Commons:Village pump/Archive/2011/09

Remove error-files

On the last upload there where some errors, because I uploaded incorrect files. Please remove the files below, as they are not pictures, and cannot be used. The correct pictures have been uploaded. SOrry that junk files where in the same directory of uploads.

verification-error - because it was not a proper picture.

   File:Acer.aspire-522.amd-fusion.debian_1c555_screen02.png_original 
   File:Acer.aspire-522.amd-fusion.fedora_1c555_screen02.png_original
   File:Fix-copyright.bash 

--Janwikifoto (talk) 12:32, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Tag them for speedy deletion with {{Bad name}} or {{Speedy}}. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 14:09, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

That is a lot of operations on each file, then it would be better if I had the power to delete myself. I would be grateful if somebody could do it for me. --Janwikifoto (talk) 14:27, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Upload wizard renders old form unusable

The people who think that the new upload wizard is increasing usability may turn out to be wrong. I was on the French Wiktionary's village pump, where I found a talk between a newbie and an older user. The newbie asked for simple instructions on how to resize a picture. The older user gave detailed instructions, saying you must first prepare the resized version on your own computer, then upload the new resized version on Commons. When detailing the upload form, the older user said "forget with the upload form, most likely you won't find the necessary options", so you upload with whatever upload form looks close enough, and then you should edit the description page after the upload in order to add or change whatever is necessary. I tried to provide instructions on how to find Luxo's "derivative work of one or several files from Commons" tool, but it is nearly impossible to explain where that tool is located in simple words. You have to instruct the newbie to leave wiktionary, go to Commons, click on "Upload files", then "back to the old form", and, at long last, on "derivative work of one or several files from Commons". This labyrinth is not an increase of usability. Teofilo (talk) 14:09, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Resizing makes no sense and cropping could be done with User:Cropbot. But yes, the UWiz does not offer the ideal solution for many cases. -- RE rillke questions? 15:38, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

derivativeFX is a great tool for advanced users

We've deliberately not included a link to derivativeFX. It's a great tool and it's good that it exists, but it's not really suitable for new users. Yes, it's hard to find, but it's even harder to use if you don't have prior exposure to Commons -- it requires an understanding of templates and markup and is generally designed in a way that's only self-explanatory if you have a fair amount of in-depth experience with how Commons works.

So, in general, when we see things like this that are hard, we shouldn't think about how to integrate current solutions, but how to make them easy and intuitive. In the case of derivative works, this is non-trivial to do, but ideally it should probably be a function of the file page itself ("Upload a derivative version of this file"), which calls up an uploader that's correctly parametrized to make that process as efficient as possible.

Your help in coming up with a derivative works process that's intuitive and understandable is much appreciated.--Eloquence (talk) 22:01, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Logic, anyone? Correct manual rewrite of a half-baked {{Information}} produced by UW needs templates and markup, too. Far better understanding than just pressing buttons at Luxo's. It's nice to have a competent, "correctly parametrized" person sitting next to each newbie, but it won't happen. The fallout? Loads of legitimate files with wrong licenses that make them FFD firewood. NVO (talk) 00:02, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

What's logical is to build friendly tools and to incrementally improve their capabilities to match our needs while taking user experience into account, instead of incremental complexity creep that turns Commons into new user hell.--Eloquence (talk) 01:25, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

It's already there. Flickr. For a handful of dollars a year - no wiki markup, no templates, far better bandwidth (YMMV). Pay there or learn the rules here. It's not sarcasm, I mean it. If the contributor is unable or unwilling to use the upload form, don't expect them to learn the real tricks of the trade - getting around inconsistent copyright rules, ever-changing policies, handling raging sysops and stalwart nationalists etc. It may save everyone's time and nerves. Yes, commons may miss something really valuable - but if it is valuable and necessary, someone will reupload their stuff here, some day. NVO (talk) 07:09, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

new HTTPS support

Some news for the secure/tech freaks (or victims of spies) of us – no change for the average user(!):

"21:08 laner synchronized wmf-config/InitialiseSettings.php 'Enable HTTPSExperiment on commonswiki and set protocol-relative settings" http://wikitech.wikimedia.org/view/Server_admin_log

Starting two hours ago protocol relative URLs (some info also here in German) were enabled experimentally on Commons (the first Wikimedia wiki). Commons is accessible via https://commons.wikimedia.org now. This is different to the old HTTPS access via https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/wiki/ which uses another server and is a "hack". Our other wikis will follow "hopefully soon". Until this will happen e.g. interwikis from Commons to other wikis will not work correctly if you use the new HTTPS service.

Please mind: as of now there is a security flaw! The log-in option “Log me in globally” is currently insecure since it loads the images from each wiki using HTTP, which is what sets your cookies (which are also, then sent over HTTP). Therefore, if you use this option, people can still steal your cookies; they cannot, however steal your password.

Up to some time the old secure server will continue - but be switched off at some time, of course.

Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 23:43, 31 August 2011 (UTC) (using info from Ryan Lane @ Commons IRC channel. Thanks!)

Thanks for noting this! -- RE rillke questions? 05:23, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Graphic genital photos

FAO a Wikimedia lawyer

I've looked at Commons_talk:Sexual_content/Archive_4#USC_2257 and it didn't clarify anything for me. Could a Wikimedia lawyer please comment on Commons_talk:Sexual_content#Release_form_for_sexual_images_as_mitigation_against_child_pornography in language which is accessible to non-Wikimedians and non-lawyers. Thank you. Rubywine (talk) 00:23, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Whether people want to believe it or not, WP does actually know our IP addresses. I'm not sure how long they hold onto that information. That's all I can say, as I am not a lawyer or work in any section of the law, but they do know IP addresses, thus that is how they enable blocking. I think it's safe to drop this issue, WP clearly has their bases covered with this. I knew about 2257, but didn't realize it was their self-monitoring process. So, yeah that's their way of policing, and they have the policy on the site. It's just hard to find and I'd like to make it easier to find for other users so an incident like this doesn't happen again.--Henriettapussycat (talk) 20:17, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

You are correct, IP addresses are accessible to certain trusted insiders. In the interests of openness and transparency I believe the the length of the period IP addresses are accessible should be very clearly documented. From interpolating comments in check-user discussions this information only seems to remain accessible to those with check-user permission for three months. Geo Swan (talk) 16:39, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Scope question

Virtually all my uploads are photos or maps, so I'm embarking on a new-for-me issue here. I've just obtained a scan of a journal article that's legal to upload here — first published in the USA in 1924 without copyright notice anywhere in the entire volume of the journal — but I wonder: are scans of printed periodicals considered to be within scope? It's a very obscure publication (one of the earliest volumes of the Indiana History Bulletin), and not particularly important by itself, but we seem to have enough scans of old publications that I wonder if it might be in scope anyway. Nyttend (talk) 00:51, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

They're invariably useful to Wikisource.--Prosfilaes (talk) 09:26, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I think periodicals are generally fine.

There is even a recent tendency to allow all sort of text documents to be upload (unless they are in txt format) .. --  Docu  at 05:43, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Periodicals are fine without any doubt. They are in scope for Wikisource, so they are automatically in scope for Commons (see COM:SCOPE#PDF and DjVu formats). Trycatch (talk) 10:51, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

"Move to Commons" drive on the English Wikipedia

Just FYI, there is a drive going on all this month on the English Wikipedia to move as many eligible images to Commons as possible. The drive is at w:en:Wikipedia:WikiProject Images and Media/Commons/Drive Sep 2011, and progress can be seen at w:en:Wikipedia:WikiProject Images and Media/Commons/Drive Sep 2011/Logs. As an admin there, I'll do my best to watch over the moves to make sure we don't get ineligible images moved here. Anyway, I just wanted to bring this to your attention. All the best, Quadell (talk) 12:35, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks. Better late than never.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:36, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Is there any way to pre-indicate on the Wikipedia image description page the categories the file should have when later copied over to Commons? That would be more convenient for some of my old files which are going to be moved over... AnonMoos (talk) 14:38, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Great. It is a big job. --Jarekt (talk) 20:17, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

For deletion request sysops. It's got to be the other way round, salvaging files from commons meatgrinder. NVO (talk) 22:07, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Collages, montages and ...

Inspired by Commons:Deletion requests/File:Szczecin kolaz babrze.jpg which has a rationale: "Uploader refuses to upload the source images used for this compilation, impossible to verify the own work claim without them". The preceding "refusal" was a mixed-up Polish-English exchange, very brief and very recent [2], and there seems to be no outright refusal. The uploader has a very brief history here.

Without further digging into the uploader and the nominator - AGF - what's the current take on such cases? Is there any rule that requires collage-makers to actually upload source files? NVO (talk) 15:20, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Not that I'm aware of. There may be people who may think that because they made a collage (using other people's photos), it is "own work", and will upload on that basis -- and while there is a separate copyright on the collage itself as at least a collective work, or maybe a derivative work, they still need to have a license for every photo used, so it's best to at least explicitly declare that all the individual photos are by the same author as well. Under "assume good faith" though, I don't see a difference between uploading the collage, and the individual photos (if the collage is OK, users here are free to extract the individual parts as separate files). But, if any one of the photos can be shown to have an external source, it should be nominated for deletion (and that would also affect "good faith" on other uploads by the same user). Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:36, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't much like collages -- I think they are a nuisance for us because there are so many license issues, and that they can be created, if needed, using markup. With that said, though, I think that Carl is taking a position that is a good idea, but stretches beyond current policy.

If a user makes a collage and declares that all the constituents are "own work", no problem, we assume good faith. The same should apply if the some of the constituents are obviously PD.

What, though, if he makes one that has images that are not on Commons, but that have acceptable licenses? If they are all on Flickr, for example. If I read Carl's comment correctly, he would DR it unless the collage maker uploaded all the images from Flickr. While I think that's a good idea -- I prefer to see collages presented with thumbnails of all the constituents, because it makes the attributions clearer, I don't think it's required by current policy.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 16:03, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Flickr images would be fine if the source and authors are explicitly listed, of course. The user must follow the CC-BY licenses, at the very least. The only way a simple "own work" claim can be OK is if all the component photos are also by the uploader, is all I'm saying. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:28, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Problem is AGF isn't applicable to copyright and legal cases, we can't judge based on an assumption, the uploader should clear the doubts.  ■ MMXX  ^talk 16:44, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

We apply it every day to uploaded photos, and keep based on that assumption. Are you saying the user could crop out the photos in the collage at that resolution, upload them separately, and you're just fine with that, but not this? I honestly don't feel there is any difference. Provided the uploader does claim they took all the component photos, that is enough. For single uploads, AGF goes away when it is shown the uploader is taking photos from other sources and claiming them as their own, and this should be no different. If we find any of the individual photos elsewhere, then sure it's different. But right now this DR is basically "assume bad faith" and no other evidence, to me. Carl Lindberg (talk) 20:27, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Where will it end? I know that the uploader's account look suspicious, but there must be some limits set. What about panorama stitchers - must they upload every piece they stitched, no matter how useless they are in isolation? This can end up in a slippery slope: "you've uploaded 2MP photo, now you must upload it in full res", "now these look like already edited files, hurry to upload out-of-camera, as-is file NOW!" (and we don't care if it's underexposed by three stops) etc... It's great that commons does not host raw files, but "hey, email this to OTRS anyway". NVO (talk) 22:04, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

OTRS doesn't assume good faith at all. You must prove provenance to get that special tag. – Adrignola talk 01:02, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

"prove"? Since when? --  Docu  at 06:36, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes. As long as some of our colleagues at OTRS are willing to accept declarations from g-mail and other anonymous domains, there is little proof there.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 23:30, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Some ? too optimistic. It's either email or real-world, hard-copy or face-to-face communication. Just how many RL OTRS checks were there, if at all? NVO (talk) 09:34, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

If uploaders who claim {{Self}} must prove anything to OTRS, then it deserves a site-wide notice. NVO (talk) 09:31, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Part of the reason some of our colleagues at OTRS would accept declarations from Gmail and other anonymous domains is because you do see files tagged with {{Self}} marked as not having permission, with the uploader told to contact OTRS. In some cases it's clear that the work was by someone else; in some cases not. Then people are forced to reconcile the requirements of OTRS with the no permission tag on the file. – Adrignola talk 15:33, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

September 2

I can't open Upload wizard

I can't open Upload wizard since this morning. Why?--Havang(nl) (talk) 15:10, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Works for me. What browser are you using exactly? Do you happen to use google chrome? Multichill (talk) 15:22, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

User agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.1; Win64; x64; Trident/5.0; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; SLCC2; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; Media Center PC 6.0; HPDTDF; Tablet PC 2.0; .NET4.0C) and waarschijnlijk laatste versie Internet explorer 64bit, no google Chrome. --Havang(nl) (talk) 17:22, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I tried the button "compatibilteitsweergave" and that solved the problem.--Havang(nl) (talk) 17:31, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I have the same problem for several days. I am using IE 8.0.6001.18702. יעקב (talk) 18:25, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

September 3

OCR of djvu files : a new tool

Hello, I have just write a new tool for doing the OCR of djvu file in Commons witch work with pywikipedia and Tesseract : djvuocr.py. You give it the name of the file and it language and he download the file, do the OCR and upload the file with the OCR. Suggestions, comments ? Tpt (talk) 09:27, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Nice for wikisource and reusers. Do you have an account on toolserver or somewhat where you can host it? -- RE rillke questions? 18:37, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

OTRS member permissions

Some changes associated with the OTRS member group are proposed: Commons:Village pump/Proposals#OTRS member permissions. – Adrignola talk 15:22, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

September 4

Consider adding some consideration to your fellow Wikimedia projects on your deletion policy

I've posted the issue at Commons talk:Deletion policy#Consider adding as a requirement.... Even if it doesn't become part of the policy it should be part of the moral obligation to consider the implications of your deletion of your sister projects. As is it is not only damaging to others but to your own project. --79.168.6.93 05:45, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

500-Million-Dollars US Bonds

Hello,

I just found this old story about 2 Japanese smuggling 500-Million-Dollars US Bonds from Italy to Switzerland, and I find it highly entertaining at the very least. True or not, one could not find such an incredible story even in the wildest imagination. Such I uploaded some of the bond images on Commons. Now, are they real or fake? If they are fake, what is their copyright status? I didn't find the right category for these documents. Best regards, Yann (talk) 12:40, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

• 
• 

If they're forgeries, then they're presumably very closely imitating official U.S. govt. documents, plus they're illegal (see grafitti), so I don't see any big copyright problem... AnonMoos (talk) 15:57, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, the logic of PD-Art applies here. If their goal was to create a faithful reproduction of a public domain document (as it should be if they were to get away with it!) then they're okay. Dcoetzee (talk) 07:34, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Need help creating a category

English: There are at least eight picture of the tramway or streetcar line that ran through Sibiu between 1905 an 1970, so there might as well be a category about it. Now I have learned that Commons categories have to be in English, and I am facing a problem here. While I can create a category title such as Category:Railway points in Spain (and did so today) when there are a dozen analogous titles about other countries I find no meaningful example for the present case. I started a discussion but so far nobody seems interested. My basic problems are:

• Is/was it a tram, a tramway, a streetcar, or what?
• How do I express that it is no longer in function? "Ancient"? "Former"? "Historic"? The latter might indicate that it is still in function but uses historic material. "Former" might indicate that it was replaced by a new system, which it was not. I have no idea how old something must be to be called "ancient", and what else it implies.
• How do I grammatically combine these elements, together with the name of the town?

I would appreciate any help, my English just is not up to it, and I don't want to be bashed for creating a nonsensical category name. Of course it is possible that I did not even manage to make the problem clear, so maybe the following version in my native language will help somebody.

Sorry if this is the wrong place for my question. I searched for "translation help" but found nothing.

Deutsch: Es gibt wenigstens acht Bilder der Straßenbahnlinie, die zwischen 1905 und 1070 durch Hermannstadt fuhr; eine eigene Kategorie wäre also sinnvoll. Ich habe nun erfahren, dass Kategorienamen in Commons englisch sein müssen, und damit habe ich ein Problem. Ich kann zwar, wenn es schon ein Dutzend analoger Kategorien gibt, eine neue Kategorie Category:Railway points in Spain anlegen (und habe das heute getan), aber zum vorliegenden Fall finde ich kein geeignetes Beispiel. Ich habe vor einigen Wochen eine Diskussion angelegt, aber bisher keine Hinweise bekommen. Meine Hauptprobleme sind:

• War die Hermannstädter Straßenbahn ein tram, tramway, streetcar, oder was sonst?
• Wie drückt man aus, dass sie nicht mehr in Betrieb ist?
• Wie wird beides, zusammen mit dem Namen der Stadt, grammatikalisch zusammengestellt?

Bevor ich einen unsinnigen Titel anlege, möchte ich lieber fragen. Falls das hier der falsche Platz ist, bitte ich um Entschuldigung; ich habe nach "translation help", "übersetzungshilfe" und "tradukhelpo" gesucht, aber nichts gefunden.

Vielen Dank!

-- Aisano (talk) 12:22, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Creating a talk page for a non-existent category is really not the way to start a discussion -- few people will notice it, except people searching for "orphaned" talk pages to clean up (delete). However, I see nothing wrong with "Former Sibiu streetcar line (1905–1970)"... AnonMoos (talk) 12:28, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Probably Category:Trams in Sibiu (1905–1970), to distinguish it from the present-day tram line from Sibiu to Răşinari. No need for "former" in category name, and we generally user "tram" rather than "streetcar" in category names, from what I've seen. - Jmabel ! talk 16:50, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, that sounds reasonable. There might even be a new common supercategory ("Trams in Sibiu") for this and for the Sibiu–Rășinari tram. I'll wait a couple of days, and if there is no contradiction I will create the category.

Yes, I now realise that the talk page was not a good idea but I did not know when I created it. I will propose it for deletion after collecting the pictures from it. -- Aisano (talk) 20:34, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Photos that are out of copyright (published before 1923)

Recently two photos I uploaded were deleted, even though I added templates that said they were published before 1923. I'm confused, really. If someone can tell me if there is some other policy I'd just like to know for future reference. The template was added by an admin, "This media file does not have sufficient information on its copyright status." So I added templates that made it clear this was in PD due to being published before 1923. I didn't remove the warning template because I assumed this was for admin to do. Here is the google cache.--Henriettapussycat (talk) 15:51, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Sometimes even admins make mistakes. Upload the file again and make sure the right templates go with it from the begining. /Esquilo (talk) 17:13, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

You should have removed the template if you thought you had provided adequate info. However, "Date: 19 August 2011" really did not help your case; providing an indication of the actual date the photograph was taken will probably help smooth things along... AnonMoos (talk) 17:17, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, there were life dates of "(1881-1959)" mentioned in the description, which may have contributed to the confusion. --Túrelio (talk) 18:00, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Both File:Jennie Ross Cobb.png and File:Dat So La Lee.jpg do not provide any proof that these pictures indeed were published before 1923. The subjects of the photographs died after 1923, the date of creation and the authors were not specified. Trycatch (talk) 18:07, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

That's understandable. I have no idea about the JRC photo to be honest, and next time I will be much more careful about details. I have had quite a few photos deleted on here lately, but I'm not personally trying to divert copyright, I just misunderstand the guidelines. Enough for my future reference anyway! Thanks --Henriettapussycat (talk) 18:46, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

If you search for a pre-1923 photograph of some person, check online archives of scanned old books/newspapers, e.g. (for the US) Internet Archive, Google Books (check "Full view only" in advanced search), Chronicling America (pre-1923 American newspapers), Google News Archive (eh, it seems that the service was shutdown). For example for Dat So La Lee it's easy to find an illustrated book published in 1902 in New York with a photo of her: [3]. Trycatch (talk) 20:19, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Some evidence for the publication being before 1923 is generally helpful -- what book (and page) was it from, if you found it online what is the URL, etc. Simply claiming pre-1923 without a specific source being mentioned will quite often get things deleted. Given the Google cache you mention for Jennie Ross Cobb, you just pointed to the top-level website. The only place I could find a photo of her was page 11 of this PDF. The woman does look somewhat older in the photo... if she was older than 41 years old when that was taken (quite possible but not certain), it would be from 1923 or later, meaning the PD-1923 tag is impossible. Second, the only thing we really know is that it has been published recently, not that it was actually published at the time it was taken. The current term for newly-published photos with an unknown author is 120 years from creation, which has not passed yet (or 95 years from publication, if shorter, but that does not apply for newly-published stuff). The PDF gives no information on where the photo comes from. Works where all this type of information is lost are definitely hard cases -- they are called "orphan works" -- but not knowing the information does not mean that copyright has expired. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:12, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, I will try to be more careful and find out exactly where the pics come from. The JRC pic was the only one I could find, and that was the reason for upload, but you're right, it could have been created after 1923.--Henriettapussycat (talk) 18:46, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Dat So La Lee stands a much better chance of being OK -- she died in 1925, so most photos would have at least been taken pre-1923, and she was aggressively promoted from around 1900 and later (it sounds like the promoters invented large portions of her "life story" when doing so), so there are more likely to be works which were published. here is a photo of her from a 1901 book (which also includes some photos of her baskets). Not the same one, but that one could definitely be used. Another photo of her here (1909 book, from the Nevada Historical Society). From the Google cache of the one you posted though, there is a signature in the bottom right -- that may help determine things for that photo in particular. Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:49, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

US freedom of panorama requirements forced by licensing policy?

Is the US freedom of panorama regulation mandatory for all FOP pictures on Commons? Normally, media have to be free in the US, always. It's not made clear in COM:FOP.--141.84.69.20 19:51, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

In general we have not been doing that -- as long as the photo is OK to take (in that the photographer would hold the rights in that location), we are allowing such photos (if licensed) to stay here. Carl Lindberg (talk) 20:01, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Several years ago I uploaded a picture of Federico Fellini Airport (Rimini, Italy), and it was deleted because it showed a sculpture in front of the passenger terminal. In the meantime, this sculpture has been deleted (dismantled), too, so Wikimedia Commons was ahead of its time. But I suppose there were times when the policy described by Carl did not apply, or was not applied. -- Aisano (talk) 23:09, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Italy does not have freedom of panorama for sculpture (or anything, really). Normally, photos primarily of copyrighted statues would be considered derivative works, but countries with clauses like this in their law give us a leg to stand on -- without it, they have always been considered derivative works and deleted. The COM:FOP page was created to document the countries which have such clauses. If the focus of your photo was the entire airport though... not sure it should have been deleted. Carl Lindberg (talk) 23:28, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Carl, many thanks for the explanation. I had not been aware that Italy's law was so strict here. As to my Rimini picture, it was sort of "aimed" at the sculpture, so it was correct to delete it. In fact, since the airport is not even 80 years old and its architects probably lived happily some time after designing it any pictures of the airport are probably liable to a fee for publishing, so much more so as the airport got a new facade in the meantime. -- Aisano (talk) 17:25, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Gallery on toolserver is broken

This tool does'nt work anymore, now for quite some time. Is there any other tool available showing uploaded pictures for a specific user? Paul Hermans (talk) 13:20, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Special:MyUploads. Files, overwritten by other users disappear from the list. I am working on a better solution. User:Rillke/JSONListUploads.js -- RE rillke questions? 14:05, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your response and effort Paul Hermans (talk) 15:09, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

easy way to mass change a license from PD-old to PD-old-100

Hi y'all!

Félix Nadar has died in 1910 and hence from 2011 on all his works are PD also in those countries with a life time + 100 years rule (or fewer).

Therefore, I would like to change all Nadar photos from {{PD-old}} to {{PD-old-100}}.

Is there an easy way (a bot?) to do this? --ALE! ¿…? 07:16, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

I am sure it is possible with AWB but you may also use User:Rillke/AjaxMassDelete.js (documentation and easy-install). After installing this script, visit Category:Photographs by Nadar, click "Perform batch task" in your toolbar, load all pictures by scolling down multiple times, then select all (check-box), use the option custom replace, go to the top of the gallery and fill in

/\{\{PD[ _-]Old[^\}\n]*\}\}/ig as a pattern and let replace with {{PD-old-100}}. But I suggest, before doing a mass-change, test whether this works by selecting only one gallerybox at first. -- RE rillke questions? 07:43, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Could someone do this for me? I am afraid that I am probably too stupid for this ;-) . --ALE! ¿…? 15:13, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Was this right? (before I am going to change all) -- RE rillke questions? 15:45, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, this was right. Thank you! So just go ahead. --ALE! ¿…? 07:08, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

 I hope the script found all files. Btw, there is Commons:Bots/Work requests. -- RE rillke questions? 12:38, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

There are also some photos tagged with {{PD-Art}}. Also these should be {{PD-old-100}}. If you could also do those? Thanks --ALE! ¿…? 14:07, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Or to {{PD-Art|PD-old-100}}? Since there are maybe photos of photos? -- RE rillke questions? 12:11, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

As far as I know we do NOT need to tag with PD-Art photos of photos but only photos of paintings. --ALE! ¿…? 16:47, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

There are some files with pd-us like File:Édouard_Manet-crop.jpg. -- RE rillke questions? 20:07, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Well they all should be PD-old-100. If you tell me which ones are not yet PD-old-100 I do them manually. --ALE! ¿…? 21:45, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

File:Boussinesq.jpg File:Claude Monet 1899 Nadar crop.jpg File:Georges Nagelmackers par Nadar.jpg File:Judith Gautier circa 1880.jpg File:Plume de Brazza 01.JPG File:Plume de Brazza 02.jpg File:Rosita Mauri 1881.jpg File:Théophile Gautier by Nadar c1856-1.jpg -- RE rillke questions? 14:50, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

 except for File:Plume de Brazza 02.jpg which is not a Nadar photograph but a signature. --ALE! ¿…? 15:30, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

File:Boussinesq.jpg : It's strange to put a PD-old-100 tag with a description that says that the work is by "Author Unknown". -- Asclepias (talk) 16:20, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, further down it says creator:Nadar. But thanks for pointing this out. I corrected the description. --ALE! ¿…? 11:30, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

upload wizard does not work

The upload wizard does not work. When I press upload file an attempt to show the upload wizard is begun, but the button for uploading pictures never appears. Can anyone help? יעקב (talk) 20:30, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I have the same problem, which has happened before to me. For now you could just try Special:Upload or Commons:Tools/Commonist for a larger number of files. Editor5807^speak 22:03, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

We're getting a few reports of this, although it doesn't yet seem obvious that any specific browser/OS combination is affected. We'll debug ASAP.--Eloquence (talk) 21:10, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I've been able to deduce my problem has been related to a firefox extension called tor button; have filed an bug to them at https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/3938 _→AzaToth 22:04, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

"Free Artistic License"

The existence of the relatively rare "Free Artistic License" option on the UploadWizard seems to be confusing a lot of novice uploaders. They have a non-free picture they want to upload (despite the warnings) and are forced to choose a license. They look under "Miscellaneous Reasons" and see "Free Artistic License" and think "well, it was free, and it's artistic, so that should be good enough." The number of legitimate FAL images that are uploaded are likely dwarfed by the number of illegitimate ones. If it's necessary to keep this option, can we rephrase the heading and option to make it clearer that it is not just a generic catchall license? Powers (talk) 18:36, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

I got the same impression from the suddenly increasing share of FAL-"licensed" uploads. Rather bad situation. Not to mention the fact that our FAL template {{FAL}} doesn't give re-users any information about the license's requirements for re-use, as opposed to the CC templates. --Túrelio (talk) 18:52, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, we see in the user tests that some users click the "Free Artistic License" option as a way to get through the process quickly. I don't know that this is really a function of the license name -- it looks to me more like folks click it's because it's the last checkbox they can click before abandoning the upload entirely.

Here are some options we have:

1) Get rid of the FAL option and reserve it for advanced users (we should add a "custom template" field anyway and it could live there for advanced users).

2) Add a trap option. We went back and forth on this and ultimately decided to go with an Abandon option to assume good faith, but it may be worth testing an explicit "I don't know the license" checkbox option that marks the file for deletion against the current setup. I don't think we've done click-tracking on the Abandon option -- it would be nice to know how many folks are just giving up, so we can compare it against the number of people who mis-label their license or who might choose a trap option.

Thoughts?--Eloquence (talk) 19:32, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

2, 2, 2, 2 :) I want my trap back. It is much easier to help or delete if you immediately see that a user had problems. That the FAL-option is often misused was discussed several times before, here. We should think about adding an option like, "I do not know" which adds a template that review is required. Furthermore the user should be told to return to his talk-page after some time. just one example (the "FAL queue") -- RE rillke questions? 20:31, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

I actually think it is, at least partially, a function of the license name. See, for instance, here. Powers (talk) 00:02, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Rillke. There always been a trap, I have no idea why it was removed (I guess because of some idealistic theory, that the magical Upload Wizard will eliminate any misunderstanding among uploaders). By the way the funny thing that there is no such license as "Free Artistic License" at all, you will have no luck googling this name. There is the "Free Art License" and it has several different versions, so anyway the uploaders probably have no idea to what they agree to. I wonder why the FAL-license was selected as a single listed non-CC license. FAL is not a good license, it's copyleft and incompatible with CC-BY-SA or GFDL (so correct uploads with this license slowly creates on Commons an island of pictures incompatible with the CC-BY-SA majority), it's very confusingly written, and AFAIK it's not even approved as a free license by the Debian project, because of many problems with the legal text of this license. Trycatch (talk) 00:08, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Again, UW currently uses a big friendly "Abandon this upload" button as the final choice. We don't know how many people are clicking it, but it hopefully has some effect. Re: the license name, thanks for the pointer -- I just fixed it for English, and committed fixes for the other languages, which should be deployed with the next localization update. It sounds to me, though, that doing both 1) and 2) suggested above would be a solution most people here would prefer, anyway -- i.e., getting rid of FAL as a choice in the license tree (ideally adding a feature to add custom licenses for advanced user), and adding a trap to catch uploads that are otherwise likely to be mislabeled. Neil is back next week; I'll talk to him about the trap issue and get his take on why he chose to forego it in the implementation.--Eloquence (talk) 01:22, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

My two cents is that the FAL is problematic for many potential users of Commons media and therefore should be removed from Commons list of permitted licenses. Failing that, it should certainly not be an easy license for a novice to pick. The problem lies with:

"If the work can no longer be accessed apart from the larger work in which it is incorporated, then incorporation shall only be allowed under the condition that the larger work is subject either to the Free Art License or a compatible license. "

Which says to me that if you use an FAL image in a book, for example, (the larger work), then the book must have an FAL or compatible license. That means that FAL images will not be used in many commercial publications -- certainly all of my various off-Commons users would have balked.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 12:04, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Um, we have been over that repeatedly recently. That is not what the license says -- it is really a "normal" derivative works clause, as is made more clear by their FAQs. Their license hinders us no more than CC-BY-SA does. It is actually a more common license in French-speaking circles, I think, so there may be reason for its existence in the download options. But it does sound like there are implementation issues on the upload form. Not positive removing it would help -- would they just choose a different license, making it even harder to find the problems? Perhaps a trap option would work. Maybe add the version number (currently 1.3) to the "Free Art License" which may help indicate that it is a particular license. I agree having this as the only "Miscellaneous reason" is not a good thing -- group it with Creative Commons, label it "other free licenses", or put a trap option in there. Carl Lindberg (talk) 19:47, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

For a perfect illustration of confusion here, see Commons:Help_desk#GPL_Picture_upload. - Jmabel ! talk 14:53, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I believe that option 2 is the best way to avoid such kind of problems, but in second istance option 1 is not a bad idea. Please do it as soon as possibile.--Trixt (talk) 20:12, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Request

Could somebody please crop the portrait of Meroni on this picture? I don't have the appropriate software. If it's not too much trouble, could you also reduce the reflection in the portrait? Thank you in advance! 178.224.26.158 21:49, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

English: I could do that but there's a speedy deletion request pending for this picture (copyright violation). So I assume it does not make much sense.

Italiano: Potrei farlo io ma per questa immagine è stata richiesta la cancellazione immediata (violazione di copyright). Cosí non ci vedo molto senso.

Esperanto: Mi povus fari, sed iu proponis tujan forigon de tiu bildo, pro lezo de aŭtoraj rajtoj. Do ne havas multe da senco.

Deutsch: Das könnte ich machen, aber gegen das Bild läuft ein Schnelllöschantrag, wegen Urheberrechtsverletzung. Also hat das nicht viel Sinn.

-- Aisano (talk) 23:01, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

All right, thank you! 178.224.26.158 07:47, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I noticed that the abovementioned picture is uploaded again. Could somebody tell me if there's a speedy deletion request pending for the picture? Thanks in advance! 95.99.88.25 10:11, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Italiano: L'ho fatto, signor(a) 95.99.88.25, e l'ho caricata sotto it:File:Luigi Meroni, immagine sul suo monumento sul corso Umberto.jpeg.

Esperanto: Mi faris, sinjor(in)o 95.99.88.25, kaj alŝutis al it:File:Luigi Meroni, immagine sul suo monumento sul corso Umberto.jpeg.

-- Aisano (talk) 18:13, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Aisano! Is it also possible to transfer this image to commons? The original picture is in the public domain, so this should be no problem right? 188.88.19.42 08:10, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

COM:FOP#Italy could be a problem. --Aʁsenjyʁdəgaljɔm¹¹⁶⁷¹ 15:03, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Not if the original is PD. The above is basically a copy of the original photo. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:19, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

September 5

Missing "Add notes" button

The "Add notes" button is missing. --ŠJů (talk) 12:12, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Try reloading your browser's cache. Lupo 12:17, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Please purge your browser’s cache or enable JavaScript in your Browser's settings. (You only need to do it once.)

Operating system Browser	Microsoft Windows or Linux	macOS
Internet Explorer	Press Ctrl+F5
Mozilla Firefox	Hold down ⇧ Shift while clicking Reload (or press Ctrl+F5 or Ctrl+⇧ Shift+R)	Press ⌘ Cmd+R (reload page) or ⌘ Cmd+⇧ Shift+R (reload page and rewrite cache)
Opera	Press Ctrl+F5 or ⇧ Shift+F5
Konqueror
Apple Safari	Hold down ⇧ Shift+Alt while clicking Reload
	Press Ctrl+R	Press ⌘ Cmd+⌥ Option+E (clear browser cache) or ⌘ Cmd+R (update)
Chrome	Press Ctrl+F5 or ⇧ Shift+F5 or hold down ⇧ Shift while clicking Reload	Press ⌘ Cmd+F5 or ⇧ Shift+F5 or hold down ⇧ Shift while clicking Reload

-- RE rillke questions? 13:05, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Ecole de Goya, Nain assis (19ème siècle).jpg

Would an administrator please delete the photograph with the non-free frame in the image history of "File:Ecole de Goya, Nain assis (19ème siècle).jpg"? Thanks. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 17:17, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

 Done (hidden), though COM:AN might have been a better place for this request. --Túrelio (talk) 20:08, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

There's {{Non-free frame revdel}} too :) --Marco Aurelio (disputatio) 16:38, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 19:43, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

September 7

Colour-Distorted images

I've just noticed some quite severe colour distorion on File:Zacuelu3.jpg and File:Zaculeu5.jpg, both of these files were fine this morning and there is not hint in file history as to what has gone wrong. Any ideas anyone? Simon Burchell (talk) 15:33, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Dunno, but these files have a strange embedded color profile called "SFprofT (OpticFilm 7600i).icc". This color profile is also in the thumbnail shown on the image page, not just in the full-resolution original. Maybe the thumbnailer newly passes this profile on to the thumbnail it generates. The browser apparently doesn't know what to do with this profile, resulting on my browser in a garish violet tint. I would suggest re-uploading the files with a sRGB color profile and purging the affected files. Lupo 16:11, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm - not my photos so I don't have them, they just happen to be on Wikipedia pages that I'm working on. Thanks anyway, Simon Burchell (talk) 16:15, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

I tried basic conversion to sRGB in GIMP and it is still unacceptably tinted - I mean, it's a normal photo now but colour balance is skewed too far into greens. Is it worth uploading? Ideally, the author should do it themselves, only they have the originals. NVO (talk) 03:09, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

I changed the colour profile to sRGB and uploaded new versions as File:Zacuelu3A.jpg and File:Zaculeu5A.jpg. Wouter (talk) 06:17, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Seems to be a Firefox problem as far as I can see - looks fine on IE, but thanks for the new versions - I'll swap them over in the articles. There seem to be a few more in Category:Zaculeu with the same problem - some seem to be showing up with main photo OK, thumbnail distorted or vice versa, all uploaded by the same user. Simon Burchell (talk) 09:41, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Looks like a task for a bot, see Commons:Bots/Work_requests#Odd_colour_profiles. NVO (talk) 10:19, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

It is a similar problem as discussed before about pale photos. Wouter (talk) 11:04, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

It seems that GIMP for some reason doesn't work correctly with this color profile and simply discards it, so File:Zacuelu3A.jpg is not correctly converted -- it's just the original with color profile discarded. Looks like Krita and Photoshop work well. Trycatch (talk) 13:03, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

I went to File:Zaculeu5.jpg and it doesn't display at all in my browser -- was left looking at white and grey squares... AnonMoos (talk) 13:44, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Wouter, why create new files and not load the images with the sRGB profile on top of them? Amada44  ^{talk to me} 14:29, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, IMO it makes sense to upload pictures with degraded quality, but adapted for the web (and browser Firefox), under another name. We do the same thing for pictures in high resolution, if MediaWiki can't render their thumbnails properly. Trycatch (talk) 14:45, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

I think, that this is not the image problem but the Firefox browser problem. IE and Safari displays those images just fine, so do image viewing programs on my PC. I run into much more images like this lately. --Jarekt (talk) 14:47, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

I tried the fix proposed in the https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/questions/766707 : "simply go to "about:config" in the firefox addresss bar. Search "color". Doubleclick on the gfx.color_management.mode option and set the value to 3. Then restart firefox. ". That fixed the problem on my machine. --Jarekt (talk) 15:20, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Me too - worked in the office (XP), but not at home (win7). Restart/reboot/purge - no go. At any rate, I don't expect an average user to even consider resolving this bug. They'd simply walk away, wondering what were these wikipedia geeks smoking... ;) NVO (talk) 15:34, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Hopefully Firefox will fix it in the future releases. --Jarekt (talk) 15:35, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

I've checked a nightly build -- in Firefox 9.0 color profiling with this picture works just fine. So anyway this problem will go away in a few months. Trycatch (talk) 15:37, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

So the last Firefox has better color management than the last GIMP. What a shame. Trycatch (talk) 16:03, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Trycatch wrote “so File:Zacuelu3A.jpg is not correctly converted -- it's just the original with color profile discarded.” I downloaded the file and looked at it with the program GraphicConverter. It shows the profile sRGB IEC61966-2.1. I converted the original profile to this one in the program iView MediaPro 3. So the colour profile is not discarded.

Amada44 asked why I did not load the images with the sRGB profile on top of them. I did that on purpose to make it easier to investigate the problem. With the problem with the “pale” photos I loaded my own photos with the sRGB profile on top of those with the "Nikon D70 generic V2" colour profile. Wouter (talk) 16:37, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Then iView MediaPro 3 doesn't work correctly with this profile. You can see the correct colors in the embedded thumbnail generated by Photoshop: http://regex.info/exif.cgi?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2F9%2F9f%2FZaculeu5.jpg But the pictures uploaded by you look exactly the same as the originals with all color information removed (using ImageMagick -- convert -strip). Trycatch (talk) 17:08, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

I tried your useful link with Zaculeu5A.jpg. There I see the color profile sRGB, but it may be that I don't look at the right place. Wouter (talk) 18:52, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Two files uploaded with the same name at the same time?

E.g. see File:Vana-Põltsamaa mõisa aia piirdemüür.jpg, where two versions seem to be uploaded at the same time. There are two upload log entries, but one contributions log entry. Is upload wizard allowing such behaviour or there's another explanation for this? 193.40.10.180 19:40, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

museum photo policy

a while back I went to a museum that has a 18th century orrery which is pretty awesome. The museum doesn't allow its visitors to take photo's. Bad bad me did take some photo's. Are these photo's allowed onto Wikimedia? --Vera (talk) 22:54, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, we consider such rules to be non-copyright-related, and so disregard them. -mattbuck (Talk) 23:18, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

We won't delete them if you want to upload them. It's up to you as regards the museum's policy. Carl Lindberg (talk) 08:34, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

You may want to consider the usage of a one-time sockpuppet, though, in order to avoid any hassle if a connection could be made between your main user account and the person who visited the museum. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 09:00, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

September 8

Internal search engine

Hello. I don't know if it's happening to anybody of you but each time I type anything in the searchbox (ie.: COM:VP, Special:Block or Special:Nuke) the search engine always shows me a search result and below a message saying ie: "There's a page called Special:Block on this wiki" (Ok, I already know that, I just want to use it).

I've been having a look in my preferences to see if I've done something wrong but as far as I can see everything is OK. My question is if this happens to everybody or just me, and if it only happens to me how can I get that fixed. It's annoying.

Best regards, --Marco Aurelio (disputatio) 16:36, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Either click the go button rather than search, or add GoButton=true; to your monobook.js or equivalent. -mattbuck (Talk) 21:51, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

The Commoners have disenfranchised those not using Vector, Marco. Even though many still use it. I tried to change the common.js back several months ago but I was yelled at. Killiondude (talk) 22:23, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Is this GoButton=true; all that has to be added to the monobook.js? I will not use the pissy editor-unfriendly Vector skin for long... ^^ @Killiondude: who yelled at you? May I assist you in yelling back? ;-) Grand-Duc (talk) 09:03, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

@Mattbuck: actually I hit the "Enter" key after writting something in the searchbox. Monobook skin of course. Vector is very editor/admin unfriendly I'm afraid. I'll try to add the that GoButton=true; to my monobook.js and I'll report back the result. Thank you, --Marco Aurelio (disputatio) 09:19, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Resolved/Fixed :) - It works now. Thank you. --Marco Aurelio (disputatio) 09:21, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia account not working on Wikimedia Commons?

Hi, I don't know if this is the right place to ask (I haven't found anything in the FAQ): I have a WP account, but when I try to log into Commons, it says the username doesn't exist. I thought account information was automatically transferred between WP and Commons? 139.19.76.38 08:37, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Go to xx.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:CentralAuth where xx is your language-code to see your global account. Go to Special:MergeAccount to read about merging/ global accounts. -- RE rillke questions? 08:58, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, it worked. Arnaudf (talk) 18:51, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Font error of file and subcategory numbers

Resolvedthanks Brion Vibber

Some error of file number displaying appear on category pages. --ŠJů (talk) 09:21, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

I count 85 files like the system and 7 subcats. It was probably just not up-to-date. -- RE rillke questions? 09:28, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Staff-operated ticket machines (1 K, 4 D) is missing on the screenshot. -- RE rillke questions? 09:30, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

When i wrote "font error" and "error of displaying", i meant the font used in subcategories of "Ticket machines by country". Is it not enough conspicuous at the screenshot? --ŠJů (talk) 09:53, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

It is not a font error. It exactly contains （1カテゴリ）. It seems to be an encoding-error. -- RE rillke questions? 09:59, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

I think, no need to hairsplitt. Everybody can see the problem at the screenshot immediately. --ŠJů (talk) 10:06, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

It is not an encoding-problem it's Japanese. -- RE rillke questions? 10:09, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Fixed Is this normal behavior? I am not experienced in category-system. Or should we report a bug? -- RE rillke questions? 10:21, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

An initial space is sorted as space and an initial * is sorted as * and this functionality is ordinarily used as a way how to set aside meta categories and other special subcategories. What should be a bug? --ŠJů (talk) 10:39, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Probably what you reported? When using * as sortkey, getting Japanese? Removing it resolved the problem? -- RE rillke questions? 10:48, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Mhh, [+] Ticket machines in Hong Kong （1カテゴリ、2ファイル） is still wrong. -- RE rillke questions? 10:51, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

I am going to file a bug. Please do not delete the image and do not change "Ticket machines in China". -- RE rillke questions? 11:14, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Very odd. I tried setting my prefs to Chinese, Japanese, Arabic interfaces - but the (* C, *F) format is always there. Perhaps it's an intermittent one-of-a-kind bug. Like it was one month ago when some wikipedia pages, for a very short time, were formatted for cellphone browsers. 11:29, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, first I failed to see the wrong spelling/language behind the categories. I read something about numbers and thought you are wondering why they are not up-to-date. My fault. Here is the bug: bugzilla:30834 -- RE rillke questions? 11:31, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Thumbnail problem

File:Holly Valance 1800-2.jpg seems a bit weird - the thumbnails all show horizontal lines covering almost the entire image, but the image itself is fine. -mattbuck (Talk) 12:22, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

MediaWiki does not like CMYK-images. I converted to RGB. Feel free to revert if you think the loss of quality is too high or there is a lossless-converter. Furthermore think about removing this color-profile. It looks odd in Firefox. -- RE rillke questions? 13:37, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing it. -mattbuck (Talk) 15:17, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Female politicians cats removed and asked for deletion...

Hi everyone. Queeg (talk · contribs) is currently removing the categories "female politicians" on many subcats. COuld any admin ask him/her to stop and could a bot undo his/her contributions ? Thanks. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 13:47, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Can you explain what the purpose of these categories are? -- Queeg (talk) 14:09, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Even nowadays (and it's especially true in some countries in development but not only...) women have to struggle far more than men to be politicians, and then there are far more male than female politicians. So that's a sociological explanation. But we could also create "male politicians" categories instead of removing the female ones (it's far more contructive). After all, politics are not the only subject where we have male and female separate categories... — Preceding unsigned comment added by TwoWings (talk • contribs) 31. August 2011, 16:14 Uhr (UTCTúrelio (talk) 14:24, 31 August 2011 (UTC))

I find the solitary "female ____" categories under many different general categories to be quite sexist, frankly. Rarely do I see a "male _____" category to go along with it, seemingly assuming that whoever would be in that parent category should otherwise be male. Subcategorize based on something else or fully diffuse the category into men/women. – Adrignola talk 14:13, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree (at least sometimes) but wouldn't it be better to created more male categories instead of removing the female cats ? I'm currently trying to arrange things in the nude cats, where 1) it's a complete mess, 2) there's a better female category tree than the female one. We have to make (everybody) some efforts to struggle against this unevenness by creating male cats, not by question/deleting the female ones. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 14:17, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

While I understand that the goal is to give a clear place for the female part of the population, in practise, they get sometimes (but not always) subcategorised under the men/main category, so basically they disappear from the top level man level category; a sophisticated way of discrimination. So far, I have seen no female categories that are correctly maintained, so if we cannot do it properly including all human related categories, we better stop it. Moreover, personally, I don't find it worth adding the tens of thousands intermediate level categories to get only a data reduction of a factor of two. --Foroa (talk) 14:28, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

We have subcats of politicians by parties, why wouldn't we have subcats by gender ? We just have to create the male ones ! Be constructive instead of being destructive ! --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 14:35, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with the role/occupation. The activists are still in categories like this. -- Queeg (talk) 14:39, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Female politicians cats?

I am lazy and easily bored and very very easily offended for friends and family. It is just easier and makes a current world if we do not have categories like:

1. Category:Male politicians of France
2. Category:Female politicians of France
3. Category:Male politicians of Germany
4. Category:Female politicians of Germany
5. Category:Male politicians of Canada
6. Category:Female politicians of Canada
7. Category:Male politicians of Denmark
8. Category:Female politicians of Denmark

Which is just a partial point of my point. -- Queeg (talk) 14:38, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

However, we also have Category:Females with cats and Category:Males with cats. --Túrelio (talk) 14:45, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

We have to think differently. When you are in the Category:Women of France, it's far better to have a sub-Category:Female politicians of France instead of transfering all female French politicians in the Category:Women of France ! (i.e. dozens of sucats or files) But again, it would be far better to have the same logic on the male side ! (Or does this discussion mean that we also have to get rid of cats like "Women of France" ?!)

All of that should be only a question of logic in terms of category trees instead of seeing sexism everywhere ! --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 14:41, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

When last I looked, there were 193 sub-categories in Category:Female politicians of Germany. Assuming the "first" was 60 to 70 years ago, that is approximately 2 or 3 per year -- 193 is a lot but the number of Males would go back to before the German law of purity in 1393? How many German politicians (gender implied by the time and subject) were present to make this "law"? I have no idea how to estimate the number of images and subcats that would need to be found and put into Category:Male politicians of Germany. Even if only 2 or 3 per year since 1393 that would be (rounding up) 3250 to 5000 subcats. That gets us nicely back to "lazy" and "easily bored". This information is simply uninteresting and I dare you to make a case for it being interesting... -- Queeg (talk) 03:37, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

In an ideal world we would be able to ask the category tree to show us the images that were contained in all of these

• Category:France
• Category:Politicians
• Category:Women

This would eliminate a great deal of category work, Until we reach that ideal point, it is useful to have subcats, both to make the size of a category manageable and to divide them up for easier searching. Sex seems a logical way to do this, although I agree that there should be parallel M/F cats, not a parent Politicians of France with all the men and a subcat Female Politicians of France.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 17:22, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree with James, though perhaps this is a good opportunity to initiate a general discussion as to whether to begin selectively removing all the "Female" and "Women" subcategories where distinguishing between men and women does not make much sense. The categories relating to occupations seems an appropriate place to start. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 18:11, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Some occupations. Agreed that something like Category:Female physicians is unnecessary (just making up an obvious example) (egads! that category actually exists - I thought I was making something up to make a point!); given that in most of the world politics is dominated by men, however, Category:Female politicians strikes me as relevant and useful. And while I agree that women politicians should not be hived off into a pink ghetto of their own subcat, while media related to male politicians remains in the parent category, I don't think the situation in most cases is as dire as that (even in the absence of male politician subcats). For many jurisdictions, politicians (both male and female) are subcategorized by location, level of government, etc., so the media related to female politicians is largely as visible and accessible as that related to the male politicians. To the extent that there is a form of unintended discrimination in some places, it relates just as much to the fact that too much media is stuck in the parent cat and not properly subcategorized.Skeezix1000 (talk) 19:10, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

If we'd just add all females into Category:Women by name (and males in to Category:Men by name), users could use CatScan to select females (or males) in any given field. --  Docu  at 06:12, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I should have mentioned CatScan in my comment above -- while it is a step in the right direction, as a practical matter it is not useful because it takes far too long -- minutes, at least at the moment. Also, as I understand it, it searches only the intersection of two cats, not three or more.     Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 16:10, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, we all know CatScan is not a very good tool (and, what's more, not very known by Commons users or Wikipedia readers). As long as we don't have a better tool for tagging or crossing categories, we have to continue in the subcat logic ! --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 17:30, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps this idea that gender is uninteresting, useless and backwards information is an issue of maturity of thought. If that is the case, and it is the best case that I can make for its persistence here; isn't it only right to 1) get rid of all of the gender specific categories and 2) not create the "Female" categories until the "Male" categories have been created and filled with all of the politicians (or other occupations) that occurred before 1940 or 1950? Or, for example, that all of the Male politicians from France be categorized first as they occurred and as it was important then that only Males be politicians and only after those Male politicians at least until the mid-1900s are categorized as such, then the Female categories will exist and become filled.

Start over fresh and allow the importance and relativity of this information to grow in those who find it important enough to undertake the task?

I have no problem clearing the existing categories for this fresh start. For those who find the information relative and worthy of their time, I will let them know when the time is good to restart this process at this more evolutionarily appropriate starting point.

Or in more simple language. I will remove the "Female" categories and then, those who think it is important can start with the "Males" -- as it was, it shall be. -- Queeg (talk) 03:13, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Unless you add them into Category:Women by name, please don't. --  Docu  at 05:13, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

There is not a category Category:Men by name -- your request is not a "compromise" which is what the goal of my suggestion was.

Do you have a suggestion like mine which is as mutual and reasonable as mine? -- Queeg (talk) 07:00, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

And what about Category:Models by country where we have the inverse situation ? --Foroa (talk) 07:28, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

You're right ! Same for Strip tease for instance... --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 18:19, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

@Queeg: once your done, we could just add all others into Men by name. --  Docu  at 10:41, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

@Queeg : there's something capricious about what you ask ! You can't say "well, let's delete female cats and admit them only if the male cats are created" ! What do you want to do : deleting female cats, creating male cats and then asking female cats for undeletion ?! And what if someone, during the creation of the male cats, feels hurt and/or frustrated because male cats exist and not female so that this user ask that male cats exist only if female cats are created before ?!!!
Come on ! Let's be smart ! Let's stop these stupide frustrations ! Again : let's be constructive and create what's missing instead of creating a complete mess by undeleting cats that seem useful to some people.
But again, let's also think practical. Imagine someone is trying to find a Canadian politician but can't remember his name (we all know these cases where we know we'll recognize the name when we'll see it in a list, don't we ?). If we don't know which party this politician is a member of, this could be useful to have a way to see a list of male or female politician (because I guess the gender of this person should be known!). And surely we cannot imagine that we categorize each politician in the mother category "Politicians of Canada". Therefore, the cats of politicians by gender ARE useful ! QED ! --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 18:16, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Capricious \Ca*pri"cious\ (k[.a]*pr[i^]sh"[u^]s), a. [Cf. F.
     capricieux, It. capriccioso.]
     Governed or characterized by caprice; apt to change suddenly;
     freakish; whimsical; changeable. "Capricious poet." --Shak.
     "Capricious humor." --Hugh Miller.
     [1913 Webster]
  
           A capricious partiality to the Romish practices.
                                                    --Hallam.
  
     Syn: Freakish; whimsical; fanciful; fickle; crotchety;
          fitful; wayward; changeable; unsteady; uncertain;
          inconstant; arbitrary. -- {Ca*pri"cious*ly}, adv. --
          {Ca*pri"cious*ness}, n.
          [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:

  capricious
      adj 1: changeable; "a capricious summer breeze"; "freakish
             weather" [syn: {capricious}, {freakish}]
      2: determined by chance or impulse or whim rather than by
         necessity or reason; "a capricious refusal"; "authoritarian
         rulers are frequently capricious"; "the victim of whimsical
         persecutions" [syn: {capricious}, {impulsive}, {whimsical}]

"Capricious"? I am accused also of not adhering to a "consensus".

My personal feelings are that there should be no gender related categories when the occupation (typically the reason that images of people have been uploaded here) doesn't require it. My instinct/feelings or even "sense of tidiness and choice" tell me that if a person who has an occupation which have no gender requirements wants gender to be an issue -- they will become a member of that subcat -- Twowings provided an excellent example of this with some "Womens Caucus". Those are my personal feelings and the way I would categorize things here.

My suggestion about starting fresh with all of the female categories removed probably had more to do with the fact that it is much easier to clean out the sexism here than it is to equalize it. I am fairly certain that there is not enough enthusiasm to create the Male categories. It was a thinly disguised attempt to honestly stop the sexism that exists here. The "consensus" being strong enough to only maintain it.

Shame on those who are enthusiastic only to maintain it. -- Queeg (talk) 05:25, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Oh lordy, when you start being semantic and quoting the dictionary, you know you've lost. Okay let me give you a lesson in male privilege:

Can you explain what the purpose of these categories are?

The purpose of these categories is because women are a social minority. Therefore certain efforts have to be made to make women more visible. Creating special categories for women achieves this.

isn't it only right to not create the "Female" categories until the "Male" categories have been created and filled

No. It's not right. Because men are by default privileged. Men have an advantage over women, at least in most cultures in Western society (not all), the moment they are born. Many people associate the term "politician" with the gender male. It doesn't matter what you personally think or feel, because this is the way of our current society. We do not live in a post-sexist society, unfortunately. While it is problematic because it might assume that males are the norm, a way of fixing that is changing the name to Women in politics. This doesn't label anyone in a way they haven't already chosen themselves.

I have no problem clearing the existing categories for this fresh start.

Oh ho! Of course you don't. You are not realizing the amount of privilege men have starting literally the day they are born.

The thing is, here, you are probably not personally offended that male categories do not exist. You probably do not feel like you are being held back, or telling young boys that they don't have role models to look at if you don't have these categories. You probably don't feel like your gender is not being represented correctly in these photos. What you are doing is just deleting, because you don't feel that women should receive visibility equal to men in the social construction. It does not matter if there are no male categories, because we will find more photos of men by social privilege anyway.

You are lucky! You were born a male. You have many opportunities that have made your life easy and will make it easy in the future. I am a woman. I have to work twice as hard to even be heard here. I'm not quite sure of the conditions in the UK, but I know in the US that it we are nowhere near equal. Now stop deleting these cats, it makes you look very sexist. --Henriettapussycat (talk) 05:59, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Assuming that you are female, let me ask you a few questions. Did you acquire more than high school education to gain qualifications to be something? To be a gender requires that you have been born. Gender is one of the few things in life that there are no choices of. Making it an issue is a choice. Are women the minority? They live longer -- or at least they used to. They have less tendency to go into armed combat and at least in my country, they drive more safely then men. When you are conducting your business, is gender usually an issue? In situations where you are not flirting or speaking with a person you are familiar with, is your language that different based on your perceptions of the gender of the person? Perhaps you are more inclined to share misinformation with males, since I don't think that women are a minority. -- Queeg (talk) 07:42, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Henriettapussycat is right. Queeg, you don't seem to really want to struggle against sexism. If you really did, you'd agree to struggle with the less conflictual solutions (i.e. creating male cats). Actually to answer you, I AM motivated by this creation of male cats (I have already proved you that concerning nudity cats). It's far better, smarter and objective. After all, apart from the fact that male IS still too often a privilege in our societies (which makes the female cats objective cats that nuetrally reproduce the facts without any judgement), gender IS a fact. You can't really deny anyone's gender, can you ? (I don't speak about sexual orientation or social gender here but just the biological gender). So female/male cats are just tools to create subcats (at least to struggle against overpopulated cats) as ANY other kind of objective discrimination of files (like the color categories for clothing or whatever objective examples).

So please, Queeg, if you really want both to struggle against sexism and to be constructive for Commons project, stop complaining about female cats ! We're losing far too much time with this debate instead of using this time to create male cats. It will be a better tool for Commons and will definitely be a way to struggle against sexism.

And you and I may have far better and smarter ways to struggle against sexism, both on the Internet and in real-life (I personally do many things with my classes on that subject, I know what real sexism is and I'm sick about it). --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 08:33, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Probably your last statement is the fact. I can tell you for certain that I have had good times and bad times with both genders, often for the same reasons. I have had good "bosses" and bad "bosses" of both genders -- my very very best boss having been a woman. A single woman at that, if this matters. Maybe it does; the challenge to be a single woman must be great. This woman was also a single mother, a category which does not exist here for all of the concern of "minorities" etc.

I want to remove the categories. I do not want to make equal categories. I am not wanting a vote to allow the categories that I was trying to remove to stay which is what seems to be what is going to happen. Voting is broken even without an attempt to manipulate outcomes. I read here once that "voting" gives the right to "vote" -- hackable hacks. I am enthusiastic only to remove those categories. My "compromise" suggestion was so that I can remove those categories. The fact that I can only "fight" sexism here perhaps was my failure to fight it in more important places or maybe worse, that I assumed that it did not exist -- due to the better life which can be had once it is gone and the when I was born and the crap I learned about history and government while acquiring my high school degree.

I get it, you want to remove those categories. But here's the thing, even if Commons is not a democracy, it's also not an autocracy, and if it were, you wouldn't be dictator. So telling us that you want to remove the categories and that you don't want a vote you're going to lose doesn't help.--Prosfilaes (talk) 08:38, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

PS : Category:Male politicians by country has been created a year ago.

I agree that male cats could be created. But deleting (or preventing people from creating) female cats does nothing and is simply unproductive. I just thought I'd drop in to lend you a hand here.--Henriettapussycat (talk) 15:30, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for that? -- Queeg (talk) 07:42, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

That was directed to TwoWings.--Henriettapussycat (talk) 17:36, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I am happy to see that this matter has finally been brought up for discussion. The current situation is clearly (even though most likely unintenionally) discriminating against women. In many categories the content is by default male, while the women are neatly stacked away in some subcategory. A solution might be to apply the gender scheme more homogeneously, such as for example in Category:Politicians of New Zealand. However I don't see why this might be useful. How does a female politician differ from a male? Should this kind of strict separation also be applied to e.g. physicists, historians, physicians? Categories should serve to distinguish groups which differ from each other. Therefore it makes sense to categorize politicians by party, country, office. It makes no sense to categorize them according to gender. It has been mentioned above, that someone who is looking for a certain politician but doesn't remember the name might find a separation by gender helpful, as he most likely recalls, whether the person he is looking for is male or female. But does this mean, that we should also initiate categories for black, Asian, etc. politicians? Of course not. I think this discussion is rather out-dated. I support the deletion of the gender-related categories. -- FishInWater (talk) 14:28, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, well, let's delete and destory everything !

Come one, people ! Can't you have a little sense of pragmatism and objectivity instead of being touchy by hypothetical sexism (I mean female cats created with the will to be sexist !).

Stop denying the fact that it's at least useful in terms of category tree and makes some navigation easier !

Again, I repeat it as a question : would someone agree also to delete mother cats like Category:Women of France ? I suppose (at least I hope) almost no-one would ask for that. Therefore Category:Female politicians of France is at least useful as a sub-cat of "Women of France" in order not to have all categories by name under the latter. Do you (the pro-deletion) understand that simple, logical, objective and pragmatic thing ??!!!

The only thing we have to do is making some efforts to create the male equivalent. I started to do that and I'll continue because it's the only neutral and constructive solution. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 14:50, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I feel the need to address, once again, the alleged problem that having categories for female politicians is a form of discrimination itself ("In many categories the content is by default male, while the women are neatly stacked away in some subcategory"). As I stated above, that's usually not the case, and where it is, it's primarily a problem of lack of subcategorization rather than a problem created by having gender categories. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 17:54, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

That's why we need to do some efforts to establish a balanced existence of male/female cats. There would be no problem whatsoever if male cats are created when female cats exist. What's more it'll be even more handful in terms of category tree (e.g. for subcats of Category:Men of France and equivalent...) --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 16:48, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

PD-country templates: to split or not to split

Recently Cwbm has been removing lines from various PD-country templates. Here are diffs of the changes made: PD-Angola, PD-Andorra, PD-Sudan, PD-Yemen, and PD-Cambodia. These changes removed terms regarding non-photographic works, regarding anonymous or pseudonymous works, or regarding official government documents. The given reason was "strip reason, only one reason per template". He mentioned the change on my talk page, and there is a little discussion going on at User talk:Antemister#Creation of templates, but there doesn't seem to be agreement yet. So I thought I'd bring it up here.

We certainly need to have some way to tag drawings created in Angola, anonymous works from Andorra, or official documents from the Sudanese government. Since the removals of these lines, there are currently no valid tags for these works. (I note that Cwbm did create {{PD-CambodiaGov}} for one of these situations he removed, but not for the others.) I'd like to get more input on the best way to proceed.

One option would be to have separate templates for each situation in each country. There would be, I suppose, a PD-Angola-photograph-expired, a PD-Angola-nonphotograph-expired, and a PD-Angola-officialtext. To be consistent, this would have to be done for the 100+ PD-country license tags. Yemen would presumably have six such templates, since six different reasons were listed at {{PD-Yemen}}. Someone would have to retag all images previously tagged with the less-specific tags. I believe this would be unmanageable, but it seems to be what Cwbm and Martin H. are advocating, if I understand their positions correctly.

A better option, in my view, would be to have the templates back the way they were: with all media PD in Yemen being tagged with {{PD-Yemen}}, which would list the various possible reasons this could be. (I know that {{PD-US}} has been split into many separate tags, but I believe the difference is that there are many thousands of PD images on Commons created in the U.S., and currently very few from Yemen.) Anyway, I'd like to know what others in the community think is the best way to deal with the such templates. All the best, Quadell (talk) 15:38, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

I do not like changes to licenses, since it often affects all the translations and requires need to check all the images using the license to make sure that each image meets conditions of the new license. Also documentation, Commons:Licensing and Commons:Copyright tags need to be changed. I did not check if Cwbm was able to do all that yet. I also agree with Quadell that if a license is split into multiple licenses, one for each reason, than new licenses need to be created, not just reasons removed from the current license. --Jarekt (talk) 17:04, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Its not about creating six templates for Yemen, its about separating two fundamental reasons: Copyright expiration and copyright exemption. Or better: not to mix them up as happeed with the edit short before on August 16. All five cases listet at {{PD-Yemen}} refer to copyright expiration. --Martin H. (talk) 19:08, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

True, but some of the lines Cwbm removed from PD-Andorra and PD-Angola also have to do with copyright expiration. Quadell (talk) 19:46, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

No split: 1 copyright law -> 1 Template, which should contain all PD rules. The list of the templates can stay well arranged, the uploader needs not to look into several templates, and the reason why the file is PD should be evident from the description of the file (why do we have the "date"-section?) Splitting the templates will create more one thousend (!) templates, if we want to have them for every country (which should be a long time aim).--Antemister (talk) 19:53, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

First off, does anyone agree with the removal of the "It is a collective work, anonymous work or pseudonymous work and 70 years have passed since the date of its creation" clause from {{PD-Andorra}}, or of the "It is another kind of work and 50 years have passed since the year of death of the author (or last-surviving author)" clause from {{PD-Angola}}? Would I be justified in reverting these? Quadell (talk) 13:26, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Secondly, in regards to the various "laws and official documents" clauses in these templates, it seems like there are a few ways we could proceed.

1. We could have a "laws and official documents" clause in a PD-country tag, if it's applicable according to that country's copyright law. I think this is the best option because it's simple, intuitive, and accurate. Two users object, however, because (as I understand it) they don't feel a single PD-country tag should be applied to both ineligible and expired media.
2. We could have separate PD-country-expired and PD-country-ineligible tags for each applicable country. I think this would be unworkable because it would necessitate the creation of perhaps a hundred new templates, without much benefit to the community.
3. We could create a single {{PD-laws or official documents}} tag with a mandatory parameter of the country and an optional parameter for comments. So an image of a judicial decree from Angola might be tagged {{PD-laws or official documents|country=Angola|notes=Angola's Law on Author's Rights (No. 4/90 of 10 March 1990) specifies that "laws and decisions by judicial and administrative organs" are not subject to copyright}}, or simply {{PD-laws or official documents|country=Angola}}. The upside is that this still separates ineligible from expired copyrights without creating a slew of new templates. The downside is that each country's laws exclude certain documents but not others, and they are not always compatible. Another downside is that one would have to specify the law in each instance of a template like this, or leave in unspecified, and adding links to a named parameter is not easy to do. (It crashes if the link includes an equal sign, for instance.)
4. We could have a disorganized hodgepodge of country templates, with some mentioning ineligible works and some not, arbitrarily. People will probably continue to revert each other's additions or removals of ineligibility clauses from templates, since there would be no standard.

I still feel option #1 is the way to go. Option #3 has serious downsides, but I could live with it. Option #4 is awful, but it's the default situation if no decision is made. Quadell (talk) 13:26, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Can someone of those who prefer splitting the templates explain what is the reason for separating at least PD-old and PD-exempt?--Antemister (talk) 20:10, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I think i did already. Copyright expiration and copyright exemption are very different things. Different concepts, changes of copyright law (in most cases: duration) will have different effects, different interaction with US copyright, and so on. all files must have a clear notice for what reason they comply with Commons:Licensing, letting the reader alone with a conglomeration of different reasons without saying what reason applies is not helpful. --Martin H. (talk) 20:27, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

The reason why a file is PD has to be explained in the description (for example: author did in 1914, or official document from the US government) We do not need separate templates.--Antemister (talk) 08:40, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Often the template itself is the only thing in the permission field. I'd probably leave it to common sense. We should not require a separate template for every separate little reason -- we'd have 10-20 templates per country and that would be really unwieldy. But lumping together lots of disparate concepts in a single template is not always a good idea, particularly if it's hard to tell which of the situations apply (meaning it hinders determination of usage rights in other countries). I would very much argue against a single, generic "laws" template -- the details differ tremendously per country. If a country has significantly different terms for a particular class of work which is likely to be uploaded, that probably deserves its own template (say {{PD-Japan-oldphoto}}). If a country has works they exempt from copyright which many other countries do not, I could see a separate tag listing those. For countries which have an explicit term for government works, or the exemptions are largely for them, then I could see a tag covering that country's government works, detailing different terms of expiration or exemption as appropriate (say {{PD-UKGov}}). Breaking things out probably depends on how many works are going to be uploaded using them, and that kind of thing. I don't mind stuff like {{PD-Angola}} though -- it should be very easy to determine, just by the content of the upload itself, which section applies. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:40, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Actually it is not very easy to determine whether something is exempt, expired or anonymous. Therefore there should be three different templates. Because in each case the first question to ask determining whether it's PD or not is very different. --Cwbm (commons) (talk) 15:51, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

If there are cases where it would be legitimately ambiguous, those are ones where it would make some sense to split up. However, if the exemption stuff is laws, decrees, and that kind of basic thing, it's usually pretty easy to determine that by looking at the author and the content, though a separate -exempt tag could still be a good idea (particularly if we are getting a good number of uploads). But if you do split it up, either go through and fix all current usages of the template to use the new ones, or leave the original template with the same cases but add pointers to the specific templates with a request to use them. Substantially changing license tags used by others in good faith is a bad idea -- it can make previous uploads look unlicensed, when in fact the users did the proper thing at the time. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:05, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Is this picture fine?

I was looking for a scan of the first issue of the Philadelphischer Zeitung (by Ben. Franklin 1732). Can I upload the picture from this website? V85 (talk) 22:20, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's fine. See Commons:When to use the PD-scan tag.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:39, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

• Yes, you may copy and upload this image. It was printed in 1732, and is clearly in the public domain. (The Corbis website has the unfortunate habit of labeling everything as if they held the copyright to it, but the original newspaper and any simple mechanical reproductions of it such the .jpg seen here are public domain by law, so the notice on this web page does not apply to this particular image.) -- Infrogmation (talk) 22:40, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you all! V85 (talk) 10:51, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

How to handle File:Bloop.ogg and File:Bloop real.ogg?

From en:Talk:Bloop#Bloop Sound File I came across File:Bloop.ogg and File:Bloop real.ogg. After some confusion, I think I now understand what happened. It seems Bloop.ogg was uploaded by User:Sceptre with an attempt made to slow down the sound from the original NOAA file to the original speed (and cut off some of the noise at the beginning and end) which was noted in the description. Later User:Series8217 changed the sound to the original speed but cut off most of the beginning and end before the noise and changed the description to mentioned it was sped up 16 times and noted here File talk:Bloop.ogg that the slowing down was done incorrectly. The file was later reverted to the original version by User:Adam Cuerden, but the description was not leading to the unfortunate situation where the text claims the file was speed up but it is the slowed down purportedly 'realtime' version. This is the version most of our language articles use to this day. Later after complains at en, User:Kothog uploaded a more faithful conversion (no slowing down or cutting the noise) of the original NOAA file under Bloop real.ogg using the description from Bloop.ogg and replace the file used in en. (zh also uses it, probably translation from our version after the change.) So what to do here? My suggest would be a merge but my reading of Commons:History merging and splitting is it may be best to seek consensus here. It seems we need to keep Bloop.ogg for the description history. Technically since the file is in the public domain, we could just upload bloop real.ogg replacing bloop.ogg and delete bloop real.ogg but that seems a little rude to Kothog (even pointlessly reencoding to ogg seems the same). I definitely don't think we should keep bloop.ogg as is, even if we fixed the description, there's still the possibility the slowing down is done incorrectly. And I'm not sure whether a slowed down version belongs at bloop.ogg anyway, are we even sure the recommendation by Series8217 is correct? (The NOAA doesn't seem to offer any guidance for how to slow down the sound.) Nil Einne (talk) 15:19, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

September 11

new terms of use for WMF projects

Today our Legal counsel announced on foundation-mailing list that WMF's terms of use are going to be reworked. A draft for comment is available on meta. --Túrelio (talk) 13:13, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

• San Francisco County, California ? Good move. NVO (talk) 04:28, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

  San Francisco is a county and a city. See consolidated city–county. – Adrignola talk 19:01, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

  I meant, "we" have to forget "State of Florida" as soon as possible. No more Florida. Never seen it. NVO (talk) 05:45, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Is there anything Commons specific/Media file specific that is new? --  Docu  at 08:07, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

September 10

Orientation of File:A Tramp Abroad 0127h.jpg

How should this image be presented? The obvious answer seems to be in landscape (horizontal format), but in some projects it seems to be in use vertically. --  Docu  at 08:11, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

I see no logical reason to have it vertically. It seems obvious that the original was horizontal. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 08:18, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Maybe so was on original book, because editors would to place a bigger picture on it but I too don't see a logical reason...--Pierpao.lo (listening) 09:58, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

It is used only in a WikiSource-text and there the orientation should be as in the original book. Therefore it seems suitable to keep it vertical. I doubt anyone will need that image for any other purpose, but if so it is preferable to upload a rotated version under another filename. Taxelson (talk) 10:24, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

In the current form (vertical orientation), it can't really be used elsewhere. --  Docu  at 10:33, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

@Taxelson : and how do you know that the original book used it vertically ? It's seems strange...

NB : the file has first been uploaded the horizontal way. And I see no other strange example among the other illustrations from this book. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 11:54, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

At s:Page:1880. A Tramp Abroad.djvu/127, there is a reproduction of the original book page.

It seems a bit odd though that s:A Tramp Abroad/XIII uses the same image vertically. (That page isn't paginated as in the original book, and I suppose the reader of the book page at s:Page:1880. A Tramp Abroad.djvu/127 was meant to turn the page.)

Thus even for WikiSource, the vertical orientation doesn't seem particularly helpful. --  Docu  at 12:10, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

The reason why is vertical is that I wanted to keep the rendering of the book as much as possible close to the original, as noted above. Even if I cannot reproduce the book faithfully at 100%, the reader can still have at least the look-and-feel of the original. In other cases, I rotated the images, for example when they were on stand-alone pages. However, it is a bit difficult for me to understand why this discussion popped up. I think it should be up to the uploader to decide how to use an image. If the fear is that this image is not usable by anyone else, well, let's upload also a rotated version of it, so we satisfy both needs. As far as the use on wikisource, if readers will not like the way is is rendered, they will leave a note on the talk page to propose the change, I guess. Bye --Mpaa (talk) 12:32, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

This image is useless vertical. You've donated the image to Commons so it's also allowed for the rest of us to desire the image to be an effective part of our collection. It's one thing to preserve the book as close to the original as possible at Wikisource including typos, but this is too much. Are you telling me that the author would have never expected the reader to rotate the book to view the image properly? How else would they have gotten a landscape-orientation picture to fit into a portrait-orientation book without shrinking to miniscule proportions? Do you really expect readers to physically rotate their monitors or twist their head sideways? – Adrignola talk 15:04, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

This discussion is purely about principles and with no practical purposes. I can't see why you are so bothered by a single image which will be used only on WS at 99.999%. Do you want the image horizontal? Fine, duplicate or rotate it, it's your call. --Mpaa (talk) 16:10, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

There is now also a rotaded version available. Which one is the best choice for the WikiSource context is to be discussed there if needed -- not here. Taxelson (talk) 16:16, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Celebrities and Personalities

As I know "Celebrities" (people) and "Personalities" (people) are sinonimous. Can I merge both category?--Pierpao.lo (listening) 09:42, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Category:Personalities was deleted in 2006 already.

Category:Celebrities could be merged into Category:People. --  Docu  at 09:43, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

1. We have category:unidentified personalities and 4 others [[:category:personalities... but I merge them all into people. That's fine?--Pierpao.lo (listening) 09:54, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

I'd go ahead and merge category:unidentified personalities as there is no Category:Personalities. --  Docu  at 11:00, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Thumbnail not generating, but only at one size

An editor over at the English wiki noticed that File:Angelo Zomegnan 2009.jpg wasn't generating a thumbnail in article use, at size 220px. For some reason, it generates fine at 221 and 219px, so it's just this one size which is bugged. I tried the thumbnail re-generation trick as noted over at the FAQ but no dice. Anyone know why it wouldn't be working? Cheers. Buttons to Push Buttons (talk) 04:24, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Weird. My experiments also failed, confirming your observations. FWIW, the original width 487px is a prime number ;-) –Be..anyone (talk) 05:50, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for taking a look; it seems to be fixed now. Not sure if it was your, someone else's or its own doing, but hey :) And ha, always nice to know! Buttons to Push Buttons (talk) 07:06, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

PublicResourceOrg

Hi. This YouTube channel published public domain videos. I'm not sure if they are available on Commons. emijrp (talk) 13:28, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

OTRS

Suppose an image was already available on a website under a free license and one were to upload it on Commons, would an OTRS ticket be issued in this case? Joyson Noel ^{Holla at me} 13:31, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

There's no email to point to in that situation. And none needs to be pointed to. And please don't send one in for it. Add {{Licensereview}} to the file's description page. – Adrignola talk 13:35, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Votings are needed

An iceberg in Jokulsarlon

I nominated a 2 pictures for 2 different awards, one at valued pictures candidates and one at featured pictures candidates and I need people to criticize them, can you please help me out by checking these links? thanks--Someone35 (talk) 15:09, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

image of dead body @ Ganges river - Varanasi - India

Dead body (not cremated) in Manikarnika Ghat.

I just uploaded this image of a dead human body @ Ganges river - Varanasi - India. Is any problem with ethics concerning this image? This image can be used here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghats_in_Varanasi#Human_remains_in_the_Ganges with the information: It is known that holy men, pregnant women, people with leprosy/chicken pox, people who had been bitten by snakes, people who had committed suicide, the poor, and children under 5 are not cremated at the ghats but are floated free to decompose in the waters.. Ggia (talk) 16:51, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

It is a fact and a good illustration for the subject. I can't see any problem. The person/body is not identifiable. That means: Legally anything is perfect and from the point of an author it is a valuable addition to our content. Good work. -- ／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼ 苦情処理係 18:40, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Non existing incorrectly named categories cleanup

Can someone please remove this Category:Engineers from the United Stateso? While it doesn't exist, it appears on the uploads category selection list. Thanks. Ineuw talk page on en.ws 19:05, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Reported as bugzilla:30880. Lupo 22:51, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

September 12

What exactly does "attribute ... in the manner specified by the author or licensor" mean?

I want to use a photo from Wikimedia Commons in a brochure. The license specifies "You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor". How do I find out the particular specifictions of that author? Do I have to rummage through all his websites or send him an e-mail to be on the safe side? Thanks, Maikel (talk) 09:05, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

attach the description page's link in the end of the brochure should be okay. It means you need to attribute the author and/or the copyright holder and the license it uses if the license doesn't request share-alike.-Mys 721tx (talk) 12:46, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, that is not o.k. in case of CC-BY licensed images. 1) A internet link is not a author name. 2) In case the brochure contains more than 1 image, there needs to be a clear assocation between image and credit. --Túrelio (talk) 13:12, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Ooops..... I mean the MediaWiki-format external link, like this: [http://example.com User:Example] -Mys 721tx (talk) 14:34, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Which image you want to use? Example of correct image credit in recent pdf brochure: File:Editor Survey Report - April 2011.pdf. --Túrelio (talk) 13:10, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

This a-one, and thanks for the link:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Editor_Survey_Report_-_April_2011.pdf

The pain in the backside is the "specified by the user" bit. Specified WHERE? Maikel (talk) 13:35, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Whatever is listed in the author field on the description page or explicitly provided as the required attribution wording in a Creative Commons template (this will appear instead the template under the Licensing section if defined). It is not allowed to specify where exactly the attribution must be placed; only what the attribution itself should be. – Adrignola talk 13:39, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

In that particular case, the author field redirects to a flickr account.

As a user of that image, I have to worry that I overlooked some stipulation and am therefore, unvoluntarily, in breech of copyright. Thanks, Maikel (talk) 13:49, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

OK, here he is: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Drumzo

No special provisions, apparently. Maikel (talk) 13:52, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Look at the Commons description page/Flickr page etc. If the author doesn't specify anything, then just mentioning the author's name/pseudonym should suffice (along with the license, of course). -- Orionist ★ talk 20:18, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Template:Multiple image

Adoxa (Adoxa moschatellina)

I tried to copy paste the Template:Multiple image from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Multiple_image but something doesn't work. What is wrong? Ggia (talk) 15:46, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Looking through the wikitext, I note that the template relies on the templates "Template:Max/27" and "Template:Multiple image/numImgs". Did you copy those over too? And you have to check if the two templates rely on other templates, and so on. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 16:01, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I just tried to add the other two templates from the en.wikipedia.. but the problem is the same.. I don't have experience with templates.. looking to the code of these two templates I don't see any reference/use of other templates. problem is now solved Ggia (talk) 16:23, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Great! — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 18:56, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Do not copy and paste. Next time ask for an import from an admin, unless you believe the effort put into the complex template doesn't warrant a history listing showing who worked on it. For all our emphasis on copyright here at Commons, that should be at the forefront of our minds. – Adrignola talk 00:22, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Ok.. next time I will ask for an import. Thanks for importing the history of the templates.. Ggia (talk) 06:28, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Upload wizard

Stopped adding categories about 20 minutes ago (example). When it gets fixed, one shoud restore the categories by bot.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:59, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

At 21:26 CEST a new UploadWizard was deployed which seems to contain some errors. See Special:WhatLinksHere/Uploaded_with_UploadWizard for affected files. I asked the people who are working on this to please have a look at it. Multichill (talk) 21:30, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Ok, it seems to be doable, thanks. I was afraid there were many more uploads affected.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:36, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Here is another section on this topic: Commons:Prototype_upload_wizard_feedback#adding_categories_does_not_work_any_more --Saibo (Δ)

Looking into this now, tracked as bugzilla:30879.--Eloquence (talk) 22:00, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Should be fixed now; please report if it isn't. These files are affected per Maarten's note above; we'll write a bot to clean-up ASAP, but please comment here if you have a chance to do so before us. Thanks and sorry this one slipped through.--Eloquence (talk) 22:04, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

All the cleanup should now be done. Not saying it'll be 100% perfect, but it shouldn't be too far off at least! :) Reedy (talk) 00:14, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, due to the time difference I was only able to check it now. Thanks for fixing the thing.--Ymblanter (talk) 05:55, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

This file is lacking source information

Why won't Commons accept the Source, Date, and Author descriptions in my last 3 uploads (regardless of the form I use)? I have always used the same syntax and I have never had a problem before. W. C. Minor (talk) 03:02, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Because you didn't close the template fr, so it wrecks the rest of the page. -- Asclepias (talk) 03:17, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

And why using {{Fr}} when descriprion is in English, and why putting a link to a non-existing wikipedia article ? [4] --Aʁsenjyʁdəgaljɔm¹¹⁶⁷¹ 08:49, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

September 13

i'm new to this. some photo sorting questions

is there a way to sort for photos by the year it was taken? for example

i'd like photos of deer before 1923

• CatScan 2 may be useful, but not in this case, I'm afraid.
• With AutoWikiBrowser you can search through a dump of Commons with complex criteria (I didn't try your example).

--Aʁsenjyʁdəgaljɔm¹¹⁶⁷¹ 17:12, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Gendergap discussions relevant to Commons

I want to point out the September thread listing: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/gendergap/2011-September/thread.html

There are many threads relevant to Commons there such as discussion of controversial content and identifiable people and others need to be aware of them to provide wider participation on the issues. – Adrignola talk 17:44, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

VisualFileChange.js

Resolveddone by Adrignola. Purge browser's cache, please. -- RE rillke questions? 21:24, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi ! The link click here on Commons:Deletion requests/Mass deletion request (which I am about to translate into French) have no effect for me. I made the test with IE9, FF6, Cr13. And it's the same with old link which was on the page before September 2nd. Any idea why ? --Aʁsenjyʁdəgaljɔm¹¹⁶⁷¹ 16:52, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for this. I encountered this today because Rd232 pointed this out. Please wait for the fulfilling of my editprotected-request. This error happened while renaming the script. Again - Sorry for the inconvenience. -- RE rillke questions? 17:41, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

#FULLURL? -- πϵρήλιο ℗ 17:48, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

No, not "the issue maker". Tolles English, ich weiß ;-) -- RE rillke questions? 18:15, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

No problem Rillke, it was just a question. FYI, {{Lang-DR/MDR}} has now a French version.--Aʁsenjyʁdəgaljɔm¹¹⁶⁷¹ 18:40, 13 September 2011 (UTC) Do you know that MDR is French equivalent to LOL ? So mass deletion (COM:MDR) is a joke !

Ouais, tu as raison... Parfois, on est vraiment mort de rire à cuase d'une quelconque histoire drôle sur Commons. Grand-Duc (talk) 22:21, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Category:People by name

Category:People by name has 113,684 categories! It is overcrowded. See Category_talk:People_by_name#Statistics This means that other types of subcategories are necessary! We have categories for horses by name and many other things by name. I saw Category:People_by_given_name was deleted as overcategorization. Discussion here. As long as there are people willing to help in categorizing, it should not prevented by force. We should have categories for People by name, People by given name, people by surname, People by gender, etc. Each will have hundreds of sub-cats but would be better than hundreds of thousands as is for current overcrowded situation of People by name. Suggested sub-cats for People by name. Level 1: Category:People by surname or Category:People by Family name Category:People by given name. This category is the most crowded category in Category people and most crowded category I remember seeing in commons. --Nevit Dilmen (talk) 10:16, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Its a category to collect all people by their name. How can this be "overcrowded"? Its in category namespace, thats where aesthetic aspects are unimportant. The scope of categories on Commons is to organize media files, for example by shown subject. Most of the subcategories of people by name are subject images. This means: media files categorized + the scope of Commons is not to describe people = there is nothing to do with that category. --Martin H. (talk) 12:19, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it's part of the exceptions where it's useful to keep all files in the same cat. It allows everyone to have the alphabetical list of (potentially) all the people with cats on Commons. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 12:29, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

I didn't see this category yet, what means that many people's categories (i've seen quite some tennis players and politicians) do not have this as a category. The only use I could see for this category, is not for manual browsing, but as a start for a bot or AWB. Edoderoo (talk) 12:35, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

This category is deliberately hidden because it's a meta category and is not useful for most manual browsing. It's an alphabetical list of categories; it should contain only categories. This is like complaining that Category:CC-BY-SA-2.5 has 265,000 members. – Adrignola talk 13:21, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Lol. Well said. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 17:12, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

I can not agree with logic. While putting all people with all surnames is considered good practice, categorising people with surname Bush or name Goerge should not be prevented. There are 18 people with the surname Bush. Even more Butler's or Green's Categorising is hard work and people or bots put energy on it, but it helps navigation and finding easier. As long as there are volunteers to do the categorisation(s) admins should not prevent it. That would make the database more human readable. If there are still too many categories after sorting into names and surnames, subcats such as People_with_surname_B People_with_name_B should be created to make browsing easy for all visitors. People by name can be keps as is if it is necessary or needed. I can see NO analogy with licence categories. As long as we have the Category:People good categorisation is necessasry. While Category:Given names is kept almost empty, Category:Surnames has some sub-cats. Commons is media repository for wikipedia ans should help creating and organising pages like en:Barbara_(given_name) easier. Sorry. --Nevit Dilmen (talk) 17:49, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

All the people categories should be categorized in a few ways. We add:

1. Category:People by name (used mainly for maintenance)
2. categories for dates of birth and death (this helps with disambiguation, among other uses)
3. some subcategory or subcategories of Category:People (other than Category:People by name)

All subcategories of Category:People by name should be people. We intentionally do not want category trees there. Nobody stops volunteers from categorization, but those categories should go into Category:People category not Category:People by name. As for categorizing people by given name, the community decided that its usefulness does not justify the maintenance effort. You can find much more reliable list of categories with the word "Barbara" by search, and be much more productive adding more useful categories. --Jarekt (talk) 04:31, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

You needn't worry about the number of category members. As long as the structure is consistent, it will still be easy to use with CatScan and the like. --  Docu  at 08:24, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

We can divide in People by name (A), People by name (B), (o something similar) and so on, to help searching. Actually if you want to find someone trough the category o read the names of all people called Barry it's a bit :) difficult--Pierpao.lo (listening) 09:41, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

They are all at Special:Search/Barry incategory:"People by name". --  Docu  at 10:16, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

I suppose they should be but somehow they are not for at least for me: just two results. Barry Morse, Barry Goldwater and many many others are missing --Zolo (talk) 20:39, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

You should get at least 76 categories.

The whole thing is mainly important for the discussion at Women named Barbara, not Category:People by name as such.

2 is the number of results in "obsolete" namespace. Maybe you excluded category namespace from results on Special:Preferences#preftab-6.

Special:Search/Category: Barry incategory:"People by name" might work too. --  Docu  at 20:47, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Oh yes I see. I had no namespace selected at all, which apparently defaulted to results in the "main" namespace - though there is also a "main" main option. I don't remember ever having chosen that. Is that the default behavior ? If so I don't think it is very convenient on Commons.--Zolo (talk) 21:03, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Categorising pronunciation media

I'm a bit unsure as to how best categorise pronounciation media, such as File:En-uk-London.ogg. This file clearly belongs in Category:English pronunciation of names of cities, as do similar files, this isn't a problem. However, it also clearly relates to London, and so should be contained Category:London. But.. this file relates to the word London, not the city in England specifically. Therefore it is also belongs in categories for all the other Londons.

The question is should these files be contained in the categories of all relevant homonyms?--Nilfanion (talk) 23:56, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

• I think the homonyms are a minor issue. All other Londons are named after the one in England. - Jmabel ! talk 01:30, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

• IMHO these should be in a sub cat Category:Pronunciation of London, other pronunciations can be added to the other the london location categories as appropriate. Gnangarra 01:40, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

• This is why I'm unsure. File:En-uk-London.ogg is a correct pronounciation of Category:London, Ontario, and therefore should be accessible from that category. (An en-ca version might be preferred there, but the en-gb file isn't completely incorrect.) That means the pronounciation file ought be in the category tree of all relevant homonyms, not just the category for the original term.
• As to whether this should be handled directly or via Category:Pronounciation of London: London, England is Londres in French, but the French for London, Ontario is London. So a French pronounciation could only belongs in the category for one of the two cities. That means Category:Pronounciation of London needs to specifically relate to London, England.
• What I'm uneasy about is having files included in a number of similar categories - all the homonyms - but ultimately I think that is what should be done (directly or indirectly via subcats).--Nilfanion (talk) 10:56, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

This is the difference between Wiktionary (word oriented) and Wikipedia (concept oriented). As it is probably difficult to have both on Commons, I would categorize the files in all categories for the homonyms, eg :

• pronunciation for london in english in Category:London and Category:London, Ontario
• pronunciation for london in french in Category:London, Ontario
• pronunciation for londres in french in Category:London
• ...

--Aʁsenjyʁdəgaljɔm¹¹⁶⁷¹ 13:38, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Above, on suggested category names: it's "pronunciation", not "pronounciation". - Jmabel ! talk 00:51, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

And as categories on Commons are "concept-oriented", if you would like to have sub-categories for prononciations, they should be named sthing like Category:Pronunciation of the name of London in each language (sub-cat of Category:London), etc., imho. Or, create the word-oriented categorization by creating Category:London (word), which would be sub-cat of every things using the word London (towns, persons such as Jack London, etc.) --Aʁsenjyʁdəgaljɔm¹¹⁶⁷¹ 12:07, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

September 15

Images depicting nude people and sex acts on Commons

Hello people of Commons. I'm writing this message (it's going to be a long one) because I want to bitch about Commons' attitude to photos of nude people and people having sex. Not that I'm a member of some right wing conservative party that will consider a picture of a penis in an article for Penis a great offence and moral breach, it's rather I continuously fail to understand Commons policy regarding such pictures.

Collapsed for length and sexually explicit images, click to show

As for me, I've been in (Russian) wikipedia for about 5 or 6 years and most of this time haven't bothered myself with Commons pics because I prefer to generate articles, not pictures. So when I discovered Category:Sex at Commons I initially thought it was funny for a supposedly educational project to host so many pics bordering on amateurish porn but decided that maybe you need as much photos of nude people and sexual acts as possible. But when I learned about Commons policies of "in-scope" and "out-of-scope" pics, I became more and more aware that many of these photos should be deleted right away. But to my surprise a great number of them are kept after several nominations for deletion. For instance the gem of a photo on the right, showing vulva and anus of a white kneeling female wearing crotchless fishnet stockings, was kept TWICE on the grounds that it's perfectly in scope because it falls into such categories as "Fishnet stockings" and "Female genitalia", that it's part of a series of similar pictures and finally nominator got something of a "fuck off and stop wasting our time with your whining about a perfectly normal pic". And ya know, guys, this is a big piece of damn shit. No, really, how and where this pearl can be REALISTICALLY used with educational purposes? To illustrate "female sexual organs" article? There is about a dozen images of them at Commons that don't have fetishistic fishnet around them associated with porn films, bordellos and prostitutes. To illustrate "fishnet stockings" article? Oh yes, readers browsing wikipedia for something like "stockings" will be delighted to see an unidentified gal flashing her anus at them. The only article that can possibly (possibly!) benefit from this picture seems to be "Pornography". And you know what? I think the less pictures Commons has for this article the better. I've been in wiki projects for quite enough time to notice that editors usually try to use least offensive pictures or not use anything at all when it comes to sex and porn topics. By least offensive I mean that they usually choose: a reproduction of some work of art and not a photo; Edouard Henri-Avril's work depicting cunnilingus: 15 uses in wiki projects (only mainspace counted) actual photo of the process: 0 uses a sketch or an image and not a photo; digitally created image of a doggy-style intercourse: 23 uses a photo that does not show anything except subject of an article; a closeup of a female breast: 37 uses even if it is a photo of a porn star it will most probably be a "civil" pic and not naked or otherwise provocative; clothed and smiling porn actress Mika Tan: 3 uses Mika Tan imitating a fellatio on a male fan: 0 uses Given the above I find it quite disappointing that photos without any remotely visible educational purpose and/or possibility of being used anywhere besides some gallery on a user page are happily kept on Commons on the grounds that "there is no censorship here, so shut up". I am not talking about works of art or old nude photos that can pose some artistic and/or historical interest. All I'm talking about is this contemporary amateurish porn and photos bordering on it. Why I'm not trying to intervene? Because from what I've seen I know perfectly well that if only I nominate for deletion either Pussy.jpg or My Vagina Was Framed!.jpg (both seen on the right) there will be tens of voices saying "Immediately keep! Bad faith nomination! Stop wasting our time! There's no censorship here! Photographer's job on both photos is great! And can't you see the first pic can be used to show a female with black hair? Wearing pink top? White bracelets? And the second one illustrates bookshop shelves, picture frames, skirts and bags! Get out of here, you freedom killer!" Speaking about educational purposes also brings another interesting question to my mind: just HOW MANY pictures can be considered enough for those purposes? There are now about 300 pictures in the Category:Erect_human_penis and about as much in Category:Flaccid_human_penis. I personally find it hard to understand what such a huge number of penis images can be reasonably used for — for educating sex workers on numbers of clients they'll have to serve in a month? No, really? It's not like I don't understand that an educational project needs some variety of illustrations so that editors had a set of photos to choose from. Okay, there may well be photos of small, medium-sized and large dicks, maybe a pair of each. A dick with precum, in condom, throwing out semen, developing erection, circumcised, uncircumcised, having piercing, bent, frontal view, side view, you name it. I think one can easily maintain a gallery of about 50-60 dick photos while covering most, if not all, editor needs for illustrative materials. But six hundred penis photos?! Guys, are you damn SERIOUS about all your educational fuss? I don't believe it. Several photos of a human penis for educational purposes           An amateur porn site image collection                         I would seriously consider gathering a team of experienced admins and cleaning those Augean stables, and establishing premoderation or some special approvement tag for any photo falling into Sex category based on consideration that just another penis photo will be speedy deleted in case uploader fails to provide any information why it is unique and should be kept or if it is not of higher quality than similar existing photo(s). It's interesting that there was a study on controversial content at wiki projects a year ago and recommendations were given on how to handle sexually explicit images. The advice was generally the same that I came up with independently: to closely monitor images where breasts, pelvic areas and buttocks are visible and get rid of those aimed to arouse and not to educate, while letting historical, etnographic and art pass. As for me I don't see anything being done in this area. Consider: Category:Cameltoes a photo of a female cameltoe a photo of your typical naked female Category:Shaved genitalia (female) a closeup of vulva and vagina home porn home porn semi-professional porn Category:Female masturbation and Category:Masturbation a female masturbating with a vibrator porn

As a long-term wiki editor I feel my own part of responsibility for it. And what I certainly don't want is seeing the project being clogged with tons of nude photos having the one and only merit of free license and 0.00000001% of possibility of being actually used in any project with remotely educational means. I actually do not hope for things to change but feel necessary to extensively comment on the situation. Any thoughts, suggestions, corrections and explanations why Commons can't get rid of amateur porn are greatly appreciated. Ari Linn (talk) 05:23, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

+1, fully  Support this question. Commons does not need thousands of pics of human genitalia unless they provide an educational value, illustrate a notable article in a WMF project, or belong to a more specific category. Unfortunately, most people here tend to argue that a deletion of a sexual content automatically has sth. to do with censorship. That's absolute nonsense. Sexual content pics can be within or out of project scope, as well as all other motives. Perhaps admins should bring up a little more boldness for speedily deleting at least files which have obviously nothing to do with wikipedia purposes, eventually also blocking accounts which repeatedly upload such files. - A.Savin 06:01, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

This is a recurring topic. We don't have tons of nude pictures, we actually don't have pictures for a lot of topics. Say we have 10.000 nude images (I doubt we even reach that). That's less than 0,1 % of all images. I wouldn't call that tons. And what's wrong with nude pictures anyway?

Being "bold" on a very sensitive topic like this will tend to stir up a lot of shit. A narrow explanation of the project scope because you don't like something is not supported here at Commons. Admins who try to enforce the narrow scope view tend to not be an admin very fast. Multichill (talk) 07:23, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

You're essentially saying tens of redundant (say) penis pictures should be kept because we don't have any picture featuring (say) gay anal sex. I don't see how it's logical. As for what is wrong with nude images - photos that can't be used for education are believed by people who did the controversial stuff study to be "potentially dangerous for the Foundation and Community because they reduce the overall credibility of the projects as responsible educational endeavors, and thus call into question the legitimacy of the many images of sexual content and “controversial” sexual content that must remain on Commons for the projects to fulfill their mission. And, although not our primary motivation in making this recommendation, it must be noted that they are offensive to many people, men and women alike, and represent with their inclusion a very clear bias, and point of view – that of woman as sexual object. They are far from neutral." Ari Linn (talk) 08:24, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

You are too late. The topic of sexually explicit images has already been discussed to death and the outcome was that Commons is not censored (and even if you claim it's not censorship, it's still selective removal of information. I guess your statement "[..] "Pornography". And you know what? I think the less pictures Commons has for this article the better." is quite revealing). For anybody who doesn't want to see these pictures the image filter extension was brought up. The image filter referendum is current. Partake in it. --Slomox (talk) 08:03, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I took part in it voting completely against it. A picture storage claiming any educational purposes should get rid of non-educational images itself and not rely on users to scrupulously set their image filters. If it were not for these educational claims no discussions would have ever risen. If Commons is a heap of random pictures it's okay to have no censorship and scopes broader than broad. But official guidelines claim it is not. That's why the discussion is brought up again and again: guidelines contradict practise. To ensure no discussion rises again either change guidelines or practice. Ari Linn (talk) 08:24, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

@Multichill: What's wrong with nude pictures anyway is an inappropriate question. Please read carefully. Did I ever mean that I am against explicit content in general? No way, and moreover, I was one of the subscribers of the petition to Jimbo after he had deleted lots of useful (sic!) pictures of genitalia, notable porn actors and similar. My claim is simply the following: What is out of scope, should be deleted. Regardless of what's depicted there. For instance, if someone confuses Commons with a private webhost service and uploads his own holiday snapshots or similar, it's indisputable that such ones have no EV and therefore are to be deleted speedily. Well, if some sexually frustrated idiots mean to get big satisfaction in uploading selftimer-pics of their penises, should we encourage more and more of such idiots by keeping that fully useless (and mostly also poor-quality) pics? - A.Savin 09:03, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Anyway, we'd probably have a lot more low-quality pictures made by drunken guys snapshotting their own penises with a cell-phone camera if not for Template:Nopenis. However, giving administrators authority to delete such images out of process was a major factor in sinking the proposed sexual content policy... But I really don't think that Commons is being overwhelmed with pornographic pictures -- we have a lot more bikini babes, mythological paintings showing frolicking nymphs etc., and quasi-pin-up pics of various types, than we do out-and-out pronography... AnonMoos (talk) 10:05, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I take my normal stance on this - if the image is of bad quality, by all means nominate it for deletion. If however it is of good quality, let's keep it. This should apply to all images. Now to give an example, I'd assume you'd put images of urination in your category of things which are bad for us to host? Well, there are around 7 billion humans alive today, who, on average, urinate 8 times per day. That's 56 billion instances per day. We have I think maybe 10 photos of the subject last time I checked. I accept that some images we host are just crap, but we really cannot know what people might want from us, and it would be foolish to delete something just because you wouldn't put it in an wikipedia article on the subject. Wikipedia has a certain tone it tries to use - authoritative, neutral, sentorian. But not everyone wants that. Maybe they want the picture of the pornstar pretending to fellate a fan, because that's a funny picture, and it fits better with the work they're doing which may well be a magazine biographic article on said pornstar. Similarly the fishnet picture, granted Wikipedia may not want it for an article on fishnets, but one could certainly make an argument for its use in a less stuck-up setting - for instance a sex guide. Wikipedia is not the definition of educational, it is merely a subsection. -mattbuck (Talk) 12:31, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

"A less stuck up setting" can thus be broadened to any possible width and as such loses any sense at all. At least to my mind. As easily as one might want to make a magazine article with a porn actress imitating fellatio on a fan (btw I looked closer — it's not a fan but a fellow porn actor), one might want to write, say, an article about East European prostitutes for a USA edition like Hustler or Penthouse. You know, merely to educate people out there about East European prostitutes, because poor fellas are completely ignorant about them. Certainly this article will require a great number of illustrations, because what's the other way for an average guy to learn how they look like and what exactly they are capable in bed of? Or one might want to create a complete guide for porn film directors on how to create great porn films. And simple text just isn't enough to express the guide creator's new ideas about shooting process and sex scenes, he is in dire need of free and diverse images. And what about anime explorers wanting to write just another book about yaoi and bara? Shall we leave them without proper pictures and their readers without graphical information? All these hypothetical publications would require clearly pornographic materials to be uploaded to Commons on a hypothesis they might be used for education by some third/fourth/fifth party. I personally do not think that Commons was created for storing porn while theoretizing that one day someone might use it in a guide. And neither I nor (as it seems) people who were doing the study I mentioned above — I think they were not some random individuals who decided to make it out of the blue and it gives off some official scent — think Commons should broaden its scope to fit not only Wikimedia Foundation projects but also porn star biographies and sex guides (if you ask me, a typical sex guide will rather have drawings like this and only quite expensive editions will afford something like Grand-Duc suggested below, i.e. hiring porn actors and making high-quality pictures of living people). Ari Linn (talk) 14:06, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but your argument does seem to just boil down to "I don't like it". How is a sex guide not educational? It's educating by providing guidance! I grant you, some people may prefer to have drawings rather than photos, but it is not our place to editorialise. If a drawing of an act is educational, I fail to see how a photo of that act is any less educational. -mattbuck (Talk) 16:24, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

I never said I don't like sex guides or pictures that can be used in them. But are you saying you would rather use this and not this or this in a sex guide to show how genitalia of a typical female look like? I don't believe it. Or if Playboy suddenly releases all its photos into public domain, people here at Commons will be overjoyed and instantly upload them all thinking "What great illustrations of female anatomy we have now thanks to Mr. Hefner?" Don't believe either. And I actually fail to see how people fail to see there's a good number of nude photos at Commons that were not created to educate. I don't see how this, this or this is educational. Yes, I'm a narrow-minded idiot. But I don't. Ari Linn (talk) 20:12, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

If you don't think those three files are educational, then nominate them for deletion, don't complain here.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:19, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Once again someone conflates penis pictures with porn. We do cull penis pictures, on a regular basis. They're common in DRs, and new ones frequently get speedily deleted. Category:Emil Eikner has 62 pictures of someone who has no article in any Wikipedia (and yes, one of them pass a DR Commons:Deletion requests/File:Eiffel Tower 4 20101026.JPG.) So ten times that many for something that half of humanity has, and most of them hide? I don't see why not.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:22, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

All of humanity urinates 2-3 times a day. But suddenly we have only about 80 photos in Category:Human urination counting both males and females. How it is so that Commons CAN have 80 pics of urination and seemingly satisfy illustrational and educational needs but when it comes to penises and nude females Commons suddenly needs hundreds and thousands of them? Ari Linn (talk) 20:12, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

What does that do with porn? You conflate nudity that we supposedly have too much of, with sexual images that we have almost no good images of, in the same argument; it hurts your case badly. And as always, it's not that we have too many useless pictures, as I tossed a category of 62 useless pictures, and you ignored it.* It's that they're nude.

* Note that this is consistent; whenever this is brought up, the number of redundant pictures of climbing, or the Statue of Liberty, or many other things is brought up. None of the editors pushing for deletion on the grounds of redundancy suddenly run out and start nominating those pictures for deletion.

And you know what? You're asking someone else to do the dirty work. You're a volunteer here like everyone else; instead of whining about us having too many penis pictures, do something about it. Penis pictures frequently fail DR; if you made up a page with a bunch of penis pictures, clearly showing what other picture obsoletes them, and then nominated them in a mass deletion, I bet we could delete at least 50 pictures in one DR.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:19, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

the number of redundant pictures of climbing, or the Statue of Liberty, or many other things is brought up

Since when loads of climbing and Statue of Liberty photos are in danger of being thought of as mere porn? And if every possible picture of a nude female or a sexual act is SOOOO educational, why don't we ask Playboy to release its photo databases to public domain?

instead of whining about us having too many penis pictures, do something about it.

What for? File:Anus before sex.JPG was nominated twice and kept. File:Lots of stares.jpg was nominated and kept. I have absolutely no desire to tilt at windmills and I value my own time too much and waste it on searching for non-educational human sexuality pictures that will be almost invariably kept under the pretence that "someone one day may want to write a guide on humans for Tau Ceti inhabitants so we need to keep every possible picture human sexuality" even if the only thing it can educate about is fetishism, vulgarity and a view typical for the start of 2000s that only skinny tanned blonde females are desired sexual partners. Ari Linn (talk) 13:53, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

"Since when loads of climbing and Statue of Liberty photos are in danger of being thought of as mere porn?" Exactly; your crusade is not about removing unusable low-quality worthless pictures, it's about getting rid of what can be thought of as porn. Commons is not censored. You have absolutely no desire to try something productive, but you'll waste time having this discussion here. That's a good policy. And once again; PENIS PICTURES ARE NOT PORNOGRAPHY. WE DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH HUMAN SEXUALITY PICTURES; WE HAVE TOO MANY PENIS PICTURES. It's exactly this conflation that makes me repeat Commons is not censored, because the two cases are quite dissimilar in their problems.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:17, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't know what's gotten into you but I've never once said that penis equals pornography and you're arguing not with me but rather with your image of me. What I'm trying to say is 1) 600 photos of predominantly white penises of average and slightly-more-than-average size is kinda a great number for a supposedly educational project and can easily skew the balance from "educational" to "pornographic" and "biased"; and 2) I believe meaningless nude photos should not be kept. While a nude bike rider and a girl wearing bodypaint reproduction of Van Gogh are okay, a random girl that forgot to pull her panties up and some weird Facebook fan are not. Ari Linn (talk) 22:21, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

I discuss how to reduce the number of penis pictures; you respond by complaining about File:Anus before sex.JPG not getting deleted, which, notably, has no penis. You say that "I've never once said that penis equals pornography" and then say "600 photos of predominantly white penises ... can easily skew the balance from 'educational' to 'pornographic'". I'm arguing with what you're writing.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:58, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

So you don't see the difference between "a photo of a penis in an educational project is not porn" and "loads of redundant white middle-sized penis photos in an educational project may tip the balance and be viewed as porn"? Well, it's not like your non-understanding is my problem after all, but these two are different things. Ari Linn (talk) 17:25, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

I totally agree with Multichill that Commons lacks a collection of high quality sexuality related photographs, that's why I had a idea for a photography project some weeks ago. Given that I earn sufficient money in some years, I actually sought about hiring 3 or 4 porn actors, renting a studio and making some high quality and educational depictions of acts of sexual intercourse. High quality studio stills may provide good arguments for the deletion of pictures made in the state of drunkenness by cell phone. BTW, that could even be a project for a local Wikimedia association (like the German one), as there is already support for encyclopaedic work like a literature bursary, so why not for providing this kind of images? Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 12:57, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I also had that idea a while ago. I even sent my idea to the board. As Kaldari is saying below, it probably wouldn't be good for the foundation to do it though. The idea went towards finding a health institution to work with (e.g. some university hospital) but has stalled long ago. But I also think that it would be fantastic if we had high quality images of lots of different positions, etc etc where we know for sure, that we won't have any privacy issues. We could also steer the direction/mood of the images for example keeping some/all more educational so they can be placed in the wikis (but still showing all the details). So, lets do some fundraising for this. I am sure we'll have lots of supporters ;) If we don't need to hire a photographer, then it won't be all that expensive anyhow. seriously, why not? Amada44  ^{talk to me} 15:57, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I can see the headlines now: "Wikimedia Foundation Finances the Production of Pornography". I'm sure the idea above would go over well with the donors. Though I hear that a member of the board has experience in this area. – Adrignola talk 15:50, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

If you do go through with such a project, it would be appreciated if at least one of the actors was not white. Better yet, how about none of them. You would think, judging by our articles and images, that only white people are ever nude or have sex (and that women are nude about 10 times more often than men). It would also be nice if they don't have their entire bodies waxed, as most people who have sex actually do have body hair, strangely enough. Kaldari (talk) 20:55, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

There's a practical issue with that: darker skin tones are very hard to light properly. Asian or other medium-brown skin tones will probably work, but sub-Saharan black is out. --Carnildo (talk) 21:35, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't agree with all of the "bad" examples called out in the initial post, but some of them really are pretty useless to us. File:Lots of stares.jpg, for instance, includes a very badly obscured face and a badly obscured something-else in the upper-left corner, has waterspots on the lens, and includes a timestamp... all of which might be tolerable if the image had other redeeming qualities, but it really doesn't. It doesn't illustrate anything in particular, and individual things it might be able to illustrate (like the woman's genitals) are too low-resolution to be useful. Powers (talk) 20:55, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

If what we're really interested in here is harm to the project, what we should be concentrating on is making sure that sexual images are only presented in appropriate contexts. We could have 5 million penis pictures, but if we keep them restricted to penis-related categories and off the main page, I don't see too much harm in them (other than a waste of time, space, and bandwidth). I think it would be useful to add a "Principle of least astonishment" section into our Nudity guidelines which gives some guidance on how to categorize such images and how to use them in appropriate contexts on the project. Kaldari (talk) 21:11, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Actually, any one individual penis pic by itself isn't much of a problem, but one thing that people worry about is that if there were 5 million of them, then they would tip the balance of this site into becoming a rather different kind of site... AnonMoos (talk) 23:15, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

And if what we're really interested in here is harming the project, we can spend all of our time in divisive debates about removing legal if sometimes unsavory images instead of working on adding useful images and making them easy to find. - Jmabel ! talk 15:40, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Mere legality has never been the only criterion determining whether an image will be kept on Commons or not... AnonMoos (talk) 15:46, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

The basic problem seems to be that a group wants to keep "anything, it could become useful". Somebody pointed to the file File:Lots of stares.jpg, and I can only agree that it is not very educational, not of good quality, and the image text suggests it was uploaded as a private photo album. Several reasons for deletion, according to the guidelines. However, it should not be removed only beacuse it is nude. And there are for sure many other photos that are not nude, but of similar low interest. If somebody has the energy to go through and suggest for deletion similar pictures, fine for me. That would conform to the guidelines. --Janwikifoto (talk) 19:48, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Lots of stares.jpg was nominated for deletion and kept a month and a half ago. Because there was "No valid reason for deletion". If THIS was kept as (possibly) educational, I don't know anymore. As for me I really don't want to contribute to a project that is something like an 4chan/b/ in its indiscriminative nature. Ari Linn (talk) 20:36, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

You make that claim; I don't believe it. You haven't pushed for the deletion of indiscriminate vacation pictures. It's not the indiscriminate nature, it's the nudity.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:19, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't understand. What "vacation images" are you talking about and why in the world should I push for their deletion? Ari Linn (talk) 13:53, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

All the low quality pictures of the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower that were usually have family members in the picture. And you would push for their deletion because we have way too many of them and they have no educational value. So it's not about having too many pictures that are worthless; it's not about their indiscriminateness; it's about the content of the pictures.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:17, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

• With regard to whether we have too many redundant images related to human sexuality -- a month or so ago, in response to yet another individual who claimed "I am not a censor -- but", I counted up how many images we had under Category:Flowers. If I counted correctly we had over 30,000 images related to the sexual reproduction of vegetables. It struck me as bizarre then, and strikes me as bizarre now, that we have more images related to the sexuality of vegetables, than we have of images related to human sexuality. I suggest that human sexuality is many orders of magnitude more important than vegetable sexuality. Geo Swan (talk) 23:46, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

The amount of pictures in Category:Flowers is somewhat irrelevant here, and its not absurd that there are more of flowers than of humans. The relative importance of the two topics is subjective, but think about what is actually needed from the educational viewpoint. There are in excess of 250,000 species of flowering plants - and there is significant educational value in having one picture of every species flower. That's already 250,000 - and that 250,000 images contain no redundancy - in its specific educational context not one of those images can be replaced by any of the others. If you want greater selectivity to include the distinction between male or female, interaction with animals, stages of the flowers development, diseases, and provide redundancy to allow editorial choice...

With regards to human sexuality - there is similar value in an image of every conceivable sexual act, in images of the body parts. Allowing for a representative sample of various sizes, ages, races you aren't going to get tens of thousands of images. I suppose you could say "theres value in having a picture of every male porn stars penis / female porn stars vagina" but that is really pushing it to extremes.

In short - the "overall" importance of two topics doesn't relate to how many educationally useful pictures are needed as a minimum.--Nilfanion (talk) 00:07, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Recurrent and annoying debate. Let's think objectively, please. Nobody complains about the fact we have too many pictures about New York. And strangely some people complain when there's the same (apparent) phenomenon concerning nudity or sexuality. However nudity and New York are two (different) subjects of knowledge and deserve encyclopedical treatment. Therefore there's no reason to reduce the choice of pictures that Commons offer to its users/visitors. It's part of Commons' purposes to give a variety of choice on different subjects (and if possible a wider choice than the files used on Wikipedia). Since Commons is not censored, there's no reason to treat nudity differently in terms of numbers of files. Of course there are other topics to discuss : copyvio, models' agreements, etc, but as far as the number of files is concerned there's no reason to say "let's keep that one and delete those ones" while we don't reason like that for other subjects.So we keep the nude files if no special and valid problems or arguments are reported. QED. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 14:28, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

There's no maximum quota or numerical upper limit as such to images with nudity. However, if we notice that low-quality cell-phone photos of penises which guys snap when they're drunk are redundantly accumulating, and providing very little usefulness or value, then there's also no reason why we can't prune them back... AnonMoos (talk)

I agree but in that case we should only discuss about quality, not about the fact that it's a penis or whatever ! And strangely, when we have bad quality pics of penises, some people do notice that it's also nudity etc. Which is stupid because it's not the question ! --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 06:19, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Since the Commons allows bloody, dismembered corpses, why sexually explicit images should be wrong? These appear less offensive to a mentally healthy adult, but I do not recall that purging hideous images of death out of Commons was ever proposed. But I think that some images of a shaved vulva in fishnet stockings, or a male penis, are merely vanity images and should be deleted (I will not point to specific images because I am not an expert). Incnis Mrsi (talk) 15:05, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Your opinion seems contradictory to me... Why couldn't exhibitionism or stockings fetichism be illustrated on Commons ?

The second photograph is indeed very shocking... I felt nauseous and couldn't bear more than 1 second of viewing ! --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 15:17, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I did not say that should not illustrate some phenomena. I said, some images are little more than vanity, if lacks quality or duplicate already illustrated scenes many times. I think that quick removal of vanity images may deter this motivation, and it does not matter is such an image someone's dick, or simply a photograph's girlfriend, totally dressed, in the front of the Red Square. It would not be a topical censorship. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 16:52, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

If you say so... --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 06:19, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

The photos of the My Lai massacre are not some random collection of mutilated corpses. They are identified as relating to a specific incident which has an article on various wikipedias. We do need pictures to illustrate a variety of topics related to anatomy, sexuality and even sexual fetishes. These need clear attribution and model releases. We do not need a bunch of amateur porn pictures that are badly framed or low resolution or designed to titillate rather than educate or which relate to topics which are covered better by other pictures. The same arguments (except titillation) do apply to tourist pictures of famous monuments. Delete those which don't add anything to the project because we have other better pics.--Filceolaire (talk) 22:50, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

I've often heard the argument that "we don't need titillating or pornographic images when we have good objective images for the purpose of anatomical articles." Of course this neglects that many of the topics covered by our projects are in fact about pornography and titillation, and such images are needed to cover those specific topics. For example, an article on "hardcore pornography" would be poorly illustrated indeed by a sterile diagram of intercourse. I don't question that purely redundant low-quality images should be deleted, but keep in mind that Commons needs pornography, and currently has very little of any decent quality. Dcoetzee (talk) 23:26, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Third Geneva Convention article 13

User:Docu made an interesting point on Commons talk:Photographs of identifiable people#POW regarding the Third Geneva Convention and certain photos on Commons. In particular it's Third Geneva Convention article 13 which protects prisoners of war against "public curiosity". The interpretation of this article that it is "illegal to publish some photographs of prisoners of war" is not unknown (ie. see remarks from Donald Rumsfeld on CNN or ICRC), albeit relatively new as far as I know and especially photos from historic armed conflicts seems to be showed without much hesitation (i.e. NYT photo-series: Mysteries of a nazi photo album or the BBC photo gallery: Prisoners of war).
Commons already hosts a number of POW-pictures taken after 21 October 1950 (when the Third Geneva Convention came into effect), such as (but not limited to - more can be found in Category:Prisoners of war) Chinese and North Korean POWs at camp in Pusan HD-SN-99-03155.JPEG (April 1951), ARVN POWs repatriated 1973.jpg (March 1973) and Argentine prisoners of war - Port Stanley.JPG (June 1982) which, as far as I can tell, by Donald Rumsfeld's and ICRC's accounts are illegal to distribute and publish under Third Geneva Convention article 13.
It's also worth mentioning - but not directly relevant here - that article similar article provides protection for 'protected persons' in the Fourth Geneva Convention article 27.
Finally: I'm not really sure if this belongs here or on Commons:Village pump/Copyright. If somebody thinks that the latter is a more suitable place, please chime in :) --Henrik (heb: Talk · Contributions · E-mail) 13:36, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Article 13 is about obligations of the detaining authorities about the treatment of the prisoners during the time of detention. Although some argument can be made about the above extrapolation to some use of some photos during the time of detention (that is only what the ICRC declaration was about), it seems difficult to claim that it could be applied as a way to restrict publication by third parties of images of past conflicts. -- Asclepias (talk) 14:16, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Last time I checked, the Wikimedia Foundation and private individuals were not signatories to the Geneva Convention. The UK Mission to the United Nations in Geneva states "any image of prisoners of War (POWs) as identifiable individuals should normally be regarded as subjecting such individuals to public curiosity and should not be transmitted, published or broadcast". On the other hand, the American Journalism Review states "the convention can be violated only by the nations that have signed it, not by media organizations". Who do you believe would be summoned to the International Criminal Court? BrokenSphere, who uploaded the photo File:Chinese and North Korean POWs at camp in Pusan HD-SN-99-03155.JPEG, the government employee that actually took the picture, or Larry Gahn with the US State Department that provided it? (Answer: none, since the US has "unsigned" the Rome Statue and the ICC prosecutes crimes after 2002). My personal view is that this can be seen in the same way as museums prohibiting photography and people still uploading images of works successfully to Commons.– Adrignola talk 14:18, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

@Adrignola, that seems IMO to be a rather legalist interpretation, which our policy expressedly rejects when it is about copyright. I think what's behind this point of the Geneva Convention is respecting human dignity. Of course, how that translates into accepting or not accepting images of POWs on Commons should be discussed within the community. --Túrelio (talk) 14:37, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Asclepias. Article 13 is about the obligations of the authorities detaining the POWs, at the time of their detention. While some wartime uses of photos of POWs might serve nothing more than "insults and public curiosity" (in the words of Article 13), there are also many valid educational uses of such photos, both during the conflict and afterwards. A strong argument can be made that in some situations (e.g. the Abu Ghraib scandal), showing the photos furthers human dignity more than censoring them would. --Avenue (talk) 15:16, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

@Adrignola, to be honest I don't know in other countries national regulations on this matter - and that is why I made the original posting -, but in Denmark the Geneva conventions has been incorporated into national regulations in such matter, that they not only apply to the Danish Government and those serving on their behalf, but to everybody (including media) in Denmark. However it is worth noting, that only the depicted person can formally make a legal case against media and other persons who broadcasted and publicized the photo (at least according to The Danish of Media and Journalism). So to answer your question from a Danish point of view, had it been a Danish soldier taking the photo, a Dane (in Denmark) uploading it and had Larry Gahn been from the Danish State Department: All of the above (in a Danish court for violating the Danish incorporation). But this is - as we often see - not often as simple as that because of various national regulations. --Henrik (heb: Talk · Contributions · E-mail) 07:59, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

• For what it is worth it was the Bush administration's original position that none of the captives it took in reaction to Al Qaeda's attacks on 2001-09-11 should be classed as prisoners of war as described by the "quaint" Geneva Conventions. This is why they argued they could waterboard those captives -- subject them to sleep deprivation, extremes of heat or cold, of plucking their eyes from the eye sockets, as they did with Abu Zubaydah. Human rights workers pointed out that even if, for the sake of argument, the captives weren't protected by the third Geneva Convention, they would be "protected persons" as defined in the fourth Geneva Convention. I hope, for the sake of the USA's reputation as a nation that respect(ed) the rule of law, and basic human rights, that the Supreme Court rules on this. Geo Swan (talk) 14:15, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
  • In January 2006 US District Court Jed Rakoff rule on a case where the Department of Defense had to explain why they had kept the identity of the Guantanamo captives a secret. They didn't argue the secrecy was on national security grounds. They argued that it was necessary to protect the captives' privacy. Rakoff blew away these arguments, arguing that publishing information about these formerly secret captives was in their interest. I heartily agree. I am afraid if Rakoff hadn't made this ruling Guantanamo would continue to hold many more captives as it was only the publication of the previously secret information that made the subsequent habeas appeals possible. Geo Swan (talk) 14:22, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

In general (Denmark appears to be a limited exception) this is a moral issue, not a legal one. So the question is whether, for any given image, the "public curiosity" privacy issue the Convention is concerned with is adequately balanced against the educational value of the image, which Commons is concerned with. It's something that's worth considering case-by-case, but I wouldn't expect it to make a great deal of difference in the community's assessment of whether a specific image is educational enough to keep on Commons. Rd232 (talk) 23:40, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

According to some, it seems that this may not apply to the United States. The audience of Commons isn't specifically an US one though and thus we need to make sure that the uploads are not illegal elsewhere. Images of war criminals mentioned by Avenue are probably not relevant to this discussion.

I think we should clarify COM:PEOPLE in the way suggested by Heb. --  Docu  at 04:28, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't mind adding some wording to COM:PEOPLE to mention the issue, but I'm not clear what exactly Heb is suggesting in terms of wording. PS I'm not sure why you mention the US; the Convention only applies to states, end of story. The only complication is where states specifically apply the Convention in their own national law (and make it apply to non-state actors), and so far only Denmark has been mentioned as doing that. Rd232 (talk) 09:43, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Crazy JavaScript causing an endless reload loop

When I follow a link from the German Wikipedia to e.g. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Breitendorf?uselang=de a JavaScript is going crazy and something is reloaded in the background every second. This happened in Opera 11.51 while I'm not logged in. Unfortunately I happens occasionally and I can not reproduce it. I think it was caused by the language selector on the left side. It was missing when the script was stuck in the reload loop and could barely seen flickering in the main menu on the left where it should appear. --TMg 16:51, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

My attempt to reproduce this issue today failed (Chrome stable, logged in; IE9-64, not logged in; FF 6.02, not logged in, "noscript" temporarily disabled). –Be..anyone (talk) 06:22, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

These exact same symptoms occurred to me with Opera 11.51 (Vista Home Premium) when I opened a Category page with the ?uselang=fr selector. The browser tab endlessly reloaded, but no other wikimedia tab was affected, neither was the same URL opened manually in another tab. I tested the same Category page with other language uselang options and could not reproduce this one-off problem. However, I notice that today the Edit box choices no longer work for me so I can no longer use the four tilde sign string - this non-English keyboard does not have the tilde so I have to paste from below now. Opera's Javascript error console also shows hundreds of CSS errors. Something has evidently changed. -84user (talk) 03:49, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Confirm: Does occur if I open the Commons link http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Breitendorf?uselang=de from http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breitendorf#Weblinks . Can be stopped with ESC keypress. But does not occur if I open the mentioned Commons link manually in a tab.

Opera 11, Linux, not logged-in. I highly suspect it is the MediaWiki:AnonymousI18N.js script. Did not try in Firefox (do not want to log-off). Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 04:06, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Continue discussion here: MediaWiki talk:AnonymousI18N.js#This script causes an endless reload loop. --TMg 11:42, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

September 6

11M

We just broke the 11 million milestone, exactly five months after the 10M.

Oh, and Wiki Loves Monuments reached 50 000 files too.

(There are days like this :-)

Jean-Fred (talk) 21:08, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

And in many categories it gets harder and harder to find useful images among the junk. Maybe we should put more emphasis on celebrating quality milestones. --ELEKHH^T 05:22, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Hmm despite the fact that the mentioned 50.000 WLM-pictures are not all from nr. 1 photographers quality they are pretty usefull in ilustrating the given monuments, and that counts for like 90%. Mvg, Basvb (talk) 06:09, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

@Elekhh Mostly it's not a fault of the content, but a fault of outdated categorisation and search system. Trycatch (talk) 11:05, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Just water - in scope?

Lake Lucerne...

I just stumbled across these images in Category:Lake Lucerne:

• File:Pilatus2006 picture 041.jpg
• File:Pilatus2006 picture 042.jpg
• File:Pilatus2006 picture 043.jpg

... and asked myself whether some blurred pictures of water where you can't recognize anything specific are really in scope? Would a DR be appropriate? Are these image "realistically useful for an educational purpose"? They're currently in the cats Category:April 2005 in Switzerland and Category:Lake Lucerne, both subjects aren't really illustrated well by them. Maybe for Category:Water? ... Gestumblindi (talk) 23:38, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

I guess you could argue the colour of the lake tells you something (how clean the water is, etc). Dcoetzee (talk) 02:46, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Maybe you should start a DR and see what the result is. I would argue that 41 and 43 are really blurred and redundant to 42 which might be kept for now as the "best" close-up. --ELEKHH^T 05:20, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

September 16

Link back to template icon

Three families of templates: Category:Creator templates, Category:Institution templates and Category:Book templates use an icon to link back to the template where displayed data is stored. Since those templates are often transcluded in files, categories and galleries, link-back capability allow much easier maintenance of those templates. Currently the icon used is ; however I am not sure if this is the most intuitive option. I was thinking that icons like: , , , , , , might do a better job. Any idea which icon might be the best to convey the idea of linking back to the template in ~15 pixels. One thing to be aware is that the icon is often near small Wikisource icon: , so the two should not clash and should be easily distinguishable. --Jarekt (talk) 16:25, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Personally, I think looks best for that role, since it has a very similar color scheme as the Wikisource icon...blue with a hint of gray. — Huntster (t @ c) 21:10, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Facebook "Like" Icon

I'd like a few extra eyes on this.

This image is from Facebook. It's a 16x15 pixel png, so certainly tiny.

The current copyright label is {{PD-shape}}. However the image doesn't really seem to fit the description on the template since the representation of a thumbs up isn't really "simple geometry", or at least I don't tend to think of hands as geometric shapes.

Maybe the more general {{PD-ineligible}} would be better?

But that leads me to wonder, is this really ineligible for copyright? Despite it's small size it is definitely recognizable as coming from Facebook. And it is made even more so if people insist on using it like this w:Template:Like. Now being "recognizable" isn't really a copyright criterion per se, but there are lots of other thumbs up icons, e.g. Category:Thumbs up icons, which argues there is at least some room for creativity in how a thumb is represented. In the pre-Facebook era, I don't think I ever would have chosen to draw a white hand outline with a blue cuff.

It is small enough, and familiar enough a symbol that the issue can probably be argued, but at the moment I'm leaning towards the opinion that this little stylized hand does have a little bit of creativity to it in the choice of representation. In which case, this symbol would be eligible for copyright and ineligible for Commons. A previous deletion discussion touched on this but didn't really expand on the issue other than one person suggesting it is copyrighted and two people suggesting it is too small to be copyrighted.

So, two questions that I would like more feedback on:

1. Is this eligible for copyright or not?
2. If ineligible, should we change the tag to something other than PD-shape, which doesn't seem to be a very good fit, since it focuses on "geometric shapes".

Thanks for your help. Dragons flight (talk) 19:33, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Hmm. I'm not that good at determining when images of this sort cross the threshhold of creativity--I focus more on text--but I just wanted to note that if no feedback is forthcoming, you might get more response at Commons:Village pump/Copyright. --User:Moonriddengirl (talk to me)19:21, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

To me, it sits on that blurry line between eligible and not; on one hand, it is tiny and quite simple, but on the other, it does show creativity. Howevever, compared to File:Best Western logo.svg it isn't complicated at all. I'd suggest not eligible, which Commons:Deletion requests/File:Facebook like thumb.png backs up. As for the template, either PD-ineligible or PD-textlogo should be used. PD-shape doesn't quite fit the bill. — Huntster (t @ c) 21:31, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Linking to Google Street View

I've been uploading a few pictures of murals, and I've found it useful to include a link to Google Street View in order to verify the camera location and heading, but the location template does not really suffice. Does anybody have a pretty template for linking to Google Street View? Heyzeuss (talk) 16:52, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

What is wrong with {{Location}} link to Google map which allows you to see street view? I think our template are trying not to favor a single website but allows user to choose one of the dozen available. Google maps, Google earth and OpenStreetMap are exceptions with preferential treatment since someone figured out how to overlay our images on their maps. --Jarekt (talk) 17:47, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

It's when I look for a landmark on Google Street View, using a geocode on a description page. It gets me to within half a block of the location, but when I open up Google Street View, it is not there. I have to go up and down all four directions of the street intersection, doing a 360 spin at each end, moving sideways to look between trees. After following the link on the description page, it takes a lot of effort to go the rest of the way and find a good view of the landmark. The main thing missing from the location template is the camera heading. Heyzeuss (talk) 18:08, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Look at Template:Location/doc#Examples most examples have heading. --Jarekt (talk) 18:21, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

The heading parameter doesn't produce very usable output, or at least none that I can find. Thanks for the hint, though. I was using an equals sign instead of a colon. This billboard is geocoded, but when I followed the link to Google Maps, and I dragged and dropped the yellow peg man in Google street view, it was about a half a block off, and I could not see the billboard until I went up the street a little bit. Here it is on street view. For some reason the coordinates don't match exactly right. Things move fifty meters after they are geocoded. I've tried making my own coordinates, and the Wikimedia Commons marker on the map doesn't match where I placed it. It would be nice to have a more accurate link to Google Street View. Heyzeuss (talk) 20:06, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Here's the Google Maps URL parameters. I've noticed that there are two sets of coordinates in the URL: the regular map coordinates (ll), and the street view coordinates (cbll). They are different. It's probably a calibration issue, and the reason that I am having trouble. It's not really a problem that can be solved at Commons or at GeoHack. Here's the street view url again, shorter. http://maps.google.com/maps?layer=c&cbll=39.1503,-79.4974&cbp=,300 The parameter cbp=,300 gives the heading. If I had time to make a template for Google Street View, I would use those two parameters for coordinates and heading: cbll and cbp. Heyzeuss (talk) 20:54, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

I do not think we need a new geocoding template but we might be able to add capabilities to the existing one. Original coordinates of File:Mail Pouch Sutton WV USA.JPG were guessed based on my recollection of where I was at the moment. There was no street view in those dark ages. I will mention this discussion on template talk:location. BTW Wikimedia Commons marker on the map comes from the toolserver database where it is placed by a bot, based on the template - it will move in a day or two to the updated position. --Jarekt (talk) 02:34, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Request for a gadget that displays file copyright status in a category page or search page

Hi, I haven't been able to determine if there is a gadget or appearance preference that would make it easy to tell which items are Public Domain or not. Ideally this gadget could change the background color of the area around the item to green for PD or red for others, so I could tell at a glance whether I can use it. I use some material for attribution, but some assignments require a PD image.

Does anyone have an idea how I could request such a preference/gadget or design it myself? Thanks! --Kenmayer (talk) 20:18, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

All PD images should be transcluding {{PD-Layout}} template. For example to get all the PD images from Category:Biblioteca_Nacional,_Madrid one can use this

http://toolserver.org/~magnus/catscan_rewrite.php?language=commons&project=wikimedia&categories=Biblioteca_Nacional%2C_Madrid&ns[6]=1&templates_yes=PD-Layout&ext_image_data=1&doit=1 

to call CatScan2 and intersect it with files using {{PD-Layout}} template. --Jarekt (talk) 21:34, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Maybe Gadget-GalleryDetails (available in the Gadget section of your preferences ) is of some help? Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 04:36, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

September 17

User manufactured cover art

It was recently discovered on English Wikipedia that a user may be manufacturing cover art for poems and essays using public domain artwork. For an example, see [5]. Because there is no evidence that these have ever been published and because I discovered the art in use on other projects, I have added clarification to the image summaries that I found. We are talking on English Wikipedia about how to handle this kind of thing, but I wanted to bring it to your attention as well. I'm not sure if this material would be educational and thus in scope, although I can conceive that it might be, but I don't know if you feel something further might be done to make sure that we don't wind up conveying the mistaken impression to reusers and project users that these covers were ever actually published (since we have no evidence that they were). It may be that the clarification I added is sufficient. Thanks. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:21, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

(Discussion on enWP here. ) --99.170.147.15 01:56, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. Forgot to link that. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:59, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

I've nominated for deletion. They're pretty clearly out of scope to me. --99of9 (talk) 02:51, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Correction for several NASA images' source

B2322858 uploaded a group of images from NASA, however, the sources he filled in are {{Own}}. Could somebody help me to find the source link from NASA?--Mys 721tx (talk) 04:02, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

He fixed it. However, some problems remain. Replace the low quality uploads with its full size versions, replace the nonsense written in the description field with a description, add more source information like the image id or the souce credited at NASA websites, make sure that the image is indeed created by NASA and not credited to some other source. --Martin H. (talk) 11:40, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Vectorization of PD-works: Copyrighted or not?

In the last weeks, I did some housekeeping in some flag and coat of arms categories, usually removing the various PD-self and CC-licence plates und replacing them by PD-ineligible or PD-country tags, because a CC-licence for a flag with free stripes is surely a copyfraud. I also replaced some CC-licences plates from several state emblems (which are not classic, european-style coat of arms, where an artistic rendition is of course copyrighted), an action which for which I received some criticism, because it was claimed that the vectorization of such emblems might be copyrighted, altough the (raster) basic image is PD. The question concerns graphics like File:State emblem of Mongolia.svg. Those images are an exact vectorized copy of a PD-image (without any alterations or "improvements"). Perhaps influenced by my german background, I believe that the vectorization is also PD, because no new artwork was created. Are there other opinions on this question? If there are, two questions have to be answered:

• How should we tag a "basic image PD, vectorization CC" image?
• Where is the "treshold of orginality" in such cases?

--Antemister (talk) 20:17, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

A SVG file is completely analogous to a TrueType or Type1 font file, which have been ruled by courts to be copyrightable as computer programs, even if the fonts they draw are not copyrightable.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:39, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I'd disagree with that analogy though -- the Copyright Office considered the kerning and other font information the primarily points that made it copyrightable, and not the outlines -- but not sure that courts have followed that logic. An SVG of a circle is still PD-ineligible to me. That said, if somebody hand-edits the SVG file, that could be considered copyrightable, a completely separate work from a different SVG coded another way but which results in the exact same image. If drawn in a GUI editor though, I think only the resulting shapes are what could be copyrightable, and they wouldn't be given much different status than a bitmap I don't think. Still, there could often be small copyrightable details in a vector, especially in cases of complicated images like coats of arms -- those will almost always have a copyrightable component. Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:29, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Though I should also say that some countries, such as the UK, still allow a sweat-of-the-brow copyright, meaning an SVG is almost always copyrightable there, and existing CC tags should be left alone if for no other reason -- they can ease usage in those countries. Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:54, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Please, please do NOT remove CC tags from such works. The threshold of originality can differ considerably by country, and there is always some uncertainty with it. If the shape is PD-ineligible by our standards (which usually follow U.S. standards), by all means add that tag but please keep the existing CC tags, as they could be critical for use in some other countries. It is *not* certainly copyfraud; the aboriginal flag was actually ruled copyrightable in Australia since they use the rather different UK-based interpretation of "original". And modern renditions of coats of arms would almost never be PD-ineligible -- each different rendition gets its own copyright, so SVG or recent bitmap drawings would all be copyrightable most likely. See Commons:Coats of Arms. It has nothing to do with when the design was introduced and everything to do with when the artist drew it, and who that artist was. So PD-country tags are usually inappropriate for those, and even if they are exempt from copyright in some countries, they will be copyrightable in others so again, please don't remove CC tags supplied by the authors if they are there. Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:29, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Antemister -- I am not a lawyer (and don't even play one on TV), but your personal concept of "exact vectorized copy"[sic] seems to me to be factually and legally quite problematic (except in some simple cases where the emblem/flag has an exact geometric specification), as I tried to explain on your user talk page... AnonMoos (talk) 10:34, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Spelling "vectorization" with a Z is not a spelling error deserving of a [sic]; it's US English. – Adrignola talk 17:57, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

You're kind of missing the point: 1) I'm a UnitedStatesican myself. 2) I was "[sic]"-ing the whole phrase "exact vectorized copy" (not any single word in it). Anyway, it's also Oxford spelling... AnonMoos (talk) 00:56, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

I like their explanation : this is the fault of French. --Aʁsenjyʁdəgaljɔm¹¹⁶⁷¹ 14:13, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

In case of the threshold of originality, it is in fact not possible to be compliant with any copyright law, that's why it was decided to use US copyright law. The design of the aboriginal flag may be an extreme exception, such a simple creation is not copyrighted in most countries. The Well, let's come back to the two questions above, are there any suggestions for them?--Antemister (talk) 21:19, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Reminder: m:Requests for comment/Wikimedia Commons

Please see m:Requests for comment/Wikimedia Commons and leave your opinion.  Hazard-SJ  ±  22:24, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

September 18

Move file

Hi. Can I please get the file File:2011-Sikkim earthquake Shakemap.jpg.jpg moved to a filename without the double-.jpg designation? Thanks. AstroImager001 (talk) 14:31, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

 Done. Now at File:2011-Sikkim earthquake Shakemap.jpg. Please use {{Rename}} in the future. – Adrignola talk 16:42, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

de:Wikipedia:Meinungsbilder/Einführung persönlicher Bildfilter

Hello, the opinion poll de:Wikipedia:Meinungsbilder/Einführung persönlicher Bildfilter was held in the German Wikipedia from 25 August 2011 to 15 September 2011 about the proposal:

>>Personal image filter (filter which hide illustrative files on the basis of categories of Wikipedia and can be switched on and off by the reader, see the preliminary Design of the Wikimedia Foundation) despite the decision of the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation should not be implemented in the German Wikipedia, and nor should filter categories for files stored locally on this Wikipedia be set up.>>>>Persönliche Bildfilter (Filter, die illustrierende Dateien anhand von Kategorien der Wikipedia verbergen und vom Leser an- und abgeschaltet werden können, vgl. den vorläufigen Entwurf der Wikimedia Foundation) sollen entgegen dem Beschluss des Kuratoriums der Wikimedia Foundation in der deutschsprachigen Wikipedia nicht eingeführt werden und es sollen auch keine Filterkategorien für auf dieser Wikipedia lokal gespeicherte Dateien angelegt werden.<<

• 260 of 306 users (84.97 percent) accepted the poll as to be formally valid.
• 357 of 414 users (86.23 percent) do not agree to the introduction of a personal image filter and categories for filtering in the German Wikipedia.

For Commons this opinion poll may have different consequences. As far as I see, it means that the German Wikipedia will try not to implement the filter feature on its project if this is technically feasible, and it will not need any categorization on Commons of files in image filter categories for the purposes of the German Wikipedia. The German Wikipedia also doesn't want to participate in hosting filter categories for their own hosted files.

Greetings, --Rosenkohl (talk) 14:42, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

At this point it's not clear the personal image filter will be implemented and even if it is, it's not clear exactly how categories will work and whether they will even be related to those on Commons. That is the largest issue for Commons as we might need to set up an edit filter to prevent anonymous users from changing or adding categories. – Adrignola talk 16:44, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

FULLURL

(also the variable filepath:) Is not working any more like in wikipedia, the http(s): is missing //commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Village_pump/Archive/2011/09 so some templates not working any more. Is this a bug or a new feature? -- πϵρήλιο ℗ 14:45, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

It is related to the activation of protocol-relative URLs. Which template does not work? -- RE rillke questions? 15:02, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Oh, {{InvalidSVG}} / {{ValidSVG}}(<- en:, de: fixed?) as other mentioned. -- πϵρήλιο ℗ 15:07, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

If you prepend http: the link will become invalid for secure.wikimedia.org - users. -- RE rillke questions? 18:27, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

It's providing a link to the w3.org servers for them to fetch the SVG to test. Why would that need to be https? Or does the fullurl magic word work differently if users come through secure.wikimedia.org? Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:30, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Of course w3.org does not need a digitally signed file. If you are using secure.wikimedia.org, wgServer is https://secure.wikimedia.org instead of //commons.wikimedia.org . Fullurl behaves equally. -- RE rillke questions? 18:42, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Gotcha. And indeed, that does break things. Need a better fix. Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:15, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Actually, using the filepath magic word seems to always use the protocol-relative path, even when coming through secure.wikimedia.org, so changing to that (with the hardcoded http: prefix) seems to fix things. Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:51, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

• http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/07/19/protocol-relative-urls-enabled-on-test-wikipedia-org/ -- πϵρήλιο ℗ 23:37, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Text on Uploaded Images

I just uploaded two images, File:Texas Navy Sword Guard.svg and File:Texas Navy Uniform Button.svg. Neither one has the text showing up and I used Courier New as the font. Is there still a delay in text showing up on newly uploaded images, or do I need to do something else?--Glasshouse (talk) 05:15, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

This is a rendering bug. If you need it urgently, a quick fix is to save it as png, and upload that. The Inkscape experts will tell you what you need to do to get the svg to work. You could look at convert-to-path before you save- but I forget what can of worms that opens. --ClemRutter (talk) 08:53, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

So is it still just a delay, or do I need to take another action?--Glasshouse (talk) 08:57, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Courier New is not supported. Please use Courier or one of the other SVG fonts that are allowed by the renderer. – Adrignola talk 16:47, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

I doubt this problem will fix itself. There was nothing wrong with the SVG you uploaded: the actual file displays fine in Firefox 6.0.2 , Opera 11.51 and Inkscape 0.47; I believe the problem is a long standing one with wikimedia server software and I have seen no evidence of progress in a solution (see also Commons:Graphics_village_pump#Throw away rsvn... please :)). The problem might be related to incomplete font support, see Help:SVG#Fonts and Help:SVG#My text is appearing as little blocks, or isn't showing up at all after uploading to Commons!. So, to appear properly here you will need to either try the various suggestions there, upload as a PNG, or get help from the experts at the Commons:Graphics village pump. -84user (talk) 17:05, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

It's not supported for a reason. Courier New is not a free font, so its use is not really compatible with the mission of Commons, a _free_ educational media repository. Anyway there is a little reason to use it, it's easily replaceable with DejaVu Sans Mono, Liberation Mono or Nimbus Mono L. Trycatch (talk) 17:58, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes I understand that. (I posted the above before seeing Adrignola's reply). I am no expert but I just uploaded versions using Courier and Liberation Serif Bold, and wikimedia renders neither of those fonts: File:Texas Navy Sword Guard courier test.svg and File:Texas Navy Sword Guard Liberation Serif bold 13 test.svg. Although my Inkscape supports Liberation fonts (which appear to kern differently to Courier New) it does not support Courier so I had to hand-edit that version. I picked serif because the original appeared serif to me. I may not have hand-edited the courier version correctly, although Opera renders it fine, Firefox does not. Both browsers do not produce a consistent rendering of the text spacing when zoomed, regardless of font used. -84user (talk) 18:09, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the help, guys. I converted the text to bitmap and re-uploaded the images. Can we delete the two test images, File:Texas Navy Sword Guard courier test.svg and File:Texas Navy Sword Guard Liberation Serif bold 13 test.svg?--Glasshouse (talk) 23:15, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Converting text to rasters (bitmap) in an otherwise-vector SVG file is really not an ideal solution -- much better to convert to text from being in a font to vector paths... AnonMoos (talk) 10:13, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Full url internal wikilinks

Does in your opinion the internal links with an "external link syntax" (example1 example2 example3) should be corrected? Is there a policy about it? -- Basilicofresco (msg) 21:41, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

• I don't think there is a formal policy but, yes, they generally should be fixed to use the internal syntax unless they are part of a string intended to be copied outside of WMF projects. - 01:33, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

I see. Are there specific templates / pages / fields that a bot should avoid? -- Basilicofresco (msg) 05:29, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I would suggest omitting user pages. If you look at "User:Jacklee/templates", I've got templates containing URLs that I copy to make comments at Flickr. Also, we have some guideline and policy pages that contain URLs such as "Commons:Email templates". I don't know if there are any others. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 07:04, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Limit any changes to the main namespaces (File:, Gallery:, Category:) and you should be OK. Beyond that, you may run into examples like Jacklee's where it's done deliberately and should be left. However, I'm not sure how important it is to change these; I think MediaWiki is or will soon treat these URLs the same as "fullurl" (so that it will respect secure server preferences). Rd232 (talk) 12:02, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Is there a way to specify a specific revision with a normal wikilink? I often see URLs used in order to show specific revisions, and not just the current version (some pages get archived in ways which make it hard to have a link which will stay good). The three examples at the top all have revisions on them. Carl Lindberg (talk) 23:05, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

You have to use fullurl. See the third example at en:Wikipedia:Please use fullurl. Rd232 (talk) 09:46, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

September 20

Multilingual templates with words passed as parameters

This is about the parameter subject in Template:Unidentified header : as it is done today, it cannot work for multiple languages. Worse, in some languages (eg French), other parts of the text need to change according to the word passed in the parameter. Is there a "standard" way to deal with this situation? Any other example where it has been solved? Thanks for your ideas. --Aʁsenjyʁdəgaljɔm¹¹⁶⁷¹ 14:07, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

• Do you mean stuff like indicating male/female/neutral gender, singular/plural? NVO (talk) 14:49, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

  Yes. But the first thing is how to manage the word itself in multiple language: create a parameter per language, and edit the more than 2000 categories using it? --Aʁsenjyʁdəgaljɔm¹¹⁶⁷¹ 15:02, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

{{Authority control}}

Some of you probably have noticed addition of {{Authority control}} to many subcategories of Category:People by name and some creator templates. {{Authority control}} template is very similar to de:Vorlage:Normdaten template on German Wikipedia and en:template:Authority control on English Wikipedia. It is a mechanism to add metadata to biographical pages which provide links to catalogs of some major libraries (US Library of Congress and German National Library) and online catalogs with links to even more libraries. German Wikipedia has over 171,000 of those templates, English wiki about 1,700, and Commons has about 21,000 categories with authority control templates. I think those templates have a lot of potential:

1. They link articles and categories to library catalogs and additional information about people
2. They help with disambiguation problem
3. They allow some library catalogs (like German National Library) to link back to Wikipedia articles
4. I think this might help in future mass uploads to help find correct categories on Commons or articles on Wikipedias, since name is not always the best way to find someone. Lately I was trying to match couple thousand painters from WGA with categories on Commons and there seem to be no easy way to do it.

--Jarekt (talk) 20:41, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

However, the wording "Authority control" sounds somewhat frigthening, like "big brother is watching you" ;-). --Túrelio (talk) 20:48, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree Anything with words "Authority" and "Control" does have bad connotations. Unfortunately en:Authority control is the universal term for this type of ID's. We will have to blame English language librarians for this creation. --Jarekt (talk) 20:58, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

My first reaction to "Authority control" was "it's the copyright holder! Delete all!". Question: why would commons follow English language librarians or any other corporate standard? Reference database or plain References, perhaps? NVO (talk) 08:35, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Jfafasf jaicladfca jaacajidfa idalcajl iaaiwiw.

Or should I follow the "corporate" standard of English? Just in case someone wanted to understand me? And since when has the community norms of English language librarians been a corporate standard?

These are not references. These are not a database. They are indexes into certain standardized databases. Anyone who actually wanted to use them would know them by the name authority control. Instead of making up our own words, we should use the ones the English language already has.--Prosfilaes (talk) 09:37, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

You missed the point, perhaps too busy punching gibberisch. Authority control(s) are maintained by librarians. Here they are used, most of the time, for referencing graphic art. With all due respect, the corporation of library clerks is not the authority on art. When they take on art they produce gems like this card, telling the world that Thomas Gainsborough was "involved in" <only> ten publications issued two hundred years after his death. The British Museum, with its 627 pages on Gainsborough, would make a better reference, would it not? NVO (talk) 22:39, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

I do not expect every database to contain links to all related works, just the works in their possession. Library databases might be more appropriate for "authors", other catalogs might be better for other artists, like en:Union List of Artist Names or catalog of British Museum. Than those should be added. --Jarekt (talk) 14:30, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

This is great - I added my first one today. I'd like to see an explanatory sentence for general readers in the template above the links - perhaps something like "Find more information on this subject in external sources:" To someone who doesn't have a clue what Authority Control is all about, the entire template just looks like a bunch of code, and I doubt general readers will click on the Authority Control link to find out. - PKM (talk) 23:54, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

That's very obscure and apparently biassed, why are there five out of eight sources all linking to d-nb.info/gnd/? As a German user who knows OCLC but never heard of GKD I'm slightly disgusted. I also wouldn't like to see those impenetrable codes in good wikipedia articles — for commons media it's okay, that's anyway mostly meta data. –Be..anyone (talk) 10:22, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree it is biased, since links to German National Library dominate the template. I think it is because Germans pioneered this field and they had to work closely with German National Library since that library added to its catalogs links back to German Wikipedia. I did not want to remove any fields, so no data copied from German wikipedia is lost, I also swapped order of the links so the German National Library links are not the first one. Some links like GKD are rarely used since they are related to Corporation databases instead of people databases. It might make sense to move them to a separate template, similar to {{Book authority control}} template which handles authority control data related to book titles. That way the main {{Authority control}} for people would only have a single link to German library. We can also add links to other catalogs, for example NARA (which for some bizarre reason uses different catalog than Library of Congress). Your last comment that you "wouldn't like to see those impenetrable codes in good wikipedia articles" Is at odds with at least German wikipedia thinking - they added those "impenetrable codes" to 171,000 biographical articles. --Jarekt (talk) 14:01, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

The so far three biographical articles I care about are on en:w:, I guess I could accept these codes in references or external links sections, or at the very end together with categories and interwikis. On commons anything that is not "legalese" would be refreshing, but "authority control" sounds ominous. How about "external registry" or similar? –Be..anyone (talk) 09:10, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

It's plain amazing, thanks for your work! Good step for Commons in the right direction -- from messy flickr-for-Wikipedia to a more serious media archive. Lack of semantic tags/links as these is a long time problem for Commons. Trycatch (talk) 10:44, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

I think this is good but could use more explanation; it's a bit cryptic otherwise. Make the template two lines, with the first line giving a 1-sentence explanation of what the template is for. Rd232 (talk) 12:09, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Please see related proposal at Template_talk:Authority_control#Add_explanation. Rd232 (talk) 10:00, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Category question

I find the existing version of this subcat system rather problematic since it causes some nonsense intersections (for example, this path: 2011 in Russia → People of Russia in 2011 → Dmitry Medvedev in 2011 → Dmitry Medvedev in June 2011 → Dmitry Medvedev in Italy, June 2011 ← 2011 in Italy somewhat concludes "Russia=Italy"). Maybe it would make sense to apart categories of people by country (which refer primarily to the person, regardless where the image was taken) from the categories of their country (which actually should refer to the location, I would say?) to avoid such effects, or are there any other ideas? - A.Savin 19:15, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

I must admit I don't understand the confusion. The first tree indicates photos of Medvedev in 2011, and the other tree indicates photos taken in Italy in 2011. How does that transmute into Russia equalling Italy? Does Category:Barack Obama in Ireland, May 2011 speak of the United States equalling Ireland? — Huntster (t @ c) 21:54, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

The category in your example is a subcat of "May 2011 in Ireland", but also (via 3 superior categories) a subcat of "2011 in the United States". But, for instance, this photograph is taken in Ireland and not in the U.S.. There are lots of same examples of wrong categorization in the same way. - A.Savin 22:12, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

I think that is OK. Dmitry Medvedev trip to Italy is related to 2011 Russian history and 2011 Italian history. --Jarekt (talk) 02:37, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

I actually thought that this was one of my (yet again) more ingenious categorisation schemes. As Jarekt mentions, the trip to Italy in June 2011 is related to both Russian and Italian history, and hence I think the categorisation tree is perfectly done. So much so, I see that people have taken my categorisation scheme and transplanted it across to Barack Obama. Sorry Barack guys, Russia wins this round. ;) russavia (talk) 21:14, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Copyvio uploader

Hello!

Can someone help me with User:Ricky20112? He had uploaded much photos of copyvios or with no good source informations! Thanks! ---A.Ceta (talk) 12:10, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Blocked by Wknight94. Ordinary users can't do much about persistent copyright violators, so please post block requests on Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/Blocks and protections in the future. Thanks, —LX (talk, contribs) 09:01, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks for helping! --A.Ceta (talk) 09:53, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Templates:(No)FoP-country

I am currently updating Commons:Liberté de panorama (in French, but the question is also for English version), and I decided, doing that, that a template should exist for each country. Do you see any problem if I create all templates such as {{FoP-Algeria}} and {{NoFoP-Belgium}} (with {{FoP-Belgium}} as a redirect) for each country listed in COM:FOP ? --Aʁsenjyʁdəgaljɔm¹¹⁶⁷¹ 17:20, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

This sounds like a "mammoth-task". But, indeed, I appreciate having those templates. They should contain a link back to COM:FoP or the appropriate language. -- RE rillke questions? 17:42, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

"mammoth-task" : I can do it, but only if there is no "against" here, because I don't want to waste my time (this is the reason of this message). --Aʁsenjyʁdəgaljɔm¹¹⁶⁷¹ 18:25, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

This is indeed a good idea, considering particularly that the details of Panoramafreiheit tend to vary subtly between nations. The brunt of the work however will be updating existing images to use the new tags - I did this for {{FOP-Australia}} a while back and it was a big pain. Dcoetzee (talk) 20:46, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

September 21

The category "Electrically-powered transport" and many of its subcategories should lose the hyphen

Per WP:HYPHEN in the English Wikipedia [6], sub-subsection 3, point 4, there should be no hyphen in "electrically-powered". This seems uncontroversial to me, but there are many files and categories involved, so I thought it would be good to find out if this is disputable, and if not, what is involved. I am able to use AutoWikiBrowser on the en.wikipedia, but it might be better for an existing AWB user on Commons to get involved. What next? Chris the speller (talk) 04:10, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

• Chris, I suggest you familiarize yourself with User:CommonsDelinker/commands and (if you are not an admin here) User talk:CommonsDelinker/commands. - Jmabel ! talk 00:24, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks much. It looks like this is just what I needed to get started. I'm not an admin anywhere, so I put them on the talk page. Chris the speller (talk) 02:25, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

File:Ditched helicopter.jpg

Hello!!

Of which heli type is this one on this picture? File:Ditched helicopter.jpg --A.Ceta (talk) 10:00, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Looks like a Westland Sea King. /Esquilo (talk) 10:39, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

It's a Sikorsky S-61N. The Sea King is the military variant of the S-61 - this of course is the civil S-61 shown. russavia (talk) 10:56, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

My mistake, I assumed it was a Westland because it was a british helicopter. /Esquilo (talk) 10:43, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

With aircraft, you can often identify them by doing a Google search on the tail number (in this case, "G-ASNL"), or by searching on the website of the relevant country's registrar. (Incidentally, everything you might want to know about the circumstances of that picture.) --Carnildo (talk) 22:30, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Automated identification

I'd like to get people to talk about this. I have created sections for different tasks discussion can be conducted in. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 14:57, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand what it is you want to discuss. -mattbuck (Talk) 15:18, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

You are going to implement something of this? It would be nice. However, automated copyvio search is hard to implement, because of lack of Internet search engines allowing automated queries for free. Trycatch (talk) 15:48, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

I have some ideas for identifying copyvio images without the use of search based on features and machine learning. However I have no time to implement this. :-( Dcoetzee (talk) 19:18, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Me? Not really. This is hardly my expertise but at CLEF 2011 I meet ImageCLEF people whom specialize in such tasks. I am thinking of writing a one-paged document for them to review and perhaps have a competition over. I do not know if the foundation would be interesting in offering some level of prize money. The group already uses commons images to identify objects pretty accurately. For instance they have a lab for identifying plants based on leaf features. We have a massive database of deleted images and if we were to release it to ImageCLEF people, they can use that as a training set to identify similar uploads. This could also offer a solution to the ImageFilter/Censor thing. Feel free to write down ideas in the below subsections, I will be able to deal with the issues more this weekend. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 21:51, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

It would probably be better to have this discussion at COM:VPR, and to formulate a clearer proposal to kick off a discussion. Otherwise it's bit "yeah would be nice... go do it!". Rd232 (talk) 11:50, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

NOAA work or not a NOAA work?

Hello!

I came across two drawings on FishBase.org 1, 2, related to Sebastes goodei, a species of which there are no wiki-usable images on Commons, Googleing does not lead to any such freely licensed image. But on Fishbase, there is a reference to the NOAA. On the other hand, said reference really looks like the title of a scientific paper. So, are those drawings a NOAA work that is PD per {{PD-USGov-NOAA}} or are they not PD? Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 23:58, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

The original reports are located here; they do appear to be actually authored by the National Marine Fisheries Service (part of the NOAA), and not just authored under an NOAA grant (which would be different). And yes, the contents of the report you are referencing (number 80, from 1989) does explicitly say the contents are not copyrighted and can be reprinted in their entirety (but reference is appreciated). The illustration is on page 277, though does give a source for that one as "Moser et at 1977". The page with the full citation is missing unfortunately... ah, found in another publication that it refers to Moser, H.G., E.H. Ahlstrom , and E.M. Sandknop. 1977. Guide to the identification of scorpionfish larvae in the eastern Pacific with comparative notes on species of Sebastes and Helicolenus from other oceans. NOAA Tech. Rep. NMFS Circ. 402. H. Geoffrey Moser is listed as an NMFS employee. So yes, I'd say this is PD-USGov-NOAA. The PDFs on the site I mentioned appear to be page scans; the low-res is a 23MB download and the high-resolution is 232MB. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:44, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

September 22

Category not showing

The gallery page Metasequoia glyptostroboides is placed in Category:Metasequoia glyptostroboides, but the category doesn't show at the end of the page, and the page isn't showing in the category. Can anyone work out what's wrong? - MPF (talk) 16:01, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Missing a closing gallery tag. -- Queeg (talk) 16:04, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! - MPF (talk) 16:04, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

September 23

Make watchlist-message hideable

Please add a hide mechanism to the message that appears at the top of Special:Watchlist. This edit to monobook.css works for me, but I could not find a way to do it for the general user in Preferences. -84user (talk) 13:53, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Watchlist-details already has code in place to allow for the dismissal of messages that the user has seen previously. As with the watchlist notice, there's also no means of easily hiding the site notice without adding CSS to your profile. This is intentional. Both of these locations are where key information will be appearing that is relevant to the site. You will miss out on such information by disabling either. – Adrignola talk 20:08, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

I made, and then withdrew, an {{Edit protected}} request at MediaWiki talk:Watchlist-details#Add dismiss link to add a dismiss link because I could not find a non-CSS way of doing this in the code. I see the numbered cookie used but somehow that is not working for me in Commons, Opera 11.51, Monobook skin.-84user (talk) 12:33, 23 September 2011 (UTC) the "dismiss" link was not appearing for me because I had recently disabled Javascript for commons, which I did because a certain page was endlessly reloading. The dismiss link requires Javascript. -84user (talk) 12:58, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

babel-extension-live-on-the-wmf-projects

I have seen that Babel extension is live on the WMF projects. That is good news but I would expect to see this rather than that. Is this a bug in the extension or has it anything to do with Commons ? --Zolo (talk) 15:38, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

I redirected the non-existing category, but other than that both examples look the same to me. Shall we rewrite {{Babel}} to use this new extension? --Jarekt (talk) 16:25, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

I guess {{Babel}} uses much more fancy options so it might be hard to switch. --Jarekt (talk) 16:32, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Is it me? Or the messages "Babel user information" & "Users by language" are not translated in the user language, even though it has existed for years in TranslateWiki? Oh the irony. Jean-Fred (talk) 16:50, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

The first line just did not work, it looked like <b>{{language|fr}}</b> (and languages languages with level = 2 used to be yellow and are now purple). I guessed something has been fixed in the meanwhile. Maybe something will be done for translations too...--Zolo (talk) 20:08, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

The header and footer can be customized through MediaWiki:babel and MediaWiki:Babel-footer. Footer link through MediaWiki:babel-footer-url . I've created the last. See mw:Extension:Babel#Configuration. I should note that Template:Babel is not translated either... – Adrignola talk 21:36, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Headers and footers are translated at TranslateWiki (at least in French), but somehow they do not appear here, eg in MediaWiki:Babel-footer/fr. & {{Babel}} is translated, see Special:PrefixIndex/Template:Babel/header & Special:PrefixIndex/Template:Babel/footer. Jean-Fred (talk) 21:58, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

As mentioned here we probably shouldn't just rewrite {{Babel}} because of it's custom options that we have on Commons (some other wikis have those options as well but they're different everywhere). Instead we should semi-automatically replace usage where it is possible and the cases that we are left with (ie. custom user page with special colors and alignment) can simply use these templates instead. What we should do no matter what is remove the translations from commons and use {{int:}} where possible so that custom user page at least do do benefit from the latest translation efforts. –Krinkle^talk 16:53, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

 Done. – Adrignola talk 20:19, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Procedure to obtain campaign editor status

Hi. I would like to propose that we create a procedure for obtaining campaign editor status. This is useful for organizers of special upload events, like WLM has been this year. Right now, only administrators can edit the campaigns. I was thinking a procedure like the one to obtain Flickr reviewer status would do.

Of course, this will also mean that we have to decide who can actually give this right: bureaucrats, sysops etc.--Strainu (talk) 11:23, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

• Me too me too! Just let everyone (who wants it) configure their own uploader and solve half of complaints - non-standard license templates, correct parsing of categories and language templates, insulting name etc., etc. If the bosses cannot make it work, perhaps the common peasants can? NVO (talk) 14:25, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
• Is this actually needed by non-admins? These events are few and far between, and adding another group to the list seems... unneeded. (I know that the group already exists, but I refer to the assigning of it to non-admins) Ajraddatz (talk) 23:06, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Ajraddatz: Yes, this might prove very useful. The way things worked this year was: each country asked for access on commons.prototype, made their upload wizard campaign, then asked a commons admin to port it to the "live" commons. This meant that on the 31st August, some admins were really busy with that. But advantages go beyond events. Upload Campaigns allow better categorization of images with little effort. Each wikipedia could configure it's own wizards without having to ask an admin who might or might not speak that language and may make mistakes when using the Campaign form (there is no auto-complete, hotcat or anything of the kind, you just have to type everything by hand).--Strainu (talk) 07:45, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

In that case, sounds good. Ajraddatz (talk) 15:15, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Flickr Photo Stream of Israeli Army now CC BY 2.0

The flickr photo stream of the Israeli Army is now licensed as CC-BY 2.0 (see here). Should we do a mass import? Amada44  ^{talk to me} 13:52, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

• I would think so. I can't see any reason why not. We may want one of those templates that indicates that captioning from the original may be biased, much as we do with images from the German Bundesarchiv (see {{BArch-biased/en}}), though I notice we don't do an equivalent with images from the US military. - Jmabel ! talk 15:11, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Please add a request at Commons:Flickr batch uploading. Multichill (talk) 20:43, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
• Please note that someone (I encountered it while patrolling new files but can't remember the name) already uploaded a fair amount of images from Israeli Army from Flickr. -- RE rillke questions? 10:19, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

per nom?

I seem to be encountering a lot more individuals participating in deletion discussion whose response is literally, or essentially "per nom". It really bugs me, in general, as I think our participation in these discussions should indicate that we really understand the issues being discussed. It particularly bugs me when it seems to me the original nomination was counter-policy, or has been effectively rebutted. It particularly bugs me when the participants' contribution history suggests a very limited command of English. I just took a brief look, and didn't see any specific guidance to administrators as to whether to ignore "per nom" responses in deletion discussions. So, do administrators ignore "per nom" arguments? Should administrators ignore "per nom" arguments? Geo Swan (talk) 02:41, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

enwiki has en:Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions#Per_nominator which I shall quote:

"It is important to keep in mind that the AfD process is designed to solicit discussion, not votes. Comments adding nothing but a statement of support to a prior comment add little to the discussion. Participants are always encouraged to provide evidence or arguments that are grounded in policy and practice to support their positions.

If the rationale provided in the nomination includes a comprehensive argument, specific policy references and/or a compelling presentation of evidence in favour of keeping or deletion, a simple endorsement of the nominator's argument may be sufficient, typically indicated by "per nom".

Where reasonable counter-arguments to the nomination have been raised in the discussion, you may wish to explain how you justify your support in your own words and, where possible, marshalling your own evidence. Stating your true position in your own words will also assure others that you are not hiding a WP:IDONTLIKEIT position."

As noted above, sometimes this is okay, if another user made the case well and there aren't counterarguments to rebut. If you think this is happening too often perhaps we should have our own version of Arguments to avoid? Dcoetzee (talk) 03:18, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

While Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid is often cited as if it were an official wikipedia policy, it is an essay. I was hoping there was something in the commons policies or guidelines that explicitly authorized administrators to ignore "me too" arguments, or explicitly warned participants that their "me too" arguments would be ignored. Maybe adding "me too" arguments is human nature, still, I would prefer if those wishing to leave a "me too" ekther left a unique comment that showed the actually understood the issues at question, or skipped participating in the discussion altogether. Geo Swan (talk) 06:39, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Most deletions are primarily based on the copyright situation explained in the deletion request and summarized by the closing admin. It doesn't actually matter if 1 or several participants explain that situation. --  Docu  at 06:44, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Maybe those 'per nom' comments is just a way to attract admin's attention - 'hey, we've got a clear case here, maybe it can be closed now'. Yes it is true that it is not helping in terms of constructive discussion, and no admins seem to be closing any DR based on a vote count, but nevertheless, removing it seems not necessary.--Ben.MQ (talk) 08:07, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Judging consensus can be tricky, in theory you are free to ignore 100 +1 and declare consensus in favour of one -1. OTOH those 100 +1 took the time to read and understand a request, and if they have no new arguments it is okay if they post their summary per nom or per whatever they agree with. You are not expected to count this as votes, but that doesn't mean that you are forced to ignore it. –Be..anyone (talk) 08:38, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Some commons admin has been leaving comments on my talk page already [7] about how I voted "Per nom" on a single request for deletion yesterday. I don't vote on a lot of these, in fact this was the second request for deletion I ever voted on commons. I am more use to en.wp than commons, but I can't seem to understand the rationale behind correcting me in this case, I read the nominators reason - I agreed with them, would it be better if I copy-pasted his rationale again? I think there needs to be a line drawn when random users overuse "Per nom" as a justification, but it is in now way grounds to discount or ignore the vote just because some people think there wasn't enough effort put into giving a reason. I am speaking from cross-wiki policy on several wikis, voting "Per nom" alone is not grounds for discounting a vote. If someone has a problem with it than please establish local policy first before you enforce this rule on a whim. Theo10011 (talk) 09:49, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

It's not a vote, it's a discussion. Saying "per nom", or "I agree", or even copy-pasting the original nomination statement, doesn't bring any new arguments in the discussion. Jafeluv (talk) 10:22, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

It was never intended to bring any new argument, I agreed with the rationale of the nominator. Tell me how I should express it please? and if possible tell me the policy on commons which is grounds for removal of my vote? You interpretation of the policy differs from mine, and it can differ from several people, unless there is an expressively written policy against voting "per nom" how can you enforce it on whim? Am I not allowed to agree with nominator now, does a new argument have to be entered in order for my voice to be counted? All the while another vote by another user remains on the exact same page as "As per nominator"[8] while mine was reverted by an admin User:Leyo for saying "per nom" [9].Theo10011 (talk) 10:28, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

I think you're free to express it any way you like (see also my comment here). However, if your comment does not add anything to the discussion it is unlikely to have any effect on the outcome of the DR. Jafeluv (talk) 11:26, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

As for the nominator's rationale, it is a picture which already has a better angle available, how do I provide another point of view on something so apparent? This is not some text that could be interpreted a dozen way, there is a picture, and there is another one with a better angle on commons, how can I debate that? It is a logical argument. Commons of all places should understand this, there is no easy way to dispute outlooks and rationale on pictures, some things are far too apparent to be debated or looked at differently. They can disagree with someone's outlook but not the picture itself, it can be interpreted one way, what rules or policies apply is again a personal issue. Theo10011 (talk) 10:48, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Let us move away from the specific case to the more general. While I accept "per nom" is a valid response to an uncontested deletion, if someone disagrees (and gives a reason why), it should be on the heads of later respondents to refute that reason and say why they believe the original argument is more valid. "Per nom" in this case is akin to the following case:

1. I think this because X
2. I disagree because of Y
3. No. 1 is right.

Here, the third respondent has added nothing to the discussion except to move it from discussion to who can shout loudest. I happily accept if people disagree with my interpretation of various policies, but you have to actually explain yourself otherwise you are not being helpful, and frankly may as well not have contributed. Just saying "no" to new arguments is incredibly unhelpful. -mattbuck (Talk) 11:54, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

I see no problem with "per nom", and I agree with mattbuck. The nominations for DRs are often well and plainly stated, and there is no benefit to forcing concurring editors to paraphrase the grounds for nomination, rather than simply stating their agreement. When I close DRs, I appreciate seeing that other editors have also reviewed the nomination and agree. If the grounds for the nomination are challenged, and someone subsequently adds "per nom" (seemingly as if they have no even bothered to read all the comments), I tend to ignore their comment as they have obviously not bothered to explain themselves sufficiently in those circumstances. I'm puzzled why people see this (in the general sense) as a problem. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 12:48, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Skeezix1000. :-) — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 13:55, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

My point exactly Skeezix100. I completely agree.(Per nom.) Theo10011 (talk) 14:40, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

I was just informed that when I simply agree to something that is being voted upon and cast my opinion/vote with the same simplicity -- that this opinion does not get counted. I just scanned this for more than just discussion of photographs of body parts and portions and even the actually quite rude (if you think about it) "wiki-speak" of "per nom".... Does a person have to loquaciously agree with a nomination for it to count? (for real?) -- Queeg (talk) 14:53, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Seems to be what they are arguing for. You are apparently, not allowed to simply agree with someone. You have to be different, you have to articulate your own reasoning for agreeing even if someone did a much better job at conveying it. Simply agreeing would not count if this rule is applied, you would have to debate to be heard, apparently. Theo10011 (talk) 14:58, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Not saying that at all, if no one is taking a {{Vk}} view then "per nom" is fine. However, if people are arguing against the nomination, you really do need to provide arguments as to why those who want to keep are wrong. -mattbuck (Talk) 15:16, 21 September 2011 (UTC) Edit: I do not expect people to go back and alter their comments if people vk after they per non. -mattbuck (Talk) 15:56, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

While you're reading this, would you mind commenting here [10] since that admin has been quoting you in all his reasoning already with me, as if it is some established policy. Theo10011 (talk) 15:30, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Sure. -mattbuck (Talk) 15:56, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

@Queeg: There is no count, if you have no new argument all you can do is document the fact that you spent a considerable amount of time to grok what the request is about, and what others before you said. Only if you think that this might help the closing admin, otherwise it would be a (harmless) waste of everybody's time. –Be..anyone (talk) 11:29, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

• What's wrong with !voting per the nominator? If the nomination statement says everything that you want to, then why not? When the admin who is reviewing the deletion request sees a few people supporting per nomination, I assume that the person would gather that those people must share the opinion of the nominator, and assume that the nominator's argument has some weight to it. If someone else has stated exactly what you were going to, why duplicate it when a simple "per nom" works just as well? Ajraddatz (talk) 23:12, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

The crux of the matter

Let us get down to what this is really about - sexual images. The images being nominated for deletion and the per noms we are complaining about are all sexual images. It is my personal opinion that the deletion requests are nothing more than masquerades for "I don't like it", and that they are trying to pervert policy to back their positions. It is similar in my mind to intelligent design and creationism - one is just a masquerade for the other, trying to pretend to be science. Not so long ago we had Jimbo Wales come and arbitrarily delete nude images - for this we had him stripped of admin rights on this project, and we chastised those who had gone along with his pogrom. Since then we have been fighting periodic waves of deletions against various nude images, generally penises, on varying grounds. We've had people who just said "out of scope", then we had people saying "we don't have permission", now we have people saying "this image is better". I note that it is the same people who come out each time to call for its deletion, some of them so inclined towards deletion that they {{Vd}} via sockpuppets. I'm fed up of it. Time and again those of us defending the images put up the same arguments as to why they shouldn't be deleted - human sexuality is within scope, we aren't required to only have one of everything, different angles help - and yet the nominators never seem to listen and just machine-gun DR and machine-gun {{Vd}}. I've seen 12MP well-lit in-focus images be deleted because they were "low quality". I'm sorry, but I call bullshit. It is clear to me that there are people on Commons with an agenda, and it's not to increase the availability of free media. -mattbuck (Talk) 11:54, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

I think that all this talk talk talk, chat chat chat about nudes and body parts is just a thinly disguised cover of the real problem here which is (and it should be obvious to anyone with eyes and a brain) Category:Unidentified Rosa cultivars -- today 754 total, probably tomorrow there might be 800+ of these things. And an Unidentified subcategory of Category:Purple roses.

How can you allow this to continue? -- Queeg (talk) 12:23, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

And where is this "real problem"? You didn't identify it. Trycatch (talk) 12:30, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

There would be more of a defense of the penis images if they contained such a variety of colors as the rose images do. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:35, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Here is a start on the rose cleanup. :) Ottava Rima (talk) 19:47, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, Mattbuck. Glad you've caught on to it. It's time to start blocks to prevent further disruption. – Adrignola talk 14:55, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Blocking because you disagree with their philosophy isn't suitable. If it was, there is the possibility that you, Mattbuck, et al could be blocked on the same grounds. Don't wish ill on another if that ill can easily come back to you. :) Ottava Rima (talk) 19:36, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Question: if deletion discussions are not supposed to be votes, why is the template called {{Vote delete}}? Rd232 (talk) 15:15, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

I think the point is they are not meant to be majority votes. -mattbuck (Talk) 15:19, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Forgive me for being dense; I submit this for clarification purposes only. I have for the last several days been hacking away at a category which was created in 2008 and filled with almost 2000 images which needed "human eyes" to categorize. When I encountered an image within that category/collection which had been nominated for deletion, I clicked through and almost always "agreed" and "simply agreed" with the nomination. My idea was that it assisted the process to know that another person had researched and/or thought about the usefulness or belongingness of that particular image to this collection.

After some sleep and after reading more closely these threads and the deletion process information, it seems that perhaps this agreement process I have been going through is not wanted? That my process should be to

1. click through to the discussion
2. look at the image
3. research
4. if I agree with the nomination, do nothing

? -- Queeg (talk) 20:07, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

No, your agreement is welcome. But if people are countering the arguments the nominator made, then it would be wise to reply to those in more detail rather than just saying "per nom". -mattbuck (Talk) 00:02, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Mattbuck: Bullshit is a perfectly acceptable role here. Some contribute, others tidy up contributions, and then there's a class of "editors" who just cry wolf (no more dicks! no more roses! duralex!). Some wikipedias actively prosecute these people, but Commons is different. Here, they are very well respected members of "the community" and I don't see any prospect for changes. Adrignola said that "it's time to block" - long overdue, but it doesn't work this way here. The "community" will, most likely, resist attempts to tighten up conduct policies. No way. Waste of time. Just let them enjoy their horseplay and make your decision (as a closing sysop) yourself. NVO (talk) 08:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

What per nom means

Per nom means "I agree with the nominator's statement". If someone says "this is clearly a copyvio based on ____ evidence", why is it necessary for people to say the same exact thing? It seems a bit redundant. Many people say "the nom is wrong", especially in the sexual image discussions. That doesn't mean that the statement is invalid. I think this is a little silly. :) If you don't like someone else's opinion, either try to convince them to change it or ignore them. Fighting like this wont help anything. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:49, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm seeing a lot of very weak nominations with no clear explanation of why someone thinks the image is OOS followed by equally weak and meaningless "per nom"s. By your rationale there would be nothing wrong with nominating a mass of random images every week for deletion just saying "OOS" and our community would take no action to stop it going on even though it would be blatantly disruptive. --Fæ (talk) 11:43, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Don't overestimate the burden of "disruption". Just disregard them (or play tricks with them if you'd like to). Commons is the last resort to editors banned from wikipedia (but still hooked on it), and I'd rather let them have the privilege. There aren't that many of them and the degree of nuisance is minimal. Yes, they piss off good-faith contributors who just happened to stand in the line of fire. But they cannot steer practice and policies to a different interpretation of OOS or of deletion protocol. Each case is still closed by a sysop, and only sysop's judgement matters. NVO (talk) 14:15, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

"Per nom"s live and die on the strength of the nomination. If the nomination itself is weak, vague and/or frivolous, then the "per nom"s carry little or no weight. There is no need to force people to elaborate when it is unnecessary simply because a small group of people mistakenly think adding "per nom" to a weak nomination has any effect. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 13:47, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Trying to find a page on Copyright laws

I am trying to find a page on here that lists national copyright laws, specifically for Singapore, but am not having much luck. Can somebody please help direct me to it? I know a list exists somewhere for licensing reasons, but can't remember how to find it. Fry1989 ^eh? 23:10, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Try Commons:Copyright#Singapore. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 03:43, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you! Fry1989 ^eh? 03:54, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

September 24

Talimhagh

This user seems to upload a lot of religious-themed images with Farsi captions which are based on unsourced stock photos or unattributed fantasy art. I'm not sure where to begin (don't feel like adding deletion nomination notices to the pages of a hundred separate images)... AnonMoos (talk) 15:25, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree that it is unlikely that any one person can take such great photos of climbers and wildlife, paint fantasy art and creates posters out of them. --Jarekt (talk) 22:22, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

 Done I filed Commons:Deletion requests/Files of User:Talimhagh. --Jarekt (talk) 02:12, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

September 25

Category:License migration needs review

Helle everyone. I have been working on Category:License migration candidates and Category:License migration needs review for a couple of years now and I would be very happy if the categories could finally be cleaned out. So if you have some time please work on a few images :-) from Category:License migration needs review (1,468 files). Thank you very much. --MGA73 (talk) 15:47, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Afghanistan copyrights law

File:UstadMohaqiq.jpg has been tagged for deletion, obviously copyrights issue but the image is from Afghanistan and the country has no copyrights law, click here for details. So any help? what should be done with this image? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hazara-Birar (talk • contribs) 21:08, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

I think this image can be handled on a different, simpler ground. Is there any evidence that it was first published in Afghanistan? If not, we can't assume that the law of that country applies. It is the responsibility of the uploader to provide sufficient evidence for others to determine that the image is properly licensed. If such evidence is lacking, then that would be an adequate reason for deleting the image. You uploaded the file, and it sounds like you didn't take the photograph yourself, so CC-BY-SA-3.0 is not the right licence. Where did you obtain the photograph from? If it is a photograph you just got from the Internet, in my view that would not be enough to show that the photograph was first published in Afghanistan. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 15:09, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Just like how works of US government employees outside of the US still have US copyright apply to them, it could very well be copyrighted by whoever had taken the photo which could very well be in New York for all we know. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 15:14, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

The immediate source appears to be this website; the photo was taken in 2007 (per EXIF) and put on that website in 2010 it would seem. There is no information on the previous source. The person was part of Karzai's government early on, but not for a while, and now it seems he is heading one of their political parties (or a splinter of one). That may have been his position in 2007; it's entirely possible that was a portrait done for a party website, and therefore first published in Afghanistan, but we probably need better information than we have now to show that. The way the Berne Convention works, we can only really claim PD-Afghanistan if the photo was taken by an Afghan national and first published in Afghanistan. Carl Lindberg (talk) 21:34, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

I have already been discussing this issue on wikipedia see here, There are many other images on commons which belong to Afghanistan somehow but still got the PD-Afghanistan tag on it though they were first published either in US or somewhere else in the world. If the commons policy say, the publication's location matters not the citizenship or country of the author then, for example this image, must be deleted. Because the News agency is an Afghan News agency but their server is based in US. (you can refer any Whois site). Hazara-Birar (talk) 12:32, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

I clearly need to catch up with US law in regard to publication, but being hosted on a server isn't necessarily the same thing as being published. Is there somewhere you can suggest that would clarify this under US law? The ramifications of this could be quite considerable if the location of the server is deemed to be the point of publication. - Bilby (talk) 13:02, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

The definition of "country of origin" is from the Berne Convention, Article 5, and it primarily uses country of first publication. If unpublished, or published in a non-Berne country like Afghanistan, then it will use nationality of the author (or in certain cases residence). I think the idea was to allow authors in non-Berne countries to, for example, use a publisher in a Berne country for a book they wrote, in order to get copyright protection on it even if there was none in their own country. The image you note does at least have a named Afghan author from an organization headquartered in Afghanistan. If the work was published from the United States... that may be an issue though. There was language proposed as part of the WIPO copyright treaty which would have made this a bit more explicit... though agreed to, I don't think it made it to the actual treaty. That basically said that the location where the essential arrangements to make it available to the public were made is the country of origin. It may still be possible for the act of publication to occur inside Afghanistan, but if that web server is the organization's only avenue to publish works, that may well be an issue. They certainly claim copyright protection, though that notice was not up until June 2011 according to its text. They do seem to offer a separate photo distribution though, and the only contact addresses / phone numbers are in Afghanistan... not sure, really. That may well count as "simultaneously published" (within 30 days) in both Afghanistan and the United States, so they may well be able to claim protection. If the image was from a photographer who was an independent contractor, and the transaction with the news agency happened in Afghanistan, that may alter things too since that may be the primary act of publication -- not sure. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:12, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

The question as to where an online document is published seems to be a complex one in law. In Australia, for example, publishing can be taken to occur at the the point where it is communicated to the reader. Other possibilities are the place at which it was uploaded from as well as the place it was uploaded to. I'd be grateful if anyone know where I can clarify the point of first publication under US law, because this will make it very difficult to determine the copyright of both text and images if it is to be assumed that we need to know of the location of the server, and I'm not sure that this issue is clear. - 21:31, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

U.S. law and the Berne Convention may be subtly different. The U.S. definition is at 17 U.S.C. 101; the simple act of offering to distribute to others would constitute publication by their definition, and they may be doing that in Afghanistan. The U.S. Copyright Office actually leaves it up to the owner if they consider it published by being on a website; they don't want to get into it since there is no guidance from Congress on the matter. But most realistic definitions -- and the Berne Convention would use those, I'd think -- would have stuff online like that as being published. The question is the location, really. The U.S. server probably would qualify that as being simultaneously published in the U.S. and Afghanistan, which would cause all Berne countries to grant them protection. Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

My question remains unanswered? Should My image be deleted or kept? see the first question of this section. Hazara-Birar (talk) 00:25, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

That makes things interesting. If the US would be likely to recognise the images as published at the point where it was distributed to others, and if Afghanistan is not a signatory to the Berne connection, can it therefore be assumed that photos taken in Afghanistan, by people under Afghanistan law, who upload the work to a US server from within Afghanistan with the intent of distributing to others, may get protection in Berne countries but the work would still be considered as PD in the country of origin and the US? Sorry for the specific question, but I'm finding this really interesting. - Bilby (talk) 00:35, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

As for this photograph in particular -- what is the original source? If we don't know where it was originally from, who took it, or at least where it was first published... it gets impossible to answer, and we will delete it as a precaution. Right now it's an unknown source, quite possibly Afghanistan, but possibly somewhere else. The only website it is on right now (that I found anyways) is almost certainly not the first source, and it has no provenance information. As for the more general issue, the U.S. *is* a Berne country themselves. If works are "simultaneously published" in Afghanistan and a Berne country -- which means published in both countries within 30 days of each other -- then the Berne country will be considered the country of origin and the works will be protected. For news photos being distributed like that, it probably would qualify, since they seem to be making specific arrangements to publish them via a U.S. source within that time frame. The 30 days part is in both the Berne Convention and also U.S. law (17 U.S.C. 104). I'm sure countries will not want to make it too easy for Afghan authors to secure copyright protection for themselves while not having any protection for works from other countries inside Afghanistan, but individual authors who go to extra lengths to publish elsewhere are a different matter -- that was the original intent. It really hasn't come up much, since by the time the Internet was widespread, most every country has been a signatory to the Berne Convention. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:17, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I'm not too worried about images - my concern is that I've noticed the use of text from Afghanistan sources being used on articles arguing that it is PD. If I understand this correctly, if that text was taken from a server based in the US (or other Berne signatory), and if it was uploaded to that server within 30 days of being published in Afghanistan, then that text is not PD. Thus before someone can claim the text/image as being PD, they first need to determine the locality of the server. That suggests that the bar is much higher for including online content from Afghanistan than previously assumed. I'm ok with that, but it will need an extra degree of vigilance on all projects. I find it interesting because law relating to libel has had a harder time working out where something was published for jurisdiction, hence the situation in Australia, but given the nature of the two laws that's probably not surprising. - Bilby (talk) 08:10, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

September 23

Movable to Commons or not?

Hi! I'd like to get any info if the following image of enwiki could be uploaded to Commons: en:File:Kennedy-Half-Dollar-Accented-Hair.jpg. Thanks in advance. - RepliCarter (talk) 09:45, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't see why not. We already have File:2005 Half Dollar Obv Unc P.png, and though the photographer is different, in this case the photographer has released his/her work under a free license. Powers (talk) 15:54, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Looks OK, since author put the work under free license. Ajraddatz (talk) 15:56, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. - RepliCarter (talk) 10:01, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Skrillex

I imagine this isn't the best place to report this, but somebody might want to have a look at recent activity on File:Skrillex at Sasquatch 2011.jpg. Some recent activity seems to relate to vandalism on w:en:Skrillex. 98.244.11.25 20:19, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Image editing semiprotected for a month. I can't do anything about the article. -mattbuck (Talk) 20:38, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Batch Uploading

Hi, does anyone have the ability/authority to batch upload a set of files? Adam Block from The Mount Lemmon SkyCenter has kindly agreed to release a large amount of his images with a CC BY-SA 3.0 license. He has done this specifically so they can be used on wiki projects. A .zip containing all of the released images can be found here (its called AdamBlockImages.zip) (update: the webpage is currently unavailable but can be returned on request). I would like to be able to upload them all into a category called 'Images from Caelum Observatory & The Mount Lemmon SkyCenter' or something in that vein. Many of them will be very useful and have high EV. A link to one of his galleries showing the relevant copyright statements can be found here. As there is 200+ files in the .zip file, uploading them all would be very tedious. I would be really grateful if anyone could assist me with this matter. Many thanks, Originalwana (talk) 10:55, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Are you referring to Commons:Batch uploading/Images from Caelum Observatory & The Mount Lemmon SkyCenter? --Leyo 11:14, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes I have also posted a batch uploading request there but I haven't got any response so far. Originalwana (talk) 14:38, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

The link to the zip is not working for me. Otherwise if you can upload by hand one image and assemble a spreadsheet with metadata (descriptions, categories, authors, dates, etc. ) for each image that is different from the the example, than I can quickly upload it. --Jarekt (talk) 14:11, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

I noticed today the author has taken down the link. I will ask him to re-instate it but I also have a copy of the .zip file which I can upload to commons if that is any use. Alternatively, my copy is here. Originalwana (talk) 14:38, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Change user name

My username- IANS2011 set some kind of red flag off before. It said something about "your account has been suspended because of violation of name policy". It said I had to change it, but for the life of me I can't figure out how to change it. I just keep going in circles in the help pages. Can someone tell me (in simple English) how I change it? Or send me a link to the page on which I can change it? Thank you!!!!

Commons:Changing username. -- Asclepias (talk) 15:14, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

uploading a file

Hi all,

Today i was uploading a OGG file to commons (300MB), but it still is uploading after 3 hours. I asked in the IRC channel, and they told me that the maximum was 100MB, and if i want to upload it, a shell user needs te help me with uploading the file. Anyone got an idea, how i can upload this file?

Thanks,

Kind regards, Mezelf14 (talk) 15:36, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

See Help:Server-side upload: you have to make the needed preparations, then file a request on bugzilla: and a shell user will do that for you. Jean-Fred (talk) 16:27, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Same name for multiple uploads

File:Kassari mõisa valitsejamaja.jpg#filehistory has three versions uploaded at the same time and history page doesn't mention new versions uploaded. So other image(s) that should have been separate uploads, are lost. Same things was reported earlier this month. Shouldn't upload wizard avoid such situation? 193.40.10.180 19:05, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

vocabulary of technical terms needed for categorys

I recently made a trip to the Givet - charleville-Mezieres railway. It is a old railway where points are served from a central ground frame. The transmission of the lever movement is very unusual. It is not transmitted with wires but with metal bars. I have uploaded a lot of pictures: see [11]. I see categorys for points and "Levers and drives for points", however no categorys for the transmission of movement/energy?. There where lots wire transmissions with wires but I can find no pictures in the commons about it. What is the correct name for this type of system? What are the names for individual parts like the 90 degree turns based on turning axe?

How should this type of system be metaclassified? Energy transmission system? We have electric transmission, High pressure air transmission, hydraulic transmission, moving belt transmission used in old factorys. Moving wire tramsmission and what about the brake in bicycles? I make the distinction between energie and signal transmission. The signal transmission is when local power is used and energy transmission is when al energy needed for the action is transmitted centraly. Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:20, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

On things like this, I often find it useful to turn for help to an appropriate WikiProject on the English-language Wikipedia. - Jmabel ! talk 17:04, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Category:Transport by motive power exists here, but within that, nothing that you have described. The "wire" transmission you compared your photographic experience with corresponds to Category:Cable transport here. I might have classified this as cable transport here because I think that the difference is that cable is enclosed and on the ground and I am uncertain that there is a distinction between lofty/lofted cables in the way that the simply titled "Cable transport" is here. -- Queeg (talk) 19:19, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

I have created the category "Rod transmissions for points". We can later add it to a metacategory outside the railway categorys. Maybe a more general "Rod transmissions". There are also wire transmissions, enclosed (bicycle brake) and not enclosed. Smiley.toerist (talk) 08:50, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

I connected the subject with metacategorys: Mechanics --> Mechanical control transmission --> Rod transmissions for points. Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:15, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Emailpagetext

What about extending the text similar to en:MediaWiki:Emailpagetext? --Leyo 22:51, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Creation of any MediaWiki page causes it to lose any translations at translatewiki. As this is a multilingual project, that's not desired. – Adrignola talk 17:18, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

AFAIK this is not true. See Special:ListFiles and MediaWiki:Listfiles-summary. If I change my settings to en, it shows the local message and when changing to de, it shows the former german message from Translatewiki.net . (Update from Translatewiki.net seems to take months.) You can create local translations, adding "/langcode" to the MW-Messages. Examples are the gadget-description-translations. -- RE rillke questions? 17:45, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

I was bold and created the page. You can prove now, who was right. ;-) --Leyo 11:40, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

September 26

University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire image

Hi there. Earlier today the seal of the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire was uploaded as public domain, and the image now appears in the article infobox. It is not public domain; copyright is held by the university. The vector image that previously appeared in the infobox was uploaded correctly as a copyrighted image, with rationale for its fair use in the article. Can someone intervene to be sure that the art bears the correct license? Thanks — WFinch (talk) 20:00, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

I added No-Permission template. --Jarekt (talk) 20:12, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. — WFinch (talk) 20:39, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

September 27

File:Golf_magazine_article.jpg

Uhh, am I missing something here? Wouldn't an entire article out of a magazine be copyrighted? How can it be released under CC-BY-SA 3.0?--TParis (talk) 13:38, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

I added No-Permission template.--Jarekt (talk) 14:10, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

September 28

Are such photos of computer hardware of interest for the Commons?

Hi!

We are working on a FLOSS wireless community network like the one of Athens. Therefore we take a close look at which hardware is useful for this purpose. I would like some comments on whether such photos of hardware are useful for the Wikimedia Commons. I am not sure, if they can be used on Wikipedia/-versity/-books but hey, maybe? Thanks for any comments. Zeptomoon (talk) 12:47, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

As long as images are well documented (by mentioning what hardware it is) and categorized, than I am sure they will be useful to someone, fall within out scope and are welcome here. We would especially appreciate categorization since it might be hard to do for people unfamiliar with the hardware. --Jarekt (talk) 12:54, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the fast reply, Jarekt! I think documenting and categorization should be easy, since that's just what we're doing. After the upload to the Commons, would it be okay to cross-link the images from our MediaWiki (InstantCommons), or is it better to have separate copies on each Wiki? Zeptomoon (talk) 14:00, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Short remark. I see that content on the HWMN-wiki is licensed under the licence "Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported". If you would upload the photos to commons, then keep in mind that these photos will need to be relicensed under license permitted on Commons. Donarreiskoffer (talk) 14:45, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Good point, Donarreiskoffer! Personally I don't have a problem with relicenseing them. I hope to get the other HMWN-wiki members (only 10 yet) to switch to a more permissive (at least GFDL compatible) license. Does anybody know, if there's any problem with embedding CC BY-SA media (from the WikiMedia Commons) inside CC BY-NC text (on the HWMN-wiki) with InstantCommons? In seems a bit complicated to me, because there would have to be a CC BY-SA notice on every single embedded image. Maybe with a Template...Hmm, I'll see to it. Anyways, thanks for the hint! Zeptomoon (talk) 16:29, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

No, there is no problem. Wikipedia embeds in CC-BY-SA images with licenses ranging form public domain and WTFPL to fair use, which is not free at all... --Aʁsenjyʁdəgaljɔm¹¹⁶⁷¹ 16:46, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

(conflict) Hi, just to second Jarekt answer, we’d be very glad to have these images. It is also perfectly fine to use InstantCommons − that is precisely what it is for!

As for embedding: I do not think it is an issue. On Wikimedia projects we consider that to know the license used for pictures it is enough to click through and axcess this information on the description page on Commons. Would work the same for you (obviously if you print your material you'd have to indicate the different images licenses, but that's a different issue). Jean-Fred (talk) 16:41, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

And you can always double-license your own images. --Aʁsenjyʁdəgaljɔm¹¹⁶⁷¹ 16:45, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

We actually had a discussion on IRC regarding photos of computer hardware yesterday, regarding interpretation of USC17 chapter 9; without any clear resolution. I would recommend clearing up that issue (perhaps contacting wmf legal dept) before uploading any more pictures of computer hardware. _→AzaToth 18:02, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Can you paraphrase the discussion. I am a little lost here. --Jarekt (talk) 18:18, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

The question os if it's legal to make a photo of a computer board bearing the Ⓜ mark, which is defined for US in USC17§9. _→AzaToth 18:20, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

It appears the rights in a mask work are limited to reproducing the mask work (i.e. actually making one), not photos or anything like that. It's not the same as the rights given to copyright. Carl Lindberg (talk) 03:57, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

I believe that Chapter 9 refers to the mask work of semiconductor chips. Not the products that use them. The goal is to stop the production of counterfeit chips. You need photos with microscopic details, not just the outside package. It is the difference between a detailed scan of pages from a book verses a shelf full of books. This image shows de minimis use a of a semiconductor chip. Photo of circuit boards with a good description such as the 1977 Shugart SA 400 Minifloppy are of interest for the Commons. -- Swtpc6800 (talk) 00:47, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Following the discussion here, it appears to me that such photos of computer hardware are of interest for the Commons and that there seem to be no severe concern about copyright or patents violation after all. Are there any contradictory opinions? Any resolutions on the IRC channel, AzaToth? Otherwise, I guess I will start uploading, cleaning and characterizing the photos next week – with some help from the Photography workshop. Cheers! Zeptomoon (talk) 10:08, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Images uploaded to commons that are no longer useful

I created this image for use in en:Fantastic (magazine). I've since learned how to create the same appearance with a table, which is better for several reasons, and have replaced the image in the article. The image is now unused and very unlikely to be useful anywhere else. I don't frequent commons much, so could someone tell me if this image (and several others in a similar situation) should be deleted? If so, is there a deletion nomination process as there is on en-wiki? Thanks. Mike Christie (talk) 10:18, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

 Done Normally yes, but in this case the old image may be considered as bad duplicate. Since you are the creator and the file is not used anywhere, I have speedily deleted. - A.Savin 10:30, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. How can I nominate others like this (created by me, not used anywhere else)? There are a couple more ready to be deleted now, and there may be more after that. Mike Christie (talk) 11:01, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

There is afaik no extra template for that kind of SD, but try {{Speedydelete|Created by me, unused file}} or something similar; or place a request on COM:AN or ask any admin. - A.Savin 14:55, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

If it was used in an article for a time, there may be some value in keeping for that reason alone. Normally this sort of thing is not eligible for speedy deletion; just nominate for regular deletion to see if others agree. Commons does provide support for non-Wikimedia wiki sites, so if those projects were using the image (not terribly likely but not impossible) they get broken by things like this. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:11, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

The deletion tends to break every mirror that doesn't have the most recent version. Thus I asked it to be undeleted Commons:Undeletion_requests/Current_requests#File:Fantastic_issues_grid_1950s.jpg. --  Docu  at 17:21, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Proposed feature for UploadWizard - enter license in custom wikitext

UploadWizard is currently not used by some experienced uploaders for a number of reasons, among which is that it only offers a limited menu of licenses. We'd like to address that.

I made a rough spec of a feature which allows a user to enter a license as wikitext. Comments welcome, especially on balancing usability versus convenience here. We already have people abusing the {{FAL}} option, and we don't want to make it worse.

I'm especially interested in the question of how we avoid confusing new users, or allowing the impatient to simply enter nonsense in this field. -- NeilK (talk) 04:08, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

It's been a year by now - the horse is dead. Leave it. You can't make it worse (other than by turning off normal upload process). On a serious note, your concern about {{FAL}} gives away the basic misconception behind all this ill-conceived gizmos: trying to remedy human sins with ... gizmos. Users want to have their stuff hosted here "cuz they got to", FAL or not FAL, FOP or not FOP. They will bypass any hard-coded filters in upload process ("you want bullshit you'll get bullshit"). The only solution comes through human effort: examination of each upload, deletions, explanations, warnings, blocks. It needs human time, which simply isn't there ("eight admins do 99% of the work" etc.). And thanks to upload wizard, backlogs grow even faster. NVO (talk) 21:45, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

NVO: believe it or not I strongly agree with you, on at least the premises of your argument. There is no substitute for human review. And to some extent UploadWizard is causing, or rather uncovering, new problems since it makes things easier for uploaders, but did nothing to help image reviewers. So now we have an oversupply problem. I would strongly suggest that the community should lobby the WMF for better tools there, and better ways of organizing volunteers. However, it not true that the old form was in any way acceptable. There are many people like you, in our community, who have gotten used to the various absurdities of that interface, and have never observed another smart person attempt to use such an interface. We came as close as any user research does to absolute certainty that it was deterring something like 90% of good-faith users. This is not acceptable. If it's acceptable to you, then we have different ideas about what "sharing free knowledge" means. NeilK (talk) 22:59, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Let me continue, 90% of potential good-faith users don't want to master wiki editing and walk away to ... Flickr. No big deal. If it's good, if it has encyclopedic value and if it is appropriately licensed - it will end up here. At a far lesser cost to "the community" (experienced flickr-movers don't leave huge backlogs). NVO (talk) 14:41, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

What do you mean with "abusing the {{FAL}} option"? And yes, I am likely among those experienced uploaders that do not use this upload gizmo because I am quite well with the older forms (personalized licensing possibility!), since I've got a pattern for filling "Permission" fields, I even stick to the oldest "basic" upload form... Give the older upload forms a capability of a batch upload and then you may submit the Wizard to an "Avada Kedavra"... I think that we do not need to attract more casual uploaders that may only contribute pictures of lower quality and that we need to put more attention to get more quality media. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 00:11, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Once again it's an issue of "uncovering" issues as we solve others. We seem to have made it very clear how to use every license, and what they all mean... except for the Free Art License. So naive uploaders seem to choose that one all the time, since nothing else applies, and they are unwilling to give up at that stage. When we designed the UploadWizard we were trying to eliminate certain options in the form that we felt led to needless complexity or assumed bad faith. So that's why we didn't include options like "I don't know the license but I want to upload it anyway". But now, an approach like that seems to make more sense to me than it did before. NeilK (talk) 23:04, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Just an update; after mocking this out I'm starting to think that entering licenses as wikitext will probably cause more harm than good - it will be confusing to newbies, and leave the door open to uploading files that have no real license at all. Would it be better to have an auto-completing form which searched all templates within or below Category:License tags? That is, it would be a simple text input where, if one started typing "PD-Eg" it would autocomplete to PD-Egypt, or show a few other options that begin with "PD-Eg" in a drop-down menu. Populating the list would be an expensive operation since we have to descend recursively into that category (and our category system does not guarantee that a depth-first search will not go into an infinite loop, so we have to cut it off somewhere), but the results could be cached for a longish time. NeilK (talk) 23:15, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Autocomplete is ok. Limit to list not: You can't enter licenses like {{free screenshot|{{BSD|version=y}}}}. I fear you have to develop a license-wizard. Commons licensing of not own work/ derivative is not easy but it's just an expression of law. -- RE rillke questions? 17:55, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean -- it sounds like you are saying that we need free wikitext for really complex licenses such as your example. But, you're also okay with autocomplete? What would your preferred implementation be? My concern is that free wikitext is going to lead to complete nonsense, especially when newbie users see that, and there's no obvious way to ensure that it's a real license tag. NeilK (talk) 18:31, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I mean what I said: Autocomplete to help inserting but allowing free text, too (no limit to list). When newbies come to helpdesk and ask what they should use for a screenshot of VLC-Player, I won't have to reply "do not use upload wizard for this task", instead I can say what they have to insert. If there are solely syntax-errors, nikbot will tag the file, notifying the user and an admin will have a look on the file-description-page before deleting and can correct the syntax. Everything would be fine. Or not? -- RE rillke questions? 21:15, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Okay, so you want what some people call a combobox. In which case there are several possibilities for how to use entered text:

1. wikitext that parses and creates a license tag
2. wikitext that parses but does not create a license tag - now we have a file that has no license published on Commons. Can we even detect that this happened?
3. text that causes wikitext parsing errors. This could be malformed wikitext, or an innocent mistake, like someone trying to paste HTML. We can catch this with a preview-generating API call: no need to trouble the bot.
4. text that is intended as the title of a license tag, e.g. "cc-by-sa-3.0", in which case it is somehow recognized and autocompleted, and then when it comes time to generate wikitext, generates {{Cc-by-sa-3.0}} rather than its literal string value
5. text that contains no wikitext, that is not the title of a license tag, like "I don't know what to put here"

As you can see there's a lot to balance here with heuristics. Whenever you start doing free wikitext it's bad enough without throwing other stuff in like autocomplete for single templates. I see no easy way to verify correctness, or even to eliminate some pretty egregiously incorrect stuff. The only option I see here would be, if the uploader chooses the custom license option, to always append some wikitext that flagged the license for review. Which means more work for admins. Is that an acceptable strategy?

The other idea I had -- rather than tell people to use boilerplate wikitext, is it possible for volunteers to create "concrete" parameterized license templates if they are very common? That is, you could create a new template called "Screenshot-BSD-old", with wikitext {{free screenshot|{{BSD|version=old}}}} under Category:License_tags if people needed it often enough. Then you could simply tell users to type "Screenshot-BSD-old" into the autocompleting field.

Now, the problem here becomes combinatorial explosion, but I think we're talking about relatively rare cases... or are we? And even if there is combinatorial explosion, these things can be created with scripts. I just don't think boilerplate wikitext is a sustainable strategy for a friendly interface that we can trust to always be syntactically correct. We'd have to give up either of those two things. It allows experienced people to do smart stuff but will cause the inexperienced to create nonsense or get confused... the point is, until now, whatever its faults, with UploadWizard at least you knew that you could not proceed to publishing a file if it did not have SOME license. When you allow free text for a license, now we can't say that. -- NeilK (talk) 00:46, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

I think you miss 2 very important points:

1. License-Viewing (I use this term because we have a formal License-Review) could be done by every experienced user.
2. Currently we have a lot of work because Upload Wizard always adds one license, even if they are wrong. Searching for wrong licenses is like searching for a needle in a haystack. We have to patrol all new files from unknown/ new uploaders. Knowing that something may be wrong can ease the task and prevents re-users from being sued because they use the media-file, incorrectly licensed from Commons. I would, indeed, prefer no license or some words by the uploader + warning-tag over wrong ones.

Don't try to build a perfect upload tool for all cases. This won't work. Commons is (too) sophisticated making custom, free text necessary. And think about the experienced users, too. They are responsible that Commons isn't a copyvio-hoster. If nothing will change with Upload Wizard, I am sure, more of them will both retire patrolling new files and not use UWiz for their uploads. It is a pity that WMF does not pay for tools easing the work of those.

BTW: There are no real "combobox"-controls in HTML. I assume you use jQuery UI Autocomplete-plugin bound on an input of type Textbox. -- RE rillke questions? 13:53, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

OK you've convinced me here -- I have been struggling with some of the assumptions we had when we started UploadWizard, and as time goes on it seems to me the assumptions are just wrong. For instance, with UW, we are trying to be correct, the first time, so we try to educate the user and try to ensure that a license is picked, but if those processes go awry we are not giving the Commons process a second chance to recover. The wiki process is really about "eventual correctness". So, I'll go back to the textarea design and instead, if the user picks a custom license, add something that flags it for review. At the same time we should also change the "I don't know what the license is" option, so it doesn't halt the upload, but instead, it should publish it with the same kind of "needs review" tags that Special:Upload used.

 As for autocompleting, after some offline discussion I don't think it's going to be helpful. It's hard to reconcile with free wikitext, And the kind of person who knows that "Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0" is "Cc-by-sa-3.0" doesn't need our help to type out the license name. The kind that doesn't know, won't have any clue to start typing with "Cc". So we'll just have plain wikitext with a preview. NeilK (talk) 18:09, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Sounds right to me, and let's drop FAL while we're at it :-) --Eloquence (talk) 19:27, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Neil, this is an important and long-needed improvement, so thanks for spending so much time on it. I agree with your logic above, at least where it doesn't tax the limits of my limited tech knowledge, and trust your judgment on this. -- Skeezix1000 (talk) 18:33, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

User:Eloquence is trying to build a Creative Commons monopoly. To the opposite, the Wikimedians should not let the Creative Commons Foundation have undue privileges and be put in a position of power, where the Wikimedians themselves might lose their freedom. For the sake of freedom, anti-trust regulations should be considered by free culture advocates. Teofilo (talk) 23:28, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Neil, please add a preview feature when not supplying autocomplete. Either immediately while typing (maybe a delay to prevent exhausting of server-parser resources) or with a button. I'd like to use UWiz, too when it is improved and allows multiple-file selection and a custom license ;-) Thanks. -- RE rillke questions? 10:02, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

It says custom license for own-work is a nongoal. Why aren't similar licenses like cc-by-sa-3.0-de or cc-by-3.0-pl OK next to CC licenses offered? Or regarding Teofilo's concern, if it feels CC is dominating other free licenses too hard then why isn't e.g. plain PD-self (insted of Cc-zero) OK? 193.40.10.180 06:46, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

This is so far back in the mists of time I forget exactly why we made this choice, but I assume that PD-self is a bit legally dubious. To my knowledge there is no such thing as just declaring something is in the public domain, things are only in the public domain according to the laws of various countries. CC-zero does exactly what the user would want from a public domain dedication, only the legality is clearer, no matter what country. Caution, I am not a lawyer, and not even a wikilawyer. NeilK (talk) 01:19, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, it was discussed, and it was felt that CC-0 was worded better than PD-self, particularly taking the law of other countries into mind, and since they are basically the same thing we chose that one. I have seen the discussion, in theory, that the law does not have an explicit way for users to terminate copyright, but in general people do have a right to transfer or otherwise waive their rights if they wish I'd think. There's nothing wrong with using PD-self, but for a user-friendly interface you really have to limit the infinite licensing possibilities. Perhaps there could be a way to click on something which would make a textfield appear for a custom license to be entered, so it's not there by default but could be activated. No matter how many items you put in a dropdown, you can't possibly get all of them, and even more some of the templates take arguments (even the CC ones can take the desired credit text as an argument usually). Needing a different license is probably the biggest reason at this point that people have to turn to alternate upload methods. Carl Lindberg (talk) 01:33, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

But what about allowing localized CC licenses (e.g. cc-by-sa-3.0-de and cc-by-3.0-pl) for own-work? 193.40.10.180 06:35, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

September 21

Contradiction in Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unreported license

There appears to be a contradiction in the Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license. The license states that with a digital image, one is free 'to make commercial use of the work'. Yet this can only be done under the condition that others can 'alter, transform, or build upon' the subsequent work. So, if an image is used in a school or university textbook, for instance, then the textbook can be copied, republished or whatever because one is free to 'copy, distribute and transmit' the 'resulting work'.

Can anyone elaborate on this? -- 12:53, 28 September 2011 212.129.91.245

http://forum.creativecommons.org/ and http://wiki.creativecommons.org/FAQ might provide answers. --Túrelio (talk) 12:57, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

(ec) My understanding is that the "sharealike" condition applies only to the reproduced versions of the image itself, but doesn't percolate to any larger works which incorporate it. So, if I take an image from Commons, modify it, and then include the new version in a book, the modified image itself must be free, but the book as a whole may be commercial. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:00, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

You can make commercial use of the work; you can sell it however you like. That you can make commercial use of the work doesn't exclude others from doing so also.--Prosfilaes (talk) 13:09, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

"if an image is used in a school or university textbook, for instance, then the textbook can be copied, republished or whatever" : no. CC license distinguish a "derivative work" and a "collection". ShareAlike only applies to derivatives, the textbook is a collection. Jean-Fred (talk) 15:23, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

It is the image that stays free, you are obligated to keep the image under the same license. The textbook can however be copyrighted for other images and/or the text, but *not* the cc-by-sa-30 images, they (obviously) stay free under their license. Edoderoo (talk) 17:54, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

By the way, it's "unported"... AnonMoos (talk) 10:54, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

September 29

Wrong pic of Angelo Olivetti

This picture was uploaded as Angelo Olivetti, but it actually is Filippo Corridoni, see a simple Google search. Please, delete this picture. Thank you, Franco-eisenhower (talk) 05:37, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Fixed thanks for reporting --Jarekt (talk) 13:13, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Category:Categories by century by country

Is it correct that Category:Categories by century by country is in Category:Centuries by country? Thanks--Pierpao.lo (listening) 07:08, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes. That would fit our usual practice. - Jmabel ! talk 14:38, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation "Answers"

Hi. :) Apologies if this is a bit off topic for this page. I just wanted to let you all know that the Wikimedia Foundation is testing a potential new communication system intended to provide a central address to which community members who need assistance from the Wikimedia Foundation or who have questions about the Foundation or its activities can reach out and find answers. This system is being unrolled on a trial basis to test its efficiency and usefulness to communities.

What happens to your question will depend on what type of question it is. Many questions are general interest, and answers to these are being posted to wmf:Answers. Generally, at least to begin with, I will be writing these answers myself, although staff members have assisted with some questions already and I don't doubt will assist with more. Some issues will not be general interest, but may require attention from specific staff members or contractors. These will be forwarded to the appropriate parties. Questions that should be answered by community may be forwarded to the volunteer response team, unless we can point you to a more appropriate point of contact.

I imagine most of you are familiar with how the Wikimedia Foundation works, but it's probably a good idea for me to note for those who are not familiar that the Wikimedia Foundation does not control content on any of its projects. They can't help with content disputes or unblock requests, and they are not the place to report general bugs or to request features (that would be Wikimedia's Bugzilla). The letters I've answered already have included primarily questions about finances and the Foundation's work. I've been asked to get feedback from staff on diverse subjects ranging from the amount of latitude permitted to a project in drafting their "Exemption Doctrine Policy" to whether or not groups seeking grants need tax exempt status first.

If you have questions for or about the Wikimedia Foundation, you can address them to answerswikimedia.org. Please review wmf:Answers/Process for specific terms and more information. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:38, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Split different image versions?

Hi, is there a way to split multiple image versions (as in File:Gnadenstuhl_in_Hippersdorf_0153.JPG) to separate images without downloading and uploading again, just by moving single versions? kr --Herzi Pinki (talk) 20:47, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, sysops can. See COM:SPLIT. Jean-Fred (talk) 20:59, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

thanks a lot, waiting now for sysop. --Herzi Pinki (talk) 21:15, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Extension:Babel

Extension:Babel is now live on all WMF projects. It is intended to replace the extensive ecosystem of {{Babel}} templates. Usage: eg {{#babel:nl|en-4|de-2|fr-1}}. The extension effectively makes Commons:Babel (mostly) redundant; redlinked templates listed there are now not needed if #babel: is used. Rd232 (talk) 22:44, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

It does look like a good system and using this extension would allow us to retire a whole bunch of templates. --Jarekt (talk) 12:45, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

see #babel-extension-live-on-the-wmf-projects Jean-Fred (talk) 13:44, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

LOL. I see I was fashionably late to that party :) Rd232 (talk) 15:44, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

September 30

Attribution Requests- Can they be made clearer?

CC-SA licenses say to attribute the images "in the manner specified by the author or licensor". Okay, but many authors DON'T specify the manner in which they wish the images to be attributed. So, someone wishing to use the image must contact the author to find out their preferences. That's fine, as long as the original author is still checking their user:talk page. Many aren't. So it seems that then the license is essentially void- no one can properly use the image without knowing the attribution preferences of the author. (Other than of course knowing that the new image must also be licensed under CC-SA.) Is there some way to require that contributors who choose a CC-SA license also specify how they would like to be attributed? Or perhaps under user profiles there could be a general "How I wish my contributions to be attributed", so they wouldn't have to re-enter it for each upload. On a side note, it would be so much easier if it was possible to contact the user directly, through a coded e-mail address. Posting messages that are useless to the rest of the community seems like it adds a lot of unneeded junk to the site. As well, it's possible that some authors would not wish to publicly post how they would like to be attributed (if by chance they want to use their real name). Rubirubiru (talk · contribs) 13:30, 30. September 2011

If people do not specify some special manner (such as the wish to have a mention of Wikimedia Commons, their personal website or whatever), then they specified their user name. So if I do not specify anything on the description page, it means that I am to be attibuted as "Jean-Frédéric, CC-BY".

By the way, you may just click on the "Use this file" button, it will get you the appropriate credit line.

Jean-Fred (talk) 13:37, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

It's not obvious that the "use this file" button answers this question, and it's not very visible; even after your prompt, I struggled for a minute to find it on a random file (never noticed it before). Perhaps the "use this file" link (web version) and "information" link from that top bar should be included in the licensing templates, along with a clear explanation that doesn't require an extra click to see. Rd232 (talk) 13:46, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Try unlogged. Buttons are way bigger for unlogged (why ? because logged complained at the time that it was taking too much space :þ). Jean-Fred (talk) 23:04, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

hm, it seems that CC-SA license templates (eg {{Cc-by-sa-3.0}}) should perhaps clarify a default attribution method, which the uploader can then optionally override. That doesn't seem to be the case now (if the optional attribution is not given, the template doesn't display anything instead of it). Are default attribution methods specified anywhere else, eg at Creative Commons in the license detail? Rd232 (talk) 13:41, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

As a side note, I have found it much easier to get permission and attribution for images from flikr, even when the photos are fully copyrighted, because I can write a personal note to the author, explaining my project fully. I would personally want to know if my contributed image was going to be used in a book, and I might even want to have my real name used. I don't want to willy-nilly use peoples's contributions without informing them or giving them the opportunity to put their names to them. Rubirubiru (talk) 13:57, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

The CC templates take an argument for the attribution line (i.e. {{Cc-by-sa-3.0|attribution=My Full Name}} or even just {{Cc-by-sa-3.0|My Full Name}}). You could also specify the credit explicitly in the Author section, with "Credit: My Full Name" or something like that. There is also a separate template {{Credit line}} which can be used to make a separate section in the Information template. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:00, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

I do specify my attribution in the Author section, but I frequently have to revert people who take it upon themselves to turn it into {{Own}}. - Jmabel ! talk 15:44, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

{{Own}} should be a source, not an author, yeah. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:57, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

The question isn't how to specify attribution/credits if you're the author; it's what to do as a reuser if it's not specified, and more broadly whether it should be clearer for reusers what to do if the author hasn't specified. Rd232 (talk) 15:46, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

You have to do the best you can -- probably WIkimedia Commons/Username, unless the full name is given. If there is a desired credit line, then it needs to be explicitly stated somehow -- the entire idea of the CC licenses is knowing you can re-use them without having to contact the original author. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:57, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

The answer to the original question seems to be more or less covered by Commons:Credit line, which gives default attribution required for different licenses if nothing is specified by the author. However, I think the handling of this should be improved; this situation can be clarified both for uploaders and for reusers. I think a license template can probably figure out the default attribution and display it, and can also use a user subpage for custom per-user attribution, where the subpage exists (eg User:Example/attribution), which avoids a proliferation of per-user templates. (This approach still leaves open per-file custom attribution BTW.) I might move this idea to COM:VPR, especially if anyone agrees it's worth discussing further. Rd232 (talk) 18:52, 30 September 2011 (UTC)