Commons:Village pump/Archive/2007/11

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Importance of edit summaries on Commons?

See Template:Summary2 and Template:Summary. Are the use of edit summaries really considered an important guideline on Commons? Personally I consider them to be of sub-ordinate importance. / Fred J 18:54, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

I think it's important, very important, to use them when you do something that isn't plain obvious. It's also important that bots use it and that people use it when they are doing the same thing for many images—then someone else can only check a few to see what is going on and that everything is fine.

I guess that the big difference between us and a Wikipedia is that most changes we do are obvious, we don't change the content that much. Samulili 19:29, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

And, of course, edit summaries are more useful for those who are less paranoid :) Samulili 19:35, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree that edit summaries are less important here than on Wikipedia, but...

If I'm editing my own content, I try to add edit summaries but I do skip it once in a while. If I'm editing other people's content, I always try to provide an edit summary. It just makes it easier to check the Watchlist to make sure no one is doing any unnecessary fiddling with your content. --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 01:10, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm with Fred... not that important. Log entries are very important (especially deletion). My most common edit summaries are probably "reply" "comment" "+1" "cat" "rm cat" etc. If you want to know precisely what was in the edit you're going to have to look at the diff. that is true even for incredibly detailed edit summaries so I don't see the point so much on Commons. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 02:48, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Strangely enough, making good edit summaries takes significant more effort than the actual editing itself. A significant part of my edits consist of correcting minor cat (spelling) errors and pipe arguments. Personally, most of the time, I look at the differences as the edit summary is never complete enough. I think it would be a great step forward if the system would autogenerate good edit summaries: after all, in many cases, the edits change only a few characters or two or three words. --Foroa 07:02, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Seems to me that it's a simple courtesy to other users, not to mention an aide memoire to yourself.--Londoneye 13:12, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Often, but not always. Sometimes edit summaries are also the way only we explain why we do something. And sometimes this communication is just nice "chatting", sometimes it's the only thing that will stop someone from reverting you. Samulili 20:43, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Edit summaries are most useful when they describe the 'why' of the edit, not the 'what'. I more often look at who is doing the editing, than rely on the edit summary. If I don't know the person I'll check what was actually done rather than believe the summary :-). But I strongly disagree with the use of yet one more template to spam talk-pages. If you think they should change their behaviour have a talk to them, don't slap a pseudo-authoritative template on their talk-page unless you just like annoying people. If its too much trouble to talk to someone, then I suggest the issue isn't important enough to bother with. :-) --Tony Wills 03:09, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Could we specify when edit summaries are considered necessary?

I agree that edit summaries are of importance when editing image description pages that others are likely to be watching, such as other peoples' images. What about the village pump, admin noticeboards, deletion requests, images one self has uploaded and no-one else has edited, general talk pages, or user talk pages? I notice, for example, that most people don't use edit summaries when editing this page.

Fred J 08:38, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Also, I support what Tony Wills just said. / Fred J 08:40, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreeing really with much of what has gone before. My advice to anyone is "use edit summaries". The first thing I do on a new wiki is set it in preferences. Ok - sometimes I'm stumped, sometimes it may not mean a lot but I do look at them and know others do. As an RC watcher they can often be quite amusing! But I'm definitely with the "educate" rather than "legislate" school (in almost everything!) --Herby ^{talk thyme} 08:58, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

• A most significant statement from above is it's a simple courtesy to other users. Yes it is a courtesy, not a requirement. It is also a courtesy not to badger people about it. Perhaps the only appropriate use of those sorts of messages is when someone has been giving misleading summaries. Otherwise think about trying to improve each individual users experience of using commons when posting notices to their talk pages. Template posts to talk pages are always (well I might exaggerate ;-) seen as officious and do not engender warm fuzzy feelings :-). People are here to contribute as they see fit, they are giving their time and effort freely, try not to put them off by annoying them with lots of small things (also see meta:Instruction creep). (Disclaimer: I'm sure I'm as bad as the next person when it comes to being officious to save the bother of discussing something. I excessively add edit summaries but am not convinced this religious habit is worth the time and effort :-) --Tony Wills 10:29, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

October 29

Serious uploading problem

I seem no longer to be able to upload images. I'm working in Firefox, for what that's worth, and I've uploaded thousands of images in the past. After filling everything out as usual in the Special:Upload page, when I click on the Upload button I momentarily go to "Loading...", then I'm back again to the identical Upload page with the same data filled in.

Has anyone heard of this happening before? I can normally edit other things (no problem adding this comment) and am having no problem with other sites. - Jmabel | talk 20:37, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Seems OK now, but the problem persisted for several hours (and despite several reboots). I'd still be interested in understanding this, even if I'm not still facing it right now. - Jmabel | talk 23:25, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Did you have 'ignore all warnings' ticked? What filenames were you using? pfctdayelise (说什么?) 04:35, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Proper copyright tag?

Image:Allen-naming-resolution.jpg is a scan of a law passed by the Ohio legislature. Wheaton v. Peters, Page 33 U.S. 591, 616, states that statutes are public domain. However, the only US-related PD templates that I know of are for the federal government. Can someone please find what to do for a proper template and apply it before this image is deleted for no copyright tag? Nyttend 22:54, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Problem solved in a different way. Nyttend 02:31, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

November 1

SVG rendering problem

I was trying to recreate some of my graphics in SVG format, but run some rendering problems. Compare 2 versions of the same image: PNG version and SVG version - they should be the same. They look identical in Inkscape and other viewers I have on my PC; however in SVG versions browsers seem to render the colorbar on the right incorrectly. Is that a bug in Netscape & IE, a bug in wiki software, or a bug in Inkscape that generated final version of this file? Are there any easy fixes? --Jarekt 12:27, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

It looks fine if I look at the file directly, in Opera. The thumbnail has a gradient on the colorbar, though. --rimshot^talk 12:34, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

"Picture of the day" for today no good choice

In my opinion it is a very bad idea, to use an image of an active politician as "picture of the day" as it was done today (october 27, 2007) with the Image:Lula - foto oficial05012007 edit.jpg of Pres. Lula of Brasil. This smells of partisanship resp. endorsement on behalf of Commons/Wikimedia. The "picture of the day" is shown on the main page of Commons in all language versions. -- Túrelio 10:30, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

It is, on the other hand, a very good photo. I understand your frustration though (the person who set this up is Brazilian). The image is good, but perhaps the user could give an account here and certify he didn't do it for political reasons (admittedly, I wouldn't be happy if a US congressman against my beliefs were displayed). Patstuart 16:40, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

True, also to me the image looks good (no wonder, it seems to be made by the PR department "Presidência da República"). Also, I don't want to suggest that the one who choose it had any questionable intention. It's just the impression that it may give to Commons visitors who don't know the rules for POTD. I wouldn't see any problem with that at a time when Lula (or any politician) is retired. -- Túrelio 18:47, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't see the problem. He is a Very notable person, and it is a very good photo. If someone where to submit a very good photo of a controversial personality it should still have a place. It actually gives the right impression of Commons. We value the quality and utility of the Media first and foremost. We should be mature enough to objectively evaluate images of things we don't like for their Media value. The only problem might arise for those sucking the POTD via RSS and placing it on other websites. There the context might make it problematic. But the only way to slove that would be for POTD to be value neutral, which IMHO is all but impossible. --Inkwina 16:21, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Donations by the french gov

A smartass deleted all the Jacques Henri Lartigue, wich are DONATED TO THE PUBLIC BY THE FRENCH GOVERMENT under "french government owned photos are not in the PD". Oh, I wanna cry.

Does anyone check, WHO deletes WHAT and WHY? It seems, that the answer is no, and any idiot can delete whatever he wants, since the ability to read or understand senteces, wich are longer than two words is obviously not a must to become an admin here. --VinceB 20:37, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

What a rant! Did you really check this was public domain? Jacques Henri Lartigue died less than 70 years ago. His work is anything but Free (in both senses) nor Public Domain. It is the property of the "Donation Jacques Henri Lartigue" and is protected by French copyright laws. Please read http://www.lartigue.org/us2/donation/agence_photo/index-droits.html (French) — Xavier, 20:59, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Vince. At the risk of sounding abrasive, please tone down the sarcasm. As for your statement, can you provide any proof that the French government donated the photos under pd? Patstuart 22:36, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

November 3

Is removing EXIF data violating the GFDL?

I'm sure CC-BY-SA has a similar line. GFDL 4D) says (a condition of distributing modifications is)

D. Preserve all the copyright notices of the Document.

Section 2 also says

You may copy and distribute the Document ... provided that this License, the copyright notices, and the license notice saying this License applies to the Document are reproduced in all copies, and that you add no other conditions whatsoever to those of this License.

So, it's possible to use EXIF to put your author and license info. I don't think many people do it, but it's possible, and probably something we want to encourage rather than discourage.

So is removing the EXIF violating the license statements above?

Checking for and adding EXIF info to each thumbnail strikes me as something that is potentially going to bloat filesizes and make rendering galleries slower due to the need to get this extra information. (Most times we see images on wiki, they are "thumbnails" after all.) So I don't know if, from a technical perspective, that would be acceptable or not. (bug)

Thoughts? --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 06:18, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Stating who the author is isn't a copyright notice. Stating "this image licensed under GFDL" in the EXIF: then yes, but only that part. I see no problem with leaving any copyright notice or license notice intact and dumping the rest, provided such parts of the EXIF header are present.

Part of addressing this is whether or not the file itself or the Image:foo.png page is the "Document" in question. 4I) says you have to maintain a history section, something that I'm not sure how would be technically possible in image formats which means at least part of Image:foo.png page (the history tab) is a part of the document, ergo the file is not a stand-alone document.

To skirt the whole issue, it could be possible that you agree that no copyright nor license notices can be contained within the media file itself, otherwise you cannot upload the file. This also means watermarking is outright not permitted. The GFDL says you cannot impose restrictions on top of the license, but says nothing in having conditions on acceptance/rejection of documents as the publisher. Really, I wouldn't see this as any different from rejecting any images in XYZ format because of "patent issues". This has a huge impact on watermark removal that I hadn't considered (see next section). Cburnett 07:30, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Hm, to me it has always been clear that the media file is the "document". That's why the templates all link directly to the media file not the image page. I see the image page as the necessary documentation that has to go with it... like a book, the story is the document, you don't consider the copyright page as part of the story, but it has to accompany it. Know what I mean?

We could do that (make a policy to not accept images with EXIF/watermark copyright notices), but as I said I think we would rather want to do the opposite and encourage people to use EXIF. For watermarking we more or less do that already. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 07:50, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

The GFDL requires the history to be apart of the document so the media file itself cannot be "the Document". Neither can a standard text page as the history has to be included as well. Cburnett 15:58, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

But what about the gallery html-pages? When you click on history you won't get any information about the photos on the page! Isn't that already a violation? Among other things. I asked a friend of mine who is a lawyer (but is not specialized on internet rights) and he believes that removing the EXIF data with copyright notices from the file is a violation. I summed up his thoughts here. Fabelfroh 08:06, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Possible unfree

Could anyone indicate what is done with the images in the Category:Possibly unfree Flickr images reviewed by FlickreviewR? Are these to be deleted? Or will there be investigations to make sure if these images had a suitable license at some time? Some images have been in this cat for months. Fransvannes 15:32, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Good question. You might try nominating a lot of them for mass deletion. Some of them have different issues than others (e.g., uploaded in 2005, wasn't reviewed until 2007 vs. uploaded in 2007 and checked two minutes later). I would support the deletion of most of these. Patstuart 22:38, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Images not uploaded by FlickrLickr are good candidates to start with. Those UL'd by the bot are already checked and found valid but license seemed to have changed. Since it's not possible to revoke CC, there is no real reason for deleting them. But if a picture is unused and "of no interest for the project", I see no point in keeping those either. Hopefully that judgement can be done without the big broom deleting everything. Some admins seem to be happy to delete everything they can. --Bongoman 12:39, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2007/Preparation#Decisions_needed

Hi folks, we need to pin down some specifics about how this year's competition will run. There is also test-run software that you can try out and let us know if you have any problems or find it confusing. But please put some comments on this page about the questions at the end of the page. thanks --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 05:28, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

WMF announcement: Philip Greenspun illustration project

The Wikimedia Foundation has received a donation from Philip Greenspun for the purpose of creating and improving illustrations on Wikimedia. The Board has decided to accept his donation of $US20,000 for this special purpose. The Foundation wants a "hands-off" minimal administration role with the bulk of the work of organizing the project and creating the content to be completed by members of our community.

I (user:pfctdayelise) will be coordinating the project with Cary's assistance (user:bastique, the WMF Volunteer Coordinator).

There are several ways to get involved:

• suggest illustrations
• create illustrations
• review illustrations (become part of the review group - please email me)
• help create documentation and translations to help others get involved.

The pages about how the project will work will be on meta (for starters, m:Philip Greenspun illustration project), and I will probably post regular updates here as the project progresses.

This is the first time the Foundation has been involved in paying people for content creation, so it will be a bit of an experiment and success of failure will really depend on if people get behind it... it's not going to be a top-down thing.

thanks! pfctdayelise (说什么?) 11:10, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Hello, I read about it in Dutch, and it made me thinking... Most of us reading this are from the rich Western countries, and what we desperately need is pictures from the African, Asian, Sout-American communities. We desperately need contributors from those countries for the 10 million pictures we don't have yet and they could supply us with... Maybe they don't have a digital camera, or maybe they don't have the software to provide those SVG diagrams...

It would be so nice, if our first contributors would refrain from their 40 dollars and donate their work to the program... so after Round I, the program's up and running, we have 50 pictures added with the money still in the bank... Round 2, 5 times 50 pictures roll in and still no money spent..., until we reach those users from outside Wikipedias who could make good use of maybe $200 and give us lots of splendid pictures that we otherwise would never get a hold on. Maybe I don't express myself well, but what if the donor would get not those 635 pictures for his money, but many times more, and finally get them from those outside regions that we so desperately want to join? It may be a dream, but why not use Round 1 to try? - Art Unbound 22:59, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Art Unbound, this project will be almost exclusively for collecting diagrams and those kinds of illustrations, rather than photographs. People will definitely be able to donate their payment back into the fund (ie, refuse payment) if they want to. Maybe a few will, but I suspect not everyone will be so noble. ;) --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 05:16, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Special:Uncategorizedcategories

I have gone through 333 pages in this Special Group about 2-3 days ago and the ones that I connected to Categories have not been removed of this page Special:Uncategorized categories Brianna thought it would take a day but so far it has been longer. I am also speedy deleting obvious renamings and unused categories if someone could delete them so we can clean up this page. WayneRay 17:02, 3 November 2007 (UTC)WayneRay

I will look to the speedy deletion entries. Special:Uncategorizedcategories is automatically updated sometimes after three days, somtimes it takes a week. At top of this page you can see the date of last update. --GeorgHH 19:06, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Great work and it is indeed annoying, while cleaning up, to have to wait for deletions so it looks clean too. I've noticed that you started cleaning Special:Wantedcategories. I tried to clean up a bit there, especially with the thousands of map images, and i've noticed that you made a significant progress over there. Good work indeed. --Foroa 21:52, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

You can't upload images directly to the Spanish Wikipedia - it leads to Commons

After warning some users from the Spanish Wikipedia not to upload Fair use images to the commons (and blocked one of them...) I've checked the Wikipedia, and I've noticed that the Upload file in http://es.wikipedia.org/ leads directly to http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Upload?uselang=es
Uploading fair use images seems to be valid in any other Wikipedia, and the result is that the Es.Wikipedia users uploads the images directly to commons.
This situation can't go on. Yuval Y § Chat § 01:35, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

The Spanish has locked all uploads (es:Especial:Upload). This has been done on many wiktionarys and wikiquotes. I recomend creating something like en:Wikipedia:Upload or linking to Commons:Upload/es. --Steinninn ♨ 02:32, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

See Commons:Turning off local uploads --Steinninn ♨ 02:35, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I think that the Commons:Upload/es would be better, or at least there should be a warning in the Special:Upload?uselang=es Not to upload copyrighted images... Yuval Y § Chat § 02:40, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

See meta:Fair use. Allowing non-free images under the fair use clause is the exception, not the rule. There is no information anywhere suggesting that fair use images could or should be uploaded, but I agree that the standard Spanish upload form should be updated to better reflect the English one, which more clearly emphasises the need for uploads to be free and that Commons:Upload/es is preferrable. —LX (talk, contribs) 08:34, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Log-in difficulties

It looks like Commons

1. has logged me out
2. will not allow me to log in and
3. is failing to send me a new password.

There seem to be three possiblities:

1. Something is broken.
2. For some reason, it is taking more than 5 minutes to send me a new password.
3. My account has somehow been hijacked away from me, including having the email address changed.

Needless to say, I am hoping this last is not the case, but would appreciate it greatly if someone would look into this. - 69.17.114.183 18:02, 4 November 2007 (UTC) (User:Jmabel)

Never mind! It did send the password, it just took about 10 minutes to get to me. - Jmabel | talk 18:22, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Exif oreintation

Why does Exif orientation not work. I have uploaded some rotated pictures but they aren't displayed correctly. See Image:Kosca_01.jpg for example. Greetings, --Mihael Simonic 18:26, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately MediaWiki does not support the Exif orientation tag. Please lossless rotate them yourself using jpegtran or tag the image with {{Rotate}} so that somebody can rotate the images. -- Bryan (talk to me) 18:40, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

It's a known limitation, see bug 6672. Voting for the bug would show there's still interest in the feature, even if there are no guarantees that it'll be implemented soon. --BrokenArrow 19:05, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Commons:Tag categories

Hello. Are there any objections if I revive this proposal? What I basically want is that all license tags are both in a specific category, such as Category:License tags attribution as well as in the generic Category:License tags. This would mean that it is a lot easier for bots and automated tools to detect which license an image has. -- Bryan (talk to me) 15:49, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

•  Support --Foroa 07:51, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
•  Support  Support  Support --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 12:01, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
•  Support I don't anticipate any problems. For the curious, a note on tag discussion pages referencing this proposal may be helpful. Walter Siegmund (talk) 15:24, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Incorrect photo info

Hi there! (generic greeting, not knowing your gender) I am contacting you regarding the following image: Image:Black-tailed Jackrabbit at the Henry Doorly Zoo.jpg This photo needs to be changed. It is my observation* that this is not a Jackhare at all, but a cottontail rabbit. May I suggest you contact the zoo to confirm this. If you have never seen a Jack and a cottontail "up close & personal" it is possible to mistake them at a distance.

• My credentials:

Several years ago the HD Zoo contacted me for advice on thier desert habitat project due to the fact that in the last 14 years, I have become recognized (nationally and internationally)as a Jackhare expert. My paper (When is A Rabbit Not A Rabbit?)has been published in both the IWRC and NWRA annual proceedings and I have lectured on the subject at both conferences. I run DESERT CRY WILDIFE, INC. which is a non-profit wildife rehabitlitation facility and sanctuary. Please visit my web site: www.welcome.to/desertcry Feel free to contact me.

Thank you for your time and aniticipated coooperation. —the preceding unsigned comment was added by Ladylepus (talk • contribs) on Commons talk:Contact us

This should be posted on the discussion page for the image. If we put all notices of incorrect info here, this place would get cluttered pretty quickly. You could also place it in a generic category and let someone else recategorise it. Or you could write on the talk page of the person whom uploaded the photo. Or... you could be bold and just change it yourself. As for your credentials, they're pretty meaningless here -- we cannot verify that you are who you say you are; and you may come off as a braggart. That's why I don't usually tell everyone that I was an astronaut whom doubles as dictator of a lesser-known country in the south Pacific. --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 19:33, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

National coat of arms

I have been working recently in Wikipedia in articles about coat of arms of provinces of my country (Argentina), and I'm worried because I noticed that many of them are licenced under a template license that is nominated for deletion. Worst thing, the nomination seems correct, which means that the license tag and the whole lot of images using it should soon be deleted.

Of course, I wouldn't want so many articles about provinces, coat of arms and history of my country to suddenly have a red link where the image should be, so I should start dealing with this issue right away, without waiting the nomination's inevitable result.

The main problem is that, to seek and upload a right image of the coat of arms, I should be sure that the coat of arms itself is in the public domain to begin with. All my common sense says that it has to be, that it can't be other way, but I know that I can't "trust my feelings", I should have a strong justfication of it being in the public domain. As I saw at Template:Coat of Arms, aldo nominated for deletion, just the mere fact of it being a coat of arms does not mean directly that it is in the public domain.

So, the question is, how do I find out the legal status of the national coat of arms of my country? Thialfi 15:53, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

In more traditional European-based forms of heraldry, where each coat of arms is based on a textual description or "blazon", and many different artistic renderings based on the blazon might be considered acceptable as a version of the arms, then if you make a new visual rendering of the coat of arms based on the textual blazon, you would own the copyright to your particular rendering. (However, the use of the arms might be restricted in some jurisdictions by non-copyright requirements -- see Template:Insignia.)

But if an emblem is tied to one particular official rendering, and no artistic variations are allowed, then the copyright situation might be different. As a practical matter, Wikimedia Commons seems to allow all national flags and national coats of arms or country emblems to be uploaded (even though the formal legal basis for this might be murky in some cases). However, subnational emblems (such as coats of arms of provinces) don't get the same free ride. AnonMoos 07:09, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I would also recommend that you read the copyright law of your country, read what legal experts have to say (or write to them), or write to someone from the government or maybe even state heraldry directly. Even just Googling around might also give results. / Fred J 18:48, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

JPEG 2000

Hello. I would like to know if there are any plan for JPEG 2000 support on MediaWiki. I dont know if Firefox or IE7 can display this such of images, but i see more and more JPG image converted into PNG to take advantage of the transparency. As a result, a very big file (x10). I understand JPEG 2000 support transparency and is very good for photo, so, if its possible to use it on browser, is there any problems ? Thanks a lot. ~ bayo or talk 16:49, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

By "support", do you mean rendering sized-down thumbnails as regular JPEG files, or as smaller JPEG2000 files? AnonMoos 06:51, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

A smaller JPEG2000 :) ~ bayo or talk 10:58, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

upload warning - image larger than 4.77MB

If you upload a file larger than 4.77MB you get the message (italics added by me, and the size of 'this file' depends on the uploaded file):

Upload warning. It is recommended that files are no larger than 4.77 MB; this file is 5.0 MB. [Save file]: Ignore warning and save file anyway. PLEASE NOTE: Files should only be replaced by the original uploader, or by other users in cases of obvious quality improvements which cannot be disputed (better ask first!). In many cases, it is better to upload the file under a different name. [Re-Upload]: Return to the upload form and choose a different name.

The messages after [Save file] and [Re-upload] seem the be the ones written for another warning, namely when an image with the same name already exists. Another thing I don't understand is why this warning exists at all, since Commons:Project Scope reads "Audio and video files should have as high quality as possible as long as they are not above around 20 MB.". This seems to be a contradiction. Arthena 18:51, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Arthena, thanks for reporting this bug. I reported it to bugzilla: bugzilla:11883 "MediaWiki:Large-file reporting incorrect value for maximum file size at Commons". It is possible to ignore the warning and the upload will succeed, but it's pretty silly to have it in the first place. thanks, pfctdayelise (说什么?) 03:26, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Image:P1010029.JPG

I think there's a problem with this picture. It seems someone uploaded another picture in place of a preexisting one. Could you check that? Thanks (and sorry in case there's finally no problem!) --86.66.173.221 16:52, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, there was a problem. I reverted the change. Samulili 17:13, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

For new users

At the moment we welcome new users with {{Welcome}} which is a very good template with a lot of basic information. I was wondering if we could also have something for those few (1 out of 10) new users who get it right from the beginning. Maybe with template {{Well done}}. Samulili 19:58, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I fear that template is a bit patronising. A simpler "Welcome to Commons, keep up the good work" does the trick, doesn't it? pfctdayelise (说什么?) 01:29, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

What I find a little bit of a problem with Template:Welcome is that it's so massive that it may be easy for new or inexperienced users to overlook warning messages posted below it... AnonMoos 11:15, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

November 5

Question regarding logos with images

Am I allowed in commons in order to illustrate articles instead of [1] ?

Am I a valid and allowed instead of the fairuse cdcover at [2] ?

Considering that logos with copyrighted images are forbidden, I was thinking about making a "fan logo" of sorts to decorate articles in Wiki:es, where the fair use rule is not applicable. According to Drini, to whom I have asked about this topic in private, if I use a picture of my own and text, I can use such image to ilustrate the title, for example, of an anime like Maria sama ga miteru with something like this. My questions are:

1. according to this, if the new "logo" I create is quite different from the copyrighted one, I should be able to ilustrate anything (movies, tv shows, books) with a design of my own including a picture I took and text?
2. If I use other images from commons in my design, and I add information in the description about the original uploader, will this be alright?

Thanks for your time. --Mushii 20:18, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure other users will be able to provide greater input, but I'd be wary if any text used is trademarked (i.e. film titles). --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 21:02, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

No, I disagree, the title is perfectly acceptable, and I think that's a wonderful alternate to using a copyrighted image. Cary Bass ^demandez 00:16, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Trademark and copyright are different matters, Thisisbossi. We DO allow trademarked stuff as in

What she's asking, if it's valid to upload and use the image linked in the thumbnail Image:Sodasueño.jpg in order to replace the fair use CD cover at w:en:Sueño Stereo (note the font and composition is different, moreover the woofer is taken from a different picture.

Or she is asking if this image which he made is allowed in commons for use in articles INSTEAD OF the logo shown at [3]

You know, eswiki doesn't have fairuse, so they have to get creative in order to illustrate articles. -- Drini 02:33, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

She is asking if this image which she made is allowed in commons for use in articles INSTEAD OF the logo shown at [4]. That is absolutely correct. Not only in Wiki:es, but other wikis as well. I believe this would provide a nice detail to illustrate articles and make them more visually attractive other than mere text and tables, and of course, avoiding copyright infringement. I guess it's obvious for all of us to know that text is what truly matters in an article, but you cannot deny that a picture illustrating is of great use in driving attention. And since we cannot count on copyrighted images, I thought of this idea I've explained in this post. Hope it helps. --Mushii 02:59, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I think that the soccer team Fake flags are already more or less along the same lines... AnonMoos 06:47, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

No, because the fake flags template is used for visual elements that are similar to official crest of come clubs, such as colors or some symbol and I'm not pretending nor use any similar symbol at all. There will be images from commons as illustrations into a neat design in simple photoshop and fonts. Just that. One thing is to make a carbon copy with some different details of a copyrighted logo or flag or crest, and another thing is to make a new design addying elements related to the topic in question in order to illustrate. ^^ --Mushii 13:46, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I think AnonMoos is right, the idea is similar. It's a different thing (this is not about coats or flags), but the idea (for example in the covers), is create something different that "resembles" the original not allowed in commons. -- Drini 18:22, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes they should be okay, in my opinion. / Fred J 18:43, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Cool then. But I can't use the fake flags warning template because this is different :P I guess I'll stick around just with PD-self. Thanks to all for the great information! --Mushii 20:19, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Interesting info... I just wanted to spur on discussion, even if my comment was ultimately determined to be irrelevant :P This could actually be quite helpful with a number of topics in need of some sort of image. Thanks, everyone! --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 02:19, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Here's an existing fake logo: Image:Star Trek Classic logo.png , Image:Star Trek Classic logo.svg -- AnonMoos 08:18, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

November 6

Tabby

Gender question:

Are the Orange/Brown type Tabby's only Male, and the Silver/Grey Tabby's only Female? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.130.85.237 (talk) 16:34, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Tabby cats, I guess? The color should be independent of the gender, AFAIK. I know male and female ones that are silver/grey. --rimshot^talk 16:44, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

In Malta cats known as tal-Madonna (lit. Our Lady's cat) which have a coat like this (black, brown and white patches) are traditionally believed to be only female. I know of no scientific evidence for this, but from experience it seems to be true. --Inkwina 06:37, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

See en:Calico cat -- AnonMoos 07:51, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Users by area

Hi there,

I once stumbled upon a page where users could request images per location, or was it to make users available for pictures per location (no, I'm not talking about the users by country category). I can't find that page any more, so if it does exist, could someone provide me with the link, please? (Basically what I'm looking for is somewhere where I could request a picture from a user located in New York City...) Anrie 10:38, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

You can try COM:PR#United States of America. /Ö 10:45, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Old images of the United States

Category:History images of the United States says "For historical (i.e. non-contemporary) images of places, see: Category:Historical images of the United States and Category:Old postcards of the United States instead." Since the former does not exist, that's pretty useless advice. Is there a category that effectively has this role? And, if not, should there be one, or should we simply rewrite the comment? - Jmabel | talk 20:18, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

It was deleted in favor of Category:Historical images of the USA. I wonder why, though, as we have long been using United States for all names concerning the USA. --rimshot^talk 21:49, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Odd choice. In any case, I will fix the advice at Category:History images of the United States to match reality. - Jmabel | talk 19:52, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, moving it back to "United States" in full would be advisable, since most categories use "United States" in full, not "USA".

November 7

I've uploaded a file

I've uploaded a file: Image:Yankees logo.gif, the official logo of the New York Yankees. The source states that the logo goes back to 1913, and my own observations match this. However, the Yankees are a major organization, and I know that rarely the US Congress extends the copyright on certain things. I just want to double-check with the community to make sure that I have done everything correctly. It just seems too obvious for me to be uploading a file as free use that so many vendors world-wide are paying good money to sell on. Thanks. Patstuart 05:24, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

They are presumably paying for the rights to the trademark to be applied to merchandise, (implying some connection to the organization or endorsement of the product...) rather than use of the copyrighted material. (I don't think anyone can make the case that WMF is trying to imply endorsement or association with other organizations when logos are used in articles) We've had a lot of discussion about this and the outcome seems to be that logos are ok unless they are explicitly copyrightable (the IBM logo was one test case, and despite it being distinctive, and despite IBM itself asserting rights to the font used, it was held that it wasn't copyrightable per se), but that having them here does not allow the right to use them in violation of trademark rights (as you properly disclaimed, although as a thought experiment, contrast with the first sentence of our mission: images and other media files that can be used by anyone, for any purpose). That seems to be consensus, although I should note that I personally don't agree with it, I'd not have corporate logos here at all as logos. (or in other words, I agree with my employer)... Hope that helps. Strangely, despite this, there seems to be an opposite view held by some about illustrating products. Note that there is a commons page specifically for discussing this, the name of which I always forget. Commons:Copyrights and Commons:Licensing have some bearing, and see for example Commons_talk:Licensing#Company_Logos. Hope that helps. ++Lar: t/c 13:02, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism

This user is vandalising pages: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Dennis_the_Menace Could any adm stop him? Thanks. --User:G.dallorto 22:58, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

 Done Please post at COM:AN in the future. Thank you for the report. Walter Siegmund (talk) 00:27, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Copyright violation?

Someone drew the cover of the video game Lemmings. Mobygames.com has a picture of the original cover. Is the drawing a copyright violation?--80.145.120.237 23:20, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I'd say it's certainly a derivative work of a copyrighted item, but I'm sure some more knowledgeable folks will come by to add their 2 cents. Ahh, what a great game, by the way... --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 03:06, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it's derivative. It's pretty good work, and of a pretty good game (Grr at how much time I blew playing that! :) ) but probably not suitable here. Tag it for deletion so it can be discussed. Or just ask the uploader about it. ++Lar: t/c 13:22, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

November 8

Multi-language categories

I have never understood how the categories work in the different languages. I am now encountering a problem with Category:Drawings because the clear majority of images posted to this enormous group of sub-cats are not in fact drawings at all, but engravings, lithographs, black and white photos of paintings etc. Much of this is because editors just don't know the difference, but I think much is because some less specific foreign categories are directing into this category. How does all this work? Johnbod 03:50, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Many English-speakers might assume drawings to signify specifically drawings made with a pencil or pen. But if that was the intention of the category, then perhaps it should have been titled Pencil drawings or Ink drawings or similar? Since it doesn't specify that specifically, for example, pencil drawings are intended, then perhaps one shouldn't be surprised that users most comfortable in languages other than English tend to interpret drawings in its general sense. Man vyi 06:50, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

John Bod, if you feel like a project, I think you found one. :)

If you do feel like digging in, I suggest to write some guidelines on the category about what kinds of more specific categories people should use, e.g. "Drawings of <TOPIC>" or what? Any maybe guidelines like "this is only for pencil/ink drawings, other types of drawings belong in ...." --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 12:09, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

The first step will be to give the category a good description in English: 1) what is supposed to be there, what isn't; 2) where do you put the stuff that isn't supposed to be there. When you've done that, sent me a note, and I'll translate it to German. Over time, one would hope, the other translations will be added as well. Once the category has been defined, we (as in: any commons user) can also start moving images that don't belong there. In short: be bold, that's how it works ;) --rimshot^talk 13:19, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

user/city/picture

quick question, I seen a site with users, they sign up on location, where they live, and you can put down there if you want them to photograph something in their city, I cant find it now...Frizabela^spk2me 13:09, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

nevermind, got it! Frizabela^spk2me 13:12, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

What is behind the monument?

... and would we have a similar page to ask locals to identify e.g. a building or street on a picture? I would, for instance, like to know more about the building behind the monument on this photo, but all web sites about this place, including ours, seem to be interested in the monument only... Fransvannes 16:12, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Image:Elbaradei.png

Someone please look at Image:Elbaradei.png. It seems to me that it is not a free image and should be returned to en. 209.77.205.9 20:15, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't have time to look at it right now, but you might want to try the {{Delete}} tag if you do. Patstuart 20:30, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth, the image appears to be permitted for use elsewhere provided attribution is given to the IAEA. The uploaded photo properly attributes, but I do not see any indication that the copyright itself has been loosened as per the license currently provided by the uploader. I've changed the license to {{Attribution}}, but someone else may wish to review this. The IAEA disclaimer is available here. --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 05:36, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Not used images with SVG version

I would like to ask you, how I should tag an images which have SVG version and they aren't used? Can I used template {{Speedydelete}}? Thanks.--sevela.p 23:25, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

No. There were already long discussions, the conclusion of which is that a raster image is not subject to automatic deletion merely because a claimed SVG equivalent has been uploaded. If the SVG is of high quality and the raster image is of low quality, and the SVG is a true replacement for the raster, then nominate the raster for deletion discussion by going through the ordinary process. Otherwise, there may be no particular reason why the raster should be deleted. AnonMoos 23:50, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

November 9

Revert page previous image link not quite right?

In exploring Image:Minnesota state seal.png's history due to a happy license change, I wanted to view previous versions. I went to the revert page revert page and tried clicking the "version as of 10:46, 2 August 2007." link. I got a very strange URL that doesn't resolve as it has multiple http clauses in it. I suspect we may have a small bollix in a mediawiki page but I'm not sure which one. ++Lar: t/c 00:02, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

It's not MediaWiki:revertpage which was my first guess :) ++Lar: t/c 00:05, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Seems that "Self-made" replaced "My own work". But the image didn't make itself.

Seems that "Self-made" replaced "My own work" in the description boilerplate. But the referent is faulty when the term "self-made" is used thus. The image didn't make itself. I made the image. — ¾-10 03:37, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the "self" means you. After all, it is you who are licensing the image not the image itself. Cburnett 04:01, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

It's just minor semantics. I don't suppose you're a lawyer or an engineer? :P --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 05:38, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

He's right, it is incorrect language, though I wish I knew what template you're talking about. It sounds a little silly. Patstuart 05:47, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

this page, I think. --rimshot^talk 16:48, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Picture at library of congress

Hey can anyone tell me if this picture of Toni Morrison is in fact done by the library of congress? They're normally pretty good about giving the source for any images that aren't theirs, but nothing else as a source is listed here. This is in response to Commons:Picture requests. Patstuart 06:47, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Very probably not. The Library uses a lot of authors' publicity photos in areas like that. (For example Khaled Hosseini & John Irving.) --Davepape 15:18, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

November 10

800 watermarked images by Wojciechowscy

According to mayflower search [5] there are about 800 images contributed by several users made by Marek & Ewa Wojciechowscy. The images seem to be valuable for articles about places in Poland; however all uploaded images have the same large watermark with photographers web page address in the bottom right corner. Most of them are not labeled as watermarked and some images were already cropped by other users and reuploded. Are there any tools to assist with tagging all those images that were not cropped yet with {{Watermark}} tag? Also are there any ways of automatic watermark removal, by deleting number of bottom rows? Other ideas of dealing with those images?--Jarekt 13:50, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

If the watermark is always in the same exact place, you could use: mogrify -gravity south -chop x47 *.jpg ¦ Reisio 01:59, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

auto sectioning of the VP

It seems to me it'd be a good feature to have a bot automatically creating a new major heading (like =October 30=) in the Village Pump every 00:00 GMT to separate posts by day. What do you think? Waldir 08:27, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Funny you should mention that... I had that same thought about 5 seconds ago, only to realise you posted that thought already :) --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 11:40, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

...to what end? ¦ Reisio 02:40, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

File type statistics

I wonder whether there is any statistics on number of files on commons by filetypes, like count and total size in bytes for JPEG files, the same for SVG, PNG, OGG, etc ... the only statistics I found is Special:Statistics, saying only total number of files here. Are these statistics somewhere accessible? --Křžut 23:08, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

To my knowledge, MediaWiki does not usually show this information in real time, but any Toolserver user could easily run a query on the image table from time to time. This is a quick breakdown based on the latest available dump (Oct. 12). --BrokenArrow 03:22, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I thought there was some section in the statistics that showed it?? I can't find it though. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 04:53, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

The rightmost part of the "Database records per namespace / Categorised articles / Binaries (=namespace 6: images, sound files, etc)" table lists the number of files by type, though not the cumulative size. If you find the data interesting, you could arrange a periodical run of the following query (or an optimized version) at the Toolserver's Query Service.

PS: There are a few rather weird entries in the table... --BrokenArrow 11:27, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

SELECT img_major_mime AS 'MIME major type', img_minor_mime AS 'MIME minor type', 
       count( * ) AS Number, sum( img_size ) AS Size
FROM image
GROUP BY img_major_mime, img_minor_mime
UNION SELECT 'Totals', '', count( * ) , sum( img_size )
FROM image;

MIME major type	MIME minor type	Number	Size
unknown		1	621,255
unknown	unknown	59	72,805,213
application	msword	3	188,416
application	ogg	43,101	29,492,904,616
application	pdf	1,382	2,143,899,790
application	photoshop	18	20,674,446
application	vnd.ms-excel	10	1,608,704
application	x-B	1	1,202
application	x-dosexec	1	195,800
application	x-rar	1	403,050
application	xml	2	616,603
application	zip	100	20,090,924
audio	mid	4	2,448,008
audio	midi	879	9,684,657
audio	mp3	8	20,708,539
audio	wav	7	16,284,372
image	gif	40,139	3,934,640,814
image	jpeg	1,513,052	1,076,157,956,523
image	jpeg2000	2	122,569
image	png	300,386	50,632,706,007
image	svg+xml	117708	1,467,030,5915
image	vnd.djvu	724	1,298,181,618
image	x-ms-bmp	68	60,091,444
text	plain	4	2,341,412
video	x-msvideo	3	19,630,412
Totals		2,017,663	1,178,579,112,309

Interesting. Please identify the MS Word files, the Dos EXE, the RAR, and the ZIP files. I'd like to see what these are; I suspect they shouldn't be here at all. And which ones are the plain text files? And what is "x-B"? The unknowns and the two xml files might also be worth taking a look at. Lupo 20:01, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I've wondered why upload of MS-Windows BMP files is allowed at all... AnonMoos

Most, if not all, zip files are Openoffice.org files (as an OOo file is actually a bunch of files compacted with zip).

There is a MIME search functionality that could be useful but is unfortunately disabled on all Wikimedia wikis. Does anyone know why ? — Xavier, 21:28, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I have put up a list of all files but the most common types (ogg, pdf, mid/midi, gif, jpeg, png, svg+xml, and vnd.djvu) in my User:BrokenArrow/Sandbox. You can work with it right there, or move it in a different place. Enjoy! --BrokenArrow 22:43, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Part of the problem seems to be that you can upload just about anything as long as you give it a name ending in ".ogg". Also, you can apparently upload a Photoshop .psd file or Windows bitmap .bmp file if you give its name an image-format extension (.jpg, .gif, .png, etc.). -- AnonMoos 01:51, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

The fact that upload checks should be stricter is a known issue, see bug 10823. Part of the required work has been already implemented by the devs. --BrokenArrow 09:50, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Some files like this one ("Invalid ogg file: Couldn't read file: Incorrect magic number.") do not appear in your list, even not in the unknown mime-type category. Logically, due to the error, they do not belong to the application/ogg category, so where are they in the table above? Another thing: 2 MB for 4 audio/mid files (MIDI files, right?) seems too much for me and I'd like to have a look on these. Thanks. — Xavier, 21:20, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

This file is actually stored as application/ogg. However, it has a generic MULTIMEDIA value in the img_media_type field, rather than AUDIO. I have listed all 64 files that have the same combination of img_media_type and MIME type - some of those are missing altogether, even if their description page exists. I have also listed the 4 audio/mid files. --BrokenArrow 13:57, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

November 4

My block

Well, when I put the uncontrollable vandalism subpage up to describe my motivation behind the COCO attack, the page was subsequently deleted and I was blocked for a week, the only explanation being "vandalism", which I have never done (or planned to do) on this wiki. The block on the User:Ionas68224 account has expired, so that is no longer a problem. However, herbythyme blocked my IP address 68.224.239.145 for 6 months with the explanation "Cross-wiki vandal-troll accounts", so I am forced to edit through proxies. Herbythyme did this totally without consensus, and without a reason. I am not going to vandalise this wiki (unless I get too angry when I get banned every second without consensus or a valid reason).

Please do not block the IP address 72.36.168.114 (rsmproxy.info) until I am unbanned because it is the proxy I am using for this time until 68.224.239.145 is unblocked.

Can someone please help me? Thanks, Jonas Dalton Rand (talk) 04:56, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Jonas,

Since your account is no longer blocked, you should just login to edit and you won't have any problems.

Did you write to user:herbythyme on his talk page? I am sure he can explain to you what the IP block is about. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 11:44, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Just noticed this one. My block was based on this block and a three month one that was in place on Meta in practice not you as a user. Any help? --Herby ^{talk thyme} 11:58, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

This was a sound block, based on a lot of evidence that the IP is quite disruptive in multiple places, in my view, and the deletion of the page threatening to vandalise if blocked was sound as well. You say: "I am not going to vandalise this wiki (unless I get too angry when I get banned every second without consensus or a valid reason)." No. There is no "unless" allowed. Getting too angry is not a reason to vandalise and if you give indication that is going to be your approach here or elsewhere, I think a permanent block is in order. For now I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. Please make positive contributions and do not threaten to vandalise. ++Lar: t/c 12:49, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your help, however, it still says "Your IP address has been blocked byh herbythyme", etc. when I try to log in. So, I am still using the proxy.

Herbythyme, it makes no sense to block me here because I am blocked on another wiki. I am not vandalising here, and I won't. Also, I have to have been disruptive on this wiki to warrant a block. I am blocked on other wikis, does not give you carte blanche to block me.

So, there has to be consensus on this block, and it is stupid to block my IP but not my account, because (probably because of a bug or something) when my IP is blocked, I can't edit under an account either. 72.36.168.114 01:58, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

OK well personally I do not agree with you. However others are welcome to overturn my block. The reason I do not agree with you is that the IP I blocked was responsible for a page on testwiki which read HERBYTHYME JUST BECAUSE I AM BLOCKED ON ANOTHER WIKI DOESN'T GIVE YOU THE RIGHT TO FUCKING BLOCK ME AS A TROLL ON EVERY OTHER WIKI. I HOPE YOU FUCKING GET E-MAIL BOM...). Others may or may not agree --Herby ^{talk thyme} 08:02, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Lokal Profil categorizing hundreds of images incorrectly

He's placing images that have copyright tags (and have the information those copyright tags require) into Category:Unknown. Administrators, you'll be wasting your time if you check these all against Commons:Deletion guidelines. Heads up. ¦ Reisio 02:22, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

In fact, it looks like he's correct on many of these images. Please see COM:L, which states that all images always should have: "The Source of the material, preferably a web link or a citation. This obviously does not apply if the material is first published on the commons and the uploader is the author of the material. This should be stated explicitly." Granted, he's marked several pd-self images, but those images are also of doubtful self-created origin, so I understand where he's coming from. A license is not enough; the page must give the source from which the image comes. Patstuart 02:52, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it says should, after it says must. That section is filled with contradictions and vagueness. As for pd-self (etc.), he should have some evidence suggesting the tag is inaccurate. ¦ Reisio 03:10, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

What I've been doing is going through images tagged with {{PD-ineligible}} which are artistic enough to pass the threshold of originality. In the more difficult cases I've tagged them with Nominate for deletion and in the more straight forward cases (if there is no source) I've tagged them with no source instead. Don't think I've tagged any {{PD-self}} images but I might be wrong on that. If Reisio has any special concerns regarding Commons:Deletion requests/Image:Coat of arms of Western Sahara.svg then please take it up there rather then attempting an attack on my character here. /Lokal_Profil 06:02, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

There's been no character attack. When the thought of recategorizing so many images struck you, you should have taken it up at Commons talk:Copyright tags or Commons talk:Licensing, where no doubt your plans would have been opposed. That would've saved a lot of wasted time. ¦ Reisio 15:43, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I for one certainly would not oppose identification of works incorrectly tagged as ineligible for copyright protection, nor do I consider it to be a waste of time. —LX (talk, contribs) 17:38, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Nor would I - that's not the issue. ¦ Reisio 18:58, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Category:Raquets

Shouldn't it be Category:Racquets? --TwoWings (jraf) * Wanna talk? ;-) 12:18, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

According to Merriam-Webster, you are correct; though I think I usually use "Racket", myself. --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 18:40, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Done and done: I relocated it. --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 18:52, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Question...

I uploaded the following file: Image:Catrinas 2.jpg and I have recently recived a notice that it will be deleted because it lacks permission, however, I uploaded the original file with the appropiate license releasing the image. Can someone help me figuring out what the notice is all about and tell me the appropiate text that must be included in the image? Thank you! --Tomascastelazo 16:26, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

You'd put the license template simply in the wrong field. It's "repaired" now and the message has diappeared. Could you add the date of the photo? -- Túrelio 16:48, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Turelio... I have added date... one more favor, in the english wikipedia the warning also appears at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Catrinas_2.jpg, could you help me? Thanks! --Tomascastelazo 16:58, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

That problem had already disappeared (without any further intervention), it was just a "mirror" of the warning message here on Commons. Viva Zapata! ;-) -- Túrelio 17:07, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Many thanks! --Tomascastelazo 17:44, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

November 12

GNU Free Documentation License and how it relates to images in derivitive, commercial works

I'm sure this has been answered before, but I can't track down any answers and I'm having a heck of a time understanding exactly how to comply with the GNU FDL. I've read the license several times and it all seems to talk about manuals and such, not as much about images.

If I see an image, such as the Mona Lisa, which is part of a compilation that is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License (the Yorck Project, for example), and I make it into a derivitive work such as a collage or a t-shirt or a card that I then sell, what must I do?

The FAQ states: "It can therefore be reused only if you release any derived work under the GFDL. This requires that, among other things, you attribute the authors and allow others to freely copy your work."

I'm confused because, on the one hand, it says that it can be used commercially, but on the other I have to let other people freely copy my work. Really?

My questions:

• What else would I have to do? Is there something about linking to the GFDL?
• Where do I have to do this. It seems crazy to list the contributors and the GFDL on a t-shirt, for example. Could I put the information on a tag or description that goes with the t-shirt.
• Do I really have to let people copy my new, derivitive work for free? Can I not own the copyright on the new work, even if it is substantially different than the original?
• Do the people who copy my work also have to release it under the GFDL? Do they have to site me for the derivitive work, or the Yorck project?

Thank you all so very much in advance for your help. Best, Corinna —the preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.105.241.132 (talk • contribs)

I formatted a little your paragraph for better displaying. As far as I know, if an image is released under the GFDL, you need to attach to it the text of the GFDL license. If you are distributing it electronically, you should provide a link with the GFDL text (like Wikipedia does). However, if you print the image, you need to attach a paper with the text, or add a note somewhere in the image with an explanation of how to get the license text.

As for letting other people use your work, well, yes. The GFDL is a contagious license: if you pick a GFDL image and modify it, your new image MUST be released under the GFDL. It is part of the license agreement, and therefore, anything you could do with the image (copy, distribute, modify, etc) is allowed for someone receiving your image.

I am not sure about this, but I believe you own the copyright of what you have done. If you took a picture of an apple, you own the copyright to that picture. If you release it under the GFDL and someone else picks it up and paints it blue, he owns the copyright to the apple painted blue, while you keep holding the copyright of the original apple. This is what I infer from Wikipedia contributions (when you edit an article, you own the copyright to the text you are adding, but agree to release it under the GFDL).

I think this is all, although someone else can correct me. -- ReyBrujo 05:53, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much. It is starting to make sense. One clarification. If I've taken that apple photo that someone released under the GFDL and I painted it blue, and then claimed it as a new copyrighted image by me, why would I have to still release it under the GFDL? I now own the copyright of the new work, and it seems like I could limit its usage since I have the copyright?

Your blue apple was created by exploiting someone else's intellectual property. In general you need their permission to create such derivative works (with the exception of fair use and other similar exemptions). By licensing it under the GFDL, the original photographer is saying that you can exploit this image, but if and only if you also license any resulting works under the GFDL. In essence you would be violating the original photographer's copyright if you didn't honor the conditions they placed on the use of the original. Dragons flight 06:32, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Got it. Thank you very much.

November 13

Category on protected images.

Can somebody with appropriate permissions please add Image:MediaWiki logo.png and Image:Tournesol.png to Category:MediaWiki logos. Thank you. --HappyDog 00:06, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

 Done pfctdayelise (说什么?) 11:56, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you! :-) --HappyDog 18:15, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Derivative works to delete.

Image:Fanta-guadeloupe.jpg... and there might be more among those uploaded by this bot.
Apart from that, could someone check the other one I wrote about (see above). --TwoWings * Wanna talk? ;-) 10:16, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Beware! Multi-copyvio uploader!

[6] --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 17:42, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Derivative works?

• Image:Gian Pieretti e i Grifoni.jpg
• Image:Fadel gomari myspace.gif > maybe original work but composed with non-free images.

--TwoWings (jraf) * Wanna talk? ;-) 15:02, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I tagged the latter, but I'm not entirely sure about the former. --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 18:42, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

The user re-uploaded the file but the first version had some details which made me think of derivative work... --TwoWings (jraf) * Wanna talk? ;-) 20:36, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

What should Image:Gian Pieretti e i Grifoni.jpg be a derivative of? The performance? AFAIK, artists' neighbouring rights do not cover photography, only audio, video or film recordings. The photographer may have broken the house rules, but that's his problem. See also Commons talk:Licensing/Archive 6#Copyright status of concert photographs. Lupo 10:56, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, in the first upload, there were 2 photographs and the above one had something typed on it, which made me think it was a derivative word and therefore maybe the other one too! See here --TwoWings * Wanna talk? ;-) 11:07, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Missed that one. No, the first upload was just a scan of two photos. The upper one seems to be a cassette sleeve and would be a copyvio. The lower one is the current photo, which is fine if it was indeed taken by the uploader. Scanning two photos in one go such that they end up in the same image file (jpeg, tiff, or whatever) doesn't make one photo a derivative of the other, and neither does the subsequent cropping. And neither do scanning or cropping create new works that could be derivatives from one another. So, no, it's not a derivative. Lupo 15:11, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

OK. It was just a doubtful upload because of the first version including a copyvio. Is it actually possible to clean the history so that the copyvio picture isn't available anymore? Because even if it's hidden, the copyrighted picture is still available on Commons in the history! --TwoWings * Wanna talk? ;-) 16:14, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Sure is. Done. Lupo 20:21, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Template:GFDL-user-w-with-disclaimers

I uploaded Image:SR 120 Yosemite.jpg, which was tagged on enwiki with Template:GFDL-self-with-disclaimers. Since Template:GFDL-self becomes Template:GFDL-user-w, I used Template:GFDL-user-w-with-disclaimers. But this didn't exist, so I redirected to Template:GFDL-user-w. Was this correct? --NE2 09:10, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Please use Template:GFDL-user-en-with-disclaimers (or simly the redirect GFDL-user-en) for GFDL images with disclaimers from the en wiki, see instructions for en wiki images with GFDL but without disclaimers. And please always try to use the same filename as on the local wikipedia to easy up the transformation to the Commons, please always give a link where the original image was at the local wiki and please always copy the file history as GFDL requires this.--Denniss 16:35, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Ah, maybe that should be added to the upload page. And are you saying that the GFDL requires us to keep track of when it was uploaded to the place we got it from? That seems kind of silly, but... --NE2 05:29, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Am I a prude...

(moved up, please read sections immediately above). Patstuart 23:20, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Why Commons is so wonderful...

I just spent almost an hour browsing commons with my wife and 3-yr-old, starting with the moon and mars, then the earth, then Puerto Rico, then frogs, and then gave up because it's bedtime. It was an inconsistent experience (sometimes galleries failed us, sometimes categories failed us), but it was a wonderful tour of the solar system/earth/frogs four our daughter. It was a lot better than it was a year or so ago when I was showing off commons to my sister and nephew.

We tend to get excited about marking numerical landmarks (1 million, 2 million, etc.), but the herculean efforts that have been made to make commons easily navigated are definitely paying off, and I just want to thank those who've been working so hard at it. --SB_Johnny | ^PA! 23:43, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Though I have to admit to letting loose a sophomoric laugh at the timing of this comment, given the conversation only a couple threads above... if you are browsing with your children, do keep in mind that Wikipedia is not censored  :) --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 00:26, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Heh... yeah, I don't think she'll be browsing commons unsupervised for a few years to come, but when she's old enough, she'll find what she needs to see, eh? --SB_Johnny | ^PA! 00:53, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

November 14

Possibly inappropriate commentary

I've been known to go on a bit in photo descriptions myself, but the English-language commentary at Image:Fruechte-des-Kulturapfels.jpg ("…we're able to enjoy more productive, healthy, and flavorful new varieties every year…") seems, at best, odd, and possibly inappropriate. --Jmabel | talk 01:32, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Geograph.org.uk

Is anyone working on a tool to upload images from this project? They are all CC-licensed and geocoded. More details on http://www.geograph.org.uk/faq.php ClemRutter 00:46, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Cool. They are CC-BY-SA, although the FAQ doesn't appear to state that explicitly. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 11:49, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

There was some discussion at Commons talk:Geocoding#Perfectly imported geograph.uk image.3F on getting the metadata from the site right and updated. --Para 18:15, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

So the answer is no? Can someone give me a lead to a tutorial to the techniques needed to write such a tool. I don't envisage a full bot that would vacuum in every image, but I can see a use for a tool that could be used by anyone writing geographic descriptions of UK settlements, that could download thumbnails of every image within 2/3/5 kilometers of a location that they could manually select and upload (à la commonist). ClemRutter 18:20, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Page File protection

I was just thinking, what if there was a special protection mode created specifically for Commons. A protection mode to only protect the file itself and not the description page, so the information and categories can still be edited. I haven't ran into much vandalism here (compared to en WP), and when I do, it's usually test pages. The real destructive vandalism on Commons (uploading over heavily used images) is done mostly to target other wikis that use the images. Right now, it seems Commons' protection guidelines are based on all other wikis' guidelines. If we protect an image because it's heavily used on say, the English Wikipedia, then we probably should protect all images that are heavily used on all wikis, each site having their own definition of what is "heavily used" and their own protection guidelines. To be fair, we would have to cater to the most restrictive wiki. Resulting in a lot of protected pages. Maybe it will never get to this point, but I can see it going in that direction. As Commons usage increases, the more we're going to have to protect for other wikis. Sister sites can make a local copy of the image to protect it, but that kinda goes against having a centralized image repository. If we had a way to only protect the images from changing, we can fulfill other sites' protection requests while not slowing our own maintenance tasks (like categorizing). If this is a good idea, maybe Mediawiki can add some code for this protection option.

Thoughts? Rocket000 17:06, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Not possible right now, but the idea has some merit. --SB_Johnny | ^PA! 00:08, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean it's not possible right now because of technical limitations? Rocket000 12:58, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Pretty sure that is what he means. It would probably require developer action (although I too think it is a good idea) cheers --Herby ^{talk thyme} 13:03, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Seems a good idea too. I suggest you search bugzilla and if you don't find a ticket that fits, open one. But there are a lot of tickets, someone may have already thought of this and created one. If you find or create one, please report the number back here so we can vote for it. (Report the bug number like this bugzilla:5244 ... that bug is a favourite of mine, relating to category intersecting, but I digress :) ) ++Lar: t/c 14:15, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll look into it and let you know :) Rocket000 14:31, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Yep, here it is: bugzilla:6579. White Cat reported it a while ago, and it was closed as "WONTFIX", but it has be reopened, so if you support this, go and vote! Rocket000 15:32, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Good find, voted, but not holding my breath! --Herby ^{talk thyme} 15:36, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

ArbCom for Commons

We've recently had two controversial situations come up that were (fortunately) resolved relatively quickly and quietly, but with considerable discomfort from all parties involved, because there was no structure in place if things got rough. The first of these was my block of User:Juiced lemon, the second the de-adminning of User:Joymaster.

As a participant in both of these actions, the lack of a "higher body" to decide the right and wrong was painfully apparent. As a dedicated commonist, I have serious concerns that we will be facing these sorts of situations with greater frequency as time goes on. We need an Arbitration Commitee if we are to preserve the relative invisibility of our administrative mopping.

Personally, I would like to see our arbcom evolve slowly and softly, as opposed to just adopting the rules and style of the arbcom on en.wp. We can just build an arbcom pool of admins (no offense to non-admins, but an RfA on commons is really only a matter of "is this user trystworthy"), take cases on when 5 arbcom members agree to do so, and make decisions when there is unanimity or a bare majority with no opposition votes (i.e.: 3 support, 2 abstain).

Let's start this now, because it would be a bit awkward to start it after we find we need it! --SB_Johnny | ^PA! 00:28, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Something along the lines of this requires serious thinking. I like the concept of it and would support it, however I do believe that this can be abused rather easily without a set "dispute resolution" process. The reason why it could happen is because from all of the heated conflicts that I have at least looked over, at least one of the users in those conflicts would do something to get ArbCom's attention, since it is almost always one of the first things people think of. More comments are needed, however. O₂ (息 • 吹) 03:52, 15 November 2007 (GMT)

I had thought we were making fairly good progress on self generated community structures for things without actually introducing "governance"... the deadminship stuff seems like it just needs a little push to wrap up. So I guess I'm not too keen on this. But if it really is needed I would support it. I just would really rather it wasn't ++Lar: t/c 05:01, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Per Lar, I think commons doesn't have such a big community to need more bureaucracy. Code·is·poetry 07:43, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I also thought that the de-adminship was remarkably well done, and seemingly more efficient and less drawn out than the comparable process on en.wiki, though it needs some fine tuning. I would encourage people to avoid copying the en ArbCom model, which was implemented on top of an entire chain of dispute resolution, and has an extraordinary burn out rate for arbiters. Speaking off the top of my head, rather than create a separate institution, perhaps a sequence of rules for community-binding decisions would be possible. For example, inspired by SB Johnny above: (1) Five admins constitute the minimum for a quorum. (2) A decision by 60% of a quorum of admins is binding on the community. (3) A quorum decision may be subsequently overruled by a larger admin quorum. There would obviously be all sorts of details that would be needed, but that would appear to give all the enforcement authority needed while avoiding adding to the social hierarchy and adding a way to back out of decisions that have turned out badly. Thoughts? Though I'm still not entirely convinced that the two incidents mentioned above illustrate a failure by the community, but I understand why SB Johnny might feel so. - BanyanTree 08:13, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Oooh, nice!!!! If we must have structure, I like the idea of a "quorum" of admins rather than a full blown arbcom. I just would make the minimum a bit larger (say 7 and require 5 of 7 rather than just 4 of 7, or even 9 admins, and require 7 of 9!). If you can't get 7 admins to agree to discuss it, it's not that big an issue (we all love to talk!)... and if you can't get a pretty solid majority (5 of 7 is over 70%, 7 of 9 is over 3/4) to agree then the status quo ante is the right thing to do. Since our institutions evolve by just "doing them" all we would have to do is start doing this and if the first few stuck, that would be that. No need for an arbcom, elections, clerks, formal pages, secret mailing lists, IRC channels, funny hats, silly walks, etc. Selecting Checkusers (and oversighters if we ever needed that) would continue as present, by community election. I could really get behind this, a lot more than an arbcom. I think it also addresses part of SB_Johnny's concern but I might be wrong. ++Lar: t/c 14:05, 15 November 2007 (UTC) ...

PS I do agree with SB that it is better to do this (whatever we decide) between storms than while one is blowing. ++Lar: t/c 14:07, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I just wanted to say, I think the admins and the community in general do a fairly good job here dealing with issues like these, and unlike en.wp, politics do not seem to be involved. I also would like to oppose adopting en.wp's hierarchal structure or anything that resembles it. Way too much bureaucracy over there (but for their size, it's understandable). For what I have witnessed so far, things go pretty smoothly here. I think instead of creating a whole new separate group (i.e. ArbCom), all admins (it'll be part of the job description), would work as a arbitration committee if needed. They would continue to act how they do now (individually), but when they believe their actions may be controversial, when they are unsure of what to do, or when another admin (possibly any user, in good faith) challenges their actions, the issue would be presented to and voted on/discussed by all admins. The conclusion would have the same weight as an ArbCom-like decision - pretty much binding. This system is already somewhat in place, I think all that is needed is guideline outlining the details and proceedings. Rocket000 14:24, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Getting every single admin to participate would be problematic. If not all participate, how do you know if "enough" did? That's why I think this idea of formalizing a "quorum" might be a good step. I just think 5 is too few and "all" is too many. ++Lar: t/c 16:28, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Oops, I should have worded that differently. I didn't mean every single admin has to vote on every single issue. I just meant they all could if they wanted to. And yes, there needs to be a minimum number of votes. Likewise, there needs to be a minimum percentage of votes one way or another. As I said, all I think needs to be done is establish the basic guidelines, including those minimums. I think we're saying pretty much the same thing, except I'm suggesting any admin that wants to take part, and vote on an issue, can. I agree your minimum number. 9 votes sounds reasonable, but this could change depending how many vote. Same with the minimum amount of votes to be a decision-making majority. 70-75% sounds good to me. Rocket000 19:25, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

We're on the same page then. A much wider consensus is needed though, than what we have so far. Perhaps another nudge from the admin noticeboard, as this does have serious implications. Or perhaps get a more formal something or another drafted to clarify what is being proposed and how it would work (although it's pretty simple) and once the wording seems good, put it up for a consensus discussion? ++Lar: t/c 21:14, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

(← resetting)

This all sounds good, I think the only structure we really need is just a system where a few (either elected or "first come to the call" volunteers) are identified, and will do an independent and well-researched investigation of whatever the issue is, and then report back to the community at large within a few days (perhaps just using one of the current admin noticeboards). This could be with or without recommendations, and then just try to get a relatively quick quorum on how to address the problem. But like I said earlier, I think it's better to come up with the structure during a cool moment than trying to do it while we're under fire. --SB_Johnny | ^PA! 21:25, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I think that Commons don't usually have conflicts where you specificly need an ArbCom as the Community is too small and the topics are too objective or the solution of problem unspectacular. Just my two cents. --my name 23:33, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

@SB_Johnny: A "first come to the call" volunteer idea seems good to kick it off for now. Yes, when we come under fire, it kind of impairs our ability to brainstorm properly, especially something as major as a possible ArbCom. Perhaps write a draft of what the proposed ArbCom will be like, located at Commons:Arbitration or another better location? O₂ (息 • 吹) 02:52, 16 November 2007 (GMT)

Looking at this got me thinking. We have some outstanding thoughts at the moment

1. Arb com here
2. Admin policy revision (Commons:Administrators/Adminship policy) a little dead but should be dealt with
3. The whole de-admin thing (which I do not necessarily see as linked to Arb Com). Inactivity, behaviour and indeed a view that Meta style confirmation may be an option

I wonder if opening a page with this such as Commons talk:Policy changes might help to gather discussion and make "watching" easier? Cheers --Herby ^{talk thyme} 09:39, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I like the quorum idea better than a full-out ArbCom setup; I just don't think there's enough need to warrant it. In regards to Lars' statement of "5 is too few, all is too many", what if the quorum number were raised to 12 (requiring 7 to be binding)? That's a much wider net than 5, but it might be too big... dunno. Just throwing that out there. :) EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:43, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

One could also make the number required a percentage of the admin corps to add an additional level of scaling. For example, 5% of the current corps of 185 is 9.25, though obviously relatively few admins join any particular activity. As for moving this discussion, would anyone mind creating a subpage /Policy? It seems people are still thrashing through ideas and would rather not get pinned down to the subject falling under a page title. Cheers, BanyanTree 21:25, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I created Commons:Arbitration#Proposal: Community arbitration. I think we should continue any discussion about arbitration on its talk page. -- Bryan (talk to me) 22:20, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

NASA photo ID

I was wondering. NASA galleries have changed several times over the years. Quite annoying for all our pictures, because it's almost impossible to find them back. Now NASA catalogs all its photo's and assigns Photo IDs to them. Even if a gallery goes offline, you could go to NASA and request that photo with that exact number. So why don't we have a Photo ID/Catalog ID in the standard Information template that allows us to consistently tag these photo's in our collection? Is there anyone else who thinks that we should be more vigilant when it comes to stuff like this ? Could we perhaps create a bot that watches for nasa URLs and figures out if they are tagged with their ID ? TheDJ 14:15, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I definitely agree the image's ID should always be included (like with the Library of Congress' images). Besides tracing the image back to the source, it could also help users find already-uploaded images and avoid duplicates. I've ran into a couple images where a higher resolution version existed, but was too big for Commons. If someone wanted to make a derivative they should be able to use the best quality version possible. Having the ID number, would allow them to easily find the better version. I don't know about the bot idea, but I would support creating a NASA template, which would include the copyright info. (used in place of the current one), and would require the ID number. Rocket000 15:02, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

So let's start with the basics, the templates to use. What would be the best idea. Create a separate {{Information}} template tooled specifically towards NASA images? Or shall I create an "addendum" template to Information, like {{LOC-image}} ? TheDJ 19:48, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I think a separate addendum may be better. Sounds a good idea, especially if the template gives us a way to use the image ID to give the current path to the image in NASA's imagespace/archives. ++Lar: t/c 21:09, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

OK, so attempt #1, based on LOC-image: {{NASA-image}}. I'm still considering if i should ask for both the CenterID and the PhotoID, or just let people concatenate them on their own. The whole NASA identification procedure is a bit of a mess anyways, so that's why i think it is important we choose an appropriate setup for this. If only NASA had a good searchengine to use their own IDs :D TheDJ 21:51, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Wow, it sure is a mess. I didn't know it was that bad. Anyway, here's how the template looks in action: Image:Jupiter&Io.jpg. -Rocket000 23:30, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

As a test case I have now labeled all the images of the STS-122 mission with the template. TheDJ 17:46, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

POV pushing in file descriptions.

I have noticed some persons inserting their own POV/OR (possibly BLP as well) in file descriptions[7][8][9][10]. Is there a policy about that? // Liftarn

Some of it is a bit pushy, some is not as bad. Then again, you might want to avoid things like the "compromise" version you created, which just makes it seem like you're trying to prove a point. Patstuart 18:21, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Liftarn, that is definitely some POV pushing. Not everything said, I would consider POV itself, but including it (and continuously re-including it after being reverted by more than one user) makes it seem Jaakobou has an agenda. Even more so considering the fact, he was removing images that undeniably represent Ariel Sharon, like Image:Stopfundingterror.gif, from Category:Ariel Sharon, then when he couldn't get his way, he created Category:Hate art about Ariel Sharon. I mean you don't see that same image in Category:Hate art about George W. Bush (which justifiably could be a category, because of the size, albeit a more neutral name). Anyway, POV aside - it's unnecessary. Sure it's relevant, but to the subject not the image itself. File descriptions should not be Wikipedia article stubs. Copy and pasting general info. like is not really helpful, as people come here looking for media to use not to learn things (not to say they can't learn things). If they're looking for images like this, I'm sure have at least some idea what they're about.

• Bravo for extensive file descriptions, we have far too many images with no descriptions! Political cartoons are about current events in some location, we need descriptions that preserve the context of that moment in time. If there is a problem with the image's description, then the image's talk page is the place to *discuss* the content of the page, a revert war does nothing useful and should have been not continued after the first revert when it was obvious a dispute existed. Stomping on something as POV or claiming someone has an 'agenda' isn't really helpful - as we all live and breath we *all* have a POV and agenda, but, like accents, we only notice that of others :-) --Tony Wills 10:07, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

• Jaakobou's "descriptions" doesn't add any value to the images. It's just his own biased conspiracy theories. Let's say I would take Image:Bush at podium 20050428.jpg and to the image description add "W Bush shows how large his butplug is." Would that add any value to the image? // Liftarn

• Eg the first image "A somewhat discordant note is that 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis during the second world war and it is highly controversial to portray Jews -- in this case Ariel Sharon -- as kissing with Nazi leader Adolf Hitler" does not seem to contain much in the way of "biased conspiracy theories" - it does tell me something about why the image was created and how it was received by some of those it was aimed at.
• His descriptions contain reasonable amounts of information. In this example a more NPOV might reword it as "This cartoon portrays Ariel Sharon (a Jew) as kissing Nazi leader Adolf Hitler (millions of Jews were killed by the Nazis during the second world war). The point being to draw an ironic comparison between the two leaders policies and actions.". It is part of the story (the background) but needs more context about what event prompted the cartoons creation. I have much more of a problem with adding Category:Antisemitism. But as I said a discussion on the images talk page would be more appropriate. --Tony Wills 12:31, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Anyone else want to put that category up for deletion/rename? Rocket000 03:47, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

• I'm surprised that there isn't a wikipedia article describing what "hate art" is. I'm not sure about how subjective the term 'hate' is in this context, could you love the man and still produce this art? I have no problem with it existing as a separate sub category, but a category of "Caricatures of Ariel Sharon" under "Category:Caricatures" would seem quite adequate ("Political cartoons of Ariel Sharon" might be more accurate but that doesn't fit in with existing categorization of similar images of other people on commons) . --Tony Wills 10:07, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

> "and breath we *all* have a POV and agenda"

That's fine, there's a time and a place to express it (Village pump, talk pages) and places where most of us try to make an effort to keep it out. Just because we *all* have a POV, does that mean we should just give up the whole neutrality thing? No, we're still capable of taking a NPOV if the situation calls for it. Everyone's capable of this, more or less.

>"I'm not sure about how subjective the term 'hate' is in this context, could you love the man and still produce this art?"

As for "hate", just the fact we disagree about it shows it's at least somewhat subjective, but it could just be me, that's why I'm just asking and not nominating for deletion.

> "Stomping on something as POV or claiming someone has an 'agenda' isn't really helpful."

Um.. then neither is pointing that out then :) No seriously, you're saying talking about issues isn't helpful? How can we solve them without saying what the problem is? "Agenda may have been the wrong word (right meaning), as it's usually used in a negative sense. Sorry if it came across that way.

You know it's bad when you're ready to add a {{Fact}} template, and then remember where you're at. Rocket000 10:53, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

• Rapidly ramping up a small dispute to a public forum in the hope of getting public backing to stop another's actions is the problem. It is nice to call upon authority to back you up, when it would have been better to approach it with 'assume good faith' and discuss. Yes the author has a rather different point of view, but actually seemed rather restrained in his language (although his biases show through ;-). But negotiate first, go to war if all else fails :-) --Tony Wills 12:31, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

• Not rapid enough - the edit-warring shouldn't have gone on. Discussion, as you suggest, is a better way to resolve issues, but that is what's happening here. This is a community, we deal with problems as a community, be it on the village pump or on other talk pages. Liftarn did come here (as well as Jaakobou's talk page). His/her question was an honest one. "Is there a policy about that?" I don't see that asking that here was a bad thing. That's what the Village pump is for. Yes it turn into something specific about the situation, but that's just means we should be having this discussion. It seems like this situation won't be efficiently settled without others input. Consensus is a good thing. Getting "public" support is encouraged here. I mean, see where this discussion is going. It's now about the correct way to deal with issues (thanks Tony :), but that's ok, that's good. Personally, sometimes I don't know how to handle a situation, these discussions help tremendously. Please don't discourage others from taking issues here. Not only can we help solve the issue at hand, we can benefit from it ourselves. Rocket000 02:23, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

November 17

Category:Violet vs Category:Purple

Sorry, that must be the limits of my English level but I can't see the difference! If I'm right, in French, we translate "purple" by... "violet"! And when I compare the two categories it's really hard to see any difference! --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 08:24, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
Something else about colours: category:Gray includes 1 sub-category with the spelling "gray" and 3 with the spelling "grey". Shouldn't we dio something to make it homogeneous? And shouldn't we choose the original spelling "grey" since American spelling is derivated from the English one? Actually there's the same problem with "colours" and "colors"... --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 08:51, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

I grew up using American English and use both words interchangeably in conversation. However, there is a technical difference which is explained quite well here. Basically: violet is what comes after blue/indigo in a rainbow; and purple is a combination of both blue and red colors. As far as a computer monitor's rendering capabilities go: I think they're effectively the same (unless you really want to get into the nitty-gritty of how a monitor forms its colors...). As for the same category being differentiated by British vs. American English... egads, that'll be a fun battle. I think people have been waging that one for years! Personally I don't particularly care... I just wish we'd choose one. --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 08:53, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

I think the standard on en:wikipedia is to use which-ever form of English was used in the original article, but consistency is nice :-). In the case of Purple vs Violet I think the category should be Purple (which covers a wide range of off blue colours) with a redirect for Violet (which seems to be a more specific colour). Or if someone thinks they know exactly what Violet looks like and wishes to police entries into the Violet category and fend off other Purples, then at least make Violet a subcategory of Purple. --Tony Wills 09:07, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

I support "purple" over "violet", too. More popular. Violet could be consider a shade of purple if necessary. Rocket000 10:58, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

When in doubt consult Wikipedia.Purple! Purple. ClemRutter 18:03, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, I consider Violet to be a shade of Purple (...though the en.wp link suggests I'm wrong... bah). EVula // talk // ☯ // 18:05, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, yes violet is defined as being at one end of the Purple range, but common usage certainly has it as a purple - as an example the X11 colour violet shown on the 'pedia page, is no where near violet (far too much red). Technically your computer screen probably can't display violet (it is probably beyond the blue pigment used in your RGB monitor), similarly RGB file formats can't really describe colours that are redder than red (infra red is an extreme example) or bluer than blue (violet being the example in question). Bees are probably quite disappointed in the pictures of flowers on commons ;-) --Tony Wills 19:23, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Not only bees. Think about three basic colors mixing in to a final color: Let A be a violet as single spectral color, and B be a purple formed by a balance of the three basic colors. Let A and B be equal for a non-colorblind person, then color-blind people may see a difference between A and B. Or the other way round. That's used in color-blind tests. Also, change the color-balance of your screen and A and B probably change differenty. From teh physically point of view, violet is a kind of purple, but not all purple is violet. Havang 21:50, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Not all purple is violet. But all violet is purple, isn't it? --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 22:22, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Commons:Picture of the Year/2007/Translations

Translation is now open. Please fill in as many translations as possible before Christmas. -- Bryan (talk to me) 20:15, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Can we trust that?

Image:Andy Gibb, aka Chazz Michael Michaels (1252676491).jpg has been reviewed by a bot but it seems to be a derivative work. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 23:50, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

The bot only checks that the license is copied correctly. It does not check the license's actual validity. --Boricuæddie 23:58, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

November 18

Image:Fishing in a mountain stream.jpg at en.WP

I've looked around, with no success, for a higher-quality version of Image:Fishing in a mountain stream.jpg from the English-language Wikipedia. I found one at nelson-atkins.org, but it is streamed by a Flash application.

Anyways, if someone else could try looking as well, I'd appreciate it. I've tried many different searches, to no avail. Thanks, --Iamunknown 19:00, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, I gave it a shot. No luck. I really do hate that Flash stuff. I'm not familiar with this work, but isn't the image, Image:Fishing in a mountain stream.jpg, just one part of the piece. If so, maybe this would be better (you could always crop it, if you just want that one segment). Sorry I couldn't find anything better. Rocket000 03:21, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Silly me. I didn't even think of the obvious. Just take a screenshot of the flash. I uploaded the new version over en:Image:Fishing in a mountain stream.jpg. Check it out. It's still not at 100% resolution, but much better. Rocket000 03:39, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Heh, I felt I was missing something obvious. Thank you very much for taking the time to get a better version. I assume we can upload it to Commons too, as Xu Daoning lived in the 10th and 11th centuries.  :-) --Iamunknown 06:37, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

On that note, I wonder what hànzì represent Xu Daoning's name, and also if there are other names for Fishing in a mountain stream. I did find some other names... Hmm, I'll probably look into this more this weekend, unless you beat me to it!  ;) --Iamunknown 06:41, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Tsk, tsk. Use a local proxy to see what URLs this Flash thingy loads, then experiment a little. I've uploaded Image:Fishermen's Evening Song - Detail.jpg, from this direct URL. :-) Now that's 100% resolution (2000 × 1680px). But their server even can scale images; just try this URL with width = height = 2000... 2000 seems to be the maximum. The "2033-1559" in the file name is not the original resolution but their accession number. 2000 × 1680 maintains the aspect ratio of the Flash display. I don't know which ratio would be the true one, though. Lupo 08:56, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

As to the Hànzì: I've added that to Xu Daoning based on [11]. Hope I got it right. Lupo 17:20, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

And the image of the full scroll Rocket000 found is now at Image:Fishermen's Evening Song.jpg. Lupo 17:41, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't aware that was possible. I think I do need to do some experimenting ;) Thanks for pointing that out to me! Cheers, Rocket000 05:49, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

And in fact, the 2000px version still wasn't 100%. By extracting the four quadrants at 2000px each and stitching them together I've now gotten Image:Fishermen's Evening Song Detail Large.jpg, which finally looks like the 100% version does in the flash viewer. Lupo 10:57, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Wow. That sure beats my idea to crop and stitch together about 16 zoomed in screenshots. lol :) A little more help than expected, huh Iamunknown? Rocket000 02:43, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, definitely! Thanks very much, Lupo.  :-) Could you (Lupo) explain what how to use a local proxy to discover what URL is loaded? In the past, when I've determined what images a .swf file loads, I used the Sothink SWF Decopmiler ... which is quite tedious. --Iamunknown 20:10, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Possible copyvio

Though it was uploaded by an Commons admin and it carries the caption “Images from Carlos Latuff are copyright free”, I have some doubt whether Image:Latuff cartoon Israeli soldier voting.jpg is really free. Without doubt this “political cartoon” is based on a real photograph that is very likely copyrighted by the IDF. In my understanding, the cartoon by Latuff is a derivative of that photo and therefore Latuff’s claim of “copyright free” might be invalid. Any other opinions? -- Túrelio 20:14, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Good point. Slap a {{Delete}} tag on it and bring it up for debate. // Liftarn

Well, I first wanted to get some opinions, before taking out the delete-"club/hammer". -- Túrelio 11:26, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

That is a good way to bring about a debate. It's certainly more visible that a village pump topic. // Liftarn

Thanks for putting the tag on it.

The related debate is here and/or here. -- Túrelio 13:29, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Recover a replaced photo??

Help! A stupid user has uploaded a new, modified and resized version of Image:Polyommatus_damon.jpeg. I got it recovered but strangely, as he replaced my photo with his version I've got no entry in my watchlist! Is there a way to keep notified when such things are done? Fabelfroh 09:26, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's possible. Hydro (talk · contribs) probably meant it for the best, but fact is he's cropped and replaced a whole string of pictures without asking permission. Sometimes it's a good idea, but a lot of them replaced pics are macro pics, where framing and composition are often carefully chosen by the photographer to emphasize the bug. What should be do? Revert all changes? Jastrow (Λέγετε) 09:53, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

This is a common problem, often an 'improvement' is not seen as such, but the 'improver' is acting quite reasonably in trying to contribute to commons. So it is common practice to ask before replacing someone else's image. Perhaps report the lack of notification to the software bug section. Revert any QI or FP etc images, and re-upload the new version (perhaps User:Hydro can do that), otherwise it's just a case by case thing. Most edits seem reasonable, though I haven't examined the quality. The uploaders will presumably notice sooner or later ;-) --Tony Wills 10:16, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikitable calendar

I stumbled across this page Wikitable calendar, which consists of a calendar designed and drawn using wikitables and wikicode instead of actual media files. The header at the top reads, "Ready to be printed in an ISO A4 paper size." Is this acceptable? If not, someone should post it for deletion. Thanks. Zzyzx11 10:00, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

May be more suitable for Wikisource? AnonMoos 11:17, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

No, this is a reference work, not a source text. —Benn Newman 03:47, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Automatic map generating script

I am not sure if this was brought up before. Since most of maps used by Wikipedia are derived by using the Paint Bucket tool on the same map template. Wouldn't be nice to create a web script for it? The user could simply type the list of the countries and colors to create a map. In fact such a script will allow a lot more possibilities (e.g. current time, sun light at any moment, etc). --Voidvector 08:08, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

That would indeed be an awesome tool (although I don't know what you mean about current time and stuff). So all you need is to find and convince a programmer to do it. ;) --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 12:05, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

There is a program called GunnMap that may be a usefull tool. At least for world maps. // Liftarn

OMG! How long has that existed? Do people know about it?? How cool. :) --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 13:44, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

That's a pretty good tool. Although I was thinking the map generating script would be dynamic (e.g. when we get a better map template, we can just change it, and all the maps on Wikipedia would get updated on the fly.) Anyway, this would do for now. --Voidvector 17:20, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

It's an old idea that a lot of people have been working on for some time. I'll try to find the relevant WikiProject or whatever and link. ¦ Reisio 17:58, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

meta:maps, meta:map generator, meta:geographical data ¦ Reisio 18:06, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Something using http://www.openstreetmap.org/ data with a renderer like w:Mapnik perhaps. // Liftarn

Is category:product piracy a duplicate category of category:forgery?

Again, when my English is not good enough, I prefer asking here... --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 09:26, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

"product piracy" is a special case of "forgery", "product piracy" is about replication of commercial mass produced "products" (eg DVDs, pharmaceuticals, watches etc), whereas "forgery" includes those but everything else as well (eg signatures, id cards, money, pictures). --Tony Wills 11:07, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

OK thanks for this confirmation. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 12:32, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with this explanation. Unauthorized replication of commercial products is “counterfeiting”. “Product piracy” is an important change of a commercial product which impairs its initial functionalities (example:unprotection of software products. --Juiced lemon 19:47, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I would not call 'copy protection' a 'functionality' of a product (rather the reverse ;-). I agree the term 'piracy' is more often used in conjunction with protected software and CD/DVDs but I believe the term applies just as much to unprotected works. Wikipedia does not seem to define 'product piracy', looking on the web I have not found your definition, there is a definition [12] which distinguishes 'product piracy' and 'counterfeiting'. I think the distinction is that 'product piracy' involves mass producing a product (eg viagra) to take advantage of a market but not necessarily trying to fool people into thinking it is the trademark owners product, 'counterfeiting' involves trying to pass off your copies as the genuine item (and therefore get a high price). I often think it would be a good idea if people add a description at the top of the categories they create, describing the intended contents. --Tony Wills 07:33, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Piracy is not just copy-protection circumvention. It usually refers to any copyright infringement. Sharing (unprotected) files illegally over the internet is piracy. Counterfeiting is copying something and passing it off as real. It doesn't have to be commercial or copyrighted, as it's most associated with U.S. currency (Public Domain). Rocket000 08:19, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Also, I never heard the term "product piracy", so I'm guessing the "product" part was added to avoid confusion with traditional piracy. Rocket000 08:26, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

The protection of a software product is a functionality. A functionality is not necessarily useful to the customer. I never heard the term “product piracy”, too. --Juiced lemon 16:44, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Pages named in non-Latin writing systems.

Naming the pages in their native script make the categorization system useless for most readers. I don't read Chinese nor Arabic, so when I see in a category with pages like these: 严复, 馮玉祥, 张伯苓, 林则徐, عدي صدام حسين, صدام حسين, إياد علاوي, I simply have to click on each to understand about whom each of them is. For more than 95% of the readers, the writing in Arabic or Chinese is as useful as writing in Klingon.

There are even more obscure writing systems than Chinese, Arabic or Greek. Should we write the names of Gothic people with Gothic runes? For the sake of consistency, we should. But how many people are able to read that alphabet? or even how many have the unicode fonts to see it? Bogdan 00:10, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

mupwI' yI'uchtaH; ghIj qet jaghmeyjaj! (thank you Google) ... I'm with you on this one. As far as discussion has reached, English is the language of use for categories... the lingua franca Anglica, if you will. However... if there were a real discussion, I'd be interested in how it would proceed. People who know English well enough may just concede that it should be the standard. However, everyone whom may not be familiar with English might be inherantly exempted from discussion due to lack of understanding. Would we need an ongoing translation of such discussion in various languages? I'm really just being devil's advocate... I suspect categories will stay English until foreign language Commonses fork off of this one. Assorted notes: FAQ, see #5; Language policy--Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 01:27, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't speak anything other than English, but I have great sympathies with people who want to use their own language in what is an international project. I hope we don't get the project fragmenting into many different language versions - this project is about the images, text is secondary and used to describe and catalogue images, surely there is not need to replicate the whole project just to accommodate different languages. I can not see the problem being one of using non-Latin writing systems, generally titles in any 'foreign' language are a mystery to me :-). Until we develop a way of handling the multitude of languages in all aspects of the wiki, we will just have to develop strategies to work around the problem. In the cases you mention a redirect from other language versions of the names (eg English ;-) would help, and the redirect page can be categorized along side the original (not perfect I know :-) --Tony Wills 02:16, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

(I understand Chinese, btw) When I work with categories, by habit I use the English name, but when it's a gallery, it is titled in the native language with the English or other language names as redirects. There's no set policy or guideline for category naming, but the language policy applies to galleries. 哦， 是吗？(User:O) 03:42, 20 November 2007 (GMT)

Commons is a multi-lingual, international project. The ideal solution would be a way to let each category have multiple names, and then let the user set say "Show me arabic category names where possible" in preferences. It does not seem to be such a hard feature to add (although this usually ends up being an understatement). Until there is such a system, I suggest we continue with the current strategy of allowing people to make names in their preferred language, and writing system. I think the idea of having separate language commonses is a bad one. We should be able to deal with being multilingual, as the guy says its more about the media than the text. - FrancisTyers 09:36, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Francis, that will never happen. No one will change the software. From my experience, the wikimedia developers' attitude on almost any change (especially those as complex as this one) is "that's a stupid idea, we don't find it useful. How dare you waste our precious time with this?" Bogdan 09:44, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

People change the software all the time, as I said, it isn't a crazy difficult thing, and it could easily be applied optionally on a per project basis (it isn't the kind of thing that would be useful for all projects). I'm sure there are enough programmers with the PHP skills that could make it happen. Stop being so pessimistic! People have said "never" to a lot of things! :) - FrancisTyers 09:59, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I think it's more important for categories to all be in the same language. Gallery redirects are fine, but category redirects don't really work. To put an image in a category, you have to use the "real" name. Organizing and navigating also becomes a challenge when you start mixing languages. It's no secret this multilingual site is predominately English-speaking, so it makes the most sense to use English as the standard for categories. However, for galleries, I see no reason why non-English names (even with non-Latin characters) shouldn't be used, as long as redirects are in place. One small problem that does occur though, is when galleries show up in categories, someone might not know that's what they're looking for (for the majority of us anyway). Inconsistency is also an undesirable side effect. (Something I'm willing to live with.) As for settling on a category policy, I don't think it's all that important. The lack of one doesn't seem to cause much trouble. For being what we are, I think we do pretty well. (Full disclosure: English only speaker) Rocket000 10:04, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Why perpetuate the linguistic hegemony when alternative, more equitable solutions are available?(Disclaimer: I'm sure I made up one of those words; Also I'm a linguist) - FrancisTyers 10:09, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not suggestering we do. I'm sure software embetterment will solve the problem for us. Yeah, it's not gonna happen any time soon but it will. Who knows, in twenty years or so, all projects will be multilingual. All projects will be one. It'll be pretty much the whole Internet. Wikinternet. Rocket000 11:13, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

... wow, I should get some sleep. Rocket000 11:14, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

The gallery 严复 complies with our language policy. The current issue is an incorrect categorization of the gallery, plus the lack of categorization of the displayed images. This gallery would be categorized in the only category Category:Yan Fu, with a space as parameter. The files would be categorized in Category:Yan Fu too. So, there would be no more difficulties to access the files. --Juiced lemon 12:08, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Example of a nearly correct presentation of a subject: Category:Stalin (should be “Joseph Stalin”) and Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин. --Juiced lemon 12:12, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Category:Intimrasur

Anyone knows what it's about? Considering the creator of this category, I guess this should be deleted. --TwoWings * Wanna talk? ;-) 16:11, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

It's German for pubic shaving. --rimshot^talk 16:36, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

OK then... Shouldn't all categories be in English? (except exceptions like places/people names) --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 16:58, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, categories should be in English. Do we even have an English category in this particular case? --rimshot^talk 17:11, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Well no. I don't know if it'd be useful... --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 17:23, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Redirected to Category:Glabrousness. --GeorgHH 17:45, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

So we do {{Category redirect}} with other-than-English words? --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 17:50, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the three descriptions at Category:Glabrousness say three different things. The English one speaks of the medical condition of lacking hair, the German one of the practice of removing pubic hair and the French one of a fetish for shaved private parts. The German description seems to best fit what the category is actually used for. --rimshot^talk 18:24, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually you're right, there's a problem... but I don't see it the same way as you do! I think being "glabrous" means that you have an "abnormal" lack of hair (not only pubic). A guy who naturally have no beard is glabrous. The French word used here is completely different since it speaks about the sexual fetichism about lack of pubic hair. The problem with French is that there's no translation for "glabrousness" (only for the adjective "glabrous", which is simply "glabre"). I don't speak German so I can't judge that part. Anyway, technically, we can't say that someone whose pubic hair is shaven that s/he's glabrous. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 18:36, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Corrections to my thoughts: in fact "glabrous" can be used when someone has a shaven or depilatory body (or part of the body). For instance, we can say that a professional swimmer's torso is glabrous. But I continue to think that glabrousness is not only about pubic hair (my example of the swimmer is self-explainatory). Therefore, should we keep such a category where any glabrouse body or part of body appears? In that case nothing prevents to see such images as topless children (=glabrous torso) or even female faces (=no beard!). Then if we want to keep a category for shaven/depilatory sex (which has a sense since it's an erotic behaviour/taste), we might need to rename the category with a more precise title such as category:Pubic glabrousness. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 13:06, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

(from immediately below) Am I a prude, or someone else thinks too that a category devoted solely to the "fetish of shaved pubes" is of no particular encyclopaedic interest? Refer to: Category:Glabrousness --User:G.dallorto 21:43, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

You're not a prude, you just aren't particularly logical. There are twelve images in that category, obviously those images are of interest to people, and they may as well be categorized. ¦ Reisio 22:58, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Back to the question- what should the category be called? It must be something that is obvious to the person who wishes to display such images, or find them, so IMHO we can forget words we can't define. Using circumcism as a parallel case we find and equally contraversial display in Category:Circumcised genitalia so how about Category:Shaved genitalia which could been categorised upwards in several directions. ClemRutter 22:21, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm OK with that idea. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 13:05, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

The French legal case

Perhaps this has been discussed already... from the mailing list ... does commons need to do anything special? Do we need any new policies? The law is twisty. I'd commend you to this very excellent analysis of the ramifications by Giano, as well as what Anthere herself says in the mail:

I suggest that every project get a look at w:Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons And consider building such policies in the near future.

...that perhaps we may want to examine our policies. Or maybe we are all set? ++Lar: t/c 22:54, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Um, we have {{Personality rights}}...we may want to solidify it into more than a template. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 12:24, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually we have Commons:Photographs of identifiable people which seems to cover it? pfctdayelise (说什么?) 12:57, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

November 16

Astronaut photo's and mission emblems

OK, i'm confused. I have never seen NASA state that astronaut photo's and mission emblems are "non-PD". BUT http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/insignia/text/commercial.html says that you can't use astronaut photo's without NASA permission either. This to me looks a lot like the case of the NASA insignia, which is also PD, but under separate laws that disallow you to use it commercially unless approved.

Also, the latest descriptions for NASA mission patches (http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/detail.cfm?mediaid=33396) suddenly contain: "The NASA insignia design for shuttle flights is reserved for use by the astronauts and for other official use as the NASA Administrator may authorize. Public availability has been approved only in the form of illustrations by the various news media. When and if there is any change in this policy, which is not anticipated, it will be publicly announced." Again this translates for me to: "this is a government logo and to use it commercially you need approving from the particular government branch."

So how does this work? Public Domain work that is subject to "higher laws" in some use situations? And were is the line? A portrait is not allowed then I guess. But is a crewshot allowed ? 2 astronauts working in a module ??? TheDJ 22:00, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

To summarize. If we can use those photo's, in commons, that means we can use the NASA logo just as much. What is the position of "limiting laws" that are not directly copyright or license related, and if this "government endorsement"-law actually exists, can someone point it out ? TheDJ 22:09, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

To partially answer my own question: w:Copyright status of work by the U.S. government. "Certain works, particularly logos of government agencies, while not copyrightable, are still protected by other laws similar in effect to trademark laws. Such laws are intended to protect indicators of source or quality. The Central Intelligence Agency logo, for example, cannot be used without permission. This is intended to prevent the appearance of endorsement, under the CIA Act of 1949." TheDJ 22:41, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Sounds similar to {{Trademarked}} and {{Insignia}}. /Lokal_Profil 22:42, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, you are right... So does {{PD-USGov-NASA}} cover these exceptions enough, or should we make a separate "Restriction tag" out of this? Also, this means the NASA logo can be on commons right? as long as the "insignia" template is on it? TheDJ 22:56, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

The relevant regulation is apparently: 14 CFR 1221. I have no access to this kind of stuff. Does anyone here so that we can figure out what exactly are the restrictions? Also of interest this (email?)-exchange (http://www.nasawatch.com/worm/05.15.00.ulrich.html) and this copy of NASAs styleguidelines http://www.strategies.org/SMD_CommunicationsReview/NASA_StyleGuide_Nov06.pdf (section regulations) TheDJ 23:38, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

If you're really interested, here's 14 CFR 1221. But AFAIK it is covered by {{Insignia}}. Lupo 10:52, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I'll try to read that tonight to figure out what the various restrictions are. TheDJ 16:09, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

OK what i have been able to conclude.

1. The usage restrictions are imposed on NASA logo, NASA seal, NASA insignia, NASA flag and NASA program identifiers per this CFR.
2. I was unable to find any restriction on the photographs of NASA astronauts like stated here, but this might be defined in another law. Still "endorsement" laws are applicable in much of the world trough international treaties of course.
3. I'm unsure on the status of mission patches. It can be called an insignia, but they are also semi-official "crew traditions", so i doubt that would qualify in a court of law.
4. There are no indications that the NASA logos are NOT in the public domain anywhere in those laws.
5. Per 1 and 4, we can include the NASA logos in commons when we add a {{Insignia}} to them I think. I will also add a link to the specific CFR.

I will at least propose to fix the current warnings in PD-USGov-NASA to reflect this, and I will upload the logos after that. I'm in doubt wether we need to add {{Insignia}} to EVERY mission patch image, and wether we need to add specific warnings to all photo's that include the faces of astronauts. I would love some more feedback on this. TheDJ 14:51, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

November 19

Image:Teenage Wasteland.jpg

Could anyone help me to find more/better categories for this? --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 15:04, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

There are a couple of approaches, you can simply search for images with similar content and see how they are categorized, or use CommonSense which now seems to have lots of good options. In this case you might want to add "drugs" and "hooker" to the keywords. There are lots of categories under Category:People that it could go in, and somewhere under Category:Drugs. You might have to create a Category:Hookers (under Category:People by occupation) if you can't find one that covers that activity. :-) --Tony Wills 19:50, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Drugs? Hookers? That might be assuming a little too much ;) Anyway, just could opportunity to ask a question I had. In images like this, do we even need the personality rights warning? You can't really identify the person. Rocket000 08:31, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

It may be a cultural thing, that's what I took from the description - please ignore my suggestions if I'm totally out of touch with modern parlance! ;-). I see no point in a "Personality rights warning" --Tony Wills 09:53, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh, didn't see the description :) Nevermind then. Rocket000 11:25, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

There is a Category:Prostitution. AnonMoos 17:44, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Strangely enough I have never before had cause to delve into that one, but that leads to Category:Prostitutes which is indeed in Category:People by occupation :-) --Tony Wills 09:32, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

U.S. city categories

It has come to my attention that categories for U.S. cities are inconsistently named. Sometimes they follow the pattern of Category:Cityname, State and sometimes it's just Category:Cityname. The problem with this inconsistency is that an editor never knows which one to use when trying to categorize his/her photos. Personally I would like to see them all follow the "Cityname, State" rule, even when the name is unambiguous, like Salt Lake City. I would have brought this up at Commons talk:Naming categories but that still seems to be a draft and not an official guideline yet. Thoughts? howcheng {chat} 18:58, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

While this is not English Wikipedia, and we're free to make our own rules, for the sake of consistency, I think we ought to follow en:Wikipedia:Naming conventions (settlements)#United States as closely as is reasonable. This should be noted in some document somewehere in Category:Commons category schemes. —LX (talk, contribs) 19:42, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Most of naming conventions in the English Wikipedia are intended for articles, not for categories of media files. To follow such conventions is like trying to feed your car with oats.

Categories have a particular nature since, unlike articles, they can have subcategories. When the subject of a category is a location, the subcategories are often “compound categories”, that is their name is built from the “location name” in their parent category.

This construction system (see Commons:Naming categories) is disrupted when the name of the parent category is excessively verbose, because it would lead to long subcategory names with bad readability. In particular, that occurs when the category name has a disambiguation suffix, though there is nothing to disambiguate. I know from experience that users often fail to add the useless suffix when they build subcategory names: that leads to extra work in order to carry out consistency.

Therefore, I support the following general rule: for the naming of Wikimedia Commons categories, disambiguation suffixes are restricted to disambiguation cases. This rule supersedes any non-Commons convention (but exceptions are possible). --Juiced lemon 21:31, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Free images for money?

I have heard that Commons now has money to pay artists to create free images. Is this true? Where can I read more about it? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 22:00, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

It's mainly diagrams, not photographs. It was on this page until relatively recently; you might look at the archives. AnonMoos 23:30, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

See Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2007Nov#WMF_announcement:_Philip_Greenspun_illustration_project and Philip Greenspun illustration project. --Kjetil r 23:39, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

November 21

I can't read japanese

So, I cna't verify the status of Image:20071104 asamisama.jpg, it may be a derivative work (and thus copyvio), most anime uploads are. Could anyone lend a hand checking the japanese permission? -- Drini 14:38, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

November 22

Probably no potential featured images but...

I've been uploading what I think is some pretty remarkable material in Category:Seattle and the Orient (work in progress, I'm about a third of the way through this). Basically, I ran across an illustrated booklet from 1900 about Seattle and I've been digitizing it (and using my reasonably strong knowledge of Seattle and its history to give what I think are generally rather useful descriptions of many of the individual images). I presume that none of these indifferently printed B&W images individually qualifies to be featured (I've seen far better quality images rejected for technical reasons) but I think that collectively they are pretty remarkable. Do we have any way to recognize a collection of images like this? I'm sure this is not the only interesting collection like this that we've got. - Jmabel | talk 08:05, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I think a good start would be to create a gallery page to display the images nicely. Then if someone can get Commons:Featured galleries ready to use, the gallery could be featured. /81.231.248.36 09:48, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Shouldn't such a document be more appropriate at wikisource? Havang 13:51, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

The images belong here, including the ones that are mostly or all text. Wikisource is the appropriate place to host the text of the brochure if someone creates a project for it. Often the text is OCRed somehow and then massaged into presentation shape. I agree it's "remarkable material" ... I think these images are stunning taken as a whole. They will go great in a wide variety of work on other projects, great find! Perchance you didn't see any whalebacks in the brochure did you? :) ++Lar: t/c 15:22, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I could do a gallery once I'm done uploading, but unless I put the whole collection (page scans as well as individual images) into the gallery, that would really understate this trove.

Sorry, no whalebacks that I've noticed. Though there are quite a variety of ships (and more to come).

As I understand it, Commons, not Wikisource, is the place for the actual page images. Yes, it would make sense next to put the text through OCR and get this onto Wikisource (not at all a trivial process, by the way, because the text is in a multi-column format), but since the book is rare and heavily illustrated, with illustrations integrated into the same pages as the text, a collection of page images seems to me to be a priority. - Jmabel | talk 19:24, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely agree with all of the above. Commons is for images, even if they are images ultimately destined to be OCRed... and getting them all up should take priority over getting the text to WS... One side point, at best tangentially related, but it does come up on Wikisource from time to time, in some cases we need to have a way to mark an image as "don't improve this please, it's the way it is for needful reasons" ++Lar: t/c 20:11, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Although Featured galleries is one possibility, I think it would also be useful to have a page Commons:Collections linked from the main page. Something like this would suit it I think. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 11:52, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I've now scanned all the pages, uploaded them all, extracted quite a few photographic images (a good dozen of which have found use in Wikipedia articles), done a good deal of research about the locations of particular buildings depicted and about which buildings survive, added pretty thorough descriptions, and started a gallery. But building galleries really isn't my thing here. I'd be very happy if someone else wants to put work into that part.

I suppose the ultimate goal would be to create a well-organized annotated online edition of the whole book, including "then and now" pictures. I'm guessing that if I do that in the Wikimedia world, it would have to be WikiBooks, because any complete version of the text would have to be either WikiSource or WikiBooks, and extensive annotation plus "now" pictures not in the original would go beyond what is acceptable in WikiSource. - Jmabel | talk 09:35, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Digital Negative Format (DNG)

Hello, some time ago I proposed to allow the DNG format for high-quality images in the Wikimedia projects. The main differences of DNG are that it is a raw image format, i.e. no lossless image compression for professional quality, and its w:High dynamic range imaging capabilities. The idea is to allow uploading these high-quality images, supported by several image viewers (see w:Comparison of image viewers) although nowadays only by some digital cameras (however, there are conversion tools from other raw formats), and the MediaWiki will convert the image to jpeg/png, as done for SVG for high-quality vector images.

The main concern, and the one that stopped the proposal, is to know if the license of the royalty free DNG patent specification is free enough for the projects of the Wikimedia Foundation (see Commons talk:File types#DNG). Has anyone experience with this? In other words, I think the point is whether DNG is an w:open format or not. Best regards —surueña 16:25, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

At first sight, I'd say it is an open format since the specifications are open and since the patents that could hinder free implementations are granted for free. However this patent license is revocable but I'd say that FOSS programmers are safe as they don't mess with patent trials. A bigger problem is that DNG is based on TIFF (in what extent?) and TIFF is explicitely not allowed, according to Commons:File types (why?). — Xavier, 21:51, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

AFAIK TIFF files are huge (regularly over 20MB I think) with no gain in quality over PNG or JPG.

Having no standard raw format is kinda a problem... --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 13:42, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

What do you mean with "no standard raw format": there is no a widely accepted raw format, and therefore it shouldn't be allowed in Commons, or either that it is a problem that no raw format is allowed in Commons? A raw format will provide a lot of possibilities to Commons, as well high-dynamic range images. Regards —surueña 12:00, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree, it would be excellent if Commons accepted a raw format. But we need a single, standardised, open format to be able to accept. Could DNG be that standard... probably not, as long as Adobe DNG Converter, which "converts different camera raw format files into the Digital Negative (DNG) standard", is not open source. I think there will be two stumbling blocks to any raw format's acceptance. One will be widespread-ness. Adobe looks like they are working hard on this. Two will be availability of an open source program to convert to this format. I think until that exists DNG is unlikely to be accepte here. I could be wrong, but that is my impression of how any attempt to introduce it, will play out. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 12:40, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I didn't read the original discussion closely enough. You already said there are open source programs that convert to it, so my point is already said for. :) I will start a discussion about it on the commons-l mailing list, where it is likely to get some more comments. If there are no major objections we can open a bug report to ask the developers to turn it on. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 12:44, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Wonderful. After searching a bit about this, I was mistaken and it seems that to be accepted in Commons it should be not only an w:open format but also a w:free format, i.e. it shouldn't be covered by any patent. After some googling I wasn't able to find anything about this, but other people are asking whether DNG is covered by any Adobe patent.[13] In addition, there are some doubts about who controls the specification, i.e. whether is an open standard or not. Best regards —surueña 14:01, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Note that Jpeg is not listed in w:free format (read the probable reason here), so I predict that Commons maintenance is going to drop drastically in a near future ;-) Seriously, if patent tainted file formats are not allowed on Commons, then PDF should disappear from Commons:File types since this is the exact same situation as DNG (see the list of royalty-free patents). Of course, I'd prefer not. — Xavier, 22:21, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you are right. As a side note, I've found some images at commons which were taken in a raw format, like Image:Calluna vulgaris (flower closeup).jpg or Image:Amanita muscaria (round cap).jpg. The author also says "The original ORF or DNG image is available from the author on request (since Commons does not support high-quality source material)." Note also that even some consumer digital cameras can generate raw images updating the firmware, see for example "How to give your low-end Canon digital camera RAW support." Cheers —surueña 09:19, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

User:IgnisFatuus

In the process of finding descriptions for images without descriptions I've come across a number of contributions from User:IgnisFatuus, all begin with the word "In", and although all are taken in interesting locations they all include the user in the shot to the point that some of the files are useless to illustrate the location. In short the files are basically holiday shots and Commons is being used as a photo hosting service, I don't feel bold enough to deal with this myself and wonder if someone else will take it up. KTo288 13:06, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

{{Project scope}} may be a fitting message. -- Túrelio 13:19, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Same user reinstated Template:Non-free Crown copyright. Man vyi 16:30, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

{{Project scope}} looks like it's geared more toward users uploading file formats which are more appropriate for other projects. However, I agree that this seems like a good type of template to include info on what quality we expect out of uploads. --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 03:16, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

What about tagging photos with {{Superseded}} if there are better alternatives available? --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 03:20, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Moral rights in Uganda

I've been creating country specific PD tags based on the copyright acts I find on the Internet and I came across the Copyright Bill of Uganda. There is a section on moral rights that reads:

The autor of any work protected by copyright shall have a moral right (...) to object to, and seek relief in connection with any distortion, mutilation, alternation or modification of the work.

And also:

The moral rights of an author exist in perpetuity whether the economic rights are still protected or not and that moral right is enforceable by the author or after the death his or her succesors.

Does it really mean what I understand - that all works from Uganda are non-derivative for eternity? --Botev 17:34, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

IANAL, but that doesn't sound too different from the moral rights used in many other countries. // Liftarn

Perfectly normal moral rights. Most countries have rules like that. --Kjetil r 17:49, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

OK, so what you are saying is that I can ignore it and create a PD-Uganda tag? Or maybe it should be something like {{PD-Lebanon}}, since the author has a right to attribution? --Botev 17:57, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I've created the {{PD-Uganda}} tag. Should someone have comments, please put them on the template discussion page. --Botev 18:20, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

"To the uploader: Please provide authorship and publication details." Is this part necessary? I know it's preferred and sometimes necessary, but I mean on the template. PD, by definition, doesn't require these things. Rocket000 17:11, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

As far as I know the moral rights may include to be credited for your work even if it's distrubuted as public domain. // Liftarn

Israeli parliament approved new copyright law

Please note that the Israeli parliament has approved a new copyright law which will replace the current 1911 British law (inherited from the British Mandate over Palestine) from May 19, 2008 onwards. This law changes the copyright period for images subject to the Israeli law, and taken on or after May 19, 2008. These images will be copyrighted up to 70 years after the death of the photographer. Images taken before that date are subject to the old law, i.e. copyrighted up to 50 years after their creation. Images owned by the State of Israel (the Israeli equivalent of "crown copyrights") are subject to the 50 years' period arrangement under both old and new laws. Let me brag a bit and tell you that the law was supposed to be implemented retroactively, but Wikimedia-Israel in cooperation with the Israel Internet Association (ISOC-IL) lobbied against that, and managed to prevent that. Drork 07:59, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

That is great! (That you managed to prevent it having a retroactive effect, I mean.) And what about that strange claim that I have seen around here recently that the (new?) law would even place scans under copyright? I cannot believe that! Is the law available somewhere on-line? (Preferrably in English!) Did they include a publication right? Did the "freedom of panorama" rules change? Lupo 09:07, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

The official text of the new law is available online in Hebrew on the Israeli paliament website [14] (an RTF file). There is no obligation to publish laws in other languages (Hebrew is not the only official language, but it is the language of administration), so we will have to wait for some devoted lawyer to translate it. The new law hasn't changed the status of scans. A member of Wikimedia-Israel who is a lawyer, a veteran Wikipedian and an amateur photographer, says that the local law places scans under copyright. If he's right, then the new law doesn't change it. He probably bases this claim on a court's verdict. I should ask him where he found it. I didn't see any reference in the new law to "publication right". I don't think it ever existed in Israel, and the new law doesn't introduce it. Freedom of panorama existed under the old law, and the new law retains it without any change. Please note that I have no formal education nor any authority in legal matters. In case you need an authoritative information, I need to ask a lawyer. Drork 15:40, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Free (as in freedom) photography website

See http://www.openphoto.net/ . A significant portion of the photos over there are licensed under CC-BY or CC-BY-SA, but this site seems woefully underrepresented at Commons, see Category:Admin reviewed OpenPhoto images and could do with an upload bot. The quality of the photos seems to be better than Flickr. (This is not spam). Enjoy! 58.169.253.164 09:09, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:OSStraus.jpg

Hello,

Can someone find the source of the above image? It's broken. Gridge 14:39, 22 November 2007 (UTC).

Done. Needed a dot instead of a dash. Lupo 14:47, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, man. Gridge 15:08, 22 November 2007 (UTC).

Template:Erin Silversmith Licence

Is this template allowed (as regards cc-by-nc-sa)?
It's also licenced under GFDL so 1) useable for wikipedia 2)is the nc licence useless?
--D-Kuru 16:45, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's allowed. I had the same question awhile ago. Check out Commons:Licensing#Multi-licensing (specifically the last line). Rocket000 17:03, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

[AD-SIZE]

Is it a bug? Very disturbing thinks Mattes 19:17, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

What are you referring to? pfctdayelise (说什么?) 11:21, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

This was shown instead of images with high resolution yesterday. Now, I don't remember on which ones. Could have been an error. --Mattes 13:36, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Found an example: 5th listing in the Category:Adam Elsheimer which is Image:Adam Elsheimer 005.jpg -- Mattes 08:39, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Displays fine for me. Could it be that the problem is at your end? Something with your browser, or an ad-blocker that thinks that images of size 120×80px (the size of the thumbnail in the category gallery) with a name starting with "ad" were advertisements? Lupo 08:51, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Lots of Stuff from BM

http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/advanced_search.aspx Please note that it isn't sure that Bridgeman vs. Corel isn't accepted in the UK --Historiograf 22:27, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

November 23

Commons policy on watermarks

I have quite a lot of photos that could be used in various brazilian wikipedia pages, but don't think about uploading them without at least a tiny watermark. When I say tiny, I do meen tiny: take this photo for example . It's barely visible with the default thumbnail. Would it be OK for me to upload some photos with that watermark? Uniemelk 00:32, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi the relevant reading is Commons:Manipulating_meta_data#Purpose_for_using_EXIF_at_Commons. Basically visible watermarks are discouraged and you are encouraged to instead put that info in the EXIF data. /Lokal_Profil 00:42, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Sure, but if you do have them without the watermarks, please upload those instead. That would save us a lot of work removing them. Rocket000 03:45, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

And I think Lokal meant you're encouraged to put that info on the description page. You may also put it in the EXIF data. Rocket000 03:48, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

What I meant was that if you wan't to hardcode info into the image then do it in the EXIF data rather then visually in the image. /Lokal_Profil 04:28, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

November 24

Uploading new version

Hi. How do I upload a new version of an existing file? I was once able to do this, but don't seem to find out how right now. Was this feature disabled? Thanks. RCSA 10:47, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

There's a link under the "File History" section on the image's description page. It says "Upload a new version of this file". Rocket000 11:32, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

I can't spot it on the following image description page: . What's wrong? RCSA 12:20, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

hmm... It works for me. Here's a screenshot. Rocket000 13:04, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Your account is too new to be able to replace files, it needs to have existed at least 4 days. This is mentioned in the Commons:FAQ. --Para 13:10, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

...I didn't even think to check that. Rocket000 13:13, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks to all. RCSA 14:29, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Is a coffee cup a derivative work?

I have uploaded Starbucks holiday cup 1 and 2 and it occurred to me that these pictures may be derivative works by virtue of Starbucks' copyright of the cup's design. I was unsure about the status of that logo or their coffee cup and thought I would ask here. If it is a derivative work, I will nominate for speedy deletion immediately. Thanks! Cumulus Clouds 20:20, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, they are derivatives of the copyright logo. I've deleted them. Regards. --MichaelMaggs 09:16, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

November 25

Veropedia hotlinking

Veropedia, a wiki based on the English Wikipedia, seems to be hotlinking to commons images. As this isn't a wikimedia project, is this allowed? McLurker 16:38, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

The images here aren't just for Wikimedia projects. They're for the world to use; that includes Veropedia. --Boricuæddie 16:46, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Anyone can use the images, but I am pretty sure that hotlinking is not allowed. Reusers of Commons images are supposed to download the images they want to their own servers, so that they use and pay their own bandwith. /90.229.135.58 17:11, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

You are right, hotlinking is discouraged. --rimshot^talk 18:08, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

All thumbnails seem to be hosted on their own site, and the images link to description pages on Wikipedia. That's not hotlinking. Only server admins can tell what's going on behind the scenes, but when I try to load some random Commons image on their site, nothing is found, so they're not running a live mirror either. Everything seems to be in order with this fork. --Para 18:23, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Correct. However, Veropedia is not a Wiki and not a fork either. See the FAQ for more info. --Sagaciousuk 18:28, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

As another server admin, I can tell you that we are not hotlinking, we are downloading the images locally to our own server. We simply link to the description pages, which is not hotlinking (as pointed out above). 209.183.32.42 (the previous comment was myself, I just realized a long time later that I hadn't signed in) ^demon 22:28, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Just an FYI, you can check where an image is getting pulled from by right-clicking and selecting "open image" (wording varies depending on your browser) and checking the URL you get. For example, the instance of Image:Bleuler.png on Veropedia's Schizophrenia article is very much on their server.[15] EVula // talk // ☯ // 05:32, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Thankyou very much to Veropedia for providing these links! And good luck. :) --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 06:06, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

• Sorry I saw a mention of hotlinking on the Wikipedia mirrors and forks page, so decided to check it out for myself. I clicked on the link, saw a Wikipedia description page and checked it was coming from commons by looking at the image properties. I didn't actually click on the thumbnails but assumed that if the description page was on wikimedia, that is where the thumbnails were also hosted. Mousing over thumbnails gives a wikipedia url, but I now notice from the image proerties that they are hosted on veropedia servers. I offer my apologies. McLurker 13:21, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

  No harm, no foul. Don't worry about it. :) EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:50, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Commons:Picture of the Year/2007: Translations requested!

Hello! The Picture of the Year competition 2007 is drawing closer and we want to have the software and wiki pages available is as many languages as possible. See Commons:Picture of the Year/2007/Translations for more information. We are also looking for committee members. Committee members should be the first contact is case of problems and are responsible for making sure that the competition is properly advertised among Wikimedia projects. Finally, we need the voting categories done. Thank you for your help, -- Bryan (talk to me) 19:29, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Derivative work vs. part of the background scenery

The discussion above regarding the coffee cup got me thinking... what if the coffee cup was not the inherent subject of the image? What if the camera was zoomed out and the coffee cup (or any other copyrighted item) was just an object within it? Where's the line between it being the subject of a photo versus being just a part of an overall scene? For example, this image is akin to the coffee cup photos: the item is clearly the subject of the image and it becomes a derivative work. However, in this image, the cup is just a part of the background scenery. Is there any defined line between an item being the main subject versus being in the background? To its most extreme extent, pretty much any photo of a streetside café would be chock full of derivative works (e.g. soft drink bottles, coffee cups, tea wrappers, even the prints on napkins). And to pry a bit further, what if I cropped the "background scenery" image such that the copyrighted item once again became the focus, as in this image? Now a derivative work of an image which before wouldn't have raised much objection is now once again a potential violation. --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 19:31, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Not a legal opinion, but as a rule of thumb I generally ask the question could the photo reasonably be used as an illustration of the copyrighted work?—in this case the Starbucks logo. If yes, then the copyrighted work is prominent enough in the photo for the photo to be regarded as a derivative work. —JeremyA 20:12, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

November 26

Stewards election

Commons folk who are interested should take a look at the stewards election page on Meta. There are a strong bunch of candidates & I think it is right that all communities at least review the candidates. While it can be argued that Stewards are a little remote that are crucial to aspects of the day to day working of Wikis. Please take a look & if you are eligible please consider voting - thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:42, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Categories

Could it be that over-"correctness" makes our categories less usable than they could be? I got two surprises today: first, trying to categorize a soccer player in Category:Soccer players from France... oops, that doesn't exist?? Ok, Category:Soccer players... No?? I eventually found out through Category:Soccer that the correct category to use apparently is Category:Association football players from France. Not at all intuitive. What could be done to make these categories findable for people like me who'd just go looking for "soccer"? The second surprise was Category:Coffee machines. It turns out that these are called around here Category:Coffeemaking implements... what an awful term. (And yes, I see the difference, thank you!) Again: how to make this hyper-correct category accessible for simpletons like me who are just looking for pretty images of coffee machines? Maybe for this case just have a (dare I say it?) separate category for "coffee machines" (maybe even a subcategory of that "...implements" collection) and categorize coffee machines both as "Coffeemaking implements" and as "Coffee machines". Lupo 12:56, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

If it is about being intuitive, then for the hands-off round ball game one should use on one side Category:Soccer players from USA and on the other side Category:Football players from England or Category:Football players from France according to the locally dominant language use. -- Klaus with K 13:26, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

A very interesting example, as Category:Soccer players from USA is a category redirect to a non-existing category. Bravo! Lupo 14:02, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I have restored Category:Soccer players, which redirects to Category:Association football players by country. This should make the latter page findable. --rimshot^talk 13:54, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

My posting was about proper naming. Anyone turning Category:Soccer players from Scotland into a blue link shall encounter Scottish football fans and give them a proper explanation. -- Klaus with K 16:52, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Blergh. What'd be wrong with turning this into a category redirect to Category:Association football players from Scotland? That way, more people could find it more easily. Lupo 17:14, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Names for categories are choosen in order to satisfy the greater number of users. “Association football” is the most popupar team sport in the world, though “soccer” is not popular at all: even a lot of people don't know that “soccer” is the contraction of “association”.

Your difficulty to find the wanted categories was the result of excessive deletions of old categories, though that is contrary to Commons policy. --Juiced lemon 17:27, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikibooks and Wikijunior Logos

We are starting a process on Meta to select new logos for Wikibooks and Wikijunior. I would like to invite all graphic artists here on meta to submit candidates for the new logo. The discussion pages are located at meta:Wikibooks/Logo and meta:Wikijunior/Logo. The rules for the new logos are:

1. Logos must not use WM colors
2. Logos must be entirely original works and have the copyright assigned to the Wikimedia Foundation.
3. Logos must be in SVG (vector graphics) format with a transparent background.
4. Logos must include gray scale and black & white versions.

It should also be noted that the gray scale and black & white versions of the logo are not due immediately, and may differ from the color version of the logo. Notice also that the final logo must be available in SVG format, but the initial submissions do not need to be. For people who are interested in web design, there is also an opportunity to submit a "package" that not only include a logo, but also ideas about creating a color-scheme for wikibooks, and possibly enhancements to our default skin.

We really are trying to find logos that will set Wikibooks and Wikijunior apart from other WMF projects, stylistically. That means that the logos can't use WMF colors, shouldn't be all blue (like the Wikinews, Wikisource, and Wikiversity logos), don't need to be circular, etc. We are interested in a professional-looking logo that is unique and can be used to identify the project.

If you have any questions, you can contact me personally, or you can leave messages on the associated discussion talk pages. --Whiteknight (talk) (books) 16:50, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Derivative works?

Image:MiddleGeorgeshedfort0149.JPG and other uploads by the same user. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 07:46, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

This one, yes, as Australian "freedom of panorama" does not cover texts.[16] Which other uploads were you referring to? Lupo 07:53, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Image:MiddleGeorgeshedfort0135.JPG, Image:MiddleGeorgeshedfort0195.JPG, Image:MiddleGeorgeshedfort0150.JPG, Image:MiddleGeorgeshedfort0151.JPG, Image:MiddleGeorgeshedfort0152.JPG, Image:MiddleGeorgeshedfort0148.JPG, Image:WatsonsBay0156.JPG, Image:WatsonsBay0201.JPG. I'm not sure for Image:MiddleGeorgeshedfort0057.JPG. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 08:01, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Minor cock-up [Image:Cape of Good Hope.jpg]

Not sure what I did, but the attributions for this are to Paddy Brigs and not to me. I think I overwrote another image also called [Image:Cape of Good Hope.jpg]. Would someone be kind enough to fix. Many thanks Andrew massyn 18:13, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

 Done Next time please read the warning messages ;) --rimshot^talk 20:10, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Also consider a more specific filename: perhaps one with more description or with some random numbers/letters thrown in somewhere to personalise it. --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 21:33, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I use a descriptive filename followed by the date when I took the picture, for example Image:Glacier National Park Hidden Lake overview 20060703.jpg. --Carnildo 23:30, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

November 28

Commons:Picture of the Year/2007: Software testing

Hello! The Picture of the Year 2007 uses custom software, which will hopefully make things go a little bit smoother than last year. Please test it by getting a voting token on Commons:Picture of the Year/2007/Voting. The source of the software is here (currently not working, but should be soon), and if you speak Python, you are invited to look over it. If it's not working, I'll be glad to hear.

As a side note, we still need a lot of translations (see some topics above this). Thank you everybody who has already helped! -- Bryan (talk to me) 10:20, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Also note that you can test different languages without requesting a login token each time by adding &uselang=<langcode> to the url. -- Bryan (talk to me) 10:31, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Catlitter rocks!

Just wanted to say that. :) It has a small glitch when you add a no source, it's using a deprecated version of the template... {{No source}} but it should be using {{no source since|month=November|day=28|year=2007}} instead, I think. ++Lar: t/c 17:28, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

File Format for 3D data

Has there been any move to specifying a file format for 3D data? I'd assume it would be VRML / X3D.

It would be great for Wikimedia Commons to have a specified format for this type of content. The next step would then be to add viewing of models to specific pages.

For example: If I did a search in Wikipedia for "M14 rifle", the 3D model could be viewed in the plug-in of my choice. Sure, it is an inconvenience to require users to install a plug-in, but only a minor one.

You can also imagine that if no plug in was found, a small engine on the server could render a 2D image and supply that in lieu of the model.

The place to discuss this is Commons talk:File types. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 08:44, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

November 29

Logo Selections

Wikibooks is looking for a new logo. All interested artists are asked to review the process outlined, and submit logos at Wikibooks/Logo or Wikijunior/Logo (for the Wikijunior project). Thanks! – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 05:23, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

---

Le nouveau logo de Wikilivres est en cours de discussion. Tous les artistes qui sont intéressés peuvent passer en revue le processus et soumettre des logos à Wikibooks/Logo ou Wikijunior/Logo. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 05:23, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

New Project: Commons:Pearson Scott Foresman

Here's a project for all you who have a lot of free time, good graphics skills and want to easily improve your image and edit count: Commons:Pearson Scott Foresman could use some talent.

And to the rest of you, if you think that page could use some refactoring to help the process along, by all means, it's a wiki! Edit :) Cary Bass ^demandez 17:18, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Source Information

Some questions which turned up abaout source information:

1) Does {{PD-old}} or {{PD-art}} need a source informaton. If yes: Why?

2) is {{PD-self}} enough?

add 1): An admin told me, that also {{PD-old}} needs a source.
Question: Is my Information right? Also {{PD-art}}; if yes why (for pd-old & pd-art). Why a source must be mentioned, if it's a picture of a 2D artwork which is {{PD-old}}, becase the author died more that 70 years ago.

add 2): It didn't happen once that an image was tagged with {{No source since}}, but the licence was {{PD-self}} or {{self|GFDL|Cc-by-sa-3.0}}. Is this a valid source information? I would delete the image if it's a logo or a fair use picture, because of the rules on commons.

2a) Is it enough source if, the content of the image description page is just {{PD-self}}?

2b) Is {{PD-self}}, {{self|GFDL|Cc-by-sa-3.0}} or any combination of {{Self}} with one/some licence(es) a valid source if

{{Information
|Description=
|Source=
|Date=
|Author=
|Permission=
|other_versions=
}}
is used, no source written, but it disüplays "No source specified. Please edit this image description and provide a source."

2c) What's up with Tateyoko stapler.jpg? I think that most of the commons admins aren't able to read chinese (or japanise I don't know) character. Moreover: This image is only licenced under {{GFDL}} (without {{Self}}). But maybe 通常・中綴じ共用ステープラ is the source information.

The last thing (before you answer) is that you have to think as an ordianry user. In detail: You don't know very much about licences (just that {{PD-self}} exists and that everyone is happy if you use it - You also don'T read the template text that says "I, the copyright holder of this work"), noting sorces (just writing "self-made" or "own work"), using village pump (asking other people) or writing a good image description page (description in - at least - one languge; may using {{Information}}; adding a category; fill in the gaps in {{Information}};...)

--D-Kuru 12:22, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

A source is always needed to be able to verify that the stated licence is correct. The uploader obviously got the file from somewhere, so making that known really shouldn't be a problem. If the uploader believes that an image is {{PD-old}}, he or she should be able to explain why.

{{PD-self}} or other {{Self}}-licences do not provide any source information. They state that the uploader believes himself or herself to be the copyright holder, but it doesn't state if that's because they're the author or because the work was commissioned by them as a work for hire or because they inherited the rights from a deceased author or because of the "I wanna" clause. If we're going to claim that we've acted in good faith when Commons gets sued over a user's copyfraud, we need to have a clear statement from the user as to why they hold the copyright.

We can give some limited leeway to older uploads where the uploader appears to be credible judging by their other uploads, but with the instructions at Commons:Upload as they are now, there are no excuses for failing to providing the required legal information. —LX (talk, contribs) 14:54, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't quite agree with LX. A source isn't always needed to verify a license, it is plain obvious in many cases. (By the way, the fact that the uploader could provide a source has no logical connection to source being needed.) I also think that in many cases self is enough: typing "own work" tells us no more. There is no point in confusing the issue commisioned work. If we are going to go that far with our doubts, we might as well delete everything. (You can start with putting my images up for deletion—I couldn't prove I haven't transferred my right to someone else before uploading the images here.) Samulili 19:31, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

@ Samulili: You made a little mistake: You thought like a Commons admin (or somebody who knows Commons very well) not like a newbee. For example tells you {{Image source}} that "If you created/took the picture, audio, or video then you can use {{self|GFDL|cc-by-sa-all}} to release it under the multilicense GFDL plus Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike All-version license or {{PD-self}} to release it into the public domain." I don't think that many people read the "If you created/took".
An example of a picture I saved, because it was different: Description=Screenshot of the Microsoft Office 2007; Source=self-made; Permission=Yes, screenshot is taken by myself.; Licence={{PD-self}}

I don't think that many people know what they do whe they upload a file (neither did I when I uploaded my first - own - picture to Commons). Some people may think that they are the copyrightholder, because they have uploaded the picture.

And again: I don't think that that many people who upload a media file to commons really read the text of a template (even it is obvious as it is in {{Self}}

--D-Kuru 10:01, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I didn't make the mistake you thought I made. I knew exactly what I was writing when I wrote: "I also think that in many cases self is enough" (emhpasis added). It's all about reasonable doubt. Samulili 13:46, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

In some jurisdictions (for example, Russia, Belarus), author always have rights for authorship and name (see article 22.1 of Belarus copyrights law for details), even for works in public domain. So you need to mention author of {{PD-Art}}/{{PD-old}} image. --EugeneZelenko 15:33, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Also for PD-Art you need the source to prove that you are either the photographer or that the photograph was taken in a country which doesn't grant copyright to a photograph of 2-D artwork. /Lokal_Profil 22:13, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Why is a source needed if it is really obvious that it is old enough to be {{PD-old}} or {{PD-art}}. For example Image:Mona Lisa frameless.jpg

--D-Kuru 10:01, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

It isn't, obviously. There is no required legal information for the public domain — it isn't even a license, it's more like an unlicense. All anyone can do is provide evidence to contradict the claim. ¦ Reisio 15:58, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

For my previous comment about PD-Art please see Commons:When_to_use_the_PD-Art_tag#Country-specific_rules, a painting can be PD-Old without the photograph of it being PD-Art depending on in which country the image was taken, hence the need for a source. :::::The standard on commons is that the Uploader has to prove that the image is free not that other users have to prove that the image isn't free. Therefor just tagging an image with the {{PD}} tag isn't enough to make it PD, you also have to supply a reasoning for why PD applies to the image. If you are claiming PD-Old then you need a source to verify who created the image (or at least when it was created), if tou claim PD-ineligible then you need a motivation for why the image isn't artistic enough to qualify for copyright protection./Lokal_Profil 16:17, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

If that's the standard on Commons, then why are you finding so many images that haven't adhered to it? It's not a standard, and it's nonsensical & contradictory. What is a standard (at least for Wikipedia), is "Assume good faith". ¦ Reisio 16:38, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't provide "assume good faith" as an example of a standard - maybe I'm a pessimist. At any rate, Commons:When to use the PD-Art tag is relatively new policy under which we are now trying to operate, and we should not expect to become compliant right this very instant. It takes time. Deletions are disruptive, however well-intentioned. Just be patient.  :-) I've forced myself to be. --Iamunknown 23:28, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

This is very true. For images just tagged with the plain {{PD}} however we have required a source for some time. /Lokal_Profil 23:50, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Maybe you have; and {{PD}} has been deprecated for nearly two years - since before your username's first contribution here. ¦ Reisio 02:13, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

edit point 1

My take on this is that while it's obviously desirable for all images to be properly sourced, it accomplishes very little to rigidly uniformly insist on this for images whose visual content is clearly pre-20th-century and 2-dimensional, where a "PD-old" or "PD-art" template is claimed. It's true that "Assume Good Faith" simply doesn't apply if there's something suspicious about an image (when the burden of proof is on the uploader to show that the image is legitimate). However, if a pre-20th-century 2D image does not seem fishy, then I see no real advantage to be gained by deleting it on purely formalistic grounds -- this will probably just encourage further lying among dishonest uploaders, and discourage honest uploaders from uploading at all, without achieving anything particularly substantively worthwhile with respect to copyright enforcement. Furthermore, there are many many thousands of scans of pre-20th-century 2D images currently on Wikimedia Commons without formal source indications, and the de facto customary practice here has been that if nothing about a pre-20th-century 2D image raises particular cause for suspicion, then the image will usually not be deleted just for lacking a formal source indication. Therefore if we're going to change course and conduct a major historical image purge, then this should only be done as a result of a clearly authoritative policy adopted after considered discussions. AnonMoos 14:24, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I so agree. Those who wish that we start to delete certain kind of images that we have previously accepted (tens of thousands of them) should first explain a) why b) what is the source information that should be required. For the b part I have seen a few answers with very different opinions. Samulili 20:43, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

IMO, both "sides" are right. I mostly agree with you, AnonMoos and Samulili, and I do worry that obvious PD-Old and PD-Art contents are currently deleted because the uploader failed to mention the source and/or the author. On the other hand, User:Lupo has raised several valid points in Commons:Deletion requests/Image:A0000d70.jpg. I just don't agree to delete such pictures (I mean obvious PD-Old) on the sole ground that the source is missing.

Let's take, for example, a 16th century painting. A proper description of this painting (collecting and checking information, filling each row of a {{Painting}} table, translating them in several languages) is a tedious and time consuming task that involves several contributors. Deleting the picture, just because the source field is empty or incomplete, this is showing little respect for the work of those users. If this painting is really PD-Art, there are certainly plenty of similar pictures on the Internet and it should not be that difficult to overwrite the picture with another one for which the source is known. An obvious PD-Old should be deleted only after a deletion request.

However, I don't oppose the tagging of those pictures with {{Nsd}}. If source is missing, they should be tagged accordingly. But what I'd like, is that probable PD-Old and PD-Art content be treated specifically, because other users can find out the source the uploader failed to mention, and also because an alternative image may be found easily on the Internet.

As an example of special treatment, we could wait longer before deleting it. And/or we could trigger a standard deletion request. In some obvious case, when PD-Old is ascertained but source is unknown, we could even not delete the picture but overwrite it with a standard image requesting that it be replaced with a picture that is properly sourced. I'm quite certain that replacing unsourced PD-Art/PD-Old images with a pre-deletion warning would attract many motivated users that don't want the picture to disappear and they will do what the uploader failed to do. This idea may be thoughtless, then just see it as an incentive to find a better fate for those pictures than a quick deletion after X days of no-source warning. — Xavier, 02:54, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the current effect of adding the standard "nosource" template is that the image is subject to immediate deletion at any time after seven days have passed. If unsuspicious pre-20th-century 2-dimensional images are to be tagged at all, it needs to be done with a completely different template, which would say something like: "This image, for which expired copyright status is claimed, is lacking requested description or source information. Please try to remedy this, or replace the current version of the image with a version for which appropriate description or source information is available. Note: If there are specific factual concerns other than missing paperwork which may affect the eligibility of this image to be hosted on Wikimedia Commons, then please use template {{nsd}} instead of this template, or nominate the image for deletion."

This alternative template would not threaten the image with deletion after seven days... AnonMoos 09:26, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

D-Kuru summary of discussion so far

I read it all through again and I find out this:

Does {{PD-old}} needs a source?	Is {{PD-self}} or any {{Self}} template a source?
Yes No ??? LX Lokal Profil Xhienne Samulili AnonMoos EugeneZelenko Reisio Iamunknown	Yes No Samulili LX

I also counted the "votings" after the line. If you see yourself at the wrong place, please change it (before you do, please read the text below). The usernames below are arranged in alphabetical order.

To summarize it

• AnonMoos thinks that if the image is clearly a "pre-20th-century and 2-dimensional" artwork a source isn't needed.
• EugeneZelenko says that in some jurisdictions the "author always have rights for authorship and name[...], even for works in public domain".
• Iamunknown thinks that Commons:When to use the PD-Art tag is a new page and therby not to use for old {{PD-old}} pictures
• Lokal Profil A source is needed for {{PD-art}} to prove that the picture was taken in a country where {{PD-art}} applies.
• LX thinks that a source is alway needed, and that {{PD-self}} is no source
• Reisio thinks that "it isn't, obviously" that a picture is {{PD-old}}, because "there is no required legal information for the public domain — it isn't even a license, it's more like an unlicense"
• Samulili thinks that a source is not alway needed. Especially if it's obvious that it's {{PD-old}}. Samulili thinks that {{PD-self}} is enough source.
• Xhienne alias Xavier thinks that images without source witch are obvious {{|tl|PD-old}} images should only get deleted after a deletion request. Xhienne also thinks that there should be a special template for {{PD-old}} pictures without a valid source information.

In other words, I'm ok to require a source but I'm not ok to speedy delete obvious PD-old and PD-Art (e.g. XVth centry paintings) when the source is missing as users other than the uploader can provide this information. — Xavier, 20:13, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

If I made a mistake, please write the write thing below your name using ":" . Do NOT edit what I've written so that I can see what's the difference. I tried to summarize it in as less words as possible to keep it short and snappy. If you feel that I missed a very important point feel free to add it, but (again) with using ":" so that it's easier to see for me what I've missed.

What I think:
1) {{PD-old}} and {{PD-art}} pictures need always a source if they get uploaded after a solution for this conversation. There will be no "it's obvious that it's {{PD-old}}" because it's not unacceptably to add a simple webpage to "Source=" if you can find on your computer keyboard "Strg", "C" and "V" (or if you took the image in a museum on your own: "self-made", "own work" or whatever). There should be a template fore those pictures which got uploaded before now, because at that time, when the pictures got uploadad, there wasn't the idea of sourcing which exists now.

2) {{PD-self}} or any combination of {{Self}} and a free licence is NO source information. Many user use {{PD-self}} even if they write as source "taken by my friend/father/mother/whichguyever". Moreover it's again not unacceptably to write to simple words (even if they tell us not much more).

A suggestion for the end

It should be an obligation to use {{Information}} so that it's easier to modify the image description pages (for example with Category:Media lacking a description). If you don't use {{Information}} you shouldn't be allowed to upload your file (This could be a warning as there is if you upload a file with a name that exists on commons). There should be also a Category for Images without the {{Information}} template.
I know that it's maybe a bit hard, but Commons:Upload is an easy way to create useful description pages.

Just note:
I don't like discussions like
Yes, you need a source for {{PD-old}} --Whoever

No you don't --Whoever2

Yes, you do --Whoever3

No you don't --Whoever4

Yes, you do --Whoever5

No you don't --Whoever6

Yes, you do --Whoever7

No you don't --Whoever8

Yes, you do --Whoever9

No you don't --Whoever10

as it was a bit above, because it turns out to nothing.

hv --D-Kuru 13:02, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

The status quo is not nothing. ¦ Reisio 22:00, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

New template?

I'm not sure that your simple table listing above accurately captures the nuances of people's positions. For example, I would summarize my position as: "It's certainly desirable for PD-old/PD-Art images to have an explicit source in all cases, but an unsuspicious PD-old/PD-Art image shouldn't ordinarily be threatened with deletion in 7 days just for missing paperwork." AnonMoos 14:44, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

That's the reason why I wrote "If you feel that I missed a very important point feel free to add it"

If you keep it simple I don't think that you find more nuances (for {{PD-old}} source - yes vs. no) than something like "No, because [...] obvious {{PD-old}} [...]" --D-Kuru 15:22, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

And the proposal that the {{information}} template should be obligatory is rather unsatisfactory: I often include relatively extreme detail of description for the images which I upload (see Image:Womans-Holy-War.jpg or Image:Shield-Trinity-medievalesque.svg for example), but I don't really find the straightjacket of the {{information}} template to be too congenial... AnonMoos 14:44, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

I know that this isn't the ultimate solution, but only if you find out whats couldn't be the solution shows what could be a solution

Moreover I'm pretty sure that there will be a good idea for long descriptions.

just to metion: The main thing we should finish first is the PD thing without doing the same thing as politicians do: To debate without a usable result, but producing more hot air that global worming does.

--D-Kuru 15:19, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

I'd probably summarise my opinion with: yes sources are important for PD-Art and we should require it for all new uploads of such images but images already uploaded (before some arbitrary date and where there is a source suporting that the painting itself is PD-old) need to be dealt with in a better manner then just a no source template. For images using other PD-licenses though I'd say we should always require a source to prove the PD-statement and for such images the no source template is suitable. /Lokal_Profil 16:16, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

I already offered a concrete proposal for the immediate problem -- namely, creating a template to indicate that a PD-old/PD-Art image is missing requested paperwork (but which would not threaten an image with deletion after seven days). AnonMoos 22:15, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Although such a template might be usefull it does in it self now solve our problem. We first have to take a decision on what to do with all of the images that would be tagged by this template. Would they just be tagged and then forgotten? Would we set an arbitrary time limit (3 years say) in which the images could be processed after which all unresolved ones would be deleted? Will we require that any new PD-old/PD-art images hae a source or they will be tagged with the normal "no source" or will they to get this template. etc. In my experience we already have a lot of deprecated templates indicating there is some sort of problem with the image (such as {{PD}}) but nothing seems to be happening to the images currently bearing those licenses (e.g. PD has acording to the above ben deprecated for 2 years and there is still more than 10.000 images tagged with it and further more there is nothing stopping people from still using it). /Lokal_Profil 01:07, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

My idea is that we don't even have to make a final decision on such matters before creating the template -- we could start using the template to tag images with defective paperwork immediately, but maybe we won't decide on the exact policies to deal with such images until later... AnonMoos 08:13, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

@ AnonMoos: You can start to create a layout in your userspace, so that it's easier to see how could it look like

Even I don't like it, I agree with Lokal Profil (nothing against you Lokal Profil ;-) ->). This template will be used, but I don't think that there will great enthusiasm to work on it, because it's boring to search for pictures and reupload them only because of a missing source and even the look very, very simmilar.

At least I think we find a topic we all agree: Every new picture which is claimed to be {{PD-old}} or {{PD-art}} needs a source if they get uploaded by now. And that there is no excuse for a missing source. So it is OK to set {{No source since}} to every new {{PD-old}} or {{PD-art}} picture.

Maybe it's possible so create a warning sign on {{PD-old}} as it exists on Template:PD-USGov-NASA which says "PD-old pictures need a source"

--D-Kuru 10:11, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

My opinion is very clear: The source is NOT needed for PD-old or PD-art pictures. That's the very point of the whole Corel vs. Bridgeman notice. A reference as to why the picture is in the public domain may be needed (i. e. a reference to artist death dates). The mass deletion of works of art that some stupid bots do right now I consider to be rude and a disregard of my (and other's) work here. Uploading thousands of Public Domain artwork and meticulously stating artist, death date and hence giving substance to the license, this is what made Commons work. Just stating some website where one found the image would satisfy the bots, but would add NOTHING to the information or to the verifiability. If you really consider a source viable for PD-old licenses, go on and delete all pictures from the Yorck project image donation. All these files were scanned from books, none of which is stated. Again: because it IS NOT NECESSARY. Since these bots are not stoppable by any sensible argument (i. e. "PD-old IMPLIES that it needn't have a source, since whatever the source may be, it does not mean anything for the license anyway"), they are pure vandalism to me. The Commons have become a playground for people that have no idea about art but seem to love red tape of any sort. Appalling. --AndreasPraefcke 14:48, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Are you sure that pictures whose source is missing are deleted by bots? I don't think so and that's why I'm not inclined to blame those who put {{Nsd}} tags on PD-Old pictures. This said, I share your concern about carefully crafted descriptions that suddenly disappear with their insufficiently sourced picture. Hence these three proposals below :

1. For PD-Old, and especially PD-Art, couldn't we have some kind of externalized description (artist, title, date, hosting museum, kind of painting, etc.), in a separate page (like the ones in the Creator: namespace) or even a separate namespace? This page would be included in all pictures and derivatives of this artwork and would not vaporize if the pictures are deleted for whatever reason.
2. Wouldn't it be interesting to have a listing of websites hosting PD-Old and PD-Art pictures whose licence is compatible with Commons? That could guide volunteers willing to find an alternate picture for an artwork improperly sourced, or whose source forbids reuse.
3. What about this proposal I wrote above last week: instead of deleting an obvious (ok, to be defined) PD-Old or PD-Art, just overwrite (re-upload) the picture with some kind of low-resolution banner asking that a proper source be specified before the image is restored. The page could be placed in a special category so that we can easily spot those who revert the change without providing a valid source. The benefit would be that this banner would attract WP readers that want the picture to show up in the WP article, and they would certainly help finding the source.

Your opinion is welcome. — Xavier, 17:36, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Even if bots aren't doing it, there are users with plenty of time on their hands doing it plenty speedily enough for it to be a problem. I'm with AndreasPraefcke; this is nonsense — people are trying to make the public domain into something it isn't: a license that requires attribution. ¦ Reisio 18:13, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Two comments on AndreasPraefcke addition above

1. Corel vs. Bridgeman notice is only applicable to images which fall under US law. For images taken in the rest of the world different laws apply. This is why the Commons:When to use the PD-Art tag#Country-specific rules page exists. Media on Commons is normaly required to be under a free license (or public domain) in both the US and the source country. As a matter of fact this is even specifically mentioned on the {{PD-Art}} template.

2. "PD-old IMPLIES that it needn't have a source." This is partially true and partially not. It's true that for PD-old you don't need to attribute the creator (possibly you need to in he EU but thats not the question). But to prove that something is in fact PD-old you will normally have to give a source which supports this claim. This is similar to PD-NASA images where you have to link to the image on NASA's homepage (or give som sort of NASA image id) to prove that the image does in fact belong to NASA.

Now as far as the PD-Art tag goes we never used to require a source which is deleting the sourceless images on mass is obviously wrong. However since the "Commons:When to use the PD-Art tag" page has been finished (and sinced it is linked to from the PD-Art template) there is no excuse for not providing new images with the source needed in order to prove that PD-Art is applicable and that the image is therefore in the Public Domain.

Anyhow it would be very good with some input in this discussion from the people who constructed Commons:When to use the PD-Art tag. /Lokal_Profil 00:42, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with AndreasPraefcke's statement "Just stating some website where one found the image would satisfy the bots, but would add NOTHING to the information or to the verifiability." It's true that the source doesn't tell us very much about if the picture is in the public domain or not, BUT (as AndreasPraefcke said) it would satisfy the bots and hold them off from mass deletion (or rather tagging PD-old pictures with {{No source since}} wich removal is at least as intricate as it would be if you delete them) and that is what we want, isn't it?

Even it was just a short statement EugeneZelenko told us a very important fact: "In some jurisdictions (for example, Russia, Belarus), author always have rights for authorship and name (see article 22.1 of Belarus copyrights law for details), even for works in public domain. So you need to mention author of {{PD-Art}}/{{PD-old}} image."

The statement "The mass deletion of works of art that some stupid bots" is (as AndreasPraefcke noticed) a bit rude, because bots do only that what you told them If a picture is sourceless/licenceless the bot marks it which is unimaginable comfortable when you think about the troubles we would have without them (for example to find licenceless images).

I like the idea in topic 3) in Xavier's contribution that you upload a "no source available" (or whatever) picture to all sourceless PD-old pictures. But, I'm afraid (and you can call me pessimistic), but I don't think that this will work frictionless. I think that there will be as long dscusions about if this picture is an obvious PD-old or not as this discussion is.

--D-Kuru 11:03, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Something I've found on Commons:Derivative works:

"Remember: Always provide the original creator's name, birth and death date and the time of creation, if you can! If you do not know, give as much source information as possible (source link, place of publication etc.). Other volunteers must be able to verify the copyright status. Furthermore, the moral rights of the original creator—which include the right to be named as the author—are perpetual in some countries."

Because "This page is considered a guideline on Commons", I would say that PD-old pictures need a source, because if you omit the source you don't "give as much source information as possible"

--D-Kuru 13:43, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

???
--D-Kuru 19:48, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

---

I've created User:D-Kuru/Information PD-old which is (now) a testtemplate. I tried to create a different {{Information}} template for PD-old pictures. I've chosen brown as new colour so that it's visible (also if you're drunk or high or whatever) that the uploader claims that this pictures is in the public domain, because the author died 70 years ago and thereby shouldn't get deleted. I aslo changed the Category for sourceless pictures. I replaced Category:Images without source by Category:PD-old images without source which could be a category without the threat of deletion (that is what some of you want)
I replaced "Date" by "Drawn in" and "Author" by "Artist". Moreover I added "† in" wich should is died in as a proof that this picture is {{PD-old}} (or PD-art). I didn't removed the "source" section as another proof that the picture is PD-old (as Lokal Profile said: "that the Uploader has to prove that the image is free not that other users have to prove that the image isn't free" even this is no stadart on commons. Furthermore (as I wrote above) COM:DW says "give as much source information as possible" so a source must be given.
What do you think about my idea? (I know that it's not directly an answer to the question if PD-old pictures need a source, but it's some sort of byproduct of the discussion)
--D-Kuru 14:57, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

This template is OK as far as it goes (I edited the nosource default message; see how you like the new version), but there are some factors which might inhibit its broad use:

1) There a number of cases in which the general broad {{Information}} template is not always used. For example, different classes of paintings seem to have their own different specific templates, which are now preferred in many cases to the general {{Information}} template.

2) Date of death is only crucial for works which could be on the borderline of expired copyright. For works in which the author would have to be a super-centenarian in order to have died less than 70 years ago, the date of author death isn't actually that critical..

3) In addition to the PD-old/PD-art information template, we need a PD-Art/PD-old nosource template which can be used to tag an image description page to display a message much like that at http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:D-Kuru/Information_PD-old&oldid=8773757 (and presumably simultaneously add an image to Category:PD-old images without source). I've never created a template from scratch before, and I'm not sure my skills are really up to the task, but I think such a template would be useful... AnonMoos 12:53, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

November 11

Category:Rousse

Comment fait-on pour avoir plusieurs colonnes? --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 16:57, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Multiple columns can be added by using this code:

Plusieurs colonnes peuvent être ajoutées à l'aide de ce code:

{|

|

blah blah bleh<br>

blah bla blag

|

blah bla<br>

blahh

|}

That code creates this:

Ce qui crée:

blah blah bleh blah bla blag

blah bla blahh

Throw in some indents to pretty it up a bit:

Inclure des indentation pour la rendre jolie:

blah blah bleh blah bla blag

blah bla blahh

Does that help?

Est-ce que l'aide?

--Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 21:01, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you... and sorry to have spoken in French! I sometimes get confused between the English and French discussion where I post messages! --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 21:54, 29 November 2007 (UTC)