User talk:Pfctdayelise/Archive07

Ticket#: 2006120410015872 Bandini Cars

Traslation done (happy it:Sol_Invictus) HTH --it:utente:DracoRoboter

pfctdayelise (说什么?) 01:31, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thanks for the help with the categories! As you can see I've added many more images!Alexisrael

pfctdayelise (说什么?) 01:31, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

choice for Valentine's Day (answer)

Thank you;)

pfctdayelise (说什么?) 01:31, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Re: Email

Strange... Please use eugene dot zelenko at gmail dot com. --EugeneZelenko 16:25, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Fixed. But I definitely remember that I received e-mails...

But this could be idea for bot which will check all administrators e-mail availability regularly and notify those who can't receive e-mails. --EugeneZelenko 14:32, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Re:RfA

I replied on my talk page. Oleg Alexandrov 05:21, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Commons:Redesigning the upload form

Thanks for this link. I will try to translate more after work hours. Anyway I feel translation is still not complete ;) --Hiuppo 08:34, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Upload/sr

Hi. I'm glad I could have helped. :) Unfortunately, I'm not planning to translate any more upload subpages (I'm aware of their non-existance), and this is mostly because they have a lot of terms that I cannot translate by myself in the way that they should be translated. Maybe it's a good idea to put a request for these translations on some To do list for Serbian (if such list exists :)).

And I also do not plan to become an admin (sorry). This is because being an admin also carries an amount of responsibility, which I don't want. I prefer to do things here and there, now and then, etc. :) But thanks for the offer, anyway. =)

But still, I'll be around here, maybe translate something else or take another useful photo and upload it or something else... (: --Matija 13:08, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Re: Low-res images

I agree with your actions, but in the absence of the IRC info you obtains, I think you would see things differently. I think it is acceptable to copy a license from a user that has established what license they generally use. Like, for me, if you look at the images I have uploaded on my userpage, they all generally have the same license, so I would prefer you to add that license than delete for not a license. As far as web-resolution, that is a good point, but in the absence of the IRC information you had, I thought it was possible for the user to have taken those images. Lastly, I don't think that my edits were in essence reverting the other admin. I think that he had perhaps maybe just not looked at the other images to see that the user had supplied a license for them. If he felt that deletion for other reasons ("web resolution, doubtful authored by uploader") then he shouldn't have just put no license on it and sent to deletion review or added the comments in addition to the no license tag. Let me reiterate that I'm fine with your actions after mine, especially with the new copyvio evidence. I hope you can look at it from my point of view as well. MECU≈talk 18:18, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Requesting Help Regarding Written Permissions

Hi,

I was wondering if you could help me by processing the written permissions I have sent to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org for the following photos:

Image:Yazd_Iran.jpg Image:Minarets_Qom.jpg Image:Khaju Bridge Esfahan.jpg Image:Khaju Bridge Iran.jpg Image:Sio Se Pol.jpg Image:Naghshi_Jahan_Isfahan.jpg Image:Sareban_Minaret_Isfahan.jpg Image:Shah_m.jpg Image:Persepolis_Carvings.jpg Image:Ferdowsi_Statue.jpg Image:Vank_Church.jpg Image:Lotfallah_Mosque_Isfahan.jpg Image:Kahar_Iran.jpg Image:Qom_Iran.jpg

Regards - Marmoulak 19:25, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Salt

It goes here Commons:Protected against recreation - I guess "salting" the pages away (I tend to use the page rather than keep deleting things - here & Books)? --Herby ^{talk thyme} 13:03, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

w:Salting the earth (although I was not completely clear on the origins until then - assuming we can trust Wikipedia). Pinched from Meta and used on Books too. No problem I trust? Btw - you've not edited the page I'm mailed you - I'm hoping to get something more done soon --Herby ^{talk thyme} 13:32, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Commons:Upload/fr‎

Is it better now ? I have to confess to being slightly confused by the new design. Rama 09:57, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Done.

Let me know when MediaWiki:Licenses/fromwikimedia is updated, I'll update the French one accordingly.

I meant confusing for the translators, if they are not used to play with "&uselang=..." arguments. For users, the new design will probably be a huge improvement.

Thank you for your help ! Rama 08:04, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

What code (I know wiki) but, how would you learn to do the coding for wiki (ie. what would I have to do to do the coding to ad taggin functionality) --talk to symode09's 11:02, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Commons:Upload/nl

Hi, we have translated the upload form to Dutch. Please update the relevant mytalk links.

• MediaWiki:Uploadtext/nlownwork
• MediaWiki:Uploadtext/nlfromflickr
• MediaWiki:Uploadtext/nlfromwikimedia
• MediaWiki:Uploadtext/nlfromgov

Thanks, -- Bryan (talk to me) 17:40, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I did the licenses :)

Upload form help

Hi. Please see http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#Upload_form_help and help out if you can. I'm asking you directly since I saw you made lots of edits to the Commons version. MECU≈talk 16:27, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Главна страна

Thats is very good idea. Thank you. Of course i am going to update Serbian Main Page--Fica Blok38 17:15, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

village pump, a few days later...

Hi Pfctdayelise, As I've missed out some part of the village pump discussion about the new upload form, I just wanted to reply here... as it seems it was mainly you answering to my suggestions. So, first of all, thanks for considering them! And second, just in case there was a misunderstanding: No, I don't mind if not all of them are realized. I'm quite aware (I hope :o)) of how little I know about the technical side, so saying "we can't do it" is good enough to shut me up! :o) Which leaves with one more question though I've already asked it elsewhere: Why does the form in the window (field?) of special:upload differ from the form displayed above the window? Whichever we prefer, I think it would make sense to use this one form at both places to make a compelling case that we do want the uploader to provide that information. Or am I getting something wrong here?

BTW, is there a reason for not realizing that suggestion about pointing out the two important things (author and source) on the page special:upload? For it seems that this might be getting the problem page now after the rearrangement... or don't you think? Cheers, Ibn Battuta 03:37, 3 May 2007 (UTC) PS: Thanks for "unbolding" the form, mmmmh...

Hi Pfctdayelise, thanks for your reply! No problem, I guessed that you were and/or felt under attack, so I didn't think anything about your reaction :o) ... yes, the unfair truism that those who do most are the first to be under attack! Again, thanks for taking some changes into account, and if I come up with more, I'll try to direct it to MediaWiki. As for doing it oneself, yes, I can imagine that's the easiest/ fastest... well, at least if one does know the least about programming these things, which unfortunately I don't. And currently, it's rather unlikely to change (too much other stuff to do, plus I like human languages more than computer languages...). So, yes, I guess I'll just keep suggesting and see others' willingness to realize these ideas as a filter for crappy ideas :o) ... Cheers, Ibn Battuta 08:37, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

PS: As for the sentence "If you do not provide suitable license and source information, your file will be deleted without further notice. Thanks for your understanding." on top of the entry field--okay, I'm not representative because I may be argued to have used the form too often already... but to me the sentence just doesn't stand out enough... Hm... Maybe at least

If you do not provide suitable license and source information, your file will be deleted without further notice. Thanks for your understanding.

... coupled with one blank line before and after the sentence and the whole thing one font size larger? (Just brainstorming...) Cheers, Ibn Battuta 03:26, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Ibn Battuta 01:44, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Commons:Upload/el

Hello pcftdayelise. We have translated the upload form to Greek. User:Bryan told me that I should leave you a message to have your bot update the pages. These are the translated mediawiki pages:

• MediaWiki:Uploadtext/elownwork
• MediaWiki:Uploadtext/elfromflickr
• MediaWiki:Uploadtext/elfromwikimedia
• MediaWiki:Uploadtext/elfromgov

Thanks --Dada 15:33, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Hi and thanks for the update. You are right about the drop down menu and I didn't quite understand why they were not translated. I had the impression that MediaWiki:Licenses/el was already enough but I can prepare separate pages for each upload form (ownwork, fromflickr, etc.). No problem, I will let you know when those will be ready. Cheers --Dada 14:45, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Hello again. I have translated the licenses menu in the following pages: MediaWiki_talk:Licenses/elownwork, MediaWiki_talk:Licenses/elfromflickr and MediaWiki_talk:Licenses/elfromgov (apparently Licenses/fromwikimedia is empty). Could you please move the translations to the MediaWiki namespace and update the pages? Thanks --Dada 09:46, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

We now also have a greek village pump at Commons:Αγορά :) Cheers, --Dada 09:58, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Directed graph with back edge

hallo Pfctdayelise - Commons:Categories#Category structure uses the image, so I think You put it in. I wrote the same with two variant images at Help:Category#Category structure, to get the topic said, please, if You like, could You look after it, my english is rather germanish.. ;) greetings --W!B: 11:20, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

re:Directed graph with back edge

Hi W!B,

Which page did you edit? Help:Category redirects to Commons:First steps/Sorting. If you give me a link to the diff, I can have a look. cheers, pfctdayelise (说什么?) 12:40, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

ah, sorry, I forgot the domain: Meta:Help:Category#Category structure --W!B: 12:45, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Hey,

I think your text is OK, but I will point out that not all Wikimedia projects agree about how to use categories. For example I believe de.wp actually prefer the "over-categorisation" approach (but I don't speak German - so you can confirm this better than me). My point is, there are different approaches. Either can be OK, it depends on what the community supports - the important thing is consistency. cheers, pfctdayelise (说什么?) 13:33, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

nono, de:WP (where I come from) resolutly reorganizes "over-categorisation" - of course, starting from scientific themes, topics of daily life are still more negligent.. thanks and greetings --W!B: 14:10, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Commons talk:Meet our photographers

I like the concept and think it will do wonders in expanding the image of Commons. On the talk page I referred to an image from here being used commercially, at the moment I'm not comfortable with publically revealing the company or the image but if you feel its necessary I'm willing to email you a copy of the discussions to verify my statement Gnangarra 10:12, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

They did use the free license(my choice), the attributions requirements needed changing(I still recieve attribution) and yeah I'll quite happily reveal the image, company and product details on commons after its launched. Gnangarra 01:42, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Help please

I'm looking for some suggestions. I've recently activated two new tools on commons. One is dschwen's commons wikiminiatlas, the other is a self-linking inline version of my mediaplayer.

You can see Dschwen's tool by going to any geocoded image, heading down to the location box and clicking the little blue ball.

You can see my media player by navigating to any audio or video file and clicking on the obnoxious play button next to the speaker icon at the top of the page. If you don't see it, shift-reload.. it only went into the site-wide JS recently so you might have an old cached copy.

As far as I know, both tools are working reasonably well... but they aren't very obvious or accessible to users. I made the image icon on the player rather large, so it is hard to miss, but it's not obvious what it does. The small wikiminiatlas icon is fine for inline use, but we should probably have something on the sidebar or main page, 'browse by location'. My hands are already full taking care of the technical issues, and I have enough extra features in mind to keep me busy for a while (localization, importing descriptions and copyright info, and much more). ... I really could use some help ironing out some of the user-interface, usability, and generally figuring out how to promote these exciting features. Could you help? --Gmaxwell 07:02, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Mass deletion requests

Thank you for your instruction. I shall have a try should it happen again that a whole bunch is problematic. I just wonder, though, why things have to be that complicate. Wikipedia used to be worldwide famouse for its usability and simplicity. Now we are being suffocated by templates of every kind, and with ten-steps-procedures that would be the joy of a Soviet bureaucrate. Nothing personal, but I, who am not a computer wizard (I am just trying to reorder bit what deals with art and history of Italy, that's all), find it harder and harder using Wikieverything... Thank you for your necessary assistance. --User:G.dallorto 11:39, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Bad deletion requests

Oh, this was done a long time ago on the request of User:Cool Cat but after some users objected it was quickly scrapped. I will of course take care of these as I should've already done. Yonatan ^talk 15:01, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

ORTRS Confirmation?

I recently added OTRS pending confirmation tags to two images, Image 1, Image 2, but the images themselves have been awaiting confirmation as per their pages, for about 2 months now. Do you have a moment to look into this? Thank you so much for your time. Yours, Smee 14:18, 18 May 2007 (UTC).

• Responded on my talk. Smee 00:20, 19 May 2007 (UTC).
  • Responded again. Thank you so much for your time and your help. Yours, Smee 01:20, 19 May 2007 (UTC).

Hahhahahahahahahaha

So, was it just a hasty decision on your part, or just blind hatred of evrik that lead you to delete Image:Road Sign Welcome to California.jpg? You'll see it came back with the permission, and it used the reasoning presented by Evrik. So, he was right and you were WRONG. How many times does make now? Since you used this in his RfA, you should probably apologize to him. Laughing at you. —the preceding unsigned comment is by 68.162.99.93 (talk • contribs) 18:54, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Please do not post offensive anonymous messages. The deletion was perfectly correct, as no confirmation of the PD status had been provided. Once the confirmation arrived by email, the image was restored. That's how the system is supposed to work. --MichaelMaggs 19:02, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Gee, you're a brave little soul, aren't you, 68.162.99.93 ? I guess you didn't notice that in my closing the six month old (these are supposed to be seven days) deletion request, I said "If/when OTRS confirmation of public domain is received, contact an OTRS user to undelete it"... wow, that's exactly what happened! Don't tell me the system works???! --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 01:26, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

No, it wasn’t correct, as the PD status was presented throughout in different fashions, but some super level of proof had to be found. I think that a certain amount of courage has to be exhibited when dealing with you, as you are known as being one of the more vindictive of the admins. I wouldn’t be surprised if the person posted anonymously to avoid retaliation at some later point.

So, let’s recap. You were wrong on the Presidential portraits and you were wrong on the PD status of a California road sign. The truth is, that was a ridiculous argument to begin with … ‘’uhhhh , there’s a flower on that sign, there must be a copyright.’’ If Evrik hadn’t stuck to proving the point, the forces of misinformation would have won. I think we would all be interested in seeing the permission that went through the OTRS people – just to confirm who knew what they were talking about (hint, the user’s name begins with E). I agree and think you owe someone an apology for the misinformation you gave out on their RfA. South Philly 01:16, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Advice on Flickr messages

I have restarted leaving messages to Flickr users, thanking them for freely licensing their images. My current messages are as follows:

Thank you for choosing a free license!
Your choice of a free license has allowed us to upload the image to Wikimedia Commons!

The following image(s) have been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons:
[list of images]

<if images are used>
Additionally some of your images appear on a Wikimedia project:
[list of images]
</if>

You can always find the most up to date list of your images on Wikimedia Commons <a href="http://tools.wikimedia.de/~bryan/flickr/browse?nsid=[user_nsid]">here</a>.

If you have any questions, you can leave a message on my <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Bryan&action=edit&section=new">Wikimedia Commons talk page</a> (no login required) or send me a messsage through Flickr.

For more information about Commons, you can take a look at our <a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/wikimedia_commons/">Flickr group</a>, or on our <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Welcome">welcome portal</a>.

Kind regards,
Bryan

I had the idea that, if some images of the users were marked unfree, to add the following text:

It appears that some of your images that are uploaded to Wikimedia Commons are currently under an unfree license, such as "All rights reserved", "Non Commercial" or "Non Derivative" licenses.
Those images are generally not allowed on Commons, as not being free enough. It may however be possible that the user who uploaded the image to Commons made a mistake, or you could have changed the license of your images meanwhile.
We are trying to create a world where as much as possible is freely available to every human being. 
Therefore, I would like to ask you to consider changing the licenses of the image to a free license: the Creative Commons "Attribution" or "Attribution ShareAlike".
See the <a href="http://freedomdefined.org/Definition">Definition of Freedom</a> for more information.

Normally, licensing an image under a Creative Commons license is irrevocable. However, if it was not your intention to freely license your images, 
please leave me a message, and we will consider removing the images from Commons.

I would like your advice on this. I don't know whether it is such a good idea to add the option that we might consider deleting the images. It might give users ideas, and we might be flooded with deletion requests from Flickr users. Also if you have some other suggestions, like spelling and grammar errors, I would like to hear them :) -- Bryan (talk to me) 19:31, 20 May 2007 (UTC) I have your page on my watchlist; you can answer here.

It seems good to me. It is what we do, anyway, so why not tell them? I doubt you will be inundated. Try changing "as much as possible" to "the sum of all human knowledge", sounds classier. ;) --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 01:06, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Ok, thanks :)

RE:Catalan speaker

Hi Martotell,

Perhaps you can help this user? I'm pretty sure they are writing in Catalan. thanks, pfctdayelise (说什么?) 13:23, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Hi Pfctdayelise! It's been long time without messaging here :). I'm gonna to help him altough it's not Catalan, it's in Spanish :D. This user is expressing a complaint because there's no explanation in Spanish language version of the form used to upload files from flickr (see). I think she want to translate the content of English version to Spanish version. --Joanot Martorell ✉ 07:04, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Image:Flag of Canada.svg

There seems to be a minor revert war over on Image:Flag of Canada.svg. How does commons: address that sort of thing? --Connel MacKenzie 06:32, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Location of PFC

Hi, could you comment on this? -- Bryan (talk to me) 08:58, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Image question

This is a question regarding screen-capture images from the film The Bridge (film) for online distribution on the Commons. Per the Film Credits themselves:

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.

Does this mean that screen-capture images from the film can be uploaded to Commons, since they will be distributed online? If so, which tag should I use to upload to Commons? Smee 09:29, 27 May 2007 (UTC).

Welcome log

Hi ! Thank you for changing for the french version. And excuse me, I was realy tired : I only saw now this possibility ! Kind regards --Alter Mandarine 09:27, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Commons:Meet our photographers (answer)

It is done! Thank you ;) --Luc Viatour 07:51, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Commons:Deletion requests/Image:Annie IP's troubles.png

Please, double-license your image as promised there. A.J. 10:11, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Commons:Packs

You are using Image:Corncobs.jpg on Commons:Packs, but I took a similar picture of higher quality (different composition): Image:Indian Corn Maize Zea mays 3008px.jpg. Don't know if you want to use that or not. -- Ram-Man 14:17, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I'll have to wait until autumn to take another picture of Indian Corn. It is out of season right now. As for MOP, I'm only 1 picture away (which has proven more elusive than the previous 9), unless I get more votes to my current entries. But I should have number 10 in a week. -- Ram-Man 14:38, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Glidden House image

Yup. Duplicate. The other image is Image:Glidden House3.jpg. They may not be exactly alike as I may have altered them slightly in Photoshop to straighten them out or something, but the image already exists. Thanks. IvoShandor 06:57, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip. I didn't know that. I spend too much time on Wikipedia and haven't really gotten to know Commons too well other than to upload images for Wikipedia articles and galleries here to link to the articles and such. So I do appreciate your taking the time to inform me. Thanks again. IvoShandor 07:16, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Mass deletions

Dear Pfctdayelise, I am continuing my work of purging from Commons all images of Italian artists who did not die at least 70 years ago. I have tried and use the method you sugested me for "mass deletions", but it did not work, so I reverted to the traditional method. I wonder whether it were possible to create a procedure similar to the one for single deletions for those like me who are software-impaired. For a single deletion, all I have to do is following a three steps procedure where all I have to do is cutting and pasting. I wish I could do the same with "Mass deletions". Could you ask some computer wizard to look after the matter? Thank you in advance. --User:G.dallorto 12:09, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Re: Deletion request

Image:Gimn.png, requested by uploader with comment "(знайдені помилки)". Babelfish fails me... thanks :) --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 04:00, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually, this is Ukrainian text. It means "errors found". --EugeneZelenko 13:43, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Food for analytical brain :-)

You could be interested in comparing http://panoramio.com with Commons/Geocoding. May be Google Mapplets could be used for improving things?... --EugeneZelenko 14:03, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Mass deletions 2

I always appreciate the kindness you always put in all the things you do, and I appreciate the time you spent to explain me again the matter. I shall make another try, or else I shall ask deletion for just two or three pix of the same type a day, so to avoid any mass request.

Since I'm at it, I have an opinion to ask you. I noticed that if I mark an image as {{copyvio}}, it is deleted immediately. But if I mark it with the "{{delete}}" template, in 99% of cases it never gets discussed and voted, not evne after months!. Now, I favour the second solution, since I think it is more democratic not to decide all by myself. But it looks like Commoners are on a strike about voting for deletion of images of buildings by architects or sculptures on public display by artists not dead for 70+1 years. Do you think I should better place a "Copyvio" template everywhere? People are not voting because the case is self-evident so I am just creating more work than it is needed? Thank you in advance. --User:G.dallorto 19:35, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Another image question...

... About images from http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/.

Their disclaimer on the Main page reads :

Tape transcripts, summaries, some primary source documents, and all photographs on this site are free and available to the public for use by crediting: The Jonestown Institute, http://jonestown.sdsu.edu. Other items require the author’s permission for re-publication.

Is this available for Commons? Seems pretty explicity as to the use of the words "..are free and available to the public.." -- Which license would be most applicable here? Thanks again so much for your time. Yours, Smee 07:35, 2 June 2007 (UTC).

Wikinews collaboration request

Hi Pfctdayelise,

I'm contacting you because you have indicated that you want to help in the Wikinews <=> Commons collaboration.

We are currently setting up a new project on our main page: "News in pictures" (it's on Template:Featured picture and Category:Featured pictures). The idea is to find free images from recent events to graphically illustrate the news. So far I've been searching images on Flickr but we'd really like some input from Commons:

• photographers who are interested in Photojournalism,
• people who have photographs of events in their neighbourhood,
• and possibly admins looking through newly uploaded images who see images of recent events.

Of course we'd like to create a barnstar for it here for people who provide us with a featured picture .

To promote the concept, we were hoping that you could (1) post a message about this to attract attention from Admins, like on an admin noticeboard or something, I'm not sure what the appropriate place on Commons would be, and (2) we were hoping to promote this event in the MediaWiki:Sitenotice after the "Early registration for Wikimania" closes. This would target users in general and probably get some users from other projects too when they visit Commons.

If you don't have the time maybe I will ask User:Editor at Large, or another admin.

kind regards,

--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 18:49, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm hoping to update it daily, if we could establish a good flow of images. Depends on how long-lived the images are, if we get a great one it'll probably last longer. You could mention it on the VP but we are actually aiming for the MediaWiki:Sitenotice, so everyone coming here could see it, do you think that would be an option? Btw if you mention it on the Admin Noticeboard could you provide a link to me?

I don't understand how you could use CatScan to find images...

--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 15:36, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Image:Presidente Napolitano.jpg

Could you please check the authorization on this picture Image:Presidente Napolitano.jpg. Thanks! Dantadd✉ 12:53, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Image:Palestijnse familie rond 1900 .jpg

I think there's good reason to believe this image: Image:Palestijnse familie rond 1900 .jpg is not what the contributer used to describe it. no mention of source and there is no mention of time or place taken - this could easily be an image of a syrian family or iraqi family or any other arab/turkish family. note that user has shaky record of image posting and please look into this issue and into any copies of this image. Jaakobou 00:44, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

thank you for the reply and the fix on the file source summary, i was somewhat correct about the misinformation and fixed the image summary in accordance to the source and now i could use a lil help in renaming the file in accordance to a more accurate title - could use a touch of help on the move opperation - here. Jaakobou 05:03, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Admin policy

Point taken - given that by & large the vote is going ok I'm inclined to do something separately. If no one else does anything when I get back from holiday I'll work on that as well as the issue of folk handing the tools back voluntarily and wanting them again which I was planning on anyway? --Herby ^{talk thyme} 07:02, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Technical Help

Hi. Please cancel the "red" categories in my user page. Gridge 22:18, 4 June 2007 (UTC).

Actually, cancel all the categories. Thanks, Gridge 22:22, 4 June 2007 (UTC).

Commons:Press releases

Hi, I add aomething to that page. Cold you tell me something about Commons community. I want to write something about Wikimedia projects to Polish press. Generally about Polish projects, but about Commons too, of course ;) Przykuta 21:52, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

thx for all. Maybe good will be Featured gallery? What do you think about? I saw some good gallersies in Wikipedias, but I think, that we must build good galleries here. Przykuta 22:08, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I've written here something - Could you look at it and correct my errors ;) Przykuta 12:37, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Right above here

Sometimes people who are very popular get multiple talk page notes and only answer the last... I've asked you something but you didn't react... --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 10:38, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Image:Great Palm Island highlighted.PNG

Hi Pfctdayelise, what do you think of the above image having an image of Australia rather than Queensland in the bottom left corner? This would make it clearer to international viewers of the article. Your thoughts? -- Alec mcc 7 June 2007

You lose so much detail in going from Queensland to Aus, and I think it's reasonably clear how Queensland fits into Australia. :) But you're welcome to edit the image and upload a new version of it if you think it will be clearer. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 08:53, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

nah, not that worried about it, I was thinking of the locator image that is on the Hinchinbrook Island wikipedia page, but now I look at it the locator image seems to be an automatic thing that's way out of my depth :) -- Alec mcc 8 June 2007

MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning

I have made cosmetic changes to the page, what do you think? I wanted to make the copyright warning more noticeable. -- Cat ^chi? 15:14, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I noticed, it's on my watchlist. if I thought it was worse than before I would have changed it already. :P --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 23:06, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Do you think the text should be expanded and/or perhaps be spread to other languages (I do not know how to search for it)? -- Cat ^chi? 00:13, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Another image question, FBI images...

You have been so helpful and patient with me lately answering my image questions, thought I'd ask another one, if that's alright. What about this? http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/Gallery/gallery.htm - specifically images only from the FBI subpage, Gallery One: Photos Recovered by FBI - per the explanation, wouldn't all of these be United States Federal Government documents/images, and thus Public Domain and free to upload to the Commons? Smee 07:25, 10 June 2007 (UTC).

Image:HP possible European wichcraft schools locations.JPG

Image deletion warning

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

This is an automated message from User:DRBot. 14:34, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Apple Preview

Thanks for the research. I suspected the problem was something like that. (The iPhoto software that Apple is so proud of is even worse—as far as I can tell, it does nothing to the file but just modifies what you see.) Snipshot may be the answer till I get Photoshop. —JerryFriedman 15:39, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

MOP

Thank you very much for your kind comment. --Makro Freak ^talk 15:31, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Your galleries

Hello Pfctdayelise, i found images i made in your galleries like User:Pfctdayelise/4by3splitai. What type of gallery are this, i cant see for which reasen they are. Thank you. --GeorgHH 18:00, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

They were used as input for the Wikimedia logo collage. They are all scales 4:3, which as needed to get a logo without any awkward whitespace. Hmm, darn. You probably answered this on GeorgHH's talk page. ;) Siebrand 12:43, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Assistance needed

Hello,

Please, can you try to reason with User:Jeff G.? He began to spam my talk page without any reason, and now, he send me message after message. I don't understand why this guy is so agressive. Thank you. --Juiced lemon 23:48, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

His edits on my talk page: [1] [2] [3] --Juiced lemon 23:55, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your wise intervention. I felt the debate was getting out of control, and I was unable to stop the infernal machine. --Juiced lemon 07:33, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Mass undeletion request thoughts needed

Is there any other process I should follow other than submitting a mass un-deletion request to retrieve the pages deleted by User:Szczepan1990. Judging from comments on his deletion log he seems to have taken a dislike to gallery pages contributed to by just one person which has had a widespread effect in the WikiProject Tree of Life pages which is so wide that many people have worked on their own in one particular area. Going through his deletion log, out of one page of 500 deletions I have identified the following pages (about 177) as probably being part of TOL. Time consuming to check now that they are deleted. Some may indeed need deletion, but a proper process needs to be gone through. Ruellia, Commelina, Conopophagidae, Coraciidae, Corcoracidae, Glareolidae, Glomeropitcairnia, Gnetum, Gymnadenia_rhellicani, Gymnadenia_widderi, Gymnadenia_x_chanousiana, Gymnadenia_x_heufleri, Halcyonidae, Hechtia, Helianthus_cucumerifolius, Heliornithidae, Heliotropium, Hemiprocnidae, Heterohyrax, Hoya, Hydrobatidae, Hydrocleys, Hypericum_monogynum, Hypocoliidae, Indicatoridae, Jacanidae, Lactuca, Lamium, Laridae, Larus, Lepomis_cyanellus, Leptosomatidae, Leptosomidae, Leucojum, Lithospermum, Litsea, Luzula, Lybiidae, Macropus_parma, Macroscelididae, Magnolia_×soulangiana, Malaconotidae, Maluridae, Mauremys_caspica, Megalaimidae, Megapodiidae, Melanocharitidae, Meliphagidae, Menuridae, Meropidae, Mesitornithidae, Microcebus, Milwaukee_County_Zoological_Gardens, Mirounga, Momotidae, Musa, Musophagidae, Naja_annulifera, Naso_lopezi, Nectariniidae, Neosittidae, Nepenthes_alata, Nidularium, Numididae, Nyctibiidae, Odontophoridae, Opisthocomidae, Orthonychidae, Osmunda, Otididae, P4b_Animalia, P4b_Arthropoda, P4b_Hemiptera, P4b_Hexapoda, P4b_Insecta, Pachycephalidae, Pachypodium, Pachyrhinosaurus, Palestine, Panurgus_calcaratus, Paradisaeidae, Paradoxornithidae, Paramythiidae, Pardalotidae, Paridae, Parietaria, Parinacota, Parulidae, Paulownia_fortunei, Pedionomidae, Pelecanidae, Pelecanoididae, Petroicidae, Peucedramidae, Phaethontidae, Phalacrocoracidae, Philepittidae, Phoeniculidae, Picathartidae, Picidae, Pilea, Pipridae, Pitcairnia, Pittidae, Pityriaseidae, Plagiothecium_curvifolium, Platanthera_montana, Platysteiridae, Pluvianellidae, Poa, Podargidae, Podiceps_andinus, Podilymbus_gigas, Pogradec, Polioptilidae, Pomatostomidae, Potentilla, Prionopidae, Procellariidae, Promeropidae, Psophiidae, Pteroclididae, Ptilogonatidae, Ptilonorhynchidae, Pulmonaria, Raphidae, Rata, Recurvirostridae, Regulidae, Restrepia_citrina, Rhabdornithidae, Rhinocryptidae, Rhynchocyon_cirnei, Rhynochetidae, Rostratulidae, Sagittaria, Sagittaridae, Sagittariidae, Salvia_hispanica, Satureja, Saxifraga, Scopidae, Scrophularia, Serinus, Silvicultrix_frontalis, Steatornithidae, Stercorariidae, Strasburger, Sturnidae, Styrax, Sulidae, Thalictrum, Thamnophilidae, Thamnophis_couchii, Thamnophis_cyrtopsis, Thamnophis_elegans, Thamnophis_marcianus, Thamnophis_proximus, Thamnophis_radix, Thinocoridae, Thymelicus_spec, Tichodromadidae, Timarcha_spec., Tinamidae, Tragelaphus_angasii, Trogonidae, Turnagridae, Turnera, Turnicidae, Tytonidae, Upupidae, Vangidae, Viduidae, Vireonidae, Wisteria_brachybotrys, Zosteropidae, Zupaysaurus,
It has taken a lot of time to go through his log, and there is a lot more to check through. I also note he has deleted pages relating to various towns and cities which were part of some other project. It would in fact be simplest to just undelete all non image pages listed in his deletion log, and look at each properly. So should I just submit this list to undeletion requests, and search out more such pages or is there a better way? Thanks :-) --Tony Wills 22:00, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Good advice (as per usual), I requested 283 pages to be restored and they are all back (may have missed the odd one). You mentioned "deleting all galleries without any images", do you know of a discussion regarding this? (or is this policy?). If there is liable to be an on going problem, we'll have to remind TOL'ers to either sprinkle a few images in their index lists or perhaps move them to under the Commons:TOL page, or find other solutions. --Tony Wills 11:13, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your explanation/comments, I passed them on to the TOL discussion page. --Tony Wills 12:30, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Conduct

You should try and be polite, even when dealing with stubborn users that you disagree with. As an admin you should hold yourself to a higher level of conduct than other users. And sarcasm is pretty much never going to help.

Just some advice. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 05:45, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

BTW I think that Juiced lemon has a point, that in trying to change a large part of the category structure, adding delete tags everywhere is not necessarily the most appropriate action. Maybe the category discussion page is a good idea, then, as a more formal record of category discussions than the village pump. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 05:48, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I admit that, Juiced Lemon was starting to get under my skin. Of course that is no excuse to my conduct. I'll be more careful in the future.

Yes. I would have less likely nominated the pages for deletion had I seen the deletion discussion on this category range in some buried VP archive. I proposed that in the VP. I dislike using VP for non VP related topics such as category rename discussions.

I do believe it is more than proper to tag all categories involved to promote discussion. This should be encouraged. A tag explaining a recategorization proposal rather than a {{Delete}} template would be better. We do not have anything like that at the moment.

-- Cat ^chi? 07:11, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I think using the {{Move}} tag (now with Siebrand's edits) for such cases will produce better results in the future. The {{Delete}} template is a little bit dramatic so I am not surprised that Juiced lemon et al wanted to remove it, but I agree with you that categories should be tagged to notify people when a discussion that might change the category is going on. cheers --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 09:04, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I have used the bot to make that adjustment replacing {{Delete}} with {{Move}} -- Cat ^chi? 10:25, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I have just changed {{Move-category}} to accept a second parameter so that what you wish to do is possible. Use {{Move|Category:NewCat|Reason|DiscussionPage}}. Please check exact behaviour of parameters on the template page. Cheers! Siebrand 07:55, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Ack... now I see it... :/ -- Cat ^chi? 10:25, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Juiced Lemon is getting under my skin too. I wonder how many people he must be getting under the skin off before some action is taken... / Fred J 11:50, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Well. I am not sure my user talk page is the right place to discuss this. But it's easy to block an out-and-out vandal; it's much harder to decide when someone is more nuisance than useful -- IMO that's what the balance should be.

I know I am often the only one to defend JL but you can see their talk page for yourself: they are not simply causing trouble; they are able to edit peacefully and have civil discussions with a good many users.

If you (all) feel it's really that bad, then I suggest a two-step approach. First step is self reform. We say to JL, We recognise that you do useful work, but the way you carry it out is sometimes harmful to good relationships in the community. We want you to stay and keep helping, so please work with us to develop a set of conduct guidelines that you will agree to follow. If they agree, then all is good. If they don't agree, then we impose a set of conduct guidelines. And they can either follow those imposed guidelines or be blocked for violating them.

People shouldn't be allowed to edit in a way that causes significant community friction, even if the work they do is good. Conduct is important too, because we're people, not machines, and Commons is a community, not just a database. IMO the friction is "significant" because JL has a very long history of friction. So that's my thoughts about it. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 12:24, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

He is a very valuable user and annoying at the same time. I can relate to it, as I think I have been involved in similar conflicts he is and he's putting a lot of time into making the project better. He probably hates discussing a lot on issues that are clear (to him, at least). I can relate to that, too :) We should try and lower his enthousiasm at some points in time and get him at the table and while he does not edit on the object involved. Thay may well be a strategy that works. He has strong opinions, not always right, and sometimes referring to en.wp, which we are not, but he is involved in the very important sewers of our project: adding and organising meta data to media objects. We cannot have too many of them, I think... Siebrand 12:26, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I think I (or someone else) would have already have indef blocked him if we felt he was up to no good. He is trying too hard sometimes it seems. He should really have a less combative approach to others. He acts as if he owns category namespace sometimes. -- Cat ^chi? 12:30, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Yep. In business environments these people get coaching. We need to do that here too to make/keep this particular user, but similar users also, as productive as they are without creating unrest. Siebrand 12:33, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict2-reply to Siebrand) Yes I agree. I see there are two main problems: revert wars (which JL has been repeatedly warned about), and "brusqueness" or "abruptness" or "rudeness" :) of the way they write their messages. It is hard to give guidelines about etiquette and wording of messages, but we can easily suggest a (e.g.) one-revert-rule. I would be sad if we just drove JL away because as Siebrand says, the work they do is really the "sewers" of Commons that everyone chucks away and only randomly cares about. JL works at it every day. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 12:34, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I do not recall him being present on IRC, but he might be. Could possibly lure him there and try to have a private talk or two with him? Siebrand 12:37, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Well I don't think IRC is the best, and I personally won't have access to it for at least another week. Email could work. I will write a message on the admin noticeboard and invite JL to it. I am already uncomfortable with all this talk behind their back. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 12:40, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth I agree with pfctdayelise. It really should be resolved for everyone's benefit and I don't think IRC would be the best way. It should be in the open and in a rational & non judgmental way as far as at all possible. If I can help I will --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:53, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Enough on my talk page - for the future please see Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard/User_problems#Juiced_lemon_conduct_proposal. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 12:57, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

is Translations

I was told I should leave a request here. I have one translations ready: User:Steinninninn/isownwork should be moved to MediaWiki:Uploadtext/isownwork --Steinninninn 01:24, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

It's just a bit to much for me right now. Maybe I'll translate more later. --Steinninninn 13:46, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Maybe you can change MediaWiki:Upload-url/is into Commons:Upload/is Thanks --Steinninninn 13:52, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Good quote

I may well pinch that myself and make a point of reading it from time to time - thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 07:56, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Growing pains

Thanks for the invitation, strange as it may seem I was going to consult you (oh great guru ;-).
Let me ramble :-) :

• I think of a book titled "Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered" by E. F. Schumacher , which I've never read, but I think the gist is that organisations grow too big so that everybody can no longer know everybody else and things become impersonal (I think he suggests an upper limit of 300 for any organisation).
• I think of volunteer (normally non-profit) groups I have been involved in and how the most successful (and sustainable) ones are those that value their volunteers, their members. Those members are equally as important as the goals of the organisation - as without them, nothing will be achieved. The organisation must give something back and not just feed off a probably finite supply of volunteers and burn them out, or use up their good will. There will be a wide variety of things volunteers (consciously, or unconsciously) want from the organisation, it may simply be for the organisation to succeed in it's goals, it may be self satisfaction, it may be for recognition. We seem to have a lot of refugees from wikipedia who find commons more congenial, but for how long?
• I recognise that this organisation is essentially staffed with volunteers from top to bottom and there is no one else but us sheep to 'do it all'. And there is a real and significant risk of someone trying to "sue the pants off us" for copyright breaches, and so we must at the very least be seen to be actively preventing such breaches.
• It is as though one half of the organisation is working against the other half, one half uploading things as fast as they can, the other half deleting violations as fast as they can, and trying to stem the flow - a very competitive, 'us and them' arrangement.
• I seem to see repeated instances of some person putting their heart into something, eg creating a category scheme, uploading a set of images, re-organising some area, only to have things come to a juddering halt (someone reverts, someone deletes, someone cuts right across what's been done, someone is blocked while carrying out what they consider reasonable editing actions). Conflicts erupt, much energy is expended, people start to think 'why bother' (both ordinary users and admins).
• People come here to contribute their time and creativity, the whole place needs to have the feel of an open community working towards a common goal, not of a gated community with guards on the door, and guards patrolling the corridors. We shouldn't feel embattled, defending the ramparts, fighting off the copy violators. We shouldn't slap automated templates on the page of users who've contributed 100s of images telling them their latest contribution is missing some important info and will be summarily deleted when in fact there is very little chance it will turn out to be a copy violation. We shouldn't block users, or even threaten them, for carrying out editing operations that we disagree with. We shouldn't hold kangaroo courts examining the actions of users who are not being malicious or vandalistic but just have strong opinions of how things should be done. We shouldn't treat contributors as children (even though some maybe ;-).
• People come here to upload their pictures and file them. This is a wiki, most wikis do not need giant signs everywhere - conditions & disclaimers at the bottom of the page are sufficient. Get back to being a simple wiki, get back to simplicity.
• I have little flashes in my conciousness asking: is a wiki structure ever going to achieve our goals? Can a unified, stable category structure be created that will make commons useful? Does the project need stronger direction and structure imposed on it, yet be somehow more open ?
• So that is a collection of some of my thoughts, not very coherent but it helps to write them down to see where they're going :-). Perhaps all very trite, I'll go and sleep on it :-) --Tony Wills 12:46, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I hope that didn't come across as a complaint about admins, its not, its meant to be about the community culture :-) I recognise there is an awful lot of work and blunt tools are needed to keep on top of it. What do flickr et al do about managing people uploading files they have no right to? --Tony Wills 23:06, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

---

Seeing one of my pictures at the top of this page (POTD 24/6), I had to double check I was on the right page :-), here are a few responses:

...community growing too large ...My idea for helping to solve it in a wiki, is to encourage WikiProject membership very much....

• Yes, that seems to be a great approach.

...As long as each detailed project respects the spirit and rules of its parent project, they can go wild. ...

• And in this respect I think the wiki wide rules need to be minimal to allow creativity and innovation so that projects can come up with better ways of working and organising

Valuing volunteers ...See User:Pfctdayelise/Commons:Awards.

• I'll check them out, it is nice to be acknowledged, even if it's just a 'cardboard cutout' award :-). I was thinking 'valuing' more in terms of respecting that all contributors are giving their time and energy (and photos) for free and really presuming that people are contributing with the best of intentions, but that peoples interpretation of the goals and rules are coloured by their culture and experiences. It is tempting to guide the project by defining lots of rules and expending a lot of time and energy 'enforcing' policy - when few people come here wanting that.

...community .. who share the goal of copyleft. But yet we are an open wiki that lets people join without any requirement at all. Dealing with the people who don't share the vision, is the price we pay for an open wiki.

• Considering how little 'copyleft' type ideals are promoted in Western societies it is perhaps surprising how many people come here to donate their work in the first place. I expect most people initially have little knowledge of the whole 'intellectual rights' game and initially shouldn't really be expected to understand the goal, beyond the level of "its free" so a large part of the project is education and evangelisation.

Is it worth it?

• The zen of wiki-ing, the answer is that the path must be worth treading just in case the goal is never reached :-)

...I would like to see a lot of reform in our user talk templates. ...conflated ... notification ... and reprimand.

• I hadn't clearly separated those two objectives, good point, something that needs urgent attention

..."kangaroo court" was largely my idea, but there is a bit more to it than that that I won't go into here. :)

• Sorry, that was a bit harsh :-), I know its not your way of handling things, and there is a long history ...

...MediaWiki is missing a lot of functionality that is holding Commons back...

• That will probably always be the case (the technology not keeping up with our ideas), but I suppose meanwhile we can only ensure we're using what we've got to best effect --Tony Wills 04:02, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

---

• I think lately a lot more attention has been given to 'compliance', the idea that if we could just formulate all the rules and enforce them strictly all would be well. When the real problem is not compliance but conflict resolution. People are trying to do the 'right' thing, few (apart from vandals) are being malicious (and did we manufacture some of those vandals who are now having a go at retribution?, but that's another story). Looking at recent issues on the Admin noticeboard and elsewhere, many of them boil down to differing interpretation and understanding of how things are normally done. Both parties are sure they are right and doggedly try to enforce their interpretation, and often both call upon the 'gods' to intervene on their side :-). Escalation of what are, in reality, minor annoyances draws in lots of people. People rush around looking for precedents, rules, guidelines, policies, and votes - which does little to resolve the underlying conflict (of course language difficulties don't help either!). The initial result is usually polarising people (defending their corner as people don't like to be seen as wrong, especially publicly) - much easier to get agreement or compromise on a one to one level rather than in public with people barracking for either side.
• The rules approach promotes the use of 'lawyers', 'trials' and 'judges' basically more conflict with a winner and loser. It tends to enshrine the current way of doing things and increases inertia in that it makes it more difficult to try different approaches - which is very counter productive when we haven't formulated the optimum way of doing things anyway. Some rules are necessary because of outside forces (eg copyright laws), the rest are just to beat ourselves with :-), self imposed constraints with the objective of what?
• If we put all our efforts into conflict resolution - getting people, who are passionate about sorting out some area of commons, to start working together we'll be much better off, more productive and much closer to the spirit of the project goals.
• At the moment I think we are actually still biased towards the conflict resolution approach, much good work by cool heads :-), but are starting to fall towards the compliance approach (perhaps because as the project grows, the workload grows and it is perceived as simpler to define more stringent rules to keep on top of things). Perhaps it is also because that's the way our Western societies (and probably most other - 'the rule of law') operate, part of evangelising people to the project goals and objectives is also to evangelise them to a better way of working together.
• Time to go and make use of some good photography weather, I'll think some more about practical changes rather than philosophical dreaming :-) --Tony Wills 04:02, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

OTRS pending

Hi, has the matter regarding Image:Ferdowsi Statue.jpg been resolved? It says that OTRS is still pending. Thuresson 11:27, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Call to arms

Hi Pfctdayelise. I write to you and all other users listed on the Welcome log helpers list, except for EugeneZelenko this Call to arms. The reason for it is that I have seen very little activity on the project by you. Because of this we have most probably failed to check the contributions of thousands of new users and have not been able to inform them of the practices on Wikimedia Commons in a timely fashion, causing more work for us and the contributor later in the process.

I would like to urge you to make a habit of checking at least 10 or so new user's contributions from the Commons:Welcome log each day you are active here. We welcome about 200 new users with contributions each day and we currently have 19 users on the helpers list. You can find links to some helpful scripts on the welcome log page, that are likely to make your life a lot easier. If there are no users to be checked that have been welcomed today, please attend to a previous log. Thank you for your renewed attention. Cheers! Siebrand 12:19, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Please add the Categorization Marameter

"Template:Cc-by-sa-2.5,2.0,1.0/lang" is protected and I can't edit it. Please categorize it correctly as follows.

--- <noinclude> [[Category:Internationalization templates|{{PAGENAME}}]] </noinclude> --- --SantaClaus 18:01, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Great!! Thank you for your veeeeery quick response! Thank you for your help. --SantaClaus 14:19, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Maybe/maybe not!

OK as I am trying to address something you specifically brought up maybe take a look here and the talk page. I provided Fred with the link and he has edited it so feel free if you want to (I'm guessing I may not be the only one who has some talk pages on their watch list!). I'd plan to place it for discussion within the week for a preference but I told enough folk I was working on it so it isn't a secret just work in progress. Hope it went well --Herby ^{talk thyme} 11:18, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Wiki Research

Thanks for your feedback. It will be very useful to me and I enjoyed reading it. Thanks! Sutton4019 09:52, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

re: Image:JW Tsonga.jpg

Very, very sorry to have burdened you with so much extra work. Spyder Monkey 05:30, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

For people who watch my talk page :)

I'd welcome comments on this proposal, still in very early stages. Does it make sense? Does it have a fatal flaw I haven't thought of? Are there some activities that simply wouldn't fit in this model? --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 05:16, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Today's pic is the human eye. Ironic or predictive? ++Lar: t/c 12:03, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

STBY

Sorry To Bother You but were you the admin that placed the gallery category image viewer in my page coding? I am removing duplicately placed botanical images in a category and leaving them in the article if there is one. I and others feel there should be a gallery for images and not in the gallery and the category. The name of the plant species in the category or sub category is sufficient. My point is if these other two or three wikipedians who are interested in what I am doing could have the same program and see the sometimes 4-6 different galleries and categories that show on the screen it would make life a lot easier. Also can I nominate a photo for Image of the Day or does someone else have to? I was looking a a few of mine and I felt they deserve a look and vote anyway. WayneRay 18:34, 3 July 2007 (UTC)WayneRay

Juiced lemon and his re-re-reversion game.

Hi! Please, if you have time and you wish, could you mind to read the advice I've posted in Administrator's notice board, related to Juiced lemon?. Thanks a lot. --Joanot Martorell ✉ 09:19, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Info

You have mail on en WB (in case you miss it), cheers --Herby ^{talk thyme} 13:49, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Just your local friendly RC watcher! All the best --Herby ^{talk thyme} 07:15, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Alexander Turnbull Library

Hey man. Re our discussions last year, this matter has come up at en:Wikipedia:New Zealand Wikipedians' notice board#Older images - copyright cutoff date? - is there anywhere on commons that I can point to that sums up our position on the use of out of copyright images from Library sites? I never saw the discussion, I just heard about the conclusion, ie that Wikipedia doesn't recognise the rights of such sites to impose restrictions on use. Cheers. Kahuroa 22:16, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Cheers for the reply - that's helpful. Kahuroa 11:30, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks

for your help and yes, I agree that those bits should be transparent but I don't know how to do that. If you can tell me how (preferably in one of Corel Graphic Suite applications) I will gladly modify all the maps I've uploaded so far. If there's a tutorial on this topic around here somewhere, just let me know. --B w raven 07:58, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Spelling on Gallery page

An additional DB server is live now, exect a bumpy ride until all has been smoothed out.

Note that most Commons-related tools will currently only work with the 19 wikis on the s2 cluster.

It should be expect and not exect, can you contact the wiki webmaster, it shows up at the top of everyones "gallery" WayneRay 18:07, 8 July 2007 (UTC)WayneRay

Me again

Thanks for the link. It was useful. I modified the maps and uploaded the new versions but there's the same problem with two of them (Image:Coarnele_Caprei_jud_Iasi.png and Image:Mogosesti-Siret_jud_Iasi.png, both of them only in the category page). Hope you can help. --B w raven 09:12, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

No need now. Managed to do it myself. Thanks anyway. --B w raven 09:22, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Urgent copyright notice Can you delete these ?

The following Canadian Tire money are deemed copyright violations while the earliest note was introduced in 1958 while Canadian organizational copyright lasts for 50 years since publication:

• Image:Canadian Tire Money03.jpg
• Image:Canadian Tire Money05.jpg
• Image:Canadian Tire Money02.jpg
• Image:Canadian Tire Money06.jpg
• Image:Canadian Tire Money01.jpg
• Image:Canadian Tire Money04.jpg

Please also note that you do not legally make works PD-self while scanning others' copyrighted works, so if you cannot prove that you have proper permission from Canadian Tire Corp., Ltd. to show them here, they have to be deleted. However, you may still claim fair use in English Wikipedia but not here.--Jusjih 15:51, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Great I never thought about that, Go ahead and delete if you can. I will contact an Admin to do it if you cant. Apologies to the corporaton.WayneRay 17:32, 9 July 2007 (UTC)WayneRay

Done. NielsF ^{? (en, nl, fr, it)} 18:27, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Advice / help sought

Coud you please look at Image:Map of Stanly County North Carolina.gif>? It has a prominent watermark and the website it was taken from makes no assertion of free use. I tagged it for speedy deletion and notified the uploader, who has email from the author saying it is OK to use the map (and others). I am not sure what to do in this case, and would appreciate any help / advice you could give. Thanks, Ruhrfisch 00:16, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Please ask uploader to forward the e-mail, including full headers, to permissions-commonswikimedia.org. That way the permission is stored centrally. That's one advice I can give you. Just a hunch: [4] contains an image that looks a lot like Image:NCMap-doton-Charlotte.png and other maps of its kind in Category:Locator_maps_of_cities_in_North_Carolina, so the author of that site maybe is not completely aware of copyright restrictions. Bad faith assumption, I know. NielsF ^{? (en, nl, fr, it)} 00:49, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I have made a series of North Carolina county maps from the larger US Census maps, so there is a free replacement for this one, at least. Ruhrfisch 01:03, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Recommending licenses

Copied and answered on Commons talk:Contributing your own work -- Bryan (talk to me) 09:30, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikimania Coverage

Call for Photographers, Writers, and Cameramen”' If you are attending Wikimania, we need you to help cover it. Please post all your Wikimania 2007 articles, videos, and pictures here http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Event_Coverage, so that other Wikimedians have a way to virtually participate in our annual conference.

To help coordinate coverage, we are asking that individuals sign up to cover a specific event here: http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Article_Coverage. This will ensure that all events are being covered.

--124.168.86.221 15:08, 23 July 2007 (UTC) User:Symode09

OTRS

Could you please confirm the OTRS claims for Image:Kelly Madison 7.JPG uploaded by User:Stanmar? Thanks! -- Infrogmation 22:41, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for message

Ta for the kind words back in May. I'm back now, and heres some lettuce for orange slug :)--Nilfanion 10:33, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Can I just delete invalid licenses

A long winded question :-). Looking at something completely different, I came across Category:Creative_Commons_licenses which has a bunch of misplaced images (which are clearly not 'licenses') eg Image:000_0025.jpg. For some at least, it appears that the misuse of {{Cc}} has caused the problem - the template has effectively been used to create a custom license for his images. (The template is presumably only meant to be used for new license types). I also note that the 'license' created declares 'noncommercial use only'. So my question is (-:

1. As the user hasn't contributed for the year since submitting the images, I hardly expect they'll respond to deleteion nominations (to their non free images), but as the images are 'dual' licensed do you think it is sufficient to delete the 'invalid' license and just leave the GFDL one? --Tony Wills 11:05, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Have gone ahead with the cleanup on the basis that the second license attempt does not affect the valitity of the GFDL license. So removed the incorrect template usage and left the GFDL tags. :-) --Tony Wills 13:02, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply, I hadn't thought of that but it sounds quite reasonable. I'll go back and re-add a suitable nc license. Thanks :-) --Tony Wills 22:04, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I did that, then realised that {{Cc-by-nc-sa-2.0-dual}} precisely covers what the user was trying to create. --Tony Wills 02:07, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Extra-tabs.js

Could you add the extra tabs to MediaWiki:Monobook.js/is I've put the translation up at User:Steinninn/extra-tabs. Thanks. --Steinninn 01:55, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Announcements

Commons maintenance announcements [+/−]

More translations are needed for:

• Commons:Project scope (Sept 2008)
• Commons:Fan art (April 2009)
• Help:Gadget-ImageAnnotator#User interface texts (August 2009)
• Commons:File renaming (October 2009)
• Commons:Nudity

---

Backlogs:

as of 18 February 2010

• Old deletion requests are still opened.
• Many files moved to Commons requiring review.
• Too many unprocessed files without source.
• Many files are OTRS pending for too long.
• There are 128 requested merges.
• The Vandalismpatrol has over 1190238 unpatrolled anonymous edits.

I am in the process of putting this announcer on people's user pages. I don't know where you want it though (it doesn't fit at the top), so you'll have to locate it yourself :-)

You can position it left by simply writing {{Commons:Announcements|left}}. If you want to have further format possibilities, you'll have to write it into the template yourself :-) Fred J 19:32, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

followup

Hi! I'm still on the road since Wikimania, but as soon as I'm back, I'll work on trying to sort out some of the ideas. One ideas was a magazine that I was interviewed by in Taiwan that had very good design sense and wanted to talk about doing a book. Should I discuss that on the list? Where should I take that conversation? -- Joi 10:10, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

thank you too

Well thank you, for creating the page. / Fred J 17:52, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Bybye + Can you lead this ?

Hello Pfctdayelise,

I'm Yug, who launched the first Graphic lab on wiki-fr, had lead the Stroke order project, and had set up the "Graphic abilities categories". I come here for a bad news, I leave all the Wikimedia projects.

So, I leave to you and commons :

• The commons graphic labs and Graphic pump;
• The Graphic abilities category ;
• The mapmaking guidelines project

Which are both a part of the Move_toward_Commons_2.0_! project (workable : now if a good leader is found, with lot of free time).

User supporting Commons 2.0 ! to set up an active graphist community on commons ! See GVP-GLab-GA.

It now stay to :

1. make a powerful call for graphist volunteer in Mediawiki:sitenotice
2. organize the work in 4 sub-graphic labs according to the 4 skills : bitmap ; animation ; SVG (about 80 SVG-3 users !) ; ogg reccord
3. finish to set up the maps guidelines

I hope that somes will (quickly) replace me to "move toward". If you have time to do so : that's welcome.

Regards,

--Yug (talk) 11:18, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Hello Pfc, and thanks for your email.

Can you lead the project "move toward commons 2.0", or at least find some skilled users interesting to do so ? If you have not the time need, I will make a myself a call on the Village pump. --Yug (talk) 04:15, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I just had read your view for commons in 2007... I'm was not aware about your meta-involvement at this rate, so I'm astonished to see your work, you are overviewing all commons development, on 2 or 3 years, that's a great and huge work ! I understand now why you haven't the time need to lead the Graphist/commons 2.0 project. I will try to find volunteers (a good leader) this month ;). Yug

Newbie

Commons delinker? How does it work? (ie. I looked but couldn't find a comprehensive newbie approach to the thing). I have these pictures to replace with a better version, and they're used in like 100 wikipedias. I could do it by hand, but then you're gonna tell me that I don't do anything on Commons in the meantime ;-). *hugs* notafish }<';> 08:06, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Re:Help desk request

Hi Pfctdayelise. I have responded: Commons:Help desk & User talk:Jbm077. Thanks--Lmbuga ^{gl, pt, es: contacta comigo} 11:16, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

meta:EasyTimeline

Thanks for all the links. I did not see any list of EasyTimelines at http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TimelinesIndex.htm . I followed the English link there, and those links that I checked on that page also did not have a list of EasyTimelines. I guess I could go to the talk page for EasyTimelines to get more info. I did mention before that I found this: en:Category:Graphical timelines. But it may not be complete, and I did not see anything right off that was comparable to the bar graph in question. Do you know of any easy graphing freeware to create images with? --Timeshifter 16:19, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Hey there

Hello again. I was wondering, is there anyway to make the upload process any easier? It is quite tedious, I have uploaded about 1,500 photos or so and have 1000s more and wondered if there was any end to arduous nature of the task. IvoShandor 03:30, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, none of that seemed to work on my machine for whatever reason, I posted a comment about Commonist. But for whatever reason they all cause fatal errors when trying to install. Thanks, though, guess we'll just have to lose out on all but a few of the images, I just can't spend the time required to upload them all. IvoShandor 20:13, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

:)

Don't think I'll ever be able to give as much to this project as you and many others do. I try to help out a little as I can. It's been slow, but I finally feel I'm learning the ropes. Commons is one of my favorite Foundation projects. I love the mix of users from around the world and other projects. Because of my other responsibilities, I must leave the bulk of the work in the capable hands of folks like you. Take care, FloNight♥♥♥ 14:20, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Copyviol

Please, can you speedy delete these images?

• Image:Leop.II.Balzarotti.jpg
• Image:Vitt.Am.II.Balzarotti.jpg
• Image:M.Beat.Hoh..jpg
• Image:Eli.Witt.Balz..jpg
• Image:Cardinale_C.Em.Bal-1-.jpg
• Image:Ant.Ste.Bal..jpg
• Image:Stebal.jpg
• Image:Uniforme_O.S.N..jpg
• Image:Comm.Ord.S.Nicolao.jpg
• Image:Ord.S.Nicolao.jpg
• Image:Uniforme_O.M.Ss.A.L..jpg
• Image:Comm._Ord.SS.Am.Leop.jpg
• Image:Ord.SS.Am.Leop.jpg

The images were uploaded by an it.wiki user to illustrate a bunch of fake articles (his only contributions). Most of the images has been found as copyviols or derivative images, and all descriptions contains fake data.

Articles are going to being deleted, please wipe those abuses off on commons too. Thanks

--Jollyroger 15:36, 31 August 2007 (UTC) sometimes I wish to be a commons admin...

Thanks, I'll check those other images out.

And yeah, i feel commons need some more italian admins. Feel free to nominate me if you wish, but I am not sure I'll ever have a chance (I am known on it.wiki to be a good admin-like user, but sometimes a bit too rough to be an admin by their standards).

The situation about these images is evolving: apparently the voices ar not fake but original research based on ancient local archives. Anyway, images were derivative from unauthorized ones, so deletion was ok. --Jollyroger 10:39, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I've checked some of them out: they seem to be legal images taken from scans of PD-paintings. They were uploaded as "personal works" but are obviously painting from XVI-XVIII century. Unfortunately, I do not know those paintings and can't fix the description.

The user is mostly active on heraldry and nobility.

I said his only contributions, but it is not true, my fault in checking editcount: sorry for the mistake.

Thanks again --Jollyroger 10:47, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Category:Universally replaced by CommonsDelinker

Hope it is more clearer now :) Let me know if there is more to clarify. -- Bryan (talk to me) 14:08, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

gallery under construction

Hey could I ask you to stop by Western Australia and offer any suggestions on formatting thanks Gnangarra 13:32, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Support needed

Hi Pfctdayelise,

I hope you can support Barat's request for administrator. His application can be found on MetaWiki. He is a native Uyghur and wishes to implement a multi-script conversion tool there.

Thankyou. --Jose77 23:46, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks

...for support and a comment that was encouraging for me ;o) A small clarification may be in order though, you wrote ...to receive such as well-regarded admin... - I'm not an admin on any of the Norwegian language wikipedias or any other projects - that hasn't been explicitly clarified in neither nomination or comments, and lack of prior sys.op. experience may be something that should have been mentioned? Finn Rindahl 11:53, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Email enabled

 Done. Dantadd✉ 11:06, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Redirecting uploaders from Wikipedias to Commons

Hi, Pfctdayelise and thank you for your offers to help.

The Upload form at the Afrikaans Wikipedia currently says:

PS. Images that are available under a free license can be uploaded to the Wikimedia Commons: a shared collection of images which can be used by all the Wikimedia projects of all the languages. Any file that is uploaded to the Commons is thus available to be used anywhere else. We strongly encourage images to be uploaded in this fasion.

The translation isn't 100%, but that's the gist. I'd love to make a stronger case for the Commons, but as I understand it, users that are registered at the Afrikaans Wikipedia that are directed here through the upload form there, would have to create a new account here as well? Is there any way around this, or not really? I know account creation only takes a second or two, but you know how users are: they see "registration required" and they immediately stop bothering. (I usually don't like talking across user pages, so feel free to answer here.) Anrie 11:44, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi Anrie,

Unfortunately, separate login is still required. We are waiting for a feature called "SUL" (Single User Login, i.e. one login works everywhere) to be implemented. Hopefully within months it will be finished and working, but it's been a long time in development.

You could insert a second "upload" link, so you had one that says "Upload a free file" and it links to Commons, and another that just says "Upload file" and has the local link.

Another good idea is to look at the local upload log and see who is doing a lot of uploading there. If you find some people who are uploading lots of their own work (ie. not copyvios!) then ask them if they have considered using Commons, and see if you can get them to start using Commons instead. Local support is important otherwise Commons just seems distant and suspicious. Increasing local knowledge about copyright/licenses is also very important because otherwise when people find that their copyvios get deleted here, they will just return to upload them locally. Which is kind of a lose-lose situation... cheers --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 11:54, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Apologize

But let me assure you that:

1- that photo was not meant at all to offend someone. It was actually a proposal to make a 'Reality' with many of the most famous 'players' of wiki.it, so often in conflict among them. I am, noticeably, one of the players. Not offense at all meant.

2-Sometimes happens that i don't give license, but only because i forget to select them. All that i publish is my work. Not attack me because i forget the license, it's not so easy to controll all the stuff before an automatic advise starts. It's my will to contribute without tricks, but not always i make all that is due to make perfect posts.

Regards.--Stefanomencarelli 14:54, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Rollback by admin

Is there a way to recover the image? It was part of a set of images for the it.wiki village pump (Bar) --Jollyroger 16:38, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Picture of the Now

Misza doesn't archive things without sigs. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 05:22, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Your Wikimania talk

Hi Brianna, loved your work on this subject. I have done some thinking on this as well (MeatballWiki:ExpereincedInteractionWithInexperience) and would like to discuss this more with yu sometime. Also, cool tshirt, will put the picture on http://WikiWear.org - Best, User:MarkDilley

Ditto sig. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 05:22, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Welcome for Mysha

Hi,

Thanks for asking, but no, I had no specific questions. I was just feeding back as I was asked, and added some comments about the feedback page. When I tried to remove the text (or rather edit it), as you suggested, I found that it wasn't even included as a template, but as substitution. So not only will it be stored as a whole on every userpage it's on, and every version for as long as the user thinks it useful, but it also doesn't update when things change. And the solution to the whole thing is so simple. This is what I would do: User_talk:Mysha. Mysha

Sig pfctdayelise (说什么?) 05:22, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't keep a close eye on the implementation discussions, but last time I looked the argument was that templates are not in fact a serious burden on the servers. Also, as you can see, I did indeed pretend substitution for my solution, as in that case this seemed less of a problem. Mysha

Image:TZU - Melbourne BDO 2006.JPG

OK, I'm using this on the portal now (per our enwiki talk). Thanks for your help, and keep up the good work (I see from your usepage you do plenty) :) Giggy\^Talk 21:51, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Image:Cesarosofo.jpg

Recently I followed a portrait here in Commons. After reading the downloader's comment and checking the log of the image I discovered that the picture was previously deleted twice by Yann and you because of lack of source. Now the image has got its source and license and has been kept in Commons since 1st Feb. As it is legal now, could you or Yann please restore the full history of the image so that the whole process can be followed by anyone? If you have any comments please leave them here because my IP address is dynamic. Thanks -89.168.29.153 00:20, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Hello,

The deleted revisions of the file are the same size, so I don't see what would be gained by undeleting them. Can you explain? thanks --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 11:21, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

The deleted revisions of the file are the same size but are the deleted revision file texts (or the lack of them) as well the same? If they are, they should not have been deleted at all and if they are different, anybody could see clearly the whole process with a fully restored history. It is just a case of transparency, owned both to the downloader uploader and to the rest of users who are not sysops and find that lots of the previously killed and then resurrected files have still parts of them buried. Here many sysops seem to be very keen to speedy deletion in general but not so much prone to keep up with some of the "seemingly forgetable" consequences of wrong speedy deletion. And I label it "wrong" despite all the templated warnings about being zapped with no warning (available in other languages than Englsh only for the initiates or the lucky ones who know about changing their preferences from the very beginning), a lot of hassle [like this], for sysops, downloaders uploaders and users alike, could be avoided by properly trying to contact the downloader from the very beginning. Those warnings may be a convenient way of washing hands of it but one has to accept the full consequences of it. Deletion without warning should be only used on proven copyright infractions and obvious vandalism. I am sorry if I seem too harsh but when visiting Commons lately, I have the uneasy feeling of being in a huge, silent file cemetery made in a great part out of organized laziness. Its being concealed below a lively, colourful cover of activity does not make it better for me: some (possibly many) of those files are now forgotten and dead for ever just because of downloader uploader ignorance and sysop convenience, not because of this site's convenience --89.168.29.153 13:33, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I attempted to restore the revisions. The file ones came back but not the page ones. In fact they seem to have disappeared into the netherworld because now I can't see any way at all to access that. I'll chalk that up as a software bug.

I am always willing to hear reasonable criticism of Commons, so please share your comments. But we need some help finding workable solutions too, not just complaints (they are easy to find :)).

Cesorosofo was contacted by Yann four days after the image was uploaded. Cesorosofo made no response to him whatsoever though. Communication is not just a one-way thing. If users don't talk to us we can't guess what they are thinking. I don't see this as "deletion without warning".

I have the uneasy feeling of being in a huge, silent file cemetery made in a great part out of organized laziness...some (possibly many) of those files are now forgoten and dead for ever just because of downloader ignorance and sysop convenience, not because of this site's convenience That's a very interesting comment. What do you mean by "the site's convenience"? If you think we are obliged to keep files of uncertain copyright status for the convenience of Wikipedia or any other Wikimedia project, you are wrong. Just as Wikipedia is obliged to DELETE text that was conveniently copied from a non-free or questionable source, we are the same with files.

If you think it is "sysop convenience" to delete files, again I have to disagree. Convenience would be not to act, and to do nothing.

"Downloader" (sic - I presume you mean uploader?) ignorance about copyright is a major problem and it is tough and annoying and there is no way around learning it, except for "don't upload anything". If you want to upload something, you have to learn about copyright and sources. If you don't learn it, your files will probably be deleted. That's all there is to it. How else do you think it should be? --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 14:06, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your anwser and sorry for my delay in delivering mine, Pfctdayelise. Sad to hear about the newther world :( I knew about Yann's warning, he did it right according to the standard used here (which I partially cannot buy yet). The last part of my previous comment was rather off-topic of what I first meant (i. e. the recovery of the full history) but I was just carried away by having to explain what I considered a "wrong speedy deletion". After editing it and reconsidering it, I had no time to remove it because I was in a hurry for more pressing matters so it remained there.

Just as Wikipedia is obliged to DELETE text that was conveniently copied from a non-free or questionable source, we are the same with files. I totally agree with the first bit: every picture here with a copyright or taken from an unlabelled site is and should be deleted at once. But you are not the same with files: if the same standard as in Commons were applied to Wikipedia, that would mean that EVERY NOT-APPEARING-IN-A-SEARCH-ENGINE, SINGLE STATEMENT should be left there along with a statement making clear that the user is the original author of it and gives such and such license... etc. In Wikipedia all that is assumed by default. Here it is not. That is the basic difference between other projects and this. In my view, the rest of untagged files should be labelled explaining their uncertain status, asking (properly whenever possible) to the uploaders to make it clear and leaving the files there until somebody can prove that they are legal or illegal for Commons' standards. I know positively that some people never learn their files have been buried, especially the uploaders who do not "dwell" here. I have come across a number (not big but relevant, because I do not know many sysops here, after all) of sysops in Commons who have not contacted properly some of those users (by mistake? by laziness? by convenience? by lack of respect? by failing to read? by momentary blindness? by absent-mindness? by lack of commons sense? by some rule that I cannot grasp?... I cannot tell) even though they had the information and means to do so. On the other hand, others who learn about their deleted files do not know how to properly ask for their recovery... it usually has to do with a language other than English and with that familiar feeling of impotence one gets when having to face bureaucracy, you know (I have felt it myself but it happens to be more unbearable to me when it involves other people who are not so skilful to deal with it as I am).

The funny thing about the merits of license tags is that, as long as a pic is properly labelled even with sheer lies, is quite likely it will survive for ages here (maybe until some fortunate concidence or the holder of the copyright reveals the truth). I know, I know, there is not better option, but I hope that you are fully aware in Commons of this sad feature which so often kills (or wounds) the ignorant while leaves the doors open to the informed leech to be cozily warmed and sheltered. I am aware that what I am saying about keeping unproven pics must be regarded by many as anathema and as I totally agree with your "less-complaints-and-more-help" statement (by the way, a big problem in Commons is that the perception of the bureaucratic machine makes many fail to properly complain... otherwise maybe a few basic things would be very different here), I will try and give a possible solution: make an uploading system clearly explained in as many languages as possible by making compulsory to choose a language interface before starting the upload and then ready to block from the very beginning any file that it is not properly tagged with one of the basic license templates. I do not know if implementing such a method would be very complex (I am not a programmer) but it would certainly reduce dramatically the number of new acquisitions for the ever-growing churchyard we have under our feet. But even if such a method were used, there would still be a lot of material previous to the "new era" to deal with, so the thing would not be very different for quite a long while.

Unfortunately, I do not think Commons will change in what I consider is a basic aspect, at least not for a long time but, anyway, I want to thank you for listening and trying to recover the full history log of Image:Cesarosofo.jpg, Pfctdayelise. I am personally sick with a few (important to me) things in Commons (I stopped downloading here about 6 months ago, not for personal reasons but for personal convictions) but this conversation has made me think that maybe I should try and be more helpful instead just complain. A big drawback I have now is my lack of time but I am considering registering with a new nick and spending my time here fixing odds and ends (adding categories and links, translating bits, etc) so that I can get back to be involved with this huge machine called Commons and give a new chance to my scope of this place so that I can work out the big picture more accurately. Then maybe I would scan the deletion log looking for possible recoverable corpses/relics/fossils. I wish the cemetery feeling would go, though... And finally, yes! I meant "upload", not "download" (it is my faulty English mixed with my de-faulty brain XD) Thanx! :-) --89.168.18.101 00:08, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I saw that the newther world fortunately was a cache problem display :) . Anyway I checked the history of the file and found that the uploader had provided a source before the picture was deleted, only he did it under the label "Sumario". You can see it here: the text in Spanish says "This picture is mine, it is personal. But I set it free for any (non-commercial) use, according to the following licence (and then == Licensing == {{self2|GFDL|cc-by-sa-2.5,2.0,1.0}}). 47 minutes after that edition, Yann tagged it as lacking source. I guess it was a mistake. It might also have happened due to a lack of understanding of the text, in which case, as not all sysops have to know every language used in Commons, it would have been wiser to pass the task (or a request of translation) to any other administrator with a command of the language. Things like these should make sysops here more cautious in general. Otherwise, it would seem as if the default settings of some were: "Everything out of place or without recognizable colours means delete". This file (and, fortunately, many others) is now safe. What worries me is the rest(ful ones): the rightful ones still in the hole. Sorry to be so repetitive about it. Anyway I am not trying to say that Yann or you are bad sysops (fortunately, I do not think you are) I am just trying to show how relatively easy is to make mistakes and how the 7-days-deadline tag happily enhances them. Kind regards --89.168.18.101 01:23, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi again 89,

Well, you are right that the standards applied to Wikipedia and Commons are not exactly the same. But you must concede that people do not plagiarise text nearly as often as they are willing to plagiarise images. Creating new text about any topic in the world is relatively easy. Creating a new photograph or diagram about any topic is relatively difficult, and for a good many topics it is extremely difficult. I can write about Hollywood from my lounge in Australia, but I will have difficulty getting a photo of a Hollywood star from here, for example. I guess this difficulty (+ ignorance about copyright) is why people so often and quickly fall to copyright violations.

In my view, the rest of untagged files should be labelled explaining their uncertain status, asking (properly whenever possible) to the uploaders to make it clear and leaving the files there until somebody can prove that they are legal or illegal for Commons' standards.

There are simply too many cases, thousands and thousands, like this. We have a template {{Own work}} which is for work that is "presumed" to be the uploader's own work. The idea is that you tag images with this and the uploader should come back and correct the information about who is the author. But the fact is that this just doesn't work because in the vast majority of cases the uploader doesn't come back. So what happens? We are left with thousands of images of indeterminate copyright status. It is harmful to us as a free content provider if we can't confidently assert that the things we provide are in fact free content. If we have to hedge and say, "Well, they probably are, but there's a lot of cases we're not too sure about... so, you might be violating someone else's copyright by using them..." -- that is terrible for us. We are no better than Google Images in that case.

I know that there are cases where legitimate images get deleted and that is very frustrating. But we are extremely willing to undelete images in cases where the uploader returns and can provide the required information. We have Commons:Undeletion requests but for users who don't speak English I recommend contacting their-language Village pump (they are all linked at the top of COM:VP). Otherwise I recommend contacting an admin listed at COM:A who speaks their language.

I really want Commons to be use-able for people whose primary language is not English. So I try and make sure we have active admins here in the most popular languages of Wikipedia, and get to know those admins. If you know a language that is lacking some active admins here, please let me know and I will try and find a good language contact.

I also acknowledge that our copyright checking system is extremely ad-hoc and incomplete, and it means we only consistently catch very obviously-wrong cases, while subtly wrong cases can slip through. But the wiki technology is terrible for this kind of checking, and we don't have any better system... :(

I will try and give a possible solution: make an uploading system clearly explained in as many languages as possible by making compulsory to choose a language interface before starting the upload and then ready to block from the very beginning any file that it is not properly tagged with one of the basic license templates.

Users are prompted several times when registering to change their account preferences to their native language. Any file now that is not properly tagged doesn't get "blocked" but will get an automatic tag saying "this file is missing X information; if it's not supplied within 7 days it may be deleted". A bot does this. The bot also notifies the uploader. So... I think this is a pretty decent system, although plenty of people still ignore the warnings and thus their images get deleted.

As for Image:Cesarosofo.jpg, I think there are two possibilities. One is that Yann made a mistake and tagged it for deletion because he didn't understand the text. I find that unlikely because Yann is generally a thoughtful admin, but everyone makes mistakes. The other possibility is that he found the explanatory text unconvincing, which is much more likely given the fact that it's claimed to be a self-created work, yet is incredibly low resolution.

Anyway if you make an account, or not, I will be happy to see you around, and happy to try and help at any time if I can.

cheers --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 05:46, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi! Thanks for your reply. I understand many of the problems of a place like this. As I stopped uploading time ago, I do not know the current procedures. What you say that happens when one uploads now sth here sounds quite good (but I do not know and will probably never know if I would consider it good enough) but many people downloaded files here before all that started running and some (I would say many) admins seem to often fail to keep that in mind. About the deletion topic, I still think that it boils down to a sad motto like "it doesn't matter what you are as long as you stick a tag". No tag? Then you are guilty until proven otherwise.Pfctdayelise, plagiarism is plagiarism with or without a tag. Tags are just a lame way to save face; a tacit non-aggression agreement between copyrighters and copylefters; an ineffective way that at least shows that there is good will. I can personally understand it but cannot personally stand it in the way it has grown here. Below the box I am writing this I can read a sign saying "I hereby assert that I am the creator of this contribution and/or it does not violate any third party rights." and another saying "I agree to publish this text under the GNU Free Documentation License." but seemingly that does not save enough face to the project. I have many more things to say about this and other few related topics but that would mean loads of paragraphs and I am not going to waste your time or mine in a talk that eventually will turn out fruitless because I just came here for something specific, and your help has been greatly appreciated :)

I would like to talk to Yann about the image but he has not answered me yet to my previous request of what he meant with the comment "promo image". I have to say that clearly I prefer the option of him making a mistake because the other one happens to be quite scary: the explanatory text is not less convincing than "Source: Cesarosofo" or the usual "Source: selfmade". I fail to see how a{n incredibly????} low resolution (but a totally clear, good quality and clearly visible/recognizable portrait) photograph can happen to become that fishy; of course it could have been nicked from a website where most (not all) pics are low res, but if one takes the trouble of checking its usage one can see that Cesarosofo used that image mainly for signing; for that not much res is needed. I uploaded here a couple of images I had scanned from two photographs of mine developed on paper. If I had scanned them in low res they would have been suspicious? Gasp! Here the motto would be "Low res? With or without tag, you are guilty even when proven (by Commons' tagging standards) innocent". Under such a lame premise, if that was the case, the picture should only have been deleted if a copyright infringement had been documentally proven. I prefer the mistake possibility. In a place like Commons being low res in the way that picture was is NOT an argument to delete a pic without the previous consent of the author or downloader.

I have just discovered that Cesarosofo has changed it...I cannot believe it... I hope he wanted to do it and did not feel it was his obligation after your last message to him. And previously Rama has killed the picture once again and restored it 17 minutes later. The comment? "Copyvio" Interesting history. Is it all this a joke or there are plenty of admins here just practising with the buttons? Anybody reading your comments about the "tiny" pic or the "incredibly low resolution" could think that the picture was such bad quality it was useless. Now I cannot see the previous image anymore and I guess none of the regular users can either, so the "tiny" pic or the "incredibly low resolution" probably is now a dogma. I think I'd better stop writing here. Thanks for your offer of help but I think I can do well on my own --89 (aka 89.168.17.116) 02:24, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Hello,

My final comment, the previous file version is still available to everyone. On the image page under the "File history" section there is a table, each row is a file version. You can view the old versions by clicking on the linked date. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 11:57, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I have added links to the old picture here --89 (aka 89.168.17.116) 17:25, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Image:Thirsty_Merc_2006_Australian_Open.JPG

Image deletion warning

Image:Thirsty_Merc_2006_Australian_Open.JPG has been listed at Commons:Deletion requests so that the community can discuss whether it should be kept or not. We would appreciate it if you could go to voice your opinion about this at its entry. If you created this image, please note that the fact that it has been proposed for deletion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with it, such as a copyright issue. If the file is up for deletion because it has been superseded by a superior derivative of your work, consider the notion that although the file may be deleted, your hard work (which we all greatly appreciate) lives on in the new file. In all cases, please do not take the deletion request personally. It is never intended as such. Thank you!

Giggy\^Talk 21:58, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, thanks for your understanding. If commons has an essay on templating the regulars like enwiki does, then sorry for the message above :) Thanks, Giggy\^Talk 22:42, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Delete please.

Hi Pfctdayelise,

Could you delete Image:South Africa - Samoa RWC 2007 Percy M.jpg, Image:South Africa - Samoa RWC 2007 SA try.jpg and Image:South Africa - England RWC 2007 FourieduPreez 14092007.jpg please ? A contributor uploaded them on commons, but I decided to keep copyright on these ones. Thanks a lot. Fabienkhan 08:35, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Yep, I forgot to tell you. Thanks anyway ! Fabienkhan 16:05, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Purging Image:Forest & Bird headquarters.jpg

This image seem to show as it should now, but I still can't purge/regenerate thumbs with ThumbnailPurger.js - appears to be something wtih the format of the filename, I get "Image:Forest doesn't excist"? I guess it's possible to get aroud this by manually replacing & in the url, but... Any thoughts? Regards, Finn Rindahl 13:30, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I've fixed the script. Lupo 07:35, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Now also fixed the extra tabs. It wasn't just checkusage, but also gallery, orphans, logs, find categories. Tested with Image:Forest & Bird headquarters.jpg and User:A&D (who luckily does have a few uploads). Lupo 12:22, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for that little award. An explanation is now at Commons:Javascript_styleguide#How_to_construct_URIs. This same error might lurk in other places, too. Lupo 12:52, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

User:MediaWiki Update Bot

Hi. I'm not sure I agree to much with your update bot on this and especially this where the translations are almost done for Commons:Upload/de.

And one more thing, could you add MediaWiki:Mainpage to the pages that get updated, so that MediaWiki:Mainpage/deownwork would have Hauptseite, I know this link doesn't change much, but sometimes it does. --Steinninn 18:09, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

What do you think about isownwork? I've created a template and added [edit] and [talk] links. --Steinninn 17:43, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Ni hao ma

Ni hao ma! Ni jiang putonghua ma? Wô ye shuo putonghua he zhongguó wén. :) Ok, English now. Thanks for that comment on my chat page, yeah Steinninn and I had our difficult times but we worked through them, we both dont want to hurt the wiki. :) I'd run for sysop too, but my old account was Ice201 and I was too lazy to request a RenameUser, but I will start working on category pages here to get my edit count up. Any other languages the project needs help in besides Icelandic and maybe English? I also have efficient German, Danish, Chechen, and Faroese knowledge. :) --Girdi 19:38, 19 September 2007 (UTC)