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Welcome to the Village pump

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/2025/01.

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# 💭 Title 💬 👥 🙋 Last editor 🕒 (UTC)
1 Syrian flag 41 10 Abzeronow 2025-01-15 19:59
2 How do I create a playlist 6 5 RoyZuo 2025-01-17 16:40
3 Which station in France? 3 2 Smiley.toerist 2025-01-13 13:48
4 Possible loss of file meta information when deleting duplicate or redundant files 10 4 C.Suthorn 2025-01-13 17:34
5 Greenland 15 6 MB-one 2025-01-18 09:20
6 crosspost from en-wiki: plans by the Heritage Foundation to "identify and target" wiki editors 6 6 Nakonana 2025-01-14 16:08
7 Upload wizard issues? 14 7 Ooligan 2025-01-18 21:55
8 Day categories hidden 11 5 Pigsonthewing 2025-01-14 11:23
9 Tips on scanning books 3 2 Pigsonthewing 2025-01-13 14:30
10 Date of work 4 3 Pigsonthewing 2025-01-13 14:35
11 Plates 5 3 Jmabel 2025-01-14 02:54
12 Censored by lack of FOP / blacked out relying on FOP categories 4 2 JWilz12345 2025-01-14 06:10
13 Broken file link on Anna Karenina title page 1 1 ThePinkShoes 2025-01-14 22:13
14 Category:Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, Peralta de Alcofea 28 8 Isidre blanc 2025-01-18 08:14
15 Printing photographs on ceramics 2 1 Jmabel 2025-01-15 04:27
16 Dispute resolution on whether images are AI upscaled 10 7 Belbury 2025-01-17 16:29
17 Category:De minimis 3 2 Ooligan 2025-01-15 23:52
18 Launching! Join Us for Wiki Loves Ramadan 2025! 0 0
19 Do we have tool that will run OCR on pdf files and store the text in the PDF 8 3 Samwilson 2025-01-17 13:48
20 Wrong coordinates 4 3 Samwilson 2025-01-18 01:44
21 FlickreviewR 2 user talk redirect 2 2 MGA73 2025-01-20 07:42
22 Category:Bioregions 2023 3 2 Adamant1 2025-01-17 20:35
23 Massive upload problems 2 2 PantheraLeo1359531 2025-01-19 19:30
24 Whisky ABV 3 3 Jmabel 2025-01-19 00:40
25 File:RotaryIncrementalEncoder.jpg appears as broken link in wp article 10 3 Glrx 2025-01-19 13:54
26 UI for data files 14 5 Beland 2025-01-19 23:54
27 UK to require age verification for adult content 4 4 Yann 2025-01-19 12:32
28 Line art 2 2 EncycloPetey 2025-01-19 12:24
29 Chapelle du Rosaire de Vence 4 2 Stefan2 2025-01-19 20:06
30 Trump Meme logo 2 2 Jeff G. 2025-01-20 09:23
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December 19

Syrian flag

Abzeronow has noted that several sister projects have decided to treat File:Flag of the Syrian revolution.svg, not the existing File:Flag of Syria.svg, as the current flag of Syria. The following are all in agreement, either by discussion or simply by content change:

English Wikipedia: en:Talk:Syria#RfC: Flag? closed as B, Syrian revolutionary flag and en:Flag of Syria shows it.
French Wikipedia: fr:Drapeau de la Syrie.
Arabic Wikipedia: ar: علم_سوريا
German Wikipedia: de:Flagge Syriens
Italian Wikipedia: it:Bandiera della Siria
Spanish Wikipedia: es:Bandera de Siria
Russian Wikipedia: ru:Флаг Сирии

Abzeronow originally proposed one solution for Commons, but Rudolph Buch has suggested several alternatives, and I have a different idea of my own, and I want to make sure we have at least a strong consensus before moving files. Proposals C, D, and E all come from Rudolph Buch; I've done my best not to alter any of his meaning but you can check [1] to verify that. Keep in mind that due to templating, there are many templates on various wikis that will necessarily use File:Flag of Syria.svg.

A) (Abzeronow's original proposal): File:Flag of Syria.svg should be moved to File:Flag of the United Arab Republic (1958–1971), Flag of Syria (1980–2024).svg and File:Flag of the Syrian revolution.svg should be moved to File:Flag of Syria.svg.
B) (Jmabel's variant on that): as in proposal A, the current content of File:Flag of Syria.svg should be moved to File:Flag of the United Arab Republic (1958–1971), Flag of Syria (1980–2024).svg. Unlike proposal A, File:Flag of Syria.svg should then become a redirect to File:Flag of the Syrian revolution.svg (rather than vice versa). This has the advantage that if the new state settles on a different flag, all we have to do is change a redirect (and possibly upload a new flag if they were to adopt something brand new).
C) Do nothing and to trust the wiki editors in updating their pages.
D) Rename File:Flag of Syria.svg to File:Flag of Syria (1980).svg without leaving a redirect. This will lead to a huge amount of broken image links (which is bad) but prompt the editors to check what flag is right for the respective page (which is good).
E) let a bot replace File:Flag of Syria.svg by File:Flag of the Syrian revolution.svg at all wiki pages. [If I understand correctly, this means to bot-edit all of the sister projects, rather than change anything at Commons. @Rudolph Buch, please let me know if that is not what you meant.]

I believe the following remark from Rudolph Buch sums up his objection to proposal A (and presumably to proposal B): "Would that automatically feed the new flag into ~500 Wikipedia pages regardless of context and caption? Like when File:Flag of Syria.svg is now used to illustrate that this is the flag that was adopted in 1980 and after the move it shows the 2024 flag without hint in the page history or any other warning to the Wikipedia editors?" User:The Squirrel Conspiracy replied to that (in part), "Correct. However the projects have backed themselves into a weird corner because there's also templates that - instead of asking for an image - automatically pull the file with the name "Flag of [country name].svg" - and those would have the wrong image if we don't move it."

Jmabel ! talk 01:06, 19 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Further thought: in both proposal A and proposal B, if we allow "Move and replace" to take place when we move File:Flag of Syria.svg to Flag of the United Arab Republic (1958–1971), Flag of Syria (1980–2024).svg, that will change all explicit uses of File:Flag of Syria.svg in sister projects to use the new name, which will show up in the relevant page histories, watchlists, etc. It will not affect those pages where a template generates "[[:File:Flag of Syria.svg]]. In contrast, proposal E is likely to change exactly the uses that specifically meant this particular flag, while not solving the issue for template uses, and proposal D will break all the template usages. So 'my own "ranked choices" would be B, A, C, while definitely opposing D or E. - Jmabel ! talk 01:28, 19 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'd be fine with B if we know it won't break any templates so for me I'd favor A or B* (*providing it doesn't break templates) over C. I also would oppose D because it breaks pages and would be out of harmony with variants (which is why I proposed the name I did, it stays in harmony with variants). I also would oppose E since it could break templates. Abzeronow (talk) 17:15, 19 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I am for A or B, and oppose E. On Swedish Wikipedia, most of the intentional uses of the old flag are now linked to Flag of the United Arab Republic (1958–1971), Flag of Syria (1980–2024) (stars variant 2).svg, and if links to File:Flag of Syria.svg gives the new flag, not much more needs to be done. JohanahoJ (talk) 11:29, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A or B sounds best. איז「Ysa」 • For love letters and other notes 14:36, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I am going with "B". Abzeronow, the original proposer says he is fine with it. I think it works best. No one else seems to be saying Rudolph Buch's approaches are better. - Jmabel ! talk 18:23, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Made the moves, but the "replaces" apparently did not work as I wished. It looks like there were a lot of uses of things like {{Flag entry|Width=200|Image=Flag of Syria.svg|Caption=Syria}} even for things that were about a specific year. Not a great choice. I think there is a ton of hand work to do, no matter what.
I'll do my best to take this on, starting with Commons itself, then en-wiki. If someone wants to help on some other wiki, please say so here and have at it. - Jmabel ! talk 18:39, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Abzeronow: are you sure about that Commons Delinker command you just gave? I'm going through these by hand, and seeing some I don't think should be changed, although admittedly the bulk of them should. - Jmabel ! talk 20:03, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Jmabel: If you want me to remove the command, I will (since I'm willing to let the redirect stay). Abzeronow (talk) 20:12, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think it probably should be removed. I'm finding it runs about 60% should change, 20% certainly shouldn't, and an awful lot of tricky judgment calls where I am trying to leave messages for more appropriate people to decide. - Jmabel ! talk 20:19, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Abzeronow: I'm finding more and more that should not change. Yes, we should definitely remove the command. In fact, since you said you are OK with that, I'll do it. - Jmabel ! talk 20:23, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I removed mine after you had removed yours. Abzeronow (talk) 20:30, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Now that I have a larger sample: at the early time of my remark above, I just happened to hit a bunch that should change. I've looked at maybe 1500 pages now, and less than a hundred specifically wanted the Assad-era flag. So (1) this is overwhelmingly correct as it is and (2) there is still going to be a lot of hand-correction in a lot of wikis, way more than I personally can do. - Jmabel ! talk 22:37, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have left this note at en-wiki. Similar notes on other wikis would be useful. ar-wiki would be a priority, and I don't read, write, or speak Arabic. - Jmabel ! talk 23:45, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Mohammed Qays: regarding ar-wiki since they could help with this there. Abzeronow (talk) 02:30, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Abzeronow I'm ready to help, In the Arabic Wikipedia[2], there is a discussion on the subject and I will write a note about it.  Mohammed Qays  🗣 19:55, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

My edit has just been reverted without discussion. I have contacted User:Ericliu1912 who did this (he is an admin on zh-wiki, but not here on Commons). - Jmabel ! talk 05:01, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not opposed to the proposal itself (in fact I do support it!), but the point is we should first clean up old usage of the flag, and then change the redirects, since this is a national flag widely used on all wikis. The issue was brought to me by members of the local community finding lots of articles showing historically erroneous Syria flags, which could not be instantly changed at once, and need time or outside assistance (e.g. global replace tool) for doing so. —— Eric Liu（Talk） 05:07, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Ericliu1912: Based on my experience so far in cleaning up several hundred of these in en-wiki, it is going to be very hard to identify what needs to be cleaned up if we don't make the change first. How do you propose to identify the places that are affected? - Jmabel ! talk 05:11, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Jmabel: If a consensus has been reached, I suggest we update Template:Country data Syria in every wikis first, adding a 1980 variant to the templates. —— Eric Liu（Talk） 05:15, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And is it possible to have a one-time global replace done, replacing all non-Country data usage of "File:Flag_of_Syria.svg" with "File:Flag_of_Syria_(1980–2024).svg"? I guess that would ultimately do the job. —— Eric Liu（Talk） 05:18, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Ericliu1912: No, that would definitely not do the job. It's a long story, some of which is above. I want to give you this quick reply now, because explaining in detail will take 15+ minutes. I'll write out the more complicated picture and then post that. - Jmabel ! talk 05:27, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Ericliu1912: one other quick thought before I start that: any idea how we get word out that the template needs to be changed to handle this? - Jmabel ! talk 05:31, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I guess it is appropriate that we leave notes to the communities using Country data Syria templates on their Village Pump respectly. —— Eric Liu（Talk） 05:39, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But I wonder why it'd not work? As all direct (non-Country data) global usage of "File:Flag_of_Syria.svg" currently were indeed just "File:Flag_of_Syria_(1980–2024).svg", the replacement should mostly be smooth and sufficient. Even is it not enough in some cases like certain template wrap usage, we could still go ahead and replace most of the current links first, that should also decrease the burden for the remaining manual changes. —— Eric Liu（Talk） 05:41, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Ericliu1912: Why a global search-and-replace is a bad idea here (and also almost impossible to do in an effective manner):

  1. Many—I strongly suspect most—of the places where the Syrian flag is used should switch to the new flag. The following is a representative set of examples, though certainly not exhaustive.
    • All geographical articles should be using the current flag, not the flag of a prior regime.
    • There are presumably a lot of templates in Category:Templates related to Syria that use a flag. Those should all use the current flag, not the flag of a prior regime.
    • Any infoboxes related to geography that contain a flag should all use the current flag, not the flag of a prior regime.
    • As far as I'm aware, the new government of Syria, presuming it is widely recognized, which appears to be happening, will inherit (or already has inherited) all of Syria's positions in international organizations, e.g. the UN and its various affliates, the organization of non-aligned states, status as a signatory of various treaties unless the new government were to renounce those. All of those should update to the current flag.
  2. If you think about how flag files are used, search-and-replace is very tricky. They are almost never used in a syntax that writes out File:Flag of Syria.svg in the wikitext. For example, there are templates that effectively do File:Flag of [COUNTRY].svg, or that get at these other ways. If that's not clear, I'll elaborate; I'm trying to get you a response quickly, so I'm not approaching this at essay length.

Also: when the template is updated, if there is anything that should permanently use the current revolutionary flag regardless of future regime changes, there should be a way to specify that, too. Let's not get caught in the same thing again! (en-wiki has already done this.) - Jmabel ! talk 05:50, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I understand the difficulties, so I suggest that we at least (1) replace direct file links and update about ~110 Country data Syria templates (which is the most obvious and widely-used template), adding a "1980" alias for them (and maybe an "opposition/revolution" alias too, just in cases which do "permanently use the current revolutionary flag"); (2) list the rest of the templates that indeed embed File:Flag of Syria.svg (in a historical context) and try to do the replacement; (3) regretfully ignore the rest like File:Flag of [COUNTRY].svg you mentioned above and change the redirect to the opposition flag, at the same time also notifying the communites, reminding them to finish rest of the work. —— Eric Liu（Talk） 06:05, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Ericliu1912: In my experience (mainly Commons and en-wiki) there is very little correlation between how the file was used (in a technical sense) and why it was used (to refer to a regime or a country). I think each wiki is going to have to work out for itself what is right for how usage is shaped on that wiki. No matter how we do this, there is going to be a LOT of hand-work, because neither case ("it meant the country" or "it meant the regime") is clearly dominant. This isn't going to be an 80-20 case, it's more in the range of 60-40. My personal guess is that more cases mean country than regime, but (on en-wiki, at least, which I'm guessing is typical of the Wikipedias in this respect) it's not dramatically more.
The more a given Wikipedia covers events relative to how much it covers geography, the more often it will mean a regime. But right now it is totally jumbled together.
This suggests a large area in which we have not at all future-proofed (for the hundreds of other countries in the world). Wikipedia wasn't around in 1989-1992, or we would have recognized this as a potentially major issue up front when we designed flag-related templates. - Jmabel ! talk 06:16, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Which is to say, among other things: be cautious about replacing direct file links, they might have either meaning. - Jmabel ! talk 06:18, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We certainly agree on the need to update the Country data Syria templates, though. - Jmabel ! talk 06:20, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've done my best to update Template:Country data Syria here on Commons (also to add some redirects that it incorrectly presumed would exist). It would be greatly appreciated if someone would check my work. - Jmabel ! talk 06:37, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I believe I've successfully gotten the word out to the English, Spanish and Romanian Wikipedias, and I presume Ericliu1912 is driving this on the Chinese Wikipedia, but does anyone have a way to spread the word more broadly? - Jmabel ! talk 02:32, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Please note the discussion at Commons:Deletion requests/File:Flag of Syria (2024).svg.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 12:26, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

but sooner or later we should change the redirect after doing requests in the others Wikipedias. Currently the situation is not normal. Because for lots of templates we have still the old flag when he is not used in a political context. In some cases, we could change the flag manually, but in others no. Panam2014 (talk) 10:46, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Getting word out to sister projects

Again: is there some way to get word out to a large number of the sister projects? - Jmabel ! talk 02:48, 28 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This went stale and was archived; I've brought it back, because this still needs to reach a resolution. - Jmabel ! talk 06:25, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The only way I can think of is the central notice, but I can not imagine WMF agreeing to this. Ymblanter (talk) 19:09, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So what do we do? At some point we clearly need to have File:Flag of Syria.svg redirect to the current flag of Syria, and if we can't inform other wikis in advance, someone is going to feel blindsided, just like zh-wiki appears to have felt first time around. - Jmabel ! talk 00:43, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What about Global Message Delivery via the MassMessage function? This seems to have a lower threshold than Central Notice, as it just writes a message in the village pumps of all local wikis and doesn´t include banners. (Sorry if this is a dumb suggestion, I´m not savy with technical things). Rudolph Buch (talk) 02:02, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is someone going to pick up the ball here, or are we just going to wait a month or two and then have a crisis when someone makes the appropriate redirect of File:Flag of Syria.svg? I've put about 16 hours into this (mostly on en-wiki, some of it here on Commons, and on es-wiki and ro-wiki). I feel that is more than my share. - Jmabel ! talk 18:15, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I could do some on frwiki as my French is decent enough to do it. I also keep getting edit requests to change the current redirect for Flag of Syria back to what we originally did. Abzeronow (talk) 19:59, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

January 07

How do I create a playlist

I have a few audio files that I liked. How do I save them as a playlist under my account, without needing to download them to my computer and setup playlist locally? Gryllida (talk) 22:32, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am not aware that the repository Commons offer such a capability. Is is not Spotify or YouTube, which are dedicated streaming services - a repository is more akin to a warehouse and not comparable to a radio station. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 22:38, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You can create a Wikiradio playlist. Prototyperspective (talk) 19:32, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Gryllida: It's not ideal but you can create a personal gallery in your user space with links to the files and organize it as a playlist. The files should be playable directory in the gallery without having to open them individually in separate browser windows or something. --Adamant1 (talk) 22:11, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Another question: how can I download multiple files from search results? Gryllida (talk) 07:45, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Commons:Download tools. RoyZuo (talk) 16:40, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

January 08

Which station in France?

This is a French electric train of the Nord region (TER Nord-Pas-de-Calais logo), but I cant place the station. I looks very similar to Brussel South station (the modern westside with a roof, but this cant be it.Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:24, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is it possible that back then the TER network had trains running all the way into Belgium, meaning this is really a French train in Brussels? --HyperGaruda (talk) 22:13, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Very unlikely as this would have been big news in railhobby circles. Technicaly it is also a problem. These French trains run on 25 kV alternate current, While in Brussels it is 3000 V direct current. There are no known international bicurrent versions. The train control systems are also very different. Theoreticaly it could be an exposition or transfer train, not under its own power.Smiley.toerist (talk) 13:48, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

January 09

Possible loss of file meta information when deleting duplicate or redundant files

Just a question. When we look at the duplicate or redundant file deletion policy, here and here, it's said that the file must not be in use, and any existing usages can be replaced by the new file if the project’s policies are met. The best quality file is always the one to be preserved, but, what about the quality of the information in the file's pages? What if the file with lower resolution is the one with the best description page? The thing is even more serious for duplicates, since they can be speedy deleted. Very useful information about the file can be lost if a good description is replaced by a worse one. The problem is even worse if one of the files has poor references to the author, the source, its license, is missing an attribution or license review template, etc, since this could cause to eventually lose both versions of the file. Yes, I'm doing my paranoid job again, but it's also a needed job :-). Maybe before deletion of duplicate and redundant files, the administrator always carefully reviews the file page (and its history) and takes care to move the missing parts to the page of the file that is to remain, but perhaps some improvement would be convenient here. MGeog2022 (talk) 13:59, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

When I do a redirect like this, I always try to merge relevant Commons metadata first. That is certainly what I recommend, but not everyone is that careful. - Jmabel ! talk 18:11, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Jmabel, thanks for taking care of it. That sounds like something should probably be done to improve this. A policy to focus attention on that when this type of deletion is performed would be good. But the main issue here is to avoid losing publicly visible history. That is, if, for example, a vandal removes content of a description, that old content remains publicly accessible to power users who view the history, and could be easily restored even years later. When a file is deleted, all its history is gone from public view. Categorization and license information may be gone. Could the history of a file deleted as a duplicate or redundant be kept visible as a kind of “parallel history” from the file that is kept? I think this is highly convenient: deletion of duplicate and reduntant files should be more of a "merge" than a true deletion. Could this functionality be asked to WMF? MGeog2022 (talk) 19:07, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Or at least a clear notice of the type "this file once had a duplicate/redundant file under the name XYZ. Don't delete it as copyvio before checking the deleted duplicate file first", to make sure that a file with full attribution and license information cannot be lost due to a silly thing like someone uploading a slightly higher quality version, but not paying attention to those details, and that “increase in quality” resulting in the destruction of the file. I think it is very unfortunate that this could happen without being able to prevent it. MGeog2022 (talk) 19:21, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@MGeog2022: I think it is very rare that anything like that arises. Do you have even two examples of where you think that might have happened? - Jmabel ! talk 19:27, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Jmabel, I don't have even one, but better to be safe than sorry. I'm not thinking about bad things that necessarily happened, but that the current operating mode allows to happen. Certainly we have very good things in place to prevent problems, but more can always be done. User 1 converts a SVG or PDF to PNG (the SVG or PDF is never uploaded to Commons). User 2 converts it to WebP, with less size and more quality, but doesn't cite source (for example, the typical case of selecting "own work" when it isn't). The PNG is deemed redundant and is deleted. Then, the WebP is nominated for deletion as "copyvio - not own work". That's a formidable way to potentially destroy a file that we were considering very safe to remain here. MGeog2022 (talk) 19:42, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This concern is far from hypothetical. I've seen multiple cases where good metadata was carelessly discarded in the deletion of a duplicate file. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:15, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Pigsonthewing, @Jmabel, at least, I think the point "If there are varying descriptions in the different image description pages, ensure all the relevant information is merged into the copy to be preserved" should also be included in the official policy for redundant files, not only duplicates, to ensure that it is always an official policy not to be breached. But I maintain that history of the "merged" (removed) duplicate or redundant files should remain visible. I'd have made a proposal for this, but, from past experiences, I have very low faith that it would succeed. MGeog2022 (talk) 13:32, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, trying to comfort me with what we have, PNG and JPEG files have very different purposes, and any good file in one of those formats is usually very unlikely to be replaced by one in the other. Any file taken at full resolution from the original source, will never be replaced by another better one in the same format. When reading the deletion policy, I had some kind of WebP paranoia, because it's a format that allows smaller files than both PNG and JPEG, with the same quality (it allows both lossy and lossless compression), but WebP files, at least for the moment, seem to be a very rarely chosen option in Commons (0.0339% of files). Even if they become more widespread, having a smaller WebP file with the same content as an existing PNG or JPEG, probably won't be enough to delete a years old file only because of that, and the file deemed to be redundant would be the newer, WebP file. MGeog2022 (talk) 14:35, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

After reading the title of this section, I thought it was about loosing the EXIF, XMP, IPTC metadata of a file. But reading through the section, this does not even seem to be considered at all. --C.Suthorn (@Life_is@no-pony.farm - p7.ee/p) (talk) 17:34, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Greenland

The games have begun. In advance of the ground invasion, the softening up of the landscape is currently underway. By this I mean the de-legitimisation of Greenland as a constituent country of Denmark. The excuse is that Greenland is not a part of Denmark, it's a part of the Kingdom of Denmark. I noticed it first at Category:Churches in Greenland. No doubt further sapping is taking place elsewhere. Predictably, the discussion with the editor (@Hjart: ) got nowhere. Can someone say "Stop!" please? Laurel Lodged (talk) 15:43, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure if I understand the reasoning here: Greenland being a constituent country in the larger Kingdom of Denmark and co-equal to metropolitan Denmark is more legitimate (or whatever) than Greenland just being a part of Denmark. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:01, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Technically, you're correct. But practically speaking, it would be a nightmare to implement. Every category of Denmark would have to have a parallel category for Kingdom of Denmark. Massive duplication for no practical benefit. To most readers, they would not understand the difference. The same would then have to be done for the Kingdom of the Netherlands and others. At the very least, it merits a discussion, not unilateral action that smacks of vandalism or POV-pushing. Laurel Lodged (talk) 16:21, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Denmark and Kingdom of Denmark definitely needs to be split. Another reason is that Faeroe and Greenland are no members of the EU but making them part of Denmark and not the Kingdom of Denmark makes them part of the EU. The category tree Category:Kingdom of Denmark already exists. GPSLeo (talk) 17:12, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's all true. But who's going to do the work of creating many thousands or near-duplicate categories? Simply unilaterally breaking the parentage by deleting Denmark from all Greenland categories is not a solution; it's closer to vandalism IMHO. Laurel Lodged (talk) 18:00, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Why do you think that this affects many thousand categories? This change only affects the higher level categories which are at most 2000 for a depth of 3. GPSLeo (talk) 20:16, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks to @MB-one: for fixing Category:Churches in the Kingdom of Denmark. One down, 1999 to go. Laurel Lodged (talk) 16:03, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@@MB-one and Laurel Lodged: But is that really a fix? When Category:Churches in the Kingdom of Denmark is a subcategory of Category:Buildings in North America it means all buildings in Denmark (the part in Europe) is now a placed under North America. And if you want Category:Kingdom of Denmark to be a part of North America then perhaps start by fixing the category. And should Category:Buildings in the United Kingdom also not be a part of North America? --MGA73 (talk) 06:31, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What's the alternative? That Greenland should have neither Denmark nor the Kingdom of Denmark as its parent? Laurel Lodged (talk) 20:26, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The multiple continent problem occurs with many countries and we have many similar inaccuracies at many places. This is something our category system can not handle. GPSLeo (talk) 20:44, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If we really wanted to model this cleanly we'd have a hierarchy something like:
       Europe          Kingdom of Denmark     North America
           \                   |                   /
            \                  |                  /
             \                / \                /
              \______________/   \______________/
                     |                  |
                     |                  |
                  Denmark,           Greenland
                Faroe Islands
Then handle the Kingdom of Denmark would be treated as an institution rather than a geographical entity. This one is actually a lot easier than (for example) Russia, because there are uncontroversial names for the entities in question. - Jmabel ! talk 21:53, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also, FWIW: many of our category inheritance relations are not simply "is-a" or "is part of" relationships. This is especially obvious when we go through metacats along the way, which are essentially a way to label the relationship between their parent category and their child category. - Jmabel ! talk 21:57, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@GPSLeo I agree that it will be almost impossible to fix all these inaccuracies with the current category system. But blatant errors like these can and should be fixed. Greenland is clearly a part of the Kingdom of Denmark and in North America but also Denmark (the country) is clearly not in North America. The solution IMO should be that "x in the Kingdom of Denmark wont be categorized neither as x in North America nor as x in Europe, as the continental categorization will be handled on the constituent country level. MB-one (talk) 09:20, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@MGA73 Thank you for bringing that to my attention. Churches in the Kingdom of Denmark should clearly NOT be a subcategory of Buildings in North America. The problem seems to be {{Topic in country}}, which should be fixed asap. MB-one (talk) 09:06, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
See also Template_talk:Topic_in_country#Kingdom_of_Denmark --MB-one (talk) 09:11, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

crosspost from en-wiki: plans by the Heritage Foundation to "identify and target" wiki editors

Flagging this discussion on enwiki about some reporting by The Forward, with a leaked Powerpoint, indicating that the Heritage Foundation (a US-based conservative organization) plans to "identify and target" -- i.e., out/dox -- wiki editors active in certain political topics. (I'm sure you can guess which ones, this isn't meant to be a political discussion but an opsec one.)

The relevance to Commons is that some of those plans including cross-referencing usernames across platforms, and running facial recognition software against people's photos. Given that we host many meetup photos as well as photos of users, and other associated data, this is a potential ticking time bomb of a security risk.

Granted I have no idea what a concrete actionable solution here is -- besides adding any malicious/IP-grabbing links to the spam blacklist -- but I wanted to bring it to people's attention, maybe someone reading this could be affected, maybe someone can think of something I can't. Gnomingstuff (talk) 17:10, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't currently participate at en.wp but I am willing to help editors on any other WMF wiki who for some reason may want to post sensitive information or are afraid of being a target of these reactionary chuds. I welcome their hatred. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:23, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think the main message for now is that it is good that we are very careful with granting bureaucrat, checkuser and oversight rights. With the technical fingerprinting mentioned we might need to block known external domains from being linked. GPSLeo (talk) 19:35, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If I was the heritage fooundation, I would start by downloading the MW archive at dumps.wikimedia.org. Therefore I see no point in blocking IPs. This may actually be counter productive. Wikipedia is written with a cc-by-sa license and this license says you are not allowed to use technical barriers to block people from downloading the licensed content. Doing it never the less would open a way to the Heritage foundation to sue WMF to get access to the information.
Starting from 20th the new president or his DOGE watchdog can effectivly force the WMF to give US government bureaucrat, checkuser and oversight rights. AFAIK US law allows this to be done in secret.
WMF could stop to record the IP numbers of people editing MW and they can move the WMF out of the US, but otherwise the identity of people editing MW (at least in the US but probably everywhere in five eyes territory) must be considered known to friends of US government. C.Suthorn (@Life_is@no-pony.farm - p7.ee/p) (talk) 17:48, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, the president is limited in what they can force WMF to do. See McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm'n, 514 U.S. 334 (1995) ("The freedom to publish anonymously is protected by the First Amendment, and, as Talley indicates, extends beyond the literary realm to the advocacy of political causes.") and NAACP v. Alabama (1958) ("We hold that the immunity from state scrutiny of membership lists which the Association claims on behalf of its members is here so related to the right of the members to pursue their lawful private interests privately and to associate freely with others in so doing as to come within the protection of the Fourteenth Amendment.") And the WMF will have the ACLU and EFF aggressively on their side. I have a hard time believing that this would push this button right off the top; courts are not going to be thrilled with such a hostile intrusion into privacy of random Americans.--Prosfilaes (talk) 04:09, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Not just Americans, I think. They could collect data from non-American wiki editors, and, if they are really hostile, forward the data to non-democratic regimes. Imagine they'd send data about Saudi Arabian editors to the Saudi Arabian state: those wiki editors might end up in prison because of the heritage foundation (or face even more severe consequences for editing wikis). Nakonana (talk) 16:08, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Upload wizard issues?

Was there a recent update to the Upload Wizard? Starting this morning or last night, when I try to upload a batch of files, it takes me through the upload and rights steps as expected, but the describe step only includes one file. I've tried this with different size batches and different photos. Mentioning this issue on Discord, it sounds like I may not be the only one affected? — Rhododendrites talk |  21:37, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I too am having difficulties with Upload Wizard. After filling out the first page (including adding a specific public-domain tag) the process does not continue to the next page. Instead a moving stripe pattern is added to the field I filled out to add a specific public-domain tag. It goes no further. This has happened today on both an iPhone and Windows computer, Safari and Chrome. Jacqke (talk) 02:49, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Pinging @Sannita (WMF). - Jmabel ! talk 02:54, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I already mentioned it at Commons:Upload Wizard feedback --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 11:34, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Rhododendrites @Jacqke Hi, thanks for reporting. No, AFAIK we didn't do any change to UploadWizard in the last three weeks, due to code freeze for the holidays. There is one patch incoming on the known bug about missing information about error, but again AFAIK it has not been merged yet, and should go up next week. Can you please open a bug on Phabricator and put me as a subscriber? Let me know. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 15:41, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have also encountered the same bug as @Rhododendrites, filed it as phab:T383508. And the custom license tags issue is already at phab:T383415 (although perhaps they have the same underlying cause). the wub "?!" 00:23, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I am still unable to load using the Wizard, from Chrome on Windows and on iOS 17.5. Still having the "Add a specific public domain tag" field filled with stripe pattern. Jacqke (talk) 00:51, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
When I switched to "author has been dead for 70 years", it advanced to the next page. Jacqke (talk) 00:55, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Found that removing the "Description" field from the Exif data allowed me to upload multiple files at once again. the wub "?!" 12:15, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Rhododendrites @PantheraLeo1359531 @Jacqke @The wub @Jmabel A patch for this is incoming. It should be on the next deployment train, which means it will be up by Wednesday. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 16:07, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good. Thanks! — Rhododendrites talk |  16:09, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, that's good :) --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 16:11, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! Jacqke (talk) 21:52, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, -- Ooligan (talk) 21:55, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

January 11

January 12

Day categories hidden

Why are categories like Category:1936-01-28 hidden? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:35, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Probably because of this change. At least I guess so. --Rosenzweig τ 19:39, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. I know how they are hidden; my question was why. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:03, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Pigsonthewing: I added the hiddencat template to be consistent with Template:Photographs taken on navbox and Template:Country photographs taken on. There has been some discussion (and edit warring) about the hiddencat in the past in the first template, you can find a bit more about that in the template's edit history and on the talk page. A number of comments reference an even older discussion, but I don't know when or where that one was held. ReneeWrites (talk) 23:31, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Why on earth do you think the day categories need to be consistent with those templates? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:29, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
They're all templates that pertain to dates down to the specific day, one for each country and one for pictures that have a date but not a location. These were already hidden, so it made sense for me for the parent category to be hidden as well. ReneeWrites (talk) 17:35, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't agree. I don't agree that the categories emitted by the templates need to be hidden. Nor does the (scant) discussion you referred to show any consensus that they need to be hidden. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:40, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I was here to explain my reasoning. I saw a bunch of templates that do roughly the same thing, two of them were hidden, one was not, so I made the third one hidden too. I didn't make the original decision and I'm not here to argue about that. If you feel so strongly that the hiddencat should be removed then you can just do that.
I'm also not going to continue this conversation. You've taken on a condescending tone from the jump for no discernible reason. ReneeWrites (talk) 19:01, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think it should be undone. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:56, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I concur. Date-categories have little to do with "photographs-by-date" categories.
Dates are used to categorize all sorts of events besides "I took a photo at that time": Dates are used to document festivals, demonstrations, battles, treaties, elections... I still hope that we will eventually use them to sort newspapers that were published on given dates.
Hiding these categories will make people think that nobody should categorize stuff by dates. --Enyavar (talk) 08:19, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have reverted the edit. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:23, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Tips on scanning books

Do we have a guide for people who want to scan and upload books, on how to do the former, well? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:06, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Pigsonthewing, we have Help:Scanning and Help:Converting. --Ratekreel (talk) 10:39, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Useful but well hidden; thank you. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:30, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

January 13

Date of work

Am I the only one who hates having to spell out the date when a photo was taken when I upload it? Whose idea was this? We got on perfectly well without it, and I've been here 18 years. Sardaka (talk) 10:23, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A lot of modern digital photographs will have the time and date in the metadata, in which case the date is already filled in when you upload it to Commons. ReneeWrites (talk) 10:42, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There's also a calendar picker, so the date does not need to be "spelled out". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:32, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Your earliest upload, in October 2007, included the "spelled out" date (indeed, it did so twice, the second time completely unnecessarily). So "We got on perfectly well without it" seems to be false. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:35, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Plates

What is the distinction between Category:Decorative plates and Category:Plates? Is the former for plates that are purely decorative, or is it intended to include plates that are decorated, but serve a function as tableware? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:42, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That's the impression I get based on the Wikidata infobox, etc.: a plate is a general device and decorative plates are a subset of them. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:05, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I asked "Is it A or B", you sad "yes". I can't make sense of that. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:08, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Excuse me: I misread what you wrote. I believe that "decorative plates" are ones that are purely decorative and not fit for use as serving plates. I do not believe they are plates which may be used for serving food. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:13, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Koavf about the intent of the categories, except that of course almost any plate can be used for serving, so the line isn't totally clear. If it's old enough, even a lead-based glaze isn't proof it was never intended for serving.
Often, but not always, decorative plates are made with a protrusion on the back with a pair of small holes to hold a wire or string for the specific purpose of attaching the plate to a wall. - Jmabel ! talk 02:54, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

January 14

Censored by lack of FOP / blacked out relying on FOP categories

I suggest major harmonization of the categories that related to censoring or blurring of copyrighted works in public spaces (due to no-FoP rules of those countries), since categorizations are becoming inconsistent. My proposal:

Some discussion is needed. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 03:41, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it's necessary or useful to have separate categories for different styles of redaction (blacking-out, blurring, pixelation, cropping, strategically placed fingers, etc). The redaction isn't the subject of the image; the specific techniques used are entirely incidental to the image.
Having country-specific subcategories for FoP redactions is potentially useful for advocacy reasons. But let's not overdo it; these are basically maintenance categories, so we shouldn't be spending too much time setting up or maintaining them. Omphalographer (talk) 05:37, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Omphalographer perhaps limit to two categories per censored image (if the method used is blurring)? For example, one for Category:Censored by lack of FoP in Romania and the other for Category:Gaussian blurs by lack of FoP. No coutry-specific subcategories under Gaussian blur by lack of FoP to avoid overdoing and potential COM:SCOPE issues. We already have Category:Images with Gaussian blurs in Japan, though. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 06:01, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Or, since countries like Germany and China have FoP, but we have images of blurred/blacked-out images from these countries, suggest to rename "Censored by lack of FoP" to "Censored versions of images relying on FoP" (and "Censored versions of images relying on FoP in Germany/in China/in France et cetera). Then, abolish category instances of "blacked-out versions of images...". JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 06:10, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Broken file link on Anna Karenina title page

File:AnnaKareninaTitle.jpg

I'm hoping someone can fix this as I don't know how to. The largest file size (1994x3200) for this Anna Karenina title page has a broken link that prevents the file from loading. The correct file link is https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c7/AnnaKareninaTitle.jpg/1994px-AnnaKareninaTitle.jpg

--ThePinkShoes (talk) 22:13, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, Peralta de Alcofea

Good evening. On October 20th I created the category "Category:Church of Nuestra Sinyora de l'Asumpción, Peralta d'Alcofea" (actually Category:Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, Peralta de Alcofea) linked to article an:Ilesia de Nuestra Sinyora de l'Asumpción de Peralta d'Alcofeya, which does not exist in any other project. Today the name has been changed to Spanish "Category:Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, Peralta de Alcofea" (with advocating error included already solved) and when asking the author of the change the reason I have received inappropriate answers. I ask here for an explanation of the reason for changing the name of the category of an Aragonese church with an article only in the Aragonese Biquipedia to a name in Spanish. Greetings, RenatoGar (talk) 22:39, 14 January 2025 (UTC) P.S.: Given what has happened, this consultation will be my last contribution to Commons. RenatoGar (talk) 22:48, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No particular opinion other than that it is completely irrelevant to Commons which language Wikipedias currently have an article. - Jmabel ! talk 04:15, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Now I understand why there are calls from Aragonese speakers on Twitter to boycott Wikimedia projects. Of course, I will never contribute to Commons, where I see my language being persecuted and blocked. It is clear that there is hatred against my language here. RenatoGar (talk) 08:25, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@RenatoGar: I thought of just leaving that alone, but: could you (or anyone else) explain to me what in that policy you believe embodies "hatred" for Aragonese, or any other language? - Jmabel ! talk 20:42, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Jmabel: Aragonese is a language spoken in some regions in Spain where the Spanish have historically made attempts to exterminate it (by declaring Spanish to be the official language, and making it illegal to speak or teach Aragonese in schools). The Aragonese Biquipedia is, among other things, a language and culture preservation project. But Commons is an international project, and having the Aragonese name of an Aragonese church changed to Spanish (a colonizer language, in this context) and having seemingly no recourse to change it back might come across as Commons favoring Spanish over Aragonese. ReneeWrites (talk) 21:20, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, @ReneeWrites. You explain the role of Biquipedia very well.
@Jmabel It's simple. Can you explain why the category of an Aragonese church cannot be in Aragonese but in Spanish?. Why not in German, Russian, French or Portuguese? It seems obvious that in a multilingual project if an Aragonese creates an article about an Aragonese church in the Biquipedia in Aragonese and takes the trouble to create in Commons (multilingual project) the category of that church, he does it in Aragonese and does not find that it is changed to another language (and in the process wrongly naming the church as "Nuestra Señora de los Dolores"). The conclusion is obvious: the aim is to erase the presence of the Aragonese language in a project that is falsely advertised as multilingual. Only English and Spanish are accepted. Aragonese is erased. It always happens the same.
RenatoGar (talk) 21:55, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@ReneeWrites: Yes, I fully understand that, but Pinging @ReneeWrites, RenatoGar, my remark specifically did not comment on the merits of the case, or say what Commons should do: I merely remarked that which Wikipedias have articles is not relevant to Commons in deciding category names. Are you somehow suggesting that when we made that decision a couple of decades ago we were targeting the Aragonese language? Or even that the policy advantages any particular language over another? That's absurd.
For the record: I would not have made this particular move of the category. Potentially controversial moves should not be made without a CfD. That is not what my remark was addressing, and in fact I hadn't even though that far when I made it. I specifically said I was expressing an opinion on only one aspect of it: that this particular criterion (which Wikipedias currently have articles on a given topic) is not relevant to naming categories.
If anyone including RenatoGar seriously sees my remarks as reflecting hate, please, bring it to COM:AN/U. I promise not to comment further (here or there) unless directly addressed and asked for a response. - Jmabel ! talk 22:04, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Jmabel: I did not mean to imply any hate or bias on your part, or even that of Commons itself, I only tried to explain the context of where RenatoGar was coming from, both with the original problem, why it's a problem, and why he got the impression Commons has a bias against minority languages. In any case, do you have any ideas for a sustainable solution? ReneeWrites (talk) 22:11, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Jmabel I don't consider your comments to be hate speech. I'm just stating a fact: a single category named in Aragonese in a multimedia project disappears to be replaced by a Spanish name. Would it be correct for me to rename the category "Madrid" in Spanish to "Madrit" in Aragonese? How would that behavior be classified?. If I did that, it would immediately be reverted and I would receive warnings for vandalism. But if it happens the other way around, it seems to be correct. The deduction is obvious: Aragonese is banned in Wikimedia Foundation projects. And I have publicized this on social networks. RenatoGar (talk) 22:23, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Category:Església de Sant Pere de Figueres in catalan, Category:Igreja e Convento de Santa Teresa in portuguese, Category:Église Saint-Pierre de Port-Saint-Père in french.... But the only one in Aragonese disappears. What message is being given to Aragonese speakers? That we will also disappear? Not long from now, our language is considered the language in Europe most in danger of disappearing. And facts like this explain why. I will do everything possible to spread these facts and to make them known to our small community of speakers. And to point out the de facto complicity of the Wikimedia Foundation in tolerating the erasure of my language. This is not a multilingual project since some languages ​​have rights and others are denied them. RenatoGar (talk) 22:35, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to keep my response minimal, and would not be making it unless I had been directly addressed. I have already said (in my immediately previous round of remarks here) that I think the move was not correct, at least not without a discussion. In my first remark, I was simply stating, and will reiterate: in naming Commons categories, it does not matter which Wikipedias do or do not have an articles on a particular topic, so that particular line of argument is not relevant to the case.
No "message" is being sent, but I have no means to stop you from construing one. - Jmabel ! talk 22:59, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It will also be brief: there is a clear and evident message and that is how the Aragonese-speaking community on Twitter is interpreting it. RenatoGar (talk) 23:12, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To which the main loser seems to be the Aragonese-speaking community. They can work with us or not, but the only way to improve Wikimedia Aragonese support is to have a little patience and work with other people.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:10, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Patience? We receive insults, harassment, complaints, deletions and even death threats. All for editing in the Aragonese Biquipedia. And the answer is always: shut up and don't bother. Patience, they say?..... RenatoGar (talk) 00:28, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've received much of the same for editing in certain areas on here. That's just how it goes with these types of projects. Their usually extremely good at policing mundane non-issues but actual, real problems are just ignored or handwaved and the user who complains about it is the one who usually ends up getting sanctioned. A lot of the non-English language Wikis are extremely niche and being used purely by neo-Nazis to spread nationalist propaganda anyway. The best thing to do is just move on to other things and not work in that area or on the same project again. --Adamant1 (talk) 03:00, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Are you saying that those of us who work on projects in languages ​​other than English are neo-Nazis? Have I understood correctly?... I see that with the answers I receive, I will have to look for other solutions outside the projects of this foundation. Accusing speakers of languages ​​other than English of being neo-Nazis is mind-boggling... Look, at Biquipedia we are dedicated to creating content in our Aragonese language. With very good results, since we are the Wikipedia with the best ratio of articles per speaker. In my case, dedicated especially to writing articles about architectural buildings from around the world and about cinema, I don't see how that can be used to talk about "nationalist propaganda" or "neo-Nazism". RenatoGar (talk) 07:46, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@RenatoGar: It was just a general comment based on my own experience. Don't take it personally. Have you read many articles on the Russian language Wikipedia though? It's clearly being used to spread nationalist propaganda. Not with all articles of course, but I'm not going to act like it isn't an issue. I'm sure plenty of non-English language Wikis are totally fine though. Which is why I didn't say "every" non-English Wiki is being used for propaganda. So don't misconstrue my comment. The more important and on topic thing here is that it's probably not worth worrying about how your being treated for editing in the Aragonese Biquipedia since it's just par for the course with a lot of Wikimedia projects. --Adamant1 (talk) 12:07, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I understand your point of view and I share it in part. But what I am saying in this thread is not that I have been mistreated in Biquipedia (on the contrary, there is a magnificent and productive work environment) but that what is being pursued is the use of the Aragonese language in Commons, transferring a category created in the Aragonese language about an Aragonese church to the Spanish language. And when I ask the author why, he tells me not to bother. The result is the suppression of Aragonese in this project, in which there are languages ​​with rights and languages ​​without rights, such as Aragonese. And all this with the silent endorsement of the community of Commons users and of the Wikimedia Foundation itself. RenatoGar (talk) 14:44, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
People just like to fiddle with things on here sometimes. At least in this case it looks like the rename was based on a source. Although probably not the best one, but I wouldn't anymore into it then that. You could probably just rename the category back to Aragonese though since it likes there's agreement that it should have at least been discussed first. --Adamant1 (talk) 16:50, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Understood. Well, if no one objects, I will soon transfer the category to its name in Aragonese. Thanks, RenatoGar (talk) 17:36, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You're not going to change nothing unless you take sources that prove that the official name is in the Aragonese language. You can tease people not familiar with Aragon, but the funny thing is that even the local sources that you yourself gave me don't prove that the real name is in the Aragonese language. Even the Aragonese official board of heritage it does not mention that the name is in Aragonese language. That's enough. CFA1877 (talk) 18:59, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Whatever the specific details are you shouldn't have unilaterally changed it without discussion before hand since it looks like both names are used about equally by reliable sources. So at least IMO the edit needs to be reverted and you should start a CfD. Not to speak for other users, but that seems to be the consensus here. I don't see why you'd care if your version is actually the "correct" one anyway. --Adamant1 (talk) 19:12, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What you are saying is not true. The name in the Aragonese language is an adhoc translation made by RenatoGar, it is not officially used. As I have already said, not even the local sources that he provided reflect the name in the Aragonese language. Some are official Aragonese sources. If you are going to take part for someone, at least inform yourself about the matter and don't just believe what one party says. I corrected my own [original] name change and put the one reflected in the sources that Renato gave me, which do not reflect it in the Aragonese language. It is not my version, you can check it at the heritage office of the government of Aragon (here), at the Ministry of Culture of Spain (here) or at the local tourist office (here). Or even on this website specialized in Aragonese Romanesque architecture (here). CFA1877 (talk) 19:32, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Adamant1, @Jmabel, @Prosfilaes, @ReneeWrites: Please see the kind of comments that we Aragonese speakers constantly receive. Do you understand why we say that there is hatred for our language? The three links that this user publishes were provided by me and correspond to pages written in Spanish, not in Aragonese (if I provide him with texts in Aragonese I know perfectly well that he will refuse to read them, we all know each other here, outside of Spain they don't know them yet), therefore the place names are in Spanish. If they were pages in English, the place name would be in English. And if they were in Chinese, in Chinese. But anyway, the answer is always: shut up and let your language not exist in Commons or anywhere else, we already know that the existence of a small language of 10,000 speakers is highly offensive to Spanish ultranationalists who want to erase the existence of that tiny language even in the places where it is spoken. Anyway, I thank you for reading all this and I am sorry for wasting your time, you and I have wasted it, and of course, the Aragonese language always loses. Obviously, I will never upload an image to Commons, where my language is treated like this. Greetings, RenatoGar (talk) 20:00, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, he even reported me. Incredible! RenatoGar (talk) 20:06, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is not about the official name but, for subjects without a traditional name in English, it's about the local name as used by the available sources. Official names are interesting because they often follow reliable sources, but Wikimedia projects are not official registers.
The original name of the category in Aragonese is fine and it shouldn't have been changed - and even less without previous discussion. Pere prlpz (talk) 13:30, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There is a Wikipedia in Aragonese, and in this one, logically, there is the only article that exists about the church we are talking about. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Commons Category is also in Aragonese. And it is correct, as it would be if it were in Spanish or English! And, if it were correct, the change should not have been made. It should be returned to the original category.
CFA1877 I beg you to avoid these types of edits. Show a little more empathy and tolerance towards minority languages ​​and respect for the work done by the editors who have preceded us. We are all working for the same thing.--Isidre blanc (talk) 08:14, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

January 15

Printing photographs on ceramics

For File:Bucharest - 9 Strada Colței storefronts.jpg I was looking for (and failing to find) a category about printing photographs on ceramics. I'm guessing it would belong somewhere under Category:Photographic processes, but looking at the categories there I can't readily find even an appropriate place to add such a thing. - Jmabel ! talk 04:27, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Given that in Central Europe this is something of an industry, I'm really surprised not to find anything. - Jmabel ! talk 04:27, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Dispute resolution on whether images are AI upscaled

Paper9oll's 2,218 × 2,160 still
Per later comments in this thread, Paper9oll has now replaced this image with a lower-resolution version. Their original 2,218 × 2,160 still is here.
My 1,103 × 1,080 attempt to capture the same

(I raised a thread at the help desk for this last week, but only got a couple of short responses and realise that this may have been the wrong forum for it.)

I recently flagged many of User:Paper9oll's uploaded YouTube video stills as looking to me like obvious AI upscales, but in a subsequent discussion on their talk page they said that they were simply downloading the original videos and capturing frames from them, and don't believe the images to be upscaled, or agree with me that they even look upscaled, and don't know what else to say.

An example upload is shown. To the left is the image Paper9oll uploaded, to the right is my own attempt to capture the same still from the same video.

Paper9oll's image is twice the resolution (larger even than the highest resolution of the original video that YouTube will serve me) and does seem to show clear signs of AI upscaling which aren't discernable in the original. In general, the face has a much higher resolution than her hand and clothes, which are about the same in each image - this is typical of AI upscalers like MyHeritage that are designed for use on portrait photos. Across the subject's forehead, individual hairs are visible (with an unusual pinstripe pattern on the rest of the hair), but below the level of her chin the hair instantly drops to the same low resolution blur as in my image.

Would other users agree that these look AI upscaled, and should be flagged as such? (Such a decision is significant because it means that the images couldn't be used on the English Wikipedia.) My best faith assumption is that Paper9oll is obliviously using some software that's automatically upscaling the extracted stills. Belbury (talk) 09:39, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is 100% upscaled with AI. If the image was an ultra-high resolution still of the original video, it would be consistently sharp across the board, but it isn't. The eyes, eye wrinkles. lips and strands of hair are incredibly sharp but details outside of that specific area turn wobbly. The right eye of the upscaled image looks in a slightly different direction, and has a slightly different color from the original. ReneeWrites (talk) 10:15, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not too thrilled with having the same discussion a second time, but since the OP is repeating everything they said before, I'll do the same, albeit more briefly. Looks AI to me: highlights on three fingers of her right hand made to look more like fingernails on the wrong side of the finger; skin looks like it has been through some sort of "cosmetic" filter; I could list more, but I think that is enough. - Jmabel ! talk 20:46, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's entirely possible that you're both right - that whatever tools they used to download the video and display it on their computer are doing some sort of "smart" upscaling without their knowledge. But if that's the case, the proper solution will be to use a video player which can capture a frame directly (like VLC - "Video" menu → "Snapshot") rather than going through the intermediate step of a screenshot. Omphalographer (talk) 21:28, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This appears to be AI. There is a waffle- like pattern around the lips and it also affects the margins of the lips. Also, the hair has artificially larger strands with a diffent color tone, roughly equally spaced. I think, this is what you call "an unusual pinstripe pattern." Please, flag this altered image appropriately. Also, the uploader stated that there was a higher quality video on YouTube that they originally had access to, but is no longer available. As with other files sources, it should be verifiable. -- Ooligan (talk) 23:46, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Just to needlessly reiterate what other people have already said, these images are clearly AI. The main tell for me is how the hair is smoothed out in Paper9oll's image but not the second one. Just taking a screenshot of a video wouldn't do that. --Adamant1 (talk) 05:58, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The distortions are easily visible on images such as File:Jung Yoo-min at 2019 KBS Drama Awards on 311219 (1).png as well. CMD (talk) 09:49, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Paper9oll has now put the 68 images that I initially tagged as upscaled into a DR at Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by User:Paper9oll, referencing this pump discussion. --Belbury (talk) 09:08, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

According to Paper9oll we're just en:WP:casting aspersions. Go figure. I've said it before, but the project really needs to stop pandering to uploaders so much. --Adamant1 (talk) 11:25, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Paper9oll has now said on their DR that they will reupload some of these images with "the current available resolution" (they have said that some of their images were taken from 4K versions of videos which no longer exist on YouTube), and is in the process of doing so "over the coming days". This includes the image at the top of this thread, which now looks the same as my version, without any of the issues discussed above. So fair enough, whatever their current export process is, it is not upscaling the images.

It's unclear whether they intend to do this to all of their upscaled-looking uploads: the strikethroughs on the DR suggest that where an image came from a 4K source they don't consider it to be upscaled, even though a still like File:Yoona at 2nd Blue Dragon Series Awards on 190723 (6).png very much appears to be (and does not match the detail of the 4K video, when I view it; it's twice the resolution, has the same wispy hair thing going on, and the background banner text is blobby).

I'll see where things are when Paper9oll has finished overwriting files. --Belbury (talk) 16:29, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Category:De minimis

Category:De minimis

Files are automatically placed into this category by placing a template. Is there any process used to determine these files actually "de minimis" or can any user tag a file as de minimis? Also, are these files subject to a deletion request, if they appear not to be de minimis? Thanks, -- Ooligan (talk) 22:37, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Ooligan: There's no process, as with any other user-applied template, it's based on the user's best judgment - which can be lacking. Yes, you can start a deletion request if you find de minimis doesn't apply to some of these files. ReneeWrites (talk) 23:14, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank for your prompt response. Best regards, -- Ooligan (talk) 23:52, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

January 16

Launching! Join Us for Wiki Loves Ramadan 2025!

Dear All,

We’re happy to announce the launch of Wiki Loves Ramadan 2025, an annual international campaign dedicated to celebrating and preserving Islamic cultures and history through the power of Wikipedia. As an active contributor to the Local Wikipedia, you are specially invited to participate in the launch.

This year’s campaign will be launched for you to join us write, edit, and improve articles that showcase the richness and diversity of Islamic traditions, history, and culture.

To get started, visit the campaign page for details, resources, and guidelines: Wiki Loves Ramadan 2025.

Add your community here, and organized Wiki Loves Ramadan 2025 in your local language.

Whether you’re a first-time editor or an experienced Wikipedian, your contributions matter. Together, we can ensure Islamic cultures and traditions are well-represented and accessible to all.

Feel free to invite your community and friends too. Kindly reach out if you have any questions or need support as you prepare to participate.

Let’s make Wiki Loves Ramadan 2025 a success!

For the International Team 12:08, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

January 17

Do we have tool that will run OCR on pdf files and store the text in the PDF

Do we have access to a tool that will run OCR on pdf files and store the text in the PDF. Adobe Acrobat does it but only in the paid version. --RAN (talk) 00:23, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): Not that I know of, but we do have https://ocr.wmcloud.org/ which can OCR individual pages and is integrated into Wikisource. Is there a reason you want the text to be added to the PDF, rather than transcribing it on Wikisource? Sam Wilson 01:30, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
ia-upload.wmcloud.org OCRs the works it uploads from the Internet Archive to Commons.--Prosfilaes (talk) 02:01, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
ia-upload doesn't actually do the OCR, it relies on IA doing that and then copies over the PDF or DjVu with the text layer. But yeah, that's a good way to get a PDF here with a text layer! Sam Wilson 05:38, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I want both, I transcribe at Wikisource, but I like the embedded text. That's why there are more djvu files at Commons, they also embed ASCII text. --RAN (talk) 03:38, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): The issue is that the embedded text will never be corrected. Won't that be annoying? I know there are ideas (e.g. phab:T59807) to make it easier to write Wikisource text back into DjVu (or PDF) files, but nothing currently exists for that. I think the main reason there are more DjVu files on Commons (because the text-embedding capabilities of PDF are similar, as far as we use them) is that the IA used to generate them and so it was easy to copy them there. Sam Wilson 05:48, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The reason there's more DjVu files on Commons is that they're a little less cranky than PDFs at Wikisource. I can't speak to any specific problems, and it's not impossible they're fixed, but by legend and lore, DjVu is better, so when I'm using ia-upload, I go for DjVu. I don't know exactly what ia-upload is doing, but it's not simply copying the files from IA, since IA doesn't produce DjVu anymore. It may be taking the IA OCR data and using that instead of OCRing the images itself.--Prosfilaes (talk) 07:18, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Prosfilaes: It takes the IA's JPEG2000 files, and the DjVu XML (that they still produce) and combines them to make a DjVu for uploading here. Sam Wilson 13:48, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong coordinates

Is there a template to tag photos that have the wrong coordinates? Or should I just delete them? File:Peace Keeping (133376943).jpeg thinks it's located inside a cinema. Of course, it might just be that it's overly precise. Should I add e.g. |prec=1000? Sam Wilson 13:47, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I couldn't find a template for incorrect locations, the closest thing I could find was a category to put them in (though this is a category that automatically adds media if there's an error in the location template, files aren't typically added manually). You could maybe use Template:Location rounded to indicate it's an estimated location rather than a precise one. ReneeWrites (talk) 16:46, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There is also {{Location estimated}}
If the coords are blatantly wrong (e.g. probably not with 100km), just delete them.
We probably should create a template for "I don't believe the location here."
We could also work out a way to better use the precision already theoretically supported by the geocoding templates, but poorly used. - Jmabel ! talk 22:05, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Jmabel and ReneeWrites: Thanks both of you, those are good suggestions. I think a specific template could be useful (I've come across others like this). I'm always slightly wary of just deleting the coords as it is likely that they're at least within the right city or region (and probably relating to a GPS not getting a new fix after being driven to a new location or something — although the same applies to arrival photos at airports that can sometimes get the coords from the place of departure…). For this one, I've moved the wrong coords to a comment about them being wrong. Sam Wilson 01:44, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

FlickreviewR 2 user talk redirect

User:FlickreviewR 2 is an essential service, but its developer has retired since 2020. I took the liberty to watch his user talk for over 4 years now and answer questions as much as i could, but now i stop. perhaps the bot user talk should redirect to a community page so that future questions posted will be noticed by more users? RoyZuo (talk) 16:44, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think it will make sense to redirect to somewhere else. The question is where. And its great that you watched and answered questions. Thanks. --MGA73 (talk) 07:42, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Bioregions 2023

I was looking through categories for geographical locations a while ago and happen to come across Category:Bioregions 2023. Apparently it's an attempt by a single user to categories things related to the earth based on some NGOs classification system for bioregions or something. Of course by putting "One Earth" in the name of every category. Honestly, I'm not really sure what the deal is outside of it looking like a weird attempt to replace exiting categories with ones containing the name "One Earth" to advertise the organization. At least that's my guess. Whatever the case, it looks like there's 3150 categories related to One Earth on here at this point. People can look through Category:Ecoregions by country (One Earth) to find plenty of examples. I'm not really sure what to do about it considering the scale. I feel like something should be done about it though. Anyone have any ideas or opinions? Adamant1 (talk) 19:45, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I brought this up with one of the users last year; you may want to review that discussion at User talk:Z3lvs#Regarding Category:One Earth and its subcategories. The use of "One Earth" in the category names is a legitimate way of distinguishing the categories from similar names which aren't part of this category system; that being said, I agree that it's a little unclear how (or if) this system is meant to integrate with other Commons categories. Omphalographer (talk) 20:20, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Omphalographer: The name "One Earth" clearly has to do with the organization of the same name (Category:One Earth). I really don't see how that's a legitimate way of disambiguating thousands of categories that at the end of the day have absolutely nothing to do with the organization. Categories that don't even seem to need disambiguating to begin with BTW. There's absolutely no reason what-so-ever that Category:List of Biomes (One Earth) needs to have "One Earth" in it. Category:Red Sea Mangroves Ecoregion was specifically deleted when it already exited just to add "One Earth" to the name. That's clearly not a legitimate reason to rename an exiting category. It serves no other purpose then advertising the organization. --Adamant1 (talk) 20:35, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

January 18

Massive upload problems

Are other users also experiencing a massive amount of 503 errors or error messages like "lockmanager-fail-conflict" during upload? GPSLeo (talk) 09:52, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There are several types of critical upload/publish errors. Afaik it is planned to be resolved until Wednesday --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 19:30, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Whisky ABV

I have begin to put images of whiskies and whisky bottles into subcategories of Category:Whiskies by alcohol by volume, like we do for beers.

Some of the values have one or even two decimal places; would it be best to keep these, or categorise by bands (e.g "42–42.99%")?

Either way, please help with the task. Sláinte! Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:38, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is the alcohol content of a whisk(e)y a property which is commonly used to differentiate between different types, like it is for beer, or is it primarily included on labels for regulatory reasons? Having separate categories for every distinct value certainly seems excessive, especially for something like 50% vs. 50.05%. Omphalographer (talk) 00:16, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I seriously doubt the usefulness of this for Commons; it it is useful at all, I'd expect much wider bands than a single percent. - Jmabel ! talk 00:40, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

File:RotaryIncrementalEncoder.jpg appears as broken link in wp article

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T384128

File:RotaryIncrementalEncoder.jpg appears as a broken link in wp article Incremental_encoder, and on its commons page there is an "open in media viewer" button instead of the image. This used to appear normally in the article, but something has changed that broke it. Lambtron (talk) 18:56, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Update: On the image's commons page, where it says "Size of this preview: 800 × 583 pixels. Other resolutions: ...", when I click any size except the last option (largest) the server gives me a web page that says "Unauthorized | This server could not verify that you are authorized to access the document you requested." Lambtron (talk) 19:25, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That's weird, I can't reproduce this issue, can you give the URL which produces this error? The domain should be upload.wikimedia.org. Dylsss (talk) 19:45, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Kinda looks like phab:T383053 but they aren't in f8. Dylsss (talk) 20:01, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4b/RotaryIncrementalEncoder.jpg/320px-RotaryIncrementalEncoder.jpg
Lambtron (talk) 20:16, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Lambtron Can you access https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4b/Solar_time_vs_standard_time.png/1200px-Solar_time_vs_standard_time.png? Dylsss (talk) 20:18, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No. Same unauthorized message. Lambtron (talk) 20:26, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I reported it on Phabricator: phab:T384128. Once the Swift container is recreated it should fix itself. Dylsss (talk) 20:32, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! Lambtron (talk) 20:33, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Same issue at Village pump/Technical. Glrx (talk) 13:54, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

January 19

UI for data files

I was just looking at Data:Fitchburg Railroad.map, which I know is used by en:Fitchburg Railroad. But nothing on the data page shows if the file is being used on any wikis, and "What links here" doesn't show the railroad article, either. Is something broken? I'm also looking for where metadata could be stored, such as a description or citation to a source, and I don't see one, unlike images and other files. -- Beland (talk) 03:58, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

One of the multiple issues with the data space is that theoretically anyone can put whatever they want into a data file since it doesn't have specific fields for sources or descriptions. Let alone are data files easy to find or work with to begin with. So there isn't as much review or verification of them compared to normal files to begin with regardless. --Adamant1 (talk) 06:15, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There is some verification. Saving mapdata that is not correctly formatted geojson or has no license is not possible. GPSLeo (talk) 06:38, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting. I wasn't aware. At least it's something. --Adamant1 (talk) 07:43, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's planned: phab:T383446. Dylsss (talk) 07:51, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, yay! Is there a ticket for storing user-editable metadata about Data: pages? I couldn't find one in the Phabricator search engine. -- Beland (talk) 08:18, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What do you mean? The page content with the metadata can be edited like on every other page. GPSLeo (talk) 10:56, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's not what I'm seeing. When I'm on Data:Fitchburg Railroad.map, if I click the "Edit" tab, instead of being able to edit the description and other metadata as I would for an image, I get taken to a page where I'm editing the contents of the JSON. -- Beland (talk) 11:02, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The metadata and description are entirely stored in the same json file as the geometry data. GPSLeo (talk) 11:12, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That does not seem like a great place to put wikitext, nor would editors be able to use the visual wikitext editor there. If it's going to stay that way, it would be helpful to somehow indicate that on the page, since it's different from other, much more common file types. -- Beland (talk) 11:18, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also wondering if that's even allowed by all the formats that might use the Data: namespace. -- Beland (talk) 11:18, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The only supported data formats are JSON and CSV. - Jmabel ! talk 17:30, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There is some discussion in the tasks listed at phab:maniphest/graph/242596/ about using MCR to store Wikitext separately or adding a Structured data slot, but it looks like it is likely to all stay in Json to avoid creating an overcomplicated solution. Dylsss (talk) 17:55, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the pointer! Making a note to myself...looks like on phab:T155290 they are taking similar use cases into account, though maybe putting in a cheap and easy solution that wouldn't support the visual editor for now. (And if it's in JSON it would be in a special field that's removed by a parser before export to an API.) -- Beland (talk) 23:54, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

UK to require age verification for adult content

"The UK announces that, as of July, any site that allows adult content — including social media sites — will have to age/identity verify all users, or face enforcement action by the British government." - [3]

Pass the popcorn... Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:11, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To the UK I say "Bollocks!"   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 12:23, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There has been something similar announced in France, including a decision by Paris Appeal Court to block some porn websites on October 17th, 2024. This comes from a new law voted on May 17th, 2024. But I don't think social media are concerned. Yann (talk) 12:32, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Line art

drawing of a tree

The header of Category:Line art says "Line art is any image that consists of distinct straight and curved lines placed against a (usually plain) background, without gradations in shade (darkness) or hue (color) to represent two-dimensional or three-dimensional objects."

However, the category and its subcats include many images with gradations in shade (example above).

Which interpretation is correct?

If the example is correctly categorised, can someone show an example of a monochrome pencil drawing that would not be included? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:24, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I note that the same user had identified File:CHE Hofstetten-Flüh Flag.svg as an instance of "line art" as well, though I cannot see how this image would qualify as such. The image consists principally of large regions of color not separated by lines. The only line surrounds the star shape near the top. I do not think this is sufficient to consider the image to be "line art". --EncycloPetey (talk) 12:24, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Chapelle du Rosaire de Vence

We seem to have two categories:

Is there any reason for there being two categories, or is this just a mistake? I'm unsure what the difference between them is supposed to be. --Stefan2 (talk) 11:48, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

They're duplicate categories. Sometimes people make a second category by accident. Are you okay with them being merged, with Category:Chapelle du Rosaire (Vence) being the main one (as it's more than a decade older) and the newer one being turned in a category redirect? ReneeWrites (talk) 16:20, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Stefan2: Forgot to ping. ReneeWrites (talk) 16:25, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To me it looks as if the categories are dupes which should be merged. I have no opinion on which title to use. Just make sure that Wikidata points at the correct one. --Stefan2 (talk) 20:06, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

January 20

Hi! I just wanna ask if the logo of new company of Donald Trump the $Trump of known as "Trump Meme" can fall to public domain or in fair use? Royiswariii Talk! 08:50, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Royiswariii: Before he is sworn in, definitely not.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 09:23, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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