Template talk:Information/Archive 1

Copyright tags and categories

In addition to the information in this template, the image desciption page should also contain the appropriate license tag(s). The image should also be placed on at least one gallery page, and/or in at least one category.

"Other versions" seems like a fairy obscure parameter to include in a general template. To be honest - this whole template seems fairly pointless, we already tell people what information they should include, and the sort of people who omit vital information aren't going to be using this template anyway. ed g2s • talk 23:29, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

No these other versions aren't pointless. There are quite a lot images out there where you need it. And yes this template is easy structured. This is intentionally. This template don't want to win a price for beeing fancy and nice. By the way, people don't make the image description right at the moment but it is amazing how detailed and accurate the image descriptions look like after the same people use this template. Have a look yourself. And of course people contributing lots of content simply use it and don't talk about it if and how they should use it. And this template has some further advantages, you can extract the information automatically, a feature that is very important for a real image database. Arnomane 00:10, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Data grouping is done with categories. I never passed comment on the structure of the template so I don't know what that complaint was about. Sure a few images have "other versions" but by no stretch of the imagination is it a majority. A general use template such as this should stick to the basic information, and anything thing else can be put outside the template, or in an "other" field. Also licensing can be fully described by the licensing tag so "permission" seems unneccesary as well. ed g2s • talk 14:36, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Well I never said that you can't do it also in a completly other way. But this template gives people a frame and you can't do much wrong with it. If you forgot something to add you see it after you saved it. Regarding the "other versions": This is usefull for at least 20% of all images: E.g. you can link to a external TIFF-Version of that image (especially with NASA image), or you can link to a source file of a diagram (very helpful if you want to change some small parts), another version of the same image or an image of the same object with a different perspective. This template is as generic and easy as possible. And no a license can't be described fully with a license template. E.g. you uploaded an image from a site where you got an email permission. Then you can quote that email permission within Permission variable or you use it for justifying why a certain image has expired copyright. Believe me it is no fun to decide afterwards only out of the template if it is justified that this image has that license. And of course there are even people that want to enhance my template with even more variables (I cleray say, that I won't add further variables to this template as it would be too comlicated and none would use it, but people can enhance it with their own templates, eg: Template:AtilleI). And of course I tagged also some images you uploaded yourself and I could considerably enhance the quality of the image description (e.g. Image:Polar_bears_near_north_pole.jpg, there is another one from yesterday but you probably see it on your watch list). And by the way during this work walking trough all "pictures of the day" and enhancing the image description I found several candidates with wrong information and corrected it or even hat to put them onto deletion request. Arnomane 14:57, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Used with permission is irrelevant to the commons, as thrid partu use must be allowed. The copyright tags completely cover all the possible licenses as far as I can see. As for "other versions", I just took a random sample from what links here and found 4 uses on 50 pages, well below 20%. Whilst I was taking this sample I noticed that "permission" in almost all cases just repeated the name of the copyright tag, or ("GFDL, see below"). ed g2s • talk 11:04, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry that I shortened what I meant with "permission": I meant "permission to license it under a free license" not "permission to use it only within the commons". I'm very much aware of the license requirements of the Wikimedia commons. And this permission string is very helpfull in e.g. this case: Image:Magic-Telescope.jpg. What if I only would have given the license tag and the weblink? Which other person would know that everything I did was right? Permission variable is the justification and the proof of the license tag nothing else. Arnomane 14:40, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

full ack: justification of the license claims is often forgotten, but is very important. But maybe the field should ne named differently (but how?). The alternative versions are not that important I belive, but they do not hurt either. Thanks btw for this template, people really seem to like to have a fill-in-the-blanks way of creating a description page.

Maybe we should add license tag and categories as parameters, also. But this may get confusing syntax wise... -- Duesentrieb 15:08, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Why I don't use this template

I agree with ed g2s above, "this whole template seems fairly pointless". As well as "other_versions" being rarely used, for my own photographs, the "source" and "permission" fields are unneeded. But my main problem with this template is that people will think they aren't supposed to provide any additional information. And there are cases where a lot more information is appropriate. For example, see Image:Chocolate Bundt cake.jpg, which has its own "References" section. Image:Alpha Centauri relative sizes.png is another example where this template is drastically insufficient. Dbenbenn 15:43, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

I never said that this template is the best solution for everything (e.g. own fotographs with professional cameras) but it is indeed the best generic solution (I don't want to repeat again why the permission section is important). I would be happy if all people would at least provide the information the template suggests them to do (80% of the images do not). Believe me this would be a big quality improvement and I certainly will not enhance this template directly as nobody would use it then. Arnomane 16:02, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

It is not *your* template. Think about it. 62.117.17.96 16:21, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Indeed it is not my template but there are strong technical and practical reasons not to change its variables (everything else can be changed). Hope this clarifies it. Arnomane 17:02, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

I agree that we have to structurate the information, and this template fits well. But the problem is that it is difficult to provide several translations of the description with it. Maybe we should only keep metadata and let people put the description above ? Zubro 18:17, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

Well it is sadly not that directly visible (and thatfor difficult) how to provide translated descriptions inside this template in a structured manner but it is not impossible, see e.g. Image:Ronda_Virgen_de_los_Dolores.jpg (see also the code, the br is needed for a strange problem of the MediaWiki parser). The exact MediaWiki feature that would be needed is that you can give a sub template (the different languages) inside a template variable... The problem with sublists in variables is also the reason why I'm constantly removing list items within the template as you otherwise would have to make double list items inside variables and this would be too confusing. I hope that one day we do not need this template but have a structured field inside the wiki software for such information. Arnomane 16:34, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

formatting strange...

Hi, when I use this template - just by copy & pasting the bit above -- it formats it as if I had put <pre> tags around it. See Image:French Concession building - Shanghai.JPG for an example. Any idea how I can stop this occurring? thanks, pfctdayelise 06:46, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

OK, I just figured out why. It's because it's all indented on this page. Is that really necessary? Can we remove it without breaking the page? That would be ace. pfctdayelise 06:57, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes if you make a copy paste of the patch above there is after every line a blank line: I don't know how to provide a copy & past patch that does not have this. :-( Arnomane 16:03, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Hm. I have removed the br's... I have forgotten why I added them but they are unecessary so your problem is now gone... :-) Arnomane 16:13, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

text following template runs on

Could the template be changed to avoid this run-on using a <br /> break tag?

Example 1 (look at the source here to see what I mean).

DescriptionInformation/Archive 1	The...
Date	created ...
Source	clip ...
Author
Permission (Reusing this file)	...
Other versions	-

Next line of text appears as part of other_versions. (but now appears on next line, so is fixed now -Wikibob 15:38, 12 December 2005 (UTC))

Example 2 avoids the problem by including a blank line just after the template end.

DescriptionInformation/Archive 1	The...
Date	created ...
Source	clip ...
Author
Permission (Reusing this file)	...
Other versions	-

This line of text appears on its own.

If this cannot be avoided, we should mention it in the usage, here.

Example 3, trying to avoid run-on with a break tag.

Description: {{{Description}}}
Source: {{{Source}}}
Date: {{{Date}}}
Author: {{{Author}}}
Permission: {{{Permission}}}
Other versions of this file: {{{other_versions}}}
Now after a break tag this line of text appears on its own, as desired. -Wikibob 23:49, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Well some people had mixed up the template as well, so I have restored an old version again (see edit comment). So your problems seems to be gone (again) if I understood you right. Arnomane 16:07, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it looks good now. Thanks. -Wikibob 15:38, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

dl

Definition lists (dl) were invented to deal with this kind of information. Why don't we use:

;Description : {{{Description}}}
;Source: {{{Source}}}
;Date: {{{Date}}}
;Author : {{{Author}}}
;Permission: {{{Permission}}}

rendered:

Description

{{{Description}}}

Source

{{{Source}}}

Date

{{{Date}}}

Author

{{{Author}}}

Permission

{{{Permission}}}

If there are no objections, I'm inlined to adapt the template --Joris Gillis 15:36, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Looks definitely better and mor readable. My only main concern is: Does this support bullet lists in variables too? As they get used in several ways: see, e.g. Image:2002aa29-orbit.png. (This is why I was against the bullet lists in front of the single fields, although they look better than nothing, but dl would be even better). Arnomane 21:36, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I just tried this: see User:Pfctdayelise/Template:Information (which anyone can use to test with, you just have to put the full name). Notice on this image it leaves a big ugly whitespace. And if I don't have the <br> then the first bullet point doesn't work. So I don't think we can use this. pfctdayelise (translate?) 08:03, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Comments -> noinclude?

Is there any reason not to make the <!-- comments --> into <noinclude>? Then you can see them when you come and look here, but not when you transclude the template. Otherwise I don't really see the point of them. If someone's not going to read the talk page (which explains how to use it) then why would they read the source...? pfctdayelise (translate?) 07:53, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes you're right. I didn't know these noincludes when I did create the template... Arnomane 09:54, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Template:Image

Anyone else seen this one? It's similar to this, but a bit prettier maybe. pfctdayelise (translate?) 12:33, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

No never seen it. Looks nice. Hm I will investigate if we can safely change the template information towards this one... It is definitely nice. I hope that it does not break my lists in variables... Arnomane 10:43, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I have now implemented this style at the template. Looks definitely better now (also better readable) and the problems with the nested lists are still solved. :-) I did also have a look at varoius images using it and AFAIK there are no problems. I have also now made the other_versions invisible if the variable is not used at all or if you did enter a "-". So this should reduce clutter as much as possible and keeping the generic approach at the same time. Arnomane 12:52, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

It's all very nice testing, but I've just noticed the changes and see very little point to have two identical templates, I specifically used this one as Template:Image is well... Rubbish. How's about a revert before I create a new template to keep the old model ? Please REVERT ! Captain Scarlet 13:31, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

And please remember to use the same design for Template:Information-fr. Otherwise, some pages might look odd --Pumbaa 13:32, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Oh no please don't use these translated templates. This is plain stupid as people can make a translation inside a template. I dislike it if people make a "translation" without even thinking about the consequences. I made this template a redirect. 15:31, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, wonderful. Now everyone who ever used the template has to change their descriptions. Did you realize that the French template is in French while the other one is in English? --Pumbaa 16:35, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Hey Pumba I can read french and I will redirect such a template if it is in my mother language German as well. It helps absolutely nobody if you have a generic template displayed to everybody in a local language. This template is instranslateable. Arnomane 16:51, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Oh yes, it does help. Uhm, no, it DID help. Just have a look at this:Image:Tarn_River_(France).jpg. A translation would especially help French people watching pictures on fr.wikipedia.org. --Pumbaa 17:05, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Well why not doing the translation inside the template like in Image:Rammumy.jpg? It helps nobody if we have a large page with zillions of identical templates stacked above each other. Sadly we have currently no way displaying localised image description pages in Commons. I would like these too but currently we have to live with the restrictions. Translation of all descriptions (or at first having good descriptions for all images at all) is what is needed most currently. Arnomane 17:16, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

If you want the description of the fields translated as well, the best way to do this is to add a description page to this image in fr.wikipedia. You can also do this for images included from commons. -- Gorgo 19:50, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I think you don't get the point. The thing is: you can't just delete a template that is in use, deforming all the pages that use it. You should either

• Adapt each and every page that uses Template:Information-fr, which might be a lot of work or
• Leave the template page there, adding a line like "I think this template should not be used, etc. ..."

Besides, I really don't see the point in removing it, especially since it was created by some other user. That's not the nicest behaviour. --Pumbaa 13:54, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Please use this: {{Template deletion request}} --Pumbaa 16:55, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Thank you Arnomane, that's 200 image tags i have to change to get rig of this horrid template ! Captain Scarlet 13:35, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Pardon could you be more friendly and specific what your problem is? Arnomane 15:32, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Sorry if i was a bit abrupt, but put in a very simple way:

• Before = nice
• Now = rubbish

But you can forget about it since I've trawled through every single one of the images I've uploaded and gotten rid of this playmobil template. Regards, Captain Scarlet 16:53, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Ok you're just trolling. You don't want to elaborate the problems of the change seriously. Have a nice day. Arnomane 16:55, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Please don't accuse me when it is you who've made the changes. This new template looks childish, unprofessional and frankly ugly. The old one looked simple, there is really no particular need for these blue boxes which look very token. Regards Captain Scarlet 16:57, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Well who did invent that template? It was me and I can't make everybody happy (see older discussions here). I was always trying to keep it as simple as possible and am definitely thinking that now after the change you can read the desriptions better while it is still simple. Arnomane 17:02, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

You can't just throw the fact that you have created the template back into my face and hope that since you are the user who's opened the article you can make random changes without any chance of remark? Like I've informed you earlier, I have no interest in this template anymore as it’s been duplicated in a more sober, classier and simplified form. Regards, Captain Scarlet 17:09, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Please calm down. I can't make everybody happy but I am always very much interested finding a good compromise of all positions. Arnomane 17:16, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I admit I might have been a bit short tempered, but If I was replying it's because I wanted to reach a compromise. Thing is, I'm not sussed anymore as I do not need to use this template anymore, It was good while it lasted. Cheers ! Captain Scarlet 17:22, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that it is really useful, to invest two hours of time for changing templates because you don't like some features, that could be changed back by two lines of code in your personal CSS. The old template was very plain while the new is a bit more structured and makes it easier to distinguish the titles and the values of the fields. It's just a question of design. I'm not attached to any of both, but please don't create redundant templates only differing in design. What Commons really needs is uniformity. Uniformity is the needed base for multilinguality and therewith usability. --::Slomox:: >< 19:15, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes definitely it is important to have one standard solution to handle them all. And I am really open towards any suggestions and improvements as long as we can keep compatibility with existing descriptions using that template and as long as we try to keep it simple (as simplicity is crucial for acceptance). Maybe changing the color to a grey? Any other suggestions (beside switching back, which I won't do ;-)? 20:24, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I've said it before, if changes to make the very clear template into this confusing and distracting model I wouldn't have had to creat a new template. Wikipedia is made in such a way that users who disagree simply make decisions like these to avoid comflict when neither party is willing to accept the other's position. My opinion is clear, I find the changes horrible and I have no other wish to see the former model return to its original state. Since that's not going to happen, and I do not want to see this template, 3-4 hours of removing {{Information}} and voilà. Now you can put more colours, do whatever... I cannot see the Commons ever seeing some users' desire of universal bland consistency so might as weel accept other users' opinions by simpy avoiding the problem. Grey is acceptable, but isn't nice as no background colour at all. Blue is at best frivolus ;) Regards, Captain Scarlet 20:30, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Well you know a wiki is a collaboration software. And I guess you know very well how many compromises are done in every wikipedia article... So it is not that everyone can makes inside this very wiki everything he wants if he disagree. But for sure I won't revert your personal template as I don't want to waste my time with minor stylistic issues if there are so many images out there that have no description at all... Arnomane 20:47, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Template:Bildbeschreibung

There is a Template:Bildbeschreibung, which is the same as Template:Information, only with German names for the fields. Can anyone operating a bot change the uses of that template to Template:Information? It is completely redundant and exercises the wrong way of localization. The same as with the French mentioned above. --::Slomox:: >< 15:23, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

There is also a Russian one still on COM:DEL. Personally I don't see what's so wrong with them. I would encourage you to take part in the debate before making mass bot edits. pfctdayelise (translate?) 16:26, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

The problem I see with these templates is that people will provide the information only in their native language if they use them instead of providing multiple translations directly inside Template:Information and I did have in the past several times the problem that there were image descriptions entirely in languages like japanese or chinese for example (there are sadly many in German only too...). For sure I would like to have the label names of template:information translated according to the users interface settings but it does not work currently. So IMHO it is currently better not translating this template in order to keep our clean up work easier and concentrating on improving the image descriptions and their translations until we have the desired feature in MediaWiki. Arnomane 18:28, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

But if a user only provides a description in Japanese, why is forcing them to use a template in English going to force them to provide a description in English? I don't believe it will (or should) at all. A good image description is a good image description, regardless of what language it's in and regardless of if it's been translated. I don't believe a caption has to have an English translation to be useful. I think enforcing the use of categories is a more useful and less English-centric approach (we can have templates in languages other than English, but categories we still can't). pfctdayelise (translate?) 19:13, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

We are a multilanguage world - not everyone knows english. There is no reason to prohibit chinese / japanese people from adding stuff to commons. I am Ducth, I happen to have a reasonable command of english and german (or I live with that illusion ;-) ), but in my personal experience many germans and french feel they have not. And even many Dutch people feel restrained to express themselves in English or German. We shouldnt bar them, but stimulate and help them. TeunSpaans 06:05, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Location

from Arnomanes talk page:

Hi Arnomane,

your change in Template:Information mhas as a result that the location no longer appears. See for example: Image:Cercis canadensis 'Forest play' 04-05-2006 14.01.18.JPG

Also, i think in my solution it ddint matter much where you put the parameter. see: Image:Kievitsbloem 22-04-2006 16.05.04.JPG. The text appears in both cases. In your "solution", the text does not appear at all.

t.i.a, TeunSpaans 15:07, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

No my reason is that it is not good having two different location solutions for content in galleries and in image pages. The location fits easily into the description. In your case it is much more better giving a full sentence like "It is located in some place." directly at the image description than just saying "Location: some place". Other people want to make geo-coordinates like you can find it in various Wikipedias. In that case a Template:Location with the geo-coordination data can be embedded the same way into galleries and in the description variable of template information. That way we avoid having zillions of different special solutions for the same purpose. Arnomane 15:21, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, In don't understand you. Surely you dont expect people to note gps locations for their photos? Putting it into the general description is what too many people forget. I dont want it their.

TeunSpaans 16:18, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

If you note the location in words it is language dependant und must go in the description section. For example 'location: Copenhagen' is okay in English but not in German or Danish. --::Slomox:: >< 17:34, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I made a short count (10 recently uploaded pix(, about 40% of them lacked location info. If we dont do anything with this info, peopole will keep forgetting this. The language argument doesnt seem relevant: source, author and probably date are also language dependant. TeunSpaans 06:00, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

If 60% of pictures have location information, then it makes sense to make it a field, even if it is an optional one. Most images do not need language dependent support, those that do can still use the description field, or just put both versions into the location field. Regards, Ben Aveling 10:24, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm kind of surprised this discussion died out. I'd certainly support a location parameter: 99% of my photos are location-based, and for the remaining 1%: it couldn't hurt. --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 17:01, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure about a human-readable location parameter, but it would definitely be nice to merge {{Location}} and {{Location dec}} into this template. I think that this change would help to spur people to add geolocation data to their photos. --bdesham ★ 23:00, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I see no reason to add {{Location}} into Information template. I think the best solution would be to integrate the computerreadable information after information template and before the license-boxes. For location description in words we have the description field. For a standardized way to describe a location in words I see only the way to link to wikipedia. --Kolossos 07:51, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Separation above?

Hi. I started use this template. I note that the top of the table is too close with the "Download..." link between the image and the description table. It's possible to put a line between? I've tried to put blank lines but it looses when edit again. And maybe a br tag, but I think it will be better in template. For a reference please see Image:Camino-inca-dia4-c06.jpg. Regards, --Colegota 10:07, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi Colegota, I had a look but didn't notice anything particularly bad. Maybe it is already solved? Otherwise could you please show some other example? Oh, BTW the photo is really nice :-) Too bad that it is a little blurred, but I guess it can be improved. --Gennaro Prota 19:33, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi. Sorry Gennaro, I missed this comment... Well, in fact it was "fixed" since including the summary heading. Then the "Edit" section link on the right makes the effect of vertical separation. I'm using the perl File Upload script and I didn't notice that it does not put the summary heading as normal ulpoad does. So, my previously uploaded pictures (as Image:Turpan-flaming-mountains-camellos-d04.jpg) has the problem, I'll try to update lately... Regards, --Colegota 10:37, 24 May 2006 (UTC) PD Thanks for the comment about the photo. This set is blurred due to a dust problem with camera, few before sunrise light and ISO 50 film. I sharpened a little the rest of the set, but I leave this unchanged to reflect the "atmosphere". Maybe I'm wrong. ;)

It would be better doing this directly in the interface (via MediaWiki namespace). That way all kinds of descriptions would have the same spacing. Arnomane 10:44, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Hum... then must be the same problem because in Category pages when finish Articles section, the gallery is also too close to it. I don't know what to say where. Can you do it? Thanks, --Colegota 12:42, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Reason for my last revert

White Color for text is never a good idea. The other colors were thus too dark as well. I consider switching the entire template a neutral grey. I don't want a superduper fancy template I want a neutral template that is easily readable and doesn't not get into the way of the people. Arnomane 10:36, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

How to kill Wikimedia servers

Guys, please keep in mind that this template is used a lot - every time it is edited, all pages using it have to be re-rendered! That puts considerable load on the server (not to speak of failed job queue inserts - the timeouts you may have noticed whel saving).

So, please keep edits to a minimum. Test and discuss layout stuff, etc, here on the talk page first! -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 17:10, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi, all my edits were actually code fixes and improvements. For instance the summary attribute is a W3C accessibility recommendation. Unfortunately, there's a massive trend, on all wikimedia sites, to go for quantity rather than quality. I'm one of those who think that being millions of editors we already have quantity. So each of us should focus on the better quality, in appearance, contents and underlying code, he is capable of. In any case, though I don't know the mediawiki internals, I seriously doubt that the page is regenerated as soon as a new template version is committed. I think the software simply marks the cached version of all "dependent" pages as outdated, so that it will reprocess its source code *when the page will be actually requested*. At least that's what I think it's reasonable to do. But then, I don't know what was the developers choice (in any case "rendered" is the wrong term; the browser renders the page —MediaWiki just produces the HTML code). --Gennaro Prota 17:29, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Please discuss changes first and collect them into batches. My comment was not aimed at you - but mere minutes after I wrote this, you changed the template. There have been three edits to the template today, six yesterday. That's far too many for a heavily used template.

Pages containing templates have to be regenerated as soon as the templates is saved - otherwise, adding or removing an "includable" category to a templates would not cause the category to be updated with pages including the template. This is not done directly on save, but "soon" using the job queue. Also compare bugzilla:5527. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 17:37, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

meta:Help:Job queue is the correct link. Kjetil r 17:42, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

aye - fixed, sorry. Stupid germans capitalizing everything. -- 18:10, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, does the server do the same thing if I update only a <noinclude> section? --Gennaro Prota 18:22, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, they do it whenever the page is saved. It would in theory be possible to detect if something "relevant" was changed, i guess - but it would be tricky. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 18:26, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Tricky? :) That's at most ten lines of code in any language with a decent library. C++ can certainly do that with less. --Gennaro Prota 18:29, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Have a go at it, then... you are forgetting that you first have to know if the page is used as a template at all - then you have to deal with the parser to sort out the noinclude-stuff (and do nothing else). You also have to think of performance - is it cheaper to compare old full text to new, or read the old category, image, interlanguage and sub-template relations from the db? Does the parser have an interface that can give you the "potential" relations that would be created when the page is saved? Etc... Sure, the pec is simple enough, it's a few lines of pseudocode. But you have to deal with teh existing infrastructure, scalability, concurrency (someone may save at the same time), and all that crap... It's doable, yes, but not trivial. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 22:17, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm very surprised about the general tone used here. I've been on the English Wikipedia since January and I've never encountered similar attitudes. Now your message seems to mock at me. I'll say you, I'm a little tired of all these professors who talk about "accessibility", "usability", "quality" and now even "concurrency" and infrastructure. As a C++ booster (in case you don't know: www.boost.org) I don't think I should "have a go" at this to demonstrate anything. Nor I think I need explanations of what concurrency is ("someone may save at the same time"...). If the existing infrastructure is inadequate that's a bad infrastructure. About quality, God, no one of the templates I've found here has unit tests. Where is quality? Pages and SVG files don't even pass a first level of validation. So please, spare me your lessons and let me do what I'd like to do: just improve things a little when I spot something wrong. I noticed this template just because someone made an edit on the article about the Italian flag, on the English wikipedia, and changed a reference to a png image to an svg version. I went looking at the svg version and it wasn't valid. Ok, I rewrote it. Then I went to the guideline pages to look what info where needed and saw that using this template was the suggested way. But then, I saw that the template had errors as well. That's all. I just tried to improve it. I didn't know that a server could die of elaborations, by the way. Now, with your permission, I would like to continue my work. --Gennaro Prota 22:52, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

@Gennaro Prota: It wasn't meant hostile towards you. I later saw after my roll back that you did makde some changes as well that made at least partially sense to me. But the color change hasn't been good from a usability and also accessibility perspective. White color for text is never a good idea (black on white is better readable than white on black). So I am focused as well on quality not quantity that's why I have introduced that template long ago and that's why I was against too many changes to it as it aims to the *the standard*. So I have now write protected it so that we can sort out things at first on the talk page without confusing people with too many changes. With regard tro you c++ code comment well that does help nobody. We use PHP and you're free to proof that it is trivial. Just patch the MediaWiki software. Arnomane 18:42, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Ok, let's all calm down and try to be constructive; we are all here for the same purpose. First of all I'm no HTML/CSS expert, so I could be wrong. For the limited use that I do of both, it's enough for me to consult the standard specification each time I need (which means each time I do something for which I hadn't consulted it earlier; I'm absolutely over-meticulous). As to accessibility guidelines, there's nothing like black is good and white is bad in there, of course. The checkpoint (priority 3 for text) is “ensure that foreground and background color combinations provide sufficient contrast when viewed by someone having color deficits or when viewed on a black and white screen”. I guess you don't know, but one should even print the page in B&W, and copy it for several generations to see how it degrades. Anyway, my proposed new look had the intent to make everything less flashy and a bit more professional. So I'm absolutely open to other color choices. To me that sort of purple looks hideous, but these are tastes issues. Let's choose other colors, no problem. --Gennaro Prota 19:07, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Well I don't stick to the current purple color (other people seem to dislike it as well) but honestly it will come down to a neutral grey. And as I have written a book out of wikipedia content I do care about black & white printing of these pages (and i also have only a bw laser printer). ;) But you can believe me that the great invention in the ages of monochrome displays was the Atari computer monitor that did invert the old white on black into black on white (and was able displaying it nicely as well). So I think we just should make some suggests which exact grey to use. By the way what is the exact purpose of the "summary" comment in the head of the template? AFAIK it just does nothing apart commenting the source code. The other changes you made make sense to me and do mostly reflect the new coding capabilities of MediaWiki (it was simply not possible some time ago). Arnomane 19:32, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

The summary attribute is aimed at people who use non-visual browsers, such as speech or Braille. You easily see how it can be important for them. It shall provide a *user level* description, not one for source code. By the way, I wish MediaWiki also allowed <COLGROUP> and <COL>, which would be particularly useful in this case. I had a look at the MediaWiki source code and saw that they are intentionally filtered out. I don't know why, though. --Gennaro Prota 19:50, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Please, read above

Please read the section above this one. And the one above that. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 17:26, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi Duesentrieb, I replied to the section above, as you may have seen :) As to the one above that, it confirms that the person doing the revert just looked at the appearance of the page and restored his own version, thus eliminating all code improvements. Careless editing? In addition, the edit summary reads something like "...last version by Duesentrieb", rather than "...last version by me", which looks like an attempt to pass oneself off. And finally the edit was marked as *minor*(!). I always assume good faith but here there's some evidence to the contrary. --Gennaro Prota 17:35, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

The edit message, along with the minor marker, is what happens if an admin hits the "rollback" link. Reverting an undiscussed change to an highly exposed template is perfectly acceptable, even if you mean well. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 17:40, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Ok, last reply in this thread. When editing the template this night (I live at UTC+2, DST, so you can see what time in the night I was editing, profiting from the week-end —that alone should show my love for wikipedia, I guess) I took care to read the quality guidelines (you may see that the text in the summary attribute is basically a rewording of one of the paragraphs there; I wanted to be *as accurate as possible*); then I prepared a small todo-list in a text file, having care to put the aesthetics changes *at the end*, so that they could be reverted without also removing the fixes. Then I log in this morning and what do I see? That someone, also happening to be an administrator, has reverted *everything* without even looking. As a consequence I had to restore the fixes, producing altogether three commits instead of one (a revert of my last version only). It seems to me I'm the one who has made less errors in all this issue. As to the server load issues, I wasn't aware of them, sorry. I think I'm too optimistic about software features. The server could detect that no category has been added.

           // take this as pseudo-code
           //
           bool needs_accelerated_regeneration()
           {
               if (category_section_has_changed())
                   return true;
     
               <... other checks ...>

               return false;
           }

Oh, and I know you could adhere to the SESE school. This was just to illustrate a point. --Gennaro Prota 18:06, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Three descriptions?

Hi guys,

this template have usage instructions in *three* places (the template page itself, the talk page, and the quality and description guidelines. Could someone please tell me which one is the most updated so that I can do some cleanup? Thanks. --Gennaro Prota 17:17, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

They are all roughly valid as far as I can see. The one in Commons:First steps should be the most detailed. Probably the one on the template page itself could/should be updated a bit. It's just hard to be consise and exact. pfctdayelise (translate?) 05:36, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Well there was a time when this template had been created there was no noinclude tag in MediaWiki and I didn't want to write an own page for that. Later I improved the help pages and other people did write the thing in noinclude directly at the template. That's where it comes from. Redundancy is good and all descriptions are basically valid although I dislike these language templates in the description at the template. These language templates are basically a useless solution as you need CSS hacking of your personal css files in order to make use of it and they can create a lot of confusion. Arnomane 08:54, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry to disagree again, but the docs should be in one place. We can even transclude them everywhere if you like but the actual text shuold be in one place. I propose to remove the material from the discussion page and put a link to the guidelines in the <noinclude> section. Since I see that you like "maxims", such as "redundancy is good", "white text is never a good idea", etc., I will tell you: "an invariant law of information processing is that any two copies which should be in sync won't be some time in the future". --Gennaro Prota 14:15, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

What do you mean? How do they create confusion? They only need "hacking" if you want to hide languages you don't understand. For image description pages that's hardly necessary (I don't see too many images with even three captions). pfctdayelise (translate?) 09:08, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that you need to make a further begin and close tag with the template brackets (and template information is already not the easiest code). And one of the advantages of most wiki text is that you don't have these "html like" begin and close tags on larger phrases in many cases. The other fundamental problem I see with these language templates is that they are not mass compatible and we need a language selection solution the masses can benefit from but I din't find up to now a better idea... Arnomane 10:05, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Please, see also Commons talk:First steps/Quality and description and Commons:Village pump. There is more discussion on this topic. --Radouch 19:57, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Unprotection request

Hi guys,

could someone please replace the documentation on the main template page with a link to the actual docs?

{{Usage instructions cross-reference|[[Commons:First steps/Quality and description#Good file descriptions|First steps: Good file descriptions]]}}

This will appear as:

• Please, see First steps: Good file descriptions for usage instructions.

Rewordings are welcome. The point is just having documentation in one point. —Gennaro Prota 18:05, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Copyright tags in permission field

Hi there, since this revert I'm wondering if and why this might be a problem. I've seen this method somewhere else and liked it and now I'm just curious, why it isn't such a good idea? --Flominator 20:36, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Once I thought it like you, then changed idea, also because there is a kind of standard. For example if you put the image-tag in the summary, it doesn't appear here. that's my gallery. --ßøuñçêY2K 20:51, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Originally, the permissions field was meant for a written quote of authorization from the author of the file. In line with this convention, the majority, including I, prefer including only text in this field. However, that is not the only reason. Embedding templates inside templates can be cumbersome in some cases. And yes, Bouncy is correct in that Duesentrieb's tools won't read license tags if they are embedded inside {{Information}}, so that helps to keep this de facto state as well. —UED77 21:37, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[1] is my gallery. I included the image-tags inside the templates and there is no problem as far as I can see. And if that is the case, that is the problem of the toolserver, not our. Other point, the template information is a way to structure the media infos.... and you don't want to include the most important one: the license... I'm a little bit lost. You prefere to store it outside the template and create a redundancy by writting it again in full text... That's not very efficient. I always wait for a good reason for storing in an unstructerd way (outside the template) the license tag... Kelson 20:33, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

There should be a distinction between what the copyright holder of an image says the licensing status is, and what the Commons tags it as. If someone says that an image "is free for anyone to use for any purpose", that is what would go in the Permissions field. The proper tag ({{PD-author}} or {{CopyrightedFreeUse}}) to use on Commons is seperate from what the copyright owner stated. If the text of those license tags ever changes, it would be important to have the original declaration by the copyright owner so that the new tag can be verified as appropriate for the file.

Even when there is no statement copyright holder regarding the licensing status of a file, the Permissions field serves as a place to explain the copyright status of an image, or provide more information beyond what the tags specify. For example, something like "The painter of this mural died more than 100 years ago, therefore this image is in the public domain" would be useful. An explanation specific to the work for those who are unfamiliar with it.

Now, none of this excludes putting both the original permission and the license tags in the same field in {{Information}}. Also, as Kelson stated, although we should structure our filed description pages to be machine-parseable, ultimately that problem lies with the tool, not the pages themselves.

I think the issue really comes down to aesthetics and presentation. We should choose the format that most clearly conveys the information. As stated above, the de facto standard is already to place the tags in their own licensing section. Consistency is important in this regard, but wikis are about change, and if we can make an improvement here or there, I'm for it.

I'm planning on creating a "Guide to layout" similar to en:Wikipedia:Guide to layout to address this issue (among many). Currently file description pages are all over the place. I really think having a guide to layout will significantly improve consistency, and will make the Commons easier to use.

Are there any other aspects of the "copyright tags in permission field" that need to be addressed? I think we covered most of them, so when I come up with that guide, I/we should be able to come up with something that covers all the corners... ~MDD4696 22:12, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Good idea, please make it part of the Commons:First steps guide. pfctdayelise (translate?) 05:09, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

To my opinion, what the uploader writes as permission and the license-tag should never be dissociated. If the uploader does something else as using an image-tag template, that means he doesn't know which one he has to choose. Consequently he writes something to express his idea - but that's not the good manner of doing, and this has to be afterward corrected. The history garanties us that we can see the first full-text version and I don't think that the image-tag texts will be heavy modified in the future, for the reason you have given... It is simply impossible to do that without breaking creator's whishes. About the de facto standart... that's a bad argument, the only reason I see, is that the Mediawiki developer during the upload don't use the template:information ; It's absolutely not (as far as I know) the fruit of a long discussion. I really await and ask that per default the template:information is used by uploading a media. Kelson 08:22, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Ãnother example of what not including the license-template into the "information" template may generate : here Image:Scheveningen2005 3.jpg ! the permission field is not corresponding to the license-tag ! Kelson 08:49, 20 September 2006 (UTC)... And a few hours after : Image:Wet-capyvara-in-Brazil.jpg Kelson 14:48, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Lists in other_versions

It's impossible to use bulleted lists for the "other_versions" parameter. Please change this line:

{{#if: {{{other_versions|}}} | <tr><td style="background: #ccf; text-align: right; vertical-align: middle; padding-right: 0.4em; font-weight: bold">Other versions</td><td>{{{other_versions}}}</td></tr>}}

To these lines:

{{#if: {{{other_versions|}}} | <tr><td style="background: #ccf; text-align: right; vertical-align: middle; padding-right: 0.4em; font-weight: bold">Other versions</td><td>
{{{other_versions}}}</td></tr>}}

This will fix the issue. Msikma 05:52, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Internationalization

If someone finds the internationalization a good option (like in Template:Information/bg), the internationalization template could be added at the bottom. -- Zlatko + ^(talk) 19:59, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

The problem is, when someone clicks on the translation link, the actual info won't carry across. So it's kinda not that useful...hm maybe this would be perfect to introduce meta:'s Meta:Language select. I wonder if it will be very intensive... that would be great if it worked though. pfctdayelise (translate?) 02:05, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Titles

Has anyone considered adding an optional title? This could be useful for images of paintings and other titled works. Also, how do people currently handle photographic series? —Mike 18:50, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, the image's title already appears on the page. We tend to assume people put that there. Otherwise, make it part of the description. Series are generally handled by giving them all the same name except for a number suffix eg. "(01)" "(02)". You can link to the other files on each page, either through "other_versions" or just a regular wikilink. pfctdayelise (translate?) 03:04, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I've recently created Template:Series, which makes browsing a series of images easier. ~MDD4696 20:41, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

A link to Good file descriptions

Could a link to Good file descriptions be provided here? there are much more info about how filling this template. thanks. --Martin Rizzo 15:23, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

move "(optional variable, can be left out)" out of the empty template

because people forget to remove it by making a cut and paste. Better would be to make this remark just bellow. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kelson (talk • contribs) at 12:43, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Optional "modifications" section?

I think it would be beneficial for this tag to have an optional field for the author to attest to whether or not any modifications have been made to a photograph, and, if so, to detail what was done to it. Consider the recent scandals concerning "fauxtography" being propagated by news organizations out of the Middle East. C.f. my notes on this image on the English Wikipedia. — Kbh3rd 16:27, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Vertically aligning sections at top

Hi all. It's bad design to vertically center headings, as is done on this template. If any image has many translations, or long descriptions, the heading is difficult to find. I would like all of the text to be vertically aligned at the top of each cell in this template. ~MDD4696 18:01, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm... some more CSS is in order I think. Now that the headings are aligned at the top, they are higher than the text. I would have to think more on how to fix this. ~MDD4696 14:07, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes I noticed that too but didn't have the time fixing it and am not an CSS expert. I also wanted to avoid much test edits at the template as every edit at this highly used template creates quite some load at the servers. Do we need to add the alignment in each table cell too? Just wondering why... Arnomane 14:16, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm agree. Kelson 10:59, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Need ids for table fields + CSS solution for template

Hi. I want to translate this template using Javascript, but to do it reliably and fast I need id's in all six fields. This shouldn't be a problem as this template should never appear more then once on one page. Here is a proposed code:

{| summary="A standardized table providing complete information about the file, including description of what it shows and how it was made, copyright status and source." class="toccolours" id="fileinfotpl" style="width: 100%" cellpadding="2"
! style="background: #ccf; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; padding-right: 0.4em; width: 15%" id="fileinfotpl_desc" |Description
|
{{{Description}}}
|-
! style="background: #ccf; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; padding-right: 0.4em" id="fileinfotpl_src" | Source
|
{{{Source}}}
|-
! style="background: #ccf; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; padding-right: 0.4em; white-space: nowrap" id="fileinfotpl_date" | Date
|
{{{Date}}}
|-
! style="background: #ccf; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; padding-right: 0.4em" id="fileinfotpl_aut" | Author
|
{{{Author}}}
|-
! style="background: #ccf; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; padding-right: 0.4em" id="fileinfotpl_perm" | Permission
|
{{{Permission}}}
{{#switch: {{{other_versions|}}}
|   =
| - =
| none =
| #default = <tr><td style="background: #ccf; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; padding-right: 0.4em; font-weight: bold" id="fileinfotpl_ver">Other versions</td><td>
{{{other_versions}}}</td></tr>}}
|}

And as changing this template is quite an operation we could also consider moving all styling to CSS. This way everyone could style this template as wanted. Proposed code including all changes:

{| summary="A standardized table providing complete information about the file, including description of what it shows and how it was made, copyright status and source." class="toccolours" id="fileinfotpl" cellpadding="2"
! id="fileinfotpl_desc" |Description
|
{{{Description}}}
|-
! id="fileinfotpl_src" | Source
|
{{{Source}}}
|-
! id="fileinfotpl_date" | Date
|
{{{Date}}}
|-
! id="fileinfotpl_aut" | Author
|
{{{Author}}}
|-
! id="fileinfotpl_perm" | Permission
|
{{{Permission}}}
{{#switch: {{{other_versions|}}}
|   =
| - =
| none =
| #default = <tr><th id="fileinfotpl_ver">Other versions</th><td>
{{{other_versions}}}</td></tr>}}
|}

CSS code for that:

/* file information template  */
#fileinfotpl th {
	background: #ccf;
	text-align: right; vertical-align: top;
	padding-right: 0.4em; width: 15%;
}
table#fileinfotpl { width: 100% }
th#fileinfotpl_date { white-space: nowrap }

There could be one problem with that nice clean CSS solution – that is tables inside this table. In case we would like to allow tables inside this CSS should be used instead:

/* file information template  */
th#fileinfotpl_desc,th#fileinfotpl_src,th#fileinfotpl_date,th#fileinfotpl_aut,th#fileinfotpl_perm,th#fileinfotpl_ver {
	background: #ccf;
	text-align: right; vertical-align: top;
	padding-right: 0.4em; width: 15%;
}
table#fileinfotpl { width: 100% }
th#fileinfotpl_date { white-space: nowrap }

Not much of a difference in size, so I guess it wouldn't be so bad.

Nux (talk··dyskusja) 17:28, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

PS: Tested this here: User:Nux/Information (of course you'll need have your CSS changed to see that it looks exactly the same as current template).

---

Here is a solution with changed padding that should align header cells text with text in other cells (the ones on the right with those on the left). It seems to work even with enlarged text.

/* file information template  */
th#fileinfotpl_desc,th#fileinfotpl_src,th#fileinfotpl_date,th#fileinfotpl_aut,th#fileinfotpl_perm,th#fileinfotpl_ver {
        background: #ccf;
        text-align: right; vertical-align: top;
        padding: 0.55em 0.5em 0; width: 15%;
}
table#fileinfotpl { width: 100% }
th#fileinfotpl_date { white-space: nowrap }

As for the background we could use #cce; as a more neutral color.

Nux (talk··dyskusja) 17:50, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

On second thought we should only use this CSS:

/* file information template  */
#fileinfotpl th {
        background: #ccf;
        text-align: right; vertical-align: top;
        padding: 0.55em 0.5em 0; width: 15%;
}
table#fileinfotpl { width: 100% }
th#fileinfotpl_date { white-space: nowrap }

This is because of existence of Template:Flickr, which should also be changed similar to the above. Please remember about the table id "fileinfotpl".

Best regards, Nux (talk··dyskusja) 00:47, 13 December 2006 (UTC).

Making permission optional

We're currently in the process of making separate upload pages for different classes of upload [2]. The permissions field is both confusing and problematic for self-made works. It is problematic because it encourages uploaders to write their own licenses. Such as "For Wikipedia's non-commercial use only." on an image which also has {{self|gfdl|cc-by-sa-2.5}}. To reduce the confusion I would like to remove the permission field on the information box suggested usage on the ownwork upload page. In order to do this I will need to change the template to make that field optional. I also plan on running a bot which will detect missing permission fields on non-self works. I do not see any problems with this proposal, but since this is one of our most widely used templates, I wanted to propose my change first. Any objections? --Gmaxwell 13:08, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Seems like a good idea. It would be nice, if you could also make the bot to move license tags to the section below the information template (leaving permission field blank). --Nux (talk··dyskusja) 17:10, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Put it back the way it was, please. What does this mean, and why has it squeezed all the text to the left side?

cellspacing="8" cellpadding="0" style="width:100%; clear:both; margin:0.5em auto; background-color:#f7f8ff; border:2px solid #8888aa;" Good kitty 01:44, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

That wasn't changed, nothing that was changed should have altered the left/right alignment. Can you please point me to an image page impacted by the problem you've seen? --Gmaxwell 01:51, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Ya, one I am working on right now. Image:Hurricane Hortense 12 sept 1996 1800Z.jpg Good kitty 02:01, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Gmaxwell: That won't work. You will have to use "{{#if:{{{permission|}}}|{{{permission}}}|see below}}". And I wouldn't be so sure if removing whitespace didn't changed anything. BTW. Could you move the info about the template to Template:Information/info and insert it in noinclude tags: {{Information/info}}. --Nux (talk··dyskusja) 02:40, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

The templates that look funny are because nesting templates doesn't work exactly right. This was avoided by the line break. It's easy enough to fix sht. I do not see why you are saying I need to use an if there, that should not be the case. I'll move the info but I'm not sure what the advantage would be, the idea that moving it speeds up transclusion is incorrect. --Gmaxwell 03:13, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I've done that. The case where there is a license template inside the permission box is now working fine. Sorry about that. --Gmaxwell 03:23, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

If there is no #if, then the "see below" text will only apear when the permission parameter is not given (when it's empty, the field will be empty). e.g.:

DescriptionInformation/Archive 1	d
Date	0002
Source	s
Author	a

Nux (talk··dyskusja) 20:23, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

The "other versions" field is broken

It used to work and should work even if "Permission" contains a numbered list like in Template:Württembergischer Bildersaal --AndreasPraefcke 09:49, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Adding a new line would fix that. If someone could do that and the one explained above. See changes and fixed version in action. --Nux (talk··dyskusja) 01:21, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Done. --AndreasPraefcke 17:43, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Aligning headers and values

Suggest the headers and corresponding values instantiated by the template are aligned when displayed thus:

Description	English: something Deutsch: etwas Polski: coś
Source	{{{Source}}}
Date	{{{Date}}}
Author	{{{Author}}}
Permission	see below

i.e. remove the multiple "vertical-align: top" styles. Compare the above with the current version of the template displayed in #Making position optional further above. Regards, David Kernow (talk) 04:43, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

But it won't work with mulitiple rows as you may see above. That was the reason it was top aligned. BTW you may restyle this template for yourself as it has ids now. --Nux (talk··dyskusja) 22:02, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

The alignment for the multiple rows above seems fine; I guess it's the (lack of) alignment for a single row (as in the #Making position optional example above) that seems odd. Thanks, though, for the id tip!  Yours, David (talk) 12:57, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Edit Protected

Please add:

{{#if: {{{Location|}}} | <tr><td style="background: #ccccff; text-align: right; vertical-align: middle;"><b>Location</b><td>{{{Location|}}}</td></tr>}}

from {{Information2}} to allow a separate line for location. Thank you. --Dual Freq 15:24, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't know what this guy wants, but is someone gonna comment on this? This request has been here since April 14th. Yonidebest Ω Talk 08:44, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Basically, I would like a "| Location =" line added to the information template, like Template:Information2. See Image:Point Loma Lighthouse.jpg for an example of Template:Information2. Compare this with Image:1430-19.Jpg, which uses 2 templates Template:Information and Template:Location. It makes a separate box and requires conversion of coordinate formats, which discourages its usage. {{Location|41|39|3.65|N|83|14|21.59|W|type:city|display=inline}} for location template compared to |Location={{coor d|32.6651|N|117.24249|W|region:US_type:landmark}} The seconds is easier since I just copied and pasted it directly from an existing wikipedia article, the first one probably had to be converted from decimal to degrees minutes seconds. This discourages usage of the Location template since it requires unnecessary conversion rather than a simple copy and paste. --Dual Freq 11:19, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

If you prefer entering coordinates in decimal format, then Template:Location dec is for you. I still agree with changing this template though. It would be good to have an optional parameter for the location, because currently it can be scattered anywhere on the page and it would be best if you could always find each piece of information from the same place. When we reach the goal that most images are geocoded, the parameter will be more used than other_versions for example. We can't however do the change right away because of the conversion issue. Perhaps when en:Template:Coord is bug free, it could be stripped to suit Commons purposes? I think someone is already on it. --Para 11:36, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Such a change to a highly used template such as this requires a broader discussion. Feel free to bring it up at the village pump. Yonatan ^talk 21:27, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Please don't make this change. If we're going to have a location line it should work the license line works.. so that you can do Location={{Location dec}}. Otherwise it becomes yet another geocoding syntax for our tools to understand. --Gmaxwell 01:12, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Ah, an en coord is a total cluster-f*ck, it requires about 50 template pages for it to work because it tries to understand a dozen legacy syntaxes which were used only on enwiki were never used here. We have few enough geocoded images that once we're happy with our template we can convert all our usage to that form and keep only one or two official geocoding templates. Our needs for geocoding aren't really the same as enwiki's anyways. --Gmaxwell 01:14, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

OK, Nevermind. I won't bother adding geo-locations to my images. It's too much of a work to convert all them between DMS D or DD. --Dual Freq 04:50, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikitext markup in the template?

Is it possible to allow Wikitext markup to be used in the template? I notice that it doesn't seem to be possible, for instance, to put [[links to other articles]] when filling in the template, and I don't know if other kinds of markup such as bold and italic text will work. Cheers, Jacklee 00:35, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

It should be fine to use all wikitext, including links. Where have you had trouble using links? --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 02:46, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Edit request

{{editprotected}} Can "see below" be changed to "See below."? Yung6 22:49, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Good idea. This has been bothering me too. Yonidebest Ω Talk 23:06, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

 Done MECU≈talk 21:26, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

{{{Source}}}

{{Editprotected}} Hi, please edit {{{Source}}} to {{{Source|[[[[Category:Images without source]]]]}}} That help us to find the images without source. --OsamaK 14:08, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the template itself should not be in Category:Images without source, so the code may be upgraded as:

{{{Source|<includeonly>[[Category:Images without source]]</includeonly>}}}

Best regards from France,

-- AlNo (discuter/talk/hablar/falar) 10:26, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Date & time-stamp for geo-coded pictures

Please see Date & time-stamp for geo-coded pictures for a proposal which may involve editing this template (perhaps by making {{Location}} a component of this template; and by adding some HTML classes and a date-time field). I suggest we keep discussion on that page; or direct both to a new sub-page. Andy Mabbett 10:04, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Reuse information link

Some qualms about this change…

1. I'm not a big fan of "I want to use this picture!". Can we make the link something a little more indicative of its purpose, such as "How do I reuse this picture?" or "How to reuse this picture"?
2. Should we really display the link when there is no Permission specified? In that case, the cell on the right merely says "see below" and the link adds a lot of extra vertical space.
3. Could there be another linebreak between the "Permission" title and the link?
4. Can we make the link non-bold?

bdesham ★ 18:14, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. I suggest something even shorter, like Reusing this image -- Bryan (talk to me) 21:02, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I also agree, something like what Bryan says seems better to me. - Keta 16:08, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

{{editprotected}}

Could an admin change the link text, and apply my formatting changes as mentioned above? Thanks, bdesham ★ 01:19, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I like the idea in general, but does it need to be part of the Information template? Is there a way to make it part of the standard Image: namespace page layout in a standard location? If we do keep it, agree with the above to reword a bit and to unbold. Carl Lindberg 02:13, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, the Information template is already used on a ton of images, maybe even a majority. Changing the template is a lot easier than either changing the software or adding a new template to every image, so it makes sense to put the note on {{Information}}. --bdesham ★ 04:38, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Made some changes. It looks a little bit better imho, but I'm still not really satisfied with it. -- Bryan (talk to me) 21:14, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

How about putting something across the bottom saying "How to use the image yourself" or some such, instead of squeezing it into "Permissions"? 68.39.174.238 19:15, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

How about this? I know the image is a little large, but you can't really see the © symbol well if it's any smaller. We could also use something like , but that icon doesn't make reference to copyright.

Source	…
Permission	How can I reuse this image?

--bdesham ★ 20:52, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Need another field: Notes

See info on image Image:Lula - foto oficial05012007 edit.jpg. In the field “source”, there is a template that explain the picture was altered, retouched etc, but it doesn't look very nice in that field with that text above, so this template should have another field for this type of info, for example field „Notes“. --Milan Jelisavčić 10:42, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

If it said in a box template (like in your example), it should be placed outside the Information template. I usually see these "notes" either in the "source" section (when they are related to wher the image comesfrom) or in the "description" section (which seems logical). I think a new "Notes" section would just be too much, and people will start to put anything in it... le Korrigan →bla 11:29, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Template:Description missing

This template {{Description missing}} needs to be fixed. When author is missing, Category:Media lacking a description is wrong. --Emijrp 21:37, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Any chance of some action on this? We really need to keep "Author Unknown" item out of Category:Media lacking a description.Railwayfan2005 19:43, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I know it's kinda in the wrong spot, but see Template talk:Description missing. Rocket000 19:57, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Photo IDs

Would it be possible to include a Photo ID/Catalog # field ? NASA labels all its photo's which makes it very easy to find them back if you really want to. Much easier than any of their 8 different gallery sites with which they try to confuse everyone :D In my opinion, such an ID label in the case of scientific collections like those of NASA is much more reliable than the websource. TheDJ 16:18, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Suggestions for minor tweaks to blank template

{{Editprotected}} The template description currently features a blank template as follows:

{{Information
|Description =
|Source      =
|Date        =
|Author      =
|Permission  = (optional, returns "See below." if nothing is filled in)
|other_versions = (optional variable, can be left out)
}}

As I often copy and paste this template into image pages, I'd like to suggest the following minor tweaks to it:

• Can "other_versions" be changed to "Other_versions" to match the rest of the field names?
• Can the equal signs for the first five field names be lined up with the equal sign for the longest field name, "Other_versions"?
• Can a space be inserted after each equal sign?

This is what I'm suggesting:

{{Information
|Description    = 
|Source         = 
|Date           = 
|Author         = 
|Permission     = [optional, returns "See below." if nothing is filled in]
|Other_versions = [optional: can be left out]
}}

Thanks. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 19:44, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

You can do that yourself. See Template:Information/info. Please keep in mind that Other_versions and other_versions aren't equal. —Ms2ger 19:18, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, yes, of course I can line up the equal signs myself (and I do), but I think it would be easier if someone with permission to edit this template simply did so in the blank template so that other editors can copy and paste it. I also realize that "other_versions" is not the same as "Other_versions" – shouldn't the parameter name be "Other_versions" to match the capitalization of the other names ("Description", "Source", etc.)? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 06:54, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

• ok  Done :) / Fred J (talk) 21:50, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Cool, thanks very much. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 16:42, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

References

I think this template needs an optional references section. Many of our self-made maps don't follow any verifiable standard by linking to referencing the books, etc. which the authors used to create them. They have proper sourcing--their copyright is not in dispute--but the information they portray is. I think this would be a really useful feature and would start encouraging authors to list the sources they have used. But, self-made maps with no references are always coming up on FACs and I think the authors would have added references if they had been encouraged. Here is my example for syntax

{{Information
|Description =
|Source      =
|Date        =
|Author      =
|Permission  = (optional, returns "See below." if nothing is filled in)
|other_versions = (optional variable, can be left out)
|references  = (optional, for sources of self-made maps / diagrams)
}}

--gren 08:42, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

A "References" line in the template sounds like a good idea. Someone else mentioned this, too. I have uploaded charts, and I try to put references in the description area, but others upload charts without any reference links for the stats. --Timeshifter 08:58, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I hesitate to support this. For two reasons. One, personally I would include this info. in the description. And two, it may suggest to others that references are needed for "POV" illustrations. I can see even more deletion debates over maps because they aren't sourced, and the nominator happens to disagree with where the author drew the lines or made a certain country a certain color. References are always nice, but can be put in the "description" field or outside of the box. Not everything is suppose to be in one template. I think this would just encourage political/POV reasons for deletion. Rocket000 09:25, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Factual inaccuracy has never been a reason for deletion on the Commons. We don't delete images for having bad or no description. We don't delete them for having no date (providing the copyright status is not based on the date). Why would anything be different for references? References aren't part of a description... they are separate and since the Commons main purpose is a repository of free content for the various encyclopedias which need sourced content it makes sense to have an optional parameter for images to be referenced. If we go about this in a clear way users will not get confused and try to delete images for bad references but it will encourage referencing. I think having a proper explanation in the parameter (like I attempted above) and a full page explanation, maybe at Commons:References, users will know the purpose of referencing. gren 10:03, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I am not looking for references (or lack of them) as an excuse to delete images. My goal is better charts and graphs here: Category:Charts and Category:Diagrams. I hesitate to use some charts and graphs in articles because I can't tell where they got their statistics, and/or I can't easily read the charts and graphs. So the charts and graphs don't get used in articles. If I had the stat references I could justify the use of the charts and graphs to other editors of a particular article. I also want the stats references so that I can create even better charts and graphs. --Timeshifter 12:26, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I think this is where we clearly see one of the problems with the separation between commons and wikipedia. You are absolutely right. Graphs and diagrams in wikipedia without proper sources is a very bad idea and something we should definitely guard ourselves again. Then again, it has nothing to do with the goals of wikicommons of course. I think it would be best to draft this up as a sort of guideline in Wikipedia "diagrams need references too". That does not mean however we cannot account for those situations in commons. I propose a "references" template. Advertise simply by using it. Check on it with new images by using the catscan tool. Possibly include a "graphs and diagrams" option in the commons upload form that automatically includes the template. It cannot be a ground for deletion but that does not mean we cannot request users to do it, we can tag ourselves as a cleanup task etc etc. TheDJ 20:09, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I like the idea of a special "graphs and diagrams" upload form with its own template. --Timeshifter 05:11, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Based on what has been said here, maybe having a "references" field is a good idea. But let's not get carried away with citing things—this isn't Wikipedia. I really really don't want to see things like a Commons equivalent of w:template:unreferenced or even footnotes. We would have to make it very clear the references part is completely optional and only there to help users outside of Commons. It's up to WP or other project users to verify and check the sources. One problem I see is that, as Commons, we have the ability to greatly affect and reach more people than any other project since all of them can potentially use what we give them, including bad or inaccurate sources. I know it's their responsibility but many users may not double-check the references. This is especially a problem for users that don't speak whatever language the sources are in.

An alternate template altogether, may also be a good idea. Rocket000 11:25, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

DAMMIT! SORRY!

While trying to find a strange bug in licensing templates, I have managed to click on the save button in just the wrong browser window, so that I have saved my test edit into the live Commons template instead of the template on a test wiki. Sorry to all (including the servers)! --Mormegil 20:24, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

It happens. :) Good thing you caught your mistake. What's this bug you're talking about? Rocket000 23:07, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

bugzilla:12488, visible in action (if not yet fixed) at Image:Policarpa Salavarrieta 2 pesos Oro.jpg (see e.g. “by its author, See below...”). --Mormegil 16:39, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Hmm.. never ran across that. Weird. Rocket000 21:45, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Capitalization silliness

{{editprotected}}

I just ran across a self-made image (Image:Bigdayout whitestripes.jpg), and saw that the template was saying no source had been specified.[3] However, when going to edit the page to correct it (since it was obviously self-made), I realized that the "Source" field wasn't there, but "source" was; all I had to do was change "s" to "S" and it worked just fine.[4]

Is there a way to tweak the template so that uncapitalized fields still register as the "real" thing? It seems a little silly that such a minor detail can matter so much. EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:01, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

What's worse is that it isn't even consistent - "other_versions" is uncapitalized.

One answer would be to include both capitalized and uncapitalized parameters in each field. Note however that this could confuse bots that parse the template, which may be a concern. The changes I'm suggesting are to alter the current #if statements (and date entry) to:

    {{ #if: {{{Description|}}}{{{description|}}} | {{{Description|}}}{{{description|}}} | {{Description missing}} }}

    {{ #if: {{{Source|}}}{{{source|}}} | {{{Source|}}}{{{source|}}} | {{{category|[[Category:Images without source|{{PAGENAME}}]]}}} <big>'''No source specified. Please edit this image description and provide a source'''</big>.}}

    {{{Date|}}}{{{date|}}}

    {{ #if: {{{Author|}}}{{{author|}}} | {{{Author|}}}{{{author|}}} | {{Description missing|author information}} }}

    {{ #if: {{{Permission|}}}{{{permission|}}}| {{{Permission|}}}{{{permission|}}} |see below}}

And to add an "Other_versions" switch, the same as the current one for "other_versions".

I've tested it on my own copy of mediawiki, but wouldn't suggest changing things right away, because of the possibility that it might break something.

An alternate solution, if this sort of typo happens much, is to set up a parameter-fixing bot. --dave pape 21:23, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I subscribe the idea. I think it is important since the example text in the template uses "Other_versions" (capitalized), which currently doesn't work. Waldir ^talk 14:57, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

 Done by Bryan. - Rocket000 01:26, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Translation?

I recently set my preferences to a language besides English (French) and was surprised to see that this template did not automatically translate into that language. Is there a way to set this up? If so, I think it would definitely be worth it, if Commons is to be a truly multilingual effort. Kakofonous 00:21, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

 Support Find a way for make this template translatable it's essential for keep the multilingual Common's spirit. Serg!o 23:44, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi,

 Support too, would it be possible to use {{int:filedesc}} and does it exist others {{int:<field_id>}}?

Best regards from France,

-- AlNo (discuter/talk/hablar/falar) 14:20, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Add "Documentation" tag

{{editprotected}} Would an administrator please add a "{{Documentation}}" tag (or suitable equivalent) to the template page to indicate that "Template:Information/info" is transcluded on to the page and thus is editable by ordinary editors? I only just realized this. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 12:42, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

I note that a "{{Documentation}}" tag has been added but there seems to be some wikitext error either on the template or documentation page as the documentation appears twice. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 15:59, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Had a look at the source of the page. An administrator added "{{Documentation|Template:Information/info}}" to the template page, but did not delete "{{Information/info}}". This needs to be fixed. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 15:52, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

 Done - Rocket000 13:47, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Recent changes slightly broken

Some of the recent changes seem to have caused problems; for example Image:KFC bucket restaurant.jpg which has an embedded template inside the other_versions field. I'm not completely sure of the cause or fix, but it seems as though items which are supposed to be invisible are not completely escaped. Carl Lindberg 05:51, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree. All the images using this template now show the data contained in the other_versions field twice: in the template and again below the template. Example: Image:Witte by Repin.jpg. J.M.Domingo 10:31, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Not all the images, but ones with templates inside the other_versions field. It's related to this addition. I'm not sure what to do. - Rocket000 11:17, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I might have fixed it. We just have to wait for the job queue (which was already pretty high) to catch up to see if it works. - Rocket000 11:32, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Category:Template information missing

Introducing Category:Template information missing for media maintenance. That could be part of a new template... --Mattes 01:17, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Request for adding text

Please add the following section:

---

Media articles missing out the template

If you detect an image without the template and this template would be suitable for it, add [[Category:Template information missing]] if you are not able to include the template into the media file.

To find such images, check Category:Template information missing.

---

--Mattes 01:17, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Proposal: New parameter "Notice"

This is also available at de:Vorlage:Information. Any doubts? --Baxxter … 16:42, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Not speaking German, I can't really read anything on that page. Can you explain what exactly it is, and show us an example of it being used on the German Wikipedia? EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:07, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

With this parameter you can give some other information about an image, for example: de:Bild:Indymedia.png (below the date: "Andere Versionen sind auf der angegebenen Quelle verfügbar.") --Baxxter … 19:25, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Why not translate this like the interface?

See also: Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2008Jun#Multilingual_templates

Description	For example, view this page with a different uselang setting: de es en
Source	Ok, only the es and en versions have transaltions.
Date
⧼Author-label⧽	Rocket000 12:23, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Permission (Reusing this image)	see below

Doesn't negate the need for individually translated descriptions, but that's kinda cool. Perhaps a centered line of ISO codes (en, de, la, hr, zh, etc) spanning the full width of the template (below the Permission area) to translate it? EVula // talk // ☯ // 13:29, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

You wouldn't even need to do that. I just put those links there so you can change your default language setting. If you normally used this site with the es interface, that's the template you would see. Rocket000 21:36, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Screw that example. Here's a fully translated and working template. Rocket000 (talk) 06:55, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I'm ready to do this. Any last objections? Rocket000 (talk) 04:26, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Is there any way for it to automatically transclude the proper language version for the no source/description/author templates, or is that too much to ask? Other than that, it looks fantastic. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:17, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I've been thinking about that. I'm not sure it can be done but I'll try some things. Rocket000 (talk) 09:45, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Are you saying you are going to put the {{int:}} hack into Template:Information (and even control other template’s transclusion with it)? I thought you are aware that that behavior is just a known bug, which is going to be fixed someday (hopefully soon). (And if you are going to use it on the most used template on one of the biggest projects, it would just get fixed sooner.) --Mormegil (talk) 13:31, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Seriously!? I think it's more of a known feature than a known bug. Well, knowing the speed in which things get fixed around here, I say we have plenty of time to abuse it. Rocket000 (talk) 04:38, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

This could be also done client-side, using JavaScript. If you want to try out, edit your monobook.js and add:

importScriptURI("http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Mormegil/Information-localize.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript&dontcountme=s");

(I have written only en/de/cs language versions.)

--Mormegil (talk) 19:59, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Hey, that's pretty cool! I wonder what else we can apply this to... Damn, I need to learn JS. Thank you very much for showing me how this is possible. Rocket000 (talk) 10:10, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Question: If we put this in Common.js with all the translations we have already floating around the MediaWiki namespace would it be too much? I can start gathering up all the translations. Rocket000 (talk) 10:14, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I'd think that translating such a template should be made on a server-side basis, in order to centralize more easily the translation task at MediaWiki namespace level. The javascript solution makes me wonder what would happen to users if there are 100 template labels to be translated?

Best regards from France,

-- AlNo (discuter/talk/hablar/falar) 12:46, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

“Server-side basis” for translation, dependent on the viewer’s preferred language is a very complicated matter (IMHO not too far from being impossible), see the abovementioned bugs. If we should use some JavaScript solution for the translation, we would need to consider its performance, of course, but I believe it can be implemented so that the use case of translating image description pages (and templates used there) would be OK. --Mormegil (talk) 16:09, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

And many labels like "Description" and "Author" already have basically every translation in the languages already used on Commons. They were done for the upload form. I wasn't thinking of applying this to full messages (that would be like moving the template namespace to the MediaWiki namespace, which I'm sure would really hurt performance). Also, since many of these "labels" would be single words or phrases, translation sites and dictionaries can be pretty reliable. Rocket000(talk) 09:37, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

source missing

{{Editprotected}} I created {{Source missing}} to standardize the warnings in line with {{Description missing}} and {{Author missing}}. if you agree, please replace the hardcoded notice with this template. Waldir ^talk 12:59, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

This is a significant change that I suggest you bring up at the village pump first. —Giggy 10:29, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

I just added it. There weren't objections here; I made a proposal on the Village Pump, as suggested above, which got no objections (even though only one person replied, lol), and asked on IRC, where they invited me to be bold and just add it, the only concern being the prior translation since every new language the template was made available in would change the thousands of images marked with this template (only those who didn't have an author, I suppose -- otherwise it'd be millions) and toast the job queue. So, after a little canvassing, asking many people to contribute with translations, all the major languages are represented now, and in the process {{Description missing}} and {{Author missing}} got improved, too :)

Guess this is all. I'm glad this odyssey has finally come to an end. thanks to everyone who helped. --Waldir ^talk 11:55, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

You could've used {{Lang links}} until you got reasonable amount of translations. It's a way to add languages without edited anything. :) Rocket000 (talk) 04:25, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Category for empty information templates

Wouldnt it be nice to have a category in which images end up which have an empty information template (missing description, author and source)? Multichill (talk) 14:19, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Automatic year categorization

We have years categories, such as Category:1876, however there are plenty of images that could be, but are not categorized in this way. For example, Category:1876 has 68 images + some in subcategories, but "Date:+1876"+site:commons.wikimedia.org&start=120 Google search reveals 122 eligible images.

I suggest that a slight change to this template is made: the template should check if its "Date" parameter is a year (for example, four digit number between 1000 and 1990) and if it is, automatically put the image in appropriate category and link the year to the category. Nikola (talk) 07:23, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

including Location and Object location

What about including {{Location}} and {{Object location}}. I think that one template is better than two or three. The old media files could be left as they are, but it should be included for new information template. Maye it's possible to create a bot which filles in the current {{Location}} templates into the new {{Information}}.
tell me what you think about it.
--D-Kuru (talk) 13:08, 27 September 2008 (UTC)