Commons:Village pump
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This page is used for discussions of the operations, technical issues, and policies of Wikimedia Commons. Recent sections with no replies for 7 days and sections tagged with {{Section resolved|1=--~~~~}} may be archived; for old discussions, see the archives; the latest archive is Commons:Village pump/Archive/2023/02. Please note:
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 Water pump next to the church in the town center of Doel. Doel, Beveren, East Flanders, Belgium. [add] | |||||||||||||||
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SpBot archives all sections tagged with {{Section resolved|1=~~~~}} after 1 day and sections whose most recent comment is older than 7 days. |
January 07[edit]
Slight issue with template acting up in image caption[edit]
See this discussion on the file page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Noliscient (talk • contribs) 14:34, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
February 05[edit]
Category pages that look like quasi-Wikipedia articles[edit]
I'm not very familiar with how category pages work on Commons. One of the bullet points in COM:CAT#Creating a new category states A short description text that explains what should be in the category, if the title is not clear or unambiguous enough on its own. is acceptable, but I'm wondering about a category like Category:Midway Theater, Allentown, Pennsylvania which seems to be an attempt to create a quasi-Wikipedia article on Commons. The content on that category page seems, in my opinion, to go beyond what would be considered a "short-description" and basically seems to be someone's own original research. I don't know about the licensing of all of files populating the category, but most if not all of them seem to be licensed as {{PD-US-no notice}}. The files include newspaper advertisements and newspaper articles about the theater, these all appear to be cut-outs or clippings and there's no way of knowing whether they were covered under the copyright of the entire paper. None of the files seems to be used in any Wikipedia articles, which is another reason why I think the category page was created to be a de-facto article so to speak. My understanding is that print advertisements were required to have separate visible copyright notifications on a per ad basis, but newspaper articles (text and photos) were not required to do so and instead were covered by the copyright notice for the entire newspaper as whole. If my understanding is incorrect, then perhaps the files are OK as licensed; however, I'm not sure about the stub-like article content at the top of the page and hoping others can clarify whether it's OK for Commons. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:50, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
- Putting aside the whole copyright question and whatnot, I'll usually either shorten long descriptions to a few sentences or just delete it whole cloth depending on if it's clearly OR or not since this isn't Wikipedia. Especially if the information is only tangentially related to the category. That said, I don't think it necessarily hurts to have a basic description if it helps people understand better what the images are about. Even in cases where it's not referenced (at least if it's uncontroversial). Like if it's a category for a historic building that burned down and was rebuilt several times, cool. Have a short description about it since the information provides context for the images. Three huge paragraphs going into mostly pointless historical minutia is clearly overkill though. There's no reason that stuff can't just be added to Wikidata or the descriptions for the individual files. --Adamant1 (talk) 03:04, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
- The description is a bit much; if it were sourced, I'd suggest turning it into a Wikipedia article, but without that, we can't. @Atwngirl: this is basically your work. I assume you had sources. Could you consider adding appropriate citation and moving the bulk of this to en-wiki? I assume some of this can be cited from exactly the newspaper stories that are among the uploaded clippings.
- Also, Atwngirl: the uploads are at least mostly yours (I didn't go through them all). U.S. newspaper content from 1936 can very well still be copyrighted until 2031 (etc. for later dates). The ads are probably good, lacking copyright notices of their own, but of course clippings of individual articles don't have "copyright markings". There is usually a single copyright notice for an entire daily newspaper. Certainly the newspaper would have been copyrighted. We'd need a specific reason to believe that copyright was not renewed. Do you have a basis for that? You appear to know what newspaper they were from. If you need some assistance if figuring that out (I'd like to keep these if we can), you can probably get that at Commons:Village pump/Copyright, but please in the future sort out that sort of thing before uploading. You presumably don't want to go through this amount of effort just to have your work deleted as copyright violations. - Jmabel ! talk 04:39, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
- The paper is The Morning Call of Allentown, Pennsylvania, which did not renew any copyrights. I think the history is good, since we do not have an article. It provides search terms for someone looking for images. If it was on Wikipedia, we would just need the lede, the first few sentences, from a Wikipedia article. --RAN (talk) 06:04, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Atwngirl has been around a long time and more or less single-mindedly has been contributing memorabilia related to Allentown, PA. She is either an enthusiastic private historian of the town, or more likely has some official connection to a historical society, library, or museum in that town with privileged access to many of these items. I have not seen any declaration to that effect, but it would be nice to know the background here, because considering the extensive history of that one building in question, there may be much more where that came from. Elizium23 (talk) 08:01, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
- This is interesting to me because many of the photos of the South West Sydney that I’m taking are significant for their area, but may not be significant enough to entail an article in Wikipedia. However, I have found quite a lot of information on the subject of the photo. I would like to add detailed information, but I’m wondering if I might need to create a seperate resource off-wiki using a CC license as this sort of data won’t be allowed here?
- I’d love some clarification in this. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 15:40, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Chris.sherlock2: I wonder if Wikispore could be useful for this sort of project? I certainly think that more small wikis would be a good thing! :-) (I've got an idea for a local wiki at https://freo.wiki ). — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 09:19, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- I wonder if a local history spore might be worthwhile? Lots of local history just cannot get onto en.wiki, but is still very important. It would still need to ensure that NOR and citations are used, but it would be pretty interesting! I know many local historians would likely love it. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 13:29, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Chris.sherlock2: I wonder if Wikispore could be useful for this sort of project? I certainly think that more small wikis would be a good thing! :-) (I've got an idea for a local wiki at https://freo.wiki ). — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 09:19, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
Just as an example of what I think is entirely within reason for a category about a building: Category:1012 First Avenue, Seattle. A lot of what is here is name changes, when stories were added, what was in the building, when the facade changed, all of which are likely to be useful in categorizing photos, including whether they refer to this building. guess we could have a proper en-wiki for this building, because it has Seattle Landmark status (so we'd have the notability), but what is here would still be pretty stubby for Wikipedia, and it doesn't seem likely that a non-stub about this will be written, at least in the foreseeable future. - Jmabel ! talk 04:48, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
- I appreciate all of the responses my OP has received so far. Category:Melody Circle, Allentown, Pennsylvania is a similar page to the one about the Midway Theater that was also created by the same user. Again, a few sentences or even a short paragraph would seem to be OK as an introduction to the images found on the page, but these two category pages (there might be more) do, at least in my opinion, go beyond that and seem to be more of an attempt to create an English Wikipedia article about these buildings on Commons, without necessarily having to deal with all of the policies and guidelines of English Wikipedia. If the content can be reliably sourced per en:WP:NOR or if the buildings are English Wikipedia notable in their own right per en:WP:NBUILDING, then there's probably a way to incorporate all or some of this content into a newly created or already existing English Wikipedia articles. I'm not sure, however, it's such a great idea to allow it on Commons just because no such articles about these buildings may currently exist. I don't think Commons was ever intended to be a en:WP:ALTERNATIVEOUTLET for English Wikipedia as a place for others to what might be considered their own "original research". If these category pages are the result of efforts on behalf of a local historical society or similar group, then perhaps the content would be best hosted on said group's own website or own wiki-site than Commons if it's not appropriate for English Wikipedia. — Marchjuly (talk) 15:42, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
- I mean, at the very least it's not in a discoverable place. Who among us, seeking encyclopedic information on an item, visits its category page on Commons? Furthermore, the polyglot nature of Commons militates against it becoming an alternate enwiki repository of this stuff. Elizium23 (talk) 15:53, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
- I don't necessarily disagree with any of that, but at the same time this does seem to be sort of related to COM:PS#Excluded educational content, at least it seems that way to me. Would similar text content be allowed, for example, on a Commons user page per COM:PSP? I get that Commons isn't English Wikipedia and thus the latter's policies and guidelines don't apply per COM:NOTWP; however, it doesn't seem as if Commons should be the place for posting or hosting an individual's or group's original research per COM:NOT#Wikimedia Commons is not an encyclopedia, dictionary, guide, or book. — Marchjuly (talk) 17:42, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
- I'd put the information in Category:Cinemas in Allentown, Pennsylvania in the same category. It's useful and interesting sure, but still better served by cited somewhere else. For instance Wikidata. I'm not sure most of those cinemas would qualify for individual Wikipedia articles, but that's the kicks sometimes. That said, I'm pretty sure the bar for inclusion is a lot lower for articles about geographical locations then other subjects. So I don't see why it couldn't be included in [1]. It looks like there's already a lot of overly detailed, unreferenced material in the article already. So really what's the difference at this point? There's no reason Atwngirl can't cut the article back and include whatever she wants to there instead of putting it on Commons where no one is going to see it. BTW, it looks like she hasn't even edited the article before and it's been edited thousands of times by a single user in the meantime, which is interesting. Either way, the article could definitely use more people editing it and a more diverse range of information about Allentown. --Adamant1 (talk) 04:48, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- Category:Betzs Restaurant, Category:Allentown Trust Company and Category:Cigar Manufacturing and Marketing in Allentown, Pennsylvania are yet some other examples of this. This user has created more than a thousand new category pages since 2016. Many seem like a typical Commons category page that has mainly files and very little if any textual content. Others start out that way but then textual content is subsequently added to them through "minor" edits until they start looking like articles with image galleries. Whatever the reason for creating them, a pattern has been established and more of these category pages will probably be created in the future. — Marchjuly (talk) 19:13, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- I believe we've indicated enough of a consensus that this stuff is (1) OR and (2) out of scope for Commons, so shall we officially discourage this user from continuing? It's been 3 days since her last edit, so I assume she's on a bit of a break and hasn't had opportunity to notice, or participate in, our discussion here. Elizium23 (talk) 19:16, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- They could just be busy and haven't logged in recently. I've added a {{Please see}} to their user talk page (I should've done that sooner and my apologies for not doing so) to let them know about this discussion. — Marchjuly (talk) 19:30, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- I believe we've indicated enough of a consensus that this stuff is (1) OR and (2) out of scope for Commons, so shall we officially discourage this user from continuing? It's been 3 days since her last edit, so I assume she's on a bit of a break and hasn't had opportunity to notice, or participate in, our discussion here. Elizium23 (talk) 19:16, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- Category:Betzs Restaurant, Category:Allentown Trust Company and Category:Cigar Manufacturing and Marketing in Allentown, Pennsylvania are yet some other examples of this. This user has created more than a thousand new category pages since 2016. Many seem like a typical Commons category page that has mainly files and very little if any textual content. Others start out that way but then textual content is subsequently added to them through "minor" edits until they start looking like articles with image galleries. Whatever the reason for creating them, a pattern has been established and more of these category pages will probably be created in the future. — Marchjuly (talk) 19:13, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- I'd put the information in Category:Cinemas in Allentown, Pennsylvania in the same category. It's useful and interesting sure, but still better served by cited somewhere else. For instance Wikidata. I'm not sure most of those cinemas would qualify for individual Wikipedia articles, but that's the kicks sometimes. That said, I'm pretty sure the bar for inclusion is a lot lower for articles about geographical locations then other subjects. So I don't see why it couldn't be included in [1]. It looks like there's already a lot of overly detailed, unreferenced material in the article already. So really what's the difference at this point? There's no reason Atwngirl can't cut the article back and include whatever she wants to there instead of putting it on Commons where no one is going to see it. BTW, it looks like she hasn't even edited the article before and it's been edited thousands of times by a single user in the meantime, which is interesting. Either way, the article could definitely use more people editing it and a more diverse range of information about Allentown. --Adamant1 (talk) 04:48, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- I don't necessarily disagree with any of that, but at the same time this does seem to be sort of related to COM:PS#Excluded educational content, at least it seems that way to me. Would similar text content be allowed, for example, on a Commons user page per COM:PSP? I get that Commons isn't English Wikipedia and thus the latter's policies and guidelines don't apply per COM:NOTWP; however, it doesn't seem as if Commons should be the place for posting or hosting an individual's or group's original research per COM:NOT#Wikimedia Commons is not an encyclopedia, dictionary, guide, or book. — Marchjuly (talk) 17:42, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
- I mean, at the very least it's not in a discoverable place. Who among us, seeking encyclopedic information on an item, visits its category page on Commons? Furthermore, the polyglot nature of Commons militates against it becoming an alternate enwiki repository of this stuff. Elizium23 (talk) 15:53, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
It's been more than a week since Atwngirl was pinged/notified of this discussion, but they still haven't responded. Their last Commons edit was on February 4. It's quite possible they just are busy with other things, but Commons still marches on; so, perhaps it's time to figure out what if anything needs to be done here. Should these category pages just be blanked of text completely? Should only a short paragraph remain? Is only an infobox really needed for those pages that have them? -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:30, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- Should these category pages just be blanked of text completely? Certainly not, though it may make sense to edit them down considerably. I think the example I gave above shows about what is appropriate. Also: where there is no equivalent en-wiki content, it would be good to save any content (beyond what is effectively covered by the remaining text or infobox) on the respective talk pages (on Common or, if there is a relevant article, on en-wiki) as potential material to flesh out for en-wiki in the future. - Jmabel ! talk 16:06, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- I'm not so sure that we should take it upon ourselves to preserve much of this at all; if it is unsourced and original research, no Wikipedia project would accept it anyway, certainly not enwiki. If it can't be sourced and doesn't meet WP:V, then it must be removed outright. The WP:ONUS, burden of proof, is on the person adding material, so if Atwngirl is unable to do so within a short time frame here, we should absolutely, completely, remove unsourced material. Elizium23 (talk) 17:15, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- Those are all Wikipedia policies, aren’t they? Do we have commons policies that she is violating? I’m not a fan of citing Wikipedia shortcuts on commons. Commons is not Wikipedia (thank god). - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 20:35, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- Since the text which Atwngirl has contributed would only be appropriate for inclusion on enwiki, that's the only wiki whose policies should be considered when deciding whether to retain or delete this text, right? Commons policies would dictate that we remove it all, completely, immediately; we have no use whatsoever for it here. Elizium23 (talk) 21:21, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Elizium23: I disagree, and in fact here is an edit that you recently made along these lines (unrelated to User:Atwngirl) that I think is dead wrong. The person whose material you removed, User:Publichall, has consistently shown themself to be very knowledgable on Seattle architectural history, and while I wish they had provided a citation, the material you removed could be very useful to date specific photos of the building (or simply to identify them as this building) and/or to help someone find this building in a search for any of several businesses that were based there. Removing information about architects seems particularly odd: Commons routinely indicates information about architects of buildings, and almost no one her provides a citation when (for example) adding an architect category as a parent category for a building category. - Jmabel ! talk 23:57, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- I think sourcing and verifiability here on Commons is more than a little bit bonkers, considering what people can get away with in terms of depicting things in images that they would never, never in a million years be able to write in prose on any Wikipedia project without a reliable source. But, you do you, I guess. Elizium23 (talk) 00:05, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- I think having at least one paragraph helps cover subjects that might never meet the main wiki's notability requirements but I'll admit to getting a bit long winded for some, since the coverage of these subjects on the wiki is so severely lacking, I'm trying to link as many of these photographs together as possible for future researchers to benefit from. In most cases here it seems that linking to a Wikipedia article is the only form of citation, so it gets messy when there is nothing in the Wiki to even reference, especially when trying to justify parent categories. I'm currently putting together a full article for the building in Jmabel's linked category, and when I get around to publishing it and making a wikidata entry for it, the description can be be chopped down as needed. In the meantime It's more or less a memo for further research. Publichall (talk) 06:10, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- I'd suggest that when removing material that is uncited but plausible, it's best to move it to the talk page. Very few people will ever find it in the history. Similarly, the talk page may often be a better place to put "a memo for further research" in the first place. (Statements about living or recently dead people are, of course, a different matter: anything the least bit controversial should be well-sourced.) - Jmabel ! talk 16:30, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Elizium23: I disagree, and in fact here is an edit that you recently made along these lines (unrelated to User:Atwngirl) that I think is dead wrong. The person whose material you removed, User:Publichall, has consistently shown themself to be very knowledgable on Seattle architectural history, and while I wish they had provided a citation, the material you removed could be very useful to date specific photos of the building (or simply to identify them as this building) and/or to help someone find this building in a search for any of several businesses that were based there. Removing information about architects seems particularly odd: Commons routinely indicates information about architects of buildings, and almost no one her provides a citation when (for example) adding an architect category as a parent category for a building category. - Jmabel ! talk 23:57, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- Since the text which Atwngirl has contributed would only be appropriate for inclusion on enwiki, that's the only wiki whose policies should be considered when deciding whether to retain or delete this text, right? Commons policies would dictate that we remove it all, completely, immediately; we have no use whatsoever for it here. Elizium23 (talk) 21:21, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- Those are all Wikipedia policies, aren’t they? Do we have commons policies that she is violating? I’m not a fan of citing Wikipedia shortcuts on commons. Commons is not Wikipedia (thank god). - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 20:35, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- I'm not so sure that we should take it upon ourselves to preserve much of this at all; if it is unsourced and original research, no Wikipedia project would accept it anyway, certainly not enwiki. If it can't be sourced and doesn't meet WP:V, then it must be removed outright. The WP:ONUS, burden of proof, is on the person adding material, so if Atwngirl is unable to do so within a short time frame here, we should absolutely, completely, remove unsourced material. Elizium23 (talk) 17:15, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Atwngirl She can start a Fandom wiki called Allentown, Pennsylvania and link to it from Wikidata, even if she starts an English Wikipedia article on a topic, it can be backed up at Fandom, in which she would have admin rights. We can also enclose the category text in a box and have it closed by default, so it doesn't push down the images, but it would still have the text available to provide keywords. --RAN (talk) 00:08, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- That may make sense. Having dealt with Atwngirl before, I doubt we will get much of a response and a lot of the edits will be steathily reverted a few months from now under the excuse that it wasn't perfectly done. I spent months and months breaking Category:Newspaper advertising in Allentown, Pennsylvania all from crazy decade categories into Category:The Morning Call (Allentown, PA) by year but they all got reverted back without any discussion and are stored in the decades structure which has thousands of images at a time. It is clear someone wants to create their own universe of articles and stories and categories but very few of these things are going to be used because they are organized in overly broad categories and someone will fight to keep them that way. If someone does clean up the category descriptions, have the pages kept on your watchlist. You will go nuts. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 09:20, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- If Atwngirl is too busy with real world stuff at the moment to respond, then I don't believe there's any need to wait any longer to try and resolve this. If at some later date, Atwngirl disagrees with whatever turns out to be the consensus here, they can ask for clarification at that time. Whatever text content is removed from the category pages will still be in the page history if Atwgirl wants to retrieve it at some later date to use somewhere else. I'm not sure that storing the content on the category talk pages is really a good thing; however, if that's the consensus, then so be it. Finally, Atwngirl has been a pretty prolific uploader over the years, but many of their uploads have ended up deleted via DR or some other reason. Going through all those that remain and assessing their licensing is probably going to take a fair amount of time as well. Perhaps in the process of doing that, the category pages can be cleaned up a bit too. -- Marchjuly (talk) 23:21, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
- Have we come to any firm conclusions as to what to do though? The material doesn’t appear to be causing any harm. Why would we remove it? - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 09:05, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
- There's probably lots of things uploaded to Commons that don't appear to be causing any harm depending upon how one defines the word "harm". Will the continued hosting of this content be the straw that breaks the back of Commons? Almost certainly not. The question is whether this content fits within the purpose of a Commons category page, isn't it? COM:NOTWP states that Commons isn't a local Wikipedia in the sense that local Wikipedia policies and guidelines need not be applied; however, implied in that "Commons is not Wikipedia" thinking is that Commons is also not a free web host where one should be able to post whatever they please per COM:SCOPE#Wikimedia Commons is not an encyclopedia, dictionary, guide, or book and COM:HOST. A pattern seems to have been established by Atwngirl to create extensively detailed category pages that appear to be pseudo-articles. Perhaps, they have a reason for doing this, but they should explain how they believe these pages comply with SCOPE. If nothing is done and the categories are simply left as is, then similar category pages probably will be created at some point in the future, which means potentially more things to clean up. -- Marchjuly (talk) 23:56, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
- I don’t necessarily disagree with your concerns, but it doesn’t seem like similar categories are being created. I do think your concern is valid, but in this situation perhaps it might be better to actually wait to see if problems occur. One thing that might be helpful is if we drafted an actual guidance page for category descriptions - unless I’m very much mistaken we don’t have any real documentation that goes into real depth in this. I know that for heritage-listed properties of New South Wales I include a copy of the CC-BY-4.0 descriptions provided by the NSW State Heritage office and these are quite detailed.
- I would love to see a guidance page and I’d be happy to discuss it, start one (or update an existing one!) as a draft and we nut this out formally. It would give a lot more certainty to everyone and reduce argument and division. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 01:06, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
- I think this is already a problem. There are a number of category pages like this one which have already been created by this user. Many were created years ago and the gradually expanded over time; for example, Category:Hippodrome Theater, Allentown, Pennsylvania. There’s seems to be no need to wait see what they might do next because it's already quite clear what they've been doing; in other words, a pattern has already been established. It's not only creating category pages, but also file uploads that this user has been quite prolific at doing. Many of the files uploaded aren't being used by any projects. Some of these may potentially have educational value, but many seem as if they were uploaded for personal storage purposes more than anything else. Many have also been already deleted or are currently nominated for deletion due to questionable licensing. In addition, this user doesn't seem to be very active on English Wikipedia. If they were uploading files and immediately adding them to articles, then that would one thing. That, however, doesn't seem to be why they are uploading most of these files or creating most of these category pages. — Marchjuly (talk) 02:14, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
- Copyright issues are, of course, a problem and need to be dealt with, but if someone is uploading content that would be useful for a local historian, that's fine. It doesn't have to be useful to a WMF project. I've uploaded (or in some cases just curated) a ton of images about Seattle that are probably of limited interest to anyone not from here, but have already proved really useful to local historians, especially architectural historians. I was actually given an award by the local chapter of Docomomo mainly because of how many of my photos were showing up in landmark applications, especially when they were looking for images of comparable buildings. I hadn't even been aware of it until they approached me. I'm sure that very few of those images ever made it into Wikipedia. - Jmabel ! talk 06:40, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
- I understand this and have no problem with this when it comes to files. I guess the point I was trying to make is that if Atwngirl was incorporating their uploads into Wikipedia articles or creating Wikipedia articles, then perhaps the very detailed content added to the category pages would also be something eventually intended for Wikipedia. That doesn't seem to be the case though, at least not to me. It probably doesn't matter for files as long as their licensing is OK, but it seems wrong and outside SCOPE (at least in my opinion) for extensive text content that's pretty much unsourced and written in Commons' voice. Since September 2016, it looks like Atwngirl has created somewhere between 1000 and 1500 category pages. Some like Category:Wert's Cafe, Allentown, Pennsylvania, Category:937 Hamilton Building, Allentown, Pennsylvania and Category:Pennsylvania Power and Light Building seem OK, but others like Category:Crocodile Rock, Allentown, Pennsylvania, Category:YMCA of Allentown, Pennsylvania, Category:Ralston's Flowers, Allentown, Pennsylvania and Category:Fountain Park Pool, Allentown, Pennsylvania seem like pseudo-Wikipedia articles based on someone's original research. If the consensus is that types are category pages are OK for Commons, then that's good enough for me and nothing further needs to be done. On the other hand, if they're not really OK, then that's a lot of category pages to go through and check; so, it would probably be a good idea to at least advise Atwngirl not to create any more such pages until those already created can be assessed. -- Marchjuly (talk) 09:02, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
- That's awesome Jmabel! Well done, a reward well deserved :-) Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 10:55, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
- Whether the files are or are not used by Wikipedia should not have any baring at all on whether they are valid. I am personally unable to use my CC images on Wikipedia, but I don't see why I shouldn't upload them. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 10:54, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
- I've already clarified my first post about files not being used by any local Wikipedias, but once again I have no problem with files being hosted by Commons as long as they satisfy COM:HOST and COM:PCP; so, if you upload your work to Commons and it meets HOST, then fine; if not, maybe it should be deleted since Commons isn't intended to be someone's personal photo album per se. The issue with the category pages is the extensively detailed text that some of them contain. Files with questionable licensing or SCOPE issues can be dealt with as such files are usually dealt with. -- Marchjuly (talk) 11:38, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
- Thanks, just wanted to clarify :-) - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 11:59, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
- I've already clarified my first post about files not being used by any local Wikipedias, but once again I have no problem with files being hosted by Commons as long as they satisfy COM:HOST and COM:PCP; so, if you upload your work to Commons and it meets HOST, then fine; if not, maybe it should be deleted since Commons isn't intended to be someone's personal photo album per se. The issue with the category pages is the extensively detailed text that some of them contain. Files with questionable licensing or SCOPE issues can be dealt with as such files are usually dealt with. -- Marchjuly (talk) 11:38, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
- Copyright issues are, of course, a problem and need to be dealt with, but if someone is uploading content that would be useful for a local historian, that's fine. It doesn't have to be useful to a WMF project. I've uploaded (or in some cases just curated) a ton of images about Seattle that are probably of limited interest to anyone not from here, but have already proved really useful to local historians, especially architectural historians. I was actually given an award by the local chapter of Docomomo mainly because of how many of my photos were showing up in landmark applications, especially when they were looking for images of comparable buildings. I hadn't even been aware of it until they approached me. I'm sure that very few of those images ever made it into Wikipedia. - Jmabel ! talk 06:40, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
- I think this is already a problem. There are a number of category pages like this one which have already been created by this user. Many were created years ago and the gradually expanded over time; for example, Category:Hippodrome Theater, Allentown, Pennsylvania. There’s seems to be no need to wait see what they might do next because it's already quite clear what they've been doing; in other words, a pattern has already been established. It's not only creating category pages, but also file uploads that this user has been quite prolific at doing. Many of the files uploaded aren't being used by any projects. Some of these may potentially have educational value, but many seem as if they were uploaded for personal storage purposes more than anything else. Many have also been already deleted or are currently nominated for deletion due to questionable licensing. In addition, this user doesn't seem to be very active on English Wikipedia. If they were uploading files and immediately adding them to articles, then that would one thing. That, however, doesn't seem to be why they are uploading most of these files or creating most of these category pages. — Marchjuly (talk) 02:14, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
- There's probably lots of things uploaded to Commons that don't appear to be causing any harm depending upon how one defines the word "harm". Will the continued hosting of this content be the straw that breaks the back of Commons? Almost certainly not. The question is whether this content fits within the purpose of a Commons category page, isn't it? COM:NOTWP states that Commons isn't a local Wikipedia in the sense that local Wikipedia policies and guidelines need not be applied; however, implied in that "Commons is not Wikipedia" thinking is that Commons is also not a free web host where one should be able to post whatever they please per COM:SCOPE#Wikimedia Commons is not an encyclopedia, dictionary, guide, or book and COM:HOST. A pattern seems to have been established by Atwngirl to create extensively detailed category pages that appear to be pseudo-articles. Perhaps, they have a reason for doing this, but they should explain how they believe these pages comply with SCOPE. If nothing is done and the categories are simply left as is, then similar category pages probably will be created at some point in the future, which means potentially more things to clean up. -- Marchjuly (talk) 23:56, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
- Have we come to any firm conclusions as to what to do though? The material doesn’t appear to be causing any harm. Why would we remove it? - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 09:05, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
- if the pseudo-articles have a lede paragraph, keep the lede, and hide the rest using the hide html code, that way they can be search, but not displayed. --RAN (talk) 02:49, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
Comment I still don't see why a lot of this couldn't be transferred over to Wikidata. A lot of these categories don't have Wikidata entries associated with them anyway and it would be great if they had infoboxes. Plus, Wikidata is perfect for storing local historical facts that probably lack enough references to qualify for Wikipedia articles. Dumping it all on Commons is completely backwards though, and there's zero indication that Atwngirl even tried other options before adding the information to the categories. From what I can tell she isn't even active on Wikidata. That's not on us and it isn't our responsibility to deal with just because she doesn't want to do it.Although, I'm more then willing to transfer some of it over to Wikidata myself if we can all agree about how to deal with it. There should also be some kind of acknowledgment on Atwngirl's side that she just use Wikidata in the future. I'm not going to take the time to make sure the information is preserved and stored in a more appropriate way if she's just going to continue doing it though. Also, I like @Chris.sherlock2: 's idea of "nutting" this out more formally. It should really be in the guidelines somewhere not to use categories as pseudo Wikipedia articles or Wikidata entries. That said though, I think we can separate the (likely) need for a broader discussion about it from this specific incident and deal with it regardless of if there's nothing formally in the guidelines. Most things on here are informal and we still deal with them.As a side to that, I don't think moving the information to talk pages is the best way forward either because the information is still available in the edit history and it just passes the problem up one more level in the chain without actually resolving it. There's fundamentally zero difference between a category and a talk page when it comes to what the purpose of the project is, which isn't to be an alternative to Wikipedia. So Category talk pages shouldn't be used as pseudo Wikipedia articles anymore then the categories themselves should be. Which means there's only two options here. Transfer it to Wikidata or delete it. Period. Let's also "nut" it out in the long-term though. But again that doesn't mean we can't deal with this now on it's own merits. The information in the categories is clearly excessive and needs to be cleaned up. --Adamant1 (talk) 14:03, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
- I think the commenting out is the best of the ideas I've seen: preserves what is potentially useful (albeit unsourced and in the wrong place), keeps it out of users' collective face. Wikidata might be a good idea, but someone should first check there (wikidata:Wikidata:Project chat) about whether they'd want this given the lack of citeable sources.
- @Atwngirl: it would be very helpful if you would participate in this conversation. I'd hate to do something this large to your work without your participation, but by ignoring us you are leaving us very little choice. - Jmabel ! talk 17:34, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
- If the consensus is to "hide" content on the category pages, then that's fine as long doing so doesn't create some "new" problem that's going to be sorted out at some point down the road. It should be explained to Atwngirl as to why this was done so as to possibly avoid any wholesale reverting on their part which puts everything back where it was. Some editorial judgement might be needed in some case if the "first paragraph" is insufficient on its own to provide an acceptable description of a particular category. I tend to agree with Adamant1 about moving stuff to the talk page since that seems not too different from hosting on the category page itself. I don't know very much about Wikidata. If the consensus is that Wikidata is a more suitable place to host the content, then that's fine. I added a {{Please see}} template to Atwngirl's user talk page on February 6 and you (=Jmabel) have just added another one. Atwngirl posted the following in September 2022, I do not post much to commons right now, as I have a newborn to take care of here. The real world affects us all and perhaps they're just too busy to currently devote any of their time or energy to this matter. If the consensus is to wait a bit longer, then so be it; however, this should be resolved in some way at some point.Maybe while waiting a bit longer to hear from Atwngirl, it would be better to split off into a new discussion to discuss either enhancing what already exists or developing something new to address category pages or pages in general that seem to be pushing the boundary of COM:SCOPE#Wikimedia Commons is not an encyclopedia, dictionary, guide, or book. If the place to do that is here or at COM:VPP, then cool. If it's better to do so at Commons talk:Project scope, then cool too. Since it seems like a big change that could affect lots of existing pages, maybe a COM:RFC would be the best way to discuss such a thing like this. -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:00, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
- Wikidata might be a good idea, but someone should first check there (wikidata:Wikidata:Project chat) about whether they'd want this given the lack of citeable sources. I can guarantee that most of this can be sourced and fairly easily. Maybe not up the standards of Wikipedia, but Wikidata has a much lower notability bar. Just to pick a random example, Category:Lehigh Valley Trust Company (there's a totally ridiculous and unnecessary amount of detail in the category BTW), it took me literally two seconds to find this source that has their funding date. So there's really no excuse for the information not to be in Wikidata. Let alone for it to be in Commons completely unreferenced. --Adamant1 (talk) 19:59, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
- Do you know if we can use the <ref> tags at Commons? I have a number of categories for stuff that wouldn't fit into Wikipedia but is notable enough for Commons. I'd like to be able to reference it like I used to with Wikipedia. I was, even if I do say it myself, a very good article writer :-) I'd like to hold myself to the same standards on Commons. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 03:47, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
- We don't normally use the <ref> tags at Commons, because almost nothing on Commons should have a complicated set of references requiring footnotes. You can cite your references inline. - Jmabel ! talk 07:25, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
- That’s what I’ve been doing. Thanks. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 08:56, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
- We don't normally use the <ref> tags at Commons, because almost nothing on Commons should have a complicated set of references requiring footnotes. You can cite your references inline. - Jmabel ! talk 07:25, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
- Do you know if we can use the <ref> tags at Commons? I have a number of categories for stuff that wouldn't fit into Wikipedia but is notable enough for Commons. I'd like to be able to reference it like I used to with Wikipedia. I was, even if I do say it myself, a very good article writer :-) I'd like to hold myself to the same standards on Commons. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 03:47, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
February 16[edit]
Cropping images[edit]
How much should an image be cropped by to remove a damage / border / sticker artifact, before it ought to be re-uploaded as a separate file?
This is a crop to 70% of the previous image size. See others too: Vysotsky (talk · contributions · Move log · block log · uploads · Abuse filter log) My concern is that for some of these, like the motor-racing ones, we're starting to change the original composition of the image. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:12, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- Thanks for asking this question. (1) I upload higher resolution images of files, e.g. Images from the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed (a set of 485,000 photos, of which 25,000 are used in several language versions of Wikipedia). I always look carefully for any improvements or crops that have already taken place since the original upload date and only use images from the same source. (2) I also crop pictures (from other databases, like the Anefo examples you mention here) if there are irregularities in the image. I take care to keep the original composition by cropping only damaged parts. If I think the composition would be changed by cropping, I ask specialists at the Photography workshop to remove the watermark without cropping. Vysotsky (talk) 16:35, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Andy Dingley and Vysotsky: There is zero question that 70% crop should have used a different filename. Any crop of an image from an organized archive should use a different filename; the only exception is to remove excessive white borders, and even that is a judgement call. - Jmabel ! talk 16:38, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- Sorry, one other exception: removing a watermark that is in a margin. E.g. the overwrite here. - Jmabel ! talk 16:41, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Andy Dingley and Vysotsky: There is zero question that 70% crop should have used a different filename. Any crop of an image from an organized archive should use a different filename; the only exception is to remove excessive white borders, and even that is a judgement call. - Jmabel ! talk 16:38, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- I would certainly prefer a different filename on those. It is not obvious that the white area there is better than having a watermark. - Jmabel ! talk 17:55, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- Really? My proposal would be to crop away the lower part of the grass (photo 1), the right 5% of the wall (photo 2) and the lower part of the sand (photo 3) and upload these crops as new versions of the original images. The composition of these press photographs will roughly stay the same, the original can still be found and no essential part of the photos will be missing. The alternative (filling the white areas with resp. grass, sand or wall) is not very attractive and much more time-consuming. Uploading as a separate image is a waste of time, if you ask me. Vysotsky (talk) 20:32, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Vysotsky: I see: I thought that white area was the result of some Commoner's removal of a watermark, but I take it those were clipped at the Dutch National Archive (a weird decision on their part, if you ask me). I really don't have an opinion what best to do when the archival source has already screwed up the image by clumsily removing a watermark. I would not oppose cropping in these cases, but I'd also have no problem with using a new name and keeping these as an indication of precisely what is in the archive, rather than that being semi-hidden in the history.- Jmabel ! talk 00:05, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Vysotsky: Uploading a separate image does not have to be such a waste of time; have you looked into using dFX? — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 00:13, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- These negatives are large glass plates. The white rectangles are paper catalogue stickers. In most cases they're off the image area, but it some cases they're over it. That's no problem to remove if the negatives were wanted commercially, but it wasn't done before the bulk scanning.
- If anyone ever wants to crop these images in the future, that's up to them (we massively crop a lot of the group portraits to extract notable individuals). But those go back as new filenames. We should preserve the original images (even at the cost of a visible sticker), there's not much push to crop these pre-emptively. I'm not going to argue over small crops, but if we're taking more than maybe 10% (this is open to discussion) I think this should be a new file. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:31, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- I think we're nearing consensus. I would only like to address the time aspect once more. Anefo photographs are used heavily (total image use of this collection >170,000, distinct image use >22,000). If a photo is used in dozens of Wiki language versions (the record Anefo image is being used 352 times on Wiki) I would have to replace the watermarked image by a cropped image manually in several language versions if I would upload the last one as a separate file. This seems a bit of an overkill, if I only remove a piece of grass, wall or sand. So I think the proposal by Andy Dingley (small cropping up to 10% is OK) would be beneficial, if these crops replace the original. There should be no change of the composition. Vysotsky (talk) 09:32, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Vysotsky: You do not need to do this manually in all Wikipedias. That is what User:CommonsDelinker is for. - Jmabel ! talk 15:55, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- I think we're nearing consensus. I would only like to address the time aspect once more. Anefo photographs are used heavily (total image use of this collection >170,000, distinct image use >22,000). If a photo is used in dozens of Wiki language versions (the record Anefo image is being used 352 times on Wiki) I would have to replace the watermarked image by a cropped image manually in several language versions if I would upload the last one as a separate file. This seems a bit of an overkill, if I only remove a piece of grass, wall or sand. So I think the proposal by Andy Dingley (small cropping up to 10% is OK) would be beneficial, if these crops replace the original. There should be no change of the composition. Vysotsky (talk) 09:32, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- Really? My proposal would be to crop away the lower part of the grass (photo 1), the right 5% of the wall (photo 2) and the lower part of the sand (photo 3) and upload these crops as new versions of the original images. The composition of these press photographs will roughly stay the same, the original can still be found and no essential part of the photos will be missing. The alternative (filling the white areas with resp. grass, sand or wall) is not very attractive and much more time-consuming. Uploading as a separate image is a waste of time, if you ask me. Vysotsky (talk) 20:32, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- I would certainly prefer a different filename on those. It is not obvious that the white area there is better than having a watermark. - Jmabel ! talk 17:55, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- What if instead of cropping, the images get retouched/restored, with the restorations uploaded as new files and used in articles? This photo would be rather easy to restore, at least the white strip on the right (I use GIMP, and the Fix and Clone tools work wonders on removing scratches, blemishes, and text). It would be a bit trickier to retouch the sticker areas in the others two, but the more savvy volunteers at Commons:Graphic Lab/Photography workshop could probably clone and fill-in the grass and dirt. Heck, maybe I'll try restoring one tomorrow. --Animalparty (talk) 07:50, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Animalparty: sure, but definitely under a new file name. - Jmabel ! talk 16:31, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- What if instead of cropping, the images get retouched/restored, with the restorations uploaded as new files and used in articles? This photo would be rather easy to restore, at least the white strip on the right (I use GIMP, and the Fix and Clone tools work wonders on removing scratches, blemishes, and text). It would be a bit trickier to retouch the sticker areas in the others two, but the more savvy volunteers at Commons:Graphic Lab/Photography workshop could probably clone and fill-in the grass and dirt. Heck, maybe I'll try restoring one tomorrow. --Animalparty (talk) 07:50, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- why is it necessary to crop out the white part? it doesnt affect the subject of the image. it's part of history now -- the original full photo has lost a part to whatever caused the white part.
- have you not seen surviving fragments of old publications? they are what they are.
- it's even worse to "restore" the missing part, which is fake. RZuo (talk) 07:12, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- There are two aspects: to make the photo a good illustration of the subject on one hand, and to keep a historic photo on the other. For the first, a crop or faking some grass is probably the best route, for the second, you want to keep the composition exactly as in the original and don't want to manipulate the photo (except to correct for distortions during the scan). If the second aspect is compromised, you want a new filename. We might not want to document what is in the archive, but rather the original; unless we want, cropping away things outside the photo proper is a "minor" change. –LPfi (talk) 08:16, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
Nicourt company[edit]
The Category:Nicourt contains a series of postcard photographs published by Nikolaos Kourtidis from 1936 to 1940. However, it is not clear whether it is common property because we do not know the date of Kourtidis' death, nor even who has the copyright (if anyone has them) — Preceding unsigned comment added by ΔώραΣτρουμπούκη (talk • contribs) 19:18, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- The most appropriate license would be "PD-EU-no author disclosure". Kourtidis is the publisher and the photographer was anonymous. --RAN (talk) 05:52, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- thank you!! ΔώραΣτρουμπούκη (talk) 18:47, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- There is the additional issue of U.S. copyright. In the URAA date of 1996 (I assume these are Greece postcards), 70 years had not yet elapsed even from 1936. If the term was 70 year pma already then, I assume these are copyrighted in the U.S. until 95 years after publication, which would be 2031–2035. –LPfi (talk) 08:25, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
- thank you!! ΔώραΣτρουμπούκη (talk) 18:47, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
February 20[edit]
"City" has various colloquial meanings ranging from "very large town" to "local administrative unit of any size". In consequence and looking at our categories there is no clear understanding whether the subcats in Category:Categories by city are catch-all for stettlements of any status or if there should be differentiation into "by city", "by municipality" (which in some subtrees is understood as a general term including cities, sometimes as excluding them) and in some coutries "by town" and "by village" for further differentiation. Cats with "by city" as catch-all are still dominating, but the other subtrees are growing. This leads to e.g. "Category:Churches in Foo" being in different trees depending on the administrative status or size of foo. In practice it even leads to the objects being in "by-city" trees as well as in "by-municipality" trees as some topics differentiate between the two and others don´t.
My questions: (a) Should subtrees be formed along the status of the relating local administrative unit or not? (b) If not, is there a word that is universally understood to cover all kinds of towns and villages, making it clear both fit in the category? --Rudolph Buch (talk) 14:59, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- i think for many countries "municipality" isnt a relevant concept. like
usa it's all counties or cities.china is all cities or "prefecture-level administrative divisions". - but for some countries where municipality is a distinct concept from city, that distinction should be explicitly written down on the cat page.--RZuo (talk) 09:53, 23 February 2023 (UTC)--RZuo (talk) 07:00, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
- @RZuo and Rudolph Buch: RZuo is wrong here about the U.S. "Municipalities" in the U.S. is broader than cities: it includes incorporated "towns" or "townships", "villages", and (in some states) "hamlets", and probably several other entities I'm not thinking of. In some states (e.g. New York) there is nothing unusual about having a "village" or "city" within a township.
- "Counties" (or in Louisiana "parishes") are distinct from municipalities, but the relationship between the two is a bit weird, and varies from state to state. Typically counties are larger (though I believe some large cities are coincident with a county, and New York City has five counties—also known as boroughs—within the city), and there is nothing unusual about a city crossing county lines (Bothell, Washington is a good example of that).
- So, at least for the U.S. (1) it's not neatly a tree (2) "municipalities" is clear, but doesn't deal with the municipality vs. county issue. I know that Spain has some similar issues: autonomous region -> province -> comarca (in some provinces, and I believe the Basques have a different name for this) -> municipality (plus a special case for Madrid, where the city is at the level of an autonomous region; and at least Rioja has the autonomous region be identical to province). - Jmabel ! talk 16:17, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
- Regarding question (b): I often find categories based on the term "populated places". --HyperGaruda (talk) 07:33, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
- In the case of the Philippines, "municipality" is not a term for all incorporated places, the opposite of "municipality" in the United States. Municipalities here are essentially towns, having lower local administrative powers than cities. "Town" is also used here but informally; in official and administrative contexts smaller types of incorporated settlements are called municipalities. Both cities and municipalities are divided into wards called barangays. To simplify, if U.S. calls their smaller incorporated places as towns, then the Philippines calls the same places as municipalities.
- We do not have a general term for all municipalities and cities (whether independent [Highly-urbanized cities] or not [Component cities]). But a loose term, "local government unit" (LGU) is typically used to refer to the universal term for all Philippine cities and municipalities. The problem is that the provinces are also LGUs, as well as barangays (or wards of Philippine cities and municipalities). This was recently discussed on English Wikipedia here. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 08:14, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
- Santiago in Chile is a city with 34 municipalities. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 09:18, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
February 21[edit]
Community feedback-cycle about updating the Wikimedia Terms of Use starts[edit]
Hi everyone,
This February 2023 the Wikimedia Foundation Legal Department is planning to host a feedback cycle about updating the Wikimedia Terms of Use (ToU) from February, 21 to April 2023. Full information has been published here.
The Terms of Use are the legal terms that govern the use of websites hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. We will be gathering your feedback on a draft proposal from February through April. The draft has been translated into several languages, with feedback accepted in any language.
This update comes in response to several things:
- Implementing the Universal Code of Conduct
- Updating project text to the Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0 license (CC 4.0)
- A proposal for better addressing undisclosed paid editing
- Bringing our terms in line with current and recently passed laws affecting the Foundation including the European Digital Services Act
Regarding the Universal Code of Conduct and its enforcement guidelines, we are instructed to ensure that the ToU include it in some form.
Regarding CC 4.0, the communities had determined as the result of a 2016 consultation that the projects should upgrade the main license for hosted text from the current CC BY-SA 3.0 to CC BY-SA 4.0. We’re excited to be able to put that into effect, which will open up the projects to receiving a great deal of already existing CC BY-SA 4.0 text and improve reuse and remixing of project content going forward.
Regarding the proposal for better addressing undisclosed paid editing, the Foundation intends to strengthen its tools to support existing community policies against marketing companies engaged in systematic, undisclosed paid editing campaigns.
Finally, regarding new laws, the last ToU update was in 2015, and that update was a single item regarding paid editing. The last thorough revision was in 2012. While the law affecting hosting providers has held steady for some time, with the recent passage of the EU’s Digital Services Act, we are seeing more significant changes in the legal obligations for companies like the Foundation that host large websites. So with a decade behind us and the laws affecting website hosts soon changing, we think it’s a good time to revisit the ToU and update them to bring them up to current legal precedents and standards.
See the page on Meta to get all the information.
On behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation Legal Team,
Zuz (WMF) (talk) 12:41, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Zuz (WMF) Your second link is broken (superfluous "wiki"), should be updating the Wikimedia Terms of Use. El Grafo (talk) 13:17, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- Of special relevance to Commons, these proposals remove the ability for projects to opt out of the blanket policy on disclosure of paid contributions, so Commons:Paid contribution disclosure policy, which permits paid editing without disclosure, wouldn't be allowed. --bjh21 (talk) 20:09, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
- Actually, the change there is quite unclear as to whether it does that or not. I have started a discussion at meta:Talk:Terms of use#Commons and paid editing. - Jmabel ! talk 20:42, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Bjh21: See meta:Talk:Terms of use#Commons and paid editing. It sounds like you are wrong about this. If you think the proposed wording is unclear about this, you might want to engage with a follow-up question there. - Jmabel ! talk 07:28, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
- @El Grafo Oops! sorry about that. Thank you for pointing this out.The link is fixed now. . Best, Zuz (WMF) (talk) 15:03, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
February 22[edit]
Bad licenses on OK files[edit]
In following up on a user question on Help desk I noticed that a lot of images that are just signatures have totally bogus CC licenses. I'm guessing that all (or nearly all) of these would be OK as {{PD-signature}}. Should there be an effort to go through and fix these systematically? Or is it really not that important that these PD files are marked with bogus CC licenses? - Jmabel ! talk 21:56, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
- Bogus licences should not be accepted. It is understandable that new users add bogus licences in PD cases, but the licences should be corrected. So yes, there should be such an effort, but I don't know how to do it efficiently. –LPfi (talk) 08:38, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
I can't work out the scope of this category, and its creator is blocked so I can't ask him about intent.
- I can't even tell what portion of the category is proper noun and what isn't, and since the only parent category is Category:Columbia River Gorge I can't get there by intersecting parent categories.
- We have a Category:Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, which seems a more likely parent than Category:Columbia River Gorge. Given that this was created as a subcat of Category:Columbia River Gorge rather than Category:Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, is there any reason to believe that these images all fall within the latter?
- Is there a work called Historic Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Photos and this is originally intended as a category specific to that work?
- I think not: I see one image here as recent as 2007, placed there by the same banned user who created the category.
- In any other case, "photos" should be lowercase.
- Given that it's not all one proper name, what does "historic" mean here? Before some particular date? If so, what date?
- Again the 2007 image put in by the creator of the category makes me wonder…
- …is this category useful at all? - Jmabel ! talk 23:27, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
- No, not useful at all. That sockpuppeteer created a lot of poorly named categories to dump mass uploads in (rather than putting in the effort to properly categorize the images.) Feel free to recategorize the files to the parent, then delete. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 07:48, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
- Man. I'm going through Category:Historic Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Photos. What a mess. I've been through 75 of these. Many of these images had no categories dealing with anything other than provenance, and half of the topical categories were just plain wrong. Some of these were in no sense in the Columbia River Gorge, either. Plus the dates were just digitization dates of photos mostly 75+ years old.
- Just FYI:
- Every file I've looked at so far was also in Category:USFS files uploaded by Tyler de Noche, and I'm leaving that cat on them. They seem to have come from a USFS Flickr account.
- These were all marked as {{PD-USGov-USDA-FS}}, and probably had the PD mark in Flickr, but that federal PD designation is clearly wrong for most of them. I've mostly found postcards, certainly not by USFS or any other government agency and certainly not photographed by a government employee in the course of their duties. Some are old enough to be clearly {{PD-US-expired}}, some are old enough to be likely {{PD-US-not renewed}} (I don't imagine many black-and-white or hand-colored postcards from before 1940 or so got renewed), some are harder to date. For now, I'm not taking up the copyright question on what I'm going through, but someone may want to go through Category:USFS files uploaded by Tyler de Noche and Category:Photographs by the United States Forest Service Northwest Division and do a copyright review. Please don't just do a mass-deletion, most of these look OK, but someone needs to do the legwork, and I have a lot else on my plate, way too much to want to take that on. - Jmabel ! talk 04:44, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
February 23[edit]
February 24[edit]
Suggestions for naming convention[edit]
User @Tm has uploaded thousands of photos from the Web Summit flickrstream which is great. The problem is that the filenames are mostly meaningless. For instance there are files that start with 2022 - Crypto PO1 eg File:2022 - Crypto PO1 7505 (52475273803).jpg and this classic one File:HM1 9267 (45779386761).jpg. I renamed this to a more meaningful name viz File:Florian Simmendinger, HM1 9267 (45779386761).jpg. This tells you immediately who is in the photo and still retains the meaningless HM1 9267 sequencing. Adding the name of the person to the filename should make it easier to find in a Google search too.
TM disagrees with my renaming these files and has reverted them. So before an edit war starts I would appreciate some feedback and ideas for a better way of naming these files as there are thousands like this Gbawden (talk) 06:42, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Gbawden and Tm: Perhaps the two of you can come up with some consensus on this? Certainly File:2022 - Crypto PO1 7505 (52475273803).jpg and File:HM1 9267 (45779386761).jpg are not good file names as they stand. They may be meaningful to someone, but the rest of us lack the relevant decoder ring. - Jmabel ! talk 07:14, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
- Zuindest derzeit ist es noch so, dass flickr2commons nur dann keine Duplikate hochlädt, wenn der Flickr-Dateiname auf commons nicht verändert wird (siehe techn. Wunschliste 23). Und ist es wirklich so, dass der Rang bei einer Google-Suche (oder auch einer Suche auf Commons) vom Dateinamen wesentlich beeinflusst wird? Ist es nicht viel mehr so, dass Dateiname, Description im Info-Template, SDC-depcicts und Kategorien hier gleichrangig berücksichtigt werden? C.Suthorn (talk) 07:21, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Tm: I notice that you have said the following on User talk:Gbawden, "Would be much to ask, that if you must move the filenames, to do it in a way that does not break the sequence of files that are of the same subevents and that are next to one anothers?"[2]
- Could you please explain how the sequencing is meant to work? To someone with no knowledge of this event, I am struggling to see the pattern you are trying to preserve. If the files were renamed but kept the "HM1 9267" part of the reference at the start of the new name, would that resolve your objection? From Hill To Shore (talk) 08:30, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
- Categorizing them is much easier if the pictures remain listed in the order they were taken, so images of the same person or podium stay together in category view. If you feel you must change the name regardless, please add the the additions at the end of the original file name and not at its beginning, retaining the original sorting order. Generally I don´t see much advantage in "meaningful" file names and see them just as a technical identifier and would put the effort rather in meaningful categorization than in renaming. Rudolph Buch (talk) 08:49, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
- As stated by Rudolph Buch. If the files, like File:2022 - Crypto PO1 7505 (52475273803).jpg must be renamed (despite metadata, filedescription, categories, file info and structured data) it would be better to be renamed to something like File:2022 - Crypto - Mike Butcher - PO1 7505 (52475273803).jpg, so this way preservees files of the same event together and the id of the photo given by the Web Summit. Tm (talk) 12:15, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
- Also, why did Gbawden moved a file and then locked it? Tm (talk) 12:38, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
- As stated by Rudolph Buch. If the files, like File:2022 - Crypto PO1 7505 (52475273803).jpg must be renamed (despite metadata, filedescription, categories, file info and structured data) it would be better to be renamed to something like File:2022 - Crypto - Mike Butcher - PO1 7505 (52475273803).jpg, so this way preservees files of the same event together and the id of the photo given by the Web Summit. Tm (talk) 12:15, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
- Categorizing them is much easier if the pictures remain listed in the order they were taken, so images of the same person or podium stay together in category view. If you feel you must change the name regardless, please add the the additions at the end of the original file name and not at its beginning, retaining the original sorting order. Generally I don´t see much advantage in "meaningful" file names and see them just as a technical identifier and would put the effort rather in meaningful categorization than in renaming. Rudolph Buch (talk) 08:49, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Rudolph Buch I am trying to do both. I am moving into categories (having to create many first) but my preference is to have an indicator of who is in the photo, to make it easier to identify at a glance. For example if we stuck 10 photos starting with 2022 - Crypto in Businessmen from the United States, you would have to open each file to see who is in the photo. Putting their name in the photo makes it a little easier IMO Gbawden (talk) 10:16, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
- I agree that it´s nice when a file name contains the information you are looking for. So if I´m looking for a certain person, file names should include people´s names. If I´m looking for a certain time, file names should include dates. If I´m looking for a pose, names should include poses. If I´m looking for chairs, chair types should be included as well. To honor everyones perspective of "meaningful" (i.e. "what it means to me") File:2022 - Crypto PO1 7505 (52475273803).jpg might be File:IMG52475273803 Mike Butcher with a tablet and glasses and gray hair sitting on a white leather chair in front of black vertical pillars looking left wearing boots while speaking at Crypto Form at Crunch conference at Web Summit in Lisbon in 2022.jpg" after a fair number of renames until everyone has added his personal "first glance" requirements. Files names will never be perfect and renames have disadvantages, so file information should be on the file pages and not in the file names. Rudolph Buch (talk) 11:14, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Rudolph Buch: This is a straw man argument. Few people are ever likely to be looking for a picture of black vertical pillars, etc., but if no one is ever likely to be looking for a picture of Mike Butcher, then there is little point to having this photo. Pictures of people giving talks are rarely labeled with such trivia, and presumably you know that. Please discuss this in good faith. - Jmabel ! talk 16:59, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
- There are categories for all those elements, so for some people they seem to be important. Does "straw man" mean that you want me to discuss only based on my own interests? Ok: Currently I try to recategorize all files from to top level category "Category:Politicians" into subcats of "Category:Politicians by country". This means looking at 2500 files, 1500 now still to go. People´s names in the file name don´t help with this task, country name at first glance would be great. Next step will be that someone sorts the files in Category:Politicians of Brazil (another 1100 files) to state level. Again, people names in the file name do not help, only state names would. Last step is to move them into individual object categories. Even at this stage, file names do not matter, as you´ve got to check the match of the file description anyway. But what matters in the whole process is that file names which show them as being part of a set and make them stay together in the file lists are not broken. If someone uploads 70 images of Brazilian Politicians and numbers them in a unique way, it´s just a few clicks to shift them all. If the cohesion is broken by renaming them, each of the 70 has to be checked an processed on its own. So if you rename please respect that other users may have different needs or workflows and that you might not even be aware of those. (Sorry for the long text, hard to be short in a foreign language) Rudolph Buch (talk) 17:57, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Rudolph Buch: This is a straw man argument. Few people are ever likely to be looking for a picture of black vertical pillars, etc., but if no one is ever likely to be looking for a picture of Mike Butcher, then there is little point to having this photo. Pictures of people giving talks are rarely labeled with such trivia, and presumably you know that. Please discuss this in good faith. - Jmabel ! talk 16:59, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
- I agree that it´s nice when a file name contains the information you are looking for. So if I´m looking for a certain person, file names should include people´s names. If I´m looking for a certain time, file names should include dates. If I´m looking for a pose, names should include poses. If I´m looking for chairs, chair types should be included as well. To honor everyones perspective of "meaningful" (i.e. "what it means to me") File:2022 - Crypto PO1 7505 (52475273803).jpg might be File:IMG52475273803 Mike Butcher with a tablet and glasses and gray hair sitting on a white leather chair in front of black vertical pillars looking left wearing boots while speaking at Crypto Form at Crunch conference at Web Summit in Lisbon in 2022.jpg" after a fair number of renames until everyone has added his personal "first glance" requirements. Files names will never be perfect and renames have disadvantages, so file information should be on the file pages and not in the file names. Rudolph Buch (talk) 11:14, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
- I really feel like there is more heat than light here. Most of this seems like people arguing for getting exactly their own way rather than trying to reach a consensus. So let me jump back in.
- @Gbawden: am I correct that what you propose doing would still keep the old file name as a redirect? And am I correct that you would also still embed that within the now file name? If so, would you have any objection to putting the stuff you want to add after the existing file name? (I personally don't consider this last preferable, but it seems like some other users are rather invested in keeping these in their current order.)
- @Rudolph Buch: I'm still not sure of the relevance of some of your remarks to the matter at hand. How are these filenames specifically more useful in the categorization you want to do? And is there anything in adding more information as a suffix that would interfere with what you want? - Jmabel ! talk 20:22, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
- Mit durchgängiger Nummerierung benannte Dateisets eines Uploaders deuten auf Gemeinsamkeiten der Bilder hin. Kategorien für ein Bild treffen dann häufig auch auf die weiteren Bilder zu. Suffixe zu diesen Ziffernfolgen sind unschädlich, Prefixe oder ein Löschen sind es nicht. Rudolph Buch (talk) 00:55, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
- meaningless filenames like File:HM1 9267 (45779386761).jpg should be renamed.
- there's not much merit in preserving any camera formatted names like "HM1 9267". when i rename such files i'd only retain the flickr number.
- the argument for retaining these arbitrary strings is built on an assumption, that the category is static, i.e. no new images would be added. as soon as someone else uploads other files from a different source and doesnt follow your "naming method", the contents would still be messed up.
- for a mass event like this, it's not uncommon to have coverage from multiple sources.
- moving a file back to a nonsensical filename is abuse of filemover that should be removed.--RZuo (talk) 07:00, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
- I am happy to add a name after the sequence. I think we can close this discussion Gbawden (talk) 07:56, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
- @RZuo You are the second person to point out that @Tm abused their file mover right. Me removing that right now might look vindictive Gbawden (talk) 07:59, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
- As i said above, what you call "arbitrary strings" is in fact the filename short title, i.e. the websummit photo id that has information like the photographer. And as a volunteer, as you are, i dont have 24/7 to move files to proper names and only make it when i have he time avaible Tm (talk) 11:07, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
- Or time to repair filename like File:Martins Imhangbe at Web Summit Martins Imhangbe, Web Summit 2022.jpeg or File:Martins Imhangbe at Web Summit Martins Imhangbe, Web Summit 2022 (cropped).jpeg to its previous names before their moves justified as "better name", in both files, because only better than having the name of depicted person twice in the filename os having it three names. Tm (talk) 11:18, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
- As i said above, what you call "arbitrary strings" is in fact the filename short title, i.e. the websummit photo id that has information like the photographer. And as a volunteer, as you are, i dont have 24/7 to move files to proper names and only make it when i have he time avaible Tm (talk) 11:07, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
Curation of bulk uploads (lack of.)[edit]
Category:Scans from the Internet Archive Category:Books_uploaded_by_Fæ
Okay , Simple question, Whose reviewing these to remove copyvios?
These were uploaded by Fæ in good faith, in response to the possiblity of IA being disrupted by an ongoing row with publishers, but in the 2 years since the bulk upload, there has not been anything like the visble, active curation to remove works incompatible with Commons as would be desirable.
As there seems to be a lack of visible active curation, the simplest brutally pragmatic approach to ensure commons is not inadvertently hosting material which is not license compatiable or constitutes copyvio, is to assume anything post 1927 (for US works) and 1900 1903 (for Non-US) works, is going to still be in copyright, and start bulk deletions on that basis, if there isn't compelling evidence of other licenses (such as no-notice, US Gov works etc.)
As it would be a shame to loose over 1 million files, Commons has a choice. Start active curation, or mass delete ENTIRE categories of material.
I'd like to see an implementable strategy within a week so. Thanks. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 20:19, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
- @ShakespeareFan00: wouldn't that be 1903 for Non-US works (120 years)? That's our usual standard. - Jmabel ! talk 20:25, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
- It is thanks... I'm not entirly happy with {{PD-old-assumed}} , but it is Commons consensus.ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 20:36, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
- 75% of all works between 1928 and 1964 never renewed copyrights according to the New York Public Library. --RAN (talk) 05:17, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
- A case in point:=- https://petscan.wmflabs.org/?psid=23943907 is 430 or so mis-licensed files... Most are likely non-notice, but it's time consuming to run every single one against the PG transcriptions of renewals/registrations. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 20:40, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
- I have no idea why you gave those two options. There are lots and lots of media that is uploaded that no one reviews. The bigger issue is the lack of categories for most of those uploads which is probably the best way to find the copyright problems. Something like File:The way to more beautiful homes and more profitable farms through our complete catalogue for year 1932 (IA waytomorebeautif19boun 0).pdf would be better off if someone had the time and energy to break out the images from the PDFs and categorize them but this isn't going to happen on any reasonable, normal timescale. It would be easier to find a problematic set of uploads and request their deletion like Commons:Deletion requests/File:Abraham Lincoln's secretaries (IA abrahamlincolnssjnlinc).pdf this discussion did. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 02:49, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
- Yes, but that still needs someone to do the curation needed. You Volunteering? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 06:46, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
Notice of global ban[edit]
User:PlanespotterA320 has been globally banned per m:Requests for comment/Global ban for PlanespotterA320 (2). AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 21:24, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
- His anti-Russian behavior was the reason for the ban. He has nominated over 1,000 Russian images for deletion. Will his nominations be reversed? They are all based on the same premise, but all nominated as individual images, scattered over the past 6-month queue. --RAN (talk) 02:44, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
- Reversed how? Commons:Deletion requests/File:Юрий Никулин в детстве 01.jpg is still an open nomination, for example. I don't know if "request is by a globally banned user" is really that relevant but they remain open discussions. Ricky81682 (talk) 02:53, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
- That is just one, of several hundred opened by a banned editor, they were nominating under an SPA, after being blocked. --RAN (talk) 05:13, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
- Hi, as the drafter of the ban discussion, I'd like to inform that community need to review the previous deletion requests, nowadays, some of her DR requests were found as trolling, these photos are really PD-Russia and speedily declined, if there are some evidence for PD, it need to be reversed.
@Stemoc@Richard Arthur Norton This user has a lot of DR requests, scattered over years and years, nearly all of them are in relation to PD-RUSSIA, PD-Soviet and PD-Ukraine. Well at this time, I persuade to leave them alone or undelete them. Lemonaka (talk) 00:17, 27 February 2023 (UTC)- That isn't the way things are done but if you want to propose a mass undeletion because you think the editor was purely trolling (and I don't know if trolling because they were biased or what), that would be a complicated undeletion request. Otherwise, I think it's best for people to tag these as Category:Russian law deletion requests and Category:Ukrainian law deletion requests and watch those categories. It would have been helpful if someone had done that tagging in the past but it is not impossible to review the oldest page creations within Commons and also for the various socks. Discussions like 1, 2 and 3 don't seem related to Russia in any manner and seem fine to me. Ricky81682 (talk) 06:54, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Ricky81682No, no, no, I don't mean their behaviour is purely trolling and need a mass undeletion, batch undeletion is totally absurd. I meant that all the deletion needs to be reviewed, with the help of volunteers. Some of them are trolling, while others are not. It will take a lot of times for us. Lemonaka (talk) 17:12, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
- Most of the older ones seem benign issues. The current ones are all each an argument about the publication date which I don't think is pure trolling but there are many very, very sloppy proposals like Commons:Deletion requests/File:AI Cherepanov.jpg and Commons:Deletion requests/File:AGShirshov.jpg. Ricky81682 (talk) 19:04, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Ricky81682No, no, no, I don't mean their behaviour is purely trolling and need a mass undeletion, batch undeletion is totally absurd. I meant that all the deletion needs to be reviewed, with the help of volunteers. Some of them are trolling, while others are not. It will take a lot of times for us. Lemonaka (talk) 17:12, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
- That isn't the way things are done but if you want to propose a mass undeletion because you think the editor was purely trolling (and I don't know if trolling because they were biased or what), that would be a complicated undeletion request. Otherwise, I think it's best for people to tag these as Category:Russian law deletion requests and Category:Ukrainian law deletion requests and watch those categories. It would have been helpful if someone had done that tagging in the past but it is not impossible to review the oldest page creations within Commons and also for the various socks. Discussions like 1, 2 and 3 don't seem related to Russia in any manner and seem fine to me. Ricky81682 (talk) 06:54, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): What do you actually mean by "anti-Russian behavior"? Honestly I don't understand this expression. Anti-Putin? Pro-Ukraine? Pro-Putin? There is a lot of possible meanings... Regards --A.Savin 17:36, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
- A lot of the recent deletion requests are based on an argument about very old Russian photographs and whether the publication date is accurately described/even required to be described. A number are very sloppy in terms of nominations. Earlier ones were demands that their uploads be deleted because they were going to be banned for their antics. Before that seems more benign. Ricky81682 (talk) 19:09, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
- Comment I am closing all these DRs. It seems like revenge DRs or something like that. If there is any issue, please renominate. Yann (talk) 06:19, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
February 25[edit]
Annoying problem during FileExporter use[edit]
I have been undergoing occasional but annoying message during FileExporter use, in transfering User:Patrickroque01's local enwiki files to here. The message reads "Failed to discover API location from: <URL link of enwiki image>. HTTP status code 0. Error fetching URL: Received HTTP code 403 from proxy after CONNECT." While it can be resolved by repeating the exporting process, it gets annoying as there are too many images by Patrick Roque that I need to transfer here (of course after undergoing review of Philippine architectural artworks' licensing statuses). This issue only appeared just recently, in late December 2022. Can users engaged in programming or technical matter fix this so that the annoying error message no longer appears at any condition? JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 05:01, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
- @JWilz12345: This is almost certainly a problem that can only be fixed by the Wikimedia sysadmins. I think you can follow the instructions at mw:How to report a bug to report the problem to them through Phabricator. --bjh21 (talk) 10:19, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Bjh21: I will leave that reporting to other users. There are too many photos of Patrickroque01 that still need to be reviewed and transferred here (apparently has treated English Wikipedia as his alternative to Commons despite not so). Adding to that are real-life things and college works of mine. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 11:32, 2 March 2023 (UTC)
Need help with images that might need to be removed[edit]
See the text on the page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/Potential_deletes_from_Flickr_import_by_me_(Thibaultmol) Basically: I uploaded lots of Flickr images last year but hadn't checked each image for potential guideline violations (copyright and such). Please if you're someone that fully understands the guidelines, go over the images I found in my uploads that might be violating it. DON'T JUST FLAG ALL OF THEM. Actually check if the image should be nominated for deletion or not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thibaultmol (talk • contribs) 08:20, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
- You might want to do some work on them yourself, such as grouping them by issue and spelling out the issue. The first of them seem to be photographs with artwork as a main subject, and probably the licence is for the photograph only. Some of these may be de minimis but hardly all. The Flickr user should perhaps be blacklisted. File:Metáfora de una despedida (3267073099).jpg should be OK if it is from a real car (the title suggests otherwise), but please provide a description and categories. Then there is the street art, some of which may be graffiti. –LPfi (talk) 09:53, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
Template:AthenaNikeDecade[edit]
Can someone fix that template ?
- Io Herodotus (talk) 22:48, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Io Herodotus: Well, I made it one step less broken, but with Commons lack of some of what I used to in en-wiki I'm not sure how to make it really good (e.g. degrade gracefully on missing inputs). - Jmabel ! talk 01:38, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
- Thank you. It gives 20000s instead of 2000s, I don't understand why; it's a copy of the template of the Parthenon which works fine. Io Herodotus (talk) 08:10, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
- That was a problem with using the right values when transcluding on the category page itself. I've taken the liberty to fix both that and transform the template into a prettier version based on what is used for the Acropolis. --HyperGaruda (talk) 09:52, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
- Thank you. It gives 20000s instead of 2000s, I don't understand why; it's a copy of the template of the Parthenon which works fine. Io Herodotus (talk) 08:10, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
February 26[edit]
Eye icon in title name not visualized[edit]
Although the name of File:Eye.jpg (File:Eye.jpg) is different from that of File:️Eye.jpg (File:%EF%B8%8FEye.jpg) they show the same file title inside. Also in inline linking as far as I see. ZandDev (talk) 15:53, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
- Courtesy warning to other editors, the second link includes human female nudity. From Hill To Shore (talk) 16:18, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
- The latter filename should begins with Eye emoji (on Emojipedia).
- I've seen that the original file name begins with the following non-visible character: [https://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/fe0f/index.htm U+FE0F VARIATION SELECTOR-16 (UTF-8: 0xEF 0xB8 0x8F)
- I want to change the file name to File:️👁️Eye (Exey Panteleev).jpg for criterion 6 but it seems to be blacklisted. ZandDev (talk) 15:58, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
- Moved to File:️Eye (Exey Panteleev).jpg. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:59, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
Deleted photos without notices and records[edit]
Reviving this discussion: [3]. I'm missing too File:Igreja São Bernardo em Fortaleza.JPG or File:Igreja de São Bernardo em Fortaleza.JPG. Is there any chance where files are deleted without any record? Maybe a bug. Has anyone else made similar complaints? Or am I just going crazy? lol.--Porto Neto (talk) 20:20, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Porto Neto: There were never files at those names. - Jmabel ! talk 23:48, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Jmabel: I won't remember the name exactly, I think it's like that because it was the standard of the titles I posted. But I'm pretty sure I posted that photo and the other one from the archived discussion. It is okay not to restore the photos, but it is important that we are aware of any possible bugs. Anyway thanks for the search. --Porto Neto (talk) 00:01, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
- P.S.:These were photos from 2015 and 2016. --Porto Neto (talk) 00:03, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Jmabel: I won't remember the name exactly, I think it's like that because it was the standard of the titles I posted. But I'm pretty sure I posted that photo and the other one from the archived discussion. It is okay not to restore the photos, but it is important that we are aware of any possible bugs. Anyway thanks for the search. --Porto Neto (talk) 00:01, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
- It is unlikely to be a bug. There are 5 possibilities that I can see:
- The files were uploaded to Commons under different names and have been deleted. These should be visible to administrators. I would expect a deletion notification to be placed on your talk page.
- The files were uploaded to Commons but included content so extreme that an oversight action was needed and the files were deleted. Oversight hides the files from administrators. Depending on the nature of the oversight action, there may not have been a notification on your talk page.
- You uploaded the files under a different account, so they don't show up in your upload list or your list of deleted uploads. The files may be somewhere on Commons under a name you haven't considered yet or they may have been deleted. Any notification about the deletion would be on the talk page of your other account.
- You uploaded the files on a different Wikimedia project and they were stored locally at that site. They may still be there or have subsequently been deleted. You would first have to locate which project you may have uploaded to and then ask a local administrator to check if you have any deleted uploads on that project.
- You never uploaded the files to Commons or any other Wikimedia project.
- An administrator may be willing to check your deleted uploads on Commons but it was noted in the previous discussion in January 2022 that you had no deleted uploads between 2015 and that date. From Hill To Shore (talk) 00:22, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Porto Neto: You have no deleted contributions for any files with names containing "Bernardo" or even "Igreja". Your deleted files are the following (this took some work, but the list should be complete, so there should be no need to ask again):
- File:Fortaleza, Brazil (48568832316).jpg, now a redirect.
- File:Romário Rocha Publicitário.png
- File:Hino de Rondônia.ogg
- File:Hino de Roraima.ogg
- File:Hino do Acre.ogg
- File:Canção do Amapá.ogg
- File:Hino do Tocantins.ogg
- File:Hino do Amazonas.ogg
- File:Hino do Pará.ogg
- File:Hino do Maranhão.ogg
- File:Hino do Piauí.ogg
- File:Rio Grande do Norte.ogg
- File:Hino da Paraíba.ogg
- File:Hino das Alagoas.ogg
- File:Hino de Sergipe.ogg
- File:Hino ao 2 de Julho.ogg
- File:Hino de Santa Catarina.ogg
- File:Hino Rio-Grandense.ogg
- File:Hino 15 de Novembro.ogg
- File:Hino dos Bandeirantes.ogg
- File:Hino do Distrito Federal (Brasília).ogg
- File:Hino de Mato Grosso do Sul.ogg
- File:Oh, Minas Gerais.ogg
- File:Hino do Mato Grosso.ogg
- File:Brasão de Guaiuba - CE - Brasil.png
- File:Hino de Pernambuco.ogg
- File:Hino do Espírito Santo (estado).oga
- File:Hino do Paraná.oga
- File:Antigo Hino do Estado de Goiás.ogg
- File:Hino do Estado do Goiás.ogg
- File:Hino do Estado do Ceará.ogg
- File:Hino de Guaiuba - CE.ogg
- File:Brasão de Guaiuba - CE - Brasil.png
- File:Brasão do município de Guaiuba - CE - Brasil.jpg
- Also Category:Palácio Jõao Brígido and Category:Anthems of States of Brazil
- All but the first two and the category are from either December 2014 or January 2015. It's possible that some of these weren't your uploads, just your edits on something someone else uploaded. It's possible I listed something twice; I've tried to eliminate duplicates where you had multiple edits, but could have missed some.
- Not hard to see the pattern there: mostly recordings that were presumably deleted for copyright reasons that I assume are now clear to you; only three actual images, by my count. I suppose it is imaginable that there is a bug somewhere in the system & something failed to get recorded, but I'd be really surprised: I've never seen that happen to a file I'd ever had my hands on. Jmabel ! talk 00:46, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Jmabel Thank you very much for the search, sorry for making you work so hard on it. I promise not to ask about it anymore. @From Hill To Shore Thank you very much too. --Porto Neto (talk) 01:13, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Porto Neto: You have no deleted contributions for any files with names containing "Bernardo" or even "Igreja". Your deleted files are the following (this took some work, but the list should be complete, so there should be no need to ask again):
February 27[edit]
Can somebody help with the category structure of Checkpoints in Poland?[edit]
Can please somebody who speaks Polish help at Commons:Categories for discussion/2023/02/Category:Border Control Posts? User:Wlodek k1 made a change, see Category:Border Control Posts, but I have the impression it is not a good one because now there still is no connection with Category:Checkpoints in Poland, and the main parent category is only about an organization, not about checkpoints. And I do not speak Polish and Wlodek k1 only speaks Polish (and apparently Google Translate is not helping enough). --JopkeB (talk) 05:06, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
Your wiki will be in read only soon[edit]
Read this message in another language • Please help translate to your language
The Wikimedia Foundation tests the switch between its first and secondary data centers. This will make sure that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster. To make sure everything is working, the Wikimedia Technology department needs to do a planned test. This test will show if they can reliably switch from one data centre to the other. It requires many teams to prepare for the test and to be available to fix any unexpected problems.
All traffic will switch on 1 March. The test will start at 14:00 UTC.
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Trizek (WMF) (Discussion) 21:20, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
February 28[edit]
Trying to identify a photographer signature[edit]
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From 1916. There is a photographer's signature on the photo, at lower left. Below the signature I can make out "NY" and (uselessly) "R05". Given the context, it is probably a major New York theatrical photographer. Does anyone recognize the signature? - Jmabel ! talk 04:23, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
- It looks to be White Studio. White did a ton of theatrical photography from the 1900s to the 1930s. Compare to stamps here and here. Note: sometimes the cursive White logo may be mistaken for the Elite Studio logo (and vice versa), e.g. here. --Animalparty (talk) 19:00, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Animalparty: how confident would you say you are of that? I thought of them, but it didn't seem to me to say "White". Were they often this sloppy with their marks? If you are confident, I'll go with that. - Jmabel ! talk 20:26, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
- I'm about 95% confident it's White Studio. It looks like there's an extra squiggle above "White" that might be an L. (perhaps for Luther S. White who apparently owned the studio but did little if any photographing), or maybe just a stylized flourish. That squiggle is also seen in File:Belle Mitchell, stage actress (SAYRE 6530).jpg. The White logo seems to vary a bit (maybe some were hand written), and sometimes the W gets extra squirrely and starts resembling a capital E, e.g. in File:A scene from "Gypsy Love" (SAYRE 12720).jpg. --Animalparty (talk) 20:55, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Animalparty: Thanks! You've obviously had occasion to look closely at more of their work than I have. - Jmabel ! talk 07:30, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
- I'm about 95% confident it's White Studio. It looks like there's an extra squiggle above "White" that might be an L. (perhaps for Luther S. White who apparently owned the studio but did little if any photographing), or maybe just a stylized flourish. That squiggle is also seen in File:Belle Mitchell, stage actress (SAYRE 6530).jpg. The White logo seems to vary a bit (maybe some were hand written), and sometimes the W gets extra squirrely and starts resembling a capital E, e.g. in File:A scene from "Gypsy Love" (SAYRE 12720).jpg. --Animalparty (talk) 20:55, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Animalparty: how confident would you say you are of that? I thought of them, but it didn't seem to me to say "White". Were they often this sloppy with their marks? If you are confident, I'll go with that. - Jmabel ! talk 20:26, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
Schopenhauer images don’t add up[edit]
Something fishy:
Compare the 1859 photograph of Arthur Schopenhauer by J Schäfer (File:Arthur_Schopenhauer_by_J_Schäfer,_1859b.jpg)
with the 1855 Jules Lunteschütz painting in Schopenhauer.jpg (File:Schopenhauer.jpg)
They are almost identical. It’s possible the artist painted from the photograph, but the dates are incorrect for that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Humphrey Tribble (talk • contribs) 06:03, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
- He might have had a characteristic pose. Remember that at the time a photograph would have involved staying truly still even more than is required for being sketched. - Jmabel ! talk 16:09, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
- There's also a good chance the dates of one or both images are flat wrong. --Animalparty (talk) 19:08, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
[edit]
There are currently 344.673 subcateogries in Category:Category navigational templates for photographs. All the dates of every country are in it now. Why is this? Does this edit have anything to do with this? --トトト (talk) 13:23, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
- @トトト: Specifically this edit has put all categories with {{Country photographs taken on}} into Category:Category navigational templates for photographs. TilmannR (talk) 13:27, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
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- This is tangentially related, but it's completely ridiculous to have some 200,000 individual "photographs taken on" categories that only contain a single image in the first place. It's super obtuse and doesn't help anyone find what they are looking for. Especially once it gets down to the country or municipal level. Really the images in all of the categories should be up-merged and they should be deleted. Otherwise where does it end? 2 million single file categories for every country, municipal division, and date out there? That would be completely unmanageable. It's also not the point in the categories. Regardless though, the issue that instigated this discussion wouldn't have happened if there were reasonable limits. --Adamant1 (talk) 19:50, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
- Normally, single day should not go lower than country level. [originally I miswrote that sentence, sorry!] Given that you can navigate through these day-by-day, I think country-level ones with a single photo are actually less of a problem than typical single-photo categories. - Jmabel ! talk 20:28, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
- Given that you can navigate through these day-by-day You can't though. For instance go to Category:Afghanistan photographs taken on 1939-11-11. There's no way to navigate through it or really most (if not all) of the any of the "Afghanistan photographs taken on" categories day to day because the template is nothing but dead links. The only way that wouldn't be the case or we could navigate them day-by-day is if we created a bunch of empty "Afghanistan photographs taken" categories. It's impossible to do with how things are though. That's a large part of the problem. Either someone creates a bunch of pointless single file categories purely for the sake of making date templates navigable and there's a bunch of dead links in the interim, or there's just a bunch of dead links anyway. Either way it's a ridiculously obtuse and un-helpful way to do things. Best case scenario like 5 of the 15 links in the navigation templates work and even then it usually means creating a bunch of completely random, single file categories. --Adamant1 (talk) 20:57, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
- Normally, single day should not go lower than country level. [originally I miswrote that sentence, sorry!] Given that you can navigate through these day-by-day, I think country-level ones with a single photo are actually less of a problem than typical single-photo categories. - Jmabel ! talk 20:28, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
- This is tangentially related, but it's completely ridiculous to have some 200,000 individual "photographs taken on" categories that only contain a single image in the first place. It's super obtuse and doesn't help anyone find what they are looking for. Especially once it gets down to the country or municipal level. Really the images in all of the categories should be up-merged and they should be deleted. Otherwise where does it end? 2 million single file categories for every country, municipal division, and date out there? That would be completely unmanageable. It's also not the point in the categories. Regardless though, the issue that instigated this discussion wouldn't have happened if there were reasonable limits. --Adamant1 (talk) 19:50, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
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March 01[edit]
Input needed: restructing of {{PD-algorithm}}[edit]
There is currently some discussion at Template talk:PD-algorithm#Legal basis about restructuring that template. The question that needs to be answered is: given that some countries (the United Kingdom) are now extending copyright protection to AI-generated works, should {{PD-algorithm}} remain as a single, globally-applicable license template (like {{PD-textlogo}}), or should it be broken into country-specific templates that describe the distinct situation for that country (like {{PD-Russia}}, {{PD-United Arab Emirates}}, etc). Your input is appreciated. – BMacZero (🗩) 04:18, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
Commons Gazette 2023-03[edit]
Staff changes[edit]
In February 2023, 1 sysop was elected; 1 sysop was removed. Currently, there are 189 sysops.
- User:Cybularny was elected (26/1/0) on 1 February.
- User:Mardetanha was removed on 13 February due to inactivity. He has served as sysop since 24 August 2008. We thank him for his service.
Other news[edit]
Community Wishlist Survey 2023/Multimedia and Commons concluded.
Commons Gazette is a monthly newsletter of the latest important news about Wikimedia Commons, edited by volunteers. You can also help with editing!
--RZuo (talk) 07:59, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
Terms of Use update and WikiCommons[edit]
The WMF right now has a plan to change the terms of use to get into compliance with the European Digital Services Act. Part of that act is about forbidden websites from hosting unlawful content. WikiCommons historically hosts images involving Nazi symbols that are illegal under German law. Under the European Digital Services Act German authorities would be able to make demands to remove those images from WikiCommons. If there's a desire in WikiCommons to keep hosting content that's illegal under German law, it should be important to protest the proposed change in the terms of use. ChristianKl (talk) 18:19, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
- We are an educational project. Hosting Nazi symbols for educational purpose should be fine by German law too (see de:Rechtsextreme Symbole und Zeichen#Rechtliche Situation). We use the mandatory {{Nazi symbol}} disclaimer to warn re-users from illegal reproduction. Not sure how the WMF ToU would change anything here. Can you elaborate? Thanks --A.Savin 19:04, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
- As far as I know, these symbols are not categorically banned. Showing them, hosting them etc. is allowed for a variety of purposes, including education, science, reporting on history and more (§ 86 (4) StGB, § 86a (3) StGB. --Rosenzweig τ 19:15, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
- Wikimedia was incorporated in the United States to take advantage of First Amendment speech protections. The old Terms of Use did not forbid unlawful content to be added to Wikimedia. The WMF wants to add a reference to forbidding unlawful content to be in compliance with EU law.
- Wikipedia articles generally report on history. WikiCommons pages generally don't report on the history that's linked to a given item. Historically, Wikipedia uses fair-use images because it can argue that it uses them in a context where fair-use applies while WikiCommons doesn't host those images because just hosting the image out of context isn't covered by fair-use.
- While you can argue that some of the images that contain Nazi symbols that WikiCommons stores have historical value, I think it's relatively hard to make that case for images like https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Swastika#/media/File:Fractal_swastika_(IFS).png or https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Swastika#/media/File:17-square_swastika.svg ChristianKl (talk) 17:56, 2 March 2023 (UTC)
- Comment in the two images you cited @ChristianKl: , I think COM:SCOPE can apply. File:17-square swastika.svg cannot be deleted as it is in use in many userspace pages like those of Soumyasch's enwiki userspace pages. It was uploaded by Estoy Aquí (talk · contribs). On the other hand, I find File:Fractal swastika (IFS).png, the only extant contribution of Jmknapp (talk · contribs), having little utility. Since it is not used, it can safely be deleted as out of scope. It is interesting to note that Jmknapp hasn't uploaded other files, except this one, making myself think of what was his intention to host this image here. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 23:29, 2 March 2023 (UTC)
- I don't see how the use on Soumyasch's enwiki userspace pages like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Soumyasch/Signature falls under the purposes for which it's allowed to show them under German law. WikiCommons might be fine with images like that getting removed by the Wikimedia legal team or not. I don't have strong feelings either way for content that violates EU law getting removed, but if someone has, now is the time to speak up in the discussion among the terms of service. ChristianKl (talk) 00:22, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
- Especially given that Soumyasch has been inactive for over seven years. - Jmabel ! talk 01:51, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
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- Swastika is not just a nazi symbol. it predates modern civilisation. it had existed long before even "germanic people" emerged.--RZuo (talk) 08:38, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
- There's a simple solution to the "not educational because we're just hosting" problem: Just add a proper description that puts the image in a historical context. Preferably in German. If we can't come up with one, that might be a hint to check if the file is in scope in the first place. El Grafo (talk) 09:53, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
- It is unclear to me what change we are talking about. I don't find any explicit mention of Germany or the EU in the linked document, and mentions of local laws seem to only caution the user of possible actions of law enforcing entities, not anything restricting Commons' scope. It would be absurd if Commons were obliged to follow laws of countries relevant to the media, such as not being able to host media seen as disgraceful for the "great leader" of such a country (the absurdity is even clearer in the case of Wikipedia). Thus, please point out the problematic wording. –LPfi (talk) 09:51, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
- +1, what is the actual problem? El Grafo (talk) 09:57, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
- I also don't see the problem: Will this compliance prevent us from hosting of uncritical propaganda pictures of Naziism including nazi symbols? In that specific case, I won't cry outrage for losing some garbage due to policy. Yet: So far I'd still think even this image would fall under the education exception, as long as it depicts a legitimate person of interest. But, since it was mentioned that Wikimedia Commons is incorporated in the US, I would rather be more worried about coming Freedom of Speech restrictions in the education system of the United States. --Enyavar (talk) 11:04, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
- For anyone wondering, the image in question was just deleted as a copyright violation. It showed a smiling man giving a Nazi salute. Given that its title was the name of a prominent figure in opposing anti-Semitism, it was probably also out of scope, pure trolling on behalf of the uploader. - Jmabel ! talk 18:37, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
- A US company hosting this image of a Nazi salute being performed in Australia is not what the German law is concerned with. A person located in Germany uploading this image to Commons could maybe get into trouble for "exporting" it, though. And that's how I understood the ToU too: Users are responsible for their own actions and need to be aware of local laws that could put them in jail for doing things that would be considered legal in the US. El Grafo (talk) 13:18, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
- I also don't see the problem: Will this compliance prevent us from hosting of uncritical propaganda pictures of Naziism including nazi symbols? In that specific case, I won't cry outrage for losing some garbage due to policy. Yet: So far I'd still think even this image would fall under the education exception, as long as it depicts a legitimate person of interest. But, since it was mentioned that Wikimedia Commons is incorporated in the US, I would rather be more worried about coming Freedom of Speech restrictions in the education system of the United States. --Enyavar (talk) 11:04, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
- +1, what is the actual problem? El Grafo (talk) 09:57, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
- It is unclear to me what change we are talking about. I don't find any explicit mention of Germany or the EU in the linked document, and mentions of local laws seem to only caution the user of possible actions of law enforcing entities, not anything restricting Commons' scope. It would be absurd if Commons were obliged to follow laws of countries relevant to the media, such as not being able to host media seen as disgraceful for the "great leader" of such a country (the absurdity is even clearer in the case of Wikipedia). Thus, please point out the problematic wording. –LPfi (talk) 09:51, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
March 02[edit]
Reminder: Office hours about updating the Wikimedia Terms of Use[edit]
Hello everyone,
This a reminder that the Wikimedia Foundation Legal Department is hosting office hours with community members about updating the Wikimedia Terms of Use.
The office hours will be held today, March 2, from 17:00 UTC to 18:30 UTC. See for more details here on Meta.
Another office hours will be held on April 4.
We hereby kindly invite you to participate in the discussion. Please note that this meeting will be held in English language and led by the members of the Wikimedia Foundation Legal Team, who will take and answer your questions. Facilitators from the Movement Strategy and Governance Team will provide the necessary assistance and other meeting-related services.
On behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation Legal Team,
Zuz (WMF) (talk) 11:22, 2 March 2023 (UTC)
ResolvedLicensed as CC-BY-SA, But surely this is a Philippine Gov edict (PD-GOV-edict)? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 17:33, 2 March 2023 (UTC)
- @ShakespeareFan00: So change it. Or discuss it with the uploader (User:Turistaboy, whom you don't seem to have pinged here). I don't see anything here needing a broad community discussion at VP. Am I missing something? - Jmabel ! talk 19:13, 2 March 2023 (UTC)
- Apologies. Meant to post this on the Copyright portion of the VP to ask for a second opinion. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 19:21, 2 March 2023 (UTC)
March 03[edit]
Apparently video2commons hasn’t been working properly. At least I’m not the only one to note that.
Is there anyone else having similar problems? Does anyone have a clue on how to solve that? RodRabelo7 (talk) 04:51, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
- @RodRabelo7 There are two ways to solve that: 1) You travel back in time about two weeks and vote in the technical wishlist survey for the project to repair video2commons. 2) you wait 11 months and vote in the next technical wishlist survey for the project to repair video2commons. C.Suthorn (talk) 09:58, 4 March 2023 (UTC)
CC BY applicable or not: can I upload this image?[edit]
I would like to upload this image used by Huntley (2019: 34), with the statement "After Burgess et al. 2004, map used with permission". Please download its PDF version and you will find CC BY with remarks "Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (...) The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material" at page 42, i.e. the end of the article. These two statements are tormenting me and I am not sure whether I can upload the image here under CC BY. Burgess et al. (2004), copyrighted work with no known CC licenses, is available at ResearchGate and I have found a possibly corresponding map at page [20] from which Huntley apparently took only their concept with very limited part of the whole map and arranged in a somewhat different style. Can't we infer that the author of image is now Huntley and CC BY is applicable to it? --Eryk Kij (talk) 07:04, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
Category:Maps by century shown[edit]
Is Category:Maps by century shown a good name? I would be tempted to rename it to Category:Maps by century.
- Io Herodotus (talk) 20:53, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
- Category:Maps by century could be confused for Category:Maps by century made. I suggest keeping the current name for clarity. TilmannR (talk) 21:05, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
- Thank you. --Io Herodotus (talk) 21:36, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
Categorizing newspapers by their cartoons[edit]
I have been noticing a large number of anonymous edits (I think they are related) categorizing a number of newspapers edition PDFs in odd categories like Category:Uncle Wiggily, Category:Howard Roger Garis, Category:Lang Campbell, Category:Anthropomorphic beavers, Category:Anthropomorphic pigs, etc. I asked @Joostik: what was the reason for this edit as it seems odd to say that the 1922 edition of the Glendale Evening News is a subcategory of Uncle Wiggily. I think they are categorizing these by the cartoons inside the newspapers but it is hard to discuss this when it is largely anonymous editors. It makes more sense to strip out of the comics (they are likely all public domain) into separate images but does it make sense to have basically every comic on a day-to-day basis as separate images here? It seems to have an educational purpose. Ricky81682 (talk) 20:56, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
- Seems pretty weird as a topical category for an entire newspaper. And I don't really see us wanting the full run of a comic, though I guess if someone wants to put in the effort it would be OK. Not sure how best to handle this. If someone is planning to do that, I'd suggest turning what is used on the PDFs into a maintenance category, effectively just indicating that there is something in there some Commoner may want to grab. - Jmabel ! talk 04:38, 4 March 2023 (UTC)
- I think it's silly. The first issue is that things should go down to the proper category instead of having the comic, the author, the illustrator, the general anthropomorphic bunnies parent, all having the same thing if we do do it. At best, we could have a separate Category:Newspaper editions containing Uncle Wiggily comics which I find absurd. Again, it's impossible to deal with since there is no one to speak to. I may just make a comment on the talk page and remove all these categories as Joostik isn't clear either. I just hope this doesn't end up with some slow-moving anon edit war situation but the anons will be pinged by the revert notices. Ricky81682 (talk) 07:39, 4 March 2023 (UTC)
Category:Charlie Brooks categorization[edit]
Similar to above, there are a lot of newspapers that have been put into Category:Charlie Brooks. I don't see the connection between 1920s newspapers in Glendale, CA and a British actress born in 1981. Ricky81682 (talk) 21:14, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
- @Ricky81682: If this had been done by a logged-in user, I'd say to ping them, but it wasn't, so just remove it. It is certainly generally OK to second-guess someone working from an anonymous IP who did something apparently wrong with no stated rationale. - Jmabel ! talk 04:41, 4 March 2023 (UTC)
- That’s fair but we are talking about more than 40 files by maybe 30 separate IP addresses I think. Just seeing if anyone else knows the logic here. Ricky81682 (talk) 05:08, 4 March 2023 (UTC)
- Charlie Brooks (a different one) is named as Illustrator of the Uncle Wiggily cartoons in these newspapers.--Raugeier (talk) 07:08, 4 March 2023 (UTC)
- @Raugeier It wasn't en:Charles Brooks (cartoonist) and I didn't see it at en:Charles Brooks. Should we create a new category for this person? It seem like these would all be covered by categories into Uncle Wiggily as a subcategory of the illustrator anyways. Ricky81682 (talk) 07:33, 4 March 2023 (UTC)
- Charlie Brooks (a different one) is named as Illustrator of the Uncle Wiggily cartoons in these newspapers.--Raugeier (talk) 07:08, 4 March 2023 (UTC)
- That’s fair but we are talking about more than 40 files by maybe 30 separate IP addresses I think. Just seeing if anyone else knows the logic here. Ricky81682 (talk) 05:08, 4 March 2023 (UTC)
Establishing a connection from a person's user account on Commons to that person's creator-page on Commons[edit]
I posted a question here: "If a creator has a user account on Commons and wants to connect their username to a creator-page on commons (or their entry on wikidata), is there a way to do that? So that such an established connection can be used to replace individual permission statements for each artwork from that user? This user here appears to be willing to establish such a connection, but unwilling to have to release files one by one (e.g. via Commons:Email templates/Consent). --Bensin (talk) 23:17, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
- Most commonly, proof of identity is established via VRT, and then we slap a {{Verified account}} on their userpage. In this case, they have provided public proof of their identity that anyone can verify, so they just need to add a link to [4] on their userpage. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 23:28, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
![[4]](https://www.davidrevoy.com/XYZ/proof.png){kind=link}
March 04[edit]
Batch Categorization[edit]
Is there a way to add categories in bulk? For example, in the Category "Houses in Charleston, South Carolina," I would like to add the categories of "1-story buildings," "2-story buildings," etc. and also "Brick buildings," "Wooden buildings," etc. Is there a way to do that other than individually opening each image and manually adding each category, one-at-a-time?--ProfReader (talk) 03:03, 4 March 2023 (UTC)
- There are a few ways to do it. My preferred choice is VFC. Once you install that, then you'll see a choice "Perform batch task" in your left nav. Go to Category:Houses in Charleston, South Carolina, click that choice, and you are into VFC for that category. It's a little bit arcane -- I'd say 10 to 45 minutes of learning curve, depending on your background -- but it works pretty well once you learn it. I find the "custom replace" action the most useful. For example, you can replace a particular category with two categories separated by a linefeed, one of them en exact match for the original so it stays in that category as well. On your first few tries (and maybe well beyond), you should definitely use the "Examine scheduled changes" feature before you select "Execute". - Jmabel ! talk 04:53, 4 March 2023 (UTC)
Trouble uploading new version of Photo[edit]
When I try to upload a new version of photo file, it just says "Copy uploads are not available from this domain." What does it mean? Satsukihuffingtoon40 (talk) 09:28, 4 March 2023 (UTC)