User talk:Enzwell

Welcome to Wikimedia Commons, Enzwell!

First steps tutorial Our first steps tour and our frequently asked questions will help you a lot after registration. They explain how to customize the interface (for example the language), how to upload files and our basic licensing policy (Wikimedia Commons only accepts free content). You don't need technical skills in order to contribute here. Be bold when contributing and assume good faith when interacting with others. This is a wiki. Getting help More information is available at the community portal. You may ask questions at the help desk, village pump or on IRC channel #wikimedia-commons (webchat). You can also contact an administrator on their talk page. If you have a specific copyright question, ask at the copyright village pump.

Goodies, tips, and tricks Put Babel boxes on your user page so others know what languages you can speak and indicate your graphic abilities. You can find the files you have uploaded in your Uploads. Please sign your name on Talk pages by typing ~~~~. To link to an image page without embedding the image, type: [[:File:Foo.jpg]], which produces: File:Foo.jpg. You may enable gadgets (custom features) for your account. There are several tools to upload files. Have you edited Wikipedia before? This guide might be useful. Made a mistake? Do you want to have a file renamed or moved? Use the move link and wait for an authorized user to rename it. Do you want to have your recently uploaded picture removed? Tag it as {{speedy|reason here}}. For more information read the deletion guidelines.

-- Wikimedia Commons Welcome (talk) 18:57, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

U.S. state works are usually copyrighted

Please bear in mind that all files we upload to Commons must conform to Commons:Licensing. They must either be old enough for copyright to have expired (usually things 95-120 years old or more), or to have the copyright licensed. We cannot upload anything we find on the web. While U.S. federal government works are inherently public domain ({{PD-USGov}}), works by state governments are almost always not (Florida and California excepted). A work drawn by a state government employee will usually be copyrighted for 95 years from publication. Even a new drawing of an old-design seal likely has a new copyright over part of the drawing, so we cannot simply use many of them. In particular, when you overwrite an existing file with something from a different source, you would also have to completely change the licensing logic to justify its use. In general, we want as many different (licensed) renditions as possible, so overwriting a file with a completely different graphic is a bad idea -- best to be its own file, so that we have as many possible versions available for other projects to choose from. It can then also contains its own licensing. If a seal graphic is actually printed as part of state law, you may be able to argue {{PD-EdictGov}}. But for a graphic on a state government website, it's probably a copyright violation to upload. If you have overwritten other files, it may be best to revert them, and re-upload under new filenames, and add any license tags which correspond to the sources that you use (and if there is no free license on the source, they probably shouldn't be uploaded at all). Even things like a new vectorization of an old bitmap can carry a new copyright, depending on how the vectorization is made -- the copyright can be in the control points chosen, even if he visual result is basically the same. Carl Lindberg (talk) 07:14, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

I appreciate you taking the time to explain. Enzwell (talk) 10:52, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

I have to admit, the Nebraska image coming from this page certainly seems as though the graphic was printed as part of the statute 84-501 there. The written description, which is what most laws have, is mentioned in passing but it does seem like an actual graphic is part of the law. So, that vectorization you did may well be able to be uploaded using the {{PD-EdictGov}} license tag (and if you did a lot of work on the vectorization, as opposed to using an automated tracing tool, you likely have a copyright on your derivative work portion). Most state laws simply have the written description as part of the law, which means any rendition based on that written design has its own independent copyright (see Commons:Coats of arms), and we would need to figure out the copyright status of each one. Usually, graphics on state websites are then original drawings themselves, with a long copyright. For the U.S. only, if they were published before 1989 they were often published without a copyright notice, and if so {{PD-US-no notice}} can apply -- but anything created since 1989 would be under copyright. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:20, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

You know I wasn't even thinking in any of those terms. I've been sort of fixated on accuracy and was poking around for a personal project of mine and thought I'd update the seal to better reflect the actual seal never even pondering whether or not that could or should be done. It was just an auto-trace as well - the one on the legislature's website was a pretty clean black and white version so I hadn't done anything else to it yet. Enzwell (talk) 19:26, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

		The Original Barnstar
		For the work you have done on symbols of states (and territories) in the United States. Flags such as North Dakota's have been heavily improved thanks to your efforts. Flagvisioner (talk) 02:51, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

about official seal of Guam

Good day! Since you are the last person to edit the image, I decided to write to you. The drawing is good, but it does not reflect reality. Here are links to an image of the official seal of Guam. https://www.guampedia.com/guam-seal-and-flag/ https://www.facebook.com/TheGuamLegislature/

As you can see, they are different from what is posted on Wikipedia. If you have the opportunity to supplement or correct the image, I would be grateful. Sincerely! Returntoedenblr (talk) 10:34, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

The Flag of the 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry

Hello,

I've seen the work you've done for the svg of the flag of North Dakota. Since you seem to have a talent in creating these types of illustration, you should be able to create an svg of Roosevelt's Roughriders flag. It would be nice to have a reference to it on the ND flag article, since it's both a good example of similar flags, and has a connection to the state.

It's quite similar to your illustration, so I hope it wouldn't be too difficult to do: example - https://www.spanamwar.com/rrflag.htm

All the best!

- By the way, the illustration you did for the state flag has an error where the scroll with "e pluburis inum" does not go through the eagle's beak. Femfem5 (talk) 11:15, 19 March 2024 (UTC)