect. If someone really wants a useless redirect deleted, please {{db|Redundant or implausible redirect}} by all means, it's not that difficult. Rehman 01:58, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Same. As noted in the consensus regarding the previous discussion, iff this feature is to be implemented for filemovers, tighter guidelines must also be supplemented to restrict the use of this tool for users in this group/class of rights. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 05:33, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Image attribution

The FAQ contains the following section:

Where do I get credit for my images?
Some of our accepted licenses require attribution. This means that a photographer has to be given credit every time his or her picture is used. Please make sure you put the name you want to have mentioned in the description page of the image. Within Wikipedia articles, people who click your image in order to enlarge it will see your name.

I fail to understand how this and en:wp's policy of not attributing creators of files is in compliance with the requirement of the CC-BY-SA-licence requirement

Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

When editing articles on any language wikipedia, there is a sentence like this "You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license", so I can see that the attribution part is covered for article editors, by having a link to the article history from the article, but no such disclaimer appears when uploading files to Wikimedia commons. The specific sections from the CC-BY-SA licence reads

You must, unless a request has been made pursuant to Section 4(a), keep intact all copyright notices for the Work and provide, reasonable to the medium or means You are utilizing: (i) the name of the Original Author (or pseudonym, if applicable) if supplied, etc...

and

The credit required by this Section 4(c) may be implemented in any reasonable manner; provided, however, that in the case of a Adaptation or Collection, at a minimum such credit will appear, if a credit for all contributing authors of the Adaptation or Collection appears, then as part of these credits and in a manner at least as prominent as the credits for the other contributing authors.

I am no lawyer so I don't quite understand how these sections can translate to the way en:wp and the commons FAQ practices attribution? TommyG (talk) 21:08, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Image author's attribution is just one click away in articles.

"may be implemented in any reasonable manner; [...] in the case of a Adaptation or Collection, at a minimum such credit will appear, if a credit for all contributing authors of the Adaptation or Collection appears, then as part of these credits and in a manner at least as prominent as the credits for the other contributing authors."

I would say this does it - WP's articles are a collection. The one click on the image away is even better than the credit for the text authors (which is: clicking on "history" → clicking to the relevant page). Using images without making them clickable is forbidden for non-PD images.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. ;) Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 23:00, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Upload Wizard version 1.0 coming soon

As mentioned on the tech blog, we're probably going to roll out the 1.0 version of the Upload Wizard within the next week. After the code is deployed, we'll add a link to the Upload Page for people who want to try it out. Feel free to test it on the prototype server in the meantime. Kaldari (talk) 21:57, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

March 29

Commons:Quality images candidates/candidate list

There are several strange functions of odd MediaWiki behavior occurring in the above-linked page, such as the "Click here to activate QIVoter helper!" message in the edit window and a hidden comment explaining that MediaWiki doesn't parse the four tildes normally associated with signatures on that specific page anymore. What's the history behind the code changes to it (e.g. the type of MediaWiki bugs created and assigned to this particular page)? :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 07:09, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Free Pics

Hello,

Have you seen this ? ie 2000 pictures made free by the LA County Museum of Art. Perhaps we should check if they are really free and download them if it's the case ?

Best wishes,

Remi Mathis (talk) 09:19, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

User:PKM has been bold and already created {{PD-LACMA}}. They are discussing it with Dcoetzee. Looks like a job for COM:BATCH. Jean-Fred (talk) 16:46, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

We already have some uploads in Category:Public domain images from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Jean-Fred (talk) 16:52, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

\o/ Remi Mathis (talk) 16:56, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Template:Deleted/Kept2

Shouldn't there be multi-lingual templates Deleted and Kept2 instead of '''Deleted''' and '''Kept''' for deletion discussions? F. F. Fjodor (talk) 19:40, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Do you really think somebody is unable to get the meaning of these two words? If deleted is present, the file was actually deleted. If you create templates, they have to be protected due to extensive use. --RE RILLKE Questions? 12:01, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Not sure what templates you're talking about, but {{DeletionHeader}} and {{DeletionFooter}} both support translations... Rehman 02:24, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

I think F. F. Fjodor is thinking about the first word of the closing comment. --RE RILLKE Questions? 09:57, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

March 28

Missing images

Some images seem missed. For example, Empereur tarot charles6.jpg. So how to fix them? --Capim Dourado (talk) 03:19, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

What do you mean? Works fine for me. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 03:32, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Maybe the cache just needed purging (explained among other things at COM:FAQ#PURGE) --  Docu  at 06:08, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Mediawiki seems to be having problems generating some thumbnails off and on for hours now... AnonMoos (talk) 17:14, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Still, the Commons are nearly unfunctional for me due to thumbnailing problems. --FA2010 (talk) 17:17, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

A dev said to be "general ms4 overload issues" - will probably take a day to fix. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 19:58, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Why does my svg not look right in preview/thumbnail or here?

I uploaded a file File:Moon Phases.svg made with Inkscape, vacuumed the defs, saved as plain svg, edited the xml but still it looks black except for a lighter grey stripe on the right in the preview and thumbnail. Click on the image to go to http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/Moon_Phases.svg and it looks the way i want it to. Why is this?

Gregors (talk) 06:26, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't find out why it was like that, but it seems to be fixed now (open and resave in illustrator). Amada44  ^{talk to me} 06:50, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

maybe it was just your browser's cache? Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 19:55, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

No, the old thumbnails are black for me, too. --RE RILLKE Questions? 20:33, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

I have created two SVGs (1, 2) and the thumbnails do not work. It is not awful because nobody would use the graphics in that size. But if somebody can fix it, I don't mind. --RE RILLKE Questions? 20:33, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

If this happens again, you can press the "purge" button/link inside the popup-menu at the top of the description page (the downward arrow). It forces the servers to recreate the thumbnails. (I did it this time for you) --Niabot (talk) 20:56, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

@Gregor: black areas are generated by flowing text. If you delete the <flowRoot> tags (and everything in between) from your original file you'll see that it displays correctly. That's basically what fixed it when Amada44 re-saved the file in Adobe Illustrator. Regards, -- Orionist ★ talk 22:21, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

intermittent broken thumbnails

For the last few days I have been experiencing frequent but intermittently broken thumbnails. A request for a thumbnailed image often returns the following response:

ERROR

The requested URL could not be retrieved

While trying to retrieve the URL: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3e/Palpa_district_location.png/250px-Palpa_district_location.png

The following error was encountered:

• Unable to forward this request at this time.

This request could not be forwarded to the origin server or to any parent caches. The most likely cause for this error is that:

• The cache administrator does not allow this cache to make direct connections to origin servers, and
• All configured parent caches are currently unreachable.

Tim Pierce (talk) 15:55, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

I have also seen this. It seems to be a regular problem with the servers. – Adrignola talk 16:13, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Briefly discussed above under the "Missing images" section... AnonMoos (talk) 16:30, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

The thumbnail server has been struggling under very high load. The operations team is working on a system upgrade and on adding an additional server ASAP, which should restore normal service. This only affects serving/generation of thumbnails, not storage of the actual media files.--Eloquence (talk) 16:35, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

March 31

When Wikimedia Commons will support WebM video format?

Almost a year passed since announcing of WebM video format. When Wikimedia Commons will support WebM? And Firefox 4 already support WebM! What we waiting for? -- TarzanASG ⁺¹  06:03, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

I would also like to see progress with all free video and audio formats. Maybe a task group involving developers is needed?[28] is the only thread on the subject I could find from February and March this year. I would also like to find somewhere that hosts webm videos playable directly from the Opera browser without the need for plugins. -84user (talk) 08:44, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Michael Dale is developing WebM support and multi-format transcoding. You can see the current prototype here: http://prototype.wikimedia.org/timedmedia/Main_Page

Let him know what works for you and what doesn't :-) --Eloquence (talk) 14:15, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Banksy

1. File:Banksy, gandhi graffiti on apartheid wall.jpg this page needs renaming to something more accurate, and also more neutral.
2. File:Bethlehem Wall Graffiti 1.jpg - this (featured picture on the Turkish language Wikipedia!) image looks like a straight copyvio of Banksy's work.

Other pages in the categories might also bear closer examination.

Rich Farmbrough, 20:03, 23 March 2011 (UTC).