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POTD other language captions

I've just noticed now that Commons:Picture_of_the_day no longer shows all the other language translations. IMO this is a bad choice, and I can't find any discussion of the change. I don't have time to sort this out now, but if someone else has time, I'd love to see them back. --99of9 (talk) 05:47, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

There was some previous discussion about this (where? can't seem to find it). Problem is that the inclusion of the other languages caused the load times to explode. Multichill (talk) 07:20, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

It was loading ok for me. Can't we at least have the option? I'd still appreciate a link to the discussion. --99of9 (talk) 05:35, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

If you use {{Potd/Month|year=2010|month=09}} and leave blank the "lang" parameter, the template will show all languages. --Slomox (talk) 17:46, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Question How do I see that as a page rather than a template? --99of9 (talk) 05:35, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Preview. Rocket000 (talk) 06:29, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

US Copyright status for Italian PD-GOV files

Please forgive my noobhood: move this discussion to its right place, but please let me understand the current state of the matter:

I found this pdf of the original 1947 edition of the Italian Constitution.
- According to Italian Law it's an official act from the Italian Government (coming from the Italian Senate's website), and it can be frankly assured that it's PD in Italy. As an Italian uploader I have no doubt whatsoever about its status.
- According to US Law my view becomes blurry: is it PD? It's been published by the Italian Government in 1947: can it be considered {{PD-1996}}?

As a very very important source for many many it.wikipedia articles it should be perfect for wikisource proofread process.

Those who understand Italian language can read and reply about a possible new tag in this discussion

Thank you in advance for any kind reply. - εΔ ω 09:31, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes. There are several issues here; though I understand it's not completely agreed on at Commons, if a government says its works are PD, we generally take that as PD everywhere. (We have an official email to that effect for UK Crown Copyright.) If it was out of copyright in Italy or had copyright held by the government in 1996, and never properly filed for copyright in the US, the URAA would not have restored copyright. Thirdly, the US does not recognize copyright on constitutions, laws and court cases (and the like) world round; see {{PD-EdictGov}}.--Prosfilaes (talk) 10:23, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

For this kind of works, a law, ruling or here even the constitution, {{PD-EdictGov}} will suffice for the U.S. copyright status. --Martin H. (talk) 10:26, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

It is a work released to the public domain by the author. Copyright terms and restoration are irrelevant in this case. So it should be in the public domain in the US and any other country. -- Orionist ★ talk 17:16, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Ok! The right tag for US Law is {{PD-EdictGov}}. I'm uploading that file. - εΔ ω 16:18, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Copyright status of these NASA images

I found a picture of both the current Governor of Aruba and the current Prime Minister of Aruba on this NASA website. Are these images in the public domain, because they are taken by an employee of a US government agency? If yes, which template should I use?

Website: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/people/features/cheung.html

Best, Fentener van Vlissingen (talk) 10:44, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

After doing some research, I guess Template:PD-USGov-NASA applies. I'll upload the images. Fentener van Vlissingen (talk) 11:56, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry to spoil your fun. These photo's are not work of NASA. These are "courtesy" photos. Multichill (talk) 15:44, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Monobook

Why is the monobook layout suddenly changed to a vector like appearance? Was this discussed somewhere? And can this please be undone? Wutsje (talk) 13:30, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Unable to reproduce. For me, monobook looks like monobook and vector like vector. TheDJ (talk) 14:03, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

(Agree with TheDJ:) everything looks as always with monobook (my standard skin). Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 15:56, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

You might have been logged out. Or gone to another wiki? Or clicked on a link with ?useskin=vector appended to it. :-) Killiondude (talk) 17:37, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Online Paintings Gallery blacklisted?

I tried to add links to 2 online galleries of the works by Claude Monet to his gallery page at Claude Monet, but one of the links has been refused as blacklisted by the spam filter (???). These links are as follows: www monetpainting net & www claudemonetgallery org. Can somebody check this (and preferably unblock)? They are not spam sites or anything and surely have some pictures still missing here, as Monet painted more than 2000 paintings. BTW, I'm not affiliated with any of the sites - I just think they would be valuable as a reference for good online catalogs of his works. Regular Google searches of paintings give usually completely crappy results, with thousands of auction sites, poster resellers and reproduction workshops. So it is good to know of some quality sites with photos of his original works. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Marac (talk • contribs) 27 September 2010, 10:25 (UTC)

These site are included on the global Spam blacklist at metawiki. Mike.lifeguard was the one who added monetpainting.net to the list; maybe you can ask him about it. Pruneau^talk 11:34, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

meta:User:COIBot/LinkReports/monetpainting.net and meta:User:COIBot/XWiki/monetpainting.net, blacklisted for COI crosswiki spamming. TheDJ (talk) 11:38, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm... I just looked at the LinkReport. This "crosswiki spamming" was simply adding this website to "Claude Monet" pages on various Wikipedias! Which is perfectly understandable - a link to a good online gallery on a painter's page. It's a pity a person that added this site to the blacklist didn't check if it was really spam... I wonder if adding a website to the blacklist, which states in its heading "Only blacklist for widespread, unmanageable spam.", without even checking if it's not a mistake is in accordance with the rules? Marac (talk) 13:05, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Just because someone builds his own monet website, doesn't give him the right to spam it into all monet articles, no matter how useful it might be. By doing so, he has effectively invalidated the website to be used in wikipedia. It is a shame, but things like that are necessary to protect our neutrality. TheDJ (talk) 14:10, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Excuse me, but what are you talking about??? What neutrality? What spamming? Who's "him"?

1. What "neutrality" has to do with links to a good free gallery of the painter's works?

2. What adding such links has to do with spamming? You have "unsolicited" in a definition of spam. If nothing changed quite recently, links to such website as a gallery of the painter's works are allowed and considered valuable contribution to the article.

3. Who's "he"?

monetpainting.net resolves to 67.205.4.102
Linkwatcher records: 1. 2008-09-10 03:32:22 (UTC): User de:76.121.102.49 (talk - contribs; 18) to de:Claude Monet (diff - undo) - Link: www.monetpainting.net/.

4. Do I understand correctly that you say that if someone tries to add a valuable link to many WPs, the said link becomes eternally banned, because of this hideous crime?

5. If the 4. is in your opinion correct, may I ask some other administrators to confirm this absurdity? Thanks. Marac (talk) 14:38, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Why not to simply add this site to the local spam whitelist? Trycatch (talk) 17:50, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Why not remove it from blacklist, if it didn't qualify to be listed there in the first place? ("blacklist for widespread, unmanageable spam.") Marac (talk) 17:58, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Whitelisted and requested for removal. – Kwj2772 (msg) 08:22, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

BTW, to indicate the source at Commons, it isn't necessary that the URL is actually clickable. Docu at 18:06, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the tip :-), but of course I can think of several ways of easily circumventing such blacklisting and I'll do it eventually if it won't get unblocked. But that's not the point. Marac (talk) 18:33, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

The easiest way to bypass the filter is to save the url like this: http://www.monet{{subst:void}}painting.net. {{Void}} is an empty template so it leaves behind nothing when subst'd. The spam filter scans the submitted text before substitution so it doesn't catch the url. The only problem is, after that it's impossible for anyone to edit the page unless they remove the url or apply the void template trick again.. Rocket000 (talk) 08:02, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

OK, the site has been removed from the global blacklist. It was added for a valid reason however, and will be readded if similar linkpushing-patterns appear (wouldn't affect Commons anyway, since the link is whitelisted). As for Rockets tip for how to bypass the filter, I would seriously advice against such tricks. URL's are blacklisted for a reason, and if that reason isn't good enough (anymore) the links should be removed from the BL or whitelisted. Regards, Finn Rindahl (talk) 09:45, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Message boards as source for PD images

I found various Public Domain images on some message boards and was unable to determine their original source. Attempts to contact the posters were unsuccessful. Do you think I should list the message boards as the source? What do you suggest? -- Orionist ★ talk 19:44, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

If they are PD and if there are no strutting Leonardo DiCaprios photoshopped into them and if that is the only source information you know of: sure. --Slomox (talk) 21:54, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

I'd be cautious about this. Is there any indication of who the authors are, whether they are alive or not, and when the images were published? If not, it may be difficult to tell whether the images are indeed in the public domain. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 06:38, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

I assumed he meant something like photographs of paintings that are clearly PD or images that are otherwise known to be PD. In that case it is okay. But I admit that this assumption cannot be made from what he said. If you mean something like pictures taken from amateur photographers that are claimed to be released to the PD and no original source is given, I'd say this is not okay.

Post a link and we can better tell what applies to your case. --Slomox (talk) 15:13, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Maybe I wasn't clear enough, I'm talking about images that are definitely in the public domain. In this case, old photos and postcards. My question is about linking to message boards in the "source" field of the "information" box. These message boards are not the original source. I was able to track some of the photos to the website of the Library of Congress, and given time, I might be able to track the others. But if they were taken, for example, from eBay auctions that have since been closed, then I have no chance. Now, if I found an image on Commons with a link to some obscure message boards my first reaction would be "seriously?". That's what prompted me to ask this question, which can be applied to other cases, like blogs, news groups etc. which are not the original source and fail to provide it. Do we link to them as source regardless? Do we say "unknown" or "unidentified"? Do we keep it blank? I hope I was clear this time. -- Orionist ★ talk 00:11, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, assuming you are sure that the original images are unmistakeably in the public domain (for example, they can be readily recognized as paintings by Old Masters), I think you should definitely indicate the website that you obtained the image from, even if this is not the ultimate source. If the website is at risk of disappearing, try to archive it using WebCite (if this is allowed – some websites do not allow archiving) or link to an archived copy at the Internet Wayback Machine if one is available. (If you use the citation template {{Cite web}}, it has the parameters |archiveurl= and |archivedate= you can use.) In addition, if you can identify the original website that the image was obtained from (such as the Library of Congress website or a museum website), that should be stated as well. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 07:07, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the useful tips! Cheers! -- Orionist ★ talk 18:30, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

September 29

How are these duplicates?

File:20100105rcd.tiff & File:ロイヤルクラウンダービージャパン.jpg ? Rocket000 (talk) 06:27, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

It seems that the thumbnails of the 2nd file cannot be found on the server. This seems like a bug in filename normalization. TheDJ (talk) 11:32, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, but why are they showing up as duplicates? They're different formats even. Rocket000 (talk) 07:36, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I think they are the same file but one has an incorrect JPG extension. And since it is not really a jpg file it can not be thumbnailed correctly. /Ö 08:18, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

That makes sense. Rocket000 (talk) 08:23, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

File:Isle_of_Ely_1648_by_J_Blaeu.jpg

This file is showing an error when it is clicked on: The image "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Isle_of_Ely_1648_by_J_Blaeu.jpg" cannot be displayed, because it contains errors. I am unable to diagnose the issue. Is someone able to help please? --Senra (talk) 14:13, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

There is no problem with that file File:Isle_of_Ely_1648_by_J_Blaeu.jpg, except that it is a little bit too much megabytes. Compare to other maps in Category:Maps by Willem and Johannes Blaeu, compression required. --Martin H. (talk) 15:06, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I have uploaded a 6 megabyte version at File:Isle of Ely 1648 by J Blaeu quality50.jpg, compressed from the 57 megabyte original with IrfanView's quality setting 50. I first tried quality settings of 75 and 65 with no evident loss of quality, but at 50 I began to notice the screen-printing dots blurring slightly, so I decided to stop there. -84user (talk) 16:11, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the explanation. I have misunderstood, as I thought the file size limit was 100MB. I will know for next time --Senra (talk) 21:51, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

100MB is the limit. I found no error with the 57 megabyte original (on Firefox). I merely responded to Martin H.'s suggestion that it was a little large, by uploading a compressed version that might be more accessible to users with restricted bandwidth. -84user (talk) 04:11, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Can I update a image of cultural relic?

A pure image with only the very old cultural relic, just like http://i2.ce.cn/ce/culture/list02/03/news/201002/01/W020100201385503008280.jpg Could I use it in wikimedia commons?--Myheimu (talk) 18:19, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

The status of photographs of public domain artworks depends on whether the artwork is two-dimensional or three-dimensional. The difference is that photographic reproductions of 2D objects don't allow for much own creativity while photographs of 3D objects allow for some creativity (lighting, angle whatever).

These sticks are not truly 3D nor 2D. But as the aim of the photograph is to accurately reproduce the 2D glyphs on the 3D sticks, I'd say it is okay to upload this image to Commons.

But you should wait for a second opinion on this before you upload the picture. --Slomox (talk) 18:36, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to know more about this; in particular what is this "very old cultural relic" and when was it made? If it's uploaded, the description page must link to the webpage that includes it, not the image directly, so those facts can be verified.--Prosfilaes (talk) 18:51, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

This image is from news reports (like [1], [2] and so on). But mostly it's not shot by the reporter but the antiquarian in Tsinghua University, China. This cultural relics are made in Zhanguo(BC 475 ~ BC 221). --Myheimu (talk) 06:23, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Then it's basically like any manuscript; it should be fine to upload.--Prosfilaes (talk) 06:55, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Suspect contributions

Hello to all,
I would like to draw your attention on the contributions of this user. His pictures are stated to come from a friend (ami) and a pending OTRS ticket is sometimes indicated. I suspect there is no ticket and that these could violate copyright. Could I ask someone to verify the existence of a ticket and, if there is none, to delete these pictures ? Regards Moumou82 (talk) 07:31, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Leave a message at "Commons:OTRS/Noticeboard" asking an OTRS volunteer to check the status of the suspect images. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 12:45, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

jpeg compression in preview images creates awful artifacts

The jpg compression level is obviously set way too high on commons. See the compression artifacts in the center left and right of both chimneys at File:Shell_Godorf_Nacht-2.jpg (in preview! - not in thumb here and not in full). Could the compression level please be decreased? Probably someone needs to file a bug. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 23:10, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

At which size are you looking at this? You added the image with [[File:Shell_Godorf_Nacht-2.jpg|thumb|upright=0.5]]. With the default thumbnail size (220px) this renders an image with a width of 110px (110x74px)! As the image is wider than tall, you needn't use upright. Docu at 03:37, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I think Saibo meant the image viewed in the file page, which does seem to render high amounts of compression artifacts. I advise to rotate images and do perspective changes as little and losslessly as possible, as remapping of pixels can have this effect with JPEG compressors. ZooFari 04:27, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually Saibo even wrote it. Never mind. At 800 × 541 pixels it doesn't look that bad. Docu at 04:45, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

comparision

Thanks for the explanations. However, I know what I am doing. ;) I used upright to not place a big thumb here.

I meant the 800 pixel width scaled down version on the file's page. Please see the comparison (in full view!) I created. You should be able to see the intense artifacts on the left half. Ideally it should look like the right half (no (additional) lossy jpg compression)! You can see the same artifacts at the 800px version if your screen is okay. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 16:19, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

You're absolutely right, it is quite terrible. I don't know if it has always been this way and I never noticed, or if something changed recently, but I couldn't help noticing the ugly artifacts on this image too. –Tryphon ^☂ 09:01, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

The artifacts are there, that's for sure. But is it really so important on previews? Marac (talk) 10:10, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

I think so, yes. I don't know if have any global statistics about that, but personally, I rarely watch the original file; I only do it if I need to see some detail, and I sometimes download high quality images to see them fullscreen, but for casual browsing, I mostly see the preview only. I can also imagine that people with low bandwidth or monthly quotas do not download the fullsize image. And with that in mind, I'm not saying we should have some crazy quality settings that would make all our preview files megabyte big, but I'm sure with some adjustments, we could have good quality previews without increasing the file size too much (I'm actually wondering if the current settings were motivated by bandwidth considerations, or CPU load/RAM usage during conversion). –Tryphon ^☂ 10:33, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

The current 800px version of "Shell_Godorf_Nacht-2.jpg" has 48KB. I tried to reduce the size of the original file with IrfanView (resample filter: Lanczos) and to get noticeably better quality of 800px version, I had to save the JPG with the 95 quality setting. But then the file has 93KB. To get the size of 48KB I had to save with the 85 quality setting. And guess what? The quality was comparable to the current 800px version (artifacts not so visible, but the picture is blurrier). So to have good quality previews, the Commons' JPG database would have to get two times bigger. Marac (talk) 11:00, 28 September 2010 (UTC) PS. I mean, the part of the database with previews. Marac (talk) 11:02, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

@Marac and @Tryphon: Thanks for your research and comments. @Marac: What's the problem with a doubled size of the preview database? Is there one?

I don't know. :) I assumed that the reason for so high degree of compression must be the intention of limiting the disk space taken by previews. I don't know if it's true, but it seems like the only reasonable cause. Marac (talk) 17:48, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

My guess is it's more about bandwidth than disk space. The size of the "preview folder" is probably much smaller than the "fullsize folder", so if you double its size, you don't double the amount of disk space you need (and disk space is cheap anyway, right?). However, if you double the file size of previews, you increase the bandwidth needs a lot, which can be an issue for the servers, but also for some users. So it's a difficult equilibrium to find, but it would be nice if someone with access to actual data and statistics could look into the issue and estimate the pros and cons. –Tryphon ^☂ 19:16, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

However, the current quality setting is not suitable for our high quality projects. If it occured only at technical drawings (wrongly) saved in jpg it wouldn't be as bad - but it occurs (highly visible) at normal photographs! Someone saw my reworked image and told me: "what the hell have you done to the image?". Of course, as usual and as Tryphon says, he did only watch at the preview. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 16:15, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

If someone can figure out better imagemagick config settings than we use currently, with some ample evidence that is works well in all our usecases, and does not negatively affect filesize of thumbs too much, then I think it is perfectly fine to make some changes. Current settings are running ImageMagick: OMP_NUM_THREADS=1 '/opt/local/bin/convert' -quality 80 -background white -define jpeg:size=180x135 inputfile.jpg -thumbnail '180x135!' -set comment 'File source: image_descriptionpage_url' -depth 8 -sharpen '0x0.4' outputfile.jpg The exact ImageMagick version that Wikimedia uses, i'm not sure, but it will be a rather recent one. (max 1,5 year old I think). There is something special with the sharpen value, due to changes in imagemagick, check bugzilla:24857 for the details. Especially the scaling filter is something that can make a significant difference. TheDJ (talk) 19:13, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

I'd use a quality setting of at least 85 for ImageMagick. Most graphics editing software (Gimp, Preview.app in OS X) seems to default to that value for JPEG export. It should bring a noticeable improvement in image quality without increasing file sizes too much. Wikipedia bandwidth might actually go down because fewer people will find the preview images so terrible they feel compelled to download the full, usually multi-megabyte images. I do this all the time right now because of preview artifacting and I'm probably not the only one. --Morn (talk) 17:25, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Ideally editors would be able to adjust whether JPEG or PNG is used for previews and quality levels based on individual article needs... but they're not and this would be a substantial feature request. So not much we can do. Dcoetzee (talk) 08:04, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

September 24

The Bridge (2006 Drama)

Recently there was a nomination of an Article for Deletion on Wikipedia, which received my attention. The article is about a movie called the "The Bridge" that was released in 2006, containing in the Film's credits "The Bridge' is licensed as royalty-free digital media, and may be distributed online for personal viewing without permission. All offline distribution rights are reserved by Brett Hanover." WIth this in mind is there any Applicable license we could put it here on the Commons with? ResidentAnthropologist (talk) 00:39, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

No. A free license doesn't permit restrictions on distribution--the movie can only be distributed online, and not on DVD or film--and doesn't permit noncommercial restrictions--this movie can't be shown commercially in a movie theater. (Besides which, Commons has a 100MB limitation on filesize; if you want good quality audio on your movie that'll about cover it, as long as you don't need video. Movies right now need to go to the Internet Archive or some other place set up to hold them.)--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:24, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, I was unsure and Cirt who I belive is an Admin here was unsure so I figured it would be worth asking. ResidentAnthropologist (talk) 22:26, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Illinois maps on en.wikipedia

Please compare the maps (at en.wikipedia) in en:Category:Maps of Bond County, Illinois and other subcategories of en:Category:Illinois maps with the maps in the corresponding categories on Commons: Category:Maps of Bond County, Illinois and Category:Maps of Illinois.

Should the maps at en.wikipedia be moved to Commons or would they, once moved, merely be deleted under the "Files that add nothing educationally distinct to the collection of images we already hold covering the same subject, especially if they are of poor or mediocre quality" clause of Commons:Deletion policy? In other words, is it worth the effort to move the files from en.wikipedia to Commons? Thank you, Black Falcon (talk) 20:05, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

There's got to be more effort in looking at this in any detail than in just moving the files. - Jmabel ! talk 23:54, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Could you clarify, please? Do you mean things like categorizing the moved files, or ...? Thanks, Black Falcon (talk) 02:14, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I created the new maps back in 2007 using some custom PHP MapScript code and census data. They superceded the older maps; User:Kranar drogin created those and provided some input on the new ones. As to whether or not the old maps need to be removed or moved to Commons -- I guess I'd suggest that if they are orphaned, and if they're unlikely to be used in the future, then they're probably not needed; but I hesitate to state that too strongly as I don't want to step on any toes. Omnedon (talk) 12:26, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Requests for template renaming

I want to post a request to rename Template:Bezirke in Hamburg (to "Districts of Hamburg") but using the {{Rename|}} doesn't work as the tag thinks that the subject is a file, not a template. What rename template should I use?

Also Template:Wiener Bezirke needs to be renamed to "Districts of Vienna" WhisperToMe (talk) 04:16, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

You don't use a template. You click the Move tab and move it. Rocket000 (talk) 07:53, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Good answer. Yes I like that. Teofilo (talk) 20:49, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Call for commons-oriented fundraising banners

Hello, commons!

As we approach finalizing our planning for the upcoming once-a-year fundraiser for the Wikimedia Foundation, we're continuing to issue a call for localizing banners for testing before we kick off. If you have any ideas for a banner to entice donations from people viewing this project, we have a place for you. At the top of the page is an easy template to create a banner of your own for commons and we'll see if some perform!

Thanks for providing free media to the world! Keegan, WMF m:Fundraiser 2010 21:07, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Signature fail. Keegan, WMF Fundraising 2010 21:23, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

October 4

{{Please Translate}} template

{{Please Translate}} template is used in case new label fields are added to existing language sub-templates the templates adds such sub-templates to Category:Internationalization templates with incorrect translations. Please check if there are any of the sub-templates there for the languages you speak and replace {{Please Translate|Label in English}} with translated text in proper language. --Jarekt (talk) 03:10, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

File:Annapolis conference (USA).PNG

Would someone please categorize that picture File:Annapolis conference (USA).PNG? --Mahmudmasri (talk) 13:03, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Done. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 15:06, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

What is Sequence namespace?

Can someone add some explanation to Help:Namespaces of what is our Sequence: namespace, as in Sequence:Intro to WikiProject Screencast. --Jarekt (talk) 03:44, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

See [3] for some info. (I only found it through Google and I don't fully understand the potential uses of video sequencing. So don't ask me to update the help page ;-) ) --Slomox (talk) 11:43, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

AFAIK you can think of it a bit like an iMovie project file. Except media in the sequence (photos, other videos) are files on Commons. The sequence itself is just a text file that says e.g. "show picture X between 0:15 and 0:25 in the sequence".

You can edit these kinds of video sequences with the Kaltura tool which kind of looks like iMovie, then publish the video as OGV in the Media namespace.

The potential use of such videos for Wikipedia is I think illustrated nicely by the proof-of-concept cats sequence, namely making educational little videos out of images, audio, and video files from Commons. --Morn (talk) 18:40, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

There is also the Sequencer documentation page that explains what it is and how it works. I will try and link to that from 'enable the sequencer' to edit pages and from the sequencer help menu to make the documentation a bit more accessible. Mdale (talk) 17:11, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Uploaded .ogv files not playing in browser

I uploaded 2 .ogv files, File:Operation San Angelo, 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division 1968.ogv and File:Activities of the 1st Infantry Division, South Vietnam 1968.ogv, which I got from the Internet Archive. The downloads of these play fine, however these are not playing for me in Google Chrome. I tried viewing other video uploads, which stream fine. Any ideas as to what might be wrong with these 2? BrokenSphere (Talk) 22:26, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

They do not play for me either in Chromium (and the thumbnail is broken), and when trying to play the downloaded file with mplayer, I get lots of:

Too many video packets in the buffer: (4096 in 4191139 bytes).
Maybe you are playing a non-interleaved stream/file or the codec failed?

I don't know what's wrong exactly, but I'll try recreating an OGV file from the MPEG2 on archive.org. –Tryphon ^☂ 10:43, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

So I just replaced the first one, and now it works for me. What about you? –Tryphon ^☂ 14:02, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I see the thumbnails, will try viewing the files later on a faster connection. BrokenSphere (Talk) 18:51, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

The files for some reason are not playing for me, but I'll take your word for it that they now work. BrokenSphere (Talk) 17:21, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Google chrome has broken ogg support for example if a ogg file has a static / null frame it breaks the playback Hopefully google chrome will fix these issues soon. As mentioned above you can try reencoding with firefogg from the source file and see if that helps. Mdale (talk) 17:36, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

October 2

Public domain in National Archives

I am uncomfortable with the way the National Archives and Records Administration host supposedly Public Domain files. Some of the files in question are either clearly not in the Public Domain, or are not clearly in the Public Domain. Examples of "not clearly in the Public Domain" are films made from archive footage, where the cameraman is not identified; these films yield screenshots that are very useful but whose status is disturbing. Rama (talk) 09:43, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Example links might help. TheDJ (talk) 10:34, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Without casting an undue focus on these particular files, I am thinking of things like File:General jacques massu 1958.png, File:Pierre lagaillarde 1958.png or File:Soustelle jouhaud salan coup de mai 1958.png. We have absolutely no proof that the people holding the camera were employees of the US government -- and I even strongly suspect that they were not; in these conditions, the chain leading to the release into the public domain breaks somewhere between the shooting of the footage and the assembly into a Public Domain documentary. At least, the stills are not justifiable. Rama (talk) 08:17, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Whenever a picture (or a film) has an ARC identifier, that picture (or film) should be tagged with {{NARA-image|id=that ARC identifier}}. I am doing this for File:General jacques massu 1958.png : diff. This takes me to this page on the arcweb.archives.gov website (US government website : quite different from [I mean better than] archive.org whose contents are less reliable). On that page I can read "Use Restriction(s): Restricted - Possibly". So I would say

Delete. Teofilo (talk) 20:45, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

See also that page which deals with the whole series : This series consists of films produced by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), films produced for the Agency by other government entities, and commercially produced films. So you can't rule out that it's a commercial film (possibly a television film merely copied by the CIA). Teofilo (talk) 20:58, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

That same page says Some of the films have foreign language soundtracks in French, German, Polish, Russian, and Vietnamese : I don't know which language is the language of the soundtrack of File:General jacques massu 1958.png, but, generally speaking, why should a US-produced news film have a soundtrack in French ? It is most likely that such films are French films merely copied by the CIA. Teofilo (talk) 21:04, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the "Possibly Restricted" tag is basically the indicator that says it may well not be PD. The National Archives only hosts material it obtained from other government agencies, but sometimes those agencies obtain material with external copyright, which appears to be the case here. Not a general problem with NARA; mainly somebody not looking at NARA's documentation and uploading it incorrectly labeled as PD to archive.org, which then finds its way here. Nominate for deletion. Carl Lindberg (talk) 21:38, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Right, done. Thank you for the opinion. Rama (talk) 05:43, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

It is possible that US-produced film would have a soundtrack in French, if the film was to be distributed in France. -- ArglebargleIV (talk) 14:45, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

October 3

What to do with a bad caption/name?

Hi All- I have discovered that an image here, File:J52 engine on USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) 1993.JPEG, has both a bad name and a bad caption. The exposed engine, which is described as a Pratt & Whitney J52 is actually a General Electric F404 engine. I wanted to raise the issue here, rather than just rename and change the caption, because the problem is the caption from the original source. This is a US Navy photo, from Defenseimagery.mil, and the source caption is wrong. The source desccription incorrectly names the engine as a J52 as well. An actual J52 engine looks like this or this, while an F404 engine looks like this and this.

My worry is that if we rename it and change the description, someone will come by and undo that because of the source caption. Any suggestions? Thanks -SidewinderX (talk) 16:31, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Change it, and add a comment that the original caption is wrong using  -mattbuck (Talk) 17:32, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Why hide it? However I arranged it, I would make it clear in the description that the original caption mistakenly labeled a General Electric F404 engine as a P&W J52.--Prosfilaes (talk) 19:24, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd do the same, especially as the original upload log is still visible. BTW, I tagged it with {{Rename}}. Docu at 01:56, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

October 5

Navy Ship Publication Uploads

I can't find anything in any of your help topics that seems to address this. I apologize if I haven't looked enough. I have about 12 complete publications of a Navy ship that I crewed, with photos and text about that ship's first three years. I have not found these documents anywhere else on the WWW, not even on that ship's site or FB page. Would these scans serve any purpose on the Commons or another part of Wiki? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.250.237.82 (talk • contribs)

Yes; if they were official publications, they'd be {{PD-USGov}} and would provide a nice source of images, and they could probably be transcribed at en.Wikisource.--Prosfilaes (talk) 06:56, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply, they are Navy shipboard PR publications and I will attempt to upload them once I fiqure your process out. I already have them on my FB page but I expect that I will get better resolution here with a new upload and I believe this will allow these documents to be sourced by somebody needing to.

deletion request

hi all,

something went wrong with the deletion request of File:Reuters129189521205105839 big.jpg - I tried to fix it according to the notes in the template but failed... what did I wrong? thanks and greetings, Rbrausse (talk) 08:26, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Everything is okay; the deletion request went through fine.--Prosfilaes (talk) 08:37, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

hmm, strange. when I open the file I see big fat warnings about an incomplete deletion request and that I failed to create Commons:Deletion requests/File:Reuters129189521205105839 big.jpg. whatever, *shrug*.... thanks! Rbrausse (talk) 08:53, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Try clearing your cache? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 09:24, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

October 6

New proposed namespace Museum:

I would like to propose a new namespace "Museum:" see Category:Museum templates. It is very similar to Creator: namespace and holds infobox templates based on {{Museum}} template, just like Creator: namespace holds infobox templates based on {{Creator}} template. See also Template_talk:Museum#Namespace--Jarekt (talk) 19:18, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Support, sounds good. Yarl ✉ 10:28, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I find the term "Museum" too constrained. Soon you'll probably want to add archives and other institutions. Why not call it "Institution" instead? We didn't call the "Creator" namespace "author" or "painter" or "photographer" either... Lupo 16:15, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I assume that Museum: namespace would cover all kinds of institutions. It is hard to balance being very general to include all potential uses without being so general that the name does not mean much, like Info: pseudonamespace. We had the same issues when picking what to rename {{Painting}} to - we settle on {{Artwork}} with understanding that it might not cover all potential uses, for example archeological artifacts. That said if we can find other concise unambiguous term I do not mind abandoning "Museum". "Institution" does not seem to be a bad option: it is more general but none of 15 types of institution mentioned on wikipedia seem to our need well (Institution of marriage, Mental institution, Institution (computer science meaning). "Collection" is another possibility. --Jarekt (talk) 17:10, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

A more general term is probably preferable. "Institution" seems fine for that. I think we should agree on short definition of its purpose, e.g. "Institution namespace holds short templates describing institutions (museums, libraries, collections, etc.) holding physical or digital ‚originals‘ of works of art reproduced by media files on Commons. These templates are meant to be transcluded into the Current location field of {{Artwork}}." Docu at 03:46, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Inflatable buoys ?

Hi. How do we call those inflatable objects in English ? See 2 different exemples here and here. --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 14:48, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Dont know if they are named correctly but for the examples we have Category:Swim rings (de:Schwimmreifen) and Category:Water wings (de:Schwimmflügel). --Martin H. (talk) 14:58, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

"Water wings" is what I'd call the things in the second picture, as a North American English Speaker. The English Wikipedia calls them inflatable armbands. Buddy431 (talk) 19:39, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Text on information panel in the USA

Hello,

Someone at fr:Wikipédia:Le Bistro/3 octobre 2010#45×90 wants to know if the text on File:2009-0620-45x90-Lies1.jpg is free ?

Teofilo (talk) 17:07, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Good question. I rather doubt it, since this is a county sign, and generally only material from the federal government is PD. State, county and city works are generally not PD. I couldn't find anything about the Marathon County status, but this is the county website: http://www.co.marathon.wi.us TheDJ (talk) 21:25, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Probably borderline for whether this is substantive enough to be copyrighted. - Jmabel ! talk 01:05, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Also the sign is just a portion(~¹/₆th) of the overall composition. As the composition incudes the supposed point and the field behind(actual point) to make up the complete picture, the issue if any would be in Freedom of panaroma requirements fo the US. Gnan garra 01:40, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

I share Jmabel's concern about whether the text is original or substantive enough to be copyrighted. Does freedom of panorama in the US cover literary works? In the Singapore and the UK, freedom of panorama only applies to buildings, sculptures and works of artistic craftsmanship (excluding most two-dimensional artworks such as drawings, engravings and paintings). — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 06:44, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

No, buildings only are FOP in the US. This is not a building. De minimis does not apply either since it's the central obvious focal point of the composition. Not free unless someone can demonstrate it's in the public domain for some reason. Dcoetzee (talk) 08:00, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Has anyone sent the county an e-mail? The county e-mail address is listed as infomarathon@mail.co.marathon.wi.us. We could ask if they claim any copyright to the text. Buddy431 (talk) 19:35, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Disable file menu with icons

I see a new menu with "Download", "Use this file", etc. on each file page. How can I get rid of this? I don't like it, but I think it's part of the new usability initiative features. ←fetch comms 03:15, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

You could turn off vector. Solves many issues. :-) Killiondude (talk) 05:33, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

It will soon be in monobook as well. See also Commons:Village_pump#Share_this and this on how to disable it. TheDJ (talk) 09:42, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Just turn off JavaScript in your browser and it's gone. In fact, that's probably a bug, not a feature, because corporate computers are often locked down (JS disabled), so e.g. newspaper journalists may never see the new menu! --Morn (talk) 10:51, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

There's way too many good JS things (scripts/gadgets) on this site to disable it completely if you want to get any work done (use AdBlock Plus to selectively block scripts). Rocket000 (talk) 15:00, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

On my screen it provides enough white space to stick two medium-size post-it stickers onto the screen without obscuring any information. For me that is a bug. -- KlausFoehl (talk) 15:20, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

After examining it more, it grew on me. I think this is one of the few new usability features that I actually like. :-) Killiondude (talk) 16:54, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Who decides which .com appear? Why it has no multilingual support (or how to achieve it?)? Why not to put it on the lateral menu, or as a individual gadget? -Aleator (talk) 19:34, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

.com? It's brand new so there isn't really any translations yet. This is not part of the "Usability Initiative", it's simply a script someone wrote and added to Commons. Rocket000 (talk) 22:03, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

September 30

How anal should we be?

A user recently nominated a file for deletion because it was a manufactured product and the company that made it holds image rights to anything it manufactures. I thought this was over-the-top but it got me thinking. WMF is releasing all of this stuff to anybody — to use for any purpose, including "for profit" use — forever and ever. Should we be concerned about this? Should we no longer allow images of manufactured items like cars, pencils and chairs because the manufacturer could claim image copyrights to these items?

The whole idea seems absolutely ludicrous. But what if somebody took all the car pictures from commons and used them in a book about cars and sold a million copies? I could see a corporate lawyer convincing a jury that a picture of a car was copyright infringement because of the "look and feel" or "style" or because it was improper use of a company logo that was on the car. I am not recommending we stop allowing pictures of manufactured items, because I think that would be stupid. But I don't think I could provide a convincing argument why I would be right. - Hydroxonium (talk) 18:42, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

As far as I know, there are few countries in the world that would recognize a copyright on a 3D product that is primarily utilitarian objects. A car is meant to be used as a car, and thus by definition cannot be art, unless it is a one-off unique model that cannot drive. At most, they are entitled to patents, trademarks and industrial design rights. These are intellectual property rights, but they are not a copyright (though sometimes are part of copyright law). If people make such claims, you should ignore them, they don't know what they are talking about. TheDJ (talk) 18:59, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. This is good information to know and will definately help me in the future. Thanks much. - Hydroxonium (talk) 19:33, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Under US law this is covered under the useful article concept. See http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl103.html .Geni (talk) 20:00, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

See also our guideline "Commons:Image casebook#Utility objects". — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 20:14, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I am not a lawyer, but under U.S. law, a photograph of clothing in the manufacturer's original packaging could be under copyright protection, but clothing as actually being worn by a person can almost never be under copyright protection... AnonMoos (talk) 01:06, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks very much everybody. This is really great info for me. I had not seen Commons:Image casebook until it was mentioned above. That's an excellent document for newbies such as myself and very informative. I appreciate all the help. - Hydroxonium (talk) 15:40, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

To answer the initial question, we should be as anal as the law requires, isn't that pretty obvious? FunkMonk (talk) 17:09, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Pantyhose

Currently, the image at right is used on seven Wikipedias. I'd like to replace it, at least on the English Wikipedia, because it comes off as voyeuristic and even a little creepy, having a picture of women in pantyhose clearly taken without their permission, and their faces pixelated. I mean no offense to the original photographer, but that's the way the photograph made me feel. But there's no direct replacement in Category:Pantyhose of pantyhose in the normal environment. I was wondering if there's a replacement photo in Commons that hadn't been categorized in pantyhose, or if someone would do me favor of taking one that doesn't have to be pixelated out.--Prosfilaes (talk) 04:45, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Isn't it the Wikipedias' decisions on what images to use? I've always thought replacing images at the pedias because of an opinion on Commons considerably rude. Seems weird indeed but I suggest replacement only in the wikis you pertain to (a crop that doesn't show the pixelated faces perhaps). ZooFari 05:09, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Is paternalism the term you're looking for? ;-) Multichill (talk) 07:52, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure why the image is creepy. The woman chose to wear hosiery in public (consternation! shock!), and the photographer, out of respect for their privacy, decided to pixellate the faces shown despite not being required by any law to do so. That having been said, it is a low-resolution image apparently taken with a camera phone, so I have no real objection to a better image being used in place of it. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 08:01, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Because taking a picture of someone's legs surreptitiously is creepy, especially as legs with pantyhose are frequently fetishized. And I acknowledge the good intent behind the pixellated faces (thought I thought French law was a lot stricter on this? I suspect at least French mores on the subject did come into play), but it makes my impression worse; now that we've obliterated the faces, there's no focus besides staring at some unknowing strangers' legs. Cropping the image doesn't help that impression much, and does hurt the whole natural feel of the image; I thought about taking the Hooter's girl or the Wikipe-tan picture, but they don't show the pantyhose in the wild.--Prosfilaes (talk) 17:30, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

I had no plans of changing the image on any Wikipedia I'm not a regular article on. As a Wikipedian, I came here looking for a better picture, and when I didn't find one, I asked here.--Prosfilaes (talk) 17:30, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

You can replace all you want, as long as you don't use commonsdelinker for it, is my opinion. TheDJ (talk) 13:28, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Have you tried looking for photos of women in uniform? -- Orionist ★ talk 19:02, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Let's be clear here; this is a photo of a woman wearing either stockings or tights or even pantyhose but in no way is clearly an image of "pantyhose" to explain the concept, which in my experience involves some sort of confluence between underwear ("panty") and legwear ("hose"). As such, this image fails to depict what it claims to do and should go as being irrelevant to its claimed topic. Rodhullandemu (talk) 00:23, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Out of curiosity I did a Flickr search. Perhaps not surprisingly, there is a multitude of freely licensed pictures that may be suitable. Here is one that illustrates the concept better and which I assume was not surreptitiously taken, though I'm not sure it is the most tasteful: http://www.flickr.com/photos/46212665@N03/5005596743/. (I am also scarred for life after discovering that there is an invention called "mantyhose". ;-) ) — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 09:06, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

The perception of the image as voyeuristic is culturally subjective. Some cultures would find photos of women in which their bare legs are visible shocking. Every effort has been made to protect the subject's privacy, and if they request its removal it will be removed regardless, so I don't think there's a serious problem here. Pictures taken with consent are preferable however, particularly higher-quality ones. Dcoetzee (talk) 08:06, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

I think it's not the pantyhose but the pixellation that is creepy. There's a very extensive Commons:photographs of identifiable persons policy that is the source for such suggestions; but even it does not prohibit the use of photographs of identifiable persons from a public place like a park bench.

But unless a wider view is available, I think the current crop is bad — if you're not going to make the women visible, you might as well crop off everything above about midway up the back of the park bench. Just show the pantyhose. Or get a better picture and ignore this one. Wnt (talk) 18:39, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Is homophobia a kind of racism or not?

Hallo. User:Túrelio objected with categorizing "homophobia" under "racism", stating that racism and homohobia are two distinct phenomena: User_talk:G.dallorto#racism_cats. Actually, several anti-racism laws around the world include homophobia as well. What is your opinion regarding the issue? Thank you for your contribution. --User:G.dallorto (talk) 16:18, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Homophobia is not against a particular race of people, therefore it's not racism.--Prosfilaes (talk) 16:24, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

My own opinion is voiced by this quote from... Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homophobia : "Civil rights leader Coretta Scott King stated that "Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood." By the way, do "rtaces" exist? There is only ONE race: the human race. Races are but a racist artifact.

--User:G.dallorto (talk) 16:25, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it may be like racism, but, by definition, racism has to do with race, not sexual-orientation or anything else. Rocket000 (talk) 16:31, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Discrimination could be the common denomination. --

There is no functional distinction between the two ("those guys are different from me and my pals, so they must be inferior"), they only differ by target. But that also means that one can't be a subcategory of the other. They belong in the sam parent category "discrimination" next to each other. --Latebird (talk) 13:20, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

^ Exactly, their common denominator is discrimination, not race. FunkMonk (talk) 17:09, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Not even necessarily "discrimination" (since it is an attitude and a complex, not an action), but certainly "prejudice". - Jmabel ! talk 15:43, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Share icons

The share icons are currently disabled because Geni is "Really really not happy about this. The copyright issues asside this is advertising. There are also massive nutrality issues (why no Hi5 or Orkut for example)". What do others think about this ? TheDJ (talk) 19:47, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, I am wondering what kind of advertising it is. If so, there is more advertisement for us, then for them. E.g. pictures on Facebook mirrored from Commons would attract more potential users who might deploy more useful images, videos etc. If there are problems with their logos, lets place just text, or as mentioned by Morn (below) if not a default option, it can should be possible to switch it on. Two day ago, I have identified two of my images using a help of Facebook people.--Juan de Vojníkov (talk) 19:01, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I think a share menu with fewer buttons is better. Just give people a way to get an attribution line complete with Commons URL and relegate sharing via commercial sites to a toolserver page (like GeoHack). Putting a Facebook icon on every file description page by default is indeed a little questionable for a non-profit. Rewarding their copyright-infringing ways with free advertising on all pages is not such a good solution. --Morn (talk) 22:43, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

That won't work. Who is gonna click a share icon, then navigate away from where you are, then go to a list with 500 items, search for the one you need and then click that and then navigate away to the share site and click submit ? That's just not realistic. If we really want to do something like that, then we need to build something like an open version of the sharethis/addthis floating widget. It presents you a personalized menu, with your most often used services (tracked by cookie), and allows you access to all the other services by using an easy Search function. That could work. Of course it will take a few months to build it. And requires support for 600 services and probably donations for servers. And probably should be an independent foundation. Perhaps status.net could spearhead that ? TheDJ (talk) 13:56, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

There would simply be less clutter on the page (and not such an impression of advertising) if those social networking icons only popped up when needed instead of being already visible as soon as the page loads.

Then there's the question of the best position on the page: On the right side next to the image is problematic because it may require horizontal scrolling in the browser to be visible at all. Below the image, the menu may not be very noticeable because there's a lot of text there already.

So how about putting the share menu above the image? Why not make it a new tab? (As the frequent vandalism on Wikipedia shows, even wiki newbies seem to have no problem finding the edit tab.) You'd have "View", "Share", "Edit", and "View History". "Share" could be a slightly different color to make it more conspicuous. And an implementation of the share menu as a MediaWiki-generated tab would also solve the JavaScript dependence of the present solution. --Morn (talk) 22:59, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be better to turn that feature into a "gadget". Thus only users who have activated it (and selected which subset of the 500 sites they want shown) se it. That way it wouldn't be a question of bias or advertising since it's always a personal choice. /Lokal _Profil 11:19, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

October 7

"Use this file" is a bit of a mess

I'm rather unhappy with the new "use this file" buttons. I believe they are giving inaccurate information, and are hence a liability.

For example, someone recently wanted to use my File:Alki Beach bathhouse 03.jpg in print. For starters, there is no information at all in the button as to how to attribute it in print: it is entirely oriented toward online use. But, quite independently of that, the information about how to attribute it online appears to me to be wrong. It says to attribute it "By Joe Mabel (Photo by Joe Mabel) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 or GFDL], from Wikimedia Commons".

It will be very difficult for a typical user to sort out that they are being offered a choice of licenses rather than a string to use literally.
The note "using this file might require attaching a full copy of the GFDL" is likely to be more confusing than helpful. "Might"? And of course it only pertains to the GFDL license, but nothing makes that clear.
Furthermore, if you don't click "HTML" the resulting text is not a correct attribution, because it does not give any indication of the terms of the CC-BY-SA-3.0 license. It is neither linked, nor does it provide a URL, nor does it otherwise explain the terms of the license.
Also, saying "from Wikimedia Commons" is not at all a licensing requirement. I frankly don't care whether the Commons is credited for my work, and don't particularly like having a feature that tells people it should be.

All of this could be fixed, but until it is this button is a liability, inviting non-conforming reuse of our images. - Jmabel ! talk 01:03, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I share many of Jmabel's concerns. I'm willing to let it stay, because it looks like a nice feature, but I would like quick action on fixing some of the problems. Removing "from Wikimedia Commons", and linking the licenses would be an easy place to start. --99of9 (talk) 03:41, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Given that we didn't have anything like it just ten days ago (#Share_this), I think it's a big improvement. BTW there is a bug tracker at MediaWiki_talk:Stockphoto.js#Bugs_and_feature_requests. Docu at 03:51, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Fully agreed, but I argue that part of this is simply our license and information templates inconsistency. It is OUR legacy that information like this is not easily and correctly extractable other than by reading and interpreting the description page yourself (which clearly almost no non-Commons person does either). As such I see this as an improvement, and as more issues are reported, the javascript will become smarter and better at extracting this information. Hopefully soon, someone will get to actually adding this as fields to the database, so we don't have to screenscrape it from the pages. TheDJ (talk) 12:59, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

"Hopefully soon, someone will get to actually adding this as fields to the database" -- what we need is RDF descriptions as in any modern library or image archive. Trycatch (talk) 13:45, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Well if we have information in the database, then generating such RDF descriptions becomes peanuts. TheDJ (talk) 13:49, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Hardcode everything into the database, including multiple Artwork/Museum/Book/... fields? And to file bugzilla requests to change every little thing? Trycatch (talk) 13:59, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I am well aware it's not perfect. As TheDJ said, the script can only use the information that is give on the description page in a machine-readable format. Which we often don't have; garbage in, garbage out. But I have seen plenty of instances on the web where images from Commons were not attributed at all, or with "From Wikipedia" etc. People who do know exactly how to attribute our images are the vast minority. For the rest (many of whom might not even have been aware that they can reuse our files!), getting it right using the buttons in at least 80% of the cases would mean a huge improvement in the number of correct attributions on the web. BTW, the non-HTML line is for, believe it or not, print publications, or people who make news pages/blogs/etc. but don't speak HTML. Yes, they are out there. WYSIWYG is your enemy in this case. I could turn HTML on by default, but it's long and ugly... --Magnus Manske (talk) 14:40, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

If the non-HTML line is for print publication, then it is simply wrong. One doesn't conform to the CC-BY-SA-3.0 license just by saying "CC-BY-SA-3.0 license". One is required either to summarize the terms of the license or, minimally, to indicate the URL where this information can be obtained, which is easy enough to do in print. Obviously, you can't "click" on a printed URL, but URLs are common enough in print these days, practically every ad has one. - Jmabel ! talk 15:40, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it's a direct requirement of CC-BY/CC-BY-SA 3/2/1: "You must include a copy of, or the Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) for, this License with every copy of the Work You Distribute or Publicly Perform." [4]. Trycatch (talk) 15:47, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

The official text generated by the CC licence selector for printed works is : "This work is licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California 94105, USA." I might need an extra box for that. --Magnus Manske (talk) 15:50, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

How about reuse tabs in the dialog. You click "Use this image", dialog would be dialog tabs; Wiki, Web, Print. Something like that. TheDJ (talk) 18:55, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

What about PD? I don't want it to imply that crediting me is legally required. Also, I find crediting Commons for works taken from other online repositories a little repulsive. (Sorry, Magnus, everyone's got their complaints. :) Overall you did, and are doing, a great job. Thanks.) Rocket000 (talk) 01:02, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Rocket — as someone whose images are all PD-self, I'm not at all excited that it seems that I must be credited for an image to be used. Of course, no complaints about websites like this one that credit me anyway, but I don't want someone to think that they have to do it. Nyttend (talk) 03:32, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Category:Soundtracks copyright violation

Too lazy to del-nominate them one-by-one myself, but the anime music tracks listed in Category:Soundtracks are clearly misidentified as licensed by creator, when in fact the user/"creator" clearly just ripped them. So, if anyone cares, etc. --Undomelin (talk) 00:22, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Requesting uploading of large flickr galleries by a bot

I'm not as familiar with the layout of commons. How would I request a bot mass-upload images uploaded by a certain user? Most of the images are labelled as non-commercial use, but they are actually public domain because of their age.[5] - Floydian (talk) 15:39, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I guess it's best to post and discuss your request at Commons:Flickr batch uploading. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 16:42, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Cool. Thank you :) - Floydian (talk) 17:29, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Copyright status

How you find out the copyright status of something published in the United States that was between 1923 and 1963. The question are old Goudey and Play Ball baseball cards from the 1930s and 40s, and the companies went out of business by the time it was supposed to renewed so it's very likely it's in PD. But I want to be 100% certain. Thanks Secret (talk) 00:21, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

You have to search the records of the copyright office. Unfortunately documents before 1978 are not digitized and online yet. Your best hope is to either go looking trough the physical records, or find someone who has. (I already checked Library of Congress, who might have such details, but they don't have any Goudey cards it seems). TheDJ (talk) 12:11, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

All the Copyright Renewals except for music and drama (and most of those) have been digitized; see [6]. The image database hasn't been transcribed yet, but there's only a few pages per year, so you're going to have to figure out which formats they might have been renewed under and check the appropriate years by hand.--Prosfilaes (talk) 04:10, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

I just searched the google copyright archives, and the proper year of the other archives and there's nothing about Goudey baseball cards being renewed. Goudey was the name of the company So I could upload them with a new template stating that a check of the copyright archives shows the Goudey baseball cards weren't renewed, there's hundreds of them. Thanks Secret (talk) 18:23, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Yep Goudey baseball cards weren't renwed or ~~even copyrighted in the first place~~ Secret (talk) 18:51, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Nevermind they were copyrighted in the first place, I have a card like that and it shows the copyright logo on it. Secret (talk) 19:14, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Ok another question, what if the baseball card company forgot to copyright them in the first place [7] is an example, only three sets are listed out of hundreds, including nothing on pre 1955 sets. For Pre-1951 sets I checked on the University of Pennsylvania resourced linked here and it shows nothing. Is it in Public Domain? Thanks Secret (talk) 15:23, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

See the Hirtle_chart for this. "Published without a copyright notice, between 1923 and 1977, In the public domain due to failure to comply with required formalities, {{PD-US-no notice}}. The same applies to files that were published in that period WITH a notice, but that were never actually registered I believe. The chart and our templates don't mention this, because older notices used to have the Copyright registration number in the notice, I believe, so a fake notice would violate the required formalities as well I presume. TheDJ (talk) 15:44, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

So I just found out everything Topps messed up with by not placing their cards though copyright registration before 1977 is in Public Domain. After 1977 with a copyright notice but no copyright registration, is still copyrighted right? Secret (talk) 15:53, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Old maps resource - possible mass upload?

Please have a look at this website. It is a digitization project of old maps. It is done by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and other institutions. They have a sizable database of old maps that are mostly in the public domain. I searched Commons for a sample of their files to find out if they have already been uploaded, and couldn't find any. Now, what are the usual steps for such mass uploads? Does anyone know if there's a need for permission, shouldn't we contact them as a courtesy gesture at least? And finally, is anyone here willing to do the upload? (I wish I had the time, but I don't) -- Orionist ★ talk 03:45, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

You can file a request at "Commons:Batch uploading". — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 07:54, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

If the maps are Public Domain, then why did they put those huge copyright marks at the bottom? See this one for an example. At the very least, these superfluous watermarks should be removed or cropped before files are uploaded to Commons. (Or perhaps you could ask them for scans without marks.) See Commons:Watermarks. --Morn (talk) 09:09, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, they certainly don't own the copyrights for centuries-old maps. As for removing the watermarks before uploading, that's not really practical (e-mailing files around for users and supervising the whole process etc.) Instead, after uploading we can work on them at the Graphic Lab here or at the Graphic labs of the Wikipedias. Obviously it would be much better if the people who run the project collaborate with us and give us access to the originals. It would save us incredible amounts of time and effort, and we have enough work at our hands (just have a look at the Category:Images for cleanup backlog). I'm going to file a request at Commons:Batch uploading, so let's hope they can convince them! -- Orionist ★ talk 23:12, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Did you check the e-copyright rules ? there is a possibility that when a substanbtial amount of work has been done to create a website, the website has a short term e-copyright, 15 years by dutch law, may-be there are similar e-copyrights in other countries as well. --Havang(nl) (talk) 14:58, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Not in the US. It strikes me as a non-copyright restriction that we have no reason to follow.--Prosfilaes (talk) 15:22, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

It sounds like that Israeli law may confer limited copyright on digitized public domain materials to encourage such digitization projects. I'm not sure this can be easily dismissed as a non-copyright restriction. The rules are probably not called "e-copyright" laws for nothing. Havang, perhaps you can refer us to a website containing the rules so we can have a look at them. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 15:35, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I have one law texte concerning the Netherlands (in Dutch). http://www.ivir.nl/wetten/nl/databankenwet.html. A search brought me at this , which may help at the start of the discussion: http://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/database.html. --Havang(nl) (talk) 15:55, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

e-copyright

Uploads from other websites are restricted by e-copyright; which means that the digitalised form of an item has its own e-copyright. It means that there is no a priory free upload from other websties, even for items falling under PD-old. however, i feel that there is quite some misunderstanding about e-copyright among commons users. Can someone develop the rules for e-copyright regarding different countries as has been developed for "normal" copyright? --Havang(nl) (talk) 15:17, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

"E-copyright" sounds like a concept that has been developed in the laws of specific jurisdictions. We need to look at these laws to see what impact they have on the Commons. It is certainly not a universal concept – in Singapore and the UK, for instance, whether there a person obtains copyright by digitizing a public domain work would be determined by ordinary copyright law rules because there are no special "e-copyright" laws. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 15:44, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

"e-copyright" is not a standardized term. Yes, in some countries scanning of an item can produce a new copyright; the Wikimedia Foundation and Commons has decided to ignore that. If you're talking about a database right for a collection of items, well, that's not a copyright.--Prosfilaes (talk) 16:20, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

"The official position of the Wikimedia Foundation is that all reproductions of public domain works should be considered to be in the public domain regardless of their country of origin (even in countries where mere labor is enough to make a reproduction eligible for protection)." What more can be said? Angus McLellan (Talk) 16:28, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Commmons has no right to take up such a position, neither official nor inofficial, considering its general copyright policy. If the electronic data are protected by copyright laws, we should not copy. Read also [8] . Even in cases where copying is possible, Article 20b excludes commercial use of data from a site with databaserights. That rule alone is sufficient to exclude from commons electronic data from sites with database rights. --Havang(nl) (talk) 17:20, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Don't call something e-copyright, such a thing does not exist, and only complicates the discussion. What you talk about here is Database right, a European legal right on compilations of (digital) information (like phonebooks for instance). This is an intellectual property law, usually part of the copyright laws (copyright law usually handles more issues, than "just" the copyright itself). So the problem here is taking an entire curated collection of data (regardless of the creative work in each individual piece of data). So a fact cannot be copyrighted, but collecting a lot of facts can be copyrighted. The community has not really formed an opinion on this issue as far as I'm aware, but I think we operate on the assumption that we'd rather not piss off people before we tried to form a partnership with them (Ask before you take). The United States, where we are hosted, does not recognize database right, so ignoring it would be legal.

Added to that is the problem of Sweat of the brow. This issue determines wether in a country, copyright is derived from creativity (like in the United States) or from labour (UK and other European countries). Commons is hosted in the United States, and the position of the Foundation has long since been that it does not recognize copyright on faithful reproductions of historic materials that are in the public domain, because it locks those materials back up into a new copyright. The Foundation has every right to have this position, because it is hosted in the United States, it does not need to abide by local copryright laws. This is one of the few exceptions in Commons, where we do not recognize copyright rules of local countries. The Commons community itself does try to adhere to local copyrights when possible, as a courtesy, not because they are required to do so. If a party is dissatisfied by the fact that the Foundation does not recognize copyright on faithful reproductions of 2D public domain works, then they will have to take the Foundation to court. TheDJ (talk) 18:53, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

But Commons is being used by local wikipedia's; if they are freely used in national wikipedia's, commons is making those trespassing their national laws. Commons must not let itself be used to provide a law-leakage through the United Sates. Inversely, many lawfull uploads from national wikipedias to commons are thrown out of commons even if these items are in the public area in the country of first publication. There is a big inconsistency here. Let us invite jurist users for a virtual process in which Commons is being sued in an European country (UK or NL). Google has been, and lost. --Havang(nl) (talk) 19:10, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

PS: "It locks those materials back up into a new copyright". No it doesn't. You are free to copy the source and free copies of them, but not the data from the copyrighted database. There was a case that someone wanted to copy highresolution images (notably old maps) from a dutch site; those uploads were declined. Still, but reproductions of the maps from other (free0 sources have been uploaded. --Havang(nl) (talk) 19:20, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) Commons is hosted in the US. It cannot accept material that is not legal in the US. regardless of wether it is legal to host that material in another country. As a matter of fact, such local wiki projects are not allowed to host that material on their own localized wiki either. US law trumps everything that happens in the wiki projects. Regarding Google.. They are partially hosted outside the US. We are not. We only have caching servers abroad, and if we get sued, those will probably be removed from the European mainland if needed. The Foundation projects are US projects, no matter how much consideration is given to localized wikis to also subjucate themselves to their countries of origin. TheDJ (talk) 19:25, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

There's no such thing as a national Wikipedia; Wikipedias are divided by language, not nation, and seven of the top ten Wikipedias are distinctly multinational, with users for any of them everywhere in the world. I don't know why you think that a US-based Wikimedia Foundation could ignore the laws of the US, no matter who they're targetting.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:30, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

No reason why US should ignore other countries laws. The name "commons" is in itself a statement. --Havang(nl) (talk) 21:12, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

What do you mean, "why US should ignore other countries laws"? Why should the US intertwine its copyright law with that of two hundred other countries, and start trying to interpret foreign law? Commons does not mean that a Wikipedia can use an image from Commons safely in their home nations; the w:Rule of the shorter term is far from universal. Mexico has a life+100 copyright without the term of the shorter term, meaning that many images on Commons are still under copyright in Mexico.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:17, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually this is not specific to the US. Every country in the world ignores all other countries' laws. That's why we have treaties, like the Berne Convention, before which countries only protected works created inside their borders. -- Orionist ★ talk 23:27, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Commons sends its uploads to the www = world wide web. It is not just on a USA intranet.
Commons does interprete other countries copyright laws dayly.
The images are available on the www and therefore need not be copied to commons; commons can offer access to the image by making an external link. That is the in an ethical and wordwide legal manner to do.
I cite Commons:Licensing :When uploading material from a country outside the U.S., the copyright laws of that country and the U.S. normally apply. If material that has been saved from a third-party website is uploaded to Commons, the copyright laws of the U.S., the country of residence of the uploader, and the country of location of the web servers of the website apply. --Havang(nl) (talk) 09:48, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
- There are no laws with regard to the world wide web. Laws apply to servers hosted in a country. Commons is hosted in the US.
- No, we voluntarily subject ourselves to them, because we have chosen to do so in votes and discussions
- Wut ? We don't depend on external services for our content. It has always been that way and it will not change. We cannot rely on the fact that the Library of Congress will never move their images to another location on the web.
- I also cite Commons:Licensing: "Exception: Faithful reproductions of two-dimensional works of art, such as paintings, which are in the public domain are an exception to this rule. " Seems clear enough to me. TheDJ (talk) 13:08, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Hello, how is this not a case of {{PD-art}}? It is fully within Commons policy to upload any image that is solely a faithful reproduction of a 2D public domain original work of art. Nyttend (talk) 11:42, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

- Once again, current Commons requirements do not prevent works that violate the law in other countries from being uploaded. All the works of Category:Teodor Axentowicz are still in copyright in Mexico, and will be until 2038. Commons requirements are an incoherent set of rules, and I hate to generalize from them. As for Internet rules, we can hardly take the greatest common denominator of the world's countries; do you really want us to upload only what's acceptable in Saudi Arabia, China and Germany?--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:52, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

We are bound to the laws of the country where the server of the website we want to copy from is situated. --Havang(nl) (talk) 09:34, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Do you know for a fact if this is correct? It seems to me that we would not have been operating on the current basis for so long if indeed we were acting illegally. I suggest that you try and contact the Wikimedia Foundation's General Counsel Mike Godwin (mgodwin

wikimedia.org) and clarify the legal situation with him. (However, I have not always been successful in getting responses from him.) — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 09:45, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Is that a claim of law? If so, then it's not true; once you've downloaded an image, which placing it on the web like this implicitly permits, then there's absolutely no connection in any way to any country but your own. Your only obligation is to the laws of your own state.--Prosfilaes (talk) 09:51, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I fully support the WMF's position that PD images are PD images, and I'm very glad that the U.S. has recognized this legally. Even so, we need to be on guard against attempts to change this state of affairs. Google would not have scanned a million books, and Bill Gates wouldn't have "charitably" scanned a vast archive of old photographs and dumped the originals down a mine shaft, if they didn't think that sooner or later the U.S. was going to sneak through some law to make the electronic forms of these PD documents their property forever. I don't think we can assume that the workaround of re-scanning all the documents ourselves is really reliable either, because the point of any new law would be to give over the public domain to a monopoly owner. Maybe your new scan would be a "derivative work" of the first registered or published scan of such-and-such a quality — why not? But the more that people around the world get used to having this material available and using it, the more of a fight people will put up when such a scheme gets enacted. Which is why it's crucial for us to keep and expand such resources now. Wnt (talk) 18:13, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

This WMF's position has to be combined with this other WMF's position: When uploading material from a country outside the U.S., the copyright laws of that country and the U.S. normally apply. If material that has been saved from a third-party website is uploaded to Commons, the copyright laws of the U.S., the country of residence of the uploader, and the country of location of the web servers of the website apply. --Havang(nl) (talk) 19:05, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

It is combined. The WMF's position on PD material being PD material is designed to override the Commons (not WMF's) position that when uploading material from outside the US, the copyright laws of that country apply. (Note the later rule is ignored on en.WP as well as elsewhere.)--Prosfilaes (talk) 19:11, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

How to disable "Download all sizes", etc.

The new "Download all sizes / Use this file on the web / etc." icons and text are poorly positioned in my browser (Firefox 3.6.9 for Linux). I would like to disable them completely, since I have no use for them. How do I do this? (I won't mention how much I hate it when "helpful features" are added to applications without providing the user with an obvious way to turn them off....) - dcljr (talk) 20:47, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

BTW, I've discovered the reason for the poor positioning appears to be my use of the "Place categories above all other content" gadget. Apparently the code for these icons doesn't take that choice into account (at least, not properly). Still, I'd like to get rid of the icons completely, if possible. - dcljr (talk) 20:56, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree, these tabs are really annoying. Fry1989 (talk) 21:03, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I express the same wish, for the same reason (icons and text poorly positioned), with a different configuration. --Myrabella (talk) 21:09, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

See here or basically any thread higher up. Amada44 ^{talk to me} 21:15, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

While I think it's great that a number of editors have gone out of their way to promote this method of turning the feature off, adding text to one's vector.js page isn't the most obvious of solutions. Novice users and/or future users shouldn't have to dig through archived Village Pump threads to find out how to turn this feature off. I'm a technical dunce, so maybe this is a stupid question, but is there a way that an on/off switch could be added to the "My Preferences" tab? --Skeezix1000 (talk) 14:44, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Not needed anymore see: Commons:Village_pump#Stockphoto_now_a_gadget. TheDJ (talk) 14:50, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

To Amanda44: Thanks for the link, but note that it's not as easy as you might think to find information about this feature (especially how to turn it off) if you don't already know it's called "stockphoto". (FYI, I did do a cursory scan/search of this this page before posting here, I just overlooked the relevant section.) To TheDJ: I don't think there's a gadget for this any more. I don't see it in my prefs, anyway. - dcljr (talk) 11:01, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

October 8

artwork namespace

Following the transformation of template:paintings into a more general {{Artwork}}, the way data on artworks are organised have experienced quite a few changes in Commons. It now appears that the creation of an "artwork" namespace could be useful in many ways. The idea has been discussed at template talk:artwork, but more feedback would be useful.

General idea

In many cases, Wikipedia have several images of the same artworks. In most cases, most of the info about the file will be the same for all of them. It would really ease maintenance and make many things clearer to have, say, a "Laocoon Group" template for all photographs of the Laocoon Group. It seems that the simplest place to put it would be an artwork namespace.

Problem 1: layout of file pages

Option 1: one single infobox for both info about the artwork info about the photo (photographer, comments on the photo). That's what we have now. It probably looks cleaner, but it makes templates a bit more complex. Among other inconveniences, it also gives a wrong attribution with MediaWiki:Stockphoto.js)

Option 2: an infobox for the file and another for the artwork. It could be done several ways. We can simply add {{Information}} after {{Artwork}} (example here). IMHO it looks a bit lengthy and unclear to the cursory reader. We could also have a template using the same parameters as information but with a much more compact layout. It could be placed either below artwork description, or above like a small image caption (some possible layouts: 1, 2, 3)

Categorization problem

To limit redundancies and make navigation easier, it would be really nice if the artwork namespace could have category features. I mean if photos of the Laocoon Group could be categorized in artwork:Laocoon Group. Would that be possible ?
An infelicitous consequence of the artwork namespace could be that much less images would appear in categories. However, that would be turned into a great improvement if the "artworks" themselves could appear with an image inside categories (I mean something similar to what museums do). This way we would have one and only one photo of each artwork in a category, which would make things much clearer. Something like that can be done through an ad hod template like User:Zolo/test6. But it would not be very clear and would not work well for automatic categories. Could something be done to allow us to make it in a cleaner way ?--Zolo (talk) 11:32, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

I don't see the value in making things more complex. We have a few statues with a dozen or more pictures, that generally fit easily in categories. A template could be made for the information, but each photo of a statue has a lot of individual information; when it was shot and under what conditions, and what part of the statue it was focused on. In any case, the making of template seems orthogonal to making a new namespace. We have several paintings with a handful of different shots--I bet we don't have any 2D-artwork with more than 3 pictures of the exact same work. Those fit nicely in other works part of the artwork template.--Prosfilaes (talk) 13:09, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I work for several years on Commons around museum structure (categorization, description...), I uploaded hundreds of photos on museum artifacts and I can say that having some more appropriate way to manage them would be very useful.

It's not about complexity, it's about logic and convenience. There are hundreds, thousands of works which already have more than 10 photos on Commons—and potentially, there are millions of artifacts which could have dozen of photographs each (compare with scientific databases such as Beazley archive for Greek pottery e.g.)...

So we need to manage it in a smart way—for us and for the reader. There are different tries for doing it (see also Category:Louvre Cp10475 for instance); IMO it would be a good idea to define a best pratice for the whole project. Bibi Saint-Pol (sprechen) 13:44, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Zolo and Bibi Saint-Pol that on occasion a template storing common information related to a specific artwork could be useful, I am not convinced however that there is a great many artworks which would benefit from this. An Artwork: namespace or pseudonamespace (like Museum:) would be useful. I proposed an example: Artwork:Mona Lisa template which can take Source and other parameters which would change with every file. --Jarekt (talk) 18:09, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Personnally, I am quite willing to begin by a pseudonamespace for works that have quite many photos. However, even in this very simple case, the layout question remains. For example, File:Mona Lisa detail column left.jpg should probably use Artwork:Mona Lisa, but it should be mentionned somewhere in the description that it is only a detail. So my "problem 1" remains. As for the categorisation thing it can be done later, so maybe I should not have mentionned it here so soon - but I hope something can be done.--Zolo (talk) 23:22, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I feel OK with this. As the question does not seem to interest anyone but us, we should start and see what happens ;)

One point of interest for me is the title to be given to each page of "Artwork:" (pseudo)-namespace.

If "Artwork:Mona Lisa" sounds good since it is a widely known name, what about works without a common title? Like File:Herakles Olympos Louvre F116 full.jpg e.g.?—I would advise something like "Artwork:Louvre F 116" for such cases (Museum/collection name + accession number): this is unique, neutral and clear for people who are used to museum conventions. Same thing, for instance, with File:Rhesos krater Antikensammlung Berlin 1984.39.jpg which should give "Artwork:Antikensammlung Berlin 1984.39" (since “Rhesos krater” is just a nickname and not a real/widely common name). Are you OK with this?
Second point: what about works who have an original non-English title, like Category:La Liberté guidant le peuple or Category:Las Meninas. IMO the title given by the artist should always be respected, so "Artwork:La Liberté guidant le peuple" or "Artwork:Las Meninas". Bibi Saint-Pol (sprechen) 07:03, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Ok, let's try it, I let you choose the layout.

I agree that it is probably useful to have the accession number, but having something a bit more telling as well could be useful, especially if there is no "default image". "Artwork:Vinci - Mona Lisa - Louvre inv 779" and "Artwork:Rhesos krater - Antikensammlung Berlin 1984.39" may look a bit heavy but it would allow to have one standard for all artworks and I think it would be the best way to avoid ambiguity. For instance, it would make clear that a study for the Raft of the Medusa should not use "artwork:Géricault - The Raft of the Medusa - Louvre inv. 4884".
I would prefer Spanish for a Spanish work, and even Swedish for a Swedish work, but I don't think it would be mananageable for Korean or Arabic. So maybe we should use the original title only when it is used in English (as is the case for Las Meninas).--Zolo (talk) 08:31, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Stockphoto now a gadget

I have disable the stockphoto script from Magnus Manske and turned it into a gadget instead. It's not really useful that way, since it is mostly targeted at non-registered users, but I felt there were too many people complaining. TheDJ (talk) 14:01, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Its useless like that. One might just as well disable it completely. I found it an extremely helpful tool, not for me but for nonregisterd users. Amada44 ^{talk to me} 15:33, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you! Even adding the stockphoto_prevent=true; into monobook.js didn't disable it and it was rather annoying. Bidgee (talk) 15:36, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps you are using the vector skin ? In that case it would be vector.js, not monobook.js of course. TheDJ (talk) 16:47, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

@Amada44, the tool wasn't ready for going live by far. Now it can be developed first and then, again, switched live for all (maybe again with a Opt-out). @TheDJ: Thanks for acting! Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 16:45, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Couldn't we have a gadget to disable / hide the tool instead? It's what we do for the "image tools" (gallery, etc.) for example, and it would make sense to leave the icons by default for unregistered users, while providing an easy way for registered users to disable it through the gadget. guillom 16:17, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with guillom. Kameraad Pjotr 16:44, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

We could, but I have to agree with some of the remarks I have seen. This gadget is not well developed enough to be enabled by default. Especially when it comes to the way it renders it's elements. Today I found out that the transparency of the buttons for instance looks incredibly ugly on IE8. We wouldn't allow other gadgets with so many problems to be enabled by default here, and we probably shouldn't have this one enabled by default yet. TheDJ (talk) 16:46, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

A gadget is practically disabling the thing completely. Let's try to actively work around the problems. --DieBuche (talk) 16:49, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I reenabled it with the following changes: 1. Users now only get the small version, while anons get the big version 2. Small version is directly below #filetoc 3. Both feature an [x]; clicking that will remove the icons & set a cookie to make the removal more permanent. This solution should be ok for most users. comments? --DieBuche (talk) 18:05, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

This might be the best solution. But the [x] has a small problem: if I disable the icons, then after a while I decide that I want them, I have to navigate through my browser's settings to find the responsible cookie and delete it. So why not replace it with a [+],[-] option? Another issue is, do we really need the file TOC? Does anyone use it at all? Why not just replace it with our Stockphoto icons? And finally, I'd like to know if other users think that these icons better be left-aligned rather than center-aligned, since the images are left aligned. That would keep the icons above the images, whatever the image size or screen resolution is. -- Orionist ★ talk 20:35, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

It is completely beyond my comprehension, why a gadget, that is primarily targeted at non-logged-in users (as people apparently agree) is shoved in the faces of logged-in users and creates a massive amount of friction. Of course only logged-in users are debating and burning time with this. What a waste. Enable it by default for anonymous users, make it an opt-in gadget for logged-in users. * shakes head * --Dschwen (talk) 18:57, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

What is stockphoto? Where do I see it? I don't see any disturbing things on my screen. --Havang(nl) (talk) 19:04, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Compromise on Pieter Kupiter

Another suggestion related to Pieter: Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard/User_problems#Compromise_on_Pieter_Kupiter. --MGA73 (talk) 20:07, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

October 9

Edittools borked

+ Something seems to interfere with the edittools. 1 or 2 days ago, it stopped working. Docu at 03:54, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Works for me. Try clearing your cache. Maybe you're stuck on a bad JS edit of the stockphoto thing. Rocket000 (talk) 06:26, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

My "error console" shows: context is null at "UsabilityInitiative/js/plugins.combined.min.js?283y Line: 119". Despite that I don't use most of those features other than the skin. Clicking on one of the buttons makes the edit box loose focus. Docu at 07:03, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

browser + version ????? TheDJ (talk) 08:55, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Questions

1. Can I upload photos from google books from 1974 if they are ful view. Like this: http://books.google.com/books?id=VIbbjVROf8AC&dq=marko+polo&source=gbs_navlinks_s ? And the license is PD-googlbooks ?

2. Can I upload stamps that others in the web uploaded under PD-exampt or I have to scan them by myself?

3. Postards are the same like stamps?

Thank you B — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.132.16.204 (talk • contribs) 20:02, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Hello. Here are my views:

You can upload photographs from Google Books only if they are in the public domain or licensed under a free licence (such as a Creative Commons licence). If you are not sure whether the photographs are in the public domain, please provide a link to them so that others can have a look and assess their copyright status. There is no such licence as "PD-googlebooks". You should choose an appropriate licence from "Commons:Copyright tags".
If you are sure that the stamps are exempt from copyright, and the images from the Internet are exact reproductions of the stamps, then it is acceptable to download the images and upload them to the Commons.
Yes, but only if you can ensure that all the images on the postcard are in the public domain or licensed under a free licence.

Do sign your messages by typing four tildes ("~~~~"). — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 12:17, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.132.16.204 (talk • contribs) 20:02, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

That book is a reissue of a book by "Reclus, Elisée, 1830-1905". The text of that book is therefore clearly in the public domain, per PD-100. The creator of that specific image however is not entirely clear to me. The books in question were published between 1875 – 1894 in Europe, so it is extremely unlikely that they are still copyrighted. TheDJ (talk) 14:20, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

In that case, I suppose {{Anonymous-EU}} or {{PD-EU-no author disclosure}} can be applied to the image. {{PD-Google books}} can be added too. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 16:09, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Attribution

I have just noticed a new button that creates attribution for images on Commons. It uses my user name. Anyway to change it so that it uses my real name? If someone knows could they drop me a note on my talk page. Thanks. --Jmh649 (talk) 19:47, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

It uses whatever the information template, or the CC license's attribution line provides for attribution. TheDJ (talk) 20:12, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

K thanks. --Jmh649 (talk) 21:52, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

iPhone 4 and geotagging

I've just uploaded some photos from my iPhone 4 with geotags included in the file. How can it be (automatically) added to the page? Ex: File:Oslo_Radhusgata_25_Redernes_hus_inngangsparti.JPG. Nsaa (talk) 14:32, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

DschwenBot does this for all new uploaded images. As a matter of fact, it updated your image just minutes before you posted. TheDJ (talk) 15:18, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks!Nsaa (talk) 10:35, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

American Kestrel image

This image appears to have been uploaded by its creator, but it is on flickr here and does not have a acceptable license. The permission description is simply "upon request". I'm not sure what to do about this. Thanks, Focus (talk) 02:50, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

My guess, given that the uploader's name is the same as the Flickr photog's name, is that the copyright owner uploaded a lower resolution image here, and that the permission line indicates that high-resolution images will be made available under a similar license upon request. Do others think the same? (if so, I'll update the image documentation with correct info.) — Huntster (t @ c) 07:45, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Unless it was uploaded to flickr after being published here, it would need an OTRS tag. -- Docu at 08:13, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

According to this flickr page:

Taken on May 12, 2010 at 10.54pm CDT

Posted to Flickr September 25, 2010 at 12.50AM CDT

Uploaded here: 2010-05-15 19:48:58. So it was posted to flickr after being posted here. All right. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 21:04, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

What should I say in the image description? Focus (talk) 00:15, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and updated the Information fields. — Huntster (t @ c) 02:03, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Category:Storehouses

Is there need for a Category:Storehouses? see commons-search storehouse. If so, can a bot do here some job to fill the category? --Havang(nl) (talk) 11:20, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

See en:Storehouse and Category:Warehouses. I added a description including the word "storehopuse" to the category Warehouses. This may help to find the right category. Wouter (talk) 16:28, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

According to en:Warehouses, Warehouses are commercial storehouses, but for noncommercial storehouses? I am looking for categorising "Dijkmagazijnen", used for storing safety material. --Havang(nl) (talk) 17:15, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

The Dutch version of en:Warehouses is nl:Magazijn (opslagplaats) where the word commercial is not mentioned. I suggest to create a Category:Dijkmagazijnen under Category:Warehouses in the Netherlands because there are at least 8 dijkmagazijnen as rijksmonument in the Netherlands. May be you can also write a page Dijkmagazijn in the nl-wiki. Wouter (talk) 19:46, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Uploading a photograph my grandfather took

Hi everyone! It appears that my grandfather took a photograph of an important politician about 40 years ago. He hasn't given it to me yet, but when he does, I would like to upload it here. I am, however, unsure as to what license may apply. It would be an enormous hassle for my grandfather to create an account here, but it would be possible for me to create a waiver for him to sign, like one that says he as the creator of the photograph releases it by the such-and-such license. What do you think? --MichaelBueker (talk) 22:46, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

You'd probably be best off asking at CT:L or Commons talk:OTRS. -mattbuck (Talk) 22:50, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Just print the pre-filled (by you) permission form and give him to sign. Then scan/photograph it and send to permissions-commons-de@wikimedia.org . See Commons:OTRS/de for all info. Viele Grüße --Saibo (Δ) 23:41, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

October 11

checking svg-files before posting on wikimedia

I want to check the svg-files I make for wikimedia beforehand. The files that look good in inkscape suddenly show errors after having posted them. I already started a thread on the inkscape forum about it: [9], and the solution given was already familiar to me. SVG-files can be checked with a program like Bluefish (linux) but that doesn't suffice. An svg-file can apparently be well coded, yet still show errors on wikimedia. An example for this can be found here: [10] (look at the arrows). Maybe this is something for the tech people. Okay, let me hear what you think about it and if you are having similar problems on this issue. Citypeek (talk) 05:31, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

The renderer MediaWiki uses isn't perfect, but there's some basic steps you can take that solve many complications. The main two things: convert everything (like arrows) to paths and save as "Plain SVG", not the default "Inkscape SVG. This is a common issue so there's lots of help out there. Here are some useful links: Commons:Graphics village pump (although posting here is ok too), Help:SVG, Help:Inkscape, w:Wikipedia:Graphic Lab/Resources/SVG, COM:EIC#Ink. I'm unaware of any software that can give you a preview of what it will look like before uploading (but I use Windows; I think there's stuff out there for Linux). Rocket000 (talk) 07:24, 10 October 2010 (UTC).

You can upload the images over this file: File:Test.svg This file is used just for testing svg files. Amada44 ^{talk to me} 08:08, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for answering, Rocket000 and Amada44. These were excellent answers. Answers I can work with. Citypeek (talk) 08:24, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

If you have Linux, you can use rsvg-view to preview how the file will display (MediaWiki uses rsvg to render SVG files). Pruneau^talk 09:06, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Or Windows, if you set it up right. Jarry1250 (talk) 21:54, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

An SVG file will almost certainly have major problems if it includes any of the following constructs which Inkscape seems to insert fairly regularly:

An attempt to link to an external raster image by means of an <image tag.
"Flowtext" tags (i.e. flowpara, flowspan, etc.)
Inserting " in an internal link (i.e. ="url("#anchor")" instead of ="url(#anchor)")

I must have fixed and reuploaded well over a hundred SVG files due to just the first problem alone... AnonMoos (talk) 14:54, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Additionally RSVGLIB does not recognise some CSS constructions (thankfully(?), SVG editor's bloat their code by not including this sort of optimisation). Jarry1250 (talk) 21:54, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

One quick way to check an SVG locally is to drag the file into either Firefox or Opera. -84user (talk) 22:29, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Sure. Looking good there is a first step. The main problem is about the svg renderer used by Commons which is very different from the renderer in Firefox. I test svgs usually also in my image viewer gThumb (Linux). Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 23:46, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Testing it in your browser won't show you what the PNG MediaWiki will create looks like. Rocket000 (talk) 20:42, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm working on a Toolserver tool to ease these issues, but no guarantees. Jarry1250 (talk) 21:48, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

That would be awesome. One of the changes in the new upload system as part of the Usability Initiative will have users upload before filling out the information. One of the reasons listed is that it will give a preview of the file. Rocket000 (talk) 22:57, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Seems I was not the only one with problems uploading svg-files. Thank you all for the answers. Finally, I have been able to upload svg-files the correct way: Vesuvius eruption Citypeek (talk) 13:22, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Brass works?

I have some pictures from Bjurfors bruk, which was a place for brass melting and -manufacturing. For iron, such a place is called an ironworks, but what is the proper name for brass? V-wolf (talk) 18:08, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Brass foundry. Man vyi (talk) 18:18, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Great! Are there enough brass foundries in the world to create category:Brass foundries by country and then Brass foundries in Sweden (in my case), or should I let it be in category:brass? V-wolf (talk) 18:37, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd create Category:Brass foundries, then split it by country later if it gathers enough images. --Carnildo (talk) 21:33, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Good idea! V-wolf (talk) 15:23, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Positive or Negative mark in Watchlist

I've been donating quite a large number of files to the commons recently. I put every one of these files in my watchlist. These files in my watchlist have sometimes a positive (green) or negative (red) number. I've been wondering, what do these mean? I've looked everywhere and can't find a suitable answer to this.

Thank You

Nicolas M. Perrault (talk) 02:16, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

That number refers the amount of bytes either added (green) or removed (red) from the description page. If you wish to change or remove this, see w:Wikipedia:Added or removed characters. Rocket000 (talk) 05:54, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Perfect, exactly what I was looking for. Thanks. Nicolas M. Perrault

File:Andersenmap.pdf

The text on the PDF displays, but the preview image of the PDF looks somewhat smushed. Is File:Andersenmap.pdf supposed to display like that? WhisperToMe (talk) 02:30, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

That PDF has a landscape layout (10×7.5 in) and MediaWiki's smushing it into portrait dimensions (1,125 × 1,500 px). I think it treats all PDFs the same. Rocket000 (talk) 06:01, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Abuse

I was watching some transgressions of rules, and one is very common here, that:

Where's that "simple geometric shapes and / or text"?

This is a text: BOSCH

I think it's better to be more careful with these images. Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton (talk) 03:58, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I think font designers frequently complain about this (w:Typeface#Legal_aspects). Docu at 04:32, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

The US Copyright Office is entirely clear; they do not register fonts or simple text in fonts, including all sorts of calligraphy. No matter how fancy, as long as they're just written text, they won't be registered.--Prosfilaes (talk) 04:40, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

They do not copyright basic text or basic shapes, but they do allow for trademarks as well for allowing copyright on some logos that are unique. Too many people now are just misusing the "simple geometric shapes and/or text" concept for registered trademarks. I think that is what needs to be sorted out here. Wikimedia Commons is supposed to only host files that can be freely reused for *any* use, including commercial uses. But try making some sports products and slapping File:Adidas Logo.svg on all products and all advertising for those products, or try putting File:Coca-Cola logo.svg on some new soft drink products or open a new store and use File:Target old logo.svgfor the stores name and place it on all advertising - these all consist of simple geometric shapes and/or text so they are in the public domain according to the basic {{PD-textlogo}} tag used on most every single logo hosted here. The addition of the {{Trademark}} tag almost seems like an after thought in some cases, and in others it left off completely. I always found it a bit ironic the foundation allows a lot of "free" logos and trademarks yet trademarks and logos such as File:Wikipedia-logo-en.png, File:Commons-logo-en.svg and File:Wikimedia-logo.svg, and any derivatives, are © & ™ All rights reserved, Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. and have their own {{Copyright by Wikimedia}} tag. But, in regards to this topic, I think Wikimedia Commons should start to limit (or not accept at all) any registered trademark because clearly they cannot be commercially used used for any reason. Just to be clear: some logos and/or trademarks may also by under copyright (Source: What Does Copyright Protect?, How do I copyright a name, title, slogan or logo? - However, copyright protection may be available for logo artwork that contains sufficient authorship. In some circumstances, an artistic logo may also be protected as a trademark.) but overall:

Some brand names, trade names, slogans, and phrases may be entitled to protection under laws relating to unfair competition, or they may be entitled to protection and registration under the provisions of state or federal trademark laws. The federal trademark statute covers trademarks and service marks—words, phrases, symbols, or designs that distinguish the goods or services of one party from those of another. The Copyright Office has no role in these matters.
Source: U. S. Copyright Office Circular 34

Currently the {{PD-textlogo}} tag provides a link to Commons:Non-copyright restrictions, but I think most people only bother to see the no copyright text and move on. And a lot of users will say that Commons:Non-copyright restrictions is only a guideline, not a policy, so it doesn't need to be followed. But really these issues go hand in hand. Soundvisions1 (talk) 15:48, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

We also have Commons:Licensing#Simple_design. --Martin H. (talk) 16:26, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

The main advantage of having logos here rather than at en.wp is that other languages wont need to upload them there too. Docu at 16:53, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Trademarks are different;

would violate Apple's trademark if used in certain contexts, as would pretty much any picture of an apple. We're not going to delete all pictures of apples so people don't accidentally use to brand their new type of computer.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:38, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

@Soundvisions1: Files only need to be free in regard to copyright. They don't need to be usable in any possible context.

Logos _are_ usable in a commercial context, e.g. if you publish a commercial book about logo design.

When you use the Adidas logo on commercial products that's illegal because you try to pretend that the products are Adidas products when they are not.

Many coats of arms are free, but if you use them in your letterhead and thereby create the impression that you act in the name of the government the coat of arms represents then that is illegal.

Many autographs are free, but if you use them on a cheque then that is illegal.

Many portraits of people are free, but if you put them in you curriculum vitae and pretend to be that person then that is illegal.

Many images of cars are free, but if you put them in your eBay auction and pretend to offer a brand-new car when in reality the car you are selling is a rusty piece of junk then that is illegal.

Do you see the pattern? The files are okay it's just that you cannot use them legally for every possible purpose. That's normal and true for every file and in no way specific to trademarked logos. --Slomox (talk) 18:12, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

See Commons:Non-copyright_restrictions#Trademark_law, Commons:Image_casebook#Trademarks. We don't concern ourselves with trademark restrictions, although we often do warn reusers about trademarks. Dcoetzee (talk) 19:06, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

@ Slomox: I think you may have missed what I said in regards to trademarks - you basically repeated it. And I am usually the one who makes long posts. :) My point was that Wikimedia Commons is acting as a distributor/sub-distributor of free content. As such it is misleading to those who are not familiar with copyright laws to find "free" logos and trademarks that really can not be used in a commercial sense. Remember, you and I may understand this, but this is a "world wide web" were a user scan something and say "I am the author". A 10 year old web surfer can find an image on a website and upload it thinking "if it is on the internet it is free". A 40 year old music fan can use images from their "personal photo album" and claim "I, the copyright holder..." I have had past discussions with admins and users who feel that all "our" duty is is to post the content with some basic terms of use and it is up to the end user to figure out if it is legal or not. (See the above section about attribution as an example of how license requirements can be misread) In the United Sate it is a fairly common saying that ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it. In that sense I think there needs to be a more specific "warning" when it comes to registered trademarks because as distributors/sub-distributors the idea that, as Dcoetzee worded it, "We don't concern ourselves with trademark restrictions" is turning a blind eye to the law. It is a multi layered issued, but Wikimedia Commons does not accept fair use material but an end user is warned via the {{Trademark}} tag that "Before using this content, please ensure that you have the right to use it under the laws which apply in the circumstances of your intended use". If it were truly "free" content being distributed to people you would need that wanring. Soundvisions1 (talk) 21:45, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

And I will repeat myself; the use of any picture of an apple on a business that sells music or computers is likely to violate the trademark of Apple Records or Apples Computers. Any image in Category:Apples. We can't effectively warn for every use that might violate trademark law.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:43, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

The definition of "free" (as used here) itself is rooted in copyright law; trademark is not directly relevant. It is a fairly specific, somewhat loaded term, not necessarily synonymous with what the English word may suggest. Something is "free" even though it may force authors to license their own original portion of derivative works that way, even if the re-used work is a relatively small portion of the derivative work. Even the Free Software Foundation, who probably founded the concept, has no issue with "free" works containing trademarks; they explained this in a document which detailed why the Apache License (also a "free" license) was compatible with the GPL even though it contained a trademark clause (which basically specified that nothing in the license limited trademark rights in any way). Trademark is about the manner in which a mark is used... some uses are OK, and can be done without permission no matter what, and some uses are not. It's not at all like copyright, which in general prohibits the simple act of making a copy without permission. I real life, there are many other restrictions on media... for one example, any photo of a person cannot be used in advertising or some other commercial situations without the pictured person's permission -- very similar restrictions to trademark actually -- yet Commons does not try to obtain such permission either. It would be highly counter-productive to eliminate all photos of living people from Commons, but that is not all that far off from what you are suggesting. Like trademark, there are many valid, perfectly legal uses of images restricted by personality rights, particularly in our educational contexts, so we keep them and use them in those contexts. Commons is not trying to be a royalty-free database (very different concept); rather we try to host "free" media, which is enforced through copyright specifically, so that is the area we concentrate on and need to pay attention to. We are trying to provide media where the copyright (the major restriction for a large swath of uses) is mostly or entirely licensed away. Restrictions coming from any other part of any other law are the responsibility of others; we can't know every law in every country, nor do we try. Carl Lindberg (talk) 05:36, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Just a few comments. I am saying, very simple idea, that not every single logo is copyright free and the {{Trademark}} tag is not a required element when it comes to registered trademarks, but should be. I realize that a specific example is being used by some here because it is used in an article but there is a world of difference between an image of apple and the actual registered trademark(s) of Apple and Apple Computers...I never indicated otherwise nor did I indicate all images of apples should be removed. Also I never mentioned the idea of Wikimedia Commons being a "royalty-free database", however that is a very valid issue to be raised. If one reads the accepted CCL they all state that when using a license you are keeping copyright but giving up the right to collect royalties. PD is out of copyright all together, so there would be no claims of royalties on those either. So Carl's idea that "Commons is not trying to be a royalty-free database..." may be true, but because of the accepted licenses Wikimedia Commons *is* "a royalty-free database" provided every image is truly free and using an accepted license. And Carl is correct is the assessment that, in some ways, images of people have "very similar restrictions to trademark". The {{Personality rights}} tag that can be added to images of people much in the same way {{Trademark}} can be added to logos and trademark images. But ultimately there is a slightly wider concept at play - and that is the current system for contributing your own work does not allow for many "restrictions" per Commons:Choosing a license. For example an image uploaded with the statement "Can not be used for commercial purpose", or using a CC NC license, would be deleted as out of scope. An image marked a "Fair use" or "For promotional use" would be deleted. I could not have uploaded an image such as File:The Onyx Hotel Tour London.jpg and said "You may not use this for promotion or commercial interests" as it would be deleted. (However if one were to read the given CCL's "human readable" summary for that image one would read: Rights other persons may have either in the work itself or in how the work is used, such as publicity or privacy rights" are not affected - or, in more plain English, you may not be able to use this image for promotion or commercial interests.) If any of those "restrictions" were applied to logos and trademarks as well by the uploader they too would be deleted. Yet the wider opinion appears to be that, in the case of logos and trademarks, because they are commonly all thought to be PD and, despite the fact they can not be used for commercial purposes, they are still "free enough" for distribution by Wikimedia Commons. And, again, Wikimedia Commons is a distributor of these images - they are not simply "hosted" here for people to view them, they are here so people can *use* them. That is the idea behind Wikimedia Commons. I did give some very specific exceptions to all of this and nobody has really commented on those. But I think it is important to note explicit wording about this exemption: The Wikimedia Foundation logo and logos for particular projects (such as Wikipedia and Commons) are trademarks of and copyrighted by the Wikimedia Foundation. They are not generally available for other uses, though reuse in press or media about Wikimedia projects is explicitly permitted. Local "fair use" or "fair dealing" laws (e.g. for academic or critical purposes) may also apply in your jurisdiction. For all other uses, please contact the Foundation. (Source: Commons:Reusing content outside Wikimedia). And to be clear I do not think that is wrong, but it is clearly not consistent with what can be uploaded, especially in regards to logos and trademarks. Are all logos and trademarks hosted here in PD? No. Does File:Adidas Logo.svg fall under the same sort of wording on the source website? Yes. Can it carry that same wording here? No. And why is that? Because that would make it out of scope? Or because if it did it would not be free enough for distribution by Wikimedia Commons? Soundvisions1 (talk) 19:41, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Who said it was consistent ? It is how it is, for good reasons. There are exceptions and they are documented, for good reasons. This is a shared repository of the WM Foundation. It's logos have to be used a lot throughout our encyclopedia and are copyrighted and trademarked. The trademark needs to be enforced by the Foundation trough its own usage of the trademarks, in order to remain to be a valid trademark. That is why those logos can carry those words. You may not like our community or our Foundation rules, but they exist. TheDJ (talk) 13:25, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

As Carl explained at some length, the concepts of copyright and trademark have to be distinguished. A logo can have copyright in it because it has a certain level of complexity, and it can also be a trademark because it is used to identify goods. Here at the Commons we are concerned with the copyright aspect of logos. If a logo consists only of text and simple shapes, it is not copyrightable and can be uploaded to the Commons. Because it is not copyrightable, users can download it and modify it, and even use it for commercial purposes (for example, publishing it in a book that discusses branding or graphic design). That is what we mean when we say a logo is "free". However, if the logo also happens to be a trademark, the user cannot use it as a trademark because this would breach the trademark holder's rights. For example, the Microsoft logo is regarded as too simple to be copyrighted. However, if a user downloads it and puts it on to packs of computer software or on hardware components, that would infringe Microsoft Corp.'s trademark. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 16:30, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

I understand what a copyright is. I understand what a registered trademark is. I know I have said, and Carl, and others, have reinforced, that service marks should not be used for commercial reasons - especially on like products or to give the indication the product is the same product or manufactured by the same company. I also know that some users may not like the policies or guidelines here (or at other wikis) and will to do whatever they see fit. Yes, they have been "warned" via generic wordings that "this image may still be subject to other restrictions" or "You are solely responsible for ensuring that you do not infringe the rights to this trademark" but everyone needs to go back up to the issue raised by Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton, and which they explained, in extremely basic terms: This is a text: BOSCH. I think everyone would not argue that is text and would not fall under any sort of copyright. That was not their point, nor mine. I expanded on the idea as it would relate to registered trademarks, and even copyrightable logos that could become/are a trademark. If File:Adidas Logo.svg and File:Target Logo.svg are "too simple to be copyrighted" than so would be File:Commons-logo-en.svg and File:Wikimedia-logo.svg. But this is the point that seesm to be split. For example if one based their re-use on comments such as the ones JackLee made (based on the concept of Wikimedia Commons) I can take File:Adidas Logo.svg and "download it and modify it, and even use it for commercial purposes" but would not be able to take File:Wikimedia-logo.svg and do the same because, as TheDJ said, "The trademark needs to be enforced by the Foundation trough its own usage of the trademarks, in order to remain to be a valid trademark." Keeping in mind both are being distributed via this website, or are "hosted" on this website for distribution to everyone for free.

So in order to perhaps make it clear what I am saying, using the exact words of the Foundation about their trademark: The Wikimedia Foundation logo and logos for particular projects (such as Wikipedia and Commons) are trademarks of and copyrighted by the Wikimedia Foundation. They are not generally available for other uses, though reuse in press or media about Wikimedia projects is explicitly permitted. Local "fair use" or "fair dealing" laws (e.g. for academic or critical purposes) may also apply in your jurisdiction. For all other uses, please contact the Foundation. Now compare that to what adidas says about their trademarks: All trademarks, service marks and trade names of adidas used herein (including but not limited to: the adidas name, the adidas corporate logo, the adidas trefoil Design, and the Three Stripe logo) are trademarks or registered trademarks of adidas or its affiliates. You may not use, copy, reproduce, republish, upload, post, transmit, distribute, or modify adidas trademarks in any way, except as explicitly permitted under this web site. The use of adidas trademarks on any other web site or network computer environment is only allowed if it is explicitly permitted under this web site. Show me where, legally, there is any difference between the legal rights the Foundation and adidas have when it comes to service marks. There is zero difference. And stating "You may not like our community or our Foundation rules, but they exist" to defend one, but not the other can be slightly reworded to read "You may not like the country or our laws, but they exist". Bottom line is that some need to step out of the box and look at what Wikemedia Commons is as a whole: it is not "a shared repository of the WM Foundation", even if some of the files distributed via this service are in use at various wikis. Wikimedia Commons is a free shared repository of free files offered by the Foundation for *everyone* to use. The basic "in a nutshell", plain English, text says it is a database of 7,543,561 freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute. To expand on that: Wikimedia Commons is a media file repository making available public domain and freely-licensed educational media content (images, sound and video clips) to everyone, in their own language. Also: Wikimedia Commons is free. Everyone is allowed to copy, use and modify any files here freely as long as they follow the terms specified by the author. As such it implies that File:Wikimedia-logo.svg is as free as any other file hosted at Wikimedia Commons, as long as the end user follows "the terms specified by the author." For this one would have to follow Wikimedia visual identity guidelines. This is a very detailed "license" of use. (NOTE: I have no issues with that at all and I feel this is what every photographer/author/copyright holder should do for their own work. However it is fairly common that any such image with these sorts of requirements would be removed/deleted with a hearty "no thanks".) So, to try and make it very clear what I am saying, not every file hosted here is really "free" in the truly "free" sense. Yes, everything here is "free" in the "It is on the internet so it is free" sense. But in the sense that this thread is about - no. I agree that "it's better to be more careful with these images" and I thought I was clear in what I meant when I said "Too many people now are just misusing the "simple geometric shapes and/or text" concept for registered trademarks. I think that is what needs to be sorted out here." I see I wasn't because of the responses. I will go one step further now and be explicit in that what I mean is not every logo and registered trademark being distributed by Wikimeda Commons is really "free". Clearly the Foundations logos are explicit in that they are *not* free, and just because other like logos and trademarks use a "PD" tag does not mean they are free either, nor does it mean their proper owners should not be allowed to have detailed useage terms. As TheDJ said, and I do agree with, "The trademark needs to be enforced by the Foundation" but the owners of other trademarks and logos being hosted here are to be allowed the same rights. By example, if I changed the wording on File:Adidas Logo.svg to read "You may not use, copy, reproduce, republish, upload, post, transmit, distribute, or modify adidas trademarks in any way" it would be a far more accurate wording than the {{PD-textlogo}} is. Soundvisions1 (talk) 19:41, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

You could try and write a little less. Are you contesting that copyright law protects these trademarks? (It doesn't.) Are you contesting that the Wikimedia Foundation should not use copyright to protect its trademarks? (No comment, at least now.) Are you contesting that Adidas can in practice enforce such claims? (Trademark law doesn't protect the trademark in that way.)--Prosfilaes (talk) 04:20, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

A few things. Most importantly, the term "commercial use" (and really, "use" itself) has a completely different meaning in a trademark context versus the same word used in a copyright context. You are using them as synonymous, but they are not, and really not even close. The "copy, reproduce, republish, upload, post, transmit, distribute, or modify" wording are acts governed by copyright law and not trademark law; it is an error for Adidas to use them in the latter context. If they have a logo ineligible for copyright (which I'm pretty sure they do), then those acts can be done by anyone without permission. However, you can't "use" a trademark of theirs without permission (i.e. try to imply some sort of a connection to their company, or mislead people in some way, using their name, logo, or any other mark) -- that goes without saying. Many logos are indeed copyrightable, and those can also use copyright to enforce restrictions. Those are the logos we do not allow here. Wikimedia logos are a very special case; one of Commons primary purposes is to provide images for all of Wikimedia's projects, and for ease of use Wikimedia would like to have them on Commons so all projects can easily use them, thus the exception -- the principle used for those really can't apply to anything else. Most of Wikimedia's logos are, I'm pretty sure, quite copyrightable as well as trademarkable, despite what you claim -- including the two you mention. Yes, you can download the Adidas logo, and use it commercially (in a copyright sense), provided you do not violate the trademark. For example... selling physical books made up of Wikipedia articles. That is in fact a commercial use in a copyright sense (and one of the prime reasons for why we do not allow non-commercial restrictions based on copyright), but an article on the Adidas company would not be a "use" of the logo (there is no meaning implied behind showing the logo in that context), so it is not a commercial use of the logo in a trademark sense. Or, you could possibly remove or modify elements from a trademarked logo, such that it no longer gives the impression of being the same logo at all or of being associated with the trademark owner. Use of the result would no longer be a trademark violation, but could still be a copyright violation as a derivative work, if the original was copyrightable. As for the logos you mention originally, typeface as typeface is not copyrightable in the U.S., and that is all those are. Fancy fonts and multiple fonts yes, but no more copyrightable than "BOSCH". It is possible to have a creative arrangement of uncopyrightable elements (including text or other simple shapes), but that is not the case in either of your examples. Lastly, you are defining "free" differently than we are. It means a substantial lack of copyright restrictions, specifically, not "truly free" or whatever your definition is. This can seem counterintuitive at times, leading to weird situations where we delete things that seem perfectly OK in real life, or keep things which have trademark or other restrictions, but that is the accepted definition (which was not invented here either). Overloading the word "free" may be unfortunate, but that is the situation (which was not created by Wikimedia; the concept and definition pre-existed its usage here). The Wikimedia logos should be the only exceptions, but those are a rather special case. Carl Lindberg (talk) 05:28, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

First of all "You may not use, copy, reproduce, republish, upload, post, transmit, distribute, or modify adidas trademarks in any way, except as explicitly permitted under this web site" of Adidas claim is a set of non-enforceable conditions of their trademark (except the modify part under certain conditions). They write it down to scaremonger you into actually doing that, but there is no legal basis for it. Secondly, there is a big difference between enforcing your OWN trademark, and what others are allowed to do with the same trademarks. An organization, needs to use a trademark and they need to report that a trademark is trademarked (for instance using ™). Others have no obligation to indicate that a work is trademarked. This is "our" website, not the adidas website, hence the difference. TheDJ (talk) 19:56, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Let me add the following points, in bullets, just to change the rhythm of this thread:

The most important requirement for any work to be copyrightable is the threshold of originality. You can read the Wikipedia article:here, and see more examples here.
That's why, like it or not, Adidas cannot claim copyright on stripes, neither can BASF on sqaures, neither can Euronews on circles.
Again, trademark laws do not aim to protect intellectual property, they basically aim to protect from fraud. At Commons, our only concern is intellectual property.
The Wikimedia visual identity guidelines are not restrictions on use. They are for internal use of the foundation and aimed basically at graphic and web designers. They aim to keep the look and feel of the brand identity consistent across all types of media.
If some logos of the WMF do not pass the threshold of originality then they are not copyrightable, and if the foundation claims they are then its claims - just like those of Adidas - are not enforceable.
We cannot refrain from uploading files just because someone might use them illegally, if we did, we wouldn't upload anything at all. People who think "it's free because it's on the internet" won't be hampered by a file not being on Commons, they will copy fair-use files from Wikipedia, they will go to the website they want and copy everything they want, even if it has a big © symbol, an ugly watermark, and a flashing warning.
On the other hand the web is also full of false claims of copyright. Usually on works in the public domain. So having the © symbol and a big warning doesn't necessarily mean it's copyrightable. Abuse comes from both sides.
So if you find a logo that you think is copyrightable and shouldn't be on Commons, you can discuss it here, or nominate for deletion if it's obvious. On the other hand, there might be logos uploaded as fair-use on Wikipedia that should be here, like Euronews, Eurosport and TF1.

Regards, -- Orionist ★ talk 01:36, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with everything Orionist mentioned in the above message, except that I would say that trademark law, like copyright law, does aim to protect intellectual property because trademarks are a form of intellectual property. Trademark law differs from copyright law in that it aims to prevent people from misleadingly and unfairly using intellectual property (i.e., trademarks) in relation to goods or services. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 11:22, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

TIFF format

Hello!

I found this image of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs. Firstly, is this image free enough to transfer it to Commons? If yes, can somebody upload it in the high resoluted tiff format?

Part of the Brumfield collection. "Mr. Brumfield has stipulated that he is reserving his copyright for fifteen years from the date of each gift (the collection is being given in several installments). As the first installment was given in October 1999, the earliest any images from the collection would be out of copyright is October 2014." So no, it cannot be added to Commons yet. TheDJ (talk) 11:01, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

TIFF is not a great choice for upload anyway... The wiki software will permit the upload, but won't render it for display on any page. Loss-less PNG would be a better format. J.smith (talk) 17:17, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Some TIFFs are now thumbnailed... AnonMoos (talk) 21:04, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

On the plus side, having TIFFs of free images can be helpful, such as if you think that someone will want to make modifications; it's always helpful to have the original file to prevent generation loss. Nyttend (talk) 23:40, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Category structure "construction railways" or "construction of railways"

I started to add land subcats to the Category:Construction railways, only I now realize that the original purpose was collect the special trains/rails used for construction work. (not necessarily for rail projects) Should we split and create a new category for construction work on railways? I want to collect all railconstruction work images. An what to do with Category:Construction tramlines. A separate category? Suggestions? Smiley.toerist (talk) 16:09, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

I would suggest "Category:Railway construction sites" and "Category:Tramline construction sites" as subcategories of "Category:Construction sites by type". — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 16:35, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

I reorganised along these lines and I added a link to Category:Rail transport infrastructure.Smiley.toerist (talk) 22:49, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Good idea. Are you renaming "Category:Construction tramlines" to "Category:Tramline construction sites" as well? And perhaps "Category:Construction of railways in France" and "Category:Construction of railways in the Netherlands" should be respectively renamed "Category:Railway construction sites in France" and "Category:Railway construction sites in the Netherlands" to match the parent category. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 11:27, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Citation Generator In Toolbox, as in Wikipedia? Any hope of this feature on Wikimedia?

I am a librarian who is getting more and more questions on how to cite images from Wikimedia. Were you folks planning to have a citation generator as there is for Wikipedia? That would be a great feature!

We are just in the process of adding "use this file" buttons on image description pages, that might be used for this purpose. It is still a work in development, but I think it might be helpful in the future. TheDJ (talk) 19:15, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

To the anonymous original poster: the reason this is not trivial is that for images, people don't just want to cite them, they want to reuse them, and it's important that we get the licensing part right. - Jmabel ! talk 01:52, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Gallery malfunction

Hello!

Something is wrong with the display of galleries on Commons. It doesn't show the images in several rows - as usual - but one line with all images in a certain category. What has happened?

That seems to be "work in progress", cf. [11] a few minutes ago … --:bdk: 19:52, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

The same problem here.--Avron (talk) 15:11, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

October 12

Brooklyn Museum images analysis

I'd like to share with you an initial analysis of images from the Commons:Brooklyn Museum project, compiled by that institution. The analysis is called Where in the Wikiverse is the Brooklyn Museum?, and the museum would also very much like to encourage further metadata on the images and uses on Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects.--Pharos (talk) 04:04, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

It's interesting thanks, but to be honest I suspect that edit counts are much inflated by bot edits.--Zolo (talk) 14:33, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Very nice. I consider Commons:Brooklyn Museum project as a model for great cooperation between Commons and the museum with benefit to both organizations. --Jarekt (talk) 14:18, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

image rotation

Hi, is it possible to rotate this image after uploaded? Tx, --Nevinho (talk) 13:18, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, you can use Template:Rotate. I've already added the template to the image. NotFromUtrecht (talk) 13:26, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

collapsible template bug ?

It has been a few days that {{Creator}} and {{Museum}} templates have become uncollapsible without any apparent reason. Is it a bug ? Should it be reported somewhere ?--Zolo (talk) 14:30, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

I asked the user who has been working on updating us to a newer collapsible template script to look into it. Rocket000 (talk) 18:34, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Ok, jQuery has some bugs toggling tables, should be working again (no sliding though)--DieBuche (talk) 20:21, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

It is broken again --Jarekt (talk) 20:17, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Not for me. Try reloading your browser's cache. If that doesn't help, please tell on what page what exactly looks broken to you. (Also, which browser & skin.) Lupo 20:31, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

May be this is not a "bug" but a new "feature". I can not collapse the template at this Creator:Andreas Achenbach page but I can collapse it here. May be the difference it that was that one was uncollapsed and the other collapsed when the page is loaded. (My browser is Fairfox 3.6.10 and my skin is vector. --Jarekt (talk) 02:34, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. That was fixed here, so after reloading your browser's cache, it really should work fine. Lupo 06:46, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

It works fine now. Thanks for help --Jarekt (talk) 13:08, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Category names for geographic locations

Hi, I have been checking and organising some of the Geograph Britain and Ireland images and have started on views of the Isles of Scilly. There are a number of sub categories describing the various islands, but there are a number of duplicates, such as "St. Mary's" and "St Mary's, Isles of Scilly". Just to make things interesting several of the islands are named after saints, such as St. Martin's and St. Agnes. I couldn't find a help page on naming saintly geographic categories, so should they match the corresponding wikipedia article and/or the accepted UK place name? And should the period in the St. be included as it is missing off the OS map and wikipedia article, but present in the official name?

St. Mary's, Isles of Scilly
St Mary's, Isles of Scilly
St. Mary's (Isles of Scilly)
St Mary's (Isles of Scilly)

Thanks, Scillystuff (talk) 20:37, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

As long as the categories follow a logical structure and do not overlap, it might be more clear to have subcategories as "St. Mary's, Isles of Scilly" rather than "St. Mary's" since that will be more informative to casual observers. There may be some redundancy in the naming system, but there would be no great hit on the servers for that. I would pick one subcat to be canonical, recat all the articles in similar subcats to that one and then nominate the others for deletion. Rodhullandemu (talk) 22:30, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

I would go with "St Mary's, Isles of Scilly". There seems to be an unwritten convention that we do not use full stops with abbreviations in category and gallery names (correct me if I'm wrong), and it also seems more common to use commas rather than parentheses for geographical names (for example, "Springfield, Massachusetts" rather than "Springfield (Massachusetts)"). — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 11:25, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure there's a clear convention on that, other than to use en.wp naming generally. -mattbuck (Talk) 02:44, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

October 13

GFDL migrated and multi-licensed files

The license update last year resulted in GFDL multi-licensed files having three licenses. For example many multi-licensed with CC ended up having GFDL, Cc-by-sa-3.0-migrated, and Cc-by-sa-2.5,2.0,1.0. It looks like a mess and sure to confuse many people. Is there any reason why we can't merge the two CC licenses into CC-by-sa-all? Should keep the 3.0 only instead? Are there other solutions? -- Orionist ★ talk 01:22, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

References

Doer anybody knows how to remove "Cite error: <ref> tags exist, but no <references/> tag was found" message at File:Łapanka.jpg? The file is using <ref> tags and HAS <references/> tag.--Jarekt (talk) 13:48, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I think, it's impossible with cite.php extension -- the references tag lists only references defined before the references tag. Only thing you can do -- move <references/> to the end of the page, like in Wikipedia. Trycatch (talk) 14:30, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I understand now, I removed autor reference and it works now. --Jarekt (talk) 14:59, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

The {{Information}} source code has author *after* the source parameter, unlike the rendered order. Could a solution be to re-arrange the template source code so that source appears below? Meanwhile, in the above file I experimented with {{Information field}} to provide References for all {{Information}} fields - is that an acceptable workaround? -84user (talk) 16:58, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

That works well in English but I would not use it on the large scale without providing translations to field label "References". I also in general dislike {{Information field}} approach as a hack which might complicate future changes to {{Information}} template. However it still looks like out best option at the moment. --Jarekt (talk) 18:47, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

ICU search

"ICU" is often an abbreviation of "Intensive Care Unit". I have created a category called "Intensive care units". Can someone please do the following: When a visitor searches for "ICU", the results page should have at the top, "Did you mean Intensive care unit"? I don't know how to fix the category page "Intensive care units" so that this option appears on a search for "ICU". Thank you. Downtowngal (talk) 14:30, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Bugs in software?

For some reason I only see content marked {{en|}} and I cannot view images or section headings at Paris And Category:Gamal Abdel Nasser seems to be malfunctioning too... WhisperToMe (talk) 18:33, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Weird... same thing happens to me on that page. Everything is there for a second and then it disappears. J.smith (talk) 18:42, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Should be back to normal, sorry for that. (empty your cache if it still happens)--DieBuche (talk) 18:52, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Looks good on my end. J.smith (talk) 18:56, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Good, now it's all normal again. Thank you :) WhisperToMe (talk) 19:13, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I seem to have a similar problem in File:Sepiola atlantica.jpg and other images. Clearing cache does not help? Ideas? Lycaon (talk) 23:22, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Update: Happens in Firefox 3.6.4 but not in IE 8.0.6. Lycaon (talk) 23:25, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

The language selector seems to be the culprit. It doesn't allow any information (such as scientific name of a species) outside the language templates which is supposed to be common to all of them. Lycaon (talk) 23:38, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

October 14

File:Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium2.jpg

Is an image like "File:Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium2.jpg" useful for any project? It seems to be some sort of protest against the expense of the 2010 Commonwealth Games, and at the moment is unused. The photograph of the stadium is a free image in the Commons, but the source of the inset image has not been stated. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 19:31, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Universal subtitles video widget on commons

In collaboration with the miro / pcf we have added the universal subtitles widget to the mwEmbed gadget. Blog post here. This makes it much easier to generate initial subtitle transcripts and gives you fine grain control over subtitle timing. I created a documentation page about the widget a category for videos needing subtitles. Mdale (talk) 23:20, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

October 15

Mysterious pictures

What is this? It is from Námafjall in Iceland.

Hi. I have uploaded some pictures of things, which I don't know the name of. Where's a good place to have them identified? --Danninja (talk) 09:06, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Link? --Mbdortmund (talk) 09:29, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

It looks like a lake to me. Or is it a mudpool? See "Krafla" for more information. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 09:57, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

It might be worth popping by w:Wikipedia:Reference_desk too Privatemusings (talk) 10:01, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Your image shows a sulphur spring at Leirhnjúkur. See Category:Leirhnjúkur. This little lake appears to be located here or about here. Lupo 10:20, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Using categories anti-semitism and anti-zionism in Latuff cartoons

A small group of users has been trying to prevent using the categories Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism in Carlos Latuff cartoons. This is a sensitive matter (which has caused considerable drama and already made victims) and a larger consensus is needed to settle the question and avoid further conflicts and edit wars. With common sense and intelectual honesty, which imo are both missing. Please check the talk pages of the cartoons, especially here and here -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 12:53, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

A small group of users has been trying to promote using the incorrect categories Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism for some Carlos Latuff cartoons. This is a sensitive matter (which has caused considerable drama and already made victims) and a larger consensus is needed to settle the question and avoid further conflicts and edit wars. With common sense and intellectual honesty, which in my opinion are both missing. Please check the talk pages of the cartoons, especially here and here. Thanks! // Liftarn (talk)

Surprise surprise, it's an edit war. Find ONE place to argue this and don't change any more images ONE WAY OR THE OTHER until you've reached a consensus. -mattbuck (Talk) 13:28, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Edit war? I've started this thread to avoid edit wars and try to reach the consensus you mention! -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 13:32, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not blaming one side or the other, but it is already an edit war on the octopus one, and so now it's fully protected. -mattbuck (Talk) 13:51, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

But there may be a problem setting up a discussion given that two of the main people involved are now blocked for a week. -mattbuck (Talk) 14:07, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

what need is clear guide/policy of what constitutes Anti-Zionism and what constitutes Anti-Semitism, rather then relying on individual interpretations. What defines each? Gnan garra 14:06, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Good suggestion. en:Anti-Zionism and en:Antisemitism may be helpful. en:Anti-Zionism#Anti-Zionism_and_antisemitism is particularly relevant to this discussion. Walter Siegmund (talk) 16:02, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

As Admin Kameraad Pjotr notes in his block on user:Mbz1, "Further, using the Holocaust or World War II as an argument in this, and most other discussions, is not appropriate." Thus, you risk being blocked if you should use these two historical episodes in your discussion of antisemitism and/or "anti-Zionism". So you know what not to say. Good luck! Stellarkid (talk) 15:57, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

I think you are referring to Kameraad Pjotr's response to Mbz1's unblock request.[12] Her block was by Multichill.[13] "Edits like this one are unacceptable" Walter Siegmund (talk) 16:19, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Comment - If nobody wants to start the discussion, I will. First, I would like to emphasize the fact that Commons is a repository of free media, where people around the world search for material related with their interests, academic or otherwise. Categorization is an important element of the metafile information, as it is intended to facilitate the searching process of an immense database. Two types of errors may affect categorization: over-categorization, which we may define as the attribution of spurious categories to a media file; and under-categorization, which is the failure to assign all relevant categories to a file. In my opinion, under-categorization is a much serious mistake than over-categorization. While the first type may be considered, at most, as an irritating nuisance to the searching process, the second may prevent the external user of obtaining important material which is available in the database. Concerning Latuff’s cartoons, the exact definition of anti-semitism or anti-zionism should not be a serious concern to us, in the light of Commons’s mission. In my opinion, all we need to know to categorize these media is that the first category is related to some hostility or prejudice against the Jewish people, and the second, to some kind of opposition against the existence or the behavior of the State of Israel. Under this perspective, I find difficult not to assign any of these two categories to Latuff’s cartoons, especially after knowing how his work is commented around the world. Most will concur with me that doing a search on Commons on anti-semitism and anti-zionism and not finding any of Latuff’s cartoons is, at the minimum, hilarious. This is why I have considered the arguments against the inclusion of those categories in some of his works as intellectual dishonest. And we need not to be political eunuchs to be intellectually honest. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 21:00, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
I've seen discussions about the categorisation repeated over and over again and I myself have argued before for and against the inclusion of these images in categories such as Category:Antisemitism. The fundamental problem is that whether anti-semitism, anti-zionism, or whatever are relevent to a particular image is a matter of opinion and depends on trying to interpret a definition of those terms and then analyse each image to decide. No one can claim to be right in their opinion and this is one of the reasons it is disappointing to see users engage in edit warring to enforce their position. In the absence of agreement as to whether categories are appropriate these categories should be removed. Both over-categorisation and under-categorisation are problems but as is the disruption that regularly erupts each time one of these controversial labels gets used to categorise an image. I therefore think trying to get into all over again whether any of these images should be in the anti-semitism or anti-zionism categories is pointless, it is clear this will not be resolved. We need now to decide the next step, do we simply remove the disputed categories, which would be my favoured option, or do we conduct polls for each category for each image. I'd rather we didn't. Whilst appropriate categorisation is important, these images are only a small selection of the millions we host. We shouldn't allow the project to be distracted by constant arguments about how they should be categorised. Remove the disputed categories and move on. Adambro (talk) 21:27, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
I strongly disagree with this kind of Solomonic solution in which two relevant categories are eliminated in order to mask the dfficulties. Not only this solution will affect all the other images under the eliminated categories but a judgement will be implicitly made in favor of one of the parts involved. After this negative comment, I have the strange feeling that my previous reasoning about the mission of Commons was not understood or taken into accunt. No, I certainly do not agree that "in the absence of agreement as to whether categories are appropriate these categories should be removed". In abstract, because this is a non-solution to a real problem, which will affect the project; in concret, because the discussion is not about the appropriateness of the categories: anti-sionism and anti-semitism are real phenomena that affect all kinds of media, they were not created in Commons. I do not sympathize with the polling solution either. But I don't think we should give up discussing the issue once more. The first step in the right direction will be to unblock the people directly involved in this process. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 23:18, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
The mission of Commons goes well beyond these images, and these images simply don't deserve the amount of time they've had devoted to them. Permanent suboptimal categorization beats eternal war over optimal categorization. There certainly are anti-semetic images in the real world, just like there are dickheads in the real world. But in either case, the categorization is highly controversial, and applying it runs close to violating Wikimedia rules about how you treat living people.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:29, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
I think we've spent enough time with these images. The people that love discussing them are currently blocked so don't hope for much better comments than this. I agree suboptimal categorization beats eternal war over optimal categorization. Is it giving up? More or less, but it's intentionally deciding to do something more productive and leave the discussing of real world issues to more appropriate venues (like Wikipedia ;P). Rocket000 (talk) 01:37, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

It seems to me that Latuff's anti-Zionism is clear and uncontroversial, and I'm sure he would happily embrace the label "anti-Zionist". I would hope that the controversy here can be confined to the question of whether these cartoons are anti-Semitic. My own belief (and FWIW I am a Jew) is that they are not, but I don't claim to be the arbiter of this, nor do I wish to wade in further. - Jmabel ! talk 03:24, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

By definition cartoons and caricatures are anti-something without necessarily belonging in a "anti-xx" category. I would propose to exclude cartoons and caricatures from the anti-xx cats, and if needed create "Cartoons/caricatures concerning Israel" or so, thereby avoiding the heavy loaded semitism and zionism words. --Foroa (talk) 06:34, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

I have refrained from participating in this fraught debate thus far and do not intend to say much more than to point out that I think Foroa's suggestion is eminently sensible. There will be no end to disputes unless we agree through consensus to choose neutral category names. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 10:24, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but we really must find a fair solution to the problem. Leaving it as is, by freezing the present categories or deleting them, will be equivalent to judge the cause in favor of one of the parts and will cause further resentment. Remember that there are presently four users blocked because of this dispute. Yes, we do have other millions of images to care but people and rationality are equally (or even more) important. Please take a look at my proposal below. Alvesgaspar (talk) 10:47, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
The people who were blocked were blocked for personal attacks and edit warring, and doing anything to these images isn't going to change their ways in the future, and whatever solution you find for these pictures isn't going to make everyone across the spectrum amused.--Prosfilaes (talk) 18:54, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Proposal

This cartoon

I would like to make a simple (and constructive, I hope) experiment, to check how the community feels about the practical problem of categorizing Latuff’s cartoons. I propose to start with this single image (the most controversial, so far) and sound the users’ opinions on the applicability of the two categories mentioned before, plus an extra one: anti-semitism (AS), anti-zionism (AZ) and political dissident (PD), whose suggested definitions are:

AS: any form of hostility or prejudice against the Jewish people;
AZ: opposition against the existence of the State of Israel;
PD: political dissent against the policies of the present government

All a user has to do is to state his/her opinion below by writing what categories should be applied, make a short comment (if necessary) and then sign. A possible follow-up, if a significant number of contributions are obtained, is to enlarge the experiment to the talk pages of other Latuff’s cartoons. Feelings? Who’s the first? -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 10:16, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

I do not think that " opposition against the behaviour of the State of Israel" can be said to constitute Anti-Zionism. It is political dissent or something of the sort (else, the UN, EU, USA and some proeminent Israeli politicians could be said to be anti-Zionists, which is clearly not true). I'd advise removing "or the behavior" above, or splitting it into "AZ: opposition against the existence..." and "PD: political dissent again the policies of the present government". -- Rama (talk) 11:51, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

OK, I will consider your proposal in the definitions above, though it complicates the issue. Still, I don't think it is necessary to agree with those definitions to have an opinion on the main issue. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 13:49, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Alvesgaspar, when you call the image "the most controversial" do you mean "the one hardest to classify as either anti-Semitic or not" or do you mean "the one most likely to be considered anti-Semitic"? - Jmabel ! talk 15:17, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Neither, this was (I suppose) the image that caused more discussion and conflict among users. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 15:33, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

AS, AZ, PD or None? -- Some user

None. Do not use AS or AZ. Use neutral category names such as "[[:Category:~~Caricatures~~ Cartoons concerning Judaism]]" and "[[:Category:~~Caricatures~~ Cartoons concerning Israel]]", as suggested by Foroa above. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 10:26, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

I would go with "cartoon" instead as the image doesn't necessarily have to contain a caricature (a cartoonist portrait of someone/something) or the caricature it contains may not be the part that has to do with Israel/Judaism. Rocket000 (talk) 14:55, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Good point. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 10:06, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

None, as suggested above. --Foroa (talk) 12:11, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
None, agree with Foroa & Jacklee suggestions.--Trycatch (talk) 13:57, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
None per above. Rocket000 (talk) 14:49, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
None per above, agreeing with Jacklee and Foroa. -84user (talk) 17:28, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
None of the above, keep to descriptive and narrow categories like Category:Octopuses in art. As for Jimbo, we already know that he has strange ideas about images, see also en:User talk:Jimbo Wales#Latuff cartoons. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 07:56, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
AS, AZ -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 08:48, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Verifiability, not truth

I would propose the following: if a reliable source calls the cartoon anti-Semitic, then it should be categorized as anti-Semitic. If a reliable source calls the cartoon anti-Zionist, then it would be categorized as anti-Zionist. If a reliable source calls the cartoon anti-Semitic and another reliable source calls the cartoon not anti-Semitic, then you can start a new subcategory under anti-Semitism, "Cartoons viewed anti-Semitic by some sources and not others", if you think it's worth bothering. If you have enough sources then you might reject a small minority as "fringe" and just go with the majority to avoid this. In all cases the reliable sources should be properly cited in the image description immediately adjacent to the category tag.

Normally the category system is an informal one, with a low degree of accuracy, and so we haven't needed Wikipedia-grade standards for it and relied on a simple "look at it and call it something" scheme, but if you're going to edit war about it then you need to decide on a right version, and to get a right version you need to go by Wikipedia-style policies of verifiability. Wnt (talk) 17:47, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

I am afraid that this system would give an enormous weight to fringe accusations that mainstream publications do not bother to challenge. This is especially problematic in this particular topic, where there is a whole industry of casting gratuitous accusations of antisemitism for political advantage.

Furthermore, I believe that this idea would at best tend to alleviate the issue somewhat, rather than solve it. I'd expect that people like Kuiper would quite quickly strike back by, say, categorising "Tsahal" in "war crimes", and we would start from square one to explain why this is not desirable. Rama (talk) 18:18, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

I believe that the fringe group is the one casting gratuitous accusations of "Zionist" evildoing for political advantage, and the mainstream media tends not to bother to challenge them. This viewpoint already has an enormous weight accusation, particularly because it tends to insist that every accusation of antisemitism is gratuitous, barring someone actually saying "I hate Jews." I think Wnt has the right idea. Use reliable sources. Stellarkid (talk) 05:44, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I think that proper wording of one or more ambiguous categories could solve the "cottage industry". If need be, you could have a category for each individual publication that calls X anti-Semitic. What I'm proposing is a first step, and if more accusations are raised, it can be fine tuned in such a way. The important part is that instead of making up our opinion and decreeing it as fact, we should gather verifiable opinion from outside sources and summarize it in the name of the category.

It's just too difficult to decide for oneself if something is anti-Semitic. I look at this drawing of Israel as a red-eyed sea monster and I say, sure, this is 100% characterizing a Jewish state as an evil monster. But then I think again and say, wait a minute, isn't identifying Jews with Israel itself anti-Semitic? I mean, in the John F. Kennedy election Americans had to decide whether they viewed Catholics as loyal Americans, or puppets under the influence of a foreign pope. If you say that an insult to Israel is an insult to Jews, you're saying all Jews are loyal to Israel. If you regard all Jews as loyal to Israel, then how could you vote for a Jewish president doubting whether his finger on the nuclear trigger is going to be directed by the best interests of America or the best interests of Israel? Likewise, every time the Israeli counterpart of a Chicago alderman takes some money in a brown paper bag to authorize an illegal construction project, it becomes a reason for Muslims all over the world to hate Jews in general, rather than the specific officials and misguided doctrines of the current Israeli government. So you see, there's something powerful to be said against identifying Jews with Israel. So when I look at the image and try to decide whether it's anti-Semitic, all I'm really doing is measuring whether I'm anti-Semitic, sometimes in ways that might well be entirely unconscious to those who maintain greater distinctions across that particular psychological boundary. Wnt (talk) 20:45, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes and no to that. After all, Israel is a Jewish state. America is a black-and-white state, but we don't presume/assume that "African-Americans" are more loyal to Africa than the United States, or Irish-Americans to Ireland, etc. It is true that Israel is a unique situation, self-defining as it does as a Jewish state, the only Jewish state; and one that attempts to run itself on Jewish principles, principles of high morality; so when it is insulted as "Nazi", that is a slam on the Jewish religion and on all Jews. As you no doubt know, Hitler did not concern himself with only religious Jews. If you were a Christian Jew you were just as doomed as a Jewish Jew. If you had a grandmother that was Jewish, you were doomed. If you were a Zionist Jew or if you were not, you were still subjected to the epitome of antisemitism as defined by Hitler. "Anti-Zionism" that claims to find a correspondence between the Palestinian situation and the w:Warsaw Ghetto or to Hitler's Germany, either doesn't know or doesn't understand history, or is "antisemitic" in "antizionism" clothing. Stellarkid (talk) 05:44, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

That doesn't sound like it would be a very good categorization method. It doesn't really matter what a certain publication or whatever classifies something as. No one's going care or know who that is or what kind of images will be in there... "It's just too difficult to decide for oneself if something is anti-Semitic." Not for everyone it seems. Why are we in a position to decide for them? No, let them decide for themselves. Categories aren't there to simply label things; they're there to help users find things and there is many possible ways of making these images findable without applying controversial categories. Rocket000 (talk) 21:57, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Just get rid of the lot

I would just like to throw out the general idea that we delete any and all materials relating to the middle east, and indef anyone who ever uploads any. That is the only way we will ever end the dispute over this stuff. This argument has been going on for years now, and absolutely no headway has been made. No headway will ever be made - people are too stubborn. If this controversial content study does one good thing, it will be to say it should all be deleted so we can finally end this perpetual banging of our heads against a brick wall. -mattbuck (Talk) 07:29, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Support Non-notable drawings by a barely notable cartoonist are eye candy at best, and when the generate the sort of tantrum that we have sadly had to witness for months, they are a downright liability. The upload of images that have no plausible encyclopedic use and a virtually guaranteed to generate conflicts is a pure provocation and I believe it to be well worthy of blocks, increasing exponentially until the offender is either tamed or banished. Rama (talk) 08:54, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Rama only seems to refer to the Latuff images here whilst mattbuck seems to make a broader suggestion that we "delete any and all materials relating to the middle east". I hope he isn't being serious. The solution here is straightforward. Keep the categorisation simple, remove the disputed categories, and indef anyone who can't find anything better to do. I expect a few will dislike that, just as I do myself because I want to see images categorised properly, but we all need to be aware that some won't like that idea because it will deprive them of something to argue about. I think compromising on categorisation is a small price to pay to deal with this. Adambro (talk) 09:19, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm, let's say that I support the layer of serious proposition that I think underlies Mattbuck's bitterly humourous suggestion. What I said applies to Latuff images, but also to any other similar provocation, whatever the side it'd come from (such as File:End the unjust Jewish occupation of Arab land.jpg for instance. Revolting.).

I also support Adambro's suggestion.

We absolutely need to be firm on such cases ; being weak encourages the most naive and inflammable of our contributors with the notion that they can use Commons with impunity for petty political purposes. It exacerbates their behaviour until they become unmanageable and have to be banned. Commons is close to losing several otherwise valuable contributors in this way, and I shiver thinking how many non-problematic and valuable users might have thrown the towel in disgust because of them. Police action has to create less trouble than it generates; in some cases that means playing softly softly, but in this case, a lack of resolution will merely further radicalise the extremists. Rama (talk) 09:45, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Comment: It seems to me the difficulty is over what standard to apply. Certainly the standard cannot be "I don't like it". Can consensus be reached over a standard such as "content that seeks to or has the effect of instigating violence against individuals will not be hosted on the Commons"? I don't know. And even if we could reach consensus on a statement like that, implementation of it would be quite hard. I can well imagine an uploader asserting that a particular cartoon does not "seek to or have the effect of instigating violence against individuals", but is merely political commentary. Which is why I reluctantly conclude that all we can reasonably do is insist on neutrally named categories rather than "anti-" this or that categories. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 10:00, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

What a number of people have been wondering for several years now, is why images expressing bigoted hatemongering against Jews receive a special free pass against deletion on Wikimedia Commons, while images expressing similar bigoted hatemongering against any other ethnic or religious group would probably be deleted off of Commons so fast it would make your head spin. AnonMoos (talk) 09:59, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

For the record I

Oppose deletion of Latuff images, on the basis that they are work by a notable artist. I would only

Support their deletion if we deleted all material related to the middle east. -mattbuck (Talk) 10:02, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

You mean like Category:Everybody Draw Mohammed Day got deleted?--Prosfilaes (talk) 14:54, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Question -- Let me ask three relevant questions. First, why Latuff's images are the only modern cartoons available in Commons addressing the Israelian-Palestian conflict? Is it because the author released their license? Second, why there is virtually no recent material of the same kind against Islam, Islamism or the Palestinian politics? I searched the category Islamophobia and found almost nothing. Third, is it true that "similar bigoted hatemongering against any other ethnic or religious group" has been prevented from being uploaded to Commons? No cynism or second intentions in these questions. I just want to know. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 10:26, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

The relevant question about the Latuff cartoons and similar material is whether they are being used to propagate and spread bigoted hatemongering more than they are being used to "educate" anybody about anything... AnonMoos (talk) 10:26, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I think for the most part, they're are here because of the free license, which is very rare for modern artists. I also believe we have, or had, some users that had a special interest in his work. But that isn't anything special as almost everyone uploads things they're interested in. BTW, as someone not that familiar with the whole conflict, I find the images to be somewhat educational as they illustrate views I didn't even know existed (even if they are not common views, the discussion and controversy has taught me something which wouldn't be possible without them). Rocket000 (talk) 16:48, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

See Category:Caricatures about Hamas. Nobody ever tried to delete these pictures or to place them to some inappropriate category like Category:Anti-Arabism or something. Trycatch (talk) 23:56, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I might have an idea, similar to WP:PROMOTION: if a file is clearly political in nature, and clearly designed to be hosted on Commons, it means it's not acceptable. This way, we can

accept documentary images created for Commons (like this)
accept politically loaded images not designed for Commons (like this, I love this one)
reject nefarious and corrosive media like this or that. And we can allow ourselves a derogation for images that are notable in themselves, like Latuff's cartoon that made it into the winners of the Iranian world competition for bad taste.

In short, we keep either harmless files, or dangerous ones that are dead. No live tigers running down the corridors. Rama (talk) 11:05, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

comment on that image is automatically within scope because its used within articles on other Wikimedia projects. Where as this isnt used elsewhere. Gnan garra 12:41, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

We already have what we need in my view. We have the Commons:Project scope which already excludes "Self-created artwork without obvious educational use" for example. There seems to be a suggestion that File:Ship to Gaza by Latuff.gif was "clearly designed to be hosted on Commons" but I'm not clear why. We need to stop talking about deleting things because people don't like them and start acting to make it clear that there are appropriate ways of raising concerns and there are other less appropriate activities that aren't appropriate and won't be tolerated any longer. Adambro (talk) 12:44, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, you certainly seem to place a strong emphasis on preventing meaningful discussion of what some people consider to be anti-Jewish images! AnonMoos (talk) 01:00, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, what I was going to say exactly. Rocket000 (talk) 16:48, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Support: I would be agreeable to nominating the material in question (as well as images like File:Everybody Draw Mohammed Day - Aisha follows the prophet.png) for deletion on the basis that it is "self-created artwork without obvious educational use". — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 20:21, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, that particular image is in use on 3 projects (although only 1 is mainspace). Check the redirect's usage. Rocket000 (talk) 21:28, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I am not familiar with Lattuf or his work but a cursory review reveals that he focuses an extraordinary amount of effort on Israel. As far as the subject image is concerned, I think Justice Potter Stewart's I know it when I see it phrase is apropos. There is a fine line between criticizing Israeli policies and anti-Semitism. However, as much as I loath to censor any image, this particular one strikes me as beyond the pale on several levels. I would therefore Support its removal.--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 18:21, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

However, Potter Stewart was a judge, which means he was authorized by the law to transform his view on the matter into a decision binding all parties to the suit. Commons contributors, on the other hand, are not judges and there are many of us. As I mentioned in my post above, we have to strive for a clearer standard because "I don't like it" is just too ambiguous. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 20:26, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Jiujitsuguy -- There's no need to rely on a vague "feel" or "smell" test. All you have to do is start asking a few simple relevant questions, such as what possible reason would there be for the left figure in File:Cry-wolf.png to be depicted with sidecurls, other than Latuff feeling a need to express his bigoted hatred for the Jewish religion in general? No one has been able to give me a straight answer on that one yet... AnonMoos (talk) 01:00, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Many cartoonist use w:Stereotypes or the more loaded term w:Racial profiling to establish the subjects identifiable traits as these reinforce preconcieved prejudices of the target audience, as Latuff genre predominenty Anti-Isreali cartoons he uses Jewish stereotypes combined with the Isreali flag to identify the "bad guy". Gnan garra 04:25, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

That's nice -- but there's no ascertainable exclusive or semi-exclusive association between sidecurls and Zionism, and Latuff would seem to be expressing his bigoted religious hatemongering also against the individuals in File:Members of Neturei Karta Orthodox Jewish group protest against Israel.jpg, and there's no particular reason why Wikimedia Commons should provide a platform to Latuff to promote and promulgate his bigoted hatemongering based on "stereotypes" and "racial profiling". I'm sure the KKK also has some artists, but we don't host their material here... AnonMoos (talk) 08:25, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

P.S. If even the UK Guardian newspaper (hardly a pro-Israel source!) can acknowledge that Latuff is a bigoted hatemonger,[14] I really don't see what basis some people here have to try to so strenuously deny it... AnonMoos (talk) 19:31, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I have no idea what happening here, and why to discuss the same thing 100th time around likely with the very same result -- these pictures will be kept as created by a notable artist. But if we after all would delete works by notable artists for no apparent reason -- well, it would be a mess, worser than Jimbo image deletion spree approach, and a big step back for Commons as non-censored educational image archive. Trycatch (talk) 23:56, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
Inevitably, whenever these images are discussed the "I don't like it" brigade turn up and tell us how awful they are and therefore they must be deleted. It really doesn't work like that and the repeated suggestion that it should unfortunately just distracts from discussing more important issues. I really wish those who so passionately argue for the deletion of these images which they don't like would instead devote the same amount of energy to finding freely licensed images which are more closely aligned with their views by a notable artist which they could upload. That way instead of reducing the value of our collection by censorship, we could see it improved by showing some other angles on the Israel/Palestine situation which Latuff portrays. Adambro (talk) 11:32, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry dude, but the question of whether at least some of these images are being used to actively promulgate and propagate hatred and bigotry is a serious issue which is quite a bit different from just saying "I don't like it" -- and in fact, I fail to see how your blanket indiscriminate "I don't like this being discussed" attitude does anything to clarify any issues or reconcile opposing positions. AnonMoos (talk) 16:38, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

The main argument for the deletion of these images is a "I don't like it" argument. As for the serious issue you describe, what are any cartoons like this created for if it isn't usually to promote the views of their creator? As for what they might be promoting being hatred and bigotry well this is the real world we need to remember. People say and do very nasty things. Is Commons supposed to only document a view of the world though rose-tinted glasses? No, of course not, Commons, and the other WMF projects it supports cover a broad range of topics not just the nice ones. We'd be doing our sister projects a disservice if we started deleting everything which might upset anyone. Adambro (talk) 17:04, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

That's nice, but it still sidesteps and evades the central main issue of the difference between educating people that bigotry exists in the world, and allowing Wikimedia Commons to be used as a conduit for active hatemongering (directed curiously almost entirely at one group only). I find your call for the uploading of equal-and-opposite-to-Latuff images to be rather pointless and counterproductive, since you're in effect asking for the uploading of further bigoted hatemongering images here -- and for those of us who do not hold bigoted hatemongering views, the images we upload can never be truly equal-and-opposite-to-Latuff (so the problem will still remain, regardless). AnonMoos (talk) 23:07, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it is a case of "I don't like it". You don't like "images [that] are being used to actively promulgate and propagate hatred and bigotry", but you fail to realize that doesn't make something out of our scope, as many images that were created for very terrible "bigoted hatemongering" reasons are useful to illustrate many important real issues in the world. Rocket000 (talk) 21:45, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

As I've said many times before in previous discussions, we can certainly keep hatemongering images with special historical illustrative value or current newsworthiness -- but that's not the same thing as allowing this site to be used as a conduit for the active promotion of bigotry, and it's simply ridiculous to try to reduce this issue to one of individual personal preferences... AnonMoos (talk) 23:07, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I didn't mean to make that sound like I was reducing it to a single person's preference. Of course, many people dislike these images. Rocket000 (talk) 15:34, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Support This images have no artistic value. They serve only as a way to spread hate and antisemitism. Kooritza (talk) 13:35, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
Hmm... Perhaps you missed it but there is no serious proposal to vote on here, nor would "They serve only as a way to spread hate and antisemitism" be a valid reason for deletion of those images you don't like. Mattbuck actually proposed that we "delete any and all materials relating to the middle east, and indef anyone who ever uploads any". Can you clarify whether you are supporting that proposal? Adambro (talk) 13:44, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
My support vote was per matt. Sorry for the misunderstanding. Kooritza (talk) 19:48, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
I'm sorry I still don't understand. You want us to delete all material related to the Middle East? Adambro (talk) 19:55, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
Stellarkid said it better than I could. Kooritza (talk) 06:20, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
Not This, of course, is a ridiculous idea meant simple to prove a POINT. Discarding everything related to the middle east is simply a dereliction of duty. Just throw out the trash. AnonMoos has the right idea. At any rate, if you are going to keep racist images to use for "special historical illustrative value" (to illustrate a WWII propaganda article, or an article on the w:Ku Klux Klan, for example) or "current newsworthiness" (say, "Everybody Draw Muhammad Day") then make sure that we call it what it is. If it is antisemitic or black racist propaganda, say so. That is what Latuff's work is. It is (racist) propaganda at the very least. Put an honest label on it or throw it away. Don't shirk your intellectual responsibility by getting rid of everything. Stellarkid (talk) 02:33, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Follow the definition

I think those images are not in the area of antisemitism nor antizionism. Those images does not show hostility to Jewish ethnic group. And those does not oppose being Jewish state in Palestine. They are criticizing Israeli government policies. Also, I think it is difficult to apply antizionism because of opposing Israeli policies, because it is not always universal truth but another POV. We need to follow the definition to avoid disputes like this. Best regards. – Kwj2772 (msg) 16:18, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Double standards

Why are dozens of anti-Semitic pictures like Image:No Israel.svg and all the ones at Category:Carlos Latuff allowed at Commons, but not even one anti-Islamic picture like Image:Anti-Islam.jpg allowed? Image:No Israel.svg is even allowed to be proudly displayed on eight user pages here! Please do not revert and block me. This is a serious question from a concerned reader of Wikipedia, not trolling or harassment. -- 23:17, 6 October 2010 User:King Faisal

If you're not a troll, then why are you using a single-purpose account under the name of "King Faisal"? However, while the situation on Commons is bad enough (in tolerating anti-Jewish bigotry that would not be tolerated against other groups), it's not as categorical as you're presenting it -- and as already established in previous discussions, use of No_Israel.svg on Wikimedia Commons user pages is really not the main problem. Discuss further under the relevant section above. AnonMoos (talk) 01:13, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

"King Faisal" is now blocked. The same guy (or group of people) have been abusing a number of accounts and using a number of IPs to stir things up and to go cross-wiki harassing me when I quickly recognised what was going on. "Hey, you racist piece of shit. Enforcing double standards, are we?" doesn't inspire much confidence in the suggestion that it wasn't "trolling or harassment". Adambro (talk) 11:45, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

He still has a point. If the file were called No Islam it would be ok? Like No Israel is OK? "Anti-Islam" is not ok. "Anti-Zionism" is OK. It is a bit confusing. Islam is ok -- Jews is not?? Stellarkid (talk) 02:20, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Zionism is a political movement; Israel is a nation. The failure of people to be able to distinguish between these things and Judaism is rather frustrating.--Prosfilaes (talk) 02:32, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

It is in fact your failure to understand that Zionism is not a political movement that is frustrating. You will note that that page on English Wikipedia is disputed and for a reason. Zionism was the movement to establish a Jewish state. Once that state was established, Zionism was essentially obsolete, revolving as it did around Israel merely being allowed to freely exist. Now that Zion is established, Zionism supports it. It is no longer a political movement. Saying it is is like saying that your desire to live and thrive is really a political movement, not having anything to do with you as a person. Fact is that 99% of "anti-Zionists" don't want Israel to exist at all. Further, most act and argue out of this desire, Latuff being a case in point; as well as editors here, many of whom openly acknowledge their "anti-Zionist" bias. Israel is the Jewish nation. Zionism=Israel=Jews. What's to not understand? KantElope (talk) 03:33, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

If Israel=Jews, then you've forfeited your right to object to "anti-Semitism"; a religion can be sacred and mostly immune to criticism, but by the rules set forth, a nation must never be immune to criticism and mockery.--Prosfilaes (talk) 06:44, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Just how do you get that? No country or religion is immune to criticism or "sacred" except to its adherents. All religions and countries can be legitimately criticized for legitimate reasons. Can you claim that a state that is defending itself against terror is just like the Nazi state that murdered six million of its people in gas chambers and systematically starved them to death for the simple reason that they had some "Jewish blood"? Do you really think that it is factually and morally correct to compare the Gaza Strip and the West Bank to the Auschwitz concentration camp or to the Warsaw Ghetto? Do you believe that because Israel is a Jewish state, all antisemitism disappears? There are some tens of Islamic states, but would you say there is no "Islamophobia" or that they have "forfeit(ed) their rights" to Islamophobia because they are Islamic states? That doesn't even make sense. Stellarkid (talk) 07:29, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

There is generally a much higher standard for criticizing a religion than a nation. Whenever the burning of an Israeli flag is labeled anti-semetic, it's building on that, because the simple burning of a flag is generally an extreme but accepted political act, but the instant it gets labeled anti-semetic, then it's unacceptable. I think that overly hyperbolic comparisons are better handled by laughing at them rather than labeling anti-semitic and accusing them of being immoral. There's no reason why comparing Israeli actions on the Gaza Strip to the Holocaust is any more immoral then comparing Russian actions in Georgia to the Holocaust.--Prosfilaes (talk) 19:08, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Prosfilaes wrote: "There is generally a much higher standard for criticizing a religion than a nation". Do you have a source to support that? Actually there are many nations where criticizing the nation publically will get you put in jail, or worse.

If someone burned the flag of an Islamic nation which has Islamic symbols, or text from the Koran, I would be disinclined to argue that there was no Islamophobia involved. NB: In 2005, the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC), then an agency of the European Union, developed a more detailed discussion: "Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities. In addition, such manifestations could also target the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity (my emphasis). Burning an Israeli flag, particularly the case we have discussed previously in which the six pointed Jewish star was burned out leaving much of the rest of the flag intact, could not justify the antisemitism category. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 22:28, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Wikimedia Commons is not censored

I have to say that I'm disgusted with the way this conversation is turning. So much talk of banning images because someone might use them. I would like to hope that every single KKK cartoon that reaches the public domain would be hosted here, so that people have the resource for discussion. Do people really think it weakens whatever is left of the Klan to let them have control over those cartoons, to hit people with them fresh once they browse to some racist website, to complain about how Wikipedia is part of some conspiracy to put down whites, to weed out the not insubstantial fraction which, in hindsight, look like idiots? Commons is an educational resource, and it's an educational resource for everyone — Jew, Muslim, or Ku Klux Klan, it doesn't matter. It's not there to play the game, "we're here to offer information to him, but not to you." Commons is a resource of images contributed to the public domain to be used for any purpose — to promote a point of view, to condemn it, to lampoon it, to transcend it.

I believe that if a giant asteroid came down on the Earth and destroyed everyone but a hundred KKK freaks living in a mine shaft, that eventually they would hit on principles of universal racial equality and religious freedom. Because America, or at least its elites, has been in that mine shaft and they pretty much recovered. I don't think denying them cute cartoons is an important part of recovery.

I propose a simple and non-partisan compromise: allow everything. Pictures of Muhammad, anti-Semitic cartoons, KKK and Nazi propaganda, whatever it is, just hold on to it. The only exception being that you might give up on artwork that is being "published" en masse straight to Commons and nowhere else, which involves no technical skill and doesn't illustrate any specific principle and therefore does not represent a meaningful resource. This artwork can be categorized however people wish; if this leads to edit wars, settle them with verifiable information from reliable sources if possible; otherwise use subcategories whose names reflect the lack of consensus on their position. (We have categories like Unidentified Orchidaceae — it would be no different to have a category for images whose anti-Semitism is undetermined). Wnt (talk) 17:31, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

However,

1) Many other people might not like to have Wikimedia Commons become a fully openly-acknowledged public platform (or cesspool sewer) for the active dissemination of hatemongering. Just repeating the "Wikipedia is not censored" mantra for millionth time really doesn't decide anything -- what "Wikipedia is not censored" means is that we don't automatically delete an image just because some find its contents to be shocking. It doesn't mean that we can't make a considered policy decision not to host certain types of material which we have decided is incompatible with our project scope or mission.

2) The current situation where the bigoted hatemongering without special illustrative historical value seems to be almost overwhelmingly directed at one particular group is profoundly unsatisfactory in many respects, and should be squarely faced up to and addressed, regardless of what else is decided upon. AnonMoos (talk) 19:05, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

We collect artwork of notable artists, as defined by e.g. by Wikipedia. Lautff is a notable artist by this standard. You're sitting on the most controversial conflict on the planet; it should not surprise you that we collect cartoons of that conflict, and many of them are hostile, even offensively so to your side. I don't know y'all can claim on one hand that Israel=Jews and then get annoyed when Israelis are portrayed as Jews by Lautff.--Prosfilaes (talk) 19:29, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Are you addressing comments I have made, or comments somebody else made? AnonMoos (talk) 19:36, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

If you take a look at Latuff's WP article you will see that as far as published works are concerned, there is nothing there to indicate that he is notable.....aside from one thing, his unending attacks on against Israel, which one notable source has described in these terms: "One of the most popular caricaturists in Rio de Janeiro is Carlos Latuff, who publishes his cartoons in Vapt-Vupt, the journal of the Workers’ Syndicate of the Federal Fluminense University (in Niteroi, Rio de Janeiro). Directed against globalization, the United States and Israel, his portrayal of Prime Minister Sharon is reminiscent of the antisemitic caricatures of Philip Ruprecht (Fips) in Julius Streicher's Der Stürmer." Considering that, it is difficult to understand why the antisemitism category is not on those of his cartoons that deal with Israel. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 12:28, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

It is quite possible that Latuff has actually used cartoons by the Nazi Philip Ruprecht as a reference source for ideas in his own work. For instance, compare this by Philipp Rupprecht [15] with this by Carlos Latuff [16]. The similarity of the imagery is striking. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 21:10, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

You say "One notable source"; what you don't say is that this is one side of the argument, the Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism. Not only that, even the sentence you quote doesn't call him antisemitic; it says that one particular work is reminiscent of the antisemitic caricatures of Philip Ruprecht. Even if that work should be tagged antisemitic, it doesn't extend to other works.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:25, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

You are quite wrong. The sentence from the Stephen Roth Institute, by comparing Latuff to the Nazi cartoonist, Philip Ruprecht, is clearly saying that the Latuff cartoons are antisemitic....unless you think Nazis are something other than antisemitic. What this says is that there are reliable sources (WP:V and WP:RS) that think the cartoons are antisemitic. I understand that Latuff himself does not think his cartoons to be antisemitic. But in his interview with the Forward [17] Latuff himself admits that the issue exists, but denies it is true. But categories are not intended to decide truth. If the issue exists that is quite enough to justify the category. Please refer to WP:RS, which says "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true." The antisemetic category belongs on Latuff's cartoons about Israel because the issue exists, no matter if you he, or anyone else says it is not true. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 22:25, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

In plain and simple English, that quote compares one particular work to the cartoons of Ruprecht. It's not clearly saying anything other than that. WP:RS is not the standard that Wikipedia uses to determine categories; people can't be categorized as criminals unless they've been so convicted, for example. It's not the standard, because categories can't have a citation attached, and they can't be qualified by who said it. Furthermore, I have never ever ever seen any one who claims to support that standard support adding any categories that didn't support their beliefs. Can I attach Category:Coldblooded Murder to File:Ship to Gaza by Latuff.gif, after of course appropriately citing some RS that this act was indeed coldblooded murder? You won't even let Category:Alan Dershowitz be added to File:Alan dershowitz by Latuff.jpg, so how can you claim that you want categories to be added to pictures whenever the issues exist?--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:59, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

What a silly thing to say. The category only says the antisemitism is an issue with the cartoons. It says nothing at all about Carlos Latuff. It is the same as my calling your edit silly, which speaks only to the content of your edit, and not at all to you as a person. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 23:09, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Again, you make a self-serving claim that labeling a bunch of cartoons antisemetic doesn't reflect back on the artist. Again, based on your principles, can we tag all pictures of the Gaza flotilla raid coolblooded murder?--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:59, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Self-serving? How so? If you can prove a conflict of interest, don't keep it to your self. Otherwise retract your accusation.

As for placing the antisemitic category on some of Latuffs cartoons, you are being self contradictory. You are saying that Latuff has a right to criticize Israel by calling them Nazis. He does have that right (even though the accusation is absurd, and distorts the horrors committed by the Nazis). On the other hand, you are arguing that Commons has no right to place the antisemitism category on Latuff's cartoons, because you think it implies a criticism. Why is it ok to subject Israel, Alan Dershowitz, and other Jews Latuff does not like, to the most vicious and vulgar accusations, but Commons can not put a category on some of his cartoons, even though there are WP:V and WP:RS sources that support just that? Malcolm Schosha (talk) 00:52, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Once again, I'll consider supporting your theory of categorization, the instant I see evidence that you mean it, that you would accept someone citing it to put a category that criticizes Israel on some image.--Prosfilaes (talk) 03:05, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

I do not understand what you mean by "a category that criticizes Israel", or that criticizes anything at all. Categories are not value judgments, they are a convenience for users, and the general public, and are intended only to help people find images of the type they are looking for. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 11:55, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

What about adding File:White phosphorus-Gaza-2009.jpg in Category:War crimes? // Liftarn (talk) 22:19, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Fully agree, but guts are missing here to enforce the principle. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 22:37, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion evidences the need to keep anti-Semitic cartoons on Commons. The people above, none of which I presume are actual anti-Semites, need to be able to look at cartoons by the Nazi Philip Ruprecht in order to decide whether another cartoonist is anti-Semitic or not, and to debate political and philosophical ideas. Therefore we should have the Philip Ruprecht cartoons here on Commons to facilitate such educational use. And if we can keep authentic Nazi scribbles then we should be able to keep the cartoons of someone who seems to intend nothing more than liberty and peace for an oppressed minority. Wnt (talk) 23:24, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Wnt, you are very wrong about Philip Ruprecht. It is certain that he thought he was doing the right thing, and going good by his cartoons attacking Jews, and every bit as much so as Carlos Latuff believes he is doing the right thing. The problem is not lack of genuine belief, the problem is irrational beliefs, goals and methods. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 01:09, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid I've missed your point. The reason I suggest we should have Ruprecht cartoons is that they're part of history and we need to be able to see them, for example, to decide if Latuff is copying them, or to analyze other historical trends, etc. His sincerity of belief has nothing to do with it; though it's quite irrelevant I am very skeptical that any German Nazis "really" believed all the BS their party spewed out; probably the handful of American Nazis are far truer believers, which is why they're so much less dangerous. Wnt (talk) 05:30, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, Philipp Rupprecht died in 1975 so his cartoons will not become public domain in quite some tome so it's a moot point. // Liftarn (talk) 22:19, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Poll on Latuff's categorization

Info -- I have started a poll in File talk:Stopfundingterror.gif. Please consider this initiative as a good-faith 'case study' and participate! Depending on the participation, we may extend the same model to the other Latuff's cartoons. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 21:25, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Allow image rating

I want to ask community for a consensus on implementing new software feature. The number of images on Commons grows very fast and I think it is time to allow easier content rating than assesments like Featured pictures or Quality images so that we can make better content more visible. The idea is to have a simple scale that even anonymous users could use to rate an item (lets say 1 to 5 stars or something like that). There are already both a proposal on strategy wiki and a bugzilla item submitted. Please show your vote here or comment on one of the linked pages. Thanks.--Kozuch (talk) 05:35, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

~~Support~~ Having second thoughts. I would be willing to explore this feature. As long as it's elegantly done and fairly stable before it goes live (unlike some recent changes). Rocket000 (talk) 06:30, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
Support Suggested criteria: perspective, composition, .. Docu at 06:58, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
Support per Rocket000. Bibi Saint-Pol (sprechen) 08:00, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
Support and Comment: Perhaps you should simply use "like" and "dislike" buttons as in YouTube's new rating system. With five-star scales, apparently most people either vote 1 or 5 stars for maximum impact on the average rating [18], which is why YT has streamlined it. --Morn (talk) 09:47, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
Support Morn's appended proposal. — Huntster (t @ c) 10:18, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
Support yea, but where do we put it? to the right? below? How many people will call: How can I turn this s... off? Amada44 ^{talk to me} 10:44, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
Oppose per discussion below~~only Morns proposal~~--DieBuche (talk) 11:04, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
~~Support~~, as per Rocket000, that the idea be explored and discussed. Determining apropriate criteria will be tricky. There are hundreds of thousands of images on the Commons that are not beautiful photographs per se, but that are vital both to this project and to the sister projects -- I'm not keen on seeing them rated poorly (or given a thumbs down) simply because they are not as pretty as images of sunsets. For that reason, we'd need to be careful in establishing meaningful criteria. Similarly, I'm not crazy about the idea of a "thumbs down" option -- contributors in good faith volunteer their time to upload media to this project, and unless the image is out-of-scope or completely out of focus, I am not sure anyone's contribution deserves to be given a thumbs down. That would be pretty inconsiderate. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 11:41, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
Could always do it on 2 criteria - image quality and image usefulness. -mattbuck (Talk) 14:04, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Oppose - Given some of the comments below, I think we've had sufficient discussion that I can say that I am opposed. I am particularly concerned with some suggestions below that there be no criteria and that it would be a "fun" exercise to give media a thumbs up or thumbs down. I'm not sure why it would be fun for anyone involved for thumbs down to be given to good faith, useful contributions to the project. Skeezix1000 (talk) 14:14, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Support But we should keep it very simple. I think a "thumbs up/down" button is more than enough. No point in making it too complicated. And setting "guidelines" on things like that will never work of course. Totally pointless. It should be a small, "fun" thing, with 0 status other than what readers give to it. On where to put it... That is a good question. Can I suggest that registered users are only presented with it when they choose it as a gadget ? Seems otherwise people get annoyed rather quickly. TheDJ (talk) 14:00, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
Comment I think a good place for it would be the sidebar. The English Wiktionary has an assessment box there. It allows readers to send feedback about whether an entry was good, bad, messy, confusing, incomplete, etc. and I never found it annoying or a waste of space. It's usually hard for me to get use to any new interface changes (for example, I still use monobook), but this wasn't a problem. Rocket000 (talk) 15:36, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
Comment A rating systems that allows to specify (tick) that one or the other (positive) characteristics apply to an image could address the concerns raised by Skeezix1000. Docu at 16:34, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
Oppose a simple 1-5 star or like/dislike system... because of the vagueness of people's individual preferences the rating becomes unreliable, meaningless and subject to mob-bias. That being said, I'd be Supportive of a system to rate the characteristics of an image, where each category of rating is well defined and narrow in scope. --J.smith (talk) 17:25, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
Comment What about having a "favorites" system instead? Kinda like deviantArt with their ⁺★ thing or blogs have a "digg this" button that display the number of people that like it (the "undiggs" aren't mentioned). If we make who starred it public unlike watchlists, which we should, this could be used as a way of finding good images by allowing users to see what else someone (who they think has good taste) likes. Rocket000 (talk) 17:48, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Those are all variations on the like/dislike systems... I'm not entirely opposed to them, but they all cause delusions of usefulness. People assign to them more value then they really have. What they really measure is popularity, not quality, and it's a bad thing when that's not recognized. --J.smith (talk) 20:59, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Oppose I see too many problems (discussion here) and not much benefit. One thing came to my mind: where will we store the votes? Hopefully not in the file's desc. But any other place (probably) requires heavy adjustments. I think there are many other things which could be done. For example improving the Commonshelper which creates non perfect file desc. pages. Or stepping forward in the category internationalization. Or .... --Saibo (Δ) 01:51, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
Oppose I'm not terribly active here, I know, but when I heard someone mention this idea on IRC, I immediately thought "ew, no." FP and QP is more than sufficent for this, and I wholeheartedly agree with the comments below against this idea. Hersfold ^(talk/work) 01:46, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
Oppose I really don't think this is beneficial or necessary. ←fetch comms 01:48, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
Oppose Most of the important things have been said. To me, it would make the Commons feel too much like a contest, which it is not. --MichaelBueker (talk) 11:00, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
Oppose It sounds too much like YouTube / MySpace and all that stuff. I don't see it as a big benefit, and I think editors have much better things to do that worry about some purported 'rating'. It'd be hard to manage, and open to abuse; I just know we'd have a zillion votes to get some obscene images 'ranked' up top. We have enough problems with article assessment on enwiki, because it is quite subjective; for pictures, this is even more so. (Other reasons have been expressed above, so I won't repeat them, but I do share the concerns) Chzz ► 01:53, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
Support I think this is an excellent idea. Collecting aggregate statistics of many individual assessments would be a very useful quality guide to our media collections, and it would nicely complement our existing assessment processes. It cannot ever replace our existing assessment processes FP and QI etc, which consistently produce excellent quality results, but we know the limitation of those processes is that they are too slow — by a factor of 1000 — compared to the arrival rate of new media awaiting assessments. We need something fundamentally different, faster, and more automated to work beside the existing processes. I don't think the new system could avoid being abused — it is inevitable there will be some abuse — but the process of aggregating many different individuals' responses inevitably greatly reduces the impacts of individual abuses in the final aggregate assessments. In most communities, most people have good intentions most of the time. And a wise statistician once said aggregation beats abuse well enough to satisfy most people most of the time. I think most of the skeptics here would eat their words once they see how well it actually works on Commons. Youtube's voting is a good example of a working system, and most of the users there find the aggregate assessments useful. 85.94.184.115 00:05, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
Oppose per Hersfold. --Dferg ^{(talk · meta)} 14:00, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
Oppose --Wmeinhart (talk) 17:59, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

What's the purpose?

Seeing the support votes above there seems to be a consensus to do it. But I wonder: what's the purpose of rating files? Is it just for the ego of the uploader? Or are there any applied benefits we could use the generated data for? --Slomox (talk) 16:47, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Don't underestimate the importance of stroking the ego of contributors. Happy contributors = more/better contributions. :) --J.smith (talk) 17:25, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I could imagine sorting categories by rating or hiding low rated images. However I think such a mee likey rating system will only lead to the flickrization of commons, with oversaturated kitsch getting high ratings... --Dschwen (talk) 17:21, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

You think so? I think Commons users are fairly good at assessing images (at least on FPC, POTY, and the others). I see it just as something fun to engage the readers more, like we do with the existing assessment systems. Rocket000 (talk) 17:48, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, FPC is ok, but it has a long ruleset and lots of discussion. Voting requires thinking and processing of feedback, which you won't get with a simple thumbs up/down system. The POTY candidates are prescreened by FPC, but is actually an example for a step in the Flickr direction. Objective quality measures do not play a big role and the more sensational (wow!) a picture is the more votes it will get. The simple thumbs up/down system will amplify that trend greatly (especially since there is a lack of prescreening). --Dschwen (talk) 20:22, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I just have to say this. Not everyone is interested in FPC you know. I mean, it has great results, and it really is a great process, but from a reader perspective it is totally inaccessible and not-fun. I want us to offer something to the readers, because I think it will encourage them and we might get a few surprises out of it perhaps. Why does it have to be one or the other ? Why can't we be both ? TheDJ (talk) 09:38, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

I think because some people are very sensitive regarding their images and couldn't handle negative opinions without hearing their reasons. They like the fact FPC has rules and isn't easy to get into. It discourages the drive-by random "This sucks!" type of comments. I say tough. Don't take it personal. But this isn't Flickr and discouraging contributors has a negative effect on us. OTOH, I think a "favorites" system could do more encouraging than discouraging. Rocket000 (talk) 18:54, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

If ego-stroking is good, what about those users whose ego doesn't get stroked? What if my uploads are generally down-voted? That could discourage users. It's a well-known fact that high ratings among internet users do not necessarily reflect the quality of the voted-on object. Rocket000 says that Commons users are good at assessments and points to FPC etc. But these are based on argument discussions and not on mere votes. Especially if anonymous users are allowed to vote there'll be much less votes based on quality considerations than votes based on various biases.

I could imagine sorting categories by rating or hiding low rated images. What if Israeli or Palestinian nationalists up-vote files in their favor and down-vote files that are not in their favor? What if 4chan /b/ raids Commons to bring racist or pornographic files to the top positions?

At the moment I don't see it as a good idea. --Slomox (talk) 20:34, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

User:J.smith likes this post!

I totally agree with Slomox and Dschwen on this. Our current rating system (FP, VP, QI) might not be perfect, but it's more suitable for our project. It's a more thoughtful process that includes discussion. It takes in consideration encyclopedic value and could result in image improvement to meet the requirements. And I think it means more to the contributors than a mere like/dislike vote. -- Orionist ★ talk 22:49, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, ok, you guys are right. The more I think about it, the more I agree it's not worth the potential problems it could cause. Rocket000 (talk) 04:15, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

License template classes

In order to improve the issues with machine readability of the licenses, I propose we introduce the following new CSS classes, a bit like the fileinfotpl_desc/src/auth ids of an {{Information}} template:

licensetpl - Indicates the outer bound of a single license template.
licensetpl_link - A link to the license in question (or a link to our explanation page on public domain ? )
licensetpl_short - Short version of the license: CC-by-sa-3.0
licensetpl_long - The long name of the license: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Generic
licensetpl_attr - A required attribution specified by the license
licensetpl_aut - The author that has granted the license
licensetpl_attr_req - Attribution required? true or false
licensetpl_link_req - Link to the license required? true or false

The classes would be spans around existing information in the licenses or hidden fields in the licenses, as is best suited. I'm not sure how we would deal with {{PD-Art}} and {{Self}} perhaps a "licensetpl_wrapper" class or something ?

Opinions, suggestions, additions and removals (with argumentation), highly appreciated. TheDJ (talk) 11:14, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

The names seem fine to me. I don't think a link is necessary for public domain. Will there be any way to opt out (via template) of having any attribution text generated at all? Rocket000 (talk) 05:48, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

You mean you think we need something to indicate that a license doesn't require attribution and that the author doesn't desire it ? I guess that could be taken into consideration if a user really wants that, but it attribution as a default is probably a good idea. I'll think it over. TheDJ (talk) 17:27, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Courtesy attribution is always nice. This is a nice list to start with and we can always expand it for "real" metdata support ;-) Multichill (talk) 17:57, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Maybe, but I don't want it to imply that it's required. That unfortunately can defeat the main reason I use PD-self. There's at least one other that feels the same: [19] Rocket000 (talk) 18:22, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

How about when the license is PD, next to the attribution text it simply says "(attribution is not legally required)" or something like that? Rocket000 (talk) 18:27, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Example prepared at Template:Cc-by-sa-layout/sandbox. TheDJ (talk) 18:38, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Spot the differences. Seems alright except for the part that the country is missing in licensetpl_long. Multichill (talk) 20:33, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I cannot comment on whether this is the best way to do it, but I do want to encourage your efforts. I believe it is very important for these new image attribution templates to link the licenses. 99of9 (talk) 03:58, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Blegh, not feeling like it anymore. Someone else can do it. commonsvacation TheDJ (talk) 18:09, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Added two--DieBuche (talk) 21:40, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Bot rotated images no longer present in the gallery.

If you upload an image and rotate it via {{Rotate}}, it disappears from your gallery (http://toolserver.org/~daniel/WikiSense/Gallery.php). And, I might add, it appears in the Rotatebot's gallery - Rotatebot has uploaded the new version, so that's "his" image now.

Having to rotate an image is dumb enough (there's nothing wrong with the image, EXIF data says what's the correct orientation), but this is even worse. Is gallery supposed to work this way? Has this issue been discussed before? What can be done about it? Branko Radovanović (talk) 18:35, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

It is good you put this up. I discovered just two weeks ago that it happens to all reuploads by another user (after rotation, cropping or photoshopping): the image comes in the gallery of the last uploader and disappears from the original uploader. I tested a double revert which brought the corrected picture back in my gallery, but that is not an elegant solution. Someone seeing a real solution? --Havang(nl) (talk) 19:41, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

It is possible to create user categories as an alternative to gallery. --MGA73 (talk) 19:46, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

A user category is not an alternative as far as a category does not show like a gallery the data concerning the files (upload date, templates, categories), data usefull for the uploader. However, the problem is not very big as relatively few images are reuploaded by others. Could it be an option to attach a function to the reupload button, which puts it automatically back in the gallery of the original uploader? --Havang(nl) (talk) 20:41, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

The problem would not be big if there was no need for the pics to be rotated. So it's either: a) rotate the pics yourself, then upload it, or b) forget about the gallery tool. Unfortunately I don't like either of these choices.

Maybe I'll create a user category after all, although that's not what I'd normally like. I see now that these categories are hidden, but I still don't feel this is an important piece of information for users other than myself. Maybe there's a way to fix it in the Gallery tool itself, this would be the best solution. Under the hood, Gallery is just an SQL query or something of the sort, so I suppose it could be fixed to show the original uploader, maybe as an option... Branko Radovanović (talk) 20:50, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Raised the issue here. Branko Radovanović (talk) 21:14, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

It is a problem known for a long time but never resolved. 2-3 years ago I was removing a lot of watermarks from images as a result my gallery got "polluted" with about a thousand images which were not mine. I did not used gallery since, and I still get a lot of deletion requests which are incorrectly sent to me instead of the original up-loaders. --Jarekt (talk) 00:47, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

October 16

Image transfer/upload form problems

I've been using THIS FORM exclusively to upload thousands of images for a large Wikisource project, and there are three separate bugs - One old, and two recent bugs which appeared about 10 days ago.

The old bug is that when selected multiple categories for an image, the selections remained after the upload and were applied to the next image, unless I noticed and manually corrected it. When selected a single category, the new selection replaced the old. I no longer assign multiple categories, even though it would be beneficial.
Since the last 10 days or so, any category selected from the list remains unseen in the summary, and I end up with numerous categories unrelated to consecutive uploads. Please see the enclosed image HERE.
There used to be a duplicate image warning when returning to the upload page (using the browser back button). This warning no longer appears, so I am not sure if the upload was completed.

I reuse the same summary over and over again, and changing only minor details relating to the image. I am now uploading about 200 images per week and these bugs seriously slow down the process because of the above, as can be viewed in my contributions history.

I reported these problems to Bugzilla and they responded that these are commons .js problems and they directed me here. Any help is greatly appreciated.Ineuw talk page on en.ws 02:49, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Thousands of images? Use a bot! Or have someone else move the images for you so you only have to do some cleanup here. Using the normal upload form for these amounts of images is soooo much work. Multichill (talk) 11:41, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

The Licensing tutorial needs you

Hi. As you may know, I'm working on a Licensing tutorial, as part of the Multimedia usability project. The goal is to separate the "educational" part of the current upload page (that no one reads) from the actual upload form, and at the same time encourage more users to actually read it. Some time ago, I asked some of you to comment on the main points that should be covered by the tutorial.

The illustrator we're working with just delivered the first drafts of his designs, and we have until the end of the week to provide feedback. Per our agreement with him, the final artwork will be released under CC-by-sa, but the in-progress designs can't be shared publicly. However, as a long-time community member, I know it's critical for the community to weigh in, and I certainly don't expect to make all the decisions alone.

As a compromise, I've temporarily published the PDF outside Commons. I'm going to send private e-mails to a number of Commons users who I think can provide useful feedback, but I'm happy to send the link to the PDF to anyone who's interested in helping. Just sign-up below and leave your comments on the feedback page. In the meantime, I'll also do some hallway user testing of the tutorial with people who don't know about free licenses.

Many thanks in advance to everyone who'll be willing to help out! guillom 17:54, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

PS: Did you know you could still test the prototype? It's been improved: the new "temporary upload" system now works, and it doesn't require file renaming any more.

Broken right now, but I'm sure you notice that--DieBuche (talk) 18:20, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually, it works for me, but TheDJ reported it broken, so Neil is working on fixing it :) guillom 18:25, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Sign-up

Please sign below if you'd like to see the PDF and provide feedback by the end of the week. Please make sure you have e-mail from other users enabled in your preferences. By signing, you agree you won't republish the in-progress artwork (which is not under a free license). Thank you.

Kaldari (talk) Done
--DieBuche (talk) 18:09, 14 October 2010 (UTC) Done
Lupo 18:12, 14 October 2010 (UTC) Done
--Skeezix1000 (talk) 18:13, 14 October 2010 (UTC) Done
TheDJ (talk) 18:16, 14 October 2010 (UTC) Done
Geni (talk) 00:38, 15 October 2010 (UTC) Done
Amada44 ^{talk to me} 10:51, 15 October 2010 (UTC) Done
-- Orionist ★ talk 13:21, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Why this is not a copyvio?

Hi. I'm checking old PotD images, and cannot understand why File:Catrinas 2.jpg is not regarded as a copyvio: although the original La Calavera Catrina character is {{PD-old}}, this photo shows two modern versions of it and was taken in a non-permanent exhibition (according to its description). I think we need the permission of the statuettes' author(s) to keep this image in Commons. I am also pretty sure that the {{FOP}} tag cannot be applied here...

Can you please help me? Regards. --Dodo (talk) 21:03, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Looks borderline to me. The question would be whether there is enough originality in these works for them to qualify for copyright. - Jmabel ! talk 05:14, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
- High quality, specially selected for display in a museum, it should be protected by copyright. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 06:28, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I can't see why they wouldn't be copyrightable. Even if they were merely adaptations of the original 2D image, which they aren't, they'd still have enough creativity to be copyrightable.--Prosfilaes (talk) 08:16, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Definitely copyrightable as artistic works. But why doesn't freedom of panorama apply? The description states that the photograph was taken "at the Museo de la Ciudad, Leon, Guanajuato, Mexico". There is nothing to suggest that the exhibition was not permanent. Is there any evidence to this effect? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 10:02, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

According to the uploader, the photo was taken at a museum. Later, Ecemaml added that is was taken "in an exhibition of artworks made by craftsmen for the Day of the Dead". So this is a photo of an exhibition of contemporary artworks, taken inside a museum... --Dodo (talk) 10:53, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I note that Ecemaml wrote: "La fotografía fue tomada en el Museo de la Ciudad, León, Guanajuato, México en una exposición sobre obras realizadas por artesanos para el Día de Muertos." ["The photograph was taken at the Museo de la Ciudad, León, Guanajuato, Mexico, in an exhibition of works by craftsmen for the Day of the Dead."] Arguably, this is not clear enough to show that the exhibition was a temporary one. It is possible that the artworks were part of a display about the Day of the Dead, but they are still in the museum's permanent collection. One way to know for sure is for someone to visit the museum and see if the exhibition is still there. I would suggest leaving the photograph in the Commons until there is better evidence that the artworks were only on temporary display. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 12:20, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Does {{Mexican FOP}} require that objects be permanently displayed in public, or merely that they be visible from public places? --Skeezix1000 (talk) 12:34, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Good point. "Commons:Freedom of panorama#Mexico" translates the relevant Mexican law as follows: ""Literary and artistic works already published may be used, provided that normal commercialization of the work is not affected, without authorization from the copyright holder and without remuneration, invariably citing the source and without altering the work, only in the following cases ... VII. Reproduction, communication, and distribution by means of drawings, paintings, photographs, and audiovisual means of works visible from public places." (Emphasis added.) It appears the law imposes no permanent display requirement. Furthermore, "Commons:Freedom of panorama#Public places" states: "Mexican ... law allows taking pictures of publicly accessible interiors" (though no authority is cited). — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 15:21, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

It was examined before in Commons:Deletion requests/Image:Catrinas 2.jpg and decided that Mexico's version of FOP applied in this case. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:24, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

A slightly different but related point: shouldn't we have a template that we can put on the talk pages of images stating that the image has been the subject of a deletion request but that the consensus was to keep it, with a link to the relevant discussion? This might help to avoid repeat discussions when no further facts have been disclosed or arguments raised. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 15:45, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Did you actually look at File talk:Catrinas 2.jpg? Or am I just not getting the joke? Lupo 17:30, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Ah, no, I didn't notice that. Sorry. Do we consistently place this template on image talk pages? I get the impression this isn't always done. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 19:41, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't get the point about the exhibition being permanent or not: as far as I know, that is an "special case" of FOP. I mean: if you take a photo of artworks displayed permanently in a place where FOP applies, then you can freely license that photo, even if the artworks are copyrighted. That is not the case, because where are taking about a photo of artworks displayed in a museum, so FOP doesn't apply. It's the same case of a portrait by a living painter displayed at the MOMA: we simply (speedy)delete the photos of it, because they are derivative works and need the author's permission. Am I wrong? --Dodo (talk) 18:34, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

In the deletion discussion at Commons:Deletion requests/Image:Catrinas 2.jpg, Tomas offered some English translation of a quote from a document from the Instituto Nacional para el Federalismo y el Desarrollo Municipal, which he then interpreted to say that (interiors of) museums were public places, and hence FOP applied. People apparently bought that. I don't know if that interpretation is correct; "public place" can have different meanings in different contexts, and the copyright context is rather special. (An example: regarding personality issues, "public place" is just the opposite of "private place" (one where you may expect privacy); but that's not the same as the "public place" of copyright law...) Ideally, we'd have the documents Tomas quoted on-line and could see the quotes in context. Lupo 19:30, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Dodo, we can't assume that the law concerning FOP in the US is identical to that which applies in other parts of the world. In some places like the UK and Singapore, freedom of panorama only applies to works permanently displayed in a public place, which is why finding out whether an artwork was on temporary display or not becomes important. From the information provided at "Commons:Freedom of panorama#Mexico", it appears that freedom of panorama applies to both temporarily and permanently displayed works, so that's not a problem here. Also, Mexican freedom of panorama may apply to works that are inside buildings, so long as they are accessible to the public. But I take Lupo's point that perhaps we don't have enough evidence to confirm whether that is what Mexican law really says. Looks like we need a Spanish speaker with access to the documents to advise us further on this. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 19:41, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I find that hard to believe: let's suppose a Mexican museum organizes an exhibition about a living famous painter (whose paintings are obviously copyrighted). During that exhibition I make photos of those paintings and release them under a free license, effectively voiding the copyright of the author. Sounds like a pretty backdoor to copyright laws to me... --Dodo (talk) 10:48, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Oooops, I forgot: cannot find the Spanish text translated by Tomascastelazo at the Deletion request in http://www.inafed.gob.mx/. Could you help me? Besides, I think we need a proper source of this important amend to the Mexican copyright law... I mean: lower public bodies cannot "rewrite" estatal laws. --Dodo (talk) 10:54, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, they cannot rewrite law, but they can provide interpretations for things not defined in the law. And "public place" is typically left undefined in copyright laws; it's defined through case law, or through regulations, or sometimes one can infer what must have been meant by looking at the legislator's comments when they discussed the law when it was written, or we can use legal commentaries' opinions on what "public place" might mean in this context. So, if we can find that regulation, and if its definition and context seems to support the assumption that museums interiors qualified for FOP, then that'd be good enough. That said, it does strike me as rather unlikely, too. Lupo 14:05, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I would think a photo of nothing but the copyrighted painting would be more of a copy, and not allowed. I haven't looked at Mexico's version lately, but some do have a clause which forbids works which "can be used for the same purpose as the original" -- i.e. even if there is full FOP normally, taking a straight-on photograph of a publicly-displayed photograph (without showing any surrounding context) would still not be allowed, as it is essentially a copy of the original photograph. For your example, I would think it is quite possible that photographs of the exhibition itself, which may contain one or more paintings as components, may well be allowed -- the photo is just showing them in their public context. Carl Lindberg (talk) 04:42, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Could someone please delete?

I uploaded a djvu file File:The varieties of religious experience, a study in human nature.djvu and for Wikisource and then uploaded an improved version of the file. I tried to fix things but I just made a mess of it, so the file no longer links to Wikisource. I tried to upload another file File:The varieties of religious experience, a study in human nature - google.djvu but uploaded the wrong version. Could both files be deleted so that I can start over? I was to use the Microsoft scan rather than the Google version. Sorry for making such a mess. Thanks, Mattisse (talk) 21:00, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Addendum: I uploaded the correct file to Wikisource - File:The varieties of religious experience, a study in human nature.djvu which may have affected File:The varieties of religious experience, a study in human nature.djvu and fixed its errors. (I'm not sure how Wikisource and the Commons resolve these problems.) Sorry! Mattisse (talk) 22:55, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Whatever you want to delete, simply tag with {{Speedydelete|1=Uploader request.}}. I'm not sure what you mean by uploading the file to Wikisource...I don't see a local copy of the file there, just the one here. In any case, just request deletion and then reupload with the correct version. — Huntster (t @ c) 23:45, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

OK. Thanks! Mattisse (talk) 15:26, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

October 17

Category Needs Subtitles

I have added a option to the mwEmbed player to request transcripts for video by adding them to the Needs Subtitles category I also added a download link for each subtitle to the players download button. I am curious if people have ideas on how to promote people helping out transcribe stuff and or add things to be transcribed. Mdale (talk) 03:56, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Admin deleting talk page comments and edit warring

User:Adambro has instigated an edit war at File talk:No Israel.svg.[20]

1st revert: [21]
2nd revert: [22]
3rd revert: [23]
4th revert (after I removed the personal attack, "racist"): [24]

This is edit warring in addition to blanking talk page comments by other users that disagree with their position. I'd like to also take the opportunity to raise their speedy deletion of File:Anti-islam.jpg, which is related to the edit warring. The file was deleted as "out of scope", when it was specifically made to contrast File:No Israel.svg, which has been repeatedly kept despite numerous people arguing that it is out of scope. This admin is unjustified in deleting one image as out of scope when a similar one has been retained multiple times despite that argument. - Floydian (talk) 17:28, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

EDIT: This seems to be related to this discussion further up the page. - Floydian (talk) 17:34, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

What Floydian doesn't explain is that these rather abusive comments were left by the same individual(s) who saw it fit to create numerous accounts and use numerous IPs to continue their abuse both here and on Wikipedia. I'm not convinced we should be making such individuals feel welcome as Floydian seems to suggest. File:Anti-islam.jpg, which was uploaded by the same individual as their subsequent edits would suggest, is less about improving our collection of freely licensed content and more about stirring up problems. Adambro (talk) 17:36, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

But File:No Israel.svg, on the other hand, is a production of good-faith users meant to improve our collection, and not purely to make a political statement. - Floydian (talk) 17:42, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I've previously expressed concerns about such images but that it hasn't been deleted doesn't make it okay for those who wish it was to upload images which are effectively protests about it. I don't see much value of File:No Israel.svg but as I've said elsewhere, I understand it is used in the main namespace of some projects so it perhaps is used in some way that is more appropriate than on user pages. Adambro (talk) 17:56, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

There is no deletion log for File:Anti-islam.jpg (though doubtless there could be another spelling variant). There is an image File:Anti-Islamism.svg in existence. Let's try to keep them both up. Wnt (talk) 18:05, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

File:Anti-Islam.jpg was the image for the benefit of anyone interested. As for the suggestion that this is edit warring, I more consider it dealing with vandalism. I think the context here that I've explained should explain why I considered it vandalism. That isn't to say I consider Floydian's edits vandalism but I clearly believe reinstated the comments wasn't a good idea. File:Anti-Islamism.svg seems similar to the deleted image but without the abuse that went with File:Anti-Islam.jpg so it seems there is an image those who dislike Islam can use if they really believe having such images on their user pages is appropriate. Adambro (talk) 18:13, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

What was the "abuse"? Are you saying you deleted an image file because of some comment in the file description? Surely there's a less drastic solution, if something needed to be solved. Wnt (talk) 18:28, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, I made a question on this matter above, in Latuff's cartoon thread, and nobody answered. I have the answer now. There is no excuse for speedy deleting File:Anti-islam.jpg and keeping File:No Israel.svg! Both were made by Commons' users (not prominent artists, as far as I know) and transmit identical messages. If one is considered out of scope so the other should be. It doesn't really matter who created them and with what intention and the use they have. The only thing we have to decide is whether they are both kept or deleted. Alvesgaspar (talk) 18:19, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Floydian and Alvesgaspar -- Adambro certainly does seem to be anxiously eager sometimes to find any excuse to prevent people from expressing their opinions, but the place to discuss possible problems with the deletion of "Anti-islam.jpg" is really at Commons:Undeletion requests, not here, and not on the talk page of some other image... AnonMoos (talk) 18:36, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I must say constantly implying that I'm unable to act appropriately because of my personal opinions isn't helpful nor does it stand up to much scrutiny. It is wrong to conclude that, just because some of those who have been causing disruption recently have similar views that I must be acting to try to stop that disruption not because I'm concerned about Commons turning into a battleground but because I disagree with their views and want to suppress them. You should note that I've been involved in dealing with disruptive users at both extremes having, for example, blocked User:Pieter Kuiper on a number of occasions. Rushing to suggest, where you disagree with an action, that the person who took that action is biased is a very lazy way of trying to discredit them and one which I think most people can see past. As I have said elsewhere recently, that I've managed to be accused on Wikipedia of writing "israeli propoganda" whilst at the same time others make veiled suggestions that I'm being antisemitic would seem to suggest I'm managing to stay neutral about these things. When you are neutral unfortunately you get attacked as being biased by those people at both sides of the argument. AnonMoos, your concerns are noted but I am quite comfortable I can continue to act appropriately to deal with disruption to Commons. Adambro (talk) 18:49, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't know what your personal opinions are, and I'm not sure whether I care too much what they are. All I know is that you've acted rather poorly on certain occasions in the past, and came close to calling for a blanket ban on discussion of the Latuff cartoons above. AnonMoos (talk) 19:21, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

- Alvesgaspar, the major difference you missed is that Israel is a country and Islam is a religion. // Liftarn (talk) 07:56, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

As much as we are not censored, our talk pages are not a forum. I see no point in keeping those comments, they are of no relevance. I have little opinion about the image that was deleted, though I seems rather soupboxy to me. TheDJ (talk) 18:20, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

First, I'm generally against removing comments, but editing them should never happen. You can't just remove a word, like "racist", or otherwise alter someone's comment without making any indication that it's been edited by someone other than the person that signed it. I do think the reaction to "Anti-islam.jpg" appears as a double standard, but I also understand that it was uploaded solely to make a point about (or "balance out") "No Israel.svg" or related images. On en.wp, they have w:WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, which may apply here as everything I hear for keeping that image is: File:No Israel.svg exists and if one gets kept or deleted the other should, which, as you know, has no basis in policy or common practice. Rocket000 (talk) 22:33, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I can accept the No Israel picture but it should be labeled "Anti-Zionism" since that is what it is. As for the Anti-Islam picture it can't be seen to be discussed. Stellarkid (talk) 03:08, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

No, I see the similar picture put up above and it is appropriate. No Israel should be lableled "Anti-Zionism" just as the other is labeled "Anti-Islamism." Whether anti-Zionism =anti-semitism is an argument for another day.Stellarkid (talk) 03:15, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

If you want to create an "Anti-Zionism" create it but don't change existing pictures. The picture File:No Israel.svg can be used in w:Boycotts of Israel and w:Academic boycotts of Israel and w:Arab League boycott of Israel and w:Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel or a template relating all those articles in wikipedia. In addition to that, a lot of users in Arabic wikipedia, Hebrew wikipidia and Korean wikipedia use that picture to express their political views. Zionism is a political movement, Israel is a country. The picture is called 'No Israel ' because there is a flag of Israelis with an opposition sign. Zionism has no flag like other political movements. Israel is one of its objectives that s why the file File:No Israel.svg can t represent a clear picture for Anti-Zionism --Helmoony (talk) 04:19, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Can anybody point me to any mainspace article in any language wikipedia that any anti-this or anti-that, concerning an identifiable place, country, religion, race or culture, has useful value? - Floydian (talk) 05:55, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

There were some (at least for File:No Israel.svg a little while ago; this has been witnessed by others and stated in various deletion requests), but they must have been removed recently.. Anyway, it's not just about the mainspace, as other projects have different policies regarding their use on userpages and project pages. Removing it from there is not a Commons decision (we can restrict their use here, but deleting them is a completely different issue). That would take a Meta/Foundation policy for us to start telling other project what is or isn't acceptable there, which isn't completely out of the question. Rocket000 (talk) 06:18, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Then all the same, Anti-islam.jpg should be undeleted, no matter the malicious intent. - Floydian (talk) 16:52, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, intent is a factor in deleting. If it was uploaded under different circumstances and in good faith to use on a user page, then I would also support undeletion. There have been images uploaded for the purposes of spamming, vandalism, making a point, etc. that get speedy deleted due the uploader's reason for uploading it. The deletion is done not so much because of the image's content but because of the behaviour it was intended for. Those same exact images may be reuploaded at some other time by someone for legitimate reasons (e.g. a spammy company turns out to be notable enough for a WP article). To me, the deletion is less of a sign that the content is unwelcomed, but the behaviour is unwelcomed. The image just existing here is part of their goal, so blocking instead of deleting doesn't achieve much (and I don't consider that a blockable offense anyway). Do you wish to use the Anti-islam.jpg on your userpage? If so, that would be a good reason for undeleting. But I think File:Anti-Islamism.svg is a prettier image. Rocket000 (talk) 06:05, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

PD-Italy restoration request

See also #Please, restore PD-Italy.

Good day, im request restore using of PD-Italy template according to this arguments:

information provided by user "BomBom" here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2010_March_3#Template:PD-Italy

Accordint this fact - each state of EU got right to create "second class" of photograph with shortly protection limits. (The EU Directive did not make the Italian law much stricter as far as photographs are concerned. EU directives are not self-executing but need national legislation to be implemented. Italy implemented the 1993 directive through Law No. 52 of February 6, 1996. The official Italian text of the implementing law can be found here on the website of the Ministry of Justice (sorry, I couldn't find an English translation). The law left the rules regarding simple photographs intact. There is nothing peculiar in this since directives normally leave member states with a certain amount of leeway as to the exact rules to be adopted. In fact, the directive only applies to "photogrtaphic works" and states that "member States may provide for the protection of other photographs" (Art. 6). The Italian Association for the Defense of Copyright itself states on its website that the more lenient rules for simple photographs are still valid. Some people on Commons have argued that this is a violation of the EU directive. However, I believe that it is certainly not up to us here to decide whether or not a piece of legislation is compliant with an EU directive. If the Italian government (which like any European government, employs numerous legal professionals perfectly acquainted with EU law) decided to leave the rules for simple photographs untouched, then I don't see why we should decide to invalidate these provisions here at Wikipedia. It is up to the Court of Justice of the EU or Italian courts to exercise judicial review, not up to Wikipedians.)

Arguments "this tag are bullshit, becausue not any state create institution of simple photographs" are too unlogical. Not each state got "freedom of panorama" - and in same way, we must delete any FoP photos, becausue France, like part of EU, got no FoP. Or, same case are Coats of Arms - Czech Republic, Germany, etc got exception for this kind of artistic works.

Now, please restore PD-Italy images! --T. Rolková (talk) 14:58, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Support I now feel the earlier decision to eliminate PD-Italy was a mistake. I would name it PD-Italy-photo or something like that though. While not absolutely precise, the Italian law seems to define "simple" photos much better than other countries where we allow similar tags (Sweden for example). I don't see any good reason to not use the Italian version; it is plainly part of their copyright law. One of the original arguments, if I recall correctly, was that Italy did not implement the retroactive requirement of the EU directive, but they in fact did do so later on in a different amendment to their copyright law. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:40, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
Support Yep, I don't see any reason to have some policy more strict than Law. --Vituzzu (talk) 20:15, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Okej, say to other wiki users to support this request! Thanks! --77.48.153.172 16:10, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

I say go ahead and recreate it. The deletion request was a long time ago and not very satisfying. Sounds like there was some confusion over EU directive vs. EU regulation. I think we should listen to Italy, and not Commons users (except for this statement of course ;). Rocket000 (talk) 19:06, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

I also think we should follow the copyright law of Italy, in accordance with the Berne Convention, Article 7, Section 8. We don't need to be more strict than the law of country where protection is claimed. – Kwj2772 (msg) 12:22, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Okej, but primery question it - WHO restore template and any files assiociat with that teplate? --77.48.153.172 14:29, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Support I never understood why this was deleted, and not the Scandinavian ones. Could it be due to language barriers? /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 13:59, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

So this only concerns "simple" Italian photographs? Then the template should make it clear where exactly Italian law (court decisions, law commentaries) draws the line between simple and non-simple photos. IIRC one of the problems with this template was that while it clearly said "Most images, however, enter the public domain 70 years after their author's death.", it was often used as a means to upload any Italian photo older than 20 years. --Kam Solusar (talk) 01:26, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

If so, that was an error. Their law specifies that only "works of photographic art" are protected with the full 70 pma. "Simple" photographs are defined in their article 87: The images of persons, or of aspects, elements or events of natural or social life, obtained by photographic or analogous processes, including reproductions of works of figurative art and stills of cinematographic film, shall be considered photographs for the purposes of this Chapter. This provision shall not apply to photographs of writings, documents, business papers, material objects, technical drawings and similar products. It would seem that snapshots (and therefore, really most photos) are considered simple photographs, and get the 20-years-from-creation protection period. It would also seem that photographs of documents don't even get that. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:07, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes Yes, im understand with user "Carl Lindberg". According to EU direction, EACH state got right to create "second class" of photographs. And that doo Scandinavia States, for example. Deletion of PD-Italy is only act of cowardice of commons users.

And for documents - that are trivial, photos are more userfull like some "documents". Argentina and/or Iran got expire 25 an 30 years after publication, and no special exception for documents. And what?? --77.48.153.172 18:34, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

October 10

"Islamic cemetery" vs. "Muslim cemetery"

I'm rummaging around Category:Cemeteries in Bosnia and Herzegovina, sorting and adding pictures. However, I've noticed that in different places, cemeteries of people pertaining to Islam are called both "Islamic cemetery" and "Muslim cemetery". Is there any prior consensus as to which should be used, and if not, what's the best solution? Thanks for your time :) --MichaelBueker (talk) 00:39, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

I seem to have found a satisfactory answer myself. A Stanford University site says:

Regarding the difference between Islamic and Muslim, Alice Whealey says: The simple answer: in Arabic "al-Islam" is the religion while "Muslim" is a person professing Islam. In English usage, "Islamic" seems to be more abstract, while "Muslim" refers to the people professing Islam.

I will thus proceed in a short while to rename/move categories with "Muslim cemetery" in their name to their equivalent with "Islamic cemetery". If someone disagrees, please contact me on my userpage, as I will likely not be checking this discussion again unless my attention is drawn to it. Cheers! --MichaelBueker (talk) 10:50, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that either one is "wrong", exactly. AnonMoos (talk) 14:58, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Even if both are indivially acceptable, what would be "wrong" would be to have 2 duplicated categories. If there's no clear diference between both, we should use only one, and point the issue at the category description. A difference would have to be beyond mere theory, it should be something that indicats clearly what would belong here and what would belong there. The difference between a term for a religion and a term for someone that follows a religion is just semantic, a cemetery won't have graves for something else than people that could seriously be considered to follow a religion. Belgrano (talk) 16:06, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Right; and these are cemeteries full of people professing Islam, so they should be Muslim cemeteries, not Islamic cemeteries.--Prosfilaes (talk) 17:20, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

In the sense that Belgrano mentions, the scene is already set, as the subset of Category:Cemeteries by religion contains Category:Islamic cemeteries, which in turn has Category:Islamic cemeteries by country with its own accordingly named 20 subcategories. With individual files, the terms Muslim and Islamic are almost on par with about 100 each, but still I think the situation is clear, and Islamic should be used. Mark you, I am not some zealot who thinks one of these terms is 'true' and the other is 'wrong'; I am merely interested in congruence and avoiding later arguments. --MichaelBueker (talk) 10:23, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't hear the word "Muslim" used as much as "Islamic" as an adjective. In fact, I almost hear "Muslim" used exclusively as a noun (i.e. an adherent of Islam). So following Commons naming conventions, it would be "Cemeteries of Muslims", which doesn't sound too good. Better to depersonalize it and call it an "Islamic cemetery". Rocket000 (talk) 19:20, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Funny, my sense is that Muslim is far more common than Islamic here in Singapore, and we always refer to Muslim cemeteries rather than Islamic cemeteries. I also agree with Prosfilaes that Muslim cemeteries (i.e., cemeteries for Muslim people) makes slightly more sense than Islamic cemeteries (i.e., cemeteries relating to the religion of Islam). — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 17:41, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, then I guess it doesn't matter as both are far more common than each other ;). Rocket000 (talk) 06:12, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

"Use this file" is a copyvio

You have to add the link to the CC license text in the code otherwise it is strictu sensu a copyright violation because CC let youz the choice between reproducing the whole text or placing a link. It is NOT enough to write the CC abbreviations --FrobenChristoph (talk) 00:04, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

More than well known already. It will just take a little work to actually get it implemented. TheDJ (talk) 09:33, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Understood. But could someone please turn it off until it is fixed, instead of actively inviting everyone to violate our copyrights? It's almost impossible for me to explain to someone they are misusing my photo when the site invites misuse. - Jmabel ! talk 02:03, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I already turned it off once before, therefore I'm not doing it again. Anyone else is more than welcome to do so. TheDJ (talk) 14:04, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I have no idea how, or I'd gladly do it myself. - Jmabel ! talk 15:36, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

But isn't the current solution much better than having people credit images to "wikipedia" with no mention of license or author?--DieBuche (talk) 15:39, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely not. Previously, if someone got this wrong on my work, I could approach them and they would usually fix it. Now, they are in a position to say "but this is what the site told me to do" and they think I'm being a crackpot to tell them to change it. - Jmabel ! talk 04:43, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

It encourages not complying with the license. So no, it's not better. I am getting frustrated that the users working on this scripts think that credit is the only thing we care about. Actually, that is the last thing I care about and dislike that this implies it's mandatory for PD-self works. It defeats the main reason I chose that. Furthermore, licenses such as the GPL and LGPL are about keeping things free not attribution, that's just a side effect of having to retain the copyright notice (which normally includes the author name)... People choose specific licenses for specific reasons and now treating them all the same is a mistake. Arguing over icons and placement is one thing, but this is a little more important... Rocket000 (talk) 05:35, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I had not noticed this until now. Yes, it is sometimes terrible. And I do not like the "from Wikimedia Commons" either. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 05:55, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't like that either. "Repulsive" was the word I used above. Rocket000 (talk) 06:25, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

It is words like that that make me so demotivated that I'm 2nd guessing wether I want to work at all on scripts and templates for Commons. TheDJ (talk) 10:07, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Something like this needs consensus. If you want to avoid negative comments, you must find that before you implement such scripts. I understand that the attribution information strongly depends on the quality and organization of the information in the infobox. Minor impoerfections there can make a script produce horrible nonsense in the attribution line of "use this file". But apart from that, the "from Commons" is not appropriate when it really comes from somewhere else. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 14:39, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I know that, that's why I disabled it the first time. For your convenience I have now disabled it again. Having said that, when people start throwing around the word "repulsive" over a minor issue that was intended to increase public awareness of Wikimedia Commons, then I seriously am not interested atm to work on this. This is exactly where Free development of a top 10 web property breaks down. Facebook engineers get paid to put up with this unavoidable shit. I'm not, it's my hobby and if I stop having fun, I put the work aside. I have too many other things I need to concern myself with, and yet another iteration of software development that has to argue over every small little detail is not something I'm interested in right now. So good luck to Magnus and diebuche, while I will concentrate on other things. Time for a commonsvacation. TheDJ (talk) 18:07, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Reenabled, it now parses the licenses and finds the correct link, as long as the template uses the method described below. "From commons" is only displayed if the script is sure it's from here. Also, the wikicode part is reduced and selection of text is easier. If you find a template that is not yet supported. don not complain about the devs, but simply add the parameters to the respective /layout template--DieBuche (talk) 21:44, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

@TheDJ: It's not a minor detail to me. In fact, if I was limited to one complaint, that would be it. I'm sorry you took my opinion that it's repulsive to give Commons credit when the file comes from somewhere as some how applying to your coding efforts... If I had to guess, no one had thought anything of it before so I did not think anyone would take that as a direct criticism (since it wasn't their idea). If the script wasn't forced on us and our project in the unstable controversial manner that it was, I think the criticism would carry a more pleasant tone (however, my "repulsive" comment stands regardless of if a script does it or not and wasn't about your work). Rocket000 (talk) 06:37, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Special:Upload

Dear Commoners, could you tell me what is the extension/code that provides the Upload page? I'm interested in developing similar forms for Wikisource, and customizing the Upload file form in Commons seems the best solution to me. Any advice? --Aubrey (talk) 10:55, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I think User:Lupo is best person to address this question. --EugeneZelenko (talk) 14:42, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Depends on what you mean. The multiple forms we have for "own work", "from Flickr", and so on, as listed on Commons:Upload? That's done using a "uselang hack"; it involves a lot of on-wiki configurations and needs some special server-side settings. I would recommend you don't go that route. It is a lot of effort, and it's finicky as hell.

Or did you mean the upload form with the many input fields? That's done by a JavaScript, MediaWiki:UploadForm.js. It's pretty old. If you want to take that approach (rewriting the upload form using JavaScript), wait until the new UploadWizard that is currently being developed is done and see whether it does already what you want. If not, wait until the new ResourceLoader is available and stable; then write a completely new script using the ResourceLoader and jquery to modify the upload process. Maybe you can even customize the new upload wizard. In any case, take the old MediaWiki:UploadForm.js only as an inspiration for what can be done, but not for how to do it. Lupo 19:32, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, this is really helpful. Il'll check the Uploadform.js to see if it can suit my purposes. Thank you again (and sorry for the delate, I'm not alway on Commons). Aubrey (talk) 08:06, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

File:Новая передняя (1).jpg

Hi, there is a hidden mistake concerning this picture. The chapter "File Versions" on the description page shows one upload, and the "Comments" column contains the following russian text:

({{Information |Description={{ru|НОВАЯ ПЕРЕДНЯЯ, Строгановский дворец<br> Первоначально зал исполнял 
функцию вестибюля перед входом в апартаменты графа П.�)

The final character isn't contained in the real description paragraph. This mistake provides a wrong downloaded picture when we create a pdf version of our wikibook. Look here:

Correct version in the german wikibook: Russia Sightseeings in the next <gallery> first row, second picture.
Correct version in the print preview: Russia, get downwards to the Sightseeings (Sehenswürdigkeiten) with the <gallery> first row, second picture.
Corrupted version see PDF-file page 303.

The conversion program wb2pdf (see de:b:User:Dirk Huenniger/wb2pdf) downloads the wiki source and all the pictures including descriptions. Anywhere the picture cannot be translated to unicode or LaTeX source.

I tried to change the description page, but got no effect. Can someone else correct the database or whereever the mistake may be caused by? -- Thank you very much! Juetho (talk) 14:24, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

See bugzilla:332. Lupo 16:06, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Grrrh, 6 years old. It would be better to choose another picture. -- Juetho (talk) 16:34, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Maybe you can try downloading the image, uploading it under a new name (don't forget to tick the "Ignore all warnings" box), and then tagging the old image with a {{Duplicate}} tag? Don't know if that would fix the problem. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 10:43, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

previews of svg files not displaying.

I'm wondering if I did s.t. wrong here. I uploaded a new version of File:Oceania (orthographic projection).svg. It displays fine. However, previews of it do not, in either FF or IE: it does not display on the image page, nor in the transclusion in WP, unless I click on the link to get the full image. Perhaps it's not generating the reduced png files? Is that due to an error of mine? Kwamikagami (talk) 09:09, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

It could be a transient problem with the server. I notice the same issue sometimes. You may want to try again in a few minutes or hours. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 09:38, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Or with the file. A check lists many errors, and the Commons renderer is not forgiving. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 09:42, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Don't we have a noticeboard for SVG issues? I recall this comes up a lot. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 09:46, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I used Inkscape, which is (or was) recommended. Tried saving as 'simple' svg rather than Inkscape svg, but it doesn't seem to make a difference.

Should probably just use png anyway. The image quality is often better, as well as being more economical and better for readers on slow connections. Kwamikagami (talk) 10:28, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Have just ascertained that you can post technical questions at "Commons:Graphics village pump". — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 10:42, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, but that last edit seems to have done it. I had just converted all the paths and came back to upload when I saw the image displaying properly. Kwamikagami (talk) 10:49, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Poll on Latuff cartoons' categorization

Info -- I have started a series of polls in some of Latuff cartoons' talk pages. This is a good-faith initiative to solve a difficult affair, which has already caused considerable drama and made some victims. Please participate and feel free to extend the poll to other cartoons. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 07:57, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

where are these polls? :-) Privatemusings (talk) 10:02, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry! Please check the talk pages of Latuff's cartoons: Latuff -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 10:08, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I had asked Alvesgaspar to stop, yet he continued. Commons:Village pump#Proposal should have been enough. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 10:39, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

He clearly prefers problems over solutions. --Foroa (talk) 12:08, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Let's say that I'm clearly not intimidated by the difficulties and will continue trying to find a rational and fair solution to a delicate problem, which is a source of disruption for the project. Hollow criticisms, like the one above, do not help. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 16:16, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Based on the poll higher up on this page, isn't there already some consensus that the images should be placed in neutrally named categories (like "Cartoons concerning Israel")? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 19:44, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

That poll was a flop, not because of the result but because very few people participated. Also, it was a 'case study' focused on a single picture. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 20:48, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

We had eight responses, which isn't too bad. Well, hopefully you will get more responses for your new poll(s). — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 06:59, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Info - Here is the list of tlak pages were a poll has been started -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 12:22, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Too much work. This Oppose applies to all of them. Reasons: same as before. I don't think it's unreasonable to say a consensus was formed or was forming in the last poll. The opposition was not about that specific image as indicated in their rationales, so I think it's unfair to scatter the discussion across various pages to those who voted based on general principles that apply to all (or most) the images. These should be taken into account as well. I doubt those with a special interest in the subject matter will see it as a waste of time, so maybe that was the point... Rocket000 (talk) 22:42, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree:

Oppose all. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 22:56, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Oppose the options given (antisemitism, anti-Zionism, and various other controversial decriptions including war crimes, racism, anti-Americanism, terrorism) for all these images, but Support neutral descriptive alternatives such as "cartoons about Israel" and "cartoons about the Palestinian territories". Maybe these cartoons can be described as antisemitism or anti-Zionism, but there is clearly enough dispute about this that I think applying such categories is inappropriate. My view is based on the following part of the en wiki guideline w:WP:CLN:

"Categories appear without annotations, so be careful of neutral point of view (NPOV) when creating or filling categories. Unless it is self-evident and uncontroversial that something belongs in a category, it should not be put into a category."

and on the part of COM:NPOV that says "neutrality of description should be aimed at wherever possible". I see categories as part of our description of an image. --Avenue (talk) 00:06, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I would totally support adding a short "category" section to COM:NPOV. en:wp has some general guidelines (especially for people cats); I think the "Not all categories are comprehensive" part is relevant here. Rocket000 (talk) 05:35, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I'll repeat my belief that the cartoons belong in each and any of these categories if and only if a reliable source puts them in the category. There's just too much dispute not to do this based on verifiable sources. Wnt (talk) 06:23, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Creative Commons Public Domain Mark 1.0

Hi guys, earlier this week I was at the Europeana conference. At this conference Creative Commons presented the Public Domain Mark 1.0. Unlike the other Creative Commons licenses (like {{Cc-by-sa-3.0}}) this is is not a license, but a copyright assessment instrument. I was thinking how to implement this here at Commons and came to the conclusion that we should probably try to integrate this into our current licensing structure. At Commons we call everything license tags but we can actually divide it into two groups:

Real license templates: Tags like cc-by/cc-by-sa/GFDL/FAL/GPL/cc-zero, but also PD-self added by the copyrightholder
Copyright assesment templates: Tags to indicate something is in the public domain. Not because the copyright holder placed it in the public domain (so not {{PD-self}}) but because other reason. {{PD-old}} is probably the best example.

For the second group we could probably integrate the Public Domain Mark. We keep our fine grained structure why something is believed to be in the public domain, but we somehow link to the Public Domain Mark to make it easier for re-users.

The cc pd mark template is not alone. A while ago Creative Commons launched the CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication (here {{Cc-zero}}). This is the Creative Commons license which a copyright holder can use to place something in the public domain. They recently changed their wording and now it looks a lot like {{PD-self}}. Like {{PD-old}} should somehow link to the cc pd mark I think {{PD-self}} should somehow be linked to the CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.

Not sure how to implement all of this yet. I want to hear some opinions first anyway. If we do this the majority of our media will make use of the Creative Commons licensing infrastructure. This is a good thing in a world where open standards and interoperability are important. Multichill (talk) 16:19, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Looks OKE to me. But your bot will be even more running out of breath....

--Havang(nl) (talk) 16:25, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

This is not a bot job. We modify our current templates to link to Creative Commons. Multichill (talk) 16:26, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't think we can link to the CC-zero dedication from our current PD-self, because the copyright owners haven't used the CC-zero dedication.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:22, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Of course we need to check what's possible before we actually start implementing anything cc-zero related. First focus is the cc pd mark. Multichill (talk) 20:48, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, all we need to do is to change Template:PD-old/layout (and similar layout templates) and replace [[File:PD-icon.svg|64px|link=|Public domain]] with [[File:NAME OF OFFICIAL CC-PDM LOGO ON COMMONS.SVG|64px|link=http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/|Public domain]], isn't it? --Slomox (talk) 21:27, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

CC0 should not be applied to works where the copyright holder has not used that specific method of PD dedication. At the bottom of http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en, it says to use it for your own works, whereas http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/, says "Use this tool to mark other public domain works." But I think the "Public Domain Mark" was a great idea by CC and we should make use of it where appropriate. On a side note, when I look at all the PD templates we have, I am left wondering if it would be possible to combine and streamline some of them. Rocket000 (talk) 22:18, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

The public domain mark has nothing to do with CC-Zero or changing an icon image. The public domain mark, for our purposes, is a metadata standard to facilitate search engines being able to identify Public Domain images. This would involve making some behind-the-scenes changes to our PD templates. Here's an example of some PD mark code for the Mona Lisa:

<p xmlns:dct="http://purl.org/dc/terms/">
<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/">
<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/62/PD-icon.svg/64px-PD-icon.svg.png" 
style="border-style: none;" alt="Public Domain Mark" />
</a><br />
This work (<span property="dct:title">Mona Lisa</span>, by <span 
resource="[_:creator]" rel="dct:creator"><span 
property="dct:title">Leonardo da Vinci</span></span>), published by 
<span resource="[_:publisher]" rel="dct:publisher"><span 
property="dct:title">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>, is free of known 
copyright restrictions.
</p>

Kaldari (talk) 22:02, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

You cannot change the template of {{PD-self}} to cc0, the rightsholder needs to apply that him/herself to his/her work. Although I would highly recommend that wikimedia changes the preferred template to one that uses cc0. For {{PD-old}} this does not apply. If you are certain that an object is in the public domain, than you can use a CC-Public Domain Mark. Changing that template to encompass the CC-PDM is legally ok. -Creative Commons, Netherlands- 80.101.163.191 09:52, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

CC-PDM mentions "including all related and neighboring rights". I'm not sure if Commons PD tags generally cover these. If not, we could really replace existing tags with the suggested one. Docu at 11:32, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

In Commons, that part is as jurisdiction bound as it is for the Creative Commons PD mark as far as I know. The one thing that differs, is that we almost always state in which jurisdiction or because of what reason the PD template applies. There is no reason why we could not continue to do so as far as I'm aware... TheDJ (talk) 18:12, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

October 18

Translating SVG map files

Hi, i'm an italian user interested in translating mpas in my own language. I yet done a trial with

, but source and author didn't work well, i probably made a mistake in compiling format or in choosing licence. I was in trouble in uploading files using "derivativeFX", so i tried with "main upload form".

Should someone explain me the right way to upload files like theese? Thanks.Ciaurlec (talk) 17:56, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

It was a simple wikicode error that caused the author and source fields to not work. Namely, in the description field, the {{It}} template was not closed properly. See the changes I made here. — Huntster (t @ c) 22:44, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

October 19

Move file

Hi, I thought it was agreed to allow editors to do this which would make life easier. Not sure if I'm going about it the right way, but could someone arange to move File:Flickr image holding file.jpg to File:St Michael and All Angels Church, Old Farnley, Leeds (16th October 2010).jpg. Thank you, Mtaylor848 (talk) 15:33, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

You need to be a filemover for that: Commons:Requests_for_rights#Filemover_.28add_request.29. TheDJ (talk) 18:07, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Tag files for moving with {{Rename}} (read the instructions on how to use the tag by clicking on the link). — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 20:12, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Mtaylor848 (talk) 14:40, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Wrong thumbnail

"File:Center of Hellenic Studies in Greece, Nafplion (2009).jpg" is showing the wrong thumbnail, and clearing my cache makes no difference. Is it just a caching issue or something else? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 10:21, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Please define "wrong" here. On my screen the thumbnails show a house. –Krinkle^talk 13:13, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm. I was seeing a cluster of yellow orchids (the originally uploaded image), but I'm now seeing the house. Guess it was a caching issue after all. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 14:08, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Small problem with book template and categories

It is the first time I am attempting to upload book pages. I've tried to use similar templates as I saw under the the same writer's category. However, as you can see in Category:1552 books, my template is categorizing every single page into the "1552 books" category instead of categorizing the book as a whole. Do you have any Idea how to repair this ? Teofilo (talk) 13:51, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Lately 13 separate Book-like templates were merged with {{Book}}, see details. "By date" autocategorization was part of those templates from the beginning, and so far was not removed, but I am aware of this issue. As with other autocategorization of files issues we had( with template:Creator) it is hard to fix. One thing we can do, is to add date categories only to other categories, but that would remove them from all the PDF and djvu files. I was thinking about running a bot to add date categories to all PDF and djvu files and then remove autocategorization of files by {{Book}}. My suggestion to Teofilo would be not to worry about this for time being - all books have this problem. But if anybody has some ideas on how to fix it that would be great. --Jarekt (talk) 14:55, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I have traced this to the following statement in the template {{Book}}: "{{#ifexist:Category:{{{Date|{{{date|}}}}}}|[[Category:{{{Date|{{{date|}}}}}} books]]}}". Therefore, the addition of "Category:1552 books" is actually built into the {{Book}} template. I agree with you that it is a bit strange that images should appear in both their home category as well as a "[year] books" category, since the home category already appears in the latter. Perhaps {{Book}} should be tweaked so that if a home category is specified, images do not appear in a "[year] books" category. I can try and create an amended version of the template in a sandbox to fix this problem if you like. However, as this template is fully protected, you will have to ask an administrator (I'm not one) to actually change the template itself. Before I do so, you may want to start a discussion at "Template talk:Book" for this aspect of the template to be changed to see if there is consensus for such a change. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 15:10, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Your solution would require adding parameter for file "home category" to {{Book}}. This sounds like adding more auto-categorization, I would prefer solution which reduces number of automatically added categories by eventually removing the line of code you mentioned above and other similar lines. I have created Template:Book/subst which can be used to add various categories directly to all categories and all PDF and djvu files transcribing {{Book}}, by replacing "{{Book" with "subst:Book/subst|subst=subst:" (I did not test this template yet). We can than remove most of the auto-magic categorization done by {{Book}}. --Jarekt (talk) 16:55, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Um, {{Book}} already allows users to specify a "home category":

{{#if:{{{Homecat|}}} 
  | {{#ifexist:Category:{{{Homecat}}} || }}
  | }}

Why do you not think it is a good idea for {{Book}} to automatically add a home category to files? Isn't this better for consistency? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 17:32, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Those lines of code are used only for templates, the same way {{Creator}} and {{Museum}} does. See documentation. --Jarekt (talk) 17:34, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I am not sure what you mean. Which lines of code and what documentation are you referring to? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 17:42, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I was refering to "{{#ifeq:{{NAMESPACE}}|Template|" used to restrict use of Homecat parameter to templates only, as explained (hopefully) in description of Homecat parameter in {{Book/doc}} (which also mirrors descriptions in {{Creator/doc}} and {{Institution/doc}}) . --Jarekt (talk) 18:27, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Ah, now I understand. But, as I mentioned earlier, isn't it a good idea for {{Book}} to automatically add a home category to files for consistency? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 18:34, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Autocategorization, or categories added by templates, are very convenient in a lot of cases, but at very heavy price. They are confusing to users who can not change them and categories based on user-provided parameters can not be easily added by bots (AFAIK). Ideally autocategorization should be only used for tracking maintenance categories. See example of {{Creator}}: originally majority of creator templates were auto-categorizing into author-name categories, which was causing endless problems for people trying to develop subcategories of author categories, like 18 subcategories of Category:Vincent van Gogh. The side-effect of the autocategorization by Creator template was frequent removal of creator templates or some unusual uses of the template which still linger in out system. --Jarekt (talk) 20:10, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Good point. Thanks. Well, I can amend the template to remove the automatic inclusion of categories, if any help is needed with this. Let me know. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 06:42, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks everybody for whatever can be done. Anyway it is perfectly OK for me just to stop worrying for the time being. Teofilo (talk) 10:47, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Resolved

See Template_talk:Book#Auto-categorization --Jarekt (talk) 03:22, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Naruto images copyright concerns

At en:Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Anime_and_manga#Commons_category:_Naruto an editor expressed concern that some images in the category Category:Naruto and its daughter categories may be copyrighted.

"Actually, many of those images are not free images because they are derived from copyrighted images of the original work. Because of that, they are in violation of Common's policies. —Farix (t | c) 20:08, 20 October 2010 (UTC) "

So would people mind looking at the images in the category and its daughter images to see if the explanation fits? If there are images that do violate copyright, the original uploader should be notified. WhisperToMe (talk) 22:02, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

They seem fine; pictures of cosplay are perfectly legal, and that's most of what I'm seeing there. There's some abstract stuff, which aren't going to be trivial arguments for copyright infringement, and Raruto, which is already at DR.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:26, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

The user replied: "Pretty much everything in Category:Symbols of Naruto, Category:Object (Naruto), Category:Eyes (Naruto), Category:Mudras Naruto, Category:Naruto characters and Category:Raruto are derived works based on the illustrations of the original manga and cannot be used without fair-use rationals. There are also three images in the main category that are also derived works. Someone will need to check up on the images in Category:Naruto Stats but I believe those images are recreations of ones found in the character books, and thus would not be free-use. Since Commons is for free-use images, they are in violation of commons policies. —Farix (t | c) 23:28, 20 October 2010 (UTC)"

WhisperToMe (talk) 23:58, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Raruto is moot; it's currently at DR. Symbols of Naruto and Object (Naruto) have a lot of stuff that's not copyrightable; a four leaf clover does not become copyrightable just because it's in red, for example. Without having seen the original, I can't tell what crosses the line, but there are a huge number of files that are simply not even close to the line. Eyes (Naruto) is complex; probably a lot of it crosses the line, but again File:Kyuubi eye.svg is pretty standard, and I don't know that where the line falls for several others. Naruto characters seems to mostly have files in it that are also in Symbols of Naruto and Object (Naruto), plus cosplay. Mudras Naruto has a bunch of secret handshakes, or something like that, all done clean of copyrighted material, and handshakes aren't copyrightable. I tagged File:Taiwan Animax Naruto season 3 advertisement.jpg for speedy deletion, because Japanese FOP doesn't come anywhere near letting us use an ad on the side of a taxi.

There's a lot of stuff here that is PD-text, PD-textlogo and the like. There's a lot of stuff that's more complex, but nothing that's clearly clearly copyvio. Some of this stuff needs someone with experience in Naruto, anime and Japanese culture; if File:Chapeau kazekage.svg is a tracing, then it's absolutely not fine, but if it's a standard Japanese graduation hat in blue with the word "wind" across the front, blue & "wind" are not copyrightable. Over all, it's complex, and I have no doubt some of it would go at DR, but it is way, way overstating the issue to say that "pretty much everything" is deletable.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:39, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

The taxi is in Taiwan. Lemme look at the Taiwan FOP. WhisperToMe (talk) 02:10, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Taiwan FOP says buildings are okay, but works of art are not. WhisperToMe (talk) 02:22, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

BTW the Raruto DR is at Commons:Deletion requests/Raruto WhisperToMe (talk) 05:00, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

October 21

Commercial use of Stonehenge photos

http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/8398550/ --92.72.207.89 08:58, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Don't worry English heritage have backtracked on this (seeStonehenge bosses 'regret' photography ban), as far as I can see they tried to see if they could get away with this by trying to bully a single small photolibrary, and have had their hands slapped. pretty ridiculous for such an institution to claim ownership of the image rights to such a monument.-KTo288 (talk) 14:32, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Open Government Licence (UK)

The UK government is implementing a new licence (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/) with terms similar to the free CC licenses - it looks OK for us. Data available under appears to include many things at http://data.gov.uk . I'm not sure how much content available is graphical, though some certainly is for example. However, as this also allows greater use of UK government data it probably gives greater potential for creating free works.

Its probably worth creating a copyright tag here, and definitely worthwhile to investigate and see how much UK government info is now free.--Nilfanion (talk) 10:53, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

File usage on other wikis

While does information about usage on other wikis display for File:Haugerud t-bane 01.jpg but not for File:Everybody Draw Mohammed Day - Mohammed by meco.png? The latter is being used on en:Talk:Everybody Draw Mohammed Day/Archive 2#My drawing has been cleared. __meco (talk) 08:34, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Because not File:Everybody Draw Mohammed Day - Mohammed by meco.png is used but the redirect of File:Mohammed by meco.png. --Martin H. (talk) 13:25, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Ps. This is bug 18017. I could look into it, but given that basically no non-critical bugfixes to MediaWiki have been deployed for almost a year, it doesn't seem worth it. Better to wait until WMF gets the deployment process un-screwed-up first.</cynical> —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 19:47, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Licensing tutorial: Phase 2

Hi. As a follow-up to my message from last week, I would like to thank everyone who provided feedback on the draft designs of the licensing tutorial. The illustrator we're working with has taken it into account and delivered a second round of designs.

Like last time, I've temporarily published the PDF outside Commons. I'm going to send private e-mails to the people who signed up last time, but I'm happy to send the link to the PDF to anyone else who's interested in helping. Just sign-up below and leave your comments on the feedback page. In the meantime, I'll also do some hallway user testing of the tutorial with people who don't know about free licenses.

Many thanks in advance to everyone who'll be willing to help out! guillom 03:18, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Sign-up

Please sign below if you'd like to see the PDF and provide feedback by Tuesday (October 26th). Please make sure you have e-mail from other users enabled in your preferences. By signing, you agree you won't republish the in-progress artwork (which is not under a free license). Thank you.

From last week:

Kaldari Done
DieBuche Done
Lupo Done
Skeezix1000 Done
TheDJ Done
Geni Done
Amada44 Done
Orionist Done

This week:

Rocket000 Done
Krinkle Done
9carney
Mike Peel Done
Mike Linksvayer Done
Diaa abdelmoneim
Trizek ^Blah
add you name here

Help about uncorrect SVG text visualization

Hi, I've created this SVG file, but the text inside doesn't appear correctly. I made several modifies on Inkscape, but unsuccessfully. What's wrong? Please help me! Thanks. --Mess (talk) 13:09, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

The tool I announced just above ([25]) would say it's the "flow" elements, and offers some advice ("If you're not actually trying to bend the text, try deleting the offending text and readding it. If you are trying to, use 'Convert to path' (Inkscape) or similar."). Jarry1250 (talk) 14:46, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

...though that's probably bad advice. Certainly, opening up the offending SVG in a text editor and removing the flow element worked for me. Maybe someone could comment if that's always the solution? Jarry1250 (talk) 15:30, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

(Fixed, optimised and re-uploaded. Jarry1250 (talk) 16:25, 23 October 2010 (UTC))

Thank you very much for everything, Jarry! I'll use your tool next time and follow your hints. Bye. --Mess (talk) 17:43, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

What is with text on (text)path? Is it also a flow element? --Perhelion (talk) 17:39, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Report about user Иван

I want to report this user for insult and inacceptable behaviour. The reason was an deletion request. He just wrote down these barefaced and unconfirmed answer:

I'm quite sure that something with your health is wrong and in fact you are sick, but the reason is not me, may be it's something about genetics? Do you really think, that six independant, refferd, statistically grounded scientific papers "are not clear point of view"? Иван (talk) 12:41, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I think this is not suitable or acceptable and a violation of applicable usage conditions. I want you to react and to stop him spreading those animous and unconfirmed facts. --Saviour1981 (talk) 19:26, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

You can file a message at "Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems". — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 09:33, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Okay, thank you for that :) --Saviour1981 (talk) 17:29, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

October 20

Is it really acceptable for someone to do a radical crop on my image?

File:Seattle - 2010-09-23 pano 04.jpg is a panorama. Like many panoramas, the image I uploaded was not rectangular. Someone else apparently didn't like that and someone else followed up by a pretty radical crop with a bot removing a significant portion of the image.

Shouldn't this have been done by making a derivative work and leaving my initial image intact? If I had wanted to crop it that way, I'd have cropped it that way.

In any event, am I right that I should feel free to revert (and, I suppose, if I want to be polite, to place the cropped version on a different page)? - Jmabel ! talk 05:16, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I guess they felt it was a straightforward improvement, in which case it's ok to upload over the top. But it's also fine for you to revert and send them to another filename. 99of9 (talk) 05:27, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd have thought they could have used content-aware fill to fix it. -mattbuck (Talk) 08:26, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

That railing on the lower left looks pretty tough to fill in programmatically. Perspective cloning would seem like a more useful tool there, but even with that the supports look tricky. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 16:33, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I think they should have reloaded the cropped image under a new name and left the original alone. Railwayfan2005 (talk) 19:21, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, the picture should have been done right to begin with. Next time leave more room, then you can upload a clean cropped version . Composition on this image is less than optimal. The parts of the building left and right are superfluous, the railing is distracting, and you should have shown more of the city on the bottom. --Dschwen (talk) 19:28, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I didn't think the uncropped version was useful. Of course you're welcome to move my edit to a new file. --Beao 21:04, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, I'll leave the resulting image alone, since someone can always get back to my original if they really want it, but "useful" begs the question of "useful for what?" As you can see, I took several panoramas from the same place. This one didn't work out as well as the others, but it included some buildings (precisely in the area you cropped out) that were otherwise missing. As I understand it, one of our main purposes here on the Commons is documentary and educational. The picture could be quite useful to someone a decade or two from now trying to understand changes in the Seattle skyline, and it is less so if it is further cropped.

If it could easily have been cleaned with a perspective clone tool, of course I would have done so, as I've done on some other panoramics of mine. - Jmabel ! talk 19:34, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Font size in illustrations, maps and graphs

I'd like to know if there is a general politic or general agreement about the font size used in such objects, in particular way for those drawed in SVG or other vector formats. Has the image to be readable even by the main page of article, or it may be readable only by opening the file clicking on it? In the first case what is supposed to be the size of image used to rend readable the image. Please show me some previous discussions or let's start a new topic.Ciaurlec (talk) 08:43, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

That entirely depends. I'd say it would be meaningful if the graphic is readable when used in the default thumb size of 220px. But of course that cannot be a general rule because it would extremely limit the value of information that can be put in the graphic. --Slomox (talk) 11:47, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

The few simple map images which I've done, I've intentionally designed so as to be fairly fully readable when displayed at half-size in an article (see Image:Gor-map-simplified.svg, Image:Simplified-Narnia-map.svg), but that really can't be a general requirement on map images, since some maps have to show a considerably greater amount of detail. However, it is annoying if you click on the map thumbnail and go to the image description page (maximum 800x600 view), and most of the text in the map is still unreadable.... AnonMoos (talk) 14:28, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I recently had a bad experience regarding the poor quality of Wiki SVG renderings (including lots of wasted time with faulty suggestions and solutions). My advice is that it would be poor policy to compromise the design of a good graphic based on the limitations of the currently bad software. Particularly so as you may be designing a map or graphic that has use and benefit beyond just the Wiki environment. The SVG renderer produces marginal results for anything but the most trivial input. Even taking suggestions to limit myself to a single Wiki-sanctioned Bitstream Vera font (or the derived DejaVu version) still produced marginal results. If, at some future date, the SVG renderer used by Wiki is improved, then immediately the appearance of thousands of graphics will be improved. The alternative is to design thousands of of blurry low res graphics and to be stuck with them. At this point the best that I can hope for is that the article reader will see something interesting enough to catch their eye, and that they will click thru to the next page with the file history and such, and that they will then click thru further to the original posted (and un-processed) SVG file in all it's glory. That way all the SVG data is still maintained, and it's available for further editing, modification or extraction. --NateOceanside (talk) 15:36, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Bellamy Salute, a picture in history: To Be or Not To Be?

In the course of performing research on the First Amendment vs. the "separation of church and state", I noticed that a particular file, a picture of the Ballamy Salute, specifically of school children giving what appears to be akin to the traditional Nazi salute, to the flag of the United States, has been nominated for deletion. There were comments from one writer to the effect that it was distasteful and uncomfortable and they recommended its deletion based on the non-renewal of the copyright permission. While I agree on the technicality of such a renewal being necessary in order to conform to legalities, this is also an accurate depiction of religious fascism and as uncomfortable or distasteful as it may be, it deserves to be kept in Wikipedia as a part of our factual history. My suggestion is that it be retained pending the establishment as to the status or of the time of death of the original copyright holder. If the copyright permission can be renewed, or the copyright released, this file should by all means be allowed to remain. If not, then I'd recommend copying it and sharing it as widely as possible in order to preserve our history. Like it or not, it happened. Simply hiding or censoring uncomfortable reminders of our history is, at best, to wear blinders; at worst, a deplorable exercise in revisionist history. George Orwell wrote in his famous book, "1984": "Those who control the present, control the past. Those who control the past, control the future." Let us not lose sight of the past, for without it we lose all perspective. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Core Identity (talk • contribs) 13:51, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

If you have any input on the deletion request go to Commons:Deletion requests/File:Pledge salue.jpg, this is not the appropriate place. Note however, that the deletion requet is related only to copyrights, it is not related to any topic questions. Input related only to topic or emphazising the value of an image (this is also an accurate depiction of religious fascism and as uncomfortable or distasteful as it may be...) are not welcome at the deletion discussion. For that reason I cleaned it up a little bit with collapsible boxes. --Martin H. (talk) 13:59, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

This is not really the place to discuss the matter, but it was NOT a manifestation of "religious fascism"[sic], any more than Rudyard Kipling was a Nazi for using the swastika as his personal symbol ca. 1900... AnonMoos (talk) 14:40, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Do television screenshots apply on Template:PD-Italy?

I think they do, as the template (and Italian law) says: "This image is was created and is now in the public domain in Italy, because its term of copyright has expired. It represents images of people or of aspects, elements and facts of natural or social life, obtained with photographic process or with an analogue one, including reproductions of figurative art and screenshots of movie pictures (art. 87, law 633/41)." Screenshots are images and they are obtained with photographic process (just like screenshots of movie pictures). So I guess they must be public domain when older than 20 years, originally Italian and with lack of creativity. But before I'll start uploading television screenshots, I want to ask how the community thinks about this. Just to be sure. Clausule (talk) 16:35, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

And there we go again. Multichill (talk) 16:41, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

What did I miss? Clausule (talk) 17:35, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I am nothing like expert on Italian law, but it doesn't seem likely to me that either movie or television content would be considered analogous to a snapshot rather than art. The fact that someone took a snapshot of the copyrighted content doesn't make it something we can accept, because the snapshot is derivative work of a copyrighted work. - Jmabel ! talk 16:41, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Assuming the translations we've been given are correct, it does say "screenshots of movie pictures". I might argue that it may well be very limited, that we're talking about unposed shots in a natural setting, but it does seem to include movie frames, and it would be very technical (but not outside what a court might do) to exclude TV programs.--Prosfilaes (talk) 18:32, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

@Jmabel, According to this document [26] (art. 87) cinematographic stills are considered photographs (for the purposes of this chapter). The same chapter (art. 92) says the right subsist for 20 years from the making of the photograph. Article 78 and 79 are about cinematographic and audiovisual works (as whole) and radio/television broadcasts. Both's rights expire 50 years. I can no other than understand that is stills can be PD while the audiovisual works are still copyrighted. The only explanation I can come up with is that all audiovisual works consist of thousands of photographic works (24 frames in a second) plus audio. A screenshot is only one frame without audio and therefore regarded as photographic work. In this case it shouldn't make difference if the sreenshot is from a movie or a recorded television broadcast. But I must say this is just my way of view. Clausule (talk) 20:34, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Preventing double redirects

I moved File:SA_Police_higway_patrol_80s_car_-_2008_Norwood_Christmas_Pagent.jpg to File:SA_Police_highway_patrol_80s_car_-_2008_Norwood_Christmas_Pagent.jpg to fix the misspelling of "highway", without realizing that "pageant" is misspelled. Will moving the image again to correct this second misspelling create a double redirect? If so, how can I correct the typo without creating one? Thanks! Wrelwser43 (talk) 17:58, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I suggest you move the image again to correct the spelling, edit "File:SA Police higway patrol 80s car - 2008 Norwood Christmas Pagent.jpg" so that the redirect points towards the correct file name, then tag the redirect "File:SA Police highway patrol 80s car - 2008 Norwood Christmas Pagent.jpg" with {{Speedydelete}}. Don't forget to update "User talk:CommonsDelinker/commands" if necessary. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 18:25, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Before I do that, can you tell me in what circumstances User talk:CommonsDelinker/commands should be updated? I've moved a lot of images (all for typos) without updating it, and I can go back and update that page to reflect those moves if I should have been doing that all along. Thanks! Wrelwser43 (talk) 18:51, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

If an image is not in use in any project, it is not necessary to request for occurrences of it to be updated to refer to the new name. However, if it is, you should make a request at "User talk:CommonsDelinker/commands" using the {{Universal replace}} tag. (If you use the "Move & Replace" tool which is on the toolbar at the top of each image page next to the search box, this step is done automatically.) What I meant by my last sentence was that if you renamed "A.jpg" to "B.jpg" and then to "C.jpg" and tagged "B.jpg" [now a redundant redirect] for speedy deletion, you should ensure that your universal replace request is for all occurrences of "A.jpg" to be renamed to "C.jpg" and not to "B.jpg". — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 19:11, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Oh the shame -- I requested that File:Blason LBP.svg be moved to a new name, but I made a typo in the new requested name (File:Shield of Domincan Order.svg, where "Domincan" should be "Dominican"), and wasn't sure it was worth everybody's time and effort to request a typo fix in the new name... AnonMoos (talk) 14:52, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Just tag it with {{Rename}} – one of us filemovers will get to it sooner or later. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 15:07, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

October 23

Introducing SVG Check

Previous to a discussion surrounding the problems of accurately testing the display of an SVG on WMF wikis without repeatedly uploading it, I have built a Toolserver tool to assist in this: http://toolserver.org/~jarry/svgcheck/ . An optimiser is in the works. For those interested in extending the "debugging" information, the current function is:

Extended content

function isproblematic($line){ if(strpos($line, "http://") !== false && !preg_match('/(([a-z]+)(:[a-z]+)?="|[<]!--[^-]*)http:/i' , $line) ) return "*Warning* http:// external reference found.\n\t These may be innocuous document declarations (particularly early on, and no problem)\n\t but if they form file references, they will not work (and may be blocked) by the Wikimedia software.\n\t All required elements need to be included in the SVG directly."; if(strpos($line, "C:\\") !== false) return "*ERROR* Local file reference found.\n\t These will not work (and may be blocked) by the Wikimedia software.\n\t All required elements need to be included in the SVG directly."; if(strpos($line, "<flow") !== false) return "*ERROR* Flow element found.\n\t These will not render properly.\n\t If you're not actually trying to bend the text, try deleting the offending text and readding it.\n\t If you are trying to, use 'Convert to path' (Inkscape) or similar."; if(strpos($line, "url("") !== false) return "*Warning* Your editor has accidentally added " marks inside an url(), which you will need to remove by hand."; return false; }

Unfortunately my editing will be very sporadic over the next week, but I would love to hear any comments and, if need be, criticism. The only real problem I know to be outstanding is that the temporary files are cleared out on the hour, regardless of how long they have been sitting there, which will probably have some implications down the line. Thanks, Jarry1250 (talk) 12:15, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Regarding optimizing: I got a modified version of scour (http://www.codedread.com/scour/) that fixes most wikimedia specific problems --DieBuche (talk) 16:58, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I've got my own (change /stable/ to /trunk/), but I'm interested in what you changed - I'm no great Python programmer, for a start. Jarry1250 (talk) 19:06, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

I've only peripheral a hint, the "more tools" link don't work. I think a very useful tool. It could (now) be located at your tool list and a commons page. --Perhelion (talk) 20:32, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Find the diff here. Main Changes: Removed to functions which often caused problems, experimental flowText -> text converter & remove hidden elements--DieBuche (talk) 21:16, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Jarry1250 -- Very good idea, but I really don't think that it should return a "Warning* http:// external reference found." error for the contents of the <!DOCTYPE... AnonMoos (talk) 15:15, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for all the comments, there is clearly some interest in the tool, and everyone's suggestions will be incorporated into a new release when I get back home, rather than the present scenario of an internet cafe :). Jarry1250 (talk) 17:57, 25 October 2010 (UTC)WikiGarbage SoftwareIt is insulting that WikiCommons constantly sends me useless messages and warnings about my contributions. If they want people to comply with their Byzantine requirements, then they need to supply some decent software with clear instructions. As it stands now, the messages they send me about my failure to "categorize" my contributions make no sense. They have email links to pages that do not accept email. The helper categorization program is broken. They want me to learn an entirely new and bizarre syntax just to comply with their weird requirements. Or I get prissy comments from some truly incompetent "experts" that either sent me on wild-goose chases or behind the scenes they make changes that create a worse document rather than improving it. There are literally pages and pages of instructions for nearly every aspect. Rather than that being a sign of good documentation, it's a sign of some really *bad* software that it requires so much instruction. If Wiki wants people to contribute quality material, then they need to supply a quality environment for people to work in. As it stands now Wiki is an unstructured mish-mash of bug-ridden programs. They really need to get their acts together. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NateOceanside (talk • contribs)Normally, when people have trouble understanding the requirements and systems here, I offer to help. However, I just discovered that someone can adopt a tone that leaves me entirely disinclined to help them. - Jmabel ! talk 16:47, 23 October 2010 (UTC) I can understand the frustration. But I do not quite understand what the issues are. CommonSense does not seem to be broken right now. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 17:01, 23 October 2010 (UTC) Pieter, previously when I attempted to use CommonSense, it never returned anything. But that was a week back. Today, I do get some results, but have no instruction on what do do with it. I would expect the CommonSense screen to have an "Accept" button to accept the suggestions. Am I supposed to cut and past the results? Cut and paste where? If there is a master outline for categorization of content, I have been unable to locate it.--NateOceanside (talk) 21:28, 23 October 2010 (UTC) Neither does HotCat. And what is that thing he keeps calling "Wiki"? Is he talking about Wikipedia or Commons? --Dschwen (talk) 17:20, 23 October 2010 (UTC) Looking at his past complaints [27] [28] [29] [30] [31], I don't think there's much point answering or trying to help him; he never follows-up on the threads he opens anyway. Just complaining for the sake of complaining. –Tryphon^☂ 19:14, 23 October 2010 (UTC) Thank you Tryphon for your snotty and useless reply. For the record I have spent hours following up on suggestions that others have made about the problems I've pointed out with SVG, font rendering, and the like. In fact many of those suggestions have been a total waste of time. For example, one instructs me about the importance of maintaining the SVG structure so that a file can easily be translated into different language, yet another suggestion admits that the font rendering is so broken that I should instead decompose the fonts into individual strokes which effectively destroys any text information thus making translation or string searching impossible.--NateOceanside (talk) 21:06, 23 October 2010 (UTC)— Preceding unsigned comment added by NateOceanside (talk • contribs) Yeah well, you've set the tone for this discussion, what do you expect. At least it got you to react. Because if, as you say, you spent time trying suggestions made to you, you should report back on those threads to let people know about it (whether it worked or not, it's important either way). It might help others better understand this issue, you'll certainly get more helpful comments that way, and it might be useful for future reference. –Tryphon^☂ 21:17, 23 October 2010 (UTC) Thank you again, Tryphon, for another utterly useless comment.--NateOceanside (talk) 21:22, 23 October 2010 (UTC) Sometimes it's a sign of complex software that it requires so much instruction. It would help to sign your messages (by adding --~~~~); sometimes showing that you've taken the time to learn the little things can make your complaints about the big things easier to appreciate.--Prosfilaes (talk) 18:54, 23 October 2010 (UTC) Ok, here's an example of something specific that cost me a lot of time, and I haven't been able to find out how to report this bug in case others have been similarly affected. Take this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:House_Ratings_Data_Wiki_Oct_21,_2010.svg and display it both in FireFox and Internet Explorer. You get very different and conflicting results. I think Internet Explorer correctly displays TWO entities in the "File History" section. The top entry showing the current file with Date/Time stamp of 06:58, 22 October 2010. The second entry shows an older version of Date/Time stamp of 19:47, 21 October 2010. However, under FireFox there is only a single entry and it appears to combine the OLD Date/Time stamp with the NEW image but with the OLD comment section. This seems totally bizarre. In one case it made it appear that the old file was being completely overwritten by the new file. In the other case it appears that the new file replaces the old, and the old is archived.__NateOceanside (talk) 21:17, 23 October 2010 (UTC) I encountered similar problems with a reupload, see [diff]. Different users saw different things - could have been browser dependent. Really weird. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 21:39, 23 October 2010 (UTC) And you, Pieter, are a pro user. So you can see how an novice user such as I was totally confused. At one point fearing that I was destroying Wiki content, and that soon somebody would be jumping on me about that. Yet I was forced to use both browers since SVG display correctly in FireFox, but recognizing that most users are on IE, I felt it necessary to evaluate on both. Granted these are not Wiki problems, but it's certainly is aggravating and time consuming to follow up on.Here is my over-arching comment. Following the principal that "simple things should be simple, and complex things should be possible" Wiki fails the test. (That Wikipedia, Wikicommons, etc.) If it takes me 1 hours to write an article or create a graphic content, it should NOT take an additional two hours of hammering on it to degrade it into a format compatible with Wiki. Further, the annoying emails that various Wiki "bots" send out are useless, as they not specific to a complaint they are making, and instead refer me to a generic help page. Here's another example: The CategorizationBot tells me: Contact the editor: mail: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:EmailUser/CategorizationBot Of course if you click on that you get a page informing you that email is not accepted. Then why send me there? Well who am I supposed to complain to about that? At what email address? --NateOceanside (talk) 21:41, 23 October 2010 (UTC)Dude, I've already told you several times that, yes RSVG font-rendering has problems, but you also really don't help matters along when you lay out your images without taking any care or attention whatsoever for how they will be displayed on a Wikipedia article page. Since your most-recently uploaded image (File:Senate Ratings Data Wiki Oct 21 2010.svg) suffers from the same defects as your previous uploads (pointless and useless margins which serve no useful purpose whatsoever on Wikipedia, rather small font sizes, etc.), I can only conclude that you haven't been paying very much attention to what you were told before. AnonMoos (talk) 15:07, 25 October 2010 (UTC)I certainly have paid attention to what you have said; it was simply bad advice. The modifications that you made to my submission, in fact, made it less readable, not better. The compromise that I've chosen is to allow RSVG to produce a marginal result with the hope that the article reader will click thru to the original, which is at a high enough resolution to be suitable for printing. --NateOceanside (talk) 15:44, 25 October 2010 (UTC)Unfortunately for you, the layout of your graphics is fine for a PDF file page, but rather lousy for an image which is to be displayed inline in a Wikipedia article. AnonMoos (talk) 15:49, 25 October 2010 (UTC)AnonMoos, please don't delete comments out of talk pages. I was trying to be funny here; if you thought it was a serious personal attack then I'm sorry. Wnt (talk) 16:32, 25 October 2010 (UTC)Who......is the admin that does the worst job? The purpose of this question is not to insult anybody - it is more a democratic exchange of thoughts and opinions. Cheers, Mark 21:51, 23 October 2010 (UTC)It is I! Multichill (talk) 22:08, 23 October 2010 (UTC) I'm third! ZooFari 22:14, 23 October 2010 (UTC) Who's second? lol. Rocket000 (talk) 23:59, 24 October 2010 (UTC) Those who do the worst job as admins are those that don't do anything. They are sorted out twice a year per Commons:Administrators/De-adminship#Activity and thanked for past services however. Those that make most mistakes are most likely to be those that are most active, and thus does most useful stuff as well. Finn Rindahl (talk) 22:37, 23 October 2010 (UTC) Please look below, obviously it's me--DieBuche (talk) 17:42, 24 October 2010 (UTC) Not correct, see Finnrinds comment above. You, and some other users too, do a great job in improving the technical side of Commons. Your tools for file tagging, renaming etc are just awesome! If we redefine the negative "worst job" into positive "time consuming, unpayed and sometimes nerve-wracking tasks done" you are a claimant for the title. --Martin H. (talk) 20:01, 24 October 2010 (UTC)October 24New bug with upload form ?Hello. I've been uploading photographs since many days using this form, but since only a few minutes ago, it deviates me to that form, that displays in a plain form all fields which is much less convenient. What happens ? Impossible to get rid of it... Jack ma (talk) 10:29, 24 October 2010 (UTC)Same problem at the Dutch version. I see a lot of changes. I guess someone broke it. I'll poke Lupo (maintainer) and DieBuche (lots of changes). Multichill (talk) 11:06, 24 October 2010 (UTC) This never worked fo me in Safari or Crome. I reverted one change, which could possibly have been the cause, but it seems it wasn't. The other changes were to gadgets unrelated to the upload. Lupo might understand this better--DieBuche (talk) 11:34, 24 October 2010 (UTC) DieBuche, to remove something (like addEvent()) from MediaWiki:Common.js, you need to first remove all uses, then wait 31 days until everyone's browser caches have been refreshed with the new version, and only then remove the function from Common.js. Otherwise, you'll break a great many things for a great many people. For anybody who has problems with the upload form right now: just reload your browser cache while on the upload form, then go Commons:Upload and go to the upload form again. Or alternatively, remove the "&uploadformstyle=plain" from the URL in your browser's address bar (after having reloaded the browser cache) and then hit the <Return>-Key. Lupo 13:30, 24 October 2010 (UTC) Thanks Lupo ! It's now working, without having to empty the cache for me. Jack ma (talk) 13:34, 24 October 2010 (UTC) Lupo's comment about clearing the cache made me wonder if this might be the cause the the strange problem that I mentioned above under the WikiGarbage thread [[32]]with respect to seeing some strange results in the "File History" section that differed dramatically between Firefox and Internet Explorer. Clearing the Firefox cache fixed the problem. However, I'm still puzzled as to how a change to common.js wouldn't induce the browser to receive a fresh copy rather than continuing to use the stale version. --NateOceanside (talk) 18:33, 24 October 2010 (UTC) Because the browser is told to re-check for changes only after 30 days, and the URL of the script stays the same (there is, in the current MediaWiki implementation, no timestamp or revision id attached to that URL). So we just have to be careful when changing scripts that are used by other scripts. Lupo 19:47, 24 October 2010 (UTC)Template:POTDHi, can someone please add the Slovene language so that I can update the captions regularly? Thanks. --Eleassar ^(t/p) 13:33, 24 October 2010 (UTC)One of us is confused. There is no Template:POTD. - Jmabel ! talk 19:37, 24 October 2010 (UTC) There is a Template:potd. But it is already possible to update Slovene captions at Commons:Slika dneva or http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Potd/2010-11?uselang=sl /Ö 20:06, 24 October 2010 (UTC)October 25Media needed for Wikipedia's 10th anniversaryHey friends, so the 10 year anniversary of Wikipedia is coming up on January 15th, and there's a project related to it that I think people in the know on Commons could help with easily. In addition to the very beginnings of event organizing I'm leading on outreach wiki, Jay Walsh (WMF Communications guy) wants to find a collection of images that can help convey what Wikimedia is all about. You all know our free media better than anyone. If you have a second to help select a few great shots, the place to go is here. Steven Walling at work 16:36, 25 October 2010 (UTC)Category SlideshowHi, I made a new Gadget, which displays an inline gallery/slideshow of the current category. Not perfect yet and not deeply tested. Try it [33] here and/or activitate it in your preferences. --DieBuche (talk) 17:27, 23 October 2010 (UTC)Looks good! Is there a dedicated page to give some feedback? (Feel free to copy paste my comment to the relevant place). On WinXP/Firefox 3.6.11, activating the slideshow results in a big grey area with the slideshow (as expected) but also a big white area between "This category contains N files" and the file thumbnails The loading of the thumbnails in the slideshow feels unnatural: seems to wait for a long time and then load many images at once ; it might look better to load one image at a time. Thanks for your work! Jean-Fred (talk) 21:19, 23 October 2010 (UTC) Should both be fixed--DieBuche (talk) 23:20, 23 October 2010 (UTC) Nice feature, but could you also add a "Close"-button. When I am done I don't want the last large slideshow image to linger on my page, but want to return to the layout of the old category.--Wuselig (talk) 08:49, 24 October 2010 (UTC) Done, on the right side below the image row--DieBuche (talk) 20:38, 24 October 2010 (UTC) Great, thanks. I was missing that since the last one went down (or, at least, I couldn't get it to work anymore). Docu at 11:28, 24 October 2010 (UTC) Thanks, it really works, the old slideshow gadget gave problems for slow browsers. Is it possible to have a slide show on a wikipedia page? Or a gadged turning a gallery temporarely into a scrollable image series, similar to forum image series. Starting from the NO-GALLERY files-list of a category I made a manual attempt and got with standard-form edit-lines to this test result. It should be programmable, but I can't. One can see at the edit mode how it is being built up. --Havang(nl) (talk) 11:49, 24 October 2010 (UTC) Do you mean a gallery for "everyone" visiting the page? --DieBuche (talk) 20:38, 24 October 2010 (UTC) As it is a manual try, I only could make a "permanent" page. But with a button on and off, yes, it could be accessible for everybody; why not.--Havang(nl) (talk) 21:42, 24 October 2010 (UTC) I commented at MediaWiki talk:Gadget-GallerySlideshow.js. Pruneau^talk 08:57, 26 October 2010 (UTC)Discussion regarding potentially insecure (but open) file formatsHi all, I've started a discussion on wikitech-l regarding support for potentially insecure but free file formats like .blend, COLLADA, Scribus, etc. on Wikimedia Commons. What I'm proposing is that we develop a 'restricted-upload' right for these file types, so that trusted users (e.g. admins) can upload them on behalf of others, until such time that they can be fully supported by the software. You can follow the discussion here; my most recent proposal is here. I'd appreciate thoughts from the Commons community on this. I think adding at least preliminary support for these formats is essential for retaining as much source file data as possible on Wikimedia Commons.--Eloquence (talk) 02:14, 26 October 2010 (UTC)Uploading my photograph of my schoolWhat is the licencing situation for loading a photograph I have recently taken of my old school for its Wikipedia entry as there are currently no photographs at all? I have followed the intructions which keep asking for licensing information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Caroline Hewson (talk • contribs) 19:50, 26 October 2010 (UTC)Assuming the school is in the United States, you can upload the photograph here at the Commons. You can either release the photograph into the public domain by applying the {{PD-self}} licence to it, or retain the copyright in it and license it under a Creative Commons licence, such as {{Cc-by-3.0}}. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 12:22, 26 October 2010 (UTC) In simpler words (if Jacklee doesn't mind ;)), go to "Upload file", and choose "It is entirely my own work" (here's a direct link). Almost at the bottom of the form you'll find a field titled "Licensing" with a drop-down menu. The menu has several options: choose "Public Domain" if you want to give up all rights to the public. If you want to retain some rights while still allowing people to use your image freely: Choose "Creative Commons Attribution 3.0" if you want re-users of your image to always attribute (credit) you. Or choose "Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0" if you want re-users to not only attribute you, but to release the image under the same license if they modify it. You'll find more details if you click on the "?" sign next to the "Licensing" field. Hope that helps. -- Orionist ★ talk 16:26, 26 October 2010 (UTC) Oh, by all means. :-) — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 16:30, 26 October 2010 (UTC)Angaria depressa or Modulus tectum?We have received a request for "File:Angaria depressa.shell001.jpg" to be renamed Modulus tectum. Can a knowledgeable editor please comment on the matter at "File talk:Angaria depressa.shell001.jpg"? Thanks. (I have also left messages at "Category talk:Gastropoda" and "Category talk:Mollusca".) — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 13:30, 26 October 2010 (UTC)Problems with collapsable templates (again)As reported by User:Raymond here {{Museum}} templates have broken Collapse/Uncollapse feature, as seen here. At the same time identical feature works just fine in {{Creator}}. Comparison of the templates reveal some tiny style setting differences but nothing that should break it. Also over a week ago there was some style tweaking of {{Museum/layout}} by an IP-user, but they also seem fine. Can anybody more familiar with those issues help? --Jarekt (talk) 15:36, 21 October 2010 (UTC)They both seem to work for me. I do seem to recall DieBuche making some changes to MediaWiki:CollapsibleTemplates.js recently. Have you tried clearing your cache? —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 15:57, 21 October 2010 (UTC) Unfortunately no amount of purging and cache cleaning seem to help. --Jarekt (talk) 03:10, 22 October 2010 (UTC) The layout of {{Category maintenance}} is borked too. Can someone restore the previous version of collapsible templates? Docu at 03:13, 22 October 2010 (UTC) What is borked? I've just fixed the layout of the arrow.[34] Was there something else? The empty table rows/cells shown e.g. on Category:Milestones are probably due to some bug in the template itself; they don't seem to have anything to do with MediaWiki:CollapsibleTemplates.js. Lupo 07:23, 22 October 2010 (UTC) Thanks that fixed it. When expanded, not all possible combinations look that good. The main point of the template is to provide links for maintenance without cluttering the description. Docu at 10:52, 22 October 2010 (UTC) Jarek, what browser and skin are you using? Lupo 07:23, 22 October 2010 (UTC) This sounds like FAQ ;), so I added it to Babel. I am using Fairfox with vector skin. But after the newest fix the museum template works for me now. I still have issues with the link in the header, discussed below. --Jarekt (talk) 13:09, 22 October 2010 (UTC)Museum templates work for me, what does not work is the link in the creator template with internet explorer (but it works with Firefox). In File:Mona Lisa.jpg, the link to the Louvre work but that to Leonardo da Vinci just uncollapses the template.--Zolo (talk) 08:10, 22 October 2010 (UTC)See MediaWiki talk:CollapsibleTemplates.js#Links in header. Lupo 09:27, 22 October 2010 (UTC)Collapsable template much improvedGreat progress, as can be seen in category:Mbira, now it handles multilanguage data coming straith from sum it up without reformatting the list. I would appreciate if:it could remember (at session level ?) what the last language selected was (like many people, I work in English, but check from time to time for other languages). one could fill in a language that is not available in the list at hand (important when we have a list of 250 languages) as in Category:Andrés Segovia, an item that is not available in a specified language, shows a notice as in{{Mldcat}}I seem to remember that there is a conflict with the Tagalog Tl language and the template with the same name. --Foroa (talk) 08:36, 22 October 2010 (UTC)I'm not sure why this is done through a collapse template ? {{Mld}} (and the javascript belonging to it) take care of this. Currently when I pick 'de' from the dropdown on Category:Mbira I still only see the English description and a collapsed template. No matter what I choose, nothing happends. I first need to expand the template and then the dropdown works. I would recommend putting everything in {{Mld}}. This way you get the best of both: Other languages are hidden, language of choise is stored (mld-javascript stores it in a cookie), and those who are on Commons without a cookie (ie. new users) and are not logged in, then the mld-javascript will check the browser language and pick that one and hide others (ie. A German anonymous user who comes to Commons would see only the German description). See Albert Einstein for an example. –Krinkle^talk 00:11, 27 October 2010 (UTC) The language selector is only recently added and invoked by the collapse template. Mld requires ten times more work to format. For requirements, see discussion on Category_talk:Plaques#Multilingual_category_description. Last language selection is not always remembered by the system. No idea about the behaviour when the user language text is not available. The English text should always be displayed as it is the reference text. --Foroa (talk) 06:05, 27 October 2010 (UTC)October 22POTD logoI used the Commons logo and one of LadyOfHats' illustrations to make this. Could we replace the current Commons logo on the template with this? --The High Fin Sperm Whale 19:52, 25 October 2010 (UTC)I find it a bit clustered: A star, a banner and even the commons logo in the background? (Also the reflections on the banner don't fit the matte style of the star)--DieBuche (talk) 16:49, 26 October 2010 (UTC) I agree it's a little too much. You had all vector sources, why PNG? Personally, I like blue ribbon/star one the best in File:PotD logo.svg. Or maybe one of the calendar ones. Rocket000 (talk) 21:07, 26 October 2010 (UTC) I only have GIMP, which I don't think supports SVGs. And how about this (once converted into an SVG)? --The High Fin Sperm Whale 21:41, 26 October 2010 (UTC) How about one without the Commons logo, so that the image can be free? I like Rocket's choice of the blue ribbon on star better. ZooFari 23:47, 26 October 2010 (UTC) If you want me to extract or combine/edit anything from LadyOfHats' image, just let me know. It will be much easier than converting a PNG back into a SVG. Rocket000 (talk) 00:01, 27 October 2010 (UTC) All right, let's do the blue ribbon on the star then. --The High Fin Sperm Whale 05:15, 27 October 2010 (UTC) File:Potd-logo.svg. I hope I got the license right. Rocket000 (talk) 14:48, 27 October 2010 (UTC) Thank you. I think that looks much better than just a plain Commons logo. --The High Fin Sperm Whale 16:53, 27 October 2010 (UTC)October 26Animated gifsAnimated gifs do not seem to be animated when resized. I guess because they are automatically turned into thumbs. Is there any workaround? Example: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Toniher/Lab --Toniher (talk) 07:25, 26 October 2010 (UTC)Didn't look at the page, but there's a general 12.5 megapixel limit (i.e. vertical pixel height X horizontal pixel width X number of frames cannot exceed approximately 12,500,000 if the image is to be thumbnailed here). AnonMoos (talk) 11:51, 26 October 2010 (UTC)It seems to work here. May be behavior depends on the namespace. --Jarekt (talk) 16:38, 26 October 2010 (UTC)MediaWiki caches scaled versions of images. It's possible that the thumbnail shown on your page was generated back when animation scaling was disabled or the size limit was different. You should try purging the file's thumbnail cache (we even have a handy toolbox link for that here on Commons). —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 19:22, 26 October 2010 (UTC)Even after purging the image on User:Toniher/Lab is not animated. --Jarekt (talk) 20:11, 26 October 2010 (UTC) It must be a cache issue with the 45px thumbnail because any other size works. Rocket000 (talk) 00:12, 27 October 2010 (UTC) Now it works. I had first purged the thumbnail, then purged the page itself. (Purging the thumbnail can be done by going to the thumbnail's actual url and attach "?action=purge" to the end of it.) Rocket000 (talk) 00:30, 27 October 2010 (UTC) Works for me too. Thanks. --Jarekt (talk) 03:50, 27 October 2010 (UTC) Thanks! --Toniher (talk) 07:06, 27 October 2010 (UTC)Possibly deletionworthy image ResolvedImage deleted as obvious copyvio. Powers (talk) 14:48, 27 October 2010 (UTC)Hi, I'm not sure where to put this, but File:Flock 2.0.3 eng.png shows a program running on Windows 7, possibly containing design from that OS (which I'm not familiar with, but the image was used as an illustration in huwiki's article on W7), if so, then the licence "either does not contain parts or visuals of copyrighted programs, or the author has released it under a free license" is not correct. Furthermore, the image includes a highly objectionable user name, which should be removed from it in case it is kept. – Alensha ^msg 18:45, 26 October 2010 (UTC)Sidenote: It's been uploaded by a blocked user. --grin ✎ 07:03, 27 October 2010 (UTC)Dumb questionHow do I quickly mass upload files from Wikipedia to commons? --Chemicalinterest (talk) 22:07, 26 October 2010 (UTC)TRy Commonist--DieBuche (talk) 22:11, 26 October 2010 (UTC) Isn't Commonist just for uploading from your own computer, not from another wiki? - Jmabel ! talk 03:01, 27 October 2010 (UTC) Please take a look at Commons:Batch uploading. Multichill (talk) 11:32, 27 October 2010 (UTC)October 27Liaoning Province/Provincial MuseumNew user. Small issue. We are preparing images for inclusion in an improved wikipedia page on the Liaoning Province Museum in Shenyang, China. Before uploading I am checking what images might already exist, names used, etc. Having done extensive work with databases I am very aware of the importance of consistent naming. A small number of good quality images related to this subject already exist in the commons. On the images the name 'Liaoing Provincial Museum' is used. In official documents and references the word 'Province'seems to be favoured. Also, 'Province' is a more direct translation from the Chinese name. If there is a consensus that 'Provincial' is the acceptable word I can live with that but I do not wish to perpetuate an inaccuracy. I also do not wish to introduce an inconsistent naming issue by uploading images with 'Province' in the title unless the existing images can be renamed. My suggestion is that 'Liaoning Province Museum' should be used when naming images or documents related to this museum. Your advice and suggestions would be appreciated.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Yan shu (talk • contribs) 27 Oct 2010 (UTC) Update by author. I am now finding newer brochures and information from the museum which use the name 'Liaoning Provincial Museum'. I will be happy to adopt that name as standard. My apologies for raising a non-issue. Feel free to remove this submission.I don't know about the official translation. To me Provincial is better as it clearly refers to the museum status while Province could be more thematic, but that may just be a personal feeling. Currently Commons seems to favor "Provincial" (Category:Henan Provincial Museum, Category:Shandong Provincial Museum).--Zolo (talk) 09:04, 27 October 2010 (UTC) Note (if you are new to Commons). If you upload files, could you try to use {{Artwork}} with {{:Museum:Liaoning Provincial Museum}} in the gallery field. Since {{Artwork}} is easier to use with a little experience, you can ask if you need help.--Zolo (talk) 09:21, 27 October 2010 (UTC) Usually we reference the corresponding Wikipedia article for naming. In this case, it's titled "w:Liaoning Province Museum". But "provincial" is used in more articles and seems to be preferred, e.g. w:Shandong Provincial Museum, w:Hunan Provincial Museum and w:Hubei Provincial Museum (So consistency is needed there, too). "Provincial" is also preferred in the article references and museum websites (e.g. here and here). I don't speak Chinese, but based on the above I'd personally choose "Provincial". You could research it more, though. Just make sure if you choose "Provincial", to rename the English Wikipedia article, too. Regards, -- Orionist ★ talk 16:32, 27 October 2010 (UTC)About the By year, month and/or country categoriesSee also Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2010Apr#By year categoriesDuring editpatrol I noticed a few IP-addresses (like 79.149.15.31 and 95.125.186.132) (possibly the same) being busy making 100s of edits categorizing by country and/or by year / by month. Since it's not vandalism I've MassPatrolled them, so atleast they're no longer cluttering up the unpatrolled edit checklists. However to me it's still unclear whether this is something we want or not. example edit adding for example Category:june 2007 in Spain and Category:2007 in Andalusia. –Krinkle^talk 08:27, 20 October 2010 (UTC)As a minimum, I feel we should have a specific bot command to remove images from category:People in 2007: If they continue, the cat will soon have many thousands of unsorted images. I guess a similar situation will arrive sooner or later in Category:2007 in Spain. --Foroa (talk) 08:49, 20 October 2010 (UTC) I have given such a signal against those categories earlier; I called it category spamming. It should be stopped. --Havang(nl) (talk) 09:30, 20 October 2010 (UTC) I see I forgot to mention an interesting point at Commons:Categories:when?: when did the depicted events happen, or when was the image created? When was the image taken? This is especially important for historical images. An example would be Category:Warsaw in September 1939, Category:April 2010 in Northern Ireland. — Commons:Categories#Categorization_tipsWe could set up a poll for removing/altering the above line and adding a line to the guidelines that repeated/mass violating of this rule will result in a warning and eventually a block. I mean, if people keep doing this and we keep returning to this discussion ending up unlinking all that by a bot, it is clear that people don't know or understand it and more direct action would be required in order to avoid having people spend time doing this and other people spend time undoing it all (waste of time!). What do you think ? –Krinkle^talk 13:11, 20 October 2010 (UTC) I feel a guideline is needed and can be given form by a poll. --Havang(nl) (talk) 14:53, 20 October 2010 (UTC) I know it can be irritating, but I would not advocate blocking people for this. I guess an ealier comment of mine has been miss laid, but a by date and place categorisation is valid for files that chronicle the life of a country, e.g. elections, natural disasters, demonstrations and major events. Historical events and newsworthy events (remember there's wikinews) are within the scope of Commons so a by date categorisation is a valid option to organise files by. A less valid reason would be for things like city scapes and buildings, though an interesting gallery could be created if enough files exist through time.KTo288 (talk) 15:05, 20 October 2010 (UTC) To me, the example An example would be Category:Warsaw in September 1939, Category:April 2010 in Northern Ireland. shows mainly that we have at least two different naming styles. I do agree that some of such categories (month in a precise place) can be useful for some periods in the past, but I see no use for thousands of pictures in "year in a country". I think that in the long run, we have to think on date tags in the images, while category displays could accept an additional "date range" and type of media filter. Treads with blocks and so are not sufficient. As an IP, one get easily away with it while requiring significant energy to hunt them. In the first place, removing such images with bots would be extremely frustrating but efficient. --Foroa (talk) 15:32, 20 October 2010 (UTC) I am a big fan of "by month by country" categories for historical images and I added Category:Warsaw in September 1939 example to Commons:Categories. The by month categories should be reserved for historical periods when it makes a difference. For example September 1939 in Warsaw was quite different than August, but for example September 1953 was no different in Warsaw than August, so such fine category might not be warranted. As for present times categories like Category:April 2010 in Northern Ireland I would not have problems with them if there were some significant events in that time and place. BTW, I am more annoyed at for example categorizing images of holocaust victims by the shape of their hats, see for example here or here, but categories like Category:Flat caps need images too. --Jarekt (talk) 03:20, 21 October 2010 (UTC) Yes, it's not the date categories, which worry me (date categories make sense for dated events); but their excessive use on hundreds or more of individual images: (and that I called category spamming). Anyhow, we need a guideline here. --Havang(nl) (talk) 12:46, 21 October 2010 (UTC) A guideline is needed for these types of categories. I've seen examples of people being categorized into x year in x country categories (e.g. Barack Obama in 2010 was categorized into 2010 in the United States), which I don't agree with, especially if the subject of the category happens to be or is expected to be in multiple locations outside of x location during the time period. BrokenSphere (Talk) 17:43, 25 October 2010 (UTC) I don't see why if someone spent the entire 2010 in the US, why Foo in 2010 should not be a subcategory of 2010 in the United States (or Individuals in the United States in 2010, which is a subcategory of 2010 in the United States). In the case of Barack Obama, he is the president of the United States, and wherever he goes outside the US, it is as an an avatar of the United States. Even if he's in Italy, a picture of him is of what the US is doing in 2010.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:31, 25 October 2010 (UTC) I can sort of see now how this may apply to people, but still don't agree with the use in this manner. Because of the naming, I interpret the category as indicating what happened in x location in x year. I thus would categorize an image of Obama in Italy within the 2010 in Italy category, but not in the 2010 in the US category. BrokenSphere (Talk) 21:07, 27 October 2010 (UTC)Collapse coding issue not working all of a suddenAt a subpage in my userspace, User:Cirt/Userboxes, top right "Roles" is supposed to also display a "show" option, with some collapsed userboxes. This works perfectly fine at en.wikipedia.org w:User:Cirt/Userboxes. It used to work fine here at Commons, but recently stopped working, not sure why. Anyone know how to fix the coding at User:Cirt/Userboxes so it functions the same way as at w:User:Cirt/Userboxes, with the "show" expand option? Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 12:17, 26 October 2010 (UTC) fixed by using {{Hidden}} --DieBuche (talk) 23:18, 27 October 2010 (UTC) Thank you! Question - Why does it still work properly at en.wikipedia, but the prior coding did not work locally, here? -- Cirt (talk) 23:33, 27 October 2010 (UTC) We're now using a new collapsible script. NavFrame is gone. There's been a lot of JS changes recently. Rocket000 (talk) 23:46, 27 October 2010 (UTC) Ah, okay, thank you. ;) -- Cirt (talk) 05:51, 28 October 2010 (UTC)Copyright of Meyers Blitz-LexikonI am wondering about the copyright status of images in Category:Meyers_Blitz-Lexikon, published in 1932 (Leipzig, Germany). For U.S. copyright law, a corporate work, after 1923-01-01, remains under copyright for 95 years (1932-2027). The Meyers Blitz-Lexikon was a newer, 1932 edition of the earlier encyclopedias published as "Meyers Konversations-Lexikon", 4th Auflage, Band 1-14 (4th edition, Volume 1-14), 1885-1890, and other editions. Has this copyright been discussed elsewhere, and what is the status? Reply below or in Category_talk:Meyers_Blitz-Lexikon. Thanks. -Wikid77 (talk) 16:42, 26 October 2010 (UTC)If the images from the 19th century encyclopedia were reproduced in the 1932 edition, they are still considered published in the 19th century and therefore are in public domain now. Ruslik (talk) 15:02, 27 October 2010 (UTC)But there were certainly new images in the 1932 edition, that are still under copyright in the US.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:20, 27 October 2010 (UTC)Template extension for CommonsIs there an extension we could use at Commons to dynamically generate lists such as Creator:Berthe_Morisot/works? Docu at 05:53, 27 October 2010 (UTC)I believe one can easily write w:Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Custom Modules for one time creation, but I do not know about dynamic creation. --Jarekt (talk) 18:56, 27 October 2010 (UTC)Maybe one of the extensions in mw:Semantic_Bundle? Docu at 00:46, 28 October 2010 (UTC)template:catlinkHoping not to have made a bad or futile job i made it. I think it would very useful for category organization--Pierpao.lo (listening) 07:30, 28 October 2010 (UTC)Sorry, but similar to {{C}} and {{Cl}}. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Foroa (talk • contribs) 07:52, 28 October 2010 (UTC) Useful. Rocket000 (talk) 09:19, 28 October 2010 (UTC) thanks--Pierpao.lo (listening) 10:21, 28 October 2010 (UTC)Please, restore PD-Italyhttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#PD-Italy_restoration_request Please, WHO make a restore? --77.48.153.172 15:42, 17 October 2010 (UTC)What you wrote doesn't make sense. Could you re-ask this in a language in which you are more fluent? There are people here who will understand pretty much any language you use. - Jmabel ! talk 16:56, 17 October 2010 (UTC)He's pointing that PD-Italy has a rough consensus for restoration, and is asking for someone to restore the copyright template and probably some of the images deleted along with it.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:21, 17 October 2010 (UTC)All you have to do is change/revert Template:PD-Italy, link to the discussion to show there's a consensus, and start using it. If you want all the files that used this tag undeleted, start a undeletion request, although it will be quite the challenge to track these down as this was a long time ago. Rocket000 (talk) 22:00, 17 October 2010 (UTC) I think it's simpler to transfer back from it.wiki, than to undelete. 85.93.118.17 08:13, 18 October 2010 (UTC)Please, see this, and say what you think about this version: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:PD-Italy --77.48.153.172 18:54, 18 October 2010 (UTC)I've cleaned up some stuff, and moved a bunch of text to the talk page that really didn't need to be on the template. A /doc page would be better. Now, I'm going to make some changes on the rule of shorter term; the Berne Convention does not require it, and the US doesn't have it. (The section of US law you cite only applies to works out of copyright on 1/1/1998.)--Prosfilaes (talk) 19:08, 18 October 2010 (UTC)Can we rename this PD-Italy-photo? Or create a new template under that name? This is specifically about photos not all works, and we already have {{PD-Italy-audio}}. If we are going to mention U.S. stuff, only simple Italian photos published before 1976 can be PD in the U.S.; anything later and the copyright was restored to full US copyright (95 years for photos published in 1976 and 1977; 70pma for photos published after that). Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:26, 19 October 2010 (UTC) Support. --Túrelio (talk) 14:52, 19 October 2010 (UTC)Thanks for help, but please keep information about discuss. In very userfull for future editing. --77.48.153.172 19:25, 18 October 2010 (UTC) However, due to the huge consequences of an Italian image being regarded as "simple photography" (= loosing 50 years of copyright protection), we need to have very precise, detailed and practical instructions what is considered as "simple photography" by Italian law and courts. Otherwise this becomes equivalent to opening Pandoras box. As some of you may know, copyright laws of Germany and Austria also have a sort of "second class"-photography (Lichtbild), which is protected for only 50 instead of 70 years. However, as to my knowledge, this is no longer applied to regular photographies in current jurisdiction, as all are considered photographic works (Lichtbildwerke) with full protection. --Túrelio (talk) 08:12, 19 October 2010 (UTC)Is "images of people or of aspects, elements and facts of natural or social life, obtained with photographic process or with an analogue one, including reproductions of figurative art and screenshots of movie pictures" not clear? Or are you concerned about the second part "must not have artistic merit or reflections of photographer creativity or personality", which I agree needs some additional guidance for as it can really be taken the wrong way (e.g. some would claim all photos have "reflections of photographer creativity or personality"). The issue is mainly semantics and not subjectivity (although there's always a gray area when you have laws like this). Rocket000 (talk) 12:48, 19 October 2010 (UTC) Exactly. IMHO, the first part is typical legal speak for any kind of images. --Túrelio (talk) 14:27, 19 October 2010 (UTC)...some would claim all photos have "reflections of photographer creativity or personality". If I recall correctly, this extremisation led to the deletion of all PD-Italy images from Commons, despite the fact that they wher perfectly legal PD images. No need to say it is also the reason why many on it.wiki don't like commons and regard it as a place filled with fanatics. --Snowdog (talk) 13:57, 19 October 2010 (UTC) What you call "extremisation" is current juridiction at least in Germany and Austria. Nice to hear that this is associated with fanatism in a country that even hasn't FOP :-(. --Túrelio (talk) 14:27, 19 October 2010 (UTC)We need some legal precedents for adding an Italy section to Threshold of originality. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 14:02, 19 October 2010 (UTC)Germany and Austria have changed their definitions of simple photos yes, so we use the full 70pma term for Germany and Austria here, but those decisions have no legal effect in Italy as far as I know. We do allow similar tags for some Scandanavian countries; I don't see any Panadora's box there. The Italian definition is better than most, actually. I would think that snapshots of every-day life, and basic portraits, would fall under that "simple" definition as clearly written. If there was artistic post-processing, or the author had control over the arrangement of the photo content, that would probably be different. The law clearly states however that photographs only get the 70pma term if they do not fall under the "images of people and elements of natural or social life" definition as quoted above, and furthermore I don't see the text "must not have artistic merit or reflections of photographer creativity or personality" anywhere in the actual Italian law; I don't see where we need to make such a determination. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:17, 19 October 2010 (UTC) If the must not have artistic merit or reflections .. isn't in the law, then it's even worse. Can't you imagine anything that does not fall under images of people or of aspects, elements and facts of natural or social life, ..., including reproductions of figurative ...? --Túrelio (talk) 14:32, 19 October 2010 (UTC) Sure. Artistic post-processing, or photos taken where the elements themselves are arranged by the photographer, etc. I don't think those would be "simple" photos. It seems pretty clear that basic snapshots taken outdoors are "simple" photos though. As with the Swedish and Finnish cases, yes, this would seem to apply to most photographs, and that would seem to be the clear intention. Links to their law are here (2001 version), and here (2003 version). Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:42, 19 October 2010 (UTC)As per § 87[35] this (the law) seems not to apply to "photographs of material objects" (whatever that means). Does that mean that these photographs have full 70year pma protection or have no protection at all? --Túrelio (talk) 14:51, 19 October 2010 (UTC)copyright protection for ? yearsThat section seems to be more for photographs of 2-D documents and the like to me; it seems to read those do not have any protection at all (or rather have the same protection as what the photographed document has -- i.e. a PD-Art situation). The full sentence is This provision shall not apply to photographs of writings, documents, business papers, material objects, technical drawings and similar products. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:09, 19 October 2010 (UTC)Let's get practical. The image of the cup to the right, in case it had been shot in Italy (not the case), how much protection would it have? Being a "material object" 0 or 70 years, or as per PD-Italy-photo 20 years? --Túrelio (talk) 15:19, 19 October 2010 (UTC)To me, that would be more than a "material object", so definitely not 0. The list of works around "material object" wording are all 2D works, so I'm not sure it's best to apply that outside of that type of thing. However in this case the design on the cup is a separate work of which the photo is derivative, so protection would last for 70pma on *that* work. PD-Italy-photo would not shorten that copyright. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:06, 19 October 2010 (UTC)Túrelio: Yes, im agree. But all this iformations are provided in template (like in Scandinavic states) becausue im see no real problem. Im try use restore template to photo from 1945 (sourced) but somekind of bot delete file automaticaly... :-( Can somebody shutdown bot "http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Nikbot" ? --77.48.153.172 15:08, 19 October 2010 (UTC) Another potential minefield with PD-Italy-photo is re-user "safety". If I re-use a 25 year old PD-Italy photo in country X, where this photo -if shot in country X- would not fall under PD, can I safely use it or could the Italian photographer sue me with a good chance for success? (As the same may happen with images from broad-FOP-countries when used in non-FOP countries, we have the FOP-warning tag that specifically warns re-users about that problem.) --Túrelio (talk) 15:32, 19 October 2010 (UTC)This situation exists with pretty much every tag we have -- Commons rules are to apply the copyright law in the country of origin, and the the U.S. law. Users in other countries need to determine if it is PD in their intended country of use by the given information -- not every "PD" work we have here is PD in every country in the world. We probably should note that specifically for this tag. In your example, if country X applies the rule of the shorter term, then yes it would be OK. If Country X applies the rule of the longer term, or neither, then yes you can likely be sued. If Country X is the United States, you can be sued for most any Italian photograph published in 1976 or later, although photos from 1975 and earlier are most likely OK (unless there was a copyright notice and all other U.S. formalities were adhered to). Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:59, 19 October 2010 (UTC)No offense here, but this sounds like "to be more papal than the Pope". What is so difficult to understand? Here's an example: Simple photograph: [36] - simple photograph, with ONLY documentation and informatic charakter. And full protected photograph - [37] image created only for "aesthetic value", with no documentating value. The legal interpretation, we must consider what was to lawmakers. The aim of this law is specific in the Italian Copyright Law was that the textbooks, newspapers, etc., can be added for the historical documentary photography. SUMMARY: Photos from the scene created by the photographer suggested, prepared, and then photographed (Acts, etc) are protected by 70 pma. Photos of the situations created by the photographer may have no, or scant control (protests, political meetings, the battle), are protected only 20 years after their creation. These photographs are counted and a very simple portraits of people who do not show any degree of creativity (Mussolini in military uniform is nothing creative [38], but displays of half-naked lady or photos from women's clothing catalog is creative [39]) When Mussolini in uniform came to the photographer, but he said he wanted to photograph. Exactly the same as when you go to a passport photograph. But the model had to make-up, had to choose accessories earrings. hair and so on. Photos Mussolini were used only for identification, not for it to start the career of the "model" Mussolini. --77.48.153.172 15:40, 19 October 2010 (UTC) -Túrelio (talk) 15:32, 19 October 2010 (UTC): See that like this: Im got book about Finland Wars agains Soviet Union. In this book (translated to Czech language) is used many simple images, oldest much as 50 years. Do you think that the publisher of the book violated the copyright of authors of the Finnish photographs when their work published in the country (Czech Republic) where never any instance of "lighter pictures" did not exist? --77.48.153.172 15:46, 19 October 2010 (UTC)1) IANAL. 2) That may well be. In my experience, the willingness to neglect copyright seems to have some association with the distance to the rights holder (hypothesis wasn't tested in double-blind randomized trials, of course). 3) Posing that question doesn't really help, IMHO. As I elaborated further above, applying PD-Italy has huge consequences, not the least as the short 20-year-protection differs so much from the situation in all or most other countries. And the burden of handling constant disputes about PD-Italy status of uploaded images, likely resulting from a too broad or unspecific definition, will fall upon Commons admins, not on you. --Túrelio (talk) 16:00, 19 October 2010 (UTC) Actually, many countries have a (much) shorter term of protection for all photographs. The Berne Convention explicitly allows that (minimum of 25 years from creation). 20 years used to be middle-of-the-road (10 years was very common). These days, most are 25 or 50, but the Berne Convention has a grandfather clause (article 7(7)) which allows existing, shorter terms to remain if the countries had earlier adhered to the Rome Act of the Convention, which Italy had. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:18, 19 October 2010 (UTC) Ok, but the relevant reference would be European countries. --Túrelio (talk) 16:21, 19 October 2010 (UTC) Seems to vary. Germany and Austria went one way, but Finland for example apparently still declares that this photo (a very famous one) is a "simple" photograph. Their term used to be 25 years, although they (non-retroactively) increased it to 50 years in 1991. Switzerland apparently has a zero term on many simple photographs -- see Threshold of originality. Italy, by all appearances, has not made any changes in this aspect following the EU directives. It is quite likely though that usages in many other European countries would be problematic, as they would use the rule of the longer term. I'll also note that the English Wikipedia earlier this year has decided to allow this tag (although the 1976 line would definitely apply there), so whatever issues there are will be cropping up anyways. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:54, 19 October 2010 (UTC)Or, better example: In Czech Republic, and Germany too, exist ekception to Flags and CoA of Cities and Villages. Yout thing, if im make a book about Czech and German cities, where im publishe CoA too, im be inprisoned Italy Police for Copyright, becausue Italy do not got this ekceptions? --77.48.153.172 16:04, 19 October 2010 (UTC)@77, stop it. You didn't get the message. I don't say that PD-Italy shouldn't be allowed due to these problems/questions, but that these problems/questions should be properly addressed to avoid problems on Commons and for re-users. By the way, you can get imprisoned in Switzerland for violating copyright, but it's nearly impossible to get money for copyviolating use of a CC-licensed image in Switzerland. --Túrelio (talk) 16:12, 19 October 2010 (UTC)Wikimedia Commons administrators are very cowardly people. Look, I really see no reason why not to use the PD-Italy. The view from the other end - Côte d'Ivoire has protection 99 years after author death. Consequently photos from the people of this state are protected 99 years after their death. But photographs of people he should be from France, where this period is only 70 years, also join after 70 years in PD, even in Côte d'Ivoire. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_the_shorter_term This is exactly the same situation. Just a shorter term of protection, and only some of the photos. Definitions are easy cases as well as with German and Czech CoA (which of course you understand). It can therefore be used PD-Italy. --77.48.153.172 16:33, 19 October 2010 (UTC)You seem to be little convinced of your own position if you need to broadly insult other users. At least two of those, so much despised by you, recently received death threats after fending off a 3-nights vandal attack in the middle of the night. But insulting others, using an IP account, is surely far more brave. Anyway, as I don't discuss with people who insult me and my colleagues, I retract from this discussion. I'll exert my responsibility in other ways. And to all others thank you for defending the honor of your fellow users/admins. Oh, nobody did. Well, then :-(. --Túrelio (talk) 20:15, 19 October 2010 (UTC)I'm sure you are (long) frustrated at the PD-Italy situation here, but name-calling really doesn't help -- everyone is honestly trying to do the right thing with regards to both the law and Foundation and Commons principles. If you notice, nobody is truly arguing against it at this point; we are mostly going over potential aspects, and we should be able to answer them. One aspect is that since these images are of such recent origin, we may want to actually enforce the PD-in-the-US part of the Commons rule more strictly for these (we are somewhat lax on that rule for works which have gone beyond 70-pma), which would mean a 1976 dividing line, as from a practical perspective there are many more potential real issues for the Foundation with allowing anything not truly PD in the U.S. Also, if you are aware of any Italian court cases which may give further guidance than the letter of the law (from either before or after EU directives went into effect), that would be helpful too. Not speaking Italian, I wouldn't even know where to begin to search. Carl Lindberg (talk) 02:33, 20 October 2010 (UTC)Well, problem at Wikipedia are this - many admin think "Im a got!" and to other users ale very cynism and authoritic. This making badly space for cooperation. For PD-Italy. If we say "this is copyvio, becausue in other state are different" we must delete EVERY. American oficial work, because not many other state erase gov. work to PD, Argentinian works, Scandinavic works... you understand? Authors of Copyright NEVER think for globalised computer works, because we must use our brains. Okay, im think for this compromisse - use under PD-Italy ONLY images of documentary nature - no plastic works, and no "head and shouders" portraits. ONLY photos during some acident, according to this part " aspects, elements and facts of natural or social life, obtained with photographic process ". This is poorly mentioned in Italy law, and this documentation photos are poorly simple, becausue author do not ready scene, only "take a shot" of acident. Very simple, and very useable. Yes, we lost 25% of files, who is probably PD too (like mugshots of people, for example like in ID cards) but this is most poorly way who im see. --77.48.153.172 19:42, 20 October 2010 (UTC)I tried to look at some case law. As far as I could understand it, a court ruled that 12 photos for a wall calender were not simple photos. Although these were "just landscapes". /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 20:01, 20 October 2010 (UTC)This has nothing to do with "being god". It has to do with protecting the reusers of these files. To make sure THEY understand the rules and don't get sued in Italy because we incorrectly informed them. And if the case law that Pieter just dug up, then this is exactly the type of photos that Turelio warned about. We need to understand very well what we are doing and need to be doing here, before we incorrectly inform others. It is also critical to have this information for future deletion debates. You may not like it, and it may not be going fast enough as far as you are concerned, but it is necessary. TheDJ (talk) 20:44, 20 October 2010 (UTC)To Pieter Kuiper - yes, that im know. Becausue im nominating this compromise - use only photos of documentary nature (taken during some acident like protesst, political meeting, battle, etc). This is clerly mentioned in " images of people or of aspects, elements and facts of natural or social life, obtained with photographic process or with an analogue one". Yes, we lost number of probably PD photos, but it is non problematic lika use of "portaits, landscapes, arranged photos" and many like that. You agree? --77.48.153.172 06:36, 23 October 2010 (UTC)Any chance you could translate the relevant section of the judge's decision in the case that Pieter Kuiper found? I can use Google Translate but it's best to not jump to too many conclusions based on that stuff. It does seem as though the judge did seem to find that artistic merit in the photograph itself (and particularly from professional photographers) did lend itself to not being simple photographs, but just as obviously the line is nowhere near the German court cases either, so those should not be used as precedents at all. It would be good to document this decision as part of the background on the tag. I'm all for having the tag which follows Italian law, and to me not allowing it at all is clearly wrong, but we need to be as precise as possible about it. If you know of any other case law, that is helpful as well. Carl Lindberg (talk) 06:58, 23 October 2010 (UTC)Okay, looking at that decision more closely, the judge draws the line at photographs which are purely of a documentary nature of an object or event or similar (i.e. the entire value of the photograph is for the depicted object) as opposed to ones which add artistic value as well. The judge also seems to take into account that this was a professional photographer known for making good photos. That would lend direct support to the "must not have artistic merit" wording on the template. I'd think mug shots and passport photos are "simple", but studio portraits would not be. It would be good to get a better translation so we can add some of that wording to the template. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:01, 25 October 2010 (UTC)Im add to template some examples of photos - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:PD-Italy --77.48.153.172 06:53, 27 October 2010 (UTC) im add to tempalte some examples of simple photo - read: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:When_to_use_the_PD-Italy_tagThat page is nonsense. We are bound to the law, not your personal interpretation or taste. --Martin H. (talk) 10:48, 29 October 2010 (UTC) And everything will be solved by speedy deleting that page before anyone can discuss it. Can we get this undeleted, or should I make a formal request?--Prosfilaes (talk) 11:14, 29 October 2010 (UTC) I didn't see the page, but most everything the IP is saying here lately is basically in line with the judge's decision in the case that Peter Kuipr found. The examples he put on the tag seemed more or less accurate too (although the judge didn't give specific examples) -- and when someone removed them, they suggested the IP create a page called "When to use the PD-Italy tag" instead for stuff like that, so that was done -- and then that was deleted. I think I would prefer to create a new PD-Italy-photo tag, without the tangled history of PD-Italy itself, and revert PD-Italy into the pointer to other possible tags. Examples etc. could go on the documentation page of the template, although a separate usage page like that may not be a bad idea either. It would be very good if an Italian user could give us a good translation of the relevant sections of the judge's ruling, so we could use more precise language on the template or at least documentation. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:33, 29 October 2010 (UTC)some admiin delete this files: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Il_corpo_senza_vita_di_Benito_Mussolini_accanto_a_quello_della_sua_compagna_Claretta_Petacci.jpg This is an image of Neville Chamberlain, Benito Mussolini, E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax and count Galeazzo Ciano.png published under pd-italy... can somebody restore him?EncartaHi, I am just wondering if someone has asked Microsoft to release Encarta maps and images in a Creative Commons licence. Probably the question has been asked in old discussion but I haven't found a reply in the archive. --Helmoony (talk) 17:36, 26 October 2010 (UTC)Presumably Microsoft licensed the maps and images for Encarta from numerous photo agencies, artists and cartographers. Do you know if the image you wanted belongs to Microsoft or is merely licensed? --InfantGorilla (talk) 16:51, 28 October 2010 (UTC) I was specially thinking about scientific diagrams and animations specially created by Microsoft. --Helmoony (talk) 05:47, 29 October 2010 (UTC)Commons:SignaturesWhat is needed to turn this proposed policy into a policy? There has not been any edit to the talk page for two month. Is this enough to show that there is consensus? --Leyo 15:01, 29 October 2010 (UTC)Image download questionI'm downloading images off here and reusing them, as per the licenses. However, on some files I notice there are gadgets like in this one: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2000_Fiat_Fiorino.jpg (has download at side of image) http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fiorino_Panel_Van.JPG (also has download at side) but this one does not have it, why: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fiat_Duna.JPG Apologies if this is too many questions! Thanks for the new scripts/gadgets, makes it much easier to download!The description pages of the images need a certain amount of information before those tools can work. The page File:Fiorino_Panel_Van.JPG, does not use the {{Information}} template box, and therefore the information that the new scripts require is not available to them. By adding that template, the page will have those tools as well. I'll do this specific one. TheDJ (talk) 17:57, 29 October 2010 (UTC)Featured pictures guideline and policy | grain, noise, film speed

good news everyone!

the horn of war. Info this inquiry is about the current methods used on commons for achieving featured picture status and their acceptance within the community. introduction most recently i decided to nominate another picture of an image i restorated. usually the source images date back at least a decade - in this particular case the image was created in 1970. when it comes to photographs shot before the digital age of photography, film speed is a common issue. the guideline states that Images should not have distracting amount of noise when viewed in full size. other parts of the guideline/policy refer to noise and film speed as well - i relinquish to cite them all in this context. current situation my personal observation of the votes and discussions on noisy images on COM:FPC sums up in people who are for or against noise within images. the more unique, the older and the more part of a person's cultural identity an image is, the more acceptable digital noise is. on the contrary the less renowned, the less historic and the less common an image is, the less noise/grain/film speed is accepted. many people (including myself) start knowing the noise issue from a digital photography perspective. the ISO values a digital camera puts out (mostly ranging from 100 to 1600) are the first encounter to the topic. if reading further one begins to realise the variety of digital and of course analogue noise. customary image editing software comes along with methods to reduce the "unwanted" noise. results differ from subtle change to annihilation of all structure - so does the content of your purse if purchasing this software or third party plugins. digital images usually don't have severe scratches, blemished or any other sort of disturbance old photographs have to suffer from. if you don't have a damaged sensor chip or camera equipment the source image is unharmed. the other way round analogue photographs feature this problems: starting from quaint methods to get a digital version, the concerns of good reprography - like removing dust or any other physical disturbance removable a mano - up to the process of restoration there are lots of things to consider. if working with severely destroyed images it is hard to tell apart from what is noise and what is structure. in most of the cases "the younger an image, the easier to work with" applies. the concern images which are not famous/showing famous content and are of younger age (mostly second half of the 20th century) but not yet digital images tend to have problems getting featured because of their noise. i do restorations and therefore try to reduce as little information as possible. if the original photographer thought it was a great thing to use a ISO800 film i don't see a point in reducing this at large by creating blurred bokehs or applying any other tricks which emulate a "digital feeling" to the image. bringing a picture back to its original state is the attempt of restoration - this will offend desired featured picture quality quite often. only the best pictures deserve to become featured pictures. still i ask myself if this exclusive status is not limiting certain kinds of images per se from getting featured. the featured picture status and the picture of the day concept are highly promotional. impressive illustrations of the flora & fauna of our planet are forming a huge part of this collection. now take a moment and think of the pictures which won't be on display because of their noise. there are other variables than noise if it comes to the question of featured picture or not. yet the noise argument in combination with the technical-equipment-of-a-certain-age argument (meaning that there are pictures with better quality available from that period) are used quite frequently. the fewest analogue images come along with information on their conditions of creation (what meta data provides for digital photography). meta data from the digitalization process is the best we can get. a technically based statement on the quality of an image is hard to achieve this way. a digitalized image does not tell what ISO film was used during its creating - if not being a specialist for film grain. i do see a difference in the handling of digital and analogue noise with all its pros and cons. therefore i call for a reevaluation on the base of my aforementioned explanations. your comment and vote now it's your turn. write whatever you think, add an oppose or support. or react in any other way. this is your chance to participate.will current policies/guidelines prevent noisy analogue pictures from getting featured status or not? if yes do you want this to continue or not? what are your experiences? do you have any examples? are you and your imagery concerned by this? Comment this must not be understood as a moan about the votes on the current nomination or any older nominations. be reminded that this is the situation from my POV. the point is about getting feedback from the community on the issue in general and possibly start a rethink on current methods on commons. for additional reading see this. be polite, drop some lines and have fun. regards, PETER WEIS TALK 20:30, 23 October 2010 (UTC)The noise thing is something that not many people understand. Any high resolution image (>3MP) will not be displayed on monitors in the high resolution and by downsampling (which one would do to adjust the image resolution to the monitor resolution) the noise will more or less, disappear. Noise in print is something completely different. Often noise makes (in print) an image look more realistic and esp. in raster print noise will be far less prominent. Any scan from a neg or positiv will have noise. Often lots of noise, but in print it looks fantastic. So my recommendation would be, that you down sample the image with the program of your choice so that the noise disappears before you nominate it for FP. Link the full res image as 'other version'. Amada44 ^{talk to me} 17:04, 25 October 2010 (UTC)The question of displaying an image is depending on each viewers settings and technical equipment. seeing the whole image at 100 percent is not necessary for most uses. downsampling an image is one of the worst treatments to an image for this project - in so many ways. i don't know what a user/viewer wants to do with an image - by providing highest resolution available i enable the user/viewer to make the decision. as you say printing is completely different from web solutions. someone who just wants to see the picture is happy with the image description page already. for everyone who wants to reuse the image for a more advanced reason i provide this high resolution. i don't like to spam the server with a whole set of different sized versions for any kind of reuse. there is lots of free software available to do this and in the worst case people can write requests for such work. downsampling is a way of cheating to achieve acknowledgement. i can accept if users deny their acknowledgement - even without reason, but i can not accept downsampling the images i work with just for the sake of featured picture status. anyhow the question is not about downsampling being good or evil - it is about a more considerate view on the question of image noise. regards, PETER WEIS TALK 21:39, 25 October 2010 (UTC)I fully understand Peter Weis worries. This excellent image that Peter Weis proposed as FPC is a typical example of image quality by a traditional film (like TriX 400ASA or HP5 400ASA). There are people like me that love noise in b&w images. This image is from 1970.. but even today if you shot a b&w film 35mm (ie. using a traditional film.. like Kodak Tri-X 400ASA), you will have similar results (from the quality-noise point of view). BTW, IMO the dynamic range in tones in b&w films is excellent comparing with digital image sensors (and converting the image to b&w).Ie. this image (it is mine) [40] has date Dec 2009 and it shoot by T-MAX 3200 ASA. This huge amount of noise (it is also scanned in high resolution) it is not a flaw (IMO) but nice. Just for your information parallel with the manual FM2 (loaded by T-MAX 3200ASA film) I had also a body of Nikon D700 (full frame digital SLR). I didn't shot this portrait with D700 because I like the effect of b&w images and noise in a portraits like that.As the rules of FPC are now.. noise is not accepted. And the users that participate to FPC.. oppose images because of noise.. any photo scanned by film is rejected or receives a lot of negative votes. Take for example a look here [41], this nomination had also proposed for FPX. The problem of that photo is that it was shot by film (it was a Film Slide Fuji Sensia 100ASA, shot by a manual camera, scanned hi-res by Minolta Dimage Scan Elite 5400) and has noise and it is considered of low quality.All this issue of noise and quality limits the nominations. Visiting expositions of photography.. some photographers use films.. and their images are noisy. Look also images of Magnum photographers... some of them are noisy. Here in FPC noise is not accepted.. I will support any new rule-idea allowing noisy images. The most important thing (IMO) is the aesthetics in an image.. noise can be used creatively in an image (some photographers still shot in hi-res or use film because of the noisy result). If noise-aesthetics are not satisfied, then it can be a reason opposing a nomination. At this moment users consider noise as a fatal flaw.@Amada44 Uploading images downsampled is something that it works in FPC. You upload an image 30megapixels (ie. a stitched panorama) and the users complains because of the noise. You upload the image in half resolution (downsampled at 15megapixels).. and there are no more complains. I don't agree downsampling the images.. but it is a trick to satisfy the community in noise-quality issues. Ggia (talk) 14:42, 29 October 2010 (UTC)I think many people forget about COM:VI when nominating images like this. If the main reason for nominating isn't plain-old eye-candy aesthetics, FPC may not be the right avenue (based on my experience). Rocket000 (talk) 20:23, 29 October 2010 (UTC) Comment COM:VI or COM:QI are good concepts for images falling in their guidelines. the reason COM:FP is desired, derives from its close connection to COM:POTD. the image above was provided by the Tropenmuseum for the upcoming GLAM event - publicity can be achieved by the COM:POTD concept. alas only featured pictures (yes there are some exceptions) will have the chance of this publicity. that was and is the reason for me to nominate this picture. using the commons main page or en:wiki as a platform for attention seems reasonable if knowing that several thousand people access these pages day by day. there are users who "collect" featured picture stars just to improve their stats or for their own wellbeing. featured picture is a mighty tool if used for the reason of gaining publicity. of course this can be very selfish as well and "abused" for introducing oneself as a photographer / digital artist. using it for drawing attention to the GLAM event and perhaps finding someone who can write about the Samo people was and still is my aim. regards, PETER WEIS TALK 11:30, 30 October 2010 (UTC)"Please link images" message not clear.This message asks user to add categories to an already-uploaded image, but does not clearly explain how. It took me over an hour to figure it out. I think the rule is: double-click the image; click the blue 'description' field below the image; click the edit tab; add text "category:wotsit" in double square brackets; click save tab. I suggest that "Please link images" message be changed to make it easier for new users. Benjamin Trovato (talk) 04:37, 29 October 2010 (UTC)This is the 2nd user that has made this point this week. Perhaps it is time we indeed review these bot messages ? TheDJ (talk) 18:09, 29 October 2010 (UTC) Not any template can describe how to even edit pages on a wiki. From the above description most is very basic page editing, what to add to the file description is mentioned in the template. How to edit pages should be mentioned somewhere in the firs steps, and that again is linked in the welcome message at the top of the user talkpage. There is however also a bold writing in this welcome template, "If you're copying files from another project, be sure to use the CommonsHelper", this bold written instruction was also not followed. To understand a notification post-uploading/editing it must be assumed that at least the basic information was read before uploading/editing. --Martin H. (talk) 18:23, 29 October 2010 (UTC) Agreed. But messages going to new users should be idiot-proof and not assume that the user has a brain. What is clear to an expert may not be clear to a new user Benjamin Trovato (talk) 02:36, 31 October 2010 (UTC) If someone wants to improve the message, see {{Please link images/en}}. Multichill (talk) 22:30, 29 October 2010 (UTC)Make image notes to be seen on wikipedias?Image notes are a great thing, but right now it is available only for the readers of Commons. Readers of wikipedias will not be able to see the notes unless they are to click on "description page there", and I believe very few actually actually do. So the question is how to make the readers of wikipedias to be able to see the images notes? Thanks.--Mbz1 (talk) 02:02, 30 October 2010 (UTC)Simple: get consensus on the other project to install ImageAnnotator, then configure it appropriately. A sample configuration exists at de.wikiversity.org; it's configured there to even display notes on images in articles. Visit e.g. this page to see that in action. Whether enabling that for a large project as en-WP is feasible remains to be seen, but in any case displaying the notes on the local file description pages should be fine. To sum it up: technically simple, but demonstrate consensus first. At en-WP, there doesn't seem to be much interest in this. (An evaluation installation already exists over there.) Lupo 08:40, 30 October 2010 (UTC)Thank you, Lupo. Could you please advise me where is the good place to seek the consensus on English wikipedia, their village pump or somewhere else? --Mbz1 (talk) 13:17, 30 October 2010 (UTC) I don't know. It was brought up twice or three times at their technical village pump: [42]. This at some point resulted in en:Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Annotate. Subsequently, I installed it there, but people have to explicitly edit their user JS to enable it, and the configuration is rather restrictive. See en:Help:Gadget-ImageAnnotator. The idea was to let people experiment with it to figure out what they wanted. There was not much feedback. Lupo 13:32, 30 October 2010 (UTC) By what consensus was the ImageAnnotator implemented here on Commons? ... It was suddendly there, people experimented with it and it is obviously liked as the increasing number of annotated images shows. And also by the increasing number of inquieries about how to use it on "national" Wikipedias. And everytime I demonstrate this feature on one of our "Stammtische" (user meetings in RL in w:de) I get positive responses and interest that the feature should be implemented fast. The feature actually only really makes sense, when it can be seen straight in an article. So why isn't somebody just bold and implements it in the "national" Wikipedias. When people can see what they can do with it, they will adapt to it rather fast. That is my opinion at least. --Wuselig (talk) 16:00, 30 October 2010 (UTC) Yes, I agree. Let's try to introduce the feature to English wikipedia, and then make them to find the consensus to take it off . --Mbz1 (talk) 16:17, 30 October 2010 (UTC) @Wuselig: Re: "By what consensus was the ImageAnnotator implemented here on Commons?" I had presented it and asked the community. First, I had announced a beta version that people had to enable for themselves.[43] Once it was truly ready, I had asked the community, on the English, French, and German village pumps.[44]. And finally, it was enabled.[45] I would never, ever, have enabled something that is active for everybody without consulting the community first. (With hindsight, we could have let the discussions run a little longer as it was holiday time, and we could have announced it using a sitenotice, but otherwise I think it was well done.) Later, the configuration was adapted a little in response to experiences made and to community feedback. Lupo 09:23, 31 October 2010 (UTC)Old Heidelberg (Cinema 1915)I found some images on Flickr from the New York Public Library. The license says "No known copyright restrictions; may be subject to third party rights". Is that fine? I'm particularly interrested in two of them: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nypl/3109219481/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/nypl/3109219481/in/photostream/ I actually first tried to upload the file in here, but I was totally confused by the formular. What should I pick-up in License if such files are acceptable ? Many thanks for your help. --Anneyh (talk) 18:50, 30 October 2010 (UTC)Please note that right after the text "No known copyright restrictions; may be subject to third party rights", it says "(for more information, click here)". If you click on that link, they explain what they mean. The operative text is this: "Even though we believe the images we have uploaded to The Commons on Flickr are in the 'public domain' and thus not subject to copyright restrictions, these photos may be subject to other third party rights, such as rights of privacy and rights of publicity." We are generally only interested in copyright status, and with works as old as these, the claim of public domain is highly credible. I believe {{PD-US}} is the copyright tag you should use, unless a particular picture was not taken in the U.S. (in which case use {{PD-1923}} and an appropriate country-specific PD tag) or was not published before 1923 (in which case the copyright status is less clear). The third-party rights we can cover with a few templates, found at Commons:Non-copyright restrictions. In this case, adding {{Personality rights}} to the description page should be quite sufficient. -- Powers (talk) 14:47, 31 October 2010 (UTC)Many thanks, I had actually clicked and even found out that the young actress died in the late sixties, but I could not find {{Personality rights}} by myself. --Anneyh (talk) 18:37, 31 October 2010 (UTC)Please correct image titleI uploaded image but typo, no idea how to fix it. The link is File:Hidetada_Yamaishi.jpg but it should read Hidetada Yamagishi.jpg (the "g" is missing). Can anyone help? Thanks!--Billymac00 (talk) 03:37, 31 October 2010 (UTC)You can use {{Rename}} to rename an image. You say, that you have received this image per email from Hidetada Yamagishi. Are you allowed to publish it? We would need an Commons:OTRS email from Hidetada Yamagishi in order to make sure, that he agrees to the license and publication. Until we have the permission, I have added a tag that this file needs permission. It would be great, if you could ask Hidetada Yamagishi to send the OTRS-email! If you have any questions, you can ask on my userpage. Amada44 ^{talk to me} 10:54, 31 October 2010 (UTC)Not sure how to merge categories.The official name of Valencia's zoo is "Bioparc Valencia". I tried merging Category:Zoo de Valencia and Category:Bioparc Valencia by redirecting the first one to the second, but all I got was a mess -- the first category's images were effectively hidden in the redirect. Help! --Agamemnus (talk) 04:25, 31 October 2010 (UTC)Replace all content in old category with {{cat redirect|Bioparc Valencia}}. Then add {{move cat|Zoo de Valencia|Bioparc Valencia}} to CommonDelinker requests page. An admin will then add it to the actual commands list and the bot will move all the media in the old category to the new one. ZooFari 05:54, 31 October 2010 (UTC) Thanks! One more thing.... will the old category turn into a redirect, or do I need to add an actual redirect?--Agamemnus (talk) 06:21, 31 October 2010 (UTC) No, {{cat redirect|Bioparc Valencia}} will be the "redirect" from now on. Any further images that the category receives will be moved by a bot. ZooFari 16:59, 31 October 2010 (UTC)File:Dubai_051.JPGCan any one see if there is anything wrong in the licence of this File:Dubai_051.JPG taken by me, or this one File:DIC_1.jpg that I transfered from Wikipedia. I much appreciate your opinions, and thank you very much.--Producer (talk) 10:30, 31 October 2010 (UTC)They have been nominated for speedy deletion because the United Arab Emirates do not have a freedom of panorama exception for photographs of public architecture. That is, the buildings pictured are considered copyrighted, and photographs of them are derivative works that cannot be freely licensed without the permission of the buildings' copyright holders. Powers (talk) 14:35, 31 October 2010 (UTC) Discussion started at File talk:Dubai 051.JPG. --Túrelio (talk) 14:36, 31 October 2010 (UTC)Redundant categoryCan one of you experts please have a look at Category:Reginald Gray? It has a sub-category, Reginald Gray (artist), which strikes me as redundant and seems like nothing but an opportunity for the author/creator/subject to have two links to Commons on their Wiki article. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 14:22, 31 October 2010 (UTC)Reginald Gray (artist) is not a category; it's a gallery. It allows Gray's works to be organized and displayed in a more logical manner than mixed in with images of the artist himself and organized in alphabetical order by filename. Powers (talk) 14:32, 31 October 2010 (UTC)Are partial images of buildings subject to FOP laws?To be more specific: should we delete an image, taken a country where there's no Freedom of Panorama, if it only depicts a part of a building? Clear cut cases where we should not would be rows of glass panels filling the image, or an interior with a reception desk, chairs and little else. But what if there are some architectural elements present? Especially since these elements vary in complexity and importance. Examples would be File:Burjalarab inside2.jpg, File:Rose_Rotana_Tower_Under_Construction_on_12_April_2007_Pict_4.jpg, File:Roof-Burj-Al-Arab.JPG and File:Burj_inside.jpg, all of which are nominated for deletion. Any ideas? -- Orionist ★ talk 06:58, 28 October 2010 (UTC)I'd say that we should look to the rationale behind the rule. Architectural works such as buildings are essentially large artistic works, and countries like the UAE which have chosen not to adopt the freedom of panorama principle (though note that UAE does permit it for broadcasts) presumably feel that the copyright in such works deserves protection. However, a photograph that focuses on a portion of an artwork rather than the whole might not infringe the artwork as a whole because of the de minimis principle. For example, I may infringe the copyright in a statue of a person if I take a photograph of the entire sculpture, but arguably a photograph of just the hand of the statue would be de minimis if it was not a special feature of the statue. (A shot of the head might be regarded as substantial.) I would thus tentatively express the view that photographs showing insubstantial portions of buildings, including interior shots, are acceptable. On the other hand, it must be recognized that a particular architectural element of a building may be regarded as having copyright independent of the building as a whole. One example that comes to mind is an intricately carved gargoyle that is incorporated into the structure of a building. The line, though, may be a difficult one to draw. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 07:14, 28 October 2010 (UTC) I don't agree with your interpretation of de minimis. The essence is that the artwork is a small or insignificant part of the picture. Zooming on one piece of artwork does not make it de minimis.--Prosfilaes (talk) 09:23, 28 October 2010 (UTC) If I zoom in on the hand of a statue and take a photograph of it, and it is a small or insignificant part of the whole statue, why is that not de minimis? Similarly, if I focus on a small portion of an entire building, that might also be de minimis when contrasted with the building as a whole. It depends on the significance of the part to the whole. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 18:11, 28 October 2010 (UTC) The sculptor made the hand that had artistic qualities that made you want to make a photo of it. So the photo is a derivative of the work of the sculptor. De minimis is about a the very different case where the artist's work is only a minor part of the photo. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 18:22, 28 October 2010 (UTC)That is not what de minimis is about. Pieter and Prosfilaes are talking about "incidental use", for which the de minimis defense is the main argument. Incidental use might be the most common case of de minimis, but it is unfortunate and wrong that it is almost the sole focus of the Commons article. If you go back to the article and jump to the United States section, or read the very informative article listed in the external links, you'l have a much better understanding of it. De minimis basically means "an infraction of the law may be so insubstantial that, although technically a right may have been violated, the violation or the effect of that violation is trivial enough for the court to ignore the infraction altogether." In the fields of intellectual property and copyright it applies mainly in three distinct ways: First, the de minimis defense will apply where the “technical violation of a right [is] so trivial that the law will not impose legal consequences.” Second, “de minimis can mean that copying has occurred to such a trivial extent as to fall below the quantitative threshold of substantial similarity, which is always a required element of actionable copying….” Third, “de minimis might be considered relevant to the defense of fair use.". It is also embodied in the requirement that "more than a trivial amount of originality would be required before the work could be deemed subject to copyright." (above article p. 3,9) Now, back to my original question. My way of thinking is that when we consider an image of copyrighted work in a public place where there's no FOP, be it a building, sculpture, mural etc. We should ask ourselves the following questions: First, does the work as whole, or the part depicted, pass the threshold of originality? If yes, then: Is its use incidental to the image? If no, then: Does the image contain a substantial part of the work as to constitute a significant violation? If yes, then the image shouldn't be on Commons. The problem with the above and similar images is that they're not clear-cut cases, for me at least. And I want to know what fellow Commoners think. I hope I can get more responses. -- Orionist ★ talk 18:41, 31 October 2010 (UTC)I looked at that article. It is mostly about taking a small part of something copyrighted, to use it for something else ('sampling' in the context of music). But it does not say that de minimis could be a defense for selling postcards of "just the hand" or "just the head" of a statue. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 20:33, 31 October 2010 (UTC)(Edit conflict) You can't expect the article to list every possible situation in existence. It would grow to reach infinity. JackLee's example of the statue might not be the best one, but just because de minimis might not apply in this case doesn't mean it won't apply in all cases. "Substantial" doesn't necessarily mean a major portion of the work, it is only concerned with the original parts of the work. If the majority of the statue consists of a cubic pedestal copying that won't be substantial. If you copy the head of a classical statue, most probably it's an infringement, if you copy the head of a Henry Moore statue, most probably it's not. Imagine there was no FoP in the US, then copying just the crown of the Crysler building would certainly be an infringement, while copying the rest of the building without the crown would be de minimis.Modern architecture is most of the time very abstract. It consists of mainly un-copyrightable parts, that make-up a copyrightable whole. The factors that make it original are sometimes very large shape factors, sometimes smaller architectural elements. Issues arise when some of these elements appear in the picture, is there enough of them included as to constitute an infringement? Or is there so little of them as to be inconsequential, and hence de minimis? -- Orionist ★ talk 22:04, 31 October 2010 (UTC)But all the photos here are pictures of substantial parts of the building; File:Rose Rotana Tower Under Construction on 12 April 2007 Pict 4.jpg is the middle part, and File:Roof-Burj-Al-Arab.JPG is an architecturally distinctive roof. If you want to take a close up of tool marks in granite of a sculpture, then that may meet the requirements for de minimis, but I still don't see taking a significant piece of the sculpture or building for artistic purposes and then claiming it's an artistically minimal part of the building or sculpture.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:27, 31 October 2010 (UTC) I wanted to discuss those images here because I wasn't sure what applies here, and wanted to know where others draw the line. Please read my above post for what I think about de minimis in architecture. I'm mostly concerned by people who take an extreme position when there's no FoP in a certain country, and start nominating everything for deletion on that ground, even images like File:Burjalarab_inside1.jpg. Obviously, rectangular windows are not copyrighted. -- Orionist ★ talk 22:15, 31 October 2010 (UTC)Update on internationalizationHi everyone, a lot of the license (related) templates you see at Commons are currently translated at Commons. Some examples: {{GFDL}}, almost every Creative Commons license tag (like for example {{Cc-by-sa-3.0}}), {{Attribution}}, {{CeCILL}}, {{FAL}}, {{GPL}}, {{Information}}, {{Self}}, {{Own}}, {{PD-self}}, {{PD-user}}, etc (complete list of messages here). All these templates are translated in a lot of languages. Currently 32 languages are completly translated and a total of 55 languages have 90% or more translated. When I compare Commons:Template i18n/Interface language statistics with what's translated all languages except Arabic, Greek, Thai & Basque have a higher than 90% score (update: I was referring to this version, it's now update to included all languages) . That's a good score, but it would of course be nice to get all these languages to 100%. So any ar-N, el-N, th-N or eu-N users willing to help out? Much appreciated. So what's up next? I did proposals to migrate {{Book}} {{Artwork}} & {{Creator}} to translatewiki (proposals are at the talk pages of these templates). {{PD-old}}, {{PD-art}}, {{PD-scan}} are good candidates to migrate but that's going to be a challenge. The PD-USGov license tags are also high on my list because these templates are used a lot and have a lot of things in common. So I'm not done yet! Multichill (talk) 17:59, 28 October 2010 (UTC)Thanks for your hard work! — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 18:13, 28 October 2010 (UTC)Great work and great news. Lets now just hope that translatewiki is not going to disappear suddenly ;). I do have a question about proper use of translate wiki messages: many exact phrases we need are already translated for some other purpose. Shall we use those or clone then somehow at tlanslatewiki. For example I needed "Book" header for {{Album du Centenaire}} word "Book" is translated into all languages under unlikely name "{{int:Coll-collection}}" are there any issues in using it? Same with {{Photo Information}} which shares most of the field names with already translated EXIF data. Is it OK to use those translations? --Jarekt (talk) 18:49, 28 October 2010 (UTC) Not sure if sharing is ok. I'll have a talk with the translatewiki guys and see what they think. Multichill (talk) 20:42, 28 October 2010 (UTC)Be careful if you use messges in new contexts. Commons already had problems with using MediaWiki:License both as a header on image pages (should not include a colon in many languages) and as a label on Special:Upload (should have a colon in many language). In MediaWiki:Coll-collection "Book" means a collection of wiki pages in a PDF (or other document formats), it is possible that in some language this is not the same as the word for book as an object. I think the message is the name of Special:Book (not currently active in Commons) in Special:SpecialPages, but it is not obvious that this is the best name for that page, so maybe in the future someone decides to change it to "Manage books" or something. The EXIF messages are intended as labels in the list of EXIF data at the bottom of image pages, so it will probably also work as labels in a template for EXIF data. /90.229.129.137 11:41, 29 October 2010 (UTC) New context = new label. Think semantically. If you think the content will be the same for both uses in all languages, you can always transclude it to save some work (at least here, not translatewiki). That way if one ever needs to be changed, all the uses don't need to be change to a new name. One method I used a couple times is to create a template that simply transcludes a system message, like {{int:and}}/{{And}}, and then use only the template. This also has the advantage of being easier to use (no "int:") and track (transclusion list). Rocket000 (talk) 20:18, 31 October 2010 (UTC) By the way. Multichill lets not do PD-scan yet. See Commons:Village_pump#.7B.7BPD-scan.7D.7D above. --Jarekt (talk) 18:51, 28 October 2010 (UTC) I noticed. That's why I suggested it. We have to change the wording anyway, might be worth doing a translatewiki right away. Multichill (talk) 20:42, 28 October 2010 (UTC)While only tangentially related, if you do submit the PD-USGov templates for internationalisation, I wonder if it might not also be a good idea to standardise and meta-template-ify those same templates, since they should all (or mostly) share similar text. I would imagine it would simplify the internationalisation process a bit as well. Of course, I'd also like to see the names standardised towards a more defined hierarchy, so it would be easier to see the relationships between templates at the category level. — Huntster (t @ c) 00:06, 29 October 2010 (UTC)How to extract and prepare signaturesI am an autograph dealer with thousands of signatures that would be useful for adding to Wikipedia pages, and though I am technologically literate, I don't know how to extract the autograph itself from whatever background media/color exists on the original, without somehow affecting the quality and integrity of the signature itself. I see that the images are .SVG files, and I have Adobe Creative Suite CS4, but I cannot seem to make the background transparent (as in this image http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mark_Twain_Signatures-2.svg). Help as to which is the best tool for this task, and a few step-by-step instructions including batch processing, would be most appreciated. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vintagenarian (talk • contribs) 14:26, 29 October 2010 (UTC) --Vintagenarian (talk) 20:45, 29 October 2010 (UTC)I would try to open the scan in photoshop, then open the Levels window (Image>Adjustements>Levels). Just try a bit around what looks best--DieBuche (talk) 21:37, 29 October 2010 (UTC) As soon as you have a good raster image of the signature in Photoshop, you can convert it to SVG, our preferred format for signatures, with Inkscape, which is free software. See Help:SVG#Converting to SVG and detailed instructions here. Sandstein (talk) 22:28, 30 October 2010 (UTC) Note that you don't have to convert signatures to SVG; the conversion process is usually lossy, and a good PNG image is often better than a badly traced SVG. The PNG format supports transparency just like SVG (and in fact MediaWiki renders SVG images to PNG before displaying them). The easiest way to make the background of a line drawing (like a signature) transparent is to first adjust the color levels so that the background is pure white and then use the "Color to alpha" tool to make that color transparent. (Hmm, OK, "Color to alpha" is a GIMP tool. I think the corresponding tool in Photoshop is something like "Remove black/white matte".) —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 22:52, 31 October 2010 (UTC)October 30a better welcome message

Instead of all those texts translated to hundreds of languages, let's put some buttons like this:

this means: Tour, Tutorial, FAQ, Help desk, Community, Chat, Talk to an online admin. no need for translation. everyone understands it.Which button is what? Aren't they all about child abuse or something worse? East of Borschov (talk) 15:56, 30 October 2010 (UTC) None of these icons communicate anything useful to me. If I had to parse them they'd be Adult about to hit a kid with a paddle. Classroom Somebody completely bewildered Student in conflict with teacher Guy trying to pick which woman to date Whiteboard with incomprehensible equation Kid watching his father graduate, or watching his older classmate balance books on his head. No need for translation? - Jmabel ! talk 16:20, 30 October 2010 (UTC)I agree that the pictures aren't terribly clear, but I don't rule out the possibility that better icons can be developed and perhaps used in conjunction with (rather than in substitution for) the text. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 17:05, 30 October 2010 (UTC)Maybe someone can try making proper icons for it. To me the first one looks like a murder is about to be committed, and the last one is someone speaking to a ticket inspector. -mattbuck (Talk) 17:20, 30 October 2010 (UTC) I like the idea. It is like with IKEA furniture assembly instructions: You can say a lot with a good drawing without using words. The only problem is that Most of the links point you to places you will need to use words, and most likely in English. You are not going to draw your way out of asking license question. But I thing such icons can be a good in addition to words to speed up navigation. --Jarekt (talk) 02:23, 31 October 2010 (UTC)People invented language for a reason. I have to say, looking at those diagrams, I can't even begin to guess at the meaning of most of them. I see (1) a boy being directed to the closet for a paddling, (2) a boy sitting in a classroom for some unknown reason, (3) a boy hearing a lot of different stuff said at him, (4) a boy in court waiting for a verdict, (5) a boy talking to a crowd for some unknown reason, maybe they're ostracizing him for his crime in #4? (6) some kind of computer menu, (7) a boy looking at someone at graduation, or a policeman, or someone wearing a dippy hat and one of those ugly neckties used in Western countries. What any of those things mean in Wikipedia terms, I couldn't even begin to guess. While it's possible that assembly instructions for a piece of furniture might avoid language, this is because there is a very limited range of possible actions. In fact, most people would try assembling it on their own if instructions weren't available at all. That's a very different situation. Wnt (talk) 23:13, 31 October 2010 (UTC)What do you like of the various Flickr upload toolsHi all, As most of you probably know, I wrote Flickr upload bot back in May 2007 because there was a lot demand for uploading free images from Flickr to Commons. And apparently people find it useful, since as of September 2010, over 80k images have been uploaded via this bot. In addition over 50k images have been uploaded via a similar bot by Magnus Manske. Unfortunately as you may know, every other day those tools break (mine more than Magnus'). Both have an annoying authentication mechanism, which requires you to do extra stuff to be able to upload (either post a token to a file page, or use TUSC). Both problems would be solved if there was a MediaWiki extension to handle this task. I eventually plan to write a MediaWiki extension that does such a thing and get it enabled on Commons. Therefore, I need to know what you like and dislike about those tools, so that I can take this feedback into account when writing this extension. Don't expect to see something in the short term though, but I hope that in the mid-long term we will have such an extension on Commons. -- Bryan (talk to me) 20:17, 30 October 2010 (UTC)I do not understand why the commons upload form will not accept url's. It would make uploading so much simpler, and it would have the advantage that sources are better documented. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 21:50, 30 October 2010 (UTC) I do wish they would enable "upload from url" here, however, a Flickr extension would still be very useful for filling in the information automatically. Rocket000 (talk) 19:48, 31 October 2010 (UTC)What I dislike about these tools -- most of the flickr-specific metadata is not transferred. When the file was uploaded to flickr? When it was reuploaded? What about EXIF data (if original file is not accessible via flickr, you can't read EXIF from the file itself)? Sometimes flickr tools transfer only a meaningless name, when a meaningful name is present (e.g. this file will be transfered as work of "b k", instead of "joiseyshowaa" work) -- IMO it's a serious problem. All this information (sometimes -- vital information) will be lost, when the flickr account will be deleted. What about interface I prefer the Magnus Manske tool -- you don't need to repeat the same steps if you want to upload several files at once. Trycatch (talk) 22:41, 30 October 2010 (UTC) I prefer the way your bot works over Magnus' since his doesn't allow you to edit the info before uploading and adds a bunch of stupid categories (and some times enough text to be a copyvio forever stuck in the upload log). However, his bot adds a geocoding location template which I really like and seems to upload much faster. Personally, I don't find either authentication mechanism annoying (at least once you set up TUSC). Rocket000 (talk) 20:00, 31 October 2010 (UTC) dupe checking would be a great feature ;) Amada44 ^{talk to me} 20:10, 31 October 2010 (UTC) I forgot, that's another reason why I prefer Bryan's bot! It does warn you if you're trying to upload a duplicate (the text should be red or something cause it's easy to overlook). Rocket000 (talk) 20:27, 31 October 2010 (UTC)October 31

Commons:Village pump/Archive/2010/10