User talk:MichaelMaggs/Archive/1

The Crow

Hello! I've a new version of this crow picture that's sharper. Would you please take a look and reconsider your vote? Thanks. Francisco M. Marzoa 19:12, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

POTD 30

If you have a new image, put it at Template:Potd/2006-09-30 and change the text -> It's very easy: go to Commons:Picture_of_the_day#30 and pick on the word «English»: You'll go to Template:Potd/2006-09-30 (en), edit and save. Do the same with others languages. If you don't know the translation, put the english text. Sanbec ✉ 10:52, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Oh, thank you. I thought all the translations might be in one place, but I see they actually need to be done page-by-page. regards.--MichaelMaggs 11:55, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Use of  Strong oppose template

Please see my comments on this at Commons talk:Featured picture candidates. -- Greetings, Alvesgaspar 17:56, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

POTD template

Please see my comments at Commons talk:Picture of the day and tell me what you think. Thanks. --Digon3 14:41, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

The old Village pump archives are here: Commons:Village pump archive.

The poll needs some more time, but it will probably go the way we both think. Although being bold is important, this is a kind of wide-ranging change that needs more input than an ignored message. Can you give me a link from the VP archives? thanks, pfctdayelise (说什么?) 16:30, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Hm, how about we make it the end of November? I should have put an end date. :/ It is only for POTDs after Jan 1 2007, after all. So then we will still have a whole month to prepare new POTDs. Sound good? pfctdayelise (说什么?) 06:04, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Fine by me. --MichaelMaggs 07:25, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Commons:Featured picture candidates/Image:Trombone.svg

Please check if made corrections satisfy you :)

--WarX 14:27, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

My RFA: Thanks

Thank you for your support on my RFA. Now that I have been promoted, I promise to be as hardworking and fair with the admin tools as I have been with the other areas here on Commons. See you around and happy editing. Zzyzx11 15:52, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Proposal: Picture of the Year and Picture of the Month contests

I have posted a new proposal on Commons talk:Featured picture candidates regarding the creation of FP-related contests and would like your feedback on the idea. This message is being sent to some of the regular contributors to Commons:Featured picture candidates. Alvesgaspar 16:06, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

POTY election implementation

Some help in needed to organize the POTY election. Please check the conclusions of the discussion in Commons talk:Featured picture candidates. What do you think of doing the election in the period 15-31 January? - Alvesgaspar 14:38, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

FP promotion

★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★ The image Image:Sitta-carolinensis-001.jpg, that you nominated on Commons:Featured picture candidates/Image:Sitta-carolinensis-001.jpg has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so.

Alvesgaspar 08:53, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Image:Sossusvlei desert in Namibia afrika.jpg

Are you supporting both versions or do you want to strike out your support for the unedited version? --MichaelMaggs 09:14, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

support the new version.--AngMoKio 09:23, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

QI discussion

There is an important discussion going on here which might result in a snowball with unwanted results. Although I agree that the actual QI guidelines should be tuned up, I can't support a considerable degrading of the existing criteria, towards some "poor man's QI" model. - Alvesgaspar 14:50, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Picture of the Year - still on?

• There has been little traffic on Commons:Picture of the Year/2006 recently. Are we still going to do this? If so, we need to decide the dates of the first and second rounds of voting, and make sure everything is ready to go (by 1st Feb?) I'm happy to help, but wouldn't want to do this on my own if no-one else has much interest. --MichaelMaggs 12:34, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• Of course it is still on! The reason for my silence is that I don't like to impose my own ideas. But everyone seems to be waiting for others's initiative. So, I agree with you, lets go ahead and schedule the event. The 1st of February (at 0000 UTM) seems all right for starting the first round. But I'm not sure about the second, there is the possibilty of having too few votes at the end of the first phase. Maybe we should assign a period of n days (10, 15?), which could be extended if some minimal number of total votes is not reached (but how many: 50, 100?). (we need to make some clear rules on this and post them at the page of the election)

I'm also willing to collaborate in the preparation of the advertizing templates but there should be people more knowledgeable than me. About the barnstars: don't you think they should show the year? - Alvesgaspar 12:53, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

You don't need my permission to do it! I am not involved with this very much. (I'm kinda busy...) pfctdayelise (说什么?) 14:29, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

POTY 2006 - Questions

Some questions:

1. The best way to advertise the event is to post an announcement in all Wikipedia projects and languages (or, at least, in some of them), like it was done with the donation campaign. This would make almost superfluous any other advertising action. But how to do it, any idea?
2. There is the real possibility of someone creating new commons usernames for the only purpose of supporting a particular candidate (that happened very recently with a FP nomination). Instead of forcing all electors to be Commons users why not allow all Wikipedians to vote and, at the same time, not consider the votes from newly created users (i.e., users whose first and only action was the vote)?
3. I'm still not comfortable with the idea of starting the election with a pseudo-random group of nominees. As we all know many users will just come, vote and go, without reading the instructions.
4. Do you think it is necesssary to nominate a juri who will be responsable for counting the votes, interpreting the rules and announce the results? - Alvesgaspar 11:00, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

POTY

When we get to the final, are we just going to change the text on the main voting page? Or should we have a separate Commons:Picture of the Year/2006/final page? The latter might be better, as we could get the translations going now. What do you think? --MichaelMaggs 20:55, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Coincidence... I also was thinking on that. You're right, better have a new page. That way we can archive the first one as it is at the end of phase 1. Alvesgaspar 21:33, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

POTY Gallery

Something that I feared is already happening: the authors putting their own pictures in the gallery. Should we do something about it? What about cleaning the gallery at exactly January 31, 2359 ? - Alvesgaspar 13:45, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

By the way, could you translate Commons:Picture of the Year/2006/final please? --MichaelMaggs 17:21, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Done Alvesgaspar 18:12, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Spanish seems to be the most difficult. I've asked LadyofHats but no results yet. Alvesgaspar 21:14, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Also Lestat for Polish (someone is already starting with spanish) - Alvesgaspar 21:49, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

POTY interwiki

Hi these are called m:Interwiki links. I don't know however whether they should be here, as they all redirect to Commons... -- Bryan (talk to me) 18:06, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Commons:Imagen del año/2006/final

It was already translated, so I went with the final page. Cheers, --Ascánder 01:58, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. --MichaelMaggs 07:36, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Vote table

Better make it in columns or as a table. I tried to make the table but it is a bit clumsy to fill in. We need some expert help, I agree this long list is not an elegant solution. Alvesgaspar 17:36, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Columns would be best, but I don't know how to do it. --MichaelMaggs 17:40, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I do (more or less), but it will have to wait a couple of hours. Need to go with my kids to the swimming pool... Alvesgaspar 17:45, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Have fun. --MichaelMaggs 17:47, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

(Thank you, we did have fun)

I did a small table (see the voting page) and made a simulation in my head. The conclusion is that the solution is even more ackward than the previous one, both for the voters (who can't see the table at the same time they look at the thumbnails) and for the counting updaters. The syntax of the table is not obvious and even a small mistake, like deleting one of the vertical bars, is enough to ruin it all. In either case, it is always necessary to have two windows opened at the same time to update the counting. I really think we should stick to the initial solution, that is, writing the countings in the picture captions. Alvesgaspar 23:58, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I think it's fine as you've done it, except it should be on the transclused page Commons:Picture of the Year/2006/Voting phase 1/progress, rather than Commons:Picture of the Year/2006/Voting phase 1. I see what you mean about the care that has to be taken, but I expect that for the most part we'll be updating the table ourselves! We don't ask voters to do so, and anyone who does it is likely to underestand table syntax. Also it's much easier to keep a table updated when you can see that last update timestamp. Having the votes against the images means you never know when the last update was done, so there will be a lot of re-counting from scratch. --MichaelMaggs 07:52, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Re: POTY 2006 - translation help needed

Hey Michael, thanks for your message. I'm certainly willing to help translate the POTY pages--just give me a couple of hours to do it :) Cheers, Tangotango 12:50, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Wonderful! Many thanks. --MichaelMaggs 13:05, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I've translated all but the "/Final" page--I'll do that one as soon as I can, hopefully by Valentine's Day ;) Cheers, Tangotango 17:04, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much. --MichaelMaggs 17:22, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but it is written: Vote now in the... =D João Felipe C.S 23:08, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Half an hour to go

Are you there? Alvesgaspar 23:34, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

We need to modify the banners at the top of the election pages just before midnight. I assume the phrase in English will be: "the voting is now open"? I can modify the en, pt, es and fr pages(I guess). What about the others? - Alvesgaspar 23:47, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

• Yes, I'm a bit surprised. Please check the voting discussion page. Alvesgaspar 07:56, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Vote counting

Please see Commons talk:Picture of the Year/2006/Voting phase 1/progress. There seems to be a mistake in the 1st counting.

I think that the table is an extra fun for the voters and creators, I don't agree to remove it even with some minor mistakes. Of course, at the end we'll have to verify everything and publish the "official results" - Alvesgaspar 11:36, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

POTY voting updates

Hi MichaelMaggs, thanks for the compliments. But I am not exact sure about all the numbers. Is there any process to cross-check the numbers. Regards, Shyam ^(T/C) 11:37, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Not at the moment. I've asked User:Dschwen, though, if he might be able to do us some sort of script. --MichaelMaggs 11:42, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Now script is fixed, and gives proper counts (calculated by hand were wrong cause, image No. 304 hasn't votes, but I voted for it) --WarX 14:02, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

• • OK, let's wait and see. The first time the table was all messed up... Big success, ahh? Alvesgaspar 14:42, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I can do some automatic-magic to count votes if there is need for it :) Now I have only facility for counting votes, not for download/upload, but it's a matter of hour of coding :)--WarX 15:06, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks WarX, that sounds good. Appreciate the work you're doing. --MichaelMaggs 15:50, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Here is my perl script User:WarX/counter.pl as input it takes votes from page and outputs part of table between hooks on progress page :)It's a bit primitive and ugly coding, but it works, I'll try to make it full automatic tomorrow :) (link it to Alvegaspar by yourself)--WarX 19:14, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for leaving the link of "diff" for the contestants having less than 100 edits. I will use the same for them. Shyam ^(T/C) 19:18, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

My bot is ready to use - it's not able to update voting page itself, but counts votes and updates progress page. Because it can be done 100% automatically we can add some fancy features :) (coloring of TOP10 images fields, links to image pages, etc.)--WarX 12:41, 2 February 2007 (UTC) ps. I'll write something to help final count at the end of phase1.

svg is unfair

Please take a look at the discussion page. I think we must allow the creators to substitute their svg files during the contest.

As for the gallery issue, I'm sorry to have reacted like I did, but I strongly believe that this kind of atitude is not acceptable in Wikipedia (or in life). We might talk about it and maybe you will be able to convince me that a random gallery is the best solution. But I will not allow someone coming in and using his power in such an arbitrary and arrogant way. If I have to abandon the project because of this, I will. Alvesgaspar 19:08, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Abandoning the POTY project

I’m abandoning the project. I don’t deserve, and can’t tolerate, to be treated like an intruder or a vandal. Have fun. Alvesgaspar 13:38, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your kind words, Michael. I can’t stay not because some user was arrogant and presumptuous in his speech but because no one, except me, is opposing his actions. The obvious conclusion is that I’m in minority e.g. most of the users in our group agree with changing the philosophy of the election and are against making available to voters a sorted list of pictures. Being stopped from inserting such an innocuous link like this one [1] was too much for me. I am not important, the election will go on and have an enormous success, that is what I sincerely wish. Alvesgaspar 14:59, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Mixing up the images doen't seem like a bad idea to me, but I agree that the way he went about it, and the way that he expressed himself, was unnecesarily agressive. I have no strong views whether users should have access to a sorted list, and I could be persuaded either way. I certainly missed it myself when I've tried to work out which are the top 10 images so far. --MichaelMaggs 15:23, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

:( I don't object to providing a sorted list later in the process, and offered to help facilitate Alvesgaspar's idea of consensus selection later (although I don't agree that it's a great idea, I'm willing to try to help it work)... but on the first day we saw there was such a slant towards the earliest images that I thought it was a serious disrespect to all the contributors of featured images to leave it that way.. no matter what their position (who would want to win only to doubt they won because they were first on the list or because they had an early lead?). I hoped that my offer to help later on would be enough to make Alvesgaspar happy, I guess not. :( MichaelMaggs, I did respond at length to your message on my talk. But I wanted to respond here to the points about the POTY process. Thank you for your patience and your efforts to help. --Gmaxwell 07:25, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

FP promotion

★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★ The image Image:Young grasshopper on grass stalk03.jpg, that you nominated on Commons:Featured picture candidates/Image:Young grasshopper on grass stalk03.jpg has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so.

Alvesgaspar 16:00, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Unofficial log

I'm running an unofficial and personnal counting of the 10 best. Check my user page, it might be useful to you. Alvesgaspar 19:03, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Users with less than 100 edits

Yes, it is possible for me to create a script that checks the number of user contributions. Unfortunately I cannot automatically check diffs. I will see whether I have some time this evening to get working on that. -- Bryan (talk to me) 19:40, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

2006 Picture of the Year contest

I have more than 100 edits (175) in Commons with my nick. --Vocoder 07:14, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Nominations

Thanks for nominations... --Nevit 19:17, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Image:KitKat wrapped.jpg

Hey - thanks for the note about this image. There are several others I also need to tag for deletion, which I will do soon. I'm not completely clear, however, on where the lines are being drawn right now on the Commons. I assume that a photo of a 1 2-D copyrighted object (such as the KitKat wrapper) is not allowed, while a photo of a copyrighted 3-D object (such as the actual Kit-Kat bar) is allowed. The part I'm fuzzy on is things like Image:Taster's Choice instant coffee.jpg or Image:Diet-coke-arab-il.jpg which is currently a 1 2-D representation of a copyrighted 3-D object but could easily be cropped to include only the logo and thus become a 1-D representation of a copyrighted 1 2-D object. Could you point me to the current policy on this or the best page to ask my question on? Thanks! -SCEhardT 20:13, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Good questions: you might try the village pump and see what others think. Generally, a photo of a 2D copyright work will be a non-allowable infringement unless the work is merely incidental in the overall image (eg a shop sign in a street scene). The same applies even if the 2D work is wrappped in some way around a 3D object, such as the coffee jar you mentioned. A photo of a 3D object, such as the bar itself, or piece of jewellery, will usually be OK, but different countries may have different rules on that. --MichaelMaggs 20:50, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks - I'll post a link in case you're interested when I ask -SCEhardT 20:55, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Image:Bewicks.bills.arp.jpg

This is an interesting and useful image, but the licence indicates that you released it to the public domain, which so far as I can see you are not able to do as you are not the copyright owner (that would be the draftsman or his/her employer). I'm tagging the image for deletion, but if you have been able to get permission from the copyright holder it may be possible to keep it.
OK, please delete. I haven't the time or patience to contact Slimbridge - Arpingstone 13:20, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Re: FP discussion

Er, you're right. I obviously skipped over that one a bit fast. oops... :/ --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 00:51, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Template:PD-UK-unknown

Image deletion warning

Template:PD-UK-unknown has been listed at Commons:Deletion requests so that the community can discuss whether it should be kept or not. We would appreciate it if you could go to voice your opinion about this at its entry. If you created this image, please note that the fact that it has been proposed for deletion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with it, such as a copyright issue. If the file is up for deletion because it has been superseded by a superior derivative of your work, consider the notion that although the file may be deleted, your hard work (which we all greatly appreciate) lives on in the new file. In all cases, please do not take the deletion request personally. It is never intended as such. Thank you!

--Wikipeder 11:09, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Picture of the Year - still on?

• There has been little traffic on Commons:Picture of the Year/2006 recently. Are we still going to do this? If so, we need to decide the dates of the first and second rounds of voting, and make sure everything is ready to go (by 1st Feb?) I'm happy to help, but wouldn't want to do this on my own if no-one else has much interest. --MichaelMaggs 12:34, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• Of course it is still on! The reason for my silence is that I don't like to impose my own ideas. But everyone seems to be waiting for others's initiative. So, I agree with you, lets go ahead and schedule the event. The 1st of February (at 0000 UTM) seems all right for starting the first round. But I'm not sure about the second, there is the possibilty of having too few votes at the end of the first phase. Maybe we should assign a period of n days (10, 15?), which could be extended if some minimal number of total votes is not reached (but how many: 50, 100?). (we need to make some clear rules on this and post them at the page of the election)

I'm also willing to collaborate in the preparation of the advertizing templates but there should be people more knowledgeable than me. About the barnstars: don't you think they should show the year? - Alvesgaspar 12:53, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

You don't need my permission to do it! I am not involved with this very much. (I'm kinda busy...) pfctdayelise (说什么?) 14:29, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

POTY 2006 - Questions

Some questions:

1. The best way to advertise the event is to post an announcement in all Wikipedia projects and languages (or, at least, in some of them), like it was done with the donation campaign. This would make almost superfluous any other advertising action. But how to do it, any idea?
2. There is the real possibility of someone creating new commons usernames for the only purpose of supporting a particular candidate (that happened very recently with a FP nomination). Instead of forcing all electors to be Commons users why not allow all Wikipedians to vote and, at the same time, not consider the votes from newly created users (i.e., users whose first and only action was the vote)?
3. I'm still not comfortable with the idea of starting the election with a pseudo-random group of nominees. As we all know many users will just come, vote and go, without reading the instructions.
4. Do you think it is necesssary to nominate a juri who will be responsable for counting the votes, interpreting the rules and announce the results? - Alvesgaspar 11:00, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

POTY

When we get to the final, are we just going to change the text on the main voting page? Or should we have a separate Commons:Picture of the Year/2006/final page? The latter might be better, as we could get the translations going now. What do you think? --MichaelMaggs 20:55, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Coincidence... I also was thinking on that. You're right, better have a new page. That way we can archive the first one as it is at the end of phase 1. Alvesgaspar 21:33, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

POTY Gallery

Something that I feared is already happening: the authors putting their own pictures in the gallery. Should we do something about it? What about cleaning the gallery at exactly January 31, 2359 ? - Alvesgaspar 13:45, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

By the way, could you translate Commons:Picture of the Year/2006/final please? --MichaelMaggs 17:21, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Done Alvesgaspar 18:12, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Spanish seems to be the most difficult. I've asked LadyofHats but no results yet. Alvesgaspar 21:14, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Also Lestat for Polish (someone is already starting with spanish) - Alvesgaspar 21:49, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

POTY interwiki

Hi these are called m:Interwiki links. I don't know however whether they should be here, as they all redirect to Commons... -- Bryan (talk to me) 18:06, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Commons:Imagen del año/2006/final

It was already translated, so I went with the final page. Cheers, --Ascánder 01:58, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. --MichaelMaggs 07:36, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Vote table

Better make it in columns or as a table. I tried to make the table but it is a bit clumsy to fill in. We need some expert help, I agree this long list is not an elegant solution. Alvesgaspar 17:36, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Columns would be best, but I don't know how to do it. --MichaelMaggs 17:40, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I do (more or less), but it will have to wait a couple of hours. Need to go with my kids to the swimming pool... Alvesgaspar 17:45, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Have fun. --MichaelMaggs 17:47, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

(Thank you, we did have fun)

I did a small table (see the voting page) and made a simulation in my head. The conclusion is that the solution is even more ackward than the previous one, both for the voters (who can't see the table at the same time they look at the thumbnails) and for the counting updaters. The syntax of the table is not obvious and even a small mistake, like deleting one of the vertical bars, is enough to ruin it all. In either case, it is always necessary to have two windows opened at the same time to update the counting. I really think we should stick to the initial solution, that is, writing the countings in the picture captions. Alvesgaspar 23:58, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I think it's fine as you've done it, except it should be on the transclused page Commons:Picture of the Year/2006/Voting phase 1/progress, rather than Commons:Picture of the Year/2006/Voting phase 1. I see what you mean about the care that has to be taken, but I expect that for the most part we'll be updating the table ourselves! We don't ask voters to do so, and anyone who does it is likely to underestand table syntax. Also it's much easier to keep a table updated when you can see that last update timestamp. Having the votes against the images means you never know when the last update was done, so there will be a lot of re-counting from scratch. --MichaelMaggs 07:52, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Vote counting

Please see Commons talk:Picture of the Year/2006/Voting phase 1/progress. There seems to be a mistake in the 1st counting.

I think that the table is an extra fun for the voters and creators, I don't agree to remove it even with some minor mistakes. Of course, at the end we'll have to verify everything and publish the "official results" - Alvesgaspar 11:36, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Re: POTY 2006 - translation help needed

Hey Michael, thanks for your message. I'm certainly willing to help translate the POTY pages--just give me a couple of hours to do it :) Cheers, Tangotango 12:50, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Wonderful! Many thanks. --MichaelMaggs 13:05, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I've translated all but the "/Final" page--I'll do that one as soon as I can, hopefully by Valentine's Day ;) Cheers, Tangotango 17:04, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much. --MichaelMaggs 17:22, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but it is written: Vote now in the... =D João Felipe C.S 23:08, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Half an hour to go

Are you there? Alvesgaspar 23:34, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

We need to modify the banners at the top of the election pages just before midnight. I assume the phrase in English will be: "the voting is now open"? I can modify the en, pt, es and fr pages(I guess). What about the others? - Alvesgaspar 23:47, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

• Yes, I'm a bit surprised. Please check the voting discussion page. Alvesgaspar 07:56, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

POTY voting updates

Hi MichaelMaggs, thanks for the compliments. But I am not exact sure about all the numbers. Is there any process to cross-check the numbers. Regards, Shyam ^(T/C) 11:37, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Not at the moment. I've asked User:Dschwen, though, if he might be able to do us some sort of script. --MichaelMaggs 11:42, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Now script is fixed, and gives proper counts (calculated by hand were wrong cause, image No. 304 hasn't votes, but I voted for it) --WarX 14:02, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

• • OK, let's wait and see. The first time the table was all messed up... Big success, ahh? Alvesgaspar 14:42, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I can do some automatic-magic to count votes if there is need for it :) Now I have only facility for counting votes, not for download/upload, but it's a matter of hour of coding :)--WarX 15:06, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks WarX, that sounds good. Appreciate the work you're doing. --MichaelMaggs 15:50, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Here is my perl script User:WarX/counter.pl as input it takes votes from page and outputs part of table between hooks on progress page :)It's a bit primitive and ugly coding, but it works, I'll try to make it full automatic tomorrow :) (link it to Alvegaspar by yourself)--WarX 19:14, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for leaving the link of "diff" for the contestants having less than 100 edits. I will use the same for them. Shyam ^(T/C) 19:18, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

My bot is ready to use - it's not able to update voting page itself, but counts votes and updates progress page. Because it can be done 100% automatically we can add some fancy features :) (coloring of TOP10 images fields, links to image pages, etc.)--WarX 12:41, 2 February 2007 (UTC) ps. I'll write something to help final count at the end of phase1.

svg is unfair

Please take a look at the discussion page. I think we must allow the creators to substitute their svg files during the contest.

As for the gallery issue, I'm sorry to have reacted like I did, but I strongly believe that this kind of atitude is not acceptable in Wikipedia (or in life). We might talk about it and maybe you will be able to convince me that a random gallery is the best solution. But I will not allow someone coming in and using his power in such an arbitrary and arrogant way. If I have to abandon the project because of this, I will. Alvesgaspar 19:08, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Abandoning the POTY project

I’m abandoning the project. I don’t deserve, and can’t tolerate, to be treated like an intruder or a vandal. Have fun. Alvesgaspar 13:38, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your kind words, Michael. I can’t stay not because some user was arrogant and presumptuous in his speech but because no one, except me, is opposing his actions. The obvious conclusion is that I’m in minority e.g. most of the users in our group agree with changing the philosophy of the election and are against making available to voters a sorted list of pictures. Being stopped from inserting such an innocuous link like this one [2] was too much for me. I am not important, the election will go on and have an enormous success, that is what I sincerely wish. Alvesgaspar 14:59, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Mixing up the images doen't seem like a bad idea to me, but I agree that the way he went about it, and the way that he expressed himself, was unnecesarily agressive. I have no strong views whether users should have access to a sorted list, and I could be persuaded either way. I certainly missed it myself when I've tried to work out which are the top 10 images so far. --MichaelMaggs 15:23, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

:( I don't object to providing a sorted list later in the process, and offered to help facilitate Alvesgaspar's idea of consensus selection later (although I don't agree that it's a great idea, I'm willing to try to help it work)... but on the first day we saw there was such a slant towards the earliest images that I thought it was a serious disrespect to all the contributors of featured images to leave it that way.. no matter what their position (who would want to win only to doubt they won because they were first on the list or because they had an early lead?). I hoped that my offer to help later on would be enough to make Alvesgaspar happy, I guess not. :( MichaelMaggs, I did respond at length to your message on my talk. But I wanted to respond here to the points about the POTY process. Thank you for your patience and your efforts to help. --Gmaxwell 07:25, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

FP promotion

★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★ The image Image:Young grasshopper on grass stalk03.jpg, that you nominated on Commons:Featured picture candidates/Image:Young grasshopper on grass stalk03.jpg has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so.

Alvesgaspar 16:00, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Unofficial log

I'm running an unofficial and personnal counting of the 10 best. Check my user page, it might be useful to you. Alvesgaspar 19:03, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Users with less than 100 edits

Yes, it is possible for me to create a script that checks the number of user contributions. Unfortunately I cannot automatically check diffs. I will see whether I have some time this evening to get working on that. -- Bryan (talk to me) 19:40, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

2006 Picture of the Year contest

I have more than 100 edits (175) in Commons with my nick. --Vocoder 07:14, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Nominations

Thanks for nominations... --Nevit 19:17, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Image:KitKat wrapped.jpg

Hey - thanks for the note about this image. There are several others I also need to tag for deletion, which I will do soon. I'm not completely clear, however, on where the lines are being drawn right now on the Commons. I assume that a photo of a 1 2-D copyrighted object (such as the KitKat wrapper) is not allowed, while a photo of a copyrighted 3-D object (such as the actual Kit-Kat bar) is allowed. The part I'm fuzzy on is things like Image:Taster's Choice instant coffee.jpg or Image:Diet-coke-arab-il.jpg which is currently a 1 2-D representation of a copyrighted 3-D object but could easily be cropped to include only the logo and thus become a 1-D representation of a copyrighted 1 2-D object. Could you point me to the current policy on this or the best page to ask my question on? Thanks! -SCEhardT 20:13, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Good questions: you might try the village pump and see what others think. Generally, a photo of a 2D copyright work will be a non-allowable infringement unless the work is merely incidental in the overall image (eg a shop sign in a street scene). The same applies even if the 2D work is wrappped in some way around a 3D object, such as the coffee jar you mentioned. A photo of a 3D object, such as the bar itself, or piece of jewellery, will usually be OK, but different countries may have different rules on that. --MichaelMaggs 20:50, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks - I'll post a link in case you're interested when I ask -SCEhardT 20:55, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Re: FP discussion

Er, you're right. I obviously skipped over that one a bit fast. oops... :/ --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 00:51, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Template:PD-UK-unknown

Image deletion warning

Template:PD-UK-unknown has been listed at Commons:Deletion requests so that the community can discuss whether it should be kept or not. We would appreciate it if you could go to voice your opinion about this at its entry. If you created this image, please note that the fact that it has been proposed for deletion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with it, such as a copyright issue. If the file is up for deletion because it has been superseded by a superior derivative of your work, consider the notion that although the file may be deleted, your hard work (which we all greatly appreciate) lives on in the new file. In all cases, please do not take the deletion request personally. It is never intended as such. Thank you!

--Wikipeder 11:09, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Hello again, I thought I bring that up here because it doesn't really fit into the deletion debate yet: I haven't got the time to dig into that right now, but I was wondering if the UK's implementation of the EU directive on copyright harmonisation didn't harmonise copyright in this respect either. I strongly suppose it did, meaning that there is no difference in the British legal situation than in the rest of the EU, so courts would look at the author's intention of remaining unknown and not at the fact if he is unknown today.

Beyond that, assuming the UK does in fact break away from the implentation of the EU directive, I suppose non-anonymous UK works of unknown authors will still copyrighted 70 years after publication in the rest of the EU, where they would need to be anonymous to be PD. This in turn would mean that such images could only be used in the UK and should be removed from the Commons, because nobody can use them elsewhere.

Maybe you want to have a look into that? Regards, Wikipeder 13:02, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Image:Male and female superb fairy wren.jpg

La raison est que la photographie n'est pas ce qui apparaît il. L'utilisateur n'a pas révélé qui est un composé de deux images jointives ensemble artificiellement. Plusieurs électeurs ont appelé l'image un 'article truqué '.--MichaelMaggs 10:41, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

• Eh bien alors j'ai été bluffer!...
• En tous les cas c'est trés bien fait, on pourrait classer cette image dans la Catégory:Trucage photo de qualité pour ne pas perdre la face.
• En outre vous devriez demander a ce qu'il télécharge les deux images originales sans retouches afin que l'on puissent mieux juger de ce qu'il a fait, et cela redonnerait de la crédibilité a ces qualité vraie de photographe, j'aie idée que l'une ou l'autre de ces images d'origine pourrait peut-ètre être de qualité.
• A plus cordialement--WikiMeGa**** @@@-fr Accueil fr:Accueil 10:00, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Image 2006

Results for vérification. Alceste 00:22, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

re: OTRS

I am not so active myself, recently. Best talk to user:gmaxwell or user:Kelly Martin. Try to catch one of them on IRC sometime to discuss it, or email them, I suggest. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 08:15, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Michael, it is suggested that you be an admin on a project before applying to OTRS. Please see meta:OTRS/Info-en_recruiting for more details. Cary "Bastiq▼e" Bass ^demandez 20:22, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Michael, Kelly was an admin on the English Wikipedia product some time ago, when she was doing OTRS work. Cary "Bastiq▼e" Bass ^demandez 22:30, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Saint Sebastian

Thanks for responding on my talk page and thanks for the clarification. I'll attempt to get in contact with the webmaster. --Oldak Quill 11:54, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

RE:Your image Image:Pippit-closer.jpg

Hi Benjamin, could you please let me know whether this image is a single photographic shot, or whether it is a composite? Regards, --MichaelMaggs 12:41, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

It is a single shot, the only editing I did was A bit of clone stamping OOF grass out the way, why?--Benjamint444 22:45, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

• I just noticed something about One of my photos higher up in another language and I wondered what it was about, is there some way to translate because I often get messages or comments and don't know whats going on.--Benjamint444 22:49, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Eadweard Muybridge

I see you invited Eadweard Muybridge to vote in the POTY competition. Unfortunately, he died in 1904 ;) --MichaelMaggs 19:23, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for warning me, I was still waiting for an answer... By the way, the author of Image:Male and female superb fairy wren.jpg strikes again. Please check Consensual review at Commons:Quality images candidates. Alvesgaspar 20:18, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations, Dear Administrator!

An offering for our new administrator from your comrades...

MichaelMaggs/Archive/1, congratulations! You now have the rights of administrator on Commons. Please take a moment to read the Commons:Administrators page and watchlist related pages (in particular Commons:Administrators' noticeboard and Commons:Deletion requests), before launching yourself into page deletions, page protections, account blockings or modifications of protected pages. The majority of the actions of administrators can be reversed by the other admins, except for history merges which must thus be treated with particular care.

Please feel free to join us on IRC: #wikimedia-commons @ irc.freenode.net.

EugeneZelenko 14:05, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Congrats! -- Bryan (talk to me) 14:26, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

"There is no underlying work of art, and Bridgeman does not apply"

I have to admit I'm baffled by the above. Are you sure you understand what it is supposed to mean, and are you sure you understand Bridgeman v. Corel? Could you clarify to me what you think you mean by the above? --Fastfission 13:53, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

You modified a large number of PD-Art licenses to PD-Old licenses and left that as your cryptic comment. [3] [4] [5]. Photography was art, last time I checked. --Fastfission 01:04, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

PD-Art isn't intended to be used in that way. It's for use when the photograph in question is a mere reproduction of some other 2D work of art (such as a painting) which is itself in the public domain. In some countries, such as the USA, a 'mere reproduction' of a PD work of art can't attract a new copyright, since the court has held there is insufficient originality in such a photograph. PD-Art makes it clear that in such cases the photograph must also be PD, as was the underlying work of art. In the Muybridge examples, all we have is an old photograph, not of a work of art but of a person. You should use PD-Old for that.

Admittedly, the text of PD-Art is hopelessly confused, and I can see you have attempted to use it on the basis that the old photo itself is PD, and that the scan you or someone else made is non-original and hence is also PD. But that's always the case with old photos, in that every 'old photo' here is, of necessity, a copy (or a copy of a copy etc) of some earlier original negative. And to apply your logic would mean that PD-Art would always be applicable and PD-Old could never be used.

A couple of us are just going to have a shot at improving the PD-Art wording, to make its sense clearer. Do join in if you're interested: we'll be doing drafts at User:Kareha/PD-Art. --MichaelMaggs 15:59, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

cricket bat

how was it a copyvio when its my bat and i took the picture of it? The picture of a bat isn't a copyvio if that was because of the design on it. Why was it deleted without a discussion? I demand a descriptive explanation to why it was deleted and what policy it broke.--Thugchildz 20:25, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

You don't aquire copyright in the design printed on the bat when you buy a bat, in the same way that you don't aquire copyright in a movie when you buy the DVD. In neither case are you allowed to copy and freely distibute copies: that's a copyright violation. The photo would be OK if you blanked out the printed design. Have a look at Commons:Licensing. --MichaelMaggs 20:39, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

When i bought the bat it, it didn't say anything about not being able to freely distribute or copy like it does in a DVD. But that aside I didn't reproduce the bat or anything I took the picture of a bat that is mine. The design may be copyrighted but the bat isn't and the picture is of the bat not the design. But for whatever reason, you are not supposed to deleted a picture like that; you're suppose to discuss it 1st before deleting it. I say can you please restore the picture and have a deletion discussion on it please?--Thugchildz 20:50, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, have a look at Commons:Derivative works. It would have been deleted if it was a copyrighted 3d object(which it isn't) AND it was a photo taken of it. It's not a 3d object although it is a photo taken partially of it.--Thugchildz 20:57, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Ah it isn't a reproduction of a 2d copyrighted image, because it isn't a picture of just the design. And you can't speedy delete things which warrant discussions like these--Thugchildz 21:10, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't show "some wood as well" it shows the bat and the design on it as well. And the design isn't reproduced, its not a picture of the design! If you use you logic than why is there pictures like this- and and and and ? They all have copyrighted design/logos on it and believe me I could find a lot of things like these on here, should you delete those too?--Thugchildz 21:26, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

NO its not...the balls are like almost full of the logos. and the bats have about five or six copyrighted logos on them. How is not not a significant part of it?--Thugchildz 21:35, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

IRC cloak request

I am MichaelMaggs on freenode and I would like the cloak wikimedia-commons/MichaelMaggs. Thanks. --MichaelMaggs 17:19, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

FP promotion

★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★ The image Image:Sepiola atlantica.jpg, that you nominated on Commons:Featured picture candidates/Image:Sepiola atlantica.jpg has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so.

--Simonizer 10:53, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikinews Photo

Hey!

Can you take a quick look at [[6]], if you can help, I would really appreciate it

Symode09 16:51, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

This message has been sent to around 25 people

Anatomy photos

Hello Michael. I am currently seeking a photographer willing to help me find the photographs. Briefly, I am currently working on rewriting the article "Anatomical terms of location" on the English Wikipedia. While I have found and modified images for both vertebrate and invertebrate sections, I am still seeking appropriate photographs for the human sections. As you are a photographer, and interested in things biological, I was hoping you might be able to help me.

Basically, what I'm looking for are photographs of humans in standard anatomical position. Ideally, I would like photos of both male and female, one each of front, back and one side. Ideally, the subjects should be against a neutral or plain contrasting background, would be unlabelled (I will label them as appropriate), and would be high resolution, so that I could crop out separate areas (face, thorax, etc...) for labelling. Of course, a GDFL licence, or equivalent, would be necessary to upload them into the Commons, and for me to be able to modify them accordingly.

Whew! Sounds like a lot, and it is, I suppose. Would you be able/willing to upload photos like this? Alternatively, do you know any other photographers that would be willing and able to do so? Feel free to contact me on my talk page either here on the Commons, or in the English Wikipedia (same username). Also, you can check out my gallery, to get some idea of how I've been modifying images for other sections of the article. Thanks. Esseh 14:47, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi again Michael. Thanks for your message - I didn't really think you could personally, but was hoping you might know someone who could help out. Thanks anyway. Esseh 21:24, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for Undeletion

As I was on holiday, I could not spot this erroneous deletion request of Image:Corcovado statue01 2005-03-14.jpg in time. While I would dish out most of the blame to User:Dantadd for tagging despite the note "own photo" and proper licence, I wonder why the admin who then actually did the deletion did not spot something fishy. In particular the many pages to unlink should have raised his suspicion.

Currently http://tools.wikimedia.de/~daniel/WikiSense/CheckUsage.php seems to be temperamental (update: indicating 26 uses a few minutes ago and now 34, at least it now works partially), but the old http://www.juelich.de/avatar/check-usage/check-usage.php does work and shows that after a fortnight of the image being down there still persist 10 interwiki links.

Is there a chance to find out on which pages the photo was used, like a "check usage" button looking into the past?--Klaus with K 17:45, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

If there is, I'm afraid I don't know about it, but someone more knowledgeable might. Sorry. --MichaelMaggs 18:09, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Yellow Admiral (Vanessa itea).jpg

Hi, regarding your comments at Featured pictures candidates on Commons:Featured_picture_candidates/Image:Yellow_Admiral_(Vanessa_itea).jpg, I have posted an alternative crop that minimises the visibility of the hand it is on, does this address your reservations? Thanks :-) --Tony Wills 11:10, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

QICbot for consensual review?

Have you got any comments about my proposal for QI consensual review revamp[7] to assist QICbot use for Consensual Review decisions. --Tony Wills 22:52, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Image Keith

Hi Michael, the image was uploaded in higher resolution (750 kb) as you asked for and is placed here [8] I hope my credentials are just fine now. Thank you Machocarioca 08:17, 8 May 2007 (UTC)Machocarioca

Question about trophy cups

Hi Michael. There are a bunch of trophies cups nominated for deletion, such as Commons:Deletion requests/Image:Hhof calder.jpg (and a whole bulk of them at Commons:Deletion_requests/2007/03/31). The NHL apparently claims copyright of them, but I'm not sure if they are copyrightable, or if they can be considered utility items. Could you perhaps weigh in? Thanks. / Fred Chess 22:50, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

All done. --MichaelMaggs 16:32, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Great :-)

Fred Chess 17:55, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Res limit on commons

I Was wondering if there is any way that the minimum image resolution limit on QIC and FPC to be lowered (it would have to be put to a vote, I suppose, how do you instigate that?), I don't mean lower the standard; the limit on en:wiki:fpc is only 1600px by 1200px and the standard there is far higher than that on com:fpc. I'm asking mainly because I have recently decided to only upload downsampled images due to the lack of a license which prohibits free commercial use of images.--Benjamint444 11:41, 15 May 2007 (UTC) (I have also asked Ram Man this, since you are both prominent admins on the photography pages)

Hi Ben. The way you could do it would just be to put your proposal up on Commons:Featured picture candidates and ask for a vote. Pretty informal. But I have to say that I wouldn't be in favour of such a change. Although the 2Mpx size is only a guide, I and quite a few others are reluctant to allow a photographer's wish to exclude commercial licensing to count as a 'mitigating reason'. So, even less would I be in favour of watering down the guideline figure simply because some professional photographers (or intended professionals) don't like it. I have tried to convince Fir0002 that in restricting himself to smaller sizes he is deliberately cutting himself out of the possibility of many FP accolades, including the Picture of the Year competition, but to no avail. I would be very sorry if you took a similar decision since I think that you clearly do have the talent to do well, and would be a prime candidate for the proposed Commons:Meet our photographers page. I do hope you will reconsider. --MichaelMaggs 15:40, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah Michael with the accolades, they don't really mean that much :-) I've got plenty, and personally I don't see a commons FP as valuable or as coveted as an en wiki FP! --Fir0002 www 08:22, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Ben, since you posted on my page as well, I must say that as a professional photographer myself (on the side, not enough money to do it full-time), I appreciate these concerns. I've made moral and practical arguments for uploading full resolution images, and I've made that choice myself. I think all professional photographers should do the same, and I'd oppose any watering down of the guidelines. As for commercial usage, all of the shots that I've made money on would never have enough picture quality to survive a featured picture nomination. My most successful image has blown out highlights! What Fir0002 and others do not seem to realize is that real customers will accept very lousy quality and/or boring images. If I wanted to, I could easily sell Fir0002's work and no one would know or care that it was downsampled. Obviously I'd have to follow the license, which means he would get more exposure. And if someone was going to steal your work, it wouldn't matter what license was allowed. Most people who are willing to pay you for your work won't even use the GFDL, so you can charge them a penalty/royalty for not sharing freedom with others. -- Ram-Man 16:01, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I've never heard the other side of the argument before and you make it a convincing one, but it seems to me that downsampling limits the usability of an image so that if people want to use it they are more likely to come to you for a higher quality, 72dpi is too low for printing. My main concern is that it's too easy for someone to use images off wikipedia and not publish it with the license, it would be unlikely that you would ever even know, and if you did find out you have to be able to afford to take them to court. If I downsample then - tell me if I'm wrong - someone who would have just used the image and published it with the license (you still get exposure) will instead have to come to me first for a higher quality and or the right to publish it without displaying the license. If they don't mind showing the license and using low res images then I'm still getting exposure and they still get to use an image of acceptable (for onscreen anyway) quality. I'll speak to fir today and find out in more detail what his arguments are.--Benjamint444 00:21, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I've had 36" x 24" prints from 6MP images (thats only 83dpi!), and 11" x 14" from 3MP images (146dpi) and the only one that can tell that they were from a "low" quality source file was myself. When Fir downsamples his images in photoshop, that process maximizes the amount of spatial resolution, so his 2MP images have the detail of, say, a 3MP+ camera file, which allows them to be enlarged. The alternative is to use low jpeg compression or worse downsampling algorithms, but then the usefulness of the images suffers, and they certainly won't become FPs, and it really hurts what we are all here trying to do. The way I see it is the only way to not get ripped off is not to publish at all.

I get approached all the time from people who want to use my photos for this and that purpose. I've had everything from 6-year old girls to non-profit organizations to commercial book publishers. Most of the time they only want to use the images in sizes of 4"x6" or less, so virtually any resolution is sufficient. A crop of this image was published at ~2.5"x4", even though that image is not super sharp. It looks fine in print. The biggest problem is negotiation: whether or not to give them for free (in exchange for exposure), charge for them, or just walk away entirely.

The point is that with my high resolution images, I am still approached by people wanting to use the images, and for me it's an opportunity for free exposure and in some cases a little extra income (although it isn't much!). Any business that has the finances to pay is not going to take the financial and legal risk of stealing photos from such a public site. The business has no idea if you've registered your copyright with the copyright office, which is a very risky for them. A small licensing fee is a small price to pay for that security. Since people don't want to be bothered by the license, they are liable to ask you for a special license regardless of the uploaded resolution. The people you hurt by not uploading at full resolution are not your potential customers: it's mainly those who would use it for legitmate use or for illegal use. But of course I'm sure that somewhere is an enterprising individual who might sell my work. That's a big complement for me if they do that, and the exposure is nice. -- Ram-Man 02:02, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry Ram-Man but what you said about 6MP 36" x 24" prints is utter rubbish. If I print a 19" x 13" I can already see the poor quality showing through on an 8.2MP file.

Condemned by your own mouth! As you say it's true that my downsampled images have extremely high quality (which is what I've been trying to get you to do all along!) and so it is stupid to have a 2MP limit which excepts images which are low quality at 100% just because they pass the res barrier. I could upsample my images and get better quality. Which is why I strongly believe that the criteria should be changed to similar to en:wikipedia:fpc - 1000px maximum side length.

However I do agree with your experience of photo usage - it's been basically the same deal with me. Makes me laugh a little when 12 year olds actually bother to write an email asking permission to use an image in a school project :-) True I probably to get scammed, but then it's not costing me anything, and the people who would be actually willing to pay for an image are the ones who don't want to include an entire copy of the GFDL with publications or risk legal issues. Incidentally which country are your from? In Australia you don't need to formally register a copyright on something, the copyright is yours by default --Fir0002 www 08:17, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm still not sure I can see the downside to downsampling, as far as wiki is concerned it doesn't limit usefulness, in the case of nature shots the subject is still always larger than life and with a much better quality at a reasonable viewing size, - you don't look at the subject of a 10MP image at 100%, it's just too big. the only thing you can see is problems with the photo - and you said yourself downsamples his images in photoshop, that process maximizes the amount of spatial resolution, so his 2MP images have the detail of, say, a 3MP+ camera file, which allows them to be enlarged. which greatly increases their usefullness.

It's nice to get image promotions but they are not that important, it's the voting proccess thats important because it gives you feedback about your images and helps you to improve them Strike, fir's already made that point! --Benjamint444 10:54, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

With respects to poster prints at 83dpi, *I* can tell that they are printed that low, but that's only because I'm looking for it. I have it hanging up at a wall at home, and no one has noticed a thing. Now I know that, like myself, Fir would be able to technically pick it apart, but really what difference would that make? I'm not showing it off to people who look that closely, I'm showing it off to people who appreciate the image as a whole, including the professional photographer that printed it for me (large format epson printer, very nice). This is my argument about commercialization.

My argument regarding resolution is different and is a moral argument, not a practical one. Now, I've made the argument elsewhere, but let me try to summarize my views on downsampled images: while it is true that Fir0002's downsampled images retain a large amount of the spatial resolution (maximized, that is, a high percentage not 100%), the total resolution available is still less. For the poster prints that I like to make, it can and will make a visible difference that people can see if they decide to look for it. Sure I could use those downsampled images and they'd look pretty good, but of course a full resolution source would look better. Downsampling limits what end users can do with your print and it violates the spirit of the "four freedoms" since you are restricting what people can do with your image. People would consider it equally wrong if you uploaded a full resolution image but restricted it to non-commercial use only. This is partially why there is hostility towards downsampled images. It isn't stated in the guidelines, but 2MP is generally considered to be ok if that is the best possible resolution available. If better resolutions would be available, some in the community take it as an insult. We all share huge amounts of time, effort, and money to contribute and the whole process relies on the goodwill of others. Downsampling gives the appearance of trying to game the system, whether or not this is actually true. Of course in the case of a professional photographer, it is far more complicated than that because there is a risk of loss of profit, and I understand that. No one is forcing you to contribute and even downsampled images are greatly appreciated. But FP is not a right, so it isn't handed out to just anyone.

I live in the United States where copyright is automatic, but registration with the copyright office allows you to recover statuatory damages (including legal fees!) instead of actual damages in copyright infringement cases. All professional photographers in the U.S. should register with the copyright office if this is a concern, and it doesn't cost that much, although it's a pain to do the paperwork. -- Ram-Man 12:15, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Well as a fairly proficient photographer I take insult in the fact the community can't respect my right to maintain high res files. To be completely honest, the only reason I upload photos to commons is so that other encyclopedias can use them. I believe that wikipedia is what it says it is. A free encyclopedia. Not a free stock site. I really like the idea of free encyclopedia where anyone can access the sum of the worlds knowledge. I'm really happy to give people the opportunity to use my images for educational purposes. But the idea of allowing anyone to make money, potentially without even notifying me, off work which I've put a lot of time and money into producing is just completely wrong. And I believe it's morally wrong to demand such a condition from photographers who believe in the free encyclopedia but not the concept of free stock website. It's also mildly ironic that after demanding photographers to give up their images, Wikimedia doesn't even license it's logos under the GFDL, and images like this get deleted for being copyrighted!

See that's just stupid - images fulfilling the 2MP requirement with extremely poor quality full res get excepted, where images which look great full res and could be upscaled to 2MP and achieve similar quality are rejected! FPC is suppose to identify beautiful interesting etc and high quality images. This 2MP guideline is not doing that!

Anyway if you still disagree it's probably unlikely we'll ever agree. Personally I'm firmly convinced that the restriction on res on COM:FPC is a farce in light of the quality of some of the promoted 2MP images at full res. Photos must be judged at full res. Otherwise, as I say, it's pointless to have a 2MP guideline when no one ever looks beyond the fact that "yes it's over 2000px wide" --Fir0002 www 11:05, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

If a user did want to do something that required a higher resolution then I would be happy to supply it. So the only downside seems to be that you get less FPs, but as I've said, it's the FPC process that is important more than the promotions. I can see your point of view, you almost had me convinced, but there really doesn't seem to be any reason not to downsample.benjamint

• (replying to Fir) But there isn't in fact a resolution limit on COM:FPC, although there are some who automatically oppose anything below 2MP and try to suggest to others that it is a limit. And `no one ever looks beyond the fact that "yes it's over 2000px wide"` is of course totally mis-representing things, even those that demand that size still look at other qualities of the image, and many people support much smaller images if they are good quality. If there are poor quality FP images (apart from mine ;-) please nominate them for delisting. --Tony Wills 12:15, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
• Hmmm, this is definitely a contentious issue. As my record clearly shows, I will support images lower than the recommendation. Heck I supported the Vinton Cerf image even though it was basically only a little bigger than a thumbnail because I really liked the composition. The last of Fir0002's images to be nominated was the water droplet, which yes, I didn't like that it was downsampled, but it also had a noisy quality that most of his other FPs lack. It will be an interesting day when another one comes that is perfect technically and visually appealing. As for the wikimedia logo, that is an issue of trademark, not of copyright. The moral questions are very different in that case. As for you in particular, I do respect your (Fir0002) work because you are one of the few photographers that tries to make as high quality downsampled images as possible (at least that's my impression). The 2MP guidelines as I understand are intended for images that have not been downsampled and are taken staight out of the camera. Most of yours easily have more real spatial resolution than 2MP and some 3MP cameras. I'll write more later about the moral questions surrounding photographers and copyleft, but I don't have the time now. -- Ram-Man 14:09, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

• The philosophy around "free" software, images, or text is important. If I grow some tomatoes in my garden and sell them to my neighbor, he should be able to do whatever he wants with it. If I give him the tomato, he should have the same freedom. He can take the tomato that I gave him for free and sell it to someone else if he wants. He also has the choice to keep it and not get rid of it at all. He can consume it. He can also take the seeds and grow a new tomato. He can even take a photograph of the tomato and it's not any kind of violation. It's a physical object, and everyone is familiar with this concept of ownership. If I code up a piece of software and sell it to someone, he should be given the same freedom to do whatever he wants with it. He can consume it, sell it, and give it to his friends, just like a material object. Now if I take a photo, I can do what I want with it. If I choose to sell prints of my work or sell people downloads, I can do that. But I should give those people the permission to make free copies and sell my work as well, just as a material object. Why should there be any difference between a physical print and a digital print? None that I can see. Just because it is easier to copy is no reason at all, since I just sold it to them they should be able to do what they want with it. If instead of selling the picture, I give it away for free, those who take it for free should be given the same freedoms that the person who paid for it should receive. Now it's fine if I don't want to sell or give away high-resolution images, but I can't selectively choose who to give this freedom to, otherwise I'm being inconsistent. The reason for this may not be clear, so let me explain. If I believe that freedom to copy and sell is important (because you can do it with material objects!), then I can't only grant that full freedom to someone who is paying for my work. That's not really freedom at all, and its the same as a restrictive software license or demanding that the person I gave the free tomato to can't sell it either. It should be as if it was a tomato. And don't think the tomato is any different than a photograph. A farmer could pour hours and hours of his time and much money into growing them. In fact, taking a picture could be less work and cost. The product doesn't matter and neither does whether or not it is physical or digital. You think nothing of giving a tomato that you bought in the store to someone else, so why should a picture be any different? Just because you want to make money on your work doesn't mean that you should ignore freedom. Now to your specific point. You want to be pragmatic and make things useful for the Wikipedias, but why limit it to that? One of the four freedoms is to "use and perform the work", with no restrictions. By using lower resolution images, you are limiting the use to what you want. You're trying to control it. And that's fine if you don't believe in the four freedoms or you only commercially sell images with that same quality, but it's inconsistent otherwise (for reasons stated above). So basically, if you think that freedom is important, you have to be consistent. If you don't think freedom is important, well then none of this applies to you, but if you want to understand why people who do appreciate these freedoms will reject your downsampled work, this is the reason. More importantly: many people pour hours and hours of their lives into writing Wikipedia articles, and they are not paid for their time. They don't hold back their best information because they want to commercialize it and only give their second best to Wikipedia. Neither should that be the case for photography. -- Ram-Man 04:06, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

• With the above philosophy in mind, let's look at the 2MP requirements. Now I can't say what the entire reason for the requirements are, but in light of the four freedoms and the goals of the commons and that of Wikipedia, freedom of knowledge is important, be it text or image, it matters not. The community has decided that at least 2MP is necessary to be useful to Wikipedia in most reasonable manners. I'm not sure if this means 2MP in "out of camera" resolution or 2MP in spatial resolution. I guess that's up to interpretation. When I evaluate images that are 1600x1200, I want it to be basically perfect, because there is no room for error for the stated needs of Wikipedia. The featured picture process also takes into account mitigating factors, so we'll sometimes pass an image of lower resolution. For most images at 2MP, we should expect excellent technical quality at 100%, because this is important to Wikipedia. However, a 12MP image (in my mind) gets a lot more give since most of the flaws would not exist at the 2MP threshold. That's why I evaluate *all* images at 1600x1200 (2MP), since that is the acceptance standard and I want to apply it equally to everyone. Using 100% is not the same standard for everyone and is inconsistent and unfair to those who use higher resolution images. If the guidelines are 2MP, why should I judge at a different standard? Thus, I treat all images as if they were 2MP images. If they are less than that, they are not enough for Wikipedia to use, by reason of the guidelines. Now back to philosophy: What is not fully addressed is when someone makes the choice to try to get by at the minimum for no reason other than personal choice. What do we do then? If the only issue was the 2MP guideline, we'd have no reason to object. I want to make that very clear. However, for reasons of the four freedoms, someone who isn't willing to publish their images at full resolution is basically saying that freedom to use isn't really all that important. Why should we feature someone who doesn't care about the all of the four freedoms? You talk about the "sum of the world's knowledge", but what about the knowledge contained in photographs? It's nothing personal, but I do agree with all of the four freedoms, and to be consistent, I can't support any images less than 2MP for these philosphical AND practical reasons. I really do feel strongly about these freedoms, and that's why I do what I do. Instead of 2MP, I would support a resolution requirement that stated "the maximum available with a practical minimum of 2MP", and you can tell from other's comments that they also think this should be the case. But as it stands now, that's not the consensus, so 2MP it is. Let me be clear: downsampling to avoid full freedom is unacceptable. Downsampling for other reasons is acceptable. -- Ram-Man 04:06, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

• I don't want to make an enemy over this. I am not speaking badly of the images themselves: They are beautiful. I hope you can appreciate the difficult situation I have here, opposing pictures on non-technical, philosophical grounds. It must be frustrating. At least if others do not agree with me, the pictures will be successful, and that's why we don't have one person making the decision. -- Ram-Man 04:29, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Is there time less valuable than yours?

My 2 cents worth: 1600*1250 = 2M pixel so the en:wiki:fpc standard is really the same. --Tony Wills 23:23, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

en:wiki:fpc is more amenable to low res images though.--Benjamint444 00:28, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

(resetting indent)

• I don't agree with Fir's philosophy, and don't think supplying low res images here will actually make much difference to his ability to sell photos. I expect there are a large number of contributors to commons who don't share all of the 'commons goals', but clearly we are not going to win converts by badgering them. If images are accepted by commons they should be judged strictly on their merits, and not whether a 'better' image could have been provided. Invoking the 'project scope' "The quality of files should be as high as possible" as a reason for rejecting FP candidates is a nonsense. It is not an FP criteria and if it was, what does it mean ? - must I beg, borrow or steal (or perhaps buy ;-) a better camera because clearly my own images aren't as high a resolution as is technologically possible? I have sympathies with Ram-Man's idea of viewing images at a standard resolution, so up-scale small images, down-scale large ones - so small quality images may pass FP inspection, and large ones can be stored at full resolution and don't have to be down-sampled to pass some unrealistic scrutinisation at 100%. (just my $2 worth :-) --Tony Wills 11:05, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Soapbox

I apologize for using your page as a soapbox. -- Ram-Man 04:06, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Probably we should take the discussion to FP_candidate_talk, should we copy the whole thing across and continue there? --Tony Wills 11:12, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Another

Hi Michael -- have you seen this request? Regards, Fred Chess 17:31, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I've added some comments [9].--MichaelMaggs 18:45, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I think your comment was very insightful. / Fred Chess 19:55, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the edit! --MichaelMaggs 19:56, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

You might be tired of this issue by now, but I was wondering if you could take a look at those HP images that had been deleted earlier? It's six images, at the bottom of this page. It's not a big deal, but if any of them can be safely kept, then why not having it restored? / Fred Chess 22:03, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Commons:Deletion_requests/Harry_Potter_Fan_art

I strongly oppose closing "Harry_Potter#Fan_art", "Image:Halbblutprinz-buch.jpg", "Everything not previously listed and in Category:Harry Potter and Category:Harry Potter Characters", "More Harry Potter images". Please re-open them again, since a result has not been reached yet. The length of your closing arguments shows clearly that they would be suited better as part of the discussion, not as closing comments. --rtc 07:23, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid I'm not prepared to re-open on the basis that you don't agree with me. Whenever an admin closes there are almost always some users who would have preferred a different result. Sorry. I closed the actual requests, but it was User:ALE! who closed the discussion at the end of the page. --MichaelMaggs 11:39, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Your image on FPC

Welcome back to self-nom! Your image of Pultney Bridge has an excellent composition but I find it a little dark and unsharp. Here is a slightly edited and downsampled version, please do with it what you like. - Alvesgaspar 09:03, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

It should be sharp as it was taken with a decent lens on a rock-solid tripod. I'll have a go this evening with a higher USM setting and see what that looks like. Thanks for the comments. --MichaelMaggs 17:27, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Your FPC image Fringilla coelebs

Hello MichaelMaggs, your picture is very beautiful and positively have the "WOW factor" but I think it will benefit from a downsampling. I tryed with a little bit of sharpening and I downsampled it to 1416x2000px and the result is good. Perhaps you can do it or I can upload it for you, if you want. --LucaG 20:01, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Image:Adolf Hitler at Berchtesgaden.ogg

Hi,

Re the above file, I just thought I'd let you know that you deleted the deletion discussion and left the file up. I'm guessing you meant to do the opposite. -- Arvind 20:40, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

You're quite right. Sorry. --MichaelMaggs 20:43, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

FP Promotion

★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★ The image Image:Pulteney Bridge, Bath 2.jpg, that you nominated on Commons:Featured picture candidates/Image:Pulteney Bridge, Bath 2.jpg has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so.

--Simonizer 13:33, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

FP Promotion

★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★ The image Image:Fringilla coelebs chaffinch male edit2.jpg, that you nominated on Commons:Featured picture candidates/Image:Fringilla coelebs chaffinch male edit2.jpg has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so.

--Simonizer 20:32, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Copyright of Image:Azulejos Parque Eduardo VII-2.jpg

Michael, I'm not sure about the copyright of these panel. The author died in 1942 (less than 70 years ago) but the work is in a public place, in the outside wall of a building. As far as I know, it is not forbidden to take pictures of that building. Can you help? - Alvesgaspar 23:21, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Joaquim, I'm not totally sure, I'm afraid. Generally, photographing a copyright work without the consent of the copyright owner, and uploading it here, will be a copyright infringement even if the work is on display in a public place - in other words the copyright owner does not give up his or her rights by displaying in public. But in some countries, Portugal included, there is an exception called Freedom of Panorama which allows buildings and sometimes other works as well to be photographed freely. The problem is that generally, this freedom applies only to three-dimensional objects, and it's very unusual for 2D designs to be covered. The relevant part of the Portuguese law appears to be §75(2)q of the Copyright Act which reads "A utilização de obras, como, por exemplo, obras de arquitectura ou escultura, feitas para serem mantidas permanentemente em locais públicos.." Can you tell me whether that states or implies that 2D works are covered? If it uses language equivalent to the English "Works of Artistic Craftsmanship" they probably aren't as that's code for a type of 3D work. I don't know if that helps. --MichaelMaggs 20:14, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks for your help. I also read that article and my interpretation is that 2D works are not to be excluded. Let me translate the text: "The use of works, like architecture or sculpture works, made to be kept permanently in public places..." . For me the relevant phrase is "to be kept permanently in public places". In the present case, the panel is part of the building, which is in a public park, and it is supposed to be kept there (removing tiles from a wall normally imply the damage or destruction of some of them). I'm not a lawyer but, in the spirit of the law, I can't see any relevant difference between a panel of tiles and a sculpture. Apparently, they just forgot to mention this special case. - Alvesgaspar 21:26, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

As it doesn't seem clear either way I think you can reasonably give yourself the benefit of the doubt. --MichaelMaggs 21:29, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Wax sculptures

I've analysed also this argument. I cannot consider museum exposition "permanent", or museum where you pay for entrance as "open for public". If you don't agree with my closing decision, please put a request on Commons:Undeletion requests. Maybe UK section on COM:FOP should be more specific too. A.J. 18:51, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

FP Promotion

★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★ The image Image:Inscriptions on torii, Fushimi Inari shrine, Kyoto.jpg, that you nominated on Commons:Featured picture candidates/Image:Inscriptions on torii, Fushimi Inari shrine, Kyoto.jpg has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so.

--Simonizer 08:22, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Please remain calm and collegial

I'm not sure I know what are you talking about, but, if it is about the age, it was the responce to Richard's message to me, which I deleted few minutes ago (exactly as I deleted you message too) . I really do not see anything offencive in his message to me or my "edit" to him. My "edit" has nothing to do with his votes. If you do see something offencive, please do take whatever action you believe will be proper against me. Anyway I'm getting really tiered from some Wikipedians. Regards--Mbz1 22:35, 10 July 2007 (UTC)Mbz1

• Oh and by the way, do you really believe I care about votes? I learned a long time ago that FP is bias photo forum that has little to do with the real encyclopedic value--Mbz1 22:52, 10 July 2007 (UTC)Mbz1
  • Hi, again,MichaelMaggs, I wonder, if you were satisfied with my response to you and do not concider my "edit" at Richard's page not civil and a personal attack any more? If you do, why not to say that you were sorry? If you do not, where are the promissed actions? It is really getting boring here. I'd be also very interested to learn how did you find out that "not civil" edit at Richard's page? Did he complain to you pesonally? Regards--Mbz1 16:19, 11 July 2007 (UTC)Mbz1
    • Your response is not good enough for me. Before you treatened me with the actions you should have tried to find out what that "edit" at Richard page was about. The only thing you should have done for that was to go to my talk page and look at the history to see Richard's edit at my talk page and realize that my "edit" at his page was a direct response to his edit at my page and had absolutely nothing to do with his votes on my images(that I could not care less). I still believe you should say that you are sorry. After all you are the administrator.--Mbz1 18:48, 11 July 2007 (UTC)Mbz1

vacation replacement

Hello Michael, i will be in vacation from July the 15. until July the 31.. I asked Alvesgaspar if he can go on with the Featured Candidates closing process in that time, but he will be in vacation too. But he mentioned that maybe you can go on then. Can you? --Simonizer 07:53, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I should think so. I haven't done it before, but no doubt there are some clear instructions somewhere ... Or I'll just figure it out. Have a good break both of you. --MichaelMaggs 21:47, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. That is very nice. You find some instructions under Template talk:Featured pictures candidates#What to do after voting is finished. If you have questions, just ask. There are still 12 days left until my vacation. --Simonizer 22:11, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Thats fine --Simonizer 09:15, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

FP Promotion

★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★ The image Image:This boy's dead body, aflame, bears ghastly witness of the horror of the damage done by V-2 on main intersection in... - NARA - 531329.tif, that you nominated on Commons:Featured picture candidates/Image:This boy's dead body, aflame, bears ghastly witness of the horror of the damage done by V-2 on main intersection in... - NARA - 531329.tif has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so.

--Simonizer 07:49, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

CU

The work for today is done. Iam leaving in a few hours. I will look occasionally in here, so if you have questions i will answer. Bye. --Simonizer 07:49, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

:

I see your name attached to the deletion log. Can you tell us why it was deleted? --70.101.84.47 03:50, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

The image had the text "Three Dancing Maidens by German sculptor Walter Schott. Created in approximately 1910 and located in the French Garden of the Conservatory Garden, Central Park, New York City." The uploader later recognised that there is no freedom of panorama for artworks such as statues in the USA, and this was a photo of a statue in Central Park, without proof of permission. Per Commons:Freedom of panorama#USA, "For artworks, even if permanently installed in public places, ... any publication of an image of a copyrighted artwork thus is subject to the approval of the copyright holder of the artwork." Schott died in 1938, so his artwork is not yet in the public domain. Hope that helps. --MichaelMaggs 21:59, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

FP candidate

Hi, could you please check [10]? It seems to me that with five supporting votes, this image should have been featured. Regards Lycaon 13:49, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Delist candidates require 2/3 majority (and a minimum of 5 votes) agreeing to delist from featured pictures. If there is not 2/3 agreeing to delist it, it stays as a featured picture. Timing is similar as with FP, I guess even the five-days rule applies. cheers. Lycaon 18:47, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Me again. Maybe we should state something like species identification is essential for FP status somewhere (with value?) in the rules for FPs? What do you think? Lycaon 15:35, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

request for checking an Image

Hi Miceal .. thanks for answering me on the PD-art discussion page . please could you check this Image Image:Ommayad7.jpg .. I have added today .. I asked the question cause some idiot told me that he considered the mosaic as 3d object but by reading the PD-art law i couldn't find anything could be considered 3D unless it has a shadow like coins or similar stuffs .. many thanks --Chaos 12:32, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I think you're right about mosaics and that they should be treated in the same way as any other essentially 2D image (no shadow etc). Am I right in thinking that you took the photo yourself? If so, you don't need to use {{PD-Art}} anyway, as that's only needed when you are uploading someone else's photo. If you took it yourself, and you are sure the mosaic is old enough to be PD under Syrian law, you can use the both the tags {{PD-Old}} (for the mosaic) and {{PD-Self}} (releasing any rights you may have in your photograph). Hope that helps. --MichaelMaggs 21:55, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Image:NYC Public Library Research

I uploaded an edited version of Diliff's picture, trying to suppress the stitching errors.Would you please have a glance? Vassil 25 May 2007

fp closing

Sure. Have a nice time! -- Lycaon 05:37, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I wish you a very nice time, too. Thanks for your help! --Simonizer 07:10, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

You have deleted very fast image that can fall for free of panorama. --WarX 21:56, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

3-views of aircraft by FSHL

Among them are airplanes that are clearly older than 70 years therefore your deletion request is formally incorrect yet... --FSHL 02:03, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

FP

Hi Michael. Have a look a the last four votes in this case. Looks like vote rigging or worse, sockpuppetry. (BTW same happened here). Opinion? Lycaon 11:28, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, very suspicious. It's interesting that Ddenkel, Alperx and KIZILSUNGUR all appear to be Turkish, and all have accounts under the same names on tr.WP. The proposer, White Cat, as well as the uploader of the image Vikimach also have accounts on that Wiki. White Cat is of course well known here, and several of the others appear to have established accounts so I don't think all four voters are likely to be sockpuppets. However, if you look at the user page of Uannis on the Turkish Wikipedia ([11]) you will see what I think may be be a 'Blocked as sockpuppet' notice (though that needs to be checked as I don't speak Turkish). It seems probable we have a least one sockpuppet and at least several others who are supporting for nationalistic reasons rather than voting for the image on its merits. We have seen that before - but I'm not sure what we can realistically do about it. We could ask for Checkuser on Uannis, though. --MichaelMaggs 20:08, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

• As the voting goes, and with some luck, we don't need to do anything. I fear that the Checkuser process will last forever. Alvesgaspar 09:54, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

  Tr.wiki is a small community. Everyone knows even the most minor issues. While I do not see an advertisement on the wiki itself, it might have been through email. In any case the I do not believe a bad faith pile on is the case, just a very excited community. I semi-requested that photo (fire one) via IRC myself by the way as the event was unfolding. Both noms were only discussed among 4 users (myself, both of the photographers and one other user) on IRC. -- Cat ^ちぃ？ 16:03, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks

For letting me know - I certainly don't disagree with you. I shall think longer next time --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:44, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Mail too! --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:49, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Screenshots

Hi Michael .. i see you deleted Image:U7violence.gif with the comment, "Sorry, screenshots aren't normally accepted here". I have no problem if that's the policy, but i don't understand why all the other Ultima 7 screenshots at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima_VII have been allowed to stand -- what's different about mine? --Mike Schiraldi 22:47, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Hello Mike. All rather confusing, I know. The difference is that the others have been uploaded to the English Wikipedia, which allows 'fair use', whereas your was here on Wikimedia Commons where fair use claims are not permitted. Normally, it's best to upload to Commons, as you did, as it means the image can be used in any Wikimedia project, but screenshots need to be hosted on Wikipedia itself. You should be ok if you re-upload there and give a fair-use rationale. --MichaelMaggs 05:54, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Clarifying your FP comment

Hi, I don't know if you check regularly answers to your FP candidates comments, but in case you don't, it would be nice if you could clarify the one about the image looking "unnatural" on Commons:Featured picture candidates/Image:20070818-0001-strolling reindeer.jpg. Thanks. --Nattfodd 09:43, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for expressing your opinion

Thank you for your expressing your opinion at Commons:Administrators/Requests and votes/Jeff G.!   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 11:11, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

POTY 2007

Thank you, Michael, but after the experience of last year I'm not willing to take part in the initiative. But you should, it is sad to realize that probably the contest will be organized by people from outside, some of whom have a poor opinion about COM:FPC. Have you noticed the absence of most FPC regulars in the discussion? - Alvesgaspar 11:13, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Please inform users of deletion of their images

You have deleted two of my images. Please inform users if you are deleting their images, thank you.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 21:04, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Football kits

Hello Michael,

Yesterday you deleted Image:Kit body utrecht 07082.png and Image:Kit body utrecht away 07082.png, because they are supposed to violate copyrights. Are football kits in general copyrighted? I know logos and emblems are, but I think these are no copies, but rather impressions. If they were actually copyrighted, you could also delete a lot of these pictures.

Kind regards, Luctor IV 14:14, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi Luctor. Yes, football strips are indeed normally copyright (which is how clubs retain a monopoly on shirt sales, and also why kit designs are changed so often). Anyone making money out of copied kits, or photos of kit designs, is likely to be sued pretty rapidly. Some of the other images you've mentioned are indeed copyright violations as well, and should be deleted. Others are little more than very abstract representations of eg a white shirt, and are ok. --MichaelMaggs 18:47, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

FPs

I want to learn more about FP candidates. Could you tell me what is wrong and right with Image:World_Jamboree_Site_008.jpg. No, I have not nominated it. Thanks.Rlevse 23:46, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I like the picture a lot, and we could really do with more portraits on FP. I think it's nearly there, but perhaps could be cropped a little to avoid chopping off the guy on the right, and decapitating the one at the back. There's some rather bad colour fringing, too, visible for example down the right side of the right-hand girl's shirt. If you were able to fix those points (do you have a RAW version you can work from?) I'd be inclined to support it as an FP. Hope that helps. --MichaelMaggs 13:25, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

The only version I have is the one one commons. I could probably crop it, but I have no idea how to fix color fringing (I don't even know what that is). Can we work with the version we have?Rlevse 22:09, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not an expert in that, I'm afraid, but you could ask at Commons:Graphics village pump to see if anyone there could fix up the fringing. (Add a topic under the September 2007 heading). --MichaelMaggs 22:22, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I think I creatd the entry wrong, it's a section not a subsection. Pls check it out.Rlevse 11:18, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

I fixed the entry in this edit.   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs|Administrator nom) 06:34, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

FP Promotion

★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★ The image Image:Feather of male Pavo cristatus (Indian peafowl).jpg, that you nominated on Commons:Featured picture candidates/Image:Feather of male Pavo cristatus (Indian peafowl).jpg has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so.

--Simonizer 16:35, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Archival of stubborn section

Hi. I noticed you manually archived section "Image:NYC Public Library Research" in this edit. You had to do that because "minthreadstoarchive" was set to its default of 2. I suggest that for the behavior you appear to want, add a line "|minthreadstoarchive=1" to the {{MiszaBot/config}} portion of this page, or reply to all comments (I do the latter, it's more polite). For more info, please see User:MiszaBot/Archive HowTo#Parameters_explained. Thanks!   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 05:48, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I didn't know that. Thanks. --MichaelMaggs 21:33, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Image:Joueur de flute du rajasthan.jpg

This image is too small but I would like to upload a larger version. As the quality is good, I think it's possible to increase the size to meet the standards. Vassil 20:40, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, please do - but I think it would need to be of truly higher resolution, not just an upsampling. --MichaelMaggs 21:36, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Admin comment

Why does it offend you? I gave what I believe is an accurate assessment of the policy, and I have certainly not insulted anybody. — Dan | Talk 21:12, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Please go to Commons:Village pump#Attitudes to Admin activity & Community policy. --MichaelMaggs 21:20, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

By your estimation, I am one of at most two people to "kick up a fuss" at this policy; however, I count 25 such people -- over half those asked whether they still 'needed' their adminship. I find the policy thoroughly fatuous, and am not inclined to be sympathetic to those who take criticisms of their work personally on a wiki, where criticism is ubiquitous and encouraged. Your curt comment and reply are also mysterious; if you have no complaints with me, I would prefer you leave the complaining to those who do. — Dan | Talk 04:30, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Breitenfeld-xx00.jpg

Please return the four maps (battle of breitenfeld) that you deleted because of false license. When you return them I'll change them propably to PD. Or should I just upload them elsewhere? Ges 11:20, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't believe those are public domain images. --MichaelMaggs 21:46, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Can't get through to this user

Hi Michael, could you may be enlighten this user? Maybe you have a better way with words, as I don't seem to be able to transfer the message. Thanks Lycaon 19:50, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I've done what I can! --MichaelMaggs 21:45, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Thnx. Appreciated. Lycaon 21:47, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Filename prefix blacklist

I noticed that you created the page MediaWiki:Filename-prefix-blacklist, which is why I am contacting you directly with regards to an upload problem I have recently been having. Using Commonist to upload, I have recently been receiving these errors after completing the upload. I suspect my problem is linked to the filename prefix blacklist, which I understand was implemented on September 7 -- the same night I began experiencing this problem.

My images all maintain the lead characters "IMG_####", but as you can see from looking at my gallery of photos, I include descriptive filenames in addition to the IMG_#### tag. The IMG-#### tag is used to sort and reference photos on my harddrive. I have several thousand photos with descriptive filenames but also have the blacklisted prefix, and by no means do I intend to make copies of all of those files and remove each prefix solely to upload to Wikipedia.

This prefix blacklist may go against the foundations of Wikipedia by making it more difficult for users to upload useful content. At the least, I ask that the blacklist not affect images which include the prefix text in addition to extra characters (perhaps set a minimum character count of 9 characters, inclusive).

Please let me know if there is someone more appropriate whom I should contact. Thank you for your time. --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 21:43, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I recently made a small edit to it, but I didn't create it and I'm afraid I don't know much about it. You could try Bryan. --MichaelMaggs 06:13, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Shall do; thanks! --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 12:39, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Mite

Please reconsider your vote on this nomination as to avoid compromising our guidelines. Regards. Lycaon 15:55, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, yes you're right. I didn't look carefully enough. --MichaelMaggs 17:01, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

OTRS

There is a quite severe backlog. See m:OTRS/volunteering for volunteering. Note that the requirements are quite heavy, and that not everybody is accepted. Let me know if you need an endorsement. -- Bryan (talk to me) 20:58, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Picture Louvre deleted

Hi,

a few weeks ago, you asked for a picture of museum of Louvre (with its pyramid on it) (there still is this version online) of mine to be deleted. I'm going to request an undeletion of it, because of what I told you (part of a surrounding environment/case law). Some pictures of the pyramid of Louvre are still on wikipédia/commons, people haven't deleted them for these reasons. The author of this picture states this well on the picture's page. On the discussion page, we find a similar talk about that and it turns out that pictures similar to mine shouldn't be a problem if kept.

What do you think ?

Thanks. Benh 22:05, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Please go ahead. It would be nice if someone could find some specific case law on this point. --MichaelMaggs 05:18, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I did go ahead. The picture was undeleted. I gave you a link to the case law on the FP nomination page (and above too). I guess you won't get much out of it but it basically says what I told you. Of course one can never be 100% sure if it really applies to my picture, but let's say I'm 90% sure. And since people on french wikipedia came to the same conclusion, I believe I'm not far from the truth. If one day we get bored by museum of Louvre (which has the copyright here, not the architect), I think they'll just let us remove the picture without going further. Also, I believe they shouldn't take the risk to attract people attention on this, this could go against them (and why not ruin their business ?). I'm going to renominate it as FP candidate. Benh 21:26, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

There's some active discussion going on about these issues at Commons talk:Licensing#Template:FoP-France. You might like to join in. --MichaelMaggs 21:31, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I will tonight. That's an important issue that must be settled. I was even thinking about finding a member a the french parliament and ask her to debate about this there (though I doubt this will change anything...) Benh 07:27, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

My Photos

HI, I'm sorry I don't know how to send messages.

I want to delete the two photos I just added to the Featured Photo page but can't see how to do that.

Help please!

thanks, Keta

__________________

Oh never mind . . . I think I figured it out (hope I did that right!) I will go back to the original images, save a larger file (without the watermark), upload to my page then re-submit. Thanks for your comments!

-Keta

Just let me know if there's anything I can do. --MichaelMaggs 21:28, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Commons:Featured picture candidates/Image:Tiled roof in Dubrovnik.jpg

Can you see the new edit of Commons:Featured picture candidates/Image:Tiled roof in Dubrovnik.jpg? Thank you very much --Beyond silence 08:45, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I did see it, but thought the light was rather too harsh to support. Sorry. --MichaelMaggs 21:16, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Image:Vue en montant à Vallonpierre.jpg nomination for FP

Hi Michael,

you voted for this picture on FPC and the author uploaded a new version of it. Maybe you'd like to have a look.

tahnks ! Benh 20:21, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Image:Barn_wind_turbines_0504.jpg

Downsized the image, don't think it did that much of a difference, but please take a look and let me know what you think. Thanks, Dori - Talk 02:14, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, I think you're right.--MichaelMaggs 05:52, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Commons:Deletion requests/Image:Daniel's tomb dressing code wallpainting.jpg

Clearly, I don't understand this stuff's reasons. Pentocelo 20:24, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I have replied here. --MichaelMaggs 21:59, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Image:Goat kid444.jpg

Shouldn't this picture disclose in the description that it is a composite? --MichaelMaggs 22:16, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

• Yeah, thats a fairly old version of the image and I was going to replace it and give it a proper description with a finished version but that edge never turned out very well and I didn't get round to it. Will do now. Thanks --Benjamint 02:27, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks!--MichaelMaggs 06:21, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Hymenocallis speciosa

Hi Thanks for your vote at FPC. if u think ts good quality, could you please review it at Quality images candidate? Muhammad Mahdi Karim 19:44, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Done. --MichaelMaggs 19:50, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Muhammad Mahdi Karim 11:23, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Delivery

Dear Michael, this is all i can do for you. Best regards, --Richard Bartz 17:29, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Richard - thanks so much, that really is a vast improvement. As a novice editor, I struggled for quite a long time with Photoshop to get as far as I did. Would you mind sharing a couple of your secrets with me, so that I can do a better job next time? In particular, I'd be fascinated to know what tools you used to get such a clean, smooth and natural-looking cutout, and how you applied them. Regards. --MichaelMaggs 17:38, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

You are welcome! I just played with the color curves and did some layers for the cutout. Its a pity that my photoshop is a german version so it makes no sense to send you a screenshot from the history where you can see each step :( Best regards --Richard Bartz 17:45, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually a screenshot would be very interesting and I'm sure I could work out at least some of the German. Could you email it to me? My selection was done by choosing a colour range, but that and everything else I tried gave rather lumpy outlines which I had to tidy up by hand. How did you do the initial selection to create the mask? --MichaelMaggs 18:04, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

en:FPC closing

Hi, Michael,

What do you think of this and this discussions? I find strange that nobody seems worried with this kind of arbitrary closing procedures - Alvesgaspar 18:05, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I was a bit surprised, which is why I added a note into the ball nom to keep it open for a bit longer. I haven't really been too deeply involved in en.FPCs though. Personally, I prefer the atmosphere at Commons. --MichaelMaggs 18:10, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

RE:Bouncing ball FP candidate

Hllo, MichaelMaggs. I have supported the edit on Wikipeda FP, but I cannot support the edit on Commons. Of course it has absolutely nothing to do with your great image. I cannot support it only because I've promissed never ever to nominate or to comment(including suppors/oposes) on any image on Commons. I'm very sure that the image will pass without my support. It is a really great image with big encyclopedic value. Best regards.--Mbz1 17:41, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry to hear that. Not because of my image, but more generally FP on Commons would be poorer without your comments and nominations. I don't know the background to your decison, but would you reconsider? --MichaelMaggs 17:50, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

What happened ? --Richard Bartz 17:54, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I wish I knew. I hope something can be done.--MichaelMaggs 18:00, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Richard and Michael, thank you very much for caring. Maybe it is exactly what I need now,but probably it is not. The thing is I'm trying to get over it. The less people care the easier it is to get over. I was crying non-stop for the last 2 days. I know it is very stupid, I know I'm very stupid, but I cannot stop. So, please, give me some time and do not write any more about this thing. Richard, you did a great job with the image and once again, Michael, the idea behind the image and the work of taking it is simply amazing!--Mbz1 19:32, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Commons:Featured picture candidates/Image:Bouncing ball - strobe.jpg

Isn't the first ball unnecessary?--Beyond silence 19:36, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Maybe. I did consider leaving it out to make a prettier looking picture, then decided it's easier to understand what's happening if it's left in. Ideally I would have liked several images of the ball as it dropped, but above the leftmost image the ball was mostly being guided within a tube. It's really a matter of taste. --MichaelMaggs 21:56, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Re:Too deep

Thank you, Michael for the kind words and good advise. Best regards--Mbz1 23:48, 10 October 2007 (UTC)Mbz1

Image:Bouncing ball strobe edit.jpg

Hello Michael,

first of all: sorry for my modest english. I have a question concerning the picture of the bouncing ball. What is the explanation for the first ball we see in the pic. The angle of this ball is nearly 0 degree. This is illogically when we see the parabola. Greeting Wladyslaw 15:22, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

The first image is in the correct place - none have been moved - and resulted from the ball being dropped down a tube secured at a fairly steep angle, to get consistency of bounce. As a result of the ball falling/rolling down the tube there was some spin imparted (and indeed you can see that by comparing consecutive images). The rather odd-looking bounce is I think due to the spin. --MichaelMaggs 16:35, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

From Mila

I hereby award you this Good Heart Barnstar for your kindness, when I needed it most--Mbz1 02:48, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

PH-n user templates - again

Hi Michael, You have previously shown interest in my proposal for redefined PH-n user templates. Quite some number of new points have been raised, and I feel the discussion is dying out without having reached a consensus. If you have further input to the discussion feel free to join. -- Slaunger 07:01, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

What is going on there?

I smell a election fraud. My edit is overwritten and all votes are merged together. Have a look at the history please. Is this legal ? --09:15, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Odd, but it seems that Lycaon has fixed it now.--MichaelMaggs 16:41, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Commons:Deletion requests/Image:Daniel's tomb dressing code wallpainting.jpg

I think the discussion will not evolve any more by now, and would appreciate if you could let me know your final decision (just to know if yes or not I can remove the deletion request tag). Sincerely yours. Pentocelo 21:39, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd prefer not to close a deletion request I opened myself. In the meantime I have asked Lupo if he has any comments. --MichaelMaggs 05:54, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Hello

Hi Michael. I'm Lahiru_k. I do upload my and other free pics to commons occasionally but I mainly active on en wiki. Since last few days I upload some nice stuff from http://www.defenselink.mil. Can you have a look on my gallery and check whether it contain some photographs which is wroth to be nominate for Commons:Featured picture candidates? Thanks --♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪ ^{walkie-talkie} 06:44, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi Lahiru. The server is down at the moment, so I can't see your gallery. Will try again later. --MichaelMaggs 21:32, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

There are some very nice and useful images there, but I'm not sure about FP status. Some of the images that have the necessary 'wow factor' such as Image:UH-60 in Afghanistan.jpg are unfortunately rather noisy. My own personal favourite is Image:USN ceremonial guard honors.jpg. Why not give it a try? --MichaelMaggs 16:48, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much for being kind enough to reply. I added Image:USN ceremonial guard honors.jpg to COM:FPC as you recommended. What do you think about nominating Image:720th STG.jpg as well? Cheers --♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪ ^{walkie-talkie} 04:50, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I like it very much, but think that FP voters might consider the dark parts are a little too noisy. --MichaelMaggs 18:01, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Javascript

Well, since I've posted that message, I've made more changes. I also neglected to mention that you need some supporting functions. Also copy the following functions:

• makerawlink: Creates a simple link, given url, display name, and optional target (e.g., '_blank' for opening in a new window).

• editSummary: Sets the editSummary

• encodeEntry, encodeField, form_add_argument, ajax_submit: The first three are just support functions for ajax_submit. Function ajax_submit submits a form through XMLHttpRequest (doesn't handle file uploads, though). I use it to properly submit edit and delete forms without waiting for the reply.

• submit_and_close: submit a form and close the window as soon as the request has been received by the server without waiting for the full result to arrive.

Finally, add the following at the bottom of your monobook.js:

function set_up_auto_del ()
{
 if (document.URL.indexOf (lupo_del_reason) > 0) {
   autodelete ();
 } else if (document.URL.indexOf (lupo_keep_reason) > 0) {
   autokeep ();
 } else {
   // closeRequestLinks(); // If you also copy that, uncomment it (remove the leading "//")
   delRequestLinks();
 }
}

if (window.addEventListener) window.addEventListener("load", set_up_auto_del, false);
else if (window.attachEvent) window.attachEvent("onload", set_up_auto_del);

Then it should work. Sorry that it's not polished yet such that you could just copy a single function or include a single file, but I just hacked it together for personal use. Lupo 19:50, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I see that you've now copied my whole monobook.js. In that case, you don't need the set_up_auto_del part mentioned above, but you should probably also copy my monobook.css to get the bottom tabs and the portlet stuff to display correctly. Also note that you now include Quick-delete.js twice. Lupo 12:11, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I was just playing around to see what other goodies you have, as I must confess I don't understand very well what the code is doing. Hope that's OK. I was going to look at it again today to see why some of the links were appearing twice. Thanks for your help. --MichaelMaggs 12:23, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

The second include of Quick-delete.js is in the code copied from my monobook.js, after the commentary reading "/*** Enable third-party functionality in external scripts */". Just delete the first call to document.write just after that. And remember to remove the set_up_auto_del including its registration as an onload event handler (at the very end of the file). Lupo 16:57, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Done. It all works fine and is a great help in closing deletion requests. More people should use it! --MichaelMaggs 17:38, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Cool! Lupo 17:56, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

FP promotion

★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★ The image Image:Bouncing ball strobe edit.jpg, which was nominated by Richard at Commons:Featured picture candidates/Image:Bouncing ball strobe edit.jpg has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so.

--Simonizer 09:56, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Image:P52 recto.jpg

Hi Michael.

Do you know if this image is copyrighted? I nominated it for deletion according to Commons:When to use the PD-Art tag#UK, but now a new version without shadows or "careful lightening" has been uploaded. Do you know if it is copyrighted? / Fred J 06:24, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Under UK law this is copyright, but the uploader now says that an OTRS request is pending. Nothing there yet, so far as I can see, but give it a few days. --MichaelMaggs 06:38, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay. / Fred J 08:47, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Re: Mayflower

Hi Michael, thanks for your message regarding Mayflower. I'm sorry I didn't update the index for such a long time, I'm currently in that process and have posted a message to the Village Pump saying so. The new index should be available in a few hours' time. Cheers, Tangotango 03:58, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Sweat of the brow

Could you take a look at en:Talk:Sarah Bernhardt#Image copyright, please? UK copyright continues to amaze me... if that's true, we'll have to extend COM:ART to say that in the UK even most scans are not ok. (Basically every scan I've ever produced needed postprocessing.) Lupo 15:43, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

A scanned image that is a mere copy of an existing photograph cannot attract copyright in the UK if the copyist has devoted "no such labour and skill as conferred an originality of an artistic character"; and there can be no new copyright if the process is "wholly mechanical": see Reject Shop -v- Manners [1995] FSR 870 at 876 per Leggatt LJ. This was a case relating to the use of an enlarged photocopy, but a scan would be treated in the same way. The Court quoted an earlier Privy Council case (Interlego -v- Tyco, [1989] AC 217) where Lord Oliver had said "But copying, per se, however much skill and labour may be devoted to the process cannot make an original work". In one of the practitioners' texts, The Law of Photography and Digital Images, Christina Michalos comments that user selection of lightness/darkness and resolution settings would not be enough, but that copyright could be generated if the scanner were to be used as an art tool - eg to create a totally new work from an original arrangement of existing elements. That much is clear. Whether copyright is generated by post-processing must be a matter of degree. If all that is done is "wholly mechanical" and just needs technical rather than artistic know-how (eg how to use Photoshop to remove dust, tweak contrast etc), then no. But if the processing requires artistic judgement, even if fairly minimal, then yes. It's difficult to be precise, but it could definitely be argued that complex post-processing to enhance and bring out certain features in a selective way is of necessity artistic.

So far as images on Commons are concerned, the problem is that we often don't know what, if any, post-processing has been applied. I would think it reasonable to assume (unless we have evidence to the contrary) that what appears to be a mere scanned copy of an old photograph actually is just that, and should be kept as 'non-original'. Otherwise we will be throwing out large numbers of scans that are actually OK. MichaelMaggs 18:35, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok. Could you add a summary of this info to COM:ART, please? Lupo 06:38, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Not too much time at the moment, but I'll try and do something in a couple of weeks. Not sure about adding it to COM:ART as this is not really about art but rather the minimum level of originality needed for copyright to be created. Perhaps I'll start a new page. --MichaelMaggs 17:57, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Javascript

I have now properly encapsulated my deletion handling stuff. It now suffices to add

includePage ('MediaWiki:DelReqHandler.js');

to your monobook.js. See my monobook.js for what to remove from your current monobook.js (this diff may help). Lupo 09:19, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll have a go at that later. Glad that others are taking it up. --MichaelMaggs 17:54, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, I hope it continues to work for you. It does for me, but Fred seems to have had problems...[12] Lupo 18:45, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Indeed there was still a minor bug in the encapsulated version. See User talk:Fred J#JS deletion request closing. That means you should also remove the function getElementsByClassName in your monobook.js, which you got when you copied mine. Since you copied anyway, you might also consider to copy my whole User:Lupo/monobook.js again; it's been cleaned up quite a bit. Lupo 06:57, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

FP Promotion

★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★ The image Image:Colouring pencils.jpg, that you nominated on Commons:Featured picture candidates/Image:Colouring pencils.jpg has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so.

--Laitche 17:26, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

FP Promotion

★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★ The image Image:White-crowned-Sparrow.jpg, that you nominated on Commons:Featured picture candidates/Image:White-crowned-Sparrow.jpg has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so.

-- Cecil 06:14, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Commons:Picture of the Year/2007/Committee

Hey, please check it out. You can still vote ;) --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 10:39, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

FP review

If you have time, could you look at [[:Image::Phragmites Australis.jpg‎]], Image:CalleryPearA.jpg, Image:CalleryPearB.jpg, and Image:CalleryPearC.JPG and let me know what they're lacking in regard to featured picture potential? I'm trying to get proper plain and scientific names for them (better ID's). Thanks. Rlevse 21:14, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Just updated the links. I accidentally overwrote the "C" pear file to a lower resolution. Can we get the old one back? Or I could take a new one similar to it if you think it has FP potential. Rlevse 22:24, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

The first two images are very much noisier than the third. Not sure why, as you are using a low ISO setting, but I'm afraid that would in itself be enough to rule them out. The third one is nicer, sharper, and has I think a better composition. FP is quite rigorous, though, and I rather feel that voters would be looking for an image with a little more 'wow factor'. Also, you ought to switch off the auto-dating function. It might be worth your posting a few images to Commons:Quality images candidates and to Commons:Photography critiques before trying for FP. All the best. --MichaelMaggs 07:03, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Okay. Thanks.Rlevse 11:07, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Block request

If you are still around, can you check this please? Lycaon 23:06, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

FP nomination Female_Mallard_Duck_Rest.jpg

Hi, I just wanted you to know I've followed some of your advice and uploaded a new version of the image. I dont want to botter you with that, but maybe it will make you reconsider your choise. Good day. ;) Acarpentier 17:05, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

OTRS Request

P52r

This image is available from the U.K. John Rylands University Library Manuscripts and Archives division pending verification of email submitted with permission granted {{{otrs}}} This tag indicates the attached work is NOT copyrighted. A Public Domain copyright tag is still required. See Commons:Licensing for more information.

Appears the original request for opinion was lost in your talk page revisions, maybe this impromptu template will liven things up a bit. Thanks - REAL TUBE  | ^Talk 21:08, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

We need to contact the librarian again, as it's pretty clear from the OTRS ticket that he thought he was releasing the image for Wikipedia alone, and subject to further permission being sought for further uses. If you'd like to leave it to me, I'll contact him and ask for a suitable licence for both the recto and verso images. Please give me a week or so, though, as I won't have much time for the next few days. These are interesting and useful images that it is worth taking a bit of effort over to make sure we can legitimately keep them. --MichaelMaggs 20:14, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Excellent, thought it most meaningful to get it right and we are half way there, express my appreciation to the archivist and that Commons needs to display this unique document in the permanent repository on Wikimedia which has added requirements, something like that, you have more experience in that regard. Thanks again. - REAL TUBE  | ^Talk 08:03, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

FP Promotion

★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★ The image Image:Spizella-passerina-015.jpg, that you nominated on Commons:Featured picture candidates/Image:Spizella-passerina-015.jpg has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so.

--Simonizer 17:38, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of rtc.gif

You deleted [Image:Rtc.gif], after a very short discussion period. The discussion itself provides me with no clue as to why it was deleted.

What, exactly, does "delete per nom", mean?

Was the image deleted because it violated some wikimedia policy? If so, what?

If not, why was it deleted?

--Jdege 14:18, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Jdege. The image was indeed deleted for violating Commons policy: as stated by the nominator for deletion it seems to be a copyright violation of an image appearing on the Radical Gun Nuttery website: http://www.gun-nuttery.com/rtc.php. There is no indication anywhere on that website that the images presented there have been released under any copyright licence, let alone one that would be acceptable to The Commons. The image is a useful one, though, and could be restored if you are able to get from the website and copyright owner a suitable release, eg an email sent from the gun-nuttery.com domain to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org, releasing the image under an allowable licence: see Commons:OTRS for more details. If you let me know when the email has been sent, I will watch out for it on OTRS, and assuming all is OK can then reinstate the image. By the way, 'per nom', means 'per the grounds stated by the nominator for deletion'. If anything isn't clear, or if I can help further, please let me know. --MichaelMaggs 18:28, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I created the image, gun-nuttery.com is my website. Someone asked me if they could use the image on wikipedia. I thought about it and posted it myself. When I posted it on wikipedia, I added the GDFL-tag. Someone - I thought it was one of the moderators - copied the image to wiki-commons. Which seemed to me to be within the scope of the release I had granted. The links on the pages within wikipedia to the image were then changed to point to wiki-commons, then one of the moderators on wikipedia deleted the image, and now you've deleted it here.

I'll upload it again, this evening. And I'll send an email from the account that's in the registry as the administrative contact for gun-nuttery.com.

It just seems a bother, to have to go through this all, again. Did you think that the "I, the creator, release this..." tag was a lie? --Jdege 22:11, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

OK, that's fine. You don't need to re-upload the image, I'll restore it pending receipt of permission to OTRS. Sorry to have to ask you to do this, but that's why we have the OTRS system - so that the permission can be properly recorded to avoid any future concerns. Best regards. --MichaelMaggs 22:43, 30 November 2007 (UTC)