Commons talk:History merging and splitting/Requests

Can someone please go through Category:Media_requiring_a_split_up and spit some of the images there? --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 02:35, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

This category is completly useless. If you want to do something productive you could find the information for [1] and upload it under a new name. --Cwbm (commons) (talk) 08:28, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

I wish to preserve the page history. If I just re-upload the image in a new location, a curious user clicking the "View history" tab won't know about the earlier revisions made at the original location. They won't know who originally uploaded the image onto Commons. If I could move revisions to new locations, I would. Unfortunately, that involves being able to delete, restore, and move images, and I don't possess the necessary user rights in order to do that. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 18:32, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

For the curious user you put a link back to the other file. But apart from that 100.000s of files have been moved from other wikis or renamed here without conserving any history. The information was conserved by other means. I don't see why this in this small number of cases should not be good enough. But out of curiosity could you give a piece of version history out of the files currently in Category:Media_requiring_a_split_up which you deem necessary to preserve. --Cwbm (commons) (talk) 19:42, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

See Commons:History_merging_and_splitting/Requests#File:Snapshot1.png_.E2.86.92_File:JarekB.png_and_File:Pardus2011Desktop.png. The original image location "Snapshot1.png" was deleted. If I had re-uploaded the images at new locations and posted a deletion notice on the Snapshot1.png instead of asking a sysop to split it, then the original history would be lost to those who can't view deleted pages. Linking to the original location wouldn't be enough. File:Tb.jpg needs to be split in a similar fashion to Snapshot1.png, since "Tb.jpg" isn't descriptive. The means to split up images and their revisions is available, but the means in the hands of a relatively small select. Also, http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Big12locations.png&diff=58240565&oldid=57271568 --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 18:15, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

So according to your logic in your last example if user:Bluepjs23 had uploaded the file seperatly we would need a split. So we need splits for every derivative upload? --Cwbm (commons) (talk) 19:51, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Are there any good reasons to split the version history?

I don't really se many. As far as I can see is the only thing you gain is that software atributes the upload to the original user account. An information that has been destroyed millions of times by file transfers from other wikis and the old rename procedure anyway. So what gives? --Cwbm (commons) (talk) 06:46, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

The most obvious one is that if you overwrite a file with a completely different version, no one will be able to use two versions at the same time --Ben.MQ (talk) 12:24, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

You don't seem to be aware what a split is. --Cwbm (commons) (talk) 12:57, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Enlighten me please.--Ben.MQ (talk)13:24, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

OK, in case I did not explain clearly, I meant COM:OVERWRITE --Ben.MQ (talk) 13:26, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Commons:History_merging_and_splitting#Current_admin_volunteers, [2], [3], [4] – Bencmq is a sysop involved in the splitting process. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 13:28, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

And why don't you upload the other version with a different name? --Cwbm (commons) (talk) 14:16, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

People overwrite a file and it is a mistake that needs to be corrected. That is the point of splitting... --Ben.MQ (talk) 14:35, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

You correct the mistake by reverting. So? --Cwbm (commons) (talk) 14:37, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

What are you trying to say? I already said that if one overwrite a file completely, no one's able to use the old file. Of course it is pointless to split all non-minor overwritten versions, but that is your reason for the argument against having history split at all? --Ben.MQ (talk) 15:39, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Of course you can use it. You revert and upload the other version under a different file name. --Cwbm (commons) (talk) 15:43, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

We should of course preserve as much information/history as possible, that is why every wikipedia does not welcome cut-and-paste move, but when it comes to splitting of article content, wikipedians could only cut and paste due to technical limitations. If we can preserve those history edits, by moving them to another page altogether, why not. We can't do all, but this page is something we can do especially when the history contains a lot of information. You mentioned about importing image from local projects to commons and how information is lost. You have a valid point there, but due to technical limitations we need to every time export the local file page and have an admin to import it here. We will have a huge backlog. So at this point of time what we do is to review the images and make sure that information are kept. Still, it is a horrible back log--Ben.MQ (talk) 15:57, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

But this edit shows you that in 99 % of the cases by _splitting_ the file history you preserve no information. The only thing you preserve is File list. --Cwbm (commons) (talk) 16:07, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're trying to say with that diff. NoFight didn't modify the page description of the original "Snapshot.png" when he overridden the file, so I had to change the description myself. Putting text into the "Summary" box on Special:Upload doesn't change the text of the page. In addition, that was the first image Stu ever split ([5], [6]). He or she isn't too experienced with it yet, and that's why the page history doesn't mention that the page was moved from "Snapshot1.png". Also, isn't preserving attribution on the file list advantageous? I shouldn't receive attribution in the file list for a screenshot NoFight made. If I use your reupload under a different filename method instead of requesting a split, then I would receive attribution for work for isn't my own. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 21:20, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

That is in a way what I mean. The only "benefit" of not uploading the other file yourself is that it does not appear in your upload log. --Cwbm (commons) (talk) 14:54, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

There's benefit in preserving page history and attribution. I'm repeating myself now. I'd figured that attribution would mean a great deal to the Commons and free software community. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 22:05, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

You are repeating yourself because you claim that there is benefit in preserving the page history without actually saying what the benefit is. --Cwbm (commons) (talk) 07:17, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Editors license their revision under certain terms (CC-BY-SA 3.0), and it's up to Commons to uphold those licensing terms. File histories should be preserved (eg. File:Pardus2011Desktop.png#filehistory) should be preserved in order to uphold those terms. Not doing so would be breaking that agreement. The benefit is for the editor / uploader who agreed to license their work to Commons in exchange for certain rights. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 15:20, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Merging

User:Cwbm_(commons)/possible_merges – **sigh** Cwbm, I hope you realize that the ability to move files wasn't introduced until MediaWiki 1.13, but they weren't confident enough in the feature to make it the default until MediaWiki 1.14. It wasn't available here until March 2009. It isn't because "nobody cares about [them];" it's because the feature came late in Commons' history and only a fraction of users here have the ability to merge pages together. I care deeply about page histories and attribution, and I would like to help in making page histories more complete and sensible, but I can't. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 15:44, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Category:Media requiring a split up

Does the category Category:Media requiring a split up get processed regularly? Or only requests posted here acted on regularly? I was wondering if using the template to put them in the category didn't provide sufficient rationale to decide whether the split was really needed, so they aren't acted on, or whether it's just a matter of insufficient time/resources. I changed the sort order of entries in Category:Media requiring a split up so that new requests go to the botom of the page, and old ones float to the top :-) --Tony Wills (talk) 23:58, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi Tony. The category is basically used for simple/obvious split requests. The requests here are for those that are more complex (merging/splitting multiple files, etc), but every now and then, ordinary requests also gets posted here as well. :) Rehman 06:50, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

I just wasn't sure if anyone was processing that queue too, it was slowly growing and some entries quite old. But I now see the queue has gone down so this little *bump* may have been useful ;-) --Tony Wills (talk) 12:58, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Archiving

Hello!

I think (after discussion on User talk:ArchiverBot#Archiving not reviewed talks) this Commons page should change archiving bot to one that recognizes the {{Section resolved}} tag, perhaps User:SpBot? This is because otherwise not yet resolved sections are archived, which has happened to me if you check the history of the main page.Jonteemil (talk) 18:54, 6 March 2020 (UTC)